Uniform Desires (Make Mine Military Romance) (52 page)

“I’ll come quick. Promise,” she said, then smiled against his lips at the absurdity.

A desperate, choked groan broke from him. “I don’t have a condom.”

“Don’t need one, unless you’re not safe,” she whispered in a rush.

His hands slid down her waist to cup her bottom, his fingers splaying wide and tightening. When he lifted her, she nearly shouted her triumph, but he moved quickly, turning with her and slamming her back against the plank wall. Before she’d lifted her legs, his cock entered her, shoving upward.

Her head fell against the wood and a long, loud moan ripped from her throat. Lord, she’d had eager lovers, but nothing like this explosive power. She locked her ankles behind his back and held on for dear life.

His body rutted against hers, his hips churning, grinding his cock upwards, not giving her room to breathe. In the morning, she’d have splinters in her backside, bruises on her back, but she didn’t care. Right now, she had him…pumping hard and tunneling deep inside her body.

Cool water sluiced over their hot skin, shocking her, invigorating him. Angel’s lips glided down her cheek to her mouth. This time, the kiss was everything she’d wanted—deep and devouring. His lips ate at hers, his tongue stabbed in time with the harsh thrusts that drove his cock toward her womb.

Friction burned inside her channel, and the first faint ripples of her release clasped around his cock. She realized she hadn’t been exaggerating. Her release was already spiking hard.

His movements sharpened, his hips stroking his shaft inside her faster and faster.

Maya wrapped her arms around his shoulders and didn’t bother trying to quell the moans ripping from her, one on top of the other, as her orgasm exploded. Her body jerked against his, her head slamming on the plank behind her as her back arched and her mind flew free.

For long moments afterward, Angel rocked against her, his body shuddering, his mouth gulping air. Then his head jerked back, and his eyes narrowed into fierce slits. Without disengaging, he reached back and shut off the water.

Sounds, like many boots crunching in gravel came from just outside the hut.

When her lazy eyelids opened wide, he stared down, a bleak look sliding across his face. “You have to be strong.”

“Not possible. I feel weak as a kitten,” she said, trying to smile, but too spent to succeed.

“This is all wrong. God, how could I be so stupid?”

“Don’t beat yourself up.” Her eyes widened and shock tightened her chest. “Unless there’s someone else…”

“No, that’s not it.”

Those booted feet stomped inside the outer changing room.
 

Angel stiffened and his hands clamped hard around her ass, preparing to lift her off his cock.

Maya groaned and hid her face against his neck. “Not now. Tell them to go away.”

He backed away from the wall, slid her down to her feet and grabbed for the towel hanging from a hook. “Put this around you,” he said, his voice clipped. All business. Just like the look that wiped the passion from his face in a single moment.
 

She wrapped the towel around her quickly, just before the shower room filled with uniformed men. The one at the front of the group held an AK-47 with the barrel leveled at her face.

Angry at their insensitivity and embarrassed to be found wearing only a soggy white towel—madder still that Angel stood like a stump and let his friends play their game—Maya lifted a finger to push aside the barrel. “Don’t you know you’re not supposed to aim at something you don’t intend to shoot?”

Angel nearly groaned at Maya’s ridiculous complaint. Was she really so naïve she didn’t know this wasn’t a part of the camp’s curriculum? Or that the men surrounding them were Calderon’s men, come to take his rival’s daughter? Yanez had a lot to answer for if he hadn’t prepared his daughter for the dangers she’d confront by returning to this region.

Angel cursed silently at his own stupidity. He hadn’t expected them to make such a bold move.

The leader of the band swept Maya with a glance, the corners of his lips sliding into a smirk. “Good work, Angel,” he said in Spanish. “We’ve been watching to see when you would find your target.”

“What’d he say?” Maya asked, tugging on his arm, her eyebrows lowering into a scowl. Rich pink tinted her pale cheeks.

Angel shrugged off her touch and met Paulo Garcia’s glittering gaze. Lifting his chin, he ignored the fact he was still standing naked and every one of the men filling the room knew exactly what they’d interrupted. He’d think about Maya’s humiliation later. More important issues were at stake now. “Thought I was to contact you,” he replied in Spanish. “This was risky. The school has an armory. You could draw fire.”

“Look, I wanna get dressed,” Maya said, her voice sounding thick.

She was getting upset, and he barely resisted the urge to slide his arm over her shoulder and pull her close.

“
Silencio!
” Garcia bit out.

“Okay, I understood that,” Maya groused.

“Let her get dressed,” Angel said, keeping his voice dead even.

Calderon’s second-in-command gave her body another all-encompassing assessment. “She trusts you?”

Angel shrugged, hoping Maya wasn’t playing at not understanding the rapid-fire exchange. “She’s in love with me. If she believes I’ve been captured too, she might be less of a problem.”

Garcia glanced over his shoulder and issued orders for his men to gather their clothing. “Get dressed. My men will wait outside. A vehicle is parked just beyond the fence.”

So they’d cut a hole in the chain-link surrounding the camp. With the shower a good distance from the barracks, the possibility existed no one would know they’d infiltrated until Maya was discovered missing and camp personnel found the break.

Clothing was tossed toward both of them. Angel angled his body to shield hers as she struggled to pull on her clothing without losing the towel.

“What the hell is going on?” she whispered, her voice shaking. “Is this a kidnapping? Should I tell them I can’t afford to pay any ransom?”

Angel gave her a quelling glance. “Don’t talk now. Just follow my lead.”

The way she acted, completely confused, made his stomach cramp. He had the sinking feeling she was exactly what she’d claimed in her application to the school. She was a travel agent from Chicago. Just tough luck she was of Hispanic heritage, hailed from the States, and had chosen this rotation for her vacation.

And it was his damn fault for making her vulnerable. If he’d stayed away from her until he’d figured out which woman was Yanez’s daughter…

Too late now. Her only chance for survival was to keep up the pretense.

When he’d tugged up his zipper, he gave her a quick glance, making sure she was dressed, before he turned back to Garcia, his game face back in place. “She’ll cooperate,” he said in Spanish. “You won’t need to deal harshly with her.”

Garcia’s gaze narrowed in suspicion. “You did your part. No need to accompany us.”

Angel thought fast. If he let them take her, he might not find them again. He had to go with the group. “As soon as they figure out she’s gone, they’ll be interviewing the staff. They know I was asking about her. They’ll put two and two together, and my ass will be swinging in the wind.”

Garcia grunted, but his gaze settled on Maya who’d slipped close to Angel’s side again. “Maybe it’s not a bad idea for you to come along. Just to keep her quiet.”

Angel nodded, then reached down for Maya’s hand. He squeezed her fingers to reassure her the best way he could, then followed the jerk of Garcia’s chin as he pointed toward the door. Angel stepped past a soldier, pulling Maya behind him.

When he didn’t radio Cowboy the next day, he’d know something had gone very wrong. A sweep would be initiated. Until then, Angel would play the part of the paid informant—play both sides of the dangerous game he’d started.

Chapter 3

Despite the cloying heat that stuck the black cotton hood to her face, Maya shivered. In the space of minutes, she’d gone from sixty and revved for more to a breath-stealing, stomach-plummeting halt.

When the men wearing jungle-printed camouflage burst into the shower facility, she’d been sure Angel’s buddies were playing a joke on them both. But Angel’s face and body had tightened, skin made ruddy by all that sexual activity had drained quickly of color. Before her brain had caught up with the clues he’d exhibited, her mouth prepared to babble on—until the man in charge had issued his terse, “
Silencio!
”

Evidently, he suffered from “short-man-syndrome.” His face had hardened, his lips curling into a snarl that sent his handlebar moustache tipping perilously to the side.

The reddening expression on his face when she’d pushed aside the barrel of his gun should have been her first clue, but she’d still been suffering from embarrassment at being caught bare naked. Thank goodness, Angel had been quicker to realize what was happening. The towel had spared her more humiliation.

Angel’s thick thigh rubbed against hers. She wondered if he was trying to reassure her again or needing more space on the bench seat in the back of the SUV. She’d gotten only a glimpse of their vehicle before Little Napoleon tossed a dark cloth hood at Angel and spat a command in Spanish. She’d bitten her lips to keep them from quivering, but allowed him to tug it over her face. If they didn’t want her seeing where they were going, surely that meant they didn’t intend to kill her. But what about Angel? There’d only been one hood.

The nylon rope tying her wrists together had added to her panic. Unable to brace her hands against the side of the vehicle, she was tossed around like a ragdoll at each sharp turn. In addition, the pressure in her ears was easing. She yawned to make them pop, knowing they had to be leaving behind the mountain range, following the road that hugged the river wending its way toward the coast.

Sitting in the back of the vehicle, stomach churning as they sped down a rutted trail at break-neck speed, she couldn’t think past the panic rising inside her chest. She’d seen the hostage movie with Russell Crowe, knew that groups all around the lower Americas practiced kidnap and ransom for profit. But why on earth would they target her? Did they think that because she came from north of the border she had to be rich? What would they do when they realized her bank account fluctuated from three to four digits on any given day depending on how close to payday the date was? The agency didn’t have that kind of cash either. Lace and Susan might pitch in their savings, but short of robbing a bank, she knew there wasn’t much they could do to help.

Again, Angel’s thigh rubbed against hers, and she realized he must have heard her hyperventilating. Thank God, he was there or she really might lose it. Worrying about his situation did a lot to keep her from completely freaking out. What would they do with him once they got to wherever they were going? He was an instructor at a training camp—she couldn’t imagine he was making the big bucks either.

Having him along to translate would be helpful though. She wished she’d nagged her
abuela
a little harder when she was growing up to teach her Spanish, but her grandmother had emigrated from Cuba in the early sixties and embraced her new home. Spanish had receded even before her mother had come along.

The vehicle whipped around another sharp turn, throwing her against Angel. His arm came down around her shoulder, and she sighed, snuggling close. His fingers stroked her shoulder through her thin tee, and she snuffled quietly, trying not to cry.

He was being so sweet. Trying hard to be brave for her. Of course, he was a merc. Had likely seen the business end of a weapon a time or two, but still... How many times had he been kidnapped?

The vehicle slowed. Conversation flowed in the front seat. Little Man cursed.

Or at least she was pretty sure he had by the short, staccato emphasis of his two words.

The truck ground to a halt. The door beside her was flung open.

“It’s time to get out, Maya,” Angel said in a quiet voice.

She took a deep breath and hoped her legs would actually hold her up when she slid to the ground. A rough hand gripped the rope at her wrist and dragged her along. She stumbled, but quickly righted herself, listening for the sounds of Angel’s voice behind her, for his heavy tread, but she was heading off alone with her captor. A knot grabbed her stomach.

Another door opened, a hand shoved her between her shoulders, and she landed on a dirt floor, grit grinding into the skin of her knees.

Before she could push off the floor, she heard a tin door clang shut. Her body stiffened. She was alone and afraid to remove the hood. Afraid to move in case she wasn’t really alone.

In the distance, she heard voices, one of them Angel’s. By his tone, he didn’t seem particularly alarmed. Then laughter sounded.

For the first time, she began to wonder if Angel’s “courage” wasn’t just a reflection of his ease with these kidnappers. Was he one of them after all? The thought made her dizzy, and she slumped. Had great sex just been a way to keep her attention until the rest of his buddies got into position to take her? Had she been so enamored with his hard body she’d misread him completely? When more laughter followed, she concluded she’d been a fool.