Wings of Gold Series

by Tappan, Tracy

  “I guess.” He heard her swallow. “Brodie looks just like you.” He felt her watching him. “Is that…was that weird?”

  Kyle remained facing forward, placing his hands on his knees. His spine felt very straight. “Yes,” he whispered.

  “Seeing him cry…” She sniffed. “God, it made me want to…to hug him…” Her voice caught. “B-be his mother.”

  Jaw twitching, Kyle stared at the on-off switch on the television set, a bunch of tight fists gripping his belly. What was a man supposed to do with an upset woman? He had no training for it. Sienna never got emotional in front of him, and other women…he just banged them.

  Sienna laughed wetly. “I wouldn’t have made him eat lunch.”

  Kyle managed a stilted smile. “Me either.”

  She exhaled slowly. “It made me think…how our lives might’ve been different, if…maybe I’d kept him.”

  Not for the first time the thought squirmed its way inside Kyle. Dully-spoken, necessary words came out of his mouth. “We’re not good together, Sienna. Brodie is better off with the Colemans.” Kyle still had all of his teeth, thirty-two, wisdom included—for all the good those did him—and they all pressed together simultaneously. No! No! I want my kid!

  Sienna’s fingers brushed over his forearm. “You could’ve been my greatest love, Kyle,” she said softly. “It’s just…you’re so…” She trailed off.

  Pain pushed his eyes closed. “You don’t need to say it.” She’d already said it yesterday. This is exactly why I never ended up with you, Kyle. You’re so undependable. Just like your father. I saw how depressed your poor mother was her whole life. Do you think I wanted to end up like that? His jaw quivered.

  Sienna pulled her hand back. “You were going to leave Brodie’s hospital room today, weren’t you?”

  His throat jerked. Heat flashed up the back of his neck. Snapping his eyes open, he rounded on Sienna, all sensation leaving his lips. “I’m extremely fucking shell-shocked right now, Sienna. Do you think maybe you could not jab a sharp stick into me?”

  A starter pistol went off in his head. We’re off! The act of yelling would ignite their regular pattern—her yelling back, him yelling some more, until their raging would land them in bed, having rough, clawing, I-hate-your-guts/love-your-guts sex.

  But it was a day of belly-twisting, soul-shocking firsts. Sienna just lifted her hand and palmed his cheek. “Okay.”

  He went utterly still. He even stopped breathing for a couple of seconds. Emotional Sienna was as much of a mind-bender as Nice Sienna. What to do…?

  So he pushed her down on the mattress and had sex with her—gentle, not rough—their fingers entwined, gazes locked, sore hips gently rocking together…

  And now, here it was morning, and Sienna was gone. Without so much as a light shake of the shoulder to wake him to say goodbye…as if everything they’d been through hadn’t meant a single damned thing to her. As if? Ha. It was for fucking sure the cryogenic bitch hadn’t made even an iota of space for him in her heart.

  Kyle sat up on the edge of the bed, rigidly shoveling anger into the smoking hole in his chest. Why did he keep doing this shit to himself? Fists pressed to his thighs, he actually cocked an ear to the Universe, waiting for an answer.

  Unfortunately, he got one.

  Go blow your “extenuating circumstances,” Kyle. You said it yourself: you’re the googolplexian of all idiots.

  Chapter One

  April, seven months later. Jebel Ali Club, Dubai, United Arab Emirates

  Samantha was going to sleep with the next man who walked into the club. Absolutely. It’s happening. Gripping her gin and tonic in a tight fist, she peered from her position at the bar through the dim light at the front door. Her stomach fluttered.

  But no sexual liaison entered.

  She gave her drink an erratic stir with the swizzle stick. He would come in, though, eventually, and when he did and she secreted him away someplace private, there wouldn’t be any kind of I’ve never done this before utterances from her. No. Even though she never had indulged in a one-night stand before, such a phrase sounded regretful, and she wasn’t going to allow herself to feel remorse over this. Death was a real possibility on the mission she was undertaking tomorrow, and she’d be damned if she was going six feet under before she’d first had six inches in. She hadn’t had sex in over a year, and this might very well be her last chance to have it, so she was going for it.

  The door swung open, letting in a burst of unintelligible chatter from the Ibn Battuta Mall outside, plus a whiff of the scents she associated with Third World nations: everything musty and underused, like opening the lid of a chest that’d been stifled in an attic too long.

  She straightened on her stool as a man entered the bar…wearing a turban. Oh, boy. She slouched back down. A great deal of choosiness probably wasn’t a luxury she had time to indulge, but her instincts told her that making whoopee with a local wouldn’t be the best of ideas.

  She sipped her drink, her tummy still trying to run away and hide behind her spinal cord. No one else came in. Slow night. Or was it? She usually flew directly into Karachi—the most populous city in Pakistan, and its main seaport and financial center—when she had an assignment in Pakistan, so she wasn’t familiar with this club. The place was a strange combination of exotic—the walls were painted an outlandish red color—plus ordinary—several pool tables in the back, and twinkle lights strung around the ceiling. She’d chosen the bar for its proximity to Jebel Ali port, where US Navy ships regularly anchored. An illusion of safety came with being close to something American. She’d even left off wearing a headscarf, or hijab, tonight, although she was still covered from neck to toes, dressed in boots, long pants, and a long-sleeved shirt buttoned down to her wrists and up to her chin. April temperatures in this part of the world already reached into the high seventies, occasionally the eighties, but any less clothing would earn her too many hard stares in this heavily Muslim nation. Besides, she believed in respecting other countries traditions.

  She caught her breath when the door opened again. Two men strode in, and…short hair and clean-shaven equaled military men. Bummer. No surprise, though, considering a Navy ship currently sat in port. But she would be reporting to that very ship tomorrow first thing at oh-my-God-o’clock to kick off her mission. Wouldn’t it be dandy to show up to her meeting with the commanding officer and know he had a mole on his unit?

  So no locals, no military men. Where did that leave her? Stopping this nonsense and going back to her hotel? Her small backpack was slung over her knee, and she moved it onto her lap. She gulped down the rest of her drink.

  The door opened.

  She spun on her stool to see. And her heart lurched.

  The newly arrived man was dressed sort of American’ish in desert-colored clothes and boots right out of an Army surplus store. So not a local. He had short hair, but not excessively so, and moreover, he wore a closely cropped beard. So not military either…unless he was special forces, but that was doubtful. From what she understood, special operatives never traveled alone. So who? Maybe a journalist. Wouldn’t that be a hoot?

  The man stopped just inside the door and scanned the room with a practiced eye. His focus skimmed past her, then skidded back and locked on. The look in his eyes turned decidedly intimate, as if they already shared something personal, and his lazy smile had Gotcha! written all over it.

  In other circumstances she might’ve taken umbrage at his presumptuousness, but, well…she was here to get got.

  He crossed the room, aiming straight for her without any pretense at subtlety. Drawing up next to her, he braced an elbow on the bar.

  Had he purposely placed his forearm in such a way to showcase how well-defined his muscles were? If so, he was a player of the highest caliber. He definitely gave off that kind of an air, oozing confidence like his sweat was made out of liquid gold, good-looking and knowing it. Her hormones took notice of his T-shirt hugging the muscles in his arm
s and chest, and her body heat rose. So…

  She favored him with her most brilliant smile. Gotcha! back, buddy.

  He chuckled at her expression. Visions of her legs wrapped around his waist were probably already dancing through his head. “Gin and tonic?” he inquired, indicating her drink.

  “Yes.”

  His smile broadened. “My very own drink of choice.”

  She fluttered her lashes and gushed, “How marvelous!” Okay, she didn’t really do that. But…truth was, she wasn’t sure how to respond. In a normal bar situation, yes, but this was the abnormal situation of flirting with a man she had no interest whatsoever in having a relationship with, just sex, and, hmmm, maybe that was kind of freeing. “Then when you buy yourself one, you can get me another.”

  “My pleasure,” he said in the smoky tones of a consummate seducer. As he turned to grab the bartender’s attention, she caught sight of a long scar along the line of his left jaw, like white railroad tracks traversing through the field of his beard. Whatever injury had necessitated those stitches had been a nasty one.

  He pointed to her drink, raised two fingers to the bartender, then sat down on a barstool, angling his body toward her, his elbow still on the bar, his thick thighs spread wide.

  She picked up her glass and pretended to peer at the watered dregs of her drink when she was actually lowering her focus to the crotch being presented to her—openly, for her inspection, of that she had no doubt. She took a sip and smacked her lips. Maybe tonight would be more than six inches in.

  The bartender dropped off their gin and tonics.

  She handed the bartender her old drink and took a sip of her new. “So,” she said to her impromptu date, “if you were going to try to seduce a woman in a place like this, what would you say to her?”

  To his credit, he pretended to give her question serious thought, when she suspected the reality was he was operating off a well-worn, and probably extremely successful, script. “If it were you?” he began.

  Who me? No, not me.

  “I wouldn’t unload a bunch of flattery on you about the amazing color of your eyes or the awesome shape of your thighs in those pants.”

  “Oh?” Why not? It might work…it was sort of a little working now.

  “Nah. That would come across as trite to someone like you.”

  “Like me?”

  “Smart.”

  She rolled her eyes. “You have no way of knowing such a thing. You just met me.”

  “Sure I do.” He gestured at her head. “From your haircut. It’s no-nonsense.”

  She ran a hand through her short hair. She wore a pixie cut, long in front, with right side bangs swooping onto her brow, but cut very short in back. Occasionally she blew her hair dry for added fullness, but most days she merely ran her fingers through it as she walked out the door. She’d started out life as a dirty blond, and had never done anything to change that fact. So, yes, no-nonsense was reasonably accurate.

  “You look like a woman who has more important things to do than spend hours in front of a mirror. A busy woman.” Devils danced in the depths of his eyes. “And smart.”

  “I’m not sure if that’s actually a compliment.” Did not spending time in front of a mirror really mean she looked slovenly? “But I’m going to choose to take it that way.”

  His brow furrowed as he crunched on a piece of ice. “How else would I mean it?”

  She waved it aside. “So what would you do with this theoretical smart woman, then? Talk politics with her?”

  He guffawed. “Politics ain’t sexy, honey. No, I think I’d encourage her to seduce me.”

  She exhaled a disbelieving breath.

  Shrugging, he took a sip of his drink and licked his lip.

  “Okay. How?”

  “I’d be straightforward.” His voice was starting to take on a Southern drawl. “For example, if it were you, I’d say: hey, if you were trying to seduce a man in a place like this, what would you say to him?”

  She burst out laughing. “No fair!”

  A glint darted through his eyes. “C’mon now.”

  “All right. Hmm…” She panned the room, then aimed her chin at the two military men who’d come in earlier, now seated at a small table. “I’d take a page out of their book and say, ‘hey, baby, I’m going out in the field tomorrow to hunt terrorists, and I don’t know if I’m going to make it back’.” She leaned forward, close enough to catch her date’s scent—something indescribably masculine—and set a hand on his thigh. “Don’t send me out there a lonely woman,” she said in a husky tone.

  He eye-locked her for the space it took a vein in his neck to pulse twice, then his focus slipped sinuously to her mouth. “And my response would be…” He came to his feet, taking her hand off his thigh and holding it. “Let’s go get some air.”

  “A pool!” Samantha exclaimed when they stepped outside onto the bar’s back patio. And Olympic-sized, too, of all the amazing things.

  Artificial turf ran the length of all four borders, and lawn chairs were neatly lined up on the right and left. An eight-foot-tall wall of solid cement surrounded the entire patio, the interior side of which was dotted with palm trees.

  Her date’s eyebrows soared. “Wow, who would’ve guessed something like this would be at the back of a dive bar?”

  She stepped to the edge of the pool and knelt down, setting her backpack at her feet as she swished her fingers in the water. Perfect temperature for a dip. “I haven’t been in a pool for several weeks.” Between all of the preparations for her Pakistan trip, she’d been too busy.

  “You make it sound like a long time. You swim often?”

  “Very.” She smiled to herself. There was nothing like the feel of being buoyed out in space, noises dampened by water to shut out the rest of the world, her arms pulling through resistance as she pushed for faster and faster speeds.

  “Do you want to go in?” Her date stepped up to her side, the toes of his boots jutting over the edge of the pool.

  His feet were enormous…a sight which probably should’ve encouraged her to check out his package again. She didn’t, though, the first inklings of nerves overtaking her. This man had brought her out here to have sex. She’d come out here with the same objective sitting squarely on her agenda. But planning to have sex with a complete stranger and actually doing it were starting to feel like two very different things.

  “’Course we’d have to skinny dip,” he added in a wicked tone.

  She angled her head to peer up at him. From down here, the scar on his jaw looked even nastier. Had he been sewn up by his next-door neighbor? A reporter buddy who just so happened to be drunk at the time. “Oh?” She arched a single brow. “And then what?”

  A slow smile spread across his face. “We could race each other. There are lines demarcating lanes, after all.”

  “I’d kick your ass.”

  He laughed.

  She stood up and stared at him.

  His laugh cracked off. “What? Really?”

  “I’m afraid so. When I was seventeen, I was an alternate for the women’s breaststroke on the 2004 US summer Olympic team. I even went to Athens, Greece.”

  His eyes briefly flashed wide. “Holy shit. That’s incredible.” He sounded genuinely impressed.

  Which brought a chuckle rippling out of her. “You want to hear something even more incredible?”

  “Definitely.”

  “I can hold my breath for over three minutes, occasionally close to four.”

  “All right, we’re staying out of the pool.” He picked up her backpack and took her hand. “I wouldn’t be looking my best in there…not next to you.” He led her to the farthest corner of the building, and in a smooth, expert move that spoke of long practice he spun her into the shadows against the wall.

  He was against her in the next moment, his hands grasping the circumference of her waist, his head bent to her throat. His gin-and-tonic breath was hot and promissory against her flesh, his bea
rd a soft, teasing burr as he kissed a path from the place where her neck met her shoulder up to where her jaw joined with her ear.

  Her belly churned. Samantha, what are you doing? She conducted another quick check of the outdoor tables and lounges. Deserted. She couldn’t even really hear music coming from inside the bar. Crickets chirped and that was all.

  Her date stepped back a little, his lids hooded. His fingers flickered down the front of her blouse, and before she knew it, her shirt was gaping open from her neck to her navel.

  She dragged her tongue across her lips. That was…quick.

  He tucked his hands inside her shirt, smoothing them from her waist to her spine. His fingertips rode over the gentle knolls of her vertebrae, slowly making their way up to her bra. With another impressive, nearly nonexistent flutter of his fingers, he unclasped her bra. The garment sagged off her chest, and his palms rounded up to cup her.

  She stiffened. A man she’d talked to for less than thirty minutes was feeling up her naked breasts. She couldn’t… Forcing a deep inhale, she closed her eyes. Stop it, and get in the game. The whole reason for doing this was to have a last hurrah! If she couldn’t enjoy it, what was the point?

  Her date made a low sound when her nipples beaded under his teasing thumbs.

  She wasn’t particularly large-breasted, lagging back to the low end of a B-cup. She could tell she didn’t quite fill his palms, but…he didn’t seem to mind. He was giving her breasts a thorough going-over, all the while rumbling deep, pleased noises over them, especially every time he encountered the perky crowns of her breasts.

  At least her nipples were enjoying this.

  Samantha! Get going. Seizing a fistful of hair at the back of his head, she urged him toward her for a kiss. A kiss was everything. If he couldn’t kiss well, she was out.

  Damn, this man could kiss.

  He started out slow and easy, which was absolute perfection, his lips meeting hers in a gentle massage, his tongue no more than a coy, sweet friction over hers, feeling a little cold from his icy drink. Her hand relaxed in his hair, her fingers winnowing through the soft strands. He tasted like he smelled—masculine, but in a way she couldn’t quite put her finger on. Almost like…this man could control something of incredible and lethal power. Maybe he was a lion tamer.