If he hadn’t been looped out of his gourd, he would’ve been sharp enough to see someone rigging the amphitheater. He would’ve been able to stop the senseless murder of innocent civilians.
But that’s not what had happened, and he couldn’t change that—no matter how many hot showers he took.
Chapter 14
Scarlett had never seen Xander so broken down. Xander was the perennial smart-ass, the one who always had a joke or a flippant comment to share.
He didn’t lose hope or sink into despair.
Hell, Xander went high-flying into terrible odds with a wink and a robust huzzah!
She didn’t recognize the beaten-down man Xander was becoming. To even suggest turning himself in? That comment alone showed he wasn’t thinking clearly.
There was something vulnerable about Xander that she’d never seen before and it tugged at a secret, private place she didn’t like to give much light.
Her phone buzzed but she ignored it. She knew what she wanted to do and if she didn’t do it right now, she’d talk herself out of it. It was something they both needed right now.
Zak or Conrad could leave a message. Whatever they had to say could wait an hour.
Pulling her shirt free, she shimmied out of her jeans and walked naked into the steamy bathroom. She pushed aside the flimsy plastic shower curtain to find Xander in all his magnificent, scarred-up glory, hands braced against the wall, standing beneath the water.
She stepped into the shower and gently slid her hands up his back, pausing to trace each scar left behind from past injuries before pressing her lips to the raised skin.
Xander stilled at the touch of her lips, his body tensing.
Scarlett thrilled at the power bunching beneath his skin, reminding her of how easily this man could bend and twist her into a sexual pretzel.
“What are you doing?” he asked quietly.
“What we both need.”
Xander turned, shielding her from the spray. His gaze lit up with a hard light and an expression of need so stark it took her breath away. No man had ever looked at her the way Xander did—as if she were necessary for his very breath—and her knees threatened to buckle.
“Are you sure?” he asked.
In response, she rose on her toes and pulled him closer, brushing her lips across his, her tongue darting in invitation. He answered without hesitation, drawing her into the cove of his embrace, lifting her up and holding her against his body, his hands sliding down to grip her ass.
“God, Scarlett,” he groaned, their bodies fitting together like puzzle pieces. Their tongues twisted against one another as the heat in the shower intensified. Steam swirled around them as they kissed, and Scarlett was lost in the sensation of skin against skin until Xander pulled away, a look of worry crossing his features. “Are you sure about this? Why’d you change your mind?”
Scarlett chuckled. “Are you really going to look a gift horse in the mouth right now? Don’t worry. I want this.” To illustrate, she pulled his mouth back to hers and kissed him deeply while her free hand reached down to firmly clasp his hardened shaft. She thrilled at his sharp intake of breath when she tightened her grip as she warned in a silky tone, “If you’re getting cold feet, you should tell me now.”
“There’s nothing cold about my body right this second,” he growled against her mouth, “And yeah, this is happening.”
She sucked in a wild breath as he flipped her around, his hands coming up to fill his palms with her generous breasts, teasing her nipples with a soft touch for such a big hardened man.
She wanted to feel him inside her, to lose herself in the simple pleasure of being filled by a man who knew how to make a woman squirm.
Scarlett already knew from experience that Xander knew what he was doing and she was impatient to get on with it, even though shower sex wasn’t her favorite.
With Xander, that could change.
Xander paused long enough to direct the spray away from their bodies and then turned her around, gently pushing her against the wall and spreading her legs. She bit her bottom lip against the smile threatening to happen as he knelt down and buried his face between her thighs. Scarlett closed her eyes and gripped the shower curtain rod for support with one hand and the handicapped access rod with the other, lifting her leg to give him better access.
His tongue made a slow, sensual slide in the most intimate places and he followed it with his fingers, massaging and pressing in all the right spots. Her nipples pearled as her breath quickened and within moments, Xander had her shaking. Her knees weakened as a sweet orgasm washed over her, a nice primer for what would come later.
He rose and kissed her, swallowing his name on her breath as pleasure continued to shimmy through her body.
He shut the water off and they climbed from the shower, wrapping scratchy cheap towels around themselves as they fell onto the bed. “We’re going to leave a wet spot,” Scarlett warned with a playful smile.
“Hell, yes, we are,” he said, climbing her body to gaze into her eyes. She could lose herself in those incredible hazel eyes. There was an air of mystery that clung to Xander and reflected in his stare. Sometimes his eyes were green, other times a murky blue with mottled bits of brown flecks added to the mix. He was a beautiful, dangerous man and he turned her crank in ways no one ever had before, which made him the worst possible option in her love life.
But then that was her MO—find the worst guy in the bar and then screw his brains out because she wasn’t about forever, just for the night.
Except with Xander. God, she wanted more than a night, more than a few nights and that scared her.
But she wasn’t going to think of that right now.
Xander rolled her on top and she gladly straddled those hips, loving how his dark hair traveled from his bare chest and narrowed to a single trail leading to his groin. She also loved that he didn’t shave like some men. She preferred her lovers to be untamed, not manicured and trimmed like androgynous models.
Sinking onto his shaft, she closed her eyes on a groan as pleasure rippled through her. Scarlett took a greedy moment to thoroughly enjoy the sensation of being impaled on his solid length before she began grinding her hips, finding the rhythm that would send her into orbit for a second time.
Xander anchored his hands on her hips, guiding as he thrust against her motions, driving himself deeper with each movement.
She hated clichéd sayings but there was sexual poetry in the way their bodies fit together as if made for one another.
God, so dangerous. Everything about Xander was an exercise in total personal annihilation and it was exhilarating.
As she found her climax, she fell forward, shuddering and crying out, totally weak for a blessed moment.
But Xander hadn’t found his and quickly flipped her onto her stomach before driving himself back in, losing himself in hard, savage thrusts that sent her hurtling toward another release.
Gasping, almost begging for mercy, she rode the wave as her orgasm crashed all around her and she briefly lost all sense of time and reason.
A good orgasm was the cure to overthinking because it stalled all thought for a blessed heartbeat.
In that heartbeat, they weren’t on the run, breaking rules and heading toward certain death—they were just two people lost in the pleasure that two human beings could create with one another and it was heaven.
After a long moment, trying to catch her breath, she slowly roused herself to roll to her back, staring at the water-damaged ceiling, realizing that there was no way they could stuff the genie back in the bottle this time.
No way in hell.
And Xander knew it, too.
* * *
Xander tried to catch his breath as his heart hammered and his brain began to operate again.
He shouldn’t have caved.
It wasn’t
right.
But he’d wanted to feel Scarlett in his arms again; it was all he’d been able to think about since that first night but he’d known it wasn’t going to happen.
Before getting framed and going on the run, Xander would’ve happily enjoyed an illicit relationship with his TL but that was child’s play in comparison to the obstacles in their way now.
And what had changed? Scarlett had been pretty clear in her stand that she wasn’t going to sleep with him again.
Of course, her change of heart would have to happen on the same day that he felt like a total piece of lying shit.
“Why do I get the feeling you’re going all deep and philosophical on me?” Scarlett teased, looking like a beautiful, savage warrior goddess with her sex-mussed red hair and flushed cheeks. She rolled to her side and nudged his shoulder. “If I promise to respect you in the morning, will that make you feel better?”
He chuckled. “Only if you buy me breakfast, too.”
“So much for the rumor that you were a cheap date,” she grumbled but followed with a genuine smile. “The sex was fantastic, by the way. And you were totally right—I needed that.” She sighed happily and returned to her back, her near-perfect breasts inviting his mouth for some more playtime. “Sometimes I wish I understood why I’m such a stickler for the rules. Breaking the rules is so much more fun.”
“Yeah, until you find yourself on the run, holed up in a shitty motel, chasing down impossible leads that inevitably turn out to be nothing.”
Her smile faded and she sat up, grabbing her shirt to slip it over her head. “Something is going to shake out,” she assured him, concern wrinkling her brow. “You can’t lose faith.”
“Faith is something I’ve never had in my supply shed.”
“Well, you’d better find some because I can’t carry you the whole way,” she said.
“I don’t want you to carry me,” he said. “I didn’t want you to stay at all. If you were smart, you’d distance yourself from me now. Hell, you should’ve done that from the start.”
“Where’s this coming from? Where the hell did you go this afternoon? You came back different.”
He wanted to sink to his knees and confess every dirty little secret he was harboring in his dark heart, but he couldn’t do that and it was tearing him in two. God, when did he turn into such a coward?
Two tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, shot innumerable times during his tenure as a military man, and yet he’d never been more afraid than he was right now.
Wasn’t sex supposed to relax you?
He felt more tightly wound than ever.
“I’m just saying you should probably walk. I don’t want the responsibility of your screwed-up career because you chose to put your chips in with me. It’s looking like I’m a bad bet.”
“Jesus, Scott, I’ve never seen you so maudlin. Where’s the smart-ass genius that never plays by the rules but still gets shit done? I want that guy back. This guy is a poor imitation.”
Xander scooted from the bed and scooped up his jeans to slide them on. “What you see is what you get,” he said, shrugging. He was being an asshole and she didn’t deserve it, but he was dangerously close to spilling the beans and that wouldn’t help anyone. “Look, the sex was fun but I think you were right in the first place. We probably shouldn’t do that again. Messes with the natural order of things.”
“You’re a piece of work,” Scarlett muttered, swinging her legs over the bed and snatching her own jeans. “You really are a narcissist. I feel bad for any woman who’s had the misfortune of falling in love with you.”
“Don’t worry, honey. I don’t let them get close enough to let that happen.” He knew he ought to shut up but the drugs in his system had a hold of his mouth and he was on a self-destructive path. Besides, it was better for Scarlett to be free and clear of the shit storm that was coming for him. Truthfully, he didn’t want Scarlett to see him run down like a dog. He already knew he wouldn’t be taken into custody alive.
Maybe it was selfish of him but if he was going out, he wanted it to be on his own terms and he wouldn’t put that burden on Scarlett.
So, what he was doing was a mercy.
“Call Zak and arrange transport. I really don’t want you here anymore.”
“Screw you.”
“Look, I’m not trying to be a dick—”
“And yet, you’re so naturally good at it.”
“But this has made me realize that we’re spinning our wheels and this only ends one way. You still have a career to save, Scarlett. My story doesn’t have a pretty ending. You need to start thinking of saving yourself and stop worrying about me.”
“Where did you go?” she asked, stubbornly latching on to the detail he wanted to ignore. “You came back different and now you’re pushing me away.”
“C’mon, Scarlett, don’t make me be a total jerk. I’m trying to nicely tell you that you need to get the hell out of here because I don’t want you here anymore. You’re slowing me down. The answers I need aren’t here in Tulsa.”
“And where do you think the answers are?”
“Not here.” He held his ground. “And not with you.”
If his cutting remark hurt, she hid it well and he would have expected nothing less but he felt like crap for going this route.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t time for playing nice.
Scarlett shook her head. “Screw you, Xander,” she said, grabbing her purse and leaving, slamming the door behind her.
He sank down on the edge of the bed. The bittersweet smell of sex lingered in the musty room. It was the right decision he told himself when he was tempted to run after her.
But suddenly Scarlett was back and this time it wasn’t as his pissed-off lover—it was as his TL and she meant business.
“Get your stuff. The FBI is here.”
Chapter 15
She was pissed as hell—Xander’s thinly veiled rejection attempt was an obvious deflection—but she didn’t have the time to beat the truth out of him because the FBI had just pulled up.
It was sheer luck she’d seen them before they’d seen her. She’d have to find out later why Conrad hadn’t been able to warn her first.
“They’ll be at our door in less than three minutes,” she said, grabbing her bag just as Xander grabbed his. They were always prepped to leave at a moment’s notice, which came in handy when the law was on your tail.
“Can we make it to the car?”
“Negative.”
“Borrowing a car it is then,” he muttered, shouldering his bag. “Let’s go.”
They slipped out, went in the opposite direction of their rental and the agents beginning to make their way toward the room, quietly hot-wired a newer sedan and left the motel in the rearview mirror.
As soon as they hit the freeway, Xander said, “I can drop you off at a bus station.” Scarlett responded by punching him in the leg hard enough to cause a charley horse. He grunted but otherwise didn’t give away that her punch had to have hurt. “I’ll take that as a no.”
“You’re damn right it’s a no and since we’re on the road and I have a captive audience, your little act back at the motel was total bullshit and I didn’t buy any of it.”
Xander surprised her with silence.
“Look, whatever you’re hiding, I can deal with, okay? But I can’t deal with this lying, deflective crap. Are we clear?”
“Did it occur to you that I have a very good reason for being private about what I’m going through? Maybe I just don’t want to share and I’m having a hard time dealing with the fact that I’m likely going to eat shit on this situation because luck is definitely not on my side. Maybe I don’t want an audience to what is going to be the worst moment of my life.”
“Boo-freaking-hoo. Cry me a river. So you’ve had a bad hand dealt to you. That’s when you n
eed your friends the most and you don’t push them away, jackass.”
“Are you my friend, Scarlett?” he shot back. “Because I’m a little confused as to what we are.”
He had a point. They’d blurred lines and that was something that made for discomfiting times for people like Xander and Scarlett who appreciated the symmetry of rules and tradition. “I don’t know what we are,” she shot back truthfully. “But I know I’m not about to let you face this storm alone. I believe you’re innocent and I’m going to fight alongside you until we prove it.”
“That’s just it, Scarlett, what if we can’t prove it? The end result will be the same, except, it’ll be two careers instead of one being trashed.”
She refused to listen to his reasons, even if they were semi-valid. If she dug too deep into her motivation, she might find something scarier than the threat of a federal prison sentence.
For now, she was content with her mission objective—prove Xander’s innocence and leave it at that.
“One crisis at a time,” she said, bolstering her own argument. “Don’t go accepting defeat before we’ve exhausted all options.”
“That’s just it. We have.”
“No, we haven’t. We need to find out who McQuarry was sleeping with on the side. Once we find out who he was banging—and who Williams was protecting—I think our luck will turn.”
“Oh, that’s all we need? Why didn’t you say so in the beginning?” Xander said with a derisive chuckle. “And here I thought it was going to be something difficult to find.”
“Damn it, Xander, are you going to be a giant wet blanket or are you going to actually use that brain of yours and think of solutions? I’ve never seen you act like such a whiny baby. Remind me to never call you if I’m ever on the run from the FBI.”
That actually made him laugh and his laughter broke the tension between them.
Soldier for Hire Page 13