by Angel Payne
No.
He’d been tired. Really tired. And fuck, she had to be too. It was the only explanation. He didn’t do melodrama like “being everything” for someone. That was the shit he gave to his country. His essence sacrificed for the good of the many…
Had sacrificed.
Way to let that thought go sideways, asshole.
“Captain Franzen? Is something wrong?”
And way to let it tromp across his features too. Shoving both into the mental shredder, he turned and forced himself to confront those wide doll eyes staring at him from the other side of the Escalade’s back seat—in which, through a bizarre string of circumstances, he’d landed with her.
Alone with her.
Hell.
“No.” He clamped his teeth harder, jogging the edges of his lips higher. “Everything’s fine, Madame Vice President. Don’t worry.”
“I’m not worried.” Her auburn brows crunched, as if weathering an internal chastisement. “All right. That’s a lie. I’m a little worried. This isn’t protocol. Is Luke going to be okay?”
“He’s in the car right behind us. I’m sure he’s doing great. His usual detail is being backed up by Sam Mackenna. He’s a good man.”
“The red-haired Goliath? Looks like he should be hacking and slashing his way across a moor in a kilt and nothing else?”
Soft chuckle. “He actually owns a few of those. Nellis has him on loan from the RAF for a while. Has a day job training the jet jocks out there.”
She smiled. “Luke’ll be in heaven about that.”
“But you’re still worried.”
Her pensive gaze out the window confirmed what he’d heard in her voice. “This isn’t the way we normally do things.”
“Vegas isn’t a normal city.”
“I’m well aware of that.”
“Which is why you can’t stop stressing.”
“I’m a mother, Captain. Stress is my middle name.”
“I could just order you to stop.”
Had he really gone there? Referencing her and “orders” in the same sentence—then letting his libido fill in the rest of that erotic scenario? She went to work in the White House. He spent his days in the gym—and before that, made his living in swamps, forests, and third-world ghettoes.
But dammit, something about her called to every Dominant bone in his body—which was just about every bone in his body. No. She just…pulled at him, period. Brought instincts to the surface of his blood, primal and feral and needing, especially with her new reference. I’m a mother. Like that was the most important burden on her shoulders, not being second-in-command of the free world. She didn’t mean it, of course. She couldn’t. But for the few moments he let himself believe it, he was entranced. Captivated. Ensnared by the Tigress…
Her gaze flared—as if she’d been able to read his mind. Or maybe she was just as enticed? And if so, how deeply? Did her imagination burst to life with the same dream as his? The same whispered words between them?
Get on your knees, kitten.
Yes, Sir.
Now worship me with your mouth.
Oh yes, Sir.
Shit.
Shit.
Shit.
“Well.” She angled more fully toward him, setting down her phone and folding her hands in her lap. “You clearly know what you’re doing. And if Sol also felt the protocol break was necessary—”
“For him to head up the decoy motorcade as a masquerade? Yeah. It was necessary.”
Really necessary, but she didn’t have to know the extent of that. Remarkably, it was easier to maintain the façade about that, instead of his growing attraction to her. Sol received the intel while Rhodes met with a group of local elementary kids who’d won a writing contest, The Adventures of Barry the Bald Eagle. While she’d listened to the first-place winner read his piece aloud, Wrightman took a call from the Vegas PD, with Franz listening too. The cops played back an untraceable message in a computer-generated voice, about how the vice president would soon be “sinking into the pit of hell, along with the other oppressors pretending to better the world with their corrupt leadership.”
Fucking wing nut.
One this gorgeous woman with eyes like the Milky Way did not need to know about. She was already skittish as—well, a kitten—about having to give that presentation with Colton tonight. Sound check had wrapped over an hour ago, and tension still tangibly crackled over her. He only wished it didn’t make her even more mesmerizing to study. To desire.
To fantasize about.
You’re tense, kitten.
I know.
Perhaps I can help take that edge off.
Perhaps you can.
Lay back. Spread your legs. And let me feast on you.
Oh yes, Sir.
“Well.” Her repeat of the word, even more businesslike, gashed through his erotic haze. Idiot. His ass was sitting here, rather than in the lead car where it belonged, because a tangible threat had been logged toward her—and all he could think with was the wrong head?
Focus, dipshit.
He started by echoing, as nonchalantly as possible, “Well?”
“You tell me, Captain.” She dropped her head to the side, dropping the doll face for the incisive perception that’d surely played a big part in catapulting her to the VP’s office. “I like surprises as much as the next girl, but only when it has to do with flowers, chocolate, or a foot massage. Or all three at once. I’m not picky.”
He nodded toward her feet. “You mean those pointy things aren’t the height of comfort?”
“Hey.” She lifted a leg by a few inches. He didn’t miss the action’s effect on her skirt, hiking up her thigh a good inch. “Don’t diss. I refused grandma flats and secretary pumps, though the stylists have confiscated my platforms until I’m out of office.”
“Not the platforms.”
“Hey,” she mock-rebuked. “No dissin’ on the platforms.”
He noticeably smirked. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
“I joke about a lot of stuff. Shoes aren’t one of them.” She scrutinized her lifted foot. “I’m still in platform DTs…but at least they allowed me kitten heels as the compromise.”
“Kitten heels?” He hoped his gulp looked casual. “That’s really what they’re called?”
Her response, a snorty giggle, gave him all the answer he needed. Of course they were.
“Back to the surprise.” She lowered the leg. A good thing, because she had damn distracting legs. Her love of bicycling was public knowledge, and that fitness showed in the well-defined quadricep he’d glimpsed—and instantly yearned to see more of. “What are we looking at here? Fully verified threat? Terrorist radio chatter? Run-of-the-mill crackpot with an ax to grind against the establishment? Maybe a posse of Luke’s groupies, just to make things interesting?”
His forehead creased. “Luke has groupies? Don’t answer that.” Only took him another second to do it for himself. “Of course Luke has groupies.”
She glowered. It was fucking adorable. “Mama Tiger did not want to hear that.”
He chuckled. “But she probably needs to.”
“Yeah, yeah. Add it to the list.” Her gaze turned watery as she redirected it out the tinted window. “He’s fifteen on the outside and an old man on the inside.”
For a long moment, as she propped her chin on curled fingers, nothing filled the air but the rush of the tires on the asphalt. John didn’t change that, sensing she needed the quiet.
“So much upheaval in his life,” she finally went on. “He’s rolled with it better than a trained SEAL. First when his dad was…taken…from us, and now experiencing a lot of life from the road, or DC…” The moisture evaporated from her gaze. A firmer look replaced it, though her chin remained planted against her hand. “All of it would’ve turned me into a basket case at that age.”
“You originally from Texas?”
“Yeah. Corpus Christi. I moved to Austin for college and just stayed.”
/>
“‘Keep Austin weird’.”
“I’ve logged a few decent efforts to the cause.”
They shared a quick laugh.
It was…nice.
Even…easy.
So damn easy.
John’s limbs fought the feeling. No, no, no. There was only one place on the planet where life was “easy”, and it was nearly three thousand miles away, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Other than that, hard was the mantra of his life. Hard was the missions of his job. The rigor of his fitness. The pace of his hobbies. And yeah, the Dominance he gave to lovers who begged for it.
What would Tracy Rhodes beg from him? How would that sweetly musical, lightly accented voice of hers sound, husked with lust…
Sharpened by pain?
And there he fucking went again.
At least the moment wasn’t easy anymore.
“All right, let me guess.” He prefaced his response with a slide of snark for good measure. “I’ll bet your parents set you up right. Pink bedroom? Canopy bed? Bucket for the cheerleader pom poms, and teen idol posters on the walls? And who were you a groupie of?”
She lifted her head fully. Slanted a narrow stare that he felt all the way into his cock, tempting him to already pump a fist in victory—
Until she said, “Sorry. Just doing a quick tally of the steers you roped right, cowboy. Oh, wait. Doesn’t take too long when the answer’s zero.”
He audibly choked.
She hid her laugh behind a hand.
“You lolo, woman?” His arched brows and tilted head translated the word for him, judging from the lip she pulled between her teeth.
“I’m probably lolo about some things,” she murmured, “but not this.” After a short sigh, she explained, “My mom disappeared when I was a baby. It was always just Dad and me.”
He took a second to process that. Still, his mutter was confused. “Disappeared?”
“Yes.” She rapidly sobered. “As in, left. Dad overcompensated by spoiling me, though from girlhood, my idea of indulgence was always a little skewed from normal.”
He was fascinated before—and captivated now. “How so?”
“Dad actually is a rocket scientist,” she explained. “so my idea of childhood ‘fun’ was usually a hike in the woods, a trip to the lab, or an afternoon at the science museum.”
John grunted. “Takes care of the posters and the pom poms.”
“Takes care of all of it.”
“Oh, come on. You didn’t still jones for pink walls and a canopy bed?”
“You mean when I could be convinced to get in the bed?”
“Huh?”
She nodded. “Hated the whole idea of it.” A little shudder claimed her. “Still do, though I have to do the adulting thing now.”
No camouflage to her laugh meant he could hang his gape. “So where do you prefer sleeping?”
Crap.
There was shucking cover then there was just inappropriate. Army regs would not encourage asking the vice president about her nocturnal habits. But for the first time in a long time, he could also tell those regulations to make like besties with his ass. Silver linings. Fuck yeah.
“You want the truth?” She finished the challenge by biting her lip again. Christ. If she kept doing adorable shit like that, he’d forget the word “inappropriate” even existed at all. Did her lips taste as good as they looked? Some company should sell the color and make a goddamned fortune. It’d be named something just as good too. Tracy’s Temptation. VP’s Vice. Lips of a Goddess.
“Truth.” He grabbed the chance to steer his brain away from her mouth. “Always a good thing, when you can swing it.”
Humor flashed in her eyes. “I liked sleeping on the floor.”
“The floor?” It didn’t shock him. It did make him curious. He watched her pick up on that, her composure loosening a little more. She settled herself sideways against the cushion.
“Used to really settle me.” She flashed a searching look across his face, as if trying to see beyond the surface of his reaction. With a finger, she traced a nervous figure eight over her knee. “Kind of silly, I guess, but—”
He made her stop by grabbing that enticing finger. Pulled the rest out too, curling their tips toward him. Her fingernails were perfect and polished, coated in a pale pink, so different from his dark, nicked-up paw.
“Butts are for smokes and rifles,” he murmured. “And anyway, I get it.”
“You do? Really” The clutch in her voice twisted weird heat around his nerve endings. What did he do with this shit? Give him a lying terrorist or a wise-ass recruit and he could deal with the energy. But this woman’s brave, bare honesty? He was in the weeds without chicken plates on his brain’s armor, surrounded by an enemy of his own making. His fascination with her.
And his lust.
Yeah, that asshole, too.
“Yeah,” he finally managed. “I really do. But I’m a well-trained grunt who’s used rocks as pillows more times than I can count.” He looked away, unsure again. Her stare had gotten intense, gaining incredible silver lights. What the hell was that? If it was her version of pity, he preferred staring at his own shoelaces, thank you very much. “Sometimes it’s easier to sleep with dirt in my hair and Sondheim in my ears than drowning in a sea of puff pillows and comforters.”
“Right?” She disconnected their hands by flinging hers up, giving him a full what’re-you-gonna-do. “You get too comfortable, you can’t think things through. And if I don’t think things through, I’m sure as hell not going to sl—” Her features scrunched on a frown. “Did you say Sondheim?”
His smirk kicked higher. “You like Sondheim?”
“He’s a genius.”
“Damn straight he’s a genius. Though I’ll likely go to my grave wondering whether Company or Assassins was the best.”
“Pardon the hell out of me? West Side Story, anyone?”
“Doesn’t hold a candle to Company.” He chuckled. “Guess my cosmic dilemma just answered itself.”
She tilted her head and smirked too. Impish. Delicious. “Now you can die happy.”
“Suppose I can.”
“Just not at the moment, please.”
“That an order, Madame Vice President?” He couldn’t help jumping on her little taunt with one of his own. If that were the only thing he was tempted to jump right now, things would be a lot easier. Wasn’t in the cards, especially as she tapped a finger to the side of her chin, pointing his attention to her enticing dimples.
“Hm. I suppose it is, Captain.” Her cat-in-the-cream tone sent a matching vibe through her posture. “Well, what do you know. Executive rule has an ‘up’ side, after all.”
He grunted—only half teasing this time. “Don’t get used to it.”
A pout plumped her lips. “Killjoy.”
“Just doing my job, ma’am.”
Killing.
A lot more than joy, at that.
Only now, the Big Green Machine didn’t need his “services” anymore. Not like that. Sure, there’d been the obligatory offer of “alternative” duty—some on-base, paper-pushing gig banishing him as far from missions and field training as they could possibly maneuver—but they might as well have suggested a one-way ticket to hell. The same pasty walls, soft-ass chair, and lukewarm coffee every day? No fucking way. He’d leave this dimension the same way he’d been born into it. Suddenly and brilliantly. If he were lucky, he’d save lives in the process. Special Operations had been the perfect means to that end.
Only the end had never come.
Hundreds of rockets. Thousands of grenades. Millions of bullets. How many had been aimed at his sorry ass in the last eleven years—and not had the courtesy to take him out in the process? Goddamn them.
There were no more blasts now.
And he was lost in the silence.
Except when the explosions came again.
In his dreams.
Rescuing him.
Haunting him.
>
Taunting him.
With the life he no longer lived. The purpose he no longer had.
A noise, high and sharp, vibrated through his head. An ice bucket of salvation in radio hail form. He swung his wrist to mouth level, efficiently answering Sol Wrightman’s buzz. “Dragon here. Go ahead.”
“Franzen, what’s your twenty?” Wrightman sounded irked by Franz’s use of the call-sign. Not that he could be blamed—but John sure as hell wasn’t going to waste time with an apology. If Sol couldn’t deal with a slip like that, he was in the wrong damn line of work.
“Little over a mile from home,” he responded. Yeah, more code. Wrightman would deal, and thank him for it. No security specialist in their right mind, especially one brought on by the Secret Service themselves for extra expertise in a city like Vegas, would openly name the hotel at which the vice president was staying. For someone planning an attack, the information was findable in a dozen other places, but he’d be damned if they found that success from listening to her security detail.
He confirmed the estimation with a glance out the window. The driver, an easygoing dude named Shep who’d seen a lot of action in the Marines, had followed his instructions to the inch. While Sol and the decoy motorcade took Paradise then Harmon, crossing to The Bellagio’s back entrance off Sinatra Drive, John had insisted on taking this smaller group, with just one lead vehicle and four scattered incognito behind, straight up The Strip.
Unorthodox? Not really. It was the oldest trick in the book. Hiding the target in plain sight. And sure, it added several minutes to their trip since traffic on The Strip was a zoo on the best of days, but the delay was a good thing. Wrightman would arrive at the villa first, flushing out any real threat before Tracy was anywhere near.
To that end, it felt safe to add, “Confirm Tigress’s destination is checked and secure?”
Sol’s comeback quickly had him sitting up straighter.
“Negative.”
“Negative?”
Three syllables on his lips but a dozen queries in his mind. What the hell? Was there a problem? He didn’t pick that up from Wrightman’s voice, which held steady at annoyed not alarmed, but Sol was still as readable to him as tea leaves in milk soup. For all his manic energy, Wrightman clearly kept his deeper shit to himself. The man could have a gun to his head, or simply be constipated.