Jake searched for a distraction before he lost it, which was happening too often lately. He quickly flipped on the radio on and found the late news broadcast. A bunch of annoying stories flitted by without anything more than a raised eyebrow from Jake. The world was going to hell in a handbasket. What else was new?
“Officials have confirmed that an incident at the American embassy this afternoon was a training exercise by Homeland Security,” the broadcaster announced suddenly.
Jake laughed. “They blame everything on them.”
Aisha straightened up in her seat and tilted her head inquisitively. His dick twitched in anticipation of that three-letter word he knew would cross her beautiful lips.
“Why?”
“That’s why they were created. Bunch of fucking misfits.” He grinned, shaking his head.
After a long pause, her mouth formed to ask something else, but nothing came out. He was starting to have a love-hate relationship with her incessant inquiry.
“Spit it out,” he demanded.
“Why did you leave?”
“That isn’t a simple question to answer…”
He gazed out on the snowstorm before him. He never confided in anyone. He was a vault most of the time. Or he used to be, before everything fell apart on his last tour in the Sahel. Then thirteen years in the SEALs finally caught up to him.
But he could see that Aisha was very interested in reading him. Most women didn’t have the patience to do it, but something about her made him want to confide… her curiosity seemed grounded in genuine interest and concern.
He flipped the car’s windshield wipers into high gear. And when he looked to the passenger seat, her eyes were as bright as two moons, blinking back at him.
Something hit him hard.
He couldn’t lie to himself anymore about this thing he had for her. Despite the fact that he wanted to stay away, he couldn’t. He just couldn’t. And he was doing everything in his power not to let her see any of that.
It was pure attraction, he had once assured himself. Any idiot would feel that way with a siren like her. She was hot as fuck, and he didn’t deny that the whole innocent thing was killing him. She didn’t strike him as an experienced woman, and he would absolutely love to show her around a man’s body—showing her how he could make her come harder than her wildest dreams. He couldn’t help himself.
Gripping the wheel harder as the tires struggled to hang on in the increasing density of snow, Jake shook his head to clear it. The only thing that saved him from it all was her sweet voice to his right.
“Do you usually find yourself drifting in and out of conversations?”
“I guess my answer should be yes,” he began, feeling uncomfortable about his admission and even more uncomfortable about the driving conditions outside.
“Yes,” she replied, seemingly unaware of how much the car was slipping on the road. At least she was smiling a bit. Anything to have a moment of normalcy in an otherwise terrifying situation for her. And for him too, he guessed. His life was also on the line. But he shrugged that off.
“I tend to…” he began, trying to stay in the moment. “I tend to disconnect.”
She nodded her head, patiently waiting for him to elaborate.
And so he did. It felt oddly good to unload, and it was easier while focusing on the dark road. He didn’t have two big bright eyes looking back at him, stumping him, distracting him… transfixing him… tempting him.
“Sometimes when I was on an operation, toward the end of my service, I found myself dissociating from what was happening in front of me.”
“What is that?” she asked.
“A condition,” he managed to say, surprising himself by admitting it to her. Christ. Why had he opened his big mouth?
“Okay,” she said. “That’s okay.”
Her no-big-deal reply garnered some relief. Her acceptance felt good… like he was a regular person. He hated to admit it, but had been a long time since anyone had shown that level of care for him.
“My doc thinks it’s my brain’s coping mechanism,” he said, focused on keeping the car on the road.
“Because of what you’ve done?” she asked lightly.
“More because of what I’ve seen.”
He could feel her disbelief. Or maybe it was just his own. “Fine. And because of what I’ve done.” He felt relief in his brutal honesty.
“And what was that?” she said quickly.
“Many, many unpleasant things. Nothing that I care to rehash.” His tone became short. He turned onto a snowy road that followed a lake, and her eyebrows rose at the unexpected turnoff. They sure as hell were nowhere closer to any airport.
“Okay. I don’t want to pry.”
“Then don’t,” he answered curtly.
He saw her eyebrows shoot together briefly, and heard her scoff quietly at his orders for the first time. She didn’t like his tone. He didn’t blame her. But he was an asshole. What could he say?
He exhaled, looking over the dash into the bleak snowstorm in front of him. It was cold as hell, and he couldn’t see much in the remote area. “Just get some sleep. I’ll wake you up when we are there,” Jake said, knowing full well that there wasn’t the destination that she expected.
This time, she nodded obediently and leaned back in the seat, and before long, Jake heard the distinct sounds of a person asleep. Some time passed, and he flipped off the radio. It was grating on him.
Jake didn’t have a lot of information about the enemy, but he knew that in order to be safe, he and Aisha had to become unpredictable. So his tactical plan had shifted—he wasn’t going to take her to the airport. There was no way the jet would get anywhere near the landing strip with the weather, and they’d never make it through the storm unscathed with the amount of snow accumulation on the roads.
Aisha wasn’t dressed for an outdoor adventure, especially an overnight one. But he had little choice.
The embassy scene had been a little too cute to be natural. There was no way her father would allow her to even get close to an embassy, no way her boyfriend would dump and run if he really gave a shit, and it was even less likelihood there’d be a small military contingent waiting to gun her down as she escaped by car. It was like her father had expected every move and completely outplayed her.
It was a fucking setup. He felt it. He knew it. And he had to protect her from all of it. She couldn’t know how deep the rabbit hole went.
Jake didn’t know who or what, but there was a leak.
He’d seen corruption at that level during his final years in Development Group. He’d seen what happened when you had powerful enemies in high places. His old troop commander stopped at nothing to win.
That was exactly why Jake had decided back at the cabin to take them completely off the grid. He left everything electronic at the embassy. They had no phones, no GPS. Only an old Shelby that was pure mechanical muscle, and a bunch of supplies that Jake kept close.
Tonight, Jake was going to show the princess how SEALs made camp in the bush… while steadily trying to avoid thinking about hers. He was sure it was damn nice. He’d like to taste it. Touch it. Run his fingers through it. Or demand she touch it herself while he watched. He’d love to bend her over, hold her hands so tight that she couldn’t move, and then do whatever he wanted to her.
The fantasies poured out, uncontrolled, as the car inched down a narrowing, snowy road that led to a small clearing not too far from the edge of a lake.
He reminded himself that she was vulnerable and his ward. He might be a bad dude, but he wasn’t bad enough to take advantage of a woman who was depending on him. So he sealed away the fantasies and focused on making camp. Focused on working. Focused on keeping her anxieties low and her chances of survival high. Focused on anything else but fucking her in a tent by the lake.
Unfortunately, his cock throbbed too hard to listen, and he knew he was fucked.
9
Aisha woke with a start as the roari
ng car engine turned off, and Jake moved quickly out of the car into deep snow. She realized that she was surrounded by wilderness yet again. Wherever they were, it was not the airport.
She shot up in her seat, anxiety rising again. Was something wrong?
Jake’s hulking frame, dusted in snow already, stalked around the perimeter of the vehicle. Once, twice, three times around—and then he came to her door and opened it.
“What are you doing?” She blinked up at him with a frown.
“Stay in here,” he grunted, and motioned for her to relax.
She shook her head, looking around the snowy clearing in between tall, old trees.
“I don’t see an airport.” She motioned her hands in disbelief. “Jake?”
He hunched over the door, breathing heavily down at her. She leaned back in her seat, taken aback. Where had the calm and focused Jake gone? This Jake looked like a heated predator, foaming at the mouth.
“Just stay here,” he said again, his eyes intense.
Her lips parted slightly. She was unable to process what had changed between them—and what was wrong.
Jake slammed the door shut and skulked about the vehicle, pulling something out of the trunk. Something long and black, from what she could see in the side-door mirror. It was a bag. God, oh god. It was a body bag. Aisha’s lungs felt ready to collapse.
What the fuck is he doing?
That same hazy, threatened feeling encroached on her throat, making it harder to breathe. With the heat in the car turned off, her ragged breath was easily visible in the dark interior.
God, god, god, she thought feverishly. She was so naïve. She shouldn’t trust anyone. This is what she got for leaning on someone. He was going to get rid of her!
Jake, ankle deep in snow, slung the bag on his back and found a spot in the clearing underneath the barren canopy of a tree. With a shovel that he had to hand, he began digging into the snow, and she found her eyes involuntarily closing.
He was going to kill her—and bury her.
But why?
Deadweight.
Tears sprang to her eyes again. She was nothing but a useless piece of flesh. She couldn’t help herself, and no one could help her. She was as hopeless as she was helpless. Why even try?
But before her pity party could spiral further, the door whipped open again. Jake’s mouth closed up when he found her deep in a sob, but he pretended like nothing was the matter.
“Follow me.” His moved quickly away from the door. He didn’t help her get out. He didn’t look back at her. He just walked away.
She stepped out slowly, relenting to her fate on shaking legs, her body aching from all the stress and exhaustion. This was it. Her final moment. Why did she follow? She was told to. She had to.
Silently, he led her toward a small black… structure? Of some sort. Where the bag had once been.
It wasn’t a shallow grave. It wasn’t a body bag.
Aisha took a deep breath and closed her eyes, feeling cortisol high in her nose and forehead. Jake was not going to kill her. Nonetheless, something had changed between them, and things were much less comfortable.
He hammered a peg into the ground where he’d dug a hole. “We’ll stay off the grid for the night and head to the airport tomorrow,” he said curtly. “It will add a layer of confusion to whoever is tracking you.”
What? When had the plan changed?
He nodded to the black structure, and she realized it had a door. He continued looking through the bag, pulling out items, and bringing them into the door.
She shifted uncomfortably and wrapped her arms around her in the dark, cold night. The winter forest swayed with wind, and the scent of fresh snow invaded her nostrils. It was beautiful, and it was scary.
“Jake.” Her voice was small and shaking as she tried to express the hurt she felt. Why hadn’t he discussed this with her? When had she become just a passenger in her own defection?
But the man carried on, in complete control of the situation. In complete control of her.
Without so much as looking at her, he moved forward with his briefing, “I’ve checked out the area, and aside from some small animals, we are completely alone for several miles. I’ll handle this—you can just go in and get some rest.”
“Jake, please,” she started, feeling pushed away.
Shrugging her off, Jake moved around the structure and nodded back at her. “Just get in. I’ll get a heater in there shortly.”
“In where?”
“In the tent!” He whipped around, his eyes indignant.
And that’s when she felt it. He was infuriated with her. She had deeply inconvenienced him. He didn’t even know why he was helping her. He didn’t want to help her.
She couldn’t even help herself.
Aisha looked at the small black structure that he called a tent. She fought through her dreamlike state to recall what Westerners did in the outdoors. Camping? For leisure? Words she recognized—but not things that were done in Yoman. Did they camp in France? She’d learned a lot about Western cultural activities during her studies and had even partaken in some, but tents were not part of it.
She touched the fabric of the tent with ice-cold fingers. She couldn’t feel anything. It was unbelievably cold. She’d never felt cold like Canadian cold before. Not in France, not in a midnight desert.
Jake looked back up at her. “Get in. You are going to freeze. I’ll be in soon.”
Her lips parted.
“What? Are you scared to be all alone with me?” He scoffed before heading into the tent door again. “I’m not that wicked.”
He was sending her a message: don’t come close. Don’t lean on me. Something had changed within him, and he was far, far away from her. Embarrassed by her tears and anxiety, embarrassed by his assurances and caresses, she shivered in the chill, unsure what to say. Unable to even think of fighting back.
But if he had changed, she had to as well.
“I never said you were wicked.” She slurred the words through a frozen mouth as he clambered out of the tent once again.
“Have you ever been camping, princess?” he snapped back. His tone was pure ice, and was back to calling her princess, putting even more distance between them. He leaned forward and unzipped the tent all the way. “Your palace awaits.”
“Jake,” she whispered, shaken and hurt. But she clenched her jaw and stepped through the tent door. She was tired. Hungry. Lonely. Scared. And there was little she could do about it. Jake was all that stood between her and death. The reminder that she needed him—and wanted him—was unwelcome, and she shoved it away.
Inside, her breath caught in her throat. In a short few minutes, Jake had managed to set up a cozy and inviting environment. A mat for two people ran the entire length and width of the tent, leaving a few inches at the base for their shoes and a small heater. A warm orange lantern hung from the middle of the tent, illuminating the cozy wool and fleece blankets below.
Ducking down, she kicked off her borrowed shoes at the door and found her way to a mat.
“Time for some much needed sleep,” Jake commanded.
As she reluctantly lay down, she turned and saw apprehension slowly creeping across his face. They locked eyes for a minute, neither knowing what to say.
“Lights out,” he ordered. He turned off the amber lantern without consulting her.
He hunkered down, his hunched form a fortress that she could not break into. He left her feeling isolated, cold, and alone. She wondered what a strong woman would do with a man like that. Protest? Be direct? She didn’t know. She’d never know.
Aisha’s eyes slowly adjusted to the dark, and what was once black became shades of grey. She had begun to tremble, and not just from cold. She reminded herself that she didn’t want him to tell her what to do. Not in the car. Not outside. Not in the tent. Not in bed. It wasn’t attractive or arousing, she told herself, to hear his deep voice ordering her around—like he was her brooding master and she was hi
s pet. Like it was natural for her—like she wanted to be commanded by him. Like she wanted to submit to him.
Like she loved how it made her feel.
With the fantasy of him looming over her, determined and hungry, her lips parted and she exhaled, not realizing she’d moaned out in lust.
Jake let out a frustrated growl, lying on his back beside her in the small tent.
Her attention snapped to him as he rubbed his big calloused hands over his dark stubble, like he was trying to wake himself up.
“Fuck,” he snapped.
“What?” Her tummy flipped in anxiety. “What’s wrong?”
He just covered his face with his massive, muscular hands. “Don’t make noises like that.”
“Like what?”
“Orgasm noises,” he choked out. “Just stop. Don’t moan or gasp or any fucking thing. Silence from now on.”
His tone only drove the hurt deeper in her chest. Why was he pushing her away?
“I don’t know what you mean,” she gasped.
He groaned louder. “Fucking silence!”
Aisha flipped the blanket up over her shoulder, confused, and settled into her bed. She wished she could just snap her fingers and fall asleep. But she couldn’t. No matter how tired she was. Because of him.
Lying in that small space beside him, an awareness filled her.
“Jake—” she breathed, not meaning to sound as seductive as she did.
The body had funny ways of accomplishing what the mind refused to.
He flipped onto his side faster than she could blink, and grabbed her jaw, turning her face to his. She blinked. His eyes trailed up and down her face, and then down her neck to where she clutched the blanket across her chest. He reached over and tugged it out of her grasp, pulling it down slowly, drinking in the shadowy shape of her body underneath.
Through the darkness, his deep, sexy voice commanded her again. “Don’t make this harder for me than it already is.”
As she lay frozen and stiff before him, he licked his lips, watched her breasts rise and fall, and then dragged his gaze to her lips and eyes. Heavy breathing was the only thing that could be heard in the tent. It was the sound of frustration: powerful, heated. Aroused.
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