Dirty Dare: The Rescue (Sexy Suspense) (Part 1, spin-off to the Dirty and Dare Me series) (3 page)

“Safe for you or for him?”

Brynn’s reply was a grunt, concurrent with the sound of flesh meeting flesh. Sean forced himself to focus. He’d been awake for a half hour, but he hadn’t moved. Hadn’t made a sound. Why would he when every man’s fantasy was playing out on the deck directly across from his bedroom’s sliding glass doors?

This was no ordinary cat fight with hair pulling, nail scratching and voices pitching to piercing decibels that had to be endured on the off chance one chick would tear the shirt off of the other and expose a flash of boob.

Oh, no, this was much, much better. Marisela was clearly a master of
Krav Maga
while Brynn had her training in what he thought might be
Muay Boran
or another form of ancient Thai kickboxing.

Brynn was outmatched, but she wasn’t rolling over without a battle.

And as icing on the cake, both of them were wearing nothing but tight bike shorts and sport bras.

Sean may have died, but he’d woken up in heaven.

Unfortunately, the activity in his imagination was the only action he’d be getting anytime soon. He was exhausted, not from too much action but from a lack of it. The doctor had only started weaning him off the pain meds the day before. Had he been fully conscious when Brynn and Marisela had dragged him out of the hellhole where they’d found him, Sean would have refused a doctor’s intervention, preferring to heal on his own, stay sharp and narcotics-free.

But if he’d done that, he’d probably be dead.

Drifting in and out over the past two weeks, he’d heard enough of the doctor’s reports to understand his current condition. His broken bones were mending. The swelling in his eyes had gone down and the bruises on his face, chest, legs and feet were now all a nice, mustard yellow, indicating that his skin would soon be free of any evidence of what he’d endured.

The biggest hurdle—the bleeding in his gut that had resulted in a removed spleen—had not only been fixed with surgery, but the doctor had seen no evidence that he wasn’t recovering well ahead of expectations.

To prove how good he was doing, if only to himself, Sean ripped out the needle that had been filling his system with hydration. If he needed water and nutrients, he’d take them in the old-fashioned way.

The smacks, yelps and grunts that drifted in from the patio shifted back to conversation. He tilted his head to listen, unnerved by the way the voices drifted in and out as if someone was fucking with his internal volume control.

“I don’t like the idea of leaving you alone,” Marisela said, her accent more pronounced the longer they sparred.

At first, her accent had confused him. The Spanish lilt in her voice had been stripped down and trampled on some dirty South Florida street. Hot, sultry Miami? Maybe Tampa. Nothing farther north than Orlando or south of Key West, that was for sure.

Brynn, on the other hand, sounded so much like Jayda. Every time she spoke while he was half-conscious, his drug-induced dreams had been haunted by the woman he’d loved and lost. But with each waking moment, Sean realized that Jayda and Brynn had next to nothing in common. Yes, they were both whip-smart and emotionally icy, but Brynn was infinitely more sophisticated, reserved, and yet, surprisingly caring. She’d given him his sponge baths and changed his bandages with the efficiency of a seventy-year-old trauma nurse, but she never missed a spot. And though he wasn’t sure if he’d been awake or indulging in fantasies when he’d noticed, she seemed to tend to his old scars as much as the new.

She had the capacity to be soft, where Jayda had not. But despite this lingering vulnerability, Brynn Blake had earned unwavering respect from tough-as-nails Marisela.

That alone told him all he needed to know. The beautiful Ms. Blake wasn’t going to be easy to manipulate.

Didn’t mean he wasn’t going to try.

“We covered our tracks,” Brynn reassured, grunting as she kicked high, aiming for Marisela’s head. “No one will look for us here.”

Marisela caught Brynn’s foot and shoved her backward so that her bottom hit the mat with a painful-sounding plop.

“No one but the head of a secret government agency,” Marisela countered, instantly reaching out her hand to help Brynn to her feet. “You don’t even know what Dante Burke wants. With him or with you.”

“His orders were clear. Rescue Sean and keep him here until further notice. Easy enough orders to follow. Now, show me what you did there. How’d you anticipate my kick?”

As the women dissected the particulars of their fighting styles, Sean indulged in a moment’s worth of guilt for his misguided rescuer. Under other circumstances, Dante’s orders might have been easy to follow. But Brynn was ignoring one important factor. Sean had no intention of staying put.

But to facilitate an escape, first he had to figure out where the hell he was. His side of the room was dark, but sunlight shimmered around the edges of his bed. When he inhaled, briny air seeped into his tight lungs. If he stopped panting long enough, he could hear the distant cry of seabirds and waves rushing against what sounded like a sandy shore.

He definitely wasn’t in Birmingham anymore. Wherever he was now, it was nowhere near the chilly English coast.

He shifted in the bed, keenly aware of the plush mattress pillowing his bare skin. His bandages scratched against what he suspected were cotton sheets with thread counts in the thousands.

“He’s awake,” Brynn said.

When had she gotten so close? A straw teased the edge of his lips. He sucked it in, drinking greedily.

“
Comemierda
,” Marisela cursed. “He pulled out his IV.”

Brynn sighed. “Of course he did.”

The water was lukewarm, but the effect was not unlike a shot of aged bourbon in relieving his bone-deep thirst.

But it wasn’t enough like his favorite whiskey to keep him quiet.

“Where are we?” he asked, his throat burning.

She offered him the straw again, and he drank while she answered, “Spain.”

“Flew?” he asked.

“Your eardrums were too damaged,” she answered. “We took a boat.”

“I don’t remember.”

“I’m not surprised. Marisela pushed the button on your morphine whenever I wasn’t looking.”

“I didn’t want him to suffer,” Marisela explained, though Sean instantly recognized that she sucked when it came to lying. At least, when she didn’t care if anyone knew that she wasn’t telling the truth.

“She hates doctors,” he said, not entirely sure how he’d gleaned this piece of information.

“See?” Marisela snapped. “I told you he was listening to what we were saying.
Cabrón
.”

Brynn ignored her. “Which explains why she’s been so generous with your drugs. Luckily, the doctor kept track and started switching you to something lighter a couple of days ago. You’re still banged up, but you’ll live.”

“You don’t sound happy about it,” he pointed out.

She moved the straw out of his reach, and in the darkness, he couldn’t tell if she was being cruel or just trying to limit his intake of fluids.

“I’m supposed to be happy that Dante sent me in to rescue a man who was being tortured in the back of a warehouse of a disgusting slum? That’s not exactly my idea of a good time. But I am glad you’re recovering. I’m glad you’re alive. And I’d like you to stay that way.”

Though every molecule in his body ached, Sean chanced movement. When adjusting his position didn’t result in unmanageable pain, he pushed harder, attempting to sit up. Stars shot into his eyes, blinding him from anything except visions of sickening bursts of color.

“What are you doing?” Marisela shouted.

Something clattered to the floor. A splash of liquid sprayed across his arm.

“Pissing me off,” Brynn answered for him, tugging the blanket away from him to sop up the spilled water.

A second later, Marisela took over, pushing Brynn out of the room. Sean made a game out of trying to translate her bilingual rant—anything to take his mind off the nausea that roiled through him as his equilibrium battled with his body.

He recognized the word for
stupid
. And maybe the one for
bastard
. Trapped in a miasma of leftover narcotics and agony, he figured neither was unearned. He was stupid for trying to get up so quickly. And he was a bastard for lying around while two strangers took care of his sorry ass.

“You just wanted to see what would happen to her white bra if you spilled water on it, didn’t you?” she accused.

The thought hadn’t occurred to him, but now that it had, he wished the room wasn’t so damned dark.

“How long have I been in this bed?” he asked, his throat aching.

“Couple of weeks, but you’ve had physical therapy. The doctor taught Brynn how to—”

Sean sucked air into his lungs, then blew it out on a scream and pulled himself to a sitting position.

“What the hell…?”

Her words came in and out as if she were an announcer on weak-signaled radio. He fought to remain upright, telling himself that the sick feeling in his stomach would subside. He had nothing solid in his stomach to vomit. The dizziness would fade.

He tried to move again, but this time, she placed both of her hands on his shoulders and held him still.

“I said, what the hell are you doing?”

“Fighting…atrophy,” he growled.

“Fuck atrophy. You gotta rest.”

He shrugged away from her, causing his skull to split into four precise quarters and melt away from his brain. He froze, willing air to ease into his battered lungs, hoping his head would reform before gray matter oozed down his shoulders.

He’d been through worse—would go through worse if he didn’t get up and moving.

“Where were my breaks?” he ground out.

“
Qué
?”

She’d asked him to repeat himself. He wasn’t sure he could.

“Bones. Which ones…broke?”

“All of them. Now stay still until Brynn gets back.”

He moved a leg so that his foot slid off the side of the bed.

“Stop!
Por favor
. Brynn will tell you everything.”

Sean stilled, mostly because he’d zapped his energy. And besides, Marisela had begged. He had a strong impression that she didn’t make pleas easily.

She had saved his life. With Brynn. Classy, sophisticated, sexy, red-headed Brynn. And he had no idea why.

“Right. Blake. Brynn Blake,” he repeated, wondering if somewhere in the recesses of his battered brain, he knew why Dante would call on her to extract him.

“Sounds like Bond, James Bond,” Marisela quipped, easing herself onto the corner of the bed.

Sean snorted, even as the dip in the mattress caused his equilibrium to swirl. Like every other jerk who’d entered the spy game with visions of shaken martinis in his head, Sean had learned early that the legendary film franchise was about as close to the truth of counter-intelligence as he was right now to his hometown of Baton Rouge. Sometimes on-screen operatives got tortured for information in great cinematic detail, but they usually left out the part where it took weeks instead of hours to recover.

But Sean didn’t have weeks. He wasn’t even sure he had days. Those bastards were after Jayda—the woman he’d once been stupid enough to love, the woman who’d left him without a backward glance. When Dante had told him that she’d died, he’d believed him. Why wouldn’t he? But if she was dead, why had someone tried to beat her location out of him?

“Sweetheart, I’d pay big bucks for 007 to take my place right now,” he admitted.

“So would I,” Brynn said, sweeping back into the room.

She’d gotten dressed. Damn it. She’d traded her bra and shorts for a breezy white skirt, jacket and blouse. If not for her sky-high pumps, the designer cut of her clothes and the marked absence of a red-crossed cap, he might have mistaken her for a nurse.

“Why did you let him get up?” she demanded.

“Hey, he only got halfway,” Marisela protested. “Give me some credit. He’s a very stubborn—”

“—idiot,” Brynn supplied.

Sean couldn’t help but laugh, even if the burst of humor knifed him from his frontal lobe to his lower gut. “Honey, you have no idea.”

“I’m starting to catch on,” Brynn said. “You had three broken ribs and your eardrums were damaged. Your balance is seriously compromised. You need to stay in bed.”

He didn’t have the energy to fight her. He couldn’t even muster enough strength to express his appreciation for their help, even if he didn’t understand why they’d been called. Instead, he let them tuck him back between the sheets, plump the pillows behind him and quench his thirst with sips from a fresh cup of water, this one iced and with a lid.

If he’d been in any better shape, he might have enjoyed the attention. Dante must still value their friendship because he’d sent two hot babes to rescue him. Marisela was naturally dark, earthy and tough—the kind of chick he’d want watching his back on a dangerous op. Brynn, on the other hand, was fiery, smart and calculating. She could watch any part of him she wanted, as long as she allowed him to do the same.

As his vision blended the two of them into one, he thought about Jayda. If he combined Brynn with Marisela, he supposed he’d end up with someone close to the woman at the center of his pain.

Jayda had been so young when they’d first met. Eighteen, maybe? Nineteen? Even she hadn’t been sure since she’d been sold to the North Koreans when barely out of diapers and then used by them until a mission went bad and she was recruited by a European enterprise called T-45. In their service, she’d honed her ability to turn off her emotions and kill without question.

A new agent fresh out of Special Forces, he’d been assigned to thwart her latest kill order. He’d completed his mission, but not without cost. She’d gotten to him. Maybe it was the veil of death in her eyes that nearly covered the last shred of her humanity—but only nearly. Maybe it was her age or her beauty or her smarts. Either way, he’d let her get away. So when she’d gone AWOL a couple of years later while in the States, Dante had assigned him to retrieve her.

What started out as a search and destroy had ended up a rescue and rehabilitate. Then, he’d made the ultimate mistake of falling in love. Shortly after that, she’d left. She’d left the agency. She’d left the business. She’d left him. Until the day Dante had informed him of Jayda’s death, Sean had tried not to think about her in any way.