Shoot to Thrill (33 page)

Besides, she wasn’t speaking to him. She’d been stewing all day about what Wade had told her this morning. About that ill-fated FedEx plane. In freaking
Africa
. And Jason Forsythe going down with it. There was definitely a whole lot Gregg wasn’t telling her. He was playing her, and she couldn’t figure out why. She wanted no damn part of it.

She turned back to the SEM, dismissing him. A second later she felt him behind her. When she’d found him gone this morning, no note, no fresh coffee in the carafe, not even a damn phone message, she’d deliberately dressed in her I-don’t-give-a-damn clothes: short lab coat over plain khaki pants and a washed-out baggy T-shirt, white Keds, and her hair pulled back in a severe ponytail. Because she
so
didn’t care if he saw her without makeup. Not that he’d show up, she’d figured.

Wrong.

His warm breath tickled her bare neck. His boots brushed up against her sneaks. She made herself ignore the fluttering low in her belly.

“What’s the matter, sweet thing?” he murmured in her ear. He didn’t press his body into her, but kept himself just a shade apart. Not that she
wanted
him to press it into her. “Didn’t I satisfy you last night?”

Something disturbed her ponytail and she realized he was stroking it. Almost imperceptibly running his fingers down the strands.

She covered a shiver with a tossed-off laugh. “Couldn’t you tell?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I could tell. Which makes me wonder why the leper greeting.”

She snapped the slide into place on the digital scope. “What’s the matter, van Halen? You can dish it but you can’t take it?”

The fingers in her ponytail got more obvious in their stroking. Was that supposed to be some kind of
threat
?

“You expected flowers maybe?”

Nice.
She made a derisive noise. “That’s the
last
thing I’d expect from you. Look, I’m kind of busy right—”

The chains on his leather jacket jingled. “No, you’re not.” Her head suddenly went back in what would have been a jerk if it hadn’t been so smooth and controlled. She gasped, groping for the counter.

A glass beaker next to the scope hit the floor and splintered in a million pieces. “What—”

He spun her around and suddenly his tongue was in her mouth. He was hot and muscular and, oh,
God
, why did he have to taste so good, feel so arousing? She forgot all about his macho arrogance and just gave in. Melted into him and his amazing tongue.

Bastard.
Damn
him, he knew exactly how easy she’d be.

Except, wait—

She wrenched away from him, bits of glass crunching under her Keds. The man was truly a menace on every front. “Stop it. You
lied
to me.”

He just stood there, a vein pulsing below blue eyes that were as hard and unreadable as those cat’s-eye marbles kids used to play with before Sony and Steve Wozniak changed the games of childhood forever.

“You lied about Rainie,” she accused. “You said she went on that plane voluntarily.”

He continued to watch her silently. Not denying the lie, she noted.

“That plane crash was in
Africa
,” she bit out. “Rainie would
never
willingly get on a plane to goddamn Africa.”

Something flashed through his eyes. Fleeting. Barely there. Like he was surprised she knew where the plane had crashed.
Miracles. Finally, a reaction.
Okay, a micro-reaction. But the tell was big. She was right.

“Rainie was kidnapped and forced to go against her will. Wasn’t she?” Gina demanded. “Forsythe’s dead, and she’s dead, too.
Isn’t
she?”

Moisture from her own tongue glistened on the commando’s lips as he regarded her evenly, his stony façade firmly back in place. Not answering. Not moving an eyelash.

Jesus, the man was as scary as he was sexy.

She took a crunching step backward. “I’d like you to leave now.”

His head tilted. Just a little.

And that’s when she knew she was in big, big trouble.

RAINIE
was whistling the theme from
Lawrence of Arabia
.

Kick glanced at her and, despite the grinding tension in his stomach, couldn’t help smiling. She wasn’t just riding on top of a camel; she was riding on top of the world.

God knew it wouldn’t last. That brief feeling of invincibility. The unbelievable but temporary high from beating the living crap out of the biggest, nastiest, most soul-defeating nightmare in your entire life, the one that had been snarling and snapping at you from the inside out and bringing you down since before you could remember. You’d finally won, and all because you’d killed a man who’d been hands down certain he’d be killing you.

That first win, it was powerful medicine.

Kick was happy for Rainie. Hell, if he could miraculously transport her back to her job and apartment in New York City right this minute, she’d be fine for the rest of her life. At least about the irrational fears that had plagued her. She’d never get another panic attack, or feel she had to circumscribe her actions because of her inner demons. The ZU psych had preached at Kick hard and long enough about somatic therapy to know she had just slain those demons, every last one of them, along with the tango she’d left dead on the desert sand. He also knew because he’d slain his own childhood demons the same way. It had just taken him a lot longer. Well okay, he’d probably started out with a whole lot more demons than she had.

Anyway. She was sitting there on her camel like a cross between Joe Cool and T. E. Lawrence, wearing Kick’s gold-lensed aviator shades and the off-white Bedouin clothes that he’d bartered for along with the camels, including a
kaffiyeh
that she’d wound around her head covering all but her face. She must have sensed his gaze, because she turned and grinned at him. Damn, that New York girl was enjoying the shit out of riding that camel. Who’da guessed?

Kick, not so much. But not because of his leg, which, miraculously, hadn’t been hurting him at all today, leading him to suspect the psych had been right all along—the pain really
was
in his head, not his leg. Damn, he hated that. Not only the wasted months spent wasted on painkillers, nor the money wasted to procure them, but also because it only confirmed he was a total head case.

Not that he hadn’t known it all along. Just add one more fucked-up thing to the list.

Of course, who could tell if one measly leg was hurting when his entire body felt like it was going through a constant wringer?

Wiping the sweat from his brow—
damn
, it was hot—he shifted on the hard, wooden instrument of torture the Bedouin he’d traded the dead giveaway Land Cruiser for clothes, two camels, and three skins of fresh water had actually called a saddle. What a joke. And yet Rainie was perched cross-legged on hers like she’d been a freaking Bedouin princess in a previous lifetime. If there was such a thing.

She was scanning the desert rim above and the narrow wadi channel behind them for any sign of being pursued. They weren’t. He’d been damn careful in plotting their hundred-mile route to the insurgent camp. Camels were fast when they got their steam on. Didn’t have to take all the detours a wheeled vehicle did; those big saucerlike feet could eat up pretty much any kind of terrain you threw at them. She should be more concerned about what lay ahead. . . .

Kick pulled out the GPS and checked it. They’d been hugging the bottom of the wadi for a while now, using it for cover as they approached their target. Wouldn’t want to overshoot and end up in the middle of the enemy camp.
Oops. Sorry, Osama, just out lookin’ for General Gordon’s lost candlestick . . .

When she saw his jaw tense, the humming stopped and her smile faded. “Are we getting close?”

“Should be just past those next hills.” About five miles away, the hilltops were just visible above the wadi wall.

Definitely close enough. His pulse was already pounding in his ears. He scanned the dry riverbed. Saw a large covelike area just ahead that would give her a bit of shelter.

He urged his mount over to hers. “Let’s stop here. The cover is good and we’re far enough away that the camels can’t be heard.” Nor would enemy patrols stumble across her. “We’ll set you up over there in that hollow.”

Naturally she picked up on the one word he didn’t want her to.

“Set
me
up? What’s that supposed to mean?”

He met her gaze head-on. “You didn’t really expect to go with me,” he said. Not a question, but the answer was obvious in her face.

“Why did you bring me this far, if you never intended to let me help you?”

She was actually pissed off. He couldn’t believe it.

No, what he couldn’t believe was that he’d brought her along in the first place. All day he’d been reaming himself a new one, thinking about the danger he was about to put her in.
Christ.
The woman he loved might
die
because of his colossally bad judgment. He should be lined up against a wall and shot for—

The woman he loved.

He slammed his eyes shut.
Ah, hell.
He couldn’t deny it any longer, could he?

He loved Lorraine Martin.

It was the second time in one day he’d heard the same fateful word echo in his head.
Love.

The first time he hadn’t had time to think about it. The thought had just sort of crept up and leapt out at him suddenly, and retreated just as fast.

But this time . . .

Yeah, he’d really done it. He’d gone and uttered the dreaded words, if only in his mind. He’d actually formed the thought and admitted it to himself.

And wasn’t this a fine time for
that
conversation with his conscience.

He loved Lorraine Martin.

He
loved
her.

He loved every obstinate, admirable, frustratingly wonderful and achingly touchable inch of her.

And he’d just put her in mortal danger.

Shit.

Double shit
. Because not only was that unforgivable, but he couldn’t have her anyway. He could never have her.

Even if they managed to live through the next twenty-four hours, and even if he somehow miraculously managed to get them both out of this goddamn country alive, with Forsythe dead, that promise to release Kick from his contract had about a snowball’s chance in hell of being honored. Forsythe had never signed anything. Kick had no proof.

Therefore so much for a normal life.

And so much for being in love with Rainie.

Shit, shit, shit,
shit
.

“Well?”

They were still staring at each other; it was obvious she actually expected an answer.

Why
did
he bring her? If only he hadn’t. . . .

His frustration boiled over. “You
want
to die? Is that it? Maybe I should have taken you into that refinery so you could see what’s in store for you if we’re caught.” He slapped his forehead. “Except—no, wait, you’re a woman! It’ll be a
thousand
times worse for you than for those men, because first they’ll brutally rape you and subject you to every kind of humiliation known to man, and only after they’ve had their sadistic fun will they put you out of your misery. Probably by stoning. A quaint little method of execution. Have you ever seen a woman stoned? Because
I
have and it’s—”

The look on her face made him stop abruptly. It had drained of all color. Horror bled through her eyes.

Her bottom lip trembled. “It doesn’t matter. I can’t let you do this by yourself,” she said hoarsely.

Oh, God.

“They’ll make me watch,” he ground out. “If I close my eyes, they’ll probably cut off my eyelids. And when they finally kill me, my last thought on earth will be that
I
let them do that to you.”

A sob caught in her throat. “No!” He saw her sink in on herself in defeat. “All right! You win.”

“I need you to be safe, Rainie, so I can do my job without worrying about you. And if the worst happens, I need you to find your way back to the Bedouin we traded with. I made a deal with them to take you over the border to Egypt, to deliver you to an American embassy official there.”

“And you really think they’ll keep a deal to smuggle some Westerner across a closed border?”

“Absolutely. A Bedouin will keep his word to his dying breath. You can trust them with your life, Rainie.
I
trust them with your life. They’re expecting you.”

Her skepticism turned to consternation. “Wait. What?”

“I’ve been saying this all along, Rainie. There’s a damn good chance I’ll be caught or killed tomorrow. I needed you to have a safe way out of here when I’m not around to help.”

Tears filled her eyes. “You won’t be killed! You
can’t
be.”

He reached out to put his arms around her but his camel chose that exact moment to sidestep over to nibble on a green bush. He cursed as the tears tracked down her cheek.

Giving the harsh throat-hiss command for the camel to lower himself to the ground, Kick dismounted and got her camel down, as well. Then he pulled her off and finally was able to put his arms around her.

“I deserve to rot in hell for getting you into this. I’m so sorry, Rainie.”

She sniffled against his chest. “Stop
saying
that. Because I’m not. I’m
not
sorry.” She looked up into his eyes. “I was living in a nightmare of my own making when you found me, Kick. You showed me it doesn’t have to be that way. And you’ve also shown me there are far worse nightmares in the world,
real
nightmares, that are much more deserving of fear. And you know what? For the first time in my life I find I truly
am
afraid of dying. Not because I fear death itself. But because, finally, I have something to
live
for!”

Sweet, holy God.

He did not want to hear this. He was plain terrified of what she might say next. Because it was impossible. Whatever she was thinking, if it had
any
thing to do with him, it was impossible. She
had
to know that.