“Clancy?” Nathan said, touching her shoulder.
She rolled into his arms, and sobbed harder, and his grip tightened as if to shield her from the pain. Then suddenly it relaxed. Nathan nudged her and she met his gaze. He inclined his head to the airstrip and Clancy turned. From the curls of black smoke, a figure limped. Though he was far away, Clancy didn’t need any more than that.
She ran.
His entire body aching, Mike took his time, smiling as she ran toward him, and he thought, Doesn’t get better than this. To anyone else, she looked like hell, muddy, her clothing torn, her hair wild, but to Mike, she was a piece of heaven. He opened his arms for her, taking her in the chest like a football. He staggered back, ignoring the pain in his ribs as he crushed her to him, closing his eyes.
She sobbed into the curve of his throat. “Oh, Michael.”
“It’s okay, baby, I’m okay,” he said softly.
“Stop scaring me like that!”
“Last time, I swear.”
She looked at him. “Yeah, right,” she said, tears rolling down her cheeks. He swiped his thumb over one, then kissed her.
He broke apart inside, her passion locking everything else out, and he crushed her to him, wanting only more of her. Then it changed, the kiss softening as if they both suddenly knew they’d never had to rush another moment together.
“Give you ideas?” she said, still kissing him.
He chuckled. “A few.”
“Good. I need some pampering.”
“And a shower.”
“We can start there.”
He smiled against her mouth. Just imagining the wet slide of soap on her got him locked and loaded for a good ravishing. “God, I love your world.”
“It’s quieter than yours.”
She kissed him as firefighters sped past to the plane. “Think we should tell them about not using water?”
Mike glanced. “No, oddly, fire is its worst enemy.”
“This week water was mine.”
He went still and caught her face in his palms. He opened his mouth to say something, but the words struggled.
“You love me, I know,” she said.
He grinned. He couldn’t help it. “You assume a lot, Irish.”
“No, Mike Gannon. I don’t.” Her mouth came within inches of his and she said, “Do I?”
He almost smiled, but it was the tremor in her voice, the uncertainty that took his breath away. He never wanted her to suffer that again. “No, Irish. I do love you.”
She smiled brightly, jumped up, and kissed him. Mike admitted a lot of things in that moment: that she was the best thing to happen to him, the perfect match. He’d been around the world nine times, seen beauty and horror, and kept himself on the rim of living, on the edge of the world.
Her way was a lot better.
Colonel Hank Jansen closed his cell phone, releasing a long tired breath. The plane was destroyed and Clancy McRae was alive with Gannon. She couldn’t be in better hands, he thought, standing inside Carl Cook’s office, watching an officer of the Naval Criminal Investigation Service put him in restraints. Cook said nothing, his eyes forward as MPs on either side of him gripped his arms and escorted him to the brig.
More NCIS passed them in the hall and seized everything. In the elevator, Hank stepped inside, staring at Cook.
“You think you’ve won.”
“I wasn’t in competition, Carl.”
“It needed to be tested in the field. We don’t have time to waste when we’re against mass killers like al-Qaeda.”
“We’ll do exactly what we need to. Without lying to our servicemen, and using them for lab rats.” The door opened and Jansen stepped out, waiting and watching as they put Cook in the back of a military SUV.
Bad rubbish, Hank thought and suddenly needed to see his family.
They were several yards from the truck when a figure moved from behind the cluster of cars and people, a rifle slung on his shoulder. The lean, scrappy kid strolled like a hillbilly looking for some Yankees to scare.
Mike wrapped his arm around Clancy and said, “Meet J.J. Palmer, the sniper.” Mike just stared at the kid, impressed for once.
“Before you ask, sir. No comms, no food, no water, and I wasn’t leaving them. But too much weird shit going on to run for help.”
Mike was quiet for a moment, then said, “Outstanding work, Palmer.”
The kid grinned and stood a bit straighter.
Nathan came over, a thin man in sweaty clothes beside him. “Antone Choufani, Interpol. He had this on him.” Nathan held out a black block. “He blew the truck shipment up, along with Dehnwar.”
Mike let out a breath, feeling vindication for the 241 Marines who died in Lebanon. They exchanged information until Alvarez’s wife approached. Choufani went to her, showing his identification, then pulled her away. Mike frowned, aware he was getting information about Alvarez he wanted to hear.
Clancy nudged him and he looked down at her. “You’ll get your chance later,” she said.
“So tell me, sir, who’s the babe?” J.J. said, eyeing Clancy.
“Clearly his eyesight didn’t improve,” she murmured.
Mike met her gaze, and brushed his knuckles across her jaw, then pulled a bit of grass from her hair. “She’s off-limits. That’s all you need to know.”
Clancy stared up at him, her eyes sparkling with sensual mystery. “Oh, Michael.” She let out a wicked laugh. “We are going to have so much fun.”
U.S. Senate
Intelligence Subcommittee
Closed session
“Now I know what they mean by looks ‘good enough to eat,’” Mike said softly in her ear. He leaned on his cane as his gaze ripped over her compact body packed in the sharp red suit.
She eyed him, her lips teasing a smile. “The lack of mud and slime is a real turn-on for you, huh?”
He leaned down to whisper, “No, but that I know what’s on under that suit sure the hell is.”
She blushed softly, and he smiled, and wished the senators would just read the damn reports and they could head back to the hotel, yet well aware of time and place. Around her, senators tried to get her to speak with them, but she refused, moving away and surrounded by his team. She heard her name and turned.
“Colonel Hank Jansen,” Mike said close to her ear.
She introduced herself, then gasped when Jansen grabbed her up in a hug.
“I’m glad you’re alive.”
“Same here,” she said, patting his back before he relased her.
“Thank you for saving my men.”
“To be honest, they’re poster boys for the rescue-me motto.”
“How do you feel about them forgoing the option to destroy the pods?”
Clancy glanced back over her shoulder at Mike. They were past the embedded stage, and without complications, yet for Francine Yates, destruction of the pod was necessary to save her life. But at a moment’s notice, Clancy could do it. Yates was under house arrest pending the investigation, forced to retire, and she refused to speak with Clancy after the procedure. Clancy wasn’t sorry.
She looked at the colonel. “It’s their choice. I’m not wild about it, but if you’ve a mind to order him, I wouldn’t be opposed.”
Colonel Jansen grinned. “I haven’t given Gannon orders in about ten years.”
“You should try it. It’s easy, I do it all the time.” She looked up at Mike and found him grinning down at her.
“Yes, ma’am. You certainly do.”
If Jansen could have grinned any wider, he’d be out of uniform. Neither noticed him walk away.
Clancy gazed into his dark eyes, remembering romping in a lush bed with him. They had to work around his injuries, but they were still discovering each other, and having a damn good time doing it. Her gaze slid over his perfectly sharp uniform, the chest full of medals impressive, and the fact that he’d enlisted as a private and was now a major blew her out of the water. But she didn’t care w
hat was on his collar or sleeve, she just wanted him in her arms, loving her in the way he did—so well.
“You keep looking at me like that and this uniform won’t fit in certain places,” he said softly, bending to meet her gaze head-on.
“Then let’s get this over with so I can get you out of it,” she said in a sinful tone that made him groan.
The doors opened and Mike let his smile dissolve as he escorted her inside.
Three minutes later, Clancy raised her right hand and swore, then slipped into her chair and adjusted the microphone. She felt immeasurable power in the closed session on Capitol Hill, escorted by no less than six Marines. She glanced back at the men in uniform, and Mike winked at her. God, I love that man. She hadn’t been looking for it, hadn’t wanted it. Mostly because she screwed it up by being too Clancy. Always hiding a little bit of herself, toning down for her job, she’d let that shield worm into her private life. She didn’t with Mike, and while he was a man of few words, when he said them, they made her fall in love with him all over again. She stole one more glance at him and found him staring right at her. He mouthed, Give them hell, Irish, and she thought with backup like that, she couldn’t go wrong.
Yet Clancy never forgot that one moment, neither of them did, when they were each certain they’d lost each other, that the chance was gone. Clancy never wanted to feel that way again, yet inside a relationship built on pure survival, she found respect and honesty and a friend before a lover—and a chance for a lifetime. Mike inclined his head to the front of the room as they called the session to order.
Clancy faced forward as they lobbed the first question that would likely end her career.
Five hours later
Mike pushed through the door, leading Clancy out. The tiled corridor was quiet, soft murmurs, the closed session classified and without press or interference. He smiled down at her, his fingers grazing hers, yet Clancy’s expression slipped when a man in a dark suit flanked by four more came walking toward her. Mike instantly recognized him and snapped to attention, his team following suit.
The secretary of the Navy stopped in front of Clancy, his expression stoic and giving nothing away. Mike frowned between them.
“Hi, Dad,” Clancy said.
Mike almost choked.
“You’ve been in trouble again?”
Mike started to say something, but Clancy spoke up. “Yup, nothing’s changed.”
Her father grinned widely and threw his arms around her. “You’re going to give me a heart attack, girl.”
“You always say that and you’re fine.”
“He’s laying on the guilt,” a dark-haired man said, walking stiffly on metal crutches. Her brother, Kevin, Mike thought, seeing the resemblance. She looked up at him adoringly, and touched his face. He grabbed her wrist and pulled her close.
Mike heard, “You should have asked for help.”
“It was classified,” she said, hooking little fingers with him, then yanking them apart.
“Show-off. Now introduce me.”
Before she could, Clancy looked past him as he turned, reaching for the woman moving quickly to his side. The blonde kissed her brother beautifully, then smiled before she looked up and blushed. She introduced herself, but Clancy loved her already, for the way she touched her brother, the simple hand on his arm giving off a claim she’d never thought he’d have.
Clancy leaned toward Kevin. “Do I want to know more?”
“I might have metal legs, but the rest of me is fine.” He wiggled his eyebrows and she covered his face with her hand, giving a light push. She kissed his cheek, then looked at Mike.
“You guys with no kneecaps get all the girls.” Her brother laughed deeply.
Introductions were made, but Mike wasn’t really listening. Watching her interact with her family was fascinating, but when they started getting nosy, he pulled her from the crowds.
“The SecNav, Clancy?”
“Sorry. It wasn’t important. My brother is a congressman.”
“Mine are millionaires.”
She reared back. “Maybe I should meet them?”
“Like hell,” he said and bent toward her.
In uniform, in the middle of a government building, Mike Gannon broke all the rules and kissed the woman he loved. No one noticed, no one commented. He leaned back, loving her startled look. Then her pixie face split into a smile.
“Oh, you are fast losing that Boy Scout reputation, Marine.”
“Then we need to work on that. Right now.” He slid his arm around her waist and ushered her to the door, then handed her to the staff car.
“God, I love it when you get like this,” she whispered, settling beside him and trying for dignity.
“Sir? Our destination?” the driver said.
“The Mayflower,” he said. “A-sap.”
Mike pulled her across his lap, feeling silly and pleased as he kissed her. He started in the car, breaking down her defenses, storming her arsenal. He clenched his fists on the ride up the elevator and was already loosening his tie when he tumbled with her into the hotel room. He stripped her bare and made love to her like there was no tomorrow. He knew there was.
He’d just never held his tomorrow in his arms.
She gave him everything he didn’t even know he wanted. And he made it his personal mission to give Clancy everything she craved—the chance for everlasting.
Oh yeah, and room service.
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Erin smiled. “Honestly, I don’t know what to think of you. I guess that’s why I keep badgering you with questions. You aren’t easy to figure out, Dylan Chisholm.”
Amusement did shift into his eyes then, and the resulting gleam was no trick of the sun. She swallowed hard. Perhaps it would be wiser not to provoke the playful side of him after all.
Then he was lifting his hands, pushing back the errant strands of hair the car ride had likely blown into a complete rat’s nest around her face. Suddenly, painfully aware of her looks or lack thereof, and at the same time exquisitely aware of his touch, almost to the point of pain, she wanted to shrink away and pretend this moment wasn’t happening. Because whatever he was thinking behind those dancing gray eyes of his, no way could it be anything that she found herself suddenly hoping, praying, it would be. She didn’t attract men like Dylan Chisholm.
Gorgeous, confident, successful men were typically attracted to beauty first and brains a distant second. Erin was used to falling in the distant second category, and was okay with it even. When it came to men like the one touching her now, looking at her so intently, well…it simply didn’t happen. So it had hardly been a problem for her. It would be the epitome of foolishness to allow herself, even for a second, to think this was somehow different.
“I canna’ figure you out either, Erin MacGregor,” he said, his voice deeper, somewhat rougher, as if…as if he were perhaps at least a tiny bit affected by her. Then all rational thought fled, because he was lowering his head toward hers, pressing his fingers into the back of her neck, to tip her face upward to his.
“Ye badger me with yer questions, talk me into abandoning my own home…” He lowered his head farther until his mouth was hovering just above her own.
He couldn’t be, wasn’t going to—
“Ye sneak into my dreams, haunt my waking hours. I dinnae understand it. What’ve ye done to me, lass?
She haunted his dreams? In a good way? “Dylan—”
He made a guttural noise at the sound of his name that had a little instinctive moan of her own escaping her lips.
“I havena felt a hunger such as this in a very long time. Will ye allow me the pleasure?”
He was asking permission? Did he not realize that a second or two more of his heated whisperings and he could have her naked on the hood of his Jag?
He brushed her lips with his. “Perhaps I havena been the most merr
y of fellows, but if there has been anything to cause me to want a bit of respite from the endless hours of work, it has been you.”
“I thought I made you crazy.”
And there it was. The smile she’d been waiting for. It was slow to happen, but as it stole across his face, his entire countenance changed, as if he was lit from within. There was fire there, passion. “Aye, that you do. Yer trouble, Erin, with a capital T. Ye plague me.”
“A plague am I,” she said, but the intended dry sarcasm was somewhat offset by the breathy quality of her voice.
Which served to widen his smile further. “You have refreshing candor, and a smart mouth. You don’t seem to care overly much what I think.”
She tipped her head back slightly, to look fully into his eyes. “And that’s attractive to you? Hard to believe I’m still single with those lovely attributes.”
He rubbed his thumbs along the corners of her mouth, making her shiver at the feeling of his work-roughened fingers on her skin. “Hard.” Then he slipped his arms around her waist and brought her fully up against him. “Aye, ’tis that.”
She barely had time to register the stunning truth, shocked silent by the rigid proof pressing against her midsection. Then he claimed her mouth with his own and any hope of rational thought fled completely.
The hot thrill of being sheltered against the hard length of his body, feeling his hands on her, his mouth on her, swamped her senses. His kiss was insistent and compellingly seductive. Forceful and inviting. An intoxicating combination she had no hope of resisting. Not that she made any real effort.
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“I want to talk about tonight,” Camryn said. “What happened here.”
“I don’t.” He picked up a sandwich, bit into it.
“What do you want to do?”
“Eat this sandwich.” Dan took another man-sized bite and another drink of wine, then added, “And go to bed.”
Intimate Danger Page 32
