After a few beats of silence Josiah spoke again. “The thing she said about you being here before . . .”
“You knew that.” Another mark in the file. A Marine special ops assignment gone bad. They infiltrated then the avalanche came.
“Only Ward has the full file on that one.” Josiah’s eyes narrowed. “Is there anything I need to know that impacts what we’re doing here now?”
The only thing that mattered. The only thing that West cared about. “I survived.”
7
ALMOST TWO hours later Lexi sat at the small kitchen table and seriously considered plunking her head against it. Josiah had left almost immediately, and West spent the rest of the time since then questioning her about what she’d seen.
The size of the trucks. The markings. The men driving them. The weapons. The layout of the camp. Details spun around in her head. That’s what happened when a guy made you repeat the same facts fifteen times.
He said it was something about clearing her mind and concentrating. She’d done that so much she needed migraine medicine.
He sat down across the table and put a cup of steaming liquid in front of her. She guessed tea since he’d been working over a small flame he lit under a hot plate of sorts he created. The guy was handy with or without free-flowing electricity.
The second she lifted her cup he started talking. “So . . .”
From his tone, she already knew this was going to end up in a bad place. “What?”
“Sort of doctor?” he asked from behind his glass of tea.
“A med tech.” Thoroughly trained in the basics and accredited in specialized high altitude issues from a clinic in Switzerland. Not to mention the hours of service at her father’s side.
But she didn’t mention any of that because she wanted to see where West was going with this. And how likely he was to tick her off. She put the percent probability in the high nineties.
“Okay.” He nodded. Didn’t say anything else as he stretched his long legs out under the table and straddled hers.
“Are you judging?” Her dad did. The disappointment had been so evident when she left school. No matter what she’d accomplished since then had not been quite good enough.
Nice and slow West lowered his glass to the table. “What exactly?”
“I was in medical school, you know?” Her defenses rose. She tried to shove them back down but an angry burning heat swept through her and her fingers tightened on the cup.
“I didn’t.”
With all his background checks and access to who knew what sort of personal information¸ she found that hard to believe. “What?”
“Know much about you. I know plenty about your dad. Where he went to school. His record. His time here and in India.” West ticked them off. “See, I expected to pick up your dad, not you.”
“I find it hard to believe you didn’t get a packet of intel about me.”
“You were mentioned, but not the focus. You were off-limits unless something went wrong, so I wanted limited details. No need to split the attention if we weren’t going to use you.”
She hated that last sentence. “You mean ‘need’ me, right?”
He smiled. “Did you enjoy your recent trip to Paris?”
She had been half kidding about the packet of intel, but it sounded as if someone did spend some time tracking her location. “I was there for a few days. I needed a break from Skardu but came back early for climbing season and so my dad could leave for Everest.”
If she’d still been away and her dad had been there, she might not have seen the caravans. She’d tried to reach him by satellite phone to talk about her concerns but couldn’t. That meant falling back on the emergency protocol. He reminded her before every trip where to find the number he kept hidden and how to make the call.
The instructions were simple: call, type the code phrase, get the drop site, and pass the pouch. All she had to do was relay the facts in a few short, specially coded sentences and prepare for people to step in and handle the situation. The rest of what happened whirled around in her head until she couldn’t make sense of it anymore.
Her dad would have wanted her to hand over the information, then get on a plane back to the U.S. Not telling him was the only way to keep him from hiking back, and that couldn’t happen. The expedition counted on him staying at base camp. He’d been paid a large sum of money to do just that, and the clinic needed the money for supplies.
And she thought she could handle it all—pass on the information then get back to work—until that stranger came to the clinic looking for her. Until West and Josiah stormed in. Who knew typing in a code and a few random words would lead to this sort of chaos in her life? None of it was supposed to trace back to her.
Something West said to her came rushing back. “You mean you would have tortured my dad, right?”
“Interrogate.”
She had a feeling those were the same things to West. That side of him freaked her out a bit. Not her style at all, especially since she’d dedicated part of her life to helping people with injuries. Being with a guy who liked inflicting them struck her as odd. And the wild attraction made no sense at all.
“Back to med school.” West leaned back in his chair, and the wood creaked under his weight. “You didn’t like it?”
“I had to leave.” Was basically escorted out and advised to try in-patient care. It was embarrassing and awful. She blocked those days and the memory of all those concerned faces as the people she knew looked at her with pity.
“That sounds like careful wording.” West traced a fingertip over the side of the cup. “Do I want to know why?”
Two could play at the half-answers game. She shrugged her shoulders. “Things happened. Life throws crap at you and you pivot.”
“Sure.”
The look he gave her, open and understanding, filled her with cleansing warmth, and that made her wary. She expected smoldering and commanding from him. She could even handle annoying and dictatorial. But when he sat there, actually listening to her, acting as if he held onto every word, panic started beating at the base of her skull.
He needed him to be that guy. Protective and strong, hot and possibly willing to get sweaty with her to work off some of the energy buzzing around them. She could limit her interest in that guy. Keep the attraction on an informal and body-only level. A guy with more depth was nothing but a threat to her carefully crafted life.
She had to get up. Get some air or move or around . . . something. “I’ll draw that map.”
“Lexi?” That voice, so deep and inviting.
She spun around to face him again. Words rushed out of her, jamming in her throat with the need to get them out. “I didn’t mean to call all this attention to Skardu and the clinic. I didn’t think it through and realize what I said could lead to death.”
“I know.”
“All I wanted to do was run the clinic while my dad was away.” To not screw up. To show everyone that she deserved to be here. That she had earned her place and didn’t need babysitting.
“You did something better.” West got up and stood in front of her.
“Get my butt in trouble and put the clinic in the position of potentially having to close.” West didn’t touch her but she could feel the heat radiate off him. She put a hand on his chest to connect with the hammering of his heart. “I’ll probably get my dad kicked out of the region after all the time he’s spent here.”
She expected West to push her away or tell her to calm down.
He put his hand over hers. “That won’t happen, Lexi.”
But that was the ongoing threat. West kept talking about ushering her out of the area and putting her on a plane with men she didn’t know. It didn’t make sense that her father would be safe here and she wouldn’t.
There was only one explanation, and it started a ball of fury bouncing around in her gut. “Because he has doctor skills and I don’t?”
“Touchy.” West threaded his finger
s through hers and tugged her in a little closer. “For the record, my appreciation for med techs is pretty high. The important thing in an area like this is to be respected and competent.”
This close, she could smell the outdoors on him. The scent clung to him. His presence physically overpowered her. She now knew those arms could wrap around her and the tightness fill her with a sense of security, not worry.
“And you know that how?” The words came out breathy as she fought to push air into her lungs.
“People with your training, men who didn’t go by the title of doctor, saved my life more than once.” He let go of her hand long enough to drag the bottom edge of his thin black shirt and the one underneath up and over his stomach. “You can see some of the handiwork here.”
All those muscles and no fat. Tanned skin, scarred with the marks of old wounds.
She skimmed her fingertips over what looked like more of a twelve-pack than a six-pack. Over bare skin. Across the jagged pucker of skin about four inches long. “A knife slice.”
The injury brought back the harsh reality of the danger of his work, but the soft touch had her mind bouncing somewhere else. To the bed. To getting him naked.
He might be strong enough to lift a car, but his waist stayed trim. This was not a guy who bulked up until he looked more like a character than a man. No, he was firm and overwhelming but in the best way.
“And also here.” He let his shirt drop back over his chest and winked at her as he put her palm against the bullet wound on his side. “And a few others I can’t show you without stripping down.”
“You’re lucky to be alive.”
He put his hand over hers and moved her palm until it slipped under his shirt to caress his chest. “I feel lucky right now.”
“Don’t do that.”
His hand stilled. “What?”
God, she did not want the touching to end. Wrong interpretation there, so she rushed to correct it.
Her other hand slid under his shirt. Both palms toured his sexy chest now. “Be decent.”
“You seem to look for things to get pissed off about. That one is just weird.” But there was no heat in his voice as he lowered his head to kiss her hair.
“Do you know anything about women?” Because he was doing a damn fine job of seducing one. Right there, in a small house in the middle of nowhere with danger brewing around them.
His mouth went to her ear and the small dip behind it. “Almost nothing.”
A shiver shook through her. She was amazed she could still stand. “You’re telling me you’re a virgin.”
He lifted his head and smiled down at her. “Uh, no.”
“I’m guessing you’re the type to go from country to country, killing and sleeping around.” She dropped a quick kiss on his chin. Loved the feel of the scruff under her mouth.
“Not at the same time.”
“You’re hysterical.” But she had to admit that was kind of funny. She tried to imagine him juggling guns and lowering his zipper at the same time. Interesting mental image.
“For the record, I keep my mind on the job.” That hot mouth traveled to her neck as he spoke. “I don’t fool around with women or drugs or alcohol. I stay focused.”
She could barely hear him. Her brain cells kept misfiring and her hands found his waist. “That sounds smart.”
“Until you.”
She buried her nose against his throat and inhaled. He made her feel so safe. So hot. “That’s only because I piss you off all the time.”
His hands smoothed down her back. “You do sometimes.”
Maybe the guy needed some work on romancing a woman after all. “That’s flattering.”
With one hand he tipped her chin up and looked down at her. “But I meant in the way where I don’t want to strangle you. You break my concentration just by walking across a room.”
“So, I’m special.” She actually didn’t know what he was saying, but that intense stare held her mesmerized.
“I don’t know what the hell you are.” His palms framed her face now, one on each cheek. The move brought them in even closer. “Not yet.”
“While we’re being honest, you can kiss. Like, whoa and damn you can kiss.” And it killed her not to stretch up on tiptoes and try it again. “That’s why I assumed you had a lot of practice.”
“Kissing.”
Just hearing him say the world sent her stomach tumbling. “What?”
He stared at her mouth. “You mentioned it, now I’m thinking about it.”
“We should do it.” She let his shirt drop as she lifted her arms to wrap them around his neck.
“Is the ‘it’ still kissing?”
Only to start. “No.”
“That would be really fucking dumb.” But his hands tightened against her. One slipped down to the small of her back.
He doubted he even realized how he rubbed his palm over her. “True.”
“I don’t do dumb shit on the job. Ever. People die.” His surprisingly gentle touch contrasted with the harsh words.
The breath hiccupped in her lungs when his hand landed . . . yeah, right on her ass. “I get that.”
“You are a nuisance,” he said, his hands pressing her lower half tighter against him. He shifted until she fit into the notch between his legs.
Then he rubbed his growing erection against her. She tried to fight the sharp inhale of breath but it escaped her throat. “Right back at ya.”
“We need to stop now.” The friction built as the rustling of their clothing echoed in the background.
“Absolutely.” She couldn’t not kiss him then.
Pushing against the back of his neck, she brought his face closer. Her mouth covered his and heat raced through her for a second time. The touch of his lips freed something in her.
All those months of holding back and obeying every rule, trying not to upset anyone or risk getting in trouble in town. The control burst and need flowed everywhere. No other man had tempted her in more than a year, and now she knew that what she felt back then was pale and shallow compared to this.
The whip of desire had wrapped around her from the very beginning. He was Mr. Wrong in so many ways, but as the hours passed, everything about him seemed right.
“Lexi . . .” He growled her name as he lifted his head.
Maybe it was a survival instinct or a need for comfort mixed with the wild attraction. She didn’t try to define it or figure it out, but she knew one thing to be true. “If I’m going to die out here, I want—”
He jerked back but not away from her. Just far enough to look down at her. “You will not die.”
“You sound sure.” And his determination calmed whatever kept jumping around in her stomach. His confidence fed hers.
“I will not allow it.”
“I don’t think it works that way.” But she’d bet he believed it did. He could just will it and it would happen.
Both his hands slipped to her ass and pulled her in tight. “So that we’re clear, anyone comes for you, they have to go through me. And, as you pointed out when we first met, I’m kind of big.”
Everywhere. “You’re pretty sexy, too.”
A frown marred his forehead. “If you say so.”
She gave in to the temptation to smooth her finger over those lines. “I do.”
Something sparked behind his eyes as he wrapped his fingers around her wrist and tilted his head so he could kiss the inside. He lightly nibbled on her skin then licked the spot as he peeked up at her. “We’re still not having sex.”
The seduction wound its way around her and her knees buckled. “You’re not interested?”
“You’re saying you can’t feel me?”
Already locked together, he shifted his hips from side to side. Maybe it was in circles. She was too busy trying to remember how to breathe to notice.
The voice . . . that body. “Oh.”
He smiled. “Yeah, oh.” It faded as soon as her fingers touched the waistband of
his pants. “Lexi?”
“I can control myself.” She unbuttoned the top. “Can you?”
“You are poking the beast.”
Her fingers went to the zipper as her mouth traveled to his neck. She tasted him, nuzzled him. A smart woman would stop, lift her head and tell him what she wanted, but the need to keep touching drove her. She kissed that sexy dip at the bottom of his throat where his neck met his collarbone. So sexy.
“What are you going to do about it?” She whispered the question against his skin.
“This.” With his palms on either side of her face, he lifted her head.
His mouth came down and the whirlwind of energy kicked up around them. This kiss bordered on a claiming. Deep and intense. His lips crossed over hers as his fingers caressed her skin.
His need pounded into her and whipped around the room. She didn’t think it was possible but he deepened the kiss as he walked her backward. Her heel cracked against the wall and her shoulders balanced there.
She grabbed the edge of his shirts and stripped them over his head. She barely had time to study him, to brush her palms over him, before his hands went to her pants.
In a few efficient moves he had her fly open and the zipper down. His hand slipped under the elastic of her practical cotton underwear. Then he touched her. There. His fingertips danced over her, making her wet and bringing her hips off the wall.
“West . . .” She forgot the rest of what she was going to say. Forgot everything except the feel of his skin against hers.
Her hands traveled over him as she kissed him. She didn’t want to break contact. Rubbing against him fueled her. She had to fight the urge to strip every last piece of clothing off him and push him onto the floor.
And she would have if his finger hadn’t pushed inside her. If her brain still functioned.
“Can you . . .” Her brain kept blanking. When he made that circle with his finger, when he pressed a second inside her, her head dropped to his shoulder.
Need rode her and her lower body clenched. His fingers tightened in her hair as his voice rumbled against the space right above her ear. “Come for me.”
“God, yes.” The winding and pulsing built until her head fell back.
Falling Hard Page 8