Finding His Mark (Stealth Ops Book 1)

by Brittney Sahin

  She almost hugged him.

  Almost.

  “Thank you.” She stood in front of the bed and smoothed her hand over the top of the silver laptop. “Why am I guessing what’s on your bed is a lot different? Probably heavy artillery.”

  “You do want to be kept safe, don’t you?”

  “Yes, but do you really think anyone can find us here?”

  His eyes tightened a little. “No, or I wouldn’t have brought you to this place.”

  Good. “Are these bags full of clothes?”

  “I didn’t know your size, so it looks like they bought out the store.”

  She peered into the closest bag and smiled as she reached for one of the items and held it. “Fuzzy socks?”

  “That was a last-minute addition. In case you get nervous at all and feel like dancing.”

  “Hm.” She shifted the bags out of the way so she could sit, then began nervously fiddling with the pair of pink socks. “This is surprising.”

  “Well, I owed you a computer, didn’t I?”

  “No, the computer’s not surprising.” A grin teased her lips. “That, you should’ve done.” She lifted her attention upward, her lip catching between her teeth at the sight of him. “But the socks . . .” She let her words drift for a moment. “The socks make me think you have more going on”—she waved her free hand in a small circle in the air—“beneath that hard exterior of yours.”

  He cracked a smile. “Do you always judge a book by its cover?”

  “When it comes in a package like yours.” Her gaze dipped below his belt and a warmth crept up her pale skin, and she knew she’d be red.

  “Do you want to grab a shower, and then we can eat?” he asked.

  “Uh, sure.”

  “Did you happen to get my purse and phone back from those men?” Although she was sure he wouldn’t let her call anyone.

  “My people must have them. Sorry.”

  “’kay.”

  “I’m three doors down on the right if you need me.”

  Her focus slowly skirted up, landing on his arms, but she couldn’t get herself to meet his eyes.

  “Do you think there’s any makeup in these bags?”

  “Why would you need makeup?”

  “Right. I guess I don’t.” Considering she only wore mascara, it was insane that she suddenly wanted to add a little color while she was hidden away.

  “I’ll cook after I shower.”

  “You can cook?” she asked, finally forcing her eyes to his.

  “As long as it’s microwavable or comes in a box.” He winked and left.

  Chapter Eight

  Luke allowed the ice-cold water to pelt his skin before he changed the setting to the rainfall mode in the shower.

  His head dropped forward, and his fisted hands pressed against the tiled wall. He had to get this woman off his mind.

  He was on an op, and not just any op—one that could lead to the takedown of half a dozen terrorist groups all over the globe. He couldn’t allow his dick to compromise the mission.

  But damn, ever since this woman had come blazing into his life yesterday he’d had the burning desire to shove his tongue into her mouth and grab that beautiful dark hair of hers at the same time.

  He tried to fight back thoughts of her, but it wasn’t working.

  After getting out of the shower and toweling off, he swiped the beads of water from his short blond hair, spiking it up a little, then wrapped the towel around his waist and went into the bedroom.

  He opened the military-grade laptop he’d had delivered and popped onto a secure feed. His curiosity was piqued, and if he was going to spend the next few days—or hell, weeks—protecting this woman, he wanted to know more about her.

  Midway through his search about Everly Reed and her ridiculously wealthy and famous family, an incoming call from his sister had him taking a deep breath.

  “Hey,” he answered.

  “President Rydell’s not happy,” she said straight away. “But, he’s trying to be optimistic about our capture of Ender, even though it wasn’t part of the plan.”

  He exited the secure internet search and closed his computer. “And did you tell Will about Eva?”

  “Yeah, and you know how he took it.”

  He grumbled. “Well, I still doubt Ender will give us anything.” He stood and kneaded the muscles at the base of his spine, the tension building. “I assume he’s still alive?”

  “Surgery went well, but we’re waiting to see if he’ll wake up.”

  “’Kay. Anything on the GPS location?”

  “I’m not going to hold my breath anyone will show.”

  “And I have to assume Malik’s men won’t go to the address for my fake identity,” he noted.

  “No, but we have someone watching, in case. We’re stretched thin right now.”

  “Shit, I know. Too bad we couldn’t pull some of our men from the company to help out.”

  “Yeah, I wish.” Luke released a sigh. “Anything new from the CIA about why the hell their man went rogue and killed Malik’s brother?”

  “Aside from the same BS—that Malik must’ve paid Reggie Deeks a shit-ton of money to stab our country in the back . . . nope. Nothing new.”

  “They confirm payment between Malik and Reggie to back up this theory?”

  “Will couldn’t give me an answer, and if he pokes around too much it could tip someone off to the fact that we’re doing damage control for the CIA’s mess.”

  “I’d like to know how Malik managed to find out which CIA operative was going to the meet with his brother. Hard to believe Malik could access that intel and then get lucky enough to pay Reggie off to kill Odem Yilmaz and steal the USB.”

  “Yeah, so what are you suggesting? A mole in the agency?”

  “There’s a reason why only four people in the world outside our team know of our existence. Hard to know who to trust these days,” he said dryly. “And I’m sure as far as the CIA’s concerned their guy never existed.”

  “Yeah, well, the traitorous son of a bitch really doesn’t exist anymore since you killed him.”

  Luke stood in front of the mirror over the dresser, eying the new scar on his arm from the bullet that grazed his skin three weeks ago. “I didn’t mean to kill him.”

  “I don’t blame you. I just wish we could’ve taken Reggie in alive to get some answers. Hopefully, Ender can help us now.”

  Had Ender Yilmaz not shown up and shot Luke at the precise time he’d been about to fire a round at Reggie’s arm—he never would’ve missed and pegged the CIA operative in the heart.

  Luke dragged out a frustrated breath. “Nothing like feeling like we’re in a pressure cooker.”

  “We’ll figure this out. We always do. Just try and get some rest.”

  He nodded as if his sister could see him. “Anything new on Eva? Everly, I mean?” Her face scrolled through his mind like a hot flash.

  “I’m sure Malik’s people will find out who she really is.” She cleared her throat.

  “Yeah, okay, keep me posted.” He ended the call and dumped a bag of clothes onto the bed, but a knock at the door had his body tensing.

  “Hey, it’s me.” A pause. “Well, obviously . . . if it weren’t me, we’d have some unwelcome house guests, huh?”

  “You need something?” he called out and swallowed a lump in his throat, his body tightening up again, as if he were Pavlov’s dog and his bell had been rung—and, damn, he was salivating over the idea of losing himself inside of her after the frustrating hell of the past three weeks.

  He needed a break. A moment to breathe and not worry about terrorists.

  But this was the life he had chosen.

  He wouldn’t change it, not for a minute.

  But he also wouldn’t mind at least one damn night off.

  “I, uh, there wasn’t any shampoo in the bathroom or the bags you gave me. Do you have any I can use?” she hollered through the door, and he felt like an idiot for making
her yell the request—but his mind had . . . wandered.

  “Yeah, of course.” He grabbed it from the bathroom and opened the door a few seconds later.

  She staggered back a step, her eyes widening.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “You’re naked.”

  His gaze dropped to his lower half, noting his towel still secured in place. “No, I’m not.”

  Her palm covered her eyes. “Close enough.” Her chin tipped up to the ceiling, and a beautiful shyness swept over her features.

  He couldn’t see her eyes, but her nose crinkled, her lips disappeared inward, and her neck and ears were in the process of tinting pink.

  “Here.”

  She reached out, swatting the air in search of the bottle without dropping her other hand from her eyes.

  He pressed it against her palm, too damn amused to say anything else.

  “Thanks,” she whispered and fled, running away as if he’d been covered in explosives.

  He crossed his arms, leaning inside the doorframe until she was out of sight, his body below the waist rock-hard now.

  Back to the shower it was . . . because there was no way he’d endure an evening with her without first relieving some of the pressure. He was already wound up from the failed op; he couldn’t let this woman be his undoing.

  “Macaroni and wine. Interesting dinner combination.”

  He lowered the glass from his lips and eyed her as she strode to the table in a pair of black leggings and an oversized white tee that hung loose off her shoulder.

  “You’re wearing the socks. Are you planning on dancing tonight?” A smirk met his lips.

  She sat at the table and pushed her semi-damp hair to her back. The woman was naturally beautiful. Makeup? God, she didn’t need any. Her hazel eyes had captured his attention the moment they’d locked on to his yesterday.

  “No dancing, but they’re too comfortable not to wear.” She looked at the bowl of macaroni and smiled. “Looks perfect.” She lifted the glass of wine he’d poured right before she’d come into the kitchen. “But I’m not sure how I feel about my bodyguard drinking while on duty.”

  He took a long and purposeful swig of his wine. “No one will show up here. Besides, I can shoot better drunk than most men can shoot sober.”

  Her long lashes lifted, and her eyes journeyed across the room as if she were looking everywhere possible to avoid him. “And have you ever shot drunk?”

  “I’ve had to shoot on morphine while taking enemy fire, which is a close enough comparison.” He sat down, and his body tensed at the realization of what he’d said.

  Her lips twisted in a knowing smile. “Military team?” She circled her index finger in the air. “Or while on this team now, the super secretive one?”

  Christ. He cleared his throat and dug into his pasta instead of answering.

  “Why morphine?” she asked when he remained quiet. He shoveled food into his mouth to keep himself from leaking any more info to this woman like she was some Greek siren and he was under her spell. “Were you hurt? I mean, I assume that’s what happened.”

  He contemplated what to say, but the mission where his helo had crashed into Pakistan was classified. “Leg injury.” He wondered if attempting to keep this woman in the dark would be worse than giving her some piece of the truth. So far, she’d managed to get more out of him than almost any other woman, and he’d only met her twenty-four hours ago.

  He’d never had issues with the military assumptions from women over the years, but he’d always remained tight-lipped about being part of DEVGRU.

  Sometimes the lies burned his throat and tore up his insides, especially when talking to people he actually cared about. But those lies also kept people safe.

  “I was Navy, but now I run a tactical security company with former military guys. That’s all I can say, and so, if you could stop prodding, that’d be great.”

  “Fair enough.” She closed her eyes and then licked the drop of wine from her lips.

  He rolled his neck around. The second shower had done nothing to help relieve the desire that was flooding through his veins at hyper speed. He’d done his best not to think about Eva while jerking off, it felt creepy somehow since they barely knew each other; but she’d kept popping into his mind anyway.

  “This is my favorite. German Riesling?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I didn’t take you for a wine guy.” Her lashes lifted, and she drank more.

  “You seem to be making a lot of assumptions about me. I thought we addressed this issue already—about book covers and all.”

  “Bad habit, I guess.”

  He leaned back and gripped the sides of his seat, hooking his feet around the legs of the chair.

  “Speaking of German wine, was that German you were speaking last night?”

  He nodded, not sure why he’d even answered.

  “And the woman you were talking to, who is she?”

  “You’re still asking questions.”

  “I can’t help myself. So, are you two dating?”

  He dropped his head forward, the curve of his lips perking at the edges. She just didn’t stop, did she? “No, we’re not.”

  “Hm. Well, if I were writing a story about all of this, I’d have the male lead fall for someone like her.”

  He looked up. “Oh, yeah? You wouldn’t have the guy fall for the woman he’d rescued?”

  “No, that’s been done too many times before, and I pride myself in being more unique than that.”

  “Really . . .” Based on the color of her cheeks, his words had impacted her. He shouldn’t have said it, but he couldn’t help himself.

  “Well, um, do you speak any other languages?” She nervously fiddled with the fork, stabbing at the food without bringing it to her mouth.

  “A few,” he answered.

  “By-product of your job, huh?” It was more of a statement than a question, though.

  “I’m half German,” he said with a shake of his head, pissed at himself for relinquishing any additional details.

  “Oh, yeah? How’d that happen?”

  “My German mom and American father cohabitated.”

  She let out a soft laugh.

  “What?” He raised a brow. “I’m not going to say sex. They’re my parents, for Christ’s sake.”

  Another laugh brushed across his skin. “True, but I was thinking more along the lines of how your parents met, I suppose.”

  “You always need a backstory, don’t you?”

  “If I don’t know one, I tend to make it up. It’s my job.” Her hands fell into her lap as she rolled her tongue over her teeth. “Tell me more.”

  Why wasn’t he surprised she’d want to dig deeper? But his family origins weren’t exactly classified. “Pops was military. He met my mom while stationed in Germany. I was born over there, and then we moved to Naples before heading to the U.S.”

  “Military brat. You moved a lot, huh?”

  He nodded and swirled the golden liquid around in the glass.

  “And I assume you lived in the south, based on the slight bit of Southern in your speech. Mid-Atlantic?”

  Damn, she was good. She almost got him to answer Tennessee. “How about you? Did you move a lot?” He needed to get off the topic of his life and fast. Pretty much the rest of his life story was off-limits. Answering every question she might ask with classified would get boring real fast. He was sure she was much more interesting.

  “More times than I can count.”

  “I guess we have that in common.”

  “Yeah, but it looks like you were okay with the constant change of scenery since you joined the Navy. But me, I hated it. Well, as a kid I did, at least.”

  “So you decided you needed a change?”

  “Look who’s prodding now.” She smiled.

  “Well, I did look into you before you showed up at my door, trying to get a glimpse of me in my birthday suit.” His eyes narrowed as he waited and hoped for th
at gorgeous shyness to take up residence on her face.

  “I was not trying to see you naked. And you shouldn’t have answered in a towel anyway.”

  “My naked chest has never offended anyone before,” he quipped.

  “Well, it, you know . . .” Her cheeks flushed, and she swallowed and looked away.

  This time, it was his own bottom lip tucking between his teeth as he quietly observed the mysterious woman before him.

  “We’ll make a deal to never wear towels in front of each other. Okay? We can shake on it if you’d like.” He extended a palm.

  “You’re a smart-ass, huh?” She brushed away his hand, knocking over his wine glass in the process. “Shit.” She stood and went around to his side of the table.

  He looked up, ignoring the wine now on his sweatpants, and found her attention focused on his crotch. Her mouth rounded, and he cleared his throat and pushed away from the table to grab a paper towel.

  “Sorry.”

  “It’s fine. Let’s get back to you.” He pulled the material away from his body to pat the pants dry. “Why do people think you’re either searching for God in the mountains of Tibet or sobering up in rehab in Europe?” He tossed the towel, refilled his glass, and perched a hip against the kitchen island.

  “Oh. Well, no one knew where I’d disappeared to, and so people just made assumptions.”

  “And it doesn’t bother you they think you might be a drug addict?” He scratched at the base of his throat. “Unless, you, uh, have that problem.” Shit, for all he knew, she did.

  “If it means I have my privacy, they can think I’m dead for all I care.” Her shoulders arched back. “And no, aside from trying pot once in high school, it’s safe to say I’m a good girl.”

  Good girl—he’d gotten that impression, for sure.

  And now his cock was hardening as he thought about tossing this “good girl” onto his bed and making her come until she saw fucking stars.

  He advanced closer to her, thankful Eva’s tee was long enough to cover her ass in the leggings that clung to her curves like Saran Wrap. Maybe he’d bend her over and—