by Em Petrova
“Let’s talk about when you were held in the crate.”
Let’s fucking not.
“It was wooden.”
“Metal.”
What the hell? Was she trying to trip him up? He’d told her it was metal.
“And you weren’t able to break through it to escape.”
“I’ve told you all this before.” He threw back the sheet covering him and swung his legs over the bed, tired of lying after a month in the damn hospital. He was ready to spring this joint and be cleared to rejoin the Ranger Ops.
Agent Alexander’s gaze dropped from the T-shirt he wore to the bandages covering both legs. Some of the burns were exposed to the air, the blistering done and only a twisted mass of scars left behind.
Her expression was unchanged as she stared at his burns, as if the sight of it didn’t affect her at all. He didn’t know how to feel about that. First off, he wanted to shock her into running out that damn door with all haste. But he also wanted to test a woman’s reaction to his new look, ugly scars and all.
She raised her gaze and settled it firmly on his. He waited.
“Could you hear anyone speaking while you were locked in the crate?”
“Jesus, you’re relentless. I’ve told you every sound was muffled. Ever been locked in a closet as a kid? No? I’m sure your parents wanted to.”
She did the legs uncrossing and crossing thing, her expression bland. “I realize you’re used to speaking to people any way you want, Lincoln. But—”
“Linc,” he grated out.
“I’m just trying to do my job, Linc. Investigating Operation X is my number one priority.”
“Surely, Nealy,” he spat, “you have other people with better intel than I have. You’ve exhausted me enough with your eternal questioning and going in circles. I don’t operate that way. I say what’s on my mind one time and then I let it go. End of fucking story.”
“I didn’t realize talking was so exhausting to a former Texas Ranger who’s been newly assigned to a unit of OFFSUS.” She offered him a cool smile. Her pale pink lips turned upward with no guile or semblance of sincerity at all—because she was a heartless woman who didn’t have her shit together on this case.
“Look.” He stood, feeling more powerful than he had the last time he’d gotten to his feet. Maybe his wrath was bolstering him. Whatever—he’d take it. “I don’t care if you like me or don’t. I don’t care if you believe me or don’t. You’re nothing to me, and I’m finished with this questioning. Not just for today—forever.”
She stood, and they faced each other, closer than they’d ever been before, with only a foot of space between his bare feet and her plain black, rubber-soled shoes. He dragged in a deep breath.
“You’ve been very uncooperative during this entire month, Reed.”
“And you’ve been annoying this entire month, Alexander.”
They glared at each other. Her dark brown eyes gave him the first change of expression he’d seen from her yet, when they glimmered with animosity. Finally, he was getting a real rise from the woman, and damn, it felt good.
“Perhaps I’ll have a chat with Colonel Downs about our visits.”
“Go for it.” If his superior officer knew this woman, he’d completely understand Linc’s inability to remain civil.
She dropped a hand to her side, and he was pleased to see she curled her fingers into a fist.
He cocked his head at her, examining her features up close. Nothing remarkable—almond-shaped eyes so dark he couldn’t see the centers and in contrast, paler brown hair that didn’t appear to be a dye job. Her nose and mouth didn’t stand out to him as anything but average.
Though her lashes were very long and curling, and she wore no makeup at all.
In fact, up close he was able to see a spattering of more freckles across her cheekbones and the bridge of her nose.
“I won’t be returning, Reed.”
“Good.”
She slapped the mask of indifference over her face again, and the flat look she was so damn good at returned. “I wish you a speedy recovery.”
“Thank you.”
She skirted around him, sleeve brushing his arm on the way past. He turned to watch her walk out the door in that long-legged stride that annoyed the fuck out of him.
He wasn’t sure what it was about that walk, but she left him grinding his teeth every damn time.
“Hell.” He sank to the edge of the bed and ran a hand over his face and then through his short hair. He missed his cowboy hat. “I gotta get out of here before she changes her mind and comes back.”
Chapter Three
Nealy threw herself back in her chair and stared at the ceiling. The little patterns of dots of the ceiling tiles gave her no help at all in this situation. There had to be another path.
But she couldn’t see what.
She did not need the help of the Ranger Ops team to bring down Operation X.
She considered the hundreds of cases she’d worked on over the course of her career. With so much experience, she had this. She’d handled similar cases before.
Only, they weren’t this large scale.
So it would be like working on several cases at the same time. Easy.
She looked for her car keys, but they weren’t on the corner of her desk where she’d left them. She moved some files and then looked in the top drawer of her desk. Finally, she pushed backward and scanned the floor.
Sure enough, the keys were under the desk. She folded in half to reach for them, when a deep male voice sounded.
“Alexander.”
She smacked her head on the underside of her desk. “Oh Jesus.” Smooth, Nealy. So smooth. She hadn’t felt like an awkward teen in at least twenty minutes.
Clapping a hand over the pain on her skull, she peered up at Mark. He was grinning, clearly having seen her embarrassing moment.
“How’s the case coming?”
“Closing in.” With keys in hand, she sat back and tried to look as if she dropped her keys and bashed her head off her own desk every day, meanwhile taking down huge arms traffickers.
“So, progress.”
She nodded.
“And you have Ranger Ops on board.”
Not exactly.
She nodded. “They’ve been very helpful in providing key information to get us closer to our target.”
Shit—she was going to have to return to the hospital, wasn’t she? Her link to the special ops team was Lincoln. Linc. What the hell ever.
“In fact, I was just heading over to the hospital now to speak with our team member.”
Mark nodded. “Good work, Alexander. Keep on it.”
It burned her to get a pat on the back from the man who’d scored the promotion she’d wanted, but more so when she was lying through her teeth about the helpfulness of her Ranger Ops contact.
All the way over to the hospital, she replayed her last encounter with Linc in her mind. Whether crippled by pain and the tortures he’d endured, or stronger and on the mend, he was still an asshole. Cocky, self-inflated and unhelpful to the highest degree.
Still, she had to try. Only the Ranger Ops could get her where she needed to be.
As soon as she walked into his room, he looked up. “Back again, I see. Knew you couldn’t stand to stay away from me,” he drawled out in that deep Texas baritone.
Dammit, she’d love to just turn around and walk back out right now, but she needed this one piece of information, and she hadn’t asked it yet—hadn’t thought to before.
Bracing her legs wide, she stared right back. He was good-looking, she supposed, in a rough and wild way. Muscled and handsome enough to know it. God, she hated him.
“Ask your question, Agent Alexander.” He flipped the page of the magazine he was looking at.
“I’m gathering to strike.”
He gave her a blank duh look.
“And I wondered at your best guess at their whereabouts right now. Any memory of conversations
you might have overheard—”
“I told you, I couldn’t hear anything in that crate.” His jaw clenched hard, as it always did when he spoke about the place he’d broken out of by blowing the sides off the crate—and himself up in the process.
“When you were in the truck, then. Something might have been said—”
“There wasn’t.” He slapped the magazine onto the bed and swung his legs over. More of the burns were uncovered than last time, and only the worst of them still bandaged.
No Marine, soldier or integral part of a special forces unit wanted to be pitied. She concealed her reaction to the burns while he stared at her.
Seeing that look in his eyes, she raised her chin a notch. “Look, I’m trying to do my job. But forget it. You don’t know anything, never did. Fine. I can handle this without you.”
That brought him to his feet. Arrogant bastard.
He was tall and broad and basically a stunning specimen of manhood too. Not that she cared.
He took a step toward her, and just like last time, she held her position. No man could intimidate her—didn’t he realize what ATF agents really did on a daily? She’d taken down massive bodyguards of drug dealers who ran empires. Her training required it.
“You can handle it,” he repeated quietly.
“That’s right.” She gave a single nod.
“I beg your pardon, miss,” he flicked his gaze over her, “but do you have the firepower? A sharpshooter? More weapons, ammo and explosives than them? If not, it’s a losing battle, and I’ll see you at your funeral.”
She’d said it before, and she’d say it again—God, she hated him.
But that emotion only fueled her desire to see Operation X taken down—without the help of Ranger Ops and especially without the assistance of this irritating and cocky man.
* * * * *
Linc hadn’t put on pants in more than a month. His last pair had been melted onto him. But if slipping into cargo pants again meant he was walking out of this place, then he was eager.
He drew them up to his waist, holding his breath as he did, and was surprised to find no pain radiated through him. Relief struck, and he grinned, tugging his pants into place and buttoning the waist.
A new phone, given to him by Colonel Downs, who’d come by himself to congratulate Linc on his recovery, buzzed. He brought it to his ear, and several shouts projected into his ear.
Laughing, he held it away from his head and waited for the guys to stop.
“Welcome back, Linc!”
“Hurry home, Linc! We put your name on the scorecard and your bowling ball’s waiting for you!”
He chuckled, thinking of their hangout, the Pins ’n Sins. None of them really loved bowling, but it was a good place to decompress and blow off steam. Man, he couldn’t wait to get back.
“When do you fly out?”
“Sixteen hundred,” he said.
“You can fit in a game tonight,” said Cav.
“We’ll keep your beer cold!” Jess added.
“Hurry your ass back, bro,” Lennon said, leaving Linc choked up by the tone of his twin’s voice.
“I’ll pick you up at the airport,” Shaw offered.
“That’d be good, thanks.”
“No prob.”
“Glad to have you back soon,” Nash, otherwise known as Sully, said. “We were gettin’ pretty damn sick of your replacement.”
Linc was happy to hear his brothers hadn’t bonded with the guy from Team Rougarou from Louisiana and edged Linc out.
After Linc ended the call, he looked around the room he’d called home for almost five weeks. No love was lost on these bland white walls, and even glancing at the chair had him thinking of his biggest annoyance in being here, more so than the constant therapy and painful debriding of his burns to promote healing.
Yup, he was ready to walk out.
He pocketed the phone and grabbed the paperwork he’d been left with. As he passed the nurse’s station, several threw him waves and good wishes. Lynn came around the desk to hug him. He gave her a smile, and she said, “If you’re ever in DC, stop in and say hello.”
“I will.”
He moved on to the elevator. As soon as he pressed the button to go down, the doors opened, and he bit off a groan.
The ATF agent stood there, prepared to step off the elevator. Seeing him, she moved back.
“Going down?”
“You just couldn’t stay away, could you?” he drawled, crowding her back on purpose, though she was the only person in the elevator.
Something about her looked different today. As he pressed the button for the ground floor, he looked at her from the corner of his eye.
“You’ve got your walking papers,” she said.
He nodded. Yeah, she was different—dare he say prettier? He couldn’t put his finger on it.
He shot her a sideways glance. Same black pants, same white shirt. Same—
That was it—her hair wasn’t pulled back in the slick ponytail she always wore, but instead, the strands were loose, extending down toward her breasts in thick waves.
“I’m glad you’re mended. Headed back to your unit?”
“Yes,” he said. “Why were you coming to see me?”
“Who said I was coming to see you?”
“You got another poor guy in the hospital you want to interrogate daily about his connection to a cell of arms traffickers?”
“No,” she said dryly. “Drug smugglers.” She pivoted to him, and he swore he caught a smile, but just then the elevator jolted.
She reached out to stabilize herself, and he caught her by the arm just as the entire unit came to a dead stop—and then freefell for at least six feet.
Nealy’s legs went out from under her, and she sank to the floor.
The movement didn’t bother Linc at all—but the close proximity of the walls did.
His breathing quickened, and he realized he was starting to sweat. It wasn’t from the air being cut in here either.
Fuck, not again. He wasn’t likely to find any baked goods to create a bomb a second time.
Cautiously, he reached for the elevator buttons, waiting for the unit to plummet further.
“Don’t press any buttons,” Nealy said.
“Why not?”
“Haven’t you watched any movies? They always press all the buttons and the elevator’s jammed for hours, locking them in.”
Fuck. Hours. A bead of sweat ran down his nape.
He couldn’t give in to his past experiences. He’d get them out of this.
He pressed the emergency call button. A second later, a woman’s voice filled the elevator. “We’re aware your unit has stopped, and repairmen are working on it right now. Please take a seat on the floor and try to remain calm.”
She clicked off. Nealy sent him a look. “Remain calm? She’s sitting at a desk and we’re locked in an elevator. Simple for her to say.”
“Take it easy. This sort of things happens more than you might think. They’ll free us soon.”
The pulse in her throat flickered rapidly. She was freckled there as well.
Shit.
And she was afraid.
The usual hard look in her eyes fled, replaced by one of worry. She bit down on her lower lip, plumping it.
It’d been a long time since he had a woman underneath him—or on top of him. When she pulled her teeth away from her lip, blood flooded into the spot, darkening it to a deeper shade of rose.
She brought her knees to her chest and cradled her head in her hands. “I don’t think I like tight spaces.”
“You don’t like tight spaces?” He sank down beside her. Okay, he was starting to feel the walls close in on him too.
They stared at each other and then looked away. A strange camaraderie with her came over him. He didn’t want her to see him sweat, and she was tough enough to keep him from knowing she didn’t like being in this jam either.
“What are we going to do?” Her voice wa
s too thin and high for his liking.
“I guess we wait.” His own was raspier than he wanted.
She sliced a look his way. Up close, he could see golden flecks in her dark eyes.
“If I admit I’m a bit nervous, you’re going to laugh and throw it in my face, aren’t you?” she asked.
“Not unless you throw it in mine.”
His voice took on a grittier edge. Fuck, he wasn’t going to do this, was he?
Yeah, he was.
He reached for her, yanked her across his lap, and crushed his mouth over hers.
Her gasp was muffled by his kiss, but she parted her lips enough for his entrance. He took the chance to slip his tongue inside her warm, wet mouth, tasting lemon and mint as he growled out at the pure pleasure of having his hands on a woman again.
Suddenly, she yanked free, staring at him—at least until the lights abruptly cut off, plunging them into darkness.
“Fuck,” she said softly.
“Yeah,” he grated out. “Let’s fuck.”
They threw themselves at each other. Fumbling over buttons and zippers, kicking everything into a pile. He grabbed her by the waist and moved her to straddle him.
Falling still, she said, “I don’t suppose you’re carrying a condom.”
“Babe, I’m lucky to have my legs. If you want to do this, I can guarantee I’m clean.”
“I’m on birth control.” Surprising him, she wrapped her arms around his neck and slanted her mouth over his. It was all the answer he needed. He slid his hands down her hips to cup her firm ass, then lifted her onto his cock.
She pushed down immediately, taking him into her clenching heat right to the hilt. He growled out his pleasure, and she echoed with a low cry that ignited him.
She began to ride him with frantic little jerks of her hips, and it wasn’t enough for him. He scooped her up under the thighs and lifted her as he stood. Pressing her against the dark wall, he couldn’t make out a single curve of her body in the darkness, though her lips felt plumper, she felt softer and less angled like her sharp tongue.
“Linc!” she cried as he locked her to the wall and began to fuck her fast and hard.