She swiveled her head toward him so fast a little cloud of her perfume puffed out from her skin. Another long, thick lock of pale blond hair fell out of the French braid, curling along her shoulder.
Without thinking about it, because if he had let what he was about to do rise up to the thinking part of his brain, he would never have had the nerve, Dan lifted his hand to curl the lock around her ear. The back of his knuckles brushed against the soft skin of her neck and he wanted to close his eyes to savor the feeling. But if he closed them, he’d miss what was flaring in her eyes.
Clear, crystalline, the silvery color of sun on sea. And startled, as if seeing something she’d never noticed before. In that second, Dan knew, she saw him as a man, not a Marine.
He’d been in uniform all his adult life and was used to people seeing the uniform and not the man underneath.
If you were a civilian, he was a faceless, generic soldier—a useful tool to keep you safe. Tucked away in the shitholes of the world so things could go smoothly at home.
And if you were a bad guy, well, hell—with the full force of the Corps behind him, he represented a world of hurt behind a rifle.
Women came in two types. Military groupies, who got off on the uniform and the weapons—
How many men have you killed?
was a question he got all the time from the groupies—and women who thought soldiers were loud-mouthed roughnecks, totally unsuitable as dates.
Women like Claire—beautiful, sophisticated, smart—well, women like that just steered around him as if he was invisible, like a glorified servant. Women like Claire rarely saw
him
, the man inside.
She was seeing him now, no doubt about it. They were in a situation that could turn desperate in a heartbeat. They were holed up inside a building that was breachable, while what sounded like an army of thousands was shooting up the streets outside.
So far, no one appeared to be targeting Americans but the Red Army soldiers could turn on a dime and decide to storm the embassy and then . . . well, then they’d be lost. He’d go down fighting because that was what Marines did, but he couldn’t stand alone against an army.
His men were a mile away and might just as well have been on the dark side of the moon. He couldn’t get to them and they couldn’t get to him. And even if he had his men with him, six soldiers, however well-trained, however well-armed, couldn’t beat an army, even the drugged-up, ill-disciplined and badly trained Red Army.
All of that she knew. She was a defense analyst, after all.
But right now, it looked like she was seeing him and not the uniform. Or, rather, the Delta pants and a green tee, since he’d taken his jacket off.
He was still holding a lock of her hair, his hand against the warmth of her neck. And she wasn’t moving her head away. Which meant . . .
He ran the back of his hand lightly against her neck. God, she felt so friggin’ soft. She didn’t move, was hardly breathing, watching him carefully with no expression on her face. But some more of her scent billowed up from her, which meant that her skin was warming.
Slowly, wondering if he was going to be slapped down, Dan uncurled his hand, sliding it around until he was cupping her neck.
She wasn’t saying no. She wasn’t saying yes, but she wasn’t saying no. Actually, she wasn’t saying anything at all, but whatever she was feeling, it looked like
no
wasn’t part of it.
O-kay.
Watching her eyes, ready to back off at any second, Dan bent his head. He watched her until she filled his entire field of vision, until there wasn’t anything at all in the world but Claire and then he closed his eyes because his mouth was on hers and he wanted to just concentrate on the kiss.
He didn’t know what he was thinking. Man, he wasn’t thinking at all. The instant his hand touched her, every neuron in his head shorted because being under siege with a rebel army not a hundred yards away firing live rounds—well, that wasn’t the time or the place to get all hot and bothered over a woman.
That had never happened before. An op was an op and though usually being a Marine security guard was a softer duty than most and served mainly to see the world and get a stronger grip on geopolitics, every single Marine who had ever been stationed in an embassy was fully equipped and fully prepared to engage in the case of a threat.
On duty, Dan was a walking, talking mission, as focused as a laser beam. Once, during a firefight, he was so adrenalized he hadn’t even felt a bullet crease his forearm. It was the medic afterward who pointed to the blood on his sleeve. He’d ceased to exist as a man and had turned himself into a weapon.
Not now. Now he wasn’t focused on the danger outside, he was totally swamped with sensations, all of them good. Amazingly good. Nothing whatsoever to do with the dangers outside the embassy walls.
God, just the feel of her, warm and soft against him. He’d never felt anything like it. It was like plunging into a warm sea. He let himself float, drifting lazily, her lips moving lightly under his. Everything was suspended. They were in a world without time, no past and no future, just an endless now.
Every sense he had was focused on where he was touching Claire. He couldn’t hear anything but her breathing, now slightly sped up. Couldn’t see anything when he cracked his eyes open but her—now-rosy skin, long lashes on her cheekbone, another coil of pale blond hair curving around to fall between her breasts. Couldn’t feel anything but her—soft and smooth.
He didn’t even feel the gravity anchoring him to earth. Couldn’t smell anything but Claire. And her taste—ah God. She tasted fresh and slightly minty and absolutely wonderful.
Then she shifted slightly, opening her mouth more for him and the warmth turned into electric heat, sharp and shocking. His hand on her neck tightened, mouth open against hers, as the kiss turned hot, demanding.
Dan tried to follow the woman’s lead during sex—and though this was just a kiss, it was sex, too. And way hotter than most of the sex he’d ever had. If the woman liked it slow, he took it slow. If she liked it hard, then he gave it to her hard. But no matter what, he was always in control.
Control had just been whipped out of his hands. His heart raced and his hands shook as he turned to deepen the kiss, fisting one hand in her hair, the other, still holding his weapon, braced on the floor, caging her.
He was coming on too strong, he knew it. He’d taken it from zero to a hundred in a second, there was no way she could keep up, but he was helpless to stop himself as he leaned forward, backing her against the wall.
He’d been here a thousand times before, in his dreams. During the day, he kept his mind focused on the job and on the fact that she didn’t even know he existed. But during the night, with all restraints hemming in, his conscious mind blasted off—ah, his nights were full of her.
Every time he saw her he greedily sucked up impressions, so that his dreams were utterly realistic. He knew she rarely exercised—she spent twelve hours a day underground, after all—but still moved with an incredible lithe grace. He knew that she didn’t take the sun well and just stayed out of it, so she had the faintest of tans over mother-of-pearl skin.
The rest he extrapolated.
He knew how she kissed because he kissed her endlessly in his dreams, waking up in a sweaty tangle of sheets and blankets in his small, spare room, aching and hard with a boner that took a cold shower to get rid of.
Well, he
thought
he knew how she kissed and what he would feel kissing her, but he’d been wildly off the mark. The real thing was ten thousand times better. Off-the-scale better.
Fuck, there was nothing like this. He’d never had this reaction before, utterly helpless to stop himself or to moderate the kiss. If he could have crawled inside her, he would have. His mouth pressed against hers, his whole torso crushing her against the wall behind them, his entire heavy weight leaning into her while he ate at her mouth.
Shit, this wasn’t good.
She was whispering to him, trying to say something . . . God, how could she be talking while his mouth was on hers? Fuck, he shouldn’t be expected to have to think while he was on sensory overload, every sense he had completely taken up with her.
He moved even more heavily against her but came up against a barrier. Her hand. For a second, his mind balked.
She didn’t want this?
But her mouth was open beneath his, her tongue stroking his.
So what . . . ?
The sound finally penetrated, at the exact instant Claire’s hand pushed hard against his shoulder.
Someone was talking. Whispering, actually. A loud, hissing whisper. It wasn’t him and it wasn’t Claire.
None of that computed. They were alone in the building.
With what remained of his brain cells, Dan realized that something was wrong. He lifted his head and nearly moaned at what he saw. Claire’s normally pale skin was deep pink, overheated. Big silvery blue eyes wide and unfocused. Mouth wet and puffy from his. The very picture of a beautiful, aroused woman. The most gorgeous thing he’d ever seen in his life. For a second, he couldn’t imagine why on earth he’d lifted his mouth from hers. He could have stayed there for a million years.
“Claire! Qu’est-ce que tu fais? Viens ici! Vite!”
Dan was normally on top of everything but this stumped him for almost a second. He wasn’t talking and she wasn’t talking. So someone else was talking. In French, yet.
It was as if he’d been on another world, transported far away. But now
this
world, with its vicious dangers, with a rebel army right outside his doorstep, with the safety of an embassy in his hands, came rushing right back in. For a second, Dan was deeply ashamed that he had allowed himself to be distracted even for the space of a kiss.
Then he looked at Claire, so beautiful, softness and light and grace, and he forgave himself. A man would have to be dead not to give in to that temptation. Even a soldier. Even a
Marine,
though Marines had duty flowing in their veins instead of blood.
“Claire!” the voice hissed again and Dan swiveled his head toward the door at the same time Claire did.
Another beautiful woman.
Christ, it was raining beautiful dames today. Narrow face, fine features, skin so black it was almost blue, long narrow hand holding open the door. A foreign national, one of the ten Makongans working in the embassy, the core staff that remained to keep the embassy going while the Americans rotated in and out.
Dan did a quick search inside his head and came up with a name. Marie. Marie Diur. Claire’s best friend, or so scuttlebutt had it.
Marie was ignoring him, beckoning to Claire. Claire leaned forward, away from his hand, and stood up lithely.
Whatever this was about, Dan wanted to be part of it. He stood, too, rifle in one hand, the other on the butt of his Browning.
A burst of French from Marie and Claire turned to him, eyes troubled. “She says for you to stay here.”
Dan balked. Both of them should be staying here, in Post One, the safest place in the embassy. If there was to be a shoot-out, this was the best place to hole up.
And how the hell had Marie Diur gotten in anyway, with the embassy surrounded by crazed, drunken rebel troops? He opened his mouth but before he could say anything, Claire placed a finger against his lips.
“Please, Dan,” she said softly. “I know Marie. She wants to tell me something and she wants just me. Please, stay here and I’ll be right back.”
Dan’s back teeth ground so hard it was a miracle enamel didn’t shoot out his ears. “Listen, Claire. The situation’s volatile and dangerous. I don’t need to tell you that. I don’t want you out of my sight. And now that your friend’s here, I don’t want her going back outside, either.”
She looked at him and back at Marie, who was impatiently signaling for Claire to come immediately. “She needs to talk to me. I won’t be long.” She patted his chest. “Please,” she said softly, soberly. “Just a few minutes.”
He didn’t say anything and she took it as consent.
Claire crossed the room to Marie. They put their heads together, two beautiful women at the two ends of the color spectrum, speaking quietly and quickly in French. The soft liquid sounds carried, though he couldn’t understand a word of it. Claire finally nodded and turned to him, holding up her index finger in a universal sign—
one minute
.
Dan watched grimly as the two women disappeared, the huge wooden door of the room Post One was in closing gently behind them. This wasn’t right. It didn’t feel right. Goddammit, he was giving them one minute and then he was going out to get them.
The radio crackled.
“Gunny, you there?” Marine House. Ward. He was using encryption that scrambled his voice at one end, to be reconstituted on Dan’s end. Ward’s normal bass sounded like Daffy Duck on helium.
Dan switched on the mike. “Yeah. Give me a sitrep. You’ve got eyes on the ground.” Marine House stood flush with the street and they’d have a better view of what was going on than from what he could see from inside the embassy.
The crackle of static, then Ward’s voice came back on, high-pitched and distorted. Dan could hear faint shots outside echoing through the Marine House radio four blocks away.
“—not much of anything. It’s like they’re just happy to be riding around, shooting at random. We’re observing the same jeeps of soldiers circling around and around, so there might be fewer of them than we thought.” Ward conferred briefly with Buchan. “Yeah, we’re thinking maybe not more than five hundred troops. Maybe less, even. So far they haven’t paid us any attention at all. It’s hard to know what plans they have, if any. But a hundred to one—those aren’t bad odds.”