Forged in Ash (A Red-Hot SEALs Novel)

by Trish McCallan

  “You may not be on rotation, but you are in the middle of a battle,” she reminded him quietly, letting the weight of her words get to him instead of the volume. “Your team could have used you today.”

  He went still, intense—his gaze focused inward.

  “And what happens if Mac misjudged? What happens if this Pachico ringer circles back? Attacks here instead of falling into Mac’s trap? Is your leg strong enough if you need to rely on it?”

  He twitched at that. Swearing beneath his breath, he raked his hands through his hair and swung around to face her. “I’m carrying. We’ll have to rely on that.”

  But then he swore again and threw himself into the recliner. From the frustrated anger on his face, she knew she’d won.

  “Fine. You want to burn yourself out. Be my guest.” He watched her approach, sheer bad temper flashing in his eyes. “And don’t think I didn’t catch how you manipulated me there.”

  She shrugged. “Everything I said was the truth. You wouldn’t be letting me try this if it wasn’t.”

  He just glared back.

  Settling on her knees in front of him, she pushed his sweatpants leg up, exposing a compression sleeve over his knee. Since she needed bare skin, the sleeve had to go. But it was too tight to roll up over his thigh, so she unlaced his boot and took it off, then rolled the compression sleeve down his hairy calf and off his broad foot.

  An unwelcome tingling sparked in places she didn’t want to concentrate on. This felt far too much like undressing him. Her gaze drifted up his legs; the material of his sweats didn’t look nearly as loose in the crotch as they had before. And then she saw his hands clamp onto the armrests of the chair. His fingers turned white and dug into the leather.

  The thick sultry charge of arousal crackled in the air around them. Her muscles tightened. So did his. The hair on her arms lifted. So did his.

  Okay…this was obviously one of the stupidest ideas she’d ever had.

  “Problem?” There was pure challenge in his rough, aroused voice.

  Yeah, stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

  “Not”—she paused to cough the huskiness out of her voice—“at all.”

  She laid her hands on his knee, and heat instantly swamped her, which would have been reassuring, except it was the wrong kind of heat.

  There was no gradual build to the hunger this time. Her body knew exactly what it felt like to have the hot, hard length of him lodged inside her. Exactly what it felt like to feel him on her and in her and driving her to the stars.

  And it wanted to feel him again. Inside of her. On top of her. Wrapped around her.

  Lust exploded, dragged her into an inferno of hunger, a fierce red mist that incinerated everything in its wake. Her reservations, her hurt, her caution—all were consumed by the eruption, until the only thing left was fervent need.

  Raw urgency.

  Heat swept up from her hands, into her arms and raced through her body in an electrifying, carnal flood, finally pooling in the throbbing, wet valley between her legs.

  Her core clenched, aching for the hard, fiery length of him.

  He groaned, his hands wrapping around her arms. One moment she was on her knees and the next she was straddling his lap, the bulge of his erection grinding into her mound, exactly where she needed the pressure the most. His fingers slipped into the loose strands of hair along the sides of her face, combing them out and then sliding around to the back of her head, and went to work unraveling the braid itself.

  The urgent press of his lips found hers. His tongue swept into her mouth as he pulled her down on top of him and rocked her against his erection.

  She opened her mouth wider, her tongue rubbing against his, and sank down, trying to appease the unbearable urgency by riding his erection.

  He groaned into her mouth, his musky, masculine scent swelling until she felt cocooned in it.

  Tearing his mouth from hers, he nipped the side of her neck and then soothed the sting with the stroke of his tongue.

  “Jesus. I want you. Worse than before.”

  Distantly, an alarm sounded. He didn’t sound pleased by that need.

  Another nip, higher up her neck. Another wet, languid stroke of his tongue. “You’re like a Goddamn drug. I’ll never get enough.”

  The alarm shrilled louder, harder.

  Pure frustration had been in that last comment, maybe even a hint of accusation.

  She started to pull away, but his arms tightened, dragged her closer. His hands swept up her back, inside her shirt. Their callused, hard strength launched an entire fleet of goose bumps in their skimming, skating wake. And then his teeth closed over the lobe of her ear and tugged. She quivered at the caress. When he drew the lobe into his mouth and suckled, she groaned and ground herself against his crotch.

  Somewhere behind her a metallic crash sounded.

  Lost in his taste and the feel of his mouth and hands against her skin—the sound barely registered in Kait’s passion-soaked mind.

  Cosky responded instantly.

  One second she was in his lap. The next they were both on their feet. He picked her up and set her to the side.

  Off balance and reeling, Kait shuffled to the left. Her unfocused gaze fell on the IV stand. It was lying half on, half off the coffee table. Cosky was already halfway across the living room, quickly gaining on a fleeing Jillian.

  Oh God.

  Embarrassment flooded her. She’d forgotten the other woman was even in the room.

  Cosky caught Jillian just as she reached the living room door. If the woman hadn’t knocked over the IV stand as she fled, she would have gotten away. God knows they hadn’t even noticed her get up.

  She could just imagine trying to explain to Commander Mackenzie how they’d let their prisoner get away. The humiliating image was still prickling in her mind when her cell phone started ringing.

  Cosky swung Jillian around as Kait picked up her phone.

  She checked the caller ID. WOLF. Thank you, God.

  Kait could hear Wolf shouting something as she raised the cell to her ear. But she couldn’t make out the words.

  “Wolf? What? I didn’t catch—”

  “Get out of the house.” His voice was a thunderous roar. “Get out now.”

  She didn’t question the command. Just dropped her arm and leapt for Cosky and Jillian.

  “Run,” she screamed.

  Robert had Phil on the line and was arranging to meet him for a quick bite—a very quick bite, in Phil’s case, since he’d be dead before consuming his last meal—when his caller ID started bleeping. After apologizing to Phil, he switched lines.

  “Gather your team and head back up to Seattle.” The voice was flat, completely expressionless.

  Robert froze, his blood chilling and chugging through his veins. “Sir?”

  The bomb hadn’t even gone off yet. How the hell had Manheim found out about it so soon?

  “Chastain’s widow has been digging into the lab explosion. She’s asking questions we don’t want answered. She needs to be silenced.”

  Robert released the breath he’d been holding and pinched the bridge of his nose, his mind scrambling. “Okay.”

  Sometimes lady luck dropped a diamond in your lap. When that happened, you grabbed it and ran.

  “We may have a bigger problem,” Robert said, trying to project a thoughtful tone. “Several of ST7’s members just converged on Rawlings and Simcosky’s condo. At least seven, possibly eight members. If Amy Chastain’s been in touch with Mackenzie…”

  He let his voice trail off. Let the inference work on Manheim, rather than pushing the connection and inviting suspicion.

  “You think they heard about the lab from her and they’re planning something?” Manheim asked, his voice jumping from flat to sharp.

  “It would make sense and explain this sudden convergence on the condo. We’ve never been able to get ears inside. But we have eyes outside, and they looked pretty damn grim going in. Reads like a strategy sessi
on. I was about to alert you.”

  Manheim hissed, the serpentine sound rolled down the line, thick with icy censure. “We cannot afford their interference.”

  “Yes, sir,” Robert let his voice fade, as though he were thinking. “We do have the fail-safe beneath the condo and with them all on site…perhaps—”

  “Do it.”

  Well, look at that. He’d barely had to bait the request.

  “You have the trigger?” Manheim asked, his voice returning to its habitual chilly flatness. “The bomb will silence the core group. You’ll still need to take your team to Seattle and handle Amy Chastain.”

  “Yes, sir, I’ll take care of it.”

  “See that you do.” The line went dead.

  For one long moment after the call ended, Robert just sat there, staring out the windshield in disbelief.

  Just like that, and he was back on top again.

  The bosses would never know that Jillian had resurfaced, because she’d perish in the explosion they had approved.

  As for Phil, well, hell, his buddy had just had a reprieve. Not that he’d known how close he’d come to spending eternity in an unmarked grave.

  He glanced at his watch. The bomb would detonate any moment. The timing would be off, but he could whitewash that easy enough—bombs could be tricky, they didn’t always arm exactly as planned.

  As for the SEALs who would escape the explosion…easy as pie to explain that screw up, he’d just tell Manheim the truth. The bastards had left the condo before it exploded.

  The bosses wouldn’t be pleased, but they could hardly blame him for that piece of unfortunate luck.

  He whistled, grinning out the windshield. Euphoria bubbled inside him. He could kiss Amy Chastain for handing him this out.

  Maybe he would, just before he killed her.

  His erection throbbing like a Goddamn abscess, which wasn’t exactly conductive to sprinting, Cosky grabbed Jillian and lifted her into his arms. She started to struggle, but seemed to think better of it. Freezing, she curled into his embrace instead.

  The good news was the door was right behind him. The bad news was his knee wasn’t up to running with his own weight on the line, let alone one hundred–plus pounds of extra weight clinging to his chest.

  He didn’t question Kait’s warning though. She’d proved to be unflappable, with a steady head on her shoulders. If she screamed run and bolted for the door, there was a reason behind it.

  So he flung open the living room door and took the steps two at a time, praying his knee wouldn’t explode beneath him. When he reached the sidewalk, Kait appeared beside him, her cell phone still clutched in her hand. They separated as they hit the driveway, racing between the cluster of cars and the sparse grass.

  To Cosky’s surprise, his knee held up just fine, not even a twinge as he abused the hell out of the healing joint. Likely that had a lot to do with the surge of adrenaline. No doubt he’d pay for this stunt later, after the adrenaline crash.

  He turned his head toward Kait as they converged again behind Aiden’s Mustang, and raced for the street. “What’s—”

  The condo exploded behind him.

  The force of the blast lifted him, flinging him forward. He twisted in midair and tried to take the impact with the pavement on his back, so he wouldn’t crush Jillian. He didn’t quite make it. He hit the pavement hard on his left shoulder and heard the pop of the joint dislocating. An instant later burning, gutting agony hit.

  Still, he managed to shield Jillian. She landed safely on top of him. He rolled as soon as he got his breath back, locked the agony in a compartment inside his mind, and pushed Jillian beneath him to protect her from the fiery chunks of debris raining down around them.

  The condo was ablaze behind them. The windows and door were gone. Burning debris rained down all around him.

  “Are you okay?” he asked Jillian, barely waiting for her shocked nod before struggling to his feet and pulling her up alongside him. They needed to get out of here, before whoever had set the bomb came back to finish the job.

  “Kait?” he roared, his body chilling as he caught sight of her several feet away. She lay prone on the pavement, her braid frosted with ash and smoldering.

  “I’m okay,” Kait gasped, pushing herself up on scraped hands and knees. From there she rose, although with quite a wobble, to her feet. Once upright, she turned to look behind her.

  She froze in shock, horror creeping over her face.

  Her right cheek was scraped and oozing pinpricks of blood. She was missing one shoe, and her shirt was all but shredded.

  Still, the sight of her upright and moving was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

  They’d been lucky. Two or three seconds longer in the condo and they’d be dead. And then there was the percussion blast. It could have easily broken their backs or necks. Not that they were out of the woods yet.

  The house hadn’t exploded on its own.

  Someone had planted a damn bomb.

  He went to grab his Glock from his waistband, only to remember he’d removed it in the condo. Which meant it was toast, along with the rest of his belongings.

  Rage sizzled through the shock. Son of a bitch. Some motherfucking asshole had just detonated everything he owned. Everything.

  Leaving him unarmed and vulnerable with two women to protect.

  And a fucking bum knee, although it was holding up remarkably well under the circumstances.

  He locked the shocked fury behind another compartment and focused on what needed to be done.

  They needed to retreat, and hole up somewhere safe.

  “Let’s go,” he yelled at Kait, but the command was consumed beneath the famished roar of the fire.

  Giving up on verbal communication, he wrapped an arm around Jillian’s waist and urged her forward. On reaching Kait, he touched her arm, choosing a spot that wasn’t oozing blood and scraped all to hell. She jolted at the brush of his fingers and swung to face him. Shock still rounded her mouth and eyes. She probably hadn’t even noticed the myriad aches and pains yet.

  “Oh, Cosky,” she said in a hushed, numb voice. “Your house.” Her gaze had the bright glossy look of shell shock. It dropped to the awkward drape of his arm and suddenly sharpened. “You’re hurt.”

  He brushed her concern aside. “We need to go. Now.”

  Kait finally seemed to come alive. She spun, but before they’d taken three or four steps, a black Escalade with tinted windows screamed to a stop beside them.

  “Go. Go,” Cosky roared, shoving Jillian toward Kait. He turned, determined to hold off whoever was in the SUV.

  The glossy black passenger door flew open.

  * * *

  Chapter Fifteen

  * * *

  MAC RAN A tense hand over his head and braced his hands on his hips. Rocking back on the heels of his boots, he scowled across the deserted parking lot. The place had been a produce shipping station before it had gone bankrupt and then was abandoned. Now it was a popular hangout for the addicted or homeless. The chain-link fence and dilapidated buildings dotting the property offered protection from the elements and the police.

  While the property was raided every once in a great while, and the filthy, lice-infested inhabitants hauled off; for the most part, the city of Coronado pretended the property didn’t exist.

  Which made it perfect for his purposes.

  The crumbling sheds, with their peeling white paint and termite-infested walls, were perfect for clandestine surveillance. His men were obscured by the teeming interior shadows.

  Detective Pachico, or at least the bastard pretending to be him, wouldn’t see his team until it was too late.

  If he showed up.

  Lifting his hand, Mac scowled down at his watch. The asshole should have been here by now.

  “The bastard’s blown us off,” Mac said grimly.

  From the somber expression stamped across Zane’s habitual calm face, his LC was thinking the same thing.
/>   But Zane, being the optimistic bastard he was, offered excuses. “Could be caught in traffic. Could have gotten a phone call.”

  “Yeah.” Mac didn’t believe it, but he glanced at his watch anyway. They could afford to hold steady a while longer.

  Silence beat the air between them as they waited. One minute. Three. Seven.

  The bastard was in the wind. Mac was sure of it. “If he made us, they’ve probably pulled the eyes.”

  Which meant they wouldn’t have anyone to grab and shake down for answers.

  Fuck, they’d been unceremoniously dropped back down to square one. Or close enough. Although they still had Jillian; maybe she’d prove more helpful once they had a chance to question her.

  “Goddamn son of a bitch.” Swiping a hand down his face, Mac gritted his teeth, fighting to hold the frustration in check. He could feel it swelling inside his chest, until he felt like a balloon on the verge of popping.

  If Pachico’s fucking ringer had bolted, if they’d pulled their fucking tag team, if Jillian didn’t cough up some answers that would lead somewhere—well, hell, they’d lost their three best chances of clearing their names and serving justice to the men responsible for McKay’s murder.

  When his cell rang, he plucked it from his belt and gave it a quick once-over.

  CALLER UNKNOWN.

  It could be anyone from Pachico calling to gloat, to Cosky asking for an update. That was the price of dealing with prepaid, untraceable cells, the caller ID sucked.

  Raising the phone to his ear, he hit talk and barked into the mouth piece, “Yeah.”

  “Commander Mackenzie?” A controlled feminine voice marched down the line.

  His fingers went rigid. So did his cock.

  If he hadn’t recognized her voice, he would have known exactly who was on the line by his dick’s instant reaction. Jesus fucking Christ, the damn thing had locked onto her voice like Pavlov’s dog had locked onto that damn bell. And now that he thought about it, the two shared other elements in common too—not only were they both man’s best friend, they were both driven by primal, instinctive impulses.