Targeted by the SEAL: HERO Force book six Read online

  She stepped on the milk crate and leaned into him, knowing before he did that he would grab her ass and hold her against his stiffening cock. His tactical fatigues were rough and wet, covered in pockets and belt loops that rubbed the sensitive flesh of her sex.

  He was kissing her face, her forehead, her neck, and she imagined he would leave behind bruises as he roughly sucked at her skin.

  Then he was trying to pull away, slow down what was happening between them, and she brought his hand up to her breast, moaning when he squeezed it.

  He cursed again. “You need to get dressed. We don’t have a lot of time.”

  “No, you need to get undressed. It’s easier to fuck you that way.” She threw herself back into his arms, kissing him, his arms coming around her once more.

  “Jesus, Cass.” He ground against her. “I need you to come with me. Please get some clothes on.”

  She bit his ear. “That isn’t really what you want.”

  “Now, Cassidy! We have to go before someone catches me here.”

  She leaned back. “What?”

  “We need to leave.”

  “I’m not going anywhere. I need to find—”

  “You’re looking for your friend. Your parents told me all about it. But Cassidy, her press credentials were mailed to her editor at the Washington Post, along with her necklace. She was discovered. She’s gone, sweetie.”

  She shook her head frantically. “No. That’s not possible. I got a ping from her on my satellite phone yesterday.”

  “A ping?”

  “Yeah. It’s just a blip, no information, but it shows she tried to contact me.”

  “It must have been someone else.”

  “No. She’s alive.”

  “How else would those things have shown up in the mail? They were bloody, Cassidy.”

  “I don’t know, but there must be some rational explanation.”

  “It’s not safe for you here.”

  “I’m not just going to leave her!”

  He crossed his arms. “What’s your plan, then? You really going to marry that guy?”

  “If I have to do that to find her, then yes.”

  “Unfuckingbelievable.” The disdain in his voice was no different than the disdain in her heart, but she hated that it was directed at her, that he’d so quickly judged her and found her lacking. He grabbed her clothes and handed them to her.

  “Will you turn around please?” she asked.

  “You’re kidding.”

  “No.”

  He turned to face the wall and she pulled up her panties and tugged on her clothes, with more than a little regret. “I’m done.”

  He turned around and met her stare. “You’re sure you won’t come with me?”

  She shook her head. “Positive.”

  “Then I’m sorry I have to do this.”

  Before she realized what he was about, he reached around her with arms seemingly made of steel. A sharp sting in her ass cheek made her gasp with surprise. “What are you doing?”

  “Rest for a while, sweetheart.”

  She felt drunk almost immediately, the dizziness in her head suddenly overpowering her consciousness. She didn’t understand what was happening, could barely understand what he’d done.

  He drugged me. He injected me with something.

  “Bastard,” was all she got out.

  Her eyelids were too heavy for her to keep her eyes open and she fought for balance. Were those his hands on her upper arms? She was going to fall. That was her last thought before she completely lost consciousness.

  8

  Austin heated his MRE with a chemical pack. It was too risky to light a fire just in case anyone realized Cassidy had left the compound and came searching for her tonight. With her added weight he hadn’t been able to get as far as he would’ve liked, only a mile and a half, maybe two.

  He set up his tent on the top of a small hill and snuggled her inside it. It had already been more than two hours since he knocked her out with the injection and he wondered if she was still unconscious or simply asleep.

  She’s going to wake up around about the time I cozy up next to her.

  And she was bound to be mighty pissed this time around, not like she was in the shower.

  Just the thought of it had his cock leaping to life. Five hot seconds in her presence and he’d all but fucked her against the shower wall. She would have let him, too. After all this time, she would have let him come right back inside her body like they’d never even stopped being lovers.

  That was a heady truth to swallow.

  He pulled out cornbread and broke off a piece, unseeing.

  What did you expect?

  He had to think about that one for a minute, his mind going back over their last meeting.

  Disdain.

  She’d seemed so much better than him that day, as if she’d slipped on a pair of shoes that made her taller than anyone else could possibly be. They weren’t right for each other. They were just too different.

  He knew what that meant. He wasn’t good enough for her, would never run in the same circles as her wealthy and politically connected family. He was a scrub from Brooklyn, the way he talked not suitable for certain functions.

  Hell, it would be better if she’d been like that now instead of throwing her naked self around him like a pretzel, all but begging him to have sex with her.

  He could hear David Kelleher’s voice in his head, hear the desire in it as he talked about pleasuring Cassidy with his body. About marrying her. That bastard didn’t know how close he’d come to a punch to the throat and a knot in his balls, but Cassidy had allowed him to talk to her that way.

  No. She’d encouraged it.

  And that turned his blood into some toxic mix of testosterone and adrenaline so that he couldn’t decide what to do first—kick David’s ass or fuck hers.

  Keep your dick in your pants and your head in the game, asshole.

  The sound of nylon rubbing against nylon alerted him to her wakefulness. It was a cloudless night, with enough moonlight to illuminate their small camp reasonably well.

  “Cassidy?”

  The noises stopped. “You knocked me out.”

  “I had to get you out of there without you making a scene.”

  More rustling, then the sound of the tent zipper unzipping. “You took me away from The Community?”

  “Yep.”

  She climbed out of the small tent and stood, looking around at the woods that surrounded them, the peaks of her nipples standing out against the fabric of her shirt. “You had no right to do that! I wanted to be there. You had no right to take me away!”

  He shrugged. “It’s my job. I told you, your parents are worried about you and they sent me to find you and bring you home.”

  “And I’m worried about Julianne and trying to find her and bring her home.”

  “She’s dead, Cassidy.”

  She put her hands on her hips. When she spoke, her voice was trembling. “You’ve got it wrong. She’s alive and David is the key to her disappearance. I’ve been trying to get close to him so I can find out what happened. He was going to have Lucas give me a tour of the ranch tomorrow.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “If you’re right and she’s alive, I’ll come back here myself and get her just as soon as I bring you home.”

  Cassidy waved her arm in the air. “Why not go back right now? We can’t be far away, and I left my satellite phone, my notes, everything. She needs our help, Austin.”

  “I need to make sure you’re safe. I don’t want you back there with that crazy bastard.”

  She crossed to him and pushed his chest. “You don’t get to tell me what to do.”

  “Your parents hired HERO Force to find you and bring you back, and that’s what I’m doing.”

  “What kind of hero leaves a woman to die? She’s pregnant. Did you know that?” She covered her mouth with her hand.

  “She’s already gone. I’m sorry for your friend,
Cassidy, and I’m sorry for her baby, I really am. But she’s dead and putting yourself in harm’s way isn’t going to bring her back.” He picked up the MRE and held it out toward her. “Eat something. You need your strength.”

  She knocked the food to the ground. “If you won’t take me back, I’ll go on my own.”

  He all but growled with frustration. “Be my guest. We’re a couple of miles away. I figure even if you head out in the right direction, you don’t have any kind of protection against bears or coyotes, do you? Because they make quick work of a cute little meal like you.”

  She looked around, seeming to consider each direction as if looking for a star in the sky to guide her. Her eyes slowly came back to his. “Damn it, Austin. Don’t do this.”

  He looked away. “I’m not doing anything. You lied to your family and you’ve been hiding at some kind of cult for weeks now. Your boss didn’t want you there and your colleague has already lost her life. It’s right for me to bring you home. If you can’t see that, then I guess you’ll just have to cry to Daddy when we get there.”

  She slapped his face. He saw it coming—could have stopped it even—but he did not. In the silence that followed, they eyed each other angrily. She was the first to speak. “I don’t go crying to my Daddy anymore. And if you had an ounce of sense in that thick head of yours, you’d see I’m trying to do the right thing for once in my life.”

  She turned away. “I’m going to go back to sleep and tomorrow morning I’m heading back to The Community.” She crawled into the tent, nylon rustling until it was once again quiet in the forest.

  9

  Jax paced the length of the operations room, Noah on a computer and Logan in a wheelchair, his leg outstretched and covered in a camouflage patterned cast.

  His femur had been snapped in two when he hit the ground. He would have been dead if Noah hadn’t grabbed him and held onto him until they hit the tree line, his parachute failing completely. The accident threw them off course by nearly a half mile.

  It was Noah who got Logan out of those woods and back to safety, Noah’s medical skills that kept Logan from bleeding out and dying. It would be six months or more before Logan’s leg healed completely.

  Cowboy leaned over Noah’s shoulder, chanting, “Come on you motherfucker. Where the hell are you?”

  Austin’s geolocation beacon was malfunctioning, only broadcasting a signal intermittently. The last time they connected, it showed he was inside Longwood Ranch.

  “I can’t believe he went in there alone,” said Jax. “It was careless. No—stupid.” He ran a hand through his hair.

  Cowboy moved to a chair and sat in it backwards. “It was the timetable. He knew if he didn’t try for the compound, he wouldn’t have time to get back here and regroup.”

  “Doesn’t do him or the senator’s daughter a shit ton of good if he’s dead,” said Jax.

  “He just might make it,” said Cowboy.

  “If he does, I’m going to fire his ass. I don’t need a renegade I can’t trust to make good decisions running loose out there.”

  “He knows her,” said Noah. All heads turned in his direction.

  “Come again?” asked Cowboy.

  “When we were on the tarmac waiting to takeoff, he told me she’d once been his girlfriend. He didn’t tell you guys that?”

  Jax put his hands on his hips. “Fuck.” He shook his head. “Double fuck. Why didn’t somebody share this little tidbit of information with me? He had no business going up in that plane in the first place.”

  Cowboy shrugged. “We knew the Lanes were personal friends of his. That’s why they came to us.”

  “Being friends with an old man and screwing that man’s daughter on an ongoing basis is not the same thing,” said Jax. “Do any of you think he went into The Community alone because he felt a sense of duty to the senator and his wife?”

  No one answered.

  “That’s right,” said Jax. “He went in there because he’s making decisions with his dick instead of his goddamn brain. We need to mobilize. Get the fuck back out there in case he needs our help.”

  “Noah, you and I go wheels up within the hour. You ready to jump out of a plane again after what happened the last time?” asked Cowboy.

  “Absofuckinlutely.”

  “Good. No fancy moves this time.” Cowboy winked.

  “Happy to oblige.”

  10

  Cassidy was so frustrated she wanted to scream. Austin Dixon—what a blast from the past that name was—was screwing up the most important thing she’d ever done in her life. Julianne was alive. She knew it. She had to convince him to go back.

  She thought of her parents and frowned. She never intended for them to find out. Since when were they in the habit of checking up on her? Since her father entered politics when she was ten years old, they’d seemingly lost interest in their only daughter. She knew they loved her, sure. But worry for her? Wonder where she was or doubt what she had told them? Never.

  She was the responsible daughter of a responsible man. A reporter for one of the most well respected newspapers in the country. She was not a child and she didn’t appreciate being treated like one.

  Especially by a man I just threw myself at, naked.

  That was the rub. Despite what he’d done she was still painfully attracted to him, like her twenty-year-old self had taken over her thirty-year-old body. She was a walking hormone—angry as hell and hornier than she had any right to be.

  Fuck him.

  Yeah, you’d like that, wouldn’t you?

  Breaking up with Austin had been incredibly difficult, and it had forever changed the relationship between her and her parents. He wasn’t suitable marriage material, said her mother—a dozen photos from a tabloid photographer in a neat pile between them. And what will people say?

  Her father was up for re-election. The photographer was considerate enough to sell the photos to the senator instead of sullying his daughter’s good name with the pictures of her making love to a sailor on a speedboat in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay.

  They’d taken something beautiful and made it ugly, then they used it to blackmail her parents and control her actions.

  When Austin had shown up outside her shower, something inside her snapped. Every pent-up emotion she’d been holding inside since he left her life came crashing into her present like a dam breaking loose. She’d shown Austin her lust, but what she’d really been feeling was the memory of overwhelming love.

  Careful, Cassidy.

  He didn’t love her. Never had. Hell, he didn’t even respect her enough to listen to her wishes and help her save Julianne. Her mouth turned down in a hard frown. God, was it possible he was right? Could Julianne and the baby be dead?

  All the sadness she’d kept at bay rose up and overwhelmed her, every tear she’d forced to stay inside during her time with The Community now flowing out of her eyes and down her cheeks.

  She must have cried herself to sleep, because the next thing she knew the zipper on the tent was opening and Austin was climbing in. “You’ve got to be kidding. Isn’t there another tent?” she asked, exasperated.

  “Yep. It’s in Logan’s pack.”

  “Let me guess. Logan’s one of the guys you got separated from.”

  “That’s right. Scoot over. I’ll keep you warm.”

  That did hold a certain appeal. The tent wasn’t cold exactly, but it was a far cry from warm. She moved over but barely managed to make room for him anyway.

  Perfect.

  Just what I need right now—another close encounter with Austin.

  Her head ached dully from her crying and she didn’t feel equipped to defend herself against her feelings for this man right now. When he settled and opened his arm for her to cuddle against his side as he’d done so many times before, she froze.

  “Come here,” he said so casually, she simply complied, her head resting on his t-shirt-covered chest and his arm sliding down her back. He stroked her gently,
just as he used to do, and Cassidy was filled with emotion.

  Better not examine that too closely.

  Besides, she needed to be worrying about Julianne right now, not her unresolved feelings for Austin.

  “Do you really think she’s dead?”

  “Yes. I’m sorry, Cass.”

  “She’s my best friend. We started at the Post together right out of college. We got all the shit assignments together, and we had to prove to our editor we could handle more, each of us on our own stories but seeming to mirror each other’s journey, you know?”

  Austin kissed the top of her head and let her cry. He continued to stroke her back. It felt so good to be in his arms, so familiar and safe, and she reminded herself how angry she was with him for making her leave the compound.

  It would be so easy to lift her head and kiss him, no one nearby to interrupt them this time. But she had to be smart. They couldn’t be far away from the ranch. Austin was strong, but she didn’t imagine he was strong enough to carry her forever. It wasn’t too late to convince him to go back. Sleeping with him and tapping into the feelings they’d once shared could only help her get her way, not hurt her chances.

  Except the feelings had been hers, their relationship one-sided in that regard. Austin had been all-in for the sex, but she was the only one who’d fallen in love, and she knew if she slept with him now it would bring up all the old feelings. She would feel just as tethered to him emotionally as she had been all those years before.

  No. I’m stronger now.

  I’m not the same person I was then.

  Maybe she could survive a tryst with him and keep right on going instead of crashing her love life into a tree. Her leg curled higher on his and he moaned softly.

  Nobody to interrupt them.

  Nothing to stop them.

  If she responded to him, they would make love.