Assassin (An SOBs Novel Book 2), page 11
A Budweiser was the special warfare insignia pin all members of the United States Navy received upon successful completion of BUD/S, (aka Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training) and the prerequisite SEAL qualification training. Didn’t matter if they were officers or enlisted.
The Budweiser itself consisted of a golden eagle clutching a USN anchor, a trident, and an old-fashioned flintlock pistol, which had made turning his back on his Navy brothers one of the hardest things Pagan had ever done. But he did it because his real brother had been distressed at the time, and he’d do it again. In a heartbeat. That was what brothers did. They always had their brothers’ backs, even when one of those brothers failed to live up to the Sinclair honor code. Once a SEAL, always a SEAL.
Victoria slid her left hand between his right bicep and his ribs and tugged herself in closer, using his arm as a lever. There were those mixed signals of hers again. She didn’t seem to understand the rules of her own get-to-know-me-better game. One answer did not entitle the interrogator to familiarity, yet here she was, tugging her body against his, pressing the side of her breast into his arm like she wanted him to hold her.
What was a man supposed to do?
Pagan let her hang onto his arm. That was harmless enough. Like he’d already said. The end.
“How’d you become a SEAL so fast? I mean, you’re only…”
“I was twenty when I passed BUD/S. Twenty-six when I left the Navy. Yeah. I was seventeen and a half when I signed up.”
She cocked her head like she didn’t understand. He got that a lot. He’d been young for a SEAL. All the Sinclair boys were young when they’d earned their tridents. Pagan didn’t know for certain, but he suspected his mother’s longtime friend, USN Master Chief Barrett “Bear” Knight, had some influence in them getting into the SEAL program as early as they had. But they’d earned those tridents, fair and square. Hell Week was no pushover.
He let Miss Hex think what she wanted. They were friends, not soulmates.
When he wasn’t more forthcoming, she sighed and said, “Well, I guess it’s my turn then. You probably already know that—”
“You were recruited out of high school by the CIA. The Agency needed someone inside Sicily, someone young and foolish, someone with a figure that could get her inside the Mafia during their not so quiet move out of Sicily into Germany. They needed a go-to pretty girl, someone the mob would trust on sight.” He grunted again. “In other words, the Agency sent a teenage sexpot into Sicily with a cache of high-powered smart guns and told her to sell them to the biggest gang of killers on the planet. They wrapped up their little time bomb with a good-looking girl and tied her up with a leather bow.”
“You mean a big pair of tits,” she said evenly.
Pagan shrugged. “I mean you did your job well. It worked, didn’t it? You’re inside the mob.”
“Is that all I am to you?” she asked as she did a Vanna White gesture over her very nice, very plump chest area. “These girls?”
Well, no. But yeah. Miss Hex was definitely endowed, and not just up top. The rest of the package was damned attractive, too. Of course his eyeballs followed her fluttering fingertips, and of course she noticed.
Her hand eased out from between his arm and chest as she drew her knees up to said chest and wrapped her arms around her girls and her knees. “I feel like Kermit the Frog. It’s not easy being green.”
Pagan hadn’t a clue what she meant by that, so he kept quiet. No sirree. Miss Hex had nothing in common with a flat-chested, slimy green amphibian. That was more his department. He was after all, the Navy frog.
“I do good work, Pagan,” Victoria said quietly. “You might not realize it, but I’m selective when I have to kill someone. I never endanger babies, children, innocent bystanders, or most women. If the man I’m supposed to kill has a family, I never take him out in front of them. Even if he’s an abusive asshole, I wait until he’s alone. I don’t off him even if he’s with his girlfriend when he should be at home with his wife. I don’t double-tap him when he’s beating his wife or his kids, either, although sometimes I think it would be better for his family if I did. But no, I wait, then I make a professional hit. I make sure he doesn’t feel a thing, but I also make it so no one doubts that hit came from Vito or Cabb.”
“You ever off someone just because Romeo told you to do it?” Pagan asked, his brows up.
She looked down at her feet and shook her head, her hair a soft ebony curtain falling into her face. “I don’t work for Romeo.”
That was interesting. “Just Vito? Just Cabb?” Or is this just another coverup?
“Mostly Vito. He and Cabb are tight. I suspect all Vito’s orders are really Cabb’s, though.”
“The old man’s still in charge.” Pagan made that a statement.
“Yes. Don’t ever make the mistake of underestimating him. Cabb might be over eighty, but he’s very much alive. And he’s vicious, Pagan. Damned vicious.”
“Then how have you got close to the man and his sadistic son?” Pagan didn’t dare let his eyeballs scroll even an inch lower than her mouth. She was different tonight, and he didn’t want to spoil the tentative truce between them. “I’ve seen you on the news, hanging on Cabb’s arm like some starlet, fifty years younger than him, but smiling like you’re right where you want to be.”
“I’m not sure I am close to him,” she replied as one hand went into her hair over the bump. “I thought I was, only now…” She swallowed hard. “I really don’t know who put me in that hole. I’ve made a few enemies in this job. It could be anyone.”
“You think Cabb or Vito are behind your attempted murder?”
She nodded. “I did at first, but I’m pretty sure I would’ve woken up dead with two holes in my head if they were. Vito and Cabb don’t play around.”
“Tell me exactly what happened. What do you remember?”
Now it was Victoria’s turn to grunt. “Not much. I woke up with dirt in my nose and inside my mouth. In my lungs. So I dug my way to the surface, which wasn’t very far or very hard. The soil was loose. The idiot who buried me didn’t tamp it down. But I couldn’t breathe and I panicked and…” She lifted one of her hands.
Pagan grimaced. Once again, she’d removed the cushions of gauze he’d wrapped around those poor fingers to protect them. Silly woman.
“I couldn’t get out of there fast enough,” she said, breathing harder now.
“I can imagine. Someone buried you alive,” he said to make sure what he’d suspected was fact, not an assumption.
“Yeah, the idiot knocked me out, then buried me in a shallow grave in some woods out west of Chicago. That’s the thing that doesn’t make sense. He only knocked me out. Whoever he was, he didn’t shoot me while he could have.” Her voice pitched higher and tighter. “He had to know I was still alive when he buried me. Maybe he thought I’d suffocate.”
“So it wasn’t a professional hit,” Pagan said evenly to get her to calm down. “Couldn’t have been Vito or Cabb then.”
“Unless they did it to scare me,” she whispered, trembling like a leaf in the breeze. “It worked.”
Instinctively, Pagan’s right arm lifted. She ducked. The poor thing was still in PTSD land where every sudden move startled her. But slowly, his arm moved over her head, and he lowered it onto her shoulders. He let it rest there. Didn’t move on her. Didn’t use his hands. Didn’t make any sudden other moves, either. Just let this tiny thing between them be whatever it was, which wasn’t much.
She tugged her long hair out from under his bicep as he drew her into his side. Suddenly, ebony silk draped over his bare skin, tickling his arm hairs. This wasn’t a hug or anything stupid like that. This was just a guy being friends with a woman. Being a real friend. That was all. But damn, did it feel good.
Victoria seemed to need the security of his tentative hold, and that was a nice change. Her fingers splayed over his right pec, featherlight as if she were afraid to really touch him. Her cheek turned into his shoulder. Softly. Carefully. The entire side of her plush body was touching him, but it didn’t mean anything. Still just friends, see?
Pagan stared at the wall, waiting for what to happen next, he wasn’t sure. This was the black leather, thigh-high-booted woman of his most forbidden dreams. For the first time, it dawned on him that while Miss Hex may have all the right equipment, she might not be a dominatrix after all. He cocked his head as that possibility sank in.
But she’s so good at it…
Yeah, about that... Everyone had once thought Suede was a slut, too. She’d certainly acted the part, for all the press to see and take pictures of and to fill the gossip rags with. But once he’d gotten to know her, Pagan realized Suede was nothing more than an innocent, twenty-year-old woman caught in a twisted snare only the Sinclair Boys could’ve gotten her out of. And they had. They could do the same for Victoria.
The poor thing trembled, so he tugged her in a tiny bit closer. Kept her a little safer. Warmer. Still. Just. Friends.
“I keep asking myself why Cabb would’ve ordered a hit on me,” she whispered. “There’s only one way to find out. I have to go back.”
Pagan about swallowed his tongue. She had to go back? To Cabb? To Vito? Into that mausoleum in east Chicago they called home? Oh, hell no.
But that wasn’t Pagan’s call, and this wasn’t his mission. He’d only traveled here and intercepted Victoria to get to the bottom of her kill order. If another federal agency wanted her dead, they must have a reason. They wouldn’t have sent their own covert agents after her just because Sullivan wanted more evidence first, would they?
But really? Go back to Vito and Cabb? She would do that? Pagan couldn’t bear the thought. Not Victoria.
Chapter Thirteen
Wow. Way to man up, Pagan. Don’t say anything at all. Just sit there like a big, dumb bump on a log after I’ve bared my soul to you and told you I’m probably going to my death. Vicki would’ve given anything if he’d told her ‘no way in hell!’ If he’d raised his voice and told her he was there for her, that he’d keep her safe. But that wasn’t what was going to happen, was it? Because, bottom line, Pagan was just doing a job, and she was still on her own. Alone again. Naturally. Weren’t those the stupid lyrics to some stupid song?
Any second now, she needed to distance herself from this stupid, stupid man. She needed to pull away, maybe shove him away. Maybe slap him for being so dumb, for being a man. She needed to scream and make him want desperately to get away from her. Any second now…
But she couldn’t. Pagan smelled too good, and that massive arm around her felt like a very warm wall of solidarity. For once in her precarious, tempestuous, risk-filled life, she was safe within the circle of this particular and very sexy smelling male’s arms. Probably for all the wrong reasons, but Pagan felt thick and solid and, damn it, he was here, wasn’t he? When no one else came, Pagan did. And Vicki desperately needed someone to be here for her. Just this one time. Just a little while longer.
An image of Suede smiling across the Sinclair living room at Pagan crystalized in Vicki’s mind. It had happened during their one and only meeting, when Chance Sinclair captured Domingo Zapata, the psychotic killer from Brazil. The trust radiating between Pagan and Suede that day had been palpable. They’d both just survived near-death experiences, though Pagan’s came from Vicki. But really, she never would’ve shot him anywhere but on his very nice ass. But that day in the Sin Boys’ cabin, you would’ve thought Pagan and Suede were brother and sister instead of soon-to-be in-laws the way they’d treated each other with respect and concern.
That was what Vicki wanted, the sense of belonging, of truly being an indispensable part of a real family. She didn’t need to be suffocated by all that Sinclair machismo, but she wouldn’t mind being missed when she was gone. Or someone worrying about her when she came home late or when she didn’t come home at all. Someone running out in the middle of the night to look for her. Maybe rescue her. Maybe tell her everything was going to be okay no matter how awful it was.
Julio was her only living family, but he’d been out of contact since he’d lost his family, and Vicki didn’t blame him. She’d wanted to crawl into a hole and hide when she’d heard about what happened to Bianca and Tomas, too.
But even in the best of times, she and Julio had never interfered with each other’s missions or lives. It had nothing to do with their very different black operations. That was just the way they had always been. Fiercely independent. Never in touch with each other for too long. For years, they hadn’t even lived on the same continent, and as far as the holiday get-togethers went, she’d never celebrated. Why start now?
Julio didn’t need her. No one did. But suddenly, that kind of life wasn’t good enough. Vicki had to know. She turned to Pagan and asked, “Why are you here?”
His dark brows clashed together. “Thought we already covered that.”
She said nothing, just studied the coffee brown flecks in his green eyes. Pagan had vibrant green eyes, not the muted, washed out hazel that most people were born with, but truly, magnificent, lovely, and very peaceful greens that belied his gentle upbringing. He’d been loved as a child. How wonderful that must’ve been.
But past the green, she saw something else glowering. One could only hope it wasn’t love, because love was the worst lie of all.
Vicki took a chance and asked the question she’d begun this cross-examination with. “Would you like to know my real name?”
He nodded, his brows still drawn into a sharp, pointy V, but his eyes glimmering. Glowing hopefully.
She let her gaze drop to his mouth as she whispered, “Paloma. My real name is Paloma. I looked it up once. It comes from the Latin word for dove. The symbol of peace.”
Right on cue, his gaze dropped to her mouth and he grunted like that was the dumbest thing he’d ever heard. “Paloma Hex? Really?”
“Uh-uh. No, Pagan,” she answered as she shook her head. “Paloma Juarez. Julio always called me PJ. Vicki Hex is a myth. A disguise.” She let her tongue slip over the center of her bottom lip, moistening it just enough to keep his attention. “She’s an act I put on to get the job done. That’s all. She’s part of my job. I’m not really Vicki, and Vicki’s not me. She’s an avatar.”
“Oh, yeah, right,” he murmured, his attention still on her mouth.
Paloma licked her lips intentionally, drawing him in. Using her Vicki skills to get what she wanted. What she needed just for tonight. “What can I say? My mother loved diamonds.”
His gaze flickered up to her eyes then because everyone knew that sad story. At the turn of the century, Belinda and Pedro Juarez were gunned down by the Mexican police after they’d robbed a string of jewelry stores. They’d left two small children behind, and those small children had promptly been dumped into the care of wicked Belinda’s aged grandmother. It wasn’t long before Julio ran away. By then he was old enough to make his way northward into Southern California, where he worked days in the fields and scrounged for food during the night. A kind couple came across him one evening and took him in. Eventually, he attended school. He joined the Navy.
In the meantime, Paloma languished under her grandmother’s harsh rules. But she also worked hard in school, hard enough that she was selected for the exchange program that took her also to Southern California. And that was that. The CIA had need of her, and she would’ve done anything not to return to her grandmother. So she lied about her age, joined the Agency, and went to Chicago instead.
“Paloma Juarez, huh?” Pagan snagged a thick strand of her long hair and let it coil around his finger. “That’s a very pretty name.”
Paloma looked up at him then and told him the truth. “Someone’s out to kill me, Pagan, and I don’t know who it is, and I don’t know who to trust. I want to trust you, but if I do, I could get you killed, and I don’t want that. I have to figure out who did this. If not Cabb or Vito—”
Pagan dipped his head to her forehead. “Shhhhh,” he whispered. “Breathe. We’re safe here. Let’s tackle the problems of the world tomorrow. Tonight, let’s just be—”
“Friends,” she said as she kissed him.
He turned into her, his arm now circling her neck, his other hand cupping her jaw and holding her in place. “Very good friends,” he growled, his breath a cross between coffee and whiskey, between Heaven and Hell.
She nipped his bottom lip, then licked it to soothe the sting.
His hands were warm, and his breath was like manna, full of promise and trust in what she was telling him. She bit him again, a little harder, just before she licked the inside of his mouth. This man made the earth stand still.
Paloma found her backside planted on his thighs as he deftly untied the sash and parted the robe, the palm of his hand instantly on her belly, his fingers caressing her. Distracting her. Nearly making her forget she still had a murderer after her.
Pagan took hold of her head with his free hand as he took her mouth by storm. Hungrily. Fiercely. His tongue swept against hers, tangling on its ways to the roof of her mouth. To the insides of her cheeks. Suckling and nipping at her lips, filling her mouth even as she wanted him to fill another aching part of her body. His teeth bumped against hers. Not jarringly hard. Just enough that he changed his angle and stroked deeper with his tongue. Wetter. Stronger.
Man, this guy could kiss, and she was losing her ever-loving mind, lost in the delightful sensation of an artful lover’s kiss. His fingers tunneled into her hair, holding her head gently in place as he made a feast of her.
Her hand went around his neck, the other up the back of his head into his hair, holding onto him as well. She loved the bristly brush of her fingers over his shorn head. The hard sensation of his skull in her palm. The man was so much larger in every way than she was. Wider. Thicker. Longer.
