Authors: Delilah Devlin
Tilly curved a hand around his upper arm, holding herself steady as she tried to remember how to breathe too.
They clung together, bodies still in motion, swaying forward and back.
Lord, she wanted more nights like these. A thousand wouldn’t be enough.
Boone hugged her and then pulled free. Liquid flowed in a gush down her inner thighs. He turned her in his arms, and encircled her body, pulling her chest flush with his. They stared into each other’s eyes for a long moment, until a grin quirked up one side of his mouth.
“What’s so funny?” she whispered, gliding her hands up his damp chest, then behind his neck to cling tightly.
He shook his head. “How will you like receiving guests?”
“Here at Maison Plaisir?”
The grin widening, he nodded.
“I suppose I’ll let you guide me.” She squinted, studying his expression. “So far, you’ve eased my modesty, my embarrassment. I suppose you were right about me all along.”
“Only close friends and associates. Only those I trust not to alarm you or make you uncomfortable.”
“You can’t promise I won’t be uncomfortable,” she said, arching a brow.
“Right.” He tilted his head. “I’ll make sure you’re never truly afraid. That you’ll be introduced slowly to new pleasures.”
Her fingers tangled in the hair at his nape. “I’d like that, Boone. But only with you.” And that fact was true. She couldn’t imagine ever making a journey like this with any other man.
Only in the tenderness he’d shown her could he prove the love underlying all his actions. That was the new secret she harbored. One she’d cherish for as long as love endured.
Until just a few years ago,
USA Today
bestselling erotica and romance author Delilah Devlin lived in South Texas at the intersection of two dry creeks, surrounded by sexy cowboys in Wranglers. These days, she’s missing the wide-open skies and starry nights but loving her dark forest in Central Arkansas, with its eccentric characters and isolation—the better to feed her hungry muse! For Delilah, the greatest sin is driving between the lines, because it’s comfortable and safe. Her personal journey has taken her through one war and many countries, cultures, jobs, and relationships to bring her to the place where she is now: writing sexy adventures that hold more than a kernel of autobiography and often share a common thread of self-discovery and transformation.
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DelilahDevlin.com
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He’d been here before. A makeshift tent city on a lonely stretch of desert with a
shamal
wind kicking up fine wheat-flour sand into a blinding storm. Tar-paper shacks nestled in a rock-strewn valley in the Hindu Kush mountains with fat snowflakes whipping into a blizzard.
This ramshackle camp hidden in the middle of a Yucatan jungle was surrounded. About to be destroyed. The men guarding the perimeter, smoking cigarettes and bragging about their latest sexual conquests, were already dead. They just didn’t know it.
Sergei Gun drew a deep breath, inhaling the scents of rotting vegetation and the diesel fueling the site’s generator. Dim lights burned in huts close to the entrance of the encampment. He’d chosen the far side of the camp, illuminated only by slivers of moonlight peeking through the forest canopy, for their attack. Checking the lit dial of his watch, he noted the time. Although he couldn’t see them and they’d maintained radio silence throughout their trek from the rutted road to the camp, he knew his team was in place.
He raised his arm and motioned twice with sharp pumps of his fist to the men beside him. Five seconds later, the soft muffled thuds of silenced rounds took each guard down. Seconds after that, his men, their faces blackened, bits of vines stuck into their helmets and the straps of their web gear to break up the outlines of their tall frames, crept into the encampment, the crunch of their footsteps on the jungle floor masked by the howling wind from a tropical storm.
One by one, the camp security force drug money had bought fell beneath swift and brutal knifes and brawny, suffocating headlocks.
Serge slipped past his men, making his way to the hut where their intel said the kidnapped Tex-Oil men were kept—one of a line of shacks with slatted wood sides that did little to keep out the elements. Tin roofs clapped as the wind picked up.
Through his night-vision goggles, he noted the man sitting beside the door of the hut, his head slumped toward his chest in sleep.
Serge snorted softly. The guards were poorly trained, likely recruited from the local village, given guns and more money than they’d ever see farming or leading tourists into the jungle to do the cartel’s bidding. One or two actual cartel members were somewhere in the camp, and they’d be harder to take down than this one slumbering idiot.
With only a moment’s regret for the man’s poor judgment, Serge slipped beside him, encircled his neck, his arm cinching to cut off his oxygen, and waited as the man’s heels drummed the dirt and his hands clawed at his arms, until he hung limply inside Serge’s embrace. Setting the body to the side, Serge motioned to Bear to follow him while another of his team kept watch.
Inside, they found the two Tex-Oil men sleeping on the dirt. Serge reached down, placed a hand over one man’s mouth, and waited for his eyes to spring open.
“Shhh,” he said softly. “Your name?” He lifted his hand up an inch.
“Frank West,” the man gasped, the ragged texture to his voice a testament to the ordeal he’d endured the past weeks.
“Mr. West, we’re here to get you out. We’re Black Spear.”
The man’s relief, even in the green glow of the night-vision goggles, was written on his face. He gave a quick nod, and Serge backed away, holding his arm to guide him upward in the pitch dark. “Hold on to my shirt and follow me. Don’t let go.”
As Serge turned, Frank tugged on his jacket.
“Wait,” Frank whispered. “There’s a girl.”
Serge stiffened. “We’re here for you. We’ve only got minutes before the whole camp knows we’re here.”
“She’s in the shack next to ours. They brought her in yesterday. She’s the only other hostage. You can’t leave her.”
Serge hesitated. Their mission was to extract the two executives who’d been kidnapped. Ransom demands had been met, but the cartel had decided to squeeze the oil company for more. Serge’s plan called for a swift extraction, and to destroy the guards’ ability to escape or tip off the cartel that they’d been raided just long enough to get the two men out of the country.
Still, the thought of another hostage, this one a woman, rankled. Breaking protocol, Serge tapped his headset. “We’ve got another lamb. Need two on West and Campion.”
Stepping outside, he kept close to the side of the hut as two more of his team peeled away from the trees and sped quietly toward them. He and Bear handed off the men, then peered around the side of the hut at the other isolated shack. This one was guarded by two men, rifles slung over their shoulders, standing on either side of the door of the hut and peering up into the swaying canopy above them as limbs creaked ominously.
Signaling to Bear that he’d lay down cover fire if needed, Serge raised his weapon, sighting on the man nearest to him. Bear crouched, then ran past him, but neither guard noticed his movement between the huts. Once safe, Bear knelt at the corner of the building, his weapon trained on the men as Serge darted across.
Leaning against the hut, Serge signaled
thirty seconds
, holstered his weapon, and drew his knife from his sheath on his web belt before circling behind the hut, coming to a halt at the corner of the building. At the end of the thirty count, he slipped around the corner, rushing the man nearest as Bear launched toward the other.
The struggle was brief. Neither guard had time to draw a breath, much less shout. Serge wiped off his bloody hand on his jacket, then opened the latch of the hut and stepped inside.
A scuffing sound from his right had him whirling. Liquid spilled over his head, the scent acrid.
Urine.
A bucket clanked next, shifting his goggles and blinding him, but he was already on his opponent, clamping an arm around a slim body that he backed into the rickety wooden wall. Sheathing his knife because he didn’t want to inadvertently hurt her, he slipped his hand over the woman’s mouth.
Her jaw opened.
“
Don’t. Bite
,” he gritted out. “Ma’am, we’re here to rescue you.”
Her body quivered inside his embrace, her curves pressed so close she could barely draw a deep breath, but he considered that a good thing. She’d be less likely to scream.
“I don’t believe you,” she said in a harsh whisper. “No one knows I’m here.”
“I came for the two men in the cabin next to yours. They wouldn’t leave without you.”
When her wriggling ceased, and she appeared ready to cooperate, he righted his goggles and stared down at her. Even bathed in a blurry neon glow she was beautiful. And terribly young. Dark-haired, slender, and wearing shorts and a very thin tee that hugged her upper torso. Braless. That fact bothered him even more than her youth. “I’m your way out. Or do you want to stay here?”
Her lips pursed. Her gaze darted to the side. When her chin shot up, he knew her answer even before she whispered, “No.”
“Then do exactly as I say. Hold on to my jacket when we leave here. I’ll guide you out. But, lady, I’m warning you, I won’t allow any antics out of you. If you try to make a run for it, you’ll put me and my team at risk.”
“You have a team?”
Serge pressed a finger over her lips. “Not another word. Follow me.”
He turned, felt her fist gather a bundle of his camouflaged jacket, then stepped outside. She followed on his heels, her steps soft. A quick glance behind him confirmed she was barefoot. But better she suffer bruised and cut feet than remain trapped here. There wasn’t a thing he could do about it now. Not that she was complaining. Her expression was tense, her mouth a tight, determined line.
From the periphery of his goggles, he noted his team, slipping into the forest, melting away. Serge hurried toward the trees then pulled his compass from a pack on his web belt, checked the tritium-lit direction lines to orient, and took off at a swift pace in the direction of the rutted logging trail they’d used as their assembly area.
Serge trudged quickly forward, not speaking, impressed despite himself when the barefoot girl behind him kept quiet, her breaths even as he set a swift pace. Fifteen minutes later, he stopped at the edge of a road, checking up and down the line as members of his team slid into their vehicles.
He turned and put an arm around the girl to guide her toward the second vehicle in the line, although here in the clearing moonlight provided plenty of illumination. When she stiffened against his touch, he kept his arm around her, telling himself he didn’t want to risk her falling and injuring herself, but the truth was, he wanted her near. Wanted her close enough to grab in case they came under attack or she tried to run. His hand glided from her shoulder to the small of her back. All nicely fleshed, firm muscle beneath. Not relevant, but interesting.
At the SUV, he opened the rear door. “Get in.” Tapping his headset, he asked for a quick head count, and each of the team members chimed in using hushed tones.
They’d made it out without setting off alarms. And without a single casualty. Another tap of headset. “You set the charges, Linc?”
“Yes, sir. Countin’ down now. Eight, seven, six…”
Serge swung into his vehicle, tore off his goggles, and gave a quick glance at Bear, who tapped the ignition button. At
one
, explosions ripped through the air, light bursting above the trees. Satisfied the cartel camp would be busy for a while, Serge said, “Now let’s get the fuck out of here.”
Engines fired, wheels bit into the muddy trail, and they careened down the rutted track. Bear’s smile gleamed in the moonlight.
“Don’t say it,” Serge said, not wanting to hear a celebratory whoop. “Don’t jinx it.”
Bear glanced into the rearview mirror at their unexpected passenger. “Get a name?”
Serge aimed a stare at the young woman huddled in the center of the seat, moonlight filtering over her features. She wasn’t just beautiful, she was exquisite, even despite the frown marring her dark brow. “Not yet. Time for introductions once we get to the helos. We’re not out of Omega territory yet.”
The vehicle hit a deep rut, then bumped over it, unseating him. He reached for the strap above his window. “Better grab the oh-shit handle, sweetheart. It’s gonna be a bumpy ride.” And then he grinned, because for the first time since his feet had hit the tarmac in Cancun, tension lifted. It was still too soon to announce the all-clear, but this operation had just gotten a little more interesting.
* * *
Kara Nichols wrapped her fist around the plastic strap and slid toward the door, jamming her shoulder against it and gripping the top of her rescuer’s seat to keep from flopping around the backseat like a rag doll. Her stomach lurched as they sped along the rugged trail. How “the team” managed to drive at breakneck speed in near darkness without headlights was a testament to their skill.
Who they were didn’t matter as much as what their intentions were. Not that she’d really had any choice but to come with them. Not since the moment the burly man in front of her had crept like a thief into her hut had she had a moment to think. She’d reacted on pure instinct. First tossing her pee into his face and then braining him with the bucket it had been stored in. She’d intended to scamper past him, but he’d been faster, knocking the breath out of her as he’d pinned her to the wall.
At that moment, her worst fears had risen up, like the scream she hadn’t been able to emit because he’d taken her breath. Convinced he was one of the men who’d kidnapped her, there to rape her or worse, she’d been ready to fight him to the death.
But the struggle had revealed a couple of things. First, he was heavily armed and armored. A big man. Obviously not one of the dirty, ragged bunch who’d been guarding her. And his first words had been in English. He was an American. Relief had poured through her, leaving her shaking, even though there was no good reason to trust he meant her no harm.
Everything after that moment had happened so quickly, she hadn’t had time to think whether she was jumping from the frying pan into the fire. He was from home. A way out of the hell she’d found herself in just days earlier, when one really bad decision had landed her in this mess.
The fact her “rescuers” were well organized, well armed, and appeared to have military training by their gear and the precision of their raid left her hopeful for the first time in days.
“What the fuck’s that smell?” the driver asked, his glance going to his companion. “Man, you reek.”
Kara suppressed a smile, although plenty of the bucket’s contents had splashed back on her. Better to smell like a cesspool than to smell like something they might want to jump. She’d read stories about female prisoners who’d covered themselves in feces rather than suffer rape, and that scenario had definitely looped in her mind since her capture.
“Just shut up and drive,” her new captor bit out. Then he cast another glance her way.
She wished she could see his face, but the helmet he wore deepened the shadow obscuring his expression. “Sorry about that,” she muttered, not really meaning it, but she didn’t want him pissed off too.
“Don’t be. It was gutsy.” A flash of white gleamed.
His smile tugged an answering grin from her own mouth. Somehow, his humor at her action humanized him. And shouldn’t she be trying to get on his good side, anyway? If he really was rescuing her, she owed him big-time. If he was only preparing to hand her off to another captor, she needed his guard down to try another dash for freedom.
His free hand reached around to touch the mic wire poised in front of his mouth. Then he aimed a glance at the driver. “The pilots are firing up the helos,” he said. “We’ll be in the air in a few minutes.”
In the air.
But what was their destination?
They left the dirt track, bumping over the edge of a paved road, the rear of the vehicle fishtailing, but not losing any speed, as their convoy headed north. Kara held tight to the strap, a mixture of hope and dread building up bile in her empty belly. At least the road was smoother now. If they didn’t take too many turns she might not vomit. Although he hadn’t been fazed by her throwing pee at him, she didn’t want to test his temper if she messed up his vehicle too.
The forest receded. They passed houses crammed together with dark narrow alleys separating them. The men in front grew more tense, their bodies tightening, their jaws honing to sharp edges.