Dirty Little Lies Read online

  “Look, I’m going to be fine. I just gotta wait for my boss and then I’m out of here. Two minutes with a first aid kit and I’ll be good to go.”

  Ah, her boss. Yizenia had experienced an odd little thrill when she’d seen Ian Blake standing guard outside Congressman Bennett’s operating room. The man had been a more than adequate lover even when drunk beyond reason. She could only imagine the sensual skill he’d display when stone-cold sober. Too bad she’d likely never have a chance to find out.

  She doubted he’d recognize her again, even without her disguise. He likely wanted to forget the entire incident. In the throes of bourbon-induced delirium, he’d called out Marisela Morales’s name, and the knowledge that Ian wanted his new agent had nurtured an idea.

  An idea sparked by Ian’s sister, Brynn, who had also mentioned the Cuban-American agent in passing, during Yizenia’s biannual rendezvous with Titan’s chief executive in Barcelona for tapas at the little bar overlooking the Mediterranean Sea.

  It was fate. A young woman half a world away, a young woman who was strikingly familiar. Marisela and Yizenia shared similar tattoos, both imprinted on the inside of their wrists. They both possessed the will and skill to fight hand-to-hand, a talent usually reserved for men. And both of them had blood spawned in Yizenia’s native Spain. Who was she to ignore what higher powers were forcing her to see?

  The torch could be passed.

  She’d once considered tapping Brynn to take her place, but Brynn was well past thirty, set in her ways, already seduced by the power of running Titan. Yizenia needed someone fresh. Someone she could mold into a crusader.

  Someone like Marisela Morales.

  Pretending to bow to Marisela’s desire to be left alone, Yizenia wandered over to the nurse’s station. She’d timed her appearance to coincide with hospital rounds so she was able to slip in and retrieve a basic first-aid kit unchallenged.

  She made a big show of looking superior when she presented the cocky agent with the kit.

  Marisela sneered and kept her arms tightly crossed. “I said I could wait.”

  “I’m a nurse. Sue me.”

  Funny, that expression. Wouldn’t work in any other country in the world except the Estados Unidos.

  Marisela glared at her, but the expression must have cost her because she winced, then snatched the kit, popped it open, and pulled out an individual dosage of antibiotic ointment.

  “Don’t you have any real sick people to harass?” she asked.

  Yizenia chuckled, her humor genuine. “I’m on my break.”

  Marisela tore the small package open, smeared the cream on her fingertip and applied it gingerly to the cut on her mouth. From experience, Yizenia knew the injury would heal quickly, but it would hurt like hell until it did.

  “Happy now?”

  “Ecstatic,” Yizenia answered, glancing at the congressman’s door.

  “Don’t let me keep you if you have work to do,” Marisela offered.

  “They’re not letting any nurses inside the room,” Yizenia replied. “Just the nursing supervisor and the chief of surgery. I’ve been told they’re in a meeting to discuss added security right now.”

  “Smart,” Marisela responded.

  Yizenia decided to push this interview a little further. How did Marisela view her client? Did she even know he was a murderer?

  “I suppose,” she said wearily. “Guy like that doesn’t deserve to live, if you ask me.”

  Marisela shot her a disgusted glare. “I didn’t ask you, but remind me never to be admitted here.”

  “Do you know who he is?” Yizenia asked, trying to sound scandalized.

  “Congressman Craig Bennett?”

  “Do you know what he did?”

  “I don’t have a head for politics,” Marisela replied. “I’m not even sure what a president does?”

  “Not his job! What he did to that girl.”

  Perhaps she’d pushed too far. Marisela’s gaze sharpened. “How do you know what he did?”

  “It was in all the papers.”

  Marisela stepped forward, leaned in close, and turned on the full force of her silent intimidation tactics, which, admittedly, were impressive. Stiff jaw. Controlled tone. Eyes that could slice you open with a glance.

  “What else do you know?”

  Yizenia pasted on a nervous look. “Just that the police think he and his friends got away with murder.”

  Marisela allowed the comment to hang in the air without responding, which impressed Yizenia. Clearly, Marisela Morales could control her emotions when the mood struck her. She’d obviously reserved judgment regarding her clients—clearly not entirely convinced they hadn’t committed a heinous crime all those years ago.

  Yes, this was promising. She didn’t need Marisela to take her side against these monstruos who killed Rebecca Manning, but an ally never hurt. Never hurt at all.

  Five

  BY THE TIME Marisela slipped into her hotel at about five o’clock in the morning, the only thing on her mind was sleep. She yawned widely as she trudged through the deserted lobby toward the elevator. Her instincts had shut off hours ago, so she wasn’t surprised when Frankie slid into the lift just as the doors closed.

  “And where do you think you’re going?” she asked, her voice raspy with exhaustion as she punched the button to her floor.

  “With you,” he said, sliding his hands around her waist and tugging her tight against him “We have a lot of lost time to make up for.”

  Marisela’s muscles ached, her chest hurt from her bruised ribs, and her eyes felt like she’d applied sandpaper contacts, but she mustered enough of a second wind to send him flying against the opposite wall just as the elevator doors sliced open on her floor.

  She’d caught him off guard, which wasn’t so hard to do when he was so full of his sexy self.

  “I need sleep,” she said, pointing her finger at him.

  “You need more than sleep,” he claimed, stepping through the doors before they closed again.

  Her annoyance swelled as he licked his lips and raked his hand through his long, glossy black hair.

  Man, it looked like silk. Next to crawling into bed alone and sleeping for the next three days, the thought of feeling the sleek strands against her bare skin taunted her to near madness. She’d never made love to a longhaired man before. But she’d made love with Frankie before and she knew that the experience wouldn’t be quick or easy.

  Not anymore.

  It was one thing to flirt with him on the dance floor or steal a few sensual moments on the balcony. But now that she’d spent the last hour watching a desperate wife pray over the broken body of her husband, she wasn’t in the mood to fool around. Hadn’t she prayed over his broken body just three months ago? Then, only a few weeks into his recovery, she’d left him to continue her training with Titan. She hadn’t realized until right now how little had changed while they’d been apart. She still cared about him.

  Dammit.

  He closed in on her until his scent, so spiced and male, invaded her senses. “You dealt with a lot of shit tonight, vidita. Blood. Fear. Death. All the crap we can’t control. But you and me,” he said, easing his fingers up the side of her dress, “we lose control in the good way, verdad?”

  And how much had stayed exactly the same.

  She swiped her hotel key through the lock and entered her room, with Frankie right behind her. She might have tried locking him out, but he’d only find a way to break in while she slept. Not that she minded a good invasion fantasy, but with her luck, she’d expect Frankie and end up face-to-face with someone trying to kill her for fucking up a secret conspiracy to murder the congressman.

  Ian had given them half a day to catch up on their zs. While she’d waited at the hospital exchanging small talk with the wily nurse on duty, Frankie had reportedly dug up an address on Parker Manning, Rebecca Manning’s brother. Ian, after debriefing Marisela one last time on the exact details of her run-in with the assassin, had h
ad his driver deposit her at her hotel.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be watching Parker Manning?”

  Frankie’s grin oozed sensuality. “One of the night shift guys is keeping him in sight. We’ve been assigned as partners. Where you go, I go, vidita. Ain’t that how that works?”

  So they had at least eight good hours without any responsibilities.

  Frankie secured the dead bolt on the door with a loud click.

  This was not a good idea.

  Marisela found the zipper hidden in the side seam of her dress and released the material, determined to take a hot shower and dive into bed. Alone. Yet when she saw the hunger in Frankie’s hazel eyes, flashing in the flecks of jade green that had been melting her insides since age ten, she nearly stumbled. She turned her back to him and yanked her feet out of her sandals.

  “Stop looking at me like that,” she ordered, padding barefoot to her suitcase where she snatched the Tijuana T-shirt Brynn had bought her in Mexico as a joke. ONE TEQUILA, TWO TEQUILA, THREE TEQUILA, FLOOR. Man, could she go for a shot of the strong agave blend right about now.

  “Like how?” he asked, as if he didn’t know.

  She glared at him from over her shoulder. “Like you want to devour me.”

  “I do want to devour you.”

  Her mouth watered, but she jumped and writhed out of her dress, trying to deny how her body instantly reacted to Frankie’s sensual suggestion. Her muscles ached in protest, but other than a tiny yelp, she kept the pain to herself.

  “Too bad, because I’m not in the mood,” she insisted.

  Liar. Liar, liar, liar.

  In one great and crazy act of defiance, she whipped off her thong, allowing her bare breasts and throbbing concha to torture the man for the split second it took her to toss the lingerie on the floor and then drag the sleep shirt over her head. Screw the shower. She was going to bed. Without him.

  Unfortunately, standing nearly naked in front of Frankie again, watching his eyes blaze with pure lust, caused an instantaneous stirring that rushed straight to her nipples.

  When she yanked at the hem of her shirt, her breasts poked at the material, hard and tight. His gaze dropped, lingering first on the indisputable twin signs of her arousal, then sliding lower. Just a sweep of his stare and a throb bloomed to pure torture.

  “You so sure you don’t want something to soothe that ache?” he asked.

  She slinked, closer to him, feeding off the warmth she could feel sluicing off his body. Yeah, she wanted him. But he wanted her right back.

  “I was just at the hospital. Remember? With Ian? Maybe I already had my aches taken care of.”

  He captured her arm and swung her back to him, as if they’d taken the dance floor again. Pressed close against him, her body ignited. Her breath came in shallow rasps.

  “You don’t give a shit about Ian Blake,” Frankie whispered, dipping his mouth close to her ear. “Not when you can practically feel my lips on you.”

  The heat from his flesh burned into hers, taunting her with the possibilities of pleasures to come if she could just let go. Surrender. Take what he offered, what she wanted with every fiber of her soul.

  “Let me go,” she said softly.

  “No,” he replied.

  “I can make you.”

  “You won’t.”

  She tried to relax, but her body thrummed to the familiar tango she and Frankie danced, kicking out for power, swaying for control.

  “Only because I’m exhausted,” she conceded.

  “The shooter gave you a workout,” he said, slipping his hand up her arm until he could curve his fingers around her shoulder. “I know you could use a rubdown.”

  “I’ll call a masseuse!”

  “No one knows your body like I do, vidita.”

  She allowed him to prove his point, unable to resist the pleasure kneading into her body from his. He drew both hands against her shoulders, rubbing, caressing, coaxing out the stress that had tightened her to such tautness, she feared she might snap.

  She spun around, locked her arms around Frankie’s neck, and pushed him back. Not away from her. Oh, no. She kept him tight in her possession, her mouth locked with his, her body pressed fully against him so that every curve of her body, every aching muscle, every nerve ending flamed with want. His hands were instantly under her loose shirt, roaming and touching and pleasuring. When they fell back against the door, she whipped the nightshirt over her head and yanked the elastic tie from her hair.

  Frankie tore out of his clothes in record time, and without another word they clashed together. Lips roamed. Hands dipped and parted flesh. He used the door to balance their bodies, the leverage crucial as the delirium of passion overtook them. Marisela grabbed at the slick surface of the door, desperate to find something to clutch onto, finally settling on Frankie’s hair. She climbed and clawed, hot to have him inside her. When he finally pushed inside, deep and hard, her sex melted around his and her breath released in a steamy hiss.

  Marisela didn’t think, didn’t speak, didn’t try to manage more than moans of pleasure as she soaked up the sensations of his body linked to hers. They came in rapid succession, each spilling the others name into the thick, humid air.

  In a clumsy stagger, Frankie pushed away from the door. Marisela crossed her legs around his waist, hanging on as the delirium ebbed. By the time they splayed onto the bed, naked and sweaty and spent, she could barely breathe, much less keep her eyes open.

  “I don’t know why you thought this was a bad idea.”

  She stirred up enough energy to smile. “For you, sex is never a bad idea.”

  Frankie drew lazy loop-de-loops across her backside with his fingertip. “And it is for you?”

  She took a deep breath, inhaling as much of his scent as she could. In case she didn’t indulge again for a while. In case she found the means to resist. “Just because it feels good doesn’t mean it’s good for you.”

  He chuckled. “You sound like my mother.”

  Marisela yanked the comforter away from the edge of the bed, covering them against the air-conditioned chill. “Well, that’s one way to kill the mood.”

  Frankie laughed. “As if our mothers didn’t try to kill that a long time ago. Accept it. We’re meant to be together. Like coffee and milk,” he said, kissing the curve of her breast. “Guayaba and cheese,” he continued, lowering his lips until he could flick her nipple with his tongue. “Arroz y…”

  “Hungry?” she asked, twisting out of his reach.

  He chuckled. “Not for food.”

  Marisela eased into the comforter, tucking the fabric between them and leaving him in the cold. She’d played long enough. Now, she needed sleep. And distance. Lots and lots of distance.

  “Too bad,” she said with a yawn, snuggling deeper into the mattress and allowing her eyes to close. “Because food’s all you’re going to get. If you call room service. From your room?”

  She expected an argument. Some sort of protest. Instead, when she peeked an eye open, she caught one last glimpse of his gorgeous culo before he put on his pants, grabbed his shirt, and turned to leave the room.

  When she sensed he’d swung back in her direction, she closed her eyes and feigned sleep. She heard his chuckle as his face descended toward hers and he brushed a soft, sensual kiss across her lips. If she’d had the energy, she might have slapped the smug expression she knew he wore right off his face. Or surrendered to the overwhelming urges coursing through her to drag him back to bed.

  But luckily for both of them, she was too damned tired to do anything more than fall asleep.

  * * *

  From his customized chair behind the antique mahogany desk that had once belonged to his father, Ian listened, eyes shut, to the sounds of Titan International an hour after dawn. Computers beeped and buzzed. The smack of files flying from one in-box to another broke up the sound of employee chitchat. The strong scent of coffee sneaked under the doorway and tempted Ian to wake up and face the
day. Not that he was hiding. He was simply exhausted—and as such, he couldn’t grab hold of a thought, an idea, a painful truth connected to this case buried deep within his psyche.

  He opened his eyes, leaned forward, and reexamined the note Denise Bennett had provided.

  Remember Rebecca Manning.

  Coupled with what the assassin had said to Marisela about revenge, the message was simple enough to interpret. That wasn’t what plagued him.

  He flipped the tiny square over, to the drawing. He’d seen this flower before. Only not done in pastels, but in bold colors. But where?

  His door opened and he quickly flipped the note over.

  “Brynn,” he said, watching as his twin eased into the room as if she owned the place. Which, technically, she did.

  “It’s a tomb in here,” she announced, flipping on the light. He squinted, but didn’t complain. It was too early and he was too tired for an argument over something so trivial. And if ever siblings had perfected the art of fighting over minutiae, it was he and Brynn.

  “Good morning,” he said, standing. “The Mexican sun looks good on you,” he commented.

  He wasn’t offering the compliment without cause. His sister’s red hair gleamed with blond streaks, and despite the fact that he knew she was militant about using sunscreen, UV rays had pinkened the skin on her flawless cheeks and the tip of her nose. She looked carefree. Friendly. Charming.

  “Well, the Boston sun isn’t doing a damned thing for you,” she concluded.

  Looks could be so deceiving.

  He retrieved his coat from the back of his chair and shrugged into it. “I’ve been up all night.”

  “I heard,” she replied. “Did you know Craig Bennett from school?”

  Ian shook his head. “I was a few years ahead and at Oxford when the whole scandal broke.”

  “Didn’t Father work on the case in some capacity?”

  “Indirectly.”

  She shed her sunglasses and scarf, worn more for their stylishness than for protection against the mild summer weather. “Checked his notes?”