by Celia Aaron
“Do you trust me?”
She turns to me, her light blue eyes sparkling in what little moonlight filters through the clouds. “Yes.”
“Good. Hold on.”
I slam on the brakes, and the car skids violently as I keep my eyes on the rearview. The two pursuers split and go around, both of them jetting out in front of us, gravel and sand spraying up from their tires.
I shove the car back into gear and sink the accelerator to the floor. The engine roars as we fly forward, and I fire at the left-most car. The back window shatters, glass pinging against our windshield. A few more shots and the car swerves, rushes out into a poppy field, and rolls several times. Out of commission.
One car left. A red Porsche. A man leans out of the passenger window and fires an automatic weapon at us, the bullets eating into the hood of the car. The poppy fields have ended, and we’re racing through the open desert. If I can lose the Porsche, Collette will be safe.
“Duck!” I grip her neck and shove her down as the windshield explodes, glass skittering everywhere.
The shots keep coming as the car ahead of me slows. I release Collette and fire several shots. The man sinks back into the car and fires through the back window instead.
“Keep your head down.” I holster my pistol and floor it, working the gear shift like a musical instrument. A shot grazes my ear as I pull up to their car. Too fucking close. I dart out next to the passenger side and cut the wheel hard to the left, winging their back fender.
The car skids, but the driver gets it under control and straightens out as the passenger stops firing, likely to reload. It’s now or never. I pull up again and veer to the right, then pull hard left again. I spin him out this time, the Porsche skidding sideways at a vicious angle until the tires gain purchase again and shoot the car into a sand dune.
The brake lights die in my rearview mirror, and I am finally alone with Collette.
CHAPTER FOUR
“YOU CAN SIT UP. They’re gone.”
The road stretches out ahead of us, sand covering the patchy blacktop. The moon finally emerges from the clouds and shows us the way to safer territory.
“You’re bleeding.” She touches my ear and brings away reddened fingertips.
“It’s nothing.” My calf throbs bad enough to make the shot to my ear negligible. “You’re not hurt, are you?”
She moves her arms over her breasts and crosses her legs at the knee. “I don’t think so. I’m j-just—”
“In shock.” I catch her big blue eyes in my gaze. “You’re in shock. Hang on.”
I maneuver to the roadside and pull up behind a dune to hide us from any other pursuers.
“What are you doing?” she asks.
I get out and shrug off my jacket. “Here.”
She unbuckles her seatbelt so I can drape the jacket across her back.
She tugs the fabric around her shoulders. “Thank you.”
When she pulls the lapel to her nose and inhales as if my scent were delicious, my cock comes alive. I want her bent over the hood of the car and screaming her pleasure into the night. But now isn’t the time.
I yank my bowtie loose and open the top buttons of my shirt. She watches with interest, her eyes glittering, and fuck if my cock doesn’t jerk against my zipper.
I slide back behind the wheel. “We have an hour’s ride before we get to the airstrip that’ll get us out of here. You good?”
She nods and snuggles into my jacket more. “I am now.”
We pull out onto the highway again for the ride. The car is already making some whining noises, the bullets not great for its performance. Even if it goes tits up, I’ll get Collette to the air strip. It wouldn’t be my first time stranded in a desert.
“So you’re like, a secret agent?” Her voice barely makes it over the roar of air through the busted windshield.
“I work for the U.S. government, and I was tasked with bringing you home safe and sound.”
She lets her eyes wander over the barren dunes and then brings her attention back to me. I can feel her gaze tracing the strong line of my jaw, the shape of my Adam’s apple. My cock remains at full mast, desperate for her.
“I still can’t believe I’m here. The past two days are like some sort of nightmare.”
I swerve to avoid a scampering lizard and keep pushing the whining engine. “How were you taken?”
“I was asleep. No, let me back up. I started talking to this guy on the internet. Gabe. He was a student at my school. We had a lot in common, and he wanted to meet me. I haven’t, um, I haven’t really dated anyone. But he seemed so nice.” She shook her head and dropped her gaze. “But there was no Gabe. I should never have arranged to meet him at his place. That was so stupid.”
I reach over and take her hand. For a moment, I wonder if she’ll cringe away from me, but she doesn’t. She lets me touch her, and I breathe more deeply than I have since I jumped from my airplane. “You couldn’t have known.”
“They took me. Put some sort of,”—she gestures to her face—“I don’t know, chloroform or something? I woke up on an airplane, but they stuck me with a needle, and I was out again. The next time I woke up, I was in a cell, naked. They’d shaved my…” A blush creeps into her pale cheeks.
I squeeze her hand. “That’s how these scumbags operate. Smoke and mirrors. But they took the wrong girl this time.”
“I told them my father was an important man. That he’d pay ransom. But they didn’t listen. They said I was more valuable as a slave.” She shakes her head again, as if to clear it. “I mean, is this a nightmare? Am I going to wake up?” A tear rolls down her face, and I wipe it away with my thumb.
“You’re safe now. I promise.”
She squeezes my hand. “I know. Thank you.”
I try and turn her mind to lighter thoughts. “So, you’re studying to be a doctor?”
She laughs a little. “How do you know?”
I shrug. “Part of the mission. I need to know my target.”
“Makes sense.” She nibbles at her bottom lip, and I wonder what her teeth would feel like on my skin.
“So, your schoolwork?” I want to keep her talking, to keep her mind off what she’s been through.
She sandwiches my hand in between hers. “Right, I want to be a psychiatrist. At least I think that’s what I want. Maybe a surgeon. I can’t decide.”
“Those seem very different.” I keep glancing behind us. Unexpected company would be particularly unwelcome at this point, given the car is beginning to lurch and the whines from the engine are growing louder.
“They are. I guess I just need to think about it some more. How did you become a spy?”
I laugh. “I’m an agent, not a spy.” I’m definitely a spy. “And that is an old story; one best told over a few drinks.”
“Can’t be that old.” She peers at my face, squinting a little. “How old are you?”
I glance at her. “Older than you. How did this interrogation get turned around? You could tarnish my agent credentials.”
“Well, we can’t have that.” She laughs, and it makes me want to hear the full range of every sound she could make, including saying my name as she comes. I’m pleased she’s comfortable enough to laugh with me, my hand still in hers as we maintain a breakneck pace through the cool desert.
After a comfortable silence, her scrutinizing me all the while, I see the lights of the airfield. Home free. A supply plane waits to take us to Rome, and from there, we’ll hop a jet back to the United States.
The car begins to jerk, wheezing and whining down the rutted lane to the landing strip. We aren’t going to make it. I gun it as hard as I can, cruising toward the promise of safety. After some more screeching noises, the car gives out and we roll forward in silence. We come to a stop fifty yards away from the plane.
“Stick close to me. Once we’re in the air, we’re good.” I climb out and scan the area. Nothing jumps out at me, but I feel something—someone has eyes on us. �
�Hurry.”
We’re striding toward the plane when the purr of a motor catches my ear.
“Get behind me.” I turn and track a black SUV with its lights off whizzing through the desert. I fire two shots, and the front tires deflate, but it keeps coming. It’s only twenty yards out when I unleash five bullets into the windshield. It slows and rolls to a stop.
A man opens the driver’s side door and falls out with a groan.
“Stay here.” I walk to the man and kick his pistol from his hand. He’s riddled with bullets, but I’m not taking any chances. A quick shot to the forehead, and he’s taken care of. No one else is in the car.
“Cash!” Collette screams.
Bullets ping off the SUV, and I dive behind it.
“You, American cunt!” Arnan’s voice rings out into the night. “Come out or I shoot her!”
He must have crept around the car while I checked the SUV. Fucker. I ease out from behind the vehicle and keep my pistol pointed at Arnan.
“Drop it or I shoot!” Spittle flies from his lips, and he presses his barrel against Collette’s ear.
“Cash,” she whimpers and grips Arnan’s forearm at her throat.
He tightens his hold and stares at me. “I’m not fucking around.”
“All right. Just don’t shoot her.” I gauge the distance, the light wind, the positon of Arnan’s head in relation to Collette’s—above and to the left.
I make a show of lowering my weapon. My movements are slow, calm. When I get to one knee, I flip the pistol up and fire. Arnan staggers and then falls straight back as Collette screams. I rise to my feet and walk to them. Collette clutches my arm. I put one more bullet in Arnan’s heart before turning back to her.
“You shot him! B-but you could have shot me.” Her voice shakes.
“Not a chance.” I take her elbow and hustle her to the plane. “I never miss.”
Once inside, I sit her down in one of the few seats along the wall in front of the netted cargo area.
“Fasten your seatbelt. We’ll be in the air in no time.” I pull the entry door shut and seal it before walking to the cockpit.
“Farjoo.” I clap the supply plane pilot on the back.
The agency paid him good money to pick us up and get us out of the country, and he doesn’t disappoint. He fires up the engines and turns to grin at me, the gap in his front teeth big enough to put my pinky through.
“Sir.” He nods.
“Let’s go. No co-pilot?” I glance to the empty seat. “I thought your son usually flies with you.”
“Not this trip. New grandson. Just born.” He speaks in a thick Indian accent and his grin is even bigger.
“Fine. Let’s get out of here.”
“Yes, sir.” He engages the engines, and we begin to roll forward. The air strip is nothing more than well-compacted sand, but it does the job as we gain speed.
I head back to Collette. She sits with her knees pulled up and her arms wrapped around her legs. I take the seat next to her and sling my arm around her shoulders as the plane accelerates. The scent of her hair takes me back to her dorm room—the photos of her cat pinned behind her computer monitor, and the cute doodles she made on her notes from class.
The acceleration presses her into me as the engines roar. She’s shaking again. I wrap my arms around her. We take off, the rough runway left behind as we glide through the night sky toward freedom. The engines continue their loud song as we climb and climb. I hold her until we level out and the engines fall to background noise.
I stretch my legs out, the ache a dull thump in my veins.
She gasps. “You’ve been shot.” She unbuckles her seatbelt and slides to the floor, ripping up my pants leg. “Holy shit.” Her small fingers touch along the bullet wound.
“It’s fine, really. It went through.” The slight sting of her touch makes me want more.
She looks up at me. Her big blue eyes are the sort that will stay bright for the rest of her life—always interested, curious, and enticing. “Do you think there’s a first aid kit?”
On this rust bucket? Not a chance. I raise an eyebrow and shake my head.
“You need something to stop the bleeding.” She glances around and seizes on a burlap sack. Getting to her feet, she walks to it on unsteady legs and rips off a piece, grain spilling to the floor.
“You really don’t have to do that.” I lean back. Despite my words, I’m enjoying that she wants to play doctor with me.
She returns and kneels down before making quick work of her makeshift bandage. Tying it tight, she sits back and admires her handiwork. “I suppose it’ll have to do until we get back to civilization.” She plops next to me again.
“Thanks.”
“Sure.” She drops her eyes, demure again. But then she freezes. “What about the other girls? Oh my God, I haven’t even thought about them. I’m a horrible person. Sandy was from South Carolina, and Quinn was from Florida. There was another one. I can’t remember her name…” Her eyes are wide with panic.
“Shh, we got them. Don’t worry.” I lean over and pull a package from beneath my seat and rip into it. A phone drops into my lap. I swipe across the screen and enter my 12-digit agent code.
A message pops up:
Mission status?
I type back.
Completed. Other girls?
I wait for a few moments.
Safe. Debrief in Rome.
I smother a smile. I’ll debrief in Rome all right, with Collette underneath me and clawing at my back.
I slide the phone into my pocket. “The other girls are safe.”
She lets out her breath in a whoosh. “Thank God. I wouldn’t have forgiven myself.” She pins me with her bright gaze. “Why didn’t you save them, too?”
“You were my mission. The other girls didn’t have a father responsible for over half of the United States’ civil defense dollars spent on tech.” I shrug.
“That’s horrible.” She shakes her head and scoots away from me. I want to yank her into my lap, but I stay still. I’ll get her in my hands later. She deserves fond memories of the time she was kidnapped and almost sold into an Egyptian harem. I want to erase the terror she must have felt and replace it with heat. And I will. Once we land.
I trace the outline of her sweet face with my gaze, and I want to run my fingers along the same path. “They’re safe and so are you. That’s all that matters, right?”
She nibbles her pink lip again, her even white teeth biting what’s mine. “You’re right, I guess. Yeah.” She relaxes and leans toward me.
We sit in silence for a while, and she nestles against me more and more with every passing moment. I want to ask about her life, her school, what drew her to medicine. But her breathing evens out, and she’s asleep against my chest. I let her rest. Something inside me warms at the thought of her feeling safe enough with me to let herself go like this.
The plane shudders as it hits some turbulence, and some of the boxes behind the cargo netting shift. She rouses against me. I catch movement in the cargo bay, and then the glint of gunmetal.
“Cash.”
I sigh and stare down yet another barrel. “Ibiza.”
CHAPTER FIVE
IBIZA SWIPES THE CARGO netting aside and walks over to us. Collette cringes into my side.
The merc tsks. “I won’t hurt you, beautiful. Not unless you ask nicely.” She tosses a parachute pack at Collette’s feet, keeping her gun trained on me. “Put it on.”
“Cash?” Collette’s voice wavers.
Ibiza’s finger caresses the trigger, more than ready to blow my brains all over the side of the airplane. She’s got me. For now.
“Do it. She wants the bounty money your father put out for your rescue. She won’t harm you.” I inch my hand closer to my holster.
“I wouldn’t, Cash. My trigger finger is feeling a bit itchy after the stunt you pulled at Arnan’s house.” She pats her breast through her skin-tight black top. Her dark hair is pulled back in a hi
gh ponytail, and a parachute is already strapped to her back.
“You’re going to jump?” I affect a nonchalant tone. “We haven’t even cleared Turkey yet. Going to land in a war zone. Join up with the terrorists?”
“Don’t be an idiot.” Her accent has changed to French. “In the time it takes her to get her chute on, we’ll have cleared the Aegean Sea.”
“So a Greek vacation, then?”
Ibiza smirks, her red lips splitting enough for me to see her perfect white teeth. I want to split her lip with a backhand, give them a more natural crimson color.
“Come on. Hurry it up.” She takes another step forward as Collette tries to strap the pack to her back.
I move my hand slowly toward the butt of my gun. Ibiza fires a round over my head. It pierces the metal above me as if the plane is nothing more than a soda can. Wind whistles through the hole, and I ease my fingers away from my gun. Fuck.
“Next time, I shoot to kill.”
“Fuck you, Ibiza.” I can’t believe she got the drop on me like this. My need for Collette clouded my judgment.
“We already did that. Remember?” She yanks Collette from the floor and backs away toward the door.
Farjoo had lowered his altitude to jump height. I should have noticed. I didn’t. Collette was all I could think about.
I try to think of some way to stop her, but there isn’t one as long as she has her gun pointed at my forehead.
Ibiza grips the handle to the door and calls, “Thanks, Farjoo!”
I hear an answering yell as she pulls the lever, and the door opens inward. The wind is hellish as Ibiza pushes Collette out into the cold night. Her frightened eyes are the last thing I see as she lets out a scream. The sound is abruptly cut off as she disappears from view. When Ibiza jumps, I pull my pistol, but she’s gone before I have a shot.
I run to the door and hang on, staring down into the inky black of night. There’s only one thing to do.