Locked, Loaded and SEALed

by Carol Ericson

“I knew you’d be too chivalrous to make a move.”

  “Enough of chivalry. I’m not done with you yet, woman.” He wrapped his hands around her waist, and, still inside her, did a one-eighty so that he was flat on his back and she sat astride him.

  With his fingertips, he tickled the tattoo of a rose she had imprinted above her hip bone. “At least it’s not some guy’s name.”

  She snorted. “That would indicate something more permanent than I’m willing to give.”

  A shadow crossed his handsome face, and she almost bit her tongue. Why’d she have to bring up her personal issues at a time like this, with a man like this?

  He puffed out a breath, and then cupped her breasts in his palms, dragging his thumbs across her already aching nipples. “I knew these would fit perfectly in my hands.”

  “A lot of our parts fit perfectly.” She folded her body forward and kissed his chin.

  He jerked beneath her, his thumbs jabbing into her soft flesh.

  “Ouch. What did I do?”

  “Sophia, we’re being watched.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Austin kept his gaze pinned to the glint of light on the door adjoining the connecting room. It had to be a camera.

  Sophia had drawn back sharply, her knees digging into his sides, her face a mask of fear and confusion. “What are you talking about?”

  He put his finger to his lips and pulled the sheet around her shoulders. Could they hear them, too? He had to assume they could.

  He whispered. “Just follow my lead. Try to act naturally.”

  He scooted out from beneath her, rolling from the bed. He grabbed his sweats from the floor and held them in front of his crotch, although it didn’t much matter at this point since whoever was watching had pretty much seen everything he had to offer. “What am I talking about? You wore me out. Let’s take a shower—together this time.”

  “Austin?”

  He turned his back to the camera lodged in the door and gave Sophia a hard stare from narrowed eyes. “You’re insatiable. Shower first.”

  She swallowed. “Okay.”

  She started to slide from the bed, clutching the sheets around her, and he gave a quick shake of his head. She dropped the sheet, her body still shimmering from their lovemaking, and joined him by the side of the bed. They’d already seen everything she had to offer, too, and the thought prompted a white-hot anger to thump through his veins.

  He still had to make sure that what had caught his attention was, in fact, a camera, but he didn’t want to signal that he knew it was there.

  Taking her by the hand, he led her to the bathroom, shielding her naked body with his as much as he could. He swung open the bathroom door and nudged her inside. Then he turned on the shower full blast.

  He took her by the shoulders. “I think there’s a minicamera in the door adjoining our room to the one next to ours.”

  Sophia covered her mouth with both hands. “What? How?”

  “I don’t know, but we have to get out of here.”

  “Do you think they’re in the next room right now?”

  “Not unless the senior citizens in there have gone to the dark side. I saw them earlier with family and grandkids—no way. Somehow the guys on your tail got access to the room long enough to plant a minicamera in the adjoining door. They don’t have to be present, and even if I destroy it, which I will, they’ve been receiving their video and maybe audio on a computer somewhere.”

  A red stain blotched her cheeks, and she put one arm across her breasts.

  “I’m sorry, Sophia.”

  “Oh, God.” She shook her head. “What they saw us doing just now isn’t important, but how’d they track us to this hotel?”

  “It’s not the cars. I checked those thoroughly. Nobody followed us. It can’t be my phone, which is untraceable and untrackable. It has to be your cell phone.”

  “They’re tracking my cell phone?”

  “They must’ve been able to ping it somehow and track it down, although that must’ve happened recently or they would’ve made a move on us before this.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “There’s not much more to understand at this point. We’re getting out of here and you’re leaving your phone...and your car.”

  “Where will we go? I have to attend Dr. Fazal’s memorial. I told you that.”

  “We’ll go to another hotel. I have a second set of fake identity papers, so if they got my name from this hotel, I can check in as someone else. I think we’ll be okay, as long as you leave your phone here.”

  “I feel sick to my stomach, but I’m ready to leave now.”

  He pushed the hair from her face and kissed her temple. “We can’t leave right now. We have to pretend we don’t know the camera’s there, and I don’t want them to see us packing up and leaving in the middle of the night.”

  Her face blanched and her bottom lip trembled. “I can’t, Austin. I can’t spend the night in that bed with them watching me, watching us.”

  “Sure you can.” He tugged on her soft earlobe. “I’ll be right beside you. We’ll pretend we’re going to sleep after a lusty night of sex.”

  “What if they come for us at night? What if they break into the room?”

  “They’re not going to break into the room. That’s why they set up the camera next door. I have a weapon with me, and I’ll make sure they see it.”

  A vertical crease formed between her brows. “How are we going to disguise the fact that we’re leaving? They’ll see you remove the camera.”

  “I’m going to remove the camera from the other side. They might think it’s just a malfunction.”

  “How will get into that room?”

  “They did it, didn’t they?” He pulled her close and rubbed her back, one hand resting on the curve of her backside. “I’ll take care of this, Sophia. You did a great job out there—and I don’t mean the sex, although that was pretty fantastic, too. You kept your cool. We’ll get through this.”

  “What now?”

  “Quick shower and off to bed.”

  They climbed into the tub together and rinsed off while he cursed the circumstances and the wasted opportunity of having Sophia in the shower with him.

  After they patted dry and brushed their teeth, he handed her a dry towel. “You can wrap up in this if it makes you feel more comfortable. I don’t think that would be unusual.”

  “Neither do I.” She snatched the towel from him and wound it around her body.

  He scooped in a deep breath and pushed open the bathroom door. He said in a loud voice, “I’m going to get my weapon. You crawl into bed and find a movie.”

  As Sophia walked jerkily toward the bed, Austin crouched beside his bag and removed his gun. With the weapon dangling from his hand, he strolled back to the bed, where Sophia was huddled under the covers, the remote control in her hand.

  He turned off the bedside lamp and slid between the sheets next to her, glancing toward the adjoining door. The tiny camera winked back at him. He placed his weapon on the nightstand.

  “Did you find anything to watch?”

  She pointed at the TV with the remote. “Have you seen this one before?”

  “No. Leave it on.”

  Sophia dropped the remote in her lap. She’d pulled the sheets up to her throat and was sitting bolt upright, her arms at her sides—a perfectly natural way to watch TV next to a man you’d just banged.

  He turned up the volume and punched the pillows behind him. Sliding an arm behind her waist, he said, “Scooch down here with me.”

  She turned a pair of round eyes on him and crossed her hands over her chest like a virgin on her wedding night, and he knew damned well she wasn’t a virgin and this was no wedding night.

 
He lowered his voice. “You look ridiculous sitting like that.”

  She huffed out a breath and slid down. He draped his arm across her shoulders and pulled her close until her head was resting on his shoulder.

  “That’s better.” He kissed the top of her head. “Try to sleep. I got this.”

  She snuggled her naked body closer to him, skin to skin, flinging one arm across his midsection and hooking her leg over his thigh. His libido stirred, along with a couple of choice body parts as he gritted his teeth. He should’ve left her in that virgin pose.

  He had the strongest urge to take her again, right here, right now—and he didn’t give a damn who was watching.

  * * *

  THE FOLLOWING MORNING, they went about their business in the most natural way they could muster. Sophia was a trooper.

  When they heard their neighbors open their door, they sprang into action and met them at the elevator.

  Sophia smiled at the older couple. “Busy day today?”

  “Lexington and Concord, and Walden Pond on the way back.” The woman held up a dog-eared map. “Do you know that Thoreau really wasn’t roughing it at Walden Pond?”

  “No, I didn’t know that.”

  The woman’s husband rolled his eyes. “Irene, nobody’s interested in Thoreau.”

  “I know you’re not.” His wife tapped him with the map while she winked at Sophia.

  They parted ways in the lobby, and Austin steered Sophia to the hotel restaurant. As soon as they took a seat at a table, he tapped his phone and put it beside his coffee cup. He’d set up his laptop to monitor any disturbances in the room and then transfer that data to his cell phone.

  When the food arrived it could’ve been sandpaper, since all of his senses were on high alert, and he shoveled eggs in his mouth with one eye on his phone and the other on the entrance to the restaurant.

  Fazal’s killers knew they were here, and they’d use any opportunity they could to grab Sophia—because that was their current goal. They wanted to know what she knew, even if she didn’t know she knew it. Thank God he didn’t have to explain that one to her. She got it.

  She got everything.

  Sophia nibbled on the edge of her bagel. “Are we just going to hang around all day and wait for housekeeping to show up on our floor?”

  “Yep.”

  “Being in that room creeps me out. I can’t wait to leave.”

  “You and me both. How do you think I liked it, walking around that room naked, knowing some guy’s checking out my junk?”

  Sophia choked and sprayed orange juice into his plate of eggs. “That’s what you were thinking about?”

  “Believe me, that’s what any guy’s gonna be thinking about.”

  “At least you’ve got junk worth checking out.”

  “Thanks. That just made the situation ten times more disturbing.” He gave her a grin. He liked making her laugh.

  When they finished breakfast, they took their coffee into the lobby, where Austin could watch the floors above and the progression of the housekeeping carts.

  About an hour later, he nudged Sophia’s arm. She’d picked up a paperback in the gift shop and now nodded over it.

  She rubbed her eyes. “Is it time?”

  “The cart’s on our floor.”

  “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

  “It won’t take long, and the guys watching us won’t figure it out for a while, giving us a head start.”

  They got off the elevator on their floor and waited in the room with the ice and vending machines. When the housekeeping cart stopped in front of the room next to theirs and the maid opened the door, they slipped into the hallway.

  He took Sophia’s arm and pressed her shoulders against the wall outside the room. Ducking his head, he brushed his lips against her ear. “Stay here and keep watch. This won’t take long.”

  He curled his fingers around the knife in his pocket and entered the room. With the maid in the bathroom, running water in the sink, he strode toward the door that led to his own room.

  He ran his hand over the smooth wood until he felt a protrusion and circled it with his fingertip. Damn, they were good. These were no amateurs.

  He stuck the point of the knife under one edge of the camera and worked it free. Pinching the small device between two fingers, he covered the lens side of the camera—the side that had been pointing into his room, recording him and Sophia in bed.

  He placed it on the carpet and ground the heel of his boot against it. “Show over, assholes.”

  He left the mangled device on the floor for the maid to vacuum it up.

  “Excuse me? I didn’t think anyone was in here.” The maid stood in the doorway of the bathroom with some towels in her arms and a perplexed expression on her face.

  Austin pocketed his knife and withdrew his card key. He held it up. “Forgot something.”

  He breezed past her and out the door, squeezing past the cart. “Done. Let’s get out of here.”

  He opened the door of their own room and flipped around the do-not-disturb sign on the handle. “How fast can you pack?”

  “A matter of minutes. I’ve had lots of practice what with moving from one foster home to another.”

  “Good.” He closed down his laptop and retrieved his rifle case from the closet.

  Within thirty minutes, they’d packed their stuff, checked out of the hotel and were sitting in his rental. “My handlers almost booked me in a hotel near the harbor. I’d say that’s a good second choice.”

  “That’s closer to the Kennedy Library, the location of the symposium.”

  He entered the hotel name in the car’s GPS. “I wish we had more information about what’s going down there. Blind security can only do so much.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that.”

  “Me, too—a lot.” He pulled out of the hotel’s parking structure and tapped Start on the GPS.

  “Boston’s Kids is one of the symposium’s hosts.”

  “You mentioned you knew about that group.”

  “I used to volunteer for that group. If Rick Stansfield is still the director, I might have an in.”

  “An in?” He hit the brakes harder than he’d planned and the car lurched at the red light.

  “One of the articles mentioned a fund-raising party prior to the meetings. I think I can get us an invitation.”

  This time he slammed the brakes. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “I’m not.” She tucked her hair behind one ear. “Of course, I no longer have my cell phone, but I can get Rick’s number and give him a call.”

  “If there’s going to be some kind of attack at that event, you need to be as far away from it as possible.”

  “Not if I can help prevent it. Do you know how devastating it would be for those organizations if there was some kind of terrorist attack at a symposium they’re hosting?”

  “I get it.” He took her hand and toyed with her fingers. “But do you realize how devastated I’d be if something happened to you at that symposium?”

  “You said it yourself. Security will be tight, and I’ve got the best security of all.” She brought his hand to her lips and kissed his knuckles.

  “I don’t know if I could ever get clearance for something like this.”

  “I don’t need clearance from the US government to attend a party hosted by an organization I’ve worked with in the past and for which I have an invitation.”

  “You may not need the go-ahead, but the security agencies overseeing this little exercise of mine are just about ready to throw in the towel on you after I told them you’re insisting on attending Dr. Fazal’s memorial tomorrow.”

  “Even better. Let them give up on me, which will free me up even further to do what
I want.”

  “You may not have anyone to report to, but I still do.”

  “Then tell them you’ll be attending the event as backup security. It’ll be easier for you to get your weapon through, and believe me, I’d feel a whole lot better about being there if you’re armed.”

  “I can try to do that. Call your friend when we get to the new hotel.”

  Once they checked in and got to the room, Austin tossed his phone onto the bed. “Knock yourself out.”

  “I’m going to find him on my laptop first. Since I can’t get his cell phone number from my phone, I’ll have to call the organization instead.”

  She clicked away on her keyboard while he stretched out on the bed. Had she noticed he hadn’t requested two double beds in the room? He’d barely gotten started with her last night before he discovered they were making an unintentional sex tape. Was it wrong for him to wish he could see that video? It just might get him through some long nights ahead once he’d left her.

  And he’d have to leave her.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Sophia glanced at Austin sprawled on the bed as she brought up the website for Boston’s Kids. The crease between his eyebrows concerned her. Did he think they wouldn’t be able to pull it off, or did he think they wouldn’t be allowed to?

  She didn’t know much about the military, but she did know a soldier had to follow orders. If his superiors wouldn’t allow him near the gala for the symposium, Austin had to know she’d go, anyway. Was that what had him worried?

  “Rick is still here.” The cursor hovered over his contact information. “Can I call him from your phone?”

  “Sure.” He nudged the phone to the edge of the bed with his foot, and she leaned back in her chair to grab it. She entered Rick’s number at the foundation and got a receptionist. They must be doing well.

  “Can I speak to Rick Stansfield, please? Tell him it’s Sophia Grant.”

  “One moment, Ms. Grant. I’ll see if he’s in.”

  She held up the phone to Austin and pushed the button on the side for the speaker, and he muted the TV.

  A few seconds later, Rick’s voice boomed over the phone. He never faked the hearty tone he used with the kids. Rick was the real deal. “How’s my favorite volunteer? We sure miss you over here.”