by April Hunt
“That I’d gotten lost in the jungle with a man who makes me second-guess everything I thought I ever wanted in life?”
“I was going to say, to find that there’s nothing you can’t do if you set half your mind to it. Smartass.”
If only she could believe in herself as much as Vincent did. Penny forced her legs to lock and rose to her feet. “Wrong. I can’t make Rafe see himself as others do. As I do,” Penny heard herself say.
The pull to go to Rafe was more than strong; it was magnetic. But instead of taking the path of least resistance and feeling her heart break all over again, she turned back toward the huts.
* * *
Rafe had hunted terrorist cells in the middle of the Afghan desert, thwarted assassination attempts made on foreign dignitaries, and jumped from a cargo hold at thirty-five thousand feet to land in a field of pissed-off tangos. He was cool under pressure, ready to leap into action at a moment’s notice, and never once would’ve questioned his motives.
But that was before…before Honduras. Before Penny.
She was the ultimate weapon, had the ability to get him hard with an innocent look and singe his core with just a promise of a touch. The convoluted mixture of sweet and sass was permanently etched far beneath the surface of his skin, and he didn’t want to get it out, didn’t know if he even could, but fucking up her life because he wasn’t man enough to let her go wasn’t an option either.
He rubbed his chest as if the pain settling beneath his sternum would go away, but it worsened. Everything about this situation sucked to high holy hell. It threw him off his game, made him second-guess every damn decision he’d made since that first fucking night.
Even without Vince making a decibel of noise, Rafe knew I-Can’t-Keep-My-Fucking-Hands-to-Myself Franklin hovered at his flank. Ignoring the man’s presence, Rafe dropped onto an oversized boulder and meticulously spread out his guns.
Cleaning chambers and assessing trigger mechanisms were his version of therapy. They calmed him. They were methodical and precise. He tore off a piece of his shirt and scrubbed the barrel of his Glock hard enough to take off the shine.
“What the hell do you want, Franklin?” Rafe finally asked without glancing up.
“I’ve heard about Alpha Security,” Vincent said, his voice breaking the silence. “Even working on the civilian side, things get talked about. A lot of the world’s biggest badasses are serving time in jail, or otherwise, because of you guys.”
“We do our share.”
“So then tell me why a world-class organization would hire a world-class asshole such as yourself?”
“You said it yourself. I’m world-class.” Rafe had no intention of taking Vincent’s bait—until he turned away muttering Penny’s name under his breath.
Rafe jumped to his feet, hands bunched and ready for action. He’d been itching to go a good round or two ever since he saw the way Penny melded so naturally to the bastard’s side. “What the hell was that, Frankie?”
Vincent turned back in a flash and didn’t stop coming until their faces were inches apart. “I said that only a fucking moron would let Penny walk away. So, are you a moron, Ortega? You’re really going to sit back and watch the best thing that could ever happen to your fucking life walk the fuck out? Be a man. Go for what you want before you end up hurting her more.”
“Hurting Red is the last thing I want to do. Why the fuck do you think I’m trying to stay away?”
“And what the fuck do you think it’s doing to her the longer you do?” Vince retaliated before turning on his heel and stalking back toward the village.
Hostage extractions. Unraveling drug operations. That was what Rafe knew. Forming a relationship that required openness and communication…not so much.
Why the hell did he think he needed to stay away?
The answer to Vince’s question hit him like a cannonball to the gut.
Because he loved her too damn much to use her as a fucking experiment.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Even though the Forward Operating Base Mocoron meant Honduran military, American troops, and the DEA, the government facility wasn’t a synonym for safety. They all knew it, which was why the joking banter of the eight men surrounding Penny slowly morphed to focused, at-the-ready stances the closer they got to the base.
Sean, in the lead, raised his hand and brought everyone to a dead stop. Safeties clicked off. Guns lifted. Her own awareness heightened, Penny slipped the 9mm from her waistband and waited.
“Easy, Red. Stay by me.” Rafe drew her closer to his side.
She wasn’t about to argue. Especially when with nearly no warning, chaos erupted from every angle as a dozen green camo–wearing men stepped straight out from the jungle, their high-powered rifles pointed in their direction.
“Drop your weapons,” the closest of the newest arrivals demanded. “Drop your weapons now!”
“You’re going to have to do fucking better than that, my friend,” Sean snapped back, no more lowering his rifle than did the rest of the team. “Why don’t you lot lower your weapons first?”
The soldier studied Sean through narrowed eyes. Each second that ticked by brought Rafe closer to Penny’s side. Eventually, he’d gotten so close that she could feel the flex of his muscles when he regripped his gun. A tense minute later, with no one eager to be the first to stand down, another man stepped out of the throng.
This one wasn’t wearing a uniform. In fact, with slicked-back blond hair and a clean-cut black suit, the thirtysomething man ridiculously contrasted with everyone else’s grime-covered appearances.
His gaze momentarily rested on Penny before scanning the men around her. “You must be the notorious Alpha Security,” he said in English. “I’m glad that we finally found you.”
“And who the hell are you?” Rafe still didn’t lower his gun.
With a too-white smile on his face, the man tossed Rafe his badge and credentials. “I’m Special Agent Royce Collins. American Drug Enforcement Administration. My superiors just patched me through to a coworker of yours—a charming woman with the mouth of a trucker. I believe her name was Charlie She’s-Not-Giving-Me-Her-Bloody-Last-Name.”
“You’re the AIC in Mocoron?”
“Special agent in charge,” Collins emphasized. He turned toward the soldier who’d first demanded they lower their weapons. “Lieutenant Ramón, if you and your men will please holster your weapons…let’s show our guests a bit of hospitality, shall we?”
It took a few seconds for Lieutenant Ramón to bark the order to his men, but then they started doing as directed. Collins, looking pleased with himself, nodded toward the direction in which they’d been heading. “If you all will follow me, I’ll show you to our humble dwellings.”
* * *
Tucked into the wildlife of the Miskito jungle with meager personnel, the Honduran outpost didn’t look like the first line of defense in the Central American drug war. Only a few dozen Honduran soldiers littered the grounds, some in guard shacks while others walked the fence line with security dogs. Notably fewer in number, American uniforms and plainclothes DEA agents came in and out of unidentified, flat-front buildings. Tallied, the numbers couldn’t have reached more than sixty.
It surprised Rafe that Fuentes hadn’t yet assumed control of the entire fucking world if this was his opposition.
Special Agent Collins buzzed them into a modest single-level structure. The layout was comparable to the spokes of a wheel, with the main hub housing a single desk, computer, and an aging man with a scowl.
Collins nodded to the guard before leading them down one of the narrow corridors. “I have to admit I was surprised to hear your agency was called into Honduras, and more than surprised to hear it less than an hour ago from my superiors.”
“I guess they felt the more eyes and ears they had on the ground, the better.” Stone returned the agent’s strained smile. “After all, we’re all on the same team.”
“Yes, but things run differ
ently here than in the private sector. As much as I’d love to, we can’t just storm the Fuentes distribution hub and call it a day. One fuckup and the Honduran people would be on their own with him, and you could probably imagine the horrific things that would happen if we weren’t here to run interference.”
Rafe intercepted Stone’s sideways glance with a faint nod, signaling he caught on to the oddity of the agent’s statement, too. They’d been down here for months with an operational goal of finding Fuentes’s operational base, and this unlucky bastard just alluded to the fact that they already knew where the hell it was.
Stone lasered his scowl in Collins’s direction. “Can you explain to me again why it is that you haven’t invaded his distribution hub the moment you located it? The longer you wait to shut the bastard down, the more chance you give him to ship Freedom to the States.”
Collins turned to give Stone the full brunt of his snarl. “In case you haven’t noticed, things here are rather sparse. I can’t produce people out of thin air, and I can’t rewrite their fucking job descriptions. And I sure as hell can’t make up my own damn rules. Both my hands and my balls are fucking tied.”
Rafe slid up next to his boss. “Then I guess it’s a good thing Alpha owns all of their own appendages. We don’t play by anyone’s rules except our own. The longer that bastard stays free, the more time he has to fuck with people’s lives.”
Hostilities inflated on both sides. Rafe snuck a look toward Penny and immediately battled the urge to give her hand a reassuring squeeze. He knew she was thinking of Rachel. He wanted to find her, too—for Penny, for himself. In giving her back her family, he’d be making her happy, and that’s all he wanted.
And more importantly, knocking heads and kicking down doors was in his scope of practice. Everything else hovered over his head like a two-ton question mark.
* * *
Mountains of video feeds—scoured. Entrance and exit routes both for their own use and for Fuentes’s—identified. Logan even shopped at the base’s surprisingly well-stocked arms room like a pimply-faced teen in a video game store. The clock to Fuentes’s destruction slowly started ticking down.
Once they handed Fuentes over to the proper authorities—or peppered his carcass with bullets—Rafe would be off to the next mission and Penny could move on with her life with Rachel by her side. It’s what was best. Still, each time Rafe thought about it, he wanted to ram his fist through the wall.
Body still damp from his shower, he heard the first hesitant knock. Any one of the guys would’ve rattled the door on its hinges or burst their way through it altogether, so he knew before opening it who stood on the other side. Knowing it and being prepared for it were two entirely different things. Rafe opened the door and immediately felt like he’d been sucker-punched in the gut.
Penny had obviously made use of her own quarters. Her hair hung damp around her shoulders, and her cheeks were pink with a healthy glow. Even in unisex olive drab BDUs, she looked so damn touchable he had to cross his arms over his chest to prevent himself from reaching out.
“I-I’m sorry if I caught you at a bad time,” she stammered softly. The badass commando look contrasted with the uncertainty etched on her face. Her eyes roamed over his bare chest, lingering on the towel secured around his waist.
He braced a shoulder on the jamb of the open door and pretended he wasn’t already at half-mast. “It’s only a bad time if you’re going to plead a case to go along on the Fuentes raid.”
She glanced away with a sheepish smile. “I’m more than willing to let the professionals do their work. I’m only wearing this because it was all they had that didn’t smell like jungle. Can I come in for a minute? This isn’t exactly a conversation I’d like to have in the middle of the hall.”
At the base of her throat, Rafe saw her heart rate flutter double time. It would probably be in both their best interests for him to shut the door…with her on the other side of it. As it was, it was going to take him until wheels up to get his head on straight. Having her standing in front of him in the flesh would make that deadline a million times harder, but not meeting it wasn’t an option. This particular operation was too damn important to fuck up.
Rafe stepped aside to let her into the room but kept as wide a berth as possible. “What’s on your mind, Red? If you’re worried about Rachel, all I can say is that if she’s there, we’ll get her out.”
She nervously wrung her hands together. “I know. It’s not actually about the op. I know you guys will get to her.”
He waited, eyebrows arched.
“I guess I just wanted to talk to you…before you left.”
“Why? Think I’m not going to make it back?”
She stopped fidgeting and tightened her beautiful mouth in a humorless scowl. “That is not funny.”
“Wasn’t meant to be.”
“You’re not making this easy,” she grumbled.
Her newly acquired boots clunked on the hard floor as she paced his small quarters. She started and stopped a few times before coming to a final halt close enough for him to smell the clean scent of soap. An errant strand of strawberry hair caught itself in her long lashes, and his hand automatically reached out to rescue it.
The entire room pulsed at the contact. Fuckin’ A. Keeping his damn hands to himself wasn’t possible. Before he knew it, he ran the backs of his knuckles up her cheek and savored the feel of her tilting her head into his touch—right until she started to pull away.
“You know what? Never mind. I made a mistake in coming here,” she mumbled, turning away.
“The hell you did.” He caught her arm and spun her around. She landed against his chest with a thump, and the second their bodies collided, heat spread through him from head to toe. “You came here to say something. Say it.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Have I ever given you the impression that I like to be ordered around like a Labradoodle? Stop. Stay. Talk. If you ever decide to hang up your Glock for good, you could have a very lucrative career in dog training.”
“Red,” he growled in warning.
He expected another smart-mouthed comeback, and instead, she wilted in front of him. There was no other way to describe the sudden stooped shoulders or the weary-eyed look fogging her eyes. At least when she was spitting venom in his direction, he knew to either give it back or fuck it out of her. But at the quiver of her lips, he didn’t know what to do…and that scared the ever-lovin’ shit out of him.
On reflex, he threaded his fingers through hers and held on for as long as he could. “You’d be doing us both a favor if you got right down to the point of your visit, sweetheart.”
Tears began welling in her eyes, but she held them at bay. “I just wanted to tell you that you have so much more to offer a woman than you realize or give yourself credit for. I hope that when you find that special one who completes your life, you’ll follow your heart first and figure the rest out later, because if anyone deserves to be happy, you do.”
Goddamn, it hurt to breathe. Each inhale stuck in Rafe’s throat, collecting until his chest threatened to explode. A voice inside his head screamed that she was that woman, the one who rounded him out, brought things out in him he hadn’t known were missing. She made him believe in things he hadn’t thought about since he was a child dropped into the foster-care system—a family to protect and cherish, and the support that came with it.
The only thing keeping him from purging his thoughts and acting on his hungry greed was knowing he couldn’t give her the long-term safety and security she deserved. “You’re an incredible woman, Penelope Lucky Kline. And you almost make me believe it.”
“Then I guess my work here is done.”
Done. Final. The fucking end.
Rafe’s chest fucking ached. Actually, an ache would’ve been welcomed. It felt like he’d been gutted and set on fire. Consumed by a rush of pain the likes of which he’d never felt before, he reached for the only thing that had the ability to take it away.
> Penny.
He meant it to be a fleeting, chaste kiss. But he felt nothing innocent when it came to her. Or fleeting. When he dropped his mouth onto hers, one brush of his tongue against the seam of her lips was all it took for her to open to him—and to realize that he was goddamned tired of doing the right thing.
If she had even the slightest reservations about the direction in which they were heading, she’d have to be the one who took the initiative to end it, because he sure as hell couldn’t, not with the feel of her in his hands.
“You have no idea how bad I wish I could be the man you think I am,” Rafe murmured against her soft skin, diverting his mouth down her neck until he reached the sexy dip of her shoulder.
Penny captured his face between her palms and forced him to look her square in the eye. “I don’t think you’re him. I know it. And most importantly, you’re the man I need, Rafe.”
She grazed her lips along his jaw and whispered into his ear, “Let me show you how much I need you.”
Rafe wasn’t strong enough to say no. He slid a hand over her ass and encouraged her to wrap her legs around his waist. The second she did, his engorged cock twitched a welcome. He needed every inch of her against every inch of him. No clothing. No barriers. Just Penny’s bare skin gliding over his.
He walked them blindly toward the bed, kissing her down to the mattress. Her red hair fanned out across the pillowcase, making her look like his best dream come to fruition. “You’re so fucking beautiful, Red.”
Rafe slid his hands beneath the stiff cotton of her shirt and up the silky skin of her torso. He dropped his mouth, kissing his way across her ribs until he reached the first bra-covered nipple. And then in a move that had her arching into his touch, he captured the bud between his lips and gave it a gentle tug.
“Mm. So responsive,” Rafe hummed.
