Blood and Fire (McClouds & Friends #8)(74)

He murmured, but the stuff worked instantly. He wouldn’t stir for hours. In fact, with such a heavy dose, he was liable to sleep through his alarm and wake with a nasty headache tomorrow. Poor baby.

Zoe sat down on the bed next to him. The large bed and low dresser were the only articles of furniture in the room, and they stank of newness. No mirror. Dead giveaway that there was no woman in his life. Only a man could make do with just the mirror above a bathroom sink.

Boxes of clothes were stacked against the wall. A Glock 19 sat on the bedside table, well within reach. So he wasn’t so fearless after all.

His smartphone sat next to the gun. She took it, hooked it up to her own, running Hobart’s superfast password-cracking program.

It only took about ten minutes before the program sifted out his code and she was in, downloading the remote spy program. Copying the contents of his device to her own phone to pore over at her leisure. Hacking was not her specialty. That was how eggheads like Hobart justified their existence. Even so, her level of expertise was higher than that of a normal cyber criminal. She checked the time. There were a few minutes to kill, so she got into his SMS register for that day. She formed a grid, plugged the times and messages in it into her head, toggling between SMSs sent and those received. She found a series that warranted interest, an exchange with a colleague named Trish.



Petrie: need a favor

Trish: don’t u always

Petrie: will be walking blood samples over from ME’s to crime lab tomorrow 4 dna testing. Meet me there?

ignd valign="top" align="left">Trish: whose dna? Petrie: Bifid zigomaticus + 3 john does from diner. Cd u do ur magic thing, get them fast tracked?

Trish: what’s the rush

Petrie: got a bad feeling. pls Trish. I love u will be ur slave 4ever

Trish: chill out prettyboy. get ur tongue out of my ass it tick les





Hmm. So, the results of genetic testing on today’s disaster would soon be known to all. Zoe tucked her phone away, put Petrie’s precisely where he’d left it, and wondered if she should do anything more.

She studied Petrie himself. Tasty. Thick, unruly chestnut hair, spiking every which way. Strong jaw, virile beard shadow, bold Roman nose. She wondered what color eyes he had. He was long, lean. His naked torso was taut, with the whippet-thin, wiry musculature that she liked. It looked streamlined, efficient. Better than beefcake bulk. She ran her leather-gloved hand over his cut pecs. Dragged the sheet down over his hip. He slept naked. Mmm, nice. She cupped his balls. Stroked her gloved fingers over the penis draped across his thigh.

It jerked in her hand and swelled. A shame to waste an erection like that. Three expert strokes brought him to an admirable state of hardness. And drugged, too, with respiration and blood pressure at their absolute lowest. Imagine what he could do when awake.

Zoe slung her thigh over him, straddling him on the bed. Reached for his gun in her leather-gloved hand and placed the barrel under his chin, scraping it along his stiff beard stubble as she squeezed his cock.

She could be Petrie’s naughty succubus. She saw herself sheathing him in latex, mounting up, and closing her eyes and dreaming of King and reward phrases as she rode herself to juicy completion.

But she was team leader. She had to set the example. There was no justifiable reason to f*ck Petrie. It would be self-indulgent, and King would disapprove. She dismounted, lay the gun back down in the exact place and position it had been, and tugged the sheet back up, after giving that beautiful, thick, stiff cock a final regretful farewell pat.

No, her work here was done. Petrie’s involvement was peripheral. Nothing to be gained wasting some operative’s time processing useless data. Monitoring his smartphone should be more than sufficient. She left him as she had found him and drifted down the corridor, uncomfortably distracted by unfulfilled sexual impulses. She should have assigned Nadia to Petrie and taken on Aaro herself. But it was that greedy whore Nadia, bucking and squealing in some hotel room.

So unfair.





17


Bruno was grumpy the following mor





ning, speaking only in imperative grunts. Get dressed. Eat this. Drink the coffee. Hurry up. He kept peering out a tiny crack in the cabin’s curtain, gun in hand.

She heard the murmur of a car engine, the crunch of a car pulling to a stop, and suddenly, his battle tension relaxed.

So. It was the right car. The right visitor.

She followed Bruno out into t icy cold, conifer-perfumed half-light of dawn. A tall, brawny guy wearing a long sheepskin coat stood next to a red Jeep Wrangler. A wool watch cap was pulled low over his forehead. His face was lean—sharp cheekbones, hawk nose, grim mouth. His jaw was covered with glittering gold and silver beard stubble. His pale eyes fastened on hers, bright with curiosity. “Morning,” he said.

She gave him a cautious smile. “Thanks for coming all this way to pick us up,” she offered.

He slanted a glance at Bruno. “No problem. Thanks for the pretty manners. Guess I didn’t drive all night for nothing.”

Bruno grunted. The wind swirled bits of snow around them. The tension made the hairs on Lily’s nape prickle.

“Talked to Kev a couple hours ago,” Sean McCloud said.

“Good for you,” was Bruno’s rejoinder.

“He called from Christchurch,” McCloud went on. “He and Edie were looking for the first flight they could find for Portland or Seattle.”