If Looks Could Chill, page 17
Rebel didn’t believe in coincidences. “Or,” she said somberly, “it could be that van Halen had a hand in it.”
“It’s possible. I tried to find him earlier, to question him, but he’s gone off-grid. No one’s saying if he’s OCONUS on an op, or in the wind.”
She let out a low whistle. “Could he be the mole? The one who betrayed you and Alex in Afghanistan, and again in the Sudan?”
“He’s definitely high on my suspect list. Be careful, Rebel. Very careful. I know you have history with Zero Unit, but they are completely ruthless, even with one of their own. Believe me, I know.”
She glanced at Alex, who was watching her steadily from his place on the bed. “Yeah,” she said grimly. “I got that.”
“Listen, about al Sayika,” Kick said. “There’ve been developments. I’m hoping we’ll have the exact location of the cell within a day or two.” There was a short pause, then, “You’ll be my second call if we spot Gina.”
The first being Rainie. “Thanks, Kick. I really appreciate all the info. It helps me a lot.”
“And Rebel? I wouldn’t worry too much about Wade Montana. From what Rainie says, he seems like a decent guy. Still carries a torch for Gina, but not bad enough to do her harm. At least in Rainie’s opinion.”
Rebel gave her thanks and hung up, feeling more than a little shell-shocked. She turned to Alex, who was still watching her, an inscrutable look on his face.
She summarized what Kick had told her. “Did you know?”
“About the connection to Zero Unit?” He shook his head no. “Looks like Rainie isn’t the only one Kick is protecting.”
She gave him a sympathetic smile. “Rightly so. You have enough to deal with.”
He shifted on the bed, his thigh muscles flexing with the movement. Drawing her eye. Bringing the memory of what had happened earlier between them rushing back through her body in a hot torrent of shame and desire.
She jumped up from her chair. “Well, I have a long drive so—”
At the exact same moment, he said, “Rebel, about what happened—”
“Nothing happened,” she said quickly. Too quickly, and they both knew it. “Have you and Helena set a date yet?”
“I believe I told you that last night,” he replied, his gaze almost accusing.
“Of course. Sorry, I forgot.” More like blocked it from her mind. Why on earth had she brought that up? To make herself feel even more ashamed and guilt-ridden, no doubt. “June, right?”
“February. Fourteenth.”
How could she have forgotten? Helena had giggled when Rebel called to congratulate her this morning. “That way he’ll never forget our anniversary,” she’d said. Thanks for that, Helena. Now Rebel would never be able to celebrate another Valentine’s Day without thinking of him, Dudley Do-the-Right-Thing. Because—what could be more perfect?—Helena had then asked her to be maid of honor at the wedding. How could Rebel get out of that without exposing her highly inappropriate feelings?
What a total, colossal cliché.
The maid of honor hopelessly in love with the groom, whose brain must really be made of honor and nothing else, because he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, see he was doing exactly the wrong thing by marrying Helena Middleton.
Beautiful, perfect Helena, who had waited faithfully for him for sixteen long months, all while he was presumed dead.
Of course, Rebel had waited, too.
But no one had asked her.
Nor, three months ago when, to everyone’s stunned surprise, Alex had returned from hell alive, and they made a big fuss and glorified Helena’s virtuous devotion and self-sacrifice to pedestal status. Rebel had always thought there was something vaguely wrong with that scenario. Helena had been faithful, never even looked at another man . . . but she hadn’t seemed all that heartbroken, either. She’d gone out partying constantly with her high-society girlfriends.
Oh, well. Anyway, Rebel had stopped celebrating Valentine’s Day a while back—the year Cupid had thoughtlessly given away her heart’s only desire. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad being reminded of that over and over and over and over.
Yeah.
“I have to go now,” she said, determined to stop torturing herself with these midnight visits. From now on, she would not see him unless she came in the limo with Helena. “Take care of yourself, Zane.”
And she would redouble her efforts to find herself a real boyfriend to take her mind off this impossible situation.
“Rebel!” he called after her.
But she’d already closed the door behind her. She leaned her forehead against it, exhaling a long, painful breath of finality.
And knew with an aching in her heart, tonight was the closest she would ever get to kissing Alex Zane.
FIFTEEN
BOBBY Lee knew there was going to be trouble about the sleeping arrangements.
Seven people. Nine cabins and the Moby. It should be real simple. Yeah, simple as petting a fucking porcupine.
It had taken the DHS forensics team three long hours to process the bodies and the small house where the victims had died. Marc’s two tweaker witnesses had been packed off for interrogation, and toward the end of the night, there’d been a short but intense debate as to what to do with Trooper Tara Reeves. The DHS commander had wanted to take her into “protective” custody for the duration of the op, but Marc insisted he’d gotten clearance from higher up to keep her with the STORM team—under his recognizance.
Say what?
Though a bit surprised, Bobby Lee wasn’t worried. He’d known Marc long enough to trust his judgment. And one look at that Cajun, and Bobby Lee knew better than to stick his nose into whatever the hell was going on between him and the feisty LSP trooper. But he couldn’t resist poking him a bit, and had pretended to object at first, with the resulting remarkably reasonable argument from Marc that she was a trained law enforcement officer, and as long as she’d stumbled onto their covert operation they may as well make use of her skills.
Uh-huh. Bobby Lee had a pretty damn good idea which of Trooper Reeves’s skills Marc wanted to make use of. Possibly already had, from the heated looks passing between them. Though he wasn’t quite sure whether that heat was sexual or some kind of silent personal battle they were engaged in. Probably both.
But hey, Bobby Lee was the last one to be pointing fingers.
Anyway, the issue had ultimately been decided in Marc’s favor. STORM Command had been called, DHS orders had been issued, and shortly thereafter, custody of the pretty little trooper had been turned over to Lafayette. And that—aside from throwing her into a fuming hissy fit—had resulted in another hour being lost to retrieve her police unit from a seedy roadhouse parking lot before the team made it back to camp to grab showers and an hour or two of much-needed sleep before throwing themselves into the hunt again. By this time it was going on 0300.
As soon as the SUV pulling the boat, followed by Reeves’ unit, drove into camp, Bobby Lee announced that the usual midnight sit-rep meeting would be postponed until 0600. With a grateful wave, Rand did a U-turn back to the Moby. Usually he bunked down there. Ski and Kick made beelines for their respective cabins. Smart boys.
“You’re with me,” Marc said to Tara as they climbed out of her unit—which Marc had insisted on driving. It had been a real good thing she’d been in handcuffs again, at the insistence of the DHS commander.
To Bobby Lee’s amusement, Marc started walking toward his cabin thinking she’d just follow. Lord, what planet did that boy live on?
She let out a rude noise. “I don’t think so.” She turned to Bobby Lee, obviously still mad as a damn yellow hornet. “Isn’t it against the Geneva Convention or something to make a prisoner sleep with her captor?”
Bobby Lee stifled a grin. The woman was exhausted, splattered with mud, and angry as any woman he’d ever seen, but he could definitely see why Marc was so clearly smitten. She was a real firecracker.
Before he could answer, Marc announced irritably, “Don’t worry. There are two beds. You don’t have to come near me if you don’t want to.”
“It’s not me I’m worried about,” she returned.
Zimmie was also watching their byplay with amusement. Bobby Lee caught her eye and winked. Which made her smile switch off like a light.
Well, hell.
“She can share my cabin,” Zimmie said, giving him a cool dismissal.
He thought briefly about his earlier decision to give up sleeping with her in favor of better concentration and not ending up dead because of some stupid, lust-induced mistake.
A wave of pure regret washed through him. He was doing the right thing. He was convinced of it. But hell on a stick.
She was so damn fine. And talk about a firecracker. He loved their frequent clashes—almost as much as he loved it when they came together afterward.
“No chance,” Marc said at the exact same time Tara said, “Thank you.”
“She’s in my custody,” Marc said to Zimmie. “If she escapes and blows this op, it’ll be my hide on the line.”
“Why would I do that?” Tara insisted, pulling at her arm, which Marc had clamped between his fingers. “I swear I won’t tell anyone.”
“Like you swore to stay in the kayak?” Marc shot back with not a little exasperation. “Do I look that gullible? Non. I know how you operate and I’m not taking any chances.”
“And I know how you operate,” she retorted, jabbing him in the chest with a finger. “I am not sleeping with you again, Lafayette.”
All righty, then. Settled that question.
Tara suddenly remembered they had an audience and snapped her mouth shut, blushing to the roots of her pretty brown hair.
Marc looked about ready to boil his crawdads. “Whatever you like, cher. Stay up all night. Me, I’m going to get some sleep. Now, come on, you.” He put his other hand on the small of her back and propelled her toward his cabin.
“Are you going to let him get away with this?” she appealed to Bobby Lee over her shoulder, still struggling. “I thought you were in command here!”
He shrugged. Menfolk had to stick together. It was the only way to survive. “Marc’s right,” he said. “You’re his charge. But he lays a finger on you that you don’t want, just yell. These cabin walls are paper thin.”
He slanted Zimmie a glance as the two lovebirds—still arguing—disappeared down the path to Marc’s cabin. Zimmie was glaring at him. Now, didn’t that just figure.
He held up his hand like a stop sign and headed for their cabin. Well, hers. But all his stuff was still in it. “Baby, I already know what you’re going to say, so don’t even bother.”
Unfortunately for her, that morning he’d been the last one out of their cabin, and he still had the key. So, yeah. Theirs. Leaving his dirty boots on the stoop, he unlocked the door and walked in. Then headed directly for the microscopic shower tucked into a corner of the postage-stamp-sized bathroom, shedding his clothes along the way.
“Hey!” Zimmie yelled, charging after him. He could hear her boots plop on the wooden deck as she hastily drew them off. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Washing the stink off.” He hopped on one foot, then the other, to peel off his BDUs. “Feel free to join me if you like. No guarantees there’ll be any hot water left when I’m done.”
An unladylike bellow of outrage followed him into the bathroom.
The woman liked her creature comforts—never was one for cold showers. One time on an op high in the Andes, she’d made him heat water in an old lard can on the engine of their Jeep so she could wash her hair without her teeth chattering. He’d indulged her with wry amusement—but the gesture had been amply rewarded, he recalled with a surge of yearning in his nether regions.
Not that he intended to do anything tonight but wash. No siree. She’d made her wishes good and clear, and he’d made up his mind to honor them. For his own fucking good.
His body, on the other hand, hadn’t quite gotten the e-mail. Just being in the same room with her, let alone stripping to the skin, made his cock quicken and pulse with need.
He grabbed the soap and shampoo from his kit, turned on the water, and stepped under the meager, icy spray. He let out a Bama yell at the first shock of cold on his bare flesh. Folks thought of the South as being hot and sultry, but in winter it was anything but. He well remembered shivering through many a subfreezing night in the unheated backwoods shack he grew up in. “Make a man out of you,” his daddy used to say. But it only succeeded in making his mama cough blood till she died and killing his baby sister with the pneumonia before she turned three. Daddy was right though; now the frigid jolt of water barely fazed Bobby Lee.
He shook his head like a happy hound, spraying droplets all around before soaping up. Through the transparent shower cubicle, he caught sight of Zimmie standing in the door of the bathroom, leaning against the jam, arms folded across her front.
Now, Bobby Lee was no exhibitionist. And lord knew it wasn’t the first time she’d looked at him naked. But there was just something about having a woman stand and admire your body that got a man’s blood pumping in a certain direction. And she was admiring him, all right. No doubt about that. No matter the scowl crinkling her pretty blue eyes or that downturned shit-smeller moue.
“Come on in, the water’s fine,” he invited, leisurely scrubbing himself. If she accepted, she’d get the shock of her life when he didn’t so much as touch her. So would he, come to that.
She saved him the battle of temptation. “No, thanks. I’ll wait.”
“Suit yourself. Don’t blame me if there’s no hot left.”
She tilted her head. “Not too worried. You seem to have forgotten to turn it on.”
Hell, she wasn’t a spy for nothing, that one. “Yeah, well, hot’s for sissies and girls anyway.”
He washed his hair till it squeaked, then rinsed off. Putting his nose to his arm, he tested the smell. That crime scene had been rank, and he didn’t want it clogging his nostrils for the next two days. Even through the hazmat suit, a subtle trace of death had permeated his skin. He decided to give himself another quick scrub.
And all the while she wordlessly watched him. Because the water was cold, no steam rose from it, leaving the cubicle crystal clear and giving her an unobstructed view.
Quite the little voyeur.
Not that he objected. A taste for the mildly edgy was something they shared and had enjoyed exploring together.
But by the time he rinsed off again he was hard as a steel pipe.
“Are you finished yet?” she asked, pretending she wasn’t just as turned on as he was.
What the hell. He’d never get any sleep like this, anyway.
He curled the corner of his lip. “Not quite.”
Fisting his cock in his right hand, he ran his thumb up the thick shaft and squeezed the swollen head so an electric buzz of pleasure coursed through him on a shiver. His throat caught in a jolt of sexual hunger. Her gaze faltered at his actions, but to her credit her eyes didn’t widen or display any hint of shock. Not that he figured she was. Surprised maybe. Hopefully jealous. Real jealous. Of his hand.
Pressing his fingers deep into the throbbing vein on the underside, he dragged them slowly down, then up again, making his toes curl with an urgent physical need for release. His breath came harder.
Her eyes darted uncertainly to his. He captured her gaze, kept it firmly locked with his as he began to work his cock. He wanted to look into the depths of her eyes as he pleasured himself, wanted her to know he was thinking of her as he did it. Imagining in his mind all that his body wanted to do to hers.
How he wanted to tug her under the water with him, naked, and lather the silken skin of her lush curves with the soap, using that as an excuse to touch every exquisite part of her. He wanted to kiss her using his tongue as his thumbs slid over the peaks of her nipples, back and forth, back and forth, making her writhe and pant for him. He wanted to drop to his knees and find the tender flesh between her legs, slip his fingers into the furrow of her moist folds, spreading them for his mouth and tongue to explore, bringing her to a quivering, helpless state of need. For him. And then he would surge up, drive himself into her, reveling in the exquisite tight heat as he gloved himself in her sex and pumped, pumped, pumped.
Aw, fu-uck.
He shattered in an explosion of pleasure, squelching his roar of completion with a low growl torn from his throat.
He slapped a hand on the cold wall to steady himself, and finished off to the last drop, ending up with a long, measured exhale.
Zimmie stood rooted to the spot, unable to look away, her cheeks flagged with the dark pink flush of arousal he knew so well. God, she was beautiful.
And done with him.
He turned away, toward the shower stream, to wash away the essence of his desire for her. He snorted silently. As if it were that easy. Even now, the echoes of pleasure he was feeling were hollow, empty; already he hungered for the real thing. With her.
But that was not to be. Not now at any rate.
After this mission was over, then he’d see what could be done to change her mind. Maybe. Or maybe it would be better all around just to let it go, as she insisted.
Meanwhile he seriously needed some z’s.
He shut off the taps and grabbed his towel off the rack.
“All yours,” he said with a wink, sliding past her as he dried himself.
Then he collapsed on the bed. Before his head hit the pillow, he was asleep.
“TARA? Please, cher. Come over here with me.”
The man had to be out of his ever-loving mind.
“No,” she said.
At least she felt perfectly safe, if nothing else. He wouldn’t come over to her bed, no matter how much he wanted to. Marc Lafayette wasn’t the kind of man to force his attentions on a woman.
No matter how much she might want him to.
No. She didn’t. She needed this time alone. Relatively alone. To sort through the events of the past few hours. Figure out what everything really meant. Figure out how she felt about it all. About him.
