It wasn’t fair. It so wasn’t fucking fair.
He dry-swallowed down his thick throat, parched and swollen, wanting so badly to taste her, too, as she was tasting him.
Not
fair
.
“So, Nick”—tonight he was Nick—“what would you like to talk about?”
He let out a long, frustrated breath. “How about how much I want to suck your gorgeous tits?” Not to mention her tempting pussy. But baby steps.
She smiled in amusement, as she always did when he suggested they get down and dirty. Not that he blamed her. He was a filthy mess, in both the physical and the mental. What woman in her right mind would want to fuck him? Or even let him touch her soft, pristine skin, or caress a lock of her beautiful red hair?
“You really want to?” she asked, eyes sparkling.
“Oh, yeah.”
She tipped her head. “What if I gave you a choice?”
God
, he hated these games. “What kind of a choice?”
“Either you could touch me all you want—”
“Touch how?” he interrupted. He didn’t want to be tricked. She was beautiful, but she lived to torment him.
“Any way you like.”
“
Any
way?”
She nodded.
“With any body part?” The one he meant started saluting.
She smiled as she nodded again. “Anything you like.”
Merciful hallelujah.
Before she changed her mind, he opened his mouth to say, “I’ll take it,” but she cut him off.
“Or,” she said, silencing him with a raised finger.
“Or?” he asked impatiently.
“Or you can get out of this prison. Escape.”
He fucking
knew
there’d be a catch.
He regarded her, fury boiling up in his chest. “Bitch!” he growled. Then instantly regretted it. She’d been his only companion for all this time. He didn’t want to lose her.
Hell, he didn’t believe her anyway.
“That’s bullshit,” he said, his anger fizzling to despondency. “You don’t have the power to let me escape.”
“Don’t I?” she asked, her green eyes wide and clear and holding all the secrets to the universe.
“No,” he cried in despair. “So I choose to touch you. I choose to fuck you raw every single fucking night until I die in this fucking place!”
She tilted her head the other way. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m fucking sure! Come here.” He grabbed for her. “Give me your fucking breasts.” He opened his mouth, already watering in anticipation. Between his legs he was hard as the rocks the guards amused themselves by throwing at him.
She slid her hands under her breasts and cupped them, offering them up in invitation. “Take them. They’re yours.”
He almost came. He opened his mouth wider and extended his tongue, reaching for her nipple. He groaned. Finally.
Finally
he would taste her.
“Pig!” a guttural voice shouted in his ear.
No!
But the dream had already shattered.
IN
a straight line, it wasn’t that far from the DFP refugee camp to the al Sayika training camp where abu Bakr was spreading his perverted lessons of hate. About a hundred thirty-five miles or so. An easy two-hour trip by paved road. But of course, there were no paved roads in the Saharan desert. And on top of that, Kick had to drive around deep, plunging wadis and towering rock formations, skirt rugged hills, and go around vast rolling seas of deadly shifting sand.
Oh, and they had to avoid being spotted in the process by the bad guys.
The men in Jeeps who’d been pursuing them after the crash were dead, but more would undoubtedly have taken their place. The Sudan seemed to have an endless supply of brutal men willing to terrorize one group or another for fun and profit, some scumbags from within the country, like the
janjawid
, and some from without, like the Saudi abu Bakr and his gang of international terrorists. Whoever had gone to the trouble of shooting down the FedEx plane would not have given up the search for survivors. Not this soon.
A yawn shuddered through Kick. He was totally exhausted. Couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept. His hands had started shaking badly, and despite the cool night air, sweat had long since soaked through the T-shirt Eduardo had scrounged for him. Every few minutes the inside of his head spun like a top.
But when that happened, all he had to do was think of the men who’d lost their lives in that plane, and those in A-stan, and his anger focused and sustained him for another few miles.
“You need to stop and sleep,” Rainie said, startling him so badly the Jeep swerved, almost hitting a jagged boulder. He stomped on the brake and shifted to neutral, lurching to an abrupt stop.
“Jesus,” he swore.
“I rest my case,” she said, but had the grace not to look smug. She actually looked worried.
“I’m fine,” he said.
“Yeah. And I’m the next American Idol,” she retorted.
Did he detect a touch of sarcasm? He couldn’t recall ever hearing her sing.
Shit.
He was losing it.
He leaned his head back on the seat. “Okay, you’re right. I’m not fine. Give me twenty minutes with my eyes closed and I will be.”
She snorted.
“You got a better idea?”
“Yeah.”
He rolled his head, cracked an eyelid and peered at her.
“I’ll drive,” she said. With a straight face, yet.
This time
he
snorted, closing his eye again. “Uh-huh. In which parallel universe?”
“You are so fucking amusing.”
He smiled. “I’ve told you already. Anytime, baby.”
“Okay. Now.”
Huh?
He must have lost the conversational thread. “What?”
“I assume your little invitation referred to fucking. Well, I want to. Now.”
He forced both eyes open and frowned at her. “You’re joking, right?”
“Nope. Out of the Jeep, lover boy, and make good on your braggadocio.” She popped open her door, raising her brows at him expectantly.
It finally dawned on him what she was doing. He let his eyes drift shut again. “I take it back. Anytime but now.”
“Can’t get it up, eh?”
His smile returned. “Nope. Sorry.”
She hit him in the arm.
He grinned and started to drift off.
“How ’bout if I give you a blow job?”
His eyes sprang open. He regarded her with suspicion as his nether regions also woke up and surprised him by starting to stir. She pointedly followed its progress with her gaze. Suddenly he wasn’t nearly as tired.
Hell, two could play this game. “If you insist, who am I to say no?”
He smiled, but she smiled back even wider, making him think maybe he’d missed a vital clue somewhere.
Or maybe she just liked giving him blow jobs.
Worked for him. It had been forever since she’d last taken him in her mouth and turned him into a quivering mass of Jell-O. Well, at least a day. Or had it been two? So hard to remember . . .
To his annoyance, his hands began shaking even harder when she reached for the buttons of his DCUs. Damn, she was really going to do it. Leaning across the gearshift, she laid a kiss on him as she unbuttoned his fly, sticking her tongue deep into his mouth. He moaned in mindless pleasure as her velvet, wet tongue slicked over his and her wicked fingers brushed his straining cock.
She lifted from the kiss and gave him a sultry, knowing look.
Oh, baby, baby, baby.
Then she bent down to—
“Ow!”
His eyes shot open to see her rub her head. She’d hit it on the steering wheel trying to reach him.
She did it again. “Ow!”
To hell with that.
“Switch places,” he ordered, sliding her over his body as he took her spot on the passenger seat. “There. Now you—
Ahhhhh!
”
The seat back lowered behind him so he was half reclining. His hips arched as she took him all the way into her hot, sexy mouth, all sweet liquid suction and pale golden hair tumbling over his belly.
His mind went completely blank and pure pleasure took over his whole body and consciousness. He shook with it. He cried out with it. He gave it its head and didn’t even try to rein in the orgasm as it swiftly stretched and thickened him, filled him to the bursting point, and exploded like a heat-guided missile.
He moaned like a dying man, wasted in the aftermath, helpless to do anything but lie there with his eyes closed as she milked him dry, then came up to let him taste himself on her lips and tongue.
“Give me a second,” he murmured, savoring the throbbing, light-headed bliss.
Oh, man. He was going to return the favor, then flip her over the seat back and fuck her till they both passed out from the pleasure.
In just a minute.
Or maybe two.
Yup, that’s definitely what he was going to do.
RAINIE
looked down at the sleeping man she loved so much her heart could barely stand it. She’d denied her feelings as long as she’d been able. Twisted the fact that he wanted so badly to protect her, to be the lone wolf macho commando to her damsel in distress. To push himself until he dropped, ordering her around and railing against her, rather than put her in a moment’s danger. She’d called it obstinate chauvinism and emotional bankruptcy. But seeing him so helpless and vulnerable, finally having given in to both his need for her and his total exhaustion, her heart could deny the truth no longer. Everything he’d done was to keep her safe. From the bad guys. But also from himself.
And somewhere along the thousands of miles they’d traveled together, she’d fallen completely and utterly in love with the man.
God
, she loved him.
Smiling, she reached out to smooth her fingers along his slightly drooping jaw.
And God, was he ever easy.
She leaned over and pressed a kiss to his stubbled cheek. Poor guy. Didn’t stand a chance.
Gingerly she fished the two ends of the old-fashioned seat belt up from the tangle of exposed metal springs poking out of the passenger seat cushion and fitted them together over Kick’s expanding and contracting abdomen with a snap. She froze at the noise, darting a glance at his face, but he didn’t wake. Good thing. If he woke at a seat belt click, he was sure to wake when she started the Jeep’s engine.
If she managed it.
Deep breath. Let it out.
Deep breath.
After buckling her own belt, she turned her attention to the vehicle’s controls, going over them one by one in her mind.
Ignition. Gearshift. Gas. Brake. Clutch.
Those were the main players. She’d been carefully studying Kick as he drove today, especially when he’d stopped and started, so she’d be able to do it herself if need be.
Well, the need was screaming at her.
She
was fine. In addition to back at the palm grove, she had also managed a couple hours of sleep as Kick carefully navigated through the desert after leaving the DFP camp. He, on the other hand, had been running on nothing but adrenaline for over two days now . . . or was it three? She was amazed he hadn’t fallen over in a dazed stupor long before this. She also hadn’t missed how the symptoms of his drug withdrawal had been giving him trouble, even though he’d done his damndest to hide them from her. The trembling. The sweats. The dizziness and elevated heartbeat. It hadn’t all been because of her skills as a fellatrice.
She stole a look at him. So peaceful in slumber. It did her heart good to see him this way. Awake he always looked so . . . haunted.
She could do this.
For him.
She turned back to the controls. Reached for the ignition, brushing back the panic.
Deep breath. Let it out.
Deep breath. Let it out.
With her left foot she pushed down on the clutch pedal. It barely moved. Wow. It took a lot more strength than she’d thought. She pushed harder. It sank to the floor. Her heart thundered. What now?
Deep breath.
She pulled the gearshift into the slot for neutral and wiggled it, as she’d seen Kick do before starting the Jeep.
Then she turned the key.
Her heart jumped to her throat as the engine caught. She wouldn’t exactly call it a purr, but it didn’t die, either.
Thank God.
She risked a glance at Kick. His head shifted to the other side and he made a soft noise, but he didn’t wake up.
Let it out.
Luckily, one of the first things he’d taught her when they’d left the village yesterday—God, had it only been twenty-four hours ago?—was how to use the handheld GPS locator and coordinate its display with the map and SAT photos from the field pack, which were now spread out on the dashboard along with a flashlight. Being familiar with digital readouts in the ER, she’d caught on quickly. And once she’d gotten over her blind fear of the huge open desert, she’d earned his trust enough to take over navigation duties completely.
Therefore, she knew pretty much exactly where they were now. And thanks to the big red circle around the tango training camp on the SAT photo, she also knew exactly where they needed to go. And it was time.
Deep breath.
It took her three tries to wrestle the gearshift into first. She was certain the unholy grinding of the gears would wake Kick. But after muttering a grumble of protest, he settled back to sleep. She’d made the right decision. The man was totally zonked.
Let it out.
Along with her breath, she slowly eased out the clutch. It coughed and sputtered, reminding her to press on the gas. Which she quickly did.
And miracle of miracles, the Jeep started to roll.
A grin broke out, ear to ear.
Oh. My. God.
She was actually driving!
EIGHTEEN
“KICK.”
A hand clapped his arm and Kick came awake in an instant. Lightning-fast, he whipped his SIG from its makeshift holster and aimed it at the voice.
The voice screamed.
She
screamed.
Oh, hell.
Rainie!
By the time he’d reacted, lowered the SIG, and reached for her, she was curled in a tight ball in the seat under the Jeep’s steering wheel.