Code of Honor (Special Ops Book 7) (3 page)

“He was part of their Force Reconnocense team.” Autumn’s voice brought him back to the here and now.

“FORECON, I know it.” He also knew those men were lethally trained because he had been a part of that too.

“He was also one of their top men for the Military Intelligence teams too.”

He growled. Now he got it. They needed him because this man was a younger version of him. Force Recon, military intelligence, lethal training with the intellect to know how to use it and use it well. The man could find anything and get in and out without a hint of warning. He knew this because he had been that man during his career.

“So then how do you know he’s the guy you’re after? In my day FORECON men didn’t get seen.”

“In your day men probably didn’t get distracted by their southern head. He has a heart on to sink his dick inside this woman before he kills her.”

He grumbled several curses in perfect Columbian Spanish as he saw the file with the picture of the woman that Autumn sent to him. He couldn’t blame the guy, he’d want to introduce his southern head to her vagina too, but back in his day men followed their mission through without distraction. Maybe…just maybe…he traced his fingertips over the picture of her delicious looking lips.

He wasn’t thinking with his southern head here; he was thinking with the northern one. There wasn’t anybody in the Special Conditions Witness Protection program who was qualified to deal with a man with this guy’s training. Not even a southern distraction would save an officer guarding her. She would be dead in less than three days.

“Don’t make this a habit, Autumn. I mean it. I’ll pick her up at the stopping ground…you know which one I’m talking about and how we’ll do this. Don’t be late. I won’t wait.” He disconnected the call. He had twelve hours to get his stuff together, and less than forty eight before the war commenced.

Yeah, the conversation had ended with him willfully taking on this job. What was he thinking? Or more like what wasn’t he thinking? That Abigail Hayashi was one sexy woman.  He couldn’t deny that the second he saw her picture regions of his body that had been dormant for far too long started to awaken with a blazing fire. He told himself to kick that mess out of his mind. This was not his job—protection was not what he did. But something in those eyes, that soft innocence that he saw within them, made him want to help keep her safe.

“Damn fool,” he mumbled to himself as he drove toward the pickup point. “As if you don’t have things to take care of for yourself.” He chastised himself again. “You’re not in the business of saving the world anymore, especially when the world doesn’t want to be saved.” He tried to tell himself his mission came first. Never abandon a mission he chided himself, but the other half of his brain told him protection, fighting for justice, that was a part of him that wasn’t going to die just because he needed a special kind of justice of his own. He wasn’t going to stop with his mission he was just taking a break long enough to keep this woman safe. “Besides, you can still work yours while you help her. You know how to do more than one thing at a time, Rhys.” He chuckled to himself realizing he was talking to himself out loud far too often now. He laughed even harder when he told himself, “you know you’re right.” Of course he was right. Could he live with himself if that woman died and he knew he could have helped save her life? No; he couldn’t do that because he was still a Marine first. He was still the FORECON Marine who went into the hot zones because he knew it was the right thing to do and because he knew his mission was to fight evil and save lives even if that meant risking his own in order to do it.

He had just about talked himself into focusing on his new, unexpected mission until he pulled up to the pickup point and saw Autumn waiting for him with Abigail. The woman was a hell of a lot more beautiful than a picture could show. Another instinct kicked in that made him not only want to protect this woman, but made him want to claim her too.

He growled low forcing himself to get the dick out of his thought process and realizing this mission to protect her had just gotten a thousand times more complicated. Those legs barely covered by shorts that wrapped seductively around her mid thigh region made him want to have those legs wrapped around him. no, maybe he just wanted to discard her shorts and have his body wrapped around hers, inside hers. Thank the gods for a hot pass otherwise she probably would have been in jeans or something like it. He imagined Autumn had gotten her to their unit with haste so that meant she probably hadn’t packed the clothes herself. A South Carolina unit must have gone in and packed and whoever had done it must have missed the fact that some places were still trying to warm up. Thankfully, today this place wasn’t one of them. Today this place was already warm and that woman had it heading toward scorching hot.

He shook his head. The low sexual haze was going to kill him if he didn’t get his mind out of the woman’s shorts.

“We go now,” he said roughly. He noticed Autumn’s wide eyes and realized his voice had been military meets pissed off man. He was pissed at himself. As a Marine there is no way he should be letting desire get in the way of his thought process and he was going to, without hesitation, nip his need to take her body hard and fast before it endangered his or her life.

“Well hello to you too,” she said in a sultry voice that was natural, yet somehow it held enough force to jumpstart his need to go primal male on her and for that he was even more pissed off.

“Look,” he heard the roughness of his tone but he didn’t care. He couldn’t stop it and that, too, pissed him off. “Standing out here exposes you; it exposes her, and it exposes me, so unless you want to take a bullet in that precious head of yours get your ass in my car.” He had bit those words out like a commander over a battalion instead of in a sweet tone for a civilian woman who had probably never spent more than five seconds with a real military man.

“I don’t have an ass—oh I assumed you were talking ass of the biblical persuasion.”

His eyes narrowed his jaw started to tick and he knew he was ready to take her to task. He was not in the mood for any prim and proper lectures. The look on his face seemed to be making even Autumn’s shock level go up.

This wasn’t his standard way of dealing with a woman—not unless she was under his command and he hadn’t had one of those for many years, even before he left his unit and retired from the Marines it had been a while since a woman was on his team.

It may not have been how he usually spoke to women, especially a civilian, but It worked. Her eyes widened and he saw that look of fear in them before she hustled to the car like a scared kid. She got in the back seat and slammed the door shut. Autumn laughed. “I see you’ll be able to handle her just fine. Thanks Rhys. I know this isn’t your thing, but we need you on this. None of the guys in my unit can handle this guy. He’s…he’s different.”

He nodded. “I know he’s killed some of the best of you. I know none of you have the skill to combat him. but I can’t make you any promises, Autumn.”

“I know, but what you can give her is better than what any of us can. Stay safe. You know how to contact me.”

He nodded and watched Autumn get in her own car. The driver was a young man he knew to have recently moved from Homeland Security and was now under her command in the Special Conditions Witness Protection unit. Apparently the young man knew her from her days in Homeland Security and she had said he was one of the best when it came to spying. Yeah, she had admitted it, not that he didn’t already know about it.

Rhys walked back to the car, pulled the backdoor open. “Get out.” He watched as one toned leg followed by the other came out the car. “This isn’t driving Ms. Daisy. You sit up front with me.” Not that having her up front was a good thing given those legs would be in full view. Good lord the woman had sexy looking smooth legs that made him want to slide his tongue from knee to dead center thigh. He hated having people sitting behind him, out of his range, out of his surveillance zone, and he wouldn’t have her doing it no matter how innocent she seemed.

He watched as she walked to the front of the car where he had opened the door for her. The view from behind was good too.

Once she was in the car he slammed the door shut. Thinking about her behind and the view he had, combined with thinking about those legs, her mouth, her body, was putting him in a world of hurt in his southern region. How long had it been since he had been with a woman? Too long he would guess, but it hadn’t bothered him before now. Women had thrown themselves at him, they had definitely tried to bed him, but he had never wanted them. This woman hadn’t done more than exist and he wanted her without restraint. His lips quirked upward. No, he wanted to restrain her all right. He wanted to bind her to his bed and master her body, giving her pleasure at his own pace, at his own command, and having her scream his name as she came with him locked inside her. He wanted to put a baby in her—his baby and that thought scared the hell out of him. Did he even like kids? No, they were snotty brats that ran around grocery stores nearly knocking down old people. But his kids wouldn’t be like that. And the thought of him having kids yet again tore his sanity to shreds. This woman was like a dose of insanity waiting to happen because no matter how out of character it was for him to think about starting a family he wanted to with this woman. He wanted to take her to bed and give her more than one reason to stay with him. He wanted to mark her in every way as his. And then he wanted to see her belly swelling with his child growing inside of her.

God he was losing his mind. He looked over to her once more as she sat there looking like a scared rabbit getting ready to be lead to the slaughter.
Yeah, be afraid because once I have a mission I don’t stop until I have what I’ve gone in for, doll.

He tried to put his mind back on work, back on why she was there with him in the first place. She was like a drug. She was the kind of woman a man could get addicted to before he even had a taste of her and Rhys was that man. She sat there not having any idea of the power she had over men. He could see it in her that she was completely oblivious to how strong her animal attraction was. Hell, he didn’t even know the woman and he wanted to bed her, impregnate her and keep her for the rest of their natural lives. He felt his erection straining against the confounds of his pants and he shook his head. He was a Marine, not some horn-dog fifteen year old with his first crush. He had a more important mission to handle here, two to be exact, and he was going to need to shelf his libido—for now anyway.

“Is that bag you’ve got back there all you’ve brought? Did you not realize this is long-term?”

She sighed. “They wouldn’t let me go back to pack. I have enough clothes in the bag to last a little over a week before I need to wash. I hope you have a washer to go with your Neanderthal ways.”

He growled. He saw her tense up. She had a mouth on her—one he wouldn’t  mind exploring. “Don’t push me, Doll, because I can assure you the primal beast within won’t care how fragile you are.”

“Did you just threaten me?!”

“No, I don’t do threats. I make promises. You have no idea what you’re doing, who I am or what you’re doing to me. You want to see the primal instincts of a man I can assure you I have no trouble showing you mine. I can assure you that you won’t be walking when I’m done.” He could hear the sexual undertones in his voice and judging from the way her mouth gaped open he knew she had too. He hadn’t missed the way her eyes locked on him when she saw him, like she wanted him for more than just a protector but the moment he opened his mouth she clammed up as if she remembered she was angry she was in this mess in the first place.

“And you’re a Marshal,” she shook her head and put her attention back on the road.

“No. I’m a Marine.”

Her audible gasp nearly hurt his heart. Now she was afraid of him. He had been a glimmer of that primal beast with his words but he was a man who said what he meant and he couldn’t change that. He couldn’t tip toe around words like some people could—it was a waste of time to pussyfoot the situation and he always thought that. Once he was in control, in command and in a situation that was life or death he never even bothered to remind himself not everybody could handle who he was as a man. The jokes, the hard facts, all of that was him.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m not the one trying to kill you.”

“Oh well that’s comforting,” she said sarcastically. “Look, I really don’t know anything. I mean this guy has to know that by now; right?”

“This guy,” he said staunchly. “Is on a mission—a paid one. He’s not going to stop. People like the ones who just threw you into the lion’s den don’t hire men who give up for any reason. There is no off once the hit is on. So no matter what this guy finds out you’re still on his kill list. Wake up to that, Doll, and you won’t be so snarky in the future.”

“My name is Abby, not doll. And I’m just…I’m scared,” she said softly. “My natural defense is sarcasm or fighting back and this guy has already shown me I can’t beat him.”

His heart leveled from man who wanted to conquer and claim and came back to a mix of a man who was doing a job, and a man who had an insatiable appetite to calm her justified fears. “Then sit back, don’t make this harder for either of us, and let me do the job I’m being paid to do here. Let me keep you safe.”

She nodded. “I miss my old life—the one I had before the guy who attacked me was anything more than just a neighbor who forgot to cover up his boxer whites before coming outside every morning—the life I had before I found out that a video game could get me killed.”