Heated Pursuit

by April Hunt

  At Penny’s feminine growl, Rafe realized he’d just broken every single one of his fucking words of wisdom. She clapped her palms over his ears, making them ring like a church bell. And then his feet went airborne.

  Five feet two inches of compact curves swept his legs out from beneath him and dropped him flat on his fucking ass.

  “Well, now I don’t feel too bad.” Logan laughed gleefully, followed by the snickers of the rest of the team.

  “I’m not fixing your ass either, Ortega.” Chase snorted on a chuckle.

  “What were you saying about always staying alert?” Hands braced on her hips, Penny hovered over him. Her brilliant smile sucker punched him a second time.

  Before he could think through the repercussions of his actions, Rafe wrapped his hand around her wrist and tugged her off balance. Her body landed on his with a loud grunt. And then with one arm banded around her waist and one hand pinning her arms above her head, he rolled until he came out on top. Literally.

  From an inch away, her lush lips pressed into a firm line that reminded him of a royally pissed—and helpless—pixie.

  “What was your question again, Red?” He struggled not to smile when her eyes narrowed into catlike slits.

  It took every ounce of his willpower not to ogle the impressive cleavage left exposed by her fitted tank top. But he didn’t need to look down to feel the slight poke of her nipples against his chest.

  “My. Name. Is. Penny.” Her terse reply pulled him away from the mental image of him laving her perky tips with his tongue. “And you tricked me.”

  “Do you think Diego and his men are going to use the rules of engagement?” He lifted one dark eyebrow. “He’ll use every dirty, underhanded trick in his arsenal to get what he wants, and if you think otherwise, we’re putting your sweet little ass on the plane right the hell now. Pouting and stomping your foot isn’t going to do shit.”

  “Right now you’re lucky my foot is otherwise incapacitated.”

  The woman threw him too far off his game to worry about pissing her off. Her being angry at him meant he’d be less likely to imagine fucking the attitude out of her. As pleasurable as that would be, he couldn’t let it happen…which meant he needed distance.

  He released his hold and backed onto his haunches. Before he could stand, Penny braced the soles of her sneakers solidly on his chest and shoved. When his back hit the mat, she followed, her legs straddling his waist. He gave her a moment to realize her mistake before clamping his hands on the swell of her hips and rolling them until their positions reversed. Again.

  The layers of clothes between them may as well have disintegrated, and probably would if they stayed in this position much longer. Rafe groaned, the blood flow to his brain instantly diverted southbound. The more she squirmed, the harder his growing cock pushed against her mound. He knew the exact moment she registered his erection for the monster it was, because her eyes widened and her mouth slackened a fraction of an inch.

  Taking her in a kiss would’ve been all too easy. One taste. One taste was all he needed to get her out of his head.

  “Christ, I think I need a smoke.” Logan’s mutter reminded him they were far from alone.

  Rafe pushed to his feet with a mumbled curse. He needed to bury this attraction in the fucking sand because despite her sly smirks and truckload of stubbornness, he’d bet his Civil War Smith & Wesson that Penny Kline wasn’t the type of woman for a no-strings romp—and that was all he was good for.

  He didn’t do relationships. Weekends of sexy fun—sure. One-night stands—hell yeah. Marriage and picket fences and two-point-five children—no fucking way. A second reason why maintaining distance was best was boring a hole into the back of his head with the tenacity of a heat-seeking missile.

  Trey. Best friend. Delta brother. There was an unwritten rule about fucking your best friend’s almost little sister.

  Rafe ignored Trey’s displeased glower and paused at the training gym door.

  Stone’s gaze caught his and his boss asked simply, “Verdict?”

  “I’m not signing off on her until I know without a doubt that she can keep her shit together out in the field. It’s one thing to defend yourself with comfy mats cushioning your fall. It’s an entirely different scenario out there in the real world.”

  “What are you suggesting?”

  “A field demo where anything and everything can happen. We toss shit at her and see how she reacts. Dropping two of us to the floor in a gym doesn’t prove she’s going to be able to do it when Fuentes or one of his goons comes at her with a knife—or worse.” He threw an unapologetic glance over his shoulder. “Wish I could say that I was sorry for being so blunt, sweetheart, but I’m not.”

  Penny glared at him from the middle of the room. “No need to apologize to me, sweetheart. Let me know when and where and I’ll somehow manage not to crawl into a corner and hide.”

  * * *

  With Rafe and Sean making their cover appearances at the local bar and the others scouring the city looking for leads, Penny sat alone on the enclosed back porch of Alpha’s safe house. Sirens whirred far off in the distance and from a few blocks over, someone triggered a car alarm. She ignored it all, trying to make sense of the last few months.

  When Rachel had come to her with the idea of the two of them volunteering with Youth Worldwide, Penny had thought it was a good idea with the promise of once-in-a-lifetime excitement. They’d made plans, shopped until they were nearly dead on their feet, and then because of her big job switcheroo, Penny hadn’t been able to get the time off for a trip of that magnitude. Still, she’d encouraged Rachel to go, never for once thinking that she was sending her straight into danger.

  Guilt and fear crushed Penny’s chest like an anvil, and the more she willed the forming ache away, the heavier it became. Rachel’s abduction was her fault, and if anything happened to Rachel while in the hands of Fuentes, Penny had no one to blame but herself.

  She definitely couldn’t blame Rafe and the others, and she couldn’t condemn them for being wary of her abilities. Heck, she was wary of them.

  Even though she’d turned in her social worker’s briefcase for a pair of handcuffs and she had a bail enforcement license in her wallet, it hadn’t been without a whole lot of I-must-be-losing-my-mind freak-outs. And technically, she hadn’t finished her mentorship requirements with Vince. But wrapping things up had been the last thing on her mind when Rachel hinted that she thought she was in trouble.

  Penny hadn’t hesitated to drop everything. Yeah, Rachel was her niece despite their three-year age difference, but she was also her best friend—her sister. There was absolutely nothing she wouldn’t do for her, but she couldn’t do any of it if Rafe and the guys sent her home.

  Reservations over Rafe’s real-world demonstration weighed heavily on her mind. No doubt it would be brutal. The look he’d sent her way before leaving the training room that morning sure hadn’t given her the warm fuzzies…or the impression that it would be a cakewalk. Her imagination had run the gamut from chin-ups off the side of a building to stopping a bullet with her teeth. Part of her hoped to have another chance to flip him to the ground—without the mat—but she didn’t think she’d be that lucky a second time.

  As the bug zapper on her left went crazy, twin male voices drifted over the backyard’s ten-foot security wall. In a city where buildings were practically built on top of each other, overheard conversations weren’t abnormal. But at the mention of Freedom, Penny found herself tiptoeing toward the cement barrier that separated the yard from the alley.

  “What’s that stuff called again?” a man asked another in Spanish.

  “Freedom,” answered the second. “I’m telling you, Fuentes scored the big one with this shit. A few tastes and you have an instant following. They’ll come back for more and will do anything to get it.”

  “Sounds too good to be true.”

  “Head down to El Sótano. It’s a fucking playground down there, especially wit
h the old man himself doling out a few early advances. But the real fun will be when it hits those American bastards. Freedom is really going to ring then.” The man howled in laughter at his own twisted joke. “And soon. Really soon.”

  Fuentes being confident enough in his product to already leak it to the general population twisted Penny’s stomach into a cold, hard knot. The men continued their conversation as they walked away.

  Penny ran into the house, skidding on her heels at each turn. By the time she peeked out the blackened front window, the men were nothing more than black blobs down the street. Frustration pulled a growl from her throat and her disposable cell from her pocket.

  She started hitting button after button, ticking through the list of phone numbers Logan had preprogrammed earlier. Each call ended with a no-service message or no answer, even the one to the bar. When a second round of calls yielded the same result, she barely resisted the urge to punt the piece-of-crap phone into the wall.

  Five excruciating seconds ticked by before she admitted what she had to do, regardless of the animallike snarls it would incite, most of them probably from the Master Growler himself. Rafe could deal with it because she didn’t have a choice. With Rachel, each second counted.

  * * *

  Finding an adult version of a dress-up box stuffed in the safe house’s far back closet had been both a blessing and a curse. With a dark-haired wig and barely ass-covering leather skirt, Penny blended in with the local girls who were perusing the four dilapidated city blocks toward Tres Brujas. But with the fishnet stockings and thigh-high leather boots came a whole lot of stomach-souring leers and unwanted gazes.

  She ignored the catcalls and whistles, breathing a little sigh of relief when the door to the bar came into view. Tres Brujas looked like the quintessential seedy neighborhood bar, the former redbrick building aged brown over time. Metal bars adorned four of the broken front windows, letting the loud thump of music spill onto the street without interference.

  Penny pulled open the door. At least a half-dozen stares immediately slid in her direction. “No going back now, Kline,” she murmured to herself, stepping inside.

  She took a moment to scan the room, finding Sean in the far back corner. The Alpha leader looked larger than life and lethal as he filled the line of shot glasses in front of him. As far as keeping covers during their prolonged stay, this one seemed to fit him well. He appeared to keep the chat down to a minimum, moving briskly up and down the length of the bar, serving one customer after another.

  Penny battled her way through a sea of wandering hands and slinked to the room’s periphery. When she finally reached the counter, Sean was gone and she needed a bottle of disinfectant.

  “Are you looking for some fun tonight? How much?” the man on her left propositioned her before she planted her bottom on the only empty stool.

  “Sorry. I’m waiting for someone,” she replied coolly. There’d be no way in hell she’d give him the time of day even if he hadn’t mistaken her for a hooker. With long, unkempt, stringy hair, it looked as though he hadn’t seen the damp side of a shower in weeks.

  An older woman stepped through a swinging door and stood where Sean had been only minutes before. Her gray eyes zeroed in on Penny almost immediately. After scanning her from the tip of her fake hair to her on-display cleavage, she broke into a sly smirk.

  Beside her, Penny’s admirer clamped his mouth shut.

  “Stop bothering my pretty customers, Roberto. Or I’m going to cut you off for the night, and this time, I mean it,” the sixty-some-year-old warned with a husky voice.

  “It’s too early for that, Maria. You can’t do that to me.”

  “This is my bar and I’ll do what I want and when I want it. Now, if you know what’s good for you, you’ll keep your mouth closed and keep your eyes and your comments to yourself. Understood?”

  “Yes, Maria.” Next to her, Roberto went dutifully quiet. Man, Penny needed to learn how to wield that kind of power.

  Maria turned her attention to her. “Very pretty. And very brave, sweetheart. You’re looking for one of the boys?”

  She wouldn’t call Rafe or Sean boys—not by a dozen years and a hundred pounds. But this woman had obviously linked her to the guys. “I…yes. No one answered their phones. Are they around?”

  “Stay put and I’ll find someone.”

  The second Maria slipped into the back, Penny’s unwanted admirer shifted closer. His meaty hand landed on her thigh and shifted higher each second. “A woman doesn’t wear that kind of outfit unless she’s looking for a good time. And I’ll give it to you, baby. I can fuck with the best of them.”

  Penny averted her gaze. “Somehow, I highly doubt that.”

  “Let’s get out of here before the old lady shows up again and I’ll prove it to you.” Flashing a yellow smile, the brute gave her leg a painful squeeze. She bit her tongue to withhold even an ounce of emotion and casually palmed his jean-covered erection. One second. Two. She counted to three before applying pressure, and watched his complexion pale.

  He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Get your hand off me, you little bitch.”

  Eyes wide in mocking innocence, she replied, “Then I suggest you do the same.”

  “And now, before you lose it,” came Rafe’s low, menacing growl.

  Her admirer turned toward a steel-faced Rafe and went from pale to ashen in a split second. The man’s eyes darted left and right, looking for a route of escape around Rafe’s hulking frame. A dark shadow slipped over Rafe’s face as he leaned into Roberto’s personal space. “Do you know what I do to men who touch what’s mine?”

  The man quickly lifted his hands. “I-I didn’t know.”

  “Which is the only reason why you still have fucking hands.” Rafe barely spared the man a second glance as he effortlessly plucked Penny off the stool. “With me. Now.”

  “Rafe, I—”

  “Later.”

  He took her hand and linked their fingers, guiding her to the back of the bar. His pace was brisk, only slowing to return the occasional nod or knowing smile to a passing customer. No doubt they thought he was taking her somewhere to screw her senseless, and he did nothing to deter the beliefs as he palmed her backside and urged her into what was easily the most disgusting men’s bathroom she’d ever seen.

  He checked each stall before turning toward her with a lowly snarled, “Red.”

  “Before you get all growly,” she interjected before the lecture began, “I tried calling—all of you. Even here. All multiple times before I finally gave up. And yes, I know it’s dangerous, but I really had little choice, and it’s not like I walked here with an American passport stamped to my forehead.”

  Awareness flashed through her body as his gaze dropped to the leather bustier fluffing up her C cups. No longer the vivid blue, his eyes darkened with an intensity that made her heart skip a beat. And she couldn’t really fault him for it, because her own gaze admiringly tracked the way his T-shirt stretched across his chest.

  “You dirty up pretty good, Red.” Rafe broke the sudden tension first. Only when she crossed her arms over her chest did his gaze drift north of her boobs.

  She cleared her throat and winced at the sudden dryness. “It was surprisingly easy, and that’s something I’ll have to eventually think about, right along with why five men had a chest full of women’s clothing.”

  Rafe’s lips twitched. “Both the house and the clothes are Maria’s. She’s the team’s unofficial den mother and starting point of the Yellow Brick Road to Lowlifes. No one wants to see Fuentes put away more than her. But enough about Maria. Why the hell did you leave the house?”

  “The drug dealers who decided to talk shop over the fence.”

  He casually leaned back against the sink. “What dealers?”

  “Two men—I couldn’t see their faces. But they talked as though Freedom had already hit the streets and referred to some place called El Sótano as being Fuentes’s ultimate druggie playground.�
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  If she hadn’t been watching Rafe closely, she would’ve missed the slight twitch in his jaw. “You sure he said Sótano?”

  “As certain as I am that he also identified Americans as being next on the hit list.”

  “Did they say when?”

  Penny shook her head. “They just said soon. If Fuentes is already slipping this superdrug to the general public, that means we’ve already run out of time.”

  The bathroom door opened. Rafe tugged her forward, pinning her between his rock-hard body and the wall. All of her pleasure senses rose instantly. Eyes closed, she counted to five in hopes of dampening the physical response to his closeness. She failed. Miserably. Counting to a hundred wouldn’t have done a damn thing, especially when his mouth brushed over the curve of her neck.

  Her breath quickened to the point that her fingers tingled where they fisted in his shirt. He trailed his large hand over her hip and down the length of her bare thigh. Stopping at her knee, he pulled her leg around his waist and inserted himself between her spread thighs.

  Her body needed no further coaxing to come alive, ultra-aware of every ridge and valley and the closeness of their bodies. And damn the man for smelling so good while standing in the middle of a smoke-hazed sweatbox. She fought the urge to rub herself against all that hard muscle, but then he took the decision out of her hands when his hips lightly brushed against her stomach.

  A whimper slipped from her lips as he took a gentle nip of her neck. Her neck was her hot spot, something her pathetically few lovers had never taken the time to realize. But Rafe may as well have brought a lunch and stayed for the day.

  His lips nibbled on her from shoulder to ear while his free hand gave her ass a firm squeeze. A girl could only take so much temptation. Penny gave into the urge to roll her pelvis into his, satisfied when the move coaxed a soft groan from his throat.

  With each brush of Rafe’s rock-solid, jean-covered erection, Penny’s thong dampened even more. If the firmness rubbing against her mound was any indication, Rafe Ortega was huge and hard. Everywhere. Another few seconds and she officially wouldn’t care that their visitor was on the other side of the room, emptying his bladder.