She’d go to the last meeting in a little while. She’d smile and make small talk, and then . . . she’d wait for the end.
The last meeting.
This, she thought with gallows humor, was a day for lasts.
The air in the corridor was Arctic cold despite the thick sweats she wore. Damn. They had money for all the high-tech crap in the world, but one decent pair of warm pants that fit? Nope. She tried picturing a hot tropical beach as she jogged back to her room, but the sound of her own teeth chattering spoilt the dim image. Even though there was no chance of her getting out of this alive, her favorite fantasy involved hot sand, warm surf, and scorching sex with the right guy.
And Michaela knew precisely who she’d fantasize about. Cole’s best friend, Sebastian Tremayne. With nearly blue-black hair, shoulders stacked out to there, and a smile that could knock a woman senseless at fifty paces, he’d earned a reputation at T-FLAC HQ for being a hotshot, not just in the field but in the sack as well. Not that she’d gotten to find out.
Her engagement to Cole had ended when she’d met the best man, Sebastian, at her engagement party. She’d seen him a few times before but hadn’t actually spoken to him, looked into those eyes, or felt her entire body come alive the way it did as he shook her hand and congratulated her on the upcoming wedding.
It had been a revelation. She’d suddenly realized that her relationship with Cole, while comfortable, was no more than friendship with fringe benefits. Cole didn’t rock her world.
Sebastian Tremayne had rocked her world. Just back from a long op in South America, they’d seen him everywhere those few weeks. In spite of herself, Sebastian had instantly and completely intrigued and captivated Michaela. Not just his dark brooding good looks. Not that single dimple in his right cheek. No, she’d loved the richness of his voice. The flash of humor that lit those piercing pale blue eyes. Blue eyes that had avoided hers when she’d glanced his way and caught him watching her through half-lidded eyes.
Meeting him had been bad timing. After she’d broken off the engagement, she’d gone for that fateful solo flight to clear her head. She’d never gotten to explain to him why she’d ditched Cole or how attracted she was to him—enough to change the course of her life if he was interested.
Since then, Tremayne had starred in all of her incredibly hot, breathless fantasies. His dimpled smile, the heat in his blue eyes, and the phantom touch of his skin against hers had kept her sane for 703 nights.
Michaela glanced at her watch and picked up a bit of speed. . . . Half an hour . . . She smiled. “Sebastian, here I come.”
She paused outside the reinforced metal door to her small cell of a room as the damp towel wrapped around her head slid to the floor. Bending down to pick it up, she was hit with a frigid blast of cold air and her entire body shuddered. Uneasy, she briskly towel-dried her shoulder-length hair, glancing up and down the dimly lit corridor until she was certain no one was lurking. Assured no one was lying in wait, she shoved open the heavy, reinforced door. No lock here, either.
The 75-watt, yellow hallway light spilled into black as the door swung open. She’d left the small lamp beside the bed on. Hell. The room was so small she’d have to go inside and close the door to reach the switch. Even the pale light from the corridor was better than nothing at all. Darkness had never bothered her before she’d been imprisoned in a hostile environment, against her will, three hundred meters beneath the ice pack.
Michaela swore under her breath. Everything was either pitch-dark or deeply shadowed beyond the meager cone of light. She couldn’t see a damn thing, but the hair on the back of her neck prickled a warning. Her instincts had saved her from rape and worse a dozen times since she’d been here. She wasn’t about to doubt herself now.
“Whoever the hell you are, show yourself.” She wanted to claim she was armed, that she had a 9 mm and would blow a freaking hole in his groin. But other than her handy-dandy, ever-present broom handle and her little kit bag, she was unarmed, and everyone on the base knew it.
The silence hummed.
She wasn’t foolish enough to believe the lightbulb had died. If her room was dark now, it was because someone wanted it that way. If that someone was inside, running back into the corridor would just mark her as prey. And stepping into the confined space with an adversary was just asking for trouble.
Damned if she did. Damned if she didn’t.
Either someone had finally found out what she had planned and was here to stop her or the tension of the impending countdown was too much and some idiot had decided he needed to nail her once and for all.
A surge of adrenaline sharpened her senses and reflexes. She dropped the towel and kit bag and tightened her fingers around the thick shaft of the broom handle as she shoved the door closed with her foot.
Now they were both trapped.
Instead of ramming the straight-backed, military-issue chair under the door handle as she usually did, Michaela wrapped her fingers around the cool metal, ready to use the piece of furniture as a weapon if necessary. Chair in one hand, stick in the other, she felt like a fricking lion tamer.
Even with her excellent hearing, she didn’t pick up so much as a shallow breath, but she was 99.9 percent positive she wasn’t alone. “You’ve got five seconds to get the hell out, no questions asked.” She inhaled deeply and centered her body weight, the way her instructor had taught her back in another life. “After that I’m going to break your dick in half.”
A muffled chuckle was followed by a quiet, “Shhh.” A large hand clamped over her mouth, shocking her into dropping the stick. Fricking hell. Assholes never learned. With her intensive T-FLAC training she figured she could handle any man on this base. Other than Gangjor or Tongpan, who were too evil to be mere men.
The minute the stranger touched her she dug her short nails into his hand. With a soft oath he pulled her hard against his chest. Six three or four. Rock-solid abs.
Who was it this time? Sergei? Too tall. Richard? Too solid.
Michaela managed to get her mouth open just enough to bite down hard. She tasted his blood. Good. A knock-down, drag-out fight would deplete the surplus adrenaline surging through her body. But a fight wasn’t what he wanted, and she was suddenly terrified he’d prevent her doing her last-minute sabotage to the nuclear device. Then everything she’d endured for two years would be in vain. She fought him like a wild woman. Teeth, nails, knees, and fists.
“Jesus, it’s m—”
She wasn’t in the mood for chatty. Wrapping her fingers around the base of his thumb, she wrenched it back, trying to break his hold. No go. She chopped at his thick wrist. That didn’t fricking work, either. Reaching over her head with both hands, Michaela grabbed the intruder in a headlock and attempted to throw him. Too centered. Dropping her hands, she shot a hard elbow into his gut, followed by a head butt backward, which made her see stars and elicited zero reaction from him.
She realized that the height difference had rendered the move useless—his face and throat were too damn high for her to reach that way. To be effective she needed to turn around and face him. The room was small, barely eight by six. The hard edge of the chair pressed against her knees, which meant the narrow bed was behind him. She couldn’t get enough leverage to hit him with the chair; he was holding her immobile. If she could get a good grip, she could use his own body as a fulcrum and—
His warm, damp breath caressed her shower-damp neck. “I’m letting go, Michaela. Don’t scream.”
As if. She nodded. Hard to ID him from the almost inaudible whisper so close to her ear. Not that she cared which of her captors or fellow scientists he was. Not at this late stage of the game.
As much as she’d been thinking about sex, or the lack thereof for the past two years due to being fricking kidnapped by these terrorists, being raped mere hours before her death was unacceptable in every way. Michaela knew to the second when her time was up, and now wasn’t when.
As much as she would’ve liked h
aving hot, breathless sex one last time before she croaked, this wasn’t how she wanted it.
He removed his callused hand. Her mouth felt numb from the pressure, but her mind was going a mile a minute as she slowly reached for the door handle a foot away.
Strong fingers closed around her wrist. “Stay.” It was darker than a witch’s heart and he unerringly found her wrist? That was serious training. Having no idea who she was dealing with complicated things, and suddenly her heart pumped even harder. She’d worked beside these men for twenty-three months. She knew them. Had studied their strengths and weaknesses. She still couldn’t place the intruder.
“You imbecile,” she spat out, keeping her body moving in the cage of his arms, keeping her mind jumping with possible escape scenarios. “You’re jeopardizing the project because you want to get laid? Get the hell out before I emasculate you.”
He muttered something hot and low, then spun her around so fast it made her dizzy. Disoriented in the darkness, she managed to close her fingers on his forearms for balance, then dug her nails into—a wet suit? Protective clothing of some sort? Someone stupid enough to think he could escape by swimming away from the base?
Nobody would give a damn if she screamed her lungs out. Everyone in the decommissioned submarine base had more exciting things to deal with right now than her. Still, he might not like having sex with a shrill, shrieking woman.
Yeah? part of her brain mocked. A man without sex for two years and he’d give a rat’s ass if she were screaming like a banshee while he pumped into her? Not.
She opened her mouth to scream blue bloody murder anyway. If he was Gromyko or Ackart, he’d run. Neither man was this confrontational. If he was Ling, Popov, or Malard, he’d rape, then kill her. And if this was Gangjon returned, she’d be praying for a quick death. Michaela managed to release a high-pitched shriek. There was zero chance of anyone hearing her. The walls were three feet thick. The conference room they used was clear on the other side of the underwater complex.
His mouth closed down on hers with no warning, effectively shutting her up. Stealing her air and her ability to scream. Iron-strong arms wrapped around her body, lifting her off her feet. He backed across the room.
No, oh no, oh fricking no!
His arms were locked over hers, but she wriggled and kicked like a wild woman. Legs, knees, feet. Anything she could use to make contact.
She was too close to her objective to allow anyone to stop her now. Two years of her life would be wasted if this caveman did worse than rape her. He was strong enough, determined enough, to kill her.
Too soon. She jumped up against him, locking her legs around his waist, her arms around his neck. A lover’s position, but also one that could break his neck if she exerted just the right pressure here, and here—
He bit her lower lip. Michaela’s heart raced and her adrenaline shot off the charts as they fell awkwardly onto the narrow cot. The springs shrieked, and the metallic taste of blood caused her heart to thunder in her ears as she battered whatever she could reach with her fists and heels. Her back slammed painfully into the concrete wall beside the bed.
Despite being a lab rat for T-FLAC rather than a field operative, she’d enjoyed her combat training, and had maintained that same level of fitness. Especially in the last couple of years. She was fit and strong. He was stronger.
Attack.
Counterattack.
The guy’s powerful hips pressed down, trapping her crossed ankles at the small of his back. Not good. Oh, God. Really not good. Worse, she was straddling his groin. He was fully aroused as he rolled her under him, effectively pinning her body, her arms, and her legs.
“Stop. You’ll hurt yourself,” he said harshly against her ear in an achingly familiar voice that convinced her she was hallucinating. “Damn it, Michaela. It’s me. Sebastian Tremayne.”
CHAPTER THREE
Heat of a different kind flooded Michaela’s body, even though there was no fricking way he could possibly be who he claimed to be.
Sebastian Tremayne?
Impossible.
Not out in the godforsaken Arctic, under three hundred meters of ice. There wasn’t a snowball’s hope in hell for T-FLAC to know where to start looking for her. And no way they would’ve taken two years to extract her if they did.
While she’d been thinking about Tremayne a lot lately, and in positions much like this one, a fantasy wasn’t the same as a full-out physical manifestation, delicious as his body felt between her knees. Maybe she was having a psychotic break? “Liar!”
Had they watched her in her room at night? God! Had they seen—Furious, cheeks hot, chest heaving, Michaela aimed a punch to his face. Before it landed he grabbed her balled fist in his. His hand was enormous, enclosing her hand completely in the cage of his fingers.
“Engagement party,” he said flatly, gripping her wrists to hold her bucking body still, his hips and the hard ridge of his erection pressing harder against the cradle of her pelvis. “Bozeman. May seventeenth two years ago. You wore a strapless little red number. Made me deaf, blind, and stupid the second I laid eyes on you. And the afternoon of the barbeque . . .”
She stopped fighting. Oh, God. How could anyone here know about that life-changing night? The reaction had been mutual and directly responsible for her breaking off her engagement a month later. One look at the tall and brooding Tremayne with his intense pale blue eyes and unsmiling mouth and Michaela had instantly forgotten her brand-new fiancé, Cole Summers.
They’d been walking down the same back hallway at Cole’s house when Tremayne had said her name in that low, sexy rumble of his. He leaned in as the best man to give her a congratulatory kiss on the cheek, she’d turned her head at the last second, and they’d ended up kissing. What started out as an accidental brush of his mouth against hers had turned into an instant inferno that left them both breathing hard.
He’d braced his hands on either side of her head, his breath hot and heavy against her neck. “We can’t do this.”
Michaela had let her head drop against the wall, her heart beating so hard it threatened to burst out of her bra. “You going to say anything to Cole?”
She’d never seen a more forlorn look in her life than the one she saw flit through Sebastian’s eyes. “Nope. This never happened.”
“Good.” She pushed away from the wall and held out a hand. “Friends?”
All he’d done was nod in agreement before turning on his heel and walking quickly away from her down the hallway. But that was then, and this was now. Sebastian wasn’t some erotic figment of her imagination. He wasn’t off-limits. He was hard and real and his heart pounded just as fiercely as hers.
In the dark she freed one hand and, with rising wonder and unsteady fingers, traced the rough planes of his face. His strong nose, the roughness of his jaw, the long, almost imperceptible slash of a dimple in his right cheek thrilled her.
They’d never touched again after that night, yet she recognized the texture of his skin, knew the smell of him.
Her heartbeat went from fear-frantic to lust-induced, manic tom-tom in a tenth of a second. “Sebastian.” A frisson ran from her temple to her toes and the tight place inside her chest unfurled as she breathed his name. “Are you real?”
In response he plunged his fingers into her wet hair. Gripping her head in a hard palm, he took her mouth in a rough, carnal kiss that left nothing to the imagination. She knew precisely what he wanted because ever since that night, she’d been wanting it, too. She responded with equal passion, snaking her hand around to the back of his neck and holding him in place as she thoroughly enjoyed her first real-world kiss in way, way too long.
His mouth left hers, and she whimpered in protest. “Come back; I wasn’t done.”
“Patience is a virtue.” He nibbled her earlobe, making her shudder, then swirled his hot, wet tongue in her ear until she arched her neck with a thick moan. His mouth, tongue, and teeth made her forget where she was for just a little while
. Made her forget where she was and what was about to transpire.
Sebastian shifted his head the few inches required to plunder her mouth again. She saw fireworks behind her closed lids as he dragged his firm mouth back and forth across hers before plunging his tongue back to duel with hers.
Dizzy with lust and longing, heart about to burst out of her chest, Michaela couldn’t—forgot to—draw a breath and ripped her lips from his to drag in lifesaving oxygen. “You’re t-torturing me—”
“Breathing is highly overrated.” With his free hand he gripped the hem of her sweatshirt and pulled away long enough to drag the garment over her head. Then his hot, avid mouth was back on hers before the chill of the room could compute in her muzzy brain.
Michaela surrendered to the kiss, stroking his face as he made love to her mouth. God, she wished the light was on so she could be sure this was real and not the usual graphic fantasy. Although God only knew her fantasies had been good, but never this good.
She stroked Sebastian’s lips with her tongue, and he bit her lower lip. Her heartbeat skittered and pulsed as his other hand slid under her tank top to cup her bare breast as he continued kissing her as if he were starving and she a feast.
Her heartbeat, already manic with the adrenaline spike, shot into the stratosphere like a rocket as he caught her nipple, rolling and pulling it between his fingers as he devoured her mouth with teeth and tongue. Tears stung her eyes, and a rush of pain/ pleasure hurt her heart—a reaction to being touched after so long without human contact. A visceral response to him. God. He was here. Like a hero out of some fantasy novel. The good guy sweeping in at the eleventh hour to save her.
She’d resigned herself to the inevitability of death.
He’d brought her life.
Love and unspeakable gratitude filled her chest to bursting.
His fingers bunched the thin top, gliding it sensuously up her back; then that, too, was discarded. Her nipples pinched tight at the brush of his hand. “I want to see you naked,” he murmured, trailing his lips down her arched throat.
The Bodyguard Page 2
