Rogue Soldier (10 page)

“Couldn't life be easy just once?” she grumbled as she got out.

“If life was easy, this country wouldn't need people like us,” he said.

It felt good to be counted in the same category with him.

“Are you okay?” he asked as he came after her.

“Fine. You're bleeding.” She reached to the bloody spot on his cheekbone, but he shrugged, making light of it.

“Just a scratch.”

They checked out the van together. The front end was smashed up badly.

“Damn.”

“Let's give it a try.” She walked back to the van, refusing to concede defeat, and turned the key in the ignition. Nothing. She let her head rest against the steering wheel for a moment before gathering herself and getting out. “How far are we from town?”

“Too far.”

Which meant that, unless a good Samaritan drove by and offered them a lift within the next few minutes, there was no way they could make it to the harbor in time. And the chance of another vehicle on this remote road at this time was… There was no chance at all.

“Mike?”

He'd been staring at the crumpled hood, but his attention snapped to her.

“Where are the caribou? If we injured any, we should put them out of their pain.”

He glanced around. “They're probably a ways down the road by now.”

She peered through the darkness as far as she
could see, but spotted no large shadows on the ground. She walked back to the road, found the spot where they'd had the accident and shook her head in wonder as she took in the jumble of hoof prints, not a drop of blood among them.

The reindeer had been lucky. She looked up as other animals came to mind.

“What?” Mike was watching her.

“You know how a few days ago you asked about polar bears and I said we weren't in their territory?”

He nodded cautiously.

“We are now,” she said.

He took a few seconds to glance around before going back to the van and lifting the hood. He was clanging around for a while then gave up with a disgusted string of obscenities.

She walked back to him. “Let's get in the van while we figure something out.” They had a long walk ahead of them. No sense in getting a head start on hypothermia.

He nodded and followed her.

“Let me see that phone,” he said when they were both inside and the doors were closed behind them. He turned it on once she passed it over, played the buttons as if it were a video game.

“What are you doing?”

“Reprogramming it to get around the password.”

“You can do that?”

He flashed her a smile that was close enough to his old cocky self to give her hope.

When he was done, he dialed, swore and flipped the phone closed then stuck it into his inside pocket.

“Didn't work?”

He turned to her with a raised eyebrow as if slightly insulted. “No signal. Damn storm.”

She turned on the dome light and squeezed into the back, looked around for anything that could be helpful. She picked up the blanket. They'd definitely take that. The tire iron, too, in case they came across any unfriendly wildlife. Mike had Brady's gun, but she wasn't sure what it had in the way of bullets.

She was crawling back to the front when the idea hit her. “Remember our first date?”

He looked at her with more than a little surprise. “What exactly here reminds you of Arizona?”

“This.” She grinned and shoved the blanket at him. They'd gone windsurfing during their twenty-four-hour leave from desert training.

He caught on quick and his lips spread into a smile. “You're good.”

“I try. What else do we need?”

“You get two tires off the van, I'll go find something for poles. Got anything useful on you?”

She shook her head. “Your emergency kit?”

“It's back at our room.” He looked through the car, leaving no part of it unexplored. “If there were any trees out here, we'd be good,” he said.

She struggled with the tires but was managing.

“I have another idea.” He walked to the front of the car. “Forget the blanket. We'll have a solid sail.”

He yanked on the hood. It gave, having been already damaged in the crash. When he was done, he pulled some tubing and wiring. Then they went to work on their contraption.

Mike placed the tire iron between the two tires to separate them and tied them on while she worked on securing their metal “sail.” She glanced at her watch. It was eight thirty in the morning. They still had time. The boat was set to leave at first light, after ten.

They rigged the hood to the tires, then carried the whole thing over to the road. They each pushed a tire, running behind. Mike pulled the “sail” standing, and with one hand, tied it off. The wind caught it just as they each jumped onto a tire. Then they were flying down the road, the smooth sides of rubber tires sliding easily on the frozen snow.

“Not too bad.” She grinned from ear to ear.

“This baby knows speed.” Mike grinned back at her.

They were making good progress, but getting
colder and colder. The heat generated by their initial efforts wore off quickly, her good humor turning to thoughts of survival. They couldn't snuggle up now, or even wrap their arms around themselves. They each had to hold one side of the hood steady and into the wind, no matter how their arms ached, or how the wind whipped their backs.

They raced against time, the lives of thousands, perhaps tens of thousands in their hands.

She glanced over at Mike's hard-set face and felt a familiar tug on her heart. This was the Mike she had fallen for. He was the kind of man who would rush into danger if he thought he could help, without regard for race or nationality or religion. He would put himself on the line over and over, for people who needed to be saved.

He would go to Russia and try to get the warheads, even though if he got caught, he would be tried and imprisoned as a spy by the very people he was trying to save. But Mike wasn't the type of man to count personal risk when it came to a mission.

He had such a strength in him. It drew her and scared her at the same time, and how foolish was that, considering he had never once given her a reason to feel scared around him?

She had insisted on being treated as an equal, on making a team with him. But she hadn't wanted a
true team. She'd wanted two separate independent entities who happened to work and live together.

A real team meant more. The last couple of days they'd spent fighting for survival taught her that. A real partnership meant interdependence instead of independence. And for the first time, she started to consider that maybe it wasn't a weakness.

If they got out of this mess alive— She had a hard time finishing the thought. She wasn't sure if she could walk away from Mike again, wasn't sure if she wanted to. But the only alternative was putting her heart on the line again. Could she do that? Or was it already too late? Was she just pretending to still have power over that decision?

 

N
OT A MOMENT TO LOSE
. Mike caught sight of one of the Russian fishermen pulling in the last rope, their boat slipping away from the dock. They were almost there. Just a little more. He walked as fast as he could without drawing attention. They lucked out in that department. The Nome harbor was nearly deserted. Two men stood talking at the far end, paying attention to little else other than the argument between them.

He watched the sailor wind up the rope.

“Come on, get inside,” he murmured to the sole man on deck, as if he could somehow send him a mental message.

They moved out of the shelter of the crates that lined
the street. The wind had died down, but it was still snowing a little, and the cold was biting with full force.

There was a four-foot gap now between the boat and the dock, five feet, six feet and growing.

The man finally slipped inside the pilot's house. Mike ran and jumped without hesitation, the boat big enough that he didn't rock it. Tessa was making a run for it, following him.

No. Too late. The dock was too far now.

Relief filled him for a second. She would have to stay behind, stay safe.

But instead of slowing down, she picked up speed and flew off the end of the dock, her arms flailing as she swooshed through the air.

His heart stopped. Blood rushed loudly in his ears. The water. She was going to hit the water.

The next second he was lurching over the edge, reaching for her, prepared to go in if he had to. He didn't. He managed to catch her by the top of her fingers. He grabbed for her wrist, needing a better grip, then pulled her up, and for a second crushed her to his chest, and just held her there, unable to talk or do anything more.

If either of them had had their gloves on, he would have lost her to the icy, churning water. The thought tore through his brain and he hugged her tighter still. “Don't you ever—” He started to say, but then just shook his head and let her go.

There was no time to be mad at her for taking such a risk. They had to get out of sight before the man in the pilot house looked back. He opened the lid of the cargo hold and slid down first to make sure it was safe before signaling Tessa to follow him.

A fair-size space waited for them below. He made a more thorough inspection once his eyes got used to the dark and he could see farther. Crates and packages were piled high everywhere. Tessa moved first, and he followed her all the way to the back where they were least likely to be discovered if any of the crew came down.

They could hear men talking on the other side of a thin wooden wall where the cargo hold joined the crew's cabin. He figured four or five of them, judging by the voices. It confirmed what he'd determined the day before, watching them coming and going from the boat.

He looked at Tessa, making a signal, and she nodded as she sat on a large crate, understanding his unspoken message. If they could hear the men, that meant the men would hear them. They would have to make the trip in silence. They couldn't risk being discovered. The weapons smugglers were a day ahead of them, in Uelen already, prepared to move deeper into Siberia.

She was dying.

She didn't hate the general feeling of misery as much as she hated her helplessness. That really ticked her off.

The boat rocked violently from side to side, the waves crashing above them as they washed over the deck. Tessa heaved, but nothing came up. Her stomach had been emptied hours ago.

Mike had cleaned up her mess and found some water for her to rinse her mouth.

He sat next to her on top of the large crate where she was sprawled out on her back, and held her head on his lap. He smoothed her hair out of her face with long, gentle fingers.

“Feeling any better?”

She didn't have the strength to answer.

Her first time on a boat. She hoped it would be the
last. If she'd had the strength for it, she would have felt embarrassed. Here she'd been trying to prove how tough and strong she was, how no obstacle could get in her way when she was on a mission, and she'd been undone, undone to the point of defenselessness, by some choppy water. All she could do was moan when the boat pitched again and her stomach flipped over.

The place smelled musky, a mixture of seawater and old wood, and other smells left behind by various cargoes of the past. She turned her head and pressed her face to Mike's leg, inhaled his familiar scent of sweat and maleness that was neither sharp nor unpleasant, reminding her of cedar wood. She closed her eyes to pretend they were on solid ground.

The small pup tent her imagination brought forth wasn't a huge stretch from the dark belly of the ship. Mike and she had been a team, each carrying half of the tent during the endless exercises, sharing it, huddled in their separate sleeping bags at night.

He'd been trying to get into her pants for months by then, so had half of the platoon. Except that, unlike with the rest of the men, she
was
attracted to Mike, and to more than his quick, lethal smile and combat-honed body.

They were all tough and brave, but Mike was more. You got to know a man when you fought side
by side with him. He had honor and a surprising side of gentleness that came out at the oddest moments and took her breath away.

And yet she'd ignored whatever it was that drew her to him. She hadn't wanted to be wanted because she was the only woman in sight.

She remembered the night when that had changed, when she'd finally come to him. They had done really well that day, and they talked about strategy, making plans for the morning. She'd been so optimistic and grateful for getting a partner who didn't resent her presence there, who was open-minded enough to give her a chance. Not all of the five provisional female recruits had been that lucky.

She had thrown her arms around his neck and brushed her lips over his, just about jumping with excitement, meaning it a gesture of… Well, however she had meant it wasn't the way he had taken it. His arms locked around her like a steel cage, his lips crushing down on hers so suddenly that she had panicked, pulled back and butted her head with full force against his mouth to make him release her.

He had, swearing as he stepped away.

She had drawn her arm back, ready to follow up with her best hook to the soft of his stomach, but the look in his eyes had stopped her, as had the drop of blood that rolled off his split lip.

Her own lips had still burned from his kiss.

“I'm sorry,” he had said. “I didn't mean to scare you.”

“You didn't.” She'd drawn herself up. Admitting to being scared went against her grain.

“I thought you wanted to.”

“I didn't.”

He'd nodded, then looked at her warily when she stepped closer, but all she'd done was wipe off the drop of blood. Her fingertips had tingled where she'd touched his lips, the strange sensation running up her arms and tightening her nipples.

She
had
been scared, and it had infuriated her. She'd hated the weakness of it. But beyond the panicky urge to flee, another sensation blossomed in her body and it proved hard to ignore.

“I want to now,” she had said to prove she wasn't afraid of anything, and brushed her lips gently over his swollen one. She'd kissed him and he'd let her, allowing her to take as much or as little as she had wanted. He had kept his hands by his sides.

Her body had been humming with need by the time she was done. “I want more,” she had said, and he had given a strangled laugh.

“If I touch you, are you going to try to maim me?”

“Scared?” She had turned the tables on him.

“Nah. I'm thinking it's worth the risk.” He had kissed her then, softly, but making it clear he meant it.

When his hands had stolen up her arms, she hadn't pulled away, not even when his palms cupped her aching breasts.

“I've never done this before,” she'd murmured against his lips.

He had drawn away. “Are you sure you want to? With me?”

She had nodded, unable to say the words.

He'd nodded back solemnly and kissed her again.

He hadn't taken her—they had taken each other. It had been petrifying and glorious at the same time, small drops of pain mixed in with an ocean of pleasure.

God, it seemed like a million years ago.

The boat rolled again, and Tessa's fingers curled into Mike's thigh, the contact bringing her back from the past. Her stomach seemed a little more settled, probably because she had managed to keep her mind off her wretched state for a while.

He bent to her ear, his warm breath tickling her earlobe when he spoke. “Feeling any better?”

The clamor of the storm was loud enough to drown out any other noise, so they no longer had to worry about detection, but still they kept to whispering.

She nodded hesitantly.

“I didn't realize this would be your first time on a ship.”

“If you say one more time how you wish you'd left me behind in Nome, I'm going to gather up enough strength to hit you if it kills me.”

He lifted her left hand and massaged the area between her wrist bones. “It's supposed to help with nausea,” he said.

She let him, not because she believed anything on this earth could help her, but because she didn't want to waste energy by protesting.

When he was done with the left hand, he moved on to the right, the gentle pressure of his fingertips warming her skin. His rhythmic caresses felt nice, distracting her from her misery if nothing else.

“Better?”

“Maybe.” She made some noncommittal sounds.

“Let me try the feet.” He pulled off her mukluks and put them next to her parka that he had helped her out of earlier to keep it out of harm's way.

He tried massaging through her socks for a few seconds before he pulled them off, frustrated. She didn't need them; she wasn't cold. The crew's cabin next to them had some kind of a stove, and heat radiated through the wall.

“I'm not sure what the right spot is here, so I'm
just going to go over everything. Let me know if something works.”

He started with her toes and massaged them until they were tingling. He moved on to the ball of her foot, then to the arch. He caressed the hollow below her ankle, alternating pressure with lighter strokes.

The storm was quieting outside, but inside her, sensations swirled that made her forget everything but his touch.

“Better now?”

“Yes.”

“Want me to stop?”

“No.”

She had forgotten her seasickness a while back. Pleasure radiated up her body now from every spot he touched. He had noticed the change in her, too, his caresses growing suggestive and sensuous.

She bit back a sigh. She was only letting him do this because she was going to die, anyway, no sense of dying miserable instead of happy if she had the choice.

A few minutes passed before she realized she might not have a choice after all. Her body was making its intentions crystal clear, her blood humming with need.

“I don't remember you being this solicitous before,” she said. “One of the scores of women you've had since I last saw you taught you good.” Some of the pain returned at the thought.

“Scores?” He crooked an eyebrow.

True. What had she been thinking. It had been three full years. “More?”

He shook his head.

It was a stupid game. She didn't want to know. “Ten?” She pulled her feet from his grasp.

He shook his head again.

“Four?” She'd had four lovers since him, although she had trouble believing he would restrict himself to that few. Her first had been to prove that she was over Mike. The second to erase the memory of the disastrous first. The third to prove that she could have another relationship and not still yearn after the man who'd broken her heart. She gave up after that third one. George had been unplanned and unexpected, friendship trying to stretch into more between two lonely people who got along well in every other regard.

“There hasn't been anyone,” he said so quietly she barely caught it above the noises of the sea.

She couldn't have been more surprised if he'd confessed that he was an alien. Or more disbelieving.

It had to be a line. An angle he was working. “Right, tell me another one.”

He stayed quiet, but she could see his shoulders stiffen.

“I'm sorry,” she whispered, truly stunned now. “It's just that—”

“Never mind,” he said, and pulled away.

Mike McNair had lived three years of celibacy because of her. It boggled the mind. She wouldn't have thought it possible, unless there'd been a disabling accident.

A funny feeling spread through her chest cavity.

“I'm sorry,” she said again. “For everything.”

“Me, too, Tessa.” He reached out a hand, but dropped it before he reached her.

“Touch me.”

He stepped up to her head and drew a finger down her cheek, then stopped.

“Like before.”

He picked up her hand and started to massage it again.

“No, like before before.” She pulled her hand away. And from the slow smile that spread across his face, she knew he finally understood what she was talking about.

A look passed between them, crackling with tension, passions awakening.

“It's been too long, you might have to show me.” His voice was thick.

He was teasing her now. She'd be damned if she would let him have the upper hand this once. She sat up to face him, let her fingers learn his face all over again. He watched her with an intensity that took her
breath away but did not reach for her. She grew uncertain for a moment and buried her face in the warm nook of his neck.

Her lips touched muscles that were taut with tension. He was holding his body in iron control. She smiled against his skin, her will rising to the challenge, her body forgetting about the rolling waves beneath them.

Her hands slid up his chest, over the planes of muscles, then dipped down to get under the clothes that separated his burning skin from her fingertips. His flat nipples hardened into rock, and he bit back a groan when she skimmed over them.

She let her hands roam where they might, let her fingers slide through the silky hairs that covered him, while she tasted the salty skin of his neck.

The past three years disappeared. Old passions slammed into her hard, crumbling her defenses, bringing back feelings she'd long buried if not forgotten.

“Tessa?” He whispered against her hair, his hot breath fanning the patch of exposed skin behind her ears, sending a delicious shiver across her skin.

Her response was to move closer, until her breasts pressed against his chest, her body seeking as much contact as their position allowed.

“Tessa,” he said again as his arms finally came around her.

She kissed the strong line of his jaw, the corner of his mouth, his cheeks, his closed eyelids, and in turn he did the same, responding in equal, but never pushing for more.

His control infuriated her now.

Damn him that he could still hold back, because she couldn't. She was past the point of reason.

She bit his earlobe, waiting for his arms to lift her up and lay her down, wanting him to take her the way she had remembered, hard and fast, taking no prisoners. He had always been gentle when needed, when they'd both been in the mood for it. But at other times… He'd been fireworks, dynamite, searing flashes of heat that drove her over the edge. She had missed their fiery joinings that used to leave her body aching.

That was what she wanted now. She wanted to be possessed and possess in return. She wanted oblivion. She wasn't a delicate flower, damn it.

But instead of the mad rush she was craving, he took her earlobe into his mouth, scraped it with his teeth before settling in to suckle it slowly. He was driving her mad.

She reached for the hem of her pullover and yanked it over her head together with the long-sleeved shirt beneath, separating herself from Mike but a moment before her lips were plastered against his.

The air in the cabin that was comfortable enough when she'd been fully dressed now nipped at her naked skin, the heat of his palms when they found her rib cage, a shock.

She had to tug at his clothes more than once before he pulled them off and she was finally settled against his warmth, skin to skin. She took a slow breath, let it out little by little.

“I missed this.” The admission slipped out before she could bite her lips.

“Me, too.” He dipped his head and buried his face between her breasts.

She arched her back as she reached for the clasp of her bra, pushing her tender skin into his rough beginnings of a beard, a sensation that sent her nerve endings singing and her skin tingling with pleasure.

He rubbed his face all over her, making small noises in the back of his throat. Her knees were trembling. She hugged his waist with her thighs and locked her legs together behind his back, bringing them into full contact, his unmistakable hardness pressed against her.

She squeezed her eyes together and let her head fall back, and the next moment his hot mouth found her puckered nipple. His wet heat drew her in until she thought she would melt onto his lap.