by Amy Jarecki
“Maybe a little, but that’s the type of pain I’d endure every night just to be with you.”
“You on top?” he growled, not caring where they did it. The floor, the kitchen table. Hell, against the wall would do. There was no turning back now. He was all in and down for the count.
Her fingers kneaded his back. “No. I want you on top.”
Logan chuckled. “You don’t need to tell me twice.” His heart soared while he swept her into his arms and carried her up the creaking stairs.
Dizzy with desire, he pushed through his bedroom door and set her on her feet. Olivia’s hands trembled as she tore off his shirt, buttons popping everywhere. Shoes, pants, boxers, everything came off in a flurry. Naked and in each other’s arms, they crashed to the bed. Hot, wet and totally turned on, Logan rolled on top of her, kissing, rubbing, on fire.
He swallowed to catch his breath. “I—”
She rocked her hips against him, spreading her moisture along his length. “Now!”
With one thrust, he slipped inside, but not too far to hurt her. Stopping nearly made him come.
She gasped. “Oh, God!” Her fingers dug into his hips forcing him even deeper.
“Am I hurting--?”
“No, deeper!”
“I’m not going to last,” he said, trying to control his wild urge to rock his hips.
But Olivia demanded a faster tempo, demanded he slip all the way inside. Tight, wet, fantastic, he could no longer hold back.
Her gasps came quicker as she met him thrust for thrust. “Yes, yes, yes!”
Unbelievable pleasure swept through him as he swelled inside her.
Olivia’s eyes flashed open as a cry caught in the back of her mouth. The look on her face sent him over the edge while, together, shudders wracked their bodies with the most powerful climax he’d ever experienced.
Holding himself above her on his elbows, Logan caught his breath. “Sorry.”
“Pardon? That was amazing.”
Still erect inside her, he brushed his lips across hers. “I wanted to go slow, to make it last, to show you how high you can soar.”
He loved the sultry chuckle that rumbled in his ear. Then she whispered, “Next time, love.”
“You hurt?”
“Not much.”
“You ready for another round?”
“Mm hmm.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
The following week passed in a blur. The sex was off the charts from slow, to fast, to oral, to everything in between.
Olivia finally wore the chaps Logan had brushed off for her. She even learned how to canter on Chicken or lope as Logan called it, explaining the differences between Western and English riding. Every morning before breakfast, they cleaned the stalls and in the afternoons they sparred. She was actually the happiest she’d ever been in her adult life.
Jason and Logan were working the cattle in the yard, giving inoculations. Sylvia stood beside Olivia at the fence with her booted foot on the lowest rung. The woman was pretty in a wholesome sort of way—early thirties and wore her light brown hair to her shoulders. “So where was it you and Logan met?”
Olivia’s cheeks burned. There was so much she couldn’t divulge. “The USS Washington rescued me in the Mediterranean after the private yacht I was a passenger on capsized.”
“Private yacht in the Mediterranean? My, that sounds romantic.”
Good Lord, it had been hell. Olivia just shrugged and changed the subject. “So, how did you meet Jason?”
“Nothing as exciting as a life and death rescue. We dated in high school and got back together at our five-year reunion after we’d both finished college.”
“Sounds like a fairy tale to me.”
“I’m getting hungry, Wife,” Jason called from the midst of the mob of dusty cattle. “Mind starting up Logan’s barbeque?”
“On it,” Sylvia replied, tugging Olivia’s wrist. “Come on. I’ve made potato salad and blackberry pie.”
Olivia followed her back toward the house. “Sounds delicious. But I should have made something, too.”
“Nah. Logan told me you’re not fond of cooking.”
“Oh? What else has Logan told you?”
Sylvia gave her a wink. “He didn’t need to say he’s head over heels in love with you. I can tell that just by looking at his face.”
Butterflies fluttered in Olivia’s stomach—for the gazillionth time. “You think?”
“Uh huh, honey. That man’s got it bad.”
Olivia laughed. She had it bad, too. And better? She had a boyfriend who loved her and could handle her quirks. He even understood her line of work. And since they both worked for ICE, there didn’t need to be any secrets between them.
Sylvia proved to be a pro at the barbeque. Olivia set the table and pulled the bottles of beer out of the cooler. By the time the men returned dusty, tired, and grinning from ear to ear, the feast was spread out on the picnic table in the backyard with the mountain view.
Logan sat across from her and took a long pull on his beer followed by a satisfied sigh. “That’s good.”
“Mighty good,” said Jason.
Olivia smiled. There she sat with a mob of Yanks in the middle of Montana, and she couldn’t be happier. She watched Sylvia tear into her barbeque ribs with her fingers even though they were slathered with sauce.
In Rome, do as the Romans do.
Olivia followed suit and a burst of flavor melted in her mouth. “Mm, this is to die for.”
“Have you had ribs before?” asked Logan.
“Nothing like these.” Olivia ripped off another bite with her teeth.
“Sylvia makes the best sauce,” said Jason. “It’s magical.”
Olivia licked her fingers. “Sure is.”
The meal continued with laughter and Jason proved to be quite the spinner of yarns. Olivia took it all in, watching Logan as the sun set. He was happy listening to his friend while he watched Olivia, their gazes connected by an invisible current, silently telling each other what they were planning upstairs later when again they’d be alone.
***
After Jason and Sylvia headed for home, Olivia volunteered to clean up while Logan went for a shower. Lord knew he needed one. Drenching cattle was hard work, made him work up a sweat, and he loved it.
Olivia hadn’t batted an eyelash when he and Jason came to the table with their jeans caked with dirt and dust. Maybe she wasn’t as citified as she thought. In fact, by the way she wore his flannel shirts and kicked around in cowboy boots, looking happier than he’d ever seen her, he was convinced he’d already turned her into a country girl.
Imagine that. He’d finally found a stunning and difficult blonde whom he could love and who loved him back.
When he turned off the water, Olivia walked into the bathroom and held up a towel. “Ready to go another round?”
He let her dry him off. “On the bed or in the ring?”
She waggled her eyebrows, wrapping the towel around his body and hugging him. “I think you’ve spent enough time in the corral today.”
“I like the sound of that.” Dipping his chin, he kissed her and his heart raced just like it had the first time their lips had met.
She backed him out of the bathroom and toward the bed while her fingers sank into his butt. “Do you think you can handle me tonight?”
“I can handle you any night, anytime, anywhere.”
“Now that’s what I like to hear, cowboy.” She tackled him to the mattress and tore away his towel. They made love like it was the first time and after their bout of mind-blowing sex, Olivia lay in his arms, combing her fingers through his chest hairs. “You know we’re going to have to go back to work.”
Logan sighed. “In two weeks and one day.”
“Got it figured out have you?”
“Yep. Are you looking forward to it?”
“Not since my epiphany, but I’ll be ready. Something will go down and we’ll be racing into battle.”
<
br /> He chuckled. “I like my time off, but I’m always ready to take on the next mission as well.”
“Mm hmm.”
His phone rang and Logan snatched it from the bedside table, looking at the caller ID. “Speak of the devil, it’s Garth.”
Olivia rose on an elbow and inclined her ear toward the speaker.
Logan clicked the green phone icon. “Hello?”
“Hey, Rodgers. Believe it or not, al-Umari has resurfaced.”
“That’s not like him,” whispered Olivia.
“Really? Where is he now?”
“Intel says he’s enroute to Saint Petersburg to make an arms deal with the Russians. You ready for another mission?”
Logan glanced to Olivia who gave him a sober nod. “Ready for action, sir.”
“Good, I’ll send a plane to your airfield. Be there at 0700. We’ll brief you once you get to ICE.”
Epilogue
Less than twenty-four hours later, Logan and Olivia reported for duty in the sit room. Mike Rose was there as well. Garth sat at the head of the table and welcomed them back. “I hope you’re ready for another assignment, because you’re needed.”
“I’m always ready to rid the world of terrorists, sir,” said Olivia. “But I haven’t heard about Mission Cat House. Were all the hostages reunited with their families?”
“Yes, ma’am, without a single casualty, thanks to ICE.” Garth chuckled. “Though it’s the Israelis and their Apache copters who are taking all the credit.”
“That’s a good thing, right?” asked Mike. “You wouldna want anyone knowing we had anything to do with it.”
“You got that right.” Logan nodded. “We don’t officially exist.”
Olivia folded her hands in her lap. “Tell me Gabby got the medical attention she needed.”
“Who’s Gabby?” asked Garth.
“One of the two girls from the Netherlands. She was…ah…assaulted by those apes.”
“Right.” The CO frowned. “NATO did report one casualty with minor injuries.”
Olivia pursed her lips. “Only minor?”
“Jesus, Hamilton, minor means minor. The girl will be fine. All the hostages are back with their families. That was your job and you accomplished it. Leave the worrying to her parents.”
Olivia let out a sigh and glanced to her partner. She and Logan hadn’t told Garth about the details of her brush with al-Umari and his knife. There was no need—and doing so might start another inquisition by Dr. R. “We all would have been gutted if Commanders Rodgers and Rose hadn’t shown up when they did.”
Logan grasped her hand beneath the table and gave it a squeeze. “So, what’s up with Russia?”
Garth frowned. “Turns out our intel was a smoke screen to take our attention off their real plan—whatever it is. Fahd al-Umari has slipped underground again.”
Olivia sat a bit straighter. “Then it’s our job to ferret him out.”
“That’s right. We’ll nail that bastard sooner or later,” said Garth turning his attention to the redheaded Scot. “Rose, there’s a woman I want you to pick up in Miramar at the Regional Joint Correctional Facility.”
Rose sat a bit straighter. “I beg your pardon, sir? What does she have to do with al-Umari?”
“She’s a prisoner?” asked Olivia.
Garth sliced his hand through the air. “First of all, she’s been proven innocent and secondly, she’s a sniper.”
“Are you talking about Henri Anderson?” asked Logan.
Olivia knit her eyebrows. Anderson had been accused of killing an Iranian dignitary in Washington DC. “Henri’s a girl?”
Garth glanced her way. “It’s Henrietta, and she’s the next asset to join the team…we hope. Anders had a bit of trouble with his recruiting tactics.”
“If Commander Rose is going to fetch Anderson, what are our orders, sir?” asked Logan.
“After you spend a week in the sim relearning how to land a Gulfstream, I need the pair of you working out of Pakistan. Jesus Christ, you nearly crashed that plane.”
“Hardly.” Logan swatted his hand through the air.
The CO stared at him humorlessly. “Yeah, but it was close. NATO said the landing gear was nearly crushed—I think the phrase they used was it looked like you were trying to land an elephant.”
Logan rolled his eyes. “Prickly bastards.”
Across the table Rose chuckled, but Olivia’s entire body tensed.
Garth brought a street scene up on the screen for everyone to see. Olivia smothered her gasp with her hand as she instantly recognized Karachi, the same place her parents had been killed. Garth didn’t seem to notice her reaction. “I need you to chase down a lead on the whereabouts of al-Umari’s inner circle.”
“Pakistan, sir?” Olivia asked while her palms started to perspire.
Logan held up his hand. “Are you sure you want O—”
“Goddamn it, Rodgers, I’m always sure of what I want.”
“Yes, sir.”
After the briefing, Logan took Olivia back to his suite. Standing face to face, he cupped her cheeks between his palms. “I know Garth shot me down in there, but I’ll fight him if you don’t think you can face Pakistan.”
“Are you kidding?” Olivia kissed him on the lips, her initial trepidation turning to excited anticipation. “We’re going to nail al-Umari this time. I can feel it right down to my bones.”
“What if this new girl kills him first?”
“Then I hope they pin a medal on her.”
“Honest?”
“Damn straight.”
Logan grinned—white teeth, teal-blue eyes that could hypnotize Olivia every time he looked into her eyes. “God, I love you.”
He kissed her, a marvelous and meaningful kiss filled with a commitment of everlasting passion. Logan wrapped his arms around her, making her feel part of something more powerful than she could ever be alone. Olivia wanted those protective arms surrounding her forever. She repaid the gesture with a squeeze of her own, kneading her fingers into the thick bands of muscle in Logan’s back. After fluttering more kisses along his neck, she let out a contented sigh and looked him in the eye. “Know what?”
“What?”
“I love you, too.”
Excerpt from BODY SHOT
Chapter One
Joint Regional Correctional Facility Southwest, Miramar
I’m free?
Henri’s gut whirred like a boomerang, though she showed no outward sign of triumph. If only she could jump on the table and start dancing. But freedom came with a backhand so vicious, her thoughts darted in a gazillion directions while volts of wariness shot up her spine.
Yes, she’d expected this day to come. Eventually. But she also expected the news to be delivered by a Delta Force commander, an elite member of the United States Army. They owed her that much. Presently, she trusted the suit sitting across the conference room table less than she trusted the lamebrained attorney responsible for landing her in the pen.
A sergeant in the elite Delta Force counter terrorism unit, war had taught Henri to suspect first, question later. And her internal suspicion radar was firing on red alert. Still, ten years of ingrained military discipline prevented her from telling the windbag he was full of shit. Besides, her throat had closed. Hell, even her hands perspired.
WTF?
She wiped her palms on her orange coveralls.
I’m free, dammit. This guy’s not my CO. I could tell him to go to hell right now.
She closed her eyes and inhaled a calming breath. “Do you need my answer now?” He’d just dropped a bombshell, offering her some international job that would make use of her “special talents”. And it paid more money than she’d ever dreamed of earning. The rub? The suit refused to tell her where she’d be going or the details of what she’d be doing until she committed. What if he wanted her to murder someone? The man just sat there, his intense eyes staring at her from across the table. He was pasty, sweaty and overweight
. Worse, agreeing to his clandestine request was like blindly slicing her palm with a dagger and dripping blood on a signature line just because her commanding officer told her to do it.
“Ja, that would be preferable,” he said. The man had introduced himself as Anders Lindgren and spoke with an accent that sounded Scandinavian. The fact he was sitting in a conference room in a highly-restricted military operation denoted some credibility, but that did zilch to lower Henri’s wariness meter. His face gave away nothing. Lindgren could pass for a seedy politician—the type who wouldn’t think twice about sending her tiptoeing into a minefield filled with IEDs.
“After all,” he continued, “Until three minutes ago, you were still planning on being a guest here.”
Here, being military prison, a lifetime guest of Uncle Sam. Henri swallowed, forcing back bile bubbling up her esophagus. Two years rotting in a goddamned hellhole because of a setup by a terrorist who wanted revenge. A bastard who’d entered the US illegally for the sole purpose of murdering the Iranian Ambassador and pinning the kill on Henri. “Who figured out I was innocent?”
The corners of Lindgren’s mouth turned up. “We began to suspect you were framed when my expert came across certain…ah…internet chatter.”
“Where?”
“That’s classified.”
Pursing her lips and inhaling through her nose, Henri glanced at the folder he’d handed her. She’d wasted two lousy years of her life and now they admit to her innocence? Wasn’t she entitled to a few details? And why had the news been delivered by a foreigner? He wasn’t even military.
Lindgren inclined his head to the folder, still laying unopened on the table. “You’ve been given an honorable discharge. But your country and the world needs you now more than ever.”
With a groan, she opened the cover and glanced over the top memo. “They’re not bothering to offer a return to my squadron?”
“The major felt it was time to move on.” Something in Lindgren’s tone told her he wasn’t giving her the full story.
More lies.
Henri squared her shoulders. “What if I disagree?”