Safe in His Arms (25 page)

“Trust me, Mandy. That’s all. We can get through this. I’ve been through worse training exercises. We can do this.”

He sounded like he was trying to convince himself more than her.

“Okay, Mac I—”

“Hell if I like you in this shit, Mandy. I want you out of this,” he said, cutting her off. “We’ll get to that town, make some calls, and we’re out of here as soon as I can arrange it.”

“Not by helicopter. No way.”

He grinned and nodded. She watched as he soaked his T-shirt in water and was surprised when he brought the damp material up to wipe her face. He pulled the stocking cap off and ruffled her hair after, tugging some of it behind her ear. “You look pretty damn hot all battle ready.”

“Battle ready, huh?” She laughed. Hardly. She’d been so scared she probably hadn’t hit anything. She suddenly swallowed hard. What if she’d killed one of those men?

“Mandy, look at me.”

She blinked and focused on Mac’s face.

“I never want you in that shit again. Understand?”

She nodded. The intensity of his expression worried her. He looked so hard, but under it she sensed something more, some fear she couldn’t understand.

“I never want you in that either, Mac. I could have lost you.” She broke off on a low cry and hugged him tightly.

“Mandy.” The sound of his voice, suddenly husky and full of tension, didn’t shock her nearly as much as his erection burning along her thigh when he pulled her closer.

He wanted her, now, right now, if she was any kind of judge of these things. He needed her. With a start, she knew what he wanted, what he needed to soothe this fear of losing her, because she felt it too. Life was so fragile. A person could be there one moment and gone from your life the next. She wasn’t letting another moment go by with Mac if she could help it. With a grimace, he pulled her in by the back of her neck and took her mouth in a long, hot kiss. His tongue pushed inside her mouth, making her wet and crazy inside with the lush feel of his strong strokes. She fell against his firm, hard body, careful of his wounded arm.

She needed him.
Now.

Her pussy clenched and she moved onto his lap, reaching down to grip him through his BDUs. Impatiently she ripped at the buttons and managed to free him. Wild, hot sensations rocked through her and she rubbed one hand up his stomach to his chest, needing to feel all of him. She dived deeper into the kiss, wanting him to take her, now, right now, but unable to break away long enough to make that happen. The hot press of his body against hers filled her with desire so badly she whimpered in his mouth. He was big, so thick she had worried that first night. Until he’d been careful, easing her into spreading for him until she’d grown addicted to the feel of him filling her.

“Mac, I want to feel.”

She watched, mesmerised by how his hazel eyes darkened as he examined her face, and a look—relief—crossed his face before he hauled her harder into his arms.

“Now, please, I was so frightened for you. Now.”

“Here?”

“Yes, yes, Mac. Now.”

“I can’t be slow, sugar. I—”

She dug her fingers in his hair and tugged hard. “I want you. All of you.”

With an intensity that almost frightened her, he took her mouth in a blazing hot kiss while he quickly pushed her backwards, already working at her pants. He didn’t waste time on taking them off all the way, but jerked them down past her butt, rolled her onto her stomach and pressed his bigger body over hers.

“Fuck, I need you, baby.” With a desperate-sounding exhale, he angled her leg up to the side and reached down to cup her pussy with his hand.

A shock of fear zipped along her body like a caress as he rammed his steel-hard flesh against her ass. He rocked there and groaned desperately into her shoulder. He was out of control, clearly not able to wait for her to be ready.

Just the thought of him taking her so quickly had her dripping. They were out in the open, he’d just nearly died—again—and she needed to know they were still alive.
He
was still alive.

“Open, baby.” He didn’t wait but rammed into her as soon as she angled up. The possession hurt. The deep, hard drive of his cock spread her impossibly for his rough claiming and caught her breath. Trembling she bit down lightly on his wrist and rocked her ass back into his hips.

“Fuck yeah, Mandy. Give it to me,” he growled and starting hard, powerful driving thrusts, each short rock of his hips creating harder and harder slaps of flesh on flesh. He was wild, biting her shoulder and sucking on her neck and back. His hands were everywhere, tugging her shirt up, cupping her breast, pinching her nipples, dipping down to finger her clit, tightening around her throat to turn her head for a dark, possessive kiss.

She was just as frantic. She sobbed, lifting her ass up for more, deeper drives and urged him on by rocking back to meet his frantic lunges.

“Ah, fuck yeah, baby.” He filled her completely with his next pass and they both groaned. Mandy cried out his name and suddenly he reared up behind her, gripped her butt in both hands, and started bucking into her with fast, frantic movements that rocked her forward each time his hips slammed into her.

She felt him swell and cried out. He felt so good, so perfect. He must have thought so as well because he desperately dug his hands into her waist right above her butt with a low, tortured moan. Holding her tight, he bent over her, found her mouth, and kissed her so frantically she felt something burst along her skin. Her body tightened. Behind her, he shuddered then grew tense.

With a low, tortured groan into the nape of her neck, he drove in deep.

“Mac, oh, yes, yes.”

“Coming baby, coming.” He rammed forward, rocking against her in uneven out of control movements. It was all she needed. The pulse of him coming struck like one more cup on a tray already overflowing. She shattered. The intensity was so incredibly right she dug her fingers into the turf and thrust back into him.

Mac was just as lost. He toppled her down hard to the ground, keeping her butt tilted higher as he pounded into her with hard, deep, agonising sounds of pleasure right in her ear.

Gradually, after several moments of simple bliss, she felt the tension ease from him. His grip on her grew less tight and he murmured her name in a husky, breathless voice. Where they joined, the orgasm still shivered along his hard length and up her spine. He made to move off her, but she reached back and gripped his wrist to hold him still. A moan broke free past her lips when he pressed tighter to her and flexed his thick cock.

“God, baby, yeah, take it for me, so fucking beautiful, Mandy.”

She sucked in a breath and held it. He didn’t move, and the intensity of the mini climax increased until she sobbed out his name, shaking so badly that he clenched his hands on her butt again and dipped his head to lick at her mouth. “So fucking sexy. Come again, sugar. You like that, huh? Damn,” he groaned when she bit his jaw.

“No, oh, God, enough, don’t talk. Don’t move. Don’t,” she moaned and struggled to catch her breath. It felt like he’d shoved his big erection all the way up inside her and her body couldn’t stop clenching around him. “Just don’t.”

He laughed and she gasped at the feel of him shaking inside her.
Oh, God, that was sexy.

The mini climax grew smaller and smaller until she sighed into the ground, feeling like her body had turned to Jell-O. As if he knew she couldn’t move, he eased down over her, keeping himself firmly seated inside her as he brushed breathless kisses against her cheek. “Damn, baby, I might get you into combat more often if this is my reward.”

She laughed, amazed at him. “Oh? You think so?”

“Damn right. I’ve never had combat sex, sugar. This shit is the bomb.”

“Oh, God, you are too much.” He wasn’t, though. He made it all okay. Part of her was freaked out that they had just fucked like animals, that her pants were down around her knees, and that he had just killed people, but the other part of her needed this, him, so badly, she wasn’t. Mac simply made it all okay.

“You loved it,” he whispered.

“I did.” She wanted to say she loved him, but swallowed the words, not sure if now was the time to tell him such a thing.

He brushed a kiss to the spot behind her ear, and pulled back slowly, withdrawing his long shaft from her body. She didn’t miss that he was still hard, not as thick as he could get, but he could still go on. She knew that very well. He groaned out her name with such feeling that she shivered all over again. Bending over her he surprised her by placing a kiss on her butt then helped her turn to pull her pants up before he repositioned himself in his cargo shorts.

She grinned up at him. He turned laughing hazel eyes down at her and bent over to kiss her slowly, taking his time to run his hand through her hair and over her shoulders and down her side. She touched him in turn. The slow, gentle caresses so in opposition to what they’d just done, she felt her love nearly bursting along her seams. She loved this man so much. How had she lived without him?

She hadn’t. She saw that now. She’d worked. And worked, and worked. She’d not truly let herself live. How could she? Mac had always been the one. Her love.

He pressed one more kiss against her swollen lips and pulled her up to stand next to him. Her legs felt wobbly and her body hot and cold all at once. Mac looked at her, then off to scan the area.

She could almost feel the soldier take over and the man she loved fade. But now, instead of feeling insecure, she realised that if she loved Mac, she had to love this part of him—Wolf. The soldier. She reached out and brushed her fingers over the lighter patch of hair on his forehead and he startled a look down at her. Instead of speaking, she cupped his jaw where the scar stood out against his tanned skin.

He didn’t speak either, but pressed his hand over hers. The moment was intense, and one she knew she’d remember fifty years from now. Mac, standing there, so strong and sure of himself, her protector, while she simply felt his warmth through her fingertips.

“We gotta go, Mandy. It will be okay.”

She nodded, and dropped her hand, then knelt to pick up the contents of the pack, repositioning it all where it was supposed to be as he hunched down to help her. He tried to take the pack but she held it.

“I can carry—”

“No, it’s not far. We go around this way.” He motioned with his chin towards the jungle, not the meadow.

She knew why. He didn’t want her to see the dead men. She followed, feeling like something painful had suddenly risen up between them. Something she didn’t know how to ease. He wanted to hide this side of his life from her. She could understand that. She wanted to hide the attack from him. But she knew they’d have to both reveal everything if they were going to survive.

Lies could destroy them, but they could also set them free.

At least she hoped so as she followed Mac’s lead.

Chapter Twenty-One

The house was empty, and the temptation proved too great for Mac to pass up. They’d stay here. The sunset was already hitting the horizon. The chances of the cartel sending another team tonight were slim. Mandy was tired, and even if she looked fine, she wasn’t. He’d leave her here, go to town—now that he knew what island they were on—and make contact with a local he knew.

Decided, Mac took Mandy around to the back door and found it still open, just the way they’d left it. The glass he’d broken littered the ground. The truck still stood out front, the engine off, but the keys were in his pocket.

The plan grew solid. He knew she’d hate it, but instincts—his gut—warned him he needed to make sure the town was safe before driving her in there. Firming his resolve, he took a breath and said, “We stay here tonight.”

Mandy stopped in her tracks. “What? Here?” She glanced around the backyard, at the house, then up at him with too-wide grey eyes. Shit, he needed her safe.

“Look, Mandy, just try to listen. I need to reach town. Check in. I’ll call the men, see if they can make it here tonight, but I don’t think that’s possible. What is possible is I can salvage this by hitting a town. This is Molokai—there’s a town nearby. I’m guessing we’re on the western end of the island, but I can’t be sure. I go check it out, call a contact I know in the area, and come back for you as soon as I establish a secure line.”

“What? No.” She shook her head violently, clearly getting worked up.

“Mandy, this isn’t safe.” He dug out the cheap cellphone and flipped it open. “This isn’t worth crap to us. I need a secure line. In town, I can get that.”

Stubborn as hell, she didn’t move, not even when he tried to usher her in the door. “No, we stay together. You promised not to leave me.”

His anger soared. “Don’t. Don’t pull that shit, Mandy. You know I’m not leaving you. This place is secure. You stay here. If you hear anyone coming up that driveway, you hide in a damn closet. They won’t do more than take a quick look in the house, then leave. The truck will be with me.”

He watched her expression harden and her grey eyes turn flat and angry. But she stayed silent. Whatever peace he’d earned them for fucking her like an animal was gone. Hell, what had he been thinking, taking her like that when the adrenaline and fear were still racing through his system? Fear had driven him. Fear that she’d been hurt, killed or, worse, taken, plus the selfish fear that she’d look at him like a monster. He could see that now. He couldn’t think with her near him. Space, he needed some space to get his head on straight.