Special Ops Exclusive

chapter 2



Rebecca felt like someone had pulled the carpet out from under her feet. One second she was totally vertical, the next she was flat on her back, pain shooting through the side of her head and black dots marring her vision. She sucked in a deep breath, blinking wildly, trying to get her bearings. The pain in her temple didn’t abate, but her vision cleared to reveal just how precarious a situation she’d found herself in.

Angry faces and moving bodies whizzed above her. She braced both palms on the hot pavement and tried to stand up, only to fall backward when someone bumped into her. Someone else stepped on her foot, bringing a jolt of pain. Uh-oh. This was bad. Each time she succeeded in unsteadily climbing to her feet, she got knocked right back down, and now she was seeing stars again. Her eyes couldn’t seem to focus and shapes were beginning to look blurry.

The fear finally hit her, clogging her throat and making her heart pound.

Agony burned up her arm as she got stomped on again.

God.

She was going to get crushed in a stampede.

With a burst of adrenaline, she made another attempt to hurl herself to her feet—and this time it worked. She was off the ground and hovering over the crowd—wait, hovering over it? Blinking a few times, Rebecca realized the reason she felt like she was floating was because she was floating. She was tucked tightly in a man’s arms, a man who’d taken it upon himself to carry her away to safety, Kevin Costner–style.

“Who are you?” she murmured, but the inquiry got lost in the rioters’ shouts and the rapid popping noises of rubber bullets being fired into the crowd.

Jesse. Where was Jesse? Her out-of-focus gaze roamed the area but she couldn’t spot that bald head of his anywhere. She prayed he was okay, that he’d found his own savior to whisk him to safety.

She suddenly became aware of the most intoxicating scent, and she inhaled deeply, filling her lungs with that spicy aroma. It was him, she realized. God, he smelled good.

She glanced up to study the face of her rescuer, catching glimpses of a strong, clean-shaven jaw. Sensual lips. A straight nose. She wanted to see his eyes, but the angle was all wrong, so she focused on his incredible chest instead. Jeez, the guy must work out. His torso was hard as a rock, rippled with muscles that flexed at each purposeful step he took.

As much as she wanted to question this man, Rebecca decided to exercise some patience and wait until they cleared the mob. Shoot. She was going to receive a big fat I told you so when she reunited with her cameraman. He’d warned her not to venture too deep into the crowd, but at this point, she wasn’t sure why he bothered with the warnings anymore. After five years of working together, Jesse ought to know that Rebecca did what she wanted, when she wanted.

She hadn’t gotten to where she was by standing meekly on the sidelines; her reputation had been forged by her ability to throw herself in the middle of the action. She was only twenty-seven years old and she’d reported from countless war zones, covered everything from political scandals to genocide, and once she sank her teeth into a story, she refused to let go until she got to the heart of the matter.

She was Rebecca Parker, darn it. She didn’t cower from danger or allow something like a measly riot to slow her down.

Says the woman who nearly got trampled to death.

Rebecca ignored the mocking internal voice and clung tighter to her rescuer’s shoulders. Man, he had big shoulders. And he was tall. At least six-one, and she felt downright tiny in his arms.

Fine, so maybe she’d required a little assistance to get out of this latest jam, she amended, but for the most part, she usually managed to get in and out of tight spots with her own quick thinking and determination.

“You okay?”

The concerned male voice broke through her thoughts. She looked up at her rescuer, finally getting a good look at those elusive eyes.

Boy, were they worth the wait. At first glance they were brown—until you looked closer and realized they were the color of warm honey with flecks of amber around the pupils. And they were so magnetic that she felt hypnotized as she gazed into them.

“Ms. Parker?”

She blinked, forcing herself back to reality. “Oh. I’m fine,” she answered. “A little bruised, but I’ll live. And you can call me Rebecca. I think it’s only fitting I be on a first-name basis with the man who saved my life.”

His lips curved. “If you say so.”

It didn’t escape her that he hadn’t introduced himself in return, but before she could press him for a name, foghorns started blasting and a male voice blared out of a megaphone. A member of the police force, urging the demonstrators to disperse or else extreme measures would be taken. The crowd only got noisier, booing and yelling in response.

Rebecca stifled a sigh. She’d borne witness to enough riots to know that these people weren’t going anywhere. Now that the mob had gotten a taste of blood and violence, things would only escalate.

And she wouldn’t be there to cover it.

“Crap,” she muttered. “You have to put me down.”

Her rescuer didn’t miss a step. He kept bearing ahead at full speed.

“I’m serious.” She wiggled in his arms, trying to get free, but his grip tightened, making her realize just how strong this man was.

Struggling didn’t make a lick of difference. In the end, she gritted her teeth and clutched those broad shoulders. There wasn’t a darn thing she could do until he put her down.

A few minutes later, when they were well away from the screaming protesters, her personal bodyguard finally set her on her feet. Before she could say a word, he captured her chin with one hand and angled her head while his other hand lightly touched her left temple.

Pain jolted through her.

“The wound stopped bleeding,” her rescuer murmured in that deep, sexy voice of his. “But you’ve got a hell of a bump. How’s your vision? Any nausea? Follow my finger.”

As he moved his finger back and forth in front of her face, Rebecca’s lips tightened. “I’m fine,” she insisted.

“Follow my damn finger.”

Ah, he was one of those men, huh? Mr. Alpha.

Deciding to humor him, she tracked the movement of his finger with her eyes. She knew she didn’t have a concussion. She’d had several of those in the past, and although she’d taken a good knock to the side of the head, she was already feeling better, more oriented. Her surroundings were in perfect focus now, and aside from a slight throbbing in her temple, she felt alert.

Her savior must have reached the same conclusion, because he let those big hands drop from her face.

“You could’ve been killed,” he said flatly. “That was damn reckless of you, strolling right into the middle of that mob.”

A note of disapproval rang in his voice, making her roll her eyes. “Danger comes with the job,” she said with a shrug. “Although if I’m being honest, I wasn’t expecting this assignment to be so exciting. Election coverage tends to be boring.”

There was a screech of tires as several police cars skidded to a stop ten feet away from them. Her rescuer planted a hand on her upper arm and led her farther away from the street, dragging her along the cobblestone sidewalk toward the end of the block. Only a handful of curious bystanders loitered here, peering at the violent spectacle down the road while a few uniformed officers stood nearby, making sure the riot didn’t spread outward.

Rebecca allowed him to drag her to the corner, then shrugged his hand off and spun around. She squinted, searched the handful of news vans in the distance, and hitched a happy breath when she spotted Jesse. Smart-ass was actually standing on top of the red-and-white ABN van, just like he’d encouraged her to do earlier.

Chuckling, she dug her cell phone from the back pocket of her jeans and pressed a button on speed dial.

“I have to let my colleague know I’m all right,” she explained to her rescuer, who was watching her with those sharp amber eyes.

For a moment, she faltered, a sense of familiarity washing over her, but before she could examine that strange do-I-know-you-from-somewhere? feeling, Jesse’s voice came over the line.

“Becks! Where the hell are you?”

“I’m at the end of the block, just east of you. And don’t worry, I’m fine. I made it out alive.”

“Barely,” she heard her rescuer say.

Ignoring the angry mumble, she raised her arm and waved a few times. “You see me?”

“I see you.” Jesse sighed. “Don’t move. Dave ’n’ I will make our way over to you.”

“No, stay there,” she said, shoving a strand of hair out of her eyes. “Get some footage of the riot. I’ll head back in a minute and do a live report.”

“Are you frickin’ kidding—”

“From the van,” she quickly cut in. “Promise.”

“Fine. Get back here, Becks. This crowd is nuts.”

They hung up, and Rebecca glanced at the man who’d saved her life. “So...” She tilted her head. “You still haven’t told me your name.”

“I’m Nick. Nick Prescott.” He ran a hand through his hair, which was dark and thick, with a slight wave to it.

Again, that appealing scent floated in her direction. Subtle aftershave, soap, pure masculinity. She studied him, taking in the dark blue T-shirt that clung to every ridge and contour of his defined chest. The long legs encased in olive-green cargo pants. That classically handsome face.

It was odd—the man moved and behaved like a soldier, yet he gave off an aristocratic air. He came from wealth. She’d wager anything on it, even her most prized possession: the certificate listing her as a Pulitzer prize finalist, which was pinned to her bulletin board back home. Because she’d worked the White House beat when she’d first started out, she’d grown skilled at figuring out who was rich and who wasn’t, sometimes from just one quick look.

And this man was definitely rich.

Nick.

The name suddenly registered in her head. Wait a minute...

“What?” he muttered, seemingly uncomfortable by her scrutiny.

“Nick Prescott,” she echoed, fighting a rush of suspicion. “And what exactly do you do, Nick?”

He shrugged. “I’m a journalist, same as you.”

Bullcrap.

She narrowed her eyes. “Print or television?”

“Print. Freelance.” He answered smoothly, his previous discomfort having vanished. “Most of my pieces are featured in smaller publications. Nothing quite as impressive as your résumé.”

He flashed her a boyish grin, but Rebecca saw right through it. Ha. Did he honestly think he could distract her by stroking her ego? She was a shark, for Pete’s sake. And sharks never got distracted from their course, not after they’d caught a whiff of blood.

That feeling of familiarity grew stronger, teased her, nudged the back of her mind. Darn it. Where the heck did she know him from?

She swiftly scanned her mental databases, recalling the sources she’d relied on over the years, the conflicts she’d covered, the political figures she’d interviewed, the—

Back it up, Becks.

She frowned. Political figures. All right. Was this man a politician? A member of an influential family with fingers in the White House pie?

As far as she knew, there weren’t any powerful Prescotts in D.C. She worked the name over in her head a few times. Nick Prescott. Prescott. Nick. Nick Pres— Recognition slammed into her like a tidal wave.

No, she wasn’t familiar with a Nick Prescott.

She did, however, know of a Nick Barrett.

Holy crap!

Rebecca nearly gasped, but managed to curb the reaction at the last second. She couldn’t let him know she’d figured it out. If he was using a fake name, then that meant he didn’t want to alert anybody to his presence, and if he was going out of his way to hide his presence, then that meant...

Oh yeah, there was a story here, all right. No doubt about it.

And there was also no doubt in her mind that she was, at this very moment, in the company of Nick Barrett.

The son of America’s secretary of defense.