by Amy Gamet
The voice of a newscaster trailed on in the background. “…some concern about the structure, as it is scheduled to be torn down and rebuilt in the spring after failing an engineering inspection in the fall.”
Jax’s voice was deep and foreboding. “Where is he now?”
Logan refreshed the software, wondering if this was how the next hour would be spent — tracking Hawk’s phone as they watched him approach the Steele mansion, stay for a while, and retreat. The screen repopulated and Logan frowned. “He’s not moving.”
“What do you mean?”
“His coordinates are exactly the same, right down to the seconds. He hasn’t moved at all since our last scan.”
Jax growled. “Wait two minutes and try it again.”
A knock at the door and it opened, the alabaster face of Sarah Davenport contrasting sharply with her coral-painted lips. Her eyes dropped to Logan’s nearly naked body, roving up his legs and pausing too long where his brief-clad body bent in the chair before making her way to his face. She smiled tentatively, and Logan imagined those coral lips giving way beneath his kisses before Charlotte corralled her into the hallway and shut the door behind them.
God, it would be good to get laid, and from the look on Sarah’s face, that was a distinct possibility. He shook his head as he stood and pulled on pants, then sat and refreshed the screen again. “Same coordinates.”
“What does it mean?”
“Could mean he left his phone there. Could mean he’s taking a leak, or a nap. Whatever the reason, he isn’t moving.”
“He might be stuck in the storm,” said Jax.
Logan bobbed his head. “Possible.”
“If he’s stuck in the storm, he hasn’t killed anyone yet.”
“True.” Logan knew what was coming.
“How fast can you get yourself to Gamma Squadron headquarters?”
“Couple hours.”
“Then do it.”
The line went dead in his hand.
So much for Sarah Davenport.
He only mourned the promises of those coral lips for a moment, because he knew his HERO Force brothers were more important than any woman could ever be.
5
She smelled like honey and musk, the scent surrounding him as he moved closer to her sleeping form. It was so cold, and he craved her warmth as much as he craved the curves of her body cushioning the hard planes of his own.
There was an ache deep in his hip like he’d worked out too hard, another in his quads. What the hell had he been doing? The woman was beginning to fade, her scent more ethereal, and he lunged for her, inhaling the smell deep into his lungs. The tiniest touch of woodsmoke lingered on her skin, and he opened his eyes, confused.
Where the hell was he?
So damn cold. Even with a thick comforter, he was chilled clear through to his bones. He worked to remember where he was.
He could hear the crash of the accident, remember running on his aching knee, the unconscious woman in his arms. The cabin.
He looked around, taking in the dark room and the fire that had nearly burned out. Pursing his lips, he exhaled, half expecting to be able to see his own breath, but could not.
He took in the sleeping form on the couch opposite him, immediately recognizing the woman from his dream. Olivia. He needed to be beside her, needed to feel her warmth against his skin, just as he had dreamed. He sat up, pulling his covers with him. Crossing to her, he placed his hands on her cheeks, then her forehead. For the second time that day, he wondered if she’d died from her injuries.
Fear trickled down his spine like drops of icy water. He kneeled beside her and felt her neck for a pulse, finding a steady beat.
Alive, then — but surely not well. A hard shiver shook his shoulders. What had happened to the furnace? The first thing he did was to turn the heat up, but clearly it wasn’t working. He’d check it out in the morning. Right now, he needed more wood for the fire, and he stood, resolute. Intense cold always reminded him of BUD/S training, and being repeatedly showered with a fire hose in the freezing cold.
It reminded him he could withstand anything.
It was what he was trained to do.
As he stepped onto the porch, the wind pushed him full in the face. Bracing himself, he filled his arms with firewood, then went inside and skillfully laid the logs on the embers. He covered Olivia with his comforter and slipped in behind her. It was a tight squeeze on the narrow couch, but they needed each other’s warmth more than he needed to be comfortable.
He pulled her tightly against his body and wrapped his arms around her. She was cold enough that she seemed to suck out the little warmth he had left in his own body, like he was lying in bed with a popsicle. He rubbed her arms and slipped her leg between his own, willing the heat from his body into hers.
“You’re going to be okay,” he whispered into her ear, wondering if she could hear him and fearing she could not.
This was his fault. He’d done this to her.
Guilt was like an aching pit he was being pulled into, the knowledge of his own responsibility for her current state overwhelming him. What if she never woke up again? What if she couldn’t walk, or needed medical care he couldn’t get her here?
He rubbed his cheek on her back. “I’m sorry.”
The fire began to crackle and catch. He took in her profile, the golden light of the fire illuminating her skin. There was a dark bruise beneath her eye and another on her forehead, but neither could hide what a beautiful woman she was, with fine bone structure and lushly rounded lips.
Up close her features shone with a natural kind of beauty that stirred something deep in his belly. He ran his hand up to her shoulder and down to her waist, feeling the womanly rise and fall of her silhouette.
He gritted his teeth together. He had to get her warm, but getting turned on was not part of the bargain. He forced himself to look at the fresh bruises that marred her honeyed complexion.
She was his responsibility.
“I won’t let you down,” he whispered. She half turned at the sound of his voice, clearly startled.
“Olivia?”
Her teeth started chattering and her torso began to shake.
“Come here,” he said, shifting so she could roll her chest toward him. “I’ll keep you warm.”
She did as she was told, but as soon as she started to move she called out in pain.
“What’s wrong?”
Her only answer was to press her head hard against his chest and cry. He gently threaded his fingers through her hair and she swatted them away.
“Does your head hurt?” he asked.
“Mmm hmm.”
He wished he could make the pain go away, wished he could take back the accident entirely. Why had fate put her in his path? He shook his head. He was so close to finally getting revenge.
His brow creased, honor and revenge colliding in his mind. He needed to take care of Olivia, and he needed to take Steele out, once and for all.
Most of all, what he needed was a plan to do both, without sacrificing one for the other.
6
Cowboy grabbed a fistful of cheese puffs and belched, his eyes never leaving the television. “Brooke Barrons is fucking hot.”
Matteo shrugged one heavily muscled shoulder and opened another beer. “In a totally stereotypical American beauty kind of way, I suppose.”
“We ain’t in the military no more, Red, so I can ask. Are you gay?”
“No.”
We’ve got a terrific show for you guys tonight…
Cowboy gestured to the TV. “So give me a booyah when I say Brooke Barrons is fucking hot, not some bullshit answer about the sociological implications of stereotypical beauty.”
“You almost sounded intelligent just now.”
“I mean, shit, look at her. That hair. Those tits. That tiny little waist, and legs so long they could wrap around you and squeeze the living daylights out of your ass.”
“From her outf
it, I’m thinking she’s off the market.”
Cowboy sneered at her formfitting T-shirt with “Bride” written on it and the long veil flowing from her head. “Probably marrying some Hollywood metrosexual like all those movie stars do. I swear, some of them actresses can throw their husbands across the room, unless a high wind beats ’em to it.”
A loud crack of thunder made the hotel walls shake.
“Fucking Cabo San Lucas,” the men said in unison.
Live from New York, it’s Saturday Night!
Matteo took a long swig of beer. “What do you think the others are doing?”
“Let’s see…Jax is getting fitted with a shiny new stick up his ass, Logan is white-boy dancing at a bar with his mother, and Hawk is sitting in a dark room, brooding.”
“Pass me the cheese balls.”
Cowboy pointed into the bowl. “These here are what real men call cheese puffs. They ain’t no cheese balls.”
“Whatever. Pass ’em over here.” Matteo took a handful. “You’re not far off about Hawk. What’s the matter with him lately?”
Cowboy moved for another beer. He was going to feel like bloated roadkill in the morning. He considered what to tell Matteo. “Ain’t just lately. Been since Ralph died.”
“What happened?”
Cowboy eyed the second newest member of HERO Force, sizing him up. Matteo was a former SEAL — everyone but Logan was a SEAL — but Matteo was the only one who came from a different team. It was Jax who wanted Matteo on HERO Force, and Cowboy had yet to figure out why.
Matteo was a sniper, and a hell of a good one, but snipers were nothing special in the military. No, there was another reason Jax wanted him on the FORCE, and Cowboy was determined to figure out why.
“Tell you what, Red, you tell me what puts the sparkle in your flapjacks, and I’ll tell you what you want to know about Hawk.”
Matteo rolled his eyes. “Not this shit again.”
Cowboy turned to the window, a lighted palm tree whipping fiercely in the wind. He was getting to Matteo. He could feel it. One of these days he’d tell Cowboy everything he wanted to know. “Got to be something.”
“I was the best sniper in my class.”
Cowboy curled his lips and shook his head. “Has to be more than that.”
“And I’m a pilot. A good one.”
“Keep going.”
Matteo shrugged. “You’ll have to ask Jax. Maybe he likes my full, round ass.”
Matteo was holding out on him, but Cowboy couldn’t help but smile. The leader of HERO Force was notoriously attracted to women with large rear ends. “He is an ass man.”
Thunder rolled in the distance.
“Fucking Cabo San Lucas,” they chimed.
Cowboy stood up and the world banked left. Fuck it. He’d get the goods on Matteo sooner or later. “All right, you want to know what happened, I’ll tell you. We were doing surveillance on a guy named Steele, some badass billionaire with an import/export business. Trouble is, he imports and exports shit like drugs and human beings, with the occasional shipment of firearms.”
“Why hasn’t he been caught?”
“Because he’s got tens of thousands of shipments coming in and out of the country every year, and only a handful are illegal. He’s got hundreds of employees and an inner circle that covers his back. The feds haven’t been able to pin him with anything.” He reached for the cheese puffs, but pushed them away, then ran his hand over his forehead. “Ralph was getting close, really close. He and Hawk infiltrated Steele’s compound, Ralph in the lead, Hawk on his six. Only Hawk walked out of there that night.”
“He blames himself,” said Matteo.
“Steele’s men held him down while he watched Ralph die a slow and painful death. That’s not the kind of thing you just put out of your mind.”
Matteo made the sign of the cross, mumbling something under his breath.
Cowboy drained his beer. There wasn’t enough alcohol in the world for this story. Never had been. If it were up to Cowboy, getting Ralph’s killer would be HERO Force mission number one, but Jax would never allow it.
He sniffed and shrugged his shoulders. “Of course, by the time the cops got there the body was gone. No evidence of any wrongdoing, that sort of thing. That’s what happens when you’ve got an army of minions just waiting to cover your tracks.”
“They find him?”
Cowboy was starting to get drunk. Real drunk, the kind that made you wish things were different at the same time you stopped caring at all. “No. And he’s got a wife and little kid who was born after he died.”
“No wonder Hawk’s obsessed.”
Another crack of thunder seemed to shake the world, and it crossed Cowboy’s mind that God didn’t like this story any more than he did.
“Fucking Cabo San Lucas,” they chimed.
7
Olivia was aware of the headache long before she opened her eyes, the pain pulsing and seeming to fill her entire experience. When she shifted her position, a wave of nausea bubbled through her stomach and she squinted her eyes open a tiny crack.
That made it worse.
She closed them again.
I think I’m going to be sick.
She curled in on herself, wrapping her arms around her middle. She wanted this pain to go away, wanted the edges of her consciousness to be less sharp and aching. She licked her lips. Her mouth was so dry. She needed to find some painkillers and a glass of water, but she’d have to get up, and that was far more than she felt capable of doing.
An arm reached across her midsection and she gasped. It curled up her chest, the hand grazing her breast.
She held her breath.
Who the hell is that?
Terror sluiced through her. She snuck another peek at the room around her, her eyes focused on the embers glowing brightly in the fireplace, then shifted to take in a gold-flecked bottle on the mantel. Alcohol. The man moaned and snuggled closer to her back, and she squeezed her eyes shut.
She must have been drinking.
Light-headed with panic, she worked to keep her breathing as normal as possible. She took stock of her body, clenching her thighs and the muscles inside her pelvis. Neither were sore or tender like they would be after sex, which didn’t help to explain the man currently pressed against her backside, or what felt like his growing erection.
She inched away, pain shooting through her left shoulder and down her side and surprising her into stillness. She struggled to remember what she’d been doing before she went to bed, a memory like the smallest thread she could pull and trace back to a sweater, but was unable to think beyond her sore body and the throbbing inside her skull.
She couldn’t remember anything.
What if he slipped something in my drink and brought me here without me knowing?
Her senses were instantly on high alert. As slowly as she could, she eased away from the man and rolled from the couch onto the floor, the movement once again throwing pain through half her body and making her previous headache seem like child’s play.
She looked back at the still-sleeping stranger, menacing with his sharp jaw and dark stubble. Her eyes stuck on the wide set of his enormous shoulders. There was strength there, enough to make her willowy limbs quake with the possibilities of what had happened to her.
Come on, Olivia. Think! How did you get here?
The man rolled to his side, his silhouette dramatizing his bone structure and physique. He was so masculine, like an image of primitive man in a museum somewhere, the kind of man she would have found attractive if her reaction were not threaded with this heavy fear.
The kind of man she’d have a hard time escaping from in her current condition.
She needed to get the hell out of here before this guy woke up.
As she carefully crawled away with her good arm, the pounding in her head begged her to be still as her panic egged her on. There’d be time later to coddle her headache, once she was safe and sound and out of this pl
ace. She needed to get home.
The thought resonated in her head like a punchline and she froze, her eyes widening.
Home — a word that should conjure feelings of security and peace — brought up only a blank page in her mind. She mentally shook herself.
Come on. Home.
Nothing.
Her breath came faster, too fast now.
The man mumbled something under his breath and shifted in his sleep, forcing her to move. If she couldn’t even remember where she lived, there was no more doubt in her mind that the sleeping creep had drugged her before bringing her here last night.
Dear God, she hoped it was last night. She swallowed the possibility she’d been here longer.
As quietly as she could, she used the coffee table to lift herself to a stand. An overwhelming wave of dizziness had her knees buckling, and she fell back down to the floor, her knee banging the coffee table with enough force that her eyes immediately shot to the man.
His eyes opened. He stared at the ceiling.
He was going to grab her and have his way with her, and suddenly she wished for the vacancy in her mind to rescue her from this reality again. She wanted to throw up. Damn it, she was going to throw up. She hugged her knees, fighting the need to vomit.
“Are you okay?” the man asked.
Now she’d done it, woken the bear who was bound to try to keep her in this cave. His voice was deeper than she’d been expecting, its tone vibrating in her chest. She looked to a doorway, knowing it was too far for her to run.
She had to pretend she wasn’t afraid, had to keep him at ease. She threw him what she hoped looked like an embarrassed glance over her shoulder. “I feel sick to my stomach.”
“Does your head hurt?”
“Yes.”
He threw back the covers. “You probably have a concussion,” he said, standing. He walked past her, an obvious limp making him no less threatening. As if the strength of his body wasn’t enough to intimidate her, he towered over her like few men in her life ever had. He was six-five, easily, maybe more.
