Steel Vengeance (Blackthorn Security #6)

Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4

S titch watched as the CIA agent jumped off the bed and scooted toward the wardrobe, still clutching her towel. She may as well not have bothered. Her naked body was engraved behind his eyelids. Every time he closed them, he saw her.

Smooth skin, pink from her bath. Full breasts with dusky pink nipples. A dark patch of fuzzy pubic hair?—

God help him.

Then she turned around, burying in the closet.

He sucked in a breath. That gently swelling bottom. What the fuck was she playing at?

“Hurry up,” he growled.

Preventing her from getting dressed had been a tactic. He had her at her most vulnerable, ripe for interrogation. Yet, her nakedness was doing strange things to him. Things he hadn’t felt in a long time.

His strategy may just have backfired.

“Close your eyes,” she hissed, still fumbling. “You’re making me nervous.”

She wasn’t the only one.

And he couldn’t close his eyes. Not in enemy territory, even if he was the one holding the gun.

But he did look away. A neon sign from across the road came on and cast the floorboards and walls in a glowing red light.

It had been over a year since he’d seen a woman naked.

After Soraya… Well, he’d been in no fit state for any of that. Now, for the first time since his wife had passed, he felt the familiar stirrings of arousal. He wasn’t sure who wanted her to get dressed faster, him or her.

Once the gold slip of material fell over her head, he breathed a sigh of relief. Then, he saw how it clung to her curves, skimming over her breasts and hips, and molding against her crotch. She wasn’t wearing underwear. He groaned inwardly.

Goddamn. She was stunning.

Fucking awful agent, though, but an absolutely goddamned stunner.

“You call that clothing?” he rasped.

“It’s a nightgown. It’s all I could find at short notice.” She shot him an accusatory look.

He shook his head. “Okay, sit down.”

She perched at the end of the bed. Her dark hair hung in wet tendrils over her shoulders, dampening the flimsy material over her breasts. He could see her nipples jutting out, teasing him. His mouth went dry.

Averting his gaze, he resumed his seat by the window and placed the gun on his lap. It was loaded, he’d checked, not that he planned to use it. Interestingly, the barrel was threaded, which meant it was made for a silencer.

He needed to find out what she knew. Who her handler was? The ‘friend’ in Islamabad.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“Doesn’t matter who I am.”

“What are you going to do with me?” Fear flickered across her face.

“Nothing, as long as you tell me the truth.”

“I have told you the truth. What more do you want?”

She was angry, but afraid to show it. The flush in her cheeks crept down her neck.

He leaned forward. “I want to know everything that you know about Abdul Omari. His daily routine, who he’s met since you’ve been watching him, where he goes, and what he’s been up to. And I want to know the name of your contact.”

She gulped. “Is that all?”

He gave a little smirk.

“Let’s start with his routine.”

Reluctantly, Sloane picked up the phone. “He lives in the upmarket Hayatbad district, west of here.” She bent forward to show him the photograph he’d already seen of the double-story house with the gated front entrance and garage.

He wished she hadn’t. He kept his eyes glued to the screen.

“Every morning, he leaves home around eleven, is driven into town where he goes to his favorite coffee shop. He seems to prefer coffee to tea.”

The cherry lips formed a pretty pout.

“Sometimes friends meet him there. Locals. I’ve seen the same men several times. Look, here they are…” She got up and stood beside him, leaning over to show him the shots.

Christ, was she fucking doing this on purpose? Did she have any idea of the effect she was having on him?

As she thumbed through the photographs, he caught a whiff of vanilla. Wet hair tickled his hand. He fought not to jolt away.

“Then he walks up and down the street, greeting people, flanked by his bodyguards, before getting back into the car and going home. His routine hardly ever varies.”

“Except for today,” growled Stitch.

“Yeah,” she said breathlessly. “I haven’t seen those men before. They looked like they were from out of town.”

He agreed with her there. The plates had been different, and the dust coating the base of the vehicle signified it had driven a fair distance before arriving at its destination in Peshawar.

“Afghanistan,” he muttered.

She straightened up. “That’s what I thought.”

“Can I see the photographs?”

She handed him her phone. He flicked through until he got to the ones she’d taken of the three visitors. He zoomed in. None of them looked familiar.

“Do you think they’re Taliban?” she asked.

“Maybe.”

He didn’t elaborate. She had her job to do, and he had his. No way was he about to tell her who Omari really was.

A monster. A destroyer of villages, a killer of women and children, a taker of lives. A psychopath consumed by power and wealth and all the trappings that came with it.

Being Taliban was the least of his crimes.

Nothing Omari did was terror related, but if that was the story she’d been fed, so be it. Nothing to do with him. He wasn’t interested in Agency business, so long as it didn’t interfere with his.

Omari was going down, regardless.