by Cindy Dees
Notably, she left out most of her fear and terror. But then, her boss and her teammates were also sitting in on the debrief. It wasn’t like she was going to admit to being panicked and overwhelmed in front of them.
And it wasn’t like he’d admitted to his own superiors how freaked out he’d been those last few days undercover, with his gut screaming at him to get the hell away from Mahmoud, but his head insisting he stick around to save Piper.
As for Mark Black, there had been no word from him. His supervisor on the international nuclear inspection team thought it was possible he’d gone on a short vacation over the weekend. In another eight hours or so, it would be Monday morning in Tehran, and they would find out if Black showed up for work or not.
In the meantime, they’d come over to the Pentagon to plan a rescue of the man in case he didn’t turn up.
Zane had been included in the mission planning because he was an Iran specialist and fluent in Farsi. Also, he suspected Piper had spoken to her boss on the side and asked for him specifically.
Knowing her, she wasn’t above playing the card of her recent trauma to get her way. Smiling a little, he opened the heavy glass-and-brass door for her and followed her into the Pentagon.
They were installed in a secure briefing room with a big-screen monitor on the wall flanked by two large whiteboards. The soundproof doors sealed shut, and Major Torsten turned to look at the three Medusas, his operations officer, who was a sharp guy named Beau Lambert, and Zane.
Torsten spoke briskly. “Okay, kids. The mission is to infiltrate Iran, find and secure Mark Black, and exfiltrate him...”
They brainstormed for a solid hour, and gradually a plan took shape. Personally, Zane thought it was freaking brilliant. He would never have thought of it himself. But then, he’d never had the tactical advantage of working with female Special Forces operators. They did, indeed, open up possibilities he’d never considered.
The whiteboards were carefully erased and washed, the browsing history of the computer attached to the big monitor deleted, and Major Torsten gathered up all his notes and locked them in his briefcase. He finished by saying, “I’ll get the plan rolling. If the rest of you would like to stand down for now, I’ll let you know when we’re green-lighted.”
“When will we know whether or not Black shows up for work?” Piper asked.
Torsten glanced at his watch. “Tehran is eight and a half hours ahead of Washington, DC. Black has a briefing at 9:00 a.m. Tehran local, so that’ll be 12:30 tonight here.”
Zane knew from long experience that a rescue mission could be green-lighted in a matter of minutes, or the decision could get mired in bureaucracy and take days or weeks to gain approval.
The first ride-share car to show up was small, so Zane suggested, “Why don’t Tessa, Beau and Rebel take this vehicle? Piper and I will call another one.”
To their credit, her teammates didn’t rib him—or Piper—but merely sent her quick, questioning looks. She nodded slightly, and the others piled into a car and drove away.
“Thanks,” she murmured. “I was getting claustrophobic sitting in that tiny, windowless, sealed room. I wasn’t quite ready to get stuffed into a car yet.”
Of course. It hadn’t occurred to him that a side effect of her captivity might be fear of enclosed spaces, but it made sense.
A car showed up in just a minute or two, and he held the door for her. As he slid in beside her, he murmured, “Need a window open?”
“No, thanks. I have to get used to small spaces sometime.”
“But you don’t have to do it all at once, today.”
She shrugged. “Actually, I do. If we get the go-ahead tonight, I may be trapped inside an airplane by tomorrow morning.”
“Are you sure you want to go on this trip? You’ve had a rough week. Maybe you should stay home—”
“Don’t coddle me. Aren’t people supposed to get right back on the horse so they don’t develop an irrational fear of riding?”
“They also say not to set yourself on fire to keep other people warm. The—” He broke off and glanced at the back of the head of the driver, then continued, “This party can happen without you.”
She shrugged. “We work best together as a team. And I would hate to sit at home, staring at the walls, knowing I’d been left out of all the fun.”
He huffed. But truthfully, he couldn’t argue with that. Staying home when his teammates went out on a dangerous mission would drive him crazy, too.
They were silent for the remainder of the ride to a hotel in northern Virginia. They checked into rooms Torsten had arranged for them, and Zane stared around the bland, antiseptic space. It felt weird to be alone like this after months living in tight quarters with Mahmoud’s men. His room phone rang, and he picked it up.
“Hi. It’s Piper. Are you hungry?”
He laughed, “Yes. I’m still not caught up after our involuntary fast in the woods.”
“Me, neither. But I don’t feel like peopling tonight. Wanna come to my room and order in?”
Thank God. He replied, “I’ll be there in two minutes.”
They found an online food-delivery service and ordered Chinese from a local restaurant. They each ordered two entrées, and the grocery bag full of white cardboard cartons ended up holding enough to feed six people. They had a picnic, spreading the feast out on the floor by the big glass window in Piper’s room and grazing until they were both stuffed.
He started packing up empty containers and Piper groaned, “Now I finally feel caught up on food. But I also think I can’t move.”
“A food coma is called for,” he declared.
They stretched out on her bed, and she rolled over to put her head on his shoulder. He let her.
He should probably establish some sort of professional distance between them if they were going to be working on the rescue op together. But not today. Tomorrow would be soon enough.
For one more night, he was going to hold her in his arms and pretend that the two of them could have a future together. Pretend that he wouldn’t head off to one end of the world on an undercover mission and disappear for months, and that she wasn’t a commando about to be bombing off to the other end of the world, jumping into hot zones herself.
She snuggled a little closer, and her lush hair rubbed against his chin, soft as kitten fluff.
“Comfortable?” he murmured.
“Best spot in the world to be,” she mumbled back. She sounded half-asleep. Did she even realize what she’d just said? Her breath settled into the light, shallow rhythm of sleep, and he followed after her, reveling in letting his eyes drift closed and his mind drift off into dreams of him and Piper doing other things besides napping together.
* * *
It was dark when Piper woke up. She felt safe, which registered as strange. She was very still so her captors wouldn’t know she was awake—
Oh. Wait. She was free. She and Zane had successfully escaped. She sagged against her pillow. Then frowned. Her pillow was hot. Hard. Resilient.
She raised up on an elbow and it finally dawned on her she’d been sprawled on top of Zane the whole time.
“Hi, beautiful,” he murmured in his deep, raspy voice that never failed to delight her.
“Hi. Sorry I woke you.”
“I’ve been awake for a while.”
“Why didn’t you wake me up and shove me off of you?” she exclaimed.
“I was enjoying watching you sleep.”
“That bad, huh? Do I snore like a freight train? Or drool? Or maybe talk in my sleep? Oh, God. What did I say?”
“You did none of the above. Although you did become restless while you were dreaming.”
“I dreamed I was back in that van. And it hit a trip wire on the road and blew up.”
“Jeez. That’s dark. Was I in the van when it blew?”<
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“We both were. I was frantic to get the back door open so we could jump out before it—I don’t know—hit the ground or something.”
He rolled onto his side without removing his arm from under her ear and gathered her against him. “We’re safe on the ground now. It’s all good.”
“Crud,” she mumbled against his chest. “I’m a wreck, aren’t I?”
“Not at all. Everything you’re experiencing is normal after a traumatic event.”
“You say that like this isn’t your first rodeo with trauma,” she commented.
“It’s not.”
“Tell me about it?”
“I’ve been undercover for most of my career. First with a couple religious cults, and then with several supremacist groups. Then Mahmoud and company.”
“Who was the scariest?”
He thought about that for several seconds. “Depends on the kind of scary you mean. The cults were scary because of how subtle they were. They played on people’s minds like nobody’s business. Lost, naive people got sucked in like dust bunnies into a vacuum cleaner. The supremacist groups were scary for how violent they were and how truly ugly their beliefs were. Mahmoud’s crew was terrifying because of how incredibly disciplined they were. I had no idea who they were or what they were here to do, and I lived with them for months. What kind of a fanatic does a person have to be to maintain that level of focus for so long?”
“Are you talking about yourself having to focus not to blow your cover or about them maintaining operational security like that?” she asked.
He stared down at her. “You think I’m a fanatic? I’m doing the same thing you are—serving my country by doing a hard job very few other people could handle.”
She frowned thoughtfully. “I don’t think of myself as a fanatic, but I guess an outsider might see the Medusas that way. We have to go to some pretty extreme lengths to prepare for the work we do. Particularly since we’re women.”
“I was startled by the brainstorming session with your team today. Having an entire group of women operatives opens up all kinds of unique possibilities for missions.”
“You have no idea. In today’s meeting we only scratched the surface of the sort of stuff we can do.”
“Tell me more.”
She stared down at him from the lofty perch of her elbow. “Well, we’re trained exotic dancers, and we wear fancy gowns with guns strapped to our thighs, drink champagne and play baccarat and seduce heads of state. It’s all very glamorous.”
“Stop,” he chuckled.
“Isn’t that what people think you do when they find out you’re an undercover operative?” she retorted.
“People don’t find that out about me. Ever.”
“Really? You told me without having any idea who I was.”
He used one finger to gently tuck a strand of her hair behind her ear. “I had a good idea of who you were. I spotted that class ring of yours—”
She glanced down at her West Point class ring, which Tessa had returned to her this morning.
“—and the quality of your character was evident in how well you handled yourself in a crisis. Most women, or men for that matter, would have been completely panicked. You kept your cool and worked with me instead of against me.”
“Well, yeah. You were helping me,” she replied.
“You let me help you, and that made all the difference. It’s why we both made it out alive,” he responded soberly.
“Was it that close a call?” she asked reflectively.
“I was told nothing, as in nothing, about the attack on the school. They set up the getaway van without my knowing, and when it came time to sexually assault you, I was chosen to do it because they didn’t want to leave behind any DNA evidence to incriminate themselves. You tell me what that sounds like.”
“They didn’t trust you, did they?”
“Nope. Had it not been for you, I would have bugged out and called in the authorities to grab them as soon as I realized we were going to attack the school. Had Mahmoud and Yousef not barged into the office when they did, I was going to ask you to call the FBI while I delayed their getaway.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“They were focused on finding Persephone Black at all costs. They would have shot everyone in that office, including you, if that was what it took to get her to show herself to them. I hoped they would take longer searching the school room by room before they came back to the office, but they were too fast.”
“It’s not that big a school. And I imagine the teachers were quick to volunteer the information that she would be in the principal’s office and not in any of the classrooms. Their focus would have been on getting those gunmen out of their classes as soon as possible.”
“I can’t blame them,” Zane muttered.
“How close was Mahmoud to killing me when you and I escaped?” she asked curiously.
“My guess was that, as soon as he handed over that fake rape tape, his bosses had everything they needed from you to secure your ‘husband’s’ cooperation. You had become expendable.”
“And they had a violent end planned for me?” She knew the answer, but she wanted to hear him say it. She needed to hear Zane say it. After all, she’d killed a man in those woods.
He shrugged. “You were trapped in that farmer’s house with me and then hunted through the woods. I think they made their intentions toward both of us crystal clear.”
Indeed, they had. Hassan’s death had been necessary. It had been a kill-or-be-killed situation. She took no pleasure in killing, but she could live with the necessity of it.
“How did you find Hassan, anyway?” Obviously, Zane’s thoughts were paralleling hers as he processed yesterday’s events.
She shrugged. “Once we were out in the woods, I flipped the script and hunted the hunters. The Medusas are taught to believe their training is superior to the other guy’s, and that we’ll be underestimated because of our gender. Often, we’re actually the aggressors when people are chasing after us in the mistaken belief that we’re the prey.”
“Handy, that.”
She smiled at him. “Yes, it is.”
His hand slipped under her silky hair, cupping the back of her head and very gently urging her down to him. It was more of an invitation than a demand, and she appreciated his continued gentleness and restraint. She leaned forward, propping herself on his chest and kissing him leisurely.
His mouth was warm and gentle, his kisses as lazy as a wide river on a hot summer day. She sank into him, into the lure of his mouth, loving how the attraction between them simmered today, easy and sure.
It was a relief to discover that the attraction between them wasn’t solely about fear and survival. And it was doubly a relief to discover that they still wanted each other now that they had returned to the real world.
Missions were fraught with danger and tension, and it was inevitable that the stress would find outlets. She’d been worried their hot sex in the woods had been nothing more than that to him, and nothing more than trauma recovery for her.
But the desire building in her now, filling her belly like magma flowing into an underground chamber, was reassuringly insistent. And frustrating in the best possible way.
This time, Zane took the lead, slowly undressing her, taking time to taste every new bit of skin he uncovered as he peeled off her T-shirt and stripped off her jeans. She returned the favor, savoring the soapy, male scent of his skin and the faint savory-sweet taste of soy sauce lingering on his tongue.
Tonight, they got to know each other’s bodies more thoroughly. She learned the textures and tastes of him, and he learned where all her most sensitive spots were and what felt the best to her.
He murmured words of praise and encouragement, and she murmured words of trust and assurance back to him. Eventually, she laughed.
“We’re both being so careful we’re starting to sound like a pair of nervous old ladies.”
“Speak for yourself. I am merely sensitive to the trauma you’ve experienced.”
“You can help me get past the trauma by treating me like a flesh-and-blood woman and not a crystal statue.”
“Done,” he murmured.
He drew her into his arms once more. But he still kissed her lazily as if he didn’t have a care in the world, no expectations of anything more from her. Thankfully, his erection was thick and heavy against her hip, or else she might have wondered if he found her attractive at all. The man had the patience of a saint.
Not so herself, however.
“You taste like sweet-and-sour,” he murmured.
“You’re rocking moo goo gai pan,” she replied, smiling against his lips. “But can we move this along?”
He laughed quietly, “But I like driving women crazy with desire. Trust me. I have a plan.”
“Crazy being the operative word,” she grumbled.
He eased her onto her back, smiling down at her and murmuring, “Let me have my moment with you. Imagining this kept me going for a lot of our trek from hell.”
“How’s that?”
“I spent hours thinking about what I was going to do with you once I got you naked. And after that night in the rain, I vowed that someday I would get you into a real bed and do every one of the things I’d imagined.”
“What happened by the campfire was premeditated, was it? And this? Do you have every bit of this planned out?” She looped her arms around his neck and pulled him down to her for a long, deep kiss that left her gasping for air and extremely impatient for more.
“I’m open to a little spontaneity,” he murmured against her lips.
“I’m relieved to hear you’re not entirely unable to change your plans,” she teased.