by Cindy Dees
“I’m sorry about that.”
“You can quit apologizing now. I got the message loud and clear that you deeply regret everything that has happened to me.”
He shifted to lie on his side facing the fire, close to the back wall of their little shelter. She still sat upright, and he spooned lightly around her lower torso from behind.
“You’ll be warmer if you lie down beside me,” he murmured. “Let me block the cold coming off the rocks at our backs from you while the fire warms your front.”
“Won’t you get colder?”
“Nah. I’m a furnace. Always have been. Once this fire gets a little bigger, you and I will both be toasty in no time.”
She stretched out beside him, cuddling back against his body. He was fully as cold as she was. It was kind of him to lie about being all right. If nothing else, the fire could warm her, and her body heat would warm him up a little.
“As soon as the other blanket is dry, you should put it over you,” she told him.
“By the time it’s dry, most of our clothes should be dry, too.”
“Not the jeans, though. Those will take a while,” she replied.
Silence fell between them as they spooned next to the fire. She curled around the firepit, as close as she could get without being singed. With him pressed tightly against her back, she actually began to warm up and feel semihuman again.
“I’m doing better,” she announced. “Do you want to switch places?”
“Nah. I’m good. You’re warming me up.”
With dryness and heat came awareness of the man pressed against her back from neck to ankles. His chest was muscular, his belly slabbed in muscle, as well. His legs were hairy, but the hair was soft against her skin. Whisker stubble on his face was rough against her shoulder. His knees tucked up under hers where they bent around the fire, and his arm was heavy across her middle.
She was surrounded by him. By his skin and muscle and sinew.
Not only did she feel almost warm, but she also felt almost safe. Finally.
She let out a big sigh, releasing the crushing fear and relentless stress of the past few days. Not surprisingly, a few tears escaped her eyes and ran sideways over her nose and dripped off her temple.
“Hey,” he said in a low voice. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. This is just relief.”
“Ah.” A pause. “That’s good.” Another longer pause. “Although I would be remiss if I didn’t tell you we’re not out of the woods yet. Literally or figuratively.”
She smiled a little. “I hear you. But being chased by bad guys and evading them in the woods is more in my regular wheelhouse. I’m trained to deal with doing that, and it doesn’t freak me out.”
“Ri-i-ight.”
Damn. She’d given away too much again. This guy lulled her into a sense of safety and relaxation where she spoke without thinking and kept tossing him hints about who she really was. She had to stop that!
“For the record,” she said reflectively, “I really appreciate everything you did to take care of me and protect me. Everything except that tackle in the field when I tried to escape. That hurt.”
He chuckled into her ear. “I would have let you go except one of the guys would have stepped out of the van to look for us any second. I was afraid we would get mowed down by an AK-47 before we got to the truck stop.”
“Speak for yourself. I’m pretty fast.”
“I know that now,” he replied. “But I didn’t then.”
“Are you really in the CIA?” she asked.
“I really am. And that’s classified, by the way. When we get back to the real world, I’ll need you not to tell anyone about it.”
“Or what? You’ll have to shoot me?” she quipped.
“I could never shoot you. I—” He broke off.
“You what?”
“I care too much about you.”
She froze in his arms, and he went just as still.
At long last, she mumbled, “You don’t know anything about me.”
“I know you’re braver than just about any woman I’ve ever met, and you have a great sense of humor, even in the face of terrible, terrible events. You’re unbelievably calm in a crisis, and you keep your wits about you under pressure. You tried to protect me by telling Mahmoud you were Persephone Black, and you sure as hell didn’t owe me a damned thing in that scenario. Which tells me you have a noble and self-sacrificing streak a mile wide. And, of course, you’re freaking beautiful. But that goes without saying.”
She didn’t know what to say. Eventually, she mumbled, “You still don’t know most of the important stuff about me.”
“Okay, tell me something important about you,” he murmured.
“You first.”
He sighed, “When are you going to learn to trust me? I mean, I get why you’re cautious, but I promise, we’re on the same side.”
That might be true, but her secrets weren’t the kind she could share with anyone. Her life, and those of her teammates, depended on total secrecy around the Medusa Project.
He surprised her by continuing. “Fine. Something important about me. Let’s see. I’m from New Hampshire originally. I was amused when you said my name should be Chad or Blaine. And yes, I have actually been sailing off Martha’s Vineyard. I grew up being the preppy you accused me of being.”
“Ha. Nailed it.”
His arms tightened a bit around her. “Remind me to add being perceptive to your list of virtues.”
“Trust me. I have plenty of vices,” she retorted.
“Name one.”
“I love junk food. If I could get away with it, I would live on pizza, chips and soda. Oh, and ice cream. Lots of ice cream.”
“What do you do to stay so fit, then?”
“I do my job. I run around in the woods, do calisthenics and swim and run basically all day long every day.”
“What’s your job?” he asked, sounding surprised.
She paused. “Here’s the thing. My job is classified.”
“So I gather. You know what NODs are. You walk and talk like a warrior. Your survival skills are outstanding. Are you an infantry officer?”
“I was one.”
He went still, obviously thinking hard.
Dammit, she’d done it again. She’d gone and revealed way too much about herself to him. She didn’t need him making the next leap of logic that she’d moved beyond plain-Jane infantry to the Special Forces.
She half turned in his arms so she could look up at him. He stared down at her intently, obviously weighing everything he knew of her and drawing his own conclusions.
“Can you do me a favor?” she murmured up at him.
The thoughtful look in his eyes was abruptly replaced by sharp alertness as he stared back at her. “What’s that?”
“Would you kiss me, please?”
Caution leaped into his eyes. “Why do you ask for that? I would have thought that after I, um, attacked you, you would want nothing to do with me.”
“In the first place, you didn’t attack me. You simulated attacking me, and you were as much of a gentleman as it’s possible to be in a situation like that. In the second place, I would like to replace the bad memory of that event with a good one.”
“You’re sure?” he asked soberly.
“Positive.”
His chin dipped, his mouth moving toward hers slowly. Carefully. Like he expected her to change her mind—or maybe attack him. When their lips were no more than a few inches apart, his upper torso pressing her opposite shoulder down into the ground, he murmured, “Are you okay?”
Hell, no. She wasn’t okay. The fake attack had been traumatic no matter how nice he’d been about it. It had been a chilling demonstration in what it felt like to be helpless and at the mercy of another human be
ing. What if he hadn’t been such a decent guy? What if he hadn’t taken care of her and only simulated the attack?
She mumbled aloud, “Yes, I’m okay. And thank you for practicing good consent behavior. But could you kiss me already? The suspense is making me nervous.”
Which was to say, she was terrified her courage would desert her and that she would back out of her request. Worse, if she didn’t get back in this saddle right now, with this man, she had a sinking suspicion it would be a very long time before she trusted any other man to kiss her.
“It’s only the suspense making you nervous?” He almost sounded disappointed that it wasn’t him doing so. News flash: he was making her nervous. More than she wanted to acknowledge, in fact. She’d just spent the past half hour more naked than not, pressed against him skin to skin, vividly aware of his body against hers.
Her heart raced and her breath hitched as he closed the final gap.
His lips brushed across hers lightly, a bare caress, so feathery she might not have felt it if she hadn’t been looking straight at him.
She froze, and he stopped, apparently waiting for her to gauge her reaction to the bare touch of their mouths.
She lifted her chin to kiss him this time, a little more firmly. A little more actual mouth-on-mouth contact.
It was his turn to freeze. Had her hand not been resting on his chest directly over his heart, she would’ve missed the abrupt acceleration of his heartbeat, pounding hard against her palm. Well, then.
What was she going to do with this man? She certainly knew what she would like to do with him. Did she dare?
If the past few days had taught her nothing else, it was that life was too short to let chances like this pass her by.
She kissed him again, more passionately this time. Was he aware that his hips were rocking a little against hers? Oh, yes. She wanted him, too.
“You okay?” he breathed.
“Getting there...”
Chapter 10
Getting there, indeed. Zane was way ahead of her, racing toward desires that were surely far, far beyond what she had in mind. He’d spent most of the past few days watching this woman, practically around the clock. He knew every curve of her face, had memorized every angle and curve of her body, the expressions that flashed across her mobile face—
Get a grip, man. This was the woman he’d kidnapped, for crying out loud. Guilt roared through him that he’d put this wonderful, warm, generous woman through hell. The last thing he wanted to do was take advantage of her vulnerable, emotional state. Hell, for all he knew, she was suffering a case of Stockholm syndrome, where the prisoner began to empathize too much with his or her kidnapper in a psychological-defense reaction to extreme duress.
She captured his mouth with her soft, sweet lips. She felt like an angel and tasted like heaven—
His brain reengaged sharply. He had no business kissing her. Yes, he got that she wanted to reassure herself that she was not traumatized. He was willing, happy even, to help her with that.
But no more than that. He owed her complete self-restraint on his part. If he cared about her at all, he would leave her the hell alone.
He went perfectly still, letting her call the shots. But damned if she didn’t continue letting her warm, resilient lips linger against his. Her mouth was fully as warm and pliable as it looked and he loved how her lips molded to his.
She deepened the kiss just a tiny bit.
Mistake, mistake, mistake!
She shifted beside him, rolling more fully onto her back and twining her arms lightly around his neck to take him with her. He propped his left elbow between her and the edge of the firepit. He partially covered her body with his but was careful not to let much of his weight come to rest upon her. No need to scare her when she was just starting to relax.
What are you doing, you idiot?
He answered himself that he was helping her move past the trauma of her near rape. That he was letting her use his body to heal herself.
Liar. You totally want this woman.
The fire was hot on his forearm, but it didn’t hold a candle to the heat suddenly pouring off the women beneath him. Her fingers slipped into his hair and tugged his head down to hers once more, pulling him more urgently into their kiss now.
Ignoring the warnings of logic and his better impulses, he obliged her and kissed her even more deeply, opening his mouth a little in invitation, but letting her set the overall pace. Her tongue traced the outline of his lips and then the sharp edges of his teeth. He held himself stock-still, not moving a muscle throughout her explorations.
She tilted her head to one side, fitting their mouths more tightly together, giving herself even deeper access to his mouth. Her chest lifted off the ground slightly, arching up toward his body. Her cotton-covered breasts rubbed lightly against his chest, and his breath hitched. Hard.
Man, that felt good. He silently wished for her to do it again. But no way would he ask such a thing of her. This was her show. She called the shots tonight. Whatever she wanted, he would give her. No less, and no more.
Their tongues swirled together, mimicking the sex act in a carnal dance that made him wild with desire.
He reined in his urges ruthlessly, refusing to give in to his baser impulses.
Her right hand slid across his shoulder, over the bulge of his biceps, and trailed down his arm. Then her fingers lifted away from him momentarily. Mentally, he howled a protest. But then her hand touched his waist, tracing a path of destruction across his ribs, following their length around the front of his torso toward his sternum.
Her hand dipped lower, her palm coming to rest upon his belly where the muscles were contracted so hard already that they were painful. He wasn’t trying to show off—her touch just did that to him. It made him tight and hard all over, in fact. Schooling himself fiercely to be still and let her set the pace of their embrace, he actually shook from the effort of holding himself perfectly still.
At least he wasn’t cold anymore. Far from it. Suddenly, he felt as if he was burning up. With need. And lust. For her. So much for hypothermia. One kiss from this woman and he was in danger of going up in flames.
What he really wanted to do was surge up over her, rid them both of their underwear, position himself between her legs and pump mindlessly into her body until the universe went supernova around them.
Instead, he gritted his teeth and suffered in silence, loving and hating the slowness of her explorations as her hand wandered at a snail’s pace across his bare skin.
It was torture.
He owed her this.
In a way, it was fair payback for the torture he’d put her through.
But he was getting the better end of that deal by a lot.
His breath caught and then stopped altogether as she slide her hand down his stomach, lower and lower yet. Her fingers slipped inside the waistband of his underwear. They tangled briefly in his pubic hair, and then her hand encircled his engorged erection.
“Oh, thank goodness,” she sighed.
“I beg your pardon?” he blurted out.
“I was worried when you didn’t get at all aroused during our fake attack that you didn’t find me attractive.”
He snorted. “I don’t find the idea of forcing myself on any woman the least bit attractive. In fact, I can’t think of a bigger turnoff than that.”
Her fingers gripped his erection firmly, sliding up and down the shaft experimentally. His hips lurched and he inhaled hard.
“I can’t tell you how relieved I am to learn that a) you don’t relish assaulting women, and b) that you do relish me at least a little.”
He buried his face in her hair and mumbled, “This is not me being turned on a little. This is me being turned on like crazy.”
“Hmm. What are we going to do about that?” she teased.
“We�
��re doing nothing at all about it. You may do whatever you like to me and with me, Piper. But I refuse to lift a hand to you in any way, lest you feel the least bit threatened.” To that end, he rolled onto his back beside her.
She raised up on an elbow to stare down at him. In the firelight, she looked like some primal goddess bathed in warm light, her hair glinting like spun filaments of gold, her eyes darker than the night around them.
“Are you serious?” she breathed. “I can do whatever I want to you?”
Whatever encompassed a very broad range of possibilities. But he owed her more than he could possibly begin to repay. This was the least he could do. He nodded firmly. “Whatever you want. My body is yours.”
She rose on her knees beside him. Dry leaves crunched under the blanket he lay on, and the ground was hard and unyielding beneath him. Piper reached for his underwear, and he lifted his hips, helping her strip them off him. His erection jutted up, as hard and hot as newly forged steel. No help for it. And she seemed to want to look at all of him. So be it.
She ran her palms lightly over his torso, and he jumped occasionally as she found ticklish spots. Then she shocked him by stripping off her panties quickly and throwing a leg over his hips to straddle him.
“You’ll get cold,” he protested.
“The rocks overhead have warmed up and are radiating heat down on me,” she countered.
“I don’t have any condoms,” he ground out from between his clenched teeth. The control it took to stay still beneath her as her lady parts rubbed up and down his shaft was almost more than he could muster.
She murmured, “I have a long-term birth control pellet in my arm. As long as you know you don’t have any sexually transmitted diseases and haven’t had sex with anyone else in a while, we’re good.”
“God, I love how prepared you are for every contingency,” he muttered.
She laughed a little and then her moist, hot opening was poised at the tip of his penis. He reached up to grab her hips. To stop her.
Lord, man. Have you lost your mind?
Shut up, horny me. I’m trying to do the right thing here.
Aloud, he bit out, “Are you sure about this?”
