“Will the Ghost be at the meeting with Fuentes?”

“Yes, he’s going to make a rare appearance. Fuentes wants the transfer to happen in person. So my boss is committed.” The Ghost would be there, all right, but Fuentes wasn’t going to see it coming, and that gave Jammer great satisfaction.

“How about you let me go all the way on this deal? I’ll make it worth your while.”

“Gina, Fuentes is an animal and I don’t trust him at all. I think it would be best if you stayed out of it.”

“Jammer, come on. I could make some really good contacts and boost my business. You wouldn’t deny me that, would you? Look at all the help I’m giving you. If it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t have been able to fill Fuentes’s order.”

“That is true. I would have been royally fucked.”

“Right, and not in a good way.”

“Let me think about it.”

“I’m not a fragile piece of glass, you know. I can take care of myself in this business. Miyagi caught me off guard, but it won’t happen again.”

Jammer cupped her face and met her blue eyes. “That threat has been neutralized. I made sure of it. I will do anything for you, Gina, but have a care when it comes to Fuentes. He’s ruthless and heartless. He doesn’t have any concern for human life. He takes it without impunity.”

“Sounds like you have firsthand knowledge.”

Jammer let her go and turned away. “I do, and that’s not something I will discuss.”

This time she took his face in her hands. “Did you lose people close to you at the hands of Fuentes?”

The guilt twisted like a knife inside him, and he squeezed his eyes shut against the pain. He tried to pull away but she wouldn’t go. He sighed. “Don’t ask me any more questions about Fuentes. It’s time to check on dinner.”

He felt her gaze on him, but ignored her, capturing her around the waist and setting her on her feet.

He could sense the tension in the air around him, snapping with electricity. When she touched his arm, he jolted as if he had received a shock.

“I’m very, very sorry.”

“It was my fault,” he whispered, the anguish almost palpable.

Without another word, she followed him into the house.

The smell in the kitchen made his mouth water. There were only five minutes left on the timer, so he grabbed two plates, trying to let what had happened outside slide off him as he’d done in the past. He wished she hadn’t been there to witness his weak moment, but her sympathy had touched him in a place so deep he’d thought it was out of reach.

He placed rolls on each plate and quickly put together the ingredients for a salad.

When the timer went off he served the salad and then remembered the wine.

“Let me go down and get a bottle.”

“In the dungeon?” she said in a comical stage whisper.

He chuckled. “Yes, want to come with me?”

“Oh, most definitely.”

The stairs to the wine cellar were cut stone, as were the walls. At the bottom were rows and rows of wine, some of it his as well as other vintage bottles he’d picked up here and there.

In the corner sat an old-fashioned rack. A mock Scottish castle had to have a dungeon and the requisite torture device, even if it was nothing but a prop.

“Oh no, this looks…dangerous.”

“It’s for show, but it’s got restraints and it does work.”

“Have you ever used it on your victims?”

He laughed. “No,” he said, and slapped her on the ass. “But there’s a first time for everything.”

“Oooh, you could be the evil overlord and I’ll be your captured noblewoman who won’t sell you the land you covet. You have to torture me to get me to submit.”

“Hmm, that has potential. But I can think of better torture than stretching your joints until they feel like they’re going to pull apart.”

“I bet you can.”

“Come on, let’s get the wine. Our dinner’s cooling and I’m starving.”

Gina shot one more glance at the rack and followed him as he chose a white to compliment the crab.

Back upstairs, they went outside to enjoy their dinner. The conversation revolved around business and the ins and outs of gunrunning, including the many pitfalls of federal intervention.

When Gina went to pour more wine, the bottle was empty. They both went down to the cellar for another, but she got too close to Jammer at the bottom, brushing by him, inflaming him.

After her shower she had changed into a daisy-flowered miniskirt and a gauzy yellow top that showed a purple bra beneath.

Unable to help himself, he came up behind her and encircled her waist. Slipping his hands underneath the material, he said softly, in a perfect Scottish accent, “Milady, you will consent to sell me your land when I am through with you.”

Gina laughed softly and gasped as his hands cupped her breasts.

“You canna make me do something against my will. I will defy you at every turn.”

He kissed her neck, his mouth trailing up to the delicate shell of her ear, where he whispered, “You will agree to that and more.”

He started to undress her, and Gina pretended to fight him, turning to face him and pummeling his chest with her tiny fists. But he lifted her bodily and laid her on the rack, shackling her loosely.

Then he removed his clothing and walked over to get another bottle of wine, this time choosing champagne.

He returned to the rack and looked down at her. She might be the one constrained, but he was the one helpless. She was so fucking beautiful, exquisitely so, her agile, graceful body stretched out and completely under his power.

After trailing the neck of the bottle from her rapidly beating pulse point down to her high, firm breasts, he replaced the bottle with his own lips, quickly sucking each nipple into his mouth with a tug and a rake of his teeth, drawing a swift, hard gasp and an uncontrollable arch of her body.

“I want to sip you like this champagne.”

“Use me to quench whatever thirst you have,” she said, her gaze demanding he do his worst-or his best.

“I don’t know if anything will quench my thirst for you,” he admitted, and that would be true for the rest of his life-with or without her in it.

With the champagne still in his hand, he straddled her hips. Smiling with lascivious intent, he looked at the bottle, then down at her. “Let’s see if we can put this to good use.”

“Oh, if only you had the end of a mustache to twist, this would be perfect.”

He laughed out loud.

He opened the champagne, the cork popping loudly in the room.

“A good sound. Should be nice and bubbly,” she said.

He took a long pull of the clear, sweet wine, which got his taste buds tingling. Taking more into his mouth, he leaned down and kissed her, releasing the wine into her mouth for her to savor and swallow. He could taste the mingling of her luscious essence and the sweet nectar of the champagne, a heady aphrodisiac that made his whole body tense in sensual need. But he had other places to explore on her than her sumptuous lips.

He released her, but she wasn’t quite ready to let him go. The restraints of the rack stopped her from reaching for him, however. “Jammer,” she moaned feverishly.

“There are other things to taste,” he said softly, tipping the bottle up until the golden liquid splashed onto one cherry-sweet nipple. It budded immediately into a hard, mouthwatering peak and Gina cried out. The chilled liquid against her hot skin produced another strangled moan when he splashed the other turgid bud. The wine ran in rivulets off the globes of her breasts, slid sensuously down the taut line of her stomach and pooled in her belly button.

She shuddered more from the sensation, he was sure, than the temperature of the wine. “You’re getting me all wet!”

“Wet and wild for me.”

“Oh, yes. Oh, hell yes!”

“It’s great when a plan comes together.” Laughing softly, he dipped his head and hovered over her wet and tantalizing breast, blowing a burning-hot breath against her sensitized nipple. She rolled her body in sensual abandon, her hands pulling at the restraints. “You teasing bastard.”