Ryland’s Reach (Bullard's Battle Book 1)

by Dale Mayer

  “But you’ll love this,” he said. “Can you take more time off?”

  “The hospital has already okayed it,” she said, “because no way I would let you go back out there again. Somebody had to make sure you stayed alive and well.”

  “How long do we have?”

  “Two weeks at the moment,” she said, with a shrug.

  He picked up his phone and asked, “How bad is my lung?”

  “You’re doing not bad,” she said. “As long as all we’ll do is laze around.”

  “How about float around?”

  She stared at him in surprise and then said, “What do you have in mind?”

  Chapter 16

  What Ryland had in mind was a sailboat off the coast. And Tabi still didn’t understand how quickly they’d gotten here. He’d had himself medevacked out to a coastal town, with her at his side. She had all the medicines they needed in a bag, and he had been transported in a wheelchair and led her toward a large sailboat.

  Now safely aboard, she walked around the deck and smiled. He sat in a lawn chair with a laptop and satellite hookups, electronic equipment all around him. “How did you make all this happen in five hours?” she asked.

  “It’s my world,” he said. “I make things happen. That’s what I do.”

  She shook her head. “Freaking amazing.” She walked to the mast and leaned against it, staring at the blue waters all around.

  “Will this do?”

  “It will for a little bit,” she said, laughing. “As long as nobody knows where we are, and we won’t get attacked from the sky.”

  “We shouldn’t. Ice has Stone running proxies right now.”

  “Whatever that means,” she said. “Did you find Cain?”

  He looked up and flashed her a bright smile. “Yes, he’s gone underground to regroup.”

  “Perfect, and Garret’s still in the hospital,” she said. “I just heard from the surgeon. Apparently he’s showing signs that he’s starting to stir a little bit.”

  “Now that is perfect,” he said.

  She smiled, knowing how hard and fast the road had been to get them to where they were. Then she noticed the white pinched look around his mouth. “Time to put it away and go lie down for a bit,” she said.

  His lips tightened, as if he would protest; then he relaxed and nodded. “You’re right. Can you help me move this stuff to one side?” Soon they had everything secured and in the locked waterproof boxes that were set up all around. With that done, he slowly got up, and, with her help, they managed to get him belowdeck to the bed.

  As he laid down, he said, “You could join me.”

  “I could,” she said, with a smile. “As long as there’s no hanky-panky because I can’t risk having you hurt.”

  “You’re such a pain,” he murmured.

  “I am,” she said, laughing, as she leaned over and kissed him. But, when she went to pull away, he grabbed her head, then pulled her down and kissed her hard. She shook her head. “You’re too injured for this.”

  “Maybe,” he murmured. “But not if I don’t have to do any of the work.”

  She stared at him in surprise and delight. “Oh, don’t tell me that you’ll just lie there and let me do my worst?”

  “I would love nothing more,” he said. Since he already wore swim shorts, and she was in a bikini top and bottoms, it was much easier to strip down. He had his shorts off in seconds, lying here, completely bare and waiting for anything she wanted to do.

  As she sat down, her bikini long gone, she said, “You know something? I don’t think I’ve ever had this opportunity before.”

  He looked at her curiously. “What do you mean?”

  “Not too many men are just happy to lie there and do nothing.”

  “Well, I can’t promise to continue doing nothing,” he said, “but you’ve definitely got a chance to get started.” And with a suggestive wink, he said, “Do your worst.”

  She shook her head. “No, I’ll take it easy on you,” she said. “After all, you’re injured.”

  “I’m not that injured,” he protested.

  She leaned over and kissed him again. When he went to grab her head, she shook her head and placed his hands down beside him and said, “Don’t move.” Delight lit the dark depths of his gaze as she ran her fingers across his features, dropping kisses on his brows and his nose, stroking her fingers through his hair. “I almost lost you,” she murmured and dropped her cheek against his for a long moment. Then she kissed him again and again. She climbed up, so she straddled his body, her hands gently stroking across his heavily muscular chest and shoulders.

  With misgivings, she stared at the bandages on his shoulder from one of the latest bullet wounds, until he reached up and said, “Don’t stop. I’m fine.”

  “Fine you are not,” she said, “but I’ll go easy.”

  She gently whispered her fingers across his skin, exploring and finding out who he was on the outside, since she already knew exactly who he was on the inside. He was honorable, loyal, caring, and dedicated; he was all of that and more. And, on the outside, he was such a warrior. She flicked his nipples with her nails and ran her fingers in a circle around and across his chest, seeing the other bullet wound there. She swallowed back her tears, then she rubbed upward, massaging his muscles as she moved up and down his chest and belly. She scampered a little lower, so she could explore where his ribs rose. His belly dropped immediately at her light touch; his six-pack rose at her tickling.

  He gasped and said, “Well, that won’t go down well.”

  She leaned over and kissed his belly button. “How about that though?” she murmured.

  He groaned and said, “Okay, okay, I’ll take some of that.”

  She let her hair, now free and long, drift across his erection, just a whisper of touch. He moaned, his hands still at his side, his hips twisting beneath her. She ran long smooth fingers down over his hip bones, to slide into the curls at the base of his growing erection, where she teased, tormented, and generally avoided the one area she knew he desperately wanted her to touch.

  But she wasn’t ready to give this up, and she knew that, when she did, it would be over, really fast. She stroked his thighs, the inside of which were supersoft, the hard quads, bigger and stronger than she could have imagined. But the calves on the man, she just shook her head when she came to his heavy foot. It was just unbelievable to see how much bigger and stronger than her that he was.

  Slowly she made her way back up again, leaving a trail of kisses up and down his thighs. When she got to his hip, she moved to the inside of his hip bone, letting her hair once again drift and wrap around his proud member, as it stood higher. Then she grasped it gently with one hand and slowly stroked up and then down, exploring the firm ridge, the shape, and the texture. When she leaned over and kissed him on the tip, he roared, his hips coming up in a flash.

  She smiled and let his penis drift between her breasts, then momentarily hugged it with them, as she plumped her breasts around it, letting it slide lower and lower and lower, as she climbed up, until she slowly placed it at the heart of her and sank down. Immediately he thrust his hips up, groaning wildly. She smiled and shifted ever-so-slightly, leaning over so her hands were on the bed beside him.

  “You know another activity I like to do?” she teased.

  This,” he said desperately, his hips trying to plumb up and down inside her, but she wouldn’t give him any space to do it.

  “No,” she said. “I like to ride.” As she slowly lowered and raised herself, again and again, he grabbed her hips and held her as he lifted, finding the same rhythm, as she rode them right to the edge and hung there for a long moment.

  When he grabbed her and pulled her down, plunging deeper and deeper and deeper, she cried out, as her world came crashing apart. He groaned beneath her and she sat still, on top of him, her head thrown back, as her arms collapsed against her thighs as she waited for all the trickles and rumbles of energy sliding up and down he
r body. Her nerve endings alive, awake, and screaming out in joy.

  He reached up, slid his hands up her thighs, across her belly, up to cup her breasts, and he whispered, “God, woman, if you keep that up, you’ll kill me yourself.”

  She smiled, looked at him, and said, “Yeah, but what a way to go.”

  He burst out laughing as she slowly lowered herself so that she was beside him.

  “Now sleep,” she whispered. “You really need it.”

  “Only if you sleep with me,” he said. “It’s been a pretty rough week for you too.”

  She kissed him gently on the cheek and said, “Yes, but it’s over now. Now we have the rest of our lives.”

  Epilogue

  Cain Bestrow grabbed his phone, saw the message from Ryland, and gave a small crow. “Apparently Garret’s waking up,” he said.

  Eton was at his side and said, “Seriously?”

  “He’s not conscious yet, but they think he’s coming out of it.”

  “That’s huge,” Eton said, as the two men high-fived each other. “Now the question is,” Eton said, “what will we do about you?”

  “We don’t know jack shit yet,” Cain said. “We’ve ID the three dead guys with Green—the two at the museum with him and the one at the hospital, heading for Garret. The guy at the hospital was a local, a gun for hire, we assume. But we’ve tracked the other two of Green’s men back to Africa, but they were originally from Sicily.”

  “Sicily? Interesting,” Eton said. “Have we had any cases there?”

  “No, but that doesn’t mean that somebody didn’t hire the labor from over there.”

  “I know,” Eton said. “I’m just trying to figure out what the connection is.”

  “Well,” Cain said, “they’re after all of us because Green’s goon was very clear that I’m next.”

  “You think whoever’s behind all this is intentionally picking us off, one by one?” Eton asked.

  “I think they’re trying to,” Cain said. “They were happy to take out three of us at the beginning—or maybe kill off the boss and whoever he’s with—then go pick off the soldiers, one by one.”

  “That also implies that whoever is after us, is after all of us, and it’s not just revenge against Bullard and his nameless team. This is more personal,” Eton stated.

  “Very,” Cain said, just as another text came in. He read it, smiled, and said, “Ryland’s doing better. He and Tabi are out on the sailboat right now, and he’s running communications with Ice and Levi.”

  “Good,” Eton said. “If anybody can keep track of us, it’ll be Ryland. How bad are his injuries?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Cain said, “because you can count on the fact that Tabi won’t let him die.”

  “Damn it. He sure lucked out, didn’t he?” Eton said, a note of envy in his voice.

  “He absolutely did,” Cain said. “And she’s got some spirit in her too. It’s too bad she was already hooked on Ryland, or I might have made a move for her myself.”

  Eton chuckled. “No, I don’t think there was any chance of that happening.”

  “So, since this asshole is after me next, it’s up to me to figure out the next step.”

  “No,” Eton said. “It’s not. It’s up to all of us. This isn’t just about you. This is about the whole team. And we can’t forget the fact that they might still decide to circle back around and take out Garret and Ryland.”

  “And maybe they will. We’ve still got security on Garret, and Tabi is no slouch, by any means. I still can’t believe she killed that one gunman instantly with one shot.”

  “Beginner’s luck? You know what they say about a lot of women. It’s instinctive for them to just point their finger, as they would at a naughty child. All they have to add is pulling the trigger to fire. Boom. There it is. It’s a hell of a deal.”

  “Remember though, she killed another gunman with one shot too, just took longer for him to die.”

  “Amazing,” Eton said.

  “Well, I’m sure glad she was there,” Cain said. “She also saved Ryland with her emergency nursing skills right in the first few minutes. If she hadn’t sealed up that lung and controlled the bleeding, he never would have made it. She’s the kind of person you need when it counts.”

  “Well, good for both of them,” Eton said. “Now, what’s next?”

  Cain gave him a hard glance. “I guess I’ll head for Sicily.”

  “Just because they were from there, doesn’t mean that’s where the trouble is.”

  “No, but that’s where their connections will be. Somebody in Sicily will know who and where. So that’s where I’m going.”

  “Okay then,” Eton replied.

  Cain looked at him. “You coming?”

  “Hell yeah,” Eton said. “You’re not going there by yourself. That’s for sure.”

  “Just the two of us though,” Cain said. “Any more than that and we will attract more attention than we need. We made too much of a statement at the museum.”

  “Good,” Eton said. “The statement the bad guys all need to know is that we’ve got their number and that we’re coming for them, one by one.”

  This concludes Book 1 of Bullard’s Battle: Ryland’s Reach.

  Read about Cain’s Cross: Bullard’s Battle, Book 2

  Cain’s Cross: Bullard’s Battle (Book #2)

  Welcome to a new stand-alone but interconnected series from Dale Mayer. This is Bullard’s story—and that of his team’s. All raw, rough, incredibly capable men who have one goal: to find out who was behind the attack on their leader, before the attacker, or attackers, return to finish the job.

  Stay tuned for more nonstop action as the men narrow down their suspects … and find a way to let love back into their own empty lives.

  Cain—hearing a killer’s last words, “You’re next,”—knows his time is running out, not only for him but for his entire team. As members of his team search for the still missing Bullard in the ocean, Cain has focused on tracking the killer’s history, hopefully to lead to the madman after them all. A trip to Sicily brings more information to light but also more puzzles to sort out. And an unexpected light in Cain’s life.

  When Petra picks up the two men at the airport, she has no idea how fast her personal life is about to unravel. Not only do these men bring up old terrible memories but they also shine a light on an ugly corner of town. People she avoids at all costs.

  Still she can’t afford to dwell on the past, as her present blows up. With Cain and Eton at her side, they’re all trying to stay alive, as the bodies drop around them.

  Find Book 2 here!

  To find out more visit Dale Mayer’s website.

  Damon’s Deal: Terkel’s Team (Book #1)

  Welcome to a brand-new connected series of intrigue, betrayal, and … murder, from the USA Today best-selling author Dale Mayer. A series with all the elements you’ve come to love, plus so much more… including psychics!

  A betrayal from within has Terkel frantic to protect those he can, as his team falls one by one, from a murderous killer he helped create.

  Ice poured herself a coffee and sat down at the compound’s massive dining room table with the others. When her phone rang, she smiled at the number displayed. “Hey, Terk. How’re you doing?” She put the call on Speakerphone.

  “I’m okay,” Terkel said, his voice distracted and tight.

  “Terk?” Merk called from across the table. He got up and walked closer and sat across from Levi. “You don’t sound too good, brother. What’s up?”

  “I’m fine,” Terk said. “Or I will be. Right now, things are blown to shit.”

  “As in literally?” Merk asked.

  “The entire group,” Terk said, “they’re all gone. I had a solid team of eight, and they’re all gone.”

  “Dead?”

  Several others stood to join them, gathered around Ice’s phone. Levi stepped forward, his hand on Ice’s shoulder. “Terk? Are they all dead?”

&n
bsp; “No.” Terk took a deep breath. “I’m not making sense. I’m sorry.”

  “Take it easy,” Ice said, her voice calm and reassuring. “What do you mean, they’re all gone?”

  “All their abilities are gone,” he said. “Something’s happened to them. Somebody has deliberately removed whatever super senses they could utilize—or what we have been utilizing for the last ten years for the government.” His tone was bitter. “When the US gov recently closed us down, they promised that our black ops department would never rise again, but I didn’t expect them to attack us personally.”

  “What are you talking about?” Merk said in alarm, standing up now to stare at Ice’s phone. “Are you in danger?”

  “Maybe? I don’t know,” Terk said. “I need to find out exactly what the hell’s going on.”

  “What can we do to help?” Ice asked.

  Terk gave a broken laugh. “That’s not why I’m calling. Well, it is, but it isn’t.”

  Ice looked at Merk, who frowned, as he shook his head. Ice knew he and the others had heard Terk’s stressed out tone and the completely confusing bits and pieces coming from his mouth. Ice said, “Terk, you’re not making sense again. Take a breath and explain. Please. You’re scaring me.”

  Terk took a long slow deep breath. “Tell Stone to open the gate,” he said. “She’s out there.”

  “Who’s out there?” Levi asked, hopped up, looked outside, and shrugged.

  “She’s coming up the road now. You have to let her in.”

  “Who? Why?”

  “Because,” he said, “she’s also harnessed with C-4.”

  “Jesus,” Levi said, bolting to display the camera feeds to the big screen in the room. “Is it live?”

  “It is, and she’s been sent to you.”

  “Well, that’s an interesting move,” Ice said, her voice sharp, activating her comm to connect to Stone in the control room. “Who’s after us?”

  “I think it’s rebels within the Iranian government. But it could be our own government. I don’t know anymore,” Terk snapped. “I also don’t know how they got her so close to you. Or how they pinned your connection to me,” he said. “I’ve been very careful.”