by Becky McGraw
Emotion and so much relief shot up to his head, it made him dizzy as Slade put his hands at her waist to drag her out of the door. He didn’t set her down, he clamped his arms around her waist and ground his mouth into hers. It wasn’t a soft and easy touching of mouths, Slade put all the frustration, the worry, that he’d felt in the last two hours into the punishing kiss.
Taylor moaned, and her fingers clutched his shirt when he finally sat her down in front of him. Their eyes met and just held as they both dragged in breaths. Slade tried to force words past his lips, but they were trapped in his throat. He couldn’t talk to her right now or he would come off wrong, he thought, grabbing her wrist to drag her toward the Humvee.
Slade had too much on his mind right now to add in an argument with her. Later, once he had some answers as to who the men he held hostage now worked for, he would be calmer, more able to have a conversation without yelling at her. To get those answers though, he needed fucking Cade Winters to call him back. That man was the only one Slade knew who claimed to be fluent in Farsi, but again he was having to chase the bastard to get his help.
He opened the door and helped Taylor up inside, then slammed it and skirted the front to get inside. His phone vibrated in his pocket as he grabbed the door handle. Stopping, Slade pulled it out, hoping it was Winters calling him back. But it was Gray, probably calling to relay information from Winters, since that seemed to be the only way he would communicate with Slade. And it was starting to piss him off badly.
“Yeah?” Slade growled.
“Cade will be here shortly. He said he could get away as soon as Ahmed leaves for a meeting in an hour, since he’s not invited to go along.” Gray’s loud laugh grated on Slade’s nerves. “Ahmed hired two new Arab guards, so he’s kind of cut Cade from the circle of trust.”
“Good to know,” he grumped, as he got behind the wheel and slammed the door.
With Gray being the chosen intermediary between himself and Winters, Slade felt sort of like Winters did with those guards around. He thought maybe Winters wanted him to feel that way.
“I have Taylor and she’s fine,” Slade said, cranking the engine. “Levi and Hawk should be there in a minute, and we’ll talk when I get there.”
“Okay, but Dex found some information too,” Gray said, before Slade hung up. “I think those prisoners may be able to help us with it.”
“The license plate info?” Slade asked quickly, his heart rising a notch in his chest.
“Just get back here and let Dex explain it,” Gray replied, with a laugh. “I’m an accountant, not a computer whiz, and he speaks a tongue I don’t understand, as much as those prisoners.”
With a growl, Slade disconnected and pocketed the phone. He wished his nerves were as calm as the accountant’s seemed to be, but his insides practically hummed with frenetic energy as he put the Hummer into drive. Slade knew that hum and fought it by clenching his abs. He couldn’t fall apart yet. He had too many answers to get, and too little time to get them, because at nine o’clock Friday morning, the banks would open and that ransom would be paid.
Parking by the tree in front of the office, Slade was out of the vehicle and running for the porch before Taylor opened her door. Lola barked when he walked inside, but he didn’t stop to pet her. She followed behind him to Dexter’s office.
“What in the hell did you find?” Slade grated, as he walked inside and the computer nerd jumped before looking at him.
“Hello to you too,” he said, looking back at his screen.
“Talk to me Dexter, or someone is going to get hurt. I’ve been waiting to hear this entirely too long.”
“I got the names this morning, but I’ve been trying to run down the connection.”
“You’ve had the names all day?!?” Slade shouted, and Dex jumped again.
He looked up and his eyebrows crashed together. “Don’t fucking yell at me, man. The names don’t mean shit without the connection, and if you haven’t noticed I’ve been kind of busy!”
“I’m sorry,” Slade said in a calmer tone.
Biting the hand that was giving him information right now was a bad idea. He’d wait to kick Dex’s ass when this was over, just like he was waiting to do the same to Taylor, who stopped beside him right then. But the way he felt, he wanted to kick everyone’s ass right now including his own for not walking out of this place when he found those phones on his desk.
Dex jerked a piece of paper from beside his computer and shoved it out to him. “These are the names attached to the rental cars. The names are common middle eastern so I was searching in Saudi, but it’s been like looking for a needle in a haystack. You might find out quicker by asking those prisoners in the conference room.”
“If I spoke Farsi, I would,” Slade said, taking it from him to scan it. He heard Taylor make a funny sound, and his eyes flew to her. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
“I ah, think I need to go lay down,” she replied, biting her lower lip drawing his eyes there.
“Fine, just go in my room,” he offered, because he damned sure wasn’t letting her sleep on Hawk’s bunk again. Last night had been nearly sleepless for him, until he snuck in there and saw Hawkins on the top bunk.
Her eyes slid to Dexter then back to him, and she put her hand on his arm. The need in her eyes was so intense, the pleading so strong, Slade had to drag his away.
“I don’t know when, or if I’ll be done tonight.” Slade wasn’t going to rest, or anything else, until he heard everything those prisoners had to say. They were out of time.
Taylor’s face fell, but she nodded then turned and walked out. Dexter whistled, and Slade spun around. “You work fast, buddy. Looks like you’ve got one on the hook. You’ll need a bigger stringer soon.” He winked, and Slade frowned.
“Mind your own damned business,” he growled as he strode out of the room, instead of punching the grin off of Dexter’s face, but Cee Cee stopped him in the hallway.
“Gray asked me to tell you that Cade is here,” she said, her voice tense. “I’m heading to the gym, and then out for a while if that’s okay?”
“That’s fine,” Slade said, and strode past her.
He walked to the conference room, and pushed open the door. A tall, rocked up man in a tight t-shirt and camo pants, who had to be Winters, stopped talking to turn and scowl at him, and the three prisoners looked at him too.
“Rule one. Do not interrupt me while I’m talking to prisoners. Who the fuck are you?”
Slade took a couple of quick breaths to get a handle on his anger, before he stormed over there and introduced himself with his fist. Instead he clenched them at his sides and the paper in his hand crumpled.
“Your worst fucking nightmare, if you don’t show a little respect real fast, asshole,” Slade growled, and Lola stopped beside his leg to growl too. Winters’ eyes slid to Lola, then back to him. “The money I paid you says I’m your boss, so I need a minute of your time—now.”
“I can’t leave them alone,” Winters replied gruffly. “They are on opposite sides of the Khalil fence and I don’t want them exchanging notes or blows.”
“Caleb!” Slade shouted, and the sound bounced off of the paneled walls. He’d seen him and Levi in the kitchen when he passed it a few minutes ago.
Hasty footsteps sounded in the hallway, then Caleb stood in the doorway holding a sandwich with a big bite gone in his hand.
“What do you need, bossman?” he asked around the bite that was in his cheek.
Slade’s eyes held Winters’ as he pulled his pistol from his waistband and racked a shell into the chamber then handed it to Caleb. He pointed at the table.
“Sit down at the table and finish your sandwich, but I want you to guard these prisoners. If any one of them opens their mouth, I want you to shoot them in the fucking kneecap.” Caleb choked on his sandwich, but the corner of Winters’ mouth ticked, as grudging respect entered his eyes. “They have two chances before they get it in the balls.”
&nb
sp; Winters turned and spoke rapidly to each man, and they nodded. The one in the corner with his swollen leg propped on a chair flinched as he grabbed his knee. It would serve these bastards right if they all three got shot before they returned. He’d like to do it himself for what they tried to do to Taylor, but he needed them alive, thus the non-lethal locations he selected.
Slade walked out of the conference room, and surprisingly Winters followed him to his office. They went inside, and Winters closed the door then leaned on it.
“Sit down,” he said, glaring at Winters, because that seemed to be the only thing the man understood.
“I’d rather stand,” he said coolly. “I have work to do tonight, so if you have something to say, just say it so I can get it done.”
The cold and calculating demeanor of this man reminded Slade of some of the guys in Afghanistan who had one tour too many under their belts. The ones who wanted to take tours, signed up for them, because there was something at home they wanted to avoid. Usually a woman, or a mountain of bills. While they were in the sandbox they got combat pay and some of those bills were suspended, or paid by Uncle Sam.
Slade laid the wad of crumpled paper on the desk and smoothed it out then held it out to him. “I need you to find out who these men are and what their connection is to the prince and his brother.” Winters took the paper from him and studied it. “I told you Zami was kidnapped. Well, one of those men is the kidnapper and the other is responsible for the car bombing that killed the guards.”
“Who is Taylor Kincaid,” Winters asked, his clear eyes seeming to bore into Slade’s skull.
“Why?” Slade asked, his core muscles tightening.
“One of the prisoners mentioned her name, and I connected it with the car bombing.”
“Well you can unconnect her,” Slade grated, vowing to keep Taylor as far away from this man as he could. “She had nothing to do with it, and that is all a mistake. I need you to find out who did it, so I can clear her name.”
“Ooh—hit a nerve, huh?” he said, and a travesty of a smile creased his face. It didn’t reach his eyes though. “The feds disagree and want to find her for questioning. And a German man with a dog, a dog that looks a whole lot like yours. Did you train her in German?”
Slamming his hands on his desk, Slade stood and glared at him. “I’m not the one you’re here to interrogate. Get the fuck out of my office and do your job.”
Winters snapped off a salute, and Slade didn’t miss the middle finger that lingered up as it reached his chest. He turned and jerked open the door, but eased it closed behind him, then Slade heard rusty laughter echo down the hall.
The bastard was messing with him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Slade was so tired, he almost had to tie a rope to his ass and have someone drag him to his bedroom by the time Winters finished his interrogation of the prisoners at five am on Friday morning. He had exactly two hours to sleep, before he had to get up again. That’s what they’d agreed upon before they broke up the meeting after Winters finished.
He found out after Winters took the first prisoner into the room Dex was supposed to use for storage and locked the door, why the man requested a private room. The sounds that came out of that empty, uninsulated room at times told him that Winters did not feel bound by the Geneva Convention rules or any rules on prisoner interrogation for that matter.
Slade didn’t have a problem with that.
Caleb, Levi and Slade sat in the conference room with the prisoners and all of them heard those sounds but no one interfered. When Winters brought one of them back sobbing with new red welts and bruises, lumps and bumps, they didn’t comment. From the gagging noises the guy with the broken nose and leg made in the room during his last round with Winters, Slade felt sure they’d need a bucket of bleach and mop tomorrow.
But he didn’t care—they would deal with that tomorrow.
The man might be brutal, cruel and probably heartless, but his methods worked. Cade Winters had gotten them all of the answers they needed, and then some.
Because of that man and his brutality, they were meeting again in the conference room at zero seven hundred to hand out assignments. Those assignments would include delivering the prisoners to the Office of Homeland Security, providing the information to them that cleared Taylor in the car bombing, and rescuing Zami Khalil from the hotel where he was being held by the men his uncle paid to kidnap him.
The Haji with the broken leg told Winters the most. Evidently, he was one of Tariq’s right-hand men. The man sang like a canary though about how Tariq had sent them to kill Taylor so she would be blamed for the bombing and the feds would stop investigating. How Tariq had hired two different teams, one to kidnap Zami who was being held at a local hotel somewhere, and another who planned to take out Ahmed as soon as the ransom was wired tomorrow.
The two men Caleb and Levi captured in Colorado could only tell him that they were professional hitmen hired by Ahmed Khalil, but had no idea why Ahmed wanted Jaxson dead. If that’s what those men told Winters during his interrogation, Slade had every reason to believe it was the truth.
Dexter, Mackenzie and Cee Cee were still working though. They would sleep tomorrow, after the assignments were given. It was up to them to find out tonight where Zami Khalil was being held, so he could be rescued in the morning, hopefully before the wire transfer. Mac thought he had a lead and left a few hours ago to check it out. It seemed to him that Winters was a machine, because he said he had to check some things out, then he was going back to the hotel to be in position tomorrow morning.
Slade stopped at his bedroom door and thought about sleeping on the sofa, so he could actually sleep. Lola took her pillow beside the kennel where Buddy was snoring. He hoped Taylor was snoring too, so he could quietly crawl into bed without her waking up. She’d want to talk, hear what happened or worse most likely. Worse might be worth losing sleep over, but the other stuff he definitely didn’t want. His eyes were as stiff as his freaking leg when he looked over at the small sofa. His muscle strain felt better after the ice pack and half a bottle of ibuprofen, but he was due to take more of them, and the bottle was in the kitchen at the office.
If he slept on that sofa, he knew he wouldn’t be getting any sleep either, so with a huffed breath, he twisted the knob and walked inside the darkened bedroom. Quietly, he untied his boots and slid them off, then reached for the button on his jeans.
“Is that you?” Taylor asked in that sleepy, sexy kitten tone of hers, and Slade bit back a groan for more than one reason.
“It’s me,” he replied, shoving his jeans off, and pulling his shirt over his head.
“What underwear do you have on now?” she asked.
Slade went rock hard under the Superman underwear that Cee Cee had probably just jerked out of his underwear drawer when she was gathering clothes to bring to him. He hoped that was the case anyway, because he’d hate to think she’d catalogued them like Taylor had.
“Sponge Bob,” he replied, shoving them down to his ankles.
“Liar,” she growled. “You don’t have any Sponge Bob. I know I’d have seen those.”
“Okay, you’re right.” He laughed taking two steps toward the bed. He had two hours, who the hell needed sleep? He was buzzing with adrenaline anyway from his excitement at possibly having this darned situation resolved tomorrow. “It’s those ones with the elephant face on them.”
She gasped and he smiled. Those had been a gag gift from Logan one year for Christmas. He knew about Slade’s underwear fetish, because he’d pulled several pair out of the washer one day to wash his own.
“I like those even better than the lips,” she said, surprising him.
“Really?” he asked, stopping beside the bed. It was his turn to gasp when she reached out and closed her hand around his cock and heat sizzled through his body.
“Yeah, I like the trunk, but I’m not sure this trunk would fit in it.” Her throaty giggle danced through his insides. Smooth
ing her hand up his shaft to the head, she stopped there to rub her thumb over the top, and he trembled, before he took a step back and her hand dropped.
“You sure do know how to disappoint a girl,” she said, her voice coming from where he’d been standing. He reached out and touched the top of her head which hung out over the side of the bed, and another tremor shook him. If he’d have just stood still a moment longer, she would have—no he needed sleep.
“I’m afraid I would disappoint you, because I’m exhausted and only have two hours before I have to get up, little bit.”
“You could always just lay there and think of England.” She giggled again, and sounded wide awake now. And horny. God he’d bet she was wet, and he could slip right between those amazing thighs of hers and—no he had to sleep.
“I’d do the work,” she added, with a whoosh of breath as her head left his hand and he heard the covers rustle.
Slade laughed as he knelt on the bed, but groaned when his thigh muscle pulled. He felt for his pillow and rolled to lay down. Maybe if he gave her an update she’d be appeased. At least it would only take five minutes. She’d probably like that better than five minute sex in his opinion, which is about four minutes longer than he’d last tonight.
“I have some good news for you,” he said, and her body tensed beside him.
“I could use some good news,” she said, her voice losing its playful sparkle.
“It looks like you’re off the hook for the car bomb as soon as we deliver the prisoners to Homeland Security tomorrow.”
“Oh, thank God.”
“Thank Him, but also thank the asshole who interrogated them within an inch of their lives. Tomorrow is going to be a very busy day for us.” Slade was sure thankful to him, but he wasn’t about to tell him that. Because he really was an asshole.
“Will it be over then?” she asked, and the bed dipped. Her hand landed on his abs and they contracted as her breath brushed his shoulder.
“I sure hope so.”
“Does that mean you won’t need me anymore?” She asked, and her voice trembled. “That you’re going to fire me?”
