This gentle man’s kindness overwhelmed her, and she very much wanted to touch Ky in a more personal way than just holding onto his forearms while he dressed her. These continual close encounters made her very aware of his sheer mass, and more than a little susceptible to the alpha male in this small tent with her. Those were some muscular arms.
He breathed in her face as he tucked her TEAMwear jacket over her pants. At last, he had her upright, but then Ky did the unexpected again. He wrapped her inside that faux-fur blanket and pulled her up off the sleeping bag and onto his lap the same way he had before. “Let’s get you warmed up.”
Too, too much!
Eden couldn’t help it. She turned her face into his shoulder and cried like a little girl. Not cool. Not even very nice, the way she was sobbing and drenching his jacket, but he never said a word. Just held her tight and tipped her back and forth like she was a helpless baby. Yeah. Not cool at all. Worse, he could hold her, but she couldn’t hold him. Not with her arms trapped at her sides again. The guy had some serious control issues, and she was way past tired. Wah!
“There, there,” he murmured into the side of her head. “That thing wasn’t in your artery, Eden, just tucked beside it. You’ll be okay. Trust me. I’d tell you if you were in trouble. There was a single strand of wire around the femoral—that’s why I used both hemostats. If by some weird accident I nicked that big old artery, I wanted to be able to seal it before you bled out. You’re going to be fine. You’re a free woman.”
“Uh-huh,” was all she could reply. Never—as in never—had she felt more loved than she did in this man’s arms. Right then. Right there. Did he feel it, too? Did he care? She sure did. She had for years. Two and a half long years.
“You’re that girl from my dreams,” Ky murmured. “You’re the one who stayed with me over there, aren’t you? You’re the one I thought I imagined.”
“Uh-huh.” God, I sound so dumb.
The improbable happened. He cupped her soggy cheek with one gloveless, warm hand and tipped her face upward. His amber eyes filled with tenderness. What was that man thinking? She hadn’t a clue. Of kissing her? Hardly. She was a mess. Besides, he couldn’t stand to touch her.
And yet he was...
He leaned to his right and grabbed up a handful of the unused gauze. Gently, he wiped her face. Her nose. At last, she was half-presentable.
“I looked for you when I got home,” he said quietly, peering into her eyes, “but I didn’t know your name. I never thought to ask. Wish I had. Searching for you was the most futile, frustrating thing I’ve ever done. Do you know why?”
She shook her head, sniffling back more tears. Darned if a hiccup didn’t escape, making her appear more inept. What else could possibly go wrong?
“Because I wanted to thank you personally, Eden Stark, for helping me hold on when I had no reason to. When I had nothing left to give. I had no chance of surviving that hellhole until you showed up. You gave me hope. How’d you do it? How’d you know I was there? There were other guys being tortured in that prison, too. Why me?”
She shrugged. “I honestly don’t know. It happened one night after work. It had been a long day. You just showed up in my mind, and you were hurt and bleeding and... and...” she bit her lip, “and you were covered in blood and sweat and tears, and I was a million miles away with no way to physically help you endure what you had to go through. I just wanted to help, but all I could do was sit on my kitchen floor as long as the vision lasted, Ky, and I... I just stayed with you the only way I could. That’s all.” And I cried an ocean of tears. You were so, so hurt. I fell in love with you then. I couldn’t have left you if I’d tried.
“You saw everything?” he asked, his tone soft and hesitant.
“Only the last three days. I called in sick. I couldn’t leave you there by yourself. It was such an awful place.” She avoided his real question. Yes, those men had been brutal with him. They all deserved to die for what they did.
A soft growl rumbled from deep inside of his throat. “Shit. I only remember you there at the end, but if you were there three days. Shit,” he growled again, “you saw the worst. I didn’t think I’d get out of there alive.”
“Me neither,” she murmured. Yes, she’d seen more than seventy-two hours of those ruthless men at their barbaric idea of sport. “I reached out to Corporal Hart and I—”
“Wait. Lee Hart?” Ky startled. “You sent him to save me?”
“Not exactly. I, umm, encouraged him to believe that he could overcome his own desperate situation. I don’t know exactly how or why my second sight works, Ky, but sometimes, I can influence others if they’re susceptible. I can plant ideas, like maybe to turn left instead of going right. Look here. Look there. Try harder. Small things like that.”
“Hmm.” His breath warmed the top of her head. “I would’ve died if Lee hadn’t interrupted that Taliban bastard when he did. Asshole had a propane torch, and he meant to use it on me.”
“I know. I was there.” Eden shuddered at the thought, her hand on the plane of his broad chest.
“That explains a helluva lot. Wow. Okay. So, it’s my turn. You might as well know. I hate to be touched. It’s because of all the shit that happened over there, Eden. I’m trying to overcome it, but there’s this big ol’ speed bump inside my head, and I just can’t bear the sensation of human contact. Skin on skin. It’s really not you. It’s me. I’ve wanted to kiss you since you made the first move, but damn it, I just can’t.”
“I understand.” She leaned against him, touching nothing more than the layers and layers between them, but making genuine contact with her heart.
Little by little, the tension left his body. His arms softened around her. Ky lowered his head. Parting her hair with his chin, he pressed a warm, moist kiss to the nape of her ticklish neck, one that sparked a tidal wave of shivers down her spine. “You taste good,” he breathed, his mouth still romancing her neck. “I have to ask. What is that perfume you’re wearing? It’s... different.”
Oh, snap. He’s touching me. She scrunched her neck into her shoulders at this playful side of Ky. Perfume? Eden nearly giggled. She’d never worn perfume. It messed with her asthma. “Do you mean my Vicks?”
He drew in a deep breath. “What the hell is Vicks?”
She lifted both shoulders, embarrassed. “It’s a mentholated rub. Before my dad left, he used to smear it on my neck when I had asthma attacks. It helped me breathe. I outgrew the asthma, but I keep a small jar of it with me. I know it’s probably stupid, but the smell reminds me of him.”
Eden wanted to point out they’d been very much in physical contact, but Ky inhaled a deep breath, inciting another rash of goose bumps and wiggles from her. “Don’t ever stop wearing it. I like it.”
It happened slowly, this trusting thing. This touching thing.
She twisted on his lap and circled one arm around his neck, careful not to run her hands over his cheek the way she craved to do. “Kiss me,” she ordered bravely. Please, Ky. You can do it. I know you can. Take a chance. Kiss the heck out of me. Want me for more than my brain. Really, truly want me. Just me.
He stiffened and shook his head, but darn it, he needed this as much as she did. Any fool could see that. Eden placed both palms on his jacket-covered shoulders. “I won’t kiss you back. It will be just you kissing me. I promise. No tongue. Just lips, and I’ll keep my hands to myself.”
Ky didn’t answer—not unless short, hard panting was considered a response. The way his pulse throbbed at his throat looked like a definite no was coming.
Eden froze, not willing to terrorize this survivor any more, which was exactly what she’d done. Good intentions or not, in his best interest or not, she’d shoved his face into his worst nightmare and demanded he overcome his phobia just because she said so. He shuddered, and she wished she could go back in time and keep her big mouth shut. Talk about being unfair. “Never mind. That was stupid of me to think. I—”
“No. I’ll t
ry. With you. Only don’t be upset if I...” Before he finished his thought, he lifted his thighs and propelled her up into his face. His mouth covered hers in a rush of moist heat and whiskers.
Eagerly, she parted her lips and let him enter. Their tongues collided. Their teeth. She inhaled his breath and tried not to respond to his frenzied exploration of her mouth. Gripping his jacket, she held on tightly as his hand found purchase on her hip while his other cupped her jaw, his thumb under her chin holding her head still as he probed everywhere.
This kiss! Hot. Wet. Full of whisker burn and pent-up desire. Ky seemed almost frantic. He trembled, breathing hard, but not once did he stop mauling her mouth. For a man who didn’t want to be touched, he certainly had no trouble touching her.
A dangerous passion flared hot and strong and so-o-o good. His. Hers. Longing. Needing. Finally, truly connecting. Until he lurched backward, his head bowed to the side, shaking. “No. Just, God, no.”
Chapter Thirteen
BLAM!
Before Ky could make a break for it, the report of a damned close weapon roared outside the tent. Tate pushed his goggle-covered face through the flap. “Get out here, Ky. Now!”
“They’re here,” Eden cried. “It’s them.”
Let them come. Ky rolled to his knees, still shaken from the passion of that kiss. In her innocence, Eden had touched a part of him he’d buried, a part he wasn’t certain he wanted resurrected. Coming back to life would mean the reawakening of so much pain, and he’d had enough. “Stay inside,” he ordered gruffly as he wiped the back of his hand over his mouth. “I’ll be back.”
He saw it clearly, the disappointment in her eyes that he’d wiped her kiss away. God, he wanted to please her. What guy wouldn’t? She still had that ‘just kissed’ look, her lips swollen and pleasantly red from his mouth, her eyes bright. But she meant more than a thousand rogue FBI agents, and he had a job to do.
“I can’t let them hurt you,” he declared angrily. She had to get that through her hard head. She came first, and it didn’t matter how many protection orders his boss signed. A man would die protecting his own, and Eden Stark had become just that. Hell, in a few hours, she’d become everything. Only it hadn’t been just hours. She’d truly been a part of him for years. Ky got that now, and he wouldn’t lose her again, damn it.
Donning his goggles, he pulled his jacket zipper up to his chin and joined his partner. The wind had settled, something Ky hadn’t noticed until he’d come outside. He’d been too wrapped up in Eden, a nice reprieve. But this drone thing wasn’t over yet.
“What’s up?”
Tate laid on his belly facing downhill, his goggles in place. “We’ve got three coming at us from the east. Three more climbing up from the south. Look into the fog. You’ll see ’em. They’re not smart enough to hide.”
Ky adjusted his goggles to pierce the gray mist that had settled over the landscape. It made for an eerie scene. Pine trees coated thick with wintry snow, their lower trunks lost in shifting fog. The tent frosted in a thick layer of the same. No sun broke the gray overhead, just the dimmest gray light through the swirling flakes
Ky dropped to his belly and took position at Tate’s left. He switched his goggles to thermal and zeroed in on the heat signature of Zaroyin’s nearest drone. Big guy. Square-body build. Headgear, helmet, and goggles. Tactical armor strapped over winter cammies. He advanced with purpose, climbing steadily.
But worse was the bolt-action weapon snugged to his chest. These guys weren’t carrying the same weapons as their other two buddies had been. Hell no. These bad boys were toting Omni-9000s. Ky had only seen this experimental weapon once at a gun show, but never gave owning it a second thought. Made in Switzerland, the high-tech weapon cost more than twenty-seven thousand U.S. dollars a piece, a hefty price tag for everyone except for the U.S. Department of Defense.
That four-barrel scope on the top rack was no ordinary scope, either. More like the genius behind the computerized rifle system, it provided the shooter with a dynamic heads-up display that all but fired the weapon for him. A soldier had only to laser paint his designated target, and the specially made, precision-guided ordnance followed it home. Bingo. No collateral damage unless the operator was a total idiot. No trace of the target, either.
Ky huffed a snort through his nostrils. Eden wouldn’t have stood a chance on her own.
“You see what he’s toting?” he asked to be sure Tate understood what had to go down.
“Yeah. The latest smart gun. Don’t mean shit if we end ’em first.”
Ky weighed Tate’s overconfidence against their options—like there were any. Eden was right. These drones were mind-controlled victims. He empathized with them. He’d been caught in an evil man’s snare himself. He knew the mental despair that went along with physical incarceration and total, ruthless domination. But Tate was also right. Mind-controlled or not, these FBI agents meant to murder whoever got in their way. Because of Zaroyin, Ky and Tate would soon be forced to kill innocent men before those innocent men killed Eden.
The vow he’d taken when he joined the Corps came back to him in a flash. Yes. He was still one of those rough men standing ready in the dark to protect his country, and the woman he—loved? The notion hit home like a shot of single-barrel bourbon in the pit of his belly. I love Eden. It felt too soon, but it also felt right.
Ky rolled to his left and took rapid stock of the other three assailants climbing the east face. Killing was not his forte. There was no easy choice in warfare, only the one a guy had to make. Eden and Tate came first. He shook off the moral dilemma of blowing innocent men away. It messed with his head, and there simply wasn’t time for it. Once a Marine, always a Marine. He gave the hard order. “Take the ones climbing up from the south. I’ll take east, Tate. Make every shot count.”
The customary grunt acknowledged that his message had been received. Ky slammed his one-hundred-round magazine home, tucked the butt stock of his own custom-made automatic rifle into his shoulder, and took careful aim. One left-to-right sweep ought to end this ugly chore.
It was sound strategy until Eden yelled behind him, “Ky, there’s more!”
“Stay down!” he bellowed, angry that she’d put herself in harm’s way. More where? Here?
Damn her second sight and its inconvenient timing, but damned if things didn’t go bat-shit crazy, too. Crossfire lit up the shadows to Ky’s left. Tate swore, “Son-of-a-bitch,” and commenced firing downhill.
What had just happened? The three FBI drones in Ky’s sights dropped to their knees to return fire, but not at him. Their barrels pointed to their right as a rocket-propelled grenade dropped out of the sky and landed between two of the three and blew them backwards. The fog cleared out of the way. Dark crimson patches stained the snow where they’d landed, never to rise again.
Bile crept up the back of Ky’s throat, but he swallowed it down. The law of the jungle was ruthless. End of story. He wasn’t sure who’d killed them, but the drones were dead. The firing ceased. Tate’s firing, too.
“You see who did it?” Tate growled quietly.
“Not yet,” Ky murmured, his every hair on end.
“You gonna keep shooting that fancy rifle of yours or are you ready to listen to reason?” a man’s rugged voice called up from the misty fog below.
Drones who talked before they fired? That was new.
“Show yourself first,” Ky barked back, his rifle aimed and ready. “Hands in the air where I can see them.”
“Don’t listen to them,” Tate muttered, still aiming downhill at what had become someone else’s kill zone. “Could be a trap.”
“Could be,” Ky agreed, glancing over his right shoulder to Eden. She’d dropped to her belly and buried her face in the snow when the firing broke loose. Her hair draped over her cheeks, her butt lifted high behind her. It would’ve made for a cute sight if she weren’t still covering her ears while blowing the snow and her hair off her nose. If she didn’t have that scared-to
-death fear in her eyes. He motioned for her to stay down.
She didn’t listen for shit, but crawled straight to his side like a hyperactive toddler on too much sugar. He cupped her ass the moment she drew near enough and leveled her hips flat to ground level. “I said stay down, damn it.”
She folded her hands under her chin. “I know these guys.”
“You knew Koenig and Shields, too,” Tate muttered.
“I’m telling you these men are different. I can tell,” Eden insisted. “Don’t kill them.”
“That’s the problem,” Ky said. “I didn’t kill anyone yet. Did you take out any of your targets, Tate?”
“Didn’t get the chance. Someone else did it for me.”
Her jaw dropped. “Who? The other guys?”
“Maybe.” Ky had no answer. Whoever called out to him had yet to move into the open. Either that or the bastard was already in too close and had the drop on Ky and Tate.
Ky didn’t like the silence—not one bit. He scanned to his far left. Nothing but gray fog and shifting mist, the perfect cover for an ambush. Then he looked to his right and into Tate’s kill zone, where the three bodies that Tate hadn’t killed lay dead and sprawled. He adjusted his goggles. Thermal imaging added bleak realism to the scene, but still no one moved. Who the hell was out there? What were they waiting for?
“Let me try,” Eden urged. “If these guys are who I think they are, they’re safe.”
“Heard that before,” Tate grumbled.
“Ky. Please. Trust me.”
“Then call to them,” he snapped, every nerve stretched taut, “but keep your head down until I tell you different. Keep your ass down, too.”
She nodded quickly, but smoothed both hands over that delicious backside. Ky couldn’t help but take a quick glance at it. God, this woman was going to be the death of him. He adjusted his position again because he had to, damn it. Every move she made got his body’s attention, and he was hard as a rock. He didn’t need Alex to chew him out for fraternization with a client. The guy was nearly as psychic as Eden, which was why Ky kept his goggles loose on his neck more than strapped to his face. Except for now. Alex needed to see the combat.
Ky (In the Company of Snipers Book 13) Page 13