by Cindy Dees
“It usually takes them a few field exercises to get over babying us because we’re girls. And sometimes we have to help them…overcome…their preconceived notions. But most of them get the hang of it eventually.”
He heard humor in her words. He’d bet there were a few good war stories of the Medusas humiliating their male colleagues behind that dry comment of hers.
“Go. Shower,” she ordered.
He grinned. “Yes, ma’am.”
Hot water sluiced across his body, rinsing the salt off his skin and out of his hair, but it didn’t do a damned thing to combat the shivers that set in partway through his shower. He recognized it: post-mission reaction. Be as cool as a cucumber when the bullets were flying, and save the emotional stuff for later. Most special operators only let go of the adrenaline rush afterward. When they were alone. When the rest of the team wasn’t there to witness what a mess a guy was behind that calm, collected facade. And if a guy was lucky, someday the facade became the real thing.
Time was when he could get shot at and not think twice about it. But it hit him hard tonight. Yep, he’d been out of the field too long. Gone soft.
Was Paige having this reaction right now, as well? Was she huddled in a corner in the dark, sweating bullets over how close a couple of those shots had come to taking both of them out?
The thought of her scared and alone drove him to race through the rest of his shower. A compulsion to comfort her, to tell her everything was all right had him toweling off at light speed and ripping back the shower curtain hastily.
He stopped. Looked carefully around the bathroom. Where in the hell were his shorts?
They were gone.
Had Paige taken them away to wash, or was this some kind of joke? He noted wryly the neatly folded white sheet on the toilet lid. Great. She hadn’t been kidding about the toga. At least she’s been thoughtful enough to leave a belt for him. He folded the sheet in half and cinched it around his waist in a skirt that he preferred to think of as a rather manly kilt.
He stepped out of the bathroom.
“Cute,” Paige commented cheerfully. “I never noticed what nice knees you have.”
Dammit. No crying, trembling female to comfort. He scowled at her. “I’m sorry now that I saved you some hot water.”
Laughing, she disappeared into the bathroom.
Her shower was quick, too. Maybe she’d waited like him to let go of the nerves in there. Maybe now she was having her private breakdown, standing naked under a jet of hot water….
Whoa. Not exactly the appropriate image to have in his head with only a flimsy sheet between his male response to that mental picture and acute embarrassment.
Why did he feel so protective of her, anyway? She’d made it perfectly clear that she was entirely capable of taking care of herself. But still the urge persisted to gather her close, smell her skin, wrap her up in his embrace and never let her go.
He sat down on the floor of the living room out of sight of the windows in case the sniper had somehow managed to follow them here. A jolt of alarm hit him at the idea. It figured. For all those years when he didn’t particularly care if he lived or died, nobody ever seriously tried to off him. Now that he finally had something great going, the bullets started to fly—
Something great? What was so different about his life right now than it had been two days ago, before anyone tried to shoot him?
The answer was obvious, but he shied away from acknowledging what—or who—had come into his life so suddenly. She was just a temporary thing. He buried his head in his hands. Lord, he was a wreck.
“Hey. You okay?” a soft voice murmured out of the shadows.
He glanced at her bleakly, and she moved to his side immediately, sitting down so close to him that their knees practically touched. Her sleeveless T-shirt and shorts distracted him plenty, but not enough to totally erase the fact that someone was trying to kill him.
Her murmur sounded genuinely sympathetic. “Is it hitting you that someone tried to kill you tonight?”
He shrugged, but somehow, that seemed like a cop-out. “Yeah,” he muttered. “I guess so.”
“It’s okay, you know. You’re allowed to be a little freaked out by that. You don’t have to be Mr. Macho for me. I work with girls, remember? We don’t run screaming from letting our emotions show now and then.”
A wry grin quirked his mouth momentarily. “I shudder to imagine a whole team of girl operators emoting together.”
Paige’s smile flashed in a patch of moonlight. “It’s not that bad. What stinks is when six or eight of us PMS at the same time. Now that can be a challenge to maintain professional relations around.”
He laughed. “I tremble at the thought. Armed crazy women.”
Her hand came to rest lightly on his shoulder but froze there as she frowned abruptly. “You’re wicked tense, Tom. If this weren’t the middle of an op, I’d offer to work out some of those knots for you.”
He surveyed the darkened room. “I don’t see any imminent threats.” He added casually, “And I’m known to pay good masseuses outrageously well.”
“How outrageously?” she asked lightly, and perhaps a tiny bit breathlessly.
He glanced to her and replied low, “Try me and find out.”
And suddenly, it was incredibly important that she take him up on his romantic offer. For that was exactly what it was. He ventured a look at her and her expression was inscrutable.
“What are you thinking?” he finally mumbled. “I can’t read your eyes.”
“Good,” she replied. “I’d hate to think you could tell what I’m thinking right now.”
He half turned to her. He wanted to pull her into his arms, but she hadn’t invited him to, and with a woman like her, he sensed that the invitation was extremely important. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”
A wistful look entered her wide, dark gaze. “I was thinking about how nice it would be to take you up on your offer.”
“Then do it.” The words were out of his mouth before he could reconsider them, before he could call them back.
The hand on his shoulder drifted up to his neck. Her fingers threaded into his hair. “That sniper really did a number on you, didn’t he?”
His throat was too tight to answer. His own hand drifted up to the half-dry waves of strawberry blond framing her face. He pushed a strand back and tucked it behind her ear. A fine shudder passed through her and sharp need surged in his gut.
He murmured, “You’re beautiful.”
“You’re blinded by the salt water in your eyes.”
“Don’t be modest, Paige. You’re stunning. Not many women are truly beautiful with wet hair and no makeup, but you are.”
“It’s pitch-black in here. You can’t see a thing.”
“Didn’t they teach you Medusas how to take a compliment?”
She sighed then, a gentle thing, maybe even a sound of surrender. He traced the rim of her ear with one finger and trailed it down the corner of her jaw, along the slender line of her neck and across the faint hollow above her shoulder blade. It didn’t feel like she had a bra on under that sleeveless muscle shirt.
“We shouldn’t…” she started.
She was right, of course. “But that doesn’t mean it’s not going to happen,” he replied easily.
That elicited a faint smile out of her. “I think this is the part where I’m supposed to exercise discipline and keep my hands off you.”
“To hell with discipline,” he growled.
That got a faint laugh out of her. “You’re not helping here.”
“I almost died tonight. I’m a little messed up in the head. And right now I want you so badly I can’t see past the end of my own nose.”
“I wouldn’t have let you die.”
“What, you’d have flung yourself in front of me and caught the bullet meant for me?”
“Absolutely.”
Her answer was firm, certain, without a hint of hesitation. He retorted incr
edulously, “Seriously, you’d die for me?”
“In a heartbeat, Tom.”
He stared, flummoxed. Yeah, sure, he knew it was her job. But to have a woman like her look him in the eye and say it out loud did something funny to his gut. Something that twisted and tightened it in a shockingly pleasant way.
“Come here.” He opened his arms but made no move toward her. This had to be her choice.
She hesitated for an endless, heart-wrenching moment, and then she slid closer. Her arms closed around his waist and her head went to his bare chest. It felt like she was falling into him, and he into her. The room actually spun a little as sensations flooded him. Her breasts were soft against his chest, her arms surprisingly strong around his waist, her hair cool and silken against his neck. Soft and hard, sleek and strong, she was a mixture of contrasts that somehow managed to be all woman.
“You smell amazing,” she murmured.
“Mmm. The intoxicating scent of seaweed.”
She raised her head to laugh at him. “Now who can’t take a compliment?”
“Touché.”
“Too bad we can’t dance, right now. But we can’t risk giving anyone that silhouette in the window.”
“No law says dancing has to be fully vertical,” he replied. He swayed back and forth with her in his arms a few times and then rolled over her and took her down to the floor. “Or if you prefer,” he said, rounding onto his back and pulling her on top of him, “you may lead.”
She smiled down at him. “That’s one of the things I like best about you. You’re secure enough in your masculinity not to be afraid of letting me be in charge now and then.”
“Or maybe I’m just lazy and let the girl do all the work.”
“You’re a lot of things, Tom Rowe, but lazy is not one of them.”
“Thanks, I think.” He grinned up at her. He couldn’t remember the last time a woman had made him feel this good. “What else am I?”
“The possibilities in answer to that boggle my mind. I’d better pass.”
He might have been worried had her voice not vibrated with humor. Nonetheless, he answered seriously, “Then let me tell you what you are.”
She gazed down at him questioningly.
“You’re a woman who makes me forget about everything else when I’m with her. You’re a woman who makes me laugh. You make me think about ice-cream sundaes.”
“Ice-cream sundaes?” she exclaimed.
“Mmm hmm. Slathered in warm chocolate sauce and covered in whipped cream, every last bit of it in need of licking off.”
“Oh,” she rasped, then breathed, “Oh, my.”
“You’re a woman who makes me want to put that breathless note in your voice all the time. I want to make you gasp in delight and cry out in pleasure. I want to see wonder in your eyes when we make love.”
She blinked several times fast, her eyes bigger and bluer than ever in the scant moonlight. “Wow. All of that?”
“And more.” He couldn’t wait any longer. He slipped his hand under the weight of her hair and drew her down to him by slow degrees. He never broke the lock of their gazes and reveled in the dawning desire unfolding in her eyes. Her body undulated faintly against his as if she strained toward him but fought to hold herself away.
“Let go, Paige. Come with me.”
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“How about I show you instead?”
Their lips touched. It was exactly as he remembered. Lights exploded behind his eyelids and lust surged so powerfully in his gut that he missed a breath. She lurched forward, her tongue plunging into his mouth eagerly. He sucked it into his own mouth, laving it with his tongue, tantalizing her with quick thrusts and slow strokes against her hot, wet flesh.
She groaned. “You don’t fight fair.”
“We already established that.”
“Lord, I want you.”
“Then have me.”
Her hand stole between them, reaching for his belt. The buckle gave way beneath her fingers and cool air wafted across his naked body. “Now what’s wrong with this picture?” he murmured.
He sat up, taking her with him, and reached for the hem of her shirt. As he’d guessed, she wore no bra. Her breasts were firm and high and swelled perfectly to fill his hands. He leaned down and took a nipple in his mouth and rolled his tongue around it, then stroked it hard enough to draw a little gasp from her. He resumed sipping at her flesh, but she arched forward, pushing more of herself into his mouth.
“Do that again,” she gasped.
Ah. The lady liked a little danger. He would never hurt her, but she clearly was turned on by the thought of him pushing her a little beyond comfort. A compulsion to push her way beyond comfortable overcame him. He carried her down to the floor and swept her shorts and panties off in one fast movement.
He used his knees to move her thighs apart and captured her wrists and drew them wide, pressing her down to the floor. “Will you let me do whatever I want to you tonight?” Even he heard the dark edge in his voice now.
She hesitated a moment. “I trust you.”
“Is that a yes?”
Her answer was more sigh than speech, but it shot like an arrow straight through him. “Yes. Anything.”
Fierce desire ripped through him.
“But—” she started.
He froze.
“—the next time I get to do whatever I want to you.”
He laughed. “If that’s what you want after tonight, I’ll agree to it.”
And then he let go of the pent-up demons within him, all the lust and fear and adrenaline that had been pounding through him. He drew her hands together over her head, grabbed her discarded T-shirt and wrapped it around her wrists expertly. A quick lift of the corner of the sofa to loop the armholes of the shirt around the leg of the couch, and she was partially immobilized. She could wedge a shoulder under the couch and free herself any time, but she’d given him her word. Tonight she was his.
He took his time exploring her body, relishing how she, by turns, moaned with pleasure and begged for more. Her body went fluid and pulsing, blood throbbing beneath her skin as he explored every inch of her with hands and mouth. He left nothing to privacy. He wanted to know every contour of her, every bit of skin, every ticklish spot, every sensitive spot. He wanted to plunder the very depths of her soul.
And plunder her he did, denying his own stone-hard flesh, in ways she’d never been taken before. He could tell it in her sudden tension, her gasps of surprise, the way she arched up eagerly into him for more and then drew back, self-conscious. But he tolerated no such modesty from her. He drove her past modesty, past shyness, past anything but raving need for more and yet more of what he did to her. And when she was literally in tears, begging for him to take her, he finally plunged to the hilt inside her.
She climaxed immediately, crying out sharply, her internal muscles shuddering violently around him. He grabbed her ankles and spread her wide, opening her up to him completely as he drove into her relentlessly, seeking and finding such intense pleasure he thought he might perish.
“Look at me,” he ground out.
Her eyes fluttered open, glazed and unfocused, awash in such pleasure that he couldn’t help but smile. He continued to rock against her, stronger now, deeper. She tensed again, took a short, hitching breath and cried out again, a long, keening moan this time that went on and on around him.
Unable to stand it anymore, he let go of the last shreds of his restraint. Gazing deep into her magnificently expressive eyes, he opened up his soul and poured everything he was into the very core of her. Her cries were hoarse this time, raw with her final release. A groan of his own tore free from his chest to meet hers as they shuddered together in the aftermath of their lovemaking. Time passed.
There were no words for it. What they had between them went beyond syllables and meaning. It reached into some primal place within him he’d heretofore had no idea existed and loosed something inside him
he could not name. It was more than need, more than possession, more than mind-blowing sex.
He knew one thing, though. He wanted more of that. Much, much more.
It was a long time before either of them spoke. Her body had gone soft and relaxed around him, and he was nearly recovered enough to move. He gathered his strength and rolled to her side, releasing her hands from the sofa leg.
She untangled her shirt and pulled it down over her head. As she reached for her shorts where they’d landed on the windowsill, he noticed for the first time just how sculpted her arm and shoulder muscles were. The Medusa in her was showing through. The way he heard it, the training regimen the Medusas followed was at least as rigorous as that of any male Special Forces team.
She smiled down at him, disbelief still prominent in her eyes. “Hungry?” she asked.
“As a matter of fact, I did work up an appetite swimming earlier.”
She laughed. “Right. Swimming.”
“How about you?” he responded, relaxed and lazy all of a sudden.
“I don’t have much around here to eat, particularly since I had to empty out my refrigerator yesterday, but you’re welcome to it.”
“As I recall, you had a couple of nice bottles of wine.”
She grinned. “Just what I need to do to cap off this night. Get snockered on duty. Viper would love that.”
“Any sniper worth his salt would’ve taken advantage of our, uh, distraction, and shot us already if he was planning to. We’re probably safe for the rest of the night. You can let down your hair a little.”
“Sorry. That’s not how I’m trained to operate.”
He sighed. It wasn’t how he was trained, either. He was still having a little trouble equating this gorgeous, sexy, mesmerizing female with a special operator, though. He couldn’t blame her for her sense of duty, but he would’ve enjoyed seeing her relaxed and a little drunk. He made a mental note that, as soon as reinforcements arrived, he’d drink a bottle of wine with her.
Snagging the sheet and tucking it around his hips, he followed her to the kitchen. She laid out an array of crackers, some tuna fish, several cans of stew, a can of baked beans and a bag of chocolate-chip cookies. He grinned at the latter. “Emergency chocolate rations?”