Soldier's Night Mission

by Cindy Dees

  His mouth closed on hers and established immediately that neither his lips nor his tongue were the slightest bit affected by psychosomatic paralysis. His mouth was warm and resilient against hers as his hand on the back of her neck tugged her down to him more firmly.

  “You taste like peach pie,” he murmured against her mouth, “and ice cream.” His tongue dipped between her lips to sample more of her. “Drizzled with honey. On a warm summer day.”

  As for what he tasted like, if heaven had a taste, this was it. She moaned aloud as she writhed against his chest and her entire body sang with pleasure. Heck, her body was belting out an entire hallelujah chorus of pleasure. But then, way down deep within her core, a part of her went still and silent. Waiting. Wanting. Yearning.

  “I think I want you,” Lily murmured in amazement.

  “You don’t have to sound so stunned.” He laughed against her mouth. “You’ll give me a worse complex than I already have about my manhood.”

  “I’m stunned at me, not you,” she retorted. “And what’s wrong with your manhood? You’re a god. Of course any woman would find you wildly attractive.”

  “You’ve got that wrong, darlin’. I’m no god. I’m damned to eternal hell. I figure this little problem of mine is just a foretaste of things to come.” He pulled her closer then, wrapping her in his gentle but inexorable strength.

  And she drank up every bit of it, relishing the dangerous taste of him on her tongue. “Make love to me,” she gasped, reaching for his belt buckle.

  His hands closed over hers. “Not now. Not like this. If I make love to you, I’ll be at full strength, not half-frozen and unable to do you justice. And it certainly won’t be in a car. I gave up on that long before I got out of high school. I like my women and my lovemaking surfaces to be civilized.”

  “That’s not what you said before.”

  He laughed. “I never said what I like to do with either of them is remotely civilized, darlin’.”

  A shiver of delight raced down her spine. Her mind stumbled and then thrilled at the thought of what more awaited her in this man’s arms. And he’d said “when I make love to you,” not if. A revealing slip of the tongue that.

  He nibbled her neck just enough to send spears of lust shooting down her torso to parts of her that needed no further encouragement to burn. “As much as I’d love to take you out under the stars and make love to you, sugar, we’ve got to go. You’re still in danger.”

  “Are you fit to drive?” she whispered against his collarbone. She kissed her way across the bulge of his shoulder muscle and then back to his neck.

  He laughed shortly. “If you don’t stop that I won’t be fit to drive. But it won’t be a seizure disabling me, woman.”

  She drew back, staring at him in open disbelief. She had the power to arouse a man like him? Her? But she was scrawny and bookish and always forgot to do something with her hair or put on any makeup. She spent her nights staring at the sky and her days doing complex mathematical calculations. She wasn’t exactly sexpot material. But the physical evidence of his attraction to her was impossible to miss. Impossible to argue with.

  For a reasonably intelligent woman, her brain was taking an inordinately long time wrapping itself around this new concept of being sexy to someone. But she liked the idea. A lot. More than a lot.

  It dawned on her that she wanted to drive this man out of his mind sexually possibly worse than anything else she’d ever wanted. And she’d wanted to get her Ph.D. and study the universe pretty darn badly. It had been her defining force in life for the past twenty years or more.

  “Once I’m safely inside your precious military base, is there a chance we might continue this?” she asked in a breathless voice she hardly recognized as her own.

  He grinned at her and replied, his Louisiana drawl suddenly thick, “Oh, there’s a chance all right. My mama didn’t raise no dummy. I know better than to walk away from your kind of fire, chère.”

  Chapter 3

  What on earth had that woman done to him? Never, ever, had any therapy from the scores of doctors who’d worked on him even come close to Lily’s hands for effectiveness. All she had to do was touch him and he melted beneath her fingers like magic. She must be an angel sent to deliver him from his private hell. He hadn’t the faintest idea what he’d done to deserve her, but he knew one thing. He was intensely grateful for the gift of her.

  He drove in silence through the night. She glanced over at him occasionally, a sidelong, flirty little look, and every time she did, the temperature in the car went up by several degrees. Who’d have guessed a brilliant astrophysicist could be so sexy that it took every bit of his military discipline to keep his hands off her?

  She was a little thing, and it was easy to miss the perfection of her curves underneath those nondescript clothes. But in a way, they added to the appeal. It was as if she was his own personal secret, his to unwrap and discover before anyone else did.

  Desperate to distract himself from fantasies that threatened to send the car into a ditch as he lost himself in them, he eventually asked, “What’s that bright star straight ahead? The one hanging low on the horizon?”

  “That’s not a star. It’s Saturn. Next time we’re at my place, I’ll pull out my telescope and let you have a look at her rings. They’re beautiful. Or even better, come with me to the university’s observatory and I’ll give you a look at her you’ll never forget.”

  Damn if it wasn’t sexy listening to her talk about some planet. He asked hastily, “How did you get interested in astrophysics?”

  “Star Trek reruns.”

  “Original or Next Generation?” he asked, amused.

  She considered the question as if world peace hung in the balance, eventually answering thoughtfully, “There’s no denying Captain Picard was a hottie. But there’s something about Captain Kirk’s brand of macho that a girl has to love.”

  He broke into a grin as she continued earnestly, “I kept asking my elementary-school teachers if any of the science on the show was real, and they couldn’t tell me. So I started investigating it for myself. Turns out there are wormholes after all. And some of the dimensional theory on the show was actually pretty close to what we now believe to be true.”

  He grinned at her. “I’d be happy if I could just tele-port.”

  “I’d be thrilled if we could just travel at faster than light speed,” she shot back.

  “Why?”

  “Because then we’d actually stand a chance of reaching other planets that sustain intelligent life.”

  “Are scientists getting close to high-speed space travel?” he asked curiously.

  “I wish. We may be approaching the theory of it, but I fear it’ll be a long time before we can translate theory into practical use.”

  He shrugged. “Ah, well. I like good ol’ Earth well enough.”

  Carter happened to glance over at her in time to catch a shadow crossing her expressive features. “What were you thinking just then?” he asked quietly.

  She looked up at him, her gaze sober. “I was thinking about how long I’ve wished I could get off this planet.”

  Alarm coursed through him. She wasn’t suicidal, was she? He blurted quickly, “But if you left, I couldn’t collect on your promise to continue where we left off before.”

  Her eyes widened. “I thought you were the one who promised me.”

  “A promise like that goes both ways, chère.”

  And just like that, the air was thick and heavy and pulsing with sexual promise between them. At least the stress of being so in lust with her that he could barely see straight wasn’t sending him into marble statue mode. Only one part of him was rock solid at the moment.

  He was too turned on to get sleepy and she’d just had a chloroform-induced nap, so they both were wide awake when he turned onto a narrow, dirt road at nearly 4:00 a.m.

  “Are we getting close?” she asked eagerly.

  “Yup. By the way, you’re going to have
to sign a bunch of paperwork promising not to reveal the existence of this place or else the government really will have to shoot you.”

  “Cool,” she murmured.

  Her enthusiasm was contagious. Smiling to himself, he turned down another unmarked road. A few minutes later, a small shack came into sight tucked under a rock overhang. He turned off his headlights and approached the structure with only his parking lights illuminated. He stopped beside the shack and rolled down his window.

  An armed guard wearing body armor stepped up to the car.

  “I’m Captain Carter Baigneaux. I believe y’all are expecting me?”

  “Yes, sir. H.O.T. Watch called and said you needed some emergency assistance. We’ve got a cabin waiting for you and your guest. I’ll need to see picture identification for both of you.”

  Carter passed the guy his military ID and Lily handed over her driver’s license. The guard disappeared inside the building for a moment. When he returned, he handed back their IDs and leaned down to say through the window, “Welcome to Camp Nowhere, Dr. James.”

  “Thank you,” she murmured, eagerness all but rolling off her. She was practically bouncing in her seat. Sometimes he forgot that the secret world he lived in had cool factor to outsiders. To him, it was just his job.

  Carter eased the car forward into what looked like more of the same desert they’d been driving through. He said to her, “There aren’t alien spaceships or carcasses stashed out here, you know.”

  “What is this place, then?”

  “I’m sorry, I can’t tell you what they do here. It’s just a place where we can get some sleep and have a secure space to talk about your work.”

  He turned the car where the guard had told him to and followed a one-lane dirt track up a hill into a stand of mesquite trees and desert willows. Nestled among them was a small wood-sided cabin. A covered porch extended across its front and a light shone in a window.

  He got out of the car, feeling the worse for wear. The seizures took a toll on his body, and he ached from head to foot. “Sorry we weren’t able to swing by your place and get any stuff for you. I’ll see what the guys can scare up for you around here tomorrow.”

  “I’m just glad to be alive, Carter. I can survive without my toothbrush for a night. And it’s not like I tend to primp much.”

  “You’re lucky. You don’t have to primp to be pretty.”

  “I bet you say that to all the girls.”

  He snorted. Aloud he explained, “In the first place, a gentleman never talks about his previous lady friends. And in the second place, you’d be surprised how scary some women look the morning after when the makeup’s all gone and the hair’s a mess. I’m speaking purely hypothetically, of course.”

  She laughed back. “Of course.”

  He climbed the steps and pushed open the front door. The cabin’s interior was as rustic as its exterior, with wood-plank floors and walls, a stone fireplace, rough log furniture and even a pair of antlers hanging over the mantel.

  “This is charming,” Lily commented brightly.

  He smiled his gratitude at her that she wasn’t going to get picky over the simple accommodations. Somebody was probably having to sleep in his office tonight so they could use this place.

  They took a quick tour of the cabin. There was only one bedroom, but the living-room sofa pulled out into a bed. He announced, “I’ll take the sofa.”

  “You’ll do no such thing,” she stated firmly. “You’ve had a rough day and I weigh about half of what you do. I’ll be much more comfortable on the hide-a-bed than you’d be.”

  “I seem to recall you having a rather rough day yourself,” he retorted. “Southern boy here, remember?”

  She marched over and glared up at him. She made the world’s cutest bantam hen with her feathers all ruffled up like this. “Don’t make me have to beat you up,” she threatened.

  Carter laughed and surprised himself by sweeping her into a hug. For some reason, he couldn’t seem to keep his hands off her. He murmured into her sweet-smelling hair, “Thanks again for helping me out before. But may I remind you we have no pajamas. If someone comes to check on us in the morning, wouldn’t you rather have the privacy of the bedroom and let me answer the door in my boxers?”

  “You’re a boxer man, huh? I’d have pegged you for a briefs man.”

  He blinked, startled, and set her away from him. How had they gotten onto the subject of his underwear? He shook his head. “Take the bedroom. I’m used to sleeping in a lot worse places than this.”

  She opened her mouth to protest, but he really didn’t feel like arguing anymore with her. So, he did the expedient thing and leaned down quickly to kiss her. As a distraction tactic went, it was spectacularly successful. It was a dirty trick to pull on her, but damned if he wasn’t dying to have the excuse to kiss her again.

  She made a surprised little sound in the back of her throat, and then she melted into him like butter on a hot cob of corn. He absorbed her into himself, amazed at how right she felt in his arms. His own personal angel.

  Maybe it was just that she was the first woman he’d been close to like this since the ambush. He’d spent the past few months going from doctor to doctor while they tried to figure out what was wrong with him. Apparently, his paralysis thing wasn’t a normal reaction to a mission gone bad. But then, it hadn’t been a normal mission. It wasn’t often a man was forced to kill children. They might have been violent, psychotic children raised from the age of four or five to be vicious killers, but apparently, it still did a number on a guy’s head to mow down boys as young as ten. Even if they were pointing Uzis at him and his teammates with absolute intent to do murder.

  Although that wasn’t the bit that had messed with his head the worst. As long as he lived, he would never forget the village they’d come across where the child army had already done its worst. The streets had been littered with the mutilated bodies of girls and women, raped and hacked apart in the most brutal possible manner. How could children do that to women who could have been their own mothers and sisters?

  He broke off the gruesome trip down memory lane and realized with a start that Lily had gone still in his arms. “What’s wrong?” he murmured.

  “You tell me. One second you were here with me, and the next you’d checked out. You’re not having another episode, are you?”

  “I certainly hope not,” he replied grimly. “Sorry. Mind strayed there.”

  She wilted in his arms. It was his turn to ask in quick alarm, “What’s wrong?”

  “I was hoping that kissing me would hold your attention better than that.”

  He laughed aloud. “Lily, you’re so attractive I’m having to fight like crazy to think about anything but dragging you into that bedroom and making love to you right this second.”

  She blinked up at him owlishly. “Really?”

  He muttered more to himself than her, “Crazy astrophysicist. The woman casually does calculus that would make a grown man cry but can’t even see herself clearly in the mirror. You’re a beautiful, sexy, desirable woman, dammit.”

  Soft, small hands cupped his cheeks. “Until I can see myself that way, will you keep on telling me what you see?”

  He gazed down at her seriously. “That’s a deal. We’ve got a long day ahead of us tomorrow. Get some sleep, okay?”

  “Such a gentleman,” she murmured under her breath. She gave his cheek a pat before turning him loose and heading for the bedroom.

  He grimaced at her retreating back. If she only knew the totally ungentlemanly thoughts he was having about what he’d like to do to her, she wouldn’t be so quick to say that.

  Lily couldn’t sleep. Whether it was because she’d already had several hours of forced rest earlier, or because she couldn’t figure out why some Russians could possibly want to kidnap her or because she was so hot and bothered over the man snoozing in the other room, she couldn’t say. But she knew one thing for sure. She was not letting Carter Baigneaux slip away
from her anytime soon.

  Problem was, she didn’t have any idea how to act like the sexy, desirable woman he seemed to think she was. She was a scientist. She formed theories and performed experiments to prove or disprove them. She sighed. Maybe she should just apply her scientific techniques to this situation, too. Her mind wandered idly.

  Hypothesis: It was possible for her to land a sexy hunk like Carter if she applied the right preparation and technique to the project.

  Plan of attack: Ascertain what Carter liked in his women. Assuming it was even possible for her to be those things, transform herself into that kind of woman with all due haste. In the meantime, take every opportunity to be near him, particularly within kissing range.

  Note to self: Do not appear desperate or pushy if at all possible. Just be available. Convenient.

  List of required supplies: Makeup, hairbrush, toothbrush, perfume, sexy clothes. Even better, some sexy lingerie to be left draped on a bedpost or someplace he could see it. A short skirt maybe. She’d been told before she had great legs.

  Okay. She could do this. If her hypothesis was valid, Carter Baigneaux would inevitably become hers. A plan of attack in place, she fell asleep debating sexy red lipstick or a soft and feminine shade of pink.

  A few hours later she jolted awake to sunlight pouring in the window and the sound of a knock on her door. Carter announced through the panel, “Lily, we have a visitor. You might want to get dressed and come meet him.”

  Dang! She’d planned to sashay out into the living room in just her old T-shirt this morning and give Carter an eyeful of her rather nice legs. Disappointed, she rolled out of bed, yanked on her jeans and headed for the bathroom. She splashed water on her face, pulled her hair back into a utilitarian ponytail and regretfully put Operation Land Sexy Hunk on hold.

  She stepped into the living room and was startled to see a gray-haired man in an olive-green uniform complete with—gulp—stars on his shoulders.