What I Love About You (10 page)

The cool in Blake’s gray eyes turned frosty. “When the lead starts to fly, I’m a good man to have around.”

Lead? Did he mean bullets? “I don’t think Michael will shoot me. I hate him but I would never kill him.” She’d just admitted that she wanted Michael dead, and she paused for half a second to collect her scattered thoughts. “No. Really. I mean . . . I’d get caught. The ex-wife is always the first suspect. Just last week, a lady in California was arrested for hiring a hit man she met in a bar. The hit man got caught and turned on the woman.” She shook her head with disgust. “There’s no honor among assassins.”

“Never look for a hit man in a bar, Sweet Cheeks.” He took her hand and dipped his face to look into hers. “Professional contractors don’t get work out of a bar.”

Natalie’s eyes widened.
Professional contractors?
“Are you a hit man?” She probably shouldn’t have just come out and asked that out loud, but it made sense. He didn’t work nine to five but had money.

“If I told you, I’d have to kill you.”

She opened her mouth but nothing came out. Was he a hit man? A soldier of fortune?

He chuckled, and humor lines appeared at the corners of his eyes. “No. I’m not a hit man. I am a professional security contractor.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I’m a retired Navy SEAL, special operator first class, with a toolkit full of skills. Private military companies pay me a lot of money to use those skills.”

“Is it legal?”

“Yes.” He grinned and pulled her against his chest. “Mostly.” He slid one arm across the small of her back.

Her hand found his shoulder as she fell against his flannel shirt and wall of muscles. She had more questions about his skills and exactly what that meant, but she suddenly couldn’t think beyond the heat rolling off him like a radiator and warming up her breasts and belly.

“I’m on my way out of town.” He pulled her onto the balls of her feet so her nose was level with his. His eyes a soft, sexy gray. “I stopped by to let you know so you don’t bitch me out like last time.”

Inside her crammed office, everything pressed in on her until there was only he. His eyes shone a seductive gray and his big hand slid to her butt. “What are you doing?” came out on a shocked breath.

“I got skills. Skills the military didn’t teach me. Skills I’ve learned all on my own.” He lowered his face to hers and his lips brushed hers when he said, “You’re going to love the skills in my own personal toolbox.”

She should push him away. They were in her office. Really she should, but his lips brushed hers, teasing her with warm touches, and the memory of deeper kisses. Bits and pieces of hot kisses, and she decided to wait a minute. One minute to determine if the memory of his kiss was as good as she remembered or just her drunken imagination. She tilted her face to the right and tested her recall. He smelled good, like soap and skin and cool breezes, and he tasted better. Like warm mouth and hot sex. Yes, she remembered that part.

One minute of light, chasing kisses turned into two. She told herself it was just kisses. Nothing more, and she wrapped her arms around his neck. The moment she ran her finger through his short hair, the air inside the office turned carnal and possessive. Her tongue touched his, and he tasted so good she didn’t give another thought to stopping.

Against his solid chest and soft flannel, her breasts felt heavy and her nipples tightened to hard, aching points. He fed her hungry mouth with deep, soul-sweeping kisses, and she ate them up. Hot threads of fire ran through her veins and pooled low in her abdomen. Low where her thighs met, and she squeezed her legs together against the onslaught of sensation. Sensation that wanted him to slide his warm hand from the curve of her backside and slip it between her thighs. Hot, liquid sensation that made her forget she stood in the office of Glamour Snaps and Prints, and a mere cracked-open door separated her from the rest of her business.

Then he tilted his head to the side and deepened the kiss, and she wanted even more. He forced her to take a few steps back, and he lifted her. Her backside hit the top of the desk and he moved between her parted thighs. The pockets of his gray cargo pants brushing the inside of her legs.

The tips of his fingers brushed her collarbone and slid to the top button of her shirt. She held on to his shoulders, and her lips clung to his as every breath filled with sensuous longing. The kind she’d let herself forget as she’d fought to survive.

His shoulders were so solid beneath her touch. Solid and warm and so powerful, she arched her back toward the heat of his chest. His fingers teased her skin and brushed her cleavage as he worked each button from its hole. Then his big hand slid inside and she moaned deep in her throat. Deep down in the primal part that wanted and lusted. The part that needed pleasure. He cupped her breast, weighing her in his hot palm, and his mouth kissed the side of her throat, leaving a moist little path just below her ear. Shivers ran down her spine to her bottom, and his thumb brushed her nipple, back and forth through the thin nylon of her bra.

“Your skin tastes sweet,” he whispered against the patch of her neck he’d wet with his mouth. “You smell good. God, I want you so much I’m about to explode.”

“Yes.” A warning bell rang in her head and she shut it out.

“Take me out.” He lightly bit her just below her ear. “Take me in your hand.”

“Mmm.” She slid her palm from his shoulder and down his chest. His muscles bunched beneath her touch. His breath brushed the side of her neck, rapid and heavy, then caught and held in anticipation of her touch.

The warning bell rang again and Natalie’s fingers curled around his belt buckle. Something wasn’t right. The bell sounded a lot like the service bell at the front counter. It rang again, and everything in her stilled. The noise beyond her office reached her foggy head and she heard Brandy’s voice and a deep male response.

“Stop,” Natalie whispered, and pushed at Blake’s shoulders. “Someone is out front.”

“So.” His hand on her breast tightened. Not painful but not like he wanted to let go, either.

“We can’t do this here.”

“Yes we can.”

“No.” She pushed him and he dropped his hand.

“Great.” He moved back far enough for her to stand. “We’ll go to my house. I have an hour if we hurry.”

“I have a business. I’m a mother.” Her fingers shook as she buttoned her blouse. “I don’t do this sort of thing.”

“You didn’t do anything. Yet.”

“I’m not going to, either.” She glanced up into his eyes, all stormy now beneath his lusty lids. He was so handsome and she was so tempted to go to his house and fall in bed for an hour. “Ever,” she added for emphasis, more to herself than Blake.

He took a deep breath, and he looked like he wanted to hit something. Instead he pointed at her. “Then don’t come near me, Natalie Cooper. ’Cause I can guaran-goddamn-tee the next time I’m not stopping. I don’t care if you’re drunk or standing in the middle of Main Street.” He yanked the door open. “You’re getting naked and I’m climbing all over you.”

She dropped her hands and watched his retreating back as he walked out of her office. He moved past the printers, and she wondered how many customers were out front.

Act natural
. Anxiety tumbled with the lust still warming her stomach as she followed close on Blake’s heels. She put a smile on her face and pretended like nothing happened. Like Blake Junger hadn’t just stormed out of her office looking all hot and sexy.
Act natural
. Like he wasn’t a dark, angry cloud rolling past Frankie Cornell.

“Hi, Natalie.” Frankie stood at the counter with a pack of photos in his hand, all cheery and pleased like he didn’t know he’d just dodged Hurricane Blake.

“Hello, Frankie,” she said, a little too friendly to be natural.

Blake yanked opened the door but stopped in his tracks. His shoulders looked so wide framed by the entrance. Then he slowly turned and pinned poor Frankie with his gaze. “Let me give you some advice, my friend.” He took the sunglasses from the top of his head and shoved them on his face. “Keep your camera out of your pants. No one wants to see your cock.”

Chapter Eight

A crescent moon hung like a pale sliver above the mud wall and the compound beyond. It was the perfect moon. A sniper’s moon in the dead of night.

“You all asleep?” team leader and retired Delta Force operator, Fast Eddy, asked the four-man team through the headset.

“Junger’s getting twitchy.”

From his position on top of a small hill, Blake chuckled. “I’m staying frosty.” All his senses were definitely on high alert, but he was relaxed. He lay on his belly, behind an MK11 mounted on a swivel base bipod. The weapon was a semi-automatic, with a twenty-round box filled with 7.62 NATO rounds, accurate up to fifteen hundred feet. Three additional magazines sat next to the rifle in case things went sideways and he had to light up the night. He and three other contractors had been airdropped from twenty-five thousand feet, then walked under the cover of darkness two miles to the compound in South Yemen.

Through his thermal optics scope, he watched the three other contractors make their way toward the mud wall surrounding the compound.

Blake hadn’t been behind a rifle since before rehab. It felt like coming home. Like picking up his life where he’d left it before drinking had completely taken over. Looking down the sights of a sniper scope was familiar. He knew what to do. There was no confusion. Not like looking into a pair of blue eyes and lusting so hard he didn’t recognize himself.

This direct action mission was what he needed to clear his head. To remind himself that he was a security contractor. A man who spit and swore and scratched his balls. A man whose buddies spit and swore and scratched their balls. Not a man who had a five-year-old for a best friend and whose mother gave him blue balls.

He’d trained for two days with this team of contractors, each retired from different Special Forces units. He knew the layout of the compound like the back of his hand. Beyond the mud wall, oil executive John Morton was being held hostage in the smaller of the two buildings. Mr. Morton had been taken from his hotel in Turkey and transported to South Yemen, the heart of al-Qaeda. His captors were demanding the release of four terrorists currently held in Guantanamo.

The U.S. government did not negotiate with terrorists, but that didn’t mean the CIA wasn’t tangentially involved with several private military firms around the world. The State Department provided them with the latest intel as well as billions of taxpayer dollars; in turn, they provided the government with plausible deniability.

According to the latest intelligence, there were half a dozen armed guards loaded with AKs at the compound. Two stood guard at a locked gate and four more occupied the larger of the structures. At 1800 Zulu every night, one of the terrorists took bread and water across the compound to the smaller building that held Mr. Morton. The fact that they bothered to feed him was a good sign that he was still alive and still chained to a bed. But even though it was a good sign, it wasn’t a certainty. If they knew for certain he was in the smaller building, they’d send some RPGs through the windows of the larger of the two and go home.

“See anything, Junger?”

Through the green glow of night optics, Blake looked for hot spots in the small windows in the buildings below. There was no movement, just a little light. He dialed in the scope to a position beyond the back wall and the desert terrain beyond. “Just some sheep twenty meters southeast.” One of the first rules of intel gathering was to relate all activity for analysis. Even if it didn’t seem significant. “They appear ass-raped as hell.”

All four men chuckled softly into the mics built into their helmets.

“Benson was ass-raped in a hut just like that,” a tall, redheaded SEAL named Farkus informed the group.

Benson looked like Ving Rhames in
Pulp Fiction
. Big, glossy black, and ready to go medieval. He was also the father of six and claimed to work for the “firm” because he needed a vacation. “By your mama.”

A weak flash of light caught the corner of Blake’s eye and he swiveled the rifle around and doped the scope. Adrenaline ran up his spine and raised the hair on the back of his neck. He said in a calm, clear voice, “Target six o’clock.” It got real quiet. “It appears to be a white truck.” This wasn’t in the intel they’d been given or part of the battle plan.

“Roger. Target six o’clock,” Fast Eddy responded. From his position, he wouldn’t be able to see the truck. “Just one?”

“Correct.” But no matter the planning, Blake had been on many missions that didn’t go down as planned. There were too many variables. The known unknowns and the unknown unknowns. This truck was somewhere in the middle. “Two headlights about one kilometer.”

“Roger. How many individuals?”

“Looks like two in the cab. One standing in the back. They’re just entering range.” If the truck rounded the small hill, the terrorists inside the compound would see the headlights. “I can take care of them or we can wait and see what they’re up to.”

“They’re up to no good. Take them out.”

“Roger.” To compensate for distance and air temperature, Blake put the crosshairs below and to the left of the glowing red and yellow turban peeking over the roof of the truck. Intrinsic as his own heartbeat, Blake squeezed the trigger. The silencer on the end of the barrel suppressed the gunfire to a high-pressured pop of air. He lowered the sights and sent two more rounds into the headlights and four into the cab, delivering each terrorist a double tap. The truck veered off the road and slowed. Through the night scope, Blake watched for movement. The passenger door opened and one individual sprang out. His hijab was a bright yellow glow as Blake squeezed the trigger and sent a round center mass. The man crumpled. “Target down.”

“Roger. Anything moving?”

“Not anymore.” He twisted the rifle around toward the compound and looked through the scope. He watched the three Americans move in the shadows. Near the gate, Fast Eddy gave the signal to eliminate, and Blake fired four rounds. The terrorists were dead before they hit the ground. Farkus loaded the gate with a dose of C4 and stepped back into the shadows. The lock blew and the three Americans were through the gate and inside the compound before the smoke cleared. Benson kicked in the door of the bigger building and he and Fast Eddy entered while Farkus ran to the smaller of the two where the hostage was thought to be held. The boom of flashbang and the
pop-pop
of gunshot split the air. Within moments, the fight was over and Fast Eddy’s voice spoke in Blake’s helmet. “Structure clear. Targets eliminated.”

Blake kept the crosshairs on the door where Farkus had disappeared. “Hostage located and alive,” the former SEAL reported, and everyone could hear the relief in his voice.

Blake adjusted the four magazines strapped in his chest gear. Eight dead terrorists, and one hostage alive and soon to be reunited with his family. Blake felt good. The juice running through his veins felt good. This was his life. His element. He knew what he was doing here. It was black and white. No gray areas.

Through his headset, he listened to the chatter below and kept watch over the compound. The hostage was alive, but by the sounds of it, roughed up pretty good. Eddy made the call to the Black Hawk half an hour out. Half an hour to watch the area from his position, then load up and head back to Oman. In the past, he and his buddies had found the nearest bar. In the past, he’d unwound with beers and straight shots and a warm woman.

Now that the mission was over, now that the rush of it flowed from his body, the thought of booze rushed in, bigger than it had in several months.

He removed his finger from the trigger and looked down at the slight tremor in his hand. He made a fist and shook it out. For the first time that night, for the first time since he’d stepped out of the DHC–3 and felt nothing beneath his feet, a little bump of fear broke through his calm. Whether in a rehab in California, a small town in Idaho, or a patch of dirt in South Yemen, his addiction followed and bit him on the ass.

His addiction was weakness.

Weakness was not an option. Not in Yemen or Qatar or the other NATO bases he landed in as he crossed the globe. Not on his flight back to the States, not two days later as he drove to Truly.

No, weakness was not an option, but by the time Blake pulled into Truly, he was dead tired. Tired of flying and fighting the one demon he couldn’t take out with a well-placed bullet. He’d beaten his demon. Hadn’t given in to the whisper in his head, the need in his gut, or the tremor in his hand. But it hadn’t been easy. His back ached. His eyes were gritty, and his feet hurt.

Willie Nelson’s “Nothing I Can Do About It Now” filled the cab of his truck as he drove through town and took a left around the lake. His dad was a huge Willie fan and Blake had grown up on his music. As Willie sang about regret written on his brow, Blake thought about the big spa tub waiting for him at home. As he’d sat in first class from Chicago to Boise, and on the two-hour drive from Boise to Truly, he’d thought about hot jets of water massaging the knots out of his muscles.

Blake turned his truck onto Red Fox Road and his attention immediately caught on two familiar figures walking up the street and the dog pulling at the leash. Rays of orange sunlight shone on them as they walked between the deeper shadows of pine.

Blake slowed the truck and pulled to the other side of the road. Charlotte wore her unicorn hat and raised a white-gloved hand to wave. “Blake!” He saw more than heard his name on her lips. Through the gray tint of his windows, he raised his gaze to Natalie and her deep blue eyes. She wore a navy peacoat on her slim shoulders and a blue beret on the top of her long blond hair. The last time he’d seen Natalie, he had her breast in his hand and his tongue in her mouth. Her cheeks turned pink, as if she was thinking about the last time, too. Or perhaps it was the cool air brushing her face and tossing the ends of her hair about her shoulders.

He turned off Willie and rolled down the window. “Hey there, Charlotte.” He kept his gaze locked with Natalie’s when what he really wanted was to lower his attention to the open buttons of her coat and think inappropriate thoughts. “Ms. Cooper.”

“Mr. Junger.”

Charlotte jumped up and looked into the window. “We’re walking Spa-ky.”

“Yeah. I can see that.”

She jumped up again and the horn on her hat bobbed. “Come with us.” She went down and jumped again. “We like to walk him to the paw-k.”

A walk to the park was about the last thing he wanted.

“I’m sure Blake has better things to do,” Natalie said, giving him an out.

A November breeze blew several strands of blond hair across Natalie’s lips and tickled her cheek before she pushed them behind her ear. It was cold out but Blake looked hotter than usual. He looked like he hadn’t shaved since he’d left town. The bottom half of his handsome face was covered in a blond scruff. He gazed at her from across the cab of his truck, his eyes a dark gray, tired and alert at the same time.

“I’ll catch up with you.”

The tinted window slid up and Natalie turned and watched Blake’s big red Ford roll down the road, then pull into his driveway. She reached for Charlotte’s hand and almost tripped over Sparky. She’d enrolled the dog in an obedience school that started in a week. “We’ll have to get Sparky’s school to teach him how to walk on a leash.” She took a few steps but Charlotte didn’t budge from her spot on the side of the road.

“We have to wait for Blake.”

“He said he’d catch up with us.” Although she doubted he meant it. The last time he’d seen her, he’d been so mad he’d threatened to climb on top of her in the middle of Main Street. Then he’d yelled at Frankie.

Together, she and Charlotte and Sparky continued down the street. She hadn’t wanted a dog. Not yet. Not until Charlotte could take more responsibility in the day-to-day care of a puppy, but Natalie had to admit, he was kind of growing on her. Especially when he slept after a long walk.

Sparky barked and pounced on a leaf, more like a cat than a dog. Charlotte laughed, and Natalie’s heart pinched just a little. From the day of Charlotte’s birth, Natalie worried that her daughter would suffer for the choices that her parents made. Natalie’s own parents had divorced when she’d been nine, but at least she’d had those first impressionable years when a father was important in a child’s life. Charlotte had her grandfather Cooper, but Natalie worried he wasn’t a significant enough role model to keep her child from becoming a sad statistic. And she especially worried how Michael’s sudden appearance would affect Charlotte.

The day she’d learned that Charlotte knew when Michael would be released from prison, she’d talked to her daughter about it. She’d waited until Charlotte’s bath time to bring it up. Bath time was girl time. Time when they talked while Natalie shampooed her child’s hair. Charlotte had told her she was happy and excited to finally meet her dad, but she didn’t want to live with him. Natalie assured her daughter that she wasn’t going to live anywhere but her own home with her mom.

“What if I don’t like him?” Charlotte had asked as she scrubbed her feet. Charlotte had been so serious that Natalie had had to bite her lip to keep from smiling. It didn’t occur to Charlotte that Michael might not like
her
. Charlotte always assumed that everyone just naturally loved her and thought she was wonderful. Perhaps Natalie and her mother and Lilah had overcompensated a bit.

“What if Spa-ky doesn’t like school?” Charlotte asked as she pulled the dog away from a neighbor’s hissing cat. The neighbor came out and Natalie waved as they passed by.

“He’ll get to meet other dogs and learn some tricks.” She adjusted the beret on her head. “Think of it like you going to school. You like school.”

“No, Mama. I don’t like school anymore.”

Natalie looked down at the top of Charlotte’s unicorn hat. “I thought you liked playing with your friends and learning to read.”

Charlotte shook her head. “Nope. Amy said I couldn’t be a hoss today and made me be a chicken. I didn’t want to be a chicken.”

Across the street, they passed the house where Gordon Loosey had jumped off the second story roof after pounding back a twenty-four pack of Bud Light.