“Like crystal,” she said. Her palms were damp, and she wiped them on her jeans before lifting her bag onto her shoulder.
“Normally, I’d offer to get that for you, but…” He let the words trail off as he held the gun in the air.
“I’m fine. I got this,” she blurted, more to calm herself than to reassure him.
Ghost checked the peephole one last time and then silently opened the door to her apartment. He slipped into the hallway, gun in both hands as he looked over the stairwell.
Per his instructions, she closed and locked her door, then stayed on Ghost like he was her second skin. They made their way down the steps, Ghost with his gun raised, all the way to the lobby. Thankfully they didn’t pass anyone. Ghost pressed his back against the glass doors to the building and looked over his shoulder onto the street.
“Wait,” he reminded her. He pulled his keys from his pocket, and the lights flashed on a beat-up truck. Silently, he slipped out onto the street, looking left and right, and opened the driver’s side door. Just as quickly, he stepped back inside for her. “Ready?”
She wasn’t. Chances were that she never would be. It was highly probable that she was going to puke any minute, but she nodded anyway.
“Throw the bag in, then climb over it fast. Let’s go.”
With the possibility of her life on the line, Delaney did exactly what he said. She wiggled over to the passenger side, fastened her seat belt, and placed her head in the brace position she often saw on in-flight safety cards. The truck roared to life, and Ghost navigated their way through the city. Familiar with the roads, she knew he wasn’t taking the quickest route.
“Is somebody following?” she asked, glancing up at him from her tucked position.
His eyes flitted from the windshield to the rearview. “Not that I can see. I’m just being cautious.”
She gasped when Ghost applied the brakes harshly, her nerves shot to hell. Relief flooded her when she saw that they were in front of Mac’s apartment. A security guard hurried to the doors and unlocked them to let them in quickly. The doorman met them as Mac had promised and ushered them into an elevator that had been held for them.
It wasn’t until the door to the apartment clicked shut, and she heard Ghost slide the locks into place that she allowed herself to breathe. It was dark, so she reached for the light switch.
“No lights,” he said, placing his hand over hers. “And don’t go anywhere near the windows,” Ghost said. “Until we know who we are dealing with, it’s best to assume the worst.”
She watched Ghost stay in the shadows as he closed the drapes.
With the curtains closed, Ghost turned on a lamp and dimmed the setting.
The light gave her little comfort as she placed her bag on the floor and sat down on the sofa. She wished Mac was here. Hell, she wished Cabe and Six were with him. All these years she’d done just fine without them, but now their presence felt vital to her survival. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Ghost. It was just that … well, she didn’t know him, and right now, she didn’t know who she could trust. Her breathing shallow, Delaney tried to force herself to relax as Ghost disappeared down the hallway—to close the curtains, she assumed.
Her phone rang, making her jump. Mac. “Hey,” she said, answering it quickly. “We’re at your place.”
“Good. Any problem getting there?” He sounded calmer now, which helped. His tone was normal, like he was asking her what she’d like for dinner instead of whether the man who had tried to shoot down her door had reappeared.
“No. Ghost just closed everything up.” She looked down the hall, keeping an eye out for Ghost. “What should I do, Mac? I can’t just sit here and wait until you ride back into town on your white charger. And even when you do … then what?” For all she’d been trying to convince herself to be calm, she finally acknowledged the underlying feeling of sheer panic that had her standing up and stepping to the counter to pick up a sealed bottle. “And can I open this Jack on the counter?”
“Use whatever you need,” Mac replied. “Just don’t get any urges to go drunk skinny-dipping like you did that last year up at the lake.”
The last summer they’d all gone camping, before Brock had died, was the first time she’d tried Jack Daniel’s. The sting of the memory was there, but for once it didn’t hurt quite as much. All the thinking she’d been forced to do about Brock recently was making things easier rather than harder. “I wasn’t the only one. And I seem to recall you started it.” Delaney was grateful he couldn’t see the heat she could feel rising in her cheeks.
“I did. I just didn’t expect you to follow me in, is all.”
His comment hung between them as she remembered what had happened once she’d joined him. Out of sight of their friends, in the darkness, they’d pleasured each other while lamenting the lack of a condom.
“I’m sorry, Delaney. I didn’t mean to—”
“It’s okay, Mac. I guess we should focus on what happens next … now. Not then.”
Mac coughed gruffly. “I have a friend of mine trying to run the face of the guy from the street, but there isn’t a clean shot of him. I’ll see if I can get any information from Noah about whether he was spotted on the street coming to your place. He’s obviously experienced at evading cameras. The plate he was using came up as a fake. We need to assume that whoever is after you knows their shit. Sit tight until I get home, okay? Cabe might get there first. And I got a few of the guys lined up to get your stuff. Give Ghost the key. He’ll make sure they get it. And he’s gonna stay, so you need to move into my room and let him have the spare.”
Delaney shook her head. His bed. It would be too much. “Mac, I can’t. I—”
“Just being pragmatic, Delaney. It’s farther down the hallway, so anybody would have to get past Ghost to get to you. And it has a bathroom that you could lock yourself in if you needed to.”
Of course he was being sensible. And she was being difficult. “I’m sorry.”
There was a pause at the end of the line. “We’ll figure this out, Delaney. I promise you. I’ll keep you safe.”
* * *
Mac leaned back in the plush ivory leather seat of the private aircraft that had just stopped off in Colorado to pick up Cabe and his team. He rested his ankle on his knee and his elbow on the armrest next to the window, watching the miles pass beneath them.
It had been Lochlan’s idea to hire the jet. When Mac’s brother had heard what had happened to Delaney, he’d offered to get Mac out of Washington as soon as Mac’s clients had left D.C. that evening on their private jet home to Riyadh. Rather than have Mac and his crew wait for the first available commercial flight in the morning, Lochlan had arranged for a private jet to be ready to get them back to the west coast. Lochlan had sounded amazed that Mac had let him pay, given that Mac had stood hard and firm about not taking money from his brother for any reason, including starting up Eagle Securities. He wanted to be a self-made man, or die trying. But this had been different. This was Delaney.
Cabe had just debriefed him on the rescue job, and while they’d committed to working through what they learned from every job they did so they’d keep improving, be better prepared, and figure out whether their cost estimations were any good, he really wasn’t in the right frame of mind to do it.
Further down the aisle, Lite was reliving the rescue. The young woman had wanted to be saved, and it had been an easy matter to find a weakness in the cult’s boundary to creep in under cover of darkness and extract her. No shots had been fired.
They’d reconfigured the flight plan to collect them en route. It was logical, cost effective. Everything about the decision made sense. Except it kept him away from Delaney for a little while longer than he’d hoped. Being away from her was something that had fermented in his gut since the moment he’d listened to her explain, with hitches in her voice, what had happened.
He looked down at his watch. She’d been shot at on Sunday, and he’d found out on Monday.
Now it was the small hours of Tuesday heading into Wednesday. Even with Cabe’s brother, Noah, ensuring that Delaney’s case was getting the right kind of priority, they weren’t getting any leads. The marking on the shells and bullets that had been recovered hadn’t matched anything on file. The security cameras in Delaney’s apartment building had turned out to be fakes, a ploy by the owner to convince tenants the place was safe. And there was no CCTV, traffic camera, or anything else of use aimed at the front of Delaney’s apartment. Dead end after dead end.
He looked at Cabe, who was seated across from him in almost the identical position. Alert. Anxious. Thoughts already on what was to happen when they got home. Mac and his team were going to relieve Ghost, who had been Delaney’s security guard for the last thirty-six hours, and he was going to try not to break his friend’s face for his comments about how he’d never had a charge that was so easy on the eye.
If she’d walked around in that baseball shirt that she slept in, he was going to lose his mind.
“Relax, Mac. I can hear your teeth grinding all the way over here.”
“Fuck off.”
“She’ll be fine,” Cabe said.
Mac looked at his watch again. It would be four in the morning before they were home.
Six had called Mac earlier in the day to let him know how things were going in Syria and had asked him to check in on Lou when he got back. Knowing how important it was to not give Six anything else to worry about beyond what he was in Syria to do, he didn’t mention what had happened to Delaney. Nor would he tell Louisa when he saw her. This was the kind of shit he could handle. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. There was nothing he could do in the air, so he did what every good SEAL knew how to do. He stole a few minutes of sleep while he could.
Several hours later, after they’d landed and collected their weapons, Mac let himself into his apartment building. As promised, he texted Ghost as the elevator silently took them to his floor. After he knocked on the door, there was a moment during which he assumed Ghost was checking that it was them before he heard the locks slide.
“Welcome back,” Ghost said as the door opened. “You sure you don’t want me to stay?”
Mac shook his head. “No. You’ve done more than enough,” he said, hugging his friend and slapping him on the back. “Thanks for taking care of her.”
Ghost laughed. “Wasn’t hard. Trust me.”
Mac bit back a curse. “Yeah, well. Go home. Get some sleep.”
He watched Ghost leave and then locked up all the doors. Finally, now that he was home, he could relax a little. All he needed was the reassuring feel of cold metal in his hand, and he’d feel better. Quietly, he placed one of the weapons cases he’d transported with him onto the kitchen counter and unlocked it. Once he had his SIG in his hand, he felt better. He carried the case down the hallway to his room and for a moment, until he remembered that Ghost had been using the guest room, was surprised to find Delaney in his bed.
She was still in the damn baseball shirt, but she’d thankfully added some light gray sweatpants. As always, she was splayed across the entire bed. One of her arms was under his pillow, and the other was angled strangely onto the bedside table. One leg was tucked under the covers, and the other was on top. Basically, she looked like a starfish, which made him smile. She’d always slept like this when she wasn’t crawling all over him in sleep. Most guys might hate it, but he’d always thought there were a hell of a lot worse things a woman could do than crawl all over him while naked in bed. The thought of her doing just that had blood flowing to his dick.
He should go sleep in the spare room. Should be a gentleman, give her space, ask her permission. But she was his. Always had been. And somebody had tried to hurt her. He couldn’t stay away from her a moment longer, and he prayed she wouldn’t make him.
Silently, he slipped out of his clothes but grabbed a pair of basketball shorts from the dresser drawer.
Mac crept over to the bed, the side he’d always slept on, and now, seeing her lying there, thought of as his side. Carefully, he slid her hand from under his pillow and folded it across her chest. Delaney didn’t stir. He pushed back the sheets and slid under the covers. His pillow smelled of her, as did his sheets. Of something soft and floral.
Not wanting to wake her, he turned onto his side and studied her profile. The cute rounded tip of her nose that she hated so much, the soft pillow of her lips. She’d gone from being an attractive girl to a spectacular woman.
And he’d nearly lost her.
Unable to resist, he laid his arm across her stomach, just needing to touch her. To know that she was alive. In the dark, he could admit he’d been terrified. Fear had never been a part of his vocabulary. It served no purpose. Dulled the brain. Took thinking time away from useful pursuits like planning and strategy and patience. But here, with her so close to him that he could hear her breathe and could see the way her chest rose gently with every breath, he could admit he’d been terrified that he might lose her.
“Nobody’s going to hurt you again, Delaney,” he whispered. “I promise.”
Without opening her eyes, she rolled to face him and snuggled against him, her chest to his. “Mac,” she mumbled, still very much asleep.
He slid his hand beneath her and pulled her close, her head tucking in under his—the missing piece in the jigsaw puzzle of his life. “Yeah, Buttons. I’m here. Go to sleep.”
Her knee crept up his thigh as she wrapped herself around him. He’d once joked she was like a spider monkey, or one of those snakes that unhinged its own jaw to swallow a man whole. She’d slapped him at that one.
“Mac,” she mumbled again as she got comfortable against him.
He did his best to ignore the way he could feel her warmth pressed against his thigh and the way her nipples pressed against his chest. “Yeah, Buttons.”
“I missed you.”
He knew it wouldn’t count in the morning. He knew she was just sleep-talking, like she used to. But as he fell asleep with her in his arms, he imagined she’d meant every word she’d said.
* * *
Half asleep, unwilling to fully waken and face the day, Delaney snuggled deep into the covers and allowed the dreams that danced on the edge of her consciousness to enter. In it, she was naked, in a large white bed, with a man behind her. A hand spanned her stomach, pulling her back against a firm, warm chest. Spooning. Her favorite thing.
Lazily, the hand moved upward until it cupped her breast, and Delaney secretly urged it to squeeze gently, but it didn’t. Whoever the hand belonged to was definitely aroused. She could feel the heavy erection pressing against her back. Teasingly, she wiggled her butt against him in the hope he’d get the message, but nothing. No response.
Sun shone in through large open windows with white billowing curtains as she reveled in feelings of being turned on.
She turned in the man’s arms, grateful when he pulled her closer to him. His chest was wide, with a light smattering of hair, and she pressed her forehead to it as she slid her hand between them to the waistband of his shorts.
A hand gripped her wrist.
“Don’t,” a voice said gruffly.
Hard to get? That was a new one. She moved closely and pressed a series of soft kisses to his chest. But she could be that girl. The one who was confident enough to initiate. She licked his nipple and heard him gasp.
“Delaney, please. Fuck. Wake up!”
Suddenly the bed shook. Covers were dragged off her body, and her skin was cold. Then the realization hit her.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
It wasn’t a dream.
Delaney forced one eye open and confirmed her worst nightmare. Mac stood naked, apart from a pair of basketball shorts and a huge erection. And if the tenting was to be believed, his chest and bicep dimensions weren’t the only muscles that had grown. His hair was ruffled, standing up every which way as it always used to, and his eyes told her that she’d woken him up. By attempting to grab his dic
k.
Dear God. She was going to die.
While she’d never tell him, Mac had featured in her dreams for as long as she could remember. When Brock had first died, she’d hated it. Hated the way the man she’d loved with every ounce of her heart still forced his way into her dreams, loving her, reminding her that they weren’t done. She’d attempted to use imagery and tools from her therapist to redirect them. At her instruction, every time Mac popped into her head, she tried to say goodbye, to send him on his way. Hell, she’d even tried hypnosis, but nothing had worked.
So, by day, she’d gone about her business, hating the man for tearing her family apart, while at night … well, he’d quite literally filled her dreams.
And now, he was staring at her with a look that said if she would only say the word, he’d climb back into bed and take her in all the ways she’d dreamt about.
“Good morning, Delaney,” he said gruffly, his eyes heated.
Torn between the embarrassment of trying to grab her ex-boyfriend’s penis and the frustration that she was now aroused yet unable to do anything about it, she was uncertain what to do next. “You aren’t supposed to be here.”
He folded his arms across his chest, which only served to make his upper arms look even bigger. “Glad I was, because I would have hated to come home and find you in bed with somebody else.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to … you know.” She gestured toward his shorts, and he laughed, the sound rich and full.
“Wouldn’t be the first time you’d touched it.” He sat down on the edge of the bed. “Should I put a pillow across my lap like I used to when we were making out in your bedroom and heard your mom coming up the stairs?”
“Urgh…” Delaney flopped back onto the bed. “Shut up and go away.”
“It’s my bed.”
Delaney raised an eyebrow. “And you weren’t supposed to be in it until today, by which time I would have laundered both sets of bedding and been back in the guest room.”
“Your grabbing for my dick is my fault?” he asked, making no attempt to hide the humor he found in the situation.
Final Siege Page 13
