Risk no Secrets

by Cindy Gerard

  “Is that what she’s done? Tamed him?”

  Her tone was playful, but something in her eyes set his senses on alert.

  “Okay. Maybe civilized him fits better,” he amended carefully.

  “You’re a very civilized man,” she said, and for the life of him, he couldn’t tell if she’d given him a compliment or a dressing down.

  He sat forward, propped his elbows on his knees, stared at his clasped hands for a moment, and glanced at her. “Is that a good thing?” he asked, feeling a rich excitement, because it suddenly felt as if they were dancing around the heart of a discussion that they’d both avoided for a very long time.

  She studied his face, drew a deep breath, and let it out. “I’ve always thought so.”

  He tilted his head and searched her eyes. And his heart damn near jumped out of his chest at what he saw there. She was flirting with him. And it was scaring her … just a little. Just enough to make it thrilling.

  Something was happening here. The question was, was he too “civilized” to push for more?

  “Do I hear a but at the end of that sentence?” he asked, deciding to go for it.

  She hesitated, looked down at her hands, then lifted her chin. “But sometimes … sometimes I wish you weren’t quite so controlled around me.”

  His heart kicked him again. Hard. And this was no longer a dance. “I thought you wanted control, Juliana. I thought you wanted restraint.”

  She pressed her lips together. “Yes, well, I’ve always thought I wanted that, too.”

  Over the years, he’d faced off against death too many times to count. Facing this discussion and the mine field of emotions on the line, however, was far and away one of the hardest things he’d ever done. What if he wasn’t reading her right? What if—

  “Was I a fool to think that, Nate? Was I fool to keep you—keep ‘us’—at a distance?”

  He let out a breath that had been backed up in his chest since—hell, since the first time he’d laid eyes on her two years ago. This was hard for her. This was very, very hard for her.

  “No bigger fool than I’ve been for letting you.”

  Tears filled her eyes, and he knew instinctively what put them there.

  “He would want you to be happy, Juliana.”

  While she was a careful woman—careful with her trust, with her emotions, with her heart—she was also a woman without pretense. “I loved Armando for a long time,” she said softly.

  “And I expect you always will. I don’t want to take that away from you.”

  She swallowed hard. A single tear trailed down her cheek. “Armando is my past.” She finally looked at him, and what he saw in her eyes made his heart flat-out stop. “I want you to be my future. That is, if … if you want that, too.”

  “If I want?” He took her hand, then thought the hell with all this “civilized” behavior, and drew her onto his lap. “If I want? I have wanted nothing but you since the first time I saw you.”

  Her smile was radiant as she looped her arms around his neck and pressed her forehead to his. “As long as we’re confessing, I haven’t had a good night’s sleep since … well, since I slept with you in my bed.”

  She blushed, all pretty and pink, and, God, she made him feel like a kid. And not at all civilized. “I know it’s been a while—seventeen months, two weeks, and one day, if you happen to be counting—but it’s not the sleeping that I remember.”

  She laughed, then sighed in pleasure when his hands roamed her back. “I don’t think a mature woman is supposed to feel this way.”

  “What way?”

  “Giddy. Hot. Mostly hot.”

  He chuckled and cupped her face in his hands. “How about we go upstairs? I’ll see what I can do to take care of that little … issue.”

  “In front of the children?”

  The sound of Reed’s voice had them jumping apart like kids caught with their hands in the cookie jar.

  “Jesus, Reed! You’ve been stumping around this place like a bull on stilts for days. How the hell did you get in here without us hearing you?” Nate growled.

  “I think maybe you were … preoccupied?” Johnny suggested with a grin that told Nate he couldn’t wait to go back to bed and tell Crystal what he’d interrupted on Juliana’s sofa.

  Nate glared at him. “Buzz off.”

  “Right.” He snagged the cell phone that had apparently brought him back to the library, took a couple thumping steps toward the door, then stopped and grinned over his shoulder.”’Bout damn time you two kids came to your senses.”

  “Reed!” Nate snarled.

  “Buzzing, sir,” Reed said dutifully, and headed back toward the door.

  “And to think, I accused you of being too civilized.”

  Stark naked, flat on his back, breathing hard, and still recovering from the most uncivilized sex he’d ever had, Nate turned his head on the pillow.

  Juliana lay beside him, her arms flung above her head, her beautiful breasts rising and falling with her attempts to catch her breath, her glorious body glistening with a light sheen of perspiration.

  “Well, it was time to put that misnomer to bed. Past time to take you to bed. God, we’ve wasted so much time.”

  She turned her head, her brown eyes sultry and satisfied. “We can’t look back. Only forward. And just so you know … you were so worth waiting for. That was …”

  “Amazing,” he finished for her.

  “Yes, mi amor. Amazing.” She made a soft sound of pure, wanton pleasure as she stretched and sighed and sent his blood pressure skyrocketing off the charts again.

  Lush. There was no other word to describe Juliana Flores. No skinny model’s body on this woman. There was flesh on her bones. Glorious, sensual flesh, soft in all the right places, curves a man could sink into and never want to come out.

  And finally, she was his. He propped himself up on an elbow so he could look his fill, claim what he’d been wanting for too damn long. No way in hell was he ever going to let anything come between them again.

  He covered a full voluptuous breast with his hand and felt himself grow hard again when she arched into his touch, when her nipple tightened and pebbled against his palm.

  “You are so damn beautiful.” He lowered his head and, caressing the plump rise of her breast, skimmed his tongue over a taut, berry-pink nipple.

  She sighed again and cupped his head in her hand, encouraging the contact by rolling to her side and sliding one long golden leg over his thigh. “I love how you touch me.”

  “Tell me where,” he whispered against her nipple, then pulled away with a long, sucking stroke to admire the glistening dampness he’d left behind.

  “Anywhere. Everywhere.” She found his hand, brought it to her mouth, and kissed the backs of his knuckles. Then, with her dark gaze locked on his, she lowered his hand between their bodies, pressed it against the apex of her thighs, and rocked slowly against him.

  His heart filled with love and longing and wonder. Finally, finally, he had the right to be with her this way.

  He pressed her gently onto her back and knelt beside her, taking his time touching her, pleasing her, watching her move and breathe and wet her lips in anticipation of what he would do to her next.

  “You know there’s no going back from this.” He lifted first one of her legs and then the other, so her knees were bent and parted, her heels pressed into the sheets. Then he moved between them, kissed the inside of each thigh, urging them wider apart as he made his way to the sweet, beckoning dampness of her mons. “This is forever, Juliana,” he whispered as he breathed in the scent of woman and sex and desire. “Forever …”

  She gasped and moved against his mouth when he parted her feminine folds with his fingers and found her center with his tongue.

  “Forever,” she managed on a breathless cry as he delved deep and devoted himself to ruining any small amount of control she might yet possess.

  She was weeping softly by the time he’d finished with he
r, weeping and writhing and begging for mercy, pleading for release.

  She came on a long, shuddering breath, her body tensing, her heartbeat slamming, when he moved up her body and kissed her, claiming her mouth and her soul as he entered in a long, driving stroke.

  “Forever,” she said again and again and again, as he pumped into her and drove them both beyond past regrets and toward the beginning of their future together.

  26

  “Fire in the hole!” Gabe made sure all the guys were ducked down behind the cover of their two vehicles, then set the charge of C-4 on the abandoned building that stood alone in the middle of a litter-strewn lot on the outskirts of the city.

  The single-story warehouse blew like a Republican Guard munitions dump—only it hadn’t been a munitions cache for Saddam’s “elite” army. MS-13 was going to be a shitload of weapons and ammo lighter than they’d been two minutes ago.

  “That ought to get Bonilla’s attention,” Mendoza said as the ordinance cooked off.

  Hugh stood by, his arms crossed over his chest, his jaw clenched tight, as he stared at the smoke and dust swelling above the spot where the warehouse used to be. Wyatt still didn’t get it. Didn’t understand why Hugh was so adamantly opposed to their tactics, but Hugh’s dogged reluctance wasn’t going to stop him.

  It was nearing nine p.m. During the course of the day, they’d raided four known MS-13 strongholds, all of them empty, all of them showing signs of very recent activity, most of them vacated so recently that the gang members hadn’t had time to clean up after themselves.

  Besides leveling each base of operations, so far, Wyatt and the guys had destroyed a huge meth lab and a surprisingly high-tech and high-dollar electronic communications network and had confiscated information on the weapons cache they’d just destroyed.

  No, they hadn’t found Lola, but each raid knocked another chunck off Bonilla’s operation and led them closer. Wyatt could feel it.

  He checked his watch, ignoring the sour look on Hugh’s face.

  “Call Doc,” he told Mendoza. “Tell him to let Sophie know that we’re okay and still looking. And tell her that we have every reason to believe that Lola’s still alive,” he added as an afterthought, touching his hand to the necklace he’d stuffed into the breast pocket of his Kevlar vest.

  He should have made contact with Sophie sooner. Should make the call himself and talk to her directly. But he didn’t trust himself to talk to her right now. He was on the down side of his fifth adrenaline overload of the day, and each time they’d come up empty, it had amplified the blood lust pent up inside him.

  He was frustrated. He was pissed. He was exhausted. And he didn’t want her to hear him that way.

  Didn’t trust that he wouldn’t—

  “Doc’s not answering.”

  Wyatt jerked his gaze to Mendoza, whose scowl relayed his alarm. “Try the house phone.”

  Rafe dialed again, and they waited, the air thick with tension.

  Several seconds passed before Mendoza shook his head.

  Gabe’s and Green’s faces were set hard with concern. They both knew there was only one reason Doc wouldn’t pick up: he couldn’t.

  No one said a word as they piled into their vehicles and headed back to Sophie’s at warp speed, each and every one of them scared shitless that something bad—something very, very bad—had happened.

  “I think I’m going to call it a night.”

  Doc looked up from the Sig he’d torn apart to clean. The pieces were spread out in all their oil-drenched glory on a newspaper on Sophie’s coffee table.

  She’d been pacing and fidgety all night. As wired as she was, he seriously doubted she could pull any Zs, but he wished her luck. “Look, I know you’re worried, but don’t be, okay? The guys know what they’re doing. We should be hearing from Wyatt anytime now.”

  She lingered by the sofa. “It’s killing you that you’re not out there with them, isn’t it?”

  He grunted. “You kiddin’ me? ’Bout time I pulled some light duty on this gig.” He grinned up at her, but he didn’t think she bought it.

  Just like he didn’t buy the notion that Wyatt and Sophie were just friends. He’d seen the way they looked at each other. Seen the strain Hugh Weber had added to the mix. He should keep his mouth shut. Knowing and doing, however, were two different things. He’d always been a gambler. No point in folding his cards now.

  “You’re the one, aren’t you?”

  Her gaze cut to his, her brows knitted in question.

  “The one Wyatt’s carried a torch for all these years.”

  Her checks flamed red, but she didn’t deny or confirm his statement. Didn’t matter. He knew.

  “Okay, look,” he said, sorry now that he’d put her on the spot. “I shouldn’t be sticking my nose in where it doesn’t belong. Just like it’s none of my business what’s going on between you and Wyatt now or what’s going on between you and your ex, for that matter. But there’s something you need to know. They don’t come any better than the Papa Bear.”

  “I know that,” she said softly.

  “Yeah … well, there’s something else you need to know.”

  “Look, Luke—”

  He held up a hand, gently cutting her off. “Not my business. I know. But here’s the deal. You could hurt him.”

  She closed her eyes and lowered her head. “I don’t want to hurt him.”

  “I didn’t think you did. Just makin’ sure we’re all on the same page.” He smiled for her.

  And because she was the woman he hoped she was, she smiled back.

  His phone rang then, effectively getting them both out of a tight spot. “There ya go,” he said brightly. “What’d I tell ya? That’ll be Wyatt—”

  The glass patio doors exploded in a hail of gunfire.

  “Get down!” Doc grabbed the M-4 rifle and leaned on the trigger, firing into the dark outside the shattered glass doors, aiming for the muzzle flashes.

  When the shooters momentarily backed off to take cover, he sprang to his feet, grabbed Sophie, and shoved her behind him, backing toward the kitchen, laying down cover fire. When they reached the breakfast bar, he pushed her behind it and dove down after her as five, maybe six, AKs attacked again, the wrath of 7.62mm rounds drilling into the house.

  They hunkered down behind the counter as pictures danced off the walls; the TV screen exploded with fire and pop; glassware shattered under the relentless pounding as they swung their aim toward the kitchen.

  Shit. Whoever it was had no intention of making polite conversation. He needed to get Sophie out of there before they followed their ordinance through the door.

  “Go for your SUV!” He had to yell to be heard above the unremitting strafe of bullets, all the while hoping to hell he could keep her covered while she crawled the length of the kitchen floor to the door that led to the garage.

  “Go!” he repeated when she hesitated, then popped up from behind the cover of the counter and fired off several rounds. A shadowy figure went down. Score one for the good guy.

  The good guy needed to score real bad, because the good guy could no longer ignore the fact that he’d been hit. Just like he couldn’t count on adrenaline to keep him from fading.

  He shook his head and tried to clear the spots that danced behind his eyes. No dice. And worse, right about the time the world started spinning, he realized he couldn’t feel his left arm.

  Fuck. Fuck!

  His knees buckled. He dropped like a bag of sand, landing hard on his ass after sliding down the kitchen cabinets.

  “Oh, God. Oh, God. Luke.”

  He leaned back against the cabinets and fought to keep conscious as Sophie’s voice filtered through the cobwebs and the gunfire and a hot, searing pain in his gut.

  “Luke … talk to me!”

  He was talking, wasn’t he? His mouth was moving … he swore it was … but he couldn’t get any sound to come out.

  “Jesus, oh, Jesus.”

  Why was
she crying? Why were her hands red? With disjointed concentration, he squinted through a veil of murky shadows. Tears on her face. Red on her hands.

  He felt as if he was a million miles away, couldn’t understand why he couldn’t see clearly. And why were her hands red again? Why was she—God … why was she hurting him? Why was she pressing on his gut with a pretty little towel that had green peppers and yellow squash and red … red … blood?

  Ah. His blood.

  QuickClot, he thought, but couldn’t say the words. He needed QuickClot to stop the bleeding. To stop his bleeding.

  Christ, oh, Christ, he’d saved so many men.

  Couldn’t … couldn’t save … himself.

  Couldn’t … save … Sophie.

  Wyatt was going to kill him.

  “G-go,” he managed one more time. She had to get out while she could.

  And then, miraculously, she was gone. She screamed and just sort of flew away from him, then hovered above him, her terrified eyes surrounded by hard, tattooed faces. Men’s faces. Men holding guns with barrels as black as death.

  And then he lost her altogether.

  He lost himself as the iron-hard stock of a rifle slammed into the side of his jaw, knocking him over sideways. His face hit the tile floor with a crack. The tile was hard and cold and slippery and running with blood.

  The blood from his dead body.On a level he couldn’t quite reach, he heard Sophie scream his name again. Heard the far-away sound of a phone. Ringing … ringing … ringing … as red faded slowly to white … white spilled silkily into gray … gray spun, thick and hazy, into black.

  Cold, empty black …

  They’d thrown a hood over her head, carried her outside, and dumped her into the trunk of a car. Sophie didn’t know how long she’d been trapped in there. Long enough that when the trunk lid finally flew open, she gasped for breath.

  She didn’t know how much time had passed. Didn’t know how many bruises she’d suffered. Didn’t know if she could bear the guilt over Luke Colter’s death or survive this night, when she was dragged out into the dark and hustled into a building. At least it felt as if she was inside a building. She couldn’t tell. Couldn’t get her bearings. It was all she could do to stay on her feet.