Taken by Surprise (5 page)

She heard a sound behind her, glanced over her shoulder, and saw more of Phay's men stepping into the parlor. "Michael, behind us."

He fired, taking down a man at the top of the stairs, and turned. "Run," he told her and propelled her forward as he bolted with her down the stairs. "Head for the trees."

A shot rang out behind them, narrowly missing, and she shrieked. She glanced back and counted four of Phay's men descending the stairs. Michael took one out with a well-aimed shot to the chest. And then there were three.

She couldn't leave him alone against three of Phay's men. Rhonda spun around, not knowing what she planned to do until her gaze landed on Dregs's body at the foot of the stairs and the gun at his side. Instinctively, she went for the gun. Her hand closed around the handle, finger settling on the trigger. She brought the gun up and turned again as more men, these wearing some sort of uniform, appeared at the top of the stairs.

Movement out of the corner of her eye caught her attention. She saw more of Phay's men rushing into the back grounds, caught sight of a couple of the uniformed men moving into position to help Michael. She didn't run until she spotted Xavier rounding the corner, his long strides closing the distance between them faster than her heart could pound. With a last glance at Michael and a prayer to the gods, she bolted for the trees.

Chapter Three

Michael didn't have time to be amazed by Rhonda's quick thinking or the way the sight of her with a gun in her hand stupidly sent his blood rushing to his cock. He saw her spin, caught the widening of her eyes and the fear that washed through them. Then she disappeared through the trees. He cursed the full moon for illuminating her every move even as he thanked it for giving him the light to see his attackers. A bald-headed, burly son of a bitch stalked purposely toward the trees. Shit, Michael wasn't the only one to see Rhonda's escape. Dregs was dead. No man could survive a blast like that from a well-aimed AK-47. Soldiers from the Thai special ops arrived in the nick of time. They may not save Michael's ass, but at least he had backup.

Bullets spliced the air from all directions. Michael caught wind of a report through his earpiece. The remaining agents of the DEA, along with the FBI and other Cambodian and Thai operatives, had the Phay Cartel scrambling in the front grounds and inside the compound. That left Michael and his newfound Thai spec ops pals to take out the trash in back. Though it went against his training, he would have to leave the dirty work to them.

He started to run, his intent fully on getting to Rhonda. Movement drew his attention left. He pivoted. Too close. No time to aim. He fired, the shot catching the tango in the gut even as Michael executed a roundhouse kick to the bastard's rib cage. The fucker fell, and,
damn it
, another stood right behind him.

Michael saw the gun and watched the rest of his life flash before his eyes. He saw the life he wanted with Rhonda at his side to warm the cold and erase the loneness. He wasn't ready to give up on that life just yet.

He moved to his right, felt the sting in his left arm at the same time his foot connected with an unmovable block. The dead body on the ground took him down. He twisted in midfall, taking the brunt of the force in the shoulder even as he got off a shot and plugged the son of a bitch standing.

Pain sliced through Michael's right arm. Stars danced in his vision. His NVGs fell off his head, went skidding across the ground. He lost his grip on his SIG Sauer. With no time to waste, he got to his feet, snagging his sidearm with his left hand, and whirled.

His gaze landed on the bald fucker going after Rhonda. The tango was mere feet now from the tree line. Michael raised his weapon. Hard-edged determination and self-discipline taught him to shoot with both hands. He rarely missed. He aimed, fired, and cursed when the bullet struck a tree a millimeter from where the son of a bitch had been.

"Rhonda." Her name left Michael's lips on a growl of frustration.

"Go!" The accented order came with an accompanying push to Michael's right shoulder. Adrenaline dulled the pain, though it didn't do shit in the way of maneuverability.

He might be accustomed to giving the orders, but that didn't mean he forgot how to follow them. He didn't spare the Thai spec operative a glance as he raced for the trees. Well-honed instincts and years of training made him slow his pace as he stepped into the dense forest. Every sense he possessed leapt to heightened alert as he scanned the semidarkness, listened for any sound, and followed the sweet scent of the tango's wretched sweat.

He did this before in a training op with Team Six. Always looking for ways to improve his skills even as he fed his adrenaline hunger, he spent a vacation now and then with the men of Ziegler's SEAL team. Some of the things he learned from the group of fiercely trained warriors proved invaluable and went far beyond the tests he had endured at the academy.

Michael moved in stealth mode, keeping his breathing shallow and mind focused. He tried to anticipate the direction Rhonda would go. He remembered her plan to circle back to the teams out front. Would she know how to do that, which way to take alone? Could she see well enough in the first faintest glow of predawn light coupled with the remains of the full moon to make her way? He wouldn't know it if she did, he realized, as the silence thickened the deeper he got into the forest. He didn't hear anything through his earpiece. No reports came through on the activity of the rest of the teams. No shouts to abort or victory yells. Nothing but dead air.

A limb cracked behind him, a soft snap followed by a rustle of leaves. He turned, finding only gray silvered by that damnable full moon. As much as he wanted her to be able to see her way, he realized she would play hell hiding with risking light overhead, even in this thick forest. She would need to find a canopy to conceal her, a trench or maybe a cave.

The blast of a gunshot turned his blood to ice in his veins. Pulse hammering, adrenaline surging, he moved forward in the direction the sound seemed to come from. It took everything he possessed to push down the panic, to get a handle on the fear. What kind of weapon had the tango been carrying? Michael hadn't even noticed. His focus had been on the bastard himself, on the fact that the tango was clearly after Rhonda.

Michael adjusted his grip on the handle of his SIG and silently moved on. Relying on instinct, trusting his gut, he detoured from the direct path he'd been following through the trees. The new course brought him around the area where he believed to have heard the shot and,
hallelujah
, right behind Rhonda.

Relief mixed with a heady rush of control that allowed him to keep his head. She was okay, at least on the outside. She must have been since she sat ramrod straight on a tree root, shoulders rising and falling with each erratic breath, the gun she had taken from the fallen tango trained on the bald head of the man sprawled on the ground at her feet.

Michael inched closer. She was scared, more likely terrified, and not afraid to shoot. She made that much obvious by the fact that the gunshot he'd heard came from the weapon she held. He saw the darkening of the tango's white shirt as the shot to his abdomen spilled with blood. Possibly a kill shot, but one that might be treated if he got help quickly enough.

Michael didn't have any intention of letting that happen.

He needed to get her attention, but how to do so without spooking her? The last thing he needed would be for her to turn around, gun blazing, and shoot him. He took another step and then a second, stopping now within arm's reach of her back. If she spun on him, fired that gun, he'd be toast. He prayed she wouldn't do that.

"Rhonda." He said her name softly, though it seemed to bellow in the quiet of the forest.

She turned her head, keeping her body straight, and the gun,
thank you
, aimed at the tango. Her eyes were huge in her face when her gaze lifted and locked with his.

"It's about time you showed up." The slight quiver of her voice came in direct contrast to the steady way she held the gun.

She had to be horrified. Yet the square set to her shoulders and the hard expression on her face showed a bravery Michael had witnessed only a few times in his life.

He shook his head, but didn't look away from her. He knew he'd never met a more amazing woman. He swallowed.

"Sorry about that. I got caught up back there. A few tangos, couple of bullets, you know." His voice sounded thick even to his own ears. He tried to go for flip, conversational, but didn't know if he succeeded. The flicker of a smile on the corner of her lips told him it might have worked.

"You're bleeding." Her attention flicked to his left arm. "I used to faint at the sight of blood." She gave a quick, breathy laugh. "That doesn't seem to be a problem anymore."

Keep her talking
. He didn't just want to hear her voice. He needed to make sure she didn't flip out on him. He reminded himself this was not a fellow agent in front of him. This was Rhonda, single mother, writer, waitress, the love of his life.

Michael watched the tango as he closed the distance between himself and Rhonda. "Are you bleeding anywhere?" His heart rose in his throat as he waited for her to answer.
Please, God, don't let her say yes.
If she were hurt, even a friggin' scratch, he didn't know if he could bear it.

"My feet maybe," she answered him almost absently. "That whole professional female thing makes for a great line, but heels, no matter how small, weren't made for dashing through a Cambodian forest."

"You're probably lucky you didn't break an ankle." Michael knelt beside her. The right thing to do might have been to take her gun. If he had full use of both his arms, he might have tried to coax her into handing it over. Instead, he raised his own, aimed it at the tango, and gazed at her. It took only a few heartbeats before she lowered her weapon on her own.

"I was smart enough to take off the shoes."

Michael saw them lying beside her feet on the ground. She had run barefoot through the forest. Yeah, no doubt the bottom of her feet would be a mess by now.

"You do all this for nothing." The tango spat, coughed, and started to push himself up on his hands. A leer split his lips. "You come after the boss. You lose. Mr. Phay nowhere around tonight."

Michael heard the words, felt the fury coil like a snake in his gut around the disbelief. "Where is he?"

The tango laughed, a quick burst of sardonic air. "When he finds you, you'll know."

Veng Kim Phay was after him. That didn't come as news to Michael. He knew the kingpin had abducted Rhonda to get to him. Son of a motherfucking bitch, he stayed away because he knew this would happen. It happened anyway.

"We can't leave him alive." Rhonda didn't ask him. She told him.

Michael looked at her and saw her steadfast insistence behind that statement.

The tango muttered something in Khmer. Rhonda didn't seem to understand him, but Michael heard every word. The bastard thought to take her back to the compound, to have his way with her, to finish what he started.

Michael heard something in his head pop. Anger turned the edges of his vision red. What had this bastard done to her already? Dear God, had he raped her? He suddenly felt himself spiraling down a pit of fury, barely hanging on to his sanity.

"Michael." The way she said his name in that soft, sultry, calm voice saved him. For now. God only knew what would happen to him when he found out the truth of what had really happened to her inside the walls of Phay's compound. God only knew what he would do to Phay.

His gaze danced over her face. The guilt of the last few weeks, hell, the last two years, settled in his gut. The love he'd felt for her almost from the start ached in his chest. "This is more in-your-face research than I ever expected to give you."

He saw her lips tremble just a little, enough to let him know she remembered. He told her that day on the docks to call him anytime she needed info on the DEA. She no doubt had gotten a mountain of it since coming to Cambodia, and his instincts told him it was far from over.

Gaze still locked with hers, Michael raised his gun another fraction and plugged the tango right between the eyes.

* * * *

Waterston, Mississippi

"I want to go with you."

Jackson Graham headed down the hall of his apartment to his bedroom, praying with each step that she wouldn't follow. His luggage lay open on his bed, where he'd abandoned the chore of packing to answer the door when the buzzer sounded. He went straight for his dresser, pulled several pairs of briefs and socks from the drawers, and turned to add them to the suitcase. He stopped, heart thudding against his rib cage, cock screaming in agony.

FBI Agent Mallory Stone—his best friend's sister, sometimes partner, and wannabe lover—leaned a shoulder against the doorframe of his bedroom. She crossed her arms beneath her perfect breasts, causing her blouse to lift from the waistband of her pants, exposing a tantalizing view of tightly toned bronze abs.

Jackson's mouth watered. He swallowed and completed the turn, moving to the bed and wishing for all his worth that he kept his clothes in the parking garage or the laundry room. Even the kitchen would have been a better alternative to his bedroom, where the need to invite Mallory in further nearly knocked him on his ass.

"Did you hear me?"

He glanced at her. "I heard you." How could he not? The woman's voice dripped sex even when she made stubborn demands she knew he couldn't comply with. Not that he would take her along if he could. He didn't want her anywhere near the shitstorm about to go down in Silver Springs.

"You just prefer to ignore me." Her expression steely, Mallory pushed away from the doorframe and took a full two steps into the room.

Panic made Jackson sweat. He tossed the clothes into the suitcase, strode to the closet for a couple of dress shirts, and put the much needed distance between himself and her sex-kitten body again. How in hell could a man ignore a woman like her? She dressed conservatively these days. His cock continued to be immensely grateful on and off the job. Gone were the miniskirts, leather corsets, and devil heels. She took to wearing slacks and business suits at the office. Her days off, like today, she tended to wear worn jeans, cotton tanks, and tennis shoes. Conservative, casual, thrifty, and still sexy as hell.

"Cooper wants you here." Adam Cooper, their boss, a man who prided himself on being a stickler for perfection and details, missed nothing when it came to the job or the members of his team. His extensive observatory skills had uncovered Mallory's powerful effect on Jackson's senses, the way her mere presence could cloud his better judgment.

Jackson neatly folded the shirt he held and cautiously moved back to the suitcase, placing the shirt on top. Mallory stood at the foot of the bed. As long as he kept to the side, he could count on the security of space to keep him in line, to keep him sane.

"You're in the middle of an assignment."

"An assignment any rookie could do." Her pink, glossy lips curved in the closest thing to a pout he had seen on her heart-shaped face since the age of nineteen. She taunted him with the gleam of passion-filled promises in her sea blue eyes as badly then as she did now. Promises that would last only a night, because no matter how badly he wished differently, she wouldn't allow herself a minute more. "Cooper is treating me like a child. He's been coddling my ass ever since the case at the club went south."

Jackson didn't want to think about that case any more than he needed to envision her ass right now. The fact that she plopped down on said ass on the foot of his bed, folding a leg beneath her as she turned to face him, didn't help his already stiffening erection or scrambling thoughts.

"He knows I'm the best agent on the team to handle the club scenes."

"And he would send you in on this one in a heartbeat if he could."

"If I was a man, you mean." She puffed a breath that sent her autumn-leaf-colored bangs fluttering over her forehead creased by frustrated wrinkles.

Jackson closed the lid to the suitcase, zipped it shut. "The DEA has the sting already in place."

"And the female agent to execute it." Mallory pinned him with a glare that gleamed of unhappiness and a whole lot more. The "more" brought him within inches of climbing onto the bed with her. He felt drawn to her, crazed around her. He flat-out
loved
her. That raw emotion he knew he had been unable to fully hide when she came up missing on the club case last year became the red flag that waved in front of Cooper's highly observant eyes.

"You sound jealous, Mal." He yanked up the suitcase, set it on the floor by the bed. He wouldn't let her see how much that pleased him, how it sparked a glimmer of hope in his chest. Hope he quickly squashed because he knew it to be contrived, impossible. Whatever he'd let slip and shown to Cooper, he'd managed to put back under wraps. He returned to being the same stuffy, pompous ass she often called him by the time they found her alive and unharmed in the hideout of a known lowlife looking to break into human trafficking. The thug thought to take Mallory and close to a dozen others out of three established local nightclubs and auction them off to the highest bidding terrorist.

"Only because she'll probably succeed in doing something I've been attempting to do for years."

By all rights, Jackson should have heard warning bells. He should have caught the way her tone shifted from pouty to wickedly alluring. If he did, he might have avoided the squeeze to his balls that came next. "What's that?"

"Fuck you."

Jackson winced, thankful as all hell that he turned his back on her as he grabbed his toiletry bag off the nightstand. Her bluntness coupled with the urge to do exactly that tightened his muscles even as it thickened his cock.

"Are you going to look her up when you get there?"

Jackson dared to look at her.
Mistake. Big mistake
. She got to her feet and walked to the corner of the bed, effectively cutting off his escape route out of the bedroom. "I'm sure we'll meet at DEA HQ."

"Not the agent." Mallory licked her lips.

He fought not to watch the slow glide of her tongue, swallowed the need to taste the moisture it left behind. He failed.

"The one you fucked the last time you went to Silver Springs."

Jackson met her gaze, made his own hard and blank. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Yes, you do." She took a step toward him. He barely caught himself before he took two steps back in retreat. "I was right, you know. It helped. The fling you had with her. It loosened your tie a little, let you be almost human for a while."

"I am human, Mallory."

She shook her head. "You're a robot. At least, that's what you seem to want people to believe, want me to believe, in any case."

"Because I take my job seriously? Because I would rather be working than off gallivanting or flinging with every short skirt in Waterston or Silver Springs?"

"Because you keep your emotions hidden," she countered and touched him, a light trail of her fingernail down the buttons of his shirt that scalded his chest like a branding iron. "You want me, Jack. The gallivanting, the flings, they don't work for you because it's me you want."

Jackson fisted his hands at his sides. He wouldn't touch her. To do so would be sealing his fate. One touch and he would lose it all: his career, his control, his sanity. He couldn't risk that when he knew she would walk away come morning.

When he didn't say anything, she dropped her hand but didn't back away. "I want to go with you."

"Didn't we go through this already?"

"I may not be able to go into the club with you, but I can work it from the outside. The club scene is what I do best. You know it. Cooper knows it."

Yeah, Jackson knew it. He'd watched her come straight out of the academy and hit the club scene on assignments that sent other rookies running. She collected the intel, solved the cases, and moved on to the next assignment without blinking a beautiful sea blue eye. She proved herself a mover and a shaker in the bureau. She could handle herself in the line of duty better than some of the male agents he knew. And, truth be told, if it were his choice, he would've taken her with him on this one. No matter how badly he fought his awareness of her, she also proved herself one of the best partners an agent could ask for.

"Then talk to Cooper." Jackson tried to step around her, but the sparkle in her eyes stopped him cold.

"Alec is my friend, too. I deserve to be there, to be a part of the team to find him."

They had received no contact from Alec McIntyre since the coded message nine days ago. It took the analyst at the bureau close to twelve hours to fully decode every word of the message. Alec had been that careful with the transmission. The end result gave the FBI and DEA the confirmed location of Phay's compound between the lines of Cambodia and Thailand. It informed them of two American women taken as hostages. Finally, it relayed the coordinates for Navy SEAL Team Six to follow through with their mission of weapon recovery connected to Operation Liquid Tab. It didn't, however, lead them to Alec.

"Mal, I'm not even part of that team. Cooper sent Peterson, Kell, and Lowe with Cameron. They're already gone." He glanced at his watch. Early afternoon in Waterston put it very early morning in Cambodia. With roughly twelve hours' difference, it would still be dark overseas, the time when the task force believed Phay's compound would be at its most vulnerable. "Hell, they should be executing OLT even as we speak."

Jeez, what he wouldn't give to be there, too. He would've been part of the team, but their leader thought he would be more useful in Silver Springs. Born and raised on the coast, he knew the city and surrounding area. He had been gone long enough not to be known himself except by immediate family and close friends of his twin brother, Jason. He could infiltrate the club scene with the DEA agent in place and help her collect the needed intel, possibly even find the dealer in question leading Veng Kim Phay's stateside operation. The FBI and DEA now believed those drugs were not only being distributed on the streets of Silver Springs, but also used to facilitate Phay's already thriving trade for weapons overseas.

"What if he's dead, Jack? What if Alec's cover was blown and Phay ordered him killed?" Mallory's voice thickened with tears, her eyes sparkled with them, but she didn't cry. God help him, if she started to cry, there wouldn't be a power in heaven that could save him.

"He's MIA. You know as well as I do that could mean anything." Yeah, and they both knew the status of MIA agents often turned to KIA before their case closed. He saw from the way she looked up at him she was thinking the same thing, fearing the worst just as he, and it broke his heart. That expression of utter sadness compelled him to make one of the biggest mistakes of his life. "Come here."

Jackson reached for her, closing that last bit of safe distance between them, and drew her against him. He felt himself drowning even before she put her cheek on his chest. She tilted her head enough to gaze up at him from beneath her long, tear-glistening lashes. He almost did it. He nearly gave in to everything he'd hidden from her all these years. She saved him, or maybe doomed him to hell, by speaking before he could act.

"I can feel it. I'm right. When you get this close, put your arms around me, you can't hide it." Her hands slid down his back as she swayed ever so slightly against him, pressing her belly to his erection.

He knew why she did it. Mallory Stone always fell back on what she deemed conformable ground when things hit her that she couldn't control. The grief over the loss of a dear friend fell under that heading of uncontrollable for her.

"No, I can't." Shock exploded like firecrackers in her eyes. He felt her tense in his arms. She lifted her head, opened her mouth only to close it again, obviously speechless. He had never admitted he wanted her before—not outright told her beyond a shadow of a doubt, anyway. The embers of triumph that rained from the explosions in her eyes told him she didn't doubt a thing anymore.

Jackson dipped his head, stopping a breath from her lips. "One day I'm going to stop hiding, Mallory." Desire stole the oxygen between them. It made it thick, hard to breathe. Her heart thumped wildly against his chest, the beat increasing as her gaze danced over his face. "One day this tie is going to come off, and you and I are going to play." He dropped a hand to her delectable ass, pulling her closer against him. Sanity teetered as need drove him to say words he knew he shouldn't say, to make a promise he knew he should never put to voice. "When that happens, it will be more than this delicious body I take." He wouldn't stop until he claimed her heart.

She gasped, a quickly indrawn breath that sounded of too many emotions to name. He surprised her, maybe even frightened her. Good.

Jackson didn't release her. Not yet. He took a moment to store the memory, to bottle the eclectic scent of her arousal and the innate fragrance he always associated with her. He cataloged the feel of her quivering body against him, the press of her ample breasts to his chest, the way his engorged cock stabbed at the hard plane of her tummy.

When he finally stepped back, he knew he had crossed a line with her in the last few minutes that could never be retraced. From here, they would either move forward, or lose everything forever.

That realization made anger slice through him. She pushed him. She always pushed him. For years, she never attempted to conceal her attraction to him, never made a secret of what she wanted from him despite their association at work, despite his close friendship with her brother. For years, he hid, resisted her advances, fought not to take because he knew he wouldn't be satisfied with only part of her. He wanted it all.