Danger and Desire: A Romantic Suspense Anthology

by Kimberly Kincaid

  “More?” he questioned.

  “Please,” she begged.

  He swirled his finger around that nubbin of flesh, and then replaced his finger with his tongue, flicking it, knowing the exact pressure that set her off every time.

  Her body tightened, her blood sizzled through her veins. Everything he did led up to one last important flick of his tongue that sent her flying over the edge.

  Kylie gasped, grabbed his hair and held him there as he flicked, licked and strummed her like a musical instrument.

  He didn’t let up as she rode the wave of her orgasm to the very last throb. Kylie collapsed against the mattress, completely sated.

  Mac chuckled, climbed up her body and lay down beside her, pulling her close.

  She sighed. “How do you do that? You know the exact spot, the exact thing that makes me come apart every time.”

  He bent to nuzzle her earlobe. “Because I know you. Every inch of you.”

  Kylie nestled her head inside the crook of his shoulder, laying her cheek against his chest. She flung one of her legs over his and pressed her sex against his thigh, loving the way his hair was rough against her. God, it felt good to be close to him, skin to skin. She’d missed this so much.

  He stroked her arm, her hip and the small of her back, pressing her closer to him.

  Tired from being up all night, Kylie fell asleep, secure in his arms.

  She slept hard and didn’t wake until a couple hours later. When she opened her eyes, light still streamed through the window, but it was getting dim. It must have been getting close to the eighteen hundred meeting time the guys had agreed upon.

  Kylie reached out for Mac but the space beside her was empty. She sat up and looked for him.

  Mac stood with his back to the window, staring at her. “Yup, you’re even more beautiful than you were when we were younger.”

  She lay naked against the sheets while he was fully dressed. “Hey, that’s not fair.”

  He grinned. “What’s not fair?”

  “You’re dressed. I’m not.” She patted the bed beside her. “Come back to bed.”

  He shook his head. “No, I can’t. It’s getting close to six, and I promised the guys I’d meet up with them to talk about what to do for dinner.”

  She lowered her lashes and gave him a sexy smile. “You can send them out for food and come back for round two…”

  He crossed to the bed, gathered her into his arms and captured her lips in a long, slow kiss that rocked her world. “I like the way you think.”

  “Do you think they could stop by a drug store and purchase some protection?” she asked.

  He laughed. “No way. I’d never hear the end of it.”

  She pouted. “Such a shame.” Leaning closer to his ear, she whispered, “I would’ve liked feeling you inside me. All the way inside me.”

  “Damn, woman, you’re tempting.” He smoothed a finger along the side of her cheek and down the length of her neck.

  “Rucker looks like the responsible one,” she said, her voice catching as his fingers brushed across one of her breasts. “Why don’t you ask him?”

  “I might just do that. In the meantime, you might want to get dressed. The guys will give me hell if I open the door and they see you lying in bed naked.” He chuckled. “They already want to trade places with me.”

  She pulled the sheet up over her chest. “Not interested in them,” she said. “Now, you, are an entirely different matter.” With a wink she tossed back the sheet, swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood. “But if it makes you feel better, I’ll get dressed.”

  “Trust me, it doesn’t make me feel better. It makes me hard seeing you strut around the room wearing nothing but that sexy smile of yours.” He caught her and pulled her body up against his fully clothed one.

  Her skin tingled where the fabric of his T-shirt and trousers brushed against her. She hooked her leg around his and a hand behind the back of his neck. “You know, you don’t have to go out at all. You could slip a note beneath the door or, better yet, call their room.”

  A knock sounded on the door.

  He kissed her. “Too late. Grab your clothes and hustle into the bathroom, unless you want to give the guys an eyeful.” A frown settled between his eyebrows. “That second suggestion is not really an option.” He turned her around, swatted her ass and sent her toward the bathroom.

  “Mac,” Rucker’s voice sounded through the door’s paneling.

  “Coming,” Mac responded. “Go on,” he said to Kylie.

  She snatched her shirt, bra and trousers from the floor and ran for the bathroom, closing the door in time for Mac to open the outer one.

  Kylie dressed quickly, her pulse pounding through her veins. She couldn’t wait to see Mac again. She had a sudden, irrational fear that she would open the bathroom door and he wouldn’t be there. Finding him, out of all the military personnel the U.S. had sent to the country, already seemed to be a minor miracle. Maybe she’d dreamed it all.

  After she was fully dressed, she ran a brush through her hair in an attempt to tame the wild tangles left over from going to sleep with damp hair. Giving up, she pulled her hair back in a loose ponytail at the nape of her neck.

  With a quick glance at her reflection, she sucked in a deep breath and opened the bathroom door.

  The room was empty.

  Her breath caught and held in her throat as she raced across the room to the door leading into the hallway. Without slowing to press her eye to the peephole, she yanked open the door and ran into Mac’s back.

  “Oh,” he said and turned. “There you are. Blade, Josh and Rucker are heading out in search of food. Anything in particular you might like to eat?”

  She shook her head. “Josh knows what I like. I’ll trust your selections,” she said to Rucker. “As long as it’s not raw.”

  “That leaves our choices wide open.” Rucker glanced from Kylie to Mac and shook his head. “You probably don’t care as long as we get out there and get back.”

  “You got that right,” Mac said. “In the meantime, we’ll remain holed up in our room until you get back.”

  “It’s a tough job…” Dash started.

  “But someone has to do it,” Mac finished.

  Dash snorted. “Yeah, yeah. I’ll stick around and provide backup for you guys. I thought I’d stake out the lobby and circle the building to look for any potential dangers. I’ll have on my earbud headset.” He touched a finger to his ear. “Mac, you might want to keep yours on. If anything happens, I’ll be able to relay information to you quickly.”

  Mac nodded. “I’ll put it on as soon as go back into our room.”

  “We’ll have ours on as well,” Rucker said. “If we see anything, we’ll relay the information to you. Any questions?”

  They all shook their heads.

  “Take care of yourselves and remain alert,” Rucker said. “Ahktar’s men play for keeps.”

  Mac led Kylie back into their room and closed the door. He crossed to his bulletproof vest and fished in one of the pockets for a small headset and pressed it into his ear.

  “Comm check,” he said and waited. “I read you loud and clear. Hurry back. Getting hungry here.” He glanced across at her. “What do you want to do while we’re waiting for our food to arrive?”

  Kylie rubbed her arms. “I don’t know.” She tilted her head toward the television. “We could see if there’s a news channel.”

  “It could be fun guessing what they’re saying,” he said. “Or we can sit and talk.”

  She glanced toward the bedroom. “I’d suggest going back to bed, but…”

  His lips twisted. “Without Rucker and Blade as backup, it might not be a good idea.”

  “We could make out?” she suggested, batting her eyelashes.

  He growled and stalked toward her. “Excellent idea.” Scooping her up, he carried her to the couch, sat with her in his lap and nuzzled her ear. “I’ve missed this.”

  “
Me, too.” She leaned her head back to give him better access to her neck.

  She hoped the guys would take a little longer finding their food. Making out with Mac was more important. Who knew when they might run into each other again?

  Chapter 6

  Mac tasted Kylie’s skin from her earlobe to the base of her throat where her pulse beat strong and fast. He couldn’t get enough of her.

  All too soon, she’d leave on the next plane out of Afghanistan. Then what?

  His arms tightened around her. He didn’t want to let go. Not now…not ever.

  “What next, Kylie?” he murmured against her skin.

  “My breast,” she answered, her voice breathy as if she couldn’t get enough air in her lungs.

  He chuckled and raised his head. “No, I mean what’s next for us?”

  She sighed and leaned her forehead against his. “I don’t know. You tell me.”

  “I know how important your career is to you,” he said. “I would never want you to give it up for me.”

  “And I know how much you love being a part of the team.” She took his face between her palms and pressed a kiss to his lips. “Where does that leave us?”

  “Between a rock and a hard place,” he said with a grin, shifting his hips so that she could feel how hard she made him. “But really. Do our careers leave any room for a relationship?”

  “I guess it depends on what you consider a relationship?” she said. “If you want a woman who stays home and bakes cookies for all your teammates, I’m not your gal.”

  He laughed out loud. “I remember how you baked cookies. You forgot them in the oven, set off smoke alarms and had the fire department out to douse the fire.”

  She frowned. “I’ve gotten better. I only burn one of four trays of cookies now. I call that progress.”

  He kissed her lightly. “I don’t need a chef to bake my cookies. I need someone to love whenever we can get together. I haven’t found too many woman who can deal with an absentee husband and father. Delta Force soldiers are on call and can be deployed at a moment’s notice. I can’t ask anyone to put up with that kind of uncertainty. It’s hard on a marriage. I’ve seen too many Deltas divorce after less than a year of marriage.”

  “Those women didn’t understand what they were signing up for.”

  “And you do?” he asked.

  She shrugged. “I have a clue. My career has been much the same. Once I got the gig of war correspondent, I’ve been on call 24/7. I could fly out at a moment’s notice. Not too many men can deal with a wife who’s never at home to greet him after a hard day at the office.”

  “So, we’re back to the question of where does that leave us?” Mac said.

  “I think if two people care enough about each other, they can make anything work,” she said softly.

  “Does that mean you care?” he asked, his chest tight, his hands gripping her arms.

  Kylie opened her mouth, but before she could say anything, the headset in his ear crackled.

  “Mac,” Rucker’s voice blasted into his ear, jerking him out of a possible future, back to the present.

  He pressed a finger into the ear with the headphone. “I read you.”

  “Got trouble coming,” he said, his breath huffing across the airwaves as if he were running. “We’re on our way back.”

  “What trouble?” Mac asked, scooting Kylie off his lap onto the couch beside him. Then he pushed to his feet.

  “Truck load of men in black outfits and turbans. Can’t be sure, but they might be Ahktar’s—”

  “They’re here at the hotel,” Dash’s voice interrupted. “I’m heading up the stairwell. Mac, get Kylie out of the room and on her way out of the building.”

  “On it,” Mac said.

  “What’s going on?” Kylie whispered.

  Mac grabbed her hand and started for the door. “Time to bug out.”

  “Damn, they don’t give up, do they?” she said as she snagged her backpack on the way through the room.

  Mac pushed through the door. “Apparently, Ahktar gave a damn about his brother.”

  “Or his pride,” Kylie said, lowering her voice as she stepped out into the hallway behind Mac.

  The stairwell door at the end of the hallway burst open.

  Mac ducked down, taking Kylie with him.

  When he saw Dash running toward them, he straightened.

  “Can’t go back that way,” Dash said. “It leads to the hotel lobby and a more than half a dozen Taliban terrorists.” He kept moving, passing them in the hallway, racing past the elevator toward the other end of the building. “Come on,” he called out. “This way leads out the back.”

  Mac moved Kylie in front of him. “Run,” he urged.

  Kylie took off, catching up to Dash as he opened the door to the other stairwell.

  Mac was right behind her and heard the elevator ding as he rushed through the door.

  He dared to look back through the window to see four men in black garb and turbans rush from the elevator car into the hallway, turning toward the room where he and Kylie had been moments before.

  “They’re in the hallway,” Mac announced in a muted tone. He spun to find Dash climbing the stairs instead of going down.

  “Trust me,” Dash called out softly, leaning over the rail above. “You have to go up before you can go down.”

  Kylie was already halfway up the stairs, moving quickly and quietly.

  Mac ran after her. They had to get out of the stairwell before the Taliban men discovered they’d missed them and went looking.

  Dash led them up a flight, down a long hallway, around a corner and into another stairwell that led downward. When they reached the bottom, the door opened into a huge laundry room filled with commercial-grade washers and dryers as well as giant machines for ironing the sheets. A couple men dressed in white staff uniforms worked folding sheets, tablecloths and towels.

  As Mac ducked through, he heard shouts behind him in the stairwell. He let the door close quietly and hurried to catch up with the others. As he reached Kylie and Dash, he called out over the roar of the machines, “We have company headed this way.”

  Dash nodded and pushed open a door on the other end of the laundry room. He rushed through, Kylie on his heels.

  Mac followed, worried they weren’t moving fast enough. What if they got out of the building only to find the Taliban had set up a perimeter around the structure to keep them from escaping unnoticed?

  Dash was one of the best Deltas Mac knew. He would check before running out into the open.

  They moved down another hallway, off which were the kitchen and a storage room. For a split second, Mac considered hiding out in the storage room among boxes of supplies. He immediately squelched that thought, not liking the idea of being a sitting duck, waiting for the Taliban to find them.

  The door at the end of the hallway opened onto a loading dock where men worked moving crates and boxes from trucks to stack them on the concrete.

  One of the men shouted at them and waved his fist.

  Dash kept moving down a set of concrete stairs and out onto an alleyway behind the hotel. A large block wall separated the hotel grounds from the other buildings nearby.

  With little time to spare and a long wall to follow if they wanted to go around it, Dash shook his head, cupped his hands and said, “You first, Mac.”

  Mac ran toward him, placed his foot in his hands and leaped up to the top of the wall, pulling himself up to straddle the top. Then he leaned over and reached for Kylie’s hand.

  She stepped into Dash’s cupped hands, grabbed Mac’s outstretched one and let him pull her up onto the wall.

  A shout from a window above made Mac look up.

  A man dressed in black stood on a balcony shouting down at them. He raised his rifle to his shoulder and shot down at them.

  Mac shoved Kylie over to the other side, holding onto her hand. She dropped, her grip on him slowing her fall until she landed lightly on her feet.r />
  Mac reached down, grabbed Dash’s hand and swung him up to the top.

  As soon as Dash had his leg over the top, Mac let go. His teammate let his momentum carry him over the top and down the other side.

  Another shot rang out. Something stung Mac’s shoulder. He grunted and tipped over, dropping to the ground. Pain throbbed in his left arm. He winced but kept moving.

  “You’re hurt,” Kylie said, running with him alongside the wall.

  “I’ve been hurt worse,” he said through gritted teeth. “We have to get out of here. That man will alert his buddies, and we’ll have all of them after us soon.”

  Mac led the way this time, keeping Kylie close beside him.

  “We’re almost back to the hotel,” Rucker said into his headset.

  “We’re out of the hotel, moving away from the back into the city,” Mac said.

  “Good,” Rucker said. “We’re coming up from the rear.”

  As Mac emerged from an alley into a busy road full of cars, bicycles and people walking, he realized they were in a marketplace.

  “I see you now,” Rucker said. “We’re by the rug dealer, twenty yards to your left.”

  Mac searched the crowd and found Rucker, Josh and Blade hurrying toward them. When they screeched to a stop, Mac shot a glance over his shoulder. His heart skipped several beats, and his blood ran cold.

  Five men in black garb ran through the marketplace, pushing and shoving people out of the way. They brandished AK-47s and shouted something that made the crowd of people duck down.

  “Get down,” he yelled and dragged Kylie down to a hunkered position as they ran.

  Dash leaned over and raced to a gap between buildings. “This way,” he shouted.

  Rucker and Blade joined them and knelt at the corner of buildings to provide cover when the Taliban got closer.

  Mac had his Glock pistol tucked beneath his jacket, but he couldn’t fire it in a crowded marketplace full of civilians that included women and children.

  That didn’t stop the Taliban.

  They fired their rifles at the Deltas.

  Women screamed and fell to the ground, covering their children with their bodies.