Seduction Under Fire

by Melissa Cutler

  Camille and Aaron’s best hope of survival was to stay unpredictable. With that in mind, Aaron took each foothill fast, jumping dried riverbeds and weaving around the shrubs and rocks while Camille continued to fire.

  “How many men?” he asked.

  “Three—the driver and two shooters.” They were fired at twice and Camille responded with another cluster of shots. “Check that, one shooter now.”

  Aaron swerved around a boulder the size of a shack and realized too late they were approaching a huge fissure in the earth too wide to jump and too near to stop or turn. Putting on the brakes, he pushed Camille off the bike and attempted a controlled crash. The momentum was too great. He and the downed bike skidded into the fissure.

  Camille crawled to the edge. “Aaron!”

  He clung to a tiny outcropping on the inner wall, his shoes pedaling against the side.

  The rumble of an engine warned them of the Jeep’s approach.

  “Stay there,” she whispered, scrambling out of view. Her rifle discharged a dozen more rounds. Aaron prayed she was hidden behind a boulder as the men’s return fire echoed through the fissure.

  The Jeep’s engine cut out and a man shouted in English at Camille to freeze. A shuffle of feet on the sandy ground made Aaron brace for discovery, but no one peeked over the edge. Maybe they didn’t realize he was there.

  A sharp smack of flesh hitting flesh reverberated in the quiet, and Camille grunted softly.

  They were hitting her. The men were hitting his Camille.

  Aaron dug deep, finding a strength he didn’t know he had. He pulled up on the ledge and got a toe on it, then a knee. He pocketed a handful of sand, then got out his gun.

  Smack. A man’s laughter.

  “Is that all you got?” Camille sneered in a hoarse voice.

  In a state of focused fury, Aaron surrendered to the most ancient, savage part of his being. He vaulted out of the fissure with gun drawn.

  Only one man was hurting Camille. A body lay slumped over the Jeep’s passenger door as blood pooled on the dirt below.

  Aaron took aim at the short, mustachioed, middle-aged Mexican who had Camille by the hair, jamming her own rifle into her shoulder as she knelt on the ground. The man’s eyes were wide, as if Aaron had surprised him. Good.

  “Aaron, you idiot. You should have saved yourself. Now we’ll both die.”

  Aaron ignored her. He sized up her captor and plotted his next move.

  “Drop your gun or I kill her,” the man shouted in heavily accented English. He sounded nervous, as if he was in way over his head. Aaron knew exactly how to play this guy. He took a few steps forward.

  “Forget about me. Kill him.”

  Unable to resist the impulse, he snorted. “You’re killin’ me with your whole martyr thing, Cam.” He put his hand in his pocket as casually as possible, gathering sand.

  “Drop the gun...now,” the man hollered.

  Aaron raised his arms in surrender, then took a few more steps forward and placed his gun on the ground too near to Camille for her captor to let it stay there. When the man let go of her hair and reached for the gun, Aaron flung the sand into his eyes, blinding him. Grabbing the rifle’s nose, he deflected it into the sand as it fired.

  The man doubled over with his hands covering his face, shrieking in pain. Aaron gripped the handle of the spare gun he’d stashed in a makeshift holder between his shoulder blades. He killed the bastard with a single shot, right through his ear.

  * * *

  Camille, under the light of the full moon, glowed an ethereal shade of blue. She sat in the cocaptain’s chair, clad in loose-fitting white pants and a white T-shirt, hugging herself and gazing at the distant sea, exactly as Aaron left her when he went to wash the sand and blood spatter from his hair and skin.

  After driving the cartel’s Jeep to the outskirts of town, they’d snagged a taxi ride to the marina. The whole time, Aaron’s nerves were a jumble of live wires. He never took his hand off the gun hidden beneath his shirt, nor his eyes off their surroundings, anticipating ambush at every turn. Even on the boat, after he’d anchored in the cove of an uninhabited island two hours from the mouth of the bay, he still didn’t feel safe.

  He wasn’t sure if he’d ever feel safe again.

  They’d survived the day but in infiltrating the cartel’s hideout and killing more of its operatives, the targets on their backs were bigger than ever.

  When Aaron cleared his throat to alert Camille of his presence, she looked at him and shivered. He removed the black flannel shirt he’d donned over his T-shirt and held it out in offering. She shook her head.

  “Don’t argue with me. Not tonight.”

  After a moment’s hesitation, she accepted the shirt. He helped her on with it, then settled in the captain’s chair. The sight of Camille wearing his clothes was unexpectedly erotic. The collar pressed against her cheeks, accentuating the ivory glow of her skin and her slender fingers peeking out from the cuffs. Their eyes met and she shivered again.

  Aaron felt the air surrounding them charge, crackling with electric current. He swallowed, then gestured to her bare feet. “I’ll bring you some socks.”

  Mechanically, he walked through the cabin and found a pair of her socks. Camille watched his approach with eyes as black as the flannel shirt, as deep as the night around her. He sat and swiveled her chair to face his.

  With a racing pulse, he brought her feet to his lap and inched his fingers up the lengths of her calves inside her pants. He’d never touched her here, not like this.

  “Aaron, stop.” Her voice was breathy, aroused. He stopped but didn’t release his hold on her leg. “I don’t...I don’t want...”

  “Don’t try to tell me you don’t want me, Camille. I know you better than that.”

  He captured her right foot in his hands. It was velvet against his calloused palms.

  “You don’t know me at all.”

  What a load of crap she was feeding herself. He’d spent every moment of the past week memorizing her—from her body to the cadence of her speech, every sigh and every look. He’d lain awake each night listening to her breathe, drenching his senses with the feel and scent of her hair, her skin. He knew Camille Fisher as well as he knew himself, better perhaps. “What have you convinced yourself of? What’s going on in that sharp mind of yours?”

  “I...”

  As she searched for words, he cradled her foot, warming it.

  “I don’t want this between us.”

  He tipped her chin up until she looked into his eyes. “Baby, it’s already between us.”

  The torment in her expression spoke of a battle raging within her. She knew he was right.

  “If you tell me to stop again, I will. But you know as well as I do there’s no changing the truth. Even if we never act on the way we feel, this will always be here between us.”

  She stiffened and, for a moment, Aaron thought he’d ruined his chance. His fingers froze on her foot. He sucked in a frustrated breath.

  Her right hand twisted the flannel as she seemed to consider his words.

  She met his gaze, her green eyes piercing, as if testing his merit, weighing his honor. Trust me, Camille. Let me show you how we could be together.

  With a nod, she slipped low in the chair and her knees fell open. It was sexy as hell.

  Releasing the breath he’d been holding, he slid both thumbs along the arch. Her breath stuttered. Suppressing a smile, he concentrated on her foot, kneading and exploring, rolling each toe and sliding his index finger between them. She squirmed and purred softly, a response that ignited within Aaron something wholly atavistic. Before this night was over, every secret little place on her, previously ignored, was going to be branded by him.

  He brought her leg to his mouth and kissed the inside of her ankle, tasting it with his tongue. She slouched further in the chair and her legs gaped apart. Aaron froze, not trusting himself to move one millimeter until he overcame the urge to take her right then a
nd there.

  Once he regained mastery over himself, he scooted forward and guided her feet up the lengths of his thighs until her toes touched the crease of his hips. He lifted his eyes to gauge her demeanor again. A corner of her lips turned up in a lazy smile. It was all he needed to see.

  He pulled her onto his lap so she was straddling him.

  Their bodies and mouths united like water hitting hot oil, the power of two opposing forces colliding. They kissed violently, openmouthed, tongues pushing and testing, nostrils flared with the strain of breathing, each taking and consuming the other. Demanding more. Camille’s hands were in Aaron’s hair and around his neck, clinging to him.

  This time, he couldn’t stop his mouth from curling into a hard smile, or his eyes from reflecting the possessiveness radiating through him. He tugged on the collar of her shirt, exposing her shoulder, and feasted on her sweet skin, only half aware of her own exploration of him. Her mouth sucked at his neck and earlobe. Her fingers remained threaded through his hair except for every so often, when she framed his face with her hands and forced his mouth back to hers.

  The ferocity of her passion was what he’d been waiting for night after torturous night. He wanted her to hunger the way he hungered. To need like he needed. He licked a trail from her collarbone to the skin between her breasts. She moaned and tipped her chin up, arching to him.

  It had been worth the wait.

  When he was ready to do away with her clothes, he lifted her off him, back into her own chair. Crossing her arms, she gazed at the horizon in a show of prideful restraint—as though she thought he was done with her. The crease between her eyebrows appeared and, even in the shadows, the hard clench of her jaw was apparent.

  So strong, yet so fragile, she would never beg him for more. If he walked away at that moment, she’d never breathe a word about their kiss, never let the shield guarding her vulnerability crack. What happened to her that made her demand so little of others, so much of herself? It was a question for another time. Tonight, he had far more important discoveries to make.

  He stroked her cheek and turned her face up to his.

  “I’m going to take you to our bed and make love to you now.”

  * * *

  It was harder than Camille expected to give herself over to passion from a safe emotional distance.

  She’d sat on the bridge, replaying Aaron’s words outside the bar that morning in her head, confused and aroused. Terrified. As far as birthday resolutions went, hers was off to a dismal start. As a gift to herself, she’d vowed to let go of the stilted, fearful woman she’d become. To experience life to the fullest. To discover happiness. And yet, she’d lingered on the bridge that night, too scared to face Aaron within the confines of the cabin, praying he’d leave her alone so she could ignore the desire that was eating her from the inside out.

  Pathetic.

  And then he was on the bridge, looming over her, his eyes dark with desire. She didn’t want to accept his flannel shirt, knowing it would smell of him—and it had. Rich and masculine, clean. Aaron. The fabric was damp and hinted at the shampoo he’d used. She’d turned up the collar and inhaled.

  His skilled hands had touched her in a way no man had before, but it was his words that tipped her over the edge.

  There’s no changing the truth. This will always be here between us.

  He was right. No matter how desperately she fought against her feelings for him, they would never change. Never burn out. Never leave her at peace. She had only one way to combat the fear that held her back—to bulldoze straight through it. To strike it down as it had stricken her for too many years.

  So what if her desire for Aaron terrified her? So what if she was one more in a long line of conquests? He’d made her an offer and she’d be a hypocrite not to take him up on it.

  The minute their clothes came off, her lack of experience would be obvious. She only hoped she wouldn’t have to admit how inexperienced she actually was. But if he figured it out, if her hymen was miraculously still intact...there might be no getting around the truth. But she was no longer willing to let fear and pride hold her back.

  Happy birthday, girl.

  Aaron wasn’t making it easy on her, though. She’d banked on his goofy sense of humor to emerge, for him to infuse the experience with playful banter and teasing smiles, but tonight he was dead serious. Did he dive into all his conquests’ skins as if he was having them for dinner?

  Did he always call it making love?

  To counter her rising anxiety, she resolved to do the opposite of her fearful instincts for the rest of the night. So after her shirt was dispatched to the cabin floor by Aaron with lightning-quick efficiency and her instincts demanded she call the whole thing off, she grabbed fistfuls of his shirt and ripped it over his head. Then she did what she’d longed to for two long years. She caressed every single muscle of his rippling abs.

  They shuffled past the sofa while kissing. Aaron reached around her and punched on a light in the kitchenette.

  “Turn around and put your hands on the table.”

  It was a command spoken softly, but a command nonetheless.

  Despite the screaming protests of her instincts, she faced the table and set her palms on it, surprised at the pulse of pleasure it gave her to give up control to him. If she were keeping score, pleasure would be leading instinct two to nothing.

  With his thumbs hooked in her waistband, Aaron shoved her pants to the ground. Pinning her to the table with his lower body, he dived into the skin of her neck, which was about the most delicious feeling Camille had ever experienced. She arched into his touch and when his teeth bit gently into the skin of her shoulder, she whimpered helplessly.

  He unsnapped her bra and threw it on the table.

  She twisted around, but he pushed her shoulder back and gently, but firmly, took her wrist and replaced her hands on the table, adding a squeeze of admonition.

  He knelt and ran a finger along the side hem of her panties, beneath her buttocks and around to the front, until only thin, damp fabric separated his finger from where she really wanted it. His tongue followed his finger. Hunching into her arms, Camille put her head down, dizzy with sensation.

  His teeth nipped at her inner thigh. His nose brushed against the panties. She widened her stance, wanting desperately for him to bury his finger or tongue in her. But instead of lingering, his lips skimmed across her panties and he continued the trek around her other thigh.

  Finally, he slid her panties down and stood. Setting his hands over hers, he lifted their entwined fingers and straightened so that they were looking at their reflection in the window. She didn’t recognize the woman she saw, half-naked and flushed with passion. Her breasts hung in the forefront, her nipples hardened with arousal. He moved their hands as one to cup her breasts, so that, really, she was the one doing the holding and he was the puppet-master. They felt foreign in her hands, plump and sensual.

  She looked past her reflection to Aaron and gasped in shock. His eyes were fierce, and the muscles of his arms twitched like they did when he was agitated. That threw her off. He was enjoying it, too, wasn’t he? Where was the Aaron she knew, the one with the dimples and the joyous laugh? Was she doing something wrong?

  “Aaron...”

  “Hmm?”

  “I... Are you—”

  Words failed her as he moved their joined right hands between her thighs. He manipulated his hold so both their index fingers swirled over the swollen pearl of nerve endings made slick with honeyed wetness. She writhed, straining to increase the pressure on this most sensitive part of her. He worked their fingers expertly until the world around Camille disappeared. All that existed was her raw need and the tips of their fingers.

  Release swept like a strike of lightning through her body. She threw her head against his shoulder with a cry, the ferocity of her climax rocking them both where they stood locked together.

  “You’re mine,” he rumbled into her ear.

  T
he intensity of his tone made her eyes snap open. She studied his reflection and saw his first smile of the night—a savage grin that left her wondering how dimples could look so wicked.

  Overcome with self-awareness, her urge to put some distance between them was a powerful one. But her instincts hadn’t done her a lick of good, so now was hardly the time to let fear take over. Scared as hell but too stubborn to quit, she sunk to her knees and unfastened his jeans. It was time to even the playing field.

  The jeans were the easy part—button off, zipper down and a tug. It was the boxers underneath that gave her pause. She had no idea what to do with Aaron’s erection. Or rather, she had a general idea, but not many specific details and zero experience. She braced herself for the big reveal of her naïveté, then dropped the boxers to the floor and drew a sharp breath.

  She’d seen a few male appendages in her day, but she’d never seen anything like this. All the jokes she’d made over the years about his tricked-out sports car compensating for something now seemed ridiculously inappropriate.

  Aaron was huge. Monster.

  She hesitantly grazed the shaft with her finger and watched it bob in response. Emboldened, she moved to the tip, slid the foreskin back and closed her mouth over the head. His body dipped and he staggered back, slamming into the kitchen counter. The muscles of her core pulsed with impatience, even as she grinned at the discovery that she had the power to do that to him. Oh, this could easily become her obsession, this piece of Aaron’s anatomy.

  Happy birthday, girl. Here’s a bonus gift....

  Before her exploration had barely begun, he pushed her away. “You’re going to have to torment me on your own time.” His voice was husky. “I’ve got other plans for you tonight.”

  He led her down the stairs. The light from the kitchenette filtered onto the bed like a spotlight into which she was tossed with alarming ease. Crawling up the length of her body, he kicked her legs apart with his knees. Then, beginning with her breasts, he proceeded to drive her into a frenzy with his tongue.

  Moments before her second orgasm shattered her last threads of control, two random thoughts floated across her mind. The first was that if practice made perfect then maybe she should thank Aaron for being such a male slut. And the second was that she was an idiot for waiting so long to have sex.