by Cindy Dees
He could only feel her body against his, welcoming him home. Absorbing him into her. Quivering with lust, exploding around him. Showering him with stars and galaxies. Flying him to the edge of forever and back.
And still he drove into her, faster and faster, deeper and deeper, reaching for more, and yet more, of the ecstasy he found in her arms and in her soul.
Wonder filled his mind as a massive tsunami of pleasure rolled toward the shore of his mind, a place where only Tessa waited for him. Only him.
His hips slammed into hers uncontrollably. He was no more capable of holding himself back than he was of holding back the sun from rising or the moon from setting. His body was not his own. He was lost in the love they made between them, transported entirely out of himself and into her. Into the one entity they became when they joined like this.
Higher and higher they rose, faster and faster they rolled toward that far shore. He felt them reaching the pinnacle of the wave. Cresting. Starting the curl and the long, wild ride into oblivion.
Sensing the final explosion coming, he gave himself over to it. With a final, apocalyptic thrust into Tessa, her hips rising violently to meet his, they crashed into ecstasy together, obliterating each other. Their shared orgasm tore them apart, ripped the wings from their backs and flung them earthward into a long, blissful free fall through wave after wave of exquisite pleasure.
He let it all roll through him. Imprinted every magical second of it in his mind. He realized they were floating in a haze together. Light. Weightless. Simultaneously exhausted and energized. Separate and one. Alive and something else altogether that transcended flesh and bones.
“Wow,” Tessa breathed against his shoulder.
He registered vaguely that he must be crushing her, but her arms and legs gripped him tightly when he bunched his muscles to move.
Wow, indeed.
Mind. Blown.
They lay as one for long minutes, joined in body and soul. Words weren’t necessary as they reveled in the wonder of what they’d just shared.
Eventually, he rolled onto his back and tucked her against his side where she cuddled close, one leg thrown lazily over his hips, and her arm resting across his chest.
Thought gradually, sluggishly, began to return, and with it, worry.
No. He wouldn’t think about tomorrow. Not yet. They had tonight, and he was damned well going to enjoy every second of it.
Tessa seemed of similar mind, for she made no move to get up or to leave his arms, his bed, his room. She seemed content to just be here with him. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been this relaxed, and she felt every bit as boneless draped across him.
Which was why they both jumped violently when his door opened without warning. Gunnar Torsten loomed in the doorway and growled, “What in the bloody hell do you two think you’re doing?”
Chapter 17
Tessa lurched, starting to sit up before she remembered she was naked, and snatched the blanket up around her chin. Ohgod, ohgod, ohgod, ohgod. Not good.
Correction: terrible.
End of the world disaster.
Was it all over? Had she blown everything? Her life, her career...the mission? A litany of cursing repeated in her head—
“My office. Five minutes. Both of you. With clothes.” Torsten backed out of the doorway and closed the door silently.
Tessa rolled out of bed and snatched on her T-shirt and shorts, grateful Beau didn’t say anything as he yanked on cargo pants and a T-shirt. Her hand went to her hair, which was a wild as it ever got. Crap. She darted out of Beau’s room on bare feet and down the hall to her own room for a hairbrush.
She stared at herself in the mirror in dismay. Her lips were pink and swollen, her cheeks flushed and her hair...it shouted that she’d been having hot sex mere minutes ago.
Swearing, she dragged a brush through her mane and corralled it into a ponytail. The whole mess poofed like a poodle tail. Of course. Because it was important to look like a clown going into the butt-chewing that spelled the end of all her hopes and dreams.
She shoved her feet into a pair of sandals and trudged downstairs to the first floor where Torsten had set up shop in the house’s library. As she passed the burbling fountain, she spied a man-shaped shadow lurking on the far side of the courtyard.
Neville materialized out of the darkness. He must be pulling watch right now. “Pre-mission jitters?” he asked quietly.
If only. “Gun wants to see me.”
“Don’t let him intimidate you. He’s got the big picture. He may talk a tough game, but he’d die for every one of us. Including you.”
She nodded miserably. Too bad that devotion probably didn’t extend to court martial offenses.
“As for nerves, we all get them before missions. Ray and Marco have both been roaming around tonight, too.”
Great. Maybe they’d heard her and Beau going at it. She thought back, tried to remember if they’d made any noise. But the sex had been so all-consuming, she honestly couldn’t remember if either of them had cried out.
Her face heated up, and she turned away from Neville with a nod of thanks. Might as well face the music. Delaying the inevitable wasn’t going to make it any easier. Her heart felt like molten lead trying to burn its way through her diaphragm and drop to the ground.
She knocked quietly on the closed door to Torsten’s office.
“Enter.”
She stepped inside. He was seated behind his desk, writing on a pad of paper. Beau already sat in one of two wooden chairs in front of the desk. Torsten pointed with his pen at the second chair and went back to writing.
She sank onto the edge of the wooden chair and perched gingerly. Risking a glance at Beau, he was already looking at her. Apology shone in his eyes.
Torsten laid down his pen and leaned back in his seat, staring at both of them. His pale blue eyes were colorless in the pool of light thrown by the single lamp on his desk. His stare casually shredded her. She might as well have swallowed shards of glass. Tessa’d had plenty of interrogation training and instruction on how to resist torture, but nothing had prepared her for the waves of guilt inspired by Gunnar Torsten’s steady, emotionless stare.
“It’s my fault, Gun,” Beau said abruptly, breaking the taut silence. “Throw me under the bus, but don’t wreck Tessa’s career.”
Torsten’s right eyebrow lifted and that icy gaze shifted to Beau. She sagged in relief. But she couldn’t let Beau take all the heat. It had taken two to tango, after all.
She spoke up. “It’s not his fault. We both share the blame.” She noticed out of the corner of her eye that Beau was glaring at her. Tough. She didn’t need him to protect her from the consequences of her actions. She was an adult, thank you very much. She continued grimly, “I was a fully willing participant. We both knew we were breaking the rules.”
Torsten leaned forward, planting his elbows on the desk, and bit out, “You do realize I could court martial both of you for this.”
Beau nodded. Tessa followed suit.
“Lambo, you’ve had a distinguished career without a blemish on it. Until this. I sent you out into the bayou alone with Lieutenant Wilkes because I trusted you not to do precisely this.”
Tessa winced and Beau flinched. Betraying this man’s trust—disappointing him—was almost worse than if he’d raged at both of them.
Torsten pinned her with an icy stare. “And you do realize that you’ve not only set a terrible precedent for yourself, but for all the women to follow you into the Medusas.”
“Yes, sir.” Not that she thought for a second that a display of contrition was going to have any impact on Torsten.
He flung himself back in his chair, his accusing stare shifting back and forth between her and Beau. It took every ounce of willpower she had not to squirm under the intensity of his scrutiny. Making excuses would
only make things worse. They’d done the crime, now they had no choice but to face the penalties.
“Tomorrow’s meeting requires your full attention, Wilkes. How am I supposed to believe you’ll give the mission 100 percent if you’re indulging in personal distractions?”
She took a deep breath and spoke as honestly as she could. “I couldn’t sleep, and I went to Beau’s room in search of a distraction that would help me get some sleep. In my opinion, breaking the rules was worth the risk if it meant I would go into tomorrow decently rested and alert.”
Torsten’s laser stare shifted to Beau. “What’s your excuse, Lambo?”
Beau shrugged. “No excuse, sir. I love her.”
He what? She barely managed to keep her jaw from sagging open.
Torsten made a sound of disgust. “How the hell can you know what you feel for her? You two got together under the most stressful of circumstances. Since the beginning of recorded history, men and women thrown together in high-stress situations have been sleeping together to relieve the tension. You have no way of knowing what you really feel because you let your need for an outlet get the best of you.”
Torsten continued grimly, “It’s all well and good for you to make grand declarations, but you two have never been together in normal circumstances. I don’t accept your statement that you love her.”
She opened her mouth, although she had no idea what to say. Not that it mattered. Torsten cut her off with a hand slashing through the air.
“I don’t want to hear anything you have to say, Wilkes,” he snapped. He exhaled heavily and continued more calmly, “I put the two of you together and alone under exceptional stress to see if something exactly like this would happen.”
Oh, my God. It had been a test. And she and Beau had failed. Spectacularly. The humiliation in her gut degraded into abject disgust at herself. She should have known Torsten was up to something like that. She should have seen it coming. God. She’d run face-first into his spiderweb.
A horrifying thought struck her. Had Beau seen the trap coming? Had he been a willing participant in entrapping her? She glanced over at him, and chagrin was painted all over his face. Thank goodness. At least he hadn’t, with cold calculation, seduced her with the intent to destroy her career.
Right?
She mumbled, “You knew if we got caught it would tank my future...you never did want me to go operational...”
Beau surged to his feet to stare down at her. “After what we just shared, you can say that? What the hell is wrong with you?”
She closed her eyes, her humiliation complete. The last thing she wanted or needed was to air her dirty laundry with Beau in front of Torsten. “For the record, I believe you. But I had to know.”
“And this is why workplace romances in the military are forbidden,” Torsten commented drily.
Beau sank into his chair, but simmering fury still rolled off him.
There was nothing she could do about his anger. She had to ask the question, to see how he reacted to it. His fury had flared real and immediate. He hadn’t slept with her as a ploy to torpedo her career. Nope, she’d torpedoed her career all by herself. She squeezed her eyes shut. The mortification of it all. And the disappointment in herself—
“Wilkes,” Torsten said sharply. “You’ve got me over a barrel.”
Her eyes popped open. “How’s that, sir?”
“I need you to complete the mission. But I need your head in the game.”
She was shocked that he would consider moving ahead with her operating as a Medusa, even if it was only going to be this one mission.
He reached up to pinch the bridge of his nose in what looked like total exasperation. “Here’s what I’m going to do. I’m writing Article Fifteens on both of you.”
She gulped. Those were official reprimands, and she and Beau could kiss any future promotions goodbye with one of those in their personnel files.
“I’m going to hold them in my drawer. One more screwup—or screw—out of either one of you, and I’m going to file the Article Fifteens officially.”
She stared at him in disbelief. He was proposing not to destroy everything she’d worked for all these years? For the first time since Beau’s bedroom door had opened, a glimmer of hope flickered in her chest.
“Just so we’re clear,” Torsten continued grimly, “there will be no personal relationship between the two of you as long as both of you are working on my team. None. Is that understood?”
“Yes, sir,” she mumbled in unison with Beau.
He pointed at Beau. “Get out of here. And keep your damned pants zipped.”
Beau stood, sighed, paused momentarily as if he wanted to say something to her, but then left without a word.
Oh, joy. She got to have a private chewing out from Torsten.
He pinched the bridge of his nose again, and she waited him out, bracing herself for the worst.
“Tessa. From the first day I saw you knock out a full workout, followed by a half marathon carrying forty pounds of gear, from which you emerged defiant and stubborn as hell, I knew you were going to make a fine operator.”
Oh, dear. He was going the guilt route. He’d figured out that guilt was her kryptonite. She was a pro at it, and a big, fat wave of it roiled through her now.
“Part of being a good Medusa is having a certain...disregard...for rules,” he observed.
She blinked, startled. He wasn’t hinting at letting her off the hook, was he?
“Rebuilding the Medusas was inevitably going to result in situations like this. I just didn’t expect it to happen so soon. I thought you might spend a few years on the teams before someone caught your eye.”
She winced. This was worse than the birds-and-bees talk from her mother.
Torsten continued, “I get it. Lambo’s a great guy. And I suppose I see why the ladies think he’s attractive.”
Attractive? Beau would give a Hollywood A-list actor a run for his money. Not that she was about to say that to Gunnar Torsten, of course.
“I’ve given a lot of thought to how I’m going to handle it when Medusas become romantically involved with their fellow operators.”
And...the humiliation was back. The idea of her sex life being put under a microscope by those two was slightly beyond totally horrifying.
“I’m told there’s no stopping the heart. It wants what it wants. Relationships are going to happen with the Medusas. Which leaves me in the awkward position of having to create rules for how to handle them.”
What was he trying to say?
“I can’t let you and Lambo be a couple while on the same team. As soon as I’ve got a full-blown Medusa team for you to run with, we won’t have a problem. But until then, the emotional tangle is too messy. Too likely to impact an op and get someone killed. I can’t let the two of you serve on the same team.”
“I would expect no less, sir. Beau and I have already come to the exact same conclusion.”
“Indeed? And did the two of you decide which one of you would step off the team?”
She winced. “That was a point of some debate between us. He says my career is just getting started and that I should get my shot. I say he’s the more experienced operator who has the most to offer by staying.”
He stared hard at her. “I need you to focus on your upcoming meeting at all costs. What is it going to take for you to do that?”
“You’ve already been more generous than I expected or deserve, sir.”
“Agreed,” he bit out.
“How about we table the discussion of what to do with Beau’s career versus mine until after Al Dhib is in custody? I get that we can’t work together. But maybe we can be assigned to separate teams or different theaters of operation. Or something,” she added desperately.
Torsten said nothing. He had the decency to allow her the illusion
that it would all work out for her and Beau somehow. That there was a way for them to have each other and to keep both of their careers intact.
He spoke quietly. “Once this mission is over and you go down for a training evolution, the pressure will be off you and Lambo. You may find that the relationship reaches its logical conclusion, anyway, and this whole discussion becomes moot.”
She frowned. “What makes you think we’re doomed to failure?”
He didn’t hesitate. “Because of where you fell for each other. That’s not real. You were blowing off steam. You both found an outlet for the pressure you were experiencing.”
“So you think it’s a summer fling that will fade away when the kids go back to school?” she asked in dismay.
“I know it is,” he answered firmly.
Good grief. What if he was right? Had everything she felt for Beau been a lie? Well, maybe not a lie, but not real?
“If you don’t mind my asking, sir, what made you such a cynic about love?”
His gaze narrowed warningly, telegraphing loud and clear that she’d overstepped her bounds. She backed off hard, rising to her feet to go.
“Go get some sleep,” Torsten ordered. “Alone. In your own room. You’re going to need it.”
* * *
Fitful was the word that came to mind when Neville asked Tessa over breakfast how she’d slept. Awful. Abjectly relieved to still have a job. Confused by Gunnar Torsten’s take on her relationship with Beau. Terrified he might be right—that what she thought was love might be nothing more than stress-induced lust.
In a word, she was a mess.
And she was about to head into a meeting posing as a Venezuelan arms buyer, where even the slightest mistake spelled death.
The final meeting preparations got rolling around her, a flurry of action that included comm checks, last-minute oiling and cleaning of weapons and detailed reviews of the layout of Al Dhib’s estate and several restaurants he was known to frequent.
The idea was for her, Marco and Ray to attempt to stay together for the meeting and not let her get separated from the herd, as it were. But Torsten was skeptical it would go down that way. He guessed Al Dhib wouldn’t want to feel outnumbered and would want to feel in control of the meeting.
