HOT Valor (Hostile Operations Team - Book 11)

by Lynn Raye Harris

  “Am I? I thought I was an ordinary one. The kind you could get anywhere.”

  Oh hell. She had said that to him earlier. Of course he hadn’t forgotten it. “You are hardly ordinary. And you’re the one who said once was enough. I only agreed with you.”

  “Do you still agree?” His fingers slipped to her throat, stroked her skin. When she didn’t answer, he followed that up with his mouth. Just his lips on her skin, nothing more. Featherlight.

  She dropped her head back, closed her eyes. She should tell him to go. Her heart couldn’t take it. But she knew there was no way she would. She loved him too much. Wanted him too much. Had spent too many years dreaming of touching him once more.

  “I don’t know what I believe when you do that.”

  He straightened, their eyes catching and holding. “I believe the next few days are going to be hell. I believe that if I’m going to die, I want to die having done this right.”

  She couldn’t even focus on the part where he thought he might die. A yawning black hole threatened to swallow her if she did. “What makes you think you didn’t do it right? We were both happy—weren’t we?”

  “Yeah. But there’s more. You know it.”

  Her throat was stone. “Being with you—it’s emotional for me. You need to know that.”

  His frown was quick, disappearing almost before she’d registered it. But it had been there. “It’s emotional for me too.”

  A weird kind of jealousy reared its head. She wanted to ask him if it was emotional for him because she looked like Valentina—as if she really were her own twin and she was hurt that he was only engaged emotionally because of her resemblance to a woman supposedly dead.

  But that was ridiculous and tangled and there was no way she was treading that ground. It didn’t matter why he felt something. It mattered that he did.

  She sank onto the bed in front of him and hooked her fingers into his belt so she could slide it free. “Spend the night with me, Johnny. We’ll worry about tomorrow when it gets here.”

  Chapter 28

  She called him Johnny again, and it stroked over his nerves like the most sensitive of touches. He watched as she slid his belt free and unbuttoned his pants. He knew what she was doing and he didn’t plan to stop her.

  Not yet.

  He’d been thinking of her the entire time he’d been talking to Yuri. Thinking of her body, of the way she’d felt wrapped around his cock, of her moans and screams. He’d told her they weren’t doing this again because it was dangerous and distracting.

  But they weren’t leaving until tomorrow morning, and he’d finally decided he wasn’t wasting the next few hours torturing himself.

  Sure, he’d had some vodka, and it had definitely softened him up to the idea. But he wasn’t drunk. He never allowed himself to get drunk. Get a mild buzz going and stop drinking until it subsided. Start again. Never let the buzz progress beyond a mild sort of mellowness.

  This last time he’d stopped when he’d begun to think seriously about all the ways in which he still wanted Kat. But the thought hadn’t gone away even when the buzz subsided.

  She looked up at him. “Shirt off, please,” she said. “Slowly.”

  He spread his hand over his abdomen and dragged the black T-shirt up his torso inch by inch.

  She made a whimpering noise. “Okay, faster. I can’t wait.”

  He tugged the shirt off with a chuckle and dropped it. Kat pushed his pants down until they rode low on his hipbones. “Oh, that is perfection right there,” she said. “What is it about washboard abs and this v-line above the hipbones that drive women wild?”

  He didn’t like to think about how many times she might have said that to a man while exactly in this position. Not that it mattered, and not that he had a right to be jealous. Women were as entitled to a healthy sex life as men were.

  She freed his cock, taking it in both hands, dragging the skin up and down with slow, sensual movements—and all thoughts of her other lovers dissolved.

  He was going to die if she kept that up. He tangled his fingers in her hair and tugged. Not hard, but enough to get her attention.

  “Kat,” he growled. “Jesus.”

  “Do you want more?” She leaned forward and licked the tip of him and he groaned.

  “I want to taste you,” he said, because it was true.

  “Not yet. You first.”

  She wrapped her lips around him and took him into her mouth, her tongue stroking along the length of his cock. His hands tightened in her hair. He was torn between the urge to thrust deep and come hard and the need to make her come first. He wanted to give her pleasure as much as he wanted to take it.

  She cupped his balls through his pants. Still made him see stars though. She sucked slowly, thoroughly, her lashes dropping as she did so. His heart ached. She confused him. She was so like Valentina—but she also wasn’t. This woman was sadder, more serious. Less impulsive.

  She’d been hurt before. He’d gotten the sense that she didn’t let anyone behind her walls. That even now she withheld a part of herself from him.

  Hell, he understood that. He shielded a part of himself as well. It was safer that way in the long run.

  But damn, he was so fucking hooked on her. And he’d come in about three seconds if she didn’t stop. He reached down and caught her under the arms, lifting her away and pushing her onto the bed.

  “Well that certainly didn’t last long,” she said with a pout. “I was just getting started.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s my turn.” He stripped her panties down her hips as she tore her T-shirt up and off. She wasn’t wearing her bra, so her pretty breasts jiggled free as she threw the shirt onto the floor.

  “Have your way with me, John Mendez.” She lay back and stretched out, arms above her head, knees up and open, her pussy glistening with arousal.

  He touched her, running a finger down the seam of her body, then lightly rubbing across her clit. She bowed up off the bed with a gasp and he arched an eyebrow.

  “What the hell are you going to do when I put my tongue there?” he asked.

  “Come immediately, I imagine. But if you keep going, I’ll make it last longer the next time.”

  He lowered himself to the bed, shoulders between her legs, hands beneath her ass. Their eyes met across the delta of her belly and breasts.

  “I’ll keep going, solnishko,” he said. “Until you beg me to stop.”

  A shudder vibrated through her body. Her mouth dropped open, her tongue darting out to moisten her lips. “I think you could make me come with words, Johnny. No touching necessary. Just keep talking dirty to me.”

  He chuckled. “You sure about that? I’ve got a magic technique you might want to experience.”

  “You mean a magic tongue.”

  “It’s more than the tongue, but yeah, that’s a big part of it. Besides, I haven’t really said anything dirty yet.”

  “Imagine if you did.” Her chest rose and fell a little more rapidly than before. Her nipples were taut peaks. Not so subtle about what she wanted. He liked that.

  “Imagine,” he purred. “If I told you I’m going to eat your pussy until you scream.”

  Her breath hitched and a moan escaped her throat. “Tell me more.”

  “After you’re so limp with pleasure you can’t take another moment, I’m going to fuck you until you scream again.”

  “I can’t wait,” she said. “I want to scream very badly. I may scream much sooner than you think.”

  “Then we’ll just do it all again,” he said as he lowered his head and touched his tongue to her hot, wet flesh.

  Kat squeezed her eyes shut and concentrated hard, trying to make it last. She didn’t come immediately—but thirty seconds later, her climax slammed through her, vibrating from her clit all the way through to her toes and fingers and even her scalp.

  His tongue was magic. He’d barely touched her, barely gotten started. But when he’d flattened his tongue against her and pres
sed a little harder, his beard scraping the insides of her thighs, the darkness behind her eyes exploded in shards of color.

  She threaded her fingers through his hair and held his face to her while she rode his tongue, seeking every last bit of pleasure from this go-round. He didn’t fight her. Of course he didn’t. He stayed where he was, driving her from the peak to an even higher peak than before.

  When her legs went numb and she fell back against the bed, panting for breath, he took the opportunity to crawl up to her breasts and suck on her nipples.

  “If we could just stay like this for the rest of our lives,” she said.

  His agreement was a vibration against her nipple that sent another wave of arousal down to her core. He worked his way up to her mouth for a kiss that broke her heart with its perfection. She tasted herself, of course. But she also tasted what wasn’t tangible—love. On her part only, sure. This love was sweet as honey and devastating too because it wasn’t meant to last. He broke her with that kiss until all she wanted was his body inside hers and more of the perfection of kissing him.

  But he wasn’t done with her yet. He moved back down her body, in spite of her trying to make him stay, and stormed her gates again. True to his word, he made her scream, and then he made her so limp she didn’t think she would ever move again. Her legs were jelly. Her body was spent.

  He wasn’t done. He rolled her to the side until they were facing each other. She threw a leg over his hip, and he entered her slowly as she tucked her face against his neck and sucked on his skin.

  But he refused to let her hide. He tugged her head back and brought his mouth down on hers. She wrapped herself tighter to him and they shifted again until she could entwine both legs around his waist, giving him better access.

  He was deep inside her but not driving. Not fucking hard and fast like before. They moved slowly, together, like a ballet, drawing out the pleasure and the pain. At least there was pain for her. Not physical pain, but emotional pain. Her heart beat like a drum and a wave of panic hovered just out of sight. She wouldn’t let it escape, but it was growing more difficult by the minute.

  “You’re beautiful,” he told her, and the panic beat against the doors.

  “So are you.” It was nothing like what she wanted to say, but it would have to do.

  She didn’t know how long they continued like that, but eventually it turned more frantic as he pushed her deep into the bed and drove into her. She tried to hold back as long as she could, but it was too intense, like a tsunami rolling into shore.

  She cried out as her orgasm slammed into her. He pumped into her faster, heightening the pleasure—and then he withdrew quickly. Warm semen spurted across her belly as he finished outside her body.

  “Holy shit,” he muttered as he collapsed to the side. They were both sweating and she was covered in semen. She started to get up, but he pushed her back. “I’ll get it.”

  He returned from the bathroom with a warm cloth and wiped her clean. She closed her eyes, not because she was exhausted—though she was—but because she couldn’t watch him take care of her. Her heart was already bruised and battered. How much more could she take?

  She felt the bed tilt as he got up. Water ran in the bathroom for a few minutes. Then he was back, settling into bed with her—but not before checking his weapons and setting them on the night stand.

  She was languid and sleepy, but the slide of a Glock was usually enough to perk her up. She’d prepared her pistol before he came in, but she still had to ask, “Expecting trouble?”

  “I always expect trouble.”

  He gathered her to him and she threw a leg over his hip again. She’d always liked the aftermath of lovemaking with him. Sleeping with him, tangled up like the roots of a plant that had grown together and couldn’t be separated.

  Except they weren’t that plant anymore. They were strangers, at least as far as he was concerned.

  He brushed her hair back from her face and kissed her forehead. “I’m sorry I forgot the condom. But you should know I’m clean. My last sexual partner was a couple of months ago, and it was a long-term relationship.”

  Her heart split open. Jealousy clawed under her skin like an alien wanting out. “I’m… I’m clean too. No recent liaisons to report.” She hesitated. “How long-term? Is this a rebound thing?”

  She tried to sound funny, but to her the words only sounded pitiful. Way to go, girl.

  His arms tightened around her. “There’s no rebound. We weren’t serious. More of a friends-with-benefits situation.”

  Not that the idea of him with another woman for any length of time was easy to process, but maybe that made it better. And hell, considering for years she hadn’t known if he’d ever married or had children with someone else, that was a pretty tame alternative.

  “If you were friends with benefits, why did it end?” Because she just couldn’t stop herself.

  “She, uh, works in a similar field. Different agency. We butted heads one too many times about joint missions. She wanted it to go to the next level, but I knew it wasn’t going to happen. So I ended it.”

  Kat pushed back so she could see his face. “Seriously, you broke up with the poor woman because she made decisions you didn’t like? Gave you hell at work? Don’t like strong women, Johnny?”

  His mouth twisted. “I like strong women just fine. But some transgressions aren’t forgivable. She finally committed one that wasn’t.”

  “Are you going to tell me what it was?”

  He sighed. “One of my guys worked a mission with one of her agents. The agent needed to disappear, so they set it up for a fake hit. They didn’t clue my guy in. He had to be the witness to her death. But he’d fallen in love with her, so it was a total mind fuck.”

  Dread hammered into her. Guilt was an oil slick deep in her soul. She was covered in black goo and never getting out of it.

  “How’s he doing now?”

  “Oddly enough, he’s marrying her. She came back to life for another mission and they had to work together. Seems as if they figured it out.”

  “That’s good. Love should win sometimes.”

  He frowned. “You don’t think it wins often?”

  “Maybe it does. I’ve never seen much evidence of it.”

  “I’ve seen it a lot with my guys. Hell, you wouldn’t believe how a group of testosterone-laden soldiers and SEALs in the prime of their lives can get so wound up over a woman. Weddings seem to be an epidemic in HOT these days.”

  “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

  “It’s not an easy life. You know that. I hate to see any of them get hurt if it doesn’t work out.”

  She dropped her cheek to his chest, listened to the steady beat of his heart. “No, that’s never fun.”

  His fingers glided down her spine. She found it comforting. “Go to sleep, Kat. We have to leave early—and I intend to have you again before we do.”

  Chapter 29

  “You can’t leave,” Yuri said over breakfast.

  Mendez’s gut tightened. Last night, he and Yuri’d had fun talking and drinking. Yuri had promised him weapons, black-ops technology, and a car. The drive back to Moscow was around thirty hours. More than that when you counted stops for food and bathroom breaks. If he and Kat split the driving, they wouldn’t have to stop for sleep.

  But there wasn’t any time to waste. They had to get there and find a way to get to Sergei Turov before the summit started. He didn’t know what Turov’s plan was, but he intended to put a stop to it before it could happen.

  He had Ghost, along with the HOT boys and girls, at his back. But it still wasn’t going to be easy. Risky as fuck. And the timing absolutely couldn’t get knocked out of sync. The window of opportunity would be short. They had to get to Moscow and get the job done ASAP.

  “Why not?” His hand automatically dropped to the Glock at his side. Kat, he noted, was similarly wary. He’d bet money her fingers were also on the trigger.

  Yuri slic
ed the air as if dismissing their apprehension. “There’s been a patrol up there. Someone is looking for you.”

  “Turov.”

  “Yes, I believe so. You left one of his men handcuffed in the cemetery. It is only logical he would expect you to come to me if you are in the area. I took care of the Kia so there’s nothing up there—but they’ll patrol and watch for you. They’ll go away in a few days.”

  “We don’t have a few days. Surely you have a way to get past them. You’ve got everything else in this place.”

  “My friend, this is a luxury bunker with enough food and supplies to keep me alive for the next ten years. I don’t need to go out. I can wait.” His gaze slid to Kat. “Besides, there is something else I wish to know… Who is this woman?”

  Mendez glanced at Kat. Her expression gave nothing away, though her mouth had tightened around the corners. She looked worried. He thought of her in his arms this morning—in his arms last night—and he wanted to slay dragons for her. Not that she wasn’t capable of it herself, but he was an alpha male and that’s what alphas did for their women.

  He blinked. His woman? No, he couldn’t say that’s where they were yet—or ever would be. She was still a mercenary and he was, if he got the job back, the commander of an elite US military unit. But damn, he sure did like thinking of her as his—even if his feelings about it were complicated since she was the sister of the woman he’d loved.

  “I told you who she is. But who do you think she is?”

  Yuri took a glass from somewhere beneath the table and set it on the wooden top. “Your fingerprints are on this glass, lady. I had to dig, but I found your records at the FSB. You are not who you say you are.”

  She lifted her chin. There were two bright spots of color in her cheeks. “I am Ekaterina Rostov. I changed my name to Kasharin when I left Russia eight years ago. It’s no mystery.”

  Yuri’s jaw hardened. “No, that is not quite the name.” He swung his angry gaze to Mendez. “Why is she lying to me? Are you hiding something from me? Is this a ruse and you’re really bringing your military team down on me instead of needing my help?”