Bare Nerve (16 page)

Horny fool.
Yes, that was the image Jack wanted his men to have of him. “I’ve never lost my focus as leader of this team, Harry.”

“I know that. It was my mistake to think the woman was the one making you weak.”

“I’m not weak.”

“I know that.”

“Don’t forget it.”

“I won’t,” Harry said.

“Did you get any intel from Andreev regarding his location?”

“No. He was pretty terse in the messages, which came through the Savage Seven Web site.”

“Man, he has some nerve thinking he can use our own resources against us. I don’t want that to ever happen again, Harry. You made us all look like chumps.”

“I know. I’m more sorry than I can say.”

“I think you’ll have a few bruises to remind you not to screw up again.”

“Indeed. I already do.”

The morning was starting to heat up in the hangar as they rejoined the rest of the team.

“Harry, would you mind contacting Andreev again?” Anna asked when they returned.

“Why?” Jack asked.

“Well, we’ve been talking, and if we’re able to track the signal Andreev is using, we might be able to pinpoint his location. The Ahaggar Mountain range is vast and full of craters and caves. It could save us some time.”

Jack nodded at the team. “Good idea.”

“I can try to reach him, but if these guys go back to him, he’ll know he’s been compromised,” Harry said.

Bay came forward from his place away from the group. “I know of some men who can hold the men for a month or so.”

“But—” Anna said.

“No buts. That sounds good, Bay. Make that happen,” Jack said.

“I will.”

Harry turned to Anna. “What do you need me to do?”

“Well, can you contact him by phone?”

“I haven’t. But he sent me an IM message this morning.”

“Okay,” Anna said. “Let me see your device, and then maybe together Tommy and I can come up with a Trojan-horse-type program that will let us into his system.”

Tommy, Anna, and Harry went over to a small table and worked at the computer while Bay, Justine, and J.P. took the surviving Berbers to Bay’s friends. They decided to leave the deceased in the hangar. Charity would place a call to the local authorities once they were out of the area.

Jack didn’t like what had happened today, but he felt it had created a bond between his team and the Liberty Investigations gals. In a way it had made them into one team.

There would be no more dividing by sex or doing things in the “same old way” they had always done before.

Change was important—he knew that—and almost losing Harry the way they had cemented them together in a way only combat by fire could.

J
ack didn’t kid himself that Anna was going to welcome him into her room this night. So when they arrived at Tamanrasset and the team all headed up to their rooms for the night, he went to his. He had been in contact with Kirk, and the other man was now in the Ahaggar Mountains. Kirk would have a location for them to use in the morning.

Anna and Tommy had narrowed Andreev’s location to a fifty-mile area. It wasn’t as close as Jack would have liked, but it was close enough that they shouldn’t need to spend too long stumbling blindly through the caves looking for Andreev.

There was a rap on his door, and he got up to see who it was. Anna stood there in the hallway. “You missed dinner.”

“I did,” he acknowledged. He’d had enough of everyone and had wanted to be alone to think about the way Anna had looked at him after the team had taken their revenge on Harry.

“Why?”

He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. What are you doing here?”

“I missed you.”

“You did? Even though I’m a savage?”

“Yes, even though. It’s hard for me to explain, but I like the fact that you’re the biggest badass out there. Yet at the same time I wish you could be a bit more civilized.”

“I can’t be. Even before I was Jack Savage, I wasn’t a civil man.”

“Who were you, Jack?” she asked. “Please trust me with your past.”

“I will if you do.”

“What’s that mean?”

“Tell me about your kidnapping. You said it was someone you knew,” he said. He drew her over to the bed and sat down. He wanted to hold her, and when she didn’t pull away, he put his gun on the nightstand and drew her into his arms.

She took a deep breath. “Yes, it was someone I knew. Pierre Andre. He’d been stationed at an embassy with us before, and he had a daughter my age. But Amelia wasn’t with him in Algiers, and he often would give me letters from her. We were pen pals—or so I thought. Eventually Pierre started writing the letters in Amelia’s name.”

Jack listened to her story and felt the rage build in him. He wanted to protect the innocent girl Anna had been. “What kind of man manipulates a child?”

“I don’t know. But I did find out later that his daughter was being held by the same people who eventually took me. He had to turn me over to them to get Amelia free.”

“Doesn’t seem fair.”

“Little in life is,” she said. “Anyway, he took me to a group of Turkish militants. They wanted the British government to release several prisoners that were terrorists. And they thought my father would help them with that if they held me hostage.”

“But he couldn’t,” Jack said.

“Exactly. I do know my dad aged twenty years in those ten days I was gone. He was never the same again. My brother says dad had lost his faith.”

“Faith in what?”

“In people. Being an ambassador, he’d always believed in a certain goodness in all people—that people needed to communicate and know each other’s cultures. But my kidnapping changed him.

“I was kept for ten days, and Father had the SAS and some Algerian nationals looking for me. The Tuareg were the ones who found me first.”

“What did that do to you?”

“The kidnapping?” she asked, tipping her head toward him.

He nodded.

“It made me who I am. I mean, I’m serious when it comes to protecting myself. That’s why I get information. If I’d known Amelia wasn’t at boarding school, I would have known to be suspicious of her father.”

Jack doubted that. It was only in looking back that she thought she would have behaved differently, but he knew from experience that you seldom changed your behavior until the world changed you.

“I’m sorry, angel.”

She turned her head and dropped a kiss on his chest. “Thanks for caring.”

He held her for a few moments, stroking her arm and trying to think how to tell her his past wasn’t something she would be able to stomach. “I can’t tell you about my past, angel.”

“Why not? I’ll keep your secrets safe.”

“I wasn’t a nice man. And what you saw today with Harry—remember how that outraged you and made you upset with me?”

“Yes. But I think I’ve come to realize you’re the kind of man you have to be. Please tell me. I won’t overreact.”

“It’s not a question of overreacting. I don’t want to tell you, because it might change the way you look at me. And I like it that you think I’m the biggest badass out there.”

Anna smiled up at him. She really was the most beautiful woman he’d ever held. “I doubt a few dirty deeds are going to change my mind.”

“Trust me. Some of the things I did make the devil look like a Sunday-school teacher.”

“What were you?” she asked.

He tucked her head against his chest and whispered that he had been in black ops and that he’d organized coups and done the US government’s dirty work until they’d decided he’d outlived his usefulness. He talked for a half hour of all the gruesome missions he’d been on.

“Oh, Jack. I’m so sorry you were used like that,” Anna said. Inside she was shaking, trying to reconcile the man she had come to know with the monster he’d just described.

“It was a long time ago,” he said, his voice deep.

Not long enough
, Anna thought. Traces of that violent man still existed beneath the surface of Jack today. “I wish I could make that up to you,” she said.

“You do whenever I hold you in my arms.”

She was humbled by his words. And forced herself to shake off her own lingering doubts about his past actions. She knew she wasn’t a femme fatale or supersexy woman, but with Jack she always felt that way. Twice he’d made love to her, and both times he’d made her feel as if she were something more than just Anna Sterling.

She leaned over and kissed him. The sting of his five o’clock stubble was rough against her skin. She wrapped her legs around his hips as he rolled over until he was on top of her.

“I wanted to be on top,” she said.

“Not this time, baby,” he said with a wicked grin, lowering his body over hers.

“I want to explore you,” she said. “Take off your shirt.”

He did as she asked. “Now you do the same.”

She took her blouse off slowly, enjoying the way his eyes narrowed when she revealed her breasts.

“I love your breasts,” he said.

“Do you?”

His torso was hard with musculature as he rotated his shoulders. The light dusting of hair on his chest abraded her nipples.

Anna traced her fingers down Jack’s bare back. He was hot, and sweat dotted his skin, especially at the small of his back. She drew her fingers through the dampness, pushing her fingers lower under the fabric of his pants.

He reached between their bodies and unfastened his pants and hers. She slid her hands lower until she cupped his butt.

His touch moved over her breasts, rubbing circles around the full globes but not touching her nipples, which tightened in anticipation. Leaning back on his legs, he knelt between hers, tweaking both of her nipples and then skimming his hands over her stomach. He explored every inch of her body, watching her carefully to see where she reacted.

“Lower,” she said.

“Not yet. I want to take my time tonight.”

She reached out and stopped his hand from moving. He gave her a hard look, his blue eyes diamond hard with warning. She knew then that any illusions she might have harbored of being in charge were false. He captured her hands, drawing them above her head.

She couldn’t think as he thrust his tongue deep into her mouth and then lifted his head, biting at her bottom lip. He drew his hands down her arms and then slowly down her entire body, pulling her pants from her body and her shoes from her feet. She was left lying on the bed with her arms above her head wearing only her tiny, lacy thong underwear.

Anna felt so exposed as he stood at the end of the bed, slowly drawing his belt from the loops on his pants and then pushing his pants and underwear down his body in one long movement.

His cock was fully erect. He ran his hands down his own body, taking his cock in his hand and stroking it a few times. She saw a drop of pre-cum glistening on the edge of his erection, and she licked her lips, wanting to know the taste of him.

She pulled her hands away from the headboard and came up on her knees, crawling toward him. She put her hand over his, rubbing at the moisture there, taking it on her finger and bringing to her mouth.

He growled deep in his throat and lifted her off the bed. He sank down on the mattress, pulling her astride him, his mouth finding hers. Their tongues tangled, and she felt overwhelmed by him as his hands roamed all over her body, his fingers rubbing and caressing every inch of her skin while he made love to her with his mouth.

“Kneel up for me, honey,” Jack said in a raspy voice that sent shivers coursing through her body.

Anna knelt with one leg on either side of his hips. He wrapped his arms around her, and his mouth latched on to her nipple, suckling her strongly.

She gasped his name. Humid warmth pooled in the center of her body, and she rocked against him, feeling the tip of his penis against her center. She wanted more. She needed him deep inside her. She needed it now.

She ached for his penetration. This was nothing like the sexual encounters they had had before. It was more intense, more real, and probably because they’d both come so close to dying. She forced down the emotions that threatened to surface and focused only on the physical.

His cock was hot, hard, and ready between their bodies. She rocked against him, finding her own pleasure as he continued to lick and suck at her breasts. He held her butt in his big hands, controlling the movements of her hips. Falling backward on the bed, he took her with him, his mouth never leaving her skin.

He rolled her beneath him and explored her entire body, skimming his way down her sides, exploring every inch of her skin. She felt raw and exposed—wanted to reach for him and turn the tables, but she couldn’t. His hands and mouth were everywhere, turning her on and making her crave more of his touch.

Anna laughed and jerked in Jack’s arms as he found her ticklish spots. He moved farther down her body.

His hair was silky smooth against her stomach as he licked the area around her belly button and then put his tongue in. She arched off the bed, her hips trying to rise, but his hands on her thighs held her still.

He put his face right on top of her mons, resting his chin lightly on top of her clitoris and looking up at her. She wanted him so badly. Wanted to feel his mouth on her and his tongue and fingers inside her.

“Jack?”

“Hmmm?” he said, turning his head from side to side, caressing her with his entire face.

“Please…”

He moved back up over her body, stretching her arms over her head again. She gripped the headboard on her own. He moved his body over hers in one big caress that brought every one of her senses to hypersensitivity. She wanted him.

She couldn’t take any more of this slow buildup to passion. She wrapped her legs around his waist and tried to impale herself on his cock, but he pulled back.

He nibbled his way down to the center of her body, squeezing her breasts against his face as he continued straight back to her aching center.

She parted her legs, opening them widely for him, and he lowered his head, taking her in his mouth. First his warm breath caressed her, and then his tongue. His fingers teased the opening of her body, circling but not entering her as his tongue tapped out a rhythm against her clit.

She gripped the headboard tighter and tighter as her hips rose and fell, trying to force him to penetrate her, but still he held his touch only at the entrance of her body.

“Please, Jack. I need you. Now.”

He caught her clit between his lips and sucked her into his mouth at the same time that he thrust his finger deep into her body. She screamed as her body spasmed. She rocked her hips against his finger and mouth as he kept up the pressure, not letting her come down from her orgasm but building her up once again.

After she’d come down, Jack moved slowly up and over Anna. He was aching hard and needed to feel the silky smoothness of her pussy around him. She tunneled her fingers through his hair and pulled his mouth to hers. She was languid as she moved against him, her legs tangling with his.

Her hands swept up and down his back, sliding around his hip to find his hard-on, and stroked. She reached lower, cupping his balls in her hand, rolling them over her fingers, and he got so tight and so fucking hard he thought he was going to come before he could get inside her.

“Too much,” he said, drawing her hand away. “I want to be inside of you now.”

“I want that, too.”

She wrapped her arms around him. He loved the feel of her long, cool fingers on him. When she found the sensitive area at the base of his spine, tracing her finger in a small circle, awareness spread up his body in waves, and a shudder went through his entire body.

Jack drew her hand away from his body and linked their fingers together, tasting her with long, slow sweeps of his tongue against her neck and collarbone. She smelled heavenly…of sex and woman—his woman.