“We all should have seen it,” another gruff male voice replied.
“Almost there, Nikki,” someone whispered encouragement from close by. Nikki. The last person to call her Nikki was…
“I don’t want to remember,” she turned her face into the shoulder of the warrior who carried her and hung on.
“Then don’t.”
A door, another. In moments the dress was gone and a nightshirt had taken its place. One last time strong arms lifted her and lay her down on soft sheets.
The last thing she remembered was a kiss on her forehead.
Chapter Eight
Where am I?” Nikita was used to waking up in strange places: barracks, barns, blown-out buildings they were hiding in, African huts, and the backs of military transports on sea, air, and land. She couldn’t begin to make sense of luxurious sheets, fine wood furniture, and the crystal vase on her night table—she had a night table—filled with tropical flowers. That was the strangest thing of all.
She flopped over and was greeted with a sweeping view of an island and turquoise-colored waters. Sheer curtains fluttered in a sea-scented breeze. And when they fluttered aside, she could see Zoe stretched out on a lounger in the sun, wearing a bikini that was as scant as she was.
Nikita grabbed sunglasses, then stumbled out and flopped into a chair on the suite’s verandah. It offered her a bird’s-eye view of Key West. She’d flown out of the Naval Air Station here on any number of missions and recognized the unique look of the town from above. The cruise ship was far and away the tallest building in town. The palm-lined streets were a breezy and comfortably warm mid-seventies—because that’s the temperature the town always was.
“How long was I out?”
“What day is this?”
“Ha, ha, ha.”
“Well, you’ve missed Key West. They’ll be reboarding in an hour or so. You’ve been out for fifteen.”
Nikita plucked at her long nightshirt, “Who?”
“Drake, but I made him promise not to peek.”
“But he did anyway.”
“I’m not so sure. He was so busy being pissed at himself for running you into the ground like that, I’m not sure he was noticing anything.”
“At least it wasn’t Altman. That would have been too mortifying.”
“Besides, you don’t get to have both men.”
Nikita raised her head enough to inspect Zoe, but she was still flat on her back, working on her tan. “You’re going to burn.” That was a safer topic than whether or not Zoe was actually interested in doing more than joking about LCDR Altman.
“Wearing SPF-gazillion. Don’t get much sun in a drone coffin.”
The cargo containers that housed the ground-station controls for flying drones had always been called coffins, which Nikita tried not to see as morbid.
“Besides, I always was super-fair skinned. That’s why I finally gave in and went blonde, at least mostly. I know healthy tans are out, but pasty white is a sad way to be, too.”
“Where are the men?”
Zoe flapped a hand toward shore, “Drake didn’t want to leave you, but I’ve seen Key West a couple of times. So, I kicked him out before he woke you to ask if you were sleeping. If they’re doing their jobs, they’re out there being manly and spreading more rumors. If they pick up any women who aren’t us, I’m going to be very upset.”
Nikita decided that she would be, too. Very upset. And that was an irrational enough thought to force her back to her feet.
“I need a run.”
“They have a track here, up on the top deck. A hundred and fifty meters.”
“Twenty seconds a lap? I’d get dizzy.”
“It’s a jogging track, probably cluttered with couples strolling hand in hand and calling it exercise. They do have weights and treadmills.”
“A gym. Excellent!”
“A fitness center.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Nikita yanked on Zoe’s ankle hard enough to almost pull her off the lounger. “You’re going, too.”
“No! I want to become fat and lazy. That’s what cruise ships are about.”
“I thought they were about Arthur and the Honduran bad guys.”
“Crap!” Zoe clambered to her feet. “Reality sucks.”
Drake didn’t know when he’d ever been so happy.
Zoe’s three-letter text, “Gym,” when he was just back aboard through security, sent him scrambling upstairs to change. Once their suite’s butler had told him where to find the fitness center, he’d tracked them down.
After a day like today, doing a workout with Nikita was exactly what the doctor ordered—maybe, if the gods were smiling on him, they’d have a wrestling mat. Then again, she was SEAL-trained in hand-to-hand combat, so maybe not.
Because the project was so compartmentalized, McDermott hadn’t wanted to involve the other agencies directly. So he’d sent a very simple request for any information on outstanding GSI operations in Central America. That was enough to make someone in intel look at what had actually been going on—then Internal Affairs had taken over and slammed a lockdown on all information requests. Some oversight committee landed at the center of a witch hunt, which had shuttered all further information that might have flowed to the 5E.
The only message to escape the fray was a single and utterly useless note: No Global Security International operations authorized outside Southwest Asia region. All that told him was just how far off the reservation GSI had gone. Actually, it also told him they were entering the Minotaur’s Labyrinth of the wholly unknown monster. Now it was only a question of how soon the beast GSI had created would try to devour them.
Deciding that they’d be better off drawing out the beast, he and Altman had spent the entire day probing the ship’s elite passengers under the casual circumstances of Key West. Drake had never spouted so much drivel in his life, not even when playing the mad and ridiculous constable in a summer stock production of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. They’d learned nothing. Not from Rankin the banker, the Russian mobster, or any of the others.
As to the cruise line’s officers, his fabricated reputation had proceeded him and they all clammed up tighter than a submarine about to dive for cover. Hopefully Altman on his own would do better, though Drake doubted it.
He finally locate the Fitness Center in the stern of the ship a couple of decks down. He had to go through the spa—past beauty salon, massage tables, the “thermal center” with its hard tile couches, treatment rooms where women lay with gray or green facial masks—to find the workout room. Along the way he’d had to dodge several particularly fit men and women in ship’s uniforms asking if he wanted this treatment or that. Perhaps a sauna.
In the exercise room, after being briefly dazzled by the sweeping view of Key West, he spotted Zoe spinning a cycle exerciser faster than a hummingbird’s wingbeat.
“Where’s Luke?” was her idea of a greeting.
“Still ashore, drinking with a group of the ship’s officers. Telling stories and spreading lies.” Then he turned and got an eyeful. There were a few other people in the gym doing workouts—civilian workouts. Stair-stepping to the beat of some Broadway show tune, or rowing slowly enough that even Washington’s fully laden boats could have beat them across the Potomac.
And then there was Nikita with her back to him.
Five-ten in silken running shorts and a black t-shirt. Her ponytail swinging side to side as she ran in what he recognized as a military ground-eater. Sweat was just starting to make her shine as her long legs ate up the distance that the treadmill was handing out. She wasn’t watching the CNN broadcast on one screen or the advertisements for the next port’s exciting excursions on the other. Nikita was staring straight ahead at the blue ocean and just now shifting from a warm-up pace to a light run—good, he was only a few minutes behind her. She ran as if she was loping easily through the primeval forests, not working out on a luxury cruise ship.
“You going to watch her or
do something about it?”
He gave Zoe the finger without bothering to look away from the magnificent athlete before him.
She merely laughed and kept spinning.
The treadmill beside Nikita opened up and he stepped onto it. Glancing at the program she was running, he hit the same.
She was so focused on her run that she didn’t even notice him. Well, when she was ready to, he’d be here. Meanwhile he would run out some tiny portion of his desperate need for the woman he’d cradled in his arms last night.
Women never cost him a night’s rest—it just didn’t happen. Well, it did, but only when they were sharing a bed and neither of them were interested in using it for sleep.
Last night, after he’d finally finished berating himself for forgetting that even a SEAL had limits, he’d been stuck with the feel of her in his arms. That, far more than how Nikita Hayward looked wearing nothing but underpants, had cost him the night. Women were to be enjoyed, not cherished. But when he’d held her tight to his chest carrying her down the hallway, he’d felt so strong.
When she’d begged him to not let her remember, in a voice so sad that it didn’t seem possible it had been uttered by Nikita Hayward, he had felt truly helpless.
And all through the night he wished he was still holding her, to somehow protect her against her own past.
Nikita powered ahead.
She hadn’t needed Zoe’s laugh to tell her that Drake had shown up. She hadn’t even needed the hint of his reflection off the TV screen—she’d felt him when he’d entered the room. There had been a ripple as other women had turned and paused long enough to admire. Men suddenly moved more briskly on their machines as if needing to show themselves to be up to a standard they’d never meet.
Her mind was turning to mush on the subject of Drake Roman and she didn’t like it. They ran for three kilometers before she wondered if she might be losing her mind.
“I’m not a woman designed for cruise ships,” she snarled at no one in particular and pushed the speed button up another two klicks an hour.
“Nope,” Drake agreed happily, and punched his own pace to match.
She told herself she wasn’t going to look at him, but she did. He’d already stripped off his t-shirt and flipped it over a handhold. His skin was just a shade darker than hers, to go with his black hair. And his chest—
Nikita looked away. She remembered that chest and what it felt like to curl up against it. Between the exhaustion and the atypical amount to drink, her barriers had crashed down. The anger, the fear, the grief had threatened to overwhelm her. Until a voice like a benediction called down upon her desire to not remember, “Then don’t.”
And she hadn’t. Instead she had buried her face in his chest and allowed herself to be taken care of with none of the hard time she’d given the docs and physical therapists the couple of times she’d been injured in the line of duty.
“I’m waiting,” she managed between two breaths.
“For what?”
“For the great…Drake Roman to tell…me exactly what…he thinks…I’m good for…if not cruise ships.” Her breath was starting to run short, but she’d just given him a bad straight line. She punched in another kilometer an hour.
“I’ll ignore the obvious,” Drake managed in a single breath as he again matched her speed.
Nikita leaned into the run and waited him out.
“Instead I’ll tell you why I’ve been…so attracted to you since the first moment I saw you.”
At least the bastard had the decency to take a breath in there. She considered pushing up another klick per hour, but wouldn’t be able to speak if she did. Besides, now she was curious.
“My mom and my sister are both…seriously strong women. In spirit and mind…if not athletic.”
It was nice that he was finally running short of breath as well.
“You are the only woman…I’ve ever met…who makes them look average.”
Nikita stumbled and almost lost her pace as she looked over at him. Nothing about her body or her face or some other thin compliment.
Drake glanced at her for a moment, his dark eyes not looking aside as he held the pace. Sweat was dripping down his forehead and off his chest. He seemed to grow even taller as he ran beside her. Then he looked away and punched for another notch of speed as if he could somehow run away from what he’d just said.
Nikita matched him. “Why…never say…any…thing?” She managed against the blistering pace.
Drake shrugged and cricked his neck to one side as if he didn’t know either.
He hit the speed button once more, which precluded all conversation.
She matched him and they simply ran. There was no glancing aside. Not at this speed. There was only the pounding of feet on rubber tread. The hot burning of legs driving ahead, fighting to hold their pace. Sweat stung her eyes and they burned, but she didn’t care.
She could do a fifty-kilometer hike with a full field pack. She could jog along for hours with a light kit and her rifle. At this pace, all she could do was lean into it and go.
Five minutes…ten? She couldn’t tell. The television screen changed from Key West to Belize to Coxen Hole, Roatán Island, Honduras. Overly perky hosts “reported” on screens filled with reef diving, parasailing, dune buggies, and ziplines.
Somewhere in the distance the ship’s horn bellowed a warning—get aboard or be left behind. And still they ran.
There was no question of talking now. Their breath rasped in and out. Disharmonious, desperate.
Impossibly, Drake slapped the pace up once more.
With no idea how she could maintain it, she did the same. The setting was now for a four-minute mile—a record no woman had yet achieved.
It was unsustainable, but she’d be damned if some gorgeous flyboy was going to outrun a DEVGRU SEAL. There was honor to maintain.
Her arms were pumping so hard to keep her balance that they, too, ached with lactic acid buildup.
He groaned aloud against the agony of their run.
And still it built.
Thirty seconds.
A minute.
One and a half.
The scream of frustration ripped from her throat as her body fought to deliver what she demanded of it.
One forty-five.
One fifty.
Drake’s snarl beside her was furious as he slammed ahead, struggling to sustain the pace.
One fifty-five.
Two minutes!
In final agony they cried out together as they both slammed down fists on the emergency stop buttons.
The treadmills slowed rapidly.
Two steps.
One more.
She let it carry her to the end of the belt. Stepping down onto the floor was almost impossible because her legs were shaking so hard.
Drake grabbed her hand and dragged her along, stumbling behind him, through the crowd that had gathered to watch their contest.
Flashing impressions: a dozen passengers, spa attendants, a trainer, Zoe’s smile.
“No one comes in!” Drake snarled at somebody, then pulled her through a door marked “Men’s Showers”.
He yanked her forward, then tugged her about so that her back slammed against the cedar paneling.
He crashed into her. Kissing her as she groaned with need for breath and for Drake. She hooked an aching leg behind him to pull him in tighter and she dug her hands into his hair.
His hands were on her. There was nothing gentle. None of the surprising tenderness of last night. She didn’t want it.
She wanted him. The way she’d never wanted anyone.
His hand dug under her t-shirt, under her bra, and he was the one who groaned with pleasure.
Her own hands dove into his shorts and clenched on his butt just as they had in her room at Mother Rucker.
Nikita hauled him so tightly against her that he thought he might break through the fabric between them.
He hadn’t asked permission
.
His need had him manhandling her. He couldn’t stop himself.
“Now! Goddamn it, Roman! Now!”
So much for asking.
He yanked down her shorts and underwear. He retrieved the protection that an angel of grace had made him stuff in his pocket when he left the suite to come find her.
There wasn’t time to be gentle. He wanted to caress, to appreciate, to please.
Not a chance.
He wanted to take and Nikita was offering it with as much desperation as she’d run. Gods, how she’d run. He’d never pushed himself so far past his limits, and still he hadn’t been able to match her. She was beyond magnificent.
So he sheathed himself and he took.
No finesse. No grace.
He simply took her.
Everything that had built in him, he poured into her body.
She wrapped both legs around his hips and let him plunder. When she cried out, he swallowed the cry and added his own.
Never had a release so pounded through him as the one he found in Nikita. She clung and shuddered against him until he was shakier than even the run had made him feel.
When the releases stopped slamming through both of their bodies, he still couldn’t let her go. His arms wouldn’t unwrap from their tight clench about her ribs. Her legs, still ankle-locked behind him, kept pulling his hips even harder against hers—to be answered each time with a soft moan of delight.
He buried his face against her neck and breathed her in.
Heat, sweat, and a smell as rich and elusive as the Alabama forest at sunset.
Maybe he’d never let go.
Drake had simply “taken” women before. A fast consensual screw and goodbye. Once there hadn’t been so much as a kiss. He’d received a very surprising send-off as the Elvis Presley character going to war in the musical Bye Bye Birdie. During the final scene break on closing night, the innocent “Kim” had delivered exactly what the lusty “Birdie” had been wanting, and she’d managed to fit it in between the finale and the curtain call. Fast and furious on her bedroom set, which had been rolled deep into the backstage shadows—she’d never even had to lift her skirt when she knelt down over him as she wore nothing beneath. He always thought of her whenever he gave the line about liking actresses.
Target of Mine: The Night Stalkers 5E (Titan World Book 2) Page 9
