by Jen Doyle
“Is it the same?” she asked, forcing herself to stay still as Tommy made sure he got the full picture. She couldn’t remember the autopsy pictures well enough to know if the symbols were identical, but it looked pretty close.
“Definitely closer than anything else we’ve come across,” Tommy said. “Okay, I’ve got it. I’m emailing it to Tessa right now.”
She reached out to touch the rocks—the markings practically crackled under her hand. Lyndsey whirled around to face the guide. “Would Ian die for who, Joe? What is it that you know?”
In that incredibly maddening way he had, Joe merely smiled, not at all offended by the accusation in Lyndsey’s voice, although he did seem to take note of where her hand was in relation to her knife.
She stood and walked up to him, not backing off. “Is it the princess?” At this point, she really didn’t care whether it was the butterfly one, the warrior one, or if they were one and the same. She only cared about one thing: “What does she want with Ian?”
Joe didn’t step back, didn’t seem at all intimidated by her. He didn’t respond to her questions, asking another of his own instead. “Why did you bring him here?”
“Why did I…?” She shook her had and pointed to the rock behind her. “That’s what brought us here. She did. What does she want?” Lyndsey repeated. “What does it say?”
Joe’s eyes went cold. He seemed unsure as to whether he’d answer. Lyndsey was surprised when he finally did, saying, “I don’t know.”
“Then why bother showing it to me?”
Again he hesitated. When he spoke, his whole demeanor changed. He came alive in a way Lyndsey hadn’t seen before. “You feel it, don’t you?” he asked, looking at the stone. “There’s something…” He shook his head, shook himself out of the place he had just been. Then, just like that, he was back to being the amused, easy-going Joe she’d become used to. He shrugged. “It seems important. I thought you should know.”
With that, he turned and headed back into the woods, leaving Lyndsey no choice but to follow.
27
Ian watched Lyndsey as he built the fire. She was sitting across from him, staring at the tower of sticks he was constructing without really seeing it. She’d been like this for most of the day—preoccupied and thoughtful. Quiet.
Which was fine with Ian. His mind had been plenty busy all by itself, contemplating the things Joe had said.
The things Lyndsey hadn’t.
True love. What some people never find once, much less twice.
Now personally, he’d have gone with the Princess Bride reference rather than Grease. After what seemed like an entire summer of Annie and Kate watching that movie every single night, he felt as though he were on intimate terms with Westley and Buttercup. Of course there was no way in hell he’d be mentioning the word “princess” to Lyndsey again unless absolutely necessary. Ian figured she was aware he’d heard her answer to Joe, although he didn’t know if her ‘yes’ was in response to the believing-in-true-love thing, or to whether it could happen twice. He had to be honest—he wasn’t entirely sure where he stood on the issue himself.
There was no denying Lyndsey had been the first woman he’d ever loved, with an intensity and fervor probably only possible with that first real love—only possible when you didn’t have the scars to accompany the inevitable heartbreak, scars that formed the basis of your defenses the second time around.
Had that been true love? To him, the phrase implied both parties were in agreement, and Lyndsey certainly hadn’t been. Not back then at least.
Abby? Yes. He thought so; if, in fact, the concept truly existed. His love for her hadn’t come quite as quickly, nor as feverishly. It was strong, though—stronger, eventually, than what he’d had with Lyndsey; solid enough to build a life together, powerful enough that a part of him would never recover from the loss. And definitely reciprocated; of that he had no doubt.
Ian reached forward and prodded the fire with a stick, glancing at the woman across from him. Did he have that with Lyndsey now? Much more so than it had been back then, even after the little time they’d been together—or, to be more accurate, after the watershed evening of the night they’d spent in Atikokan. He was certain of that. Did she feel it as deeply? Did it qualify as “true love” on either of their parts?
Who really knew? Who got to decide? All Ian knew was that she was a part of him—as much as Abby had been. And that he felt them both coursing through his veins in what was probably—he laughed—a very unhealthy way.
“What’s so funny?” Lyndsey asked from where she sat.
“Nothing.” He shook his head and smiled. Nothing at all. “What have you been thinking about all day?”
She looked as though she were trying to decide what to answer. She finally went with, “What do you think the deal is with Joe? Where do you think he goes to every night?”
Despite his uneasiness from earlier that day, Ian really didn’t think Joe was behind any of this—and he was sure that had nothing to do with Zachary’s believing otherwise.
Mostly.
Ian shrugged. “Maybe he’s got a woman stashed somewhere in the woods.”
Lyndsey smiled and scooted over to Ian. Her fingertips traced a line up his arm as she said somewhat demurely, “So, I was also thinking that when we’re done with this whole mission thing, maybe we could go away some weekend—whitewater rafting, maybe do some hiking…”
“Sounds fun, Lyndsey—can we come?”
“Damn it.” Lyndsey muttered, looking up, both irritated and guilty as she abruptly pulled away. She had clearly forgotten the comms were still live and that at any minute Brooks or Malek could come on the line, as Brooks had just done.
“Sorry,” she mouthed.
Ian grinned and shook his head. They’d all been through it—when you first started wearing the earpiece, you were so hyper-aware that you barely said anything. After a little while, you got lulled into complacency, forgetting it was on more often than not, until you said something you really wished you hadn’t. “What’s up, Brooks?”
“How hungry are you?” Brooks asked.
“Why, the fish aren’t jumping?” he asked, glancing over at Lyndsey as the thought of having a little more alone time with her flitted through his mind. She seemed to be on the same wavelength, a sparkle in her eyes as she leaned back just enough to emphasize the curve of her neck, the slope of her breast.
“Well,” Brooks responded. “We kind of, um, caught something else.”
Ian forced himself to turn his thoughts away from Lyndsey. “Another body?” There were still at least three unaccounted for.
“Uh, two actually…” Brooks’s voice was muffled, and Ian could hear Malek in the background—“Brooksie—come on!”
“…About twenty-eight, twenty-nine,” Brooks continued. “A blonde and a brunette, plus an invitation to dinner. We thought maybe you and Lyndsey wouldn’t mind too much.”
Fucking A, no, Ian wouldn’t mind. And if Lyndsey’s smile meant what he thought it did, then she had absolutely no issues with it either.
“How long do you think you’ll be?” His voice cracked as Lyndsey’s hand skimmed over the front of his suddenly much too tight shorts.
Brooks laughed. “A couple of hours maybe?”
Fine. Excellent. “Have a fantastic time. Don’t feel like you need to rush back.” Ian was actually glad Lyndsey’s hand had disappeared because it meant he could speak without being quite so obvious. And since his next call was to someone who wouldn’t be quite so forgiving…
Of course, Lyndsey had no intention of making it easy for him—standing up incredibly slowly, her hand trailing up from his leg to his waist to his chest—so that all he was actually able to manage was, “Um…”
Matt, being no fool, knew exactly what was going on, and had heard enough of the conversation with Brooks to mutter, “Et tu?”
Looking at Lyndsey as she took off her comm and spread her sleeping bag on the ground, Ian said
, “Matt, I think we’ll, uh…”
Lyndsey’s eyes were sparkling as she straightened up and noticed Ian watching her. She smiled and waved to Ian’s comm. “Bye-bye, Matt.”
Ian’s throat went dry as Lyndsey started slowly unbuttoning her shirt, looking up at him through her eyelashes, playing out a fantasy that he’d had, oh, for a little bit too long; a fantasy he’d only mentioned once, after one too many beers with her and Rob and Tessa on a warm October night.
They’d somehow gotten started on a game of Truth or Dare. He’d gotten Truth—what was his dirtiest fantasy. After a few minutes of taking their comments about what constituted excitement up in his part of the world since what he’d considered dirty barely tipped the scales for them, he had been more than a little surprised when Tessa had followed it up by daring Lyndsey to give Ian his wish; and stunned when he realized Lyndsey was just drunk enough to actually take her up on it.
Within about ten seconds, Tessa was telling Lyndsey she was doing the striptease all wrong, and that she was supposed to get up on the coffee table, which Tessa then proceeded to do, demonstrating how she thought it should be done. Lyndsey, not one to be upstaged, had followed and the two began challenging each other as they each started to undress.
There had actually been a brief moment when Ian thought it wasn’t the worst of ideas. A very brief moment, during which he’d realized Rob was having the same thought. They’d looked at each other for longer than Ian would like to admit, before getting up at exactly the same time and pulling their girlfriends off the table, putting an end to the night. Lyndsey had fallen asleep on the way home, and their Halloween fight had happened a couple weeks later. And that was pretty much that.
Until now.
She’d reached the third button and Ian really needed to tear his eyes away—shift his head in another direction entirely. Because, despite how much he was aching to see this, he felt no need to share it with Matt through the comm. He cleared his throat and said, “I think we’ll be signing off early—”
“You guys are unbelievable—all of you,” Matt cut in. “Who’s running this thing?”
“Technically, they’re off duty,” Ian replied, thinking that since he had absolutely nothing to say in his own defense, he should at least make an excuse for Brooks and Malek. He tried to keep his voice steady as Lyndsey’s shirt appeared on the ground beside him. She came up behind him and nuzzled the back of his neck.
“They?” Matt asked, obviously irritated.
Neck nuzzling had stopped which was—on the one hand—too bad. On the other hand, Matt was still on the line and it would be nice if Ian could at least finish the conversation. “Okay,” he corrected. “We.”
“Technically, this is a military operation, not The Bachelor. Don’t you—”
Matt stopped abruptly as Lyndsey’s bra landed on the ground in front of Ian and he couldn’t help but glance down.
“Was that…? Are you kidding me? Don’t you even want to know what Tessa said about the markings?”
At the moment, no. Ian didn’t give one Goddamn about the markings right now, in fact.
Still behind him, Lyndsey slipped her hands under Ian’s shirt, her fingers sliding around to the button of his shorts. Ian had to admit—he didn’t have a lot of sympathy for Matt. Ian had spent plenty of time having to make himself scarce whenever Sarah—who apparently had a particular talent for phone sex—called. What goes around comes around as far as he was concerned. Still, he did have a job to do. Grabbing Lyndsey’s hand, he stopped her from going any further as he managed to eke out, “What did Tessa say?”
Matt sounded almost disappointed that all he could answer was, “She said she wouldn’t have anything until tomorrow.”
Ian released Lyndsey’s hand, closing his eyes as he felt her pull his zipper down. “Good night, Matt.”
He took off his comm, wrapped it up in his shirt as that came off too because—damn it—if Lyndsey was going to take anything else off, he was going to sit back and enjoy, not wonder if anyone else was watching. He picked up her shirt and held it up. “I don’t suppose you want to put this back on and do that thing with the buttons again…”
Her laugh sounded in his ear. “I think I could manage,” she said in a low, throaty voice. She took the shirt, and when she appeared in front of him, sinking down to his lap, he saw she’d put it back on, but hadn’t buttoned it, instead leaving it hanging slightly open. She placed his hands on her waist, then drew his head to her neck, sighing as his lips brushed her skin. She let his hands wander, shivering as he grazed and teased, but stopping him as he began to take the shirt off.
“That comes last,” she whispered and pulled back, standing up and moving a few feet away.
Okay, he would have said if his voice could get past the lump in his throat. Your choice, Lyn. It’s all good. Really, really good.
She gave him that evil smile again as her hands went to her waist and she spent much more time than was actually necessary unbuttoning her pants—cargo pants by the way, which, for reasons Ian couldn’t explain any better than the stripping thing had been a turn-on for him since the day he discovered, well, turn-ons.
She eased her zipper open and peeled her pants down over her legs, revealing the black lace underneath. Damn. She walked towards him, her hips right about at eye level. Another few steps forward and he had no choice but to pull his head back, because otherwise his face would be in her—
“You didn’t expect me to do all the work, did you?” She looked down at him, knowing full well that in order for him to look her in the eye, his gaze had to take in the bronze, smooth skin stretching up to her neck, and the shape of the cotton shirt as its hem grazed his chin.
There was mischief in her eyes. “I was considering instituting a no hands rule right about now, but—honestly?—I’m not in the mood to wait that long.”
Oh, he was so with her there.
He leaned forward and put his mouth to the lace and kissed her, his hand running up the backs of her thighs. The lace was rough against his tongue as he pressed into her, pushing harder when he heard her intake of breath and felt her hands in his hair, clutching at him as a tremble overtook her.
“Ian…” She pulled his head away yet kept him close enough for his tongue to hit all the high points—dipping into her navel, skimming over her breast, tracing the contour of her neck—as she slid down.
Her hands went down his sides, thumbs hooking into his waistband. Leaning into him, she pressed her hips and chest against him as she put her mouth to his neck and whispered some fantasies of her own.
“Lyndsey,” he gasped through clenched teeth. This particular combination of things she’d put together had brought him to the edge before she’d even touched him. Now? With her hands roaming freely as she described in detail things that put to shame his concept of dirty even after taking into account his much broader experience over the last sixteen years… “We either need to get the rest of these clothes off, or you need to stop talking,” he said. Because otherwise it was about to get very messy.
She grinned and stood up, reaching her hand out to pull him up, too. She was beyond sexy—with her tousled hair, her flushed skin, and her shirt still hanging slightly open. He stood and let her lead him to the sleeping bag.
And then there was the black lace, he thought, as she lay down and lifted her hips so he could pull it off of her. Couldn’t forget that.
He shed his own clothes and lowered himself to her. She still wore the shirt, and he had to admit, there was something about the way it fell across her body—half on, half off—that he found incredibly erotic, knowing that what lay underneath was his for the taking. And damn, did he want to take.
This time she let him push the shirt off her shoulders and put his mouth to her breast, his hand going down to her hip as his tongue went to work. Her knee was making its way up his thigh, and she was shifting underneath him, opening herself up and pulling him in, completely dominating him despite having her back t
o the ground. Groaning as he sank slowly into her incredible heat, he felt her tighten around him. He closed his eyes, unable to concentrate on anything other than the way her body moved against him and the way his body was responding. On the tremors running through him.
She lifted her head up and put her lips to his. “Ian…” she said into his mouth, her tongue lingering as she drew out the word.
“Mmm?” Her fingers fanned out, moving slowly around his waist and then down his thighs before she brought her hand up between them.
Holy…
He clutched the sleeping bag, desperate to find something to keep him grounded as her hands went to work. There were actually lights exploding in his head. Sweet fucking Jesu—
“Keep your eyes open.”
Her voice surprised him. There was a huskiness as she spoke, which made the command that much more enticing. “I want to see you when I make you come.”
His eyes flew open as she thrust her hips upwards to emphasize the point, sending a wave of heat crashing through him.
Keep them open? How about keeping them from rolling back into his head?
Not that he could concentrate on either one of those things—right about now he was just barely managing to breathe. Especially now that she’d reached between them and was… Christ. His hips surged forward on their own accord.
“Open,” she said again, her own voice somewhat breathless, as his eyes fluttered closed.
Right. Open. If he’d been the begging type, right about now he’d be on his hands and knees.
Fuck it. “Lyndsey…” Oh… Fuck. “Please… Let me…”
Take care of her first. Because there was no way he’d last if she kept moving like that.
She was looking up at him, staring at him with an intensity that didn’t waver, despite her quick, sudden breaths. She gave him an evil smile. “No.”
His hand went to her hair, clenching as the pressure built, as she pushed him closer and closer to the edge. She grasped his hands tightly and thrust up at him, over and over, more quickly as he gasped for breath. She jacked up the friction; played up the slick, slippery skin as she twisted beneath him, her eyes never leaving his despite her own obvious struggle for control.
