Deadly Target [IAD Agency 3] (Siren Publishing Classic)

by Roma, Laurie

  Hearing the confrontation over the phone, Gage had flown his helicopter carrying their team into a clearing close to where Mikayla, Katie, and Robert had stopped. From there, Wulf had tracked Mikayla and Katie’s scents straight to them, allowing the men to get into position without anyone knowing.

  Mikayla wanted to weep with joy as she heard Slade’s voice. She forced herself not to look at any of the men joining their little party in the woods. She especially refused to look at Gage. If she allowed herself to look at him she knew she would break down. Up until now there had been sheer determination driving her forward, pushing her to escape and ensure that she got the others to safety.

  But now all she could do was think about how much she loved Gage. Really, truly loved him to the depths of her very soul. It seemed that she couldn’t even lie to herself due to the drug haze she was in, and she no longer wanted to. She loved the son of a bitch and if he thought he was going to shake her off now that she was all in, he was going to be sorely mistaken. She wanted love, marriage…a future with him.

  She wanted it all.

  And she especially wanted his hands on her. And his mouth, and tongue and cock…

  Shit! She needed to hold it together and focus!

  “You’re gonna want to watch what you call her, you son of a bitch!” Gage snarled as he trained his own weapon on David. The dark fury was evident in his tone and it had David eyeing him wearily.

  A few feet away Slade had crept up behind one of the guards and pressed his gun right at the back of his head. “You’re gonna want to put your gun down nice and slow or else you’re gonna give me an excuse to blow your fucking worthless head off.”

  “Drop your weapons!” Nick called out. “Drop them now!”

  “Fuck you!” In a desperate attempt, David swung his gun back toward Mikayla. She didn’t hesitate. She shot through his hand so he dropped his gun, screaming in pain.

  Sebastian dropped one of the guards with a bullet to the chest as he made a move. The two other guards took the smarter way out and dropped their weapons, holding their hands above their heads. In a matter of seconds Nick and Slade had David and the two guards were on their knees.

  “Lynx, are you—”

  “Fine. You got this? Good,” Mikayla said to Slade as she threw down her own weapons, passing by him with barely a glance. She hurried over to Gage, grabbed his hand and tugged him with her as she continued to walk away from the others. “Katie and the Doc are hiding in that tree over there. We’ll be right back.”

  “Mikayla, what’re you doing?” Gage asked, confused.

  She continued to pull him with her until she couldn’t walk anymore and stopped behind a large tree. He blinked in pure shock as she reached down and undid her jeans then sputtered as she took his hand and shoved it down her pants.

  “I need to come, Gage. I swear to god I hurt so bad I feel like I’m gonna fucking die if I don’t.”

  “Jesus…”

  She bit her lip to hold back a sob as she felt him thrust two of his large fingers inside her sopping wet pussy. Gage dropped his weapon on the ground, but she didn’t even hear it fall. All she could focus on was his hand on her hip and the other inside her. The pleasure was so acute it bordered on pain as she rode his fingers. But it wasn’t enough. She’d waited too long and the adrenaline mixing with the drugs were shifting her into the third phase of the cycle. “It’s not enough. I need more. Fuck, it hurts!”

  She cried out in pain as Gage pushed her up against the tree, taking her mouth with his. He paused and pulled back, concern shining bright in his brilliant green eyes.

  “Waited too long. Hurts to touch. I feel like I’m burning alive.”

  Gage cursed at the tears that tracked down Mikayla’s cheeks in rivers. His cock had gone rock hard in his jeans the second she had shoved his hand down her pants, but he softened slightly at the sign of her distress. The feel of her tight pussy gripping his fingers made his mouth water to taste all the slick juices he felt dripping from her. But he couldn’t wait and neither could she. He could see her violet eyes were bright with the pain and the induced madness of the drug.

  Fuck, he couldn’t stand seeing her like this.

  Pulling her jeans down to her knees he spun her around, bracing her hands on the tree, jerking her hips back so she was slightly bent over. He unbuckled his own jeans, ripping down the zipper to free his throbbing cock in the chilly winter air. Hissing out against the shock of cold, he hunched over her, but was careful not to touch her as he braced his hands above hers on the tree.

  This was going to be hard and fast.

  “Hold on, baby. I’ve got you,” he whispered into her ear as he lodged the head of his cock to the entrance of her pussy. Bracing his legs apart for leverage, he shoved deep, spearing her on his cock with a single brutal thrust. The feel of the intense heat of her soaking pussy surrounding his cock was the complete opposite of the cold air blowing at his back. It was a contrast that heightened his senses and made his body shiver.

  “Goddamn, Mikayla. You’re like liquid fire wrapped around my dick,” he groaned.

  Mikayla bit her arm to keep from screaming out as he set a punishing rhythm, fucking her with a determination to make her come hard and fast. She knew Gage tried to measure his thrusts, careful not to hit her ass with his hips to avoid causing her more pain, but she wasn’t having it. She wanted all of him, every single inch of his hard cock fucking into her, bringing her pleasure. She pushed back, making sure he was balls deep with the next thrust. She loved hearing his groan and the sounds of their flesh making contact as they continued their frantic mating.

  “Gage, oh god, it’s so good.”

  “That’s right, baby. Fuck yourself back on my cock. Take what you need.”

  The muted sounds of the other’s voices drifted through the air as snow fell around them. She could also hear the sound of approaching sirens in the distance, but she didn’t care. Christ, Gage could have been fucking her with her friends, hell, the whole damn town of Serenity watching and she wouldn’t give a damn. Her mind was gone, lost in the need and the feeling of his throbbing erection filling her to the brink. All she could do was focus on the satisfaction his body gave hers. And she needed the pleasure.

  She needed it more than she needed air.

  Her body shivered with delight as Gage took one of his hands off the tree, moving it down to work her clit as his hips pistoned hard, driving in and out of her like a jackhammer. She could feel her body flying higher and higher as he worked her closer to release. She screamed out as her clit exploded, her body clamping down on his cock. Waves of intense pleasure shook her body so hard she felt like she was shattering into a million pieces.

  Mikayla heard Gage groan as he pressed his face into her neck, spilling himself deep inside her fiery depth as her tight muscles milked the seed from his cock. A wave of euphoria had her vision dimming as her body was momentarily sated, the pain finally easing. She heard Gage curse as he caught her body against his, but she trusted him to keep her safe as she let the blackness take her and she passed out.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Oh crap, really? Not again…

  Mikayla heard a familiar beeping sound that told her immediately she was in the hospital before she even opened her eyes. She was really getting tired of waking up attached to machines. Hell, she was getting even more tired of getting injured.

  “Sir! You can’t go in there!”

  “Lady, there is no way you’re going to keep me away from her so you might as well move.” Gage all but growled back. Mikayla opened her eyes slowly to see Gage and a nurse glowering at each other in the doorway of her hospital room.

  “So you said. Until we know exactly what the substance is that she was given we can’t properly treat her. We’ve already gone against medical advice by—”

  “Christ, didn’t you listen! We’ve told you what she was given. Just like we fucking told you not to give her any more meds, but you did anyway and look what happened
! You could have killed her! She’s been passed out for a half an hour now. I need to help her!”

  The nurse scowled at him. “I am not going to let you in there so you can molest my patient! She is resting peacefully and I won’t let you bother her!”

  Unfortunately, the nurse was wrong.

  Mikayla felt a pain in her chest that told her someone hadn’t listened and had probably given her a drug that caused her heart to stop. The residual soreness could only mean that her heart had been shocked back into beating while she had been blissfully unaware of what was going on. But now she could feel the ache like someone had been doing a tap dance on her chest and, if that wasn’t enough, the fire had already begun to spread through her body again, making her burn with the need for sex.

  Damn that fucking lust dust…

  Mikayla opened her mouth, prepared to tell the nurse to get lost so Gage could help her through this next cycle before it got too bad. Whatever words she would have spoken froze in her throat as she tried to raise her arm to get their attention. Her eyes went wide with terror as her gaze flew down to see the restraints holding her strapped to the hospital bed.

  No, no, no.

  The machines picked up on her increased heart rate, pulsing out the tone of her panic in frantic beeps. With her resistance already low, dark memories flooded into her mind. Suddenly, she was no longer in the hospital room, a few feet away from the man she loved. Her mind had taken her on a trip into the past.

  A horrible past where there was nothing but fear, terror and incredible pain.

  Gage and the nurse both heard the machines at the same instant and rushed into the room, their argument forgotten for the moment. Gage gasped in shock as he saw Mikayla’s usually vibrant violet eyes, glassy with shock as she stared up at the ceiling. Her body was rigid, her muscles tense to the point she looked like a statue lying on the bed. The nurse paged the doctor on call and started checking Mikayla’s vitals as Gage leaned down, taking her hand in his.

  “Baby, what’s wrong? Mikayla? Please, say something!”

  The doctor rushed into the room, pushing Gage aside as he looked Mikayla over. “What happened?”

  “I don’t know, doctor. One minute she was resting peacefully. The next the machines were going crazy.”

  “We need to—”

  “What you need to do is take those fucking restraints off of her. Now,” a deep voice demanded from the doorway.

  Gage looked over to see Brett Michaels had arrived. Brett was a large man who looked more like a dangerous felon than someone who ran an antiterrorist task force. His face was void of expression, but his dark-brown eyes were burning with fury as he strode in and instantly took control of the room.

  The doctor bristled at Brett’s tone. “Who do you think you are?”

  “I’m the guy that will break you in half if you don’t get those off her right now.”

  “How dare you threaten me! I’m going to have to ask you to leave—”

  “Ask away. I’m not going anywhere without her.” Brett walked further into the room, pausing as he passed by Gage. Brett looked at him, cocked his head to the side then rammed his fist into his face.

  “Damn it!” Gage cried out as his head snapped back. He wiggled his jaw to make sure Brett didn’t dislocate it. “What the fuck, Brett?”

  “That’s for what I know you’re going to be doing with our girl for the next several hours,” Brett said, making Gage curse again. “Where is Slade?”

  “He’s interrogating David Henley and the two guards in custody. Sebastian is watching Dr. Ellis and Nick is with Katie in a room down the hall.”

  Brett nodded then sighed as the doctor jumped in front of him, trying to block him from getting any closer to Mikayla.

  “How dare you come in here like this. I want you out of here!”

  Brett narrowed his eyes on the doctor, satisfied when the smaller man took a step back as Brett stepped toward him. “It’s good to want things. Like how I wanted you to use your fucking brain and listen when you were told that giving her any further medication could cause an adverse effect that could kill her. Or when I specifically gave orders that she not be restrained in any way.”

  “We had to, for her own safety,” the doctor countered.

  Brett scoffed in disbelief at that. “Really, was she violent? Did she try to attack you?”

  Gage broke in before the doctor could make an excuse. “She wanted me. She was asking for me, but they wouldn’t let me into the treatment area when we brought her in. She started screaming when they touched her, but she only fought when they tried putting those things on her and then they knocked her out.”

  “She was in an agitated state,” the doctor said defensively. “We’ve left her like that because we didn’t know how she would react when she came to. If she became violent again, it wouldn’t be good for her or the baby—”

  “B–baby?” Gage choked out. “How?”

  “Brother, if you need to ask that question we’ve got bigger problems than I thought,” Brett muttered.

  “Yes, she’s pregnant,” the doctor said, straightening to his full height which was still almost a foot shorter than the other men. “After what she’s been through she needs to rest, not to have you in here bothering—”

  “Aw, hell…” Out of patience, Brett simply pushed past the doctor in disgust as he strode to the bed. He didn’t bother unbuckling the restraints. He just whipped out a butterfly knife, cut through them and with a flick of his wrist had the knife secured and back in his pocket.

  “You can’t bring a knife in here! Denise, call security!” The doctor sputtered.

  “Sure, call them,” Brett taunted as the nurse flew out of the room. “And when they come I can have you arrested for being a stupid asshole. You’re gonna want to leave, now, before I think about the damage you could have caused because you decided to play god and didn’t follow orders. Not to mention you just told us confidential patient information that you never should have mentioned to anyone but her. It’s because of you she’s practically comatose. Maybe I should put you in a fucking coma and see how you like it…”

  Brett took a threatening step toward the doctor. The doctor fled to the safety of the doorway, where two security guards came into view. “Oh, thank god,” the doctor said. “I want you to detain that man. He’s crazy!”

  The security guards looked over and their faces paled slightly as Brett reached into his pocket, pulling out his official badge. “Make sure that doctor doesn’t come anywhere near this patient again. You got me?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The doctor’s outraged cries echoed through the corridor outside of Mikayla’s room as the security guards dragged him away.

  “IAD agents have badges?”

  Brett shot him a droll stare. “Buddy, we can have any badge we want, but currently I’m sporting Department of Defense credentials.” He focused back on his friend lying on the bed and felt his heart clutch at the silent agony showing on her face. He picked up her wrists in turn, rubbing both of them lightly.

  “Hey, little Lynx. Come back now.” Brett turned to Gage. He eyed the other man for a brief moment before coming to a decision. He could tell by the way Gage was looking at his old friend that he loved Mikayla. Gage’s green eyes burned with agony like a man on fire because the woman he loved was hurting. Seeing this made it a little easier to take a step back, physically and figuratively. “Call her back.”

  “What?” Gage asked, confused.

  “Talk to her, Gage. Call her back to you. She’s yours now.” Brett paused then lowered his voice in warning. “But just remember, the baby she has is gonna be my niece or nephew. If you hurt her, she won’t be raising her kid alone when I kill you. She’s got a shit ton of people who have her back.”

  Gage ignored Brett’s threat. He had stopped thinking after the word baby was mentioned and focused on making sure his head didn’t explode. Christ, he was going to be a father. It was going to take him a while to rea
lly process all this, but the joy that flooded through him couldn’t be ignored. A part of him felt guilty because a little of his happiness was because this gave him an excuse to hold on to her, so that they would always be connected.

  He stepped forward so he could sit on the bed next to Mikayla. Taking one of her hands in his, he looked back up at Brett. “What’s wrong with her?”

  “There’s a reason I gave explicit instructions for her not to be restrained,” Brett said after a brief pause. “When we were back in the Army she was captured on a mission. It was before she joined our squad. Some bastard CO sent her out on her own, and she was taken by a group of rebels. They held her in this hell hole in Kosovo, tied her up and waterboarded her several times trying to get the location of her target out of her. She never broke. She didn’t tell them shit, even when she stopped breathing for the fourth time.”

  Gage felt the bile rise in his throat as he thought of what she had been through. God, he felt like the lowest asshole ever to walk the earth when he thought back on how he had taunted her about being tied up. No wonder why she had said no. He was surprised she didn’t try to gut him when he had mentioned it.

  “How…how did she survive?” he asked.

  “My squad was close-by when we got word an American soldier had been taken. I swore she’d never go on a mission solo after that.”

  “She’ll never be alone again.” Gage’s voice was harsh with emotions. He leaned down to whisper in her ear. “Do you hear me, baby? You’ll never be alone. We’re a team now. I love you, Mikayla. I’ll always be here for you…with you. Come back to me, baby. I love you. Please, come back.”

  His breath left in a rush as she blinked and turned her head so she could look at him. There she was. He could see the light return to her beautiful violet eyes as the shock slowly faded.

  “G…Gage?”

  “Oh god, I’m here, baby. I’m here.” Gage kissed her lightly then pressed his forehead to hers, barely restraining the raw emotions that tore through him. She was a miracle. Meeting Mikayla and being with her had been a life-changing experience for him. She had shown him his own heart, something that he feared he didn’t have, and in doing so, had taught him how to love. They were a team now, and he would do anything to keep her with him.