by Cindy Dees
“So far, so good. Piper and Zane are riding a bus with the US Men’s Basketball team back to their hotel. I’m following it on the CCTV feed from the city of Sydney.” She pointed at one of the screens as a charter bus pulled through an intersection.
“Anyone following them?” he asked.
“Yes. A crowd of paparazzi on motorcycles and mopeds.”
“Ugh. Have you run facial comparison on the photographers against our database of terrorists?”
“I’m working on it,” she murmured. He watched as she efficiently captured still images of photographers as they became available and compared their faces to the combined US-Israeli database of people of interest that Zane had spent the day building in conjunction with his counterpart from the Mossad.
“You’re pretty good at that,” he commented.
“You don’t have to sound so surprised that I’m competent at my job.”
“And you don’t have to be prickly about me giving you compliments. A simple thank-you will suffice,” he responded mildly.
She pushed back from her computer and glanced up at him. “I’m sorry. Ingrained habit. Comes from years of working with men who were always looking for a chance to take a jab at me.”
“I understand. Well, I understand as much as a man who’s never faced discrimination based on my gender can understand.”
The rigid set of her shoulders relaxed a little.
“I was merely expressing my appreciation of how exceptionally well you do your job. Male or female, you’re really fast at spotting the images you need, isolating and enhancing them, and running them through the facial rec program.”
Her shoulders relaxed a little more. “I have to be fast when I’m working in real-time imagery. Sometimes I only have a few seconds to relay vital intelligence to the guys on the ground before they run into whatever I spot.”
“You look tense. Like you’ve been hunching over your screen for a while. Can I offer a purely professional neck rub?”
She looked startled, but even better, she didn’t say no. He reached down and massaged her shoulder and neck muscles with practiced ease.
Rebel groaned under her breath and let her head fall forward. Her shoulders went the rest of the way down to their normal position. “Where did you get so good at this?” she asked.
“My mother had a brain tumor and used to get tremendous headaches. I learned to rub her shoulders and neck to give her a little relief. She used to get particularly tight right through here...” He rubbed his thumbs up the back of Rebel’s neck into her hair until he reached the edge of her skull.
She gifted him with another groan that was so packed with pleasure it made his groin tighten in response.
Eventually, Rebel murmured, “Did your mother beat the tumor?”
“No. It was a glioblastoma—an aggressive form of cancer—and she only lasted a year.”
“I’m so sorry.” Rebel turned in her seat to stare up at him in naked sympathy.
“The military gave me a leave of absence, and I was able to be with her to the end. It was as nice as spending the end of a person’s life with them can be. We made many wonderful memories, and she died peacefully with me and my brother at her side. She lived a good life.”
He was startled to see tears welling up in Rebel’s eyes and blurted, “What do you have to cry about?”
“You’re so lucky you had that time with your mother. And I’m sad you lost her. You obviously were very close to her.”
He shrugged, even more startled at the way the back of his throat had suddenly tightened up. “What about you?” he managed to choke out.
“What about me?” she echoed.
“Are you close to your mother?”
“My mother died shortly after I left home to go to college. And no, we were never close. I couldn’t understand how she could let my father boss her around like he did, and she couldn’t understand why I wasn’t just willing to submit to the men in my life. We—” she searched for words “—didn’t see eye to eye.”
“How did she die?” he asked, sensing that Rebel wasn’t telling him everything.
“She just...faded away. Her official cause of death was heart failure.”
“But...” he prompted.
“But she quit going out of the house. And then she stopped getting out of bed. And then she quit eating. She went pretty fast after that.”
“She starved herself?” Avi blurted in surprise.
“More like she fell into a depression so deep she couldn’t pull herself out of the darkness. She didn’t exactly kill herself, but she surely let herself die.”
“Didn’t your father try to get her help?”
Rebel threw him a withering look. “My father the narcissist, who can’t see past the end of his own self-important nose? No. He let her go. Heck, for all I know, he was relieved to see her die.”
“God. That’s horrible.” Avi reached down and took Rebel by the upper arms, drawing her to her feet and into his arms for a hug. He held her for a long time, unable to bring himself to turn her loose once she was nestled against his body, safe. And warm. And soft.
Which was a weird way of thinking about a trained commando. Even when she was relaxed and pliant, snuggled against him like this, he still felt the muscles wreathing her body. No doubt about it, she was one of the more fit women he’d ever held. And yet, the impression of softness was real. Maybe it was just her finally letting down her guard with him that made the impression. Either way, it was nice.
He wanted to keep her right here, plastered against his chest and surrounded by his strong arms, where nothing and no one could hurt her. Weird. Of all the women he’d ever known, she was probably the one least likely to need his protection. Although his head knew that to be true, his instinct to take care of her wasn’t listening for a second.
“A little air?” she finally mumbled.
He loosened his arms enough to let her turn her head, but that was all. At length, he managed to force himself to ask, “Are you okay?”
“Yes. I’ve been okay for a while. I made my peace long ago with my father being a bad person and with my mother not being strong enough to stand up to him.”
Avi leaned back enough to stare down at her. “How did you become so strong? Where did you find the will to stand up to your father?”
“My mom used to say I inherited all of his stubbornness and none of her softness.”
Personally, he had to disagree with the last part of that statement. But aloud, he merely said, “Thank God for your strength of will. It sounds like your stubbornness saved you from a terrible fate.”
She shrugged, and her rib cage lifted and fell against his, her breasts rubbing against his chest in the most wonderful way. Dammit, they were colleagues and he had no business dwelling on her attractiveness. He yanked his thoughts back to the conversation at hand. A conversation that also had nothing to do with work.
He confessed, “If your stubbornness led you to join the military and become a Medusa, which brought you to me, then I’m doubly grateful for it.”
Rebel stared up at him, blinking in slow motion as she took in the implications of what he’d just said. “You like me?” she breathed. “As in like-like?”
His mouth curved up ever so slightly. “Yes. As in like-like.”
“Well, then. What are you waiting for?” she demanded.
“I beg your pardon?” He frowned down. What was he missing here?
“Kiss me already.”
“Oh. My bad. I’m not usually so slow on the uptake—”
“Still not kissing me,” she interrupted.
Such a feisty little thing. Laughing under his breath, he dipped his chin and captured her rosy lips with his mouth. Hers was soft—no surprise—and warm and eager and tasted as good as she smelled.
Aww, hell. He was in
deeper here than he cared to think about. She surged against him, and he caught her up against him as she wrapped her arms around his neck.
Give the woman points for enthusiasm. She wasn’t the least bit reserved in flinging herself into the kiss, and it was intensely sexy. He relished her full-speed-ahead approach to life—and to romance. Not many women could match the zest with which he threw himself into everything he did.
He tilted his head to fit their mouths more closely together and smiled against her mouth as her tongue slipped between his lips, seeking and exploring. Their tongues swirled and sparred as their mouths slanted across each other more hungrily, now.
He realized he was actually lifting Rebel off her feet, he was holding her so tightly in his arms. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled against her mouth as he set her back down.
“Don’t be. I love your strength and how gentle you are with me.”
“I would never hurt you—”
“I know. I trust you,” she mumbled back.
And then she was kissing him again, spearing her fingers into his hair, and making him forget everything but the feel of her mouth against his, her body pressing against his, the smell of her, the taste of her—
He jumped as a female voice announced from a speaker on the desk, “We’re pulling into the hotel, now. The driver will take us to the loading dock to avoid the fans and photographers in the lobby.”
“Roger,” Gunnar Torsten’s voice replied, sounding tinny over the radios. “I’m right behind you. I’ll deploy beyond the bus.”
Groaning under her breath, Rebel tore away from him and sat down quickly at the desk, scanning the various video images before her hastily. “All clear on overwatch,” she transmitted into the microphone on a stand in front of her.
Avi registered several impressions simultaneously. He was breathing hard. He was shockingly aroused, particularly given that this was an active work scene. And Rebel was blushing, her cheeks were stained practically cherry red. Thank God. It wasn’t just him who’d had his socks blown off by that kiss.
She spoke to him without turning away from the monitors, “I should have asked when you first arrived. Did you want something?”
Besides that smoking hot kiss that he was still reeling from?
Yes. Another kiss.
His scattered thoughts struggled to form a coherent, work-related answer to her question. Why had he come here? Right. Chasing terrorists.
Man, she was giving him mental whiplash, swinging from work to that kiss and back to work like that. How did she do it?
Normally, he was great at compartmentalizing—at separating work from play, at putting each aspect of his life in little drawers that he opened and closed as he needed or wanted to deal with the contents of each.
Not many woman had the capacity to knock him off balance like this, but clearly she was one of the few who could. And had. He stood back, bemused, and watched her comb through video images almost faster than he could register the content of the images. He was usually the guy out in the field on the other end of the radio from someone like this, and it was enlightening to see how much data she sifted through and how quickly.
“The rear of the hotel is clear,” she reported. “No sign of Laurel or Hardy.”
Laurel being the code name assigned to Mahmoud earlier, and Hardy being Yousef’s code name.
The American basketball players filed out of the bus and ducked into the hotel’s loading dock quickly—most of them were superstars in America and accustomed to these sorts of security measures. When the last man had disappeared inside, handed off to the private security team the basketball players had brought with them to keep away paparazzi during the Games, Piper and Zane strode across the parking lot and climbed into the armored, dark-windowed SUV Gunnar was driving. Avi and Rebel watched the CCTV feeds in silence as the vehicle headed back toward the Olympic Village.
Rebel leaned back, more relaxed now, watching the SUV make its way through the crowded streets. She glanced up at him, still standing behind her, watching over her shoulder.
“Did you actually come here for a reason, or just to kiss me?”
“Believe me, if I’d known we were going to kiss, I’d have been here sooner. I came to ask if you have all the video feeds you need from the city of Sydney and from the IOC security team.”
“Yes. I’ve got full coverage of everywhere Piper and Zane should go over the next several days. I’ll reassess our coverage needs as the Games progress.”
“How much longer will you be in here watching the screens tonight?” he asked.
“Why? So we can take up where we left off?” she shot back.
“Would that be so bad?”
Her gaze slid away from his. Hmm. Interesting. “Why did you go so defensive with me, all of a sudden?” he asked quietly.
Her gaze riveted on the screens in front of her as if she didn’t want to look up at him. He’d touched a nerve, had he? Interesting. He was dying to know exactly what nerve he’d hit.
He waited patiently for her to answer him. It was an interrogation technique he’d found over the years to be highly effective. Create a pregnant silence and then wait for the other person to break it.
Rebel sighed. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have snapped at you.”
“Apology accepted, of course. But I’m curious. What made you snap at me in the first place?”
“I thought we’d already established that I don’t have a great track record with men.”
He replied in disappointment, “I’d hoped we were well on our way to establishing that I’m not most men.”
“I’m starting to get that. For one thing, most men wouldn’t interrogate me on my motives.”
He pulled up a chair and sat down beside her, stretching out his long legs under the desk. “I can’t imagine why men wouldn’t be curious about you. I find you utterly fascinating.”
“Why?” she blurted.
“You’re quite the study in contrasts. I can’t say that I’ve ever met another woman quite like you.”
“Surely, you’ve met plenty of female Mossad agents or women IDF soldiers.”
“I have,” he answered evenly. “But what I’m talking about goes deeper than the fact of you being both a woman and a warrior.”
“Do tell.” And her eyes were fixed unwaveringly on her monitors again. Which meant he was getting close to the heart of what made her defensive with men. Should he push or back off?
What the hell. They were only going to be together for a few weeks. “You’re so confident in your work, and yet so unsure of yourself in personal interactions. Why is that?”
“You tell me, Sigmund.”
He rolled his eyes. “Freud would have had a field day with you.”
“Do tell.”
“Answer me this. Why are you avoiding a direct answer to my question?”
He waited several heartbeats for her to provide an answer. Nope, she wasn’t going to play ball. Awkward silences obviously didn’t bother her. Although, with Gunnar having trained her, he probably should have expected she would be immune to such tactics.
Avi filled in the silence himself. “If I were to take a stab at answering the question of why you’re unsure of yourself in relationships, I would say you’ve either had deeply negative interactions with most of the men you’ve dated...or perhaps you’re wildly inexperienced with men in general and feel like you’re in over your head with me. Which, I would take as a compliment, as an aside.”
“Of course you’d take it as a compliment. Men are all about their egos.”
“Ahh. A revealing comment, dear Rebel. It leads me to believe my first guess was the correct one. You’ve dated mostly flaming assholes who utterly failed to treat you the way a woman ought to be treated.”
A burst of laughter escaped her.
Hah. Nailed it. Her exes w
ere all jerks.
She asked more seriously, “How should a woman be treated, then?”
He smiled broadly. Now they were getting somewhere. “It would be my pleasure to show you.”
She leaned back, staring openly at him. Her eyes were big and wide, as if she was surprised at a minimum or possibly even a bit afraid of his offer. He was tempted to dare her to take him up on it. After all, no Special Forces operator he’d ever known could turn down a dare. But if she had, in fact, been around mostly jerk males, he was probably better served by backing off and letting her make the next move. Not to mention she deserved the decency on his part.
Waiting out her response was harder than he’d expected it to be. Huh. He wanted her to take him up on the offer more than he’d realized.
“What would showing me entail?” she finally asked.
He shrugged. “It would entail whatever you’re comfortable with. Decent men don’t force women to do anything they don’t want to do or are uncomfortable with.”
“Hmm.”
Suppressing a smile at her hedging, he said quietly, “They do, however, insist on yes or no answers to questions of whether they should proceed. Consent must always be clearly given.”
He waited her out while the SUV carrying Piper and Zane shifted to another camera and pulled up at the gate to the Olympic Village. Rebel scanned the area around the guard shack and reported, “You’re clear to open your window, Major T.”
“Roger,” came the clipped response from Gunnar.
“Why are you keeping the lovebirds under wraps in an armored vehicle?” Avi asked. “I thought the idea was to put them out as bait.”
“It is. But we want to control when and where they’re exposed. We don’t particularly want to run a dozen-person dragnet around the clock, and neither our security contingent nor yours can afford to cut loose that many people. Major T. wants to orchestrate Piper and Zane’s public appearances.”
“Fair enough.”
“Speaking of which, has the Israeli government green-lighted use of lethal force if necessary to stop Laurel and Hardy?”
“Not yet. It should come through shortly, though.” Given the political sensitivity of using lethal force at an Olympic Games, the decision had been run up through the highest levels of the Israeli government, which took a little time even under the best of circumstances.
