Danger Close (The Echo Platoon Series, Book 1) (14 page)

She nodded, wanting very badly to believe him.

Curling a hand around her elbow, he drew her toward the couch. "Have a seat," he offered. "I need you to tell me everything."

* * *

By the time Maddy had concluded her story, Sam's temples throbbed. Hearing her describe how she'd stood toe-to-toe with Hezbollah terrorists and lived to tell about it made him want to throw her over his shoulder and run for the airfield, where her father would be waiting in his private jet to take her home.

Maddy's sharp fingernails dug into his forearm. "Don't you dare think you can drag me out of here the way you did in Matamoros," she warned.

He exhaled forcefully, a harsh punctuation of sound that betrayed his frustration. "If anything happens to you," he added, "your father will ruin my career."

"He would never do that. Besides, nothing's going to happen." She sounded far more certain of that now than she had just minutes ago. "You just said yourself that you were going after these men, regardless of my description, and you expect to catch them soon," she added with a hopeful expression.

He had just told her that. Finding his hand on her shoulder, he lifted it to stroke her silky hair while considering her profile. The fact that the terrorists had let her live in the first place was a good sign. "I'm not going to let anyone hurt you," he said, meaning that he wouldn't hesitate to remove her from the country at the least indication of danger.

But her small smile of gratitude, accompanied by a pretty flush, told him that she'd taken his words to mean that he would protect her. That purely feminine response summoned an overwhelming desire to do just that—to stand between her and whatever harm might come her way.

He grew suddenly conscious of her thigh touching his. His gaze slid lower, snagging on the neckline if her thin cotton blouse, the one she'd substituted for the bloodstained top she'd worn earlier. He could just make out the curve of her breasts, lifted by the bra she was wearing. Even through the added fabric, her nipples played peek-a-boo, making it hard for him to keep his thoughts pure.

"I should go," he heard himself say. It was late. And in three hours, his platoon would pile into several Humvees and drive toward the Hezbollah camp to relieve Charlie Platoon's reconnaissance. He could certainly use the sleep between now and then to keep his senses sharp.

Maddy's face fell. Her gold-tipped lashes swept downward, covering stormy eyes that betrayed want and worry.

Oh, what the hell.
Stifling the doubts in his head, Sam tipped her chin up and crushed his mouth to hers. Her groan of relief sealed his decision to stick around a little longer. He hadn't intended for this to happen, but she was just so damned vulnerable and—damn it—he was only human.

The brush of Maddy's breasts against his chest proved irresistible. Gathering her closer, he filled his hands with her alluring curves until the blood stormed his veins and his senses demanded release.

Without a word, he swept her off the couch, carrying her in his arms to the dark bedroom. Keeping the lights out, he shouldered his way through the door and kicked it shut behind him. A platinum moon peeked through the curtains revealing an unmade double bed. The room smelled like the intoxicating perfume that was uniquely Maddy's. It doubled his temptation to stay. He lowered her onto the rumpled sheets where the moonlight found reflection in her eyes.

"Last chance," he warned, hovering over her.

By way of an answer, she pulled his mouth to hers, parting her lips, and kissing him with an open invitation to take it all the way.

Christ, he loved how sweet she tasted, how responsively she kissed, with a single-mindedness that made him wonder for a moment if she didn't have an agenda at hand other than just forgetting the events of that day.

But then he felt her working to part the buttons on her blouse, and none of that seemed to matter as he helped to expose her breasts. They were everything he remembered and more—soft and plump and tipped with perky, pink nipples. He lowered his head with a groan to close his mouth over a velvety peak. The sweet soft texture inflamed him.

She squirmed beneath him, intent on shimmying out of her shorts. Distracted, he paused to help her. A glimpse of plain cotton panties set his mind at ease. "You're wearing underwear these days," he remarked.

"It was really hot in Matamoros."

"Feels pretty hot here too," he said, watching her toe off her sandals and push her panties over her hips. His mouth went dry as he helped her draw them down her long, shapely legs.

Fully naked, she settled back against the pillows and arched luxuriantly, seeming totally at ease with her body—then again, why wouldn't she be considering how good she looked?

"You're beautiful," he heard himself say. Beautiful and every bit as dangerous as she'd been the night of the party at her father's house. "You should go home, Maddy," he said without thinking. "You don't belong in this place."

His words turned her rigid, making him want to recall them right away. For an awful moment, he was certain she would thrust him off the bed while ordering him to go to hell. She lurched upward and he braced himself for the worst. Instead of pushing him away, however, she pulled him closer, groping lower to release the button of his fly.

She tackled his zipper with gusto, keeping all words locked in his throat as she freed his erection. Her cool fingers encircled him, stroking him so sweetly that he almost felt like weeping.

"You want me to leave right now?" she inquired in a husky voice.

Her unpredictability kept him mute. Desire shackled him with invisible, silken restraints. The realization that she could wield tremendous power over him had him pulling reluctantly from her touch.

He lowered his mouth again to her tempting nipples, determined to discover what pleased her. With Maddy firmly on the receiving end, he would retain the upper hand, fully in charge.

* * *

Maddy yielded to the magic of the moment.
I can't believe this is happening
. After months of dreaming about Sam Sasseville, he was finally doing all those things she'd fantasized about, suckling her nipples into stiffness, blowing cooling air across the sensitive tips then drawing them intently into his hot mouth.

She sank her hands into his hair, reveling in its crisp, silky texture. He seemed in no hurry to join her in a naked state. Only when she arched her spine in silent invitation did he shift his weight lower. Raking his teeth over the curve of her ribs, he followed the sweep of his open hand across the plain of her abdomen toward her hips. Maddy lurched from his prickly jaw, unable to contain a shout of laughter.

His eyes glinted up at her. He neither laughed nor smiled but remained intently serious, sliding off the end of the bed to catch her feet in his hands.

She tried to snatch them from his grasp. "Oh, please, no."

He held her ankles fast, kissing the arch of each foot and making her gasp.

"Is this some kind of kinky Navy SEAL torture?"

He didn't answer. He was too busy pressing scalding, open mouthed kisses up her calves, toward the backs of her knees, and then to her inner thighs. She could scarcely breathe for the expectation filling her lungs.

"I'll tell you anything you want, just, please, have mercy."

And then he did, spearing his tongue into the swollen, feverish folds at the junction of her thighs. Maddy's hips came off the bed. She caught back another peal of laughter, one that ended in a moan as she threaded her fingers through his hair, riding the pleasure that his skilled mouth lavished on her. Gazing down, she was struck by the erotic vision of his dark head between her pale legs.
Dear God.

He muttered something sensual and beautiful in Spanish, but all she caught was
querida
—darling. In mere seconds, Maddy was fisting the sheet beneath her, out of her mind with pleasure. Heat breached the surface of her skin. Sensations too sweet to be contained bubbled over in an upwelling of ecstasy. She came in a powerful rush, riding the crest of sweet surcease for what seemed a lifetime before her pleasure slowly ebbed.

The realization that Sam Sasseville had just rocked her world kept her silent as he crawled up the length of her body looking down at her. His broad shoulders blocked the moon's glow. His eyes glinted in the dark. Her body thrilled to receive his weight as he stretched over her, pressing her down against the mattress. At the same time a thread of concern wove through her heart.

If he could render her completely mindless with his mouth, imagine what he could do with the rest of his body. Once he laid claim to her, nothing would ever be the same again.

He still wore his clothing, his pants sagging at his hips. She could feel his sex, pressing like a velvet brand against her inner thigh. Any second now, he would stretch and storm her, and make her his without even intending to. He had that much power over her. She froze, caught between wanting to welcome him and asking him to stop.

She was saved from having to do either by a pounding at the door.

Sam heard it, too. Bounding off her bed in one move, he pulled up his pants and fastened them, returning himself to a fully dressed state while she lay as naked and vulnerable as the day she was born.

"Stay here." As he left her room, pulling the door shut behind him, Maddy rolled off the bed, drawing the blanket with her. She wrapped it around her frame, aware that her knees felt spongy in the aftermath of that life-altering climax. Putting an ear to her door, she heard voices. Sam and another man exchanged terse, fact-filled words. Seconds later, the doorknob turned and Maddy scuttled backward. There was Sam, leaning through the opening, his gaze inscrutable and impersonal.

"Hey, sorry, but I have to go. That was my chief, Bronco. You remember him."

She could tell by his tone that he was chagrined his chief had come looking for him.

"All right." Disappointment vied with relief. On the one hand, her body still clamored for his possession. On the other, her heart and mind weren't ready to belong to anyone just yet. In her line of work, a woman had to be free and unencumbered. "I guess you'd better go, then."

He hovered for a moment, just looking at her, and she wondered what he was thinking. But then he turned away without another word, leaving the door cracked. She heard her front door open and close and, still, she didn't move.

Standing in a puddle of moonlight with the heat of their passion still radiating off the blanket enfolding her, Maddy didn't feel free at all. She felt abandoned.

* * *

As they left Maddy's condo, Sam shot Bronco a hopeful look. "When you say the CEO of Scott Oil is here, you don't mean Maddy's father, do you?"

"No," Bronco answered, disappointing him. "It's the new CEO."

Damn
. For a moment there, he'd dared to hope Maddy's father had shown up in his private jet ready to drag Maddy kicking and screaming out of the country and out of reach of the terrorists. Instead the new CEO, whoever he was, wanted to hold an emergency meeting in light of the attack on one of his oil wells. "Why the hell does he want to meet at this ungodly hour?" Sam groused.

A desert-like breeze, sharply colder by night than by day, cooled his overheated skin. His man-parts gave a throb of deprivation at the mental snapshot of Maddy's naked body, still so vivid in his mind.

"It's not just him," Bronco said as they hurried across the street headed for the TOC. "Some general from SOCOM is with him."

Sam paused at the mention of the Special Operations Command. "SOCOM doesn't have any authority over task units abroad," he objected.

"I know, but Kuzinsky said this general is friends with Maddy's father. That's why we were tasked with retrieving her from Matamoros."

Just as Sam suspected—Lyle Scott had friends in high places. But his thoughts seized on a more immediate concern. "Does Kuzinksy know where I've been?"

"I told him you couldn't sleep so you went out for a run."

Sam shot him a grateful look. "Thanks, Chief."

"Bamm-Bamm knows where you were, though. He's the one that told me."

"Right. " Bamm-Bamm had been keeping his word and watching Maddy's front door at all times, which was how Sam knew she'd been babysitting Ricardo's daughter earlier. He made a mental note to thank the young SEAL for his vigilance.

"After you." Bronco pushed the gate open and Sam slipped through it. Together they entered the administration building and hurried toward the TOC.

An immense stranger guarded the door with his arms locked around his massive chest and a brim of a baseball cap pulled low over his eyes. Sam sent him a curious glance and promptly did a double-take.

"Who's that?" he muttered out of the side of his mouth. Something about the man looked familiar.

"The CEO's bodyguard," Bronco whispered.

The bodyguard caught sight of them and wordlessly opened the door for them to enter. Sam was trying to determine if he knew him, but with seven sets of eyes now locked on his entrance, he relinquished the mystery and turned his attention to those in the room. Master Chief raked his rumpled attire with a suspicious once-over.

With a muttered apology, Sam took one of the two empty chairs while Bronco dropped into the other. Ricardo Villabuena wasn't in attendance, of course, as he was still in the hospital.