by Cindy Gerard
He stood. Hesitated. Then walked to the doorway and stepped into the hall.
And there she was, heading toward him. Head down, she focused on the sheath of papers clutched in her hand as she walked.
She hadn’t spotted him yet. But she would if he didn’t unglue his boots from the polished marble floor and beat his feet back into Jensen’s office.
Yet there he stood. Unable to move. Barely able to breathe.
She looked the same. Knockout gorgeous and kick-ass cool. Still slim and sleek and in total control. Back then she’d worn camo or khaki, and usually twisted her hair into a thick black braid. Today it was a black power suit, crisp white blouse, and black heels. And her hair was pulled back into an elegant and sexy knot at her nape. Even before she looked up, he knew that the face he’d memorized by sight, touch, and taste would be as golden and lovely as when she’d been his.
Damn. He’d thought he was over her.
He’d figured they’d meet up again someday, but he hadn’t thought that seeing her again would make him feel like a turtle lumbering across a busy freeway. Nowhere to go to escape the inevitable collision. Unable to move fast enough to avoid certain disaster.
She’d almost reached him when she finally raised her head to talk to the aide walking alongside her. Her dark eyes landed briefly on his face, then moved on past him.
An instant later she stopped, stood motionless for a long, humming second, and then turned slowly to look at him.
All the blood drained from her face when she realized it was him.
All the breath left his body.
After six years and countless regrets, he had the same reaction to her as he’d had the first time he’d seen her in Afghanistan. A searing connection, a sizzling electricity that wasn’t only sexual, but intensely soulful and deep.
Oh, God. Not again. He could not survive her again.
Their eyes were still locked—stunned, disbelieving—when a massive explosion rocked the building.
Shattering glass, falling concrete, and the acrid stench of billowing smoke were joined by horrified screams; then hideous pain consumed him as the blast knocked him off his feet. He fell facedown on the floor, eyes glazed, head pounding, ears ringing.
The last thing he saw before he passed out was a black high heel flying across the broken glass that littered the embassy floor.
2
Kabul, Afghanistan
Six years earlier
Looking in the mirror behind the bar, Talia Levine studied her assignment in the dimly lit room of the Mustafa Hotel in Kabul. All the Americans in the bar were a long way from home. All were lonely. But none were easy—especially this man she’d singled out.
No matter. When she found the right tactical advantage, he would help her. He’d never know it, of course, but if all worked as planned, she’d deliver the goods to her commander within a week. Two, tops.
Even if she hadn’t read his file, she’d have known that he’d once been U.S. Army, Special Ops, just like the other three men with him, who were now private military contractors with the Fargis Group. He and his kind had a battle-hardened look. This man in particular had a coiled readiness, an underplayed situational awareness that allowed him to assess every detail of his surroundings without blinking an eye. No one was going to get the drop on him. Anyone coming after him was going to die. No hesitation. No regret.
She’d known coming into this assignment that she was going to have to be very careful. And for three nights straight, she’d played it cool, kept her distance, and waited for the right moment to approach him. Tonight might be the night.
His back was to the wall, his eyes were on his whiskey, yet she sensed that he knew she’d been watching him. Just as she’d sensed over the past few nights, making herself visible at the bar, that he was attracted to her but was deciding how things were going to play out between them.
She looked away, tipped her wine to her lips, and let him think about it some more—while she thought about getting what she wanted.
“Buy you another?”
For a big man, he moved like a cat. And while she wasn’t surprised that he’d managed to slip into her personal space without so much as rippling the air between them, she couldn’t help feeling a little unsettled.
She glanced up at him, then smiled. “Sure. If you don’t make me drink alone.”
He got the bartender’s attention, made a circle in the air with his finger to indicate another round, and eased onto the bar stool beside her.
“Come here often?” His smile surprised her as much as the corny line.
She’d made certain that he knew this was her watering hole. Just as she knew it was his—along with all the other private contractors, mercenaries, spooks, and journalists who hung out here, searching for some like-minded company and a relatively quiet place to drink away the physical and emotional dirt from the day.
“Can’t seem to stay away. Must be the homey atmosphere.”
“Right.” He made a cursory glance around the room’s smoke-stained orange and yellow walls and worn, cracked marble floors. “That must be it. Or the cheap booze. Any port in a storm, I guess.”
“What about you?” She nodded her thanks to the bartender when he slid a fresh glass of wine in front of her.
“When the pickings are slim, you take what you can get.” He smiled again, surprising her again. He looked hard, this American, and what she knew of his background supported that. But when he smiled, there was nothing hard about him.
“Are we still talking about the hotel?” she asked reacting to that smile.
He laughed. “Well, we’re not talking about you, ma’am. You class up the place.”
“Ma’am?” The old-fashioned endearment charmed her more than it should have.
“Best I could do, since I don’t know your name. Mine’s Bobby. Bobby Taggart.”
Robert Andrew Taggart, to be exact. Known to his coworkers as Bobby or Boom Boom. It was the Boom she had to be careful of. It was his military history and his fall from grace that would work for her. That, and simply his one X and one Y chromosome. She needed information; he had it. And she’d do whatever she had to do to get it out of him.
“Talia Levine. You’re American, right?”
“What gave it away?”
She pushed out a flirty laugh. “Only everything about you.”
He leaned a little closer. “Guess I’d better work on that. And you? Can’t place the accent.”
“I was hoping I didn’t have one.” She smiled. “Florida, actually. But of late, Israel, followed by London, Baghdad, and anywhere else my assignments take me. Journalist,” she supplied, when he cocked a brow.
“I should have guessed. Why else would a beautiful woman spend time in a dive like this unless she was forced to?”
“Not forced,” she corrected. “Volunteered.”
“Ah. You’re one of those.” He sipped his whiskey, studying her face in a way that made her feel a bit like a mouse in a trap, when she was supposed to be doing the trapping.
She crinkled her brow, playing to his statement. “One of those?”
“An ‘all for the sake of her career’ woman. You take reckless chances to get your story.”
“How would you know if I was reckless?”
“Not to point out the obvious, but you’re in Kabul. And you’re coming on to a stranger in a bar.”
“Wow.” She feigned insult. “That’s harsh.”
“That’s life. No insult intended. But maybe a little wishful thinking. You were coming on to me, right?”
She sipped her wine. “I was still deciding.”
He chuckled. “And now?”
“And now, I need to know more about you.”
“Me? I’m an open book.”
“Of course you are,” she said, letting him know
that he wasn’t fooling her. He was good at this game. But not as good as she was.
“Are you really any different than I am in the reckless department?” she asked, now that the door was open. “You were military, right? Probably served more than one deployment in the hot zones. And now you’re a civilian contractor.”
She wasn’t stating anything that wasn’t general knowledge around Kabul. The Americans who ended up here all had military backgrounds, and most were employed by civilian contractors. “You also take reckless chances just by being here.”
He lifted his glass. “That I do. So, it’s settled. We’re both a little crazy.”
“Maybe. But you can’t say it’s not exciting.”
“Yeah. This is definitely my idea of excitement. Watching the paint peel off the walls of this bar.”
She toyed with the stem of her wineglass, then tilted him a coy smile. “You’re not watching the paint peel now, are you?”
He perked up a little bit at that, because she’d just let him know she’d made her decision. “No, ma’am. I certainly am not.”
Though this was just business on her part, an unsettling awareness zipped between them. And for a moment she let herself see the man, not the assignment.
Square jaw, military haircut, watchful green eyes. Attractive, especially when he smiled. She could picture him in another era, crossing the Atlantic on a tall sailing ship, landing at Ellis Island with his German, French, and Irish ancestry. He was big and muscular, this Bronx, New York, native, and had been a bit of a street brawler in his teens. According to his file, he was a man who kept to himself.
But judging by his expectant look now, that wasn’t altogether true.
An electric silence had stretched out between them before she managed to fall back into her role. She glanced up at him. “Just so you know . . . I don’t make a habit of picking up strangers in bars.”
His gaze was intense but not judgmental as he shifted toward her. “So why me? And why now?”
She looked away, and when she looked back at him she had tears in her eyes. All she had to do was call up today’s horrible memory to provoke them. “Why you? Because you look about as lonely as I feel. Why now? Because life—this life—is risky, and today I narrowly escaped with mine. Today, I need human contact.”
He watched her with cool green eyes that had warmed just enough to tell her she’d struck a chord with him, and she felt an unaccustomed twinge of guilt.
“To remind you that you’re human?”
She shook her head. “To remind me that humanity isn’t dead . . . even in the midst of this inhumane war.”
He studied her face, then studied his whiskey before tossing the rest of it down. “My room or yours?”
• • •
She’d surprised him, this Talia Levine or whatever her real name was. He’d been certain that his crude and direct invitation would have had her bolting with second thoughts. That she would’ve told him this was a bad idea, before telling him good-night.
But here he was. Following her and her exceptional ass up three flights of stairs. The question was why. Why was she lying to him? And why go to the trouble of staking him out in a bar for three nights running? If she was a journalist, he was a freakin’ nanny.
Except, oh wait—he was as American as a Chevy truck, and she clearly wanted something from him.
How far will you go to get it, sweetheart? How far would he let her go?
One thing she hadn’t lied about: Afghanistan was a hellhole. Every day was a crapshoot. And yeah, the need for human contact in the midst of all this brutality sometimes got you by the balls and wouldn’t let go.
So he followed her out of the elevator, down the dim hallway, and stopped when she did at room 309. Three was his lucky number, and he could make four threes out of that room number—which quadrupled his luck, good or bad.
She fitted the key into an antiquated lock, turned it, and pushed the door open.
“Home sweet home,” she said, flipping on the overhead light and stepping aside for him to follow her in.
He glanced around the room. A double bed. Two side tables. An open laptop sat on one of them. A camera with a bulky lens sat beside it, along with a notepad filled with scribbled notes.
Nicely done, he thought, and walked to the closet, opened the door, and checked inside. Empty except for her clothes. Same thing with the bathroom—no terrorist lying in wait to whack an American.
“Do we call this paranoia, or a basic distrust in women?” she asked after he’d checked under the bed.
“Call it anything you want,” he said agreeably. “Mostly, it’s called life lessons.”
She nodded slowly, clearly entertained. “Do I pass inspection?”
“Well,” he said with a smile as he walked toward her, “the room does. I haven’t thoroughly inspected you yet. Got any explosive devises hidden under that horribly drab shirt?”
“Sorry I didn’t dress for the occasion,” she said as he gripped her hips and pulled her against him.
She didn’t resist him. Didn’t exactly melt against him, either. So he pushed a little further to see how far she’d let this go.
“Dressing is highly overrated,” he replied. “Now, undressing—that’s something I could get into.”
“No surprises there,” she said, but still made no effort to get on with the festivities.
Which told him she was having second thoughts. “It’s not too late to back out, Talia—if that’s really your name,” he added just to see how she’d respond.
“Ah,” she said, and looped her arms around his neck. “You really don’t trust me.”
“With my heart? You’re going to steal it, for sure. And I’m okay with that.” His smile quickly faded. “With my life? Not so much. What do you want from me?”
“I told you what I wanted,” she said, suddenly sober. Playing no more. Suddenly shaken.
She could act. He’d give her that.
“Look. I told you I’d never done this before. Clearly I’m no good at it. Maybe you should leave.”
She pushed away from him, walked toward the door, and opened it.
He’d detected a hint of a limp when she’d slid off the bar stool, but had been too busy watching her ass and wondering what she was up to, to process it. Now he wanted to know.
“Why are you limping?”
“I told you,” she said still gripping the handle of the open door. “I had a close call today.”
He walked across the room. Closed the door. “Let me see.”
“Why? Because you don’t believe me?”
“Because I want to see.”
He was angry now, and not sure why. Just like he wasn’t sure why he grabbed her arm, dragged her to the bed, and pushed her down on it.
“Take ’em off,” he ordered as she lay there, looking up at him like a defiant bunny.
Evidently his look told her that either she do it or he would, because she finally lowered her hands, unbuttoned her khaki pants, and undid the zipper.
“Where?” he demanded.
“Right leg. My calf.”
He lifted her leg by her foot, undid the laces on her boot, and slipped both it and the sock off. Then he helped her tug the pants down so her entire right leg was exposed—except for the white bandage that wrapped around her leg from below the knee to her ankle.
She said nothing during this process. She just lay there, her eyes a little wide, her ugly shirt open just above her naval, revealing a smooth expanse of olive skin between the shirt hem and the band of her bikini panties. Flesh-colored. Practical. Sexy as hell without meaning to be.
He jerked his attention back to her bandaged leg. “Roll over.”
She considered balking, but finally muttered under her breath and rolled onto her stomach. He slowly undid the gauze wrap, schooling h
is gaze away from one of the finest asses he’d ever seen. Then he closed his eyes on a hiss when he saw her injury.
That pretty olive skin had a jagged three-inch wound. Clumsy stitches bit into the angry red flesh.
“What the hell happened? And what quack stitched you up?” He sat down on the bed, helping her get more comfortable, then lay his hand over the wound. It didn’t appear to be infected. The flesh was cool to the touch but clearly sore, because she winced as he continued his examination.
“I told you, I had a close call today. A corpsman stitched it and field dressed it for me.”
He lay on the bed beside her, crossed his hands behind his head, and stared at the ceiling. “You were there? At the school?”
He’d heard about the ambush. A dozen Taliban bastards had opened fire on a group of children. Specifically, girls who dared to go to school. The death toll was staggering.
He felt her body shift beside him, sensed her gaze on his face. And he knew before he turned to look at her what he’d see.
“They killed them,” she whispered through her tears. “They killed those beautiful children.”
Without a second thought, he gathered her in his arms, replaying their words in his mind.
Because today, I need human contact.
To remind you that you’re human?
To remind me that humanity isn’t dead . . . even in the midst of this inhumane war.
And what had his response been? My room or yours?
He was a calloused, cynical bastard.
Was she who she said she was? Hell, he didn’t know. And at this moment, he didn’t care. He just cared about holding her as she wept, her body shaking, her grief as real as it gets.
And when he woke up in the middle of the night, he was still holding her. Him in his dusty fatigues, her half-dressed, his shoulder damp with her tears.
About the Author
Cindy Gerard has won the RITA Award for Best Romantic Suspense novel. She is the New York Times bestselling author of the Black Ops, Inc. series; the bestselling Bodyguards series; and more than thirty contemporary romance novels. She lives in the Midwest with her husband.