Wet For Her Warriors (Book 5 of the WILD -- Warriors Intense in Love & Domination -- Boys of Special Forces) (30 page)

“‘The original
mansion?’” Tan echoed. “So Iniki wiped out the property?”

“Only part of
it. The mansion’s had several additions and renovations since then. After a
freak lightning strike took the east part of the house in the early nineteen twenties,
the owners rebuilt a sizable new kitchen and boarded up the entrance from the
cave for good. A few years later, they had the tunnel closed from the beach
side, as well. The good little prohibitionists were aghast at finding the
passage being secretly used for illegal whiskey storage.

“When the Kails
bought the house in the sixties, I doubt they even knew about the tunnel,
though it’s remained structurally sound. You can imagine how intrigued
we
were to find it, while looking at the property as a potential resort commodity
for the main company. Requesting architectural surveys and geologic studies is a
normal part of that process. My partner recognized the strategic importance of
the discovery, and has led a very quiet project to clear the tunnel once more.
He’s been vital to the process of securing a legal purchase of the ranch.”

Kell bared his
seething teeth at the wall now. No wonder Benson had been able to cause such a
major cluster-fuck with Lani’s efforts at securing the new permits for the B
and B. He had help. From the goddamn
partner
.

“And that deal
is happening soon, then?” Tan queried.

Benson straightened
his stance and folded his arms, clearly more confident in the conversation’s
direction. “Every building permit official, down to the minimum wage clerks, is
in our pocket. Our lovely friend Miss Kail started playing with the notion of
going all the way to Honolulu with her case but everyone in that office is on
our payroll now, as well.”

“Your
thoroughness is impressive.” The Asian picked up one of the paperweight rocks
and turned it over in his hand. “Yet so is Kail’s determination.”

Kellan stared at
that rock and envisioned using it to clobber the man. Something in the way Tan
referred to Lani, the sensual stress he put on every syllable of “determination,”
was a reminder of how a cobra danced before sinking its fangs into prey.

“She’ll be out
of the picture within a few weeks.” Benson tapped a thigh with a nervous index
finger. “The woman’s not going to have any financial choice but to take our
offer.”

“Hmmm.” The
man’s mien changed in such a subtle way Kell doubted anyone noticed it but him
and Tait—but damn did they notice, especially when Tan shifted his stance to
disguise the small jerks of his cock. “What a pity,” he murmured, “that she
can’t be part of the package.”

Red. It gained terrible
meaning when it became the color of a man’s rage. Kellan had never known such a
violent version of the feeling, lashing its way through every drop of his blood,
tethering itself to every tendon in his limbs. He didn’t have to look at Tait for
the assurance that his friend shared the fury. He felt the energy of it spewing
from T’s hiding space.

Mr. Tan, you
officially just signed your kill order
.

“Fascinating.”
Benson had the nerve to sound like the guy had simply asked for fries with his
burger. “So you’ve seen her?”

“We have been
performing our own surveillance of the ranch for the last few days. Discreetly,
of course.” Tan set the rock back down, and kept his gaze fixed on the
blueprints. “So yes, I’ve seen her. Her beauty is…extraordinary.”

Another sensation
joined the anger. It wasn’t so easy for Kell to identify. In many ways, it was
similar to the acrimony, burning and unforgiving, but now it gained a strange
urgency, relentlessly gripping the center of his chest.

The Koreans had
been watching the ranch. For several days. That meant watching all of them. Him
and Tait. Lani and Leo. He suddenly wished for the ability to sprout wings, jet
plane himself to the school, scoop them both up and take them far, far away
from Tan and his oil slick of a stare—and his disgusting way of drawing out
every syllable of “extraordinary.”

Benson shifted
toward the man by one careful step. “A word of advice, my friend? That beauty
comes with a bite.
A lot
of bite.”

Tan gave a
subtle chuckle. “I like biting. It’s always nice, for a start.” He traced a
finger along the edge of the table. “Let’s say I enjoy things on the rougher
side.”

Benson shrugged.
“Nothing wrong with that. You’re a man who enjoys working hard then playing
hard.”

“Yes, well…playing
hard tended to land me in spots of trouble, so I’ve been on the wagon for a
while now. Used to have a bloke who kept me supplied with plenty of fresh toys
for ‘play’ but King managed to get himself killed. In Seattle, of all places. I
actually think it was a sting of some sort, involving those bothersome Special
Forces boys.”

Unbelievably,
the turn in the conversation finally made Benson squirm. He visibly sweated in
his Armani, though attempted a wry laugh at Tan’s comment. In the end, the guy
appeared constipated more than anything, not lending a speck of charm to his
comeback.

“If it’s quality
‘toys’ you’re requesting, Tan, I’m happy to email a catalogue of our most
circumspect ladies of the island. Hokulani Kail is regarded as a sister by Captain
Franzen, making her a tougher add-on for the package.”

Tan shot out another
heavy sound that served proxy for a real laugh. “Saying things like that only
entices me greater, Gunter.” He added a seamless shrug. “And weren’t you the chap
telling me that the woman hasn’t given you a contract signature yet? Your plan
might proceed more smoothly by lashing down the woman into a commitment, if you
know what I mean.” The man turned, now fully revealing the erection punching at
his designer crotch. “It’s astounding what a woman will agree to, once her own
blood is flowing from your whip strokes.”

Benson didn’t
appear stopped-up anymore. He paled in blatant nausea. “That—that’s—”

“Got to be one
of the best ideas I’ve heard all week.”

The statement
wasn’t issued by any of the henchman, including Tan’s hulk. There was another
person was in the cave, having maintained a shadow-silent presence until now.
The guy didn’t emerge from the darkness yet, though his voice was eerily
familiar to Kellan. The mystery was unsettling. Where had he heard that
quarterback baritone before? And why, as he searched his memory banks for the
answer, did all the possibilities make his neck hairs do the goddamn
hokey-pokey with each other again?

The moment the
man came forward, both those answers dropped into place with disgusting
certainty.

The last time
Kellan had seen that spiky blond hair, that rugged but youthful face, and that
casual but graceful lope, he’d been watching Luna Lawrence blow Ephraim Lor to
the terrorist hell he deserved. As Lor flew six feet across a Hollywood soundstage,
the partner with whom the monster had been working, a demon who’d taken lots of
Lor’s money to aid his attempt at turning the west coast into a nuclear
wasteland, had fled the scene, never to be seen again.

Until now.

The reason for
the latter half of the Benstock name. A fugitive on the FBI’s Top Ten Wanted
list. One of the criminals responsible for Luna’s death, and now a man who didn’t
flinch at the proposal of using Lani as a pawn in his next sick scheme, again taking
money from more people who intended to seriously damage to the country.

Cameron Stock.

Fury? Yeah, Tait
knew the shit, all right—more intimately than he’d ever wanted. But nothing—
nothing
—in
his life had prepared him for this raw, roaring craving to tear apart
everything in sight with his bare hands, including the cave he’d just allowed a
piece of walking dick lice to leave. The shit was so intense that it manifested
through his body in ice instead of fire, giving him new understanding of why some
people got locked in padded rooms.

Kellan’s quiet
footsteps approached the crevice where he still stood, frozen in place. He’d
let the guy take care of a sweep through the cave after Tan, Benson, and Stock
left, planning Lani’s captivity and extortion as if they were running logistics
on a fucking fraternity prank. He’d admitted that if
he
moved, he’d
chase the shits down and bury his knife in Stock’s throat before the henchmen
put him down in similar fashion. That would alert the cocksuckers that Kell was
likely nearby. He’d be killed, too. Then they’d declare it open hunting season
on Lani, with Leo as their extra insurance policy.

“Cut the fuse,
T-Bomb.” Kell’s voice was a welcome salve on his senses. “You have to keep it
together, man.”

“I know.” His emphasizing
huffs bounced off the walls, taunting him. “I—know.”

“
Tait
.”
Kellan clamped a hand to his shoulder. “Eyes here, dude.” His buddy’s gaze
waited for him, dark as moonless midnight with its steeled determination. “We
will
drop the bastard this time. I promise. Okay?”

He forced a
tight nod. “Yeah. Okay.”

“Our priority
right now is getting to Lani and Leo. We only have the rental car to use, since
they took Lani’s jeep to the school.”

“Shit. And the
rental’s back at Franzen’s place.”

They locked
stares again, though it was only for a second. Thank fuck they were still on
the same mental page.

We need to move.
Now.

Though using the
road would’ve gotten them to Franz’s faster, they knew the beach route would be
less conspicuous. On the other hand, running without a hundred pounds of gear
on one’s back did speed up the pace. And the thought of Stock getting to Lani
first? Tait would have sprinted to the summit of Kawaikini and back to keep
that disaster from happening.

Every second was
vital.

Despite that
fact, Tait commemorated their arrival at the house by tossing the keys at Kell.
Though he was certain the guy already read his intention in the action, it was
too damn important for the ether of telepathy.

“Grab the
Remington. And all the ammo you brought for it.”

*
* * * *

Less than two
hours later, it was back to head-banging-against-the-wall mode.

Tait glared over
at Kellan, who wore an empathizing look. The cause of their mutual ire was once
again the growling baritone from the phone on the lanai table between them.
This time, the phone was a burner unit they’d bought during a fast supplies
stop in Kekaha, so Franzen was only represented by a string of numbers with the
country code for Indonesia. That did little to impersonalize their exasperation
at their captain, despite the strings he’d pulled to get them, along with Lani
and Leo, into one of the beachside cottages at the Pacific Missile Range
Facility base.

Different phone.
Different lanai. Different breathtaking beach view.

Same helpless
fury.

“Franz.” Kellan
leaned forward, planting elbows on his knees in another attempt to reason with
the man. “We’re not saying that we don’t understand—”

“Of course
you’re not,” their CO countered. “You’re just saying that neither of you
want
to understand.”

Tait burst to
his feet. “Maybe we have a translation problem here. We’re telling you that Benson
is all but sucking Cameron Stock’s dick and that as we speak, they’re drawing
up a contract to accept upwards of seventy million dollars from the North
Koreans—with Lani tossed in as the signing bonus.”

“Damn it,” the
man boomed. “You don’t think I hear you loud and clear, Bommer? And you don’t
think that I wish to fuck I was there beside you to deal with this, instead of here
with the responsibility of this battalion and these men?” A long pause was
filled with his peeved exhalation. “But commit
this
to that dense gray
matter of yours, Sergeant: the logistics of this wouldn’t change even if I
was
there. This scenario calls for intelligence and deliberation, not
impatience and drama. There are only two of you, wanting to stage an operation
with little else but that rifle and a couple of knives, on a property twice as
big as the Bin Laden compound. There were nearly thirty personnel and a dog on
that op.”

Kell shook his
head while pitching to his feet. “
Psshh
. Thirty Navy guys, two Army
guys; same difference.”

Franz cut off
Tait’s chuckle before he could get it started. “You two aren’t just being
impractical; you’re being stupid. For the time being, both those adjectives are
deleted from your vocabulary in favor of a fun
new
concept I have. It’s called
safety.”

Kellan stopped
and slammed his hands to his waist. Tait let his head fall back. Franz was
smart enough to interpret the huffs they attached to the actions. He sent back
a commanding grunt, not budging his position.

Tait swung
forward again. “The Kails aren’t going to be any safer than a cottage on a
missile testing base.”

Franzen gave way
to another growl. “I’m talking about
your
safety, shit-for-brains. I
can’t be there but I’m sending the next best thing. The Fifth SFGA had a team
ready to launch on a mission that was aborted; they’ve already been reassigned
and were airborne forty-five minutes ago. They’ll be landing at the base in about
sixteen hours, and you
will
await then assist them.”

Sixteen hours
!

Tait stopped
himself from punching out one of the lanai supports only because Kellan
expressed their outrage by kicking a chair down the porch. “Captain, with a
shit-ton of respect, we don’t have sixteen hours. When Lani and Leo don’t
return to the ranch tonight, Stock and Benson will start a hunt without hesitation.”

“Which means
they’ll check my place next. You thought about that and left the lights on when
you left, right?”

“Affirmative,”
Kell put in. “But eventually they’ll connect the dots and realize we’re on to
them.”

Tait coiled his
hands into fists. “Then they’ll be desperate for a chance to escape. They’ll rush
to finalize things with Tan and the Koreans.”

“Which they
can’t facilitate without Lani.”

“It’s easy
enough to forge her signature on the property docs.”

“But Tan doesn’t
just want her signature.” The comeback came from Kellan. With every step he
took back toward the table, the storm on his face gave way to resignation. “And
T, that means the captain’s right. Our most important duty right now is
hunkering down here, making sure Lani and Leo are secure and safe.”

A satisfied huff
came from the phone. “At last, the light of common sense shines upon the shores
of my native land.”

The urge to
smash something to dust blasted once more through Tait’s limbs. He spun to make
his way back inside the cottage but was stopped by a stare of luminous silver
light, belonging to the woman who stood in tense silence beneath the door
frame. Without granting him mercy from her gaze, Lani called toward the phone,
“Glad you called, Johnny. Somebody had to pound some sense into these guys.”

“Johnny?” Kell
actually grinned, ready to move in for the kill shot on the tease.

Franzen let it
slide. “Hoku-hulu-baby!” he cried in delight. “How’re you holding up,
kaikuahine
?
And how’s Leo?”

Her features crumpled
a little. Then a lot. Tait’s chest imploded. He hated seeing how frightened she
was. He hated watching her fingers tremble as she tucked her hair behind an
ear. Most of all, he hated how she stiffened against the arm he tried to wrap
around her in comfort. “We’ve—errmm—had better days,” she finally stated with
forced brightness. “Leo’s okay, considering the circumstances. He’s retreated
to his room with his ear buds and music.”

“A saner plan
than what my bullet ninjas were planning.”

“No shit,” she
agreed. “Wishing I could follow my
kaikaina
’s example and do the same,
but I think I’m still in shock. Gunter Benson’s douche quotient is bigger than
I ever imagined.”

“It won’t be for
much longer,” Franz assured. “Some of the Big Green Machine’s finest are on
their way. I just got an inbox from our friends with the Navy, as well. Guess
they caught wind of the fun you’re all going to have and are trying to round up
a few SEALs to help out with the op.”

Kellan gritted
his teeth through a fake smile. “Gee, Franz, want to make our night even better
by announcing we get poi with dinner?”

Tait laughed as
Lani jabbed the guy in honor of their running joke. Personally, he loved the
native Hawaiian dish, made of crushed taro root. Kell’s opinion of the stuff ran
the exact opposite.

“Enough,” Franz
protested. “You’re making me homesick!”

Kellan groaned,
which made Lani giggle again. Tait tried to stir some matching humor once more
but the feelings waned as Kell signed off with Franz, confirming he’d drop a
text as soon as the battalion from the fifth arrived at the base.

This wasn’t
right. Every minute they waited was another minute they wasted. And there
wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.

Tait turned and
headed down the lanai steps. In another dozen strides, he was on the shore
itself, pacing hard in an effort to work off his urgent ire.

“T-Bomb.”

He kept walking.
Kell would get the point in another second or two and back off. Though only a
half-circle in the sky, the moon was brilliant tonight. It turned the beach
into something from a goddamn romance movie, pissing him off more. Where was a
depressing storm when he needed one? The fuckers happened every five minutes on
this island, didn’t they?

“Tait.”

He didn’t stop.

“Bommer, for
fuck’s sake!”

He gave the guy
a pity stop. Nobody liked watching a man playing needy puppy with another, no
matter what the circumstances were. “Not in the mood, Slash-rific. Don’t you
have to go look for your misplaced balls, anyway?”

The man jutted
his jaw. “You know I don’t like this waiting game any more than you. You know
I’d be jumping in the car right next to you, if I thought it made sense. But if
you dig deep, you also know that once those assholes get it that we’re on to
them, which will be any second now, they won’t leave a pebble of this island
unturned to try and find her.”

He pointed to
the runway a few thousand feet away. “Hate to repeat the obvious, but this
place is a bit fortified. And staffed by people who know a thing or two about
defense systems and weapons.”

“And any one of
them could
also
be in Stock’s back pocket. You heard the conversation in
the cave as clearly as I did. The guy has bought off most of the local
governments on this island
and
Oahu. Who’s to say he hasn’t found a few
folks on the take on the base? That’s before we consider Tan’s influence, as
well. The man was in cahoots with that bastard King, who damn near snatched
Sage away from Hawk again and had paid minions all over Lewis-McChord. Fruit on
the same tree. Just as rotten, just as poisonous, just as important a factor to
consider here.”

Tait stabbed his
hands into his pockets. His logic heard the words, even agreed with them, but his
heart screamed louder. The memories returned, taunting and bitter, of the weeks
after Luna’s death. The revenge he’d craved, the fury of knowing Stock still
roamed the earth, living like a king off Lor’s payoff money…and the
helplessness of accepting he’d likely never be found. It all slapped Tait anew,
stinging a hundred times worse now that he’d peeled back the shields on his
soul and allowed so many of his scars to be seen—scars that were ripped open
all over again. He knew exactly where to find Stock now, yet was leashed from
doing a single thing about it.
Un-fucking-acceptable
.

He stabbed a
foot at the sand, sending the shit flying into the water, where it plunked in the
foamy shallows. “You promised me we were going to take him down this time.” He didn’t
bother to hide the accusation beneath it.

“And we will.”
Kell squared his shoulders. “We
will
, Tait—when we have the support to
do it the right way.”

“Sure.” He whipped
a glower at the guy. “Because doing it ‘the right way’ helped us so much during
the op in LA. You need a refresher on how that panned out, my friend? On how
Stock disappeared off the grid less than twenty-four hours after that fun
little showdown?”

“This is
different and you know it.”