Fever Zone (Danger in Arms, Book 1)

by Cindy Dees

  “But…” her breath hitched as his big palm cupped her behind intimately, “…you left me.”

  His voice was a bare thread of sound against her temple. “Ahh, sweet Piper. Is that what’s got you so fired up?” Gently, so as not to spook her, he drew her hips close to his. Let her feel his desire for her. Tilted his head down to let his breath mingle with hers.

  Nothing fast. No aggressive moves that would make her more tense than she already was. He even caught himself making soothing noises in the back of his throat as he let his breath wash over her temple. Her cheek. Her ear.

  “I’m…very…sorry…I…left…you.” He punctuated each word with a light kiss on her face. Her cheek. Her brow. Her nose. Her chin.

  She pulled in a shaky breath and let it out on a gust of surrender as she finally leaned into him, her arms snaking around his neck. Thank God. His restraint was good, but not invincible.

  He whispered, “I promise I won’t leave you again.” Her lips tilted up toward him, slightly parted, and he took the invitation, his mouth closing on hers and finding the perfect angle and fit between them.

  She tasted spicy like pepperoni, and sweet like the mint hard candies that had come with the pizza. That was Piper—hot and cold. Fire and ice. An intriguing mystery he had yet to solve.

  Lord, he’d missed her. Missed this with her. Missed the way the long tendons in her throat tensed as she threw her head back. He loved the tiny gasping moans that escaped her, the way her teeth captured one side of her lower lip, the way her body pulsed as if she couldn’t get enough of him.

  Throw pillows went flying. A lamp crashed to the floor. At this rate, his place was going to be as trashed as hers before they were done. Not that he gave a flying flip. This woman was sex incarnate.

  When he could actually stand, walk, and form coherent thoughts again, he was going to classify that as the best sex he’d ever had. By a mile. And then he was going to do it again. A lot.

  “We can’t ever do that again,” Piper panted.

  A single thought blasted across his mind, and he gave voice to it incredulously. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

  Eleven

  Piper huffed, not exactly steady emotionally, herself. She hated having to be strong for both of them when all she wanted to do was curl up in his arms and never, ever emerge. “C’mon, Mike. You know the rules. We’re going to be on a mission together. Colleagues.”

  “I won’t tell if you won’t.”

  God almighty, she was tempted to turn this into an affair. And that scared the hell out of her. She was an island alone. She didn’t need other people. He pushed a damp tendril of hair off her forehead, and the gentleness of the gesture all but undid her. She’d had a crappy day, and she’d just needed to escape it all for a little while. That was all this was. Nothing more. It wasn’t about emotional connection or being wanted, held, and cherished by another human being. They were scratching a mutual itch. That was all.

  “We can’t,” she declared. Just a little longer to enjoy his delicious weight pressing her down into the cushions. And then she would push him off of her, get up, get dressed, and get to work.

  “Give me one good reason why not—” he retorted, “—besides ‘it’s the rule’.”

  She stared up at him at a loss. Heck, she was lucky to remember her own name right now. Her body was still drugged with lazy pleasure and sated lust. “Mike—“she started. The little voice in the back of her head whispered persuasively, just a little more.

  He reached for her and drew her up against him.

  “No. Fair.”

  “Love and war, baby,” he murmured back.

  Dammit.

  Piper woke up slowly, disoriented. Unfamiliar bed. Unfamiliar room. She rolled over cautiously and was relieved to recognize the face on the pillow beside her. Mike. Right. Break-in at her place. Beer at his place. And sex. Lots and lots of the hot monkey variety of that.

  She eased out from under the covers carefully so as not to wake him. The bastard was even pretty when he slept. His sun-bleached hair was tousled and a light stubble roughed up his jaw. The muscular arm thrown over his head would make a fashion photographer weep with joy.

  She tiptoed out into the living room where she vaguely recalled her clothes having gone flying at some point. She turned everything right side out and dressed quickly. Her blouse was missing a button near the collar, but the garment was still wearable, just with a little extra cleavage. She grabbed her purse and eased the front door shut soundlessly behind her.

  Mike lived close to a Metro stop and she hustled down the street, breathing a sigh of relief when she disappeared below ground. Things were complicated between the two of them, and she didn’t want to deal with it this morning. Last night had been a mistake. Actually, a series of glorious mistakes.

  Fine. So he was a god in the sack. That still didn’t make it smart or right to have a torrid affair with him.

  She could use a shower and a fresh change of clothes, but her home and her wardrobe were in ruins. It was too early to go shopping, so she swung by the police station instead to pick up a copy of the police report on her break-in. As she’d rightly suspected, the cop who’d flirted with her last night was not on duty this morning. She collected the report and browsed through the list of destroyed items that the police officer had noted.

  Huh. She glanced through the list again. With the exception of her sofa and her bed, every single items on the list was electronic, mechanical, or plugged into an electric socket—

  —Oh, shit.

  A cold chill passed over her and goose bumps puckered her forearms. How had the Patrick Henry Patriots found her? For surely, they were behind the break-in. Who else would have targeted only the technology in her house and left everything else intact?

  Memory of her books sitting in blissfully undisturbed rows on her shelves shivered through her. Her bicycle had been unharmed in the corner of her bedroom. Her backpacking gear had been undisturbed in her closet. But everything else, from lamps, to alarm clocks, to computers, had been trashed.

  She stumbled out onto the sidewalk, and for the first time since Khartoum, felt exposed. Watched. Anonymously hated. It was deeply unsettling, almost more so than in Sudan where she expected such things. But this was America. Home.

  Her cell phone vibrated, startling her, and she fished it out. “Hello?”

  “Where are you?” Mike asked tersely.

  And, on cue, Mike McCloud was close at hand to rescue her. God, that man had radar for when she was in trouble…or more accurately when she was screwing up by the numbers. If only their work lives didn’t keep intersecting like this! It was bad enough that they couldn’t seem to keep their hands off each other. But she really needed to forge her own identity as a bona fide field operator without him always having to save her from herself.

  Belatedly she answered his question about her current location. “I’m at the police station. Picking up my report.”

  “Our stuff’s ready for pick-up. Meet you same place as yesterday in an hour?”

  “Sure,” she answered. Defense Intelligence had their in-brief and legend for the surveillance op ready to go, huh? That was fast.

  Mike disconnected without trying to bring up last night or why she’d slipped out this morning without waking him up, for which Piper was deeply grateful. She had just enough time to swing by a boutique and pay entirely too much for dark slacks and a plain white blouse with all of its buttons before she headed for the briefing.

  If she’d thought to show up Mike by being ten minutes early and beating him to the meeting, she’d have been wrong on both scores. He was already in the conference room, joking around with the tech guys gathered there to brief them in.

  He shot her a level stare when she walked into the room that was anything but morning-after-great-sex pleasant. Okay, so he was pissed that she’d snuck out on him. At least it had the side benefit of making him look like he despised her a little. No one would suspect they’d be
en having smoking hot sex a few hours ago, right?

  She took a seat and pointedly ignored him, vividly aware of how attuned the analysts in this room were to picking up on vibes between people. Let them all think she and Mike hated each other’s guts. They wouldn’t be entirely wrong. The two of them had a love-hate thing going from the very first time they’d met, now that she thought about it. More hate than love if Mike’s veiled glare was any indication.

  Under other circumstances, she would have been one of the Subject Matter Experts giving this briefing on the PHP, if not the lead briefer. She sat on the receiving side of the table this morning, however. Still, she leaned back to listen critically. Maybe these guys had something to add to her already extensive knowledge of the PHP. Like what in the bloody hell had changed to send these guys up to bat in the terrorist big leagues all of a sudden.

  The overview the briefers gave her and Mike on the PHP sounded lifted pretty much verbatim out of her reports. There was one bit of new information that caught her attention, though. Surveillance indicated that the group had expanded in size recently. One of the analysts over at Langley speculated that it was possible the new blood might have radicalized the group. Which could also explain the recent activity in North Africa.

  Then the legend-and-cover briefer startled her by announcing, “We’ve prepared a legend for the two of you as a married couple.”

  She lurched forward in her seat while Mike threw himself backward in his. “Married?” they both squawked simultaneously.

  Hey. Mike didn’t have to sound that outraged at the idea. She wasn’t a complete troll, and she’d rocked his world at least a little in the sack, thank you very much.

  The briefer frowned at both of them. “Well, yes. You yourself described the area as deeply conservative, religious, and suspicious, Ms. Roth. A married couple raises less flags than a boyfriend-girlfriend pair.”

  “We’re not going to infiltrate the PHP compound, are we?” Mike demanded.

  She froze in horror. No way was she going into the PHP compound voluntarily! She glanced over at Mike and cursed under her breath. He’d caught her violent reaction to his question. Too damned observant, that man was.

  “No, sir,” the briefer answered. She exhaled in profound relief as the guy continued, “But long-term surveillance will be difficult to maintain without the two of you being spotted by locals from time to time.”

  “Why?” Mike demanded.

  Piper tuned out as the briefer explained. She’d been in that corner of Idaho before. A lot. She knew the answer already. Everyone watched everyone else. Everyone knew everyone else. Everyone gossiped about everyone else. Anonymity was impossible.

  As it was, she needed to consider changing her appearance before they commenced operations. She’d been toying with getting a haircut anyway. And she could go brunette. She’d always secretly fantasized about having dark, mysterious locks and dramatic coloring instead of her fair, pale hair and skin-tones. A chin-length bob—

  “Piper?”

  She looked up sharply at Mike. “Sorry. What?”

  “Do you want to work a regional accent into your legend?”

  “Nah. Generic mid-western will raise fewer flags in Elkville than a distinctive accent of some kind.”

  The briefer continued, “You’ve been married under a year. That way, if you don’t know things about each other, it can be explained away.”

  “And we’ll be in Elkville why?” Mike asked.

  The briefer grinned. “You’re looking for someplace to settle. A simpler way of life. Not sure about going entirely off grid, but definitely interested in being more self-sufficient.”

  “How did we hear about this place?” Mike fired at the guy.

  The briefer passed a slightly crumpled pamphlet across the table. Piper couldn’t help the shudder that passed through her at seeing the PHP pamphlet. Everything it stood for made her faintly ill.

  “You okay?” Mike murmured to her.

  Damn him and his mad observation skills. “I’ll be fine,” she snapped.

  “Future tense. Not fine now. Why not?”

  Sometimes, she seriously wished he were a little less quick on the uptake. She huffed. “I’m good, now. Everything’s fine. Perfect.”

  The pucker between his brows deepened, but he said nothing more.

  The briefer picked up with, “The plan is for a military transport to fly you to Montana. A pick-up truck will be waiting for you. The two of you will drive to Elkville. Rent a cabin in the Trout Creek Fishing Camp just outside of town, and then commence your surveillance op. Your cover is that you’re enjoying a hunting and fishing vacation while scoping out the area—”

  The briefing room door slammed open and Mike’s boss burst in, announcing without preamble, “New plan. We may have spotted Abahdi. Or rather, his daughter.”

  “Where?” Piper blurted. What was Abahdi’s target?

  “California. Theme Park. Three guesses which one and the first two don’t count.”

  She groaned while Mike leaned forward and asked, “Los Angeles basin is the target of the biological attack, then?”

  “Unknown, but possible.”

  Piper’s mind raced. The one thing they didn’t know about Abahdi’s test tubes of killer virus was whether he would pass them on to someone else or if he would use them himself. Her instinct was that the man would want personal revenge for his wife’s death.

  The general continued, “I’ve called Andrews Air Force Base. A flight’s crew sitting alert has already been launched to fly you two to Orange County. They’ll be ready to go in under an hour. Find Abahdi, verify his identity, apprehend him, and then make the bastard sing.”

  Piper glanced over at Mike in time to see the infinitesimal nod at his boss. Message received and understood. No holds barred on this one. At all costs, all extremes, find out where those coolers of biological samples had gone.

  “Have we got time to go home and pack, sir?” Mike bit out.

  “We’ll pull generic go-bags for you, here. Marines are scrambling a helicopter to the roof to pick you up. In fact, we need to head upstairs, now. We’ll talk as we walk.”

  Piper was a little shell-shocked at the speed with which events were moving. She’d never been even close to an operation with this kind of push behind it. Her surveillance missions to date had been sleepy affairs where she set up shop somewhere obscure in the guise of doing humanitarian aid work and watched someone equally obscure from a safe distance. Like the Patrick Henry Patriots.

  What in the hell had those guys gotten themselves involved in? Worry vibrated through her body unpleasantly as an elevator whisked them to the roof of the building. The all-too-familiar faces passed through her mind’s eye. None of them were hardcore terrorists. She would bet her life savings on it.

  She followed the men outside onto a rooftop terrace and a terrific view of downtown Washington, D.C.. “I’ll have the techs send you an updated briefing en route,” the general told Mike.

  God, even her temporary boss acted like she was hardly part of this op. “And why aren’t we sending in the entire west coast FBI contingent to grab this guy?” she asked.

  “The virus. Can’t spook him into turning it loose in the middle of a frigging theme park. We don’t know for sure if this is our guy, yet, either. We need a solid ID on Abahdi, and then a very quiet grab. Followed, of course by a fast and complete confession.”

  A growing thwocking noise made her look over her shoulder. A white-topped helicopter with a dark green body was coming into sight. “Holy cow. Is that Marine One?” she blurted. Surely they hadn’t scrambled the president’s own chopper for her and Mike.

  “Same unit. Same birds. Not tasked to POTUS today, however.”

  POTUS—President of the United States. Whoa. A short set of steps folded down just behind the cockpit and she and Mike jogged over to them. Intellectually, she understood that she didn’t have to duck under the rotors well over her head, but she did, anyway. A Marine wit
h practically no hair and more bulging muscles than ought to be legal gave them a fast safety briefing she didn’t hear a word of. The bird lifted off and swooped away to the south toward the sleek Learjet waiting for them at Andrews Air Force Base.

  She leaned back in the comfortable leather seat. Finally. A second to breathe. All of this was moving so fast.

  “So. Care to tell me why you bailed out on me this morning?” Mike asked without warning.

  She glanced forward in alarm at the Marine sitting just behind the cockpit.

  “Oh, please. Those guys hear all kinds of classified dirt. Nothing we talk about is going to shock them or leave this aircraft. They’re professionals.”

  He might be right, but she still didn’t want to talk about it. “I already told you. We can’t do that on the job.”

  “We damned well can, now. It’s part of our cover to be married. Hell, it’s practically required for this job.”

  She rolled her eyes at him. “The general already treats me like a glorified receptionist and coffee fetcher. I can’t afford to do anything to ruin what little credibility I’ve got with him and the other brass.”

  Mike frowned. “He doesn’t know you. You’re the outsider. If he’s standoffish, it has nothing to do with your gender. He’s just cautious with people he doesn’t know well.”

  “Still. This is the first high-profile op I’ve worked. I have to make a good impression.”

  “The general sent you out with me. You already made a good impression or you’d have been sidelined. You brought in the evidence from Abahdi’s lab, after all. I made sure you got full credit for that.”

  She heard the words, but she didn’t believe them. Mike was blowing sunshine up her butt because he wanted her to sleep with him. Her expression hardened.

  “How come you don’t trust me?” Mike demanded. “I’ve had your back on multiple occasions, and we get along famously in the sack, if I do say so, myself. What else do you want from me?”