She ran a hand over his biceps, and he remembered how she'd done that earlier.
"You military guys," she said, "do have certain things going for you."
"We have a lot of stamina, for example."
She laughed. "So modest."
He grinned at her. "Maybe I should show you."
She sucked in a breath. "Dec," she whispered, "I want you."
He raised himself on one elbow and reached for her tank top. "Then let's get you naked."
"You too."
"I'm too close to going off. Let's do it my way for a few minutes."
Slowly, he pulled her tank top up from the bottom, over her breasts, and off the top of her head. For a long minute, he just looked at her, gleaming in the candlelight, the sexiest thing he had ever seen.
"Laila." He fell on her, sucking a nipple into his mouth, pressing it up against the roof of his mouth, inhaling her scent, hearing her soft moans. It was heaven to him, even the painful ache between his own legs that he knew would not be assuaged by one night of sex with her.
He moved down her body, yanking at her pants, pulling them down so he could get at the heart of her. He wanted to go slow, but she tasted too good, and she was too responsive, writhing under his tongue. He tried to push her legs wider, but the pants held her enclosed. He had to lift himself to yank them off.
"Hurry, Dec," she murmured. "Please, let me see you."
He pulled down his own pants and threw them aside. He fell on her, his mind repeating the mantra that he was going too fast, too fast, but he couldn't stop. He had to be inside her, ahhhhh. He thrust into her welcoming heat. Unexpectedly, she orgasmed around him.
Then he was lost, pounding into her as if he were a machine gun that would never run out of ammunition. He felt her hands grabbing his hair, scoring his back, and her entire body met him thrust for thrust. Sweat poured off his body and at one point, he was sure she licked his shoulder, big sloppy licks, as if she couldn't get enough of him. That was when he lost all control and erupted into her with what felt like the force of a hydrogen bomb.
Laila came down from her second orgasm, wrapped in Dec's arms as they lay together, side by side, allowing their heartbeats to return to normal. Nothing in life could ever feel better than Dec hard inside her, moving, groaning into her ear. Tears started in her eyes.
Of course, he noticed instantly.
"You're a crier," he said.
"No," she said. "Not usually. It's just that nothing ever lasts."
He kissed her lips. "I thought you knew—"
"Don't worry. I knew what we were doing going in. Your conscience can be clear."
"It's not my conscience that's the problem," he said. "It's reality."
She threw her arms around his neck. "Let's ignore reality for the next few hours. It will bite us soon enough."
He smiled. "Sounds good to me. The night isn't over yet. Are you sore?"
She smiled into his kiss. "Worn out, not sore."
"Is that a dare?" He nudged her, already hard. "This night is all we have. Let's make the most of it."
She threw a leg over his and pressed closer.
When he was inside her, she could almost forget about tomorrow.
When she would have to leave.
And go straight to his enemies.
Chapter Twenty-One
Just before dawn, Declan walked down the hallway from the bathroom silently, wondering if he had time for a quickie. He didn't want Laila to feel cheap though, so maybe he'd restrain himself. He could spend the few moments he had left watching her sleep. It was such a novel pleasure to see her face, her generous mouth, her black wing of hair. That might be enough for now.
It had been a shock to hear that she was actually an American, but, at the same time, something inside him had known she didn't fit the subservient Muslim woman profile. He hadn't yet figured out why she suddenly confessed who she really was to him, but he guessed it had something to do with needing his help. Even if she found her sister, she had no way to get the two of them back to civilization.
That was a problem he'd have to address after he completed his mission here. He didn't delude himself that it would be easy. But if the chopper that flew them out had extra room—well, he'd have to deal with that later. For now, he felt happier than he had in a long time.
He knew he was grinning like a fool in the dark hallway, but no one was around to see him.
The confession Laila had made last night had lightened his spirit, for reasons he didn't want to get into right now. Later, when they'd wrapped up this mission and returned home, then he could—
The empty room greeted his eyes with a shock as visceral as a knife in his gut. For a moment, he even wondered if this was his room. But of course it was. That was his backpack lying in the corner, and his boots lined up by the foot of the bed.
But there was no Laila in his bed.
Cursing, he wheeled and raced down the hallway. Harp stood just inside the doorway to the street. "Relax," he said. "The blackbird has flown the coop, but you had time to use the head."
"She left?"
"Greg is on her ass." Harp raised his phone. "Cells are working so we're in touch. Get your gear and prepare to hump it," he added gloomily. "Laila's on foot."
"Shit." Dec knew they could have talked someone in Sinjar into letting them borrow a truck. But they could scarcely roll slowly down a road, following a pedestrian.
Zack appeared silently in the hallway. "Let me guess," he said. "She left without telling you."
"She had her reasons," Dec snapped. "Stop judging what you don't know."
"I don't think she told us one truthful word in the entire time we knew her," Zack answered.
Dec didn't have time to argue. She was out in Sinjar alone, and that was all that mattered.
Harpo had brought back a few rags last night which they put over their own clothes so as to blend in with the local population, virtually all of whom were, fortunately, fighters. Some of the local fighters wore camouflage, many did not, but none of them were members of a regular standing army so it was easier to blend in.
The three men moved out into the quiet pre-dawn, passing block after block of rubble, with scarcely a building left standing. The sounds of a modern city were absent, but they heard a couple of planes high overhead. A trace of smoke tinged the air.
They passed two men with a wheelbarrow toting furniture out of a half-standing house. Dec knew that everything had been stolen from the Yazidi homes when they were forced out of Sinjar, and some of the returning Yazidi believed they were only doing what had been done to them. A rough sort of justice.
Dawn was just beginning to lighten the sky, and Dec wanted to run outright. He wanted to be close enough to Laila to see her, at least through the binoculars. But they needed to avoid drawing unnecessary attention.
They were crossing a broad intersection when they were finally stopped. A group of five hard-looking men halted them by the simple expedient of pointing their AK47s at them. Dec and his teammates could have taken them out, but they weren't allowed to engage so-called friendlies. It was Dec's opinion that no one who pointed a machine gun at him was a friendly, but it wasn't his decision to make.
They stopped.
Harp gave the password that an Air Force sergeant had given them last night. The sergeant had warned them that only the peshmerga, the more-or-less regular soldiers of the Kurds, would know the passwords. Other Kurdish factions were on the ground in Sinjar, as well as Yazidi troops.
Fortunately, this group seemed to recognize the word. The guns were lowered, though not put away.
Unexpectedly, the leader smiled, showing a lot of strong teeth, including one gold one, shining through his dark beard. "Go." He waved his AK-47. "Crazy Americans. Chase woman. Plenty women."
Which Dec interpreted to mean that Laila, and Greg had definitely passed this way. He wondered what story Laila had told. She didn't have any passwords, or maybe she did. Dec was sure he didn't know all
her secrets.
As they finally moved out of the city, he heard Harp's voice in his headset. "We've been notified that we're leaving the protection of the American overfly zone. ISIS is strong south of the city, and it looks like Laila is heading toward Baaj."
"Roger that," Dec said. Mentally, he reviewed what he'd studied about the area in preparation for the op. Baaj was the next town of significance going south, but it was small, with only about five thousand inhabitants. It was a good twenty miles from Sinjar, so he hoped they weren't going that far.
Five minutes later, they left Sinjar behind. The rubble of the destroyed city had given way to another arid plain of dun-colored earth covered by the ever-present rocks and sparse vegetation. Nothing they hadn't seen before. There was no cover, but also no sign of people.
Nonetheless, they moved off the dusty roadway. When the Kurds had re-taken Sinjar, the ISIS fighters had fled south, undoubtedly on this same road. Of course, Laila had fled this way as well, so they had no option but to follow. Dec swigged some water, and dug out an MRE for breakfast. It was going to be another long day.
He tried to put his worries out of his mind. He wasn't by nature a fearful type, but it was different, he'd discovered, when you were afraid for someone else. Things that would have been routine became terrifying when someone you—were fond of—was involved. He still had that afterglow from their lovemaking last night and it was surprisingly difficult to shed, a problem he'd never had before. Still, he wasn't prepared to use that loaded word 'love' which had, admittedly, flitted through his head.
"Problem." Geek's low voice snapped in Dec's ear. "An armed man is walking down the road toward Laila."
"How far away is he?" Dec asked.
"Not far enough," Geek said.
Dec broke into a jog. Five minutes later, using his binocs, he could see both Laila and the fighter, who was garbed in the black clothing of an ISIS terrorist. With his heart in his mouth, Dec watched her walk away from him and toward the stranger.
His heart did not go with her. Oh no, his heart continued to beat in his chest, clawing him with agony. He'd thought it was tough to watch his father die of lung cancer, wasting away into skin and bones, sunken eyes and gasping breaths. He'd thought SEAL training was tough, endless days and nights of mentally and physically pushing himself beyond the limits of human endurance. But now he knew what true pain was. Now he knew what sheer, gut-wrenching terror was.
It was watching someone he loved walk into the hands of murderous, hell-born, hate-boiled fanatics who would torture and kill her for any reason, or no reason, simply because they could. He couldn't bear to think of what she might have to endure if the terrorists uncovered her scam, and yet, he couldn't think of anything else. His mind drew horrifying pictures, scenarios where she screamed and writhed in pain, scenarios where she might cry out for him, begging for his help.
Every molecule in Dec's body screamed with fear. They were too far back to help her if she ran into trouble. Yet, they had to stay where they couldn't be seen. Their discovery would doom her as much as anything else. If she walked into that brothel with enemy fighters on her tail, the jihadis would assume she'd betrayed them. They'd kill her out of hand.
Dec picked up his pace. She couldn't enter the brothel alone.
The man reached her, they talked for a few minutes, and then they both began walking together in the same direction Laila had been going.
"Chill out." Zack jogged alongside him. "You know she made these plans. This was a pre-arranged meeting."
"Doesn't mean she's safe," Dec snapped.
"She's stopping," Greg said suddenly in his ear. His voice was very low, as if he feared being heard. "There's a two and a half story, white stone building on the left." He gave the coordinates. "Two men have just emerged from it. Fuck!"
His voice disappeared.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Dec broke into a run, and Zack and Harp joined him. The building Geek had told them about appeared, but there was no sign of Laila.
The sky had lightened to a full dawn, with pink streamers decorating the otherwise bland landscape. Dec couldn't appreciate the stark beauty. He never should have agreed to stay out of visual sight of Laila. Fuck the binoculars. When everything turned to shit, they weren't close enough to help her.
Dec's eyes noticed an unexpected sight on the side of the road, close to the house. His first thought was it could be the scourge of the Middle East—an IED, or improvised explosive device. It was a constant battle to watch out for them.
Fortunately, Geek's voice suddenly popped into his ear again. "That's me on the side of the road. They just dragged Laila into the house."
"Dragged?" Dec couldn't keep his voice calm. He wanted to scream at his teammate for not rushing to her rescue, but the logical side of his brain knew Geek had done the right thing. With reinforcements literally on his heels, it would be stupid to storm the house alone.
"I had to go quiet until they got inside," Geek said.
"How many men have you seen?"
"Three," he said tersely. "The one who came out to meet her and the two at the front door."
"If this is where they moved the brothel," Harp said, "there will be more inside."
"Definitely."
The SEALs were all on the ground by now. They were too close to the house, and there was no cover anywhere. They had to crawl up.
They all knew how they'd storm the house, but Dec spared a passing thought for the fact that this was exactly what Laila hadn't wanted. They'd be bringing violence to a situation which she hoped to resolve through—well, through what? He couldn't imagine. If the girls were enslaved, it wasn't likely they'd be released merely because Laila wished it.
"This is going to be tough." Greg spoke into his mic the thought they all were thinking as he waited for the team to approach him.
"You know the rules, guys." Declan was still the team leader, though he didn't know how long that would last at the rate things were going. "You can't shoot unless they've actively threatened us."
"If those girls are being held against their will, then any male who is breathing in there has actively threatened me," Zack snarled.
"Lots of way to kill a man without shooting," Harpo commented.
Dec gritted his teeth. He knew exactly how they felt. He'd said his piece and it was time to go. He watched Harp and Greg disappear around the back of the house. They'd be up on the roof in seconds.
He'd done this too many times before. He knew they'd see plenty of ugliness. But he couldn't focus on that. Nor could he afford to waste any brain energy on worrying about Laila. He had to get in and get the job—
"Go," Harp said.
Dec and Zack sprang into silent action.
The man at the front door went down without a peep. He'd only had to turn his back for one second and Zack was around the corner of the house, and on him. Strictly speaking, the door guard hadn't threatened anyone, but they couldn't afford to let an alarm be raised.
Dec entered the house silently. They'd given Harpo and Greg enough time to get on the roof from the back, and enter through one of the windows. Dec and Zack would clear each room on the ground floor and work their way up. The other guys would do the same and work down.
The first room they entered was empty. With no lights, they couldn't see much beyond the usual benches and pillows against the walls and some dirty-looking carpets on the floor.
They moved on.
The next room held two women, both on their knees, both giving blow jobs to still-clothed men. Apparently, the hajjis didn't like to look at the burka while getting a blow job because the women were naked.
From his vantage point in the hallway, Dec noticed two things that gave him an advantage. The men were not paying attention to anything but their dicks. The women were not girls. He supposed that was something, but not much.
Rape was rape no matter the age.
Still, they didn't know that the women were being coerced. They could be volu
ntarily selling their services.
One of the men was facing the doorway. There would be no silent takedown here. Two guns were thrown down on the floor behind the men. They had to reach for those guns before Dec and Zack could take them out, one of the many rules of engagement that had cost many an American his life.
And first, they had to be sure neither of the targets was missing his pinkie finger on his left hand. The lieutenant had given orders that Behaid was to be captured alive if possible.
Dec cut his eyes over to Zack to signal him. They didn't need to discuss the fact that each of them would take out the man on his side of the room. They didn't need to mention the fact that both men had all their fingers intact. But they did need to move.
Leading with his gun, Dec kicked the partially open door fully open, and burst into the room.
His target looked up in a caricature of surprise, mouth dropping open, eyebrows reaching for the ceiling, eyes wide. In the next instant, he turned and reached down for his gun. Dec shot him, center mass. He went down. In two steps, Dec was on him, checking for a pulse.
He'd seen Zack's target make a different fatal decision. He'd shoved aside the woman on her knees in front of him, and leapt for Zack. The room was small, and he almost reached Zack before the SEAL pulled the trigger and stopped him mid-leap.
The two women fell back to the sides of the room, both of them curling up into fetal positions, either to limit their profiles as targets, or to hide their nudity. Interestingly, neither one screamed. As Dec checked his target's pulse, which was absent, he saw one of the women spit. And spit again.
The other woman pointed a finger at herself. "Slaves," she said, in heavily accented English. "Slaves."
That was all they needed to hear.
Dec and Zack rushed out of the room. Their shots had been the first fired in the house, but in the few minutes they'd been in that room, they'd heard others, plus females screaming. Harpo and Geek were obviously seeing action upstairs.
In the next room, the two hajjis must have heard the gunfire. They were both standing with a naked woman held in front of each of them. Cowards. And fools. They were taller than the women, their heads perfect targets. The hajji fired at him, but Dec knew the guy's shot would be lucky to hit anything because Dec was already down on one knee and his aim was excellent. The guy's head exploded.
Field Stripped: 15 Steamy Military Romances Page 123
