by Geri Foster
Relaxing all restraint, Rye lowered his head and pressed his lips to hers. She didn’t resist or lean into him. She simply allowed. A kiss was a kiss, but this was something special. She tasted delicious, open and so damn soft he wanted to melt into her and stay there. Her tongue flirted with the corners of his lips and touched his soul. Nothing felt more natural than him with her, right now.
He pulled her closer, waiting for a protest. When none came, he deepened the kiss. His instincts went into overdrive. His breathing hitched, his heart rate accelerated, and his cock came to immediate attention.
Both hands spread on her back as he pulled her closer. In a haze of desire, he heard her let out a sexy little moan, and Rye almost lost it. His tongue went on surveillance and what he found shocked and delighted him in a gentle and patient way. In his whole life, he had never kissed a woman like this before.
When thoughts of him once not trusting her entered his mind his body made its own assessment of the situation. Obviously, it preferred him not to think about something that petty while in the midst of making love to the prettiest girl in the world.
Heat swallowed him when she wrapped her arms around his neck. Rye stood at heaven’s gates and they were wide open. Slowly he ran his fingers through her silky, dark hair. Craving more, he opened his mouth wider and covered hers completely. Refusing to release her, his head started to spin.
Man, this could go on forever.
He wasn’t sure how it happened, but her skirt came up around her waist, and he stroked her long, smooth legs as they wrapped around his hips.
Somewhere a phone rang but he didn’t care. He had more urgent matters to be concerned with. Like sex with this sexy woman he’d had his eye on for years. He slipped her damp panties off, along with her sundress. She sat up long enough to remove her bra.
Rye got busy doing his own strip tease.
When they fell back on the pillows, he slid into her silkiness and stilled. Relishing in the wonderment of their two bodies coming together. They’d had sex before, but this time there was nothing between them. No secrets and no doubts.
She grabbed his ass with both hands and lifted her hips. That’s all it took to throw him off the edge of the world. He pumped hard and fast as his climax shattered him, seconds later she tensed, then sighed gently in his ear.
He pulled up the light blanket to cover them and they fell into a comfortable sleep.
Rye didn’t look forward to today. He had a meeting with Crash in thirty minutes, and he’d be lucky to walk out of this alive. No doubt Sully had his say and complained about him taking over his mission, and that he had taken out Karzi without authorization. Oh well, he knew there wasn’t anything they could bring him up on, so he took a deep breath and let it go.
He went in and Crash sat behind his desk, not even a hint of a smile in sight. He wore a nice suit and tie and looked every bit the bureaucrat. “Good morning, Rye,” he said. “How are you today?”
“Cut the crap. I know you’re pissed about Sully’s assignment. I know I didn’t have the right to take out Karzi. I went over there and went off the reservation again, but you have to admit, I got some shit done. I’m sorry if you and Homeland have a problem with that.”
“No,” Crash said. “I’m not mad about anything. A few other people are, but what the fuck, they’ve never met you before. And they probably never will.”
“No,” Rye shook his head. “I’m done. I don’t want any more assignments.” He held up his arms. “I’m done. I will go back to my little beach house and just stay there where it’s nice and safe and nobody wants to kill me. Can I do that? Because that’s what I really want.”
“You can go back. And I know you look forward to it. But everything isn’t solved yet, Rye. We still have a problem.”
Rye laughed. “You’re kidding, right,” Rye said. “I’m not doing anymore. I’m formally and officially retired.”
“I’m afraid I can’t let you do that right now.”
Rye sat up in his chair and lifted his chin in a dare. “And you plan to stop me, how?”
“We need to know where millions of dollars went. No one knew about it.”
Rye cocked a brow and stared. “Hell, yes they did. Qamar knew, Sully knew, Harper knew, and all my men knew.” He leaned back slinging his leg over his thigh. “That was no big secret. If it was taken, someone did a helluva job.”
“The question is, Rye, who told Qamar about the hostage money?”
Rye thought about that for a few moments. In that small village where they held the hostages there wasn’t much of a communication line. Yes, he did see a couple of phones, but his guess was those belonged to the men who had a direct line to Karzi. Nobody was playing games on them or checking Facebook.
So how did Qamar know about the hostage money?
“What do you think?” Crash asked. “Who told Qamar the money was in the compound? How much money was in the compound? And how long had it been there? Harper planned to pass it off later that day. There was a regiment coming to get it.”
“So, you’re probably wondering why it just so happens that Qamar struck at the exact time to get the money before it was returned to the State Department? If he had been a few hours later, he would’ve missed everything. Am I right?”
Crash nodded silently.
Rye rubbed his chin, deep in thought. “You know what I wondered about that whole clusterfuck?”
“What?”
“How did Qamar get on that base to rig the Quonset hut for that big of an explosion? Why weren’t they afraid of blowing up all the money? I mean that place could’ve been blown to hell and back and there’d be nothing left but shreds of paper. They had a lot of inside information.”
“So where do you think they got this information? Who told them? I think we might be able to rule out your guys. We’ve been following them. We also did a complete search and they haven’t done anything strange or unusual. So, they’re clean. That leaves you, Harper and Sully.”
“Sully?”
Crash squinted up his face and slid his glance to the side. “I don’t know, we’re still checking into him. He’s in a lot of financial trouble, but a divorce, two kids in college and some minor gambling debts will do that. But it takes more than that to turn a man. Especially a SEAL.”
“But,” Rye said, “Sully was the guy who was supposed to hand off the money all along. Right? I had absolutely nothing to do with it. I never even saw it. And I think Harper simply kept the money for Sully until he needed it for the hostage exchange.”
“Did Harper come with you?”
Rye didn’t know how Crash kept a straight face. “Yeah, she’s here.”
“I want you and her both on this little project.”
“Why?”
“There’s a mole. It’s not you, and it’s not Harper, like you implied. It’s probably Sully. I know we have to recover the money, but who the hell gave Qamar and Hussein and Rahman the information they needed to do what they did?”
“You think someone was behind all this besides the obvious?”
“We know there are people, even here in the States, who profit from those poppy fields and I think that’s what got your Team slaughtered. They wanted to send a message for us to get the hell out of there.” Crash turned away, his face bright. “And it worked.”
“But how do we prove that? How do we force Sully to show his hand? Because in my opinion, that’s the highway that leads to the real traitor. If he was in on this, he has the money. What we need to learn is, who did he have to share it with? Because I killed everyone involved in Afghanistan.”
“That’s how I see it.”
Rye squirmed in his chair. “Listen, I’m a Navy SEAL. An ex-Navy SEAL, and while we deal in covertness, we don’t usually bring down traitors unless they’ve already been identified. Not unless someone else has already determined the person is a traitor and we need to go after them.”
“I don’t know,” Crash said. “My gut tells me Sully
did this and he had a partner. I don’t know if he had a good reason to do it. Often times people simply want the money. But I can’t help but wonder what his plan was. What did we miss along the way?”
“I’m not following.” Rye looked around. “I don’t know where you’re going with this line of questioning, Crash.”
“Let’s say you had minded your own business.” Crash shook his finger adding, “What you should’ve done.” He swirled around in his chair. “If Sully was going to retrieve the hostages and give Karzi the money, do you think there was a chance they planned to split the money? Would he trust Karzi to cough up his half?”
“What incentive would he have to do that?” Rye asked, his brow furrowed. “He’d kill Sully as soon as he would have breathed. I mean Karzi is a bad guy. And I can’t think of a time when Sully wasn’t around, where he could’ve met with him and us not know it. They had to have worked all this out while we were all right there watching.”
“Doesn’t that lead you to believe that there’s someone here who’s involved?”
“Other than Sully?”
Crash nodded.
“Holy shit, I love the way you spies think. So now we have a fourth person? Do I understand you correctly? There’s somebody here in the United States who had something to do with the hostage exchange and the money?” Rye pointed to the floor. “Right in the United States. Not necessarily a military person. Maybe not even a guy who’s ever been to Afghanistan? Is that what you’re telling me?”
Silas shrugged one shoulder. “Well,” he held up his hands, “in a roundabout way. I mean is this too hard for you to grasp? Is this impossible, or am I talking out of my ass?”
“I think the problem is, that we don’t have anything to go on. I got the hostages safely back to base and killed Karzi with no money involved. Was Sully mad? Hell yes he was, and I probably would be too. I saw an opportunity and I took it. But that whole time Sully didn’t do anything that would lead me to believe he was on the take.”
“What would you do from here?”
Rye took a deep breath and leaned forward. “You’re asking me?” He shook his head. “I’m completely out of my league here. Throw me in the ocean with a ton of explosives and I’m copacetic. Figuring out spy stuff, I’m not so good at that.”
“I want you and Harper working together on this. She’s going to be looking out for you and she knows her stuff. Get her checked into a hotel and I’ll meet you guys tonight for dinner. We’ll talk some more.”
“Oh, so in the middle of a restaurant we’re going to talk spy stuff. Wow, that makes a lot of sense.”
“You are such a smartass. I don’t know why I ever picked you.”
Rye stood grinning. “I do. I was one of the best Navy SEALs you knew. You know few men who could’ve went over there and done what I did in four days. Come on Crash, be honest.” He eyed him suspiciously. “You sure you didn’t send me over there to do all that? I mean it was pretty remarkable.”
“Shut up and get out of here.” Rye made it to the door and turned. Crash held up his finger. “Not another word until tonight. Goodbye.”
Rye left and got into the rental car he secured after flying up from Florida to meet with Crash. He had a hotel room, compliments of the government, and he had made pretty good use of the bar. But he missed home.
Luckily, he’d been able to convince Harper to come with him. She was no fan of DC either, but he wanted her beside him. As it turned out, she liked the beach and cabin as much as he did and had no desire to leave. It took all his persuasive powers to convince her to travel with him.
The things he did for his country.
He arrived at his hotel room to find her curled up on the bed reading. She removed her glasses and smiled at him. “So, how did it go?”
“Like shit.”
She shrugged. “I figured.”
“He wants us to get together tonight for dinner. So you have a little chance to freshen up before then.”
“Does he know I’m with you?”
Rye lowered his shoulders and sighed. “What doesn’t that man know?”
He stole a glance at her. She looked beautiful in civilian clothes. Today she wore a denim skirt and tee with sandals. All these years he’d never realized what beautiful legs she had. Now that they were nice and tan, she looked radiant.
He dropped down beside her and pulled her to his chest. “We have time.” He smiled, comfortable with the time they spent together.
“Oh, I’m so glad.” Her eyes widened as he shoved up her skirt. “I’d hate to rush this.”
Chapter Eighteen
Harper had the foresight to pack a nice dress when she decided to pay Rye a visit at his cabin, so she wouldn’t be wearing shorts to dinner tonight. She’d wear the dress tonight while Rye instinctively brought along a suit, should he have to meet with a committee.
They’d dressed for dinner and when they arrived Silas had already gotten a table and waited for them. “Where is Maggie?” Harper asked. “I was hoping to get to meet her.”
Silas chuckled and wiped his forehead. “She’s home with a cranky baby.”
“Oh, well that’s an excellent excuse,” Harper said. She envied Silas and Maggie for having a baby at their age. Harper had always put her career first, but given the chance for a do-over, she’d gladly have accepted a family. Especially with Rye.
Rye sat next to her looking every bit the handsomest guy in the room, with Silas next. It amazed her that he could take her breath away in his shaggy beach clothes as easily as a well-fitted suit.
Rye flipped his linen napkin and spread it across his lap. “I didn’t say anything to Harper. I thought you could do the honors.” He slid Silas a slightly spiteful grin. “She’s all yours.”
“Thanks,” Harper said. “Just toss me around like a football.”
“No, it’s just that Crash has a better way of describing things like this than I do.”
“What things?” she asked, her gaze turning to Silas. “Anyone mind telling me what’s going on?”
“We’re concerned about the money.”
“What money?” she asked, leaning closer. “What are we talking about here?”
“The hostage money never made it back to the State Department.”
“I was cleared of that. I told you my side of things.”
“Well, someone took it,” Silas returned. “And we need to find out who.”
Harper pressed her palms to her chest. “It wasn’t me. I swear. I swear to God.”
“We don’t suspect you, Harper.” Silas paused and looked up when the waiter approached the table.
Rye ordered whiskey, straight up, Silas had Scotch on the rocks, and she asked for a glass of red wine, wondering if she needed something stronger.
“When I received the normal courier bag, I didn’t even open it. Like I said, that was Sully’s job. He was responsible for the money. I just signed that it had been delivered to the base then returned to Kandahar to be returned back to the States.”
“I know that.” Silas smiled. “You took a polygraph test and passed with flying colors.”
“Then why are we here? Has the money not been recovered?”
Silas shook his head as the drinks were placed on the table.
She picked up her glass and took a big sip. Tonight would be a triple night for her. She put her drink down and turned to Silas. “I don’t understand what Rye and I have to do with this. If you know neither of us took the money, why are we here?”
“I want you and Rye to find out what happened to the money.”
“What?” That surprised the hell out of her. “Why? Didn’t that money belong to the State Department?”
“Yes, but there’s more.”
She dropped her hands and shook her head. “I’m so confused. Let’s stop talking until after dinner, my head is starting to spin.”
“Okay,” Silas agreed. “It can wait.”
“And keep in mind, Rye and I are both retired.” Sh
e leaned closer and squinted her eyes. “Retired and very happy.”
Silas held up his hands. “I know, I know. You both would rather be doing more personal things,” he cleared his throat, “than say, chasing down money. However, I think you’ll be interested once you hear me out.”
“Don’t count on it,” Harper said. “It’s going to take a lot to drag me off that beach.”
Rye opened the door of their hotel room and allowed Harper to enter. She stood in the middle of the floor while he unzipped her dress. Without pause, she allowed it to slip off her shoulders and puddle in the floor. Kicking it up with the toe of her heels, she snatched it from midair and flung it on a nearby chair.
While he removed his jacket, Harper slipped out of her shoes and into a pair of shorts and a tee shirt. With nothing underneath. Now, how in the hell was he going to think straight?
She crawled on to the center of the bed and looked up at him. “What do you think, Rye?”
“I’m not sure where to start.”
“Me either.”
“And for the life of me, I can’t imagine who’s behind the whole thing. Crash seems to think it’s a local politician or a big wig. I don’t know any of those.”
“Maybe if we find Sully, he’ll lead us to the real mastermind to all this.”
“Do you believe there is an American behind the production of opium from the poppies in Afghanistan?”
“I’d never imagined my Team was murdered over drugs.” Rye rubbed the tension from the back of his neck. “That’s a hell of a price to pay to get high.”
“It certainly is. I swear, I never connected the two.”
“Still, we don’t know who’s behind everything.”
“But don’t you think it’s important we find the truth? If your Team was taken out because of some puppeteer living in the States, we must find out who.”
“I agree completely.” Rye removed his tie and tossed it on top of her dress. “But, only Sully knows the truth and I don’t think he’s going to part with it willingly.”