Her heart thumped hard enough for her to hear it in her ears. Sensations bombarded her and heat rolled through her. Through it all he kept up the steady rhythm of his fingers—in and out.
When he did it one last time, all the clenching broke loose. Her hips bucked and her breaths came out in pants. She tried to push the hair out of her face and get her muscles to work but her body turned to a pile of goo. All the tension seeped out but the tingly sensation lingered.
She closed her eyes and leaned into him, let him hold her up because she didn’t have the strength to do it on her own. She felt him press a kiss against her head and she tried to say something but soon gave up. Talking could only mess this up.
More minutes passed until her brain finally rebooted. Now she could think, but standing still eluded her. Her body was too busy melting against him. “I thought we weren’t having sex.”
A laugh rumbled in his chest. “I never said we wouldn’t fool around.”
Fighting through the lethargy, she finally managed to lift her head. “Then I think there’s only one thing left.”
His eyes narrowed but the look of pure male satisfaction stayed. “What?”
Her hand slipped over the bulge in his pants. “Your turn.”
A smile lit up his face. “I like your style, Alexis Palmer.”
“Then get on the floor.”
8
STRANGEST NIGHT of his life. Hot but frustrating because West only scratched half an itch. So good and mind-clearing but not smart. Anyone could have walked in and stabbed him in the back while he was on top of Lexi.
It started out pretty simple. Touch her. Ignore everything he knew to be smart and right and seize the moment. Give her release and watch her body move as it happened. An excellent form of self-torture that spun into something so damn fine when she put her mouth on him.
He spent the night switching between touching her and keeping watch. Somehow he kept his vow not to enter her, but he’d come close to saying “Fuck it” more than once.
But in the daze of the early morning sunshine, even the short stray from his objective—getting her to safety and locating that encampment . . . doing his damn job—struck him as a mistake. Tasting her only made him ache for more, and sex was not on the agenda. Or it shouldn’t be.
Good thing it was cold out. Maybe that would take some of the heat out of him and prevent another round of kissing her all over again.
He made a second turn around the building. With each pass he moved outward, covering a larger swath of ground but keeping the house within his sights and within quick running distance, in case someone slipped through on the opposite side of the house.
Javed had picked well. The property sat in a small valley, surrounded by natural barriers and outlined with trees. The house was tucked away with a hill behind it, so that the only natural ingress came from the front. The guy was smart. Someone trained to think about what could happen. West could appreciate that.
He scanned the ground and the horizon as he looked for any signs of life. If someone came within two hundred feet of the structure, he wanted to know. Nothing could get to her.
The footprint in the dirt was the first clue that he wasn’t being paranoid. He cleared his mind and reached for his knife, wanting the blade close by if he needed it. Gun ready and knife in his fist, he stalked. Keeping low, he followed the trail, knowing this could be intentional to lead him into a trap.
He listened for sounds as he ducked behind trees and rock ledges. Nothing struck him as out of place. But he knew prints, and the one he’d seen, clear and unaltered by the elements, had to be relatively fresh.
Then he heard it. The telltale sign of attack. That giveaway most men did right before they launched. The inhale of one last breath. West had been trained to pick up the sound. Honed that skill so no one could get the jump on him.
He waited until the last possible moment to move. The attacker counted on surprise and, due to West’s size, likely miscalculated his ability to shift. The guy would learn the hard way.
The air changed and West pivoted, turned on the ball of one foot and ducked down, leaning to the left side. The final footstep echoed as he heard the grunt above him. Shoes skidded and stones sprayed. West kept moving. He swung around, spinning and standing up, now behind the attacker. Just what he wanted.
The uniform registered just as West reached for the guy. He slammed an elbow right into that spot between his shoulder blades, sending the man falling. He hit his hands and knees with a thud.
Then West pounced. He had an arm around the guy’s throat and his knife in his hand. The guy bucked. This one wasn’t going down easy. The blade didn’t seem to faze him and he never stopped kicking out, trying to throw West off him.
Using his weight advantage, West dug in. He punched the guy in the side four times in rapid succession as he used his legs to send the man crashing to his stomach. Once on the ground, his opponent didn’t stand a chance. West dug a knee into his back and grabbed him by the neck while flashing the knife in his face.
“I dare you to move.” He would slice if he had to, but he wanted to ask a few questions first.
“West, stop!” Lexi raced out of the house with her bare feet thumping on the ground and her hair flying behind her in the breeze.
She wore her pants and his shirt, which dwarfed her. Between the cold and the very real possibility that more men lingered out there, he needed her out of sight.
Anger rushed through him when he saw the wide-eyed fear in her eyes. “Go back in the house.”
She kept coming. Ran straight for him as she shook her head and said something he couldn’t quite make out. Before he could stop her, she straddled his back with her legs and started pulling on his shoulders. He was about to yell when her words got through to him.
“That’s Javed.” She said the phrase over and over.
At the sound of the name, West eased his hold. Adrenaline still shot through him but the need to strike and kill died down. He forced his arms to loosen and sat back, moving off the man and over to the side.
Javed came up in a rush. One arm back, he nailed West right in the jaw before falling back on his elbows in the dirt.
The shot rocked through West as his teeth clicked together. The guy had a good punch, and he hadn’t prepared himself for it. He didn’t see stars but his jaw did rattle a bit and he could taste blood in his mouth.
“Javed, what are you doing?” Lexi sounded appalled, as if this amounted to any sort of real violence.
This time West caught her, grabbed her leg before she could go after Javed. “Hold up.”
“But he—”
“It’s okay.” He spit out a stream of blood. “I deserved that.”
At least she wanted to protect both of them. Satisfaction soared through him. She’d been friends with Javed for some time and known him only one day. West didn’t have a problem being on her protection priority list. It was misplaced, of course. He didn’t need backup and could handle Javed without trouble, but the fact that she tried—yeah, that didn’t suck.
Javed scrambled to his feet with a gun in his hand. “Who are you?”
The uniform registered in West’s brain. Pakistani army. He just hoped Javed was on leave or checking the house, and not bringing the entire squadron with him.
West rubbed the back of his head as he stood up. “Put the gun down.”
“I will shoot.” Javed sounded pretty determined to do just that.
“Right.” He’d never get the shot off. West would be in top of him, shoving a knife in his stomach before then.
Lexi moved between them. “West is with me.”
West shoved her behind him. “Never step in front of a gun.”
“I’m trying to help.”
She acted as if she could stop a bullet by sheer will. He made a mental note to lecture her on gun safety and the dangers of men pumped full of adrenaline later. “I told you to stay inside.”
She made a face at him. Did noth
ing to even pretend he was in charge here. “When?”
“You may have been asleep at the time, but I thought that instruction would be obvious under the circumstances.” The first rule in situations like this was pretty simple—don’t get caught. Duck, run, lie, fight. Do not walk into the middle of two armed men locked in battle.
Seemed like they might need a lecture on that, too.
Javed’s stance relaxed and the barrel of his gun tipped toward the ground. “You know each other?”
That was probably stretching it, but West went with it. “Sort of.” Then he asked, “Are you on duty now?” The uniform and the realities of being who he was said yes. He didn’t even ask Javed why he had a house here, away from his base. He’d get to that question soon though.
“Yes.” Javed turned to Lexi. “You haven’t been kidnapped?”
“What?” This time she shot Javed the screwed-up-lips expression. “No, I’m fine.”
That explained the guns-blazing thing. Whatever rumor flew around in this place, they did not involve Lexi being part of a conspiracy or working undercover. That made life easier. They might be able to use that to their advantage at some point.
“Does she look like she’s my captive?” West asked. Hell, she looked five seconds away from touching his gun and telling him to put it away, which was the ultimate no-no. Didn’t matter what happened the night before. He would not tolerate that.
“Raheel said you’d been taken by a lunatic.”
She snorted. “That might be a little strong, but—”
“I came back here to get some supplies and go look for you.” Javed’s voice rose the longer he talked. “You told me you saw strange trucks and then dead men were found in your clinic.”
The tense mood combined with the explanation crept from worried neighbor status to something else. Something potentially problematic.
West stared at Javed, looking for any sign that what he felt for Lexi went beyond friendship. Javed could not play hero. Too risky.
“What do you know about the trucks?” he asked Javed.
“Nothing.” Javed looked to Lexi. “You need to forget what you saw.”
Interesting in a potentially shitty way.
Lexi made a strangled sound. “Javed, please.”
The target kept moving. West started out thinking Javed’s concerns centered on a kidnapping attempt, but now it sounded like he had knowledge of the trucks. That was pretty fucking bad news. If the weapons tied back to the Pakistani army, he would have to destroy the stash. Then all-out war would break out.
Javed looked at his hands. “I didn’t tell anyone about the information Alexis provided.”
West wanted to believe that but something about the delivery felt off. Javed knew how to fire a weapon and fight a battle. He was not as good at subterfuge, which worked to his advantage right now. “But?” he asked.
“I checked the area.” Javed’s head shot up again. “Something is happening.”
“And you expect me to believe you didn’t ask around or—”
“No.”
Something else was at work here. West could feel it. “Is this an army mission?”
“No, but the general was there.”
“Who?” Lexi asked.
“Everyone is looking for you.” Javed focused all his attention on her. “The army has been mobilized.”
Motherfucker. Last thing West needed was an entire army up his ass. He could take on a group of men without backup and come out fine. The idea of taking on the Pakistani army was a bit more daunting.
But seeing the panic in Lexi’s eyes had West downplaying his concerns. “Let’s get back to the general,” he said.
She looked at Javed. “Wait, people think West—”
“Broke into the clinic, murdered the general and another man, injured others and took you and the drugs.” Javed’s gun was now aimed at the ground.
West took his relaxed stance and willingness to share information as Javed’s way of saying he wasn’t buying the story racing around town. While it would be easy to believe everything Javed said and have one person on their side, West knew Javed had a job to do. He followed his own code and sense of honor, and West wasn’t sure yet where those would lead them.
But the only thing West wanted to hear about was this general and what he had to do with the clinic and the trucks.
Lexi jumped in. Even moved in closer to West. “He didn’t hurt me or force me.”
The shift had Javed’s gaze wandering. He stared at the space between West and Lexi and watched both of their faces. “I can see that, yes.”
West wasn’t quite ready to play nice. Not after Javed dropped a pretty big piece of intel without connecting it to anything. “What general?”
“You don’t even know who you killed?” Javed asked.
“No idea.” But West was starting to put the pieces together. Lexi reports suspicious activity, then an army general visits her. “One was dead on the floor and the other was attacking Lexi, so I didn’t ask too many questions.”
“General Rashad Harif.”
There was one fact that didn’t fit, and West knew it was important. “He wasn’t in uniform.”
“There’s some confusion about that.” Javed shook his head. “He was dressed as a citizen. Didn’t have any identification or weapons on him.”
The one he didn’t kill. West had no idea what that meant. Not yet. “Why would he go after Lexi?”
“I don’t know.”
West was pretty sure Javed did know. The look on his face. It passed quickly but it hinted at additional information. He decided now wasn’t the time to dig for that. Not until Javed put the gun away.
“How is he related to the trucks?” He wanted to sit the guy down and rapid-fire questions at him, maybe kick in some intimidation, until he broke.
But Lexi stood there, all wide-eyed and uncharacteristically quiet. West had no idea what that meant so he tread carefully.
After a few seconds of hesitation, Javed answered. “I saw the general at the site.”
That sounded like half a story. Javed held back, and West didn’t blame him, but he needed the intel if he had any chance of finding the weapons and either destroying them or recovering them. “Anyone else?”
“Many men. Most not from here. Not Pakistani.” Javed sneered. “American?”
“Possibly.” West let it drop because he’d have to look for himself to be certain. Time to bring this to a close and get to the strategy stage. “There’s some good news here.”
Lexi eyed West. “What can possibly be good about this situation?”
“We might be able to preserve the clinic and your job if people think you’re a victim.”
“But you are a hunted man.” This time Javed did put the gun away.
West took that as a good sign. “Well, there’s that.”
And the hunted part? That wasn’t new. He had to avoid most of the former Soviet Union or risk immediate execution.
“Raheel wants your head.” Javed smiled as he said it. Took a bit too much pleasure in passing that piece of news on.
West knew he should have shot Raheel when he had the chance. That’s the last time he would watch out for Lexi’s feelings first. “He can’t have it.”
“If they find you, they’ll kill you.” The amusement left Javed’s face as he looked at Lexi. “If they figure out you two are together, you will likely be viewed as spies and both be executed. No one will remember or care about the good you’ve done here.”
That was more than enough doom and gloom. The color had already left Lexi’s face. Much more of this talk and she might stop breathing.
West tried to redirect her thoughts. “I hate that word.”
Javed shook his head. “What?”
“Spies.”
And just like that the color rushed back into her cheeks. “That’s what you’re upset about? His word choice?”
He shrugged. “It’s a pet peeve.”
“We ar
e in grave danger.”
That was not news to West. Really, it shouldn’t be to her either, he thought. She continued to ignore the bravery it took to report the encampment. She’d risked everything. The fact that she didn’t seem to realize that shook him. Even if they could make the victim story stick, she had a rude shock heading her way.
“Not to scare you, but we always were in danger.” West lowered his head until he had full eye contact with her. “Have been since I met you.”
“Don’t blame this on me,” she said, her anger fully back in place.
“Right now I’m blaming Pakistan.” This country just kept kicking his ass. “Not my favorite place.”
After a quick look around, Javed nodded toward the house. “We need to get inside.”
“Then what?” Lexi asked.
“Good question.” But West knew. He needed to get to that encampment, and now.
9
LEXI’S EYES started to cross. She wanted to blame the lack of sleep but she had no complaints about last night. Well, maybe one. West’s stubborn insistence they go only so far and no further. Sure, the excuse about not being able to concentrate on keeping them safe while having sex made sense.
When the guy drove home a point, he tended to mention the possibility of dying several times. She had to admit that amounted to a compelling argument. But having him say no after she made it clear he had a definite green light didn’t exactly give her a huge push of self-confidence in the sexuality department.
But that wasn’t the reason her attention was fading. The constant talk about tactics did her in. She’d drawn the map and it matched the location Javed had seen. Now she had two grown men sitting at opposite ends of a table, staring at her . . . and not in a good way.
She lowered the glass of water and cradled it between her palms. “What?”
Javed leaned forward. “It was very dangerous for you to report this activity then stay in Pakistan.”
West cleared his voice. “See?”
Now West acted friendly. She wasn’t buying it after that scene outside. “Don’t pretend you like Javed.”
“He’s growing on me.”
Falling Hard Page 9