by April Hunt
Maybe there were exceptions to the rules.
And maybe one of those exceptions was Rafe.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
One minute Rafe had been purging his soul, and the next, his arms were empty. He watched Penny pull away, both figuratively and literally, and felt the stab far deeper than the knife that nearly gutted him in that Afghan desert.
Not even his team knew about his time overseas. The only one who did was Trey, and that was because he’d been the one who’d kept his insides from spilling to the ground. But Rafe had told Penny when she hadn’t even asked.
Sharing it with her hadn’t just come easy—it had felt right. At least until he’d watched a mental suit of armor drop into place right before his damn eyes. She thought he couldn’t see through it, but she was wrong. He invented the damn tactic to keep people at arm’s length, and he couldn’t blame her for being wary.
Hell, she’d practically painted the picture for him in permanent fucking markers. No soldiers—current or former. And after getting that glimpse of what her father had put her through, he understood. She deserved to be someone’s first. Not an afterthought, or someone’s second tier. And Rafe didn’t do anything half-assed. If he couldn’t be the man she needed, that she deserved, then it was best that he took a step back.
Later.
Right at that moment he needed to hold her in his arms—for however long they had—and use the time to make her realize that she was a hell of a lot more than she knew. Her words from the tree had been a dark shadow lurking in the back of his mind since she’d uttered them.
She’d left that badass bail enforcement agent in the helicopter, or back in the States.
Like fucking hell.
The fact that she doubted herself even now chafed him raw. When they’d first faced one another on that San Pedro Sula street, she’d been a force of nature. Her gritty determination flowed through an interrogation, the training. Grown men pissed their pants dealing with Diego Fuentes, and she’d willingly, if not eagerly, stepped into the man’s domain without a care for her own safety. The possibility that she didn’t see that in herself pissed him the hell off.
“What the hell did you mean earlier about leaving that woman back in the States?” he heard himself ask.
Penny pulled her gaze from his as she attempted to step away.
He grabbed her arm as she tried to pass. “Red.”
“It meant nothing.”
“I call bullshit.”
“You can call whatever you want, but that doesn’t make it any less true.” Red faced, she tugged her arm away.
“Do you want to hear what an incredible fucking job you’re doing? Because sweetheart, you are. I don’t know a woman—and trust me, I’ve known a lot of them—who would even consider a stunt like this, much less be able to pull it off.”
“I don’t want praise, damn it. And I’m not doing well.”
“You could’ve fooled me.”
“Maybe that’s my calling. I bluff a good game.”
“That’s a bunch of fucking shit and you know it!”
Eyes bright with anger, Penny stepped forward until the warmth of her body suffused his. But there was something in the droop to her shoulders. Disappointment? Doubt? He remained rooted to the spot and let her vent. Finally.
“What I know is that I was scared shitless in that alley and would’ve gotten myself killed if it hadn’t been you and the guys who found me. I know Logan pulled punches during our hand-to-hand demo. And you were right…I was lucky that night with Marco,” Penny said, undercutting herself.
“You’re a fucking bounty hunter, Red. You’re not exactly an ivory-tower princess.”
“Yeah, I work bail enforcement,” Penny scoffed. “But did I ever mention that my mentor hasn’t even allowed me to go out in the field on my own yet? In case you didn’t notice before, I have a keen ability to stick my nose where it doesn’t belong. All I am is a good bluffer. But the longer I act as though I have a clue about what I’m doing, the more lives I put in danger.”
“This isn’t your fault.”
“Of course not.” She flipped up her hands and let out an irritated sigh. “I only screwed up the first day at the compound. I brought suspicion on us for absolutely nothing.”
Rafe ached to kiss away all her self-doubts and infuse into her the images the way he remembered them. Instead, he caught her attention with an upward hook of his finger. Moisture clung to her dark lashes, the sight of it walloping him more than one of Logan’s beefy-handed right hooks.
“You’re the reason we know without a doubt that we’re on the right track.” He tugged her chin back when she attempted to look away. “So what if you were scared in the alley? You didn’t back down. Just like you stuck with it when you faced Logan and Marco. And seeing you stand your ground back at the compound when those goons were gunning for us was fucking incredible.”
“What’s your point?” she asked softly.
“My point is that despite being scared, you still went through with this—all of it. That is the definition of courage, and you have it by the fistful. Stop selling yourself short. Alpha would’ve never let you get this far if we didn’t believe you capable. Hell, I wouldn’t have let you get this far.”
“But none of this is getting us any closer to finding Rachel. I can’t lose her, Rafe. She’s the only family I have.” Penny’s throat visibly seized.
Rafe brought her mouth within an inch of his own. “Wrong on both fronts. We are closer. And she’s not your only family, Red. I barely remember my mother. But I sure as hell remember being shipped from one foster home to another, sometimes not staying in one place long enough to unpack my fucking knapsack. In that time, I learned something pretty damn quick. And that’s that family is who you want them to be. Blood is blood. It’s a fluid. Family are those who help you go through life with a purpose. For you, Rachel’s both, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have family elsewhere. You may not have a commando cape of your own, but you’re an honorary member of Alpha now. And sweetheart, we are a family. In every way that counts.”
Her lips twitched with the threat of a watery smile. “I thought you weren’t a man with speeches.”
Until her, he also hadn’t been a man to envision himself with one woman, but damn if he wasn’t starting to like the idea…if that woman was her.
Sucker-punched by the wayward thought, Rafe forced his lips into a smirk. “What can I say? I’m a cheerleader.”
She glanced down his body, her hot gaze damn near bringing him to his knees. Like clockwork, his cock began to rise for the occasion. With it pushing against the fabric of his briefs, there was no way for her to miss it.
He couldn’t hold back if he tried. Pulling her into his arms, he kissed her.
He meant it to be a show of innocent affection, but there was nothing innocent about his feelings. Hot and needful, he slipped his tongue into her mouth and felt her go liquid in his arms. Bodies flush, he quivered on contact. It wasn’t long before her hands ran up the length of his chest.
As always happened when she was in his arms, Rafe lost track of time, forgetting all about where they were and that they needed to make this a quick stop. He ripped her shirt from the waist of her pants, pulling it off in one fluid movement before lowering his mouth to her lace-covered breast.
Penny’s hands locked onto his shoulders, her fingers gripping his muscles and holding him close…like he’d pull away. Never in a million fucking years. He needed this too much, needed her too much to even contemplate letting her go so soon.
Eager to dive into the wonderland that was her warm, damp pussy, he unsnapped her cargos with the flick of his fingers. Her breathless gasps spurred him on, and the slow spreading of her legs gave him easy access as he slipped his hand beneath the back of her panties and dipped his fingers into the wetness between her legs.
“Rafe.” Penny’s knees buckled.
He caught her before she dropped into the water. “Whoa there, sweethea
rt. You fainting on me now? I know I pack one hell of a punch, but…” He scanned her face and what he saw erased the cocky smirk from his face. Her cheeks, usually pink and lively, looked pale. Worry superseded horniness as he gently shifted her in his arms. “It kills me to say this, but I think we need to press pause for a bit. Breathe. Drink. Rest.”
“I’m okay.” She shook her head as if clearing cobwebs from her mind. “But I won’t turn away more water.”
He held the canteen to her lips, tipping it back up when she’d dared slow down. Only when he was satisfied that she’d drunk enough did she let him escort her to an inlet that wouldn’t knock her down with the force of the churning water.
She rolled her eyes at him when she noted his hesitancy to leave her there. “Go. Finish. Seriously, Rafe. You said it yourself. You pack quite the punch. It’s probably best if you stay far, far away when you slip out of your skivvies.”
He wanted to argue with her, but the jut of her jaw told him there was no point. “Fine. But you damn well better holler if you need me. We haven’t come this far for you to drown in three feet of water.”
* * *
Penny took a deep breath when Rafe finally turned his back. Fighting against a woozy head, she managed to shed her sneakers and clothes, and she imagined each scrub of her hands washed away more than jungle grime.
Rafe was one of the reasons she wouldn’t—or couldn’t—quit. Even if his belief in her had been nothing but a prettily wrapped speech, it was a damn good one. She loved the way he could make her feel like she was capable of anything.
Her heart told her to hang onto that feeling, take whatever Rafe could give her, for however long, and run with it. Her head told her to be rational. Both options had perks and drawbacks. Neither took into consideration how addictive he was—not just his touch, or even his smile. It was him.
Penny trudged back to her clothes. With the help of the faint moonlight, she could now see the quarter-sized gash on her thigh. It wasn’t too bad. But it wasn’t pretty either. Up to a half inch of redness circled around the darkened edges of the wound. Dried blood had already crusted over, creating a rough scab, but she didn’t want to leave anything to chance.
She patted it dry before slathering it with a generous amount of antibiotic ointment from the bug-out bag and then covered it with a piece of gauze and a bit of first-aid tape. Penny finished tucking her shirt into her pants when Rafe finally turned around.
He nodded toward the starlit sky. “We have another hour or so until daybreak. Do you want to stop for the day?”
“As excited as I am about tying ourselves to another tree, I say we keep going.”
Ignoring the burn in her thigh, Penny accepted his offered hand. She slipped her fingers through his and let him lead the way back into the jungle.
* * *
Another day came and went, and when evening returned, it was back to hiking. They’d made good time, the land around them slowly changing from jagged mountain peaks to wooded jungle plains. Flat and level was a good thing, because with every hour that passed, the more Rafe expected Penny to do a face-plant into the jungle floor.
Worried, his gaze drifted over his shoulder to where she clumped through the heavy brush. Every gentle curve of her face had long glazed over in a haze of exhaustion. Sweat glistened over her forehead, and her mouth was tight in a permanent, white-tinged grimace.
He’d ask her if she was okay or wanted to take a quick break, but he knew he’d get the same answer as he had the dozen other times he’d asked: a terse I’m fine; let’s keep going.
Fine. That damn word now topped his pet-peeve list right up there along with reality television and those damn commercials with photoshopped infants speaking like adults. Anyone with fucking eyes could see it for the lie it was—both the commercials and Penny’s continued insistence that she was fine.
Eventually, Rafe had enough. He threw the backpack to the ground and leveled her with a stern look. “We’re bunking down. I’ll keep first watch while you get some rest.”
He waited for her wrath, or at the very least, a death glare. Instead, her shoulders slumped as she gazed up the length of a nearby tree. “Up there?”
Every protective cell in Rafe’s body wanted to wipe away the defeated look on her face. He gentled his voice, for once at a loss as to what to do. “No. No tree climbing this time around, Red. I’ll make sure nothing crawls into your unmentionables.”
Penny folded her legs to the ground, plumped the backpack into a pillow, and lost consciousness in a flat three seconds, shifting Rafe’s concern straight to stratospheric levels. He’d been pushing them hard, hoping to get the maximum distance between them and Fuentes’s compound that they could. Now two days out, he was finally starting to feel like there wasn’t a thick-necked goon about to pop out from behind a tree.
Rafe sat next to her, unwilling to be more than an arm’s length away, and watched her sleep. It definitely wasn’t a restful one. Her murmurs, mostly indecipherable mumbles, ran through cycles of unease and agitation.
“It’s all right, Red,” he murmured, stroking her back in slow, soothing circles. “Rest. Sleep.”
None of his friends would call him a nurturer. When things didn’t go as planned, he sucked it up and soldiered on, and he expected anyone in his company to do the same. Failure wasn’t an option, and neither was exposing or admitting weakness.
Penny wasn’t a soldier. She hadn’t been trained to endure extreme situations. Half the men in his first Delta unit would’ve at least made a grumble or two in their time hauling themselves through the jungle. But Penny…nothing. She still claimed to be fine.
He wanted her to show a little weakness…just so he could become her support…feel fucking useful.
He brushed his knuckle over her warm cheek, pushing a strand of damp hair behind her ear. She bolted upright, back ramrod straight, nearly knocking him off his perch as she jumped unsteadily to her feet.
Rafe stood up and caught her shoulders as she swayed. “Whoa. Slow it down there, speed demon.”
“I’m fine.” She brushed his hands away and took a wobbly step back.
He didn’t like the distance she put between them one damn bit. “I think our definitions of fine are seriously different, Red. And yours is the one that’s ass-backward.”
“I didn’t say that I’m about-to-break-into-song-and-dance happy.” There was the death glare Rafe had been waiting for. “I’m fine. Okay. Hunky-freaking-dory. Don’t worry—I’ll try my best not to slow us down.”
“If you need to take it slow, we’ll drop it down a notch.”
“Stop,” Penny ordered through gritted teeth. “Just…stop.”
“Stop what?” he asked, genuinely perplexed by her sudden rush of annoyance.
Her hands flailed in his general direction as she stalked closer to him. “This. You.”
“Me?”
“Yes—you!” She stumbled but quickly righted herself and pointed at the hand that had been poised to catch her. “And that! Being…nice. And thoughtful. And just…so…freaking…perfect.”
He snorted. “I’m far from perfect, sweetheart.”
“Yeah, that’s what you say, but I know better. It’s not fair. You swagger around all sexy and alpha and growly…but men like that…like you…are supposed to be jerks. You’re supposed to be aloof and programmed to get the job done no matter what you have to do or who you have to hurt. Why do you have to make things ten times more difficult by being thoughtful and caring and…supportive?”
She looked seconds away from blowing steam out her ears. Rafe was lost, completely. “Let me make sure I’m following you here. You’re pissed off at me for being nice…and for caring about you? Is that right?”
“Yes!”
“And it would make you feel better if I started acting like a sexist asshole?” What the actual hell?
“Now we’re getting somewhere.” Penny’s hands fisted his shirt. “Be an asshole, Rafe. Be a sexist, selfish, one-tra
ck-mind asshole.”
She gave him a hard shove that pushed his back against a nearby tree, and then she followed, putting her mouth over his and kissing him like it was the cure to end the apocalypse. And hell, maybe it was the end of the fucking world, because he sure as hell didn’t know what the fuck was going on—except that Penny was devouring him whole.
And fuck…he was already the worst kind of asshole, because he knew something wasn’t right. In the last few hours, she’d gone from sweet and tender to a walking, mouthy supernova. And he couldn’t tear himself away from her lips long enough to find out what the problem actually was. He took advantage, her touch stoking a fire in his veins that couldn’t be extinguished except by taking her here against this damn tree.
Like his head and his mouth weren’t connected by a brain, he kissed her back in the ultimate of sparring matches. Give and take, slow and deep. Twin hands tugged his shirt until he leaned forward, helping her pull it over his head. Penny didn’t miss an inch of skin as she dragged her hands over his chest and stomach, scouring his skin with her nails, then with her mouth.
Rafe’s groan caught in his throat before he efficiently whipped her shirt off, too. He needed more. He needed to touch her. He needed to feel her with every primal part of his being. In a quick spin, he reversed their positions, his arm tucked behind her to protect her back from the rough tree bark. Not letting the fabric of her bra get in his way, he tugged the thin straps to her elbows, and at the sight of her cherry-red nipples peeking above the lacy trim, he dove in like a man starved. He nibbled and teased, pulling the tip of her left breast into his mouth with a tug that made her body quiver.
She moaned breathlessly, her hands fumbling with his belt. “God, I want you. I need you. Now.”
“You’re about to have me, sweetheart.” Ten seconds after the hiss of his zipper, she did. In her hand. She gripped his erection so tight he nearly came right then. With a growl, he pushed himself deeper into her grasp and was rewarded with another maddening squeeze. “Ease up, baby, or this is going to be over before it begins. We have to talk condoms and the fact that I don’t have any on hand.”
