Heatseeker (Atrati) (19 page)

“Why?”

“Because you may hate my guts for walking away from you ten years ago, but you still trust me. And even though it has been ten years, I know you better than anyone else alive. Who better to hear the words that need saying?”

Her face contorted with a flash of grief, but she didn’t deny his words as she would have even twenty-four hours ago.

“Maybe they don’t need saying. Maybe I don’t need to talk about it. You got me out. That’s all that matters.” She sounded like she was trying to convince herself.

Maybe she was doing a better job with that than convincing him, because he didn’t buy it for a second.

“No.”

She gave him a naked look of such pained helplessness, he wanted to kiss her, to promise her that everything was going to be okay.

But that wasn’t what she really needed right now. “You want to keep Jamila safe? You need my help. You debrief.”

She didn’t say anything, but he wasn’t a fool. He knew this discussion wasn’t over.

He continued up to their room, pushing the door shut behind them with his hip once they were inside.

He didn’t release her immediately. She felt too good in his arms, and he wasn’t entirely sure of his control if they went to bed right that second.

“Kadin?”

“Uh-huh?”

“You need to put me down.”

“Do I?”

“Yes.” It was the smile in her voice that made him do it.

He wanted to see that expression. He released her legs, carefully lowering her into a standing position beside the bed. A small curve still lingered on her lips, and it was all he could do not to bend down and claim it for his own.

He stepped away, digging deep for his control as he stripped down to his shorts in preparation for sleeping. Maybe he should have left his fatigues on, but damn if a pair of pants was going to do what his willpower couldn’t.

Either he mastered himself, or he didn’t.

And not controlling his need simply wasn’t an option. She stood, unmoving and staring at the bed, the entire time he got rid of his boots, fatigues, and weapons. As if she didn’t hear him taking off his clothes right behind her. She would probably sleep in her scrubs, the way she had last night, but then, why didn’t she get under the covers?

He was starting to worry about that silent stillness. Was something wrong?

He moved toward her, intent on finding out what was going on in that beautiful head of hers.

“You’re saying you won’t help me with Jamila if I don’t debrief with you,” she said just before his hand landed on her shoulder.

He aborted his movement and considered how to answer. “I won’t help the way you think I should.”

“You’ll kidnap us both and take us out of Africa.”

“Yes.” And maybe he would, too, if she refused to take care of herself.

She spun to face him, her expression troubled and confused in a way that he hated seeing. “We’re on the same side here, Kadin.”

“No. You’re all about Jamila. I’m all about you.”

“Don’t say that.”

Fine. He would put it in terms Rachel could accept. “My mission is to get you safely out of Africa. Your long-term safety is reliant on you debriefing after what you went through at the hands of those bastards in the mountains.”

“They tortured me with a car battery. They weren’t even inventive with it.”

He nodded, not saying anything. It was her turn to talk.

“What difference does it make if I talk to you about it or wait until we get Stateside and talk to someone else?”

“You know the answer to that question.”

“Spell it out for me, anyway,” she demanded.

Fine. Maybe she needed reminding of what she’d been taught during training for her job. “The longer you wait, the more you will internalize what happened to you, making it a deeper part of your psyche.”

He wasn’t going to let that happen.

“Who taught you that? Or did you read it on the side of a cereal box?” The words were snide, but the expression in her pale eyes was nothing but wounded vulnerability.

“I’ve got a lot of experience.” And the Atrati were much bigger sticklers than the modern military for debriefing and psychological coaching.

“Who do you talk to?”

“My team.”

“They’re your family now.”

“No.” Damn it.
No.

He cared about the men and women of the Atrati, and he would die for any member of his team, but he hadn’t given up his family.

Just pushed them to a necessary distance.

“So, what are they?”

“My friends.”

“I don’t have friends.”

He’d already figured that out. “You push people away.”

“If you let them in, they’ll leave eventually. Everyone does.”

She had more reason to believe that than most. Even so . . . “That’s a lonely way to live.”

She shrugged. “I have my job.”

A job that had gotten her stabbed, shot, and so run down, she’d ended up in the hospital with the flu.

“You need more.”

She nodded, surprising him. And her next move almost paralyzed him with shock. Rachel shoved her scrubs down her legs and then pulled the top off over her head, leaving her completely naked.

And unlike when he’d given her the massage, this time she’d bared herself for him, giving him tacit permission to look his fill. And look he did.

“Rachel?” His voice cracked like a randy teenager’s, but, damn, if that wasn’t the way she wanted him to feel, she shouldn’t be standing there bare-assed naked in front of him.

“You said it yourself. I need more.”

“Uh-huh.” He didn’t have a clue what she meant, but agreeing with her seemed like a good idea.

The woman was standing there with her fists planted on her smooth, entirely revealed hips. And no matter how many other female bodies he’d seen over the years, there wasn’t a single one that had ever done it for Kadin like this woman’s.

She was five-feet-five-inches of pure, feminine sex appeal. His fingers spasmed with the need to touch breasts that would fit perfectly in his hands. Tipped with raspberry pink nipples hardened to morsels that made his mouth water, they were as real and genuine as the woman they belonged to.

Her body was more toned than it had been ten years ago, the curve of her ass just as tempting, her features more mature, her lips even more kissable, but her pale blue gaze was a lot less innocent.

And, holy hell, she was still the one and only woman he had wanted to spend the rest of his life with. The one woman who made all others forgettable in comparison.

She cocked her head to the side, studying him. “I remember that look in your eyes.”

“What look?” he asked, the words barely making it past his dry throat.

“The one that means you want sex.”

“I want
you.
”

She nodded, her eyes going heavy-lidded just like that. “Good. I want it, too.”

He noticed how she’d changed the desire from personal to generic, from his need for
her
to the craving for sex itself. Ten years ago, he would have called her on it.

Ten years ago, he would have had the right.

He didn’t anymore.

Besides, his cock was too damn hard with all the blood from his brain for him to think clearly enough to do much more than agree.

To whatever she wanted.

Thankfully, that was him right now.

Chapter Thirteen

T
hen a thought came to him. “You’re not getting out of debriefing by having sex.”

“Tonight I am.”

He opened his mouth to argue, but she shook her head. “Tonight, I want to forget. The pain, the terror, the certainty that death was my only way out.”

Shit.
“Whatever you need, angel.”

“I want to remember, too,” she said, as if she hadn’t heard him. “I want to remember that touch can bring pleasure bigger than the pain could ever be.”

“I’m not sure—”

“Shut up, Kadin,” she ordered. “With you, the pleasure is that big.”

Ten years ago, it had been, but that still hadn’t been enough to keep him by her side. Not when he’d felt the call to protect his country with his life and abilities. And he’d known it wouldn’t be enough to keep her with him once she discovered what he’d become.

She brushed her hair back over her shoulders before tweaking her own nipples. “I’ll make a deal with you.”

It about brought him to his knees. “Yeah?”

“Words for sex.”

“What?” He knew his head wasn’t working the way it should, but that didn’t make any sense.

“I’ll talk about it all with you, but you give me sex.” She brushed her hands down her body.

He couldn’t tell if she was pleasuring herself or teasing him by drawing attention to what she was offering. It didn’t matter. He wanted it. Wanted her, with an ache that had lived inside his gut for more than a decade and he was damn sure by now would always be with him.

“Not just tonight?” he clarified, praying it wasn’t just for that night.

Once he touched Rachel intimately, he didn’t think he was going to be able to give that up again anytime soon. If ever.

She shook her head slowly, the movement deliberate, her expression intent. “As often as I want it.”

He didn’t grin with triumph only because he wasn’t going to do anything to mess this up. If she wanted sex for talking, hell, that was all good as far as he was concerned.

“Okay.”

She put her hand out. “Your word?”

“My word.” He took her hand in his own but didn’t shake it.

This wasn’t a business deal, however she wanted to look at it. This was Rachel offering and asking for sexual intimacy.

His mind wasn’t so sure it was a good idea, but he was smart enough to accept that sex between them was inevitable if she wanted it. His body, on the other hand, was all about what a great idea it was, his cock so hard, it pressed the knit of his boxers out in an obscene lump.

He used his hold on her hand to pull her toward him, and she came without hesitation, her breathing turning shallow in the space between one heartbeat and the next.

He cupped her face, just that touch sending his libido into the stratosphere. “You are so beautiful.”

“You’re the only one who has ever thought so.” She gave a strangled sound of amusement, her own desire burning bright in the pale orbs of her eyes. “I’m average, and that works for me in my job.”

“There’s nothing average about you.” Not one damn thing.

From the heart that wanted to save the world and shattered at her inability to save her own sister to the character that pushed Rachel onward when a lot of people would have given up, this woman was extraordinary.

And he didn’t want to hear her arguments to the contrary.

He wanted to kiss her. So he did.

Feminine lips, soft with desire, moved against his in a way that was familiar and yet wholly different.

He’d left the girl Rachel was a decade ago; the woman he held in his arms was both stronger and more defenseless than ever. For one thing, she never would have made this sex deal back in the day; she was more sexually open, but she was as closed off emotionally as she could make herself.

She was still too damn perfect for the man he had become, as well.

Pushing thoughts that had no place in the present aside, he yanked her closer, fitting their bodies together from chest to pelvis.

He groaned, a shudder working its way through his entire frame. The sound she made and the way she clung to him, pressing closer, her free hand squeezing reflexively against his shoulder, told him better than words that she was just as affected by the contact as he was.

He let go of her hand so he had both of his own free to explore all the silken, feminine flesh she’d exposed to him.

Again, this was different from when he’d massaged her. He’d tried so hard to keep his thoughts above the waist then, but right now? All he could do was think about how good his sex was going to feel inside her, surrounded by slick and swollen female flesh.

But not just any woman’s. Rachel’s.

He couldn’t have held back the thrust against her body those thoughts brought if he’d wanted to. And hell if he did.

She wrapped her arms around his neck, undulating against him in a way guaranteed to drive him insane.

He groaned, the pleasure so intense, he was afraid he would come in his shorts for the first time since being a horny adolescent. She’d made him do it back then, by allowing him the simple pleasure of touching her breasts.

She’d been his first in so many things.

Her leg hooked around his hips, and she climbed his body so her naked sex rubbed against the head of his cloth-covered erection.

Oh, shit. That was good.

It would be even better when he got his boxers off.

He shoved at the shorts, keeping her close with one hand while the other did its best to get the offending material out of the way. The waistband got caught on his cock, and he let out a growl of frustration, the pain barely registering in the face of his need.

She laughed breathlessly as their kiss broke from the jerking around.

He groaned, yanking at the stupid band trying to make his cock bend in entirely the wrong direction. “You think it’s funny?”

Making no effort to let him go or make it any easier on him, she nodded, her gaze glittering with mischief and heat.

Oh, damn, that heat.

He finally managed to get the boxers off and kicked them away with a more vicious movement than was warranted, but he was on the verge of vowing to go commando for the rest of his life.

Or at least as long as he had access to this woman’s body.

Rachel used her hold on his neck to pull herself back up his torso, wrapping both her legs around him and undulating up his body with devastating effect to his libido. She completely trusted him to hold her up, and he’d be damned if he dropped her.

This time when she stopped with their sexes in alignment, her moist nether lips kissed the tip of his hard cock. She shimmied a little against him, causing his brain to short out and his body to go rigid with the need to climax.

Just that damn fast.

This woman was dangerous.