Taken by Surprise (10 page)

"Wait," Adrien exclaimed, realizing the expression on his face must be fierce enough to put the fear of God in the other man to have him backing away so quickly.

"Are you sure?" Thaddeus stopped where he stood still a good distance away. "You look pretty pissed. I saw you, and, well," he swallowed, "it's been a while since we talked."

Adrien dragged a hand through his hair and closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. The last proved a mistake. Even with the space between them, he smelled Thaddeus's innate scent. The heady mix of musk and pheromones never failed to drift over Adrien like wicked temptation that seeped into him and settled in his groin. He barely caught the low-throated moan before it escaped.

"Don't go." He took another second or two to gather his senses before he opened his eyes, met the other man's milk chocolate gaze, and started to melt anyway. It always happened this way. One look, one breath, one
word
and Adrien found himself drowning in lust, emotions, desires he refused to see through.

Again.

Yes, he had given in once. Half of him wanted desperately to do it again and again and again. The other half of him, the one that continued to be hung up on a man he knew wasn't gay, created the problem.

You thought this one wasn't gay either, remember
?

Yeah, he remembered all too well. That encounter with Thaddeus in the public gym, the flirtatious remarks and looks he didn't know how to interrupt, the night at the bar days later when Thaddeus put all his interpretations into crystal clarity. He remembered them, all right, and cursed the hope lingering inside him that if he could be wrong about this man, why couldn't he be wrong about the other?

"Do you want to talk about it?" Thaddeus took a tentative step closer. "
Can
you talk about it?"

God, he looks good
. He looked even better than he did the last time Adrien had seen him, on the scene of the super-lab fire. He disguised his Ivy League polish in the fire retardant boots, black cargo pants, and navy blue SSFD T-shirt all the firefighters wore when on duty. Adrien knew beneath the clothing lay a hot bod of perfection that spawned many a fantasy in his hormone-racing dreams. He spent more time than he cared to admit ogling the SSFD calendar decorating his kitchen wall. He wasn't pathetic enough to hang it in his bedroom. He was pathetic enough to hang two of the half dozen he bought at the fundraising event shortly after Hurricane Emilio's destruction along the Gulf Coast. He'd skipped straight to November on one straight to the shot of Thaddeus clad in bunker pants and a turnout coat left open to expose a chest gleaming with sweat. He religiously changed the other on the first day of each month. When the year ended, the second calendar had come down. The one stuck on Mr. November, however, still hung in Adrien's kitchen. He found himself stopping far too often to ogle Thaddeus's naked chest, to remember the feel of his bulging pectoral muscles, to follow the fuzzy line of hair that tapered down his tautly muscled abdomen.

"It's Michael," Adrien sighed, needing to talk about it and knowing no matter what that Thaddeus was always ready to listen.

He's always ready to pick up where you left off, too
.

Adrien pushed away the niggling reminder voice in his mind, even as the desire to do exactly that coiled in his chest. He couldn't afford to engage his emotions again. Until he knew his heart, until he could let go of hopes he shouldn't possess, how could he even consider joining with Thaddeus again?

"He's been out of contact for close to twelve hours. There's been no word from Stone either." Adrien bowed his head, rubbed the back of his neck. Not hearing from either man since long before the scheduled time of execution for Operation Liquid Tab sent his tension level skyrocketing. "I'm stuck here," he went on through gritted teeth, frustration rising, "chasing down the fuckers producing and pushing this drug on my turf while all hell is apparently breaking loose over there, and I don't have a fucking clue what is going on."

"Aw, babe."

Adrien heard the compassion in Thaddeus's voice, felt the man as he came closer, and braced himself for a touch that didn't come. He remembered the scant times Thaddeus held him, the way that, despite their difference in height, his body seemed to fit against the other man like a long-lost missing puzzle piece. He remembered the emptiness that swamped him after the contact, too, the confusion that made him sick to his stomach, the fear of hurting Thaddeus with his indecision.

Thaddeus seemed to sense the turmoil going through Adrien because he said, "I want to hug you right now, but I don't think you want that."

Adrien lifted his head, forced himself to meet Thaddeus's intensely aware eyes. "I miss it."

Great, Bingham. Spill your heart on the man's boots. Give him hope you don't know if you can fulfill
.

Thaddeus stared at him, that hope swirling with a world of other emotions in his Hershey eyes. "So do I. And since I haven't said it in a long time, I'll remind you the arms are still here, ready to give it to you again whenever you're ready." He took a deep breath and let it out in an audible puff. "Why aren't you over there, too? Not that I want you to be because, well, you know."

Thaddeus would worry. Yes, Adrien knew. He worried, too, about Thaddeus when he caught a call over his scanner for Engine 1 to respond to a scene that might draw Thaddeus into the danger. He also saw what Thaddeus left unsaid on his calendar-worthy face and ignored it, because addressing it would be emotional suicide.

"I would be over there. I
want
to be there." He wanted Thaddeus to know that, wanted the man to understand he wasn't one to run from danger, but into it whenever duty called.

"It's part of the job, part of your nature. I know. I understand."

"Of course you do." Adrien felt stupid. As a firefighter, Thaddeus of all people would understand his position more than any other outside the DEA. His position as engineer of Engine Co. 1 most often put him manning the truck and controls rather than in the direct path of the flames. That didn't mean he couldn't be put into, or wouldn't rush into, the line of danger at any given moment if necessary.

"Michael didn't go to Cambodia alone," Thaddeus guessed correctly. "He took other agents with him and left you here?"

The incredulity in Thaddeus's tone almost made Adrien smile. "He needed me here. OLT is going down on both turfs at different times." He had also left Adrien in charge of the safekeeping of Lucas and the grandmother. That part Adrien couldn't share with Thaddeus. Rhonda and Nancy's abduction was being kept under strictly confidential lock and key. Michael had known Adrien wouldn't happily stay behind. So he laid it on thick, giving Adrien a charge he couldn't refuse.

I know I can count on you, Bingham, and Lucas knows you. You'll be a comfort to him until I can get his mother back
.

"OLT?" Thaddeus angled his head.

"Operation Liquid Tab," Adrien translated. "It's what we're calling this mess nowadays."

"He trusts you," Thaddeus said. "And, wow, baby, think of what he's doing to your career, the boost he's giving it leaving you in charge like this. I know you don't care about that. You're more worried about him, but it shows how much he counts on you, how much he values you as his right-hand man, or whatever you want to call it."

"The battle isn't over here. It's going to be pretty sticky before it's all said and done," Adrien predicted. "I spoke with Wolcott, Jasper, and Barrett about that inside. You guys need to watch yourselves even more closely than normal, take extra precautions, especially if Jasper or anyone gets even the slightest whiff of chemicals involved. It's likely that super-lab was a onetime thing, but we can't be certain."

"But you are certain it was more of a message to the DEA than a random meth explosion or act of arson?"

"Absolutely."

"Then you better be careful, too." Thaddeus's gaze turned meaningful as he stared at Adrien for several long, heart-pounding breaths. "When this is over, when Michael gets back and this drug lord is finally taken out, will you get some downtime?"

Adrien knew what Thaddeus was asking. He didn't know how to answer. He simply stood there, gaze locked with the other man's as the turmoil coiled like a cobra in his gut.

"If you do." Thaddeus shook his head. "
When
you do, I would appreciate a block of that time set aside for me."

Adrien's gaze dropped to the hand Thaddeus lifted. He stood rigidly still as that hand touched his lapel and glided down his front. When it paused just above the waistband of his slacks, he gulped and drew his gaze back up. Thaddeus's eyes smoldered with promise and desire.

"I miss you." Thaddeus's softly spoken declaration made Adrien's heart trip faster, until he could hear his pulse pounding in his ears. "I still want you. Nothing has changed. I'm here if you need to talk, if you want to go for a martini or a walk on the beach." He grinned, slowly and suggestively, proving his thoughts went straight down the same path as Adrien's at the mention of a walk on the beach. "It can get a bit chilly at night on the water at this time of year, but I think we can find ways of keeping warm."

Adrien gulped, nodded. He bowed his head, needing to break that eye contact if only for a second. Christ, he felt as if he might drown in chocolate-covered lust as he stared into Thaddeus's deep brown eyes. He couldn't stop himself from going under, though, and lifted his head a moment later to go for another dive.

Thaddeus didn't speak again. His gaze said it all. He dropped his attention pointedly to Adrien's mouth, giving him a kiss without touching. The effect still made Adrien's lips tingle, made awareness zing straight to his cock. Then the other man turned and walked back to the station house, leaving Adrien with the desire to chase after Thaddeus despite the lead weights rooting his feet to the ground.

Chapter Six

Cambodian forest

Michael floated somewhere between sleep and consciousness, resisting the pull toward deeper sleep. After dissolving into an orgasm that bathed his face and made him love and need her all the more, Rhonda had crumpled in his lap. He'd sat there listening to her rapid breathing, feeling the rhythmic beat of her pulse against the palm he splayed on the side of her neck as she snuggled her head to his chest. He'd heard when her breaths leveled out, felt the serenity envelop him as she fell asleep. He had settled in to hold her, keeping a watch out as he recollected every sigh, every moan, every shudder she had made while he feasted on her pussy.

Tasting her had done nothing to quench his thirst. The marvel of touching her had done nothing to satisfy the incessant tingle in his hands. He remembered her scent, hot and sweet, as he ducked his head beneath her skirt, let his nose graze her inner thigh. He swallowed the syrupy delight that lingered on his tongue from when he'd speared between her sodden folds. He had reveled in the way her lithe body slithered and bucked, shuddered and fell weak as he pleasured her with his mouth and fingers.

He had wanted to touch more of her, meant to, but got distracted by her dripping sex. Once he started eating her pussy, he hadn't been able to stop until she fell apart around him. Even then he continued to lap at her delicious juices. The wonder if she knew what she gave him, if she craved his touch as badly as he hungered to feel her flittered through his thoughts. Did she want him, or had she merely caved in to her own sexual appetite? Would she regret what happened when she woke?

Her strangled cry drew him to full consciousness. He lifted his head from where he let it relax against the tree at his back and looked down at her. The bright sunlight of the new day illuminated the blonde crown of her head, tempting him to brush his lips across the silky strands. She jerked in his arms. At first, he thought the startled move to be in protest of his tender kiss. Then the hand that rested on his shoulder dug nails into the wound where the bullet had grazed his flesh and realization came quick. He immediately forgot the sting that sailed down his arm as Rhonda whimpered, started to beg.

"Please, don't." Her head lolled on Michael's chest as her free hand balled into a fist above his left pec. "Told you…pointless…not coming."

Jesus
. Tears welled, but Michael ruthlessly blinked them back. He knew what her clipped words meant. She really had believed he wouldn't come for her. A nightmare gripped her, no doubt the memory of the torture she experienced either physically or visually while in Phay's capture.

"Rhonda." He pushed her name around the lump in his throat. He slid one hand to gently cup her nape while putting the other on her shoulder and giving her a light shake.

She settled in his arms once more, but the sound of her pained cry coupled with the words she spoke next told him she hadn't yet escaped the dream.

"Why did you do it?" She started to sob then, and the noise ripped at his heart, causing permanent damage to his soul.

"Rhonda." He couldn't take it. He needed her to wake. "Come back, baby. Open your eyes. See where you are."

Her head came up slowly, her expression dazed, obviously caught between a state of dream and reality. He watched her face as she struggled to complete the journey. He'd seen that look on faces before, exhausted agents who forwent sleep because of training or an assignment that pushed them close to their breaking point. The nightmare, the glimmer of tears, the resolute lift of her chin told him she had been pushed close to the edge, but he didn't think she had fallen over yet.

"What happened?" She sounded strong despite the disorientation he sensed as she furtively shot looks first one way and then the other.

"Nightmare." Sometimes the simplest answers worked best.

"Oh." She drew in a shaky breath. "Yeah, that one again."

Her stalwart demeanor tugged at him as much as her vulnerability. She kept so much locked inside, put on such a front. He nearly busted through that front before, almost found the key to release the lock.

Nearly.

Almost.

Neither helped either of them.

"Do you still have nightmares?"

Her question surprised him. He told her once about some of the horrors that visited him at night. Messy encounters with drug dealers and low-life pushers that ended in the drawing of his weapon, the firing of a deadly bullet.

"Sometimes," he admitted, "most often in the nights immediately subsequent to a takedown."

"It gets easier? They come less often?"

Though she seemed to want him to answer in the affirmative, he didn't want to lie. "Everyone is different. Every psyche is different." He felt her deflate a little in his arms and wanted to kick himself. "You want to talk about it?" he invited.
Please, talk about it
.
Please don't bottle this inside, too
. To his frustration and dismay, she tried to shrug it off.

"It's just my active imagination playing up things in my head." She made a sound nowhere close to laughter despite the slight smile she attempted and failed. "You know how my writer's head takes over more often than not."

"And how long has this particular head been taking over?"

She understood what he wanted to know. He felt it in the way she held her body resolutely in his embrace. "It started the night Roumduol took me to Phay's compound."

"The night you watched them torture the guy you believe to be the FBI agent?" That didn't fit with what Michael had heard her say. Not unless Phay ordered his men to torture McIntyre in an effort to get Rhonda to tell him about Michael's whereabouts.

She nodded and flattened her hands, one on his chest and the other on his shoulder. He felt her gentle push, knew she meant to stand, but she stilled in the act before he could even think to tighten his hold to keep her there. She turned her head, angled it as she studied his right shoulder.

"Did I hurt you?" Her gaze flew back to his, apology and concern swirling in the large blue depths of her eyes.

"That didn't hurt as much as you…"
lying to me
, he started to say, but cut himself off. Rhonda didn't tolerate lies. She didn't tell them. She hated them with a passion that surpassed anything he ever knew. He also knew she wasn't telling one now. Omission for the sake of self didn't equal a lie. He firmly believed that was exactly what she was doing.

"Not as much as you not telling me about your dream," he said instead. "Please don't." He repeated her words. "Told who what was pointless, who wasn't coming? Why did who do what?"

She tipped her head back, looking to the sky as if seeking divine intervention in the form of rain, sleet, hail, anything to cut the conversation off right there so she didn't have to answer. When no assistance came, she sighed.

"It got jumbled in here somewhere." She tapped the center of her forehead. "What I saw Phay's men do to that agent, Phay's questions about you."

"Your belief that I would just leave you there," Michael interjected. How could she even think that for a second? Didn't she know even then how he felt about her, how much he cared for her?

Of course she did, numbskull. You showed her, told her in a move as clear as glass
.

"I didn't believe that. Not really. Not deep down. I thought it, wondered, worried, but I couldn't seem to give up hope. That's the part of the nightmare that gets all twisted." She pushed at his chest, his shoulder again, and he didn't try to hold her down. She got to her feet, her careful movements a reminder of how it must hurt her to stand.

"I paced the room Phay locked me in that night and every night after, thinking about what I saw, anticipating what would happen next. I knew he wanted you. I knew he took me thinking it the best way to get to you." She leveled a look at Michael of positive tenacity. "I didn't intend on letting that happen. I rehearsed my answers, projected the things he would ask, and devised my responses to each." She shrugged. "When you concentrate so hard on something like that, it tends to stay with you even when you manage to fall asleep. Your mind replays it, alters it, combines it, until you get, well, in this case, that nightmare."

Michael cleared his throat before he could speak. She never gave up hope. She tried not to count on him, but when it really mattered, she had known the truth. That's what she just told him. Deep down, she hadn't lost her faith him.

"It will stop, go away. It might take a while. Nightmares are notorious for their desperation to hang on."

"But since part of it is contrived in the first place and I'm away from the source, the thread will break soon enough." She held out a hand even as she lifted her brows to the sun. "It's not going to get more daylight than this. We should get moving again. We've got a helo to catch."

Michael took her hand, let her help him to his feet. His legs felt like jelly after sitting against the tree with her in his lap for so long. Stinging needles exploded from his ass all the way to the toes of his left leg, causing him to stumble before he caught his balance.

Rhonda smirked. "Leg gone to sleep?"

"Waking up," he corrected, feeling the blood start to circulate though his veins, intensifying the prickling needle sensation.

"That's worse. Lucas comes close to busting his gut every time my foot or something goes to sleep. The tingling drives me crazy!"

"Yeah, I was at your house when it happened once." Michael grinned. "The little dance you do is very entertaining."

"I bet. Want me to teach it to you?"

"No, that's okay. I'll pass. You could do it for me." His gaze dropped to the curve of her waist. The idea of watching it sway nearly undid him.

"Sorry, but I don't think that would get the circulation moving in your leg any faster."

"That depends on which leg you're referring to."

Her fisted hands found the curve of the waist he continued to admire. He waited for her to chastise him. He didn't expect her to puff out a quick laugh and shake her head.

"You know, you make a comment like that and throw me completely off guard. You rarely say anything to me that's so blunt, so
male
."

"I am a male, Rhonda."

"Don't I know it!" Her words rang with frustrated desire and baffled amusement. "Come on, Ace." She turned, treating him to a swaying view of her waist after all as she started walking. She shot him a glance over one shoulder. "This way, right?"

"Right, but get behind me." He moved quickly to take the lead. "We've been in this spot long enough it's safe to assume there shouldn't be anyone at our back. That doesn't mean we won't find something or someone ahead. If anything goes down, I want you on my six."

The flash of temper he expected to catch when she fisted her hands on her waist shot from her narrowed eyes now. "Funny, I thought an operative wanted a man on his six in possession of a gun. Isn't that the expression? Cover my six? Watch my six?"

"Like I said, I think it's safe to assume my six is already covered."

"You know what they say about assumptions, right?"

"I do. But if anything goes wrong, I can't very well protect you if I'm behind you."

"I wouldn't need protection if you'd give me back my gun." She huffed a breath. "Dregs's gun," she amended.

"What do you need a gun for when you have me?" He meant it teasingly, though he was dead serious, too. He didn't mean for it to turn that flash in her eyes into an almost tangible bolt of anger. Jesus, if looks could really penetrate, he'd be on his ass right now.

"Lead the way, Agent Cosmos." She gestured with an arm, taking several steps back so that not even her fingertips came close enough to touch him.

Bewildered and not stupid enough to egg her on by asking what the hell he said, he started walking. "I think I like Ace better," he muttered. "Although, you'll get more than one response once we reach the helo if he call me by that name. Brandon McCormick's known as Ace on SEAL Team Six."

"You said that's the same team that participated in Timmy's rescue, right? Ryan Magee's team before he left the navy."

"Ryan was a chief petty officer on Team Six under Ziegler's command," Michael confirmed.

The anger in her tone had turned to question, and her active mind obviously stepping into control again.
Thank the gods of imagination
.

"Which is why Phay's men kidnapped Timmy in the first place. Phay went after Magee because SEAL Team Six sent Phay underground four years ago. His goons kidnapped Timmy to get to Ryan."

Gee, didn't that have a familiar ring. Michael grunted his answer and let her continue her summary. Though most of what she said had been made public, he couldn't help but wonder how much she knew that had been marked classified and exactly how she came by the knowledge. He also didn't want to interrupt her because he could hear the question she seemed to be working her way toward.

"The Phay Cartel retaliated against SEAL Team Six, starting with Magee because he was so easy to get to after he left the team. See, that's what I don't understand. They almost succeeded in taking down Magee, probably would have if it hadn't been for SEAL Team Six coming in to rescue Timmy and Magee. The SEALs screwed up Phay's plans a second time, and yet he stopped going after them and came for you. Why?"

"He didn't stop. Not at first. He got to one of them. P.J. Dugger, the youngest sailor on Team Six. They found him tortured and beaten in a Dumpster outside a club in Miami. Trace evidence and circumstantial information led back to the Phay Cartel." Michael didn't tell her about the various incidents of drive-by close calls, hit and runs, and suspicious transmissions other men on Team Six had dodged since that first attempted takedown. Getting to navy personnel, especially ones trained in covert ops, wasn't easy, even for a drug lord with connections that reached as far as Veng Kim Phay's.