by Cindy Dees
Finally she heard the whisper of clothes hitting the floor, and the mattress moved beneath her.
Then his mouth captured hers. He kissed her rapaciously, biting her lower lip, plunging his tongue inside her mouth aggressively, burning her cheeks and chin with his beard.
His hands trailed down her arms until they encountered her bra. He all but tore the garment off her body, baring her to his greedy mouth. He twirled and flicked her nipples with his thumbs, sending her surging up off the mattress into the almost painful pleasure that seared through her.
He did tear off her underwear, and then his knee intruded between hers, opening her for his invasion. It came first from his hand, his fingers plucking mercilessly at the very core of her until she thought she’d scream in pleasure and frustration. He followed with an assault by mouth and tongue, driving her beyond thought, beyond anything but an all-consuming need to have him inside of her.
He made her beg until she nearly wept for him, and then he rose over her, lifting her hips to him. He filled her with a single violent stroke that brought her to an immediate, shattering release.
He gave her no quarter.
While she was still shuddering around his burning heat, he began to ride her, plunging again and again into her, stoking the fires of her desire, demanding more and yet more from her.
She could no more deny him than she could deny her unfettered exultation at being alive.
Again and then again she scaled the heights of ecstasy, while Tom dragged her ever higher until she could no longer breathe, overcome by such an excess of rapture, she thought she’d die from it. She twined her legs around his waist, urging him wordlessly to take every last bit of her.
He wrapped his hands over hers where she gripped the headboard, his vise-like grasp barely noticeable as he pounded into her. At the last second before she screamed aloud with the glory of it, his mouth closed over hers, drinking in her cries as if he would suck the very life from her.
For a single, endless second, she and Tom became one. They breathed and felt as one in a union of bodies. Everything else ceased to exist as they experienced a moment of pure sensation, a moment of quintessential perfection.
In that single second Annie knew exactly what it felt like to be truly alive, down to the very last fiber of her being.
If there had been any doubt in her mind about whether or not they’d really made it through the night’s perils, that doubt was erased as Tom’s perspiration-slicked body pressed intimately against hers.
And then he rolled away, taking her with him and tucking her under his shoulder.
His whisper was rough, yet infinitely tender. “Are you all right, angel?”
Shuddering pleasure still rippled through her body. With effort she found the strength to answer.
“‘All right’ doesn’t quite capture how I’m doing.”
Concern laced his voice. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”
She snuggled closer to him, smiling against his chest. “Do I seem hurt to you?”
He answered with a low chuckle. “I guess not. If anything, you seem…well pleasured.”
“And you? Are you all right?”
“I’m better than all right, angel. Although, I’ve got to tell you—I can’t imagine there will ever be another egress to top this. This is one for the record books.”
She smiled. She had to agree with him on that score.
A dull flash of steel glinted off a bloody knife as it descended toward her. A rebel soldier with skeleton face and a gaping, bloody hole in his chest wielded it. She turned to flee from him and ran out into a street where a tank was waiting to cut her down. She ran and ran, but she couldn’t find Tom anywhere. A dark mist closed in around her and she was trapped, unable to see her way out of the maze.
Very gradually Annie became aware of a hand on her shoulder shaking her. An urgent voice murmured, “Wake up, Annie. Wake up!”
She lurched awake abruptly. It was very dark. She was in a strange bed, and she was not alone.
Tom.
He was with her in the bed. The nightmare loosened its grip a little at the thought of him coming to her rescue. Tanks and knives and crumpled bodies began to jumble together in her head in a grisly tableau.
Instantly Tom’s arms were around her, almost as if he’d been waiting for this moment. “I’ve got you now. You’re safe.”
She huddled against him, grateful for his solid comfort.
Her body felt bruised and sore, not only from their love-making, but also from hours spent lying on the ground and then that frantic sprint for their lives. The thought of it still made her shudder. Were it not for the last second help by Tom’s men, she’d have died out there in the street.
She savored the slow, steady beat of Tom’s heart beneath her ear.
“I had a nightmare,” Annie finally whispered.
“So I gather. I was expecting it.”
She pulled back enough to look at his darkly shadowed face. “You were?”
“I do this for a living, remember? I’ve rescued a few civilians in my time.”
She turned her head away from him, ashamed. “But I’m not a civilian. I’m a military officer.”
“Who’s never seen combat, if I don’t miss my guess.”
“I’ve been shot at before.” Her tone was defensive.
She felt his smile against her forehead.
“Oh, yeah? When?”
Annie went stiff. When she nearly got him killed, that’s when. She changed the subject and prayed he wouldn’t become suspicious. “I hope you’re not mad at me for bringing you and your team to a brothel. It was all I could think of in the heat of the moment.”
His voice caressed her out of the silken darkness. “We’re alive. How could I possibly be mad at you for that?” Humor crept into his voice. “Besides, it’s a rare mission where we get to spend the night in a comfortable, safe bed.”
“Not to mention the hookers provided for all your men.”
Silent laughter shook him. “I’ll never live this mission down. Try to get some sleep. Tomorrow will probably be worse than today.”
She stiffened, lifting her head in a futile attempt to see his face in the darkness. “Why?”
“We’re going to have to get past whoever wins tonight’s fight.”
“Oh.” She already felt naked and exposed just thinking about it.
“Don’t think about tomorrow, Annie. It’ll take care of itself. Sleep now.”
She shook her head. “I’m too wired to sleep.”
Tom sighed. “I know the feeling.”
They lay comfortably entwined for several minutes. He remarked quietly, “You did good tonight. That was a nice run you made.”
“I almost didn’t make it.”
He tightened his arms around her. “But you got the job done. You gutted it out. I’m proud of you.”
A warm glow spread through her until she remembered the tightness in her chest, the heaviness of her feet, the awful certainty of failure. She willed away encroaching memories of the narrowness of their escape. “I’d have died without your guys’ help.”
His voice was velvety soft, soothing. She focused on it. “That’s what teamwork is all about. They helped you run a little faster, and you found us a safe place to stay.”
“Well, for tonight at any rate.” She paused. She truly didn’t want to hear the answer to her next question. “Tom, what do we do next?”
He sighed, his voice shifting into a tone of military command. “Tomorrow we’ll scout the area and find a way past whatever army ends up controlling this sector.”
Hating herself for asking, but needing to nonetheless, she said, “I’m going to be in the way again, aren’t I?”
“Of course not!”
“I nearly got you guys killed tonight.”
“No, you didn’t. I nearly got us killed. I’m the one who decided to stick around and wait for Tex.”
She could hear the self-recrimination in his voice. “Y
ou’d have left if I hadn’t made you stay, though.”
He shook his head, his chin brushing lightly against her brow. “You didn’t make me do anything, angel. I was in command, and I’m responsible for what happened. We waited for Tex, he had the information we needed, and we all made it out. That’s what matters.”
Annie listened to the steady beat of Tom’s heart beneath her ear. He’d made the courageous decision that she hadn’t when she’d been faced with the same dilemma over the jungle. He’d understood the value of saving one person, even if it meant risking the whole team to do it.
And yet, he’d been willing to turn his back on Tex for her. He’d been willing to abandon that very sense of teamwork that was the glue holding them all together. She might be a noncombatant, but she knew exactly what had happened in that alley. He’d been about to destroy his team for her.
“Tom?”
“Hmmm?” He sounded relaxed, on the verge of sleep.
“Why were you going to choose my safety over keeping your team together?”
He was silent a very long time. So long she thought he wasn’t going to answer. But finally he spoke. His words sounded ripped from the depths of his being. “Do you really have to ask why I chose you?”
Annie squeezed her eyes shut. Maybe that was the difference. Maybe if she’d known Tom before she decided to sacrifice him by dragging him through the jungle, maybe if she’d loved him then, she’d have had the courage to risk herself and all his men for him.
But maybe she wouldn’t have.
“I don’t deserve you, Tom.”
Abruptly he rolled her on her back. She felt him looming over her, his expression dark and forbidding.
“And why not?”
She bit her lip, knowing he’d make her say it out loud. “I’m not a good enough person for you.”
He settled back to the bed, pulling her into the crook of his arm. A sigh lifted his chest beneath her ear.
“Then answer me this, angel. Why did you insist on waiting for Tex?”
“You guys are a family. He’s like a brother to you. I couldn’t ask you to sacrifice Tex and to break your most solemn vow to the others for me. You’d never have forgiven me if I cost you their trust, not to mention if something bad had happened to Tex.”
His tone was matter of fact. “They’d have understood.”
“But you could never have lived with it.”
“What are you talking about?” he asked suspiciously.
She knew well enough by now that brutal honesty was usually the best approach with him. “Tom, running from war to war until you get yourself killed is no way to make up for Simon Pettigrew’s death.”
Utter silence was his only reply.
Finally she broke the ominous stillness. “I’m sorry if that makes you mad to hear, but it’s the truth. Somebody needed to say it to you. You don’t have to die to make amends for Simon’s death. He signed up for this. He knew the risks. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time. A mission went bad, and a bullet with his name on it found him.”
Tom ground out, “The mission went wrong because I screwed up.”
“Since when are you held to a higher standard of perfection than the rest of us? Everybody makes mistakes. You’ve got to let go of this guilt you’ve been hauling around. It’s going to get you killed.”
His next question startled her. “Why do you care if I kill myself with a guilt complex?”
Why indeed? She could run from the answer as she had from the tank, but in the end it would catch up with her. Resigned, she finally admitted the truth to herself. She loved Tom.
He stirred beside her. No doubt he was waiting for an answer.
She whispered, “Do you really need to ask?” She turned to him, needing to say it once out loud. “I lo—”
His mouth closed over hers, stopping the words before she could say them. Grief speared through her. Even now, when they’d nearly died together, he wouldn’t acknowledge what was happening between them. His defenses were so entrenched, she’d never get through to him.
He might not let her say it aloud, but that didn’t change anything. She’d known it deep down in her heart for a long time, but she’d fought admitting it until now.
Tonight she was too raw, too exposed from the terror of the night’s events to hide from it any longer.
Her arms closed around the strong column of his neck, drawing him down to her. Tonight, with a war raging outside, his presence was vastly reassuring. There was, indeed, a time and a place for men who could and would kill on an instant’s notice.
The room was warm, but a chill of anticipation raced across her skin. Once more, her warrior-lover came to her and taught her the exhilaration of cheating death.
He might refuse to say the words, but there was no doubt as he chased away her nightmares about how he really felt about her.
Chapter 12
A sunbeam fell across his feet as Tom sat absolutely still in a high-backed armchair in the downstairs sitting room. His men lounged on the far side of the room, trading quiet comments with one another. They knew to give him space when he was this tense.
Annie, on the other hand, was pacing like a caged tiger. She was no doubt wired for the same reason he was.
He’d sent out Doc and Dutch to reconnoiter hours ago, and they still weren’t back. He’d chosen them because they had the best covers for moving around in daylight.
They’d left well before 10 a.m., but lunch had come and gone without a sign of them.
He repeated the same litany to himself that he’d been reciting in his head for more than an hour. They were good at what they did. They knew the city, and they knew how to handle themselves in a tight situation. He should have faith in them and be patient a little while longer.
At least worrying about his men kept his mind off what had happened last night between him and Annie. He shouldn’t have given in to her. It was a complication he seriously didn’t need.
He’d barely managed to do his job during last night’s maneuvers with Annie present. And now, with their feelings for each other becoming more and more obvious, his distraction was only going to get worse. He should’ve known better than to make love to her. He was the worst kind of fool.
“Boss?”
Tom looked up, startled, at Tex.
“Have you taken a good look at Annie this morning?”
Tom frowned. He’d seen her up close and very personal when they woke up, as a matter of fact. “What are you talking about?”
“Doesn’t it strike you that she’s acting jumpy, kinda like a cornered jackrabbit?”
Tom gazed closely at her. Now that Tex mentioned it, she did look on the verge of panic.
“Not that it’s any of my say-so, Hoss, but I think the filly’s gonna need some settling before we try to run her again.”
Generally, the more folksy Tex waxed, the more attention Tom paid to him. Besides, the lean Texan was an outstanding judge of human nature. If he thought something was up with Annie, Tom was certainly going to listen. Lord knew, he wasn’t having much success at dealing objectively with her. His own judgment couldn’t get much more clouded where she was concerned.
“What do you suggest, Tex?”
“Looks to me like she’s lost her gumption. She needs her feathers ruffled a little to stiffen her spine. There’s nothing like a good fight to make a woman grit her teeth and come out swingin’.”
Tom looked at Tex, surprised. “You’re suggesting I pick a fight with her?”
“Yup. Like Hell Week with the new recruits.”
Tom knew exactly what Tex was referring to. The first week of Special Forces school was designed to weed out all but the most dedicated and mentally tough volunteers. A common technique by the instructors when the recruits got close to quitting was to make them mad. The good recruits would dig deep when provoked and find strength they didn’t know they had. That, too, was an important part of their training.
A fight, huh?
He had a pretty good idea of what buttons to push to get a rise out of Annie. He stood up and flashed Tex a rueful grin.
“This could get ugly.”
“It needs to be done, Major. We’ve still got a lot of war ahead of us.”
Tom sighed. “Yeah, I know.”
He strolled over to where Annie stared out a window at a small, uninspired garden. He’d never seen her this tense before. Her shoulders were bunched up around her ears, and she looked about ready to bust a seam.
He looked out the window until he knew her attention was on him. Casually he pulled out his pocket pager to check for a signal from his men.
“Anything?” she asked.
“Why do you care? They’re not your men,” he snapped. “Besides, you know I’d tell everyone if there were any news.”
“I was just trying to make polite conversation.”
“Don’t. If I want to trade pleasantries with diplomats, I’ll visit Washington.”
She crossed her arms and turned her back on him. Good. She looked irritated.
But knowing her, she’d try to make peace. She was too much the attaché to go for long without trying to fix the misunderstanding. Sure enough, she turned back to face him.
Her tone was soothing. “Dutch and Doc will be fine, Tom. They know what they’re doing and they have good covers.”
He glared at her. “Nothing’s fine in a scenario like this. It’s too damn unstable. I shouldn’t have put men in the field until after dark.”
He spun away and noticed Howdy and Mac staring at him. Hopefully Annie wouldn’t see their expressions and catch on. He glared at his men until Tex whispered something to the others and they all turned away.
Annie tried again. He had to give her credit for persistence.
“We agreed they’d blend in with the civilians who’ll be moving around in daylight. Dutch’s press credentials fooled even me, and Doc looks and speaks like a native. You made the right decision.”
He whirled on her. “How would you know? You’ve never made a real combat decision in your life.”
She glared back at him, clearly stung. “Wanna bet?”
