Poison Kisses Part 1 Read online

  “That’s right, sweetheart.” The elevator dings. “But you have nothing to worry about. I’m your adoring husband.”

  The doors open and her lips curve. “And I’m your adoring wife.”

  And somehow, she makes that sound both like a threat and a seduction, and I wonder how many enemies she’s brought to their knees with only that body and mind as her weapons. She pushes away from me and steps inside the car, with me pursuing her, and before she has time to react, I’ve pushed the button to the lobby, and pulled her in front of me.

  “Wife,” I say, aware of the cameras recording us, testing her to see if she will say anything she should not before I go one step further with her into this mission.

  “Husband,” she replies, amusement in her eyes. “You know what happens when you test your wife?”

  “What happens when you test your wife?”

  “Nothing. And that is never fun.”

  The elevator dings, and she twists out of my arms, exiting the car, and leaving me to once again pursue her. And pursuing this woman appeals to everything male in me. I’m by her side in an instant, my arm wrapping her shoulders. She leans into me, her hand at my back, and together we pass the hotel staff at the door and exit to the valet. Almost instantly I spot the familiar, tall black man, leaning on a black sedan with a sign that says “Jones.”

  “This way,” I say, motioning in that direction.

  Danny, our driver, and an agent I’m often paired with, reaches for the door and opens it for us. I meet his hard, dark stare, give him a nod, ushering “Jennifer” into the car. Without a word spoken, I join my wife for the night in the back seat, and Danny shuts us inside. A few seconds after he’s in the driver’s seat, my wife says, “Hi there, Danny,” in a friendly tone that he doesn’t invite often. The man intimidates everyone around him, including the line of women who want to sleep with him, which only seems to turn them on more.

  “Good to have you on this, Amanda,” he says, placing us in gear. “You taught me that you never know when you need a scientist on hand.”

  “Scientist, Amanda ?” I ask, remembering her comment on poison as a weapon.

  She glances over at me. “I know my way around a lab, but that’s simply a skill I find useful where necessary or possible.”

  “Why would we need those skills on this particular mission?”

  “You mean, why would they send a woman with a brain to decorate your arm? Perhaps to ensure you get out alive?”

  Danny laughs. I don’t. Beyond what’s under a woman’s dress, including this woman’s dress, I don’t like unknowns. Ever. Unknowns mean trouble. And trouble gets you killed. I reach over and pull Amanda to me, aligning our thighs, my hand on her thigh. Close. Where I intend to keep her the rest of the night.

  Chapter Four

  The past continues . . .

  Thirty minutes after Amanda and I leave the hotel room, we arrive at the sprawling mansion estate that is the location of the party, and Danny pulls us to the door. “Don’t get drunk and fuck this up,” he orders as we depart, leaving him to pull around to a side parking area with a cluster of other drivers, where he’ll pretend to be one of the crowd. When in fact, he’s a sniper, tech genius, and a damn good wingman to have on call.

  Amanda and I make it through the introductions and formalities, then we’re in the center of an elegant ballroom attached to a sprawling castle-style private house, that could be a hundred other events I’ve attended, fancy dresses and tuxedos splattered here and there like paint on a shiny floor. Lights dangle from above, and a piano’s musical notes fill the room. A beautiful woman at my side, mingling with guests that prefer to talk about themselves and in Italian, which I quickly learn Amanda is as fluent in as I am myself.

  “I actually really enjoy making them attempt English,” she says, after we leave an obnoxiously rich pack of men.

  “They’d do anything to get your favor, and under your dress,” I murmur.

  “Better they think about my dress than my reasons for being here,” she says as an announcer calls everyone’s attention to a stage to the far right with a podium, and soon the main political star of the night is speaking.

  My fingers lace with Amanda’s and we begin weaving through the crowd that is thicker now, perhaps two hundred or more. In a few smooth moves, we’re outside of the crowd, and we’ve avoided the poorly managed security staff, headed down a hallway, and are making our way up a stairwell. “I’ll take the bedroom,” she says, as we reach the second level, “and meet you in the office.”

  Saving time is critical, and I wave her onward, assuming she has what she needs to bug the room, as I waste no time locating the office. Entering the room, I find a heavy oak desk, leather chairs, and walls of bookshelves, all framed by a sitting area. I’m at the desk, ensuring the computer is infected with a data-tracking virus before I begin planting various microchips. The desk is locked and I’m about to solve that problem and search them, when Amanda rushes into the door, shuts it, and mouths, “Security headed up the stairs,” even as she rushes toward me. “And they look like they’re on a mission.”

  I’m around the desk in an instant and pulling her to the seating area of the room, where I sit on the couch, taking her with me, and she goes with the flow, willingly straddling me in an instant. “Game time, sweetheart,” I say, my fingers sliding into her hair, and I don’t wait for the intrusion to follow. I want this woman and she’s mine now, at least in this moment, and it won’t be one of those lost moments. My mouth closes down on hers, my tongue licking into her mouth, and she meets me halfway. She kisses me back and she does so without any hesitation. A deep slide of that sweet little tongue and I am so fucking hot and hard that I tear my mouth from hers, and challenge, “Don’t kiss me like that and expect it to end here.”

  She presses her lips to mine and the moment her tongue touches mine again, the door bursts open. There are shouts in Italian and then English. “What are you doing? Get up, up, up.”

  I kiss Amanda again. “To be continued,” I promise, and then heft her upward with me, my arm sliding around her waist, my hip aligned with hers, my intent to protect her if necessary.

  Two men in suits, both bulky muscle heads, one holding a pistol on us, stand almost in front of us, at least two guns on my person. “Apologies,” I say, holding up one of my hands. “My lady and I had a fight and we were making up.”

  Amanda gives a convincingly nervous laugh. “This is so embarrassing.” She presses her hand to her face and then punches me. “Why did I let you do this to me?”

  “Because you love me,” I say, my fingers flexing at her hip as I look at the men. “We’ll go back to the party. I still have a large check to write that I’ll make larger to apologize.”

  The man with the gun barks at the other guard, “Search them,” in Italian.

  The man takes a step and I hold out a hand. “You can search me, but you aren’t laying a hand on my wife without me making one hell of a scene,” I say, already plotting the moment I pull my gun and shoot them both.

  “It’s okay,” Amanda says. “I’d rather just get this over with.” She steps forward but I pull her backward.

  “He’s not touching you.”

  She glances over her shoulder at me and there is something in her eyes as she says, “Let him do it,” before she looks at the man, and adds, “Just please get it over with.”

  I hesitate but release Amanda, who has bought me some time, before I pull the trigger, but I’m not sure I want to wait. She moves away from me and the man’s lips curl with the idea of touching her. Bastard. I’m going to enjoy killing him, but thanks to Amanda moving toward him, and with speed, I can’t kill the guy with my gun without risking the one in front of Amanda killing her at the same time.

  He reaches for her waist, and she immediately presses her hand to his hand, an act I find interesting. Why would she want to touch him, let alone his skin? He notices too, and it gives him pause. He looks at her, lust in his eyes, ey
es that suddenly roll back into his head. A second later he’s tumbling like a tree that just got axed. Amanda gasps and squats down next to him, her fingers pressing to the man’s neck, as if she’s checking for a pulse, but I don’t miss the way the hand she touched him with the first time is a ball by her side.

  “He has a pulse,” she says, and the man moans, grabbing his stomach.

  “Call an ambulance!” she yells at the other man.

  “No ambulance,” the other man says storming toward us. “It will be all over the newspaper.” He looks at me. “What is your name?”

  “Collin Jones.”

  “Get your wife out of here and I better hear of a large donation or you won’t like the results.”

  The man on the floor moans. “Understood,” I say, at the same time that Amanda pops to her feet.

  “You have to call an ambulance.” And she sounds so damn worried that I almost believe she means it. “Please.”

  “Get her the fuck out of here,” the man orders.

  I wrap Amanda’s waist and pull her forward. “We’re leaving.”

  “He needs an ambulance,” she hisses, fighting me, at least momentarily, to stay in the room, but she lets me guide her to the hallway, and the second we’re out of the man’s view, she stops fighting and the two of us are both running down the stairs.

  “We need Danny ready to pick us up,” she says, but I’m already holding the phone, punching in the one number inside I know will connect us to him, directly or indirectly. “Front door,” I say at the sound of Danny’s voice. “Now.” I end the call and stuff my phone in my pocket at the same moment that we reach the lower level of the mansion, my hands sliding to Amanda’s back, and for the next five minutes, we calmly work our way through the crowd and to the front door.

  The minute we’re outside, Danny pulls the car to the door, and in another minute, we’re in the backseat, the vehicle in motion. “Is the mission complete?” Danny asks.

  “Yes,” I say. “It’s complete.”

  “Then my instructions are to deliver you to a private airport. There’s a plane waiting on you both.”

  “And you?” I ask.

  “Unless my orders change, I’m staying.”

  His staying doesn’t surprise me. What does is the fact that Amanda and I are to remain together. Turning my attention to her, I say, “You poisoned that man,” and it’s not a question, but rather a statement of fact.

  “Yes,” she confirms, without looking at me, her tone flat, hard. “I did and he really does need an ambulance or he’ll die.”

  “And you want him to live or die?” I ask, curious about what makes her tick. Does she enjoy killing?

  “Better he dies than us,” she says, “though most people are smart enough to seek medical attention when I poison them.”

  Her weapon of choice perhaps not because it’s fatal but because it is not? That’s humane. It’s also a weakness in an agent. “How many people have you killed?”

  “I don’t tally.”

  “That’s bullshit,” I say. “We all tally.”

  “I don’t,” she says, and I wonder if she’s afraid her number will scare me. Or maybe that hint of vulnerability I sense in her is fear, not of others, but of herself. “What’s your number?” she presses, turning the tables on me.

  Certain my number would scare her away, I say, “I don’t want to scare you away, sweetheart. I haven’t even gotten you naked yet.” Danny coughs, and I immediately move on, hitting Amanda with another question. “How did you manage to get the toxin on him and not yourself? And what was it?”

  She flicks me the smallest of looks. “To start, you won’t get me naked unless I decide I want to be naked, which I have not. As for how I poisoned that man, practice and experience is how I did it, and I used a special compound that I developed years ago with my mother’s help. Long before I was even in the field for the agency.”

  “Because you grew up in a CIA lab,” I comment, assuming the obvious, but expecting a reply she doesn’t have the chance to offer. Danny interjects instead with a proclaimed, “The Scientist strikes again,” which infers he’s seen her use poison before tonight.

  And when she doesn’t look at me, I add, “I think I’ll call her the Poison Princess rather than the Scientist.”

  She cuts her head and looks at me, eyes meeting mine, the shadows of nighttime concealing whatever lurks in the depths of hers. But something sharp and hard radiates off of her before she turns and faces forward and says nothing more. I’ve hit a nerve, and I think about her insistence the man in the mansion call an ambulance. That wasn’t all an act and I decide I have the answer to my question—does she like to kill? The answer in my mind, in my gut, is a firm no. My temporary missus might be as good at killing people as she is at kissing me, but she doesn’t like it, or the new title that I’ve given her. More so, she doesn’t know how to just do it and move on. Each kill stays with her, and that’s a weakness that will get her, and others close to her, killed if she isn’t careful. And the agency knows this.

  Maybe they do want me to kill her, and since I don’t kill my own, that means they think she’s dirty. They’re usually right, but I’m always right. It’s why I’m the best at what I do. It’s why I don’t have regrets. I sense dirty. I know dirty. It feels a certain way. It scents the air around a person. It flavors the way they taste, and I have tasted Amanda. And she is indeed poison, delicious, tempting, make - me - need - another - long - drink poison. But not a dirty-agent poison. I’m going to need to be damn sure, and fast, before I’m given the order to kill her. I’m going to need another taste of my Mrs. Jones.

  * * *

  An hour later, Danny pulls us to halt inside a small, private airport, and directly onto the tarmac where a private jet awaits us only a few feet away. “See you in the next life,” Amanda says, a reference we often use when leaving a cover identity behind.

  “See ya when I see ya,” Danny replies, but the minute she exits the car, his eyes meet my stare in the rearview mirror and he softly adds, “I’ll see you both on the ground,” a statement that infers our team of three tonight is staying together for at least one more mission.

  “On the ground, as in where?” I ask.

  “I’m to receive instructions only after they clear downloaded files from the computer you infected tonight.”

  Because he created that virus—which is his form of weapon of choice, his poison. I give him a quick incline of my chin, and slide out of the car to join Amanda who is now waiting for me just outside the vehicle, and without a word, we cross the stairs leading to our plane. We pause there, our eyes colliding, the memories of our kiss, our bodies melded together on that couch, charges the air between us. Us fucking wasn’t inevitable, not when at any point the agency could send us on different directions. But we’re here now, we’re together, and we’re getting on this plane and fucking. And that has nothing to do with the agency. We’re human. We have needs and what we need right now is to fuck each other.

  She starts up the narrow steps and I pursue her, my hand burning to settle at her hip, but what happens between me and this woman is between me and this woman, and right now, we’re being watched. But damn, I want to touch this woman. I’m going to touch her, and since the agency isn’t stupid enough to try and record me, once we’re in the plane, we’re without an audience, which is how I prefer to fuck.

  Amanda enters the plane and I again follow, surveying the empty row of two leather seats to our left and right, with three more like it beyond them. Also empty is the rear section of the jet that appears to be set up as a massive lounge area.

  Amanda faces me, and I motion over my shoulder. “I’m going to find out what I can about where we’re headed.”

  “I’ll ensure the rear of the plane meets my standard of private travel,” she says, or in other words: she’s going to confirm there are no recording devices present, an act of caution I approve of wholeheartedly.

  She turns away, and I do the sam
e, making my way to the open cockpit door, where I find a pilot and co-pilot in their seats, the pilot, a dark haired, thirty-something male, his co-pilot ten years older and with salt and pepper hair. I focus on the pilot. He’s the one in control. “Destination?” I ask.

  “Coordinates are London,” he states. “But we’re told we’ll be given further instructions once we hit thirty-thousand feet.” The sound of the exterior plane door slamming shut echoes through the cabin and the pilot glances at his watch and then me. “We’re instructed to be in the air in the next five minutes, which means we need to move now.

  I give him a nod, leaving the cockpit, the door sealing behind me, and with no other crew present, I have only Amanda on my mind. Heading down the aisle, I find her facing me at the very rear of the plane, just inside the lounge area, her hands pressed to the backs of one of the leather duet seats on either side of her.

  Minutes from having this woman to myself, from stripping her naked in every possible way to all the answers and secrets I know she will reveal, I close the small space between us. Stopping on the opposite side of the lounge area, I mimic her position, my hands on the seats to my left and right.

  Our eyes lock and hold, that charge we create just by existing in the same space crackling the air. I can feel the intensity of what is to come and yet my voice is slow, steady, even when I ask, “Are we clear?”

  “Crystal,” she replies. “Where are we headed?”

  “The coordinates are London,” I say, “though as always—”

  “—that’s subject to change,” she supplies, the plane beginning to roll.

  She moves to a seat and sits down. I do the same, opposite her, our eyes locking all over again, and there is now a challenge between us that is as sexual as it is arousing. The many ways we might use the wide, leather-covered bench against the wall to my right, and her left, are already playing in my mind. The plane accelerates from a roll to a fast taxi, but neither of us buckle up. Call it living dangerously, or simply, in my case, impatience to have her in my lap, on my cock.