The men climbed into the Humvee, laughing as the vehicle headed over to the chow hall. When they got there, Matt found a seat in the middle of a section of long tables and chairs spread across the huge area. The room could hold four thousand hungry men and women at any given time. Right now, because there was going to be a USO Thanksgiving show, it was standing room only.
Matt didn’t care about the show—he just wanted to wolf down a helluva lot of food. Sometimes it was good, often it sucked, but at least it was hot, and that was all he cared about. The whole team sat together, having managed to find six seats at the head of one table nearest where the show was going to take place.
Sometimes it paid to be black ops.
By the time he was on his fifth cup of hot coffee, and he’d eaten, Matt felt better, but he was still exhausted, despite the caffeine and hot food. He really wanted to go sleep off that hellish mission, but looking over at his men, all Army sergeants, he realized that they were all his brothers, and smiled. All but one were single. And while there were women at Bagram, most of them were married, engaged, or otherwise taken by some lucky bastard on the Army base.
He pushed his fingers through his thick brown hair, pushing it off his shoulder. As Delta Force, they all grew beards and kept their hair long to fit into the Muslim culture. That way, they could blend in, not stand out. But compared to the military assigned to this base—all clean-shaven, their hair short—the operators stood out like sore thumbs. It didn’t take a genius to recognize that a guy with a beard and long hair was black ops.
Beau sat beside him and looked at the watch on his wrist. “Any minute now,” he told everyone gleefully, grinning widely, his Southern drawl charged with excitement.
Matt looked at the “stage” that had been hastily put together. The floor was white-and-green tile, highly polished, throughout the chow hall. Someone had strung red and green crepe paper in a semicircle between the chow line and the tables. The half circle denoted the area where the women would put on their show. Matt had attended it every year.
Most international charity organizations had left Afghanistan, but about seven remained. Their volunteers now stayed at Bagram at night, where it was safe. During the day, the volunteers, mostly women, would be driven by van or car into Kabul, where they helped the poor, the orphaned, and the homeless.
It was a noble calling, and Matt admired any woman who would put her life at risk in this godforsaken place. He figured those women volunteers had a set of balls on them to brave Kabul for six months to a year before returning stateside or heading off to some other third-world place where their charity was needed.
Beau rubbed his hands. “This is like dessert,” he drawled.
Matt nodded, finishing off the last cup of coffee, sliding it back onto the white surface of the table. “I don’t get it,” he said. “Aren’t you tired? You aiming at trying out for the Superhuman of the Year award?”
“Hell, no. Just getting to see this many women in one place turns me on!” He punched Matt in the shoulder. “This is a turkey gift for us, bro.”
“Yeah,” Matt said, nodding, crossing his arms, and leaning back. He knew his men looked forward to this, but for him, it was a reminder of what he was missing with his family.
Tal wasn’t here. She was out on some Hindu Kush mountain in a hide, freezing her ass off tonight, waiting for a HVT, a high-value target. Alexa was flying right now; he’d called over to her squadron to find out if she’d landed or not. She hadn’t, so she’d miss this show. Matt was a family man to the core, and the fact that he would be spending Christmas with Tal and Alexa raised his spirits.
He looked up as a woman in her forties, dressed in a bright orange blouse and long brown skirt, came out with a microphone in her hand. She waved and smiled at the four thousand in the audience, and the applause was thunderous. Everyone was eager to see this show.
“Hi, everyone! I’m Maggie Johnson with the Hope Charity. Happy Thanksgiving! We have ten acts tonight for you. Yes, ten! And while none of us can go home for Turkey Day,” she said, her brown eyes sparkling with excitement, “the USO has teamed up with the ladies of our international charities who work in Kabul, and they’re happy to bring you a little taste of home. Like you, they’re far from their families, but they’ve worked long and hard on their presentations tonight, just to lift your spirits.”
Matt sat there, eyes half closed, feeling himself begin to nod off. It wasn’t that he didn’t appreciate Maggie, her obvious enthusiasm, or her heartfelt desire to make a difference for the military stuck here. It was just that he was so damned dog-tired.
“Now, our first presentation is a sister act, and I know you’re going to love them! Callie McKinley is one of a terrific group of women who takes care of the orphans in Kabul. Her sister, Dr. Dara McKinley, is a pediatrician who donates some time every year to come help us out. Tonight, this sister act is going to set this place on fire!”
Matt seriously doubted that. In past USO shows, some women had sung, performed in a string quartet playing classical music no one recognized, or done a dancing act. While he had an appreciation of the arts in general, it just wasn’t something that got his blood pumping. His head fell forward, chin almost on his chest, and his mind started to drift off into the zone just before sleep.
“Dara and Callie are belly dancers!” Maggie crowed.
The entire chow hall erupted into loud hoo-yahs, clapping and wolf-whistling.
Matt jerked awake. He scowled, rubbing his face. What? Belly dancing! No way. He stared irritably at a smiling Maggie in her fall-colored outfit.
“Hey,” Beau said, jabbing him in the ribs. “Did you hear that? Belly dancers! God, I’ve died and gone to heaven!”
“In your dreams,” Matt muttered irritably.
“Seriously, bro. You were half-asleep a minute ago. Now look at you,” Beau howled, slapping Matt good-naturedly on the back.
“… and the sisters will be performing Turkish belly dancing,” Maggie was explaining. “It’s different from Egyptian or other types of belly dancing.”
Turkish belly dancing? Now, that got Matt’s full attention. He’d spent his summers until age eighteen in Kuşadası, Turkey, where his three wealthy uncles had villas. He was very familiar with belly dancing because it was beloved throughout the country, and he’d seen professional dancers perform many times over the years.
Straightening up, his arms fell to his sides. Seriously? These two women were going to perform as belly dancers? Matt could feel the electricity in the chow hall amp up. It felt like a fifty-thousand-watt bolt of lightning had just slammed into the place. The men were focused, all eyes on that hastily created platform where the acts would perform. The anticipation ratcheted up, the tension palpable.
Matt felt as if a pack of wolves were waiting for those two sweet lambs to come out onstage. God, this place was going to explode, he thought, looking around.
“Now, please welcome the McKinley sisters! Dara is in the red costume and Callie in the purple one,” Maggie shouted, moving offstage, gesturing toward the other end.
Matt’s eyes narrowed as he saw two women come running like sleek, beautiful gazelles from behind the chow-hall-line wall. His heart thudded hard in his chest as the taller one, her blond hair long and halfway down her back, barefoot and wearing a red and gold belly-dancing costume, came out first.
Holy shit! She was gorgeous! His mind went from getting sleep to an intense focus on the woman’s tall, lithe body. Her arms were long and sinuous, her slender hands clapping zills—small finger cymbals—her movements slow and graceful.
Behind her, a second woman dressed in a purple belly-dancing outfit was playing a Turkish flute. She had red hair and was about two inches shorter than her sister. Her hair was up on top of her head in a ponytail, long and brushing down below her shoulder blades. Both sisters were beautiful, but Callie, in the purple, had a special radiant look, her cheeks flushed, her huge green eyes sparkling. She was like sunlight, drawing most of
the male attention straight to her.
The women were barefoot and moved with ease and grace. Callie stood off to the side playing her flute, while Dara, with a seductive smile, glided toward the center of the stage. The men quieted. Matt swore he could hear a pin drop in the place as every set of male eyes was riveted on the belly dancers.
His gaze swung to Dara, the physician. For whatever reason, he was drawn powerfully to her. Her golden hair was loose and free, flowing with her as she walked, with her toes pointed, doing a hip snap to the left and then one to the right. Her costume wasn’t skimpy, like some he’d seen, but her long torso and abdomen were bare, showing him every movement she made in time with the slow tempo of the flute.
To Matt, she looked like a modern-day Wonder Woman. Her headband captured her honey-colored hair with its caramel and wheat streaks. Her costume was decorated with glittering gold sequins stitched into the red velvet fabric. The colors emphasized her large blue eyes and a lush mouth that was getting him hard. She wore light makeup and a red lipstick that matched the bright red velvet of her top.
Thin gold and red straps held her halter in place around her slender neck, with gold sequins glittering in arcs over her hidden breasts. The red velvet hinted at their fullness as gold coins swung from long red beads at the end of each one.
As Dara performed in a slow circle, her hands clicking those zills, she continued to do hip-snapping rolls. The men were now shouting, clapping, and whistling. Matt liked her V-shaped skirt. It plunged from her hips down to her lower belly, hiding her long legs beneath its swirling, moving folds.
Completing her outfit were gold cuffs with red velvet on each wrist, the zills flashing gold, their sharp tings keeping time with the beat of the flute.
Matt’s heart was pounding hard as he sat there, tense, hands on his thighs. He couldn’t believe this woman was a physician! As she completed the circle, the beat quickened a little, and he saw her come to a pause, her long arms moving before her, fingers pointed downward.
Matt grinned, aware that belly dancing was the most sensual dance a woman could perform. It was like watching her make slow-motion love with an invisible male lover. Of course, when he was a boy, he had been awed by belly dancing and didn’t know why. The music just mesmerized him. But once he was a teen caught up in the raging-hormone stage, he understood it in spades.
Matt knew that professional belly dancers loved the art of the dance, its demanding athleticism, and the fact that there was so much more to it than the men in this chow hall could ever imagine. He could appreciate Dara on so many levels that he’d have been a fool to lie to himself.
There was no way, as she swung her hands in a wrist wave, first in front of her and then her hips rolling as she lifted her arms high above her head, to stop the testosterone from flooding his entire body. Just like every man in this chow hall was feeling about now.
The flute music became stronger, floating over the silent crowd of frozen males, all their gazes riveted on Dara as she swung back and forth, swaying her long, sinuous body to a beat that was increasing in tandem with the music, becoming faster and louder.
As Matt watched Dara perform a large hip circle, the men broke out in catcalls, yelling, shouting their excitement, urging her do it again. And then he watched her perform the demanding chest lift and belly drop, which left every man in the room openmouthed.
As Dara swayed, her arms like fluid water, her slender hands flowing, he saw her move into one of the dance’s most sinuous parts: an upper-body undulation.
Matt watched as Dara lifted her chest, those coins flashing, clashing, glittering, and leaned back, her arms floating upward so everyone could see the amazingly beautiful movement. It looked as if she had taken the letter “S” and as she lifted her chest, sank her abdomen against her spine. And as she slowly came out of the curved position, she then eased upward, allowing her abdomen to relax and pooch forward. This movement created an undulation that drove him crazy. At this point, the audience was on fire!
Matt’s mouth went dry as Dara walked to one end of the stage, still driving the men to damn near insanity with the beauty and grace of her powerful, athletic movements. Her hair swung and gleamed beneath the lights, a golden cloud around her shoulders as she whirled around, the skirt of chiffon shifting in many layers, her arms and hands in ceaseless movement, as if she were flying on invisible wings. Those zills became loud as she clacked them together. They flashed as the gold coins swung and swayed from her halter and that fierce hip movement made the skirt’s gold and red waistband gleam and blaze.
And then, abruptly, the flute stopped. Dara collapsed, kneeling, her head pressed to the floor, her long arms out in front of her.
The hall went ballistic with roars, cheers, clapping, and hooting.
Matt grinned as he watched Dara slowly get up, every movement sheer grace and fluidity. She reminded Matt of that Anatolian leopard his sister Tal had described seeing at one of the national parks in Turkey—sleek, sinuous, and so damned sexy his whole lower body was one big, throbbing ache.
As Dara walked toward her sister, she smiled and waved to all of them. Callie had left the stage and returned with a high four-legged stool in one hand and a Turkish drum in the other.
Matt recognized it as a bendir drum, sometimes used by musicians who played for the belly dancers. The drum easily established a primal rhythm for them. The bendir looked authentic. It was covered with real animal hide and had an old-fashioned silver inlay design around the wooden frame.
Dara took a seat on the stool, holding the bendir in her right hand with a beater in her left one. This is going to be good, Matt thought. But his gaze was on Dara, not Callie. It wasn’t that Callie wasn’t beautiful and sparkling, reminding him of champagne bubbling from the top of a bottle. She certainly was.
But Dara? His whole body, his pounding heart, and his soul were focused upon her.
And as Callie began her own sensuous dance in her glittering purple and silver outfit, one that made her red hair move in time with the drumbeat, Matt could think only of Dr. Dara McKinley.
He sat there, tapping his foot in time with the drumbeat as it started out slowly at first, but then went faster and faster. He could see Dara’s blue eyes gleaming with joy as she watched her sister perform. He ignored the catcalls, the whistles, the yells and shouting as Callie danced faster and faster, amping up the pulse of every man in the place.
His gaze was fastened on Dara’s hair, gold and gleaming, perfectly framing her face, her cheeks flushed from her recent dance.
Then his eyes moved to her mouth. Matt groaned inwardly, wanting to taste those wide, smiling lips beneath his own. He wasn’t a fool. He knew that every single guy in this room was lusting after these two women. How could they not? A belly dance was one helluva Thanksgiving gift!
He grinned, watching his fair-haired physician playing the drum with such energy and heart. Was she married? He saw no ring on her left hand, but then she could have taken it off for the dance routine. Did she have a bunch of kids? After all, she was a pediatrician and probably had a passion for babies.
No, Matt didn’t want her to be married. He didn’t want her to have children, either. Of course, this was all a part of the fantasy Dara had created, that she was dancing for each individual man there.
But for Matt, Dara’s belly dancing brought back so many warm memories of his childhood, and the summers spent in Turkey with his life-loving family, that it made him deeply homesick.
Matt’s mind spun with options, plans, strategies. He glanced around, knowing that every man here was going to try to hit on these two women after the show. He also knew there were rooms down the hall where the USO dancers and singers changed into their show costumes and then back into their regular clothes. Most of these men knew that, too.
He wanted to meet Dara, and he had no hesitation about making it happen. But if he tried to beat the others to the rooms where Dara and Callie were changing, it would be hopeless. The hall would be c
rowded with lust-filled men wanting to see them, ask them out, and score.
Rubbing his beard, he slowly got up and moved between two of the long tables. No one even bothered to look up as he passed them by, because they were completely focused on Callie’s dancing. The bendir’s throbbing beat reverberated throughout the chow hall.
As Matt slipped to the rear, walking quickly toward the double doors that led outside, he went into total stealth mode. There was really little need, as every man’s gaze was riveted on Callie. He reached the doors and pushed them open.
The night air was cold, the wind biting and gusty. The stars glittered overhead, as if dancing in time with the drumbeat, as he headed down the wide concrete walk toward the asphalt road.
Turning to the left, Matt saw ten vans lined up, each representing a different charity or USO group. He was sure they were there to take the performing women back to their B-huts after the show.
Slowing his pace, eyes narrowed, the night closing in on him, Matt checked out the side panel on each van. Then, about halfway down the row, he saw the words “Hope Charity” in bright red letters.
Matt moved around the front of the van to the driver’s side. Sitting there was a half-awake Afghan driver.
“Hey,” Matt called, patting the frame of the opened window with his hand. “I need some info.”
The young man jerked upright, slightly dazed. He rubbed his eyes. “What? Is something wrong?” he asked in uncertain English.
“No, nothing’s wrong,” Matt assured him, keeping his hand on the van’s door. “What’s your name?”
“Mohammed, sir,” he replied, looking nervous.
“Nice to meet you. Hey, I need to know if you’re the driver for Dara and Callie McKinley.”
“Yes, sir, I am.” He pushed his rolled hat back on his head, concern on his face. “Are they well? Is something wrong?”
Forged in Fire (Delos Series Book 3) Page 2
