Still Mine (5 page)

Mine
…

He’d whispered the single word against her neck and a hundred other places while he claimed every inch of her flesh. Commanded was actually a better word. Her body had been a prize he’d claimed. Heat flowed into her lower body as she tossed the brush back into her duffle bag and forced her brain to think about more sedate things. Like Kent. The deputy was cast from a similar mold as Paul had been. Full of command, they demanded compliance from everyone and thing around them. Men like that didn’t see any middle ground. But there was nothing irresistible about him, unless you counted the urge she had to shoot him when he was trying to follow her to the toilet.

At least it looked like she was only prey to one ultra-male, Paul. That weakness could be covered up, savored in the dead of night, but neatly shuffled aside while life went on. Kent didn’t need to know she was still in love with her dead husband, no one needed to know she couldn’t let go.

A sharp rap on the bathroom door indicated her time was up. Jo swung the duffle bag up onto her good shoulder as she reached for the doorknob. Her fingers made the briefest of contact before the door pushed inward, causing her to jump out of the way. She narrowed her eyes in annoyance.

“You guys need to relax.”

Her wrist was gripped and her body pulled through the open doorway. The rough handling set her temper on edge. The scathing comment Jo had been contemplating died a sudden death as she came to a stop a bare foot from someone’s chest. Her gaze traveled up the man’s torso to his face. Her head was tipped back as far as possible. The man was quite simply a giant. Jo would guess his height to be somewhere just shy of seven feet.

“Deputy Jolene Benate?”

Jo stepped back but collided with another body. Snapping her head around to investigate her newest threat, she found the room occupied by two more men. Kent stared at her from behind those two men, his face a mask of fury. The light bounced off the polished muzzles of handguns that were pointed at his chest.

“Answer the question, ma’am.”

Panic quickly attempted to tighten its grip around Jo, but she forced it aside. Her gaze moved over the group, taking in details, searching for any weak spots. The giant stood in front of her and quietly assessed her with brown eyes. Jo forced her own emotions down and set her face into just a calm mask. He reached towards her and lifted her duffle bag off her shoulder. It was tossed to someone behind him as he continued to observe her.

“Are you Jolene Benate?”

The tone of his voice said he believed she was. Jolene didn’t feel like hiding behind silence. “That’s me.”

“You will accompany me, ma’am.”

His face remained set as he stretched out one huge hand and closed his grip about her biceps. Using his hold on her body, the giant pulled her forward and out of the room. Jo matched pace with him because he pulled on her wound, sending pain blazing though her. Sweat popped out on her forehead as she gritted her teeth.

As the interior of the safe house passed in a blur, she noticed Kent’s team backed up against the far wall, their expressions as lethal as the guns leveled on them. The giant walked at a steady stride that had Jo scrambling to remain alongside him. As soon as they cleared the front door of the home, their destination became clear. In the center of the city street sat three Hummers. The sun had set, but despite the darkness Jo could clearly pick out the curious residents who had been drawn out of their homes by the military-looking vehicles. The green and brown paint on their Hummers wasn’t buffed and shiny. Instead it was rough, just like her escort. That sent an alarm bell ringing through her brain. These were real hunters, the sort that lived and breathed the dangerous lifestyle. Their concentration level was amazing, each set of eyes scanning, moving and never hesitating. As she was pulled to the back door of one of the Hummers, the soldier watching her held a small black box of some sort up. His eyes moved from it to her face and back again.

“Package secured.”

She stared at him, trying to absorb what he meant. He hooked the black box onto his belt before his fingers resumed a position over the trigger of his rifle. The giant escorting her let out a whistle as his grip reduced itself to nothing more than a hold designed to keep her in place. Still, the pain blazing through her threatened to buckle her knees. She sank her teeth into her bottom lip and forced herself to remain on her feet.

The rear door of one of the Hummers was abruptly pulled open mere inches from her face.

“Inside, ma’am.” The giant was caging her, using the open door of the Hummer to give her no option but the interior of the vehicle.

Jo took in the set look on his face. “Or what?”

A hint of an expression crossed his features. His fingers unlatched from her arm as he folded his arm over his rifle. Muscle bulged out, making him look even bigger.

“Or I’ll be happy to lend you assistance with loading up, ma’am.”

Climb aboard or be loaded. As much as she detested the idea of assisting with her own abduction, she was more reluctant to find herself hoisted into that vehicle like a piece of cargo. “Who are you?”

One hand uncrossed and directed her towards the open door. “Now, ma’am.”

She hissed at his ultrapolite request but lifted a foot to brace on the side step of the Hummer. The door was firmly closed seconds after she cleared it. The three other doors opened to admit the other men who had been in the company of the giant. The man who climbed into the seat next to Jo paid her little notice. His face was set into a firm expression of purpose. Her door opened once more as another man climbed right in. She scooted into the center seat to avoid being sat on. The man didn’t give her any attention, simply gripped the roof handrail and blocked the door with his body, sandwiching her.

The Hummer made a sharp U-turn before the driver moved away from her safe house. Kent was standing on the driveway with a furious expression on his face. A little wave of pity stirred for the deputy, because she did understand what it was like to watch your case evaporate into thin air. There was nothing more frustrating to a deputy devoted to his badge. She owed Kent that much respect.

Nothing but darkness met her searching gaze. The engine settled into a steady drone as they hit an interstate. The driver kept within the speed limit, a move designed to help them integrate into the flow of traffic. Most people didn’t understand how easy it was to get lost among the general population. Jo did. Without a speeding getaway or some other clue like a license plate number, even Ross Locke wouldn’t be able to track her down. The plates on the Hummers were generic government numbers, not something many people knew, but a feature of Special Forces. An entire fleet of military vehicles placed around the country with identical plates. There was no way to single them out. Once they reached their destination, she could be moved to any point on the globe and there would be no record. She was going to disappear with as much ease as a SEAL team might.

Taking a deep breath, she forced her heart rate to remain calm. Panic would be a death sentence.

It would appear she was going to discover just who wanted her company so badly. She needed to concentrate on that. The details didn’t really matter as long as she got to the center of the problem. Any information would get her closer to a resolution.

The sharp focus of the men inside the Hummer sent a tingle down her neck. Ross Locke ran a tight team but there was a marked difference that she felt as they continued down the highway.

The real question was what finding out would cost her.

Paul replaced his phone with nothing more than the slightest sound. The office was dim, only a small light still aimed at his desktop. A detailed blueprint was clipped on a raised tabletop, but the complicated equations didn’t snare his attention like they normally did. Sleep wasn’t even a distant memory in spite of the early morning hour because he’d never laid down in the bed.

His package was secure. Jonnie…

A large hand slowly lifted one of the numerous pictures that cluttered the top of his desk. It was always amazing when the one percent possibility emerged as the reality. But that wasn’t what fascinated him the most. The expression on her face, captured in living color, was what his mind dwelled on. What was she thinking and did she think about him? Did he make as many appearances in her dreams as she did in his? The surveillance photo slipped from his fingers and settled among the others on the surface of the desk.

She wouldn’t be smiling when she saw him. In spite of that knowledge, he felt a surge of anticipation move through him.

Picking a photo up again, he studied the radiant smile on Jolene’s face. His lips twitched up in response. The emotional reaction made his fingers tighten on the edge of the picture. A curse slipped out of his mouth as his gaze caught the display on his computer monitor.

His current project was almost complete. The top-secret aircraft would keep the edge tight on global dominance for the American Air Force. It was an achievement that had driven him to give up the only other thing in life worth devoting his soul to.

His wife.

But just maybe he didn’t have to be caught between his twin passions. She hadn’t moved on, hadn’t taken a lover or found a man to father that baby. Neither had he discovered another woman to replace her. Valda sure had tried to make sure he didn’t wander off base again. The man had carefully paraded a prescreened and approved number of women past him in the last few years. But none of them were Jonnie. The promise of sex should have snared his attention; instead, he’d buried his energy in the project on his worktable. Jerking off in the shower his only concession to the physical needs of his body.

It had always been a facet of his personality, obsessing over his newest creation. That part of his character ran deep. Even as a child, he’d refused to leave any project alone until he finished it. His mother had nearly torn her hair out a few times. But she wasn’t the only one. More than one teacher had marched him to the principal’s door when he took their science projects to levels they’d never imagined. But it burned like a volcano inside him. That need to question and experiment. Valda answered a lot of his needs, granting him the funding and the permission to follow his thoughts. It wasn’t free though. His mind was a vault of classified facts. But he consoled himself with the knowledge that no one’s life was fair. You did what you had to. He had counted himself lucky to have snared a job that he enjoyed.

Tonight he was sick of it. Pounding through his head was fatigue. And need. His project wasn’t what was on his mind. Sifting through calculations didn’t entice him.

Staring at the photo in his hand, he felt his cock thicken. “Hate me if you can, baby.”

But they were going to be face-to-face again.

Chapter Three

Jo slowly tightened her grip once again to stop her hands from shaking. The constant vibration of the Hummer made her shoulder burn more with each mile that dropped behind them. The vehicles were built for rugged terrain, not for the comfort of their passengers. The mild pain medication she had consumed just after dinner had long since lost its effect on her injured body.

At the moment, Jo would have gratefully taken refuge in unconsciousness, but her brain refused to lower its defenses enough to allow her to slip away from conscious thought. Her instinct for survival demanded she remain alert enough to make use of any opportunity that might present itself. A precious few moments of inattention would be all she needed to place something as simple as a phone call, to leave a marker someone might follow. She wasn’t willing to give up, even if the odds were growing taller and harder to avoid as the hours passed. Little details, like road names and interstate numbers, were breadcrumbs she could use to reclaim her life. She just prayed her body would respond with enough strength should that chance arise.

Tilting her head slightly, Jo looked out the small window mounted in the door of the Hummer. A slight glow of light was visible somewhere in the distance. They had been enclosed in darkness for so long that her eyes were drawn to the light like a beacon.

The driver finally broke the long silence as he conversed with some sort of security control. The man uttered several lines of numbers. Nothing that made sense to her. The driver spoke it like a second language. The lights in front of them grew brighter until the vehicle was bathed in light as bright as high noon. A heavily armed gate opened to admit them. They drove through a corridor of steel and barbed wire before facing another gate. The one behind them closed and red lights flickered in some kind of warning before a siren chirped out. The gate in front of them opened and the driver drove through before it closed tightly behind them.

Thirty seconds later the driver pulled his Hummer to a stop. Her companions exited the Hummer while she fumbled with her seat belt. Her fingers refused to stop shaking enough to depress the stiff latch on the safety restraint.

Jo ordered her hands to perform the simple task and the clasp finally snapped open. It took precious amounts of her dwindling strength to step out of the Hummer.

The grip on her biceps was renewed as the giant appeared right beside her the second her feet touched the blacktop. He tugged her forward by her left arm.

“This way, ma’am.” The movement was far from rough. However the sharp tug and pull across her shoulder sent a spasm of pain through her torso. Her body shuddered with the effort of containing the pain and not moaning like a lightweight.