Dangerously Hot (A Hostile Operations Team Novel)(#4) (21 page)

Kev had always been a closed book, a secret wrapped in mystery. A lonely man living a lonely life. Her heart ached and swelled with love.

“I want you, Kevin. Only you.”

With a groan, he plunged into her.

***

Two bombs were nothing, but they were a start. Abdul Halim watched the news reports of the bombings on four different television screens set up in his personal sanctuary—his wife was not allowed in; Lana was, but only when invited. This evening, both his wife and Lana were visiting friends in another apartment, so he was completely alone.

He lifted the cigarette to his lips and took a long drag. The Qu’rimi reporters were nearly hysterical. CNN, the BBC, and Al Jazeera took it as a matter of course. There were security cameras in the vicinity of the embassy, and they’d captured the explosion. The footage was now looping on all the networks.

Of course he couldn’t bomb the American embassy. It was too difficult to get inside and almost impossible to bring in explosives even if he got someone through security. Besides, his target wasn’t really the embassy so much as he wanted the Americans to think so. If they were focused on themselves, they wouldn’t realize what was happening in the Ministry of Science until too late.

If he knew anything about Americans, he knew they were paranoid about being targets. They’d gotten so accustomed to fielding attacks from small-minded people with short-term goals that it had affected their strategic thinking.

His goals were much broader, of course. He wasn’t hampered by the small thinking that had characterized so many other movements. No, he was able to think much bigger than anyone before him had done. And that was why he would succeed.

The Americans wouldn’t see it coming. No one would.
 

The film of the bombing played again, and again he felt that visceral rush when the flash of light blazed from the car parked on the street. Glass shattered and people screamed. He enjoyed that bit. It wasn’t quite as good as inflicting the pain himself, but it would have to do.

On CNN, footage played of a reporter talking to witnesses. The camera was set up on a sidewalk, and people crossed behind the man as he pulled in random bystanders. The camera zoomed in, just for a moment, on a woman in a torn abaya. Beside her was a tall man. Not a Qu’rimi, but a blue-eyed foreigner.

Yet it was the woman who caught his attention. He grabbed the remote and rewound the broadcast until that precise moment when her face was onscreen. And then he used the zoom function to get closer, to study her features. Her face wasn’t as sharp at a higher power as it was in regular playback mode. But it was familiar in a way that made his blood beat.
 

Was she here? Was Lucky Reid in Baq instead of the United States? Was this why his people had not yet managed to find her? He leaned toward the television, studying the blurry face. Was it her? Or was he seeing a mirage because he wanted to find her?

He zoomed out and looked at her again. He could not be certain. Yet a cold, knife-sharp pressure bloomed in his gut. He did not ignore those feelings when they happened.

It was entirely possible the Americans were moving much faster than he’d thought they would.
 

He studied the man beside her. A pale-eyed foreigner who was not small in the least. A man with a grim expression and broad shoulders. Abdul Halim told himself to be calm, to be methodical. It could be nothing. But his heart pounded with excitement as he picked up his phone and dialed.

There was only one place foreigners tended to stay these days. And he had a man on the inside.
 

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Being inside Lucky was heaven. And hell, because he wasn’t supposed to be doing this. But how could he stop?

Kev held her hard against the wall and rolled his hips into her, sliding into her slick heat again and again. Her legs wrapped high around his waist and her back arched, her nipples thrusting up toward him, so beautiful and tight that he bent his head and captured one in his mouth. He sucked hard and her fingers curled into his shoulders as she moaned.

Thank God for stone walls, he thought. Matt and Billy were across the hall, and if they had any idea what he was up to right now, they’d both be pretty pissed.

As if he gave a good goddamn right this second about anything but the way he felt being buried inside this woman who meant so much more than anyone had in a very long time.

His entire body was on fire. His skin sizzled and smoked, and he felt as if the top of his head would blow off at any second. The tingling at the base of his spine was pretty intense, but he did everything he could to hold back the orgasm building to a fever pitch inside him.

He had to make her come first.

He had to feel her shatter around him, her body milking him, squeezing him, until he could let go and burst deep inside her.

Her body glistened with the water pounding down on top of them. Her skin was golden and beautiful. Even her scars were beautiful because they were a part of her. He lifted his head and took her mouth again, and then he pulled back until he could see her face.

Her eyes opened, her dark irises fastening on him, widening with the coming storm rolling through her.

“Kev.” She gasped as he thrust into her harder than before, again and again. “Yes, oh yes.”

Her body tightened, her legs gripping him tight—and then she cried out, shuddering in his arms, quivering around his aching cock, squeezing him so tight it almost hurt.

He didn’t ease up, kept up the pressure of his thrusts while she chanted his name—and then his own orgasm hit him and his back bowed with the strength of it. He couldn’t contain the hoarse cry that escaped him, and he couldn’t stop the buckling of his knees when it was over.

They sank to the hard tile floor together, their bodies separating as they sat beneath the spray, arms wrapped around one another, holding tight. He couldn’t speak, couldn’t get any words to form. So he sat back against the wall and tugged her against him, pressing her smooth flesh against his and tucking her head against his shoulder.

They sat that way until the water started to cool. Finally, Kev found the strength to stand and turn off the taps. He grabbed towels and dried her off. Then he dried himself and scooped her into his arms like she couldn’t walk on her own.

She didn’t protest. She just wrapped her arms around his neck and let him carry her to the bed.

There was no doubt they’d spend the night together. He laid her down on cool cotton and followed, stretching out beside her. They didn’t speak and he woke with a jerk sometime later, shocked that he’d fallen asleep so easily.

It was full dark out now, and the room was lit only by outside lights shining inside. He reached for his phone and checked it. He didn’t expect he’d missed any calls, but who knew after the stress of the afternoon what he might have done. It wasn’t like him to fall asleep so easily, and he’d done that with no problem.

But he hadn’t missed anything, so he set the phone down and scraped a hand through his hair. Lucky stirred beside him, and his dick began to harden.

“What time is it?” she mumbled, turning into his body and putting an arm over his chest.

“Eight o’clock.”

“Wow, I thought it must be midnight at least.”

“You okay?”

She yawned and stretched, tilting her chin to gaze up at him. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

He could feel the elephant in the room staring at him, but he decided not to go there. He wouldn’t bring Marco between them right now. “It’s been a rough afternoon.”

“It has.” She sighed softly. “All those people. They were innocent, going about their day as usual—and they had the misfortune to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“We were almost in the wrong place too.”

She reached up and slid a finger along his lips. “I know. But you protected me. You threw me under you like it was as instinctual as breathing.”

He grasped her fingers and kissed them. “It is. I would die for you.”

She dragged in a breath. “I hate when you say things like that.”

“And yet it’s the truth.”

She hesitated for a moment. “What you said right before the bomb exploded…”

“You remember that?” Fuck, he wished she didn’t. He didn’t know where his head had been at the moment, but he’d blurted the words out and now he couldn’t call them back.

Her brows drew down. “Of course I do. I remember everything about you. And you said you saw evil growing up and you wanted to unlearn that. What did you mean?”

Fresh pain sliced into him. He could still see the scene as if it were yesterday, still feel the helplessness. He didn’t talk about this with anyone. And yet he found himself wanting to tell her. Wanting to unburden himself, just once, with someone who might understand.

Hell, what did it matter anymore? His family was dead, and nothing he said or did would bring them back again. Maybe it would ease the tightness in his chest if he said the words for once.

“My father was a drunk. A mean, evil, hot-tempered drunk. He beat us when he had too much, which was often. Too often.”

“Oh, Kev.” She pressed her lips to his cheek and he put his hand on the back of her head and slid his fingers into her silky hair. “I’m sorry.”

“I was bigger than him by the time I was fifteen. The beatings stopped, at least for me. Because I fought back. But he would still hit my mother when I wasn’t home. And my sister too, though she denied it.”

He could feel hot tears pressing against the back of his throat, threatening him in a way they had not since he was a teenager and realized what his father had done that day. What he’d stolen from Mom and Bethie.
 

“There’s more,” she said softly, and his heart throbbed.
 

“Yeah.”

“You don’t have to tell me. It’s okay.” She wrapped her arm around him and held on tight, burrowing her nose against his neck.
 

God, it felt so right to have her beside him. So perfect. And yet the guilt was still there, because she was Marco’s widow. Because Marco had loved her when Kev hadn’t been capable of it. Or capable of admitting it.

He should have fought for her, but he’d been a coward. The better man had won—and now he had her by default.

Fucking disgusting, and yet another thing that tore him up inside.

Still, he sucked in a breath and gritted his teeth. The least he could do was tell the truth.

“He killed them. Shot them both and then shot himself. I found them.”

“Oh my God.” She hugged him tighter than before, and then she was raining kisses on his cheek, his lips, his neck. “I’m so sorry. So sorry.”

Comforting kisses. Sweet kisses. They weren’t sexual, and yet he felt the sexual need beginning to pound in his veins again.

Urging him to take her. To lose himself inside her.

“Lucky, I—” He couldn’t speak as the urge scoured through him. It was as if, looking at death, he had to do something that reminded him he was alive. Vibrant and alive.

“Take what you need, Kev. Take what you need.”

Her words released him. He pushed her over, pushed her hands above her head, and thrust hard and deep. She gasped—and then she clutched him to her and let him use her body. The bed creaked and rocked with the power of his thrusts. Lucky moaned and said his name, arching her body up into his, taking his thrusts and meeting them eagerly.

Their bodies moved in a frenzy now, the bed rocking hard against the wall—and then she came with a sharp cry and he followed her over the edge, falling so hard and fast that he felt as if the breath had been knocked out of him.

Reality flooded him like someone had thrown a bucket of ice water on his head. He’d used her, fucked her as if she meant nothing to him—and he’d done it without a condom.

“Jesus,” he said, his heart thrumming hard and fast, dizziness swimming in his brain, making spots appear in his vision. What the fuck had he done? Treating Lucky like she was nothing but a body? Forgetting to protect her?

“Hey, big man,” she said, her voice soft and sweet as she rolled onto his chest. She cupped his face between her palms and held him in place while she gazed down at him. “I loved every moment of that. It was amazing. So don’t you dare act like you did something terrible.”

He’d behaved like an animal, and she told him it was wonderful. He loved her even more in that moment, if it were possible.
 

Love
. Oh, Jesus. He was stunned at the way the word broke through the barriers he’d erected against it. It broke through and filled his heart—and terrified him at the same time.

“No condom.” His voice was raspy.

Her smile lit him up inside. “I suppose I should be worried, considering your reputation. Care to tell me how many women you’ve gone commando with?”

His brain could hardly keep up. He’d just used her hard and she was smiling at him. Asking him about other women. And in the meantime his heart was about to burst.

“None but you. And I’m clean because we have to be tested for the job. But, Lucky…” He swallowed. He could hardly think of what he’d just done. Of the possible consequences of his actions. To love her was one thing. To bring a baby into the world was another. “What if you get pregnant?”