Bombshell - Jane Harvey-Berrick Page 12

  Startled and slightly stoned, I breathed heavily, then slowly raised my hands to brush over his head, the almost non-existent hair feeling like fur.

  His hands were locked on my hips, his fingers digging into the flesh and it felt good. I felt wanted and needed. For a few seconds, I felt as if I was the centre of his world, and I loved that feeling, I craved it.

  Ignored and irrelevant for so long, I finally felt like he’d noticed me.

  His strong, rough hands swept up my bare back, stroking and kneading the flesh, skating over my spine, then sweeping over my skin to cup my breasts, lowering his head to them again as if he couldn’t taste them enough.

  Dazed but feeling brave, I reached out to touch the warm silky skin of his shoulders, surprised to see a large tattoo covering the top half of his back.

  I tried to read what was inked there, but he grabbed the front of my jeans, roughly unzipping and yanking them down my legs with my panties.

  I gasped and let my head thud back against the wall as his fingers probed inside me, stroking the wetness over the lips and targeting my clitoris over and over again, quickly bringing me to orgasm.

  Lonely and alone for so long, over-emotional from the intensity of the day, I came hard.

  As I crested, his fingers left me and he fumbled with his jeans, releasing his hard cock, purple and gleaming in the lamplight.

  He hitched my leg over his hip and thrust inside, roughly stroking against the sensitive nerve endings, over and over until I was a puddle of intense sensation, barely able to stand.

  He swore again, his legs stiffening as he pulled out hurriedly, and long streams of cum erupted over my stomach.

  For a second, we stood there, chests heaving, the heat between us cooling quickly.

  Then, without a word, he tucked himself back into his sweatpants, grabbed his t-shirt from the chair and wiped the sticky mess from my stomach. Roughly, he pulled my clothes into some semblance of order.

  “You should go, Bel,” he said without looking at me.

  Off balance from his touch, from my orgasm, from the grass, I pushed away from the wall with shaky legs—embarrassed and humiliated—and staggered back to my tiny room, falling face down on my cot-bed and slipping into a deep, uneasy sleep as tears stained my pillow.

  It was only later that I realized he’d called me ‘Bel’.

  James

  “SHIT, FOR REAL, Clay?”

  He frowned, nodding slowly.

  “Yeah, the Chief of Police specially requested your presence at the meeting.”

  I understood the words, they just weren’t making any sense. Maybe the weed had been stronger than I realized. Or maybe something else was throwing me off.

  “But why? You’re the Supervisor. I’m just the oily rag. Why the change since yesterday?”

  “Don’t know, man.”

  “Is this a shakedown?”

  Clay’s mouth twisted as he sucked on one of his damn lollipops.

  “It’s possible, but why ask for you to be there? That just creates another witness.”

  “Have you reported it back to HQ?”

  “Yep. They want us to play nice until we know what’s going on. For all I know, it could just be that he has additional information about mined areas.”

  “But that intel was requested and received months ago.”

  “Maybe something new has come up.”

  My gut was telling me that this wasn’t right, but the only way to figure it out was to go along to the meeting. It was just a shame that Yad would have to be the interpreter. Turul had received an urgent phone call from his wife and had to return home. Although, now I thought about it, that phone call had interesting timing. I would have preferred Turul, but we were stuck with Yad—the Police Chief’s cousin.

  “We’ll leave at ten-hundred-hours.”

  “Okay.”

  I started to stand, but Clay wasn’t finished.

  “Uh, James? I saw Harry coming out of your room late last night.”

  Irritated with myself, with him, with her, I waited for Clay to continue. He sighed when he saw I wasn’t going to make this easy.

  “Look, I’m not saying that you can’t … shit, I don’t know what I’m saying.” He stared at me. “She’s a real nice girl, James.”

  I stared back, folding my arms across my chest as guilt bubbled like acid inside me.

  She’d offered and I’d accepted, but using her like that then throwing her out … she hadn’t deserved it.

  But that was all I had to offer.

  Clay rubbed his forehead, staring at me.

  “Let the light in, brother.”

  “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

  “A sealed door makes a dark room. Open the door—you’ll see more clearly in the light.”

  “Are you going to get to the point any time soon?” I goaded him.

  He sighed.

  “You gotta stop running away.”

  I raised my eyebrows.

  “I’m not running away.” I smirked at him. “I’m removing myself from an undesirable situation.”

  “Yeah, running away. That’s what I said—except you used more syllables.” His voice hardened. “Leave Harry alone.”

  I was pissed off for real now.

  “Who I fuck is none of your fucking business. Brother.”

  His eyes darkened and anger radiated from him.

  “Like I said: she’s a nice girl. You’re my best friend, James, but if you hurt her, I’ll have to fuck you up.”

  “Tell her that,” I said bitterly. “I’ve never met a woman I didn’t hurt.”

  Bel’s unexpected arrival in Nagorno had tossed a ticking time bomb into my crappy life. I just didn’t know when it would explode.

  I left his office with a snarl in my heart, something ugly inside that turned my vision blood red.

  I hadn’t done anything, hadn’t encouraged her. One fucking hit of grass and she was all over me like yesterday’s news. I’d stopped her, I’d told her to leave. But the confusion of my body wanting to fuck her warred with my brain that had reeled in shock.

  I’d fucked her to feel something. And I’d fucked her to numb any feeling, to stop the throb of voices in my head. I just wanted it all to stop.

  But Clay was right—Bel was a good person, and I’d treated her like shit.

  I wanted to hit something, hurt something, destroy something the way I’d been destroyed.

  It was too many emotions when I’d refused to feel for so long. My brain ached, and I didn’t know if I was angry, frustrated or just too fucked in the head to know which way was up.

  Fighting with Clay was shit. We didn’t fight.

  Resentment against Arabella grew disproportionately, to the point that when I saw her crossing the compound, I had to back the fuck away.

  “James!” she called. “James!”

  “I’m busy,” I snapped from between clenched teeth.

  “I’ll leave you alone, I promise,” she said, stepping toward me. “I just wanted to let you know that three Gauss metal detectors will be delivered by the end of the day.”

  I gaped at her.

  “Dad’s contacts,” she said with a shrug as if getting hold of three £2,000 devices and having them delivered to the armpit of the world in two days was no big deal. The Trust had been promising them to us for months.

  Her expression turned cool.

  “And I want to apologize for yesterday. I was wrong to come on to you. You’d be within your rights to report me for harassment—if it had been the other way around, well…” She bit her lip. “It was crass and I hope that you’ll accept my apology so we can continue to work together in a professional manner.”

  She didn’t even blush while she made her little speech. The Ice Princess was cool, the gaze of her dark blue eyes clear and direct.

  My anger cooled little by little as guilt took its place again. I had to acknowledge that I’d been in the wrong, too. If I hadn’t been working my way towa
rds being stoned, I’d have slung her out sooner. She wouldn’t have been allowed to come within ten feet of my mouth, or to touch my chest, or…

  FUCK! This woman was driving me insane.

  “Apology accepted,” I muttered.

  “Thank you,” she called after me as I strode away.

  Jesus. She was thanking me for treating her like shit! What was wrong with the woman?

  An hour later, I walked up to the minibus, surprised to find that Yad had already arrived. He was never on time, always the last to appear, usually unwashed, stinking of the previous night’s beer.

  Today, there was a malevolent leer on his face, an expression that said he knew something to his advantage and he wasn’t going to share.

  “James-syr,” he said, his lips curling around my name.

  I nodded, but didn’t speak.

  Clay arrived looking uncharacteristically on edge, but whether that was because of me or Yad, I couldn’t say.

  Poor bastard—I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes, um, shoe.

  Clay reversed the minibus out of the compound and followed Yad’s instructions to the police station, positioned at the other side of the small town.

  As Clay parked the minibus outside, my gut said that we were being set up.

  The feeling intensified when Yad walked up to one of the guards outside and slapped him on the back in a way that established they knew each other.

  In that moment, all my annoyance with Clay’s earlier comments faded.

  “I don’t like this,” I told him. “Things are about to go tits up.”

  He nodded.

  “Getting those vibes, too, brother.”

  I loosened my pistol in its holster. Clay did the same, and we both went into threat triage mode. I checked the roofline of the police station and surrounding shops for snipers. Maybe unlikely, but better to know than be surprised with your thumb up your arse.

  Clay had parked the minibus with the nose pointing out so we could effect a quick getaway, although how quick we’d be in that piece of junk was another issue.

  “I think I should go back to the compound,” I said out of the corner of my mouth. “We’ve left the women unprotected.”

  Clay shook his head.

  “Not quite. Maral has her rifle, and Harry is armed, too.”

  I glanced at him in surprise.

  “She is?”

  He gave me a small smile.

  “She says she’s been using a shotgun since she was eight. She convinced me that she knows enough not to shoot herself in the foot.”

  I shook my head. Would that woman ever stop surprising me?

  Clay looked at me seriously.

  “I told her that if we’re not back by eleven-hundred hours, to call Halo HQ in the UK, take the truck and leave with Zada and the rest of the team. Head for Baku.”

  “That’s more than 500 miles through the mountains!”

  “Yep, but it’s their best bet,” he breathed out through his nose.

  “Yerevan’s closer.”

  “They can’t cross into Armenia—Zada and Harry are the only ones with passports. Baku is pretty much their only chance.”

  “Shit, I don’t like this,” I muttered, staring through the windscreen at Yad who was gesturing us forwards impatiently.

  Clay’s face was impassive.

  “Let’s go play nice with the police officers,” he said.

  “And if they want us to hand over our side arms?”

  “You wearing your SIG, too?” he asked quietly.

  “Yep.”

  I had a SIG Sauer P232, a semi-automatic, in an ankle strap holster: slim, easily-concealed, relatively light weight. Only James Bond wannabes preferred the similarly sized Walther PPK.

  He nodded and glanced down at his prosthetic. I happened to know that it hid a matching pair of utility-knife bayonets with seven inch blades.

  It wasn’t much if we had to fight our way out, but better than nothing.

  Expect the worst, hope for the best.

  Yeah, well, me and hope weren’t what you’d call close friends.

  Reluctantly, I followed Clay into the police station.

  We were led through the utilitarian building and into the Chief’s private office which was only slightly less worn out than the rest of the rooms we passed.

  I wasn’t happy that we saw three police officers armed with PP-2000 Russian submachine guns en route.

  We weren’t asked to check our sidearms either, and I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. If we were armed—and I guessed that had been caught on CCTV—if we later turned up dead, it would be easier to say we’d pulled a weapon first.

  My defences were on full alert when the Chief greeted Yad like a long lost brother, hugging him and kissing him on both cheeks.

  Definitely not a good start.

  Yad shot an evil grin over his shoulder.

  “Police Chief Elnur Kurdov, my cousin.”

  We were so fucked.

  There were three seats in front of the Chief’s desk. Clay sat nearest the door and Yad sat one seat over leaving an empty chair in the middle for me. Where I’d be pinned in. Yeah, but no.

  Yad gestured impatiently to the empty space, but instead, I went to stand with my back to the wall, so I could see the window, the door, and all the occupants of the room at the same time.

  Clay caught on fast.

  “Don’t mind him,” he said with a wide smile. “It’s his PTSD—he gets crazy in small rooms with people he doesn’t know. He’s not dangerous … unless he gets upset.”

  Yad frowned, throwing worried glances at me, his eyes faltering at the pistol by my side. On the Chief’s prompt, he translated what Clay had said, which meant I had two of them throwing angry, anxious glances at me.

  I was wearing my mirrored aviator sunglasses so they couldn’t see my eyes. Something else to unnerve them. And right now, we needed every advantage we could squeeze out.

  Yad and the Chief had a long, unhurried discussion where nothing was translated but they gestured between me and Clay several times.

  Then the Chief leaned back and pulled out a cigar. I could tell that Yad was annoyed that he wasn’t the one who got to blow smoke in our faces.

  “My cousin … apologies … I mean Chief Kurdov,” he began. “He is very grateful that you have come to his town to get rid of the landmines. The government,” and he spat on the floor, “say they have no money to help. So this is a big problem.”

  So far so bullshit. Bel’s dad, Sir Reginald, was footing the bill from Halo Trust, so our work wasn’t costing the area anything. In fact, we were bringing money in because of the wages paid to the teams and money spent on provisions.

  The longer he talked, the more it felt like a shakedown.

  Yad glanced at the Chief who waved at him to continue.

  “We are a very poor country,” he said, trying to smile ingratiatingly, but failing by a country mile.

  I blamed his dentist.

  “And there is much crime. Our valiant police,” and he gestured at his cousin, “need to be able to protect the people.” He leaned forward. “We need guns and ammunition. Or we need the explosives that you are blowing up. You can see why I was unhappy. It was a great waste.” And he shook his head sadly. “It would be much better if you handed over your finds to us, where everything can be…” he searched for the word then smiled triumphantly: “recycled!”

  So that was it. They wanted the mines to sell on the Black Market.

  Clay nodded thoughtfully as if seriously considering the request.

  “It’s a difficult situation,” he agreed, stroking his beard.

  Yad looked relieved as he translated.

  “Very difficult, but you see here’s the problem, my friend: these mines have been in the ground for years—some as long as two decades—so they’re unstable. The same goes for any ammo found—it deteriorates if it’s not stored properly.” He shook his head sadly, going for his Oscar. “I couldn’t sleep
nights if I thought the valiant Nagorno police staff were handling unstable explosives, or trying to defend the streets with defective ammunition. I couldn’t live with myself,” and he let out a long sigh.

  Yad’s frown as he concentrated on the words turned into a scowl, and the Chief didn’t seem happy either, spitting out a stream of words that made Yad cringe.

  “Chief Kurdov says we will take responsibility. It is not your problem.”

  Clay nodded sympathetically.

  “That’s mighty generous of the Chief, but it’s against Trust policy. I’d lose my job, which means all the teams would be laid off, which means there’d be no more de-mining in Nagorno. You see the problem, Chief Kurdov,” and he stared across the table.

  The Chief stared back, then shot some more words at Yad.

  “We will share half the profits, like gentlemen,” said Yad, licking his lips.

  Clay smiled thinly.

  “No can do. It would affect my pension back in the US.”

  Yad wasn’t sure how to interpret that, but the word ‘no’ had been clear enough for the Chief.

  He stood up, pointing his finger at Clay, jabbing it toward me while Yad translated hurriedly.

  “He says you are guests in our country and it is better to do as we say. You must hand over anything you find. I mean, everything you find. You will have a police escort on every Task from this day.”

  Clay wasn’t rattled even as I inched my hand toward the pistol on my hip.

  “I’ll relay your request to the Trust, but I’ll be advising that they close down the entire operation, and I’m 100% sure that they’ll follow my advice.” He leaned forward to make the point clear as his voice turned sub-zero. “Which means no more de-mining, which means no investment from coal companies, which means your government is going to be very damn pissed at you.”

  Inwardly, I was applauding Clay. Outwardly, I was ready to reinforce his words with bullets.

  The Chief and Clay stared at each other while Yad twitched nervously in his seat.

  Then without another word, the Chief stood up and marched out of the room. Yad blinked rapidly, then followed him like a well-trained puppy, turning at the door.

  “You wait!” he said, then shut the door behind him.