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“You always say that,” she murmured, teasing him a little.
Laughter rumbled out of him. “I don’t always. Sometimes I can’t even form words,” he teased back. He tumbled them both onto the bed, then pulled the comforter over their already-cocooned bodies.
“Mmm, this is nice,” he repeated, letting his hands wander at will, but Carly caught them before they could go too far.
“Don’t start anything until you tell me everything,” she insisted.
“Everything’s a pretty tall order.”
“You know what I mean.” She wrapped one hand around a certain portion of his anatomy and squeezed lightly. “We have ways of making you talk,” she said in a mock-threatening voice with a fake Russian accent, forcing another laugh out of him.
“Marines don’t surrender to threats.” When her fingers tightened he sucked in his breath and said, “Okay, okay, you win.” But then he began tickling her fiendishly until her grasp loosened and she choked on her own laughter, begging him to stop. “Ha-ha,” he gloated like a cartoon villain. “You are at my mercy, fair maiden.” But he stopped the tickling. After they’d both had a moment to catch their breaths, Shane’s face tightened with sudden seriousness. “I wish you were,” he said in an undertone.
“Wish I were what?”
“At my mercy.” He rolled her over until she was beneath him, and all at once he was hot and heavy between her thighs. “Because, God help me, I’m at yours.”
A complex wave of emotions washed through her, and her chest was so tight it ached. In that instant she knew there was no turning back from this point on. She fought to free her hands from the sheet, then cradled Shane’s face as she blinked back tears. As serious as he was, she whispered, “God help us both.” Then she kissed him.
* * *
Marsh wasn’t given to panic. He planned his life as methodically as his hits, and vice versa, always leaving a margin for error. And he rarely had trouble sleeping. Dreamlessly.
But he’d woken in a cold sweat at 3:17 a.m., his heart pounding, the ragged remnants of a nightmare of epic proportions clinging stubbornly to his consciousness. And try though he might, he hadn’t been able to go back to sleep again.
He turned over in bed, punching the pillow and bunching it beneath his head, as if the inoffensive object was his most recent target. He knew why he’d had trouble falling asleep last night, which was also the reason for the nightmare—his target had disappeared. Marsh had no idea where he was. Even the man on the inside didn’t know—just that the senator had notified his staff he couldn’t be reached at his home, only via cell phone...and that was an area where Marsh was not an expert. He had no idea how to hack into someone’s cell phone.
The kind of disappearing act the senator had pulled usually meant a woman was involved, the man on the inside had suggested. Marsh hadn’t volunteered anything, but he knew the senator wasn’t at the reporter’s house, either, because no one was there.
And time was running out.
He’ll be at work tomorrow, though, Marsh consoled himself. Not that I can kill him on the Senate floor...but I can trail him from there, find out where he’s hiding.
Then take care of the senator once and for all.
Chapter 13
Despite not being a morning person, Carly was dressed and getting into the car beside Shane at seven-thirty. “I have time to drop you at your office before I go to work,” he’d told her in the wee hours of the morning.
“You don’t have to,” she’d stated. “The network’s studio is out of the way for you.” Niall’s condo wasn’t all that far from the Capitol Building, and if Shane didn’t have to take her to work, it would be a straight shot for him. “I can take a cab,” she’d added. And sleep in, she’d thought but hadn’t voiced.
“Humor me,” he’d said stubbornly. “I can’t guard you 24/7, but I can at least make sure you get to and from work safely. What time should I pick you up after work?”
Now Carly watched Shane through sleepy eyes as he drove his Mustang GT through the DC traffic, shifting gears effortlessly. Occasionally she sipped from the travel mug of coffee he’d handed her just before she’d walked out the door. She hadn’t had time for breakfast—she never had time for that in the morning as a general rule before heading to work—but she couldn’t survive without coffee.
