Shadow Soldier

by Dana Marton

  “Are you sure?” he murmured against her lips, knowing he’d die if she said no, yet still willing to stop.

  She pushed him away enough to look him fully in the eyes. “I’ve never been more sure about anything.”

  He crushed her to him, ready to devour the mouth that had spilled those precious words. Positioned at her opening, he stopped, swore as he pulled away.

  “What?” She tried to pull him back.

  “Protection. We don’t have any.” He cursed himself and fell on his back on the bed next to her.

  She turned to her side and watched him for an agonizing moment. “I’m not ovulating right now.” Her cheeks flushed. “If that’s what you’re worried about.”

  She didn’t know how much she tempted him.

  “Oh,” she said when he didn’t respond. “I’ve only been with one man before. We always used protection.”

  He turned to look at her. The frustration in her eyes mirrored his own. Using protection was the only rule he’d never broken. Until now. “Me, too.”

  He groaned with need as she slid into his arms.

  “So—” Nicola nibbled his ear. “Since we’re in a safe house, does that mean this is safe sex?”

  He couldn’t help grinning at the pun. “Absolutely,” he said, and claimed her lips.

  By the time he entered her he was ready to burst at the sensation of her tight, hot muscles closing around him. He was going to shame himself climaxing way too soon. SDDU soldiers prided themselves on their stamina. He feared he wouldn’t be able to show Nicola any of it. At least, not this time.

  He waited unmoving, savoring the moment and the feel of her. Then he pushed forward inch by agonizing inch. She was wet for him, her sheath welcoming. She squirmed, nearly undoing the last of his self-control. He’d been wanting this from the first moment he’d seen her, fantasized about it during the endless nights of covert surveillance. And now they were here. Reality made his wildest fantasies pale in comparison.

  Her skin looked like sweet cream in the moonlight, and he lapped it up. He kissed every inch available to his searching lips, his hips moving forward still. And then he was finally in all the way, completely surrounded.

  She locked her feet around his back and drew him deeper. No military self-discipline training had prepared him for that. Nothing had ever felt so good. They fit each other like two perfect halves of a whole, like she’d been meant to be his.

  He drew a ragged breath as he began to move in her, each slow stroke the most exquisite torture. She moved with him, matching his rhythm at first, then taking over, dictating the speed. They came together faster and faster in a frenzied coupling, in runaway passion. He wasn’t going to make it. Alex shuddered, then the next second felt her spasms, and finally he let go his release. The waves of pleasure seemed to go on and on, cresting deep inside his body.

  She clung to him, as he did to her, unable to move.

  Several minutes passed before he regained his bearings enough to roll off her and, still not ready to part, he pulled her with him.

  Chapter Eight

  “That thing you said about the one guy?” Alex asked a while later, when he could speak again.

  “Does it bother you?” She came up on her elbows to look at him, so beautiful it took his breath away.

  He grunted.

  “Why?” Her breast brushed against his arm, stirring renewed interest in parts that by all rights should have been panting with exhaustion.

  He could distinctly feel a nipple poke his skin. Damned hard to keep track of what they were talking about. The guy. Right.

  “On the one hand, I want to track him down and kill him for touching you, on the other, I want to slap myself for taking advantage of a virtual innocent.”

  She smiled. “Would it help if I told you he never, um, made me happy…that way?”

  “You mean you never had a—”

  She shook her head.

  Alex stared at her. “It doesn’t help. It just confuses the issue. Now I want to kill him for letting you waste your time with him. But then, he must have made me look good by comparison.” He looked at her from hooded eyelids, enjoying the smile that spread on her face.

  “Pretty damn good.”

  “Great. Does that mean I…made you happy?”

  “Very.” She snuggled up to him, the picture of contentment.

  Very was good. He hoped she meant if she had climaxed any harder she would have needed medical attention. Like him. He closed his arms around her and held her tight. “My name is Alejandro Jesús Rodriguez,” he whispered into her hair.

  She lifted her head to kiss his chin. “Thank you. I know you can’t tell me more than that.”

  And for the first time ever, he wanted to. He wanted one person outside the U.S. government to know him, to care whether he lived or died. “My mother died in Cuba when I was six. My father brought me to the U.S.”

  “That must have been hard.”

  “We didn’t speak English. He got a job on a farm where he thought that didn’t matter. But he had an accident. Didn’t understand the instructions and one of those big farm machines…” He hadn’t talked about it in years. Decades. Wasn’t even sure what had happened. He’d been too young to understand.

  Nicola tightened her arms around him.

  “A family in Miami took me in after that. I joined the Army as soon as I was old enough. There had never been any possibility of having money for college. Made it to Special Forces. Later on, I got recruited for a project that was looking for high-performance loners for confidential operations with elevated risk levels.”

  She snuggled into the crook of his neck. “Thank you. But you didn’t have to tell me.”

  “I wanted to.” He kissed the top of her head, then her eyes, her cheeks, her lips, and she responded without holding back.

  And once they started kissing, neither of them could stop. When they finally pulled apart, he propped himself on an elbow next to her to drink in the sight of her magnificent body.

  “I worked with a Moroccan architect once,” he told her. The man had provided him with blueprints to one of the key palaces in the region. “He used to say curved lines stimulated creativity. Must be something to it. I’m feeling extraordinarily creative.”

  He showed her what he meant until they were depleted from lovemaking once again. This time he made love to her slowly, building her passion touch by touch, kiss by kiss, pushing her over the edge again and again.

  When the phone rang, he swore, tempted to ignore it. Of course, he couldn’t. Not when Nicola’s life might depend on whatever information the Colonel had.

  “Rodriguez.”

  “Spike’s on his way over there. He should be showing up in another ten or twenty minutes,” the Colonel said.

  “Anything new on the case?”

  “No, but we’re tightening security, both around the senator and his daughter. The FBI assigned three bodyguards to each, plus I’m leaving Spike with Nicola. She seems to be the primary target for now. We’re leaving her where she is. Probably less risky than getting her out into the open while trying to move her down here.”

  “Spike’s taking over?”

  “You’re shipping out tonight. Come see me as soon as you’re done briefing him and we’ll discuss it.”

  He swallowed, looking at Nicola on the bed, smiling at him so full of trust, her heart on her nonexistent sleeve. Like it or not, by making love to her, he had compromised the whole operation. Would he have recognized an enemy soldier at the window while he was lost in the pleasures of her body? He had allowed himself to be distracted, and that could have cost both their lives. He didn’t much care about his own, but he did care about Nicola’s.

  She was better off with guards who were focused on protecting her instead of getting her between the sheets.

  “See you tonight then,” he said, and hung up the phone.

  “Is Spike coming?”

  “He’s taking over the operation. Three FBI agent
s are also assigned to you now. They should be arriving later.”

  “And you?”

  “I’ll probably be shipping out overseas after my briefing tonight.”

  “I see.” Her face went pale.

  He hated this, but it had to be done. “Nicola, look, I…this is what my life is like.”

  “Of course.” She wrapped the sheet around her and scooted off the bed. “I understand.” She headed for the bathroom, walking around him.

  “Don’t be mad.”

  “I’m not mad.” Her voice sounded lifeless. “I just want to get dressed before Spike gets here.”

  He couldn’t stand the dejected set of her shoulders, and before he knew what he was doing, he had closed the distance between them and pulled her into his arms. “Look, it’s better for you this way. You need bodyguards who are not personally involved.”

  He couldn’t not think of Abu and his family. Technically his mission hadn’t included their protection, but he felt responsible for them. He should have been able to save them. But it wasn’t too late for Nicola, and he would make damned sure she got the best security detail available.

  “Do I get a vote in what’s best for me?” She looked up and his gut tightened at the sight of the teardrop in the corner of her eye.

  He shook his head. “I’m sorry. Not this time.”

  “I see,” she said again, pulling away.

  “I promise I will find you when I come back.” Although, he could not promise when that would be, a month from now or six, or a year. Maybe more. Maybe never. And the scary thing was this time he really wanted to come back. It mattered.

  “I didn’t plan this.” He tried to take her hand, but she wouldn’t let him.

  “It’s okay, Alex. It really is.” She turned and walked into the bathroom.

  He stared at the closed door, knowing it wasn’t okay at all, but powerless to do anything about it. He had nothing whatsoever to offer her. He didn’t even exist. He owned no property, although he could certainly afford it, but his brief visits to the States were usually spent at an army base near Washington, the fewer hassles the better. Even his car and gun weren’t his own—they were issued by the SDDU, and now that they were destroyed, he’d be issued another set. His time wasn’t his own, either, nor was his life. He had pledged it to the government of the United States of America, a decision he’d never second-guessed…until now.

  He would hand her over to Spike because he trusted the man, because Nicola was better off without him, because his country needed him somewhere else. All perfectly valid reasons, yet they failed to satisfy him.

  NICOLA WASHED HER FACE in cold water, then pressed her fingers to her eyelids to hold back the tears. She hadn’t expected this. Then again, from the moment he had burst into her life to save her from a hail of bullets, nothing about Alex had been predictable.

  A week ago he’d been nothing but the male lead in a fuzzy fantasy she’d concocted about a gorgeous guy at the gym. Then the world had turned upside down and her life had become unrecognizable. And the only reason she still had her life was the man in the living room, the man who had just made incredible love to her—twice—and was now planning to leave her.

  She dressed, grateful that she’d had the state of mind to wash her underwear the night before. Hopefully, Spike would bring her more.

  If her house still stood.

  The thought knocked the air out of her lungs for a moment. What had become of the Tweedles? She felt an overpowering rush of guilt for leaving them. What had become of her world? She had worked so hard to create a life separate from the political madness of her father’s.

  And now her pets were God only knew where, her house probably gone, including her home office with all her business documents. She would need months to recover, to be fully operational, and that was after Alex’s boss—whoever the man was—decided to let her resume her life and leave here. Where would her clients be by then? Not a hard question to answer. They’d be with the competition.

  Everything she’d ever worked for was gone—and all because of what? Because her father had stepped on some toes in China while carrying out orders from the government. It had nothing to do with her! How much more would she have to unwillingly give?

  One thing for sure, if she wanted to separate her life from the intrigues of politics and government, getting involved with an undercover agent was not the way to go. God, what had she been thinking? Having her life stolen was enough, she wasn’t going to offer up her heart to be broken, as well.

  Alex was right. She’d be better off when he left.

  Voices filtered through the door. Spike must have arrived. Nicola brushed her teeth, then ran the comb through her hair. The voices rose.

  “Damn it, Alex. You should have told the Colonel you were injured. You’re not out in the field where nothing can be done.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “No, you’re not. You should be at Walter Reed and not in a high-risk operation where being less than one hundred percent could get you into serious trouble.”

  “It wasn’t a high-risk operation until yesterday.”

  “It is now. You’re to report to Washington post-haste for your briefing.”

  A moment of silence passed before Alex spoke. “What did you get from the shooter?”

  “Not much. He stuck to his story about the family vendetta until I questioned him on the new attack. He’s been quiet since. There’s someone out there he’s more afraid of than us.”

  “Any connection to Du Shaozu?”

  “None. He’s a legit businessman. Believe me I had him checked thoroughly.”

  “I still don’t like him.”

  “Want me to give you a couple of guesses why?”

  “Shut up.” Nicola heard Alex’s annoyed response through the door.

  Had Spike picked up on the vibes between her and Alex? Better go out there before they decided to discuss her. She glanced briefly in the mirror—looking as bad as she felt and with no makeup to disguise the dark circles beneath her eyes. But under the circumstances, her appearance was the least of her worries. She turned off the light and opened the door.

  Spike leaned against the counter while Alex hulked by the window, their conversation halted the second she appeared.

  “Hello, Nicola.” Spike turned to her with a smile. “How are you?”

  “Okay, all things considered.” She looked at the towel-covered cage next to the bulging duffel bag at Spike’s feet, her hopes rising. “Have you been to my house?”

  He nodded. “The birds are fine. The garage is a mess, though. The rest is still standing but there’s considerable smoke damage. I got you some standard-issue military clothes. Sorry. That’s the best I could do.”

  “Thank you.” She pulled the towel from the cage, wanting to kiss the finches in joy when they immediately started their bickering.

  “I need to grab a few more things from the car. My new car, since someone let my old one get destroyed.” Spike gave Alex a pointed look. “Once Alex goes, I don’t want to have to leave the house until the Feds get here,” he said before walking out the door.

  “Maybe I should stay.” Alex stepped toward her.

  She couldn’t let him. He had to go to Washington where his colonel would make sure he got medical care. He had to leave before she made an even bigger mess of her life and fell in love with him.

  “Have you ever done something in the heat of the moment, then regretted it once you had time to think?”

  His sharp gaze cut to her soul. “More times than I care to remember.”

  “I think you should leave. I’d prefer it if you did.”

  “Here we go, that’ll be the last of it.” Spike came through the door with two more duffel bags.

  Alex looked at Nicola, his dark eyes unreadable. “I’ll be going, then.” He picked up Mrs. Slocsky’s car keys from the counter. “Best of luck to both of you.”

  He was out the door before she could say thank you.

&
nbsp; She busied herself in the kitchen to keep from running to the window when she heard the car pull away. Not until the noise of the motor faded into the distance did she realize this was probably the last time she would ever see him.

  Her hands stilled in the sink. The cup she’d been washing slipped from her fingers. She was incapable of doing anything but stare at the suds as they popped on the surface of the water, a terrible ache spreading in her chest.

  The breeze outside brushed some of the tall weeds against the living room window, startling her. The sky looked overcast. Rain was coming. That uneasy feeling she had experienced the first time she’d seen the house settled on her again.

  “How is my father handling all this?”

  Spike looked up from checking one of Alex’s sensors. “Fine. He’s got an excellent security detail. No attempts on him so far. His biggest worry seems to be you. The only reason he’s not here is because we wouldn’t tell him where you were.”

  That surprised her. Other than insisting that she’d attend all major political functions with him, he hadn’t paid much attention to her since her mother’s death. She’d gone along with that for a while, craving his attention, glad for his company any way she could get it. But then she’d grown up and moved away. They hadn’t attended a reception together in ages.

  She was fine without him. She had other things in her life. Better things. The current mess she was in was all because of him.

  Nicola looked at the clock on the oven: 9:00 a.m. A few more hours and the Feds would be here. She shut off the water and went to find her Kevlar vest. She was probably safer now than she’d been since the whole ordeal had started. At least now they knew what they were up against. She had Spike by her side and more bodyguards on the way, and yet with Alex gone she felt as if her sense of security had also gone with him.

  There wasn’t any logic in that whatsoever. She had gotten used to Alex, and it would take time before she felt as comfortable around Spike, that was all. The pain in her chest was nothing but a lingering effect of smoke inhalation. She refused to consider any other possibility.