Wings of Gold Series

by Tappan, Tracy

  Struggling to catch her breath, she sat completely still, not speaking, fighting nausea.

  Sekka and the agent were equally mute.

  Vertigo followed nausea. She gripped her chair’s armrests. Now that she was no longer in immediate danger of being taken by Raham—and dealing with his punishment—weird things were happening to her body. It was as if her heart and lungs were confused about their jobs, and her eyes felt heavy and dry. Traumatized—if eyes could feel such a way. She blinked, and it felt like a cup of sawdust scratched across her pupils.

  A variety of announcements came over an intercom, spoken in both English and Persian—mostly information about how to properly stow carryon luggage. A safety demonstration was given. Nasrin watched the flight attendant through flickering eyelashes. This was her first time on an airplane. Was it safe? The question formed only tangentially.

  Behind her, a man blew his nose. The flight attendant told him he would need to put his seat all the way up now. They were taking off soon.

  The airplane lurched into motion, taxied, paused. The pilot’s voice came through the speakers, and, with a thick accent, he said they were cleared for takeoff. The jet engines roared. The plane sped. The cabin reverberated. The aircraft lifted off, pushing her stomach downward. She squeezed the armrests harder.

  The plane tipped into a turn, and she looked beyond Sekka out the small oval window, seeing what was probably the small town of Hasanabad pass beneath them. As the white buildings shrank into shapes fit for a dollhouse, her head vibrated like a hammer-struck tuning fork. For a moment of surreal dislocation, almost insanity, it hit her full-force: she was actually on an airplane, flying away…leaving Iran and her family forever.

  A sodden ball pushed into her throat. She dropped her chin, her head becoming no more than a lump dangling off the top of her spinal cord.

  Minutes passed while the plane thundered upward.

  She tried to draw deep, calming breaths without being noisy about it. She’d worked so hard for this. Why did it now seem so wrenching and difficult?

  The plane leveled off.

  A flight attendant’s voice came over the loudspeaker again, saying something in English, then repeating it in Persian. “We have left Iranian airspace, and are pleased to announce that alcoholic beverages may now be served.”

  Several passengers stirred…

  She startled when Sekka lightly touched her forearm. “You are truly free now,” he murmured.

  Free. She stared at her knees in near-incapacitating shock. Free… No longer a showpiece. No longer the wife of a terrorist. She was a human being, with choices. She didn’t have to let a man touch her if she didn’t want it. Ever again…

  Sweet flower…sweet flower…

  She squeezed her eyes closed. Never again would she have to hear those two words! A cry caught in her throat, and she hid her face in her palms. She wouldn’t have to be lost and unhappy and scared anymore—in fact: She. Would. Not. Allow. It. She’d already had enough misery in her life.

  She made it a vow. I’ll never be afraid again.

  Sliding her hands down her face, she used the tips of her fingers to wipe away her tears. Free. She tested the word a third time. It sang like a tinkling angel’s chime through her mind. She’d come so close to failing today, even possibly losing her life. Almost. Because of…

  She turned to regard the Turk, her betrayer, this man who’d nearly stolen everything she’d risked her life to get. And for what? To save himself extra paperwork? To save his country from the stain of her Iranian ancestry?

  She swung her hand up and slapped the Turk hard across the face.

  His head jolted to one side. She heard his teeth clack together.

  He paused a moment, then moved his head back into place. Without a word, he slid his briefcase out from under his seat, pulled down a tray from the seatback in front of him, and set the briefcase on top of it. He clicked open the locks, lifted the lid, and pulled out a manila file. He laid it on her lap. “Your new identity,” he said in barely intelligible Persian.

  Her lungs emptied. The last of her adrenaline drained from her like milky doogh from a tipped-over bottle. Another tear fell from her eye. She picked up the file and gave it to Sekka.

  He opened it, read some, then nodded to her.

  Reaching inside her bra, she extracted the papers which incriminated Raham for the funding of terrorism against the United States. She handed them to the Turk.

  The agent put the papers inside his briefcase and closed the lid. Without another word, he leaned his head back and shut his eyes.

  She looked at Sekka.

  He smiled at her. “From here on out, you’ll be known as Farrin Barr…”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Crack! Farrin gasped as a bullet zinged past her, mere inches from her left shoulder.

  In front of her—instantly—the sadistic-looking terrorist threw himself down.

  The zinging bullet rushed by where his head used to be, and, unfortunately for the terrorist behind him, found a new target. It hit the second man over the right eyebrow in a spurt of bloody dewdrops.

  Without a sound, the man went white and fell backward onto the sand.

  She stared down at the two men on the ground—one alive, one dead—for the length of a frantic heartbeat. The realization crowded in: the bullet had come from behind her. Hooves drummed the earth…

  She whirled around.

  Holy Allah…

  Jason!

  He was galloping toward her at an impossible speed, a huge cloud of dust billowing in his wake. A rifle was braced against his shoulder, and the sleek, muscular lines of his thighs stood out in sculpted definition against his pants. She gaped. With both his hands occupied by his weapon, he was driving his wild horse with his legs alone.

  Jason tilted his head slightly, aiming down the stock, and—crack! Whoever he shot this time didn’t go silently into death.

  She heard a scream behind her.

  The gray horse stampeded onward, the steady thunder of hooves like an incoming storm. The bearded terrorist on the ground rolled out of the way.

  Flinging his rifle over his shoulder, Jason leaned low on the side of his horse, his focus zeroed in on her. One of his arms stretched out…

  She widened her eyes almost beyond their sockets. He isn’t going to—!?

  Jason’s arm snapped closed around her waist, and he whisked her off her feet, pulling her onto his lap side-saddle. She’d only just landed, and he was already flipping his rifle back into his hand, the stock lying along the length of his forearm, and—crack! Steam jetted from a blockade jeep’s grill with a gusty breath. Crack!—and pop! A chunk of rubber on the other jeep’s front tire flapped down. The vehicle sank onto its tire rim in a depleted tilt.

  Jason wheeled his horse around, dust and pebbles flying.

  She dug her fingers into his shirt.

  The bearded terrorist, on his feet now, could only glare at them. He was too far out of range to shoot.

  Jason didn’t detour from their escape to chase after the bad guy. He catapulted back down the road the way he’d come.

  She braced a palm on top of her head to keep her hijab from sailing off, and tucked her face to Jason’s chest for protection against the sandstorm they were blowing up. They were going so fast! The relentless, hard tramping of the horse’s hooves was violently jarring. Heavens, her tailbone!

  After a small eternity, they finally slowed, Jason’s horse prancing a few paces as it changed to a brisk walk.

  “That’s right, Little Shit.” Jason leaned forward, his muscular chest pressing into the side of her body, and patted his horse’s sweat-lathered neck. “You have every reason to be proud of yourself. Nicely done, boy.” He shifted back and peered down at her. “Are you okay?”

  She swallowed convulsively. If Jason’s solid arm hadn’t been encircling her waist, she might’ve collapsed off his horse. Complete and utter relief: there was no other way to express how she felt.<
br />
  “Did you get hurt when your mare threw you?” Jason’s eyes darkened. “Did that man touch you?”

  “I… No. I’m all right.” Her fall had probably left a bruise—or ten—on her body, but who cared? She wasn’t in the custody of those horrible men. A tremble wracked her body, and she passed a shaky hand over her mouth. Okay. Yes. She’d tried to be brave about it, but she really hadn’t wanted to be captured. “Thank you so much for coming back for me, Jason.”

  His chin canted back. “For coming back for you?” he repeated in a voice both cold and stunned. “What did you think I’d do, Farrin? Leave you to those assholes?”

  “No.” Well, yes. “I mean, yes, but I figured you’d return for me later…when it was safer, and—”

  “Safer?” His eyes, hot and hard, snapped down to hers. He was deeply affronted, angry.

  Hot color shot into her cheeks. She dropped her focus to her hands, still fisted in the front of Jason’s shirt.

  “What the hell kind of man do you think I am?”

  She forced herself to unclaw her fingernails. “I have no idea what kind of man you are,” she said quietly. “I’ve known you for all of a day.”

  He trained his attention on the road ahead, the bones in his face and jaw rigid.

  Shane was just down the path, jouncing along at a gait that had to be sheer torture for his wounds.

  “I watched you disappear down the road,” she went on lamely. “So I thought…”

  “This stupid brute”—he indicated his horse—“doesn’t turn around on a dime.” He rode steadily toward Shane.

  She noticed the knuckled grip Jason had on the reins. “I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s just that, uh, no one’s ever come to my rescue before.” Not that double-crossing CIA agent, who was supposed to be her protector; not Souzan, who had never even uttered one word to try and get her daughter out of an unhappy marriage.

  Jason peered down at her again. His face was very close. So near, she could see flecks of intriguing gold surrounding his pupils. His eyes looked warmer, too, like fine brandy with a candle flickering behind the snifter. Maybe they were warm. They definitely weren’t angry anymore.

  “Now you know,” he said simply.

  “Pardon?”

  “Now you know who I am.”

  She glanced aside and made a noncommittal sound. She couldn’t think of anything farther from the truth; with his shuttered pupils and evasive answers—the situation is complicated, is all—he kept himself very unknowable. She should know him, though. She’d let him comfort her last night—hug her—and such a thing didn’t seem right with a man who was a stranger.

  They drew even with Shane’s mare, and Jason’s gelding nickered. “How are you?” Jason asked.

  “Perfect,” Shane returned, obviously lying. Grooves of pain were dug into the corners of his eyes.

  “We can’t stop to rest right now,” Jason said. “Sorry.”

  “Thank you, Oh, Mighty Obvious One.”

  Jason ignored the snark. “We need to get off this main road. As soon as those tangoes get some transportation going, they’re going to be gunning for us big time. Farrin? Would you mind swinging your leg over, so you’re sitting astride?”

  She nodded. Back to the business of running for our lives. She gathered up her skirts—not too high, luckily; the garment was long and flowing—then flung her right leg over the mane of Jason’s horse to—

  She rounded her eyes. The new position had just pressed her rump flush against Jason’s crotch, his strong thighs now bracketing her hips. A weird loosening happened down below. Her constricted lungs opened all the way, and she drew in the first deep breath she’d taken since her mare ran off—maybe since they rode around the bend in the path and spotted the roadblock.

  “Could you hold the reins?” Handing her the leathers, Jason twisted and leaned back to reach into one of the packs tied to his saddle, the motion pushing the soft but obvious contours of his penis and testicles more tightly against her behind.

  Her cheeks flamed and stung. Again, no revulsion, not a bit. Instead, she felt something that was… Something beyond words, like a growing heaviness in her womb, as much as a quickening sensation…a pushy nudge to clench her thighs together.

  Jason brought forth the map and unfolded it.

  She bent forward to let him use her back as a table of sorts, and—unintentionally angled her vagina directly against his barely clothed organ. Her lips fell open. He was now shoved right next to her opening, and each clopping step his horse took moved him rhythmically against her, like…like…

  Like the tempo of sex.

  Her mind broke free of some sort of restraint and filled unexpectedly with a naked picture of Jason. She startled. She’d never imagined a man unclothed before, but suddenly all she could see was Jason’s young, solid physique, his bare muscles glistening with sweat born of passion, his body pressed against her…firm, not soft.

  The heat in her cheeks rose to boiling, and out of nowhere, an intense yearning flooded her. What…what exactly was it she wanted from him?

  “There’s a small road coming up that leads to a town called Kallar Syedan,” he said, studying the map he’d spread open on her back. He sounded calm and everyday.

  Well. Whatever she wanted, apparently he didn’t.

  His horse plodded over a small mound of dirt in the road, and her rump shifted more heavily against his lap. A little gasping breath escaped her, an almost-moan.

  He snapped the map shut.

  She jumped, then…

  Oh.

  Now she felt it. His erection prodding the side of her buttocks—a thick, demanding, rock-solid erection.

  “Damned adrenaline again,” Jason muttered roughly.

  Double-fisted, she squeezed the saddle knob thing until her knuckles throbbed.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Problems were piling up.

  Jason really needed to attend to them, get some things figured out.

  At last check, Shane was running a fever, but since Farrin’s backpack was long gone—still attached to her runaway mare—they were shit out of luck for any strong meds to give him. Also lost were her blanket and bathroom miscellanies, plus a supply of much-needed fruit bars. Without those bars, food supplies amounted to two MREs, one more of Jason’s and one of Shane’s.

  The three of them surviving on two meals for as long as it took to travel by horse across three hundred miles of territory to the SEAL combat outpost in the Kunar Province of eastern Afghanistan was about as non-do-able as it got. The journey would take at least a week, maybe longer, now that Jason’s gelding was burdened with carrying two passengers. They’d have to travel at a slower pace and take more breaks.

  So, yeah, serious shit needed solving. He should be planning his next move, but the only move he seemed capable of focusing on was gettin’ busy with the woman whose bottom was nestled intimately between his thighs, even though nothing about Farrin’s current position was sexual. One of her cheeks was resting gently against his chest, and her wrists were curled together in her lap; about an hour ago, her zero amount of sleep overcame her, and she conked out. It didn’t matter. His imagination was still in some deeply carnal places.

  Top move on his mind was bending her over so he could take her from behind. Because slamming home against those soft, child-bearing hips of hers would feel, he knew with absolute certainty, impossibly good. The perpetual rocking motion of his horse was very much not helping tone down his fantasy, nor was the memory of the pleasure-filled gasp she’d uttered, or, for that matter, the mere scraps of fabric between them: only his thin pajama-like bottoms and her skirt. Right about now he’d pay a couple of hundred bucks for a pair of Levi’s made out of the thickest, sturdiest denim on the market, along with about six pairs of undershorts to put on.

  To add to his pain, her scent was right under his nose, and her aroma was growing earthier with each passing day. He supposed a sweaty woman should smell bad, but she damned well didn�
��t. More like a woman who a man took in some sort of primitive way. Like from behind… A firm hand on the small of her back, and he’d have her bent over, then one yank, and her skirt and panties would be down to her knees. He would take a moment to savor the view of the diamond formed by her thighs and her sex, then, bam…

  Bam? He gripped the reins in an iron fist. When the hell did he ever think bam—or even feel raw urges like this—when it came to sleeping with a woman? Never. Screwing was just that to him: screwing. A reflex. A tension-reliever. Nothing to be anticipated with any more excitement than the prospect of a pleasant release…and often not worth all the game-playing and yakking usually preceding it.

  So what was it about Doctor Barr that had him nearly crawling out of his skin to get inside her? Besides the cool parts about her he’d already figured out: that the secret-bearing Farrin fascinated him. That not only didn’t she engage in the kinds of female manipulations he couldn’t stand, but she didn’t even seem to know those games existed. When you hear hooves, assume it’s horses, not zebras. A straightforward woman. Mostly rational. That she was a person who didn’t skirt responsibility, but claimed it.

  You said don’t let anyone into the post-op ward. Only you. But I let Kaleem in, and now your copilot is dead.

  I’m the one who should apologize for putting everyone else in danger.

  Or was it that she was bringing out an urge in him—one he thought long-buried—to defend those who didn’t have anyone else to champion them? Like he’d done for his younger brother, Danny—since Georgette was clearly born absent the protective mother gene—for Shane, whose abusive father and downtrodden mother left him coasting through life alone. For Farrin, because no one’s ever come to my rescue before.

  No, it couldn’t be this reason, because the last thing he wanted was to wear the uniform of protector he’d fought to throw off. Not to say he wasn’t willing to put his neck on the line for an innocent American any day of the week. He was a military man, so of course. As long as it was impersonal, he was fine with it. But put him in charge of a woman he was inexorably drawn to and his best friend from boyhood, and it was just too much damned involvement. Made him want to line his brain-room with six layers of cushions and plenty of blankets, and bar himself inside it for a long-term breather.