“Luc, you feel—”
“Dammit!” His eyes flew open and he caught her wrist.
“What?”
“I feel
too
good, that’s what. And you’d feel too good under me.” He shoved her hand away from him. “And
this
is why women are not allowed in Special Forces. Your skin is too smooth, your body is too soft—hell, even that sweet peachy smell coming off your hair is a dangerous distraction.”
“You think I’m a distraction?” Despite his rejection and backhanded compliments, she was pleased.
“I know so.” He pointed a finger at her. “And you don’t need any distractions, either. I will not be hanging around the jungles of San Lucas de la Selva ready to rescue you with my machete in my hand and my knife between my teeth. The only person you can depend on is
you.”
“How sad.”
“What?”
“Don’t you depend on your family? Your team?”
“Family will not get you out of a jam if you’re far away, and your team, well…” He looked away for a second. “Sometimes your team is gone and it’s just you.”
“Oh.”
He stared at her. “If you don’t want to do this, back out. But if you want to have at least a fighting chance of taking care of yourself, come with me now.”
“Now?” she squeaked. It was almost one in the morning.
“Oui
, now. That Parris Island training is bullshit. You can’t learn anything if you know you’ve got a hot shower and fluffy bed waiting for you at the end of the day. And don’t forget, your
papa
’s going to hover over you with his little GPS tracker to make sure you don’t get lost—a real eye in the sky.”
Claire’s lips tightened. In the heat of touching Luc, she’d almost forgotten about that sneaky trick. “What do I need to do?”
“Do everything I tell you.” He pulled out a clean outfit for her and checked every item. “No tracking devices in the things. Get dressed.”
“Okay.” Some impish impulse made her shrug off her robe and stand before him in just her nightgown. He stared at her, his eyes dark and hungry. She started to push one strap off her shoulder when he snapped out of it.
“You, go in the bathroom, you. I’m going to my truck for a bag to pack your stuff.” He hurried out, checking the hall before he left.
He wanted her, she could tell. But discipline was winning over desire.
Turned her down. Turned down a sweet-smelling, shiny-haired, pretty lady with full, plump breasts and dark, shadowy nipples that had poked out like his cock when he touched her.
He cursed again. If only he’d had even a few days to go out, have a couple beers, meet some good-looking chicks who were interested in checking out his battle scars in close, personal detail. Maybe the top of his head wouldn’t be about to blow off.
The guys on his team with girlfriends or wives didn’t have this problem. They’d all disappeared into their bedrooms and didn’t come up for air for at least a week.
But no girlfriend or wife for Luc. He’d seen too many relationships wrecked by Special Forces deployments, seen too many of his teammates dumped via e-mail or satellite phone. Green Berets weren’t supposed to cry but he’d seen his teammates break down. Living in some cave ten thousand miles away from everyone you loved gave a “Dear John” knife in the back an extra-deep twist.
Luc wasn’t so smug in his current situation, though. He rubbed his sweaty forehead with his sleeve. He needed to get himself under control or else he’d be making his way through the swamp with his pecker pointing the way.
“Oh.” They had left the main road several miles ago and were passing small towns, their lights darkened for the night. “I should call somebody to let them know our plans.” She would need to use his phone, since hers had sported a tracking device, as well.
Luc lowered the stereo volume slightly. “You left two voice mails and a note for your father. I think he’ll be okay. Pissed off, but okay.”
“Yes, I know.” Claire twisted her fingers as she looked around the truck’s interior. She’d practically needed a ladder to climb into it, but the interior was almost as luxurious as her dad’s Euro luxury car—soft leather seats, totally digital controls, a smooth ride. Only her father’s German car didn’t have a gun rack in the back window.
“Where are your guns?” she asked.
“Why you want to know? You gonna shoot me?”
“No, of course not.” She was aghast.
“You might by the time we’re done.” He grinned. “I have a sidearm, a rifle and a shotgun in my bags. All properly unloaded and broken down, of course.” He shot her a look. “You know how to use any of those?”
“Uh, some target shooting. Oh, and my dad took me skeet shooting once but I wasn’t very good at it. The reporters kept distracting me.”
“Election year, huh?”
“Every year is election year when you’re a U.S. Representative.” How many times had Claire and her mother been trotted out at a campaign event? “If it’s not an actual voting year, it’s a fund-raising year. My mother did most of the events until I got out of high school, and then she took a job teaching anthropology at the local college and I volunteered to do more.”
“Wasn’t your job to do his work for him, Claire.”
“Public events always look better with family members.” That was what her father had said.
“Especially if the family members are photogenic young women. Hope you didn’t miss anything important.”
“Not much. A couple sorority dances, an honor society induction, a semester in Paris that happened to be the fall term of an election year.”
“A semester in Paris?” He gave a low whistle. “After all, how are you going to keep the girl on the Virginia farm, once she’s seen Paris?”
“All right, that one still bothers me. I studied French for seven years and never even studied anywhere French-speaking. It was too late to even make arrangements to go to Montreal.”
“You can practice your French on me anytime. Course, Cajun French is over three hundred years old, so you may sound a bit out-of-date.”
“Really? I did read that in one of my French classes, but our teacher was Parisian and all she would say is that it sounds strange. Then she sneered a bit.”
“Yeah, well, we Cajuns are the linguistic hillbillies of the Francophone world.”
Claire burst out laughing. “Madame la Professeur always was a snob.”
Luc grunted.
“Have you ever worked with French soldiers?”
He gave her an amused look.
“Peut-être.”
“Maybe? Oh, right, you can’t say. Just like Janey. I’m sure she has lots of interesting stories to tell me but she can’t because they’re classified.” The only story Janey had told her recently was about her exploits with the sexually frustrated marine. If only Janey knew how close Claire had come to having an exploit of her own. But no, the darn man was determined to resist her. Rats.
“Loose lips still sink ships. Your friend is smart to keep her mouth closed.”
“That’s right, Janey will keep her mouth closed. Maybe I can call her really quickly to let her know what’s going on.” For some strange reason, Claire trusted Luc to keep her safe but she still wanted to talk to someone, anyone, before going into the deep, dark woods.
“Okay.” Luc dug in the console and handed her a phone. “Use this one to call your friend, and then we have radio silence. No calls unless it’s life or death.” He turned down the rock music.
Claire dialed her friend’s cell-phone number, hoping she wouldn’t get mad that Claire woke her.
Janey answered. “Hello?” she shouted over a pulsing country music beat.
“Janey, it’s Claire.”
“Claire? Why aren’t you asleep? Aren’t you leaving at seven?”
“I’m too nervous to sleep.” That part was true. “Where are you? I thought you were going to the Airborne Inn.” Claire had invited Janey to stay with her but her friend had decided to check in to the base lodging.
“Captain Olson kindly offered to show me around Fayetteville and I took him up on it.” Janey lowered her voice as much as she could, considering the loud music. “He went to the bar for some refills. Holy crap, Claire. He turned into some blond stud once all that hair was gone.” Like any good army officer, Janey preferred clean-cut men. “I almost fainted dead away when I realized who he was. What about you? Why aren’t you in bed getting ready for your big day tomorrow?”
“Well, ‘my big day tomorrow’ started tonight.”
“What?”
“Sergeant Boudreaux came to my hotel room,” Claire began.
“Claire!” Janey squealed. “Did he get a shave and haircut, too? I bet he’s hot now.”
Claire gave Luc a sidelong glance.
“Hot”
didn’t even start to describe him. Tabasco-sauce hot was more like it.
“If he’s in your hotel room, why are you bothering to call me? Can’t you think of anything better to do? As soon as I can manage without looking slutty, I’m going to knock Olie down and lick him all over. Thank goodness he’s not my commanding officer. I’d die from unrequited lust if he were.”
“Janey…” Claire muttered. She did not need any more sexual images running through her brain. “We’re getting an early start on the training. Sergeant Boudreaux is taking me to the training center tonight.”
“Training center? You mean Parris Island?” Janey sounded confused.
Claire turned to Luc. “Um, not exactly.”
“Oh, Olie’s back. Olie, your boy Boudreaux picked up Claire tonight and they’re heading to some training center that may or may not be Parris Island.”
Claire heard a deep male voice rumble.
“Oh. Olie says he doesn’t want to know a thing about what you and Boudreaux are up to. He says he wants plausible deniability.”
“Plausible deniability?” Claire repeated.
Boudreaux guffawed. “Have your friend tell Olie we’re eloping.”
Claire covered the mouthpiece on the phone. “No, I will not have Janey tell him that!”
“Good psy ops, Claire. Psychological warfare. Your father will be so grateful we’re not running off to get married that he won’t care about his plans for Parris Island being ruined.”
“No, Luc!”
Janey’s voice sounded from the phone. “Claire, Claire, is he giving you trouble? Do you want me to come get you?”
For a second, Claire wanted to tell Janey yes, tell her to come rescue poor little Claire from the yucky bugs and slimy snakes and squishy things that were waiting to crawl up her leg and bite her. But she didn’t. “No, Janey, I’ll be fine. You and Olie have a good time, and please apologize on my behalf for everyone’s inconvenience.”
Janey grumbled. “You apologize too much. Now go kick some swamp butt and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
“Maybe I’ll do exactly what you’re going to do.”
“What? Oh, Claire. In the swamp? You make sure to check your bedding before you crawl in, okay?”
“Okay.” They said their goodbyes and Claire hung up. Janey was right to remind her. The only body Claire wanted to crawl into her bedding was Luc’s.
“Almost to our destination.”
“Which is?” She levered the seat to an upright position and stared out the window. The terrain was flat, covered in tall pines common in sandy soil. They could have been almost anywhere in the Southeast.
He turned the truck into a nearly hidden driveway overgrown with thick shrubs. “My buddy’s place. I made arrangements to use a corner of his land. He has so much, he’ll never miss it.”
“But where are we?” she persisted.
“Georgia or South Carolina, depending on what side of the Savannah River you cross.”
“Oh.” That wasn’t really helpful. “Near the city of Savannah?” she asked hopefully. Savannah was a super-nice town, full of great restaurants and beautiful Southern antebellum mansions.
“No, not near Savannah, so don’t get your hopes up.” He obviously knew her line of thinking. “If you wanted comfort, you should have stayed home.”
“Right.” She forced a cheerful grin onto her face and grimaced as her stomach rumbled. “I’m going to eat breakfast real quick here.” She reached into her bag for the box of granola bars she’d stashed away. “Want one?”
He looked at the box. “Honey s’mores with choco-chunks and minimarshmallows?” He sounded more astonished than appalled. “Is that supposed to be healthy?”
“No.” She ripped open a wrapper and sunk her teeth into the gooey goodness, her speech muffled as she talked with her mouth full. Her father would be horrified. “Ish shupposed to be tashty.”
“Ah, what the hell.” He accepted one and grimaced as the bar stuck to his fingers. “It’s the last snack you’ll have until we’re done.”
The treat soured on her tongue. “Then I guess I better have another.”