Fever Zone (Danger in Arms, Book 1)

by Cindy Dees

  Mike stared at her in open shock. Something akin to disappointment passed through his gaze.

  “You wanted a wingman, right?” she pressed. “Isn’t it my job to help you achieve cheap sex with the hottest groupie you can manage to snare with your line of bullshit?”

  “Bit of an attitude your partner’s got on her,” T-Bone commented just before slugging about half a beer in a single pull.

  Mike glared at her. “You noticed that, huh?” He picked up his glass as she glared back at him and moved off toward the dim recesses of the bar near a jukebox spewing country music and a tiny dance floor full of slutty bubbettes strutting their stuff.

  “Bunch of drunk groupie chicks,” she muttered in disgust, staring down at the beer sitting between her braced elbows. “Hardly seems fair to turn Mike loose on them.”

  T-Bone chuckled from beside her, his elbows planted next to hers. “Only kind of chicks he knows what to do with.”

  She glanced over at the big man, startled. “Excuse me?”

  “Mikey ain’t exactly a ladies’ man. Oh, the girls swoon all over him, and the way I hear it he’s hell on wheels in the sack. But he’s a man’s man.”

  “What the heck does that mean?” she demanded.

  “He’s most comfortable with men. In the field. Blowing stuff up and hanging with a SEAL team. Women—they make him hinky.”

  “No shit, Sherlock.”

  “How’s it going between you two? Never thought I’d see him work with a broad.” T-Bone added hastily, “No offense.”

  “None taken.” As for the whole, how’s it going between you question, she dodged it entirely.

  “Where’d you two meet?” T-Bone inquired.

  “Overseas. I spotted him through a scope on my sniper rig.”

  The big man laughed heartily. “My greatest fear. A woman on the business end of a high-powered rifle.” He drained yet another beer and ordered a pitcher for himself this time around.

  She peeked over her shoulder surreptitiously to check on Mike’s progress. A trashy blonde was hanging all over him and practically crawling into his pants on the dance floor. Mike didn’t look exactly head-over-heels with Slut-cheeks, but he didn’t look entirely miserable, either. That hadn’t taken long.

  “You like him?” T-Bone asked.

  Cripes. When did the slab of meat get so bloody observant? “He’s okay,” she replied, deliberately misunderstanding the question. “Decent to work with.”

  “He’s the best in the business when it comes to a shootin’ match. An idiot about women, though, I’m tellin’ ya.”

  The guy was hinting at something. She just had no idea what. “He got a past with a lady I should know about?”

  “Nah. He’s been a confirmed bachelor all along.” Then T-Bone asked cryptically, “You wanna know fast whether or not he likes you back?”

  She frowned. “What are you talking about?” She hadn’t admitted to liking Mike, let alone to wondering about his feelings for her.

  The big man ignored her pretense of not knowing precisely was he was talking about, and instead, reached over and planted his hand on her rear end.

  “Hey!” She bumped his arm away with her elbow.

  In a millisecond or so, the huge man had wrapped her in a bear hug she couldn’t breathe in, let alone move in, and planted a sloppy, beer-flavored kiss on her mouth. She pounded at his sides with her fists, but with her elbows trapped under his arms, she ended up flapping at him more like a chicken than striking like a real field operator.

  The more she tried to fight, the tighter he gripped her. He was going to start breaking bones if he didn’t loosen up pretty soon. Or maybe she would just pass out from lack of oxygen.

  T-Bone laughed. “Aww, c’mon, honey. I’m more of man than that Navy jack—”

  Without warning, the big man let go of her and spun away as if he’d been grabbed by a tornado and torn away from her by the force of the wind. She bent over gasping for breath. The guy had been squeezing her like a danged python. A solid thwap of knuckles on flesh made her look up, startled.

  A low, enraged voice drew her the rest of the way upright. “Get your hands off the lady, Bosworth. I’d hate to have to kill you in a nice place like this.”

  The Marine grinned over at her beneath the stream of blood pouring from his broken nose. He reached up casually to straighten his nose with a sickening sound of crunching bone. “There’s your answer, ma’am.”

  “What the fuck are you trying to pull, T-Bone?” Mike looked back and forth between her and the big marine.

  She stared back at T-Bone in shock. Slowly, she turned to stare at Mike.

  “What?” he demanded, irritated. “What the hell’s going on?”

  Busty blonde chick from the dance floor chose that moment to mince up on her six-inch heels and wrap herself bodily around Mike’s left leg and arm. “Hey, handsome. You’re with me, baby. Let the big guy have that skinny bitch. She looks frigid, anyway.”

  Piper whirled to face the drunk bubbette and pitched her voice low, packing it with as much warning as she could muster. “The skinny bitch can kick your ass into last week and is inviting you to stay out of this. And while you’re at it, you can peel your slutty self off my partner.”

  The blonde took an aggressive step forward, inch-long fake fingernails outstretched. T-Bone, bits of napkins stuffed in his nose, stepped in front of her with surprising speed. “The skinny bitch isn’t kidding, sweetheart. She’s an operator like the boys. She’ll kill you and mop the floor with you for good measure. Leave her be.”

  The blonde threw a few phrases of invective over T-Bone’s shoulder as he ushered her out to the dance floor, but in about ten seconds, the guy had her totally distracted and starting to smile up at him.

  Piper let out a slow breath. Holy crap. She really had been prepared to hurt that blonde if she didn’t get away from Mike. “Let’s get out of here,” she mumbled at him.

  “But I haven’t had sex, yet.” He was not drunk enough to legitimately mean that. She threw him a dirty look. “Take me back to the hotel and you can have all the sex you’d like, there.”

  “Hoo, baby!” he exclaimed. He swept her up in his arms and planted a sound kiss on her lips. Like T-Bone’s, it was beer-flavored. But unlike T-Bone’s, it made her knees go weak and her insides turn to jelly.

  “How ’bout you and me take a stroll down the hall, Pipes? The bathrooms lock. We can get as frisky as we want and no one would bother us.”

  “Up till the part where T-Bone decides he wants to take the door off its hinges,” she retorted. “I’m serious. I want to get out of here.”

  He shrugged over at his old comrade and threw a couple of bills down on the counter in front of the bartender. “Drinks for the big guy are on me tonight.” The bartender scooped up the bills and nodded, grinning.

  She pulled free of Mike’s tugging hand so she could move to the edge of the dance floor and lay a hand on the big man’s forearm. The blonde threw her a bitchy look, which she ignored as she leaned close enough to murmur, “You’re a prince among men, Mr. Bosworth. I owe you one.”

  He mock saluted her with a touch of his fingertips to his eyebrow. “Any time, ma’am. Take care of our boy, y’hear?”

  “Will do, T-Bone. I’ve got his back.”

  Mike, who had moved up beside her, chuckled, “And I’ve got yours, baby.” He passed his palm lightly over the back of her jeans and thrust his fingers into the far pocket. The gesture was casual and familiar and melted her into a giant puddle of mushy feelings. She let Mike turn her and guide her out the front door onto the street.

  “Can you walk or should I get us a cab?” she asked him. She couldn’t tell how drunk he was, or whether a walk would help clear his head or just make him sick.

  He glanced over at her and grinned. “I’m fine. Are you too tired to walk back to the hotel?”

  His diction was abruptly perfect and his movements coordinated and controlled. She frowned at him as they sta
rted walking down the block. “You’re not drunk at all, are you?”

  “It takes a whole lot more than a couple of beers to knock me off my horse, darlin’.”

  “What was all of that back there, then?” she demanded.

  “All of what?” he asked innocently.

  “The blonde bimbo hanging all over you. Slugging T-Bone.”

  “You seemed to want the full wingman experience. I was just trying to give it to you.”

  She punched him in the upper arm, and she put some muscle behind it. “You are such a jerk!”

  “You’re the one who bet me I couldn’t get laid in there. I hate to disappoint you, but you were going to lose that bet. Times at least three.”

  She would’ve liked to punch him again, but she had to admit that he was undoubtedly right. It had been stupid to dare him to pick up a woman like that. She’d been stupid. And she’d reacted out of all proportion to that bimbo clinging to Mike like she owned him.

  “Are we okay?” he asked.

  She was pretty sure she was not okay. She had never before in her life been hit by jealousy like that. And she really, really didn’t like what it said about her feelings for Mike McCloud. She was not falling for him. She was not that stupid. She wasn’t.

  Sixteen

  So. Piper didn’t like another woman hanging all over him, did she? Well, well, well. Would wonders never cease? He glanced at her as he silently opened their hotel door and held it open for her. She slipped past him with a distracted nod of thanks. Looked a little lost in thought, there.

  He moved over to the minibar in the corner, pulled down an old-fashioned glass, and emptied two mini-bottles of vodka into it. He carried the drink over to her where she stood staring out the window at the distant Strip. “Don’t overthink it,” he said quietly as he thrust the vodka into her hand.

  “Overthink what?”

  “Us.”

  “What is there to overthink?”

  “I dunno. I’m not overthinking it,” he replied, with a hint of humor in his voice.

  She smiled reluctantly at him. And then to his vague surprise, she downed the double shot of vodka in a single toss of the wrist. She coughed, and he pounded her back until she caught her breath. He steadied her as she righted herself, his hands resting on her shoulders.

  Don’t be stupid, McCloud. Not only was this woman his partner, but he didn’t even know if he could trust her or not. Although it wasn’t like he’d trusted her the first time he’d fallen into the sack with her, either. Apparently, he liked an edge of danger in his serious relationships with women. Which made him officially an idiot. Or drunk. Or both.

  “Thanks for coming to my defense against the peroxide super villain back in the bar,” he murmured.

  “And thank you for taking on Mount Marine in my behalf. He’d have killed you if it had come down to a fight.”

  “T-Bone? Nah. I’ve taken him before.”

  She blinked up at him, surprised. “Really?”

  “Yeah. And last time I wasn’t motivated to defend my woman from the bastard.”

  “Your—” she breathed, breaking off abruptly, as if the notion shocked the hell out of her.

  God knew, it shocked him. Was that how he thought of her? His woman? In spite of everything she’d failed to share with him before? Sonofabitch.

  “Whew. That vodka’s going straight to my head,” she muttered, swaying just a little.

  “Didn’t your daddy ever tell you not to mix beer and hard liquor? It’ll knock you on your ass.”

  She giggled a little. “My daddy thinks anything stronger than milk is the devil’s drink. Whiskey’s only for cleaning wounds in his world.”

  “Boring bastard. How’d he ever manage to land a woman and have two kids?”

  “My mom was hot. I look like her—but not as sexy as she was. That’s why my father hates me. I remind him of her.”

  She might not be officially drunk, but apparently the vodka was making her a little more brutally honest than usual. Or maybe it was her promise to be honest with him kicking in. Letting down his guard around her was a mistake. His rational self knew it as surely as he was standing here. She could still be lying to him. Could still be trying to distract him from thinking about her family and what they were preparing to do.

  But he was contemplating stripping her down and crawling into the sack with her as surely as he was standing here, too. Dumb idea, McCloud. Damn. Maybe he’d had more to drink than he realized. Or maybe the stress of the past few weeks had finally caught up with him. Either way, he felt an irresistible urge to cut loose and make love with her.

  Sleep. They both needed to sleep off the booze they’d imbibed. His head would be clearer in the morning. “Bedtime for Piper.” He lifted her plain white t-shirt over her arms and then over her head. “If it came to a choice between me and your father in a firefight, which one of us would you save?”

  “Duh. You.” Her voice was muffled by the cotton and he gave a quick yank. Her face, partially covered by mussed hair, popped into sight.

  “Seriously? You’d choose me over your family?”

  “Love is thicker than blood.” She punctuated the statement by poking him in the chest with her index finger.

  “Love, huh? You drunk, Roth?”

  “Not nearly drunk enough. Where’d you get those little bottles of vodka from?”

  “I have a better idea.” He swept his arm around her waist and pulled her up against his chest. “Let’s get drunk on each other.” What the hell was he doing? This was madness. The last thing he needed to do was further complicate an already complicated relationship by sleeping with her again. Crap. How drunk was he?

  She laughed and looped her arms around his neck. “I’m always a little drunk on you. As soon as you touch me, boom. There goes my brain.”

  God, he totally knew the sensation. She did the exact same thing to his brain. He grinned down at her. “Good to know. Any other classified information about yourself you’d like to divulge to me, seeing as how I won’t remember it in the morning?”

  “I like it when you go all alpha male in bed.”

  “Yeah? What else?”

  “I like it when you hold me afterward. It makes me feel like you care about me and not just the sex.”

  Was that true? Did he have feelings for her beyond the gratification of the moment? God knew he’d put his neck on the line for her more times than he cared to think about. “Continue.”

  “I’m scared,” she whispered.

  That made him draw up sharply and stare down at her in the neon glow of the city outside. The original badass chick wasn’t scared of anything? “Scared of what?”

  “That I’ll die—that we’ll die—without ever finding out if what we have between us could be more.”

  “More than what?” His throat was inexplicably tight when he spoke the words.

  “You know. More than fantastic sex.”

  Fantastic? That was how she rated their sex, huh? He wouldn’t disagree with the assessment. “Why might we die?”

  “What if we get exposed to the virus? We’re in Las Vegas. What if this is where the virus was released? We could both already be infected.”

  He stared down at her, appalled. “Wouldn’t there be only a short exposure time to a limited number of people who were right next to the virus when it was turned loose?”

  “God, no. Any viral weapon worth its salt will go contagious before its carriers become symptomatic. Surfaces and food sources and the air all over town could be saturated with the virus by now. It’s been, what? Three or four days since Yusef could have been here in Vegas? At least half the town could be dead men walking.”

  He looked over at the air conditioning vents in panic. “We have to get out of the city!”

  “Too late. That blonde kissed you, right? If she’s exposed, you’re toast.”

  “You kissed T-Bone,” he declared, appalled.

  “Did not. He kissed me. And I kissed you, too. Yup, we’r
e all toast.”

  “How can you be so relaxed about this?” he exclaimed.

  She draped her arms over his shoulders and ran her fingers through the short hair at the back of his neck. “I figured the only way to stop this virus would be to get close to it. I pretty much expected to die once I realized what we’re up against. Didn’t you?”

  Hell, no, he didn’t! He had stuff to do with his life. A wife. Kids. Hell, grandkids. Dammit, he wasn’t ready to die! “You seriously think you’re going to die on this op?” he asked her in disbelief.

  “Well, yeah.” Her words were starting to blur. That vodka she’d slugged was catching up with the beer. “I’m throwing myself on my sword to redeem the family honor. Someone’s gotta make up for what my dad and brother are doing.”

  Was that what she was doing? Sacrificing herself to even the karmic scales of her family’s crimes? His cell phone rang and he disengaged from her. Saved by the bell.

  “Yeah?” he said irritably into the device.

  “Agent Starkohl, here. FBI Los Angeles bureau chief.”

  Mike went on full battle alert. “What have you got? Did Abahdi break and talk?”

  “No. But his daughter did.”

  Mike shoved his free hand through his hair in distress. Jesus. The FBI was breaking eight-year old little girls, now? He understood the necessity, but it didn’t sit well with him. She was just a kid. It wasn’t her fault her mother had died and her father had lost it.

  The FBI agent was talking again. “She says they flew into Mexico and drove into the States in the back of a big truck. Her daddy took her to Las Vegas to celebrate her birthday at, and I quote, the most wonderful circus ever. With clowns and elephants and pretty ladies. End quote.”

  One of the big hotels on the Strip was circus-themed. Mike swore under his breath. “The virus? Where did he dump the coolers?”

  “She said he left with the big white boxes right before they left the shiny city. When he came back to the hotel room, apparently, he didn’t have the boxes any more. Las Vegas is the target. I repeat. Las Vegas is the target. And the virus has been released.”