The Hunter

by Gennita Low

  “Hmmm. I knew there was something about you. I guess I can teach you to cook.”

  That was his girl. Always had to compete. Hawk grinned. “Deal,” he said.

  Lily put away her cell phone. “That was my contact telling me that he’s waiting for Amber and Hawk,” she said. “He’ll call me again when they cross the border.”

  “Good,” Brad said as he poured himself a glass of wine. “What would you like to drink?”

  “The same thing,” Lily replied. It would help relax her.

  “To Amber and Hawk,” Brad said, holding up his glass for a toast.

  “To us,” Lily said, smiling.

  Brad studied her for a moment, his eyes searching. “This teasing has to stop eventually, Llallana.”

  “Eventually,” she agreed, and finished her wine in one gulp. “I want more.”

  “More…wine?”

  “More…everything. Call me Lily, Brad.”

  He carefully put down the glass. “What are you doing, Llallana?”

  She didn’t want to tell him that he’d won. That she yearned to feel something besides hatred and fear one more time in her life. That she was tempted to give in to this need for him. She knew that if she went through with this, she would hate herself in the morning, but she wanted him and couldn’t deny it any longer. For once in her life, she wanted a man to satisfy her.

  “I’m not teasing any longer, Brad,” she said softly. To prove that she wasn’t, she undid the zip at the side of her silk top and slowly pulled the blouse loose. “We have to kill some time, let Amber and Hawk get out of town. Why not spend this time doing what the men outside think we’re doing?”

  She walked to him and started to unbutton his shirt. He didn’t stop her, his eyes, full of questions, searching hers. She felt excitement surging through her as his shirt parted. She laid her cheek on his bare chest, listening to his heartbeat.

  This was the easy part. She was in total control, just the way she liked it. “We’re going to finish what we started the other night,” she told him. “I promise.”

  “We don’t have to do anything you don’t want…Lily.”

  “I want…this.” She ran her hand down his chest toward the waistband of his pants. “I want this.” She unhooked the belt and pulled on the zipper. “I want this.” She put her hand inside and grasped his hard arousal. It pulsed with heat. “Inside me.”

  Brad let out a soft groan as she stroked his penis. He abruptly took her hand and pulled it out of his pants, then turned, taking her along with him. She assumed they were heading for his bedroom. Her feet suddenly felt weak. She was really going to do this.

  Lily didn’t even have time to register what his room looked like. He had her on her back, on his bed, and started kissing her face and her neck. She gasped when his mouth covered her nipple, sucking and licking it. His hand reached between her legs and she felt his fingers rubbing her through her panties. She almost choked from the shock. How could she be so near to coming from just that? She fought for control. No.

  “Not yet,” she said. “Slowly, Brad.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said, moving up and kissing her lips. “I can’t think straight when you’re around me. When you took off your blouse just now, I think I about lost it. I’m going to make this good, Lily. I promise you.”

  She was dying from forcing herself not to move. He let her take her clothes off, heard his compliments through the buzz in her head, and watched as he removed his. He was so handsome. So big. She stared at his arousal. He climbed on top of her.

  She wanted to be on top. She always wanted to be on top. Not this time. She could do this. She opened her legs. “Come inside,” she invited, and forced a smile, even though she was fighting the growing fear. She was screaming inside. No, no, no.

  “Not yet,” he said, and his smile was so beautiful. His hand reached down again and he intimately explored her. “Slowly, Lily. I want you to feel very good. You’re so wet now, baby. I want you to lose yourself like I’m going to lose myself in you.”

  Lily shut her eyes tightly. She didn’t want to lose herself. She always had them come in her and lose themselves as she rode them. They were the ones out of it; she was the one using them. Except that she hadn’t felt the same sharp pleasure that Brad was giving her now. It was the same building pressure from the other night, the one that took all her control to stop.

  She was so close. She held her breath, fighting the need to pull his hand away. A sob escaped her lips.

  “Yes, baby, so close.”

  She felt him slide down and gasped at the first feel of his tongue where his hand had been. He pleasured her with rhythmic strokes, strong and hard, his sure fingers opening her folds wide for his tongue. She was melting, losing all thought. She fought it even as she felt herself getting wetter and closer.

  No! She couldn’t be this easy to conquer, could she? She chased after that elusive tension mounting inside her even as she fought to let go. His fingers joined his tongue. She sobbed harder. She couldn’t lose control.

  His weight came back on her and she wrapped her legs eagerly around him. This she could do. She would make him come inside her, and she would watch him. Instead of plunging into her, he rubbed himself against her clitoris, over and over, until she felt her legs falling onto the bed as she helplessly squirmed.

  And then, suddenly, he was inside her, filling her. She was so wet that he went all the way in, stretching her to the point of no return. And still she fought not to let go.

  “It feels so good to be inside you,” Brad whispered into her ear. “I want you to come with me, Lily.”

  His strokes were long and hard. She heard his breathing as he neared his climax. She gritted her teeth and clenched her insides so that he would come sooner. A few more strokes. He would be a useless soft pile of nothing in a few more…She gasped as he changed angle, jerking upward in swift, hard thrusts. He reached down and opened her again, his knuckles slithering over her most vulnerable spot. He thrust harder. His knuckles slid in time.

  Lily tried to raise her legs. If she wrapped them around his waist, she could control his…Brad sat up on his haunches and plunged deep. The first wave of her orgasm hit her.

  No. She tried to stop it. She felt him pulling out slowly. Felt the long, slow stroke of him filling her all the way. The tightness started to uncoil. No! His finger pulled at her clitoris and her whole body quivered as everything unwound inside her. She had no control left. The pleasure was unbelievable, almost painful, every wave taking away all her fight. She heard Brad give a moan and felt him shuddering as he fell on top of her body. He was right. She was lost in him and she was falling apart. She hated herself for losing control.

  Afterward, Lily stared up at the ceiling in the dark, listening to Brad’s breathing. They both fell asleep afterward. He held her close, one hand covering her breast. She had to get up soon. Find her pants. Get the hypodermic needle.

  For some reason, after so many years, she had wanted to feel an orgasm with a man. So tonight she had done it successfully. It had felt wonderful and wrong. Brad had made her lose control and now she truly hated him. He deserved the needle.

  Her cell phone’s muffled ringing came from somewhere near the foot of the bed. Brad stirred. “Shhh,” Lily said. “I’ll get it.”

  They rested till dawn broke over the mountains, then resumed their climb down the mountain pass. It had been a while since Amber had hiked like this. She had grown up doing this with her parents, going from small village to small village, some of which were reachable only on foot. She had learned to appreciate the local culture of each country and to use the resources to make traveling easier. It wasn’t the first time she had to walk like this in the dark. There were times in Africa when her parents and she had to run off with many other villagers from advancing militia.

  She looked at Hawk. She didn’t care whether he was a SEAL or not. The man was injured and any kind of strenuous exercise had to aggravate those bruised ribs and Lor
d knew what else. His breathing still didn’t sound right, although it didn’t seem to stop him as he kept a pace that would down most ordinary men.

  But she was fast learning that Hawk McMillan wasn’t an ordinary man. She had always admired that well-sculpted body, thinking that he must work out a lot. As a SEAL, she now knew, he had undergone training in conditions that would test his spirit and endurance. She had seen television shows on SEAL training in which young men were deprived of sleep and made to train in extreme conditions in the ocean.

  Sailors, she corrected herself. She looked up at Hawk climbing above her. She recalled the way he had tested her, the sure way he had learned the city alleys. How could she not have noticed how calm he had been in the middle of a battle? Her lips twisted when she remembered how she had teased him, saying he was probably hiding in a bush. She suspected now that he had been doing a lot more. That sailor body had been sculpted to be a fighting machine. How strange that she, who had thought she would never meet someone who would understand her way of life, would meet a man like him.

  Hawk looked down. “What’s the matter? Are you tired?”

  “I’m fine. Do you need to stop for a rest?” She grinned at his snort. He didn’t even bother to answer her. “You keep forging ahead like you know where you’re going.”

  “I wanted to make sure there’s nothing over this ridge, that’s all. You’re back to point man once you get up here.”

  She grinned up at him and resumed her climb. He had been teaching her all these military terms as they hiked through the night. “Point man” was the one walking point, looking for wires and bombs as he led the way.

  “I kind of like checking out your cute ass from behind,” she told him.

  Hawk frowned down as he offered a helping hand to pull her up. “That’s not very professional,” he said. “You’re supposed to be looking around you to make sure we don’t come under attack.”

  She had been doing that, but she wished he hadn’t taken off his jacket. His soaked T-shirt molded his pumped body like a second skin and it was distracting. She had better change the subject before she showed him how unprofessional she could get.

  “There’s a farm a short way from here,” she told him. “We’ll try to hitch a ride. That will give us more rest time.”

  “Won’t the farmer think it odd to have two strangers drop in like that?”

  She shook her head. “No, this area is full of foreigners, refugees, and aid workers. During the height of the war, refugees were pouring in from Kosovo and Macedonia, so strangers are nothing new to the locals around here. It’s the Albanian authorities we have to worry about. We’ll tell the farmer we’re heading for Tirana. It’s one of the oldest cities, with famous castles, and we can have them drop us near there. And if nothing else, money talks around here.”

  “Tirana. That’s one of the cities near the weapons.”

  Amber nodded. “It’s roughly fifty kilometers between Tirana and Elbasan. Let’s hope your coordinates are correct, because that’s a lot of area to go looking for a hidden cache.”

  “Jed told me that they had all the coordinates for the UAVs as they flew over the various drop points. The problem from his end was to distinguish between regular food aid and weapons that are being illegally smuggled into the theater.”

  Amber coughed. “Umm…UAV? Theater?” He had definitely reverted to military mode, with all this talk. “Can we talk English?”

  His lips quirked. “Unmanned Aerial Vehicle. “Theater” means the battle zone.”

  She chuckled quietly. “You guys. How about stopping for some TQL from the WHD?” She pointed to their pack. “You know, thirst-quenching liquid. Water-holding device?”

  Hawk pulled her close to give her a quick kiss, his stubble rubbing her face. “ILY,” he said quietly into her ear.

  She looked up at him, the morning sun just breaking into a tiny red streak in the sky. Standing on a mountain. Heaven above and mere men below. Her parents would certainly approve. She smiled joyously.

  “ILY, too,” she said, and it felt so right.

  Everything seemed to fall according to plan after that. They didn’t see any border authorities or roaming mercenaries. The farmhouse. A curious but helpful farmer and his family. American dollars bought them some breakfast, the use of the facilities, a new change of shirts and some straw hats, and a ride toward Tirana. They took turns napping as they sat in the back of the little truck, bouncing uncomfortably, though still it was, Amber noted with satisfaction, much better than spending the next two days hoofing it. It was a risk, but time wasn’t on their side anymore. Dilaver had transportation, and sooner or later he would catch up.

  She watched Hawk give the farmer another tip when he dropped them off, frowning as she noticed Hawk limping. “How’re the ribs holding up?” Like he was going to tell her truth. “I know, I know, you’re a SEAL, blah, blah, blah, but you’re a limping SEAL right now.”

  Hawk surveyed the dusty path. “We have to get off the main road, if you can call this one. Do we go to the left or the right of it?”

  He had changed the subject, so he was in pain. Amber frowned. His eyes were a little red and there were lines bracketing his mouth. She probably looked just as rough, but she didn’t have to deal with bruised ribs. They probably had another ten kilometers to cover and then they still had to conduct a search of the area. “Hawk?” she prompted.

  “I’ll make it, sweetheart,” he said. “The thing is to keep moving. It’s the resting that’s killing me.”

  She stared at him for a moment, then shook her head. “Is that what they teach you in SEAL school?” she asked incredulously.

  He grinned. “We have a saying. The only hard day is yesterday, baby. Come on, I’ll race you.”

  To prove his point, he took off running. Amber stared after him. “I’m in love with a madman,” she muttered.

  The morning sun broke through the canopy of trees, dappling the path with speckled patterns. They made their way through the woods, then a clearing, and then another patch of rocky woods.

  “According to the coordinates, the drop zone should be east of here,” Amber said. “I need a quick break before we get out into the open again.”

  “All right. I’ll stand guard right here.” Hawk looked around. “Don’t go too far. There might be ugly bears or something.”

  “There aren’t any bears in Albania,” she said. “Are there?”

  Hawk nodded solemnly. “Albanian bears are noted for their stench.”

  Amber glared at him over her shoulder before disappearing behind a clump of shrubs. He was such a tease sometimes. Looking around, she relieved herself quickly in a shady area. As she readjusted her clothing, the sound of crushed twigs behind her gave her warning that she was no longer alone. She turned and ducked at the same time, lunging forward and using her weight as an element of surprise.

  She knew Hawk had been setting her up with that stupid bear story. Her “assailant” toppled onto his back with a grunt. She climbed astride, careful to avoid the rib cage. Leaning forward, she gripped his hips with her thighs. Strong hands came up to hold her waist.

  “Ha! What do you think of th—You’re not Hawk!” She sat up, too startled to attack. But she could have sworn it was—

  “No, ma’am,” the stranger said, amusement in his voice.

  “What the hell are you doing, straddling my husband?” a woman’s voice cut in.

  Amber had barely registered the similarity between the stranger and Hawk before the woman charged at her. No time to think. Rolling off, she kicked out at the new assailant.

  “Hawk!” she called out.

  22

  Hawk heard the thumps first, then the voices. He limped over to the clump of vegetation that screened his view. He was in no hurry. He had known for some time that they were being watched.

  Pushing through a leafy shrub, he came upon a sight that brought a grin to his lips. Hell, who would have thunk it? He approached the man standing nearby.
The man didn’t turn. Both of them watched the two women going at it for a few seconds.

  “Mine’s going to win for sure,” the man said.

  “Sorry, Kisser. I have the winner. Why do you think I let you attack her? I knew she could take you down.”

  They finally exchanged glances. The other man looked him up and down.

  “Sorry, cuz,” he drawled. “She had other things on her mind when she jumped me. That’s why Lena is a bit…ah…mad. Your companion was overly enthusiastic about straddling me.”

  Hawk narrowed his eyes. Amber on top of Steve, he could take. Amber being amorous with him was a different matter altogether. “Did she tongue you?” he asked, remembering a certain incident when Marlena, Steve’s wife, had mistaken Hawk for Steve and had been rather amorous herself.

  “She was about to,” Steve said, a corner of his mouth lifting.

  Marlena must have stopped her just in time. Good thing. Steve would have gotten revenge, even at the risk of being beaten up by both his wife and cousin. Hawk’s grin widened. “Well, then, I still win,” he mocked. “M. will never let you near Amber now.”

  A small branch flew over Steve’s shoulder. “That’s the way to do it, babe,” he called out approvingly. “Ohhh. Nice move there. Trust you to end up with a woman in the middle of the woods, Hawk.”

  “She’s my guide,” Hawk said. Among other things.

  Steve glanced at him briefly. “Since when have guides in Albania lost their bad breath and facial hair? Did she do that number on your pretty face, by the way?”

  Hawk grinned. “Why, you afraid my woman’s gonna do the same to your wife?”

  Steve gave a snort and looked back at the two fighting women. “Lena will kick my ass if I jump in there and stop her in the middle of a cat fight. Your woman, huh?”

  Hawk crossed his arms and leaned back against a tree trunk. “Yes.” And it felt good saying that. He had seen the possessive looks his cousin had given Marlena the first time he had met her in D.C. and had wondered at what made a man feel like that about a woman. Now he knew. He looked at Amber, busy dodging Marlena’s kicks, and felt a rush of masculine satisfaction knowing that they belonged together and there was no doubt in his mind that he had every right to call her his woman. He wanted to be with her more than anything else. And if it meant staying in Macedonian hell awhile after this was over to convince her, he would do it. The decision was made just like that.