Dangerously Hot (A Hostile Operations Team Novel)(#4) Read online

  He wasn’t supposed to be possessive of her. He was just supposed to protect her. And it was in her best interests to be at ease with the guys. If she could manage it, he had no right to interfere in any way. If Flash flirted, it was her call if she let him. Not Kev’s.

  Jesus.

  Billy slapped him on the shoulder in sympathy. If it was obvious to Billy how much he was struggling watching Lucky with another man, was it obvious to the others? And what did they think about him, knowing that she’d been Marco’s wife?

  But no one said anything or shot him any looks, and they subsided into conversation and laughter for the next couple of hours. They scarfed burgers, wings, and assorted fried junk, and knocked back a few beers. The talk around the table covered many topics, though not the one foremost on anyone’s mind: Qu’rim. Instead, they steered clear of that subject until finally Georgie Hayes—who’d ended up in a corner with Lucky, talking about whatever women talked about—caught Sam’s eye and the two of them rose as one and said their good-byes.

  After that, the gathering grew subdued as everyone eyed cell phones and watches. One by one, they started to sort out their bills and head for the door. Kev opened the truck door for Lucky, and she climbed inside and put on her seatbelt while he went around and got in the other side. The air was colder than it had been as a front came in from the west and sent temperatures spiraling downward. There was even talk of a white Christmas for a change.

  “That was fun,” Lucky said as they pulled out of the parking lot. “Thanks for taking me.”

  “I didn’t think I had a choice.”

  She sighed. “Well, thanks anyway.” She paused for a moment. “I like Georgie and Sam. They’re so perfect together. It was strange at first, seeing him and knowing he was Marco’s replacement. But now I just think of him as one of the guys.”

  “It was for me, too. But that’s the way the military works. I told myself for a long time that it was the same as if Marco had taken another assignment and moved away.”

  Her voice grew subdued. “I thought I saw him in Hawaii sometimes. There are so many military guys there, and I’d be somewhere, and there’d be a guy in ACUs who looked so familiar. But he’d turn and I’d realize it wasn’t Marco at all.”

  Kev swallowed the lump in his throat. “Yeah, I get that. I’m sorry it happened though. I can only imagine how hard that was for you.”

  He glanced over at her. Her head was bowed, and she was fiddling with her cell phone. Then she pocketed it and sighed.

  “I miss him, but my life isn’t over.”

  He didn’t know what to say to that. “No, I know.”

  “Do you?” She tapped her fingers on the armrest and stared straight ahead. “The closer we get to going on this mission, the more I worry about the things I never did. What if I never get to do them at all?”

  A chill slipped down his spine. “That’s the beer talking.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t think it is. I think it’s a real concern. These next few days could be all I have left.”

  Kev gripped the wheel tight. Dammit. “I told you I won’t let him get you. You’re coming back. We’re all coming back.”

  “You can’t guarantee that.”

  Kev whipped the truck into a fast-food parking lot and shoved the gearshift into park before turning to look at her, fury rolling through him. He didn’t want to hear her talk that way. He didn’t want to hear the fatalistic tone in her voice. It wasn’t right.

  He’d lost Marco out there. He wasn’t about to lose Lucky, and he wouldn’t have her talking as if fate had already decided it for her. Her eyes were wide as she stared at him.

  “Attitude is everything out there,” he grated. “You can’t go in with the idea this is the end. You have to be comfortable with yourself, sure, but it doesn’t do any good to think this is where you will die. If you think like that, you put us all in danger.”

  “All right.” Her voice was soft. Her eyes slipped over his face, and her throat worked. He had a sudden urge to haul her into his arms. He resisted, but barely.

  “Just stop thinking it’s over, okay?”

  She nodded. “But there are still things I never did. Things I wanted to do. It’s not fatalistic to wish I’d had the courage to do them.”

  He shoved a hand through his hair and growled. “What is it you want to do so bad? You have a few days yet if it’s important to you.”

  The air in the truck grew thick with silence. And then she reached out with trembling fingers and touched his mouth. Her fingers were light, soft, ghosting over his lips so carefully. His blood beat hard in his veins, and his chest grew tight. She was going to drive him insane before this was over.

  “I want to be with you.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Kev’s eyes grew wild, hunted, and Lucky’s heart hammered. She was feeling braver than she’d thought possible. Was it the beer talking? Maybe it was, though she’d only had two and she didn’t feel tipsy.

  Or maybe it wasn’t the beer at all, but the gravity of this mission. She’d watched Georgie Hayes with Sam, and she’d envied them. They were so clearly in love, so clearly hot for each other. She didn’t know what that felt like, not really, but she wanted it.

  She’d told Kev she wanted him, and saying the words was a relief. She hadn’t been brave enough to tell him before—before Al Ahmad, before her capture and rescue, before that first kiss. Before she’d married Marco.

  If she had, what would have happened? Maybe they’d have had sex, and maybe she’d have still married Marco. Or maybe she wouldn’t because she would have known she was the wrong woman for him. Maybe Marco would have figured it out sooner if she’d been honest with herself about her feelings for Kev.

  No matter what Kev said, she had to be honest with herself now. This mission might go sour. She might not return. It was reality, nothing more.

  And reality demanded she not deny her feelings right now. For the first time in forever, she wanted a man. She wasn’t afraid of Kev touching her. She knew instinctively that he was the only one who could.

  “Lucky… Jesus.”

  “No one has to know.”

  “I’ll know.” He put his head on the steering wheel. She could hear him breathing. And then he sat up and shoved the truck into gear. She turned and laid her forehead against the cool window, embarrassment and fury twining together in her belly as he drove in silence toward home. Why had she said anything? Why had she put herself out there like that?

  They reached his townhouse and walked toward the door. She stood behind him while he shoved the key in the lock and twisted. And then they were inside the hall, and she shut the door behind her, feeling awkward and embarrassed and wondering what to say before she excused herself and went to her lonely bed.

  But Kev turned to her in the dimly lit hallway, his eyes ablaze with anger.

  “Why me? Why not Flash or Iceman—or, hell, anyone else?”

  Lucky’s heart twisted. “I don’t know. I just know you’re the only one who can touch me. The only one who won’t make me shudder in horror or feel sick.”

  His throat moved. “Marco never said… he said you had difficulties with intimacy.”

  She’d already figured out that Marco had told Kev about her issues with being touched. Yet it was still embarrassing. And maybe it was a relief too, because what if he’d taken her up on her offer and then she freaked out?

  “It was too soon after…” She dropped her gaze from his. “He tried. I tried. It worked, but not the way it should have.”

  There’d been no fire between them, but she’d felt safe enough with Marco.

  “And you think it’ll be different with me.” He wasn’t asking a question.

  “Maybe it won’t,” she said, her head bowed. “But I want to find out. I need to find out—” She swallowed hard. “I want to know if I’ll ever be normal again. If I can be with a man without fear, or if I’m doomed to always fear the power he has over me.”

  �
�You said Al Ahmad didn’t…” His eyes were wide.

  “He didn’t. But he used his power. He took mine away, and he used his to hurt me.”

  After a long moment, Kev reached out and started to unbutton her coat. He slipped it from her shoulders and hung it on the coat rack behind him. Then he unbuttoned his own and did the same. He was so big and powerful standing there, broad-shouldered with lean, hard muscles and piercing blue eyes. But she wasn’t afraid of him, and she didn’t think she could be. But she really didn’t know what would happen.

  “Marco asked me to take care of you. I don’t think this is what he had in mind.”

  She tilted her head back to look up at him. “This isn’t Marco’s call. It’s mine. And yours. He’s gone, Kev. We can’t bring him back, and we can’t hurt him.”

  He closed his eyes for a long moment. “I feel like I’m betraying him.”

  “How?” Her voice grew thick with emotion. “He’s gone and we’re alive. We didn’t die with him. And I don’t think he’d want us to act like we did.”

  She took a step closer to him, lifted a hand, and palmed his cheek. Electricity flooded her system. And his, if the way his head jerked up was any indication. He put his hand over hers, held it against his cheek as warmth spread through her belly.

  And then he spoke. “You’ll tell me if you want to stop. You won’t endure something just because you think you should. Those are the rules, Lucky.”

  She was beginning to tremble deep inside. “I understand.”

  He took her hand and led her up the stairs to his room. He switched on the lamp on the bedside table and then turned to look at her. They stood a foot apart and just stared. Her breathing grew shallower, her belly tightening—

  Then he tugged her into his arms and kissed her. His tongue slipped into her mouth, tangled with her own, gently at first and then a bit wilder, and she clung to him as her body melted, dissolving into a million little sparks of flame. This was Kevin MacDonald she was kissing, the man she’d once wanted so desperately, the man she still wanted even when she shouldn’t.

  She knew why this was illicit, forbidden. They would be judged on more than one level if anyone knew. First, there was Marco. And then there was the idea they were on the same team and sex clouded thinking.

  But, dammit, Mendez had ordered them to stay together. To pretend to be newlyweds. What did he expect would happen?

  Lucky slid her palms over his chest, down the soft cotton of his T-shirt and the hard, corrugated abs beneath until she reached the swelling of his cock. She rubbed it beneath his jeans and he made a noise of approval in his throat.

  Then he reached for the hem of her shirt and tugged it up and over her head. The room wasn’t cold exactly, but it was cooler than she’d been in her warm sweatshirt. Her nipples beaded beneath the silk of her bra, though it wasn’t all due to the cold. She pressed her chest against Kev’s—and then she yanked his shirt from his jeans and pushed it up so she could feel her skin against his.

  Things began to happen fast after that. Kev unsnapped her bra and tore it off her shoulders, dropping it on the growing pile of clothing. Then he dropped to his knees and took one of her taut nipples in his mouth while she clutched his shoulders and let her head fall back as tears gathered in the corners of her eyes.

  It felt good. So good. And she wasn’t afraid, though her heart raced and adrenaline tripped through her veins. Kev sucked her nipple hard and soft, then licked around the areola before doing it again. Every tug of his mouth on her breast created an answering spike of slick pleasure in her pussy.

  As if he knew what she was feeling, he unbuttoned her jeans and slid them down her hips along with her lacy panties until she stood before him in nothing, her body bared to his eyes. For the first time, a tendril of unease uncoiled in her belly and knocked around. Not because she was afraid of him, but because she was afraid of his reaction to what he would see.

  Her belly was crisscrossed with fine silvery-pink scars, like her arms and her back, and Kev sat back for a moment, just staring at her. She crossed her arms self-consciously, her brain beating with the refrain that she’d been stupid, so stupid, that he wouldn’t want her, that he would find her horribly ugly now.

  He took her arms and pulled them apart. And then he pressed his mouth to her belly and her eyes flooded with tears. He licked his way over her scars, his hands on her ass as he pulled her in closer. What he did next nearly undid her.

  He turned his head and pressed his cheek between her breasts and just held her close.

  Lucky put her hands in his hair and clutched him to her with trembling fingers. She wanted to sob. Her entire body shook from head to toe, but not out of fear.

  “You’re perfect, Lucky. Perfect.”

  “You don’t have to say that.” Her voice sounded choked, and she was beginning to think she’d made a mistake, that this would be far too emotional and she wasn’t prepared for it after all.

  She’d thought she could divorce herself from the process in such a way that it was only about the physical, but she should have known better. When had it ever been just about the physical with this man?

  “Why wouldn’t I? It’s the truth.”

  Kev got to his feet then and swept her up like she weighed nothing. Then he carried her the few steps to his bed and laid her down on the cool sheets.

  “You still want to do this?” he asked. His voice was tender, sweet, and she knew if she said no, he’d understand.

  Her pussy chose that moment to throb, as if to remind her that her body was still very much in this game.

  Lucky nodded at the man standing over her.

  He gave her a grin as he unzipped his jeans and shoved them down his hips. Her mouth went utterly dry as all that skin and muscle was revealed. She thought she should do something—kiss his ridged abdomen, lick his cock—but all she could do was watch.

  “You’re the perfect one,” she said hoarsely. And he was. Like something carved out of marble and made flesh. Even with the ink that scrolled across his chest and arms punctuated by battle scars, he was perfect.

  He came down over the top of her, his body not quite touching hers though she could feel the heat of him above her. “Not me,” he told her, his lips gliding over her collarbone. “I’m far from perfect. I’m greedy, Lucky. I want everything you have. I want to taste you and tease you and pleasure you until you can’t walk. I want to touch every curve, explore every hollow, and taste every inch of you. If you can’t handle that, you need to tell me now.”

  She lifted a finger to his mouth, traced the hard sensual lines of his lips. Her tummy felt tight, and her pussy was achy. She didn’t want to think about what her heart was doing.

  “You’re ruthless, aren’t you?”

  He let his gaze slide lazily down over her body before he met her eyes again. “Just thought you should know what you’re asking for. I’ve wanted you for a long time. And that kind of want takes a lot of time to satisfy.”

  ***

  His body hurt with the need spiraling through him, and yet he didn’t want to let it loose the way it demanded. If this were any other woman, he’d take this faster. He’d make her come first, and then he’d plunge into her body and thrust hard and deep.

  But this was Lucky, and she’d been tortured. The fine scars on her belly had nearly undone him. Between that and Marco, he was a mess of emotion right now. He wasn’t used to his emotions being so close to the surface. He’d spent years shoving them deep, burying them under work and numbing them with sex.

  He had a feeling that sex with Lucky wasn’t going to numb a damn thing though. It was supposed to feel wrong, being with her this way, but it didn’t. He hoped Marco would forgive him as he lowered himself and took Lucky’s mouth tenderly, thoroughly.

  She’d asked for this, he told himself. She’d asked and he couldn’t deny her. He should have been able to do so, but the truth was that he was worried about what could happen on this mission too. And he didn’t want to go out th
ere without tasting Lucky at least once.

  Oh, it was wrong on so many levels. Wrong because of Marco. Wrong because of perspective. How could he make love to her and then maintain the distance he needed in Qu’rim to protect her and get the job done?

  He didn’t know at the moment, but he would figure it out. Because nothing short of a bomb blast in his living room was going to stop this train from leaving the station.

  Lucky’s arms went around him as she arched her body toward his, and all thoughts of taking this slowly flew out of his head. He deepened the kiss, shaped her body with his hands as he rolled to the side and took her with him. She threw a leg over his hip and arched her pelvis toward him.

  Kev groped for his nightstand, jerked open the drawer, and yanked out a strip of condoms.

  Lucky tore her mouth from his and worked her way over his neck, his chest. His breath was coming faster now, his cock straining and aching as he put the strip in his mouth and tore one free.

  Lucky looked up, her dark eyes slumberous and sensual, her hair wild. Then she laughed softly.

  “I know I should be all prissy about the fact we’re doing this in a bed that’s no doubt seen tons of action—as your condom supply proves—but the truth is I don’t care.”

  He wanted to deny it, but how could he? He’d had sex with other women in this bed, but not as many as she supposed. It was easier—and less of a hassle, usually, to take them back to their own place instead of bringing them to his.

  “That’s not what matters right now,” he said.

  She laughed as she shoved him over the rest of the way and straddled him. Then she took the condom wrapper from his hand and opened it.

  “No, it’s not.”

  Kev swallowed as his fingers glided into the softness between her thighs. She was wet and hot, and she shuddered as he found her clit and flicked it back and forth.

  “Oh,” she said, stilling. Her eyes closed and her head tilted back, and he knew then that he had to taste her first.

  Kev gripped her hips and pulled her toward him. Her eyes sparked, but then she came to him on her knees until he could lift his head and lick her right where he wanted. Her soft cry was ample reward for the effort.