Danger Close (18 page)

All he had to do now was see that container unloaded and put on the correct truck, then sail back down to Bermuda, where a private jet would be standing by to fly him back to Pakistan. A donation from a wealthy and powerfully connected Pakistani man. From Karachi he would make his way back to the tribal region in the northwest corner and plan his next move in this new phase of the war he was about to unleash.

But first, he wanted to bear witness to the destruction this first attack would bring.

Tipping back his head to breathe in the sea air, Rahim savored the moment. Everything was nearly ready. He’d do what he could to ensure it happened according to plan, then the rest was in Allah’s hands. And Rahim had a bone-deep certainty that He would reward his efforts.

Erin woke to the feel of a hand on her shoulder. It took her a moment to remember she was in the safe house, and that it was Wade’s hard body curled around hers.

She rolled to her back, fighting off the haze of sleep. “What?” she whispered.

On his side facing her, he reached out to smooth the hair back from her forehead that felt damp. “You were having a bad dream.”

She pushed the covers away to cool her body down, aware that she was perspiring and her heart rate was elevated. “Yeah, guess I was.” She grasped at the fragmented images floating through her memory like wisps of fog.

“You were twisting and kicking the sheets away. Bad one?”

Bits and pieces came back to her. Blackness. The sense of being trapped in a confined place and the suffocating sensation it always brought. Screaming at David to stop, to come back as he boarded the Blackhawk that would take him to his death in the coming battle. “Nightmare, I guess.” She hadn’t dreamed about David in forever.

“Okay now?”

“Hmmm, yes,” she murmured, turning on her side to snuggle back into Wade’s hard frame. He wrapped one steely arm around her ribs and settled in close, his warm breath fanning the back of her neck. “What time is it?”

“Little after oh-two-hundred.”

She covered a yawn and burrowed back beneath the covers. It’d been a long time since she’d dreamed about the mine. Maybe the uncertainty about Rahim’s whereabouts and plans had triggered her nightmare. “I don’t like being confined,” she admitted. “Fell down an old mine shaft when I was a kid. I broke my leg on impact and couldn’t move. It was pitch dark down there. Took my dad over a day to find me, and only because our shepherd mix managed to track me. I’ve been claustrophobic ever since.”

He made a quiet sound to show he was listening, and tightened his arm around her. “Now I’m even more amazed at how you handled yourself in that cave with me.”

She snorted. “I hated every second of it, I promise you.”

“Maybe, but you still did it.”

“Yeah.” She was glad he hadn’t noticed her fear—or at least that it hadn’t gotten the best of her at a time like that. Facing a life and death situation like that, overcoming the claustrophobia had been easier than she’d imagined. Yawning, she cuddled deeper into his embrace. “Funny. I don’t seem to mind being confined by you though.”

His soft chuckle gusted against her nape. “That’s good to know.”

“And I was dreaming about David. A guy I dated a few years ago. We were together for seven months before he deployed. I loved him.”

Wade was completely still behind her, and she rushed to explain.

“He was killed by an insurgent two months before his tour ended. It was hard.” She swallowed, thinking of that horrible, endless ache of grief she’d carried around in her heart. At times it had felt like it would never end. She’d lost not only David, a good, kind man, but also all the dreams of getting married and having a family together. “Took me until about a year and a half ago to finally let him go.” To grieve for him and the loss of the life they’d planned.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured against her shoulder.

“Thanks. He was a great guy, and while part of me will always miss him, I know he’d want me to be happy. And right now I’m happier than I’ve been in a long while.”

His lips brushed across her skin, sending a shiver through her. “I’m glad.”

She drifted off again and woke a while later to the feel of his big, callused hand sliding over her naked back. She started to lift her head but he stayed her by pressing between her shoulder blades.

“Turn over,” he murmured against the top of her shoulder, his lips grazing her skin.

Complying with a sleepy sigh, she rolled onto her stomach. Cool air washed over her back as he drew the covers down, then those magical hands were gliding down her spine to her hips. “Thought you were sleeping,” she mumbled against the pillow.

“You said you don’t mind being confined by me and it got me thinking,” he said, his deep, gravelly voice sending a shiver through her.

“Hmm, about what?” she asked, intrigued. The idea of him dominating her in bed sent a wave of arousal through her. A half-dozen fantasies skittered through her mind, all of them involving her pinned beneath him while he teased her until she came.

“’Bout me showing you that I meant it when I said I can do better.”

Okay, seriously, the man was taking that to heart too much. “Wade, you don’t need to prove anything—” Her words died off when those powerful hands closed around her hips in a firm grip and a heartbeat later she felt the prickle of his whiskers against the base of her spine and a slow, lingering kiss, complete with a tender stroke of his tongue.

Mmmmm
.

“Wanna make you melt,” he whispered.

Somehow she managed to uncurl her toes and closed her eyes. “Already am.”

He made a low sound of male satisfaction and trailed hot, liquid kisses over her bottom and down the sensitive backs of her thighs. His hands tugged backward, urging her up on her knees and she went willingly. The drag of his teeth against the back of her upper thigh made her gasp, then the wet drag of his tongue across the spot made her moan. A hot throb started deep in her belly and spread down between her legs. With her weight resting on her forearms and chest, she kept her eyes closed, waiting to find out what he’d do next.

Still gripping her hips in a tight hold that she wouldn’t be able to break easily, he nibbled his way up one cheek, to the base of her spine, and down the other side. Erin shifted and squirmed against the sheets, melting for real. She was slick and swollen already, and so damn needy the anticipation was driving her insane. Her hands fisted the fitted sheet when he tipped her hips up even more and she felt the warm glide of his tongue as he licked at the throbbing flesh between her legs.

Gasping, she arched her back and tried to widen her stance to give him better access but he held her fast and took his time teasing and tasting her. The position should have made her feel vulnerable but instead it only made her hotter. Each soft stroke of his tongue made her legs tremble, turned her into a quivering mass of sensation as he licked and sucked the straining bundle of nerves at the top of her sex.

“Ohmygod,
Wade
…” His name faded out into a whimper as he slid his tongue inside her. She pressed backward, ignoring the commanding hold on her hips, and earned a chuckle in turn. He was so hard, so remote most of the time, she’d never imagined him being such a generous, attentive lover.

His grip was tight, strong enough to likely leave marks later, but his mouth was so tender and he was making it clear how much he enjoyed pleasuring her while having her at his mercy. In and out, he teased her with alternating flicks over her throbbing clit until she thought she’d go mad. When she was writhing and pleading he finally rose to his knees behind her and guided his erection into place. One hand palming her hip, he reached around her belly with the other and stroked her with his fingers. She rubbed back against the hot, hard length pressed against her, the pressure gathering deep in her core.

“Melt for me, Erin,” he murmured, then plunged into her from behind.

She cried out and gave into the sensation, her body closing around him in relief. He kept his rhythm slow and steady, working her with that taut, wicked body, each gentle stroke sliding across that hot spot inside her as his slick fingertips circled her aching clit. The orgasm built relentlessly, fueled by his control of her body. It seemed to build forever, intensifying with each thrust, each glide of his fingers, until she was gasping and moaning and shaking all over.

Wade groaned deep in his chest and leaned over her, nipping at the curve of her shoulder. She exploded with a wild cry, a million brilliant colors bursting behind her clenched eyelids. He grew harder inside her, his strokes growing rougher, faster, then a low, throaty growl rumbled in her ear as she felt him tense and release inside her.

She lay curled up on her knees like that until he at last withdrew and eased her down onto her belly once more. Her skin was damp with sweat and her breathing was still erratic, but her heart squeezed tight when he came back from the bathroom with a damp cloth to clean between her legs. He took it back into the bathroom then slid in beside her and eased her into his arms, her back to his chest.

“Okay, you’re right,” she mumbled, totally destroyed and too weak to move. “That
was
better.” So much so she could barely formulate a coherent sentence.

He chuckled and kissed the top of her head. “Yeah.” He sounded smug and she didn’t blame him. The man was lethal with what he could do to her body. She wasn’t ever going to forget him. She just hoped there was a way to make things work between them when she went back to Bagram. Long distance relationships like that rarely worked out long-term, but Wade knew what it was like and she was sure he’d be supportive. If she could just convince him to give this thing between them a shot once their time together here came to an end.

Willing her mind to settle, Erin sighed and told herself she still had time to make that happen. She may have gone into this with the intention of making it a fling, but now she realized her heart was involved way too much for that.

****

Wade’s eyes snapped open in the darkness. At first he wasn’t sure what had woken him. The house was eerily silent, magnifying the moan of the wind and the lash of the rain. There was no hum from the furnace, no rush of air from the floor vents.

That unnatural stillness must have woken him, and made all kinds of sense when he glanced over to find the digital alarm clock on the bedside table dark. Wind must have knocked the power out. Erin was still fast asleep, curled onto her side next to him. Carefully sitting up so he wouldn’t disturb her, he started to push the covers back and his cell phone buzzed on the nightstand. He snatched it up before it could wake Erin, who let out an adorable snuffle and shifted to her stomach beside him.

Frowning at the unfamiliar number, he quickly got up, grabbed the radio, his underwear and jeans from the floor and stepped out into the dim hallway. The phone went silent once more and when he checked, the caller hadn’t left a message. He could try tracing the number but doubted he’d have any luck figuring out who it was. The eerie stillness inside the house settled over him. To verify his suspicion he tried the light switch in the upper guest bathroom and wasn’t surprised to find the lights didn’t work.

As he started for the stairs his phone buzzed again with another incoming call. Seeing a different and familiar number on display this time, he answered, his pulse suddenly thudding harder. The director of the CIA didn’t call people at oh-four-thirty for shits and giggles, least of all him.

Wade eased the bedroom door shut on his way past and hit the stairs, his bare feet silent on the carpeted runner. “Sandberg here,” he answered quietly.

“It’s Robert. Just wanted to give you the heads up that Schafer was cleared and released a couple of hours ago. I was just told, otherwise I would have let you know sooner.”

That was fast. Wade frowned as he headed downstairs. The wind moaned against the side of the house, rain drumming on the roof. “They’re so sure he was innocent?”

“I’m looking at the report now and I’ve seen some of the video. His story never once wavered and his polygraphs came back clean. Without any further evidence, there was nothing more we could do, so we released him. Thought you’d want to know.”

Yeah, in case Schafer was a lying, backstabbing piece of shit who was now on the loose and a possible threat to his and Erin’s safety. Maybe for the second time. “Thanks. Anything further?”

“Yeah.” The grim tone and the pause made Wade’s gut tighten as he waited for the man to continue. “We located the stolen truck early last night. There’s no sign of the material though.”

“Where’d you find the truck?” Wade asked. It had to be close to where whoever had stolen it was planning to use it—and his money was on Rahim.

“Just outside of Cancun.”

Ah, shit. Right on the Gulf of Mexico. He ran a hand through his hair, mind racing. “What did you find at the port? They had to move it via ship. There’s no way they’d try to fly it out—”

“We’re looking into every possibility, Wade. There were seventeen ships that left the port over the past three days bound for various locations in the US. So far nothing’s tripped our radar and we haven’t been able to find any radiological signatures, but you know as well as I do that it could be because the device is small or the signature is being blocked by whatever they’ve contained it in. I’m letting you know this as a courtesy, but I’m going to need you to come in soon. The moment we get a possible location on this, you’re heading up whatever team you want to lock this sonofabitch down.”

The hair on Wade’s arms stood up as a rush of relief swept through him. “Yessir.” And he wouldn’t have it any other way. Rahim was his responsibility. “What are the odds Rahim’s still in country down there?”

“I’d say slim, but you know him best. What do you think?”

He’d prefer to have this conversation face to face in Robert’s office rather than over the encrypted phone, but in the interest of time it couldn’t be helped. “I’d say it could go either way.”

Robert grunted. “Was afraid you’d say that.” He cleared his throat. “Okay, stand by for my call and be ready to go.”