The Perfect Target

“Back up a little,” he instructed. The camera hid his eyes, but she knew they would be focused and intense.

Odd, Miranda thought, stepping against the seawall. He held her camera in his left hand, but he’d yet to put down his briefcase.

“Perfect,” he murmured. “Now untie the scarf.”

She blinked. “The scarf?”

“Hair like yours is too pretty to confine. Let the wind play with it.”

Heat streaked through her, completely unrelated to the burgeoning warmth of the day. Something about the word play, she knew. And that raspy voice. “I prefer it off my face.”

“Just for the picture,” he coaxed. “Just for me.”

Caution warned her to call the whole thing off, but her newfound sense of freedom refused to be denied. Having a man flirt with her, with no ulterior motive, felt too good. Charmed, she reached for the turquoise scarf she’d purchased from Rosita and pulled the fabric free. The breeze blowing off the ocean instantly sent long strands of blond hair fluttering around her face and tangling over her shoulders.

“Perfect,” the stranger said. “Perfect.”

Miranda fought an odd jolt of self-consciousness, as though she stood before the man completely naked, rather than in an off-the-shoulder crimson shirt and a long, gypsylike skirt she’d purchased from one of the locals. Every nerve ending felt charged and exposed. Her heart strummed low and expectant. The stranger had her posing for him, and she didn’t even know his name.

For the moment, she didn’t care.

Identity had nothing to do with what was scrawled on your birth certificate, but rather, the ideals you carried deep inside. If she asked the stranger his name, he’d ask hers.

She wasn’t ready to taint the moment with either the truth, or a lie.

“What are you waiting for?” He almost seemed to be stalling.

“The sun,” he answered without hesitation. “You’re not a woman for shadows.”

His voice was hoarse, like a man who lived on cigarettes and whisky. No one had ever talked to her like that. No words had ever drifted through her like a feathery caress. She studied him closer, that full mouth and those dark whiskers sprinkled across a strong jaw, the thick neck leading to the kind of chest women dreamed about—

Miranda jerked her gaze back to his neck, where a nasty scar slashed across his throat, a faded testimony to a brutal attack. This man’s raspy voice did not stem from pleasure or vice, but from pain and violence.

“Hurry up,” she said. Well-honed instincts kicked harder. He may not have asked her name, but he’d skillfully pinned her between his big body and the ocean behind her.

“Don’t be so impatient, bella. Some things aren’t meant to be rushed. There can be tremendous reward in lingering.”

The words were soft, but they robbed her of breath like a punch to the gut. Miranda hungered for freedom and adventure, but she also knew when she’d stepped in over her head. She could fend off attackers and wield a knife like a pro, but when it came to playing cat and mouse with outrageously good-looking, mysterious men, her defenses jammed like traffic in gridlock.

Fortunately, her legs didn’t. Pushing away from the seawall, she strode toward him, hand outstretched. “Give me my camera back.”

“But I haven’t—”

“The camera,” she said, firmer than before.

He refused to hand over her prized possession. “Have lunch with me. Maybe the clouds will clear by the time we’re done.”

“No.” Fascination crumbled into determination. This man was not what he seemed, and she knew better than to teeter on a rocky outcropping with the tide rushing in around her.

“Look, I really need to get going, so just give me my camera,” she said, extending her hand, “and—”

He took her wrist and started to tug. “Relax, bella. I know just the place—”

“Miranda!”

The urgent voice came from behind her and had her spinning toward the shopping district. A large Viking of a man broke from the crowd of older tourists and sprinted toward her. “Miranda!”

Hawk.

Her heart started to race, adrenaline spewing like a geyser out of control. They’d found her.

She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. The second a man touched her, one of her father’s men always, always came running.

“Miranda!” Hawk shouted, gaining ground.

The stranger’s grip on her arm tightened. “Do you know him?” he asked with an urgency that hadn’t been there before. But before she could answer, the sound of gunfire ripped through the late morning and sent the crowd scattering like leaves in the wind. Pigeons took flight. Hawk went down.

Miranda screamed, lunging toward her fallen bodyguard.

But the stranger wouldn’t let her go.

“Get down,” he commanded, shoving her toward the nearest merchant’s stall. He crouched beside her, sandwiching her between a display of rooster tablecloths and his big body. “Stay low.”

A large man dressed in army fatigues bolted around the corner, with what looked to be a semiautomatic in his hand. “Hold your fire!” he was shouting. “We’ve got you surrounded!”

“Too bloody late,” the stranger muttered.

The man in fatigues kept running. He was beside the fountain when another volley of gunfire ripped through the chaos. His arms flew out as though he’d slammed into an invisible wall, and he crumpled to the ground.

“Cristo.” The stranger glanced around sharply. “Where the hell are the shooters?” He held his briefcase in front of him, scanning the crowd. “I’ve got to get you out of here.”

“But Hawk—”

“—is probably dead.”

Horror convulsed through her. Hawk. She’d spent the past year evading the unyielding man at every turn, but she didn’t want him dead. Until now, everything had always seemed more like a game than life or death.

“Look!” she cried, “he’s getting up.”

“Fool,” the stranger hissed, just as the first police officer arrived, running from the perfume boutique to dive behind a nearby stall. Sirens screamed nearby.

“Stay down,” the stranger shouted. “Be ready to run when I tell you.” Then he took aim on the police officer’s hiding place and sprayed the area with bullets.

From his briefcase.

More screams. And Hawk went back down.

The sirens wailed louder.

But there was no movement from behind the stall.

The stranger didn’t stop firing. He pointed his briefcase toward a tree, unleashed another volley and brought a slender man with a ponytail crashing into the fountain.

Miranda cringed as the water turned red.

Her heart was beating so crazily she could barely breathe. And when the stranger faced her, she felt her eyes go wide with shock. He hardly resembled the man who’d brought her senses humming to life barely minutes before. Seduction no longer glimmered in his gaze. Those black pools were hard and dark and empty. The planes of his face were severe. Even the whiskers covering his jaw looked forbidding now. Dangerous. “Run!”

She did. Miranda shot to her feet and turned from the violent man who’d just mowed down her bodyguard, ran as fast as she could. The playful skirt tangled around her legs like vines, forcing her to grab a handful of fabric and yank it above her knees. She ran past a local vendor and down an alley, around the side of the building. She ran through muddy puddles and around trash bins. She ran until her sides hurt and her lungs protested.

Then she ran some more.

He was behind her, she knew. Running. And his legs were longer, stronger. She could hear him gaining on her, the pounding of heavy footsteps, the harsh edge to his breathing. She tried not to think about what would happen if he caught her, all the things he could do, but years of security lectures echoed insidiously through her mind. Small dark rooms. No windows, no light. Cold. Darkness. Blindfolds. No contact with the outside world. Favors for food. Bloodlust.

Comparatively, Hawk’s fate was a gift.

The truth spurred her on, the knowledge of what a critical mistake she’d made. She knew better than to trust strangers. She knew better than to let a stranger’s smile, no matter how seductive, lure her into lowering her guard.

But, God help her, here so far away from American soil and the media who hounded her family, she’d thought she could live a little without inviting disaster.

Wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

The man with the enigmatic eyes and seductive words had only been playing her, melting her guard by claiming he wanted a picture of her, then trying to lure her away. That’s when the shots had started. When he’d put a hand on her body, Hawk had broken from hiding and tried to fulfill his duties.

And now he was probably dead. Because of her.

The thought, the reality, chilled as badly as the knowledge the stranger was gaining on her.

“You can stop now, bella.”

The raspy voice tore through her as though he’d used his lethal briefcase and not his vocal chords. “Stay away from me!” she gasped, racing around a corner and into a narrow street. A car horn blared and brakes squealed, but she didn’t slow, not even when the driver shouted at her.

“Bella! It’s okay now.”

God, no. A cramp cut deep into her side, but she refused to let the pain deter her.

“Please,” he roared. Closer. Harder. “It’s not safe to be on the streets.”

Determination pushed her forward, when fatigue had her stumbling. She didn’t know where she was now, just knew she had to make it back to the embassy. The ruthless stranger had already killed.

She doubted he would hesitate to do so again.

“Help!” she shouted as she ran down a narrow alley. Laundry flapped in the breeze from second-story windows and dogs barked rambunctiously, but no one came to investigate the commotion.

Because they didn’t understand English.

Before, she’d liked knowing little of the Portuguese language, had reveled in the sense of anonymity. Now, her inability to communicate sent her heart hammering furiously against her ribs.

“Someone help me!”

“No, bella, no!” the stranger shouted, just as his hand clamped around her arm. She struggled against his grip, but he was too strong, and she couldn’t move.

“There’s a safe house not far from here,” he was saying, but she barely heard. Training kicked in, and in one fluid move she reached down to the strap around her ankle and came back up with her last line of defense. She’d never thought to need the hunting knife which once belonged to her maternal grandfather as anything more than a token to prove to her father she could take care of herself, but now…

She jutted the weapon toward the stranger. “Let go,” she said through clenched teeth.

Surprise registered in his dark eyes. “Bella—”

“You’re making a terrible mistake,” she warned, trying to twist her wrist free of his hand. Shallow breaths tore in and out of her. “Trust me when I say I’m not someone you want to mess with.”

“I know you’re scared,” he coaxed in a surprisingly gentle voice, “but you don’t need to be afraid of me. I’m not going to let anyone hurt you.”

She swallowed hard, fighting the lure of his words. Deception came in all shapes and sizes, she knew. Seduction made a perfect disguise. She looked at him standing there, the heat radiating from his body fighting with the chill in her blood. His black shirt was damp now, clinging to a powerful chest. In his hand, he still held his briefcase.

That was really a gun.

Cold fingers of certainty clawed at her. No matter how badly she wanted to believe him, the fear pounding through her refused to go away. He’d approached her with a hidden agenda. He’d been trying to coax her away with him, out of the public eye. He’d wanted her alone…like he had her now.

And somewhere by the ocean, Hawk lay bleeding, maybe dead.

The truth reverberated through the narrow alley as explosively as the gunfire in the marketplace. She’d always known life turned in a heartbeat, but nothing had prepared her for the abrupt transformation from seductive Casanova to machine-gun-toting commando. Nothing about him even looked the same here in this shadowy place. Everything was harder now. Darker.

“Lower your weapon,” the stranger warned. His gaze flicked to her fingers curled bloodlessly around the hilt of the knife. “Don’t make me force you.”

Because he would.

She didn’t stop to think any further. Knife in hand, she lunged.

The stranger swore hotly, dropping the briefcase and grabbing the blade before impact. Just as quickly he tossed the family heirloom to the ground and retrieved his briefcase.

Never once did his left hand leave her body.

“Are you out of your mind?” he growled incredulously.

She looked at the fingers closed around her wrist and realized she’d gravely underestimated him.

“What do you want with me?” she asked, not sure she really wanted to know, but determined to meet her fate with at least some modicum of dignity.

“I want to get you to safety.”

“You killed Hawk,” she accused in horror.

“I saved your life,” he corrected. “I almost took a bullet for you, damn it.”

There were worse things, Miranda knew, than death. “You shot at the police.”

His jaw tightened. “I shot at a known criminal, who just happened to be wearing a police uniform. He killed the man you call Hawk. If I wanted you dead, bella, you wouldn’t be standing here right now.”

There was a cool logic to the claim, but Miranda warned herself not to fall for his verbal skills once again. Her thoughts tumbled back to the scene by the ocean, the way Hawk had fallen that first time, then staggered to his knees. Shots had erupted only moments later. Which way had he fallen? she tried to remember. Toward the man in the police uniform, meaning the stranger had shot him? Or toward her, meaning—

“No,” she muttered. “No.”

For the first time since the shooting, the stranger’s face softened. His eyes didn’t look quite so ominous, and that mouth which had been a grim line returned to the almost sensuous fullness of before. Around her wrist, his fingers loosened.

“Look, bella,” he reasoned. “There’s nothing I can say that you’ll believe right now, but think about this. Someone who wanted to hurt you wouldn’t waste time coaxing. If that’s what I wanted, I’d have you over my shoulder and out of sight before you even realized I’d moved.”

Miranda cringed at the realization of how easy it would be for him to do just that. She could fight him—she would fight him—but kicking and thrashing would not overpower a man of hard muscle and brutal determination, a man who enjoyed a six-inch, hundred-pound advantage. A man who could shoot with a briefcase.

Toward her, she remembered abruptly. Hawk had fallen toward her. The shots that felled him had come from the opposite direction, not the tall man who looked at her through eyes burning like chips of black ice.

If I wanted you dead, you wouldn’t be standing here.

Her thoughts returned to those frenzied moments, but this time, she saw his actions through a different lens. When shots had sprayed the plaza, he’d shielded her with his body. When he’d told her to run, he’d covered her back. Even now, when she’d pulled a knife, he’d simply disarmed her, not using her weapon to teach her a lesson, as her father had warned an attacker would do.

Hawk had always chided her not to expect a kidnapper to politely ask permission. They would act first, consider damage later. Men who lived on the fringes of civility didn’t show restraint. This man did.

His actions almost seemed…protective.

“Look, I appreciate what you did back there,” she said, “but I’ve really got to go.” The rational side of her brain realized he was right; if he’d wanted to hurt her, he would have by now. But he held a briefcase that turned into a semiautomatic. That made him dangerous, her uneasy. “I need to contact the embassy in Lisbon.”

He frowned, but before he could speak, a nearby door flung open and a middle-aged woman with a baby on her hip stepped into the shadowy alley.

“Paulo?” she called, then continued speaking in Portuguese.

Miranda took advantage of the momentary distraction to break away and bolt down the alley. “I need your phone—”

She only made it two steps. “Bella, bella, bella,” the stranger murmured, taking her arm and drawing her against the hard planes of his body. His voice was drugging, his eyes liquid. “Mi dispiace,” he muttered, pressing the hand with the briefcase against her lower back.

“Stop it,” Miranda said, struggling against him. She had no idea what he said, but the Portuguese woman’s sappy smile seemed to approve.

“Anima mia,” he continued, leaning closer.

Anima mia she recognized. My love. She tried to push him away, but he simply released her wrist and slipped his hand up through her hair. He held her tightly now, securely against his hard body.

“Tu hai le labbra le piu morbide del mondo,” he whispered, gazing into her eyes. “Baciami.”

Her heart changed rhythms, from a frantic pounding to a frantic thrumming. Her limbs seemed to thicken. The world around her dimmed, blurred. She didn’t understand the words he spoke, but his glazed gaze gave away his intent. Miranda opened her mouth to protest, to somehow convince the smiling Portuguese woman that the man was playing her for a fool, but the words never had a chance to form.

The moment her lips parted, the stranger lowered his head and settled his mouth against hers.

Chapter 2

“Stop it,” Miranda struggled to say, but realized her mistake too late. In trying to speak, she moved her mouth against his, a sensuous rhythm that felt more like invitation than protest. Her body reacted instinctively, betraying her clear down to the tips of her toes. Her blood heated. Her bones went liquid. She tried to yank away, but her hand settled against his shoulder instead.

Shock, she told herself. That was all. Nothing more.

But then his hold on her shifted, tightened. She struggled against the arms that held her like steel bands, but instead of releasing her, he groaned, a sound that rasped from deep in his throat, one that sounded more of pain than pleasure.

“Dio,” he muttered against her parted lips. He tasted of desperation and brute strength, iron will and…coffee. His hands moved possessively against her back as he changed the angle of his kiss, all the while his mouth moving with relentless slowness, coaxing and promising, persuading.

Dizzy, off-balance, reeling, Miranda held herself completely still against the onslaught, resisting the temptation to play his dangerous game. She knew she should pull away. She told herself to pull away. Wipe the taste of him from her mouth. This man was a stranger. And he had a gun. But she was desperately afraid that if she moved, she’d be grabbing the damp cotton of his shirt and pulling him closer. Maybe it was leftover adrenaline or the stark realization that she could have been killed, but there was something blatantly masculine about the way he kissed her, and it sent her defenses into complete meltdown.

Swaying, she lifted a hand to steady herself, but found her fingertips skimming the stubble along his jaw instead.

And this time, the ragged cry came from her throat, not his.

He ripped his mouth from hers, staggered back almost violently.

Miranda groped for a nearby trash can and braced her hand against the cool metal lid. She struggled to breathe, to think, but could do little more than stare at the man who’d just kissed her with a gentle urgency that muddled her senses. His eyes were dark, but somehow managed to glitter. He stood alert, ready, as though face-to-face with one of Portugal’s famous apparitions. If she hadn’t known better, she would have sworn he didn’t know who she was or where she’d come from.

At the moment, she wasn’t sure she did, either.

“Dio,” he whispered again, shoving dark hair from his face.

The thrill streaking through her made absolutely no sense. She sucked in a jerky breath, tried to calm the surge of craziness, but her lungs had other ideas. Her pulse tripped along at an alarming rate. She felt like she’d just run a dead sprint, rather than shared a kiss with a stranger.

Who held a gun on her.

That thought jarred her out of the sensual haze and forced her to swing toward the woman with the baby. But she no longer stood in the alley, and her door was firmly closed.

Panic crawled up Miranda’s throat. The trembling started then, first deep inside, quickly racing to her extremities. She pivoted toward the stranger, only to find he’d recovered from their encounter. He looked taller than before, broader. She couldn’t see the alley beyond him, only the width of his shoulders and the solid wall of his chest. He watched her carefully, the mouth that had kissed her so gently now a hard line.

Unable to look away, not trusting her voice, she lifted an appallingly shaky hand to her mouth, only to find her lips moist and swollen.

“I know, bella, it surprised the hell out of me, too.”

For one of the few times in her life, words failed her. So did movement. Coherent thought. She should do something, she thought wildly. Tell him to go to hell. Slap him. Run from the man whose briefcase turned into a gun. She could, she knew. He’d finally released her. But her legs wouldn’t work. Nothing, it seemed, not Emily Post nor boarding school nor Secret Service training had adequately prepared her for the shock of this man’s mouth moving against hers, the reality of his body pressed to hers. The unmistakable evidence that he reacted to her as strongly as she reacted to him. The regret and desire warring brutally in his midnight gaze.

The completely misplaced blade of fascination.

“Who are you?” she whispered.

“I’m someone who’s trying to help you,” he answered vaguely, impatiently, and she realized she believed him. Then he reached for her. “Come on. We need to get out of here before anyone else sees us.”

She pulled back from his touch, but couldn’t stop staring at his hand. He held it outstretched, square palm up and callused fingers extended, exposing dried trickles of blood from where he’d grabbed the hunting knife instead of twisting her wrist. He hadn’t winced, hadn’t cursed, hadn’t given any outward sign of a pain she knew he had to have felt.

And he hadn’t made her suffer in return.

Confused, she looked up. She’d been seeking his eyes, but never made it past his jaw. His lips were slightly dry, a hint of her coral lipstick smeared against the olive skin at the corner of his mouth.

“If I didn’t know better, bella, I’d think you’ve never been kissed before.”

Squaring her shoulders, she met his eyes, those enigmatic pools of midnight, determined not to let this man who wouldn’t even disclose his identity see the absurd curiosity that had her wanting to push up and brush her mouth against his once again.

Nonchalance, she reminded herself. That was the Carrington way. Cool, calm, collected. Unaffected and untouchable. Meet adversity with a smile, and no one ever had to know you bled.

“I haven’t,” she said with a saccharine smile. “At least, not by somebody holding a briefcase that’s really an Uzi.”

God help her, he laughed. It was a deep sound, rich and amused. “It’s an MP5K submachine gun,” he said, stroking the weapon in question like a man would caress a beautiful woman. “Uzis are Israeli. This baby is German.”

A shiver ran through her, but she hid the reaction with a perfectly executed shrug. “Yes, well. Thank you for clarifying.”

“And you hardly left me a choice. I couldn’t let you tell that woman I’m some kind of monster.”

“If the shoe fits…”

A sound of pure male frustration broke from his throat. His English may have been accented, but American slang was no stranger to him. “Relax, bella. You can add kissing to my list of formidable crimes, if you like, but rest assured, there will be no repeat performances. I’m not here to get you naked.”