Heated Pursuit

by April Hunt

  “Don’t care. Don’t need them. I’m clean and protected.”

  Fuckin’ A, that was a goddamn symphony to Rafe’s ears. It was a testament to just how far-gone he was, because ever since the ripe young age of fifteen, he’d never once considered going bareback, much less gone through with it. Feeling Penny wrapped around him without a single barrier sounded like fucking heaven.

  She pumped his cock again, making him hiss. “Goddamn, sweetheart. I’m clean, too. Alpha makes sure we get triannual checkups, and I’ve never once gone bare.”

  “Then what are you waiting for?” Penny rolled her hips against his aching erection.

  At this point, he had no clue. With the flick of his fingers, he unsnapped her pants and followed them as they dropped to the ground.

  Bringing his mouth to just below her mound, he nibbled and tasted, locking his gaze on hers from his vantage point on his knees. Her gorgeous green eyes watched him, clouded over in a haze of desire that only made his cock harden more. Standing up and slipping into her hot body would be too damn easy, but he wanted to give her more.

  “Rafe. Please,” Penny begged in a whisper. Her hand dropped to his head, urging him closer.

  With her damp pussy his goal, he skated his mouth over the inside of her thigh. She spread for him on trembling legs, making him suck down a curse. Her mound was right there, damp and ready and practically begging for his tongue. He coaxed her stance wider and was about to take his first eager swipe with his tongue when her pain-filled cry made his blood run cold.

  Rafe’s muscles froze him in place. Penny shifted away from his touch, but not before he saw the piece of gauze halfheartedly taped to her thigh.

  “What’s this?” he asked, gently peeling it off the rest of the way. “Fuck, baby. What the hell did you do?”

  He didn’t need a flashlight to tell the gnarly gash on her leg was an unsightly shade of red. It was puffy and puckered.

  And infected.

  “It’s nothing. It’s just a scratch.” She tried tugging away.

  “It’s not nothing. It’s fucking infected!” Rafe pulled the Maglite from their pack and inspected the wound.

  He fought off a string of curses. It looked ten times worse than he thought. Not only was the cut itself infected, but the redness looked to be spreading to the tender tissue of her thigh. He’d seen two-hundred-pound hard-asses get taken down by a single scratch while in the middle of a jungle. The heat and conditions helped the infection seep into the bloodstream where it could wreak havoc on the body.

  Ignoring her protests, Rafe pinched her chin and aimed the small beam of light into her eyes. Unfocused and dilated, her gaze skirted around his face in a haze that had nothing to do with arousal and everything to do with a fever. Her out-of-norm behavior all made painful fucking sense. Now.

  “How long, Red?” Rafe asked, pushing the panic from his voice.

  “How long what?”

  “How long have you had that gash on your leg?”

  She rubbed her temples as if trying to remember. “A day. Or two.”

  “Which is it, sweetheart?”

  “Since the compound…,” Penny said, her words starting to slur, “when you told me to—”

  She dropped, unconscious and half-naked, into his arms.

  “Red!” Panic tightened Rafe’s chest as he shifted his hold on her limp form and recited a silent prayer. He stroked her damp cheek, forcing himself to calm the fuck down. “Baby, wake up. Penny. This is one hell of a time to go lights-out on me, sweetheart.”

  Fuckin’ A, this wasn’t good, and way beyond his minuscule first-aid training. She needed a doctor, a hospital, and a heavy round of antibiotics, and she needed them right this fucking second.

  Rafe centered her body weight and made a halfhearted attempt to pull up his damn pants when he came to an abrupt stop.

  Never once could he remember being so outmaneuvered, but the proof was right there in front of them…surrounding them. A dozen men, all armed with homemade weapons and deep scowls, looked a hell of a lot more menacing than he did with his out-of-reach Glock and his pants an inch from falling to his knees.

  Holding a half-naked Penny, there wasn’t a hell of a lot of options.

  “I don’t suppose you can direct us to the nearest hospital?” Rafe asked dryly.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Pain surged and ebbed in waves, from the throbbing in her head to the cascading sensation of needles ricocheting down her left leg. It was one of two things that kept Penny from falling down the dark well that weighted down her eyelids. Pain…and Rafe.

  Hazy images drifted through her mind like a cloud. They rolled together, one after another, until memories took the form of his eyes, glittering with an unnamed emotion as he stared down at her in concern; and his arms, strong and warm and cocooned around her, had made her feel safe. At home.

  Now there was nothing.

  A chill seeped into her already trembling limbs. Each panicked breath spun her dark world and took her stomach along for the ride. She needed air. She needed light. She needed Rafe.

  A cool drop of water brushed across her forehead right around the time she registered the soft coo of a voice. One painful centimeter at a time, Penny’s eyes opened. It took a few blinks and a minute or two for the blurry images surrounding her to come into focus. And when they did, she had no clue as to where she was.

  Sheets of roughly cut timber formed four walls, and a thatched roof, inlaid with remnants of jungle brush, allowed for a few scarce rays of sunlight to slip through the gaps. A rotund woman dressed in dingy Western-style clothes stood in front of an open-flame fire pit, her back turned.

  A soft giggle redirected Penny’s gaze to the source of the cool water and soft touch. No older than three, a curly-haired little girl holding a damp rag excitedly turned to the woman, the words they exchanged sounding similar to Spanish.

  “Go, child.” The woman ushered the little girl from the hut. “Fetch him.”

  Penny tried forcing her throat to work. “Where am—”

  “Shh,” the older woman hushed, brushing the cool rag over her brow. “Sleep.”

  She must’ve obeyed, because it felt like only a second had passed when her eyes flew open at the sound of a loud crash. Rafe’s broad shoulders filled the width of the doorway, his sapphire gaze locked on hers. He’d shed the clothes from the jungle but looked no less lethal in a basic dark shirt and frayed cargo pants. The circles beneath his eyes made him look haggard and tired, but he was still the best thing she’d seen in forever.

  She didn’t register the soft sob as hers until in three long strides, Rafe was by her side, palming her face between his hands and drying her tears with his thumbs.

  “What’s wrong? Are you in pain?” Concern weighted down his every word.

  Penny cleared her throat and winced from the trail of fire that zipped down her leg. “I’m okay.”

  And she was—now that he was here.

  Rafe’s shoulders dropped their stiffness as he slowly scanned every inch of her face. He brushed a strand of hair from her cheek, making her eyes open again. A healthy dose of worried relief was etched in every line of his face. “Okay is right up there with fine. Jesus Christ, Red. You scared me shitless.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You should be. You sure you’re feeling—”

  “Fine?” Penny teased weakly. Rafe didn’t smile. He looked a second away from giving her a gentle throttle with his bare hands. “I’m a little headachy and a whole lot sore, but I’ve felt worse when I had the flu.”

  “Good. Because I’d hate to spank your ass if you were still feeling under the weather.” Rafe scrubbed his face and released a heavy sigh. “This has officially been the longest three days of my fucking life. I think I aged ten years.”

  Engrossed by the way his thumb brushed over the curve of her chin, it took her a moment to register his words. “Three days?”

  Rafe leaned until their faces were less than an in
ch apart, giving her an up-close view of the exhaustion lurking in his eyes. “Three. Agonizing. Days. And I think we both know how this could’ve been avoided. You should’ve told me you were hurt.”

  “At first there wasn’t any time, and then I cleaned it as best as I could and even used the antibiotic ointment from the bug-out bag. I didn’t think it was anything serious. It was just a scratch.”

  “In the jungle, there’s no such thing as just a scratch. We were lucky Rosita’s the medicine woman of the village. She took one look at your leg and sent the men back into the jungle for supplies.”

  Both she and Rafe watched soberly as Rosita removed a layer of green leaf bandages from her upper thigh. Red and raw, the skin around the gash hurt like hell but looked marginally better to her own untrained eyes. Penny turned her attention to Rafe, his silence unnerving her more than the fierce tightening of his jaw.

  He watched the older woman slather the wound with an ointment that stank more than an overused gym sock and rewrapped it with a fresh batch of leaves. When Rosita finished, she gave them both a smile and left them with an “I’ll leave you alone with your wife.”

  It took a moment for Penny to translate the words. At her look of confusion, Rafe explained, “They made the assumption from the way they found us.”

  “What do you mean the way they found us?”

  “Both half-naked and just about to—”

  “Oh. My. God.” A rush of memories made her cheeks go crimson.

  Rafe chuckled, not looking the least bit flustered. “Yeah, you may have said that a few times already.”

  He easily caught the hand she halfheartedly attempted to smack him with and leveled her with a smile that almost stopped her heart. Her own soft chuckle died as he hooked a chair with his foot and dragged it next to the bed. He sat, staring at her in silence before they both looked down to where his fingers slowly caressed the backs of her knuckles.

  The only way to catch even a glimpse of Rafe’s thoughts was if he cared to relinquish them. Penny really wished he would. God only knew her own were a jumbled mess. Maybe it was the fever. Maybe it was the entire screwed-up situation. But somehow, Rafe drew out parts of her personality she tried to keep buried, or that she hadn’t known she had.

  A few moments ago she’d cried—with no shame, no hiding. She hadn’t felt like she needed to explain the appearance of her tears, because it had felt natural. She could be herself—a quirky smartass with a passable roundhouse and an addiction to Rafe Ortega.

  As if sensing her thoughts, he tucked their clasped hands beneath his chin. His stoic mask dissolved, leaving behind an unguarded expression that clenched her heart. “You really did scare the fucking hell out of me, Red. If it hadn’t been for these people, I don’t even want to think about what would’ve happened.”

  “You would’ve figured something out,” she said softly.

  “I think you’re seriously underestimating my panic level. They took you away from me. Wouldn’t let me see you until you woke up. I’ve been in some hellish situations before, but none come even close to the last three days.”

  Penny blinked fresh moisture away, his words tugging more to the surface. The things she said to him in that jungle…

  They’d been true for the most part. It would be easier to keep an emotional distance if he’d just played the part of the misogynist jerk. But that wasn’t him. He was perfectly imperfect, in all ways except for his choice of occupation.

  Her heart ached for purely selfish reasons. “Where are we?”

  “In a Miskito village just off the Patuca. Once the people here realized we weren’t part of Fuentes’s crew, they’ve been ridiculously helpful.” He brushed the back of her hand against his lips. “We’ll wait a few more days just to make sure you’re fully recovered, and then we’ll head out. We’re only a day-and-a-half’s hike away from the Honduran military base at Mocoron.”

  The reason why these people should know a man like Fuentes turned her stomach. Rafe must’ve read the realization in her eyes, because he gave her hand another kiss, this time keeping it propped against the corner of his mouth.

  “All I need is another day and I’m good,” Penny stated. “We’ll go.”

  “I already promised the village elders that we’d leave once you were able to get back on your feet and they wouldn’t listen. They insist on us staying until you’re entirely healed.”

  “There’s no telling what Fuentes will do if he finds out they were helping us. I don’t want to chance staying longer than we have to.”

  “They know the risk, and they’re willing to chance his wrath if it means stopping him once and for all,” Rafe said somberly, looking more tranquil than worried about a Fuentes appearance. “But there’s no reason for him to come back here. He’s already ripped apart their families, and they’re close enough to the base to make even a cocky bastard like him uncomfortable. So we’re staying—at least for the time being.”

  “But—”

  “Don’t argue with me, Red.” There was no mistaking the gleam of stubbornness in his eyes. “I nearly lost you once already and that was one time too many for my liking. You can glare, pout. I don’t give a hot damn. Until you’re able to get out of this bed and kick my ass without staggering on your own two feet, we stay right the hell here.”

  “Then maybe you should go without me.” She nearly choked on her words, but she trusted him with her life and with Rachel’s. “You wouldn’t have me dragging you backward. You could make contact with the team and come back for me when you got the chance.”

  “I’m not leaving you behind,” he growled softly.

  “Damn it, Rafe.” Her curse held no power. “We’ve already wasted three days.”

  “And we’ll get them back. You can argue with me until you’re blue in the face, sweetheart, but I’m not changing my mind. Your energy is better spent getting well.”

  * * *

  After three days of being cooped up, Penny stepped onto the hut’s front porch and tilted her face to the sky. Both the warm pound of the sun and the simplistic beauty of the village worked wonders on the soul. It was a dusting of civilization nestled on the edge of the Patuca River, a mixture of minimalism and complexity with clapboard structures housing entire families.

  Off to the left, a handful of women gave her a friendly wave, and huddled on the porch of the next hut, two elderly men gave her nearly toothless smiles. No one could tell by the looks on these people’s faces that their lives were forever altered by Diego Fuentes.

  Penny smiled back with a small wave and let her self-appointed mother hen, Carmencita, gently tug her toward a gaggle of giggling children. With a tiny finger, the three-year-old instructed her to sit beneath the shade of a Yucca tree before she toddled off to join the activity. Back and forth, up and down, the children chased after their tallest playmate with a flourish of laughing squeals.

  The sight of a tattooed ex-Delta operative playing forward in a miniature-person’s soccer game was more entertaining than watching the World Cup. The children shouted eagerly, all calling for Rafe’s attention with a cry and wave. Little Carmencita howled in innocent laughter when the ball bumped her bare feet. But Rafe was right there, sweeping the doe-eyed beauty into his arms and tunneling them both toward the goal line.

  Easy laughter and slick, loose smiles replaced the hard lines of his whisker-stubbled face as he carefully aimed the ball toward some of the youngest players. At that moment, he wasn’t a soldier. He wasn’t a seasoned Alpha operator. He was a two-hundred-pound child…and Penny couldn’t take her eyes off him.

  He claimed to be the type of man to never settle down, but she didn’t doubt for a moment that he would excel at it—all of it—protector, husband, and father. Images of dark-haired children with vivid blue eyes and warm, tan skin chiseled their way into her mind, taking her breath away.

  Her heart heavy with what-ifs, the weight of Carmencita climbing into her lap brought her back to reality. She wrapped her arms around
the little one and savored the sound of her sweet giggle.

  Even from thirty yards, Rafe’s eyes missed nothing. Their gazes collided, his scanning her from head to toe, no doubt calculating if she was well enough to be out of bed. She squirmed on the spot, her body growing warm. If her libido could be revved by a cross-country stare and in the presence of screaming children, she was most definitely on the mend.

  Emotion flickered across his face, and with each flash, a new one was painted into place. Desire. Need. Concern. And something else that made her heart skip a beat the moment he took his first step in her direction. He only made it three when the pack of children literally brought him to his knees. Carmencita leaped up to join the fray just as he turned on them with a mighty roar that had the kids shouting in glee.

  There was no sense in denying it anymore.

  Tattooed ex-Delta operators were exactly her type. It didn’t jibe with what she wanted from life, but it was true. From beneath a mountain of children, the smile and wink Rafe sent her blasted its way through her walls of resistance.

  She loved him, was in love with him. And now she needed to figure out what to do about it.

  Eight hours later, standing in front of the buffed tin mirror in her newly acquired quarters, she still hadn’t figured it out. She stared at her reflection and looked for the change she’d felt happen. A round of nervous nibbling left her bottom lip swollen, and a week’s lack of appetite had made her face a bit thinner, but her eyes were still green and her hair shone the same dark shade of red. On the outside, she was the same military brat with a penchant for getting into tough scrapes.

  The change was internal, embedded so deeply that extraction was impossible. She was in love with Rafael Ortega.

  Thoughts of maintaining a physical distance from him made it difficult to breathe. She didn’t know if it was worse to love and lose, or to never experience the thrill of love at all.

  A heavy knock interrupted her internal debate. There was only one person she was expecting.