Zack (In the Company of Snipers Book 3) (23 page)

He grazed her lips, his hands reverently caressing her body, skimming lightly over her cheek, down her neck, and coming to rest at her breast. Heat coursed through him, but he wanted to do this right. Mei was no ordinary woman. She was all he’d ever wanted but never knew he needed until now. The pain and loss of the past days were somehow easier to carry with her at his side.

The depth of his feelings for this woman evoked every nerve-ending in his body. Strumming his thumb across her hardening nipple, he captured her mouth, breathing in the delicate essence of her feminine body. Making love had never felt like this before. He couldn’t taste enough or touch enough. Mei had become fire and breath–and life. His all. The delicious fragrance of cherry blossom tantalized, singeing his nose with a scent that would never leave. The brush of her hair on his arms teased in the most pleasant way. Her lips and tongue were honey, more needful than food or drink.

He moved against her fragile strength, lowering himself carefully onto and into. Eagerly, she wrapped herself around every inch of him, her body arching into his, ready and wanting. Everywhere he touched, softness, warmth, and womanly desire accepted, and in the way that only Mei could–demanded all he had to give.

He gave. For a sensation-filled, exhilarating moment, he wanted nothing more than the physical pleasure he’d anticipated since their first kiss on the sidewalk in Rosslyn. He’d wanted her then, and now that he had his hands all over her, he wanted her all the more. In the heat of a ferocious hunger, he filled her in another exertion of total surrender. The release of body and soul ripped out of him. Now. Now. Now!

She offered all, grinding her lovely body against his as they melted together, her fingernails clenched to the back of his shoulders and the sweetest murmurs floating up to his ears. He’d found heaven in the arms of this beautiful, mean, desperate woman. There was no turning back. Only more.

“I’m going to make love with you...every day...for the rest of my life,” he vowed.

“I...love...you,” she answered, each word a prayer he so did not deserve. The tremble in her voice resonated to the deepest cords of his heart. This was what he’d been searching for all his life, the genuine surrender of a real woman’s heart.

Mei sighed, breathing him into her soul. The scent of him mingled perfectly with hers. The feel of his rough, naked body empowered her femininity in every sensuous way possible. Beneath the midnight curtain of her silken hair, his hands explored, pinched, and smoothed. Like softest rain on a summer day, she poured herself all over him again, kissing every part she could reach.

Within a very few minutes, they were once again enfolded in the exquisite flames of intimacy, striving with and against each other, pulling and pushing, angling for deeper, better–more. Her body remembered the mechanics of sex, only it had never known this depth of pleasure. He coaxed and teased. Her body responded easily and happily, drawn out of its shell by this most tender warrior.

Zack sounded tired, drawing in huge breaths when they finished their third go round, but her libido seemed to be revving up. Now it was her turn to coax and tease, his to respond. At last, he rolled her to her back again. The darkened room lit with shuddering fireworks that exploded her skyward. Up. Higher. Into forever....

She closed her eyes and succumbed to the fall back to earth and into love. He cradled her tenderly, the heat of his mouth in her neck as he fell with her. Starlight. He’d turned her into pure starlight.

“I love you,” she whispered, snuggling into the delicious warmth of his world.

“You are mine,” he whispered in return, his voice as ragged as hers. “All. Mine.”

Alex really ought to know better by now.

Zack always had a problem with the word
obedience.
He took one day off like his boss requested before he walked to work the following morning. Early downtown Alexandria was void of most tourists but busy with delivery trucks, shop owners opening their stores, and the sounds of another workday. Despite the chilly wind blowing with it, the smell of the Potomac wafted uphill, energizing everyone in its wake, him included. The love of a good woman had worked wonders for him. Despite the ache in his heart at losing Todd, he felt more balanced today.

Safety
was another of those words. It was something he provided, but rarely accepted. He didn’t need to be kept safe from the wolves of the world. The wolves of the world had it backward. They needed protection from him, and he intended to begin the hunt for them today. Stitched and healing hands or not, he was done being obedient and safe.

A shiny red fire engine roared by, its siren screaming. Zack kept walking. All the truck did was remind him how much he missed his car. For now, the pearl black beauty was parked in The TEAM’s parking garage to keep it safe. He did not trust hotel valets or parking.

The damned fire engine blasted its horn up ahead, making a sharp right turn that startled Zack out of his reverie. The engine had turned onto the same street as The TEAM’s office building. It couldn’t be. There were plenty of other businesses on the street. It could be a cat in the tree. It could be....

What the hell?

He ran to intercept the fire engine. Black smoke poured from The TEAM’s subterranean parking lot. He dodged fire hoses, as well as the firefighters scrambling around him to the underground nightmare. There was no getting past Battalion Chief Burgess though, who stopped him at the barricade.

“Stay behind the line,” the very stern man commanded.

“That’s my team in there,” Zack insisted

“No, sir, that’s
my team
in there,” Burgess bit out. “It’s a crime scene now. No one crosses my line.”

“What the hell happened?”

“Bomb went off in the elevator shaft.”

Zack’s heart plummeted. Alex was the office early bird. Was that his black truck barely visible through the smoke belching out the garage entrance?

“Anyone hurt?”

Burgess shot him a grim look. “Only if they were in the elevator when it blew.”

“My boss...” Zack couldn’t finish the thought.
Alex.

“Was he in there? Are you certain?”

“Maybe.” Zack’s mind pinged, searching for any reason Alex would not have come in early. He couldn’t come up with a thing. All he could do was stand and try to breathe.

“Your boss own a truck? Might have been a big diesel?”

“GMC,” Zack ground out. “Parked across from the elevator?”

The fire chief’s demeanor softened. He waved Zack around the barrier. “The fire’s out. Come with me.”

The paramedics had just rolled onto the scene. Burgess called to them. “Don’t know if we need you guys. Go see for yourselves.”

Zack groaned as he entered the blackened catacomb that had once housed five company vehicles and enough parking stalls for the twenty or so agents on staff. Most of the destruction was contained at ground level. The scene was surreal, everything opposite the elevator shaft blackened or twisted. Not even the elevator call buttons remained on the wall. Worse, Alex’s truck had been blown to the other side of the garage where it rested on its side. The chassis and tires still smoked. None of The TEAM’s SUVs survived the blast.

He shot a glance into the farthest, darkest corner where he’d parked his pride and joy. At least it had survived unscathed, but his small piece of good fortune paled at what he did not see and could not find. Alex.

It should have been me.

“I can’t say officially, but my best guess is someone planted a pressure bomb,” Burgess said, pointing to the gaping hole, now filled with water and blackened puddles of ash. “We’ll know for sure once we finish our arson investigation, but in a case like this, the bomb usually explodes after a person calls the elevator. They don’t even have to set foot inside. Soon as the elevator hits the hydraulic bumper at ground level, it detonates. Looks like someone wanted to make sure they got their point across. They used more than enough explosive. Probably SEMTEX. Maybe dynamite.”

Zack listened for any comment from the firefighters about survivors or body parts, but deep down, he knew. His gut clenched at all the evidence. Anyone standing in front of the elevator door would have been incinerated on the spot. Blown away. Turned to ash.

“Any bodies?” he asked, his voice dry and weak.

First Todd. Now Alex. They both died instead of–me.

“Can’t get into the blast zone yet to know for sure,” Burgess responded, his hand to Zack’s shoulder. “It’s still too hot. You doing okay, son?”

“I’m good.” Zack gave the customary USMC reply, although catastrophic pain engulfed him. “Need to call my guys.”

A sizzle of electricity arced from exposed wiring within the blackened shaft. Firefighters hurried around him. They had work to do, while he seemed capable of nothing more than standing like an idiot and gawking, his phone in his hand and dread stuck in his throat.
How do I say the words? Alex is dead.

He turned from Burgess and shook the paralysis of shock off. Later. He’d deal with his personal feelings later, so he stabbed in the preset numbers and focused. First Murphy, then David, and Roy. By the time he’d finished, his resolve shattered. He had one more call to make. The hardest one of all. Kelsey....

The world spun sideways. He stuck his phone deep into his jacket pocket as grief climbed out of his heart. How much could they stand? It seemed the earth had tilted the wrong way on its axis. Revolved backward. Nothing felt right. A wave of vertigo slanted his vision. His knees wobbled and down he went, unable to take his eyes from the smoking hole where Alex had...died. Unable to make the last call and break his sweet wife’s heart.

Not this. Not Alex. God, not Alex.

Burgess yelled for the paramedics, but they couldn’t help him. This kind of pain wasn’t treatable. A rage unlike any he’d felt before exploded from deep inside. Zack cursed the man he’d served; the man he loved.
Damned stupid type-A, have to be first, have to know everything. Jesus Christ, Alex! What’d you go and do this for?

Memories deluged him like a home movie he couldn’t shut off. The first time he’d met the intense man he’d eventually call Boss was on a flight to Baghdad, where they’d worked a successful black op together. He and Alex had completed their last mission near the northwestern borders of Pakistan. They were equals–almost. Born the same year, but Zack went one step further in his career to become USMC gunnery sergeant. Alex called it good at staff sergeant because of his family tragedy.

But he never lost his heart. Not really. Zack had been honored and privileged to witness the man’s marriage to sweet Kelsey in Hawaii. They were made for each other; two kids with messed up lives who had latched onto each other and done good.

Zack scrubbed an ash-covered hand over his face. Alex’s death would kill her. Hell. It was killing him. His heart pounded from the cavernous, sucking hole death always left in its wake. Tears rolled down his face, and he didn’t care. He stared at the smoking pit that used to be an elevator. Nothing mattered anymore.

“Get that sonofabitchin’ thing off me!”

Zack’s ears perked up. He turned toward the sound of that angry voice.

“I’m not dead, you freaking moron!”

Alex?

A familiar stream of the most welcome expletives in the whole world resounded from the stairwell where two hapless paramedics were transporting a very angry man to ground level.

“Let me walk, you bastards! I’m not crippled!”

Strapped to the gurney and soaked from the building’s mandatory fire suppression system, Alex was bleeding, dirty, and mad as hell. Zack stumbled to his feet, wiping his face and so damned relieved. For once, Alex’s wonderfully wide range of cuss words was music to his ears.

“I don’t need this damned crap on my face.” Alex peeled off the oxygen mask, but just as quickly the medic put it back on.

“Yes, sir. You do.”

“Boss,” Zack choked, not sure how much emotion Alex would allow in his present condition. Oh, what the hell. He charged the gurney, needing to touch the lucky bastard to make sure he wasn’t seeing things. “You’re alive,” he ground out, his stupid eyes filling with tears. “You dog. You’re alive.”

“What?” Alex bellowed, blinking through the grime on his face. Both of his eyes were bloodshot. His nose was bleeding and he looked like he’d been in one helluva fight. “Zack! What’d you say?”

Zack grabbed his boss’s bloodied hand, wanting to kiss the guy, but smart enough not to. “Never thought I’d be so glad to see your ugly face.”

“What?” Alex shouted again, his hand fisted around Zack’s. “Speak up. I can’t hear you.”

“The blast ruptured his eardrums,” one of the medics said, pointing to the blood running down Alex’s neck.

“What’d you say? For hell’s sake, speak up.” Alex looked from medic to Zack, those bright blue lasers shining out from beneath the soot and blood.

“Where’d you find him?” Zack asked.

“Stairwell.” One medic pointed his index finger upward. “Looks like he might have changed his mind after he called the elevator. He was already headed up when the elevator set off the bomb. Percussion threw him into the first floor fire door. Knocked him down and out.”

Zack gripped Alex’s hand tighter, but it looked like encouragement was the last thing Alex wanted. He was hell bent on getting on his own two feet.

“And he’s got an irregular heartbeat.” The same medic grimaced as Alex tried to undo his straps again. “We’re taking him to the emergency room. Is there anyone you can call to meet us there, maybe someone he’ll listen to?”

“Yeah, cuz it sure isn’t us,” the other poor medic muttered, wrestling to redo the straps to keep Alex on the gurney.

Zack grinned through his tears.
That’s my boss!

“Sonofabitchin Debargio tried to kill me!” Alex bellowed, tearing the blood pressure cuff off for the third time. The medic put it back on. Patiently and firmly, he began the process of inserting an IV line. Alex brushed it away until both medics strong-armed him.

“I’ll call his wife,” Zack said. “He listens to her. Where are you taking him?”

“Georgetown,” both medics said at once.

Zack almost laughed with relief. The determination on his boss’s face proved it once again. When Alex was angry, all was right with the world.

“You’re going to the hospital, Boss.” Zack tapped his shoulder to get his attention. There was no sense talking to him, but just the fact that he’d caught Alex’s attention seemed to do the trick. Alex settled while the medics completed their assessment and inserted the drip line. The adrenaline in his system made it difficult, he was shaking hard enough to rattle the gurney. Here was a side of the man Zack had not seen before–mad as hell but scared, too.

“Get my guys, Zack. Call ’em. All of ’em!” He was in no condition to give orders, but Alex yelled them just the same. “We’re going to get that sonofabitch Debargio if it’s the last thing I do.”

Zack nodded. Yeah, Alex might be a little beat up right now, but he was going to be fine. The man ran on anger and caffeine. They didn’t make ’em any tougher.

“David knows what’s going on.” Alex still bellowed. “Talk to him. Do it today!”

Zack pointed at the ambulance making its way slowly down the driveway toward the medics and their unwilling patient. “You’re going to the hospital, Boss. We’ll take care of Debargio.”

Alex couldn’t read lips. Aggravation glittered in his bleary blue eyes but he nodded, resigned that he was no longer in charge. When he caught sight of the smoking carcass of his truck, he reached for Zack, gripping his forearm wrist to elbow.

“Call Kelsey,” he growled. “You be the one to tell her. Don’t let ’em scare her.”

“You know I will.” Zack pulled his cell phone out of his pocket to prove he meant to do just that.

“Zack.” Alex’s voice cracked. “Tell her...tell her I love her.”

“Shut the hell up. Tell her yourself,” Zack roared, frowning like a bastard at that stupid request. Alex better get that through his damned thick skull. He was not going to die.

While the medics loaded him into the back of the ambulance, Zack fulfilled his word. This call he could make.

“Hey, Kels. Yeah, this is Zack. Hey, listen. It’s about Alex.”