by Zoe Dawson
“Agent Fitz—”
He cut his boss off, quickly disassembling the phone and tucking the SIM card into his coat pocket. He did the same with her phone.
“You stay put. I’ll be right back.” He gritted his teeth as he shrugged out of his ruined coat, excruciating pain radiating out from the bullet wound down his arm, across his chest and into his back. Throwing it into the backseat, he grabbed his NCIS jacket. They would track the phones here anyway, so broadcasting that he was an agent wasn’t going to compromise anything. Tucking the gun into the holster at the small of his back, he exited the car and headed for the Walmart. Once inside, he dumped both phones and batteries into the trash. He bought prepaid phones, caffeinated drinks, water, and first aid stuff. He headed back out to the car, the blowing snow icy against his exposed skin.
Getting back into the car, he handed her the bag, which she set at her feet, then he stripped off his coat, his sweatshirt and the T-shirt beneath.
“There’s a roll of gauze in the bag. Could you give me a quick field dressing?”
While she made fast work of wrapping his shoulder, he popped the top of one of the cans and sucked the liquid down, then another one. After she was done, he put his clothes back on and handed her the water.
“Drink something. We’ll get food when we get to where we’re going.”
She took the water and twisted off the top. “Where are we going?”
He turned to look at her, determination like a promise. “Somewhere safe.”
She didn’t say anything. Another sign that she trusted him. She raised the bottle to her lips and took a long swig.
He downed another can of energy drink and put the car in gear.
When the phone went dead in his ear, Chris swore low and viciously beneath his breath. Vin was going to do this his way. He looked down at the bodies of Tom Miller and Mike Strong. Two good men. This whole thing was a disaster. Then he looked at the two men who were sprawled in the hallway where Vin had left them. There were four more up on the roof being brought down and another one over on an adjacent roof.
That one had astounded him. A fifteen-foot shot in the dark of night with a handgun.
Vin was a deadly son of a bitch.
Chris had been a Navy pilot. He had been trained in hand-to-hand, but he had to face it—he rarely had used that in the air. It wasn’t until he got into NCIS that he’d honed that part of his training, but what Vin had done to those two kidnappers…his shots were so precise. The guy with the slugs in him had been tapped right in the heart. The ME said his heart was gone. Exploded. But he’d followed up with head shots.
Thorough.
He’d picked the right agent to cover Dr. Baang. Had Vin been right? Had someone from NCIS leaked the location? Vin’s account of that was accurate. But still Chris hadn’t liked that he’d gone rogue. Vin had better call in and update him, or Chris was going to have his lethal ass in a sling.
He walked down the hall, stepping over the dead kidnapper, and went into Dr. Baang’s room. Her laptop was sitting on top of her bed. He reached down and picked it up. It was interesting that the kidnappers hadn’t snagged it. One of the other agents had already recovered Vin’s laptop.
He tucked it under his arm and headed out of the loft and back to NCIS. Once those bodies arrived, his forensic ME would be mighty busy.
DNA, tattoos, dental records, maybe they could get at least one hit on one of these guys and see what they were up against.
What Vin was up against?
Alexander Andreyev wanted to kill someone with his bare hands as the black SUV pulled up to one of their safe houses in DC He exited the vehicle, fuming. That NCIS bastard! He wanted a name to go with the agent. He wanted to know who he was up against.
“Dmitry, find out who that agent is.”
“Da,” Dmitry said, turning to his computer.
The agent had taken out seven of his guys, and now he was going to have to get more over here to finish this job. The people who hired him wouldn’t pay a dime if they didn’t deliver the woman alive. But finding her was an iffy ploy. He could only hope that she was as predictable as his employer thought she was.
Or this job was over, and he’d have to cut his losses.
Snarling, he kicked over the coffee table and closed his eyes against the pain in his head. “Get me something for a headache and some ice,” he growled at one of the men poring over a map on the dining room table.
Looking at a map wasn’t going to help them find the scientist.
This mission had taken months of planning, and the execution had gone like clockwork. He himself had found her hiding in the attic and drugged her.
But she had been resourceful, and he’d underestimated her. And in the parking garage when he’d had her protector beneath his hands, choking the life from him, she’d blindsided him. He wouldn’t underestimate her again.
He looked at his watch. They had a deadline, and time was running out.
Vin drove through the heavy snow, his shoulder throbbing and a weakness stealing over him. Probably from the blood loss. When the caffeine hit his system, it was like a surge of jet fuel in his bloodstream and it pumped him up. But he knew it was an artificial high from the drinks and the receding adrenaline. By the time the snow let up, after about an hour out of Baltimore, his shoulder was on fire. “We’re going to a fishing cabin near Newport, Pennsylvania on the Juniata River,” he said to reassure her and distract himself from the shooting pain in his shoulder.
“So, we’re going to rough it?”
“Not quite. I’ve packed a bag for both of us, got a thousand in cash. Marines call it a battle pack. We’ll be fine for a bit. Until we can get a lead on these bastards.”
Staying on I-83, he made it to Harrisburg. Starting to feel light-headed a bit, his shoulder was in agony because of the damaged nerve endings. Crossing over the Susquehanna River, navigating through the maze of the I-81 interchange and ending up on Route 322, he skirted the Susquehanna. They crossed over it again as it split into one of its tributaries—the Juniata River.
After a two-hour trip, he turned off on to a heavily wooded road and ended up at a cedar and glass cabin.
By then, his wound was burning, sending prickling pain with each beat of his heart, each movement.
He was moving slowly as he exited the vehicle, meaning to go to the trunk and get their battle packs out, but his knees buckled.
Sky rushed around the car and caught him as he clasped the door for support. “The bags,” he managed to say.
“Forget them for now. Let’s get you inside.”
“The med kit is in mine.”
“Inside first, Vin, then we’ll get you taken care of. Stop being a hero for just a few minutes.”
He grimaced and met her concerned gaze.
She supported him as they headed to the porch, and his hand trembled as he fitted his key in the lock. He pressed his hand against the doorjamb as she pushed the door open.
“Wow. This is gorgeous. There’s no roughing it here.”
“Belongs to a buddy,” he managed. “He’s deployed and lets me use it any time I want.”
She helped him inside, and she headed straight to the bathroom and deposited him on to the commode. I’ll be right back.”
“I don’t like you going back outside without me to cover you.”
“What’s going to attack me out here? The squirrels?”
He collapsed back against the tank and laughed, feeling as if he was losing it a bit, but unable to let down his guard.
When he opened his eyes, she was gone, and he tried to stand but clutched at his shoulder as he leaned his head back against the wall.
He closed them again, for just a minute. The soft touch of the backs of her fingers against his face made his eyes pop open. Had he fallen asleep? He couldn’t have. He couldn’t leave her unprotected. He went to rise, but she kept him in place with just the soft touch on his skin.
“It’s okay,” she said softly. How
did she do that, make him breathless? He’d run upstairs today, across an icy rooftop, took out seven dangerous men toting semiautos, and here he was trying to catch his breath.
Her exotic eyes were assessing him, her expression a bit tight, but not quite so strained as it had been in the loft or on the roof, as if she knew that, for a while, everything was going to be all right.
Watching her, his eyes went over her face, slowly, settling on her mouth.
He wasn’t going to kiss her.
He was so glad he got that straight in his head. So little was straight in his head right now. He was so tired. But they were safe here, and he could rest.
The sound of water intruded his thoughts. He turned his head. The water was running from the sink faucet. She had the med kit open.
She filled a glass that she must have brought from the kitchen and shook out several white tablets from the bottle of painkillers.
“Take these,” she said softly, a slight tremor in her voice.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, falling to his military training as he sank deeper into a dazed kind of sensation, feeling disconnected. Was he crashing or was it her?
After dutifully swallowing the pills, he closed his eyes again to try to clear his head.
The feel of the terry washcloth was warm against his skin as she gently cleaned off the blood around a particularly nasty gash. He opened his eyes and she was close, her eyes so blue, her fingers against his chin, tilting his head so she could get to the blood on the side of his face, right at the curve of his jaw. Her touch was as warm as her blue eyes. With every breath she took, an irrepressible longing was building inside him, making his chest tight.
There was a bloody smear at her waist, but he knew she wasn’t hurt. He’d gotten the blood on her. There were several times he’d gotten blood on his hands and then grabbed her. She had blood on her shoulder, too. A handprint—his.
“You okay?” he asked. He was a seasoned agent and a Marine. He had been a scout sniper, saw heavy and unrelenting battle where death stalked him and had seen many men die at his hands. He’d learned how to handle battle fatigue, stress and soul-deep fear, and knew how to put all that he had seen into perspective so that it didn’t mess with his head. Even with all of that, he’d been scared down to the bone tonight. Dr. Skylar Baang was a sheltered, naïve and cerebral innocent and it was up to him to protect her.
She blinked several times and gave him a wry look, dabbing antiseptic ointment on each cut, then setting butterfly bandages carefully to minimize his pain.
“I’m not the one who’s been shot twice, punched out and strangled,” she said. Her thumb slid across his jaw in a slow, deliberate caress. Did she even know that she was doing that? It was as if she couldn’t seem to help herself.
“I’m not talking about physically.” Why did he have to get himself on that train of thought? He needed to derail it, but it was too late, and the fight was draining out of him.
He had to wonder what she was wearing underneath that conservative plain white button-down. The hint of blue strap flashed as she moved. That turquoise number, edged in white and lime green lace, with a matching set of panties and that little lime green bow centered right in the middle.
“I’m okay for now,” she said, hooking her thumb over the hinge of his jaw and tipping his head back. Setting the washcloth down, she reached into the med kit and picked up a tube of liniment. Squeezing out a generous amount on to her fingers, she rubbed it against the tender bruises of his neck in slow, soft caresses.
“My head hurts a little at the temple where I fell. But I’ll take something for it as soon as you are…ah…handled.”
“Ha!” He laughed. “Funny, Doctor.” He let his breath go in a heated rush. He shouldn’t have thought about her in a physical way. Damn him.
Now that they were safe and he was getting tended by her, his thoughts went where he didn’t want them to go. Everything was falling into place in a little bit different order, stacking up to one undeniable truth: he wanted her.
Chapter Six
Sky was in his sights in a way that was impossible to ignore, deep down in his gut, visceral. When he’d opened his coat and invited her inside, it was because she was freezing—all part and parcel of the whole badass protector thing. Keep her safe in every way. But she’d looked up at him, and he’d suddenly noticed everything about her—the thickness of her lashes and the softness of her breath, the paleness of her skin and the racing of her heart, and he’d wanted her.
She was off-limits for so many reasons. But he couldn’t seem to bring any of them to the forefront of his mind right now.
She had shown a lot of courage tonight, and she had saved his life. That bravery and quick-thinking action was the reason he was here right now. His charge had become his guardian angel. That tied him up in knots. Just watching her breathe made his skin hot.
He was supposed to guard her, not touch her, getting his mouth and hands on her, getting inside her.
Oh, yeah. Inside her, that was the picture hardwired in his brain all the way down to his groin, short-circuiting his common sense.
“We need to get your shirt off,” she said, and his heart stalled in his chest. But she was focused on the bloody mess of a wound on his shoulder.
“I’m going to need some help,” he said. His shoulder wound was still radiating pain while he was mobile; raising his arm over his head wasn’t happening and doing it one-handed would only cause him to struggle.
She reached down to his waist, and the brush of her fingertips tightened him up in good and bad ways.
Instead of grabbing the Henley at the edge, she slipped her hand under the material and ran the palm of her hand up over his stomach and chest to his shoulder. He sucked in a surprised breath as everything went hot inside him. Around the pleasure of her touching his skin, he saw what she was doing. She was going to help him out of the sleeve. Less movement.
He closed his eyes and took a hard breath partly in pleasure and partly in pain. It was a helluva way to feel.
“Pull your arm out,” she instructed, leaning over him, smelling so damn good and only adding to his arousal. He wanted to bury his face in her hair.
She met his eyes, suddenly aware that he was turned on. She swallowed, her delicate throat working.
“Vin…your arm.”
He pulled at the same time she held the sleeve immobile so that he could extricate his arm. Reaching down with her free hand, she grasped the edge of the shirt and pulled it over his head. When the material moved over his wound, he twisted his head and swore softly, his breathing going ragged. His stomach heaved with the piercing pain. He inhaled deeply through the worse of it.
She was upset. It was written all over her face, but instead of moving or taking the next step, she was staring. At him. At his chest. Her eyes going over him as if she couldn’t believe this is what he looked like without his shirt.
He willed her to stop looking at him with that shell-shocked expression on her face.
“Sweetheart,” he said softly.
Her eyes met his and she blushed. She couldn’t hide her appreciative gaze, what the sight of his nakedness did to her. He was a red-blooded American male, and he was so okay with that. But trying to hold on to his sanity was getting so damn hard.
She dropped the shirt and turned away, fumbling with the med kit, and he couldn’t help the grin that spread across his face. He loved that he flustered her enough to make her clumsy. How would she react when she saw the rest of him?
He wanted to see that.
She turned back to him and noticed the grin. Her lips tightened as if she thought he was making fun of her. When she bent toward his injury, her hair flowed over her shoulder and brushed against the exposed skin of his chest. Even as she probed the wound, he focused on the feel of her warm, silky hair instead of the sting.
He gritted his teeth against both.
His head went back, and he groaned against the agony when she tugged something out of th
e bullet hole. His vision went gray, and he started to slide.
“Vin!” she croaked, catching him against her.
He grabbed the edge of the tank and pulled himself back up. “I’m okay,” he said, the dullness receding.
“Are you sure?” she asked, her eyes moist.
He nodded, reaching out and squeezing her arm. “Go ahead and finish.”
“I need you to stand over the sink so I can wash it out with peroxide. I’m afraid it’s going to hurt, and I’m so sorry about that.” Her voice trembled.
Pushing himself up, he did as she asked.
“Ready?” she asked, biting her lip.
“Go ahead.” Before she poured, she set her arm around his waist. It was a good thing she did. When the liquid hit his open skin, his knees buckled, and he gritted his teeth so hard his jaw ached. His hands shook as he hung on to the edge of the sink.
She helped him to sit back down. Then dabbed at both sides of the through-and-through. She pulled out the needle and the topical anesthesia and applied it, stitched up the front bullet hole, then the back one. She was aware that the topical couldn’t totally alleviate the pain from the needle, but Vin had stoically endured the procedure.
“Almost there,” she said, rubbing in antiseptic ointment. “Hold this,” she instructed as she placed a gauze pad against the front part of the wound, then grabbed another to place at the back. Then she wrapped a gauze bandage around his upper chest and his shoulder, covering and binding the two pads against the bullet holes, securing it with medical tape.
He leaned back, catching his breath.
“Vin,” she said softly. “Are you okay? Did you pass out?”
“No. I’m still conscious,” he said and opened his eyes.
“Good. Can I have that nervous breakdown now?” she asked, her voice cracking, and tears welling to overflowing. Covering her face, she burst into tears.
He came up off the commode and dragged her into his arms without hesitation. He wasn’t one of those guys who went all stupid when a woman cried. He’d had a buddy tell him once that a guy didn’t have much to offer in this kind of situation. Vin disagreed wholeheartedly. He had two strong arms, even though one of them was throbbing. Comfort. That’s all a woman wanted at a time like this.
