Over the Line (22 page)

She’d been home from her deployment for nearly six months. James had practically moved in with her and Jubilee. He travelled quite a bit, at his Commander’s beck and call as he had foreseen, and he was returning from one of those trips this afternoon.

An open letter lay on the countertop: an invitation to a final interview to be a Protection Officer at the CIA. No word from Director Walker, so she hoped that their shenanigans no longer mattered. The check he had written to “Beth Cojones” was framed and hanging in her bathroom.

Beth had got home early, showered, and dried her hair. Applied makeup, carefully put on the tiniest lace lingerie, with stockings and a lacy garter.

Now she sat on the edge of the bed, took the chain in her hand, and examined the ring. Very slowly, she pulled the chain over her head and unfastened it, removing the ring and putting it on her finger. It fit perfectly. He must have gotten it sized. It glinted in the light, flashing like a beacon. Excitement threaded through her veins.

Jubilee suddenly stood up and Beth followed his gaze. She heard the garage door open and James pulling his car in. She fluffed the bed and lay down on it, propped up by pillows. She even allowed one leg to drop open, just so he would immediately see that she was going commando, and dropped one camisole strap halfway down her arm.

He came into the house and banged his bags down on the floor. He was already undoing his uniform when he rounded the corner and clocked her on the bed.

“Sweetheart,” he drawled. “Are you happy to see me, or are you…” He hesitated. “Are you showing me how much you want to marry me?”

She gasped and sat up. “How could you possibly know?” She looked ruefully at her hand and wondered how he’d noticed it so quickly.

He sat next to her on the bed and let his fingers slide up her leg. The feel of his starched BDUs on her skin aroused her as much as his fingers. “You see, I have a secret,” he said softly, moving his fingers so slowly toward the heat between her legs.

She whimpered as his fingers touched her. She opened her legs wider in wanton need. His finger lazily circled her clit as he continued. “Want to know what it is?”

She groaned and nodded, moving her hips along with his fingers, urging him to touch more, harder and faster.

“Ever since you got home from your deployment, your ring finger is the first thing I look at whenever I see you.”

At his words, a flood of love, longing, and desire radiated through her. She whispered his name as he leaned down to kiss her. His tongue touched her lips, her teeth, and then her tongue, lightly sucking on it. With his other hand, he pulled down her camisole a fraction, so he could circle his cold fingers around her nipple. As he increased the pressure on her clit and dipped his head to taste her breast, she tensed under him.

He raised his head. “So the question is…” His touch between her legs increased in speed and force, making her pelvis jerk off the mattress to meet it.

She felt the beautiful warm wave of orgasm start building, and just as she reached the crest, he finally asked, “Will you marry me?”

Emmy Curtis is an editor and a romance writer. An ex-pat Brit, she quells her homesickness with Cadbury Flakes and Fray Bentos pies. She’s lived in London, Paris, and New York, and has settled, for the time being, in North Carolina. When not writing, Emmy loves to travel with her military husband and take long walks with their Lab. All things considered, her life is chock-full of hoot, just a little bit of nanny. And if you get that reference… well, she already considers you kin.

Learn more at:

EmmyCurtis.com

Twitter, @EmmyCurtis19

Facebook.com/EmmyCurtisAuthor

Please turn the page for a preview of the next book in the Alpha Ops series

Pushing the Limit

Available Winter 2014

Iraq, present day

Harry lightly fingered the artifact in her pocket as she watched her grad students at work. Okay, she was pretty sure it wasn’t an important artifact, historically anyway. But it was still an unusual find.

About three inches square, it was a piece of metal with embossed numbers. When she’d taken a photo and sent it to her lab, they had discovered the numbers were a code for an aircraft part. A military aircraft part.

She wondered if the piece had fallen from the sky, or if there had been a plane crash, or if it was just incidental detritus. As an archaeologist, she was very aware that the discovery of one artifact didn’t necessarily mean the rest of it was close by. Someone could have dropped it. Or sold it to someone who’d dropped it.

But to be safe, she’d e-mailed her friend Sadie at the Department of Defense, and passed on word of her discovery. It was out of her hands now, but she couldn’t help rubbing the piece of metal. It had become a touchstone. A talisman.

She pressed a button on her walkie-talkie. “That’s the farthest north side of our site, so mark that, please.” Molly and Jason pulled small red flags from their backpacks and placed them at intervals along the line of sight.

Harry checked the laptop and stopped them. “That’s the western border, there.” She did the same when they reached the other two sides of their site and then called them back. They hopped on their little ATV, and Harry smiled when she saw Molly wrap her arms firmly around Jason’s waist. Molly had driven the ATV a hundred times before and definitely did not need to hold on to anyone. Maybe recruiting Jason was more than just a good thing for Harry’s company.

She handed them bottles of water from the cooler when they got back to their small lab-trailer pop-up to the south of the site. Then she threw one at Mueen, who sat on top of the trailer. He was their armed security guard. Quiet, unassuming, with a slight American accent borne of study at U Penn, he was ever vigilant for problems, looters, or anyone that he deemed a threat to the team.

Harry had worked with him before, on her first visit to Iraq. He and his wife had been pillars of strength for her, coming for the first time to the country where her husband had died. And thanks to them, she’d felt almost at home here. She’d been delighted and excited when she’d heard she’d been chosen for this job, mostly because she could see her friends again.

“The site doesn’t seem very big,” Jason said.

Harry smiled at the newbie. “It’s plenty big for the three of us, trust me.”

“But we’re not excavating or anything, are we?” he asked, sitting on the blue and white cooler and taking a hefty slug of water.

Harry pulled up an image on the laptop and swiveled the screen so it faced them. “We will be working the site in a grid. In each square, we will take samples, survey for anomalies, and do a cursory check for surface artifacts. In places I’ve marked, here and here, we will auger boreholes to test the composition of the earth. At the end of the two weeks, we’ll use geo-phys across the whole site. That’s all we’re here for this time. If we find something interesting, chances are we’ll be invited back to investigate further before the team of university archaeologists takes over. And if we don’t, we’ll still have earned our money.”

Her Blackberry pinged and she elected to check her e-mails inside the cool trailer. Harry left the students chatting outside about how to attack the grid in the most efficient way, and escaped inside. She was actually itching to get back to their hotel this evening. She hadn’t slept well since she’d found the piece of aircraft part right where they had set up the trailer. Above all things, she wanted a long sleep.

The inbound e-mail was from Sadie, telling her that the Pentagon was sending an advance man from the JPAC team in Hawaii to look at the site. Sadie explained that the people at JPAC were in charge of finding the remains of U.S. military service members and bringing them back to their families.

Harry closed the e-mail and shivered. This was the last thing she needed. But as someone who had lost a husband to war, she couldn’t begrudge the man access to the site. She hoped the artifact was just an anomaly. That a downed aircraft wasn’t hiding in the dunes somewhere. Immediately shame flushed through her body, but her priority was to her client, a foundation that funded important archaeological digs for universities. The U.S. government definitely didn’t have any authority over her work here, and she didn’t want to be put in a position where she’d have to choose between her work and a grieving family.

She knew how slowly the military worked, so she hoped the advance man wouldn’t be here until they had finished. She closed her e-mail when her eyes started blurring. Sleep. She really needed sleep. Time to wrap today up.

There was a knock at the door. Mueen. Jason and Molly would have just burst in. She grabbed her backpack and the padlock for the door, and opened it. Indeed, it was Mueen, and as always, he’d anticipated her every need.

“Are you ready to leave, madam?” he asked.

“We are.” She turned to the others. “Let’s load the truck and go back to the hotel. I, for one, need an early night.”

They visibly brightened, and she wondered if they were planning on spending their personal time together. Her mind skipped back three months to Sadie’s wedding. And Matt. The man she’d very nearly had sex with in a city restaurant’s garden. He’d been outstanding. Really outstanding. Handsome, charming, a real player too, yet strangely he hadn’t tried to have sex with her. But that night still lived on in her daydreams. She sighed. Maybe she’d dream about him tonight. Kill two birds with one stone: the need for sleep and the need for sex.

But by the time they got back, had eaten, and gone to their rooms, sleep evaded her yet again. If she believed in curses, she would have thought the metal on her bedside table was hexing her sleep abilities. The only other time sleep had evaded her for weeks was just after Danny had died. For weeks, every time she closed her eyes, all she saw was his smiling face and then an explosion as he evaporated into thin air.
The pretty pink mist as he evaporated.

Gah.
She sat up in the dark and pulled on a long-sleeved t-shirt and jeans, and quickly braided her hair. Maybe a brandy in the hotel bar would help.

* * *

Air Force Senior Master Sergeant Matt Stanning stretched as he got off the army transport he’d hitched a ride on. As the humidity of the night settled heavily on his body and the familiar smell of Iraq’s dusty air assaulted his senses, he tensed. He hadn’t been back since his last tour as part of an Explosive Ordinance Disposal team. His tour in the Iraq theater had ended the week after they’d gathered the pieces of his best friend Danny Markowitz and transported what parts of him they could find back to the U.S.

He’d been on his way back from a conference in Kuala Lumpur when they’d asked him to stop by here and check out something an archaeologist had found that suggested there may have been a downed military aircraft there. He doubted it strongly, since none of the records he’d looked at during his flight reported any unrecovered American plane crashes. Fucking checking the box; that’s all he was here for. And he couldn’t think of a worse place to come for a pointless exercise. He heaved his pack onto his back and tried to ignore the crush of people in the arrivals area, the constant clamor of noise that crept up his spine like a desert viper.

“Boomer! Boomer!” A voice penetrated the fog that was settling around his brain. He was slow to react to the old call sign, but not slow to react to the hand on his arm. In a second he’d dropped his bag, grabbed the hand with his, and spun out so the person attached to the hand was now facing away from him with his arm twisted halfway up his back.

“Damn it, Boomer. Let me go,” the man hissed, trying to look behind him.

In a flash Matt recognized David Church and let him go. “Sweet hell, Nitro. You don’t grab someone like that.”

David rubbed his shoulder. “Yeah, sorry. I’ve been out of uniform too long, apparently.”

“Jesus.” Matt dragged his hand over his face, unwilling to admit his fight instinct was still front and center. “What are you doing here?” Matt asked, grabbing his pack and then steering them through the throng of passengers and greeters who were now very definitely interested in the two men.

When they reached the relative calm of the taxi rank, Church filled him in. “I went private, man. I’m in MGL Security. We’re contracted to look after you guys in-country.”

“Well, it’s good to see you, brother, but I don’t need a security detail. I’m my own security detail.”

“You don’t say,” Nitro said, rubbing his shoulder again. “I’m going to fuck you up if you damaged a nerve.”

There was a pause and then the two men laughed and briefly hugged, thumping fists on each other’s backs. “It’s good to see you, too,” Church said. “It’s been too long. What was it? 2005?” He shook his head. “That was some fucked up shit. Danny, man. What the fuck.” He sighed.

This was absolutely, one hundred percent not the conversation he wanted to have here and now. “Hey. Everything was fucked up. It was a long time ago. Things change.”

Church pointed to a black Suburban. “This is my ride. It’s bulletproof,” he reassured as he got in the driver’s seat.

Shit on a stick. Talk about sticking out like a frigging sore thumb. He’d planned on getting an average, beat up, barely running cab to the hotel. And this? This was not subtle.

“Too fucking right it’s bulletproof. You’re like a moving target. Nothing says invading American quite like a big American car. Jesus, Nitro. What happened to you?”

Church put on a pair of aviators, pulled a toothpick from behind his ear and stuck it in his mouth, all the while grinning at Matt’s discomfort. “I’ll tell you what happened. I sold out for the big bucks. You’ll never get rich sticking it out as an enlisted troop.”

Matt watched the street scene as they left the airport complex. As soon as they got outside, arid desert stretched as far as he could see. His fists clenched. It was along roads like these that insurgents set bombs in cars, old deflated soccer balls, children’s toys… or just barely buried by the blowing sand. It was the ball that had got Danny.

“I have some gear for you in the back.” Church said.

Matt turned in his seat and looked at the large sports bag. “Any booze?”

“Two Glocks, fifteen clips, a rifle and mags, a Canadian ID, just in case you get taken, a bottle of Jack Daniel’s best and a satellite phone. Hold down the pound key to get a direct line to me.”

“You’re not going to babysit me?”

“Nah. I was told to hold back, come when needed. I guess they figured you could take care of yourself.”

“God bless you, Nitro.”

“For the phone?”

“For the JD.”

Church grinned back at him and offered a fist to bump. Matt hesitated and then complied. They both laughed again. Man, he wished his whole team could be back together, but they’d never had so much as a reunion after Danny had died. Would have been weird.

“I already checked you into your room at the hotel, and we swept the room. Everything looked fine.”

“Thanks, but my mission here isn’t covert, or even important. Just liaising on a rumor. You know I’m with JPAC now, right?”

“They briefed me. When did you leave EOD?”

“A few years back. You know how it goes. A man my age can’t live on adrenaline alone.”

“I definitely get that, brother. So what do you live on now?” he asked as he pulled into the hotel’s dusty driveway.

“Women. JD. A satisfying job.” It sounded weak even to him. But as he thought briefly about women, Henrietta came to mind—in the rain, sitting on top of him and leaning back to feel the rain on her body. She was an archaeologist. Maybe he could use that as an excuse to call her. Get her number from Simon and Sadie, and say he needed her professional advice.

Food for thought.

Church handed him his room key. “Number thirteen. Figured fewer people would have been in it.”

Matt took the key with a low laugh. No one was more superstitious than an EOD technician. He stood in the doorway of the Suburban and hesitated before he closed it. “Let’s get together for a drink before I head off again.”

“Hit the pound key, baby!” Nitro said as he revved the engine.

He slammed the door and watched Church roar off, sunglasses still on despite the onset of dusk.

A gust of wind followed in his wake. Strong enough to make Matt wince and turn away from the splatter of sand against his face. When it abated, he looked at the sky and saw the telltale fast-moving clouds across the moon.

A storm was brewing.

* * *

Harry sat in the corner of the bar sipping a glass of red wine, face to the wall. The hotel only really catered to foreign workers and she had no wish to attract anyone’s attention. She flipped over her black Megellin Foundation folder and reexamined the briefing she’d been given on their project requirements for her and her team. Now that they’d staked their area, she rethought the plan she’d given Jason and Molly. Their first whole day there tomorrow would now be geo-phys, instead of leaving that until last. She hoped that the results from the ground-penetrating radar that scanned three feet under the surface would head the military off at the pass, and they could get on with their work.

She turned her attention back to the briefing pack. It was a slightly unusual remit. They weren’t asking her to age any artifacts, just to scan the area and report back. It was a little strange, but their money was good. Less work for more money… well, it didn’t happen often.

Recrossing her legs under the table, she drained the last of the wine. It was nearly midnight. God only knew why she couldn’t sleep. She was too used to travelling to be bothered by jetlag. She was so sleepy, yet unable to sleep.

“Can I buy you a cocktail… Henrietta?”

She jumped and turned around. She blinked in disbelief. “Matt?”

“You are a sight for sore eyes, darlin’, and I mean that literally.” He slid into the booth next to her, making her shift around to face him. His eyes were so red they looked like they’d been sandblasted.