Connor was silent for a long moment, his face somber. “You don't trust anyone, do you?”
Seth shrugged. “I trusted Jesse,” he said simply.
They watched the blonde wander into her kitchen and stare blankly at her freezer for a minute, as if she'd utterly forgotten what she had planned to do. She shook herself out of her daze, took out a frozen dinner and stuck it into the oven.
“We'll find the mole, Seth,” Connor said finally.
Seth swung around in his chair. “He's mine.”
Connor's eyes were as full of ghosts as Seth's own. “Take a number and get in line, man,” he said softly. “You're not the only one who cared about Jesse.”
Seth broke eye contact. He had plans for that traitor and for Novak and Lazar as well, plans that had nothing to do with due process of law. Which was why he didn't concern himself overmuch with the legality of his investigation, or rather, the total lack thereof. Once he got his hands on Novak,he needed no help from anyone in bringing him to justice. Same with Lazar. But that was nobody's business but his.
A grin dawned on Connor's face. “Check it out. The concubine's doing her exercise routine. Whoa. The guy has good taste in babes. This one's even hotter than Montserrat”
Seth looked back at the screen with elaborate nonchalance.
She was sitting on the carpet, legs spread impossibly wide, slim back straight. She flung her hair back and bent from the waist until her chest touched the ground, as graceful and flexible as a dancer.
“I don't think she’s fucking him,” he said suddenly.
Connor gave him a dubious look. “How do you figure?”
He shrugged, regretting the impulsive comment With Connor's keen, thoughtful gaze fixed on him, it sounded stupid and improbable. “She never goes anywhere. She sleeps here every night. Goes straight to the office and home and back again. And he's never visited her here.”
Connor shrugged “He’s a busy guy. Maybe he bangs her in his office on his desk.”
“He hasn't,” Seth countered “I've covered his office. I've processed that tape. She's never been inside his personal office.”
“Oh, really?” Connor’s eyes gleamed with quiet amusement. “That interested, are we?”
“I'm interested in everything that has to do with Lazar.” He bit the words out, cold and clear.
“Praiseworthy of you,” Connor remarked. “One thing's for sure, though. If he booted Montserrat for her, she must be damn good with her mouth. Give me a call if she blows him. I'll log on for that episode.”
Seth grabbed the mouse and clicked the window shut The blonde disappeared, replaced by a little icon in the shape of a pair of glasses.
Connor shook his head in disgust. He fished the cigarette out of his pocket, lit it and took a deep, defiant drag. “Fine,” he said coldly. “She's all yours, Mackey. Looks like your fantasy life is pretty much all you've got, so I'll leave you to it.”
“You do that.” Seth spun around as soon as the door slammed shut and called the image back.
She was curving her spine with catlike grace, hair tumbling voluptuously over her face. Then she reversed the process in a rippling movement until her back was arched, ass raised. Curve, arch. Curve, arch, in a slow, pulsing rhythm that made him dizzy and feverish,God, he was glad that Lazar hadn't visited her. Watching that rapacious bastard grunting and sweating on top of his dreamy, soft-eyed blonde would not be pleasant. In fact, it would ruin his whole day.
He cursed into the screen, helpless to look away. Watching her made him feel alive again and he'd gotten strung out on the feeling, in spite of the fact that it threw off his precarious balance, leaving him wide open to spasms of pain he thought he'd learned to control. In spite of the fact that he betrayed Jesse every moment he spent staring at her.
Less than three weeks ago, his first waking thought every day had been on how to destroy Lazar and Novak. The risk hadn't bothered him. He just felt like an empty husk anyhow. Nothing inside him but an endless, burning thirst for revenge. With Hank gone five years now, and Jesse gone, too, there was no one left to mourn him. Or need him. It wouldn't be such a bad way to go, if they took him out with them in a blaze of glory, chapter closed, big sigh of relief from all concerned.
But since the blonde showed up, he had realized that there actually were a couple more things he wouldn't mind doing before leaving this earthly plane. Like find out if she really was any good with that full, sexy mouth of hers, for instance.
The fantasy took him by storm: her naked on her knees in front of him, his hands buried in her hair, guiding her as his swollen cock slid in and out of her lush, pink, bee-stung lips. God, that would be sweet. Now she was doing a back bend, her body taut like an arched bow and quivering with effort, her hair coiled under her head in a luminous pool. Her sweatshirt had slid up, snagging on her breasts and exposing the soft curve of her belly. It looked velvety and vulnerable, softened by barely perceptible white-blond fuzz. He wanted to nuzzle it, rub his cheek against that smooth, fragrant warmth, memorize the scent of her lotion and soap. And tomorrow he was going to Lazar's corporate office. Tomorrow he would find out exactly what she smelled like.
The blast of excitement that accompanied that thought ratcheted him up another notch toward total sexual overload. He slammed his hand down against the desk. Pain jolted up his arm. The keyboard jumped. Empty beer bottles toppled and thudded onto the dirty gray carpet that covered the floor.
Calm down, he told himself. Concentrate. Tomorrow was all about luring Lazar deeper into the web that he had spent so many long, patient months spinning for him. Tonight was all about preparing for tomorrow. And right now, he was going to click that tantalizing blonde out of existence and get to work processing the latest data retrieved from the gulper mikes. It was going to take most of the night to filter all of it, and it was time he got started. Right now. This minute.
He tried, but his finger wouldn't push the button on me mouse.
The series of exercises was long and slow, but he never got bored.
Chapter 2
Images from this morning's dream shimmered in Raine's mind as she maneuvered through early morning traffic. The dream images seemed far more vivid and substantial than the drab, lonely half-life she was living here in Seattle. She was good at analyzing dreams—God knows she'd had plenty of practice—but ponder as she might, she couldn't come up with a plausible meaning for this one.
She was tiny, swimming in a glass aquarium. Light rippled across the fake colored rocks that covered the floor. She swam slowly through little sprays of coral, over a miniature plastic castle and a sunken pirate ship. She was naked, and terribly conscious of her nakedness. She tried to wrap her long hair around herself, but it just kept floating back up around her face in a pale, swirling cloud. A black pirate flag waved languidly in the water. The skull and crossbones insignia on it was the last image she brought to waking consciousness as the alarm dragged her awake at 5:30 A.M. Just as the blaring horn of a Ford Explorer behind her jolted her into awareness that the light was green. She had to stay in the waking world and concentrate on the rain-slicked street in front of her.
She'd been having this dream often, as long as she had been staying hi the house that Lazar Import & Export had assigned to her. Staying, as opposed to living, because she couldn't get comfortable there, despite the fact that it was a beautiful place, already furnished and far too luxurious for a lowly executive assistant It made her nervous. She had enough problems without feeling ill at ease in her own living space. She meant to look for an apartment of her own as soon as she had a second to breathe, and to hell with the extra expense.