Cowboy, Undercover

by Vicki Tharp

  “You get used to it. If you get desperate, I can help you with the saddle sores too.” Yeah, it was a cheesy line, but it was meant to be funny, not as a come on. Though if she was inclined to take him up on his services, he most certainly wasn’t opposed.

  She laughed. Around a bite of her sandwich, she said. “Good to know my ass is in good hands.”

  “That’s why I joined the ATF. To serve the community.”

  “Dork.” The tension in her shoulders eased, and her smile widened. Not many people could get away with calling him a dork, but when she smiled at him like that, she could call him anything she damn well wanted.

  His gaze dropped from her eyes to her lips. She swallowed hard and leaned in a fraction like she was going to kiss him. “Thirsty?”

  It took him a second to switch mental gears. “Yeah.”

  She got up and rummaged around in the back of the helo and came back with a bottle of water. “Mind if we share? I don’t want to have to restock the water supply as well.”

  “Sure.”

  She took two long swallows and passed the bottle to him.

  The hanger and the mountains were to their back, and they stared out over scruffy foothills that settled in the distance to flat plains. Nothing but the razor-wire-topped security fence marred their view as the coal black night lightened a fraction with the hint of dawn.

  Besides a pair of security guards patrolling the grounds of the airport—who were off somewhere doing whatever the security guards did—he and Tessa were all alone.

  The bottle of water she’d handed him was warm, but he didn’t care. “You guys got a little bit of everything back there.”

  She waved her hand in the general direction of the Blackhawk’s shadowed interior. “You’d be surprised at what we’ve got squirreled away back there. Sometimes we are tasked with search and rescue missions. You never know what you’ll need in an emergency.”

  He was thirsty enough that he could have polished off the whole bottle without trying hard, but only drank half before passing it back to her. The silence wasn’t awkward, but it also wasn’t quiet. It hummed with the electricity snapping between them. She leaned in as close as she could without squishing the food and rested the side of her head on his shoulder, her thumbnail toying with the bottle’s label. Despite their long day and intense night, frenetic energy wafted off her in tumultuous waves.

  “Tired?” he asked around a bite of cold burger.

  “Exhausted. Wired. Frustrated. Mad. Sad. Concerned.”

  “Rivera and Lang are in good hands—”

  “It’s not that.” Tessa sat up straight, brushing away some of the stray hairs that had escaped her ponytail. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m worried about them. They’re my colleagues, my teammates, my friends. But like you said, they’ve got a great team of doctors.”

  “Then what are you worried about?”

  “You.”

  “Me?” A strange warmth bloomed in the center of his chest. Unexpected. Foreign. But not outright unpleasant.

  “It was a crap night. Lang and Rivera are in the hospital, you killed a guy—”

  “You can’t only look at the downside.” He reached for the fries. They were limp and frigid. He ate them anyway. Beat the hell out of eating an MRE on the hairy ass end of the Hindu Kush. “You have to see the good, too. The good guys survived. Not all the bad guys did.”

  Tessa smiled, but it stumbled and fell far short of her eyes. “I never figured you for a closet optimist.”

  Gil shrugged. Optimist? Maybe. Not the unicorns that fart butterflies kind, but the good conquering evil kind. It took up too much of his mental energy to maintain pessimism. You couldn’t survive the months deep undercover unless you believed in your heart that you would make it out the other side.

  “If I asked you something personal, will you answer me honestly?” From the way she focused on the fence instead of on him, it wasn’t going to be an easy question to answer.

  Not knowing where she was going with that question, Gil popped the last bite of his sandwich into his mouth to buy him some time. Whatever this was starting between them, he didn’t want to base the foundation on a bed of lies.

  “Shoot,” he said.

  “How does it feel to kill a man?”

  The one question everyone he knew in law enforcement or the military hated to hear. She didn’t ask it the way most people did, with a morbid curiosity. She asked it like she didn’t want to know but wanted to understand. He didn’t get the impression she’d ever asked that question of someone before.

  He usually avoided those types of questions, using humor to deflect. He’d come to terms with what his profession sometimes required of him. He was his harshest critic. But somehow, Tessa was different. If he told her the truth, no matter what he said, he didn’t get the sense that she would pass judgment.

  She turned and looked him in the eyes as if no answer would frighten her. She wasn’t that kind of woman. She’d served in the military, was accustomed to being around people who had had to kill to protect themselves, their teammates, their country. If anyone could understand, she could.

  Still, he hedged. “I’m not sure I have the right answer for you.”

  “I’m not looking for a right answer, just an honest one.”

  “Otherworldly,” was the descriptor he settled on. “For me, there’s this disconnect. Like I know it’s me who’s taken that shot, taken that life, and I think that I should feel guilty, that it should make me feel sick or twisted or wrong. But I don’t. Killing doesn’t thrill me or make me feel powerful. I did it because I had to.”

  Tessa reached over and rested her hand over his, her fingers fitting neatly between the grooves of his knuckles. He liked that she didn’t pull away, liked that despite the literal and figurative blood on his hands, she saw a man and not a beast.

  But there was something else to killing that he’d never tried to articulate before, but for her, knew he had to try. “But I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t this heaviness, this blackness that has brushed my soul. Like I’m marked. Like killing has set me apart from the rest of the world.”

  “Does it give you nightmares?”

  “Sometimes, but for the most part, no. I’m not saying it hasn’t affected me because I’m not anywhere close to the same man I was before. But what gets to me the most, what fills me with the most guilt, is that it doesn’t bother me the way it bothers a lot of my brothers and sisters in arms.”

  He turned his hand over and linked their fingers, her touch taking the sting out of his words. “There are many that have trouble coping, suffer from PTSD, and they drink and self-medicate, and even worse, commit suicide. I don’t know how I’ve been lucky enough to escape the worst of that.”

  Her thumb rubbed soft circles on the palm of his hand. “What haven’t you escaped?”

  This woman got bonus points for her perception. He gathered his thoughts, then said, “The lies. You would think the killing would be the worst, but living day in and day out in a world where the truth will get you killed, where the people you interact with daily are the type to stab you in the back—not have your back—makes you jumpy and paranoid. Living in a place where trust is a four-letter word skews your perception of yourself and your world.”

  She turned her head, pressed a kiss to his shoulder. “Thank you.”

  He blew out a soft, self-deprecating chuckle. “What for? Depressing the hell out of you?”

  “For telling me.”

  She rested her head on his shoulder again. He should pour her into her Jeep and take her home. But he was a selfish bastard and liked having her all to himself, especially now that there was the possibility of him disappearing under cover looming. If that happened, there was no telling when, if ever, he’d get her alone again.

  Shifting, he turned toward her, intrigued by her answer. She was unlike any woman he’d ever been with. Not that he was with her, but—

  One second, he was staring into her eyes, and t
he next, her lips were on his. Not tender or tentative. She fisted her fingers in his hair that had been due for a cut a couple months ago. Her teeth scraped his bottom lip and raked against his thick beard.

  One of the security guards zipped by in a utility vehicle, the headlights blazing a trail in front of him. The guard either hadn’t seen them or hadn’t cared they were there. Cupping her cheeks, he pulled back.

  “Whoa, now.” He hated to stop her but needed to anyway. After the night they’d had, she was too vulnerable.

  “Yeah…that would be a no.” She reached across and ran a hand up his thigh.

  If he were a good man, if he were a smart man, he’d stop her, despite what she’d said.

  “You’re not the bad boy you pretend to be, Gil Brant. You’re a good man, an honest man. Two qualities that I admire.”

  By her open expression, she wasn’t blowing smoke. That warmth he’d felt in his chest earlier, spread. Admiration? That’s the last thing he’d expected after revealing a side of him he’d always kept to himself.

  Most people couldn’t handle his dark, sometimes depressing truth, but this strong, forthright, amazing woman admired it.

  But there wouldn’t be anything to admire if he took advantage of the situation. He had the experience. He knew what this moment between them was. This was the adrenaline, this was the relief, this was to forget, this was to feel alive.

  This wasn’t real.

  This was something she was going to regret.

  As she cupped him through his scrub pants, she deepened the kiss and shifted until she was straddling his lap. He scooped that luscious ass of hers and pressed her tightly up against him. She made a strangled noise at the back of her throat that made his heart trip, and his dick twitch.

  Yeah, nothing here for her to admire, because though he knew it was wrong, he wasn’t peeling her off him.

  She grabbed the hem of her shirt and yanked it off her head. Holy mother of all that’s glorious and hot. Turquoise looked damn good on her. He ran his hands up her sides, over her ribs, kneading her breasts. He leaned into the kiss, a hum, a vibration running through his body like the drone of the helo’s engines only instead of putting him to sleep, the kiss woke him up.

  It woke everything up like a jolt of nuclear strength caffeine mainlined into his veins.

  She pulled away, her eyes meeting his. Dawn had pinked the horizon, highlighting the question in her eyes as if she was unsure what this was. This thing, this powerful thing that was growing between them. In Gil, it awakened the big beast of emotion he preferred stayed asleep. Could he slay the beast? Or would that beast rip and claw and tear him apart?

  But then she took his head in her hands, and all higher thought vanished. All that was left to him were his senses. The faint scent of exhaust and bleach on the deck. The tang of the spicy mustard from her sandwich on her tongue. The grip of her fingertips on the back of his neck as she twisted her body and pulled him down to the hard deck of the helo.

  Gil reached out for one of the thin wool emergency blankets stowed behind some cargo netting. It wasn’t a cushy pillow top mattress, but if this thing was happening— and by the way her fingers fumbled with the drawstring of his scrub pants, this was happening—he wanted it to be as comfortable for her as possible. They broke the kiss long enough for him to lose his shirt and to scoot farther inside and the blanket was more or less beneath them.

  “Don’t stop now.” She was laying on her back, he stretched out on his side along the length of her, his fingers drifting up her belly.

  Beneath his touch, her muscles fluttered. “Trust me,” he said, “I don’t want to stop.”

  He pulled the black band out of her hair, slipped it over his wrist, and ran his fingers through her hair.

  A smile lifted the corners of her mouth, and he couldn’t keep from nipping at her bottom lip. She bit back, her teeth scraping against his beard.

  He hadn’t taken Tessa Sterling for the kind of woman who was a passive participant in life, and she didn’t disappoint. She slipped a bold hand beneath the waistband of his scrubs, her fingers trailing up the hard length of his shaft, teasing, not timid. He hissed in a breath. Nope, not passive, which ramped up the sweet baby Jesus factor by a good eleven and a half points.

  He rolled onto his back, taking her with him and settling her between his legs. Her pelvis aligned with his and he squeezed her ass and pressed her against him. She dropped her forehead on his chest, a moan of pleasure ripping from her throat.

  She sucked in a breath. “Right there. Wait, no, higher.”

  He changed his grip, and the groan that ripped from her throat came out a mixture of pleasure and pain.

  “Sore?” he asked.

  “Stupid saddles. I don’t know why they have to make them so hard.”

  Gil barked out a laugh, moving his hands a little higher on her firm ass, digging his thumbs into the sides of her glutes, his fingers digging into the dense muscle beneath her tailbone. She writhed, the meat of her fist tapping the steel deck. “Hurts,” she managed as she buried her face into his chest. “Dear God don’t stop.”

  He wouldn’t, couldn’t deny her. He massaged her sore muscles, the noises she made short-circuiting his brain and simmering his blood. Then the tenor of her moan changed and then all those little sounds had less to do with sore muscles and a lot more to do with a building need. He knew it because he felt it too.

  5

  As much as Tessa would love to lay on top of Gil all day and have him massage the soreness out of every muscle she owned, they didn’t have that kind of time. It wouldn’t be long before the tiny local airport opened. With the helo pad out of the way and off to one side, the likelihood they’d be discovered decreased, but was not eliminated.

  Which kind of turned her on.

  She worked her way down his body, nipping and licking at his flat nipples. His hand slid up her back, catching the clasp of her bra and snapping it free with an expert twist of his wrist. She slid her arms free of the fabric, and she tossed it toward the cockpit, refusing to dwell on his expertise. She didn’t want to know how many women he’d slept with, because those women didn’t matter. He was here. With her.

  Her tongue trailed down his centerline, dipped into his belly button, then traced a lazy trail through the patch of hair north of his waistband. His fingers fisted into her hair, the gentle tugs electrified her scalp, sending salvos of need rushing south dampening her panties. She wanted him.

  In her hands.

  In her mouth.

  In her. Now.

  She tugged his scrubs down his legs, and he toed off his boots and kicked the clothing free.

  “Much better.” She slid a hand up the inside of his thigh, her fingers coming to rest at the root of him. He made a sound in the back of his throat that sounded more like frustration than lust.

  He gripped the back of her neck. “Come here a minute.”

  Seriously? “You’re kidding, right? I’m about to get to the good part.”

  She’d been cock blocked before, but never from the guy she was about to go down on. Did he not want this? She took a quick glance at his glorious erection, at the gleam of precum at the tip. No. It wasn’t just her who wanted this.

  She crawled up his body, laying on her side, her head in one hand as she gently stroked him with the other, the softness of his skin a stark contrast to the long, hard length of him.

  He folded a hand behind his head and looked at her. “I know you’re trying to distract me from what happened tonight. I appreciate the thought, but you don’t have to do this.”

  She threw a leg over his and rolled against him as she kept up the slow, languorous, strokes, more amused than put off. He was a good man, the type that wouldn’t want her to do anything she might later regret, but she wasn’t that kind of woman. She knew what she was doing. She knew why she was doing it.

  Did she want to help him forget, if only for a moment? Without a doubt. But having sex with Gil was about taking her
life back. About staking a claim. About not letting what her ex had done to her hold her back from living her life any longer.

  “You think I’m doing this all for you?” When he didn’t answer, she said, “I’m not that altruistic. I’m a single mom who rarely gets the time away from her son to shop for groceries, which pretty much puts sex off the table.”

  “But that’s what this is. Sex. Release. I don’t want you doing this for the wrong reasons, because you think I need—”

  She pressed a kiss to his lips. “That’s some of it. But that’s not all of it. Not by a long shot.” Because he had gone all serious on her, she wanted to lighten the mood. “If the release was all I was after, I could take care of that by myself at home.”

  He closed his eyes, and his head fell back. “Quite the amazing visual.” He thrust against her hand and huffed out a laugh. “You don’t play fair.”

  “Nope.”

  He slid a hand up her arm, past her shoulder until his fingers brushed the back of her neck. He hooked his thumb under her jaw and tilted her chin up until she was looking him in the eyes. “What are you saying then?”

  “Do I have to spell it out?”

  He nodded, a tight, teasing smile on his lips as if the answer was more important to him than he wanted to let on.

  “I like you, Gil Brant. Simple as that. It’s not the dry spell talking either.” Though she supposed it would have to have had a beginning and an end to be considered a spell. “Though in the interest of full disclosure, this spell is like the Mojave Desert. Hot, dusty, and ready to be quenched. Think that’s in your skill set, special agent?”

  Something stark and raw flashed in his eyes, but he ducked his head and kissed her until her senses sizzled and her thoughts fizzled. “At your service, ma’am.”

  “Hold that thought,” she said as she sat up and leaned over his body.