“Right,” Megan said. “We’re talking over twenty-five hundred acres of land here. And I don’t think I have to point out that this area of Florida has had a lot of rain and the ground is oversaturated. As a result, there are some parts the sheriff’s personnel haven’t been able to reach yet.”
“Are you kidding me?” Dominic Falzone asked. “What, are they afraid of getting their feet wet?”
A couple of chuckles and added insults.
Megan looked toward the door where she knew the deputy was talking to the motel manager just outside.
“We’ll be working together as a team, guys, so I’d appreciate it if you could keep the insults to a minimum.”
Dominic Falzone was a decorated war vet, a tried-and-true Marine, but his mouth had landed the dark-haired, dark-eyed Lazarus team member into more than his fair share of hot water.
Jason stepped up. “Since conditions today are much like they were yesterday, search personnel probably guessed there was no way the girl could have gotten in and out of those areas by herself.”
Megan’s fingers tightened on her own marker.
Of course, what went unsaid was that someone could have taken her in there.
“Listen up, this is the plan…”
Within ten minutes Jason had outlined where he wanted them to enter the forest, each at twenty-five-yard intervals.
“Okay, we don’t have much usable daylight left,” he said. “Grab your gear and let’s get going.”
It was only 4:00 p.m., but since it would be darker inside the forest without direct sunlight, they estimated maybe three hours before they’d have to call it quits for the night.
Of course, Megan fully expected there to be objections.
She hefted her own bag and followed the team out of the room, watching where Lazarus partner Lincoln Williams stood against the wall outside, having listened without participating, every bit the spook he had once been with the FBI, smoking a cigarette. He pitched it to the curb and followed.
IT WAS AFTER TEN before they returned to the motel and after midnight before the command center emptied out except for him and Megan. Other team members had returned to their own rooms to catch what sleep they could before rising again at 5:00 a.m.
Jason sat back in one of the extra chairs that had been brought in. While they were away, the motel owner had arranged to have the beds removed and chairs and two folded tables brought in instead. Jason didn’t feel tired in the least. They’d made good ground today. But they needed to find the girl soon.
“Where did Linc get off to?” Megan asked, stretching.
“Lord knows. Even when he’s here, I hardly know it.”
A ghost of a smile. “Tell me about it. The guy’s as big as a train car, but if he doesn’t want to be seen, he won’t be.”
Jason thought about pushing the box of cold hot wings her way, wondering if she’d refuse. He hadn’t seen her eat much of anything all day, always busy doing something or other, either checking notes or surveying the map and detailing tomorrow’s route.
He nearly sighed in relief when she reached for the box herself, pulling it forward and taking out one of the sticky chicken wings. He leaned back and took a beer from a cooler, twisted off the top and handed it to her.
“Thanks.”
He opened himself one and then rocked back on the chair legs, watching her.
She made no attempt to take dainty bites, the way he’d seen countless women before her do. And when she took a pull from the beer, it was a genuine tip-your-head-back slug that emptied half the bottle.
He grinned and absently rubbed his chin. If not for the way her T-shirt emphasized her breasts, he might think she was one of the guys.
His gaze homed in on her mouth and he felt a strangely familiar tightening of his pants across his groin. Oh, no, even without makeup and a dress, there was absolutely nothing masculine about Megan McGowan.
“What?”
He blinked up into her blue eyes, realizing he’d been caught. “Nothing.” He pointed toward her mouth. “You’ve got a bit of sauce…yeah, right there.”
She wiped at the red dot with her napkin and continued eating.
“Good?”
“Huh?” She looked at the wing in her hand. “I didn’t even notice. I’m operating on automatic right now.”
Jason let the chair legs clunk to the floor. “Yeah, me, too.”
“They’re not bad, I guess.” She shrugged. “I’m not a big wings girl, really.”
“What kind of girl are you, really?”
She smiled. “A regular fried-chicken kind of girl.”
He chuckled and swallowed a good portion of his beer.
He wasn’t sure what he’d expected her to say. Given the direction of his earlier thoughts, maybe something like filet mignon or salmon.
Instead, she’d chosen what might possibly be an even sloppier and more fattening alternative.
This from the girl who had passed on fries the other night.
Of course, like him, she understood her body needed the calories. Running as they had that day, they could easily burn double a regular day’s nutrients.
“You’re staring again.” She laughed.
“I am?” He was.
Jason ran his hand over his face, watching as she checked her silent cell phone for the tenth time in the past ten minutes.
“Heard anything more?” he asked.
She shook her head. “You?”
“Nope. Figured you were lucky to have heard from him when you did. Lord only knows how long he’ll be out.”
He watched her frown.
In all the time Megan and Dari had been a couple, he didn’t think he’d talked to her as much as he had in the past four months. Or looked at her more than he had today. She was his best friend’s girl—period.
Yeah? Then what was he still doing there watching her eat rather than hightailing it back to his own room for some shut-eye?
“So…” he said. “You two talk about getting hitched?”
Her brows hiked up on her forehead. “Nah. Not seriously.”
“But you have talked about it.”
She shrugged noncommittally, her movements seeming to slow.
Finally, she put down the wing she was eating and wiped her hands.
“Well,” she said, looking everywhere but at him. “It’s going to be an early morning, so I think I’m going to hit the sack.”
Jason cleared his throat. “Yeah, me too.”
She began gathering the boxes and empty bottles on the table.
“Leave it. I’ll make sure the motel staff picks it up before five.”
“Thanks.”
She moved toward the door. Was it his imagination, or did she seem a little distracted?
“God. Where is my head?”
She backtracked to the table and picked up her phone.
She’d forgotten her cell?
“Well…good night.”
Jason cleared his throat and reached for another beer. “Good night.”
He stopped short of adding “Sweet dreams.” Truth was he was afraid his dreams tonight were going to be too sweet. And chances were high they were going to feature her….
4
MEGAN LAY BACK in the king-size motel room feeling as if sand coated her eyeballs. It was after two and she hadn’t been able to close her eyelids for more than a moment, much less fall asleep. Which was par for the course lately.
She reached over to check her quiet cell and then lie back again with a heavy sigh.
In recent weeks, she’d become aware of a sort of silent humming. Oh, she missed Dari with her head and her heart. But her body had been fine. Of course, sexting had probably helped. But now, now she felt as if she wanted to jump out of her skin it was so uncomfortably alive.
The sensation began at the tip of her toes, traveled upward to her inner thighs, making her nipples constantly hard, making her panties constantly damp.
An image of Jason chanced thr
ough her mind. She frowned, attributing the aberration to the fact she’d just seen him.
She groaned and rolled over onto her side, back to the nightstand and the cell phone on top of it. Despite the nonstop hum of the air conditioner under the window, it was still hot and she wore nothing but a white tank top and a pair of white cotton panties. She’d stripped the blankets back and was lying on the sheets. But the humidity was brutal and seemed to contribute to her sense of longing.
Without realizing that’s what she had in mind, she slipped her hand between her thighs so her wrist pressed against her damp crotch and then she squeezed her muscles together tightly. She groaned again as white-hot need shot through her every cell.
She’d been known to take matters into her own hands before. But certainly not since meeting Dari. He saw to every one of her needs and beyond.
But now that he was gone, she was all too aware she was a living, breathing female in need of release, preferably with a willing, skilled male.
Of course, her male was thousands of miles away in a sweltering desert just then, and her release was nowhere to be found.
She rolled back onto her back, shifting her hand so that it lay directly against her aching womanhood through the damp cotton. Heat shimmered up to her breasts and then sank back down to pool in her lower belly.
Yes…
It had been four long months since she’d felt Dari…right there. Touching her. Thrusting deep into her…
She stroked herself through the cotton and restlessly licked her lips, surrendering to what she was about to do and ultimately embracing it. Only, the connection wasn’t nearly intimate enough, so she edged her fingertips under the elastic of her panties, diving lower still until they met with her slick, shallow channel.
Megan stretched her head back and moaned, riding the delicious waves of sensation, a willing surfer bent on exploring deeper waters.
She ran her fingertips along the damp length of her swollen folds, working her middle into the tight pool for a dip. Her muscles immediately contracted, closing around the digit, begging for an even more meaningful meeting.
Her other hand trailed down her stomach until it, too, took up residence under the cotton of her panties. But where her left had focused on exploring dark, damp places, her right found her fleshy center, rubbing against it once, twice…
Megan gasped, her muscles contracting, allowing her the release she’d sought. She rode it out, welcoming every last spasm even as she clamped her legs together, trapping her hands where they were.
For long moments she lay there, absently stroking her pulsing flesh, curious as to why her cheeks were suddenly damp. She was surprised to find she was crying…
JASON SQUINTED UP at the blinding orange ball of the midday sun, thinking conditions couldn’t possibly be worse.
“Things could always be worse,” Megan said next to him. “There could be a hurricane heading this way.”
He stared at her. “Is there?”
“Nah.”
“Thank God for small favors.”
He blew out a long breath from between his teeth, staring at the clearing around them. Five minutes ago they’d both emerged to find the nonstop rain they’d woken up to this morning was being replaced by the scorching sun. It didn’t feel like a sauna—it felt worse.
Megan plucked the material of her T-shirt away from where it clung, soaked, to her stomach. He tried not to watch, but couldn’t help himself.
Another team member emerged from across the fifty-yard clearing in the middle of the forest.
“Anything?” Megan called.
The agent indicated in the negative and then backed up until he was once again protected by the tree line.
Good idea.
Jason did the same and Megan followed suit. He glanced at his watch. They’d been at it since early this morning. That meant five hours of slogging through the trees with only a minimum of breaks, a protein bar and water bottle the only sustenance.
Megan leaned against the trunk of a tall pine and drank sparingly from her own canteen, dragging the back of her hand across her mouth afterward as she considered the clearing.
“Not a scrap of fabric, no sign of tracks…nothing.”
Jason grimaced. “Same here.”
Of course, had any of them found anything, they would have contacted the others via the radios they each carried.
Jason picked up his radio and told the rest of the team about the clearing, then advised they take at least a twenty-minute break and eat something before continuing.
Megan edged down slightly, propping her back against the tree in a semiseated position without actually sitting down. The ground was so sodden, she was denied that luxury.
“Christ, it’s hot,” she said.
“Tell me about it. I’d take a hundred and twenty degrees in the desert heat of Afghanistan over this any day.”
She looked at him. “Me, too.”
They fell silent. Jason quietly cursed himself. He hadn’t meant to inspire thoughts of Dari, but he was sure that’s where her mind had wandered. If he had any doubt, all he had to do was watch her take out her cell and check it before frowning and putting it back in her pocket.
They’d all been supplied with lunch rations, modified MRE—meals ready-to-eat—that were fresher and a little more appetizing, but just as safe and portable. He took his out and offered it to Megan. She stared up at him.
“Thanks, but I have my own.”
Her curious gaze made him look the other way, even as he tore open the package. Of course she had her own. What the hell was he thinking, offering her his?
He wasn’t sure what was happening here, but he’d better snap out of it before Megan started thinking something was up.
Problem was, something was up. Big-time. Last night he’d woken up in the middle of the night with a massive hard-on…and it had Megan’s name written all over it.
He was relieved when Dominic popped up some twenty yards to his right and headed in their direction.
“Hey,” he said, leaning against a tree on the other side of Jason.
They answered in kind and all three ate in relative silence.
“There’s still so much ground we’re missing,” Megan said quietly, tucking away the wrapper from a piece of cheddar.
Dominic said, “We could have organized the volunteers lined up outside the sheriff’s office.”
“In this weather? We would have ended up searching for half of them.” Jason shook his head. “It was just as well the sheriff sent them to the mall and other public venues where they could keep an eye out but stay out of the elements.”
“Besides,” Megan added, “in cases like these, untrained individuals haven’t a clue what they’re looking for. Shortly into a search of this nature, they generally stop paying attention and are more at risk of accidentally trampling evidence than finding any.”
“Which is why we’re here.”
Dominic took a deep breath. “We getting paid for this?”
Megan and Jason shared a look.
“You are,” Megan said.
“And the company will if we deliver results.”
Essentially that was the deal they’d struck with the sheriff’s office. From what Jason understood, they had a matching guarantee from the federal government by way of Lincoln’s FBI friend…all on the down low, of course.
Of course, that actually depended on whether or not they found the girl.
Megan pushed up off the tree and stashed her wrappers in her pockets.
“I’m heading back out. See you on the other side…”
5
Eight days and no results…
MEGAN STOOD AT the sink in her motel bathroom and stared at herself in the mirror, the light slanting through the doorway only slightly breaking the darkness. The cold water she’d doused her face with dripped down over her chin, spots dotting her black T-shirt. Over a week of grueling days spent scouring thick thatches of dark woods, hampered by rain an
d heat. A sensation of sheer exhaustion combined with growing fear that they may not find little Finley Szymanski created a dark cloud that pressed from within as well as without.
She listlessly reached for a coarse towel and patted her chin and throat dry. It didn’t help that she had yet to hear from Dari. Every moment that ticked by inched up the worry quotient and made her itch in places she couldn’t possibly scratch on her own. Areas she tried to ignore, ones that transcended the mere physical.
She put the towel down and went back into the other room where the television droned on, broadcasting the late local news, which was dominated by the continuing search for the missing girl. The team’s final briefing of the day had broken up a short while ago, each member returning to his room, all of them experiencing discouragement to some degree, but vowing that tomorrow was another day.
Megan sat down on the edge of the made bed and checked her cell where it lay on the nightstand before grabbing the remote and flicking through the stations.
“Don’t bother. News and more news,” Jason said from the open doorway.
Deciding she was tired of the endless rattle of the air conditioner, not to mention the soggy, barely cold air it coughed out, she’d asked the front office for a fan and more often than not, she also left the door open until it was time to sleep.
She tossed the remote to the bed. “You’re right.”
He pushed from the jamb and came inside. “I’m always right.”
She smiled. “I’d laugh if I didn’t think you believed that.”
He sat down on the edge of the bed next to her, near but not touching. “Have I not proven myself and then some yet?”
Strangely, he had. But he was the last one she’d let know that.
She fingered the cell phone again, tilting it to look at the blank display.
When she turned back, she caught Jason watching her, wearing an expression with which she’d become familiar in recent days…and found somewhat disconcerting. If only because it touched some of those itchy places.
“What?” she asked.
“Oh, nothing. Just thinking that it must be hard. You know, to be in the middle of this and having Dari so far away and out of contact.”
Reckless Pleasures Page 3