Taken by Surprise (22 page)

"Michael." This time when she said his name, her voice trembled with a fear-laced anticipation. She'd had sex anally before. She hadn't enjoyed it. Yet, she couldn't tell him to stop any more than she could tamp down the vicious orgasm slowly clawing its way out of her center.

His finger retreated only to return a nanosecond later, circling the rim of her anus with the now wet tip. He used his pre-come to lube her tightest opening. "Relax. Trust me."

Rhonda felt her body obey his gentle command, surrender to his tender touch without thought or instruction from her brain. Perspiration gathered along her body as pressure built deep in her cunt. Without his body hovering over her, she couldn't find anything to hold on to. She groped with both hands. She latched onto the edge of the bed with the arm stretched beneath her head, twisting her upper body to reach back and grasp his forearm with her other hand.

He pressed the pad of his finger to the tingling entrance of her ass. Her nails bit into the flesh of his forearm. Sharp sensations of emotions far beyond sexual rippled through her as their gazes met, held. The look in his exotic eyes was indescribable, a culmination of years of need, promise, love.

"Always," she heard herself whisper. "I'll always trust you." In the next breath, she writhed, clawing at his forearm as the prickles of sensations bloomed to a pleasurable pain. The nerve-laden tissue of her anus sucked his finger inside, her body giving her mind no choice but to accept the erotic burn emphasizing the tumultuous ecstasy.

"Please." She scarcely heard the plea over the drumming of her own pulse. Her pussy lips contracted in jealousy of the finger probing her ass, fluid leaking from between them to coat her inner thighs.

Michael's other hand slid through that fluid, smearing it over her flesh. He growled, low, gruff. "You're so wet."

"Yes," Rhonda hissed, her hips bucking reflexively. She sucked in a raspy breath when the movement drove his questing finger deeper into her ass. "Oh, gods, Michael, it's too much."

"I love the way you're stretching around my finger. Do you want me to take you here, Rhonda? Do you want to feel my cock inside this tight hole?"

"Yes. No. Please!" She knew her babbling sounded incoherent at best. She couldn't help it. She didn't know what she wanted anymore.

"Now you're ready."

Rhonda barely had time to register his words or the hoarse chuckle that preceded them. No sooner did he pull his finger from her ass than his cock nudged her saturated opening and sank impeccably inside her pussy.

"Michael." The third time his name rolled from her lips proved the charm. Relief gushed in her whispered cry even as white-hot impulses of explosion triggered inside her. He folded himself over her side, catching his weight on one arm as he held her hip with the other. Sweat dripped from his brow, landed on her cheek, mingled with the tear that leaked from her eye.

His body stiffened in surprise. He stopped moving, all but his thumb that he brushed to her face. "Rhonda? Jesus, did I hurt you?"

"No! Don't stop."

He pushed himself up. Rhonda feared he would pull out of her next. Instead, his hand skimmed her leg, catching the underside and lifting it straight into the air. She rolled with the move, finding herself on her back with his body blessedly between her widespread thighs, his cock still lodged wondrously deep in her channel.

He started to move again as he came down over her once more. The rhythm he set surprised her with its gentleness. Surely by now he had to be a man on the edge, willpower a fleeting thing. She wouldn't know it by looking at him or by the tenderness of his touch.

"Better?" The gruffness of his tone finally gave him away, as did the vein that swelled in his right temple. His struggle to hold himself in check increased with the speed of her own climbing orgasm.

"Almost."

He chuckled again, carnal and breathless, easing his cock out to thrust inside her clenching cunt harder than before, but still with that same maddening slowness. "Damn, I knew it would be like this."

Rhonda arched her body to meet his measured penetrations, closing her eyes as the pressure in her womb assembled for a final climb. She had known it would be this way, too, more than sex, even more than making love.

"Look at me," Michael whispered, his tone equally sweet and dark with his rapidly diminishing control. "I want to see you when you come for me this time, Rhonda. I want to know it's for me."

Rhonda looked at him and said exactly what came to her mind. "It will always be for you."

"God, yes." The honesty of her declaration proved his undoing and hers.

Michael's hips pumped, and everything inside her tightened, ignited. Liquid flames tore into her center, burned her from the inside out. Michael's kiss proved the only thing that kept everyone inside and out of the safe house from hearing her screams as, eyes still opened, gazes still locked, they fell apart together.

* * * *

Michael didn't want the moment to end. He knew it had to. He lay on the narrow bed with Rhonda's head on his chest, her leg draped over his, and half her body slanted on his side and knew he needed to let her go. Not forever. Hell, no. She finally belonged to him. He didn't care how archaic that sounded. She said it herself, and he firmly agreed. She belonged with him.

"I didn't use anything." He didn't know why that confession was the first thing to roll from his lips. He should've told her he loved her. Not sound like he feared he might have gotten her pregnant.

Rhonda, pregnant with his child, wouldn't that be a lovely sight. No, he definitely didn't harbor any fears concerning that thought. He felt a trickle of alarm when she pushed herself to one arm and peered down at him with a gaze full of worry and wrought with apology.

"There wasn't a need to." She quickly looked away. Unable to hold his gaze. Why?

"I figured you would be smart enough to protect yourself." Not that the responsibility should've been put on her shoulders. He cleared his throat, wanting to alleviate any other cause for the concern he saw in her usually dazzling eyes. "There hasn't been anyone else for a long time. Long before I met you and certainly not since." He had been so obsessed with her he couldn't even think of another woman let alone go to bed with one.

Surprise moved through her eyes, calming the concern but not making it disappear as he hoped. "I haven't been with anyone since Preston." She chuckled dryly, shook her head. "And even that was long before the marriage ended."

Michael bit back a grin, knowing it would make him look goofy as hell. He felt stupidly elated hearing that her sex life with her ex had been less than satisfactory.

"I can't have any more children, Michael," she blurted. "Lucas is it."

Michael angled his head so he could see her better. He couldn't deny her confession shocked him. It stabbed at that fatherly part of him that wanted to see her belly rounded with his child, the part that wanted to watch their son or daughter grow.

"Would you say something, please?" Her question shook with nerves.

"Complications?" he finally asked. What else could it be?

She nodded. "Toxemia. It nearly killed me, frightened me enough that I had my tubes tied." She shrugged. "Honestly, aside from the fact that it would've been nice for Lucas to grow up with a brother or sister, I never really wanted more than one child. I always thought with the world we live in, the economy, the stress, that one child, two at most, was enough for any family to support."

Michael understood. He even agreed. Too many families became statistics of the system, unable to provide for their children simply because of too many mouths to feed.

Rhonda bowed her head, her fingers absently toying with his chest hair. "I never regretted my decision, until now."

Michael hooked a finger under her chin, pulled her face up until she met his gaze. The glimmer of tears in her eyes tore at his soul. "Don't regret it now. As long as I have you and Lucas, I'll be the happiest man in the universe." He meant every word of that and made sure she saw the truth of it in his eyes, hoped she would feel it in the kiss he planted on her lips. "I love you, Rhonda."

There! That's what he should've said to start. But when she sighed and crawled off the bed, he felt his world shift again. He watched her, unable to hide his admiration as she bent over to pull on her borrowed BDUs, snag her T-shirt off the grimy floor.

"Enough to be my partner?

"My first impulse is to ask you to define partner."

Her lips twitched, but she didn't humor him by giving him a definition.

Sighing, he pushed himself up to lean his back against the wall. "You know I can't send you back in there. That's not me trying to control you or refusing to be your partner. It's me doing my job. It's me eliminating a distraction that could easily get me killed."

She paled at that, and he realized he'd touched on one of her worst fears. Good, they were even, because her getting killed by Phay's cartel currently topped his worst-fear list.

"I'm a distraction?" She sounded half surprised and half miffed. She stuffed the hem of the T-shirt into the waist of the BDUs, pulling the drawstring snug.

"Of the best kind." Michael slid his gaze down her body, letting his expression turn starkly sexual. God, what he wouldn't give to be able to strip her naked again, yank her back onto the bed, and shove his already stiffening cock inside the salvation of her sodden pussy. He wanted to make love to her for what remained of the afternoon and all through the night. He didn't want to argue anymore, didn't want to discuss Phay and the horrid things the kingpin proved himself capable of achieving.

He pulled his gaze back to hers, pushed a frustrated hand through his hair. "Do you want to know why I got so angry out there earlier?"

"I can guess, but tell me anyway."

"Ziegler got it right. No one—not me or Stone or any of our agents or the Thai and Cambodian soldiers—should have gone into that compound the other night without full knowledge of Phay's whereabouts. I ignored standard operating procedures. We all did. Phay's been under surveillance for months. The FBI's had McIntyre in there for years. Operation Liquid Tab was set to commence mere weeks after Phay got his hands on you. I couldn't wait that long. Hell, I couldn't even wait another twenty-four to forty-eight hours to be certain of the authenticity of the intel we received."

"The Thai and Cambodian operatives didn't want to wait any more than you did. Stone said that himself out there. You needed their cooperation, their approval."

"I could've talked them down, convinced them to hold off. I didn't even try. I went against everything I knew, every ounce of training, and let my heart make the decision. Calculated risks are an almost everyday affair for me. I didn't stop to calculate a damned thing when I found out Phay had you. I couldn't think about anything beyond getting you out of there before he hurt you or, God, killed you. Then you stand in that room this afternoon and suggest I willingly send you back in there." Michael shook his head. "I can't. I
won't
. And you won't convince Stone or Ziegler or anyone else in there to go over my head either."

"Would you at least listen long enough for me to tell you my plan?"

Her request fell from lips he would prefer to silence with a kiss rather than hear whatever she intended to say next. She shouldn't even have a plan, shouldn't factor into any part of the equation of taking Phay down. But she did. Rhonda had gone through hell because of him. He owed it to her to listen.

Michael patted the mattress next to his hip. When she sat down beside him, he couldn't stop himself from winding an arm around her waist. The scent of her, the memory of tasting her, of being inside her, urged him to draw her closer. He wanted to feel her responsive and ready beneath him again.

"Go ahead." He kept his arm at her waist, tamped down the needs that would never be completely satisfied no matter how often he made love to her. "I'm listening."

"I didn't tell you everything about the night you rescued me."

Because she spoke in a level, conversational tone devoid of horror, Michael managed to answer in kind. "Tell me what you left out." He ignored the fear snaking up his spine, the rapidly increasing beat of his pulse.

"Out there, I said I thought Phay wanted to keep me, to be my boyfriend. I didn't just think it. I
knew
it." She averted her gaze, seemingly unable to look at him as she spoke. "He made me promises. They started out as idle comments at first. Then they became more serious, more obvious."

Michael's mouth went dry. "What kind of promises?"

"Wealth, power, sex," she laughed scornfully. "Things I'm sure he's offered to his men to gain their loyalty. That's what he wanted, of course, my loyalty." Wrinkles appeared in her forehead as she seemed to think hard for a moment. "Maybe he meant to use me in other ways to get to you. I never quite made sense of that. Whatever he had in mind, he wanted it badly enough to offer to kill Roumduol. He said he would even let
me
kill Roumduol if I wanted."

"Christ," Michael breathed. The seriousness in her expression when she looked at him froze the blood in his veins.

"I can't say I didn't find that offer tempting enough to consider."

Michael didn't blame her. She had watched Boran Roumduol kill her friend, knew what the man had done to Rayne Jasper not so long ago. She would want to see a man like Roumduol go down as much as she did Phay. She might even see taking him out herself as an added bonus.

"Phay intended to keep me, regardless of the offers I accepted or didn't accept," she continued. "I knew that. I think he even realized I did. He sent me back to my room that night telling me I should sleep. As if he was really concerned. He really wanted me to think. I wondered if taking him up on his offers would make things easier for me, if it would give me some level of control."

"It would've been an illusion."

"Oh, definitely. Phay is in complete control. He would never relinquish any of that, especially to a woman."

Unless the man truly fell in love with her, as she believed. Michael studied the angular curve of her jaw, the smooth column of her neck. Rhonda awakened a sexuality in him that he thought went dormant long ago, but her beauty didn't stop at the physical. Her intelligence, her spunk and tenacity called to him on so many different levels he never wondered how she claimed his heart. Could he and Phay be alike in that respect? As much as the idea soured in his gut, he understood its possibility. She could very well be Phay's weakness as certainly and completely as she was Michael's.

"You get it now, don't you?"

Michael blinked her back into focus. Her expression told him his own betrayed his thoughts. He had been wrong in thinking she couldn't convince Stone or Ziegler to go along with her plan. Damn it! The FBI and SEAL team leaders wanted a piece of Phay badly enough they might be willing to use Rhonda as bait.

"You're talking about waltzing into that compound and facing off with a drug lord, telling him you've decided you want him and everything he can give you? Do you know how that sounds?"

"Crazy? Suicidal? Yeah, I do. I also know how scared to death I am that Phay will get away again, that he will come after us again, or, God, Michael, come after Lucas next." Her bottom lip trembled. "I can't live every day wondering if some drug lord or his minions is going to come after my baby."

The glimmer of tears in her eyes, the pain in her voice tore at Michael's soul. He wanted to tell her she wouldn't have to live that way, but he couldn't force out the words. What if they turned out to be a lie? What if Phay did manage to get away again? The bastard already proved harder to take down than Michael ever dreamed.

"You can keep me safe."

Her unwavering confidence in him almost made him cry. She laced her fingers with his, brought his hand to her mouth to brush a light kiss to his knuckles.

"Between you and all the agents and soldiers in there, I know I will be okay."

Michael shook his head. No. No way. He couldn't do it. He couldn't risk her like that. "There has to be another way."

"I'm sure everyone will be all ears if you can come up with one."

On the floor by the bed, Michael's pants started to vibrate. Rhonda leaned down, reaching with her free hand to dig his cell out of the front pocket.

Michael narrowed his eyes, puzzled by the numbers that appeared on the screen. He pushed the talk button, answering with a clipped, "Cosmos."

"You're looking in the wrong place."

Michael immediately recognized the heavily accented voice of Boran Roumduol. The Cambodian didn't give him a chance to speak.

"You want the boss, go play with him in your own yard."

Rhonda gasped as the connection cut with an audible click. Her closeness coupled with the speaker volume on his phone obviously made it so she heard the statement, too. "Roumduol?"

Michael nodded, his mind already working through the information he just received. Play with him in your own yard. Common American slang for…

"Phay's gone to Silver Springs." Rhonda came to the conclusion at the same. Her grip on his hand turned to a vise as all color drained from her head and neck. "Oh my God, Michael. Lucas."

They both jumped at the sharp staccato rap at the closed door.

"We need you in here, Cosmos," Stone's baritone boomed loud and clear through the wooden door. "We've got movement."

Movement. Phay. The bastard was headed for Silver Springs.

Son of a bitch
.