Hell on Wheels (32 page)

She harrumphed. “But it was a lie, can’t you see that?
Knowing
a person isn’t just knowing their good parts, it’s knowing all the dark, scary parts as well.”

Okay, but sometimes the dark, scary parts were just
too
dark and
too
scary.

“What’d’ya want me to tell you, Ali?”

“I don’t know,” she blew out a frustrated breath. “I want you to tell me how my sweet, sunny brother grew up to do what he did. I want you to tell me he did it because someone had to do and it might as well have been him. I want you to tell me that he didn’t do it because he was an adrenaline junkie or a sadist. I want you to tell me…
God,
I don’t know. Tell me anything.
Something
.”

Damned if he wasn’t compelled to do just that, for all the times Grigg had needed to confide in someone but kept his mouth Krazy Glued shut and all the times Nate’d done the exact same thing.

He took a deep, steadying breath. “Grigg wasn’t an adrenaline junkie, and he certainly wasn’t a sadist,” he told her. “He was a soldier and a patriot. A man of honor and integrity. It’s true whatcha said. If we hadn’t done the job, then someone else would’ve. Maybe someone who
was
a sadist. It’s a very thin line between darkness and true evil. One we tried our damndest t’never cross, although we did once, inadvertently, which is why we got out and went to work with Boss.”

She was leaning up on one elbow, watching his face with such sweet acceptance. Like no matter what he had to tell her, she’d never think anything less of him.

Man, if she only knew…

“What happened?” she whispered, searching his eyes.

What happened? They’d killed an innocent man, that’s what’d happened.

“When you’re doing reconnaissance on a target,” he explained, screwing his eyes closed so he wouldn’t have to watch her face while recounting the sordid tale. He didn’t think after all they just shared he could bear to see disillusionment or censure on her pretty face, “you may watch the guy for days, weeks, sometimes even months. You watch him drink his mornin’ coffee, take a piss, make love t’his wife, kiss his kids. He becomes more’n’ a target. He becomes a
man
. It’s easy to pull the trigger on a target, not so much so on a man.”

Yep, even after all the hard, relentless training the Marines had given him, he still cried like a friggin’ baby after his first kill. He remembered how Grigg had thrown a steadying arm around his shoulders before quietly and methodically enumerating the man’s transgressions. Nate’s tears had finally dried, and he’d never shed another for a target…until Moscow.

“So Grigg and I tried t’make sure we did our own research on our targets,” he continued, pushing the painful memory of that first time out of his mind. “We wanted t’make certain our kills were just, that the men whose lives we were endin’ deserved what they had comin’. That we were doin’ the world a favor by wipin’ them from the face of the planet.”

“You could do that? I mean, didn’t you just get orders and have to follow them?”

“If we’d been regular grunts in the Corps, the answer to that would be yes. But we were pulled from our unit right out of Marine Scout Sniper School and recruited into the spec-ops community. That changed things. In spec ops, we were given much more freedom, far more latitude. We were allowed t’work on our own reconnaissance most of the time.”

She shook her head, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. “I never knew that. Grigg never told me.”

He caught her chin between his thumb and forefinger, forcing her to hold his steady gaze. “He couldn’t, Ali.” It was as simple as that.

She searched his eyes, reading the truth in them. “So, you and Grigg were the U.S. government’s personal two-man execution squad.”

“Not just us,” he told her, remembering all those men who’d gone through Marine Scout Sniper School with him and Grigg, the ones who’d been yanked from their units and wrangled into the much more secretive—and much dirtier—work of the spec-ops community. “There are a lot of guys out there doin’ the tough jobs, seein’ the faces of the men they’ve killed in their dreams at night, knowin’ they’ll never be totally free, that they’ll always remember the look in their targets’ eyes in that last instant.”

He felt her breath against his lips and opened his eyes to find her watching him closely. She held his gaze as she kissed him sweetly. A kiss of compassion, of understanding.

God help him. He wanted to cry.

“Tell me what happened to make you guys leave the Corps three years ago.”

He still got a sick feeling in his stomach every time he thought of that frigid day in Moscow. The winds had stabbed like ice picks, the moisture from his breath had formed ice crystals in his beard. It’d been nearly impossible to pull the trigger, his fingers almost completely frozen. But he’d managed. And as a result, an innocent man had been left bleeding to death in the icy, Russian snow.

“Intelligence sources indicated a major Russian arms dealer was due t’meet with potential clients. It was our understandin’ this one man was almost solely responsible for continuing to supply a certain African faction with weapons that were resultin’ in a brutal war and worse…a genocide.”

He didn’t need to go into detail. She was a smart girl. She could probably put two and two together and figure out just which conflict he was talking about.

Conflict.

That was another one of those ridiculous euphemisms. This one was supposed to describe the rape and mutilation of women, the hacking off of men’s hands and arms. The manipulation of children into killing machines.

“Anyway, U.S. forces had been tryin’ for months to catch this guy, get hard evidence against him, but he was brilliant and he managed to elude the traps our government, and a lot of others, laid for him. So it was determined to have him deleted. Grigg and I were tasked with the mission.”

Geez, he hadn’t talked this much in ages. It felt kinda…
good
. A purging of sorts.

“We weren’t given any time to prepare. Our target was on the move, and there was only one specific time and location for which Intelligence knew he’d be vulnerable. Sure enough, the guy appeared just where we’d been told he would. Only it wasn’t the arms dealer. It was his twin brother. An ethics professor at Moscow State University. A father of three. We didn’t find that out until later…”

He shook his head, feeling impotent rage even all these years later. “The Intelligence we received was bad, and we hadn’t had time to check it. Because of that, we ended the life of an innocent man. That’s when we knew it was time t’get out. Time t’find a job where we could determine, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the culpability of our targets.”

It felt like a benediction when she ran one slim hand through his hair, like he’d been touched by an angel and forgiven his past transgressions. He wanted to fall to his knees before her and pledge his soul, but all he could manage to do was stare at her and cling to the understanding in her eyes.

“You’re a good man, Nate,” she said, her voice low and firm. “You and Grigg, you’re both patriots, both honorable. There’s no shame.”

He swallowed past the ball of cold regret sitting like an iceberg in his throat. “Whatever you may think, Ali, whatever you’ve seen in the movies…there’s never any honor in takin’ a life. If you’re lucky, very lucky, there’s only justice.”

She smiled sadly. “And that’s what makes you so decent, Nate. So rare and special. You understand the value of life. You took no pleasure in your job, but you did it anyway. Out of duty, for the greater good. You’re exceptional.”

Right.

“Thank you for telling me,” she whispered, kissing him gently and for some reason he wanted to smile. He felt lighter suddenly, almost buoyant. Then she pulled back and grinned.

Uh-oh, he knew that look.

“So, since you’re in confession mode. Why don’t you tell me what Delilah said to you last night?”

He groaned. Hard to believe he’d just spilled his guts about Moscow, but admitting what Delilah said landed directly on his So Not Gonna Go There list.

“Come on. Spill it,” she demanded, swirling her little fingers through his chest hair until he wasn’t sure what was making him crazier. Her sweetly mindless ministrations, or the fact that it appeared as if it might be impossible to steer her away from this current course of conversation. “It can’t be good to keep so many secrets.”

“It’s not a secret, it’s just none of your business.” He tried to catch her mouth to distract her, but she avoided his searching lips.

“I’ll get it out of you one of these days,” she vowed, gifting him with that impish grin he loved so much.

He growled and decided he’d just satisfy himself with nibbling on her shoulder. “Never gonna happen.”

“People always underestimate me,” she sighed as she tilted her head to the side, giving him better access to her throat, which he’d quickly learned she loved to have licked. He didn’t disappoint. “They think because I’m small I’m a pushover, but I’ve got something…
Mmm
.”

“Somethin’
mmm
?”

“No,” she giggled. It caused her nipples to rasp across his chest, distracting him. He started moving his mouth in their direction. “Just
mmm
. As in,
mmm
, don’t stop,
mmm
, keep going.”

“Ah,” he levered her up until he could pull one sweetly ruched bud between his lips. He tongued it to the top of his mouth and listened to her make that uniquely Ali sound in the back of her throat. That whimper of sweet longing. The one that made him so hard he thought it was a wonder his dick didn’t explode.

She did it every time he took her to that invisible line where turning back was no longer an option, and it drained every ounce of blood he had straight into his prick.

“Nate?” she asked as she threaded her fingers through is hair and held him tight against her breast.

“Hmm?”

“Can I be on top this time?”

Her nipple popped free of his mouth. “Sugar,” he told her between nipping kisses trailing toward her other breast, “y’can do anything y’want.”

“Even if I want to ride you slow and steady for an hour straight?”

Sweet lovin’ Lord. He’d said it before…the woman was going to be the death of him.

“I’ll do my best to accommodate you,” his voice was harsh, sounding like it’d been run through a blender.

“Mmm, you’re such a nice man,” she giggled as she sprinkled hot kisses across his jaw and down his neck while her soft hands busied themselves by skating all over his chest.

His snort turned into a groan when her wet mouth landed on his left nipple. She flicked her tongue, back and forth like a wickedly erotic snake.

“I’m about as far away from
nice
as a man can get,” he managed, though speech was getting progressively more difficult given her emboldened caresses.

His wildest fantasies hadn’t come close to the truth of Ali. The woman liked sex, reveled in it, sought release with a single-minded determination usually only found in the male of the species. But she also gloried in his body, constantly running her hands over him in soft caresses, her mouth always at work, kissing, licking, gently biting, making sure to give as much pleasure as she took.

“Oh, you’re nice all right,” she raked her teeth across tough skin, causing every cell inside him to begin a slow humming vibration.

“You’re nice and muscular.” She highlighted her point by gently sinking her teeth into his right pectoral muscle. He groaned and ground his head against the pillow.

“You’re nice and sensitive.” She blew across his nipple, which snapped to happy attention. She grinned before she sucked it into her mouth.

Snaking one hand between their bodies, she gripped the swollen length of him in one soft palm. “You’re nice and big.” She chuckled when he drew in a ragged breath.

“But what I like best,” she lifted herself from his chest and positioned him against her, “is that you’re so very, very nice and hard.”

She slid down the length of him in one slow, gloriously sleek glide that had the top of his head lifting away.

Hard didn’t begin to describe his level of rigidity. Wood was hard, rock was hard, he, on the other hand, was so stiff a cat couldn’t scratch him.

Uncrossing his eyes was a bit of an effort, but totally worth it when he gazed up at her, looking like a naughty, fallen angel. Her golden hair was tousled and messy, her soft cheeks bright with color, her lips rosy and swollen and tilted up at the corners. And that goddamned red belly button jewel was winking in the light spilling from the bedside lamps, making him absolutely crazy.

He thought it couldn’t get much better. And then she began to move. A slow, undulating roll of her hips that instantly had his balls tightening, and he realized it got one whole hell of a lot better.

Oh man, he’d never make it. His release was already bubbling at the base of his spine and low in his groin. He’d promised her sixty minutes, but he’d be lucky to last sixty seconds with the way she was moving on him.