Heated Pursuit

by April Hunt

  “I want to hear you come, Red,” he whispered against her body. “Let go, baby.”

  Alternating between soft and firm, slow and fast, he kept up the pace until with a rough tug on his hair, she came. The sweet burst of her arousal flooded his senses, and he rode it with her until the last of the quivers eased through her body.

  In the dim light of the hut, her porcelain skin glistened with the pink glow of satisfaction. She looked like a woman thoroughly ravished—and he was nowhere close to being done. He trailed a path of kisses over the slight curve of her abdomen and the peaks of her breasts.

  At her mouth, he shared her sweet taste with a slow thrust of his tongue. “I need to verify the whole condom situation.”

  “I’m safe and protected,” she said, verifying what she’d told him in the jungle. “The shot works wonders.”

  “I’m clean, too. But I’d understand if you don’t want to—”

  “I do,” she said quickly.

  When she brushed her hand against his jaw, Rafe turned and took the pad of her thumb in a gentle bite. “Say the words aloud, Red. Plain and clear so we have no miscommunication.”

  “I’m saying I want more. I want you. You’ve already given me one spectacular orgasm; it would be a total shame not to go for another.” She slid her hand down to his aching cock and flashed a grin. “And at least one for you, too, of course.”

  Goddamn, this woman was something else.

  Keeping his gaze locked on hers, he pulled her knee to his hip and tested her readiness. She was warm, wet, and completely open to him. With a shift of hips, he slipped into her pliant body as if he was always meant to be there.

  This time, they both trembled. There was nothing on earth that compared to the sweet feel of her body. Flesh on flesh. Heat on heat. In and out, he withdrew and sank back in a series of thrusts that had them both panting in a matter of seconds.

  “You’re so fucking tight, baby.” Afraid of finishing before they even began, Rafe took a deep breath, groaning as her body contracted around him like a pulsing vise. “I don’t want to hurt you. Dear God, tell me I’m not fucking hurting you.”

  Her soft hands settled on the curve of his ass. With a squeeze and an upward thrust of her hips, she urged him deeper. “I’m not as breakable as I look.”

  Rafe’s control snapped. With a caveman growl, he surged in the last few remaining inches. Beneath him, Penny gripped his ass tighter. He brought his mouth down on hers as if he were a man dying of dehydration and she were a bottomless well, and only when his head began to swirl did he come up for air. He kissed a path of kisses over her cheek, her nose, the curve of her slender neck.

  Every inch of her was smooth and supple. He couldn’t get close enough, feel enough, when it came to this woman. He slipped a hand beneath her hip and braced her body as he plunged in and out. It didn’t take long before the bed beneath them creaked and groaned with the force of each thrust.

  Her hands touched him everywhere: the muscles of his arms, his back. Their heavy pants fueled the already raging fire until Rafe lost track of where he ended and she began. Need for release warred with a need to never let go. The second her lips met his mouth in a kiss that pushed them both over the edge, Rafe knew.

  One more night—fuck, a million nights—would never be enough.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Penny would never look at sex the same way again, because with Rafe it hadn’t felt like sex. It was intimacy and total abandon disguised as a marathon of hot touches and hotter kisses. He woke things deep inside her that she never knew existed.

  In Rafe’s arms, there’d been no walls. She gave herself to him without fear that would’ve before made her turn the other way and run like hell.

  She was in love with him.

  And she didn’t regret it. Not a kiss. Not a touch. Not the way he made her feel as if she could do anything and still be herself—and it was enough. Somehow, he’d managed to make vulnerability feel good.

  Until this morning.

  At some point after the fourth round of lovemaking, something shifted. A dark cloud of tension followed Rafe as he paced the room, collecting the clothing they’d strewn about. He hadn’t spoken to her, hadn’t looked in her direction for the last five minutes except for the occasional sneaking glance. At first she’d been confused, then hurt. Now she was angry.

  It wasn’t as if she expected the coo of sonnets or a devotion of love ever after. Though they’d practically clawed her throat raw, she’d been careful not to mumble those three little words that could make him regret everything they’d shared.

  She’d shed her clothes knowing that making love wouldn’t change anything, and she hadn’t regretted a moment of it—until the first time he refused to glance her way.

  “You can stop stomping around like you’re on a death march. I don’t have any expectations.” Her words sounded a hell of a lot steadier than she felt.

  Rafe’s back went taut before he tugged on his shirt.

  “You should,” he muttered.

  “Excuse me?” Her voice went up in pitch.

  Finally, Rafe turned. Jaw tightly clenched, he could’ve just been told he had one month to live and she wouldn’t know it by the steel hardening his eyes. The man staring back at her hadn’t been the one who’d made love to her throughout the night, nor the one who was so eager to get inside her that he couldn’t wait to get her into a bed. Standing in front of her right now was the stern-faced commando from their first San Pedro Sula encounter.

  “I don’t do relationships, Red,” Rafe reminded her, his voice low and even. “I don’t do complicated, messy feelings. Hell, it’s more than the fact I don’t do them. I can’t. I know absolutely jack shit about being in a relationship in general, much less a healthy one. Disappointment, detachment, and danger—I’m your man. Anything else may as well be a fucking fairy tale.”

  “You do realize that I was raised by the world’s most unaffectionate father, right?”

  “But you had Rachel. And you had Trey and his family. You had people in your life who showed you that wasn’t the norm. I had foster parents who usually didn’t bother memorizing my last name, much less asking me how I felt about things. It’s not that I don’t wish things were different. It’s just reality. Relationships aren’t in me to give. Not even to you.”

  His words were as lethal as a dagger through the ribs. She tore her gaze away and sat to pull on her shoes, battling against the shake of her hands.

  He stepped closer. “Let me—”

  “No.” She stopped him with a shake of her head. “You tell it how it is and you don’t apologize, remember?”

  “You said you understood,” he murmured. “You said you weren’t looking for anything permanent with someone like me.”

  Penny’s throat convulsed with the effort to keep her cool. “I did say that, probably numerous times and both aloud and to myself. I guess I’m not as immune to you as I thought. But that’s my problem, not yours.”

  “Penny.”

  It took strength she didn’t know she had not to run into his arms at the sound of her name falling from his lips. Not Red. Not sweetheart. Penny. She’d thought she could handle the pain of losing him in whatever way that happened, but she’d been deluding herself. She felt raw and open. And scared out of her mind.

  As a defense against the gaping hole forming in her heart, she hiked up her mental walls, closed off her emotional wounds, and summoned the courage to carry on. Dwelling on her loss and the things she couldn’t have only did one thing: it hurt. And there was too much riding on them right now to let that happen.

  “Trust me, Rafe. I’ve already done the whole second-place thing when it comes to the military, to this kind of life. I have no desire to do that again. You’re in the clear. Your soldier-of-fortune lifestyle can remain perfectly intact without you having to worry about the little woman at home.”

  He looked as if he’d been slapped, an unknown emotion finally dissolving his blank mask. Pe
nny looked away and forced herself to breathe. She thought she’d known what real pain felt like, but it didn’t come close to the sensation ripping apart her insides.

  This kind of pain—the one brought on by losing the man you love before you ever really had him…

  This pain felt like death.

  * * *

  Instinct made Rafe want to kick the ass of whoever had put that haunted look in Penny’s eyes, but what could he do when he’d been the bastard to put it there? He wished like hell that he could give her everything she deserved. But longing for the impossible only resulted in more shattered dreams.

  Rafe’s mouth opened to say something—anything to make her understand. Except he didn’t get it himself. Before he could conjure the right words to form some kind of an explanation, the hut door slammed open.

  Rafe spun around, his gun coming up on reflex. Instead of the enemy charging into the room, one of the village children pointed toward the eastern line of the rain forest and spoke in rapid-fire Miskito.

  Men. Strangers.

  Rafe rechecked the barrel of the Glock and placed it in Penny’s hands before picking up the AK-47 for himself. “Stay here.”

  Penny stepped into his path. “Are you insane? What if it’s Diego’s men? They’ll shoot you on sight!”

  “It’s not Fuentes’s men, but that doesn’t mean I want you anywhere near this right now.” He grasped her arms in a gentle grip and maneuvered her to the side. “Stay,” he ordered over his shoulder right before he stepped outside.

  It took an entire ten fucking seconds before Penny followed him onto the porch with the Glock still tucked in her hand. He whirled on her, not bothering to dampen his agitation. “Damn it, Red. What the hell did I tell you?”

  “You told me to stay, but I never went to obedience school, so I still get those commands all confused.” Her narrowed eyes dared him to say something.

  Rafe’s chest rumbled with his growl. She drove him fucking crazy. Short of throwing her over his shoulder and tying her to the damn bed, there was no way to keep her out of this.

  Seven figures approached the village, all with badass assault rifles propped on their shoulders and looking like they’d stepped out of the cargo hold of a Boeing. If it weren’t for the sight of their familiar ugly mugs, Rafe would’ve started praying for a fucking Hail Mary.

  “Hey there, darlin’.” Logan reached them first and instantly flashed Penny his signature smile. “Bet you missed the hell out of us, huh? Must’ve really sucked only having Ortega to talk to.”

  “I’m a fucking exceptional conversationalist,” Rafe said dryly.

  Logan scoffed. “Try that on someone who hasn’t been crammed in a three-by-three foxhole with you for thirty-six hours. I had to talk to the fucking grubs to keep my sanity.”

  Penny laughed, giving Logan a quick hug before moving on to Trey and from there, each of the guys. Even Stone accepted her show of affection before he cut his gaze to him. “You know, when I named all the ways this op could go wrong, I didn’t mean that you should go and fucking aim for every single one of them.”

  Rafe shrugged off the comment and diverted his gaze to the three men who didn’t belong to his team. Next to him, Penny’s gaze also shifted.

  “No. Freaking. Way.” With a laugh, she flew down the steps and toward the man with the shaved head hovering just off the shack’s bottom steps. The warmth in her eyes as she wrapped her arms around the stranger turned Rafe’s blood to ice.

  * * *

  The bonfire flames reached high into the sky, lighting the night with a warm, golden glow, and yet Rafe had never felt so damn cold. No expectations, Penny had said. He should be jumping for joy that he could go on with his life as he’d always meant—sans complications. But the more he thought about it, the more pissed he got—at himself, at Penny, and at the jackass across the bonfire who kept whispering things in her ear.

  Vincent Fucking Franklin. The mentor. The friend. One look at the former SEAL and the image Rafe had of a middle-aged man with a potbelly and acne pits disintegrated. Franklin and his cronies, Ryker and Braggs, were easily two hundred pounds of solid muscle and bad attitude.

  Penny sat tucked between Franklin and his men while Rafe’s gut twisted in fucking knots with each smile she gifted the Navy SEAL. That smile could bring world peace—and he wished like hell it was being aimed at him.

  He’d been dumb-shit stupid for thinking one night—or even a long string of them—would ever get Penny out of his system, or that her presence wouldn’t affect him on some vital level. She was an extension of him, permanent right down to his most basic parts. But unlike with an arm or leg, there was no way to alter his way of life to make her absence easier.

  It fucking hurt, and he deserved every last ounce of that fucking misery.

  “You stare at the poor fuck any harder and his dick’s going to turn to ice and fall the fuck off.” Trey leaned back, relaxed and totally at ease. And fucking smirking. “And before you go all jealous lover and shit, you should probably know that he’s the reason we were able to find your sorry ass.”

  Logan dropped himself onto a tree stump. “Actually, because of him and his guys, we were able to find Fuentes’s little hidey-hole. But we found your sorry ass by following the trail of body bread crumbs that you left littering the jungle floor. Good job, by the way. We probably stumbled onto the compound a day and a half after you made your mark, and the place was still in an uproar.”

  “I had a little help,” Rafe mumbled.

  They’d hashed through everything over an hour ago. Back in San Pedro Sula, Alpha and Franklin’s guys had nearly come to blows before realizing they were searching for the same people. And the almighty Vince and his subhuman-level contacts had pinpointed the location of Fuentes’s compound in less than forty-eight fucking hours—a fact that was still making Charlie chew nails stateside.

  But one thing no one knew about was Fuentes’s fucking nephew. And that was because it wasn’t in the intel that had been handed over by the DEA when Alpha had accepted the operation. It was a pretty big-ass piece of information to leave out accidentally. Now the question posed was where Fuentes’s mole stood in the DEA food chain. And they’d be one step closer to figuring that out when they reached the Mocoron base.

  Penny’s laugh pulled Rafe’s attention across the fire. Through the flames, he watched her shake her head and smile at something Vincent said. He couldn’t tear his eyes away, could barely keep from crossing the distance and begging her to go with him someplace where they could talk. Fucking talk. Him, the man who’d rather storm a compound with guns blazing than sit down and approach a problem diplomatically.

  Leaving things the way they had back in that tiny little hut not only left a sour taste in his mouth, but made him wish he could kick himself in the ass. He’d gone about it the wrong way, chose the wrong words. He fucking lied…because purposeful omissions were the same damn thing as spewing falsehoods.

  Instead of telling her that he wished he could give her everything she deserved, he focused on the fact that it couldn’t be done. And now it was too late. That haunted look in her eyes as she’d tried to remain cool while forcing back tears would haunt him for-fucking-ever.

  “Fuck it.” Rafe stood, ignoring everyone but the pair of vivid green eyes watching his departure. He allowed himself to soak in the sight of her for a minute, and then with a mental kick to his balls, he turned away.

  * * *

  “Christ, I need a moment of privacy and a cigar,” Vince muttered as Penny watched Rafe escape toward the riverbed. “Babe, I’d be totally remiss if I didn’t ask if you knew what the hell you’re doing. You really up for going down that road? Going commando isn’t for everyone—and I’m not talking about the fashion option.”

  “There is no road.” Penny’s chest ached with the truth of her words. There was no road, just a darkened mine with quicksand traps and projectile poison daggers. It was impassable, impossible, and not going to happen.

&
nbsp; “Oh hell. You love him.” Vincent’s statement blended in with the loud drone of voices surrounding them.

  “As you pointed out, falling for a man like Rafe Ortega would be an ultimate act of stupidity.”

  “I didn’t say it in those exact words, but yeah. Basically. Yet you did it anyway.”

  Yeah, she did. Through the years of Trey’s absence, Vince had stepped in as a pseudo–big brother and best friend—one who put the brood in brooding. He knew her well enough that she didn’t need to tell him he was right. But not saying it aloud didn’t make it any less true. To make it worse, she hadn’t just fallen in love with Rafe. She’d dropped flat on her ass, rolled off a cliff, and skidded down the world’s deepest ravine.

  Every time she replayed their exchange in the hut, her chest felt as if it would crack open all over again. Though she hadn’t expected words of undying devotion, she’d hoped for them. With her entire being.

  “You’re killing me with the quiet thing.” Vince gently bumped into her shoulder to gain her attention. “Considering the most meaningful relationship I’ve ever had was with the Navy, I know I’m not exactly the right person to dole out advice.”

  “When has that ever stopped you?”

  “It hasn’t. I don’t know anything about Rafe other than he’d like to loosen my jaw with a few ear-ringing uppercuts, but I know you. There’s no way in hell you’d give your heart to someone who wasn’t worth the trouble.”

  “I may know he’s worth it, but that doesn’t make a damn bit of difference if he doesn’t know it, too.”

  “True. But maybe he’s never come across the one woman who could convince him otherwise.” With a playful flick to her nose, Vince urged her gaze north. “Penn, I’ve seen you do some amazing shit since we’ve known each other. Some of it was in the courtroom when you stood by your clients and helped them face down their abusers, and some of it was when we were hauling parole violators back to the jail yard. Hell, I chased your cute ass down to Honduras to find—”