Special Ops Rendezvous

by Karen Anders

  The only thing Sam felt was trapped.

  He couldn’t seem to get himself under control. When she faced off with him, he felt trapped. Trapped with her blood already on his hands. Trapped by the death of her brother. Trapped in his attraction to her. Trapped with his needs and his desires. And trapped, so trapped inside his head, he felt ready to explode with the frustration. There was no outlet for him to release any of his tension, any of his concern for her safety, except one.

  And that had felt too damn good.

  Honesty. He was always true to himself, no matter what it cost. Last night was no different in that respect, and he knew the problem wasn’t that he could resist her. The problem was that he didn’t want to and, try as he might, he couldn’t see his way around that one inviolate fact.

  He didn’t want this sick pain in his gut that said he’d put her in danger. He didn’t want the heartache of knowing he really couldn’t have her, not forever, if only because he knew himself, and he knew he would move on.

  Oh, yeah, kissing her now, making love to her now was so perfect, but it wouldn’t last. Nothing ever lasted for him, except the army. Even the friendships there hadn’t always lasted. Men died, left service—that was the reality of the path he’d chosen. Mike was a case in point. The longest-standing friendship he’d ever had.

  And somewhere inside him he was tired of it. Burned out. The missions, the loneliness, being constantly on the move. He wanted something permanent, something that would last, but he was too pragmatic for that.

  The mistake he’d made with her was letting this rise above the friendship level.

  But, hell, a friend didn’t murmur your name when you shoved into her, didn’t slay you with a sigh when you took her breast in your mouth. A friend didn’t groan and clutch at you when you touched her, and didn’t call out your name when she came as if you were the only handhold away from oblivion.

  He’d felt her tighten around him, and he’d come hard and deep, as if she’d reached down into the depth of his soul. Everything was pulsing, tingling, aching. He’d just had her twice this morning and his balls were still tight. He still wanted her.

  Every instinct in him was focused on one thing. Protecting her. Protecting what was his.

  Yet he couldn’t do this without her, and without doing this he would remain trapped.

  “Sam, say something. Anything.”

  He moved his hands and slipped them under her armpits, the scent of her mingling with sweet, just-showered woman. He lifted her off the floor and she gasped. He drew her to eye level and gave her the fiercest I-mean-business look.

  “You will follow my orders to the letter. You will not argue with me at all. Every freaking thing I say, you will say ‘yessir’ and carry it out. When I say jump, you will, without hesitation, say ‘How high, sir?’ Are we clear, sweetheart?”

  “Captain Lone Ranger...sir.” She leaned in closer, sliding her hand up the side of his neck and pretty much freezing him where he stood.

  Damn, he loved the way this woman interacted with him.

  “Yes, Team Owens,” he growled.

  “You are a pushy bastard.”

  “Sir,” he said.

  A smile curved her mouth, slowly, sweetly. “What?”

  His gaze narrowed on those sinful brown eyes, the ones with the devil dancing in them. What would it take to intimidate this woman?

  “You are a pushy bastard. Sir.”

  She bit her bottom lip. “I’m glad you agree, sir.”

  “Olivia.”

  “I will follow your orders to the letter. I will not argue with you at all. Every freaking thing you say, I will say, ‘yessir’ and carry it out. When you say jump, I will, without hesitation, say, ‘How high, sir?’ We’re clear, sweetheart. Very clear.”

  “Are you mocking me?”

  “No. Not at all. I’m the one planning to be the bait here, and I’m well aware what happens to stupid bait. I don’t want to be stupid bait.”

  “I don’t want you to be bait at all. But if you have to be bait, we will play this smart, and if this goes wrong—”

  “Sam.”

  He thought of Mike. How Mike would have been his choice right here, right now to cover his back, except Mike had been going through his own personal hell. He would never know what had driven him, but Sam was a realist. He knew that things could go wrong with even the best-laid plans. Look at what had happened in the desert. Four lethal Special Forces U.S. Rangers had been taken down during an ambush. He knew about clusters.

  Betrayed from within. Someone was going to pay for that.

  For eight of the almost ten years he’d been in the army, Mike had been the bedrock of his life. They’d been to hell and back, firefight hell where the odds had been against their chances of survival. The hell of losing him twisted Sam’s gut up into mourning, his loss so deep it physically hurt.

  The black hell where a man was more dangerous to himself than anybody else on the planet. They’d pulled each other back from the razor’s edge more than once, and once was all it took to cement a bond that went deeper than blood. If asked before Mike had tried to kill his mother, he would have said nothing would ever come between them, nothing could shake their friendship. They were solid.

  But he’d been wrong.

  His judgment had been shaken.

  He was second-guessing himself every time he turned around.

  What had been done to him was to blame. Unless he found out what it was, unless he took the offensive and stopped letting them cage him, he would never get his answers.

  When Mike needed him the most, he wasn’t there.

  Now Sam needed Mike and he was gone, as gone as he could be.

  Sam was a loner. It was true. Mike had known that, as well.

  He wasn’t naive enough to gloss over the truth.

  So he knew about how this thing with Olivia could turn into a mess in the time it took to take a breath.

  “If this goes wrong, I want you to run.” He shook her slightly. “Run to my brother Thad. He will help you.”

  “And leave you? Sam, I don’t—”

  “I’m out, then. If you don’t make this promise, I’m out.” His voice was completely rock-solid, and he would deliver on that promise in a heartbeat.

  “This is emotional blackmail.”

  “I don’t give a damn, Olivia. If anything happens to you, it might as well be a bullet to my heart anyway.”

  Her face twisted and she wrapped her arms around his neck and he set her down and wrapped his arms around her.

  “I promise.”

  He nodded against her neck. They stood like that for a few minutes. “Okay, my next question is, do you know how to use a handgun?”

  She released him, but only enough to slide her hands over his chest. “Yes, I have a permit to carry concealed. But I’ve always tried to resolve everything the easy way.”

  “There’s not going to be anything easy about this.”

  “The only problem is I left it back in my apartment. I don’t normally carry it on surveillance jobs, especially when I’m pretending to be interested in a subject.”

  “Pretending?”

  “Okay, not in your case.”

  “Really, I was just joking.”

  “I wasn’t.”

  There it was again. That straightforward answer, none of that coy beating-around-the-bush crap he hated. Mostly because it felt like being manipulated. “So that massage therapy appointment was an opportunity for you to feel me up while you were undercover pretending to be interested in me.”

  She looked down, then back at him. With a wry smile she said, “Busted, and busted good. Yes, I can’t say I didn’t enjoy touching you, Sam. Does that bother you?”

  He took a breath. No man in his right min
d would give a shit if a woman like Olivia liked feeling him up. And he didn’t need to remember what it had felt like either that day on the table or what had happened on his couch only two days later. “Right. Let’s get away from that. Guns, back to guns.”

  She nodded, her breath leaving her in a rush, and he could only feel relieved he wasn’t the only one who couldn’t keep his mind on what they were doing.

  It was only because it was new. She was exciting and challenging. That’s all it was, he told himself.

  “Okay, so you have handled a gun. You a good shot?”

  She rolled her eyes at him. “You are always ready to discount me with your Ranger elitism. Four-inch groups with a .45 at twenty-five yards. So, yes, I am. I practice with it on weekends just in case I need it. If I decide to use it, that will be an irrevocable situation. You’re either all in or not. There are no half measures with deadly force.”

  He just stared at her as if she were an alien creature. “Are you sure you weren’t a commando in another life?”

  She tilted her head. “Well, maybe, because I have a couple of other take-no-prisoner moves that I could use that include ball breaking. Kinda dirty street moves that a retired cop showed me when I was taking my certification.”

  He grabbed her around the back of her neck and squeezed gently. “You are a sassy soldier. Street moves, my ass.”

  She punched him in the ribs and danced away and he laughed. “What was that? A love tap?”

  For a moment they just stood there staring at each other and then she laughed. “I’d rather not show you any ball-breaking moves. I kinda like them right there between your legs. Why don’t you show me what you have?”

  The grin disappeared off his face and he snapped his jaw shut. He felt completely blindsided that he had somehow underestimated not only the lengths she would go to support him, her abilities, but the way she twisted him up.

  He needed to figure out a way to work her out of his system without taking her clothes off, because that was so damn easy—easy for him but hard on her heart. If he wanted to he could have her now. He was so smooth, and she was into him. Deeply. But the reality remained. He’d move on, and she’d be here in Raleigh while he continued his odyssey for Uncle Sam.

  He wanted her. Something that clashed with his goals, principles.

  She was killing him.

  He didn’t give in to that thought. He just walked out of the room and went to retrieve the handguns. If he wasn’t careful, he would have that woman beneath him again. They had serious things to plan out, so there wasn’t time for that.

  Although he wished like hell he was in a tropical environment where he could keep her naked and explore her for at least a week—maybe two.

  Hell, who was he kidding? A month’s leave wouldn’t be enough.

  Chapter 10

  She stood by him as he disassembled, oiled and cleaned not only his weapon but the one he was allowing her to use. Then assembled it with ease. As they got closer and closer to the time where they were going to execute Sam’s plan, she saw a change come over him. He was now in commando mode.

  Gone was the relaxed, teasing man and in its place was a steely-eyed, tough, determined warrior.

  And, dammit if that didn’t turn her on, too.

  The only thing still remaining between them was that sizzling, just-beneath-the-skin buzz that would probably never go away.

  Sam had laid out the plan in a cool, detached tone that said he meant business, and he expected her to mean business. He explained in a low voice that she should never, ever, ever underestimate these guys. They were putting their lives on the line just as much as she, and they had superior experience with a no-fail attitude.

  She’d already encountered them and she had, in fact, gotten away from the bastard. She had no intention of underestimating them. Sam would discover that, although she had a healthy sense of fear and caution, she also wouldn’t hesitate to pull the trigger on the handgun that nestled in the small of her back in a holster clipped to her jeans.

  She also had a no-fail attitude.

  So, as she pulled up to the curb outside her apartment, she felt exposed and a little rattled without Sam’s presence to bolster her. They had agreed that she would leave the house alone as if she was going for something in her apartment. Draw them to her to bait the trap.

  The trouble with being bait was that predators were unpredictable.

  She took a deep breath, maintaining her focus and awareness of everything around her while trying to act as if she weren’t hyperalert. She knew from experience that people did become more vigilant after a violent episode but then tended to relax once time had passed.

  She drove slowly along, trying to look vulnerable because most burly men didn’t think a woman of her size and statue was a threat.

  That could work to her advantage, unless the bastard she had booted in the jaw learned from his mistakes. Remembering what Sam said, she should automatically assume that he had learned and this takedown would be difficult at best.

  She stepped out of her car and came around the hood feeling a tingling at the back of her neck. There was no doubt in her mind that she’d been followed, but she hadn’t seen anything. These guys were like shadows.

  It was imperative for their plan that she get inside her apartment, so she took her time and walked along the concrete pathway that led to the stairs. The shadows were thick here, the security lights only illuminating so much. She took the first flight, then the second without incident.

  Sam had already left without the people watching him being aware. He was already in her apartment hiding...for her to bait the trap.

  Her nerves strung tight, she approached her apartment and slipped the key in the lock. It turned easily and she entered.

  And that was when the man came out of nowhere and pushed her inside, his hand going to her mouth, covering it with brutal force. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the hypodermic syringe heading for her neck.

  Holy crap, they weren’t going to subdue her this time; they were going to incapacitate her.

  If that needle embedded, she’d be out of the game completely and Sam would be on his own. She pivoted away from his hold, exactly as she’d been taught in her training and Sam had reinforced. Since he didn’t have both hands on her, she was free to slide away from his grip. Then without hesitating, she snapped her leg back and delivered a vicious blow to his abdomen. He cried out and doubled over, the syringe falling from his hand to the carpet.

  She backed away and the only warning that there was someone else there was the sound of a heel scuff. She tried to turn to face the oncoming threat, but the guy wasn’t fooling around. He hit her so forcefully in the head that she flew into the wall, cracking her shoulder and temple so hard that she saw stars.

  He was on her in an instant with his own hypodermic. While darkness hovered on the edge of her vision, she wondered where Sam was.

  Panic iced her insides, thinking they got to him and she was on her own.

  With her head clearing and the man thinking she was down for the count, she went for the eye closest to her and pressed against it with enough pressure to make him rear back. He lost his focus just enough for her to bat away the hypodermic and slide out from under him. She scrambled away, reaching for the weapon at her back. This wasn’t what she wanted to happen, because she’d wanted at least one of them alive, but there was no way they were getting whatever drug they had into her.

  She swung the weapon up, but the man in the entryway was on her too quickly for her to fire. The gun went off and he knocked it out of her hand. The other, his face murderous in the dim light, stood.

  That was when Sam came out of her hall closet and with three blows, the guy was down and unmoving. He hit her attacker like a freight train and knocked him to the floor. He got him into a hold like
a wrestler and held his arm around the guy’s throat.

  Olivia caught her breath and expected Sam to let the guy go as soon as he was unconscious, but Sam didn’t let go.

  Alarmed, Olivia knelt down by him. “Sam! Let go! You’re killing him.”

  But it was as if he couldn’t hear her.

  Oh, God. Was he having a flashback? This was bad.

  In the distance, she heard sirens. Crap, someone had called the cops because of the gunshot. She slapped Sam as hard as she could and with a soft huff, he released a breath as if he was coming out of a daze.

  “Olivia? Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine. We’ve got to get out of here. The police are coming.”

  Sam moved quickly. He stood, picked the guy up in a fireman’s carry and headed out of the apartment. Olivia ran to her bedroom, grabbed something that she would need and retrieved her gun. When she saw the hypodermics on the rug, she snatched them both up and followed Sam out. They left the second guy behind.

  He secured the guy’s hands and feet once he’d dumped him in the backseat of his truck. Olivia left her car out front and jumped into the passenger side of Sam’s truck.

  She looked over at Sam. He didn’t look good. He was sweating, his shirt sticking to him, his features drawn and his eyes a bit wild.

  “Sam, what happened?”

  “I need to focus on driving right now.”

  “Okay.” He was right. Now wasn’t the time for questions. They needed to get to her brother’s office, which was where they decided they would interrogate their prisoner.

  Sam parked in the private parking lot in the back so they were obscured by the buildings. Once inside, Sam secured the man to one of her brother’s chairs, zip-cuffing both his wrists and his ankles.

  When he was finished, he grabbed her arm and went to the outer office and closed the door. He leaned back against it, his breathing more ragged than it should be.

  “What happened?”

  “Lost time. Freaking lost time. I don’t know. It’s unpredictable.” He looked at her, his eyes stark blue, tortured. “I left you unprotected without backup. I’m so sorry, Olivia.”