Cover Me

chapter 7



Finally, he had Sunny Foster off her game. For once, he’d surprised her. Standing in the doorway to his steamed-up bathroom half-dressed wasn’t the smartest way to approach her about the way they combusted around each other. But hell, nothing about the past few days was normal, even for a guy like him who faced the unexpected on a regular basis in his line of work.

He let go of her arm and knuckled back a strand of her silky hair over her shoulder. Strands glided over his fingers, hooking and catching on calluses the way she snagged his attention. Gone before he could catch hold.

She didn’t so much as take a step away from him, but her pupils widened with awareness until her eyes were nearly midnight black. Steam clung to his body, fogged up his insides, disarming him from the core. Who was he kidding, she heated him through and through by simply standing in front of him.

“So, Sunny, why did you kiss me up there on the mountain?” He flattened his hand to the doorframe to keep from gathering up her hair in his hands and burying his face in the mass of it all, aching to bury himself in her.

She chewed on her bottom lip. Even coated in ChapStick, it was still raw and a little cracked from their time exposed to the elements. “The way I remember it, you kissed me.”

Her accusation lacked the boldness of her usual speech pattern. Damn it, she recalled that kiss in every bit as much detail as he did.

“Right, that I did. Because I was feeling the attraction between us as strongly as I know you did. Spending the night together in the cave, so close and aware of your every move, damn near going out of my mind wanting to see if your skin felt as soft as it looked.”

The memories sent an intoxicating bolt straight through him, his groin tightening inside low-slung sweatpants.

She boldly stared him down, even though he was half-dressed. “The way I remember it, we had a wet, smelly dog between us and you were pissed because I didn’t faint at your feet with gratitude when you parachuted through a snowstorm all macholike to rescue the ‘helpless’ damsel.”

He grinned, scratching his bare chest absently. “You think I’m macho.”

“I think you were crazy to kiss me out there.”

His gaze settled on her mouth. “Then you were equally crazy, because I recall in great detail how you kissed me back.”

Her shoulders stiffened, her eyes defensive. “I may have been caught up in the adrenaline of the moment.”

“Maybe. And yet here we are talking an awful lot about kissing.”

She jabbed an angry finger at him, stopping just shy of touching his chest. “I wasn’t propositioning you by asking to come to your place.”

“I didn’t think you were.” He was quite clear she had some agenda hidden inside that mysterious mind of hers. “Although you’re awful trusting, coming here.”

“If you planned to assault me, you had plenty of opportunities out there.” Her throat moved in a slow swallow as she shivered, rubbing her arms. “And plenty of chances to dispose of my body.”

He couldn’t resist touching her, comforting her. He cupped the back of her neck and massaged lightly, letting the mass of her silky hair engulf his hand as well as his senses. “There’s nothing we can do about that tonight. Put it out of your mind.”

“I wish I could.” She swayed toward him, her eyes open and sharing the hurt inside her for the first time.

The medic, the part of him trained to heal, was drawn to her, nudging aside other more primal wants for the moment. “Come on. Let’s see if I can find something more substantial than a sandwich.”

And in order to see to those needs, he should get his hands out of her hair and his eyes off the sweet curve of her breasts. He angled past and away.

***



Sunny watched Wade walk away from her, his big, honorable, sexy body leaving her aching. No simple sandwich could satisfy the hunger inside her.

She truly hadn’t asked to stay at his place with the intent of seducing him. But come morning, she would have to leave here and she would never see him again. Her life would go back to the way it was, with her narrowly focused world, a life that had seemed infinitely satisfying before these past days with Wade.

That safety, security, comfort had been blown to hell with a simple glimpse of frozen faces through the ice and she needed something, she needed this man, this chance to escape from it all, before reality intruded tomorrow.

Tomorrow, when she would have to disappear on her own, without the military’s help that would undoubtedly be bureaucratically slow. Wade might well be grilled about where she’d gone on his watch, but she’d drawn the deputy and heaven only knew what other kind of trouble to Wade. The best she could do now was stay away from him. It was safer that way, especially when she was still so unsure about the reason for the attack on her, on Ted and Madison, in the first place.

But for now, for tonight, she would steal what moments she could with Wade before she undertook the biggest risk of her life to return to the village and warn her family and friends.

Sunny flattened her hands on either side of the bathroom doorway and called out as he sauntered toward the kitchen, “I realize that I kissed you back on the mountain. And I enjoyed it.”

She’d never seduced a man before. Her scant sexual history hadn’t given her much in the way of an education, practice, or even confidence. But the way Wade stopped in his tracks encouraged her.

Deep in the far corners of her brain, the part of her that never forgot to keep her barriers up, she knew this wasn’t wise. Being together wouldn’t come without repercussions to her life, perhaps even to her heart. She wasn’t being fair to him with all she held back. She wasn’t the sort to let things go so far, so fast, but these weren’t normal times and she didn’t have all that much experience to draw upon. There weren’t a lot of men to choose from where she lived. A couple of dates in high school, none that went too far, as she was still adjusting to the sudden shift in her life.

Then her rebellious years hit. The time when she couldn’t bring herself to leave her family, but kept hoping they would get so angry with her they would ask her to go.

She’d speed-dated a dozen guys in her community and slept with three of them, but the experiences hadn’t been particularly satisfying, more like an exercise regimen that exhausted her body, gave an outlet for frustration, but left her yearning for a shower afterward. She’d carried too much anger and resentment to be focused on the moment or the person, and was horribly unfair to the man on another level.

After that, there wasn’t anyone to date who wasn’t somehow connected to that time.

But that felt so far away right now as she stood with Wade in his studio apartment. Still, he kept his tensed back to her for five thumps of her heart, three slow rises and falls of his broad shoulders. Then he pivoted on his heels to face her.

His eyes crackled with a fire as hot as the flames in the hearth. “Believe me, I noticed you were kissing me back.”

“And it’s something I want to do again.”

One dark eyebrow arched in surprise. “I concur.”

Only he could make such a clipped, military-style response sound totally loaded with sexuality. Her whole body burned with the need to press against him, full-out, no barriers, skin to skin with nothing between them, not even the ghostly shadows of their two very different worlds.

She moved to him or he walked to her. She couldn’t remember who took the first step, and it didn’t seem to matter once her mouth met his. As her arms locked around his neck, his hands cupped her bottom and lifted her against him. Her breasts flattened to his chest, her nerves flaming to life as she tasted him, aching to devour the moment. She’d lived so much of her life in control of her world, of her body. Right now she didn’t feel in control of a thing. It was all about feeling. Exploring the hard planes of his muscles. Savoring the scent of his freshly washed body. Luxuriating in the knowing caress of his lips shifting to her ear, to her neck, then nudging aside the collar of her shirt to taste her shoulder.

Without lifting his kiss from her body, he backed her away from the bathroom. But not toward the bed as she expected, was prepared for mentally, emotionally—physically. Instead, one step at a time he inched her toward the flickering fireplace, stopping at the bear rug in front of the stone hearth.

She scaled the expanse of his chest with her fingers, only pulling her hands aside long enough for him to peel her T-shirt up and off her body. As her clothes fell away, his sweatpants hit the floor, she couldn’t help but think how they were dancing through a strange echo of how they’d undressed in the cave. Except her hands were on him, his were on her. Intimately. Experiencing all the places they’d only eyed before.

A rustle from across the room pulled her attention briefly away as she glanced over to find… Chewie huffed and curled up in a corner of the kitchen by his water bowl, presenting his back firmly to them. Ignoring or pouting, she didn’t know, but since he seemed settled either way…

Sunny looked back at Wade standing gloriously naked in front of her, bathed by the firelight from the grate and by moonlight from the window overhead. His body was honed and solid. But more than his muscles held her attention. The complete and intense concentration of his deep brown eyes, zeroed in on her, made for heady stuff.

She forced herself to look away from his mesmerizing gaze back to his body. He had a deep tan that spoke of time spent outside of Alaska.

“A month in Guam,” he said, as if reading her mind.

She could picture him on the beach in swim trunks, plunging into the surf, droplets glistening off his skin. She had a sudden deep hunger to walk barefoot on a beach. She had a vague memory of playing on a California shore during a family vacation. Most of all she remembered the sun, so brilliant she had to squint, the beach so very different from the Iowa cornfields were she’d been brought up. Was it her imagination that daylight was so vividly stronger then? Or was she allowing the clouds of their family secret, of her sister’s pain, to darken the already dimmer Alaska days?

As fast as the memory rolled over her she pushed back the tide. She wanted to be part of the here and now. Nothing else.

Cautiously, she sketched her fingertips just shy of where the bullet had grazed him. “Your shoulder?”

“Is fine. I’ve been hurt worse on a fishhook.” He turned his face to kiss her wrist, then nuzzled the throbbing pulse until her heart rate spiked.

Her eyes threatened to flutter closed and she forced herself to think, to speak. “You’re on painkillers. You might hurt yourself without realizing it, or maybe you’re not clear on what you’re doing, what we are doing.”

He cupped her face in his hands. “Believe me, I’m completely clear. I’ve been injured far worse than this, and the one pain shot they gave me back in the chopper has long worn off. In case you haven’t noticed, we aren’t doing anything.” His touch trailed from her face in the lightest of caresses, over her shoulders, and down her arms to clasp her wrists. “Yet.”

Desire thickened the rush in her veins. Why was she arguing against something she wanted so much?

Raising one of her arms upward, he nibbled along her inner arm, upward. He drew her arms around until he pressed her palms to her breasts. “I’ll be careful, God knows, I’ll be careful, because the last thing I want to do is make you turn away.”

Ever so slightly he increased the pressure on her wrists until she touched herself more fully against the ache. Her nipples hardened against her palms in an unmistakable message of her arousal.

Was he doing it to show her how much she wanted him? She didn’t need the reminder, but it was also tougher to resist when faced with her own obvious need. While she knew the texture of her own body, she’d never touched herself this way in front of a man before and the forbidden air of it, the voyeuristic way he watched her fingers on her skin, ratchetted her bliss to a higher level.

Just as she felt his hands on hers, guiding her touch, she could also see the reflection of their bodies in the skylight windows, with the inky night for a backdrop. She couldn’t miss the way her body curved around his, the way they fit together as if they were made for each other.

Light from the hearth superimposed itself over their bodies sometimes, twisting and flickering, presenting a picture of her going up in flames with him. And God, that was just about right.

Clasping her wrists, he guided her, gently lifting the curve of her breasts, his head dipping as he took one already taut nipple into his mouth. Tasting, tugging, while still steering her hands in a tantalizing massage. He aroused her with his mouth, with the way his pseudo touches directed her hands against her skin.

A low moan slipped from between her lips, the already tight thread of pleasure pulling, increasing until a tingling built between her legs. Moist and achy and needing. Him. Inside.

Soon.

Arching her back, she pressed herself deeper, more firmly into the sensation of his mouth, her own strokes, letting him know she could take—she wanted—more. His gentleness was admirable, considerate, and not entirely necessary right now. She needed to soak up all she could from the night and this small window of time together.

She freed her hands from his and grabbed his shoulders, angling her hips against his, pressing the thick rigid length of his erection against her stomach. He throbbed a burning imprint on her skin, making her catch her breath with need. She sunk her fingernails into his shoulders and murmured her pleasure, her desires. And bless him, he was an attentive man. He increased the friction of his teeth and tongue from one breast to the other until she writhed to get closer, hooking a leg around his, pressing her core to the raspy length of his leg.

Sunny trailed her fingers down his neck, between his ribs, lower until she reached his six-pack abs and the tip of his erection, hard and sleek against his stomach. Encircling him, she swept down and up, learning the steely feel of him, soon to know him all the more intimately. She stroked the length up, down, and again, her thumb working over the tip, smoothing the moist bead with each caress.

Groaning, he clenched his teeth, his head falling back, his eyes closed tight. A surge of satisfaction pumped through her. She reveled at bringing him even a measure of the pleasure he gave her.

Already, this time with him, the feelings, the sensations, were so much more than anything she’d experienced. And how much more waited for her. Her thumb glided over the swollen head. He growled low in his throat, burying his face into the curve of her neck. Heated breaths grazed her skin, warmed even further her overheated flesh.

And just that fast, her knees gave way to the compounded pleasure. Wade guided her downward, settling her fully onto the bear rug. The fur brushed her hypersensitive nerves with thousands of tantalizing strokes. The silky glide sent her back arching, her arms splaying, as she breathed deeply as if to inhale the moment. The scent of his soap mixed with the smoky outdoors air from the fireplace until it seemed his place and her world blended.

Kissing his shoulder, she urged him to roll to his back. “I know you’re a superhero and all, but popping a stitch would be a serious mood buster.”

“You have a point,” he conceded, finally relenting and allowing her to guide him the rest of the way to recline on the deep brown rug. “Feel free to take over, but no more playing. I’m on the edge and I want to bring you there with me.”

Excitement, anticipation, and a near painful need surged.

She straddled his hips. Her fingers lightly traced the lines of his washboard stomach, grazing the hard line of his arousal again and again until he clamped a hand around her wrist and eased her away. He wasn’t fighting fair. She slid her other hand between them, cupping the weight of him until his jaw flexed from restraint.

Again, he stopped her caress and she started to protest. Then with his other hand, he clapped a condom into her palm.

She recognized an invitation when she saw one.

Hands shaking, Sunny tore the packet in two and sheathed him, lingering at the base until he gripped her waist. Unceremonious. Strong. Certain.

His fingers slid over her stomach, dipping lower until teasing between her legs. His callused fingertips, his circular pressure, had her swaying.

“Okay,” she gasped, “I’m in charge, right?”

“Yes, ma’am, totally in charge.” He slid a finger inside her, then a second, crooking until he found…

“Um…” She gasped, feeling more and more out of control by the second but not in the least interested in telling him to stop the delicious pressure in exactly… the right… spot. She sighed, moaned, rocked to increase the sensation, bringing her so close to completion.

His hand slid away and she gasped, nearly cried out over the loss, but before she could form words, he hooked an arm around her waist. The fire in his eyes echoed the one in the hearth, the one even deeper in her belly. Wade guided her over him until he nudged against her with a muscular grace she’d seen on the mountain, and now she was benefiting all the more.

She was hot and damp and ready for him. So much so, her skin felt tight and itchy, as if she would explode from the need expanding inside her. The whole experience overwhelmed her, so very different from the fumblings from her past that left her achy for more.

He filled her, stretched her—eased her. Muscles bulged in his arms as he lifted and guided her hips. His lean athleticism sent a tingle through her veins. She knew the dedication that came with building a body like that, and a shiver of excitement tingled up her spine.

The rug was silky and sensual under her knees. What would it feel like to stretch out completely here? The thought was almost enticing enough to give it a go, but the promise of stretching out on Wade was even more tempting.

Her hair slithered forward over her shoulders to spill across his chest. He plucked at the sapphire streak in her hair, skimming it between his thumb and forefinger with a slow tug, drawing the hair as taut as the pleasure inside her. Then his hand slid behind her neck, her hair tangled around his fingers as he cupped her head, urging her toward him until she sprawled on top of him, bringing her mouth to his.

He teased at the seam of her lips and she opened for him, taking his tongue into her mouth as totally as she welcomed him into her body. He thrust again and again with bold confidence. He took her every bit as completely as she took him. The sex was raw and physical from a man who was more than her match yet never used that strength for anything other than her intense bliss.

The bristle of the hair on his legs brushed a sweet abrasion along her calves. And his chest, the whorls across his pecs, abraded against her nipples, teasing the ecstasy tauter, tighter inside her. He made love with total physicality, using every part of his body to love her. His mouth cruised her neck, her earlobe. His fingers found the most sensitive pressure points. Alternately lighter and stronger touches found erogenous zones in places she’d never expected. He must be putting that medical training to good use and she couldn’t bring herself to regret his calculation for even a second, since it brought her closer and closer to release until…

She plunged over the edge, freefalling into gripping spasms tightening through her again and again. A moan built in her throat and tore free. Echoed in her ears. Resonated inside her as he thrust, pounded, drew out her orgasm until she thought surely that was all. But as his hoarse shout of completion ripped through the air, a fresh bolt of pleasure shuddered through her already exhausted body until she melted into a limp mass onto his chest.

More than anything, she wanted to stay tangled up in the moment with the warmth of each other and the fire, the sensuous brush of the fur rug, and Wade against her. She wanted to linger, draw in the scent of them together, musky and mingling with the hint of smoke. And she would, for a few more stolen hours.

Panting from the exertion, the sheer power of the pleasure, she slid off him and onto her back. Gusts from the heater stirred the fur against her skin. The sleek pelt teased her all over, from the side of her cheek to the flattened palms of her hands to the lingering moist heat between her legs.

As the perspiration dried on her naked flesh she couldn’t ignore the truth. She’d just experienced the best sex of her life.

And after tonight she could never see him again.

***



He could see the dim light in the third-floor apartment window, but not much else since they’d drawn the shades.

Keeping surveillance, Deputy Rand Smith ducked down in his crappy rental van. But then what vehicle didn’t turn into rusted-out shit eventually around here? He’d come up to Alaska from Oklahoma, hoping to make some serious money working security shifts in the oil fields. Fat chance. He hadn’t been able to land anything other than a near-poverty-wage deputy job in a tiny-ass town on Bristol Bay. He couldn’t get hired anywhere civilized like here in Anchorage or Fairbanks or Juneau. He hadn’t even been able to save enough money to get back home…

Until Brett had approached him about pulling some private security hours over at the Alaska Peninsula Power Plant. His whole life was turning around now that he was making the kind of income he deserved. He wouldn’t screw this up. He wasn’t a loser like his drunken father always said.

Rand sipped his fourth cup of coffee to stay awake and keep warm. He was running on fumes after traveling all night from the mountain, flying to make it to Anchorage, but his options were fading fast if he wanted to stay alive. And he did. There was no running away from what he’d joined, with smuggling terrorists and weapons into the U.S. With big payoffs came big risks. And people like Brett and his Russian mob associates killed those who failed very, very slowly.

He had his orders. Make sure Sunny Foster never led anyone to her mountain village. Brett needed that unknown patch of earth as a hiding place. Kind of like laundering money through businesses, he laundered people through that community, solidifying their new identities.

Having Sunny out in the open endangered all of that. The second she stepped away from her hulking military bodyguard, a gun to her side should silence her until he could stash her in the back of his rental van. Then, she would die.

But he wasn’t like Brett and his “associates.” He would at least make sure Sunny’s death was quick. The same way he’d done for her friends on the mountain.

***



Enjoying just watching Sunny breathe, Wade rested on his side, propped on an elbow. With his other hand he skimmed his fingers along her arm as the early-morning sun streaked through the window. There was good sex and great sex. Then there was sex with Sunny, which took great to a whole new level.

He hadn’t been alone in the feeling. He could see, feel, hear her response each time. The power of it still echoed in his memory, and he wanted her again, something he couldn’t imagine easing up anytime soon.

Problem was, he’d seen the barriers returning to her eyes before she’d drifted off to sleep on the rug beside him. They’d never made it to the bed. He’d pulled a blanket and a couple of throw pillows from the sofa rather than disturb her, then started his vigil watching over her in between catnaps. The warmth of her naked body, every curve fitting against him, made him want to stay awake and catalog the feel, the scents. Somewhere around four in the morning, her dog had curled up on a corner of the blanket, staring him down with those two different colored eyes, daring Wade to make him move.

A sigh slipped from her mouth a second before she stretched, her feet inching out from under the wool blanket he’d picked up at an Inuit festival last summer. Sunny’s lashes fluttered open. She stared around the room with disoriented eyes until her gaze landed on him and cleared. Strange how a person could smile and frown at the same time. He stared back silently, waiting to take his cue from her.

She looked away first. “You should be resting. You’ve been through a lot, parachuting out of a helicopter, rescuing me, getting shot.”

“Grazed. And are you telling me to go to bed?” His knuckles detoured over her stomach. “As long as you join me, I’m game.”

She laughed, a forced sound that didn’t come close to filling the space between them. “That would necessitate walking, and I don’t think I can manage that just yet.”

“Then we can stay put right here.” He stoked the embers in the grate and tossed on another log before reclining back with a barely disguised wince.

The need for sleep clawed at him, but he couldn’t rest until he could be sure she would still be around when he woke up. As if he could anchor her here a while longer, he draped the Inuit blanket over her again to cover her escaped toes. The wings of the raven woven into the print seemed to wrap around her protectively, the way he burned to do.

Settling beside her, he curled an arm around her waist. “I make amazing chocolate chip pancakes.”

She laughed again, more freely this time. “Sounds positively… unhealthy.”

“Whipped cream and all, which is not limited to use on the pancakes. I have a sweet tooth.”

“I noticed from your kitchen.” Sunny captured his hand, her thin fingers linking with his with surprising strength. “I have to go, you know that.”

Yeah, he’d gotten that vibe and didn’t like how much the thought of her leaving unsettled him. “You’re a bit underdressed and most of the world’s still asleep. We may be in a town bigger than yours, but we’re still not in the City That Never Sleeps.”

“Huh?” She gave him a blank look, her hazel eyes uncomprehending.

“New York City… the City That Never Sleeps… Never mind. Explaining jokes doesn’t work.” Just like the whole “Free Bird” moment back in the cave, it was as if she had holes in her vocabulary.

“Point made. We’re in Alaska.” Her words were hurried, embarrassed almost. “The pace is slower. This whole huge state is like a small community.”

How secluded was her mountain town? “And where exactly in Alaska would you be from, in case I wanted to call you for pizza and a movie?”

She sat up abruptly, blanket clutched to her chest. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea.” She held out her arm for Chewie to sit beside her, her fingers disappearing into the dog’s black-and-white coat. “Unless I misunderstand, your job takes you away most of the time, and even when you’re around, dating me? Well, the commute’s a bitch.”

“Hey, I’m only talking about a date. And as for the commute, doesn’t everyone around here hitch rides on all the little planes like they’re buses or taxis?” He wasn’t in the market for anything long-term, especially not with a deployment to Afghanistan coming up soon. He tugged a strand of her hair, the same chestnut brown, rich color of the woven blanket. “Why don’t you leave it to me to decide if I can handle the trek? Starting when I take you back.”

“You aren’t going to go with that ‘You’re my mission’ line again, are you?”

“That would be pointless.”

“I’m glad you understand.” She tipped her head, easing her hair from his hand, her emotional walls all too clear.

“So you want me to do what, exactly?”

She studied him warily, her eyes as narrowed and standoffish as the dog’s. “I do need help, obviously. There should be money wired to me by the morning. That’s why I needed to use your computer. So it’s only a matter of finding out which bank to go, which will be in an email.”

“And if the money’s not already there this morning?”

Her hold tightened around her dog’s neck. “I don’t want to borrow trouble. Let’s wait and see.”

Frustration chewed through him, damn near buzzing in his ears, louder and louder. Until he realized his cell phone was vibrating on the kitchen table. Ignoring the call wasn’t an option. It could be work, and if he had to leave, she wouldn’t even be here when he returned.

Damn it all. For once he didn’t look forward to the rush of a new mission. He shoved to his feet and padded barefoot and naked across the room. He couldn’t even take heart in the fact he felt Sunny’s eyes following him every step of the way.

He snatched his phone from the table, and sure enough, a number with a prefix from the base flashed across the screen. “Sergeant Rocha speaking.”

“Wade, my friend.” Major McCabe’s voice filled the earpiece with none of his normal lighthearted humor. “You’d better sit down. The National Guard just checked in after retrieving those two bodies.”

“And?”

“There weren’t just two bodies.”

His gut clenched. His eyes shot to Sunny. “How many?”

“Thirteen, for now, including the pair you found. But there could be more. They’re still scouring the site. And every one of them was murdered, throat slashed.”

The memory of Ted and Madison staring up sightlessly through the ice slammed through his brain. He plowed a hand through his hair and wondered how to break this news to the woman staring at him intently from across the room. The woman who would be devastated when she found out the news. “Thanks for letting me know.”

So he could make damn sure Sunny didn’t take off on her own once that cash transfer came through.

“This isn’t just a courtesy call,” McCabe continued. “Since you’re involved, Special Agent Lasky with our OSI is working with local cops. We need for you both to come to base to look at some pictures, see if she recognizes any of the faces.”

His eyes raked over her protectively and he balked at the notion of exposing her to more violence, putting those images in her brain forever. She stared back at him curiously, her arms still around her dog’s neck, the blanket draped over her. He wanted to freeze this moment, because without a doubt, he knew in his gut that life was about to go to hell hard and fast.

And while he couldn’t protect her from she was about to see, no way was he letting her out of his sight.