Storm Warning (Security Specialists International Book 4) (25 page)

DJ had no problem being marked as his. He was her partner, her soul mate, her lover. She would wear his ring with pride.

“Once we get back to the hotel,” he continued, “we might have to cut the lovemaking back a bit, but no way am I losing my last evening of completely safe and private time with you. You just accepted my proposal of marriage and we’re celebrating.”

“I don’t need much sleep.” She smoothed her hand up and down his thigh under the cover of the table—then shifted it to the erection straining the placket of his jeans. “And I don’t want this to go to waste.” She gave his cock a firm squeeze before pulling away.

“Isn’t it lucky I don’t need much sleep either?” Ace winked. “We can nap on the yacht. It’ll take a few hours to reach the snorkeling site.”

“Sounds like a plan.” DJ turned her attention to making her food disappear as quickly as possible. Suddenly, she was hungry for more than seafood.

February 25th, on the yacht
Titania

DJ lay on a lounge chair on the aft upper sundeck of the hundred-foot yacht which SSI had leased for the op. Ace and Conn were bonding over the state-of-the-art equipment on the yacht’s bridge.

She stretched her arms over her head and smiled. Her sun-warmed body had a few twinges in little-used muscles, a result of yesterday’s introduction to lovemaking. Her body hummed with the opposing mixture of satiation and need—she couldn’t wait to see where Ace would take her next on the path to sexual discovery.

After they’d made love after dinner, Ace had teased her that she was loud, but then admitted he liked the noises she made. If screaming his name and invoking deities made him happy, she didn’t plan on holding back. Later today, sex-on-board-a-luxury-yacht was definitely on her newly created sexual bucket list. It was a good thing the master suite on the yacht was well away from the bridge and the captain’s cabin Conn was using.

Post-mission, she’d like to take a few days and cross off some more of the things on her list: sex on a secluded beach, sex while swimming in a cenote in the rainforest, sex in a Jacuzzi, sex on the furry rug in front of Ace’s fireplace, and anything else she could think of.

Ace’s love had liberated her in a way she’d never thought would happen.

“You look happy…” The object of all her sexual desire sat down on the edge of her lounge chair. “And pleased.”

“I am.” She eyed him over the top of her sunglasses and licked her lips.
Yummy
. Ace looked
hawt
in his swim trunks and no shirt. His muscles were delineated even more by his tan, which seemed to have darkened to bronze since they boarded the yacht early this morning.

His hooded gaze gleamed as he scanned her length. A muscle in his jaw twitched. His hands fisted at his side as if he fought for control.

“You look…” Her skin felt scorched by his intense perusal. Her pussy grew damp and her core clenched. All it took was a “look” from him and her body prepared to receive his cock. “…predatory.”

Slowly, he moved to cage her between his arms. He lowered his head and placed a single kiss in the cleavage exposed by her bikini. “I so want to take you below deck and make love to you right now.” He sighed, the sound filled with regret, and shook his head as if shaking off the need. “But we’re being followed, and he’s not being subtle about it.”

Ace sat up and petted her thigh.“Get up and put on more clothes. It’s one thing to have Conn ogling your body, but I’ll be damned if Crocker does.”

She swung her legs over the side of the lounger and reached for the coverup she’d worn at breakfast. As she pulled the silk caftan over her head, she asked, “You sure it’s this Crocker guy?”

Ace helped her smooth the voluminous, but diaphanous garment over her body and gave her hips a gentle squeeze. “He sent Conn a message, detailing the last mission they’d worked together in the Marines. So we know it’s him.”

“He’s definitely not being secretive, is he? What could he want?” DJ frowned and turned to look aft and spotted a sailboat trailing behind them.

Worry and curiosity fought for supremacy in her mind over why Crocker would expose himself in such a blatant way. Curiosity won. If he turned out to be their enemy, they’d deal with it. Her gun and knife were in a bag on the floor by the lounger. Conn had also secreted several other weapons around the yacht and made sure she and Ace knew where they were. They were well-prepared to repel or eliminate an unfriendly guest.

The yacht’s engines went silent. The sound of the anchor dropping was loud. The boat rode the waves gently. The sailboat Crocker captained under engine power stopped about sixty meters astern. Its anchor was also down.

“Whatever he wants. We’ll know soon. Conn and I are fairly sure Crocker is one of Uncle Sam’s minions and not Oraio’s. Keely’s research and analysis seems to confirm that conclusion also. It’s a good bet our intelligence agencies aren’t playing nicely with each other … again. Fucking politics.”

Upon arriving back at their
casita
last evening—and before she and Ace had made love—Ace had sent Keely an encrypted e-mail, asking her to dig deeper on Crocker and see if he could be working undercover. The best bets were either Crocker was an operative for the CIA’s National Clandestine Service, which handles black ops, or he was a private contractor the U.S. had hired because they wanted deniability. SSI had done such contract work for the NCS in the past. Investigating Oraio’s current bid to control the illegal trafficking of drugs and weapons in Central and South America was exactly the kind of work the CIA/NCS might contract out to someone like Crocker.

Ace moved to the stairs that led down to the swim platform. His gun was tucked in the back waistband of his swim trunks. She was happy to see her man wasn’t taking any chances.

“He’s swimming over,” Ace said over his shoulder as he started his descent.

Swimming didn’t necessarily mean Crocker wouldn’t be armed; there were several highly dependable hand guns that could handle getting wet. Also, no Marine would swim in shark-infested waters without a good knife.

DJ pulled her Beretta out of the beach bag and followed Ace down the stairs as swiftly as her outfit allowed. Caftans sucked for freedom of movement, but she didn’t have time to change. She wanted to be in position to cover Ace’s ass.

“Has Keely found anything concrete to corroborate your guts yet?” DJ asked.

DJ would bet on NCS. SSI’s employer on this op was NSA, which meant all the Defense intelligence agencies were in the loop. The CIA/NCS had never liked to share its toys with the other kids, especially the DIA. She’d been on several classifed military missions where the NCS operatives had screwed the pooch and had almost cost soldiers their lives because of inter-agency rivalries.
Asshats.

“Ahoy,
Titania
,” Crocker called out as he treaded water about five meters from the stern of the yacht. “Permission to come aboard.”

“You armed?”Ace shouted back.

“Diving knife.”

Ace looked at DJ. A pleased smile curved his lips when she showed him her gun where she’d hidden it in the folds of the caftan. “That’s my warrior-woman.”

“I have a vested and very personal interest in you—so, of course, I’m protecting it. I want you to be around to father those three kids we talked about.”

“Oh, I’m planning on it, sugar.” He looked over her shoulder. “Conn, if shit happens, you’re responsible for covering DJ.”

“Will do, buddy.” Conn tapped DJ on the shoulder. “Three kids?”

“Yep.” She held up her left hand. Wiggling her fingers, she showed Conn a hammered silver ring set with a square cut, reticulated tourmaline in shades of green to blue. Ace had said the stone covered the complete blue-green spectrum of her eyes.

“Congratulations.” Conn moved to stand by her side. “Let me cover Tweeter, sweetheart. You cover me. Crocker’s a mean-assed fighter. Once, he took out a nest of Taliban snipers single-handedly with just his hands and some rocks.”

Ace glared at Conn. “You don’t think I can handle Crocker?”

“I didn’t say that. I’ve seen you fight,” Conn replied. “But I haven’t seen DJ fight. So, I’d feel better if I’m between her and Sam’s knife.”

“I don’t have to fight the man.” DJ’s gaze never wavered from the man now treading water at the swim platform ladder. “I can just shoot him.”

“That’ll work.” Conn laughed and moved to her side, his gun in hand.

“Coming aboard, Walsh,” Crocker shouted. “No need for all the firepower.”

Ace’s attention was also fully fixed on Crocker. He didn’t lower his weapon. A decision of which she fully approved. She fingered the safety on her weapon, making sure it was disengaged. Only Conn lowered his weapon, but he didn’t put it away.

“Come ahead,” Ace shouted. “We can have a beer and chat.”

“Sounds good.” Crocker ignoring the ladder, pulled himself up onto the swim platform in a show of extraordinary upper body strength.

Sam Crocker was dark-skinned from sun exposure and had longish dark hair that lay in wet waves around his head. His eyes were a striking light gray, made even more noticeable by the contrast against his thick, dark eyelashes and tanned skin. He had a scar along his right jaw which served to make him look tough, but not disfigured. His sculpted body had numerous other scars—but one on his chest and another on his lower abdomen looked to be more recent; they were exit wounds. Someone had shot him from behind.

For several seconds, Ace and Crocker stared at one another. She rolled her eyes. Men and their posturing.

“You get the chest and gut wounds in the Keys when you covered Elana?” Ace asked, stepping back and letting Crocker walk farther onto the lower aft deck.

“Yeah.” Crocker’s face was a sculpted emotional wasteland, but his eyes burned like molten silver. “Fucking Russian gassed us, then shot me and left me to bleed out. Told me he wanted me to suffer for interfering with Demidas’s woman. Heard the guy who shot me is dead—that little Elana knifed him.”

“She did.” Ace smiled, a devil’s smile of satisfaction. “Knifed Zivon in the groin and then opened up his femoral. He fell into a grotto. Guy was bleeding out even as he drowned.”

“Good.” Crocker grunted and a smile very similar to Ace’s twisted his lips. “I’ll have to send her a nice gift and a thank you note.” He nodded at the stairs to the sundeck. “We going to go up and talk about the potential cluster y’all are heading into? Or, we going to stand around here talking about my past sins?”

“Both, but we can do that while drinking the beer I promised you. After you.” Ace stepped back and swept his arm toward the stairs.

Crocker snorted and nodded. “Yeah, you’re a Walsh all right. Your pa was one of my trainers at LeJeune.”

“Then you know he taught all his kids how to survive,” Ace said. “If you’d ever managed to get close to my little sister, she would’ve gutted you without blinking an eye.”

Crocker nodded. “Fuck, I know that. Y’all don’t have the whole story—” He shook his head, strode to the stairs, and began climbing. “We need to talk about then and now.”

Had Crocker already been in deep cover when the shit had gone down with Elana? It felt right, gibed with what DJ knew about how deep-cover operatives worked in the NCS, but she’d wait and see. This was Ace’s show—it had been his sister marked for capture and death.

But her inquisitive mind had to know one thing—“Is all your sinning in the past, Mr. Crocker?”

Crocker, with Conn on his heels, halted his climb and looked over his shoulder. He scanned her twice before another kind of heat entered his silver eyes. “And who might you be?”

Ace started to move in front of her, then must’ve thought better of it and stopped. His high cheekbones were flushed and the look he shot her was filled with apology—and entreaty.

DJ understood the opposing forces fighting for supremacy inside her man—he respected her ability to handle herself, but he also wanted to mark her as his and protect her. Ace’s whole body was tense, ready to maim or kill if Crocker made one wrong move toward her. She snorted. Anyone who thought her man was merely a computer nerd had never seen him when he went all alpha-male this way.

Since she loved both sides of his nature, she’d give him this one and moved to his side. Plus, she was close enough to protect Ace, if needed. A win-win.

A quizzical look crossed Crocker’s face as he glanced between the two of them. Then his eyes gleamed with understanding. He shot a quick man-to-man look of approval at Ace, a visual thumb’s up.

Men and their pissing contests, and she was the tree marked by her alpha-dog.

DJ coughed, drawing Crocker’s attention, and pulled her Beretta from the caftan’s folds, letting him see it. “DJ Poe, former Army Airborne, CW4. Now an SSI operative.”

Crocker looked amused. “Hell, if you were mine, I’d be acting the same way as Walsh.”

She growled under her breath, “Damn men…”

Crocker chuckled and shook his head. “All of you, relax. I’m on your side.
Semper fi.
” He turned his back and finished climbing the stairs.

Conn followed Crocker up. “Don’t rush. I know the man. If he says he’s on our side, then he is. He never broke his word, or his oath to protect the U.S., while he was a Marine. And from the Corp scuttlebutt I heard, even when he was hiring out, Sam and his merc team took the moral high ground on their contracts more times than not.”

Which meant Crocker, DJ strongly suspected, hadn’t really been all that independent. Plus, the man she’d just met didn’t read as evil—and she’d seen evil up close and personal over the years, from her father to the Varneys to terrorists all over the world. Crocker read the same way the SSI operatives and the Walsh men did—honorable and loyal to their country, their teams, and their loved ones.

DJ turned to Ace. “So … we gonna trust him?”

“Yeah, for now. If we don’t like his explanation about whom he’s working for and why he’s following us, we can detain him and have Ren send someone to pick him up.”

“Do you think he might’ve been working for the U.S. when he hired on with MacLean?” DJ asked.

“Seems probable. Fucking CIA.” Ace took her arm and steered her toward the stairs. “Let’s go up and see what Crocker has to share. If the CIA has sent out NCS operatives to monitor this hack-a-thon, the intelligence agencies could be working at cross-purposes again.”

“You don’t think Oraio is a front for the CIA in Central and South America, do you?” DJ muttered.

Ace threw her a dark look. “God, I hope not.”

*

Tweeter stepped onto the deck and found Crocker and Conn sitting at the small salon bar adjacent to the sun deck. Crocker didn’t look like a man who could’ve cold-bloodedly signed on to kill Keely. Plus, he’d protected Elana with his body. The wounds he’d suffered could’ve easily killed him.

The two former Marines were laughing over something as he and DJ joined them. He led DJ to a bar stool away from Crocker, then sat between them. He mentally kicked himself for almost fucking things up earlier. He knew DJ could protect herself—and him and Conn, if needed—so why had he gone all territorial on her?