“I’ll take you home, Natalia.” Alex offered but Micah corrected his line of thinking quickly.
“I’ve got this,” he took hold of her arm.
“I need to go talk to Miriam, Kelly’s mom; she’s going to have questions and I can’t hide forever. The sooner I do this the sooner we can both start to try to heal our broken hearts.”
Micah nodded. She was thankful that he hadn’t been insistent that she go home and rest.
“Hold up,” Special Agent Forester Michaels called to them. She hoped the guys wouldn’t be in trouble, but they hadn’t killed anybody in Colombia and it wasn’t unlawful to do what they did…well, maybe they could get in trouble for the weapons they took, but it’s not as if they had to use them so nobody should have even known about that.
“I think I need to talk to you all alone.”
“We already have clearance on this one.” Preston assured him, there seemed to be no need for the guys to worry.
“It’s about her,” he looked at her and she cringed.
“I’m still standing here,” she said. “And if it’s about me you can say whatever it is in front of me.” She was no shrinking violet. If he had something to say she wanted to know about it.
“It would seem that Diego Valdez took a real strong liking to you,” his tone told her he still didn’t believe her when she said the man hadn’t raped her. “Rumor has it that he’s looking to get you back. So, you all might want to keep somebody with her for a little while just until we can make sure there’s no real threat here.”
She shivered with fear. She wouldn’t go back there. If that man came and tried to take her she would rather die than end up in his custody again.
“She has a twenty-four hour seven day bodyguard right here,” Micah’s angry tone told her how serious he was. “She won’t be out of my sight.”
Now that was just the most ridiculous thing ever. Of course she would be out of his sight at some point. He couldn’t watch her every second of the day. And beyond that, while she had a guest bathroom she didn’t have a guest bedroom. She had turned that room into her play room basically. She kept her instrument in there and the sheet music, her collection of fiction books and a nice comfortable rocking chair that was made for a nursery but she didn’t care. She liked it enough to buy it for herself. Just because she wasn’t expecting a baby didn’t mean she couldn’t read in comfort. There was no second bed in her house which meant he would be stuck on the couch. That wouldn’t be comfortable.
He also had work, and other cases that she was sure would come up. Plus there was Jocelyn. She couldn’t imagine that woman would be happy with her man spending that much time with another woman.
“It’s okay guys. You know I’ll be fine. I have an alarm system…”
“We know you’ll be fine because you’re not going to be alone.” Jet nearly growled. She had never seen Jet with such an angry serious disposition. Sure, she had seen him serious. She had seen him focused, maybe she had even seen him a little angry, but usually he was more laid back and reserved than all of the guys. While Alex was the guy with the best jokes and the fun loving nature, Jet was the laid back, drink a beer and catch the game guy that rarely let his mood slip into one of anger. Right now she could honestly say that he was giving her a stern “no nonsense allowed” tone in his voice and his posture wasn’t too far behind. Maybe that was the price of working with military men, but they were all great guys and she wouldn’t change any of them for anything in the world.
“I’ll be with you.” Micah reminded her.
“And when he’s not, I will be,” Alex added.
“One of us will be with you at all times. You will not,” Preston folded his arms across his chest, “be alone at any point until we make sure you are one hundred percent safe. You got that?”
“I got it,” she smiled a half hearted, probably lopsided smile. She appreciated what they were doing for her. She was so thankful that she knew these men, that she had them in her life and that they cared enough about her to want to protect her.
Micah took hold of her arm as if to lead her away from the situation. “We’ll stop by my place first and I’ll get some clothes. If that’s okay with you.”
She laughed. She couldn’t believe she had done that. She hadn’t laughed since she saw Kelly die. “Yes, it’s okay with me. You’re putting yourself out to help me so whatever you need to do just let me know.”
“I’m not putting myself out, Natalia. We love you. We want to keep you safe.”
“I know I work for you all…”
“You’re family. I know we might not have spent a lot of time showing you that over the years, but I think that’s because we all thought you knew. Since clearly you didn’t, I feel the need to remind you that you are family. And I can’t believe you offered to pay us for coming to bring you home.”
“You all make a lot of money for those missions and I just…I thought maybe I should try to pay you in some way.”
He situated her in his truck before jogging around to the other side to get in. “When that call came in, there was no doubt in any of our minds that we would come get you. We never debated it; we never voted on it like we do for all the others; we just knew we were going to bring you home. We knew that because you’re family, and family takes care of family, Natalia. Do you understand that?”
She nodded as she studied the lines around his eyes. He really was a handsome man, and so noble and caring. “Thank you.”
“You’ve already thanked me. You thanked all of us. You don’t have to keep doing it.”
“I know, but I want to. What you all did means everything to me. I can’t tell you…I just can’t tell you how I felt when I woke up on that plane. I thought this was it; you all wouldn’t know who took me or where I was and I had no hope. I kept trying to find ways to help myself but I just was never sure I could get out. I knew I would try, but I was so afraid.” She didn’t want to stay and be violated or forced to live as a prisoner, but at the same time she was fearful of what would happen if her escape plan failed. That night she hadn’t let fear stop her. She was going to leave even if it killed her and lucky for her, leaving had saved her life because the guys were out there just waiting to take her home.
“I can’t tell you how useless I felt when we missed that plane in Australia.”
“You were there?”
“Yeah. I saw that bastard knock you out. We were too far back to stop the plane and it took off and the only thing I could think about was that we missed you; that we failed you and that our failure was going to put you in hell. I couldn’t live with myself if that happened to you, if he had hurt you, taken you…”
“He didn’t, not like that.”
“I trust you,” he said. “But at the time that’s what I knew was going to happen to you and it made me angry not just at him, but at myself for not getting to you before that plane lifted off. We were so close and we still missed it. I thought about the kind of man he is and it made me fearful for you.”
“And then you all got on a plane and came to Colombia.”
“Yes we did. Preston has a lot of contacts and we had some help finding an uncharted strip to land on and we borrowed a military jeep from one of his friends. With the intelligence we had we knew where to go. So we came to you. We saw you out there that morning in that slinky dress. That’s not something you wear and I guess my mind just…formulated things…circumstances that I hoped weren’t true.”
She sighed. She didn’t know how many times she could assure them all that the man hadn’t raped her. She knew they trusted her, but she could tell they still had their concerns. “He picked out my clothes, my makeup, whether he wanted my hair up or down…I hated that dress, but he thought it looked good on me so he made me wear it. My God, Micah he had so many clothes and so much makeup. I shudder to think of the number of women he’s done this to before…to think of the hell I know they went through. I just can’t…I can’t understand how something so evil
is allowed to live so free.”
He growled. “If he comes here he won’t be living much longer.” She had no doubt in the truth of his statement. Between the four men now acting as her self appointed bodyguards she was sure Diego Valdez would not be leaving alive if he came for her.
They stopped so Micah could pick up clothes at his place. She had never been to his place before and she had no idea of how well put together it was. It wasn’t too big for him. Four bedrooms and three bathrooms would seem big to most people for one single man, but he had turned the rooms into functional rooms. One was a guest bedroom, but one was a workout room and the other was his home office. Then of course he had his bedroom up on the second floor all by itself with a big bathroom and a connected room for all of his “toys” as he called the big weapons he kept locked away at his home.
After they picked up his clothes she went by to see Miriam. That had been difficult to say the least. They cried, they hugged, she apologized profusely for not being able to save Kelly and Miriam had assured her it wasn’t her fault. “I’m glad you survived,” she had said. “God knows if both of you girls had been lost…” her voice trailed off on a train of tears and by the end of the three hour visit Natalia was physically and emotionally exhausted.
She fell asleep on the way back to her place, awakened only when Micah put his big hand on her thigh. She started screaming, thinking she was back in Colombia and the nightmare was real.
“Hey, hey it’s me.” He unhooked her seatbelt and pulled her into his arms. “It’s me.” He rubbed his hand up and down her back. “It’s okay. It’s okay. Stop shaking, honey. Calm down. I’m here.”
She tried to force her body to stop trembling, but the nightmare was just too vivid, too real. When she settled down he distanced her from his body enough to look in her eyes. “I’m going to ask you this one more time, and I want you to be honest with me—one hundred percent honest. Did he rape you, Natalia? Did he touch you where he shouldn’t have?”
“No! I told you he didn’t.”
“Okay. Okay. I’m sorry, but your reaction to my touch is saying something different, honey.”
She ran her hand through her hair, pushing it back away from her face. “I…I was just dreaming,” she admitted. “I was back there, and it was that night, in that dress…and I didn’t get away…that’s all. It was just a bad dream—a nightmare.”
“Okay,” he pulled her in for a long hug that had her wrapping her arms around him and clinging to him. He felt so right in her arms. She was in love with him before everything went so horribly wrong, so for her the feelings she felt now had nothing to do with the fact that he had come to save her.
She pulled back, looking into his eyes she decided she wouldn’t put her life on hold again because living with fear was just stupid. She had been afraid she would lose him if she told him how she felt. Now she was afraid she would die having never had the chance to tell him.
She licked her lips just thinking about the words she needed to say but couldn’t find the voice to say them. Instead, she leaned in, placing her lips on his softly and kissing him with the sweetest, softest kiss she had ever given a man. In that one kiss she was conveying to him the love she felt for him. She just hoped that he could feel it; that he would hear her unspoken words and not push her away.
He cupped the back of her head, holding her close to him as he used his tongue to part her lips and then slipped it inside her mouth. One delicious caress of his tongue after another felt like heaven. She shifted her body so that she was nearly straddled his leg and she deepened the kiss, giving him everything she had to give. She could hear the low growl coming from deep within him and she answered with a wanton moan of her own.
She had dreamed of this; this kiss, this touch, this magical moment that branded her to him as if there would never be another man in her world. She had long ago lost her heart to him, and now she wanted him to claim her body too. She slid her hand down his hardened chest to the buckle of his belt. She wanted to get his pants undone and release his erection for her attention, but before she could set about her task he abruptly stopped her. Pulling his mouth away from hers and catching her wrist in a death grip.
“No,” his voice was laced with his arousal.
“Why? Don’t you want this? Don’t you want me?” Maybe that was it. Maybe he didn’t want her. And then she remembered. “Oh my God,” she yanked her wrist free and pushed away from him all the way back to the other side of the truck and into her seated position. “I’m so sorry. I forgot you have a girlfriend and I shouldn’t have…and you probably don’t want me anyway…oh God; I’m so embarrassed.” Humiliated was more like it. She never went after a man who was taken, how could she forget about Jocelyn?
“I do want you,” he admitted. “I wanted you that night you got drunk off two drinks and I brought you home. I wanted you when I saw you having an orgasm in your bed. I wanted you then. I want you now. But you’re not ready for this. You’re not thinking straight because of everything that happened to you and I won’t take advantage.”
“You’re not taking advantage of me, Micah. I…I want you.”
“Tell me that when you’re not on an emotional roller coaster and we’ll talk about it, honey.”
She sighed. He was treating her with kid gloves and she hated that. Fine, he wanted her to wait to tell him how much she wanted him, to show him how her body ached for him…she would wait, but she couldn’t promise she would wait forever.
“And Jocelyn and I aren’t together anymore?”
“What? What happened?”
“We broke up when I got back from Colombia. She called me. She wanted me to ditch you for a night out at one of her father’s functions and I said no.”
“You could have gone.”
“No I couldn’t have. And for anybody to ask me to be an ass and not be there for one of my friends is beyond unacceptable. I told her as much and she said it was her or you; I chose you.” He brushed his fingers along her cheek. “I won’t ditch my friends—ever.”
She forced a smile. He thought of her as a friend, not a lover. She should try to get used to that position, but she couldn’t. She simply couldn’t. The way he kissed her told her he felt something…maybe lust or just a heat of the moment passion, but she wouldn’t walk away from it. She would wait, be patient and play her cards well. If at the end of the day, when she put it all on the table for him, he still didn’t want her, then she would simply have to learn how to move on without him ever reciprocating the love she felt for him.
“Let’s get inside before it gets dark,” he unlocked the doors and they both got out. He grabbed his bags out the back. He had packed more than clothes. He had packed several weapons too. He was preparing for a war—one she hoped wouldn’t come. She hoped Special Agent Michaels was wrong about Diego, but something in her gut told her he wasn’t. The man was evil and had the ego to go with it. Having one of his prisoners escape was probably bad for his reputation. He would have to rectify that; she knew he would. But she hadn’t given him much information. And her bag was left behind with the bags of the others who had been killed so she didn’t think he had her identification. Special Agent Michaels had told her they had her things and it would just be a few weeks before her passport was released. So in her mind her identity hadn’t been compromised.
Diego hadn’t been too concerned about all the particulars of her name and her life. He had asked and she had been forced to give him her first name, but he didn’t push for a last name because he didn’t care. She hadn’t told him what company she worked for either. She hadn’t told him where she lived. Unless he could pick up on accents he wouldn’t be able to place her in Austin. Plus, she hadn’t been born in Austin. She had spent the first six years of her life in Colorado until her father obtained a civilian job for one of the military contractors. She didn’t think her Texan accent was all that strong. She could turn it on and off to fit the occasion, but what if she hadn’t turned it off while speaking
to Diego? Did he know what region to look for her in?
“Oh my God,” she moaned as the reality hit her. “All he has to do is check out the America to Australia flights for the timeline leading up to my being taken, or check out the tour company and he’ll know who I am.” And once he knew who she was he would know how to find her. She knew this because she had helped these guys locate the package often enough…or at least locate the vicinity of the package. The rest was fully up to them as far as figuring out exact locations and conditions surrounding the area where the package was being held.
Heart of Danger (Special Ops) Page 8