by Zoe Dawson
Her breath caught, but she yielded to the pressure of his thumb, and Kid adjusted the alignment of his mouth against hers, deepening the kiss with slow, lazy thoroughness. Working his mouth softly, slowly against hers, he enjoyed her, probing the moist recesses, savoring the taste of her. Her breath caught again; her response as unrestrained as his, and he grasped the back of her head, her hair tangling like silk around his fingers. His chest tightening, he massaged the small of her back, and he felt her muscles go slack as if he had released the rigid tension inside her.
When he let her go, she said huskily, “Come stay with me.”
Kid just couldn’t argue.
Paige couldn’t seem to get her head around what had happened between them. As they walked toward her house, he reached out and clasped her hand. Not exactly what she thought a temporary boyfriend would do. She bit her lip and tightened her grasp. Damn, but she liked him so very much. The sex they’d shared, mindless and out of control was something that she had never experienced before. Ashe was…special, and she knew it. She just wasn’t sure how everything would work out.
Anderson had hurt him, and she wasn’t referring to the physical. He’d just tarnished Ashe’s hero. He was processing. She worked with men long enough, lived with them long enough to know when they were in denial. She wanted him to open up to her in the worse way, showing her that he was getting as lost in this thing between them as she was.
But she had her own demons, and they were tied to her own dad. Something she could easily deny and hide her head in the sand, but Ashe’s struggle with his own pain made her feel small and petty for not facing up to her own internal musings.
Her life had revolved around work for so long, she couldn’t really see where she fit in a future that included something different. But when Atticus graduated from high school, he was going into the Navy…into BUD/S. Ashe would be such a great role model for him.
She bit her lip again. What the hell was she thinking? She was getting ahead of herself. Ashe was a SEAL, and he had told her he wasn’t good with relationships, had said he was gone almost all the time. She didn’t think she would like that. She glanced over at him, so handsome, charming, and freaking adorable.
All she wanted to do was kiss him again, losing sight of the future or the past. Right now seemed so damn important.
“Do you know where I can get a knife around here.”
She turned to look at him. “I guess it would be prudent to have you armed. There are always ways to get anything you want.”
“You have a permit to carry that Glock?”
“Yes, it’s already been sanctioned by the government. They know I’m here and only that I’m searching for suspects in the MP murders. The Navy doesn’t want to broadcast information about the arms. We might be able to procure you a sidearm.”
He gave her a half-smile, a slight up-turn of his mouth. “All I need is the knife. Usually when the shooting starts, there’s plenty of weapons to be had. I’ll just procure one of those.”
Okay, more shivers and was it kinky that she was so turned on by his badass, boy wonder confidence?
She took him to the market and they bought a wicked looking tactical piece of steel that was nothing but a killing tool. He paid extra for the sheath. When they reached her house and they stepped in the foyer, she knew her way around her cozy little place in the dark. But she dropped her key on the foyer table, the ping of it barely registering.
She could feel him in every pore of her body as he closed and locked the door, dropped the duffel. She’d never lived with a man like him. It had only been her father and brothers. It galled her that she still lived with them.
He pressed her up against the wall as if he was trying to climb inside her, the crazy sexual tension that had been brewing between them since she’d laid eyes on him ratcheting up. She’d forgotten about the danger of exposure, about the fact that this was one complicated mess, about…what the hell was she thinking about…her train of thought just derailed—crashed, twisted metal, chaos.
Her hand slid up his amazing torso, up his heated, strong-muscled back to the nape of his neck. Burrowing into all those thick, dark waves, so soft, so the opposite of him. He pressed his hips into hers, growling just a little as she tightened her fist and pulled his hair.
He fit perfectly between her legs. She pushed back as she clutched at his head to keep his mouth on hers, cradling the hard bulge pressing there. She knew what that hard part of him felt like deep inside her.
He dueled with her tongue, controlling the kiss as he drew his thumbs along her jawline, before sliding his fingertips down the length of her neck to her collarbone. Now it was her turn to groan as he efficiently popped the clasp to her bra, his palm following so fast, the tactile feel of him cupping her breast making her moan. He broke the kiss and started to leave a trail of kisses and nips along her jaw, around to the skin below her ear, setting off fireworks popping all over her body.
The memory of what he had done when he’d saved her from going over that cliff made her want to get closer to him. The strength of him was overwhelming, the power in his upper body and his legs turned her on. She’d drawn herself closer to him, all but laminating herself to the length of his body, pure, unadulterated reaction to the anchor who had pulled her from the jaws of death by sheer physicality and mental determination. The closer she’d gotten to him, the tighter he’d held on to her, but whether that was for her sake or his, she didn’t know. He’d felt like he’d been falling apart, and she hadn’t been in any better shape. If he hadn’t been there, she would have no future to contemplate, and it had weighed on her ever since. How much time had she wasted? Working herself to death—was that any way to live? But how disappointed would her dad be in her if she lost this promotion over being stupid when it came to a man, letting Ashe derail her from her duty? She was undercover and on the job. This wasn’t her vacation.
But there was so much Ashe, so much Kid Chaos piling up on her, over her, around her. The way he had so fearlessly walked right into her weapon and kissed her, turned her on even more. She was melting, her sex tingling where his fingers had only been just a short walk ago. Lifting his free hand up to her face, he gently brushed the backs of his knuckles against her flushed cheek before threading his fingers through her hair and curling them around the nape of her neck. He drew her face closer to his, and the last thing she caught was the blue fire in his eyes. His lips grazed along her jaw, all the way up to her ear.
He pressed his cheek against hers, the electric scrape of his stubble on her soft skin a stirring sensation that heightened the heady danger he posed.
“I want to put my mouth on you. Kissing you with long, slow, deep-tongue-swirling kisses. Hard sucking kisses against that place that makes you cry out my name. Then, when you’re wet and soft and ready for me, I’d slide deep, deep inside you,” he murmured, his breath warm and damp against her ear. “I’d fuck you slowly, make it last so I can savor everything about how you feel, inside and out…how hot and tight you are, the way you moan when I thrust high and hard, and the way your soft breasts and hard nipples feel rubbing against my chest. But, there’s nothing more exquisite than the way you feel gripping my dick as I come.”
She’d never been with a man who was like this…a dirty-talker. Most of them did the deed with the lights out and in one position. But she had a feeling, Ashe “Kid Chaos” Wilder was much more creative, much wilder than that.
She’d been in tough places before, and this most definitely didn’t count.
Hell, who was she kidding? She was in so much danger right now.
She shivered, and with his fingers tangled through her hair, he gently tugged her head back so their gazes met once more and their lips were mere inches apart. There was something strangely exciting about being at this man’s mercy, as she currently was. God, she wanted him, with a fierce, powerful kind of need she’d never experienced before.
If she couldn’t get past this thing…this conviction tha
t work was what got her attention, recognition, everything she craved, then she was looking at one lonely, empty life…like her dad who had never moved on after her mother left.
With her own mouth poised so close to his, she issued a challenge to get exactly what she desired. “That’s some great talk. Let’s see some action.”
“Paige,” he whispered, his voice husky with what she already knew as he roughly took her mouth with his. How could they want each other so much after just having each other less than half an hour ago? “Your bedroom. I want to get naked and tell you what to do.”
Security was tight at the warehouse, but Cris knew the code. It seemed that Bryant and his two lackeys had left. Cris had to know what he was dealing with here and how bad it was. Closing the door softly behind him, he carefully avoided the guard they’d left behind. He slipped into the cavernous warehouse, the silhouette of bikes in a row in need of various repair were easy to see from the light streaming in from the long windows alongside each wall. He wended his way through metal shelves until he came out to an open area. Two big double doors at the end of the storage area were closed, but they were big enough to drive a semi through.
His heart lurched in his chest when he saw the crates, hundreds of them stacked everywhere, but what caught his eye were the ones set on a table that looked like they were brand new. One lid was off the container closest to him. His heart in his throat, he looked over his shoulder to make sure the coast was clear. He walked quickly over to the table. He peered inside and his gut clenched.
Reaching into the box, he pulled out a rifle, the stock was collapsible. He wasn’t any kind of soldier, had never served, but he knew a military grade rifle when he saw one. Looking over his shoulder, he took a picture of it, then the boxes around him.
“Slow down, man,” Bryant’s booming voice echoed through the warehouse. Cris ran and ducked behind a large stack of boxes. He knelt down, his heart in his throat.
“Wait. I need to put you on speaker.” He peered out of the shadows and saw Bryant with Dean and Reggie. He set the top on the box and nodded to one of them. “So what is so important?”
A hushed male voice on the other end of the line said, “Plenty. I couldn’t find shit on the girl.”
“What do you mean?”
“The file was too clean. I’m looking into it, but Paige Sinclair is more than what’s in her file.”
“Dig deeper. I need to know what I’m up against.”
“If you were a better judge of character, we wouldn’t be in this mess, Anderson.”
“Yeah, Duffield made a fatal error.”
“I handed that job to you on a silver platter. Easy in and out. Instead, you kill two MPs. You think the Navy is going to look the other way? This is turning into a royal cluster fuck and you’re the architect. Clean up this goddamned mess.”
“What about Ashe Wilder?”
“More good news. He’s a fucking Navy SEAL, decorated, lethal, and black ops primed. And, Anderson, he’s a sniper. If you don’t want a target on your back or a cold zero in your forehead, eliminate him asap. Those guys don’t stop, and if he finds out we were behind that Coronado job—”
“I can’t do that right now. There are weapons all over the Incachaca and the Tunari mountain range and I’m still salvaging them. We didn’t go to all this trouble for millions in profits for nothing, not to mention, if someone else discovers those weapons, we’re screwed. There are only the three of us. I can’t get help and jeopardize this op with locals. If Wilder disappears, there will be an investigation.”
“You’re in the Andes, for Christ’s sake, Anderson. Push him off a cliff. Make it look like an accident, take care of the girl, too, just in case. How you’ve survived all these years both in the CIA and out is beyond me. Get it done or I’m washing my hands.” There was an audible beep. “Stand by.”
In the ensuing silence, Cris watched as Anderson wiped his face with his hand. He looked stressed, the scowl on his face intimidating.
“I have a solution for your manpower problem.”
“What?”
“I contacted our buyer. He’s already got boots on the ground. We all will be in the crosshairs if this deal doesn’t go down.”
“I guarantee you I’m not going to be the fall guy for this.”
There was nothing but an ominous click.
Anderson swore, just as the grinding sound of the galvanized doors split and silhouetted in the glow from the sun were several SUV’s with tinted windows. This was like something out of a movie. But his worst fears realized, Cris was certain he didn’t really know Bryant Anderson and that his partner, his friend would carry out his threat to his family. Cris couldn’t let that happen.
10
Cowboy stretched and got off the very uncomfortable transport. He was dead tired, all of them were. They had been going for seventy-two hours straight. They’d gotten the flyboy out, but then had been called into another op to rescue two aid workers from some overzealous warlord in Africa. They had been going for three days with combat naps when they could get them. He was looking forward to sleeping for eight hours. He’d made it in time to get on a plane next week and head off to Galveston, Texas for his cousin’s wedding. He wondered if Kia Silverbrook had been invited. His cousin knew her in high school. His leave had been approved, but he wasn’t sure he’d make it in time.
He couldn’t figure out if he had a burr under his saddle because he was going home or because he was getting a feeling that Kid was getting himself in some danger.
“Have you heard from Kid?” LT asked, Ruckus to a lot of them, he was the officer in the bunch. Cowboy shook his head. “No. Dragon’s a good dude, though. He knows his stuff.”
“He sure does, but he’s—”
“Not Kid,” Tank said. Echo, panting his pink tongue lolling, looked just as tired as the rest of them as he trotted alongside the big SEAL.
“Leave it to Kid to go on vacay, meet a hot babe and get in an undercover operation,” Hollywood said. “He’s stealing my mojo, that thief.”
The rest of them laughed. “He does go to cool places for leave,” Scarecrow said. “I would be heading for family, but then, I don’t have much of a choice. The folks are getting up in years and the farm is getting almost too much for them. Tough decisions coming,” he said, his accent soft and his words thoughtful.
Blue nodded. “It’s a tough and complicated thing to watch our parents age. We get protective like they were protective of us. Just be patient, man, and answer the same question again as if it wasn’t answered a moment ago. There’ll be a time you wished you could answer that same question again.”
Cowboy smiled when he saw Dana waiting for Ruckus. “When you call him, Cowboy, let me know how he’s doing.” Ruckus took off at a run for her the moment she spotted him. Cowboy didn’t get a chance to even answer. He thought about what that must be like to have a woman waiting for him when he came home. He smiled again, envious when he swung her around and then kissed her soundly.
The memory of Kia surfaced and since he was heading home, he wondered about her all over again. Once he got to his apartment, he laid down on the bed. He called Kid.
“How’s your vacation/op going. I swear you never do things by half. Is the NCIS agent a babe?”
“Yeah, and I’m knee deep in trouble with her, man.” He talked about her and Cowboy started to hope that Kid had finally come to his senses and found himself a woman who was going to stick. Now it was up to him to follow through. Something Kid had always been good at, except the women he chose just weren’t strong enough for him. But Cowboy held his tongue. This was for Kid to figure out. After they finished their conversation, Cowboy hung up.
Going home next week wouldn’t be at the top of his list. It always, always made him dang angry and ashamed.
Paige woke up, but not sure why. It was dark and they had been at each other for the rest of the afternoon and had fallen asleep. She realized that Ashe wasn’t beside her, and she looked at
the digital readout on the clock by the bed. Two-thirty. Where was he?
She rose and grabbed the closest thing to her hand. It happened to be his blue T-shirt with Navy in white letters across the back. It caught her at mid-thigh.
She left the bedroom and came out into the living room. She looked toward the glass French doors. Moonlight cast long, faint shadows through the trees, and off in the distance, a lone coyote yipped. The call was answered, then answered again, until a discordant yodel resonated along the length of the valley, the sounds carrying for miles on the cool, clear air.
“I hope I didn’t wake you.”
As if her thoughts had conjured him, Ashe’s deep, husky voice sounded from somewhere behind her. Turning around, she found him across the kitchen, standing near the counter, the moonlight streaming through the window illuminating him like a dark, fallen angel. He looked as lonely as that coyote sounded. Leaning casually against the granite, his corded arms were crossed over his bare chest, and he wore a pair of gray sweat pants that rode precariously low on his hips and revealed a good amount of his taut, rigid belly and tantalizing V. Lower, the soft cotton emphasized everything that made him so heart-stoppingly virile.
Her mouth went dry, and she swallowed hard as she slowly, leisurely dragged her gaze back up the length of his gorgeous, well-built body, until she finally reached his face. That stubble was thicker, looking dark and rough against his jaw, warring with the boyish cast to his features and his bangs were over his forehead again, accentuating that sexy, bad boy image of his.
He’d never looked so Kid Chaos to her as he did right now.
“Hey, no,” she said, her voice soft and low. “I missed your snoring.”
He stiffened, then said wryly, “I don’t snore.”
His eyes were as blue as the shirt she wore and as she walked across the concrete floor, the dying embers of the fire he must have started glowing red, she saw that he was hurting and hurting bad.