by Rachel Grant
“With Desta in US custody, couldn’t China just build a real desalinization plant? The US would look pretty foolish claiming fraud if the plant actually did what they promised.”
“Actually, that’s exactly what Savvy thinks they’ll do. Which would be a win for both Eritrea and Djibouti. But it means we can’t touch Imbert. Hell, he can come forward with information on the aquifer and be a national hero.”
“What’s going to happen to Desta?”
“Either he’ll come to heel and become the CIA’s toady, or he’ll quietly disappear.”
“Toady? The asshole was selling girls!” The idea that the man would escape swift and violent justice took her breath away. “He planned to steal a Blackhawk and sell it to China!” The personal affront, that he’d abducted her, didn’t even register on the top ten list of the reasons the man should suffer.
“He’ll pay for his sins. He’ll never be the king he believes he should be. But he might be useful as a puppet.”
She tilted her head back and closed her eyes. “Sometimes I hate this place.”
Pax kissed her cheek. “As much as I want to see you every day and hold you every night, I wouldn’t mind if you got your gorgeous ass out of Djibouti. I don’t think I’m going to breathe easy until you’re safe on American soil.”
“You promised me Rome.”
He smiled and lifted her fingers to his lips. “Hell yeah, I want Rome. But after that, I want you to hightail it to the US and wrap yourself in bubble wrap until I get home.”
She smiled at that. “I wonder what it would be like having sex on a bed made of bubble wrap?”
“Sounds like something we should research.”
He slid her index finger into his mouth and sucked on the tip. Her voice came out breathier than she intended. “How much longer do you have on this deployment?”
He released her finger but held on to her hand. “Six weeks.” He pulled a cell phone out of his pocket and pressed it into her palm. “I need to head back. I was told they plan to keep you on the ship for a few days, until they can cast your ankle. I probably won’t be able to visit again, so I got you this. At least we can text.” He leaned down and kissed her, openmouthed. Mind-blowing. Creating an instant sirocco-like vortex of heat. “I already sent you a few messages to get the conversation started.”
Pax waited near the helipad for the helicopter transporting Morgan back to the base to land. It had been five days since he’d seen her. The wound on her arm had shown signs of infection—not surprising considering the initial surgery had been far from sterile—and they’d kept her for as long as they could to be certain the antibiotics were effective. Tomorrow, she needed to be present in the field for the press conference at the Linus site. Immediately after the press conference, she would be whisked away to Landstuhl, Germany, where she would receive outpatient medical care at the US Army hospital while she finished writing her report.
They had twelve hours together before he would report to work, and she would need to pack and get ready for the press conference.
He was strangely nervous, standing in the hundred-degree heat, clutching a bundle of wilting flowers he’d paid a small fortune for. It had been a dozen years since he went on a date that mattered, and that had been with his ex-wife. He’d been all of twenty years old and full of himself.
Now he was older, wiser, and so much more aware of his failings.
He’d had confidence when it came to a fling—hell, it was easy when emotions weren’t on the line—but this was the start of something real, and he was fully aware he might not be worthy of the object of his affection.
The wind whipped up, a hot blast on the humid April evening, as the helicopter lowered to the ground. A few of the blossoms lost their heads, causing him to laugh at himself for the attempt at something normal in the world’s most abnormal courtship.
Morgan appeared as she was lifted out of the helicopter by a medic and every stupid doubt he carried vanished in the hot vortex created by the rotating blades.
Fuck she was magnificent, his blonde, badass centerfold with a PhD. His foul-mouthed fairy. His woman.
He ducked down and approached, meeting her under the slowing blades as she took a pair of crutches from a second medic and propped them under her arms. She grinned at the flowers but couldn’t carry them while on crutches. The medic handed Pax her bag, then shouted under the noise of the engine, “Take good care of her, Sergeant!”
Pax grinned. “Will do.”
Morgan waved to the medics, who jumped back inside the bird. Pax walked beside her as she hobbled on the crutches to his waiting vehicle. He dumped her bag and the lame flowers in the backseat as the helicopter took off behind them, whipping her unbound hair in a frenzy. He slipped an arm around her waist and lifted her off her foot. She dropped her crutches and wrapped her legs around his waist. Her bright green cast dug into his hip but he didn’t give a damn as he planted his mouth on hers.
Ah God. How he’d imagined this moment so many times over the last five days. Hell, eleven days, as he’d vividly imagined their reunion while she was missing as a way of keeping hope alive.
The helicopter was long gone before he raised his mouth from hers. “Do you want to have dinner first, or just go straight to your CLU?”
“We’d better eat. You’re going to need your strength, and once I have you alone and naked, there’s no way we’re leaving the privacy of my CLU.”
“Practical. I like that.”
She slid her hand over his erection. “Fuckable. I like that.”
He tilted back his head and laughed. He’d been crazy to be nervous. Being with Morgan was easy. The easiest thing he’d ever done. Perhaps that was why he’d never enjoyed dating. Never wanted to get serious again after the divorce. It had never been easy. Not like this.
They went to Barely North for dinner. Pax’s A-Team was there, in the center of the room, laughing and talking smack with the SEALs, making him worry they’d made a mistake in choosing the bar over the cafeteria. He didn’t want to share Morgan’s attention with anyone.
They found a quiet table in the corner. She ordered a tonic with lime, and he realized he’d never seen her drink alcohol. Crazy as he was about her, there was so much he didn’t know about Dr. Morgan Adler. “Do you drink?” he asked.
“Sure. I had a beer the night I was playing pool with Bastian. But I won’t drink tonight—the doc said alcohol won’t agree with some of my prescriptions, and I don’t intend to miss a moment of our limited hours together.”
He grinned. “We could always get dinner to go.”
She propped her cast foot on the seat across from her. “I don’t know. I’m sort of enjoying this buzz of energy. The anticipation of what’s to come, the agony of waiting.”
“You aren’t a dessert-first sort of woman?”
“I am. Sometimes. But not tonight. Tonight’s about savoring.”
Bastian the not-a-bastard-after-all appeared at their table, waving a black marker. “I get to be the first to sign your cast.”
She turned to Pax. “Do you mind if he’s first?”
He scowled at Bastian. “As long as he goes away, I don’t care.”
She and Bastian both laughed. “Sign away, Chief Ford.”
After Bastian, the SEALs and his Special Forces team came by twos and threes to sign Morgan’s cast. She enjoyed the attention, and at one point requested haikus, but he put the kibosh on that idea. Cal alone would spend an hour trying to come up with the perfect poem.
For his part, he felt a special sort of pride as he watched his teammates pay their goofy homage. She was his.
Their food had finally arrived when she leaned toward him and whispered, “So. Even though I knew I was clean of STDs, I asked the doc to run tests, just to be sure. The results came back, and I’m good to go.”
Pax jolted upright with attention. Other parts of him came to attention too. “My last round of tests—right before this deployment—all came up clean. You’re
the only person I’ve been with since then. I’m good. But what about birth control?”
“I’m on the three-month shot and was nearing the end of the coverage. The doc gave me another dose. We’re all set to go condom-free.”
He pulled out his wallet and dumped money on the table. “Time to go.”
She laughed and grabbed her crutches. “I haven’t eaten yet.”
He plucked their plates from the table. “Two dinners to go.”
“You’re just going to take the plates?”
“You’re right, we need silverware too.” He set down one plate and crammed forks and napkins into his pockets, then lifted the plate again. “Let’s go.”
She hobbled out of the bar in front of him. He caught the laughing grins of half his teammates as he passed their table. He was a damn lucky bastard, and they all knew it.
Because she was on crutches instead of walking, he set their food in the backseat of the SUV, and they drove the short distance to CLUville. When they reached her CLU, he placed the plates on the desk, then locked her door.
He turned to face the beautiful kickass woman of his dreams. “This is how we’re going to do this. I’m going to fuck your brains out. You can go down on me all you want, but I get to go down on you first, for like, an hour. Just promise me we won’t be interrupted by parents or trackers, and we’re good.”
She slipped her arms around his neck, shifting her weight from the crutches to his chest. “And if I don’t agree to those terms?”
Crap. She was on to him. “Fine, whatever you want. However you want it. You’re in charge. You always have been. Just please let me be inside you.”
She kissed him. “Are you kidding? I love it when you boss me around in bed. I never knew that would be such a turn-on. Every fantasy I’ve had since we made love involves you telling me exactly what to do to please you.”
He sucked in a deep breath and rose to his full height. “Lose the shirt.”
“That’s more like it.” She grinned and sat on her cot so she could use both hands to yank the shirt over her head, her movement slowed as the T-shirt caught on her bandage.
He knelt before her and tugged it free, then ran his fingers over the thick gauze, his touch so light, she wouldn’t feel it. He ran his lips over her shoulder and down to the top edge of the white band. “I’m so sorry,” he said.
She shrugged. “It’s just skin. The rest of me, the important parts, are intact.”
He cupped her face. “You’re amazing. You know that, right? I’m in awe of you. I want to make love to you, to show you exactly what you mean to me, but I’m afraid of hurting you.”
She kissed him, softly at first, then with growing heat. Her tongue slid along his, a taste of sweet, hot paradise. She pulled back and said, “I’m not made of glass. I want this. Hell, I need this. It’s an affirmation. I’m alive. You’re alive. We’re together. Good wins over evil. Love conquers all. I don’t give a damn what the cliché is, or even that it’s a cliché, because it’s how I feel. It’s real. It’s you and me, making love because we belong together, because we survived. Because you saved me.”
His eyes teared. “You saved you, Morgan. I just arrived in time to mop up.”
“Give yourself credit, you saved my ass. And for my part, I did what I had to do because I had something to live for. I held on to the thought of you the entire time I was captive. Because I wanted this.”
He grunted. “No pressure or anything.”
She laughed so hard, she grabbed her ribs. “Oh, God. That hurts.” And then she laughed some more.
He cupped her cheeks between his palms. “Okay, here’s how we’re going to do this. I’m going to make love to you slowly. I’m going to look in your eyes as I slide deep inside you. It’s going to be gentle and hot, and you’re going to come so hard, we might forget about your injuries for a moment and hope endorphins kick in and cover the pain. This will be the second of about a million times I’m going to make love to you, because you’re mine, for always and forever.”
She pressed her lips to his. “Works for me. Carry on, Sergeant.”
Author’s Note
My husband’s work as an archaeologist for the US Department of Defense has twice brought him to Djibouti. The archaeology of Djibouti has largely been unexplored and could well hold sites as interesting as the fictional Linus site described in this book.
As with archaeology, the geology of Djibouti has yet to be studied in depth. What I describe in this book is fiction but plausible in that in many areas no one really knows what lies beneath the rocky surface.
All descriptions of Camp Citron and Djiboutian government infrastructure and officials are completely fictitious.
Thank you for reading Tinderbox. I hope you enjoyed it.
If you’d like to know when my next book is available, you can sign up for my mailing list or visit my website. You can also follow me on Twitter or like my Facebook page. I’m also on Goodreads, where you can see what I’m currently reading.
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Acknowledgments
This book wouldn’t have been written if my amazing husband hadn’t been sent to Djibouti by the US Department of Defense, so I guess before I thank Dave, I need to thank his colleague for making the trip possible.
Thank you to Dave, for being my partner in life, a wonderful father, and for keeping me up-to-date on the world of archaeology. You keep me sane and make me happy every day.
Thank you to my agent Elizabeth Winick Rubinstein for asking me to start a new series, and for embracing this book. Working with you makes me a better writer.
Thank you to Gwen Hernandez, Kris Kennedy, Bria Quinlan, Carolyn Crane, and Anna Richland for your valuable critiques. Your feedback made the book so much stronger. Special shout out and thanks to Gwen and Anna for helping with the military details. I’d be lost without you both.
Thanks to authors Darcy Burke, Elisabeth Naughton, Jenn Stark, Serena Bell, and Toni Anderson for being there for me online and in person when I have a quick question or just need a friend. You keep this profession from being lonely without the need to put on pants and leave the house.
To my readers, thank you for all the wonderful emails, Tweets, and posts. It means so much to me to know my work brings you joy.
Thank you to my children for making me Lego book trailers, sewing my costumes, making book swag for giveaways, and for being amazing people I’m lucky to share my life with.
Lastly, I again thank my husband for the long plotting walks, background information on everything imaginable, and for your endless love and support. Thanks for sharing this life adventure with me.
About the Author
Four-time Golden Heart® finalist Rachel Grant worked for over a decade as a professional archaeologist and mines her experiences for storylines and settings, which are as diverse as excavating a cemetery underneath an historic art museum in San Francisco, survey and excavation of many prehistoric Native American sites in the Pacific Northwest, researching an historic concrete house in Virginia, and mapping a seventeenth century Spanish and Dutch fort on the island of Sint Maarten in the Netherlands Antilles.
She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and children and can be found on the web at www.Rachel-Grant.net.
