Leaning down, he kissed her lips, which parted beneath the onslaught. The tension of her body against his, the warmth, the insistent movement of her hips, made him groan once more. Tearing his mouth from hers, he rasped, “I love you with my whole heart and soul, Tara. I always will….”
Moving her hand across his hip, she explored the lower part of his body, committing it to memory as he kissed her more and more deeply. Their breathing was rapid; their hearts raced erratically. Lost in pleasures, Tara allowed the need she’d felt for Dave all these months to rise within her. Boldly, she curved her slender leg around his thicker, stronger one and pulled him on top of her.
As their hungry mouths broke apart, she smiled up at him. His eyes were narrowed and feral looking, those of a hunter who had his prey in sight. They were focused on her, and she felt her heart explode with primal love for him. “Love me, Dave. Love me with everything you have because that’s what I’m about to do with you….” And she slid her hands up to his head and drew his mouth down to hers.
Arching her hips demandingly against his, Tara felt his length and hardness press against her. The sensation was dizzying, dazzling. Closing her eyes, meeting his strong mouth with her own, she felt him slide his hand beneath her hips and raise her slightly, just enough to allow him entrance. The moment was exquisite, their journey a heartbeat away. Breath suspended, Tara opened her eyes and looked into his.
“Yes….” she whispered. “Yes…now…” Her lips parted and she threw her head back as she felt him slide powerfully into her liquid, heated depths. The joy of their meeting was like a sudden thunderstorm, washing the world with wild, vivid color, motion, feeling and sounds. The movement, the rhythm established between them was like a potent ocean tide coming into shore, pounding, pulverizing. Tara tasted the sweat of Dave’s temple as he leaned down, his head next to hers, his powerful body covering hers with each pumping movement. Reaching upward, she slid her fingers across his bunched, damp shoulders, found his mouth and thrust her tongue deeply into it.
In that moment, he tensed and so did she. The wild, throbbing heat that exploded deep within her body moved outward like an expanding rainbow arcing across the sky. She tore her mouth from his and her cry of joy punctuated his low snarl of pleasure. He gripped the sides of her head and held her captive to prolong their mutual passion. As Tara spiraled downward, feeling the delicious weakness that followed her climax, she fell into his strong, awaiting arms. They collapsed together, perspiration running in rivulets where their bodies met and molded, their breathing chaotic and swift. Closing her eyes, Tara turned her head, her lips near his ear.
“I love you, Dave Johnson. I love you with every fiber of my being. Never forget it…never…”
“Merry Christmas,” Dave told her as he handed her a small, red foil wrapped gift tied with a silver ribbon. They were sharing hot chocolate and Danish pastries the next morning near the open fire-place. The white sheepskin rug on the hearth was from New Zealand, and Tara looked pretty as a picture sitting on it, clothed in a fleecy, pale lavender robe that outlined her strong, feminine form.
Looking up, she took the gift. “I never expected anything, Dave….”
He sat down next to her and picked up his mug of hot chocolate. “I know you didn’t. Go ahead. Even though it’s only Christmas Eve, you can open it.” He grinned at her over the rim.
Laughing, Tara set her own cup on the wooden floor next to the rug. They’d slept after their lovemaking, and then, shortly before dawn, he’d loved her again. The experience was so beautiful it had made Tara cry. There was an incredibly tender side to Dave, and he’d given her that gift as dawn broke on the horizon. Body still glowing from his touch, she crossed her legs beneath the robe.
“When did you have time to get me a gift?” she wondered as she quickly tore off the wrapping.
“Oh, well…you’ll see,” he told her enigmatically. Tara’s hair was soft and mussed, her lips well kissed and her cheeks pink. It was her eyes, that soft, doelike gaze when she looked at him, that made Dave feel like Hercules and not just an ordinary man. She made him happy. Fulfilled.
Opening it, Tara gasped. “Oh! This is lapis lazuli, isn’t it?” She held up a gold necklace that had an oval pendant of the blue gemstone dangling from it.
“Sure is,” he answered. “Made by the old jeweler in Tarin Kowt. You remember him? An old man in his seventies? Habib Osmani?”
Gazing down at the beautiful, feminine piece of jewelry, Tara whispered, “Oh, yes, I do remember him. He was such a dear old man. I always thought of him as the village grandfather. Everyone loved him. He was so kind to others, and generous….”
“I asked him to make you this,” Dave told her in a conspiratorial tone, putting his arm around her shoulders. “Do you like it, babe? It’s supposed to match the color of your eyes….”
Moved beyond words, Tara smiled up at him. “Oh, yes, Dave, I love this! I like the fact that he made it. It’s as if he’ll always be a part of us….”
“I was worried…”
“I love it…like I love you, darling….” She held it up to him. “Put it on me?”
Getting up, Dave moved around to her back and fastened the necklace around her throat. The deep blue stone settled between her breasts, over her large, giving heart. “There.”
Touching the stone with her fingertips, Tara turned and moved into his awaiting arms. The fire popped and crackled pleasantly in the background. The sun was peeking out, the sky a pale blue outside the frost-covered windows. Nestling her head against his warm chest where his robe had opened, she closed her eyes. “I love you so much, Dave….”
“I know,” he whispered. Easing his one arm from around her, he dug into the pocket of his terry-cloth robe. “I have one more gift for you, babe. Here it is….”
Opening her eyes, Tara laughed briefly. “What is this?” He handed her a neatly folded sheaf of papers that had been stapled together.
“Something I hope you like as much as I do….” And he kept her cradled in his arms as she opened them.
“Oh! Oh, Dave!” Tara gasped, sitting up abruptly and turning around. She looked at the papers again to make sure she hadn’t misread them, and then up at him as he grinned wickedly at her.
“I—is this for real?” she asked, holding the sheaf up to him.
“Official orders, babe. Sure, they’re real.”
Blinking, her heart pounding, Tara reread them again. “It says I’m to report here, to Fort Campbell, Kentucky, on January 22 to put a language lab together to teach Special Forces A teams how to speak Pashto.”
“That’s right. And it’s a two-year assignment.” He reached out and touched her bright red cheek. “That means, among other things, you’ll be here with me. We’ll have time together, Tara…if it’s what you want?”
Blinking back tears, she sniffed and read the orders yet again. Her mind spun. How had Dave managed to pull this off? Wiping her tears away with trembling fingers, she whispered, “Oh, yes, that’s what I want, Dave. To be here with you. To make a go of what we discovered in Afghanistan….”
“Good,” he murmured, pulling her back into his arms and cradling her head against his shoulder. “This gives ‘comrade-in-arms’ a whole new meaning, doesn’t it?” And he smiled down at her.
“Yes, and how appropriate, darling….” She waved the papers helplessly. “But how? How did you do this? I know you had a hand in this, Dave.”
“Guilty as charged,” he said, kissing her temple, her cheek and then moving his lips tenderly across hers. He tasted the salt of her tears—tears of joy. Lifting his mouth away, their noses nearly touching, he said, “I called Morgan Trayhern before we left Afghanistan, from Kandahar. I told him I loved you, and asked if it was possible for him to move heaven and hell to get you out of the Pentagon and to my part of the country.” He grinned as he watched her luminous blue eyes widen like those of a child. “He said he’d get it done, that love between a man and a woman was of national importance
.”
“Whose idea was it for me to set up a language lab here?”
“Mine,” he admitted, proud of the idea.
“Between you two men, I didn’t have a chance.”
“Did you want one?”
Chuckling, Tara shook her head and placed the orders aside. Moving her hand up the nubby material of his robe, she drowned in the joy she saw burning in his forest-green eyes.
“Not a chance, Captain Johnson. All I want is you. What we have. And the time to explore one another even more.”
“Oh, yes, for a long, long time,” he agreed, his smile widening when he saw the deviltry shining in her eyes as she leaned up to kiss him.
“Forever…” Tara breathed against his mouth. “Forever, darling….”
AN UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER
Candace Irvin
For CJ Chase.
Thanks for all the incredible critiquing, CJ, but mostly for the wonderful friendship.
I wouldn’t want to travel this writing road without you.
Acknowledgments
As usual, my ideas fall well out of my range of experience and expertise. I’d like to thank the following folks for loaning me theirs. The cool stuff is theirs, the mistakes are all mine.
Lieutenant Commander Michael J. Walsh, USN (Ret.). Thanks, Michael, for planting the original idea and feeding me enough information to help it grow. Captain Norton A. Newcomb, U.S. Army (Ret.), Special Operations Intelligence. As usual, Tony, you know exactly what I need to know before even I do. Thanks for willingly sharing it when and where you can. SSG Frank M. Risso, U.S. Army (Ret.). Thanks for the fantastic crash course in army artillery. Special Agent Scot Folensbee, DSS. You’re a new friend, Scot, and a blisteringly awesome source. Thanks for all your help with the Diplomatic Security Service. Stay safe out there! Finally, a special thanks to my agent, Damaris Rowland, and my editor, Allison Lyons, for believing I could do it.
Dear Reader,
A year ago, a friend and I discussed a modern twist on an old-fashioned evil: slavery. I knew then, I had to write about it. Still, I wasn’t sure I could weave so heinous a crime into a romance novel. According to the U.S. Department of State’s 2002 Trafficking in Persons Report, annual victim estimates range from 700,000 to 4 million women, children and men, many of whom are bought, sold and transported for sexual exploitation. The latter became a main plot thread in “An Unconditional Surrender.”
In this story, Delta Force Captain Jack Gage is reunited with his former lover, U.S. Army Captain Danielle Stanton, when she’s thrust into the clutches of a black-market slave trader half a world away. Together, Jack and Dani must work through past problems to complete their present mission. And once Dani’s safe, Jack won’t settle for less than a future with her—and the complete, unconditional surrender of her heart.
For more information about trafficking persons, check out my Web site www.candaceirvin.com, and follow the hyperlinks.
Chapter 1
If the road to hell was paved with good intentions, Jack Gage figured he ought to be banging on the devil’s door any moment now. Despite his imminent welcome at those fiery gates, Jack condemned himself to remaining motionless in the southernmost corner of Rurik Teslenko’s dank, claustrophobic hovel. Not an easy task given the force with which the stocky bastard dragged his current “crop” of Croatian slaves into the room before shoving them up against the opposite wall. According to Rurik, the trio of terrified girls were fresh in from Sarajevo the night before. What kind of man preyed on women from the city of his birth, much less his own ethnic group?
Unfortunately, Jack knew the answer all too well. Rurik Teslenko was not the only Bosnian Croatian, much less the only man, lining his pockets through the kidnapping and selling of young women. Nor was Rurik’s impatient customer the only “peacekeeping” United Nations soldier out shopping for his personal, shamefully young, sex slave. Even if the Swede opted not to purchase a girl from this dark-haired collection, someone would. Jack could only hope he’d be able to accomplish his increasingly hairy mission before the next batch of salivating bastards showed up. For the moment, his relief eased out as the camouflaged giant across the room shifted his scowl from the girls to Rurik.
“I told you, I want a blonde.”
Rurik shrugged his shorter but equally burly camouflage-clad shoulders. “I had a blonde. Unfortunately, there were…complications.” Rurik dug his fingers into the snarled mane of the closest girl. The final, muted rays of day bled through the window behind them, highlighting the fresh surge of terror in the girl’s eyes as Rurik dragged her close. Eyes that had already been blackened by someone’s eager fist. Eyes that had seen sixteen, seventeen years tops. Old, by Rurik’s criteria.
Bile roiled through Jack’s gut, magnified by the soft whimper that escaped the girl’s swollen lips as Rurik thrust her otherwise pale face toward the Swede.
“For you, sixteen hundred markas.”
Eight hundred U.S. dollars. For a sixteen-year-old kid. As vile as the transaction was, Jack kept his trap shut. Too much depended on his silence. Too many lives.
American and Bosnian.
Dust kicked up as the Swede spat on the concrete floor.
The gold cross Rurik wore around his neck flashed along with his gaze as he shoved the girl back to the line. “Fine. Come back next week. I will have another blonde. Fourteen hundred markas for your trouble.”
Dark-blue eyes narrowed suspiciously. “No more than fifteen years—and a virgin?”
Rurik nodded. “I give you my word.”
Any man who knew the Bosnian slave-trader well enough to warrant a private showing at his country compound also knew that despite his unsavory profession, Rurik Teslenko was worth his word. Still, the Swede held Rurik’s gaze for a good ten seconds before he jerked an answering nod. A moment later, the Swede spun about and strode across the stifling room. The four Bosnian thugs flanking the entrance to the hovel stiffened as his scuffed combat boots reached the bullet-riddled door.
“Let him go.”
Jack eased out his breath as two of the flanking thugs followed the UN soldier out. One less customer along with two less goons in the room just might allow Jack to ease Rurik out of this scorched hovel and across the dilapidated dairy farm-turned-terrorist compound he’d arrived at less than an hour before. If Jack was really lucky, he and Rurik would return to their now cooling mugs of coffee in the main house along with their discussion concerning another illegal transaction Rurik had also expressed interest in. Weapons.
“How about a trade?”
Jack turned to his Bosnian contact, once again at the trembling line of girls, nudging them several steps forward, one by one. Jack had no idea if any of them spoke English. Not that they needed to. Rurik’s body language was universal enough.
“No thanks.”
His distaste must have shown because Rurik grinned, showing off a quarter of a century of non-existent dental work as he chuckled knowingly. “Ah, I see. You did not tell me in Mostar that you preferred boys, my friend.” That damned decaying grin widened. “Since you have joined us, however briefly, I suppose we can send someone into Sarajevo to accommodate you.”
The hell they would. “I like women just fine, Rurik. Women. Not boys.” Jack flicked his gaze to the nauseatingly battered trio, careful to keep the true extent of his disgust from showing through. “And not barely pubescent girls. Women.”
“Women, eh?” Another inch and that smarmy grin would split the man’s ears. Apprehension snapped along Jack’s spine as Rurik turned to the door once more, to the burly goon who served as his right hand. According to army intelligence reports, Youssef Ben Adnan had endured the siege of Sarajevo along with Rurik a decade before. Once again, Rurik opted for body language—unfortunately, this time in a private dialect only Youssef seemed able to translate. Until Youssef turned and left.
Damn. The cook.
Sullen, subdued and up to her dark, dour bun in her master’s illegal activities, the compo
und’s cook was not his type. But she was definitely a woman. Still, from the brief glimpse Jack had gotten of the kitchen earlier, she also appeared vital to keeping the rest of the slaves in line until they were sold. Surely even Rurik wouldn’t degrade the one woman he seemed to trust simply to ingratiate himself with some shady American artillery sergeant? But then, “Sgt. Jackson” wasn’t just any shady American artillery sergeant, was he? Not to Rurik. Jackson was the sergeant who’d saved the bastard’s life in Mostar by knocking him out of the way of an incoming bullet. Was Rurik looking to repay the debt now?
The odds grew as Rurik turned his back on the girls completely, motioning the remaining thug to take over as he crossed the room. The odds quadrupled as Rurik slapped him on the shoulder and nudged him toward the bullet-riddled door.
“Come, my friend, join me in the kitchen.”
Despite the dread congealing in the pit of his stomach, Jack allowed Rurik to guide him out of the hovel and down the grassy knoll. He forced himself to focus on the ancient farm, instead, once again cataloguing the dilapidated buildings as discreetly as he could. A cluster of four more bombed-out crofts lay to the left, two leveled to their permanently blood-stained foundations. The compound’s main but singed two-story thatched house lay directly ahead, backlit by a now fiery setting sun. A huge pocked and scorched concrete slab still divided into cattle stalls lay to the right. But it was the massive intact dairy barn to the left and slightly behind the house that captured Jack’s attention. And the armed thug standing guard.
What he’d give to knock that guard aside and slide those enormous double doors apart. But as Rurik turned to shove the significantly smaller door to the main house open and gesture him inside, Jack knew what he wouldn’t give. His integrity.
This might be his first assignment with Diplomatic Security, but it wasn’t his first time undercover. Hell, this wasn’t even his first time selling to Rurik. The fact that this particular cover had survived their last brush four years before had been too perfect to pass up. But while Jack had been forced to abuse his fair share of unsavory tactics during his previous career, he’d never come close to raping a woman. He wasn’t about to start now. If it came down to it, he’d accept a complimentary night with the taciturn cook—and hope to hell she didn’t spill the beans regarding his sudden case of erectile dysfunction the following morning.
In Love and War Page 13