by Cindy Dees
But then his traitorous hand had to go and reach up, to trace the seductive curve of her breast through her tousled hair. Maybe when he retired he would take up painting and spend a few decades trying to capture the perfection of that shape. His body stirred, and a slow, sexy smile spread across Tessa’s face. He grinned back at her. She had a hell of an effect on him. He couldn’t remember ever being this insatiably drawn to a woman before.
She shifted her weight and slid herself down onto his eager erection, her body tight and warm around him. She rocked her hips lazily and a groan of pure pleasure slipped between his lips. She rode him slowly, her movements languid as her body undulated upon his. He watched her ride him, as lazy and sultry as the morning. His gaze narrowed as he grew harder and his body tightened almost painfully. Good grief, the pleasure she gave him. She knocked his world so off-kilter he hardly knew which way was up.
“I think I could do this forever.” She sighed blissfully.
“I know I could,” he replied fervently.
She opened her eyes and smiled down at him. He stared back at her, his soul stripped bare. He was defenseless in the face of her sensuality. She was everything he’d ever dreamed of in a woman and more. Hell, she could shoot Eisenhower’s eye out of a dime at fifty yards and then do this, riding him into complete oblivion. She was perfect.
The pleasure built and built, and Tessa threw her head back, losing herself in the love she was making to him. He reveled in the myriad expressions flitting across her face. She was so open, holding nothing back as pleasure, wonder and even a bit of awe shone in her eyes and curved her mouth into ever more delirious smiles.
No feelings. No strings.
She looked like a goddess come to life, calling forth sexual responses from him that he didn’t even know he was capable of. Her internal muscles tugged at him hungrily, and his hips rose to meet her. His entire body clenched, on the edge of detonating. Her hips rocked forward and down as she impaled herself more deeply than ever upon him, gripping his entire length tighter and tighter.
No feelings. No strings. No feelings. No strings.
He thrust up into her, seeking her core with a desperation he hadn’t known he could feel. There. Heaven. He’d touched Heaven. Tessa threw her head back and keened in pleasure as her body spasmed hard around his, her internal muscles shuddering and clenching, releasing and clenching again in the throes of her orgasm.
No feelings. No strings. No. Feelings. No. Strings. Dammit.
His entire body tightened and then exploded into her with such violence he almost lost consciousness for a second. Her internal muscles pumped him until he was drained, totally emptied into her, body and soul.
He fell back, breathing hard, mind blown. He’d never, in his entire life, experienced a release like that. He felt shredded into a million disconnected bits. An odd and totally unfamiliar sense of wholeness filled him. With it came a wave of peace, of rightness, that ran soul-deep.
Tessa planted her hands on his shoulders, panting, and her hair swung down around their faces like a sable curtain. Inside its shelter, the two of them stared at each other for a long, wordless moment. The intimacy of it was staggering. Based on the joy and disbelief shining in her bright gaze, he gathered her mind was nearly as blown as his.
Neither of them spoke. They just stared into each other’s eyes. Hell, into each other’s souls. A million words could not have conveyed what their eyes expressed.
Eventually, she murmured, “I know I’m not supposed to fall for you. But can I at least say thank you for that?”
Stone-cold fear rippled through him. It was both unexpected and unwelcome. Worse, it wasn’t fear of her falling for him. It was fear of her not falling for him. “Yeah. Sure,” he mumbled. No feelings. No freaking strings.
His gut clenched, this time with unpleasant awareness of an even bigger problem. A huge one. She might not be falling for him, but he sure as hell was falling for her.
Chapter 13
Beau had taken his turn in the shower, helped Tessa cook up a giant pile of pancakes and done his part to help devour them when his phone rang. He pulled it out and frowned at the caller ID. Torsten. Guilt speared through Beau’s gut. Busted.
Which was ridiculous, of course. Gunnar couldn’t possibly know what he and Tessa had been up to most of last night and this morning.
What, then, did the boss man want? To date, Torsten had been mostly hands off with Tessa’s training, trusting Beau to figure out what to do and get it done.
“Hey, sir. How’s it going?”
“It’s going. I have a question for you, Beau. How’s our girl’s training progressing?”
Lambert said with definite reluctance, “She’s doing better than I expected.”
Tessa smiled broadly over the dishes she was washing in the sink, and Beau rolled his eyes at her.
Gunnar asked seriously, “Would you say she’s Medusa material? I need you to be dead straight with me.”
“As much as I’d love to say no, I can’t. She’s taking to this stuff like a fish to water.”
“That’s fantastic news. I was pretty sure she had the right stuff.”
Beau snorted. As if Gunnar Torsten was ever wrong about such things.
“Here’s the thing, Beau. I need her operational as soon as possible.”
He frowned, warning bells clanging in his gut. It might be okay in theory to think about making a Medusa of Tessa, but with the reality abruptly staring him in the face, Beau was shocked to realize he actually hated the idea. A lot.
More to the point, he hated the idea of her going anywhere near harm’s way.
“Why do you need her operational?” he managed to mumble.
Gunnar answered grimly, “I’m going to have a mission for her sooner rather than later.”
“Use someone else,” Lambert replied sharply.
“She’s the perfect candidate for the job,” Gunnar replied tersely.
“She’s not even a baby Medusa yet,” Beau snapped back.
A long silence ensued. Beau wasn’t about to be the one to break the stalemate, since Tessa’s actual life might very well be on the line.
“I’m sorry, Beau. I need a woman on this op. It’s been a year in the making, and we’ve got undercover guys in place, lives on the line. It’s going to take a woman to close the deal, and she’s the only one I’ve got right now. In a couple of years when I’ve got a whole team of Medusas to choose from, of course I wouldn’t consider sending out someone so inexperienced.” He added, his voice waxing ragged, “But I lost my whole Medusa team six months ago. I’ve got nobody else but Tessa Wilkes.”
Beau exhaled heavily. He got where Torsten was coming from. He just didn’t like it. Hell, he hated it.
“I want to bring her in, Beau. Hook her up with a Spec Ops team. Train with them. We need to prepare her as much as possible as fast as possible. A plane will arrive at the airfield in...four hours plus or minus ten minutes. I need both of you on it.”
Beau stared at his disconnected phone in disgust. He’d never had a choice at all over whether or not Tessa got thrown into the deep end of the pool. The damn plane was already en route to come get her. Great. Just freaking great.
* * *
Tessa couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt this amazing. The sex with Beau had been mind-boggling. For better or worse, it had been more than mere sex. They’d made love with each other.
Even Beau seemed to have been affected by it. She’d never felt such a connection with any man before. It was scary and wonderful and overwhelming all at the same time. How on earth he could resist that, she had no idea.
Beau was quiet over breakfast. Withdrawn. As if he was thinking deep—unpleasant—thoughts. She would lay odds he was thinking about her because he glanced over at her from time to time when he thought she wasn’t looking his way.
Please, please, let him not be regretting sleeping with her. If she’d learned nothing in her life so far, it was that life was too short to dwell on regrets.
Take her, for example. She would never regret sleeping with him. Yes, she understood that she couldn’t have him and be a Medusa. She knew that someday she would have to choose between the two. But that day was not this day. Today she would enjoy being with him. Maybe she would initiate the sex tonight.
“Penny for your thoughts?” she murmured.
He just shook his head.
Drat. Beau could lock down his thoughts and feelings like nobody’s business. She would give a million dollars to know what was going on inside his complicated head. But no amount of money would induce him to share, of course. The man lived for his secrets.
Not that she didn’t have a few of her own. Like the fact that she’d actually enjoyed being in a firefight with the Kimballs last night...nearly as much as she enjoyed having sex. Well, maybe as much as regular sex. What she and Beau did together was in a class all its own. Nothing compared to that. Surely, he felt it, too.
Their connection was intense. What she felt, he felt, and vice versa. It was as if they were inside each other’s heads when they made love. What pleasured one pleasured the other. It was kind of freaky. This morning the more pleasure she’d given him, the more she’d experienced herself.
Maybe that was the difference between sex and making love. Sex was about taking as much feel-good for herself as possible. But making love with Beau was about giving as much pleasure as she could. And in return, the pleasure she received increased dramatically. Who knew? It wasn’t as if she’d had any healthy, love-based relationships around her growing up or in her own life to date to learn it from.
Stop. Rewind. Love? Since when was love on the table between her and Beau? It was one thing to fall for him—as in to like him a lot and be crazy infatuated with him. Infatuation was about lust and hot sex. Tearing clothes off and sweat and naked flesh slapping together.
But love? That was long-term stuff. Commitment and sharing life stories. No secrets. Exposing everything about herself to another human being and knowing everything about that person in return. Was she ready for that? Not so much. And besides. No way would Beau go for it. Right?
Relief calmed the panic attack clawing at the back of her throat. Nope. He would never let her inside his emotional fortress of solitude. She was just caught up in the spectacular sex. Yeah. That was it. No love here. No, sirree. No feelings at all. She was a lone wolf.
Except she’d liked working in concert with him last night in the ambush. A lot. It felt great to move as one with Beau, to know what he was thinking without having to speak. She didn’t need him to tell her that they’d clicked perfectly as a team. She’d felt it.
And then in bed...
Was that what made last night and this morning so special? Teamwork? Connection? Sympatico? One thing she knew for sure. Whatever it was, it was freaking amazing.
“Earth to Tessa. Come in.”
She looked up at Beau, startled.
“Do I want to know what you were thinking about?” he asked.
“Nope.”
She really wished they could talk more openly with each other. But they were caught in this weird limbo of teacher/student versus man/woman. And it wasn’t like either one of them was the type to talk out their feelings at the drop of a hat. It was part of what made her comfortable with Beau and likely made him comfortable with her. Still, it wasn’t a recipe for great communication or solving relationship problems.
His gaze flickered, looking troubled for a moment. Then a mental door closed in his eyes and he was abruptly all business.
Chapter 14
Beau sighed as he locked the back door behind him. The old house was buttoned up, the power turned off, until he came back next time. Assuming there was a next time. What would it be like to leave here and know that, barring a freak boat accident on the way to town, he would make it back here safe and sound every time? What an odd concept. A disturbingly alluring concept, all of a sudden.
He followed Tessa down to the dock. She practically ran to the boat and climbed aboard like a puppy eager for a ride in a car. Cripes. Was he ever that enthusiastic about anything?
He dumped his gear in the boat beside hers and cast off the lines. “Listen, Tessa. You have to take your next training seriously. Just because you made it past me doesn’t mean you’re there yet.”
She looked at him quizzically. “Now you want me to make it onto the Medusas? What gives?”
He sighed. “I want you to be happy. If doing this thing makes you happy, then I want it for you.”
“Easy for you to say now that you can’t stop it,” she retorted.
His first impulse was to flare up in anger. But she wasn’t wrong. He schooled his voice to calm. “You’re right. If I’ve been a pain in the ass out here, it was only because I want the best for the Medusas. It’s nothing personal.”
“I should hope at least some of what we’ve done out here was personal,” she responded.
He couldn’t help but smile a little. “That part most definitely was. One thing I can say unequivocally—I’ve never met another woman like you. Not even close.”
She smiled at that, and he was shocked to realize his throat was tight. Rather than try to talk more and end up embarrassing himself, he started the engine and turned his attention to navigating out of the bayou.
He was sad to go. His time out here with her had been magical—if a person thought playing commando was fun. Which he did. And which, amazingly, Tessa did, too.
Yup. She was one of a kind.
And she’d chosen him. It was enough to humble a guy. Make him feel abjectly grateful for their time together.
Aww, hell. Who was he trying to kid? He was going to miss her like crazy, and he was scared to death that he would never find another woman even remotely like her.
They rode in silence to the marina in town, where he docked the airboat. They transferred their gear to his Jeep and drove in silence to the airfield.
* * *
It seemed like a lifetime ago that she’d arrived here, exhausted, furious and with a chip on her shoulder the size of Louisiana. And now she was leaving at least part of the way to becoming a highly classified female Special Forces operator. She took inventory. Did she feel different?
She was fitter now. Stronger. More observant of her surroundings, more self-possessed, more confident in her ability to handle any crisis that came her way. And, she allowed reluctantly, she was more relaxed about men. More at ease in her skin. More comfortable with the idea of being a reasonably attractive woman and able to enjoy the right man.
Too bad the right man had been sulking ever since they left the house and had retreated very, very deep into his emotional man cave.
The plane Torsten had sent was already there, waiting. Beau cut the Jeep engine, and the night sounds pressed forward, a familiar cacophony that would forever be the sound of long nights of loving Beau Lambert.
He picked up Tessa’s bag and carried it to the business jet, passing it to a pilot inside, then turned to face Tessa. Nodded once, tersely.
Her stomach jumped with butterflies as she waited to board the Learjet. The good kind. She and Beau were moving on to the next step of the process. She paused for a moment to stare into the trees, listen to the night sounds and smell the swamp one last time before she left.
From behind her, Beau said quietly, “This is where I leave you.”
She whipped around to stare at him. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Congratulations. You did it. You made it through your own private version of Qual training. You’re ready to go work with a full-blown team and get field experience.”
Vividly aware of the pilot standing in the doorway of the jet behind them, she spoke under her br
eath, urgently. “What’s going on?”
“You’re going to train with your temporary team. Until a full team of women is assembled, you’ll have to work with men. That could take a year or more.” He shrugged. “The price you pay for being the first woman chosen for the new team.”
She opened her mouth to protest, to demand that he come with her, or that she go with him, but he cut her off quickly as if he was afraid of what she might say.
Was he afraid of the pilot or afraid of words that could not be unsaid? Words like, I love you—
“I have orders of my own from Torsten. There’s a job elsewhere he needs me to do.” Beau’s jaw worked for a minute, and then he continued, “You wanted to be a Medusa. This is part of being one. Leaving with no warning. No time for a personal life. Living at the beck and call of Uncle Sam. Suck it up, buttercup.”
“Can I at least have a hug?”
“I don’t know. Would you hug Gunnar Torsten?”
She squeezed her eyes shut briefly. Pain sluiced through her. He was right. She knew it. But God, this hurt.
“I’ll see ya ’round, Wilkes.”
That was it? I’ll see you later? Not even a simple “Good luck”? Nothing?
Numb with disbelief, she stumbled up the steps and paused in the doorway. She turned around to say...she didn’t know what...but to say something.
But Beau had already turned around and was striding away into the night.
He didn’t look back.
Chapter 15
Six months later...
“Welcome to Morocco, Tessa.”
She turned to look up at Gunnar Torsten, barely recognizable sporting a thick beard, which had been dyed brown to match his dyed hair. Gone was the high and tight military haircut, replaced by shaggy hair that looked like it hadn’t been trimmed in a while.
“Nice hair, sir,” she commented.
He grinned briefly. “The rest of the team is this way. They’re eager to get the full in-brief. I waited for you two so I don’t have to repeat myself.”
