The blast site wasn’t far from the embassy, and it went into lockdown right away. Lucky knew that Kev had been right to worry about a second device, or a third or fourth, but she’d heard the people’s cries, the screams, the pleas for mercy from God, and she couldn’t walk away from all that suffering.
She’d been lucky—they’d been lucky—to escape with scrapes and aches. Now, she went into the bathroom and stripped off the abaya. Her eyes were bloodshot, and her skin was streaked with dirt and blood. The silken hijab was ruined and she tore that off too. Her hair was matted to her head with sweat.
She turned on the water in the sink and splashed her face. Her hands were shaking when she turned it off again. She needed a shower. A long, hot, mind-melting shower.
And a surfboard, an ocean breeze, and no cares in the world. God what she wouldn’t give for those days, which now seemed so far away.
It’s not true about no cares in the world.
She glared at herself in the mirror. No, it wasn’t true. She’d had plenty of cares in Hawaii. She’d thought about Marco, about all that had gone wrong in their marriage, about her mother and sisters, her stepdad, the Army, Al Ahmad—and Kev. Oh yes, she’d thought about him a lot. Wondered where he was and if he was still banging trashy waitresses or if maybe, just maybe, he missed her a little bit.
She’d thought he might since he’d called so often. She’d wanted to answer the phone, but she’d refused to do it. She’d worried about the flood of emotion it might open if she did. So she’d sat there and listened to his voice on the answering machine asking her if she was all right and telling her to call if she needed anything.
But how could she call him? How could she ever, ever call him? Her life had been a mess, and that wasn’t something Kev really wanted to be a part of.
Lucky bit back a sob. She clenched her hands into fists and stared at herself in the mirror. What the fuck? Was she going to fall apart now? Was she going to melt down just because of a few destroyed cars, a few destroyed lives?
She dropped her head into her hands and let the tears flow. And then she felt hands on her, turning her, yanking her against the solid weight of a male body.
Kev.
His hand was on her hair, her nose was against his chest, and she clutched her fingers into his shirt and held on.
“It’s okay, Lucky. It’s all right. Cry if you want. No one will stop you. No one will blame you. Let it out.” He rubbed her back. “Let it out.”
She held on to him, because she could do nothing else, and sobbed her heart out. Her body shook like the last fall leaf clinging desperately to a branch, and her heart ached as if it were breaking anew with every tear she shed. Her throat hurt.
Kev held her close and didn’t say a word, didn’t try to stop her or tell her she was being silly. He just let her cry. And then, when she felt her tears subsiding a bit, when she thought she might survive this crying jag after all, he pulled her with him until he could reach the shower. He turned on the water. It took a few moments, but steam began to fill the cubicle.
“Think you can do this?” he asked her, still holding her close, his arms around her, buoying her up.
She swallowed, her throat aching. She didn’t want to be alone with her thoughts and the images in her head. “Don’t leave me. Please don’t leave me.”
He set her gently away from him until he could meet her gaze. The pain in his eyes sent a sharp ache plunging into her heart.
“I can’t stay. If I stay…”
It was the first time since the night in his bed that she’d gotten the idea he might not be unaffected after all. That he might, possibly, truly want her again. That he wasn’t teasing her to make her laugh. Her heart thumped as she sucked in a breath and ran a shaky hand over his hard chest. “I want you to stay. I want to be with you.”
He closed his eyes for a moment. “Mendez ordered me not to have sex with you. The night before we deployed.”
Anger burned in her belly. So Mendez knew something about the two of them. Or suspected anyway. And he’d gone to Kev instead of her. Just like a man. She might be a part of this team, but she was still a woman. And women needed a man to make decisions for them. Or so a man like the colonel believed.
“Mendez doesn’t run my life. He doesn’t get to say who I care about or what I do.” She cupped his jaw in her palm. Her fingers trembled. “He’s not here, and I know why he said it, but Jesus, Kev, we could have died out there. We still could.”
He kissed her palm. “You have no idea how that thought tears me up inside. How it gets inside my head and makes me crazy. When I think of anything happening to you…”
“You won’t let it,” she said softly. “I know you won’t.”
He looked so lost and fierce in that moment that she stepped into him and pulled his head down to hers. He didn’t try to stop her. When their lips met, it was a soft, tentative kiss that quickly turned hot and intense.
“We shouldn’t,” he said, tearing his mouth from hers. Yet he slid his hands beneath her dress and yanked it up and over her head. “But damned if I’m capable of walking away.”
Joy blossomed in her soul as their mouths fused again. They kissed hard and long, and then he divested her of her bra and panties while she fumbled with his belt buckle. Her fingers were clumsy, and she made a noise of frustration.
“Wait a minute,” he said, setting her away from him and disappearing into the bedroom. She thought he might have changed his mind, and she wondered what she would do if so—but he was back a moment later with a condom package. Relief threatened to make her knees weak.
He gave her the package while he stripped off his shirt and pants. His body made her mouth water. It was hard and perfect, with rippling abs and tight muscle that flexed and bunched with every movement. She couldn’t help but run her hands over him, learning his shape by touch.
He growled as he shoved his pants off, and she wrapped her hand around his hard cock.
“Lucky.”
“I’ve dreamed of this for days now. Dreamed of you.”
He backed her into the shower, his body in her personal space, his hands sliding over her hips, her waist. Hot water pummeled her back, plastered her hair to her head, and washed away the dirt and blood from the afternoon.
Kev reached for the shampoo at the same time she stroked him. His flesh was so hot it burned. His breath hitched.
“You seriously want to kill me, don’t you?”
“I just want you.” She felt achy and needy and so very alive when she was with him. It was as if she’d swallowed sunshine and it burned her from the inside out.
She didn’t care about anything but getting him inside her. If he was inside her, he wouldn’t spend much time looking at her skin, noticing her imperfections.
“First things first.” He poured shampoo in his hand, and even though she ached with need, a surge of tenderness warmed the darkest reaches of her soul.
He turned her until her back was to him and lathered her hair. When she reached behind her and cupped his balls, he took her arms and put her hands over her head, palms against the wall.
“Move your hands again and I’ll spank you,” he growled in her ear.
A shiver tripped down her spine. “You wouldn’t dare.”
He nipped her earlobe, and an arrow of longing went straight to her clit and made it throb. Oh, she loved that he didn’t treat her with kid gloves. Not this time.
“Try me.”
She stood with her palms flat against the wall while he washed her hair. He used a cup sitting on a ledge to rinse her hair instead of letting her turn and duck under the spray again. Another bottle popped open and she wondered what he was doing—but then his soapy hands moved over her and she wanted to scream. His palms slid against her wet flesh so erotically, so teasingly. His fingers explored, dancing over her skin, and all her fears about her scars fled.
He pinched her nipples softly and repeatedly until her body was a bundle of nerve endings waiting
to explode. She dropped her forehead against the wall and tried to breathe normally.
It didn’t work.
“Kev, please…”
“Please what?”
She grabbed his hand and slid it between her legs. The slight stinging slap on her ass made her jerk, but in a good way. It was a shock, yes, but it was also erotic as hell. Especially when he touched her where she wanted. His fingers glided between her folds, found her clit. Lucky whimpered with the rightness of it.
“I told you I’d spank you.” His voice was a sensual rasp in her ear.
“And I’ll pay you back for it.” She gasped. “Later.”
“I’ll look forward to it.”
He made her part her legs a bit more, and then he began to roll her clit between his thumb and forefinger while she pressed her palms to the wall and thrust her hips back toward him.
“You’re so hot,” he said. “So beautiful. I want you to come, Lucky. Come hard. Scream my name.”
His mouth was on her neck, her shoulder, his fingers working their magic as the tension built higher and higher. And then it was simply too much and she shattered with a sharp cry. Her orgasm ripped through her, scouring her body and soul with its power. With the power of all the things she felt for this man.
Confusing things. Hot, needy things. Forbidden things.
He turned her in his arms and pressed the condom package into her hand. She’d forgotten all about it, but he’d taken it from her and set it on the ledge when they’d entered the shower. Now she ripped it open and sheathed him with trembling fingers.
He was a hard male animal, completely focused as he pushed her back against the wall and lifted her up high. He hesitated just a moment, their gazes tangling.
“Tell me you want me.”
As if he didn’t know. But she sensed it was important to him somehow, that it went deep and soothed something inside him that she didn’t know existed. It made her long to know him, but she wasn’t certain she ever would.
Kev had always been a closed book, a secret wrapped in mystery. A lonely man living a lonely life. Her heart ached and swelled with love.
“I want you, Kevin. Only you.”
With a groan, he plunged into her.
***
Two bombs were nothing, but they were a start. Abdul Halim watched the news reports of the bombings on four different television screens set up in his personal sanctuary—his wife was not allowed in; Lana was, but only when invited. This evening, both his wife and Lana were visiting friends in another apartment, so he was completely alone.
He lifted the cigarette to his lips and took a long drag. The Qu’rimi reporters were nearly hysterical. CNN, the BBC, and Al Jazeera took it as a matter of course. There were security cameras in the vicinity of the embassy, and they’d captured the explosion. The footage was now looping on all the networks.
Of course he couldn’t bomb the American embassy. It was too difficult to get inside and almost impossible to bring in explosives even if he got someone through security. Besides, his target wasn’t really the embassy so much as he wanted the Americans to think so. If they were focused on themselves, they wouldn’t realize what was happening in the Ministry of Science until too late.
If he knew anything about Americans, he knew they were paranoid about being targets. They’d gotten so accustomed to fielding attacks from small-minded people with short-term goals that it had affected their strategic thinking.
His goals were much broader, of course. He wasn’t hampered by the small thinking that had characterized so many other movements. No, he was able to think much bigger than anyone before him had done. And that was why he would succeed.
The Americans wouldn’t see it coming. No one would.
The film of the bombing played again, and again he felt that visceral rush when the flash of light blazed from the car parked on the street. Glass shattered and people screamed. He enjoyed that bit. It wasn’t quite as good as inflicting the pain himself, but it would have to do.
On CNN, footage played of a reporter talking to witnesses. The camera was set up on a sidewalk, and people crossed behind the man as he pulled in random bystanders. The camera zoomed in, just for a moment, on a woman in a torn abaya. Beside her was a tall man. Not a Qu’rimi, but a blue-eyed foreigner.
Yet it was the woman who caught his attention. He grabbed the remote and rewound the broadcast until that precise moment when her face was onscreen. And then he used the zoom function to get closer, to study her features. Her face wasn’t as sharp at a higher power as it was in regular playback mode. But it was familiar in a way that made his blood beat.
Was she here? Was Lucky Reid in Baq instead of the United States? Was this why his people had not yet managed to find her? He leaned toward the television, studying the blurry face. Was it her? Or was he seeing a mirage because he wanted to find her?
He zoomed out and looked at her again. He could not be certain. Yet a cold, knife-sharp pressure bloomed in his gut. He did not ignore those feelings when they happened.
It was entirely possible the Americans were moving much faster than he’d thought they would.
He studied the man beside her. A pale-eyed foreigner who was not small in the least. A man with a grim expression and broad shoulders. Abdul Halim told himself to be calm, to be methodical. It could be nothing. But his heart pounded with excitement as he picked up his phone and dialed.
There was only one place foreigners tended to stay these days. And he had a man on the inside.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Being inside Lucky was heaven. And hell, because he wasn’t supposed to be doing this. But how could he stop?
Kev held her hard against the wall and rolled his hips into her, sliding into her slick heat again and again. Her legs wrapped high around his waist and her back arched, her nipples thrusting up toward him, so beautiful and tight that he bent his head and captured one in his mouth. He sucked hard and her fingers curled into his shoulders as she moaned.
Thank God for stone walls, he thought. Matt and Billy were across the hall, and if they had any idea what he was up to right now, they’d both be pretty pissed.
As if he gave a good goddamn right this second about anything but the way he felt being buried inside this woman who meant so much more than anyone had in a very long time.
His entire body was on fire. His skin sizzled and smoked, and he felt as if the top of his head would blow off at any second. The tingling at the base of his spine was pretty intense, but he did everything he could to hold back the orgasm building to a fever pitch inside him.
He had to make her come first.
He had to feel her shatter around him, her body milking him, squeezing him, until he could let go and burst deep inside her.
Her body glistened with the water pounding down on top of them. Her skin was golden and beautiful. Even her scars were beautiful because they were a part of her. He lifted his head and took her mouth again, and then he pulled back until he could see her face.
Her eyes opened, her dark irises fastening on him, widening with the coming storm rolling through her.
“Kev.” She gasped as he thrust into her harder than before, again and again. “Yes, oh yes.”
Her body tightened, her legs gripping him tight—and then she cried out, shuddering in his arms, quivering around his aching cock, squeezing him so tight it almost hurt.
He didn’t ease up, kept up the pressure of his thrusts while she chanted his name—and then his own orgasm hit him and his back bowed with the strength of it. He couldn’t contain the hoarse cry that escaped him, and he couldn’t stop the buckling of his knees when it was over.
They sank to the hard tile floor together, their bodies separating as they sat beneath the spray, arms wrapped around one another, holding tight. He couldn’t speak, couldn’t get any words to form. So he sat back against the wall and tugged her against him, pressing her smooth flesh against his and tucking her head against his shoulder.
Th
ey sat that way until the water started to cool. Finally, Kev found the strength to stand and turn off the taps. He grabbed towels and dried her off. Then he dried himself and scooped her into his arms like she couldn’t walk on her own.
She didn’t protest. She just wrapped her arms around his neck and let him carry her to the bed.
There was no doubt they’d spend the night together. He laid her down on cool cotton and followed, stretching out beside her. They didn’t speak and he woke with a jerk sometime later, shocked that he’d fallen asleep so easily.
It was full dark out now, and the room was lit only by outside lights shining inside. He reached for his phone and checked it. He didn’t expect he’d missed any calls, but who knew after the stress of the afternoon what he might have done. It wasn’t like him to fall asleep so easily, and he’d done that with no problem.
But he hadn’t missed anything, so he set the phone down and scraped a hand through his hair. Lucky stirred beside him, and his dick began to harden.
“What time is it?” she mumbled, turning into his body and putting an arm over his chest.
“Eight o’clock.”
“Wow, I thought it must be midnight at least.”
“You okay?”
She yawned and stretched, tilting her chin to gaze up at him. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
He could feel the elephant in the room staring at him, but he decided not to go there. He wouldn’t bring Marco between them right now. “It’s been a rough afternoon.”
“It has.” She sighed softly. “All those people. They were innocent, going about their day as usual—and they had the misfortune to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“We were almost in the wrong place too.”
She reached up and slid a finger along his lips. “I know. But you protected me. You threw me under you like it was as instinctual as breathing.”
He grasped her fingers and kissed them. “It is. I would die for you.”
She dragged in a breath. “I hate when you say things like that.”
“And yet it’s the truth.”
Dangerously Hot (A Hostile Operations Team Novel)(#4) Page 15