Sharpshooter
Cynthia Eden
Two years ago Gunner Ortez saved Sydney Sloan’s life. Now, working together in the jungles of Peru, the heat between Elite Ops agents Sydney and Gunner is hotter than ever – and so are the threats to their lives.But Gunner also poses the greatest risk to the secret Sydney carries in her heart… and in her belly.
“When I close my eyes, I see your face.”
His words, so gravel-rough, had her heart racing.
“You’re driving me crazy. Taking over every moment of my life.”
She couldn’t breathe. Because what he was saying—that was the way she felt. As if he’d taken over her life.
“I tried to walk away. I tried to be strong.” He lowered his head.
“Gunner…”
“There are some lines that if you cross them, you can’t ever go back.”
“I don’t want to go back.” There was nothing in her past to go back to.
“I won’t be able to let you go.”
She wouldn’t let him go. Before Gunner could say anything else, Sydney wrapped her hands around his neck and pulled his head down toward her.
About the Author
USA TODAY bestselling author CYNTHIA EDEN writes tales of romantic suspense and paranormal romance. Her books have received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, and she has received a RITA
Award nomination for best romantic suspense novel. Cynthia lives in the deep South, loves horror movies and has an addiction to chocolate. More information about Cynthia may be found on her website, www.cynthiaeden.com, or you can follow her on Twitter (www.twitter.com/cynthiaeden).
Sharpshooter
Cynthia Eden
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
I wanted to offer a huge thank-you to all the wonderful
folks at Mills & Boon Intrigue. It is always a pleasure!
And for my friend Joan, a woman who loves her
strong heroes, I hope you enjoy this story.
Prologue
The thunder of gunfire erupted around her as Sydney Sloan ran through the remains of the enemy’s camp. Voices were calling out, screaming, but she didn’t stop. She couldn’t.
Her focus was on the man before her. The man lying so still in the middle of that nightmare scene.
“Slade!” Her own scream joined the others as she fell to her knees beside him. She grabbed for his shoulder and rolled him toward her.
His chest was a bloody mess. His eyes—those dark eyes that she’d stared into so many times—were closed. “Slade?” she whispered hoarsely. No, this couldn’t happen. They were supposed to get out of there together. They were going to start their life together back in the States. They were going to get married.
“I’ll get you out of here.” He would be fine. She’d get him to the helicopter. Fly him out of there. He’d get patched up, and everything would be just as they’d planned.
More gunfire erupted. Her breath choked out when a bullet drove into her shoulder. The pain burned her, terrified her. If she was hurt too badly, how would she get Slade to safety?
She grabbed his arms. Started to drag him.
More gunfire. This time, the bullet hit her in the side. She stumbled but refused to fall. Slade needed her. She wasn’t going to let him down.
“Sydney!” The roar of her name had her jerking up her head. She saw Gunner Ortez then, running toward her and his brother.
Gunner and Slade. They were so different. Slade was always laughing, so easygoing. Gunner was intense, almost…frightening to her.
But she knew Gunner would do anything for his brother. “Help him!” Sydney called as her knees buckled. She hit the ground, still holding tight to Slade.
Why weren’t her knees working? Why did she feel so cold? It was so hot in the jungle.
Then Gunner was there. He was curling his body around hers, shielding her from the hail of gunfire that just wouldn’t stop.
A trap. They’d walked right into this hell because they’d been going after Slade. A rescue mission. They’d had to take the risk of infiltrating the area, against orders.
Gunner’s fingers—long, tan, strong—went to Slade’s throat. She felt the thick tension in the big body behind hers as Gunner checked for his brother’s pulse. Then Gunner swore.
No. No.
His hand pulled back. She grabbed his fingers. Held tight. “You have to help me,” she whispered. “Gunner, please, we have to get him out of here!”
More gunfire. Gunner curled his body even tighter to hers. She heard the thud of the impact and knew he’d just taken a bullet.
For her.
“He’s not here anymore,” Gunner rasped. His eyes—as dark as Slade’s but lined with gold flecks, stared into her own. “He’s not here.”
She shook her head.
The rat-a-tat of gunfire came again. Gunner yanked out a handgun with his left hand. He began to fire back, even as the fingers of his right hand twisted and locked with hers. “We have to get out of here! We’re damn sitting ducks!”
“Not without…Slade…” Her side hurt. A deep, agonizing burn, and she wondered just how bad the hit was. But she’d make it, she’d hold on, until they got Slade out of there. They’d come to rescue him, and they’d never failed on a mission before. “Help me.”
The gold in his eyes seemed to blaze. “How many times have you been hit?”
Two? Three? What did it matter? “Slade…”
Then she heard the roar of engines. Coming toward them. The enemy closing in. There wasn’t any more time. “Just…take him.” Because she wasn’t sure that she’d be able to get out on her own steam. She couldn’t make her legs work, and as she pulled her fingers from Gunner’s, she realized that she was shaking. She’d run out of ammo, and the blood was pumping down her side. “Take him…please.” Her voice broke and her body began to sway. She was already on her knees, but Sydney was pretty sure she’d soon slump forward and crash face-first into the dirt.
Hold it together. Stay strong, just until Slade is safe.
But Gunner’s hands didn’t wrap around Slade’s body. His hands reached for her.
She screamed then, and lunged toward Slade.
But Gunner pulled her back. The bullets were hitting the ground around her, sending chunks of dirt flying into the air. They had no cover, no backup and it sounded as though more enemy reinforcements were coming in.
Shouldn’t have been here. Shouldn’t have happened. How had everything gotten so messed up? Their cover had been blown pretty much from the get-go.
“Gunner, no.” She tried to pull away from him. “Can’t…leave…”
Another bullet hit her. Driving through her upper shoulder and sinking into Gunner.
She choked, barely managing to breathe as the pain swamped her.
“He’s dead,” Gunner gritted out. She was in his arms then. He was holding her tight, bruising her. “You…won’t be.”
Sydney fought him, using all the strength that she had, but she didn’t have enough. Gunner was wounded, too, but nothing stopped him. Not ever.
So he ran right through the gunfire, holding her in arms like steel. He ran and ran, and then they were in the heavier, denser part of the jungle, evading the men who chased them. No jeeps could follow them here.
Gunner wouldn’t let her go, no matter how much she begged him.
He didn’t speak to her again. Didn’t say a word.
And behind them, in that nightmare, Slade remained in the dirt.
Dead.
His eyes had never opened. From the time she’d fallen by his side, he hadn’t moved. Hadn’t spoken. Hadn’t even been able to open his eyes.
They never would open again.
GUNNER GOT HER out of that jungle. Patched her up. Stopped the blood flow. She wasn’t helping him. Sydney was barely moving at all.
“Shock,” Gunner told her, voice terse.
Yeah, that was it. She had to be in shock. Because she’d just seen her fiancé die in that trap. She and Slade had fought before, and for him to die with that anger between them…I’m so sorry.
“You lost too much blood.” Gunner’s fingers curled around her chin. She didn’t know where they were now. Some kind of hut? A run-down shack? Just some shelter he’d found them. Gunner was good at finding shelters. “You won’t die.”
Hadn’t he said that before? It was hard to remember. Her tongue seemed so thick in her mouth, but after three tries she managed to say, “Slade…”
Gunner’s fingers tightened on her. “He’s gone.”
A tear leaked down her cheek.
Gunner’s jaw clenched. That hard jaw. That dangerous face. “I’ve got you, Syd. I’ll take care of you.”
She was breaking apart on the inside. The mission was over. They’d failed.
He pulled her into his arms. Held her against his chest. Gentleness? He’d never seemed the kind for that. “I’ve got you,” he said again, voice deepening.
And it was there, in his arms, that she finally let herself go.
She cried until there were no tears left to shed.
Chapter One
Two years later…
The kidnapper had a gun pressed to Sydney’s head.
Gunner Ortez stopped breathing when he saw Sydney’s beautiful face fill his scope. So perfect. Delicate, high cheekbones. The soft curve of her nose. The full, red lips…
And the green eyes that stared straight back at him. Seeming to know where he was. Her green gaze that showed no fear even as that soon-to-be-dead man jammed the gun harder into her temple.
“Do you have the shot?” a low voice asked in his ear. The earpiece wouldn’t even be noticed by most people. Uncle Sam was great at inventing gear that his soldiers could use anytime, anyplace.
With a minimum of fuss and a maximum of damage.
Gunner’s finger was curled over the trigger, but he wasn’t taking the shot. “Negative, Alpha One,” he told his team leader. “Sydney isn’t clear.”
And he was sweating, feeling a tendril of fear—when he never felt fear. There was no room for emotion on any of their missions.
He worked with a group far off the grid. The Elite Ops Division wasn’t on any books anywhere in the U.S. government. They took the jobs that the rest of the world wasn’t meant to know about. In particular, his EOD team—code-named the Shadow Agents—had a reputation for deadly accuracy when it came to taking out their targets.
And this guy…that jerk with the trembling finger, he was going down. The man had kidnapped an ambassador’s daughter. Held her for ransom, and when the ransom had been paid, he’d still killed her.
He’d thought he could hide from justice.
He’d thought wrong.
Sydney’s intel had led them to Jonathan Hall. Led them to his hideout just over the border in Mexico.
Sydney had volunteered to go in, to make sure that Hall was holding no civilians.
Now she was the one being held.
“He can’t leave the scene,” Logan Quinn said, the faint drawl of the South sliding beneath the team leader’s words as they carried easily over the transmitter. “You know our orders.”
Containment or death. Yeah, Gunner knew the drill, because the ambassador’s daughter hadn’t been the first victim. Hall liked to kill.
Gunner stared down at the man, at Sydney. You won’t kill her.
Sydney’s face was emotionless. Like a pale canvas, waiting for life. That wasn’t her. She was always brimming with emotion, letting it spill over onto everything and everyone.
It was only on the missions that she changed.
How many more missions would she take? She seemed to be putting herself at risk more these days. He hated that.
He shifted his position, testing the wind. Hall wouldn’t see him. He was too far away. Gunner’s specialty was attacking from a distance.
There was no target that he couldn’t reach.
He could take out that man right now. A perfect shot… if he hadn’t been worried that Hall’s finger would jerk on that trigger at impact.
“I want the gun away from her head,” Gunner snapped into his mouthpiece.
But even as he said the words, he saw Sydney’s lips moving.
Take. The. Shot.
Hall was outside the small house, his gaze frantically searching the area even as he kept Sydney killing-close. The man wasn’t stupid. He’d eluded capture for over a year because he understood how the game was played.
Hall knew Sydney hadn’t come in alone. The guy just didn’t see her backup. When he hunted like this, Gunner’s prey never saw him, not unless he wanted to be seen.
This time, he wanted to be seen because that gun was coming away from Sydney’s head.
Take. The. Shot. Her lips moved again.
He shook his head, even though he realized she’d never see the movement. Then he took two steps to the right. He knew that, in this particular position, the sunlight would glint off his weapon. When he saw that flash of light, Hall would fire—
And he did. The man yanked the gun away from Sydney’s head and shot at Gunner.
Too late.
Gunner had already taken his own shot.
The second the gun moved away from her temple, Sydney shoved back against Hall with her elbow, and then she’d jerked away from her captor and threw herself down.
Before she even hit the ground, Gunner’s bullet slammed into Hall. The man stumbled back and fell.
“Converge,” Logan’s hard order came in Gunner’s ear.
The other EOD team members rushed from the shadows. Not that they needed to rush. Hall wasn’t going to be a threat to anyone, not anymore.
Gunner’s breath eased out. He watched as Sydney pushed to her knees, then rose to her feet.
Cale Lane, the newest team member, crouched over Hall as Sydney looked toward Gunner’s position.
He’d put the weapon down, so he couldn’t see her face clearly, not with the distance that separated them. But he was aware that his heart beat too fast. His hands had been sweating.
A sharpshooter wasn’t supposed to get nervous, wasn’t supposed to feel on the mission.
But whenever he was close to Sydney, all he could do was feel.
He packed up his weapon and hurried down to her. Because lately, it was always about her.
Day and night. Whether he was awake or asleep, he was obsessed with the woman.
Cale and Logan had secured the scene by the time he got down to the front of the house, and Cale was leading some sobbing redhead from the cabin. So Sydney had been right. Hall had already taken his next victim. If they hadn’t moved then, would she have been dead by nightfall?
“Good shot.” Sydney’s voice was quiet.
Gunner’s body tensed. He knew he should hold on to his control, but…the gun had been at her temple. If Hall hadn’t hesitated, Gunner would have watched while the man put a hole in her head.
So he ignored the wide stare that Logan gave him and stalked to Sydney. He grabbed her wrist, pulled her against him. “You took too much of a risk.”
Her short blond hair shone in the light. Her cheeks stained red—he didn’t know if that red was from fury or embarrassment.
“I did my job,” Sydney said through gritted teeth, lifting her chin. “I told you that my intel indicated a new hostage. She was hidden in the closet. If I hadn’t moved in—”
He pulled her even closer. “He could have killed you.” Then what would I have done?
Her voice dropped. “You say it like that matters to you.”
Her words were whispered, carrying only to his ears.
Damn it, she did matter. “Sydney…”
“You’re the one who wants to be hands-off,” she snapped with a hard flash of her green eyes. “So why are you holding on to me so tightly?”
He was. Too tightly. He dropped her wrist as if he’d been burned.
“I’m not waiting any longer,” Sydney told him as she straightened her shoulders. “Death can come at any moment, and I told you once…I’m not crawling into the grave with Slade.”
Yes, she’d told him that, when he’d made the mistake of getting too close to Sydney on their last case. They’d been trapped during a storm, forced together in a small cabin, and all he’d been able to think was…
I want her.
But he’d—barely—managed to stop himself from taking what he wanted. He did have some self-control. Unfortunately, with her, that self-control was growing weaker every day.
“I’m going to start living my life on my terms,” Sydney told him. “Consider yourself warned.”
Then she spun away. Sydney headed toward Cale and the redhead. More backup had swarmed the scene. Other EOD agents who’d come to lend their support for the rescue-and-takedown operation.
Gunner stared after Sydney, feeling…lost.
Then Logan cleared his throat. “I’ve seen that look before.”
Gunner glared at him. Logan might be the team leader for the Shadow Agents, and Gunner considered him as a friend most days, but the man should know not to—
“Better watch yourself, or you might just lose something important.”
Sydney had already walked away. Logan didn’t understand.
She was never mine to lose.
THE BAR WAS too loud. The place was packed with too many people, and coming there, well, it had been a serious mistake.
Sydney huffed out a hard breath and pushed her barely sipped drink away. She’d gotten back to the States just hours before—finally gotten a break for some serious R & R time, and she’d gone home to Baton Rouge.
But it didn’t feel like home anymore.
So many missions. So many places.
They were all blending together into a hail of gunfire and death.
“A pretty lady like you shouldn’t be sitting alone.” The voice, marked with the Cajun that she loved, came from her right.
Sydney’s gaze rose, and she found herself staring at a tall, blond man. He was handsome, with the kind of good looks that probably drew women all the time.
So why isn’t he drawing me?
She’d come to that bar to find someone like him. It seemed as if she’d been living in a void for the past two years of her life, and she wanted—so desperately wanted—to start feeling again.
The blond glanced at her drink. “Don’t you like it?”
Sydney shook her head. “It’s not what I wanted.”
He pulled up the bar stool next to her, leaned in close. “Why don’t you tell me what you want?”
A stranger, a guy who didn’t know her at all, and he looked at her with more warmth than Gunner did.
Don’t think about him. This was not supposed to be another Gunner night.
She forced a smile on her face. Gunner was miles away. He always had been. This man, he was right in front of her. She wanted to live, and here was her chance. “I’m really not sure,” she said softly. The words were the truth.
What did she want?
Gunner.
That wasn’t happening. Time to consider other options.
The guy leaned toward her. “How about we start with a dance, then? Maybe that will help you figure out just what you want.”
How long had it been since she’d danced with someone? Too long.
“I’m Colin,” he said, giving her a broad smile. “And I promise, I’m a good guy.”
As if she could believe a promise from a stranger. She’d met far too many dangerous, lying men for that.
“I’m Sydney.” She took the hand that he offered to her. “I guess one dance—”
She broke off, her words stuttering to a halt because she’d just met the dark gaze of the man who’d entered the bar. A man who should not have been there.
A man whose stare was hot enough to burn.
Colin stiffened beside her as he followed her gaze. “Problem?”
Yes. No. Maybe. If Gunner was there, then there could be a new mission. There had to be a new mission. There was no other reason for Gunner to be in Baton Rouge instead of up in D.C.
But why hadn’t Logan just called her?
Gunner was stalking toward her.
“I thought you were here alone,” Colin said softly.
“I am.” He still had her hand, and that felt wrong all of a sudden.
Maybe because Gunner’s gaze had dipped to their hands. Hardened.
“Then you want to tell me why that guy looks like he’s about to rip me apart?”
Gunner did look that way. But Gunner usually looked tough. It was his face. Not handsome like Colin’s. Not perfect. It was full of hard angles and dangerous edges. With his golden skin and that jet-black hair, he always looked like walking, talking danger to Sydney.
Danger wasn’t supposed to draw you in, but Gunner seemed to draw her more and more.
Even as he kept pushing her away.
“He’s a friend,” Sydney said, giving a shrug that she hoped looked careless. “An old friend.”
Then Gunner was in front of them. “Sydney.” His voice was a deep, rumbling growl when Colin’s voice had been soft and flirtatious. Did Gunner even know how to flirt?
She doubted it. “We need to talk.”
A mission. Right. Just as she’d suspected. Sydney cleared her throat and glanced at Colin. His hold was light on her wrist. “Can you give us just a minute?”
One blond eyebrow rose, but he nodded. “I’ll wait for you.” She noticed that when he glanced back at Gunner, Colin’s face hardened, losing some of its easygoing appeal.
Gunner didn’t wait for the guy to back away. He grabbed Sydney’s hand—his grip much tighter than Colin’s—and pulled her into the nearest dark corner.
“Gunner!” His name burst from her. “What are you doing?”
He caged her with his body. “What are you doing?”
“Getting a drink? Getting ready to dance?” Some things should be obvious to a superagent like him.
His teeth snapped together as he leaned in, even closer. The wooden wall was behind her, and Gunner’s muscled form wasn’t leaving much space in front of her. “You know what he wants.”
She was in some kind of weird alternate reality. Sydney shook her head. “What’s the mission? Why didn’t Logan call—”
“There is no mission.”
She didn’t have any kind of comeback. She couldn’t think of what to say. If there was no mission, then Gunner shouldn’t be in Louisiana. Her family’s old home was there, but Gunner had a place in D.C. Not here.
“I could see it in your eyes,” he growled.
“See what?” Her voice came out huskier than she’d intended.
Gunner flinched. “After the last mission, I knew you’d do something like this.” He glanced over his shoulder. Since Gunner was big, easily six foot three, with wide shoulders, she couldn’t see what he was looking at when he glared behind him.
But she had a pretty good idea.
Colin.
“Any man?” Gunner asked as that hard, dark gaze came back to her. “Is that what you’re—”
Her cheeks felt numb. “Don’t say another word.” She wanted to slug him. “You don’t have the right to say anything to me, to judge me.” She’d wanted Gunner, had let him become too important to her in the past few years, but enough. “Slade is gone. I’ve moved on.” She pushed at him.
Gunner stepped back.
Good. She marched away from him and didn’t look back.
Colin stood as she approached. “I want that dance,” Sydney said, and she pretty much dragged him onto the small floor.
She didn’t know what Gunner’s game was. But he wasn’t controlling her. He didn’t want her. He’d made that clear when she’d tried to kiss him on that case in Texas.
Colin’s hands settled along her hips. She was wearing a pair of jeans, a top that was a little low and strappy sandals that pushed her a bit higher than her normal five-foot-six height. Colin was big, not as tall or muscled as Gunner, and—
“You don’t want to come between us.”
Gunner was there. Again. On the dance floor. And he’d just pulled Colin away from her.
This was insane.
“Sydney, come with me,” Gunner said in that low growl of his.
Colin shook his head. “Look, buddy, I don’t care if you are her friend, you don’t—”
“Is that what I am, Sydney?” Gunner asked, his voice flat. “Your friend?
He had been. After that nightmare two years ago, he’d become her rock. The man she depended on. The one who’d pulled her through her darkest time.
But she wanted him to be more than that.
She wanted more.
He didn’t.
“I don’t know what you are,” she told him. “But you should leave.” Because she was tired of living only for the job. She’d find happiness. Everyone else did. She wanted to have a real home one day. A family.
Not just mission after mission.
Why couldn’t someone be waiting on her when she came home? Someone who loved her? Wanted her?
“You heard the lady,” Colin muttered.
But Gunner wasn’t moving. He had started to give Colin a killing glare.
Colin made the mistake of stepping toward Gunner. Of shoving against his chest. “You need to back off—” Colin began.
Definitely a mistake.
Gunner grabbed that shoving hand and twisted it. Colin’s words choked off, and the dancers around them froze as they realized what was happening.
In less than three seconds, Gunner had Colin on his knees…all from that hold that Gunner had on Colin’s hand. Sydney knew the twist that Gunner was using could be incredibly painful, and if Gunner just pulled a little more, Colin’s bones would snap.
This scene was turning into a nightmare.
“Gunner, let him go!” Sydney grabbed his arm. “You’re making a scene!”
“No, he did that when he shoved me.” But Gunner let the other man go.
Colin scrambled away, eyes wide, cheeks flushed. He headed for the door as fast as he could.
Well, so much for that dance. So much for the whole night. Sydney turned from Gunner and started marching for the door. The plan had been stupid, anyway. As if she was going to find some kind of Prince Charming in a bar like this.
She pushed open the front door, and the night air rushed over her. Sydney took two more steps, then…
She stopped. “Tell me that you aren’t following me home.” Because she knew he was behind her. As a rule, Gunner could move pretty soundlessly. That was one of the reasons he’d been so good during his time as a SEAL sharpshooter. But she could feel him, so she knew he was trailing her.
“We need to talk.”
Fabulous. “I thought there wasn’t anything to say. I mean, you had your chance at Whiskey Ridge…” When she’d ditched her pride and told him that she needed him.
But he’d stayed aloof.
Gunner always held back with her. Always saw the ghost of her fiancé, his half brother, between them.
She knew now that he wasn’t ever going to let that ghost go. She might want Gunner. Want him so badly that her heart had seemed to break when he kept pulling away, but she’d survive his rejection.
She’d survived much worse than not being wanted by Gunner Ortez.
“What do you want from me?” Gunner asked her.
Everything.
Sydney turned toward him. “I want you to look at me and just see a woman. Not a ghost.”
A muscle jerked in his jaw. “You’re pushing me too much.”
She shook her head. “I’m not pushing you at all. You’re the one who came here, to my town. You’re the one who showed up in the bar.” Frustrated, she demanded, “How did you even find me here? Did you follow my GPS location?” All of the EOD agents had trackers installed on their phones. But if he’d used that tracking system…Stalker much. “Now I’m the one walking away.”
Only she didn’t get to walk far. Four steps was all she took. Then Gunner’s hands were on her shoulders. He spun her back around and lifted her up on her tiptoes.
“When I close my eyes, I see your face.”
His words, so gravel-rough, had her heart racing.
“I don’t see a ghost, I just see you.” His eyes were on her mouth. “You’re driving me crazy, taking over every moment of my life.”
She couldn’t breathe. Because what he was saying—that was the way she felt. As if he’d taken over her life.
“I tried to walk away. I tried to be strong.” His head lowered. “But I don’t want you to be with anyone else.”
Sydney didn’t want to be with any other man. “Gunner…”
“There are some lines that if you cross them, you can’t ever go back.”
“I don’t want to go back.” There was nothing in her past to go back to. Only death.
Gunner was life.
“I won’t be able to let you go.”
She wouldn’t let him go. Before Gunner could say anything else, Sydney wrapped her hands around his neck and she pulled his head down toward her.
The kiss wasn’t easy or gentle. Wasn’t the tentative kiss of soon-to-be lovers.
It was hard and deep—consuming. The touch of his lips sent need spiraling through her. Then she was crushed against him. Holding on as tight as she could as he tasted her, and she tasted him, and all of the longing that she’d held inside so tightly broke from her control.
This was Gunner. This wasn’t a dream. This was real.
And there was no going back.
HE SHOULD LET her go. Gunner knew he shouldn’t have followed her to Baton Rouge, but he’d been afraid.
I don’t want to lose her.
Sydney Sloan. The woman he’d wanted since the moment he first met her. Even when she’d been planning to marry his brother, Gunner had wanted her.
They were back at her house. He’d followed her from the bar, feeling the hunger for her burn just beneath his skin.
She stood on the porch now. The swamp waited behind her, and the sound of crickets filled the air.
He was closing in on her. There was still time to pull back, still time to do the right thing.
But he wasn’t sure what was right anymore. Slade was gone, buried in a jungle in South America. Sydney was alive. There, just a few feet away, and wonder of wonders, the woman actually wanted him.
She knew about his darkness. About the sins that marked his soul, but she still wanted him.
He would die for her.
So he followed her up the steps to the home that she’d once loved so much, before her family had passed away and left her alone. She opened the door for him. Light spilled out onto the porch.
Onto her.
There would be no going back.
The wooden porch creaked beneath his feet. Her hand was up, reaching for him, and Gunner was pretty sure he’d had this same dream before. Only then, he’d wakened alone, sweating and tangled in his sheets, with her name on his lips.
Make this good for her. Give her pleasure.
Because he only wanted Sydney to know pleasure. She’d known too much pain in her life.
He crossed the threshold with her. Pushed the door shut behind them.
Her breath came a little too fast, and she shifted from her right foot to her left. He’d been in this house before. It carried her sweet scent, light vanilla, and he knew just where her bedroom waited.
Down the hallway, second door on the right.
Could he make it that far?
“Gunner…”
He loved the way she said his name. Breathless. Eager.
Can’t make it that far. He’d done well to make it out of the street and into her house.
Gunner pulled Sydney against him, breathed in that vanilla scent and locked his hands around her waist. Those jeans had been driving him crazy. “I—I can’t go slow.”
“Good.”
She surprised him. Always.
Then his mouth was on hers. He thrust his tongue past her lips, and she was the sweetest thing he’d ever tasted.
Before, he’d told himself to stay hands-off, but in Mexico, when she’d walked away and hadn’t looked back, he’d realized that she was too important to lose.
Now his hands were most definitely on her.
Her breasts were pressed against his chest. Her hips arched against him. He wanted her naked. He wanted to kiss every inch of her.
And he would. The second time.
The first time—the time that should have been perfect—need was controlling him. Raw lust.
So he stripped her. He couldn’t take his mouth from hers. His hands learned her body and slid over her silken flesh even as he shoved down her jeans.
He heard her kick off the sandals that had made him ache. He would have liked for her to keep them on—another time.
Then they were falling together onto her sofa. He was kissing her neck now, inhaling more of that wonderful scent, even as his hands went between her thighs. He meant to pull away her panties, but his fingers were too rough and the silk tore.
Sydney just laughed.
He loved her laugh.
After Peru, it had taken too long for her laugh to come back.
No. He slammed the door on that thought and instead enjoyed the soft heat of her flesh. She was pushing up against him, whispering his name.
His head lifted. He stared at her and told her the simple truth, “You are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
Her lips curled in a smile.
Take.
He yanked open his jeans, pushed his body deeper between her thighs. Waited right there at the entrance to her body. This was the moment. No going back. No—
She arched toward him, and he sank inside her.
The pleasure was so incredible that he had to clench his teeth together to hold back a groan. Nothing, nothing, had ever felt so good.
Or so right.
He began to thrust. Withdrawing slowly, then plunging back inside her. She was paradise to him, the best dream he’d ever had, and he kissed as much of her body as he could.
Her nipples were tight, pink, and when he licked one, she tensed beneath him.
Gunner felt the pleasure rock through her.
Her legs lifted, locked around his hips. Then she started pushing up with her hips.
He couldn’t hold back. His own thrusts became even harder. He caught her hands and laced his fingers with hers.
He stared into her eyes.
Saw her climax. Her green gaze went wide, then wild as the pleasure crested through her.
His release swept him away on a wave so intense that he shuddered and pushed deeper into her. The release shook his whole body. Seemed to gut him and never end.
I don’t want it to end.
He wanted to keep holding her to make the perfect moment last as long as possible.
He kissed her again because he needed to taste her pleasure, to taste all of her.
And he swore that before the night was done, he would.
Chapter Two
The ringing of her phone woke Sydney. Her hand flew out automatically, reaching for her nightstand—for the phone. But instead of scooping up her phone, her fingers collided with warm, strong flesh.
Not a dream.
Her eyes snapped open, and she found herself staring straight into Gunner’s dark gaze. There was no sleepiness in that gaze, just a deep hunger.
For her.
Then he reached out and grabbed the ringing phone from her nightstand. Silently, he handed it to her.
“S-Sydney Sloan.” Her fingers tightened around the phone. Gunner’s tanned fingers were sliding down her arm.
Goose bumps rose on her flesh as she remembered the night before. The things he’d done to her. What she’d done to him.
More, please.
“Sydney?” Logan barked. “Sydney, are you okay?”
She shot up in bed, clutching the sheet to her chest. “I’m fine. Just…sleeping.” Gunner didn’t stop stroking her. He raised himself, and his lips brushed over her shoulder.
She shivered.
“Look, I know you were due to have a few weeks off, but we’ve got a case that we can’t refuse. I’ve got you booked on a jet to Peru at three today.”
Peru.
“I’m going to call Gunner and Cale. They’ll be meeting up with you there.”
I can tell Gunner. He’s right here kissing me, lying naked next to me. She cleared her throat. “What’s the case?” She hadn’t been back to Peru in two years. Not since Slade had died in that jungle, and the place had nearly become her own grave, too.
“An American is being held hostage by a group of rebels.”
Hostage rescue. That was what their team did best.
“He needs us,” Logan said. “So be on that plane.”
“I’ll be there,” she whispered, and then, because Logan would figure the situation out when he had to make reservations for Gunner—and those flight reservations had Gunner leaving from Baton Rouge, Sydney said, “Now hold on, and I’ll get Gunner for you.”
Gunner’s gaze rose to hers. She knew that her cheeks flushed; she could feel the burn. But this wasn’t the time for secrets. They had a case to work. And when a civilian’s life was on the line, there wasn’t room for embarrassment.
Gunner took the phone from her but didn’t look away from her eyes. “Gunner.”
There was a beat of silence. Then Sydney rolled away from Gunner and climbed from the bed before she could overhear Logan’s response to the discovery that Gunner was so close she could just, ahem, hand him her phone first thing in the morning.
She grabbed for a robe. Her body ached in a way that felt so good, and she hated that their time together was already ending.
No, not ending. They were just beginning. They’d turned a corner last night, and there would be no going back for them.
“I’ll be there,” she heard Gunner say, and she looked up as he ended the call.
No man should look as sexy as he did. His hair was a little tousled. A line of stubble coated his square jaw, and his eyes blazed as they raked over her.
“We have at least six hours,” Gunner told her.
Six hours.
She nodded.
“I want you.”
Her fingers clenched around the belt of the robe. “Again?”
“Always.”
She dropped the robe and climbed back in bed with him. Six hours.
This was perfect. What she’d hoped for.
And this time, things would end well for her in Peru. She wouldn’t lose Gunner. Not the way that she’d lost Slade.
Gunner’s lips pressed to hers, and she shoved away the fear that wanted to rise within her.
Peru. The last time she’d been to Peru, her lover had died there.
It won’t happen this time. She’d finally gotten her chance with Gunner. It wouldn’t slip through her fingers.
LOGAN STARED DOWN at the phone in his hand. Gunner was with Sydney.
He’d seen the sexual awareness between the two of them. Had known that Gunner wanted Sydney, and that the sniper had held back with her. He had clung so tightly to his control and his rule that Sydney was off-limits.
But it looked as if Gunner had broken his rule.
Logan tossed aside the phone and stared at the photographs in front of him. The tip he’d received could be wrong. He shouldn’t want it to be wrong, but he did.
Because Gunner was his friend. Gunner had been through hell. The man deserved some happiness.
But if the intel was right—and this intel had come right down from Bruce Mercer, the man who’d formed the EOD—then Gunner’s life was about to be ripped apart.
“Enjoy her while you can,” Logan whispered. Because Gunner would need some good memories to hold tight to in the darkness that was coming.
PERU WAS JUST as hot and beautiful and wild as Sydney remembered. When the plane touched down, and she headed out on the tarmac, the heat was the first thing to hit her.
Cale was inside the airport, waiting for them. Gunner walked right beside Sydney, his hand lightly pressing at the base of her back.
To any onlookers, they probably looked like a vacationing couple.
That was their cover, after all. Lovers. A cover they’d used before.
Only this time, they weren’t pretending.
When they entered the airport, Cale approached them with a broad grin. Again, another cover. The reuniting friends. He slapped Gunner on the back and hugged Sydney.
“Ready?” he asked quietly, keeping his smile in place.
She always was.
They went outside together and tossed their bags into the back of Cale’s jeep.
Sydney climbed into the front seat next to Cale, while Gunner jumped in the back. In moments, Cale was driving them away from the airport.
“Where’s Logan?” Gunner asked, his voice rising over the growl of the engine. “I thought he was meeting us down here.”
“He’s doing recon,” Cale said, keeping his eyes on the road. Cale was an ex–Army Ranger, one who’d actually been targeted by the EOD for takedown.
He’d been framed for the murders of three EOD agents. He’d proven his innocence and earned his way onto their team.
“Have you seen a picture of the target?” Sydney asked. She was trying hard not to glance back at Gunner, but she was so aware of him. She was hyperaware of every single move that he made.
Had they really spent the night together? She’d wanted him for so long that part of her wondered if it had all just been a wonderful dream.
An erotic dream.
She couldn’t help herself—she glanced back at him.
And found Gunner’s dark eyes locked on her.
There was such heat in that gaze. She swallowed and forced her eyes away from him as Cale said—
“No, I haven’t seen any visuals on him yet. I just know that the order for extraction came down from the top.”
She caught the brief grin that flashed over Cale’s face.
“Seems Mr. Mercer thinks this rescue is priority, and he wanted only the Shadow Agents to take point on this one.”
The Shadow Agents. Sure, there were other teams in the EOD, but their team had earned the moniker of Shadow Agents because of the way they handled their missions. They went in soundlessly and attacked before their enemies even realized they were there. Then they vanished, disappearing like shadows.
Gunner was especially good at being a shadow. If Gunner didn’t want you to know he was there, you wouldn’t.
Sydney knew Gunner’s grandfather had been the one to first train him to track and hunt on a reservation. Gunner was the best hunter she’d ever seen, even better than Slade.
Slade’s body was in Peru. That knowledge was sitting heavily on her now that she was back in the area.
The EOD had tried to recover his remains again and again, but the rebels they’d fought that day had taken his body away from the scene. Despite the EOD’s efforts, they hadn’t been able to bring him home.
Slade had a grave, an empty one, one that honored him as the soldier he’d been. But he’d actually never made it back home.
“Logan told me that you and Gunner had been in Peru before,” Cale said.
She cleared her throat. “A…few times.”
“Logan has set us up in a resort near the beach. You and Gunner are supposed to look like honeymooners.”
Because sometimes it wasn’t about hiding in a hut or sliding through the jungle. Blending in plain sight could work so much better. The EOD knew this well.
“And I’m your single friend, enjoying some R & R myself.” The road was bumpy and the jeep bounced. Once, twice. “Sure is a long way from Texas,” he murmured, and she heard the faint drawl in his voice.
Cale’s home was in Texas, and the EOD agent he’d replaced—Jasper—was currently living in Texas with Cale’s sister.
“When are we looking at extraction?” Gunner asked as he leaned forward. His fingers were on the back of Sydney’s seat. It almost felt as if he was playing with her hair. Was he?
“Logan said this was a fast-moving mission. We want the civilian out of there within twenty-four hours.”
Sydney nodded. Definitely doable. As soon as Logan returned, she’d start her own reconnaissance work. She could uplink to satellites and get aerial maps of the area to find the best places for them to venture in as they started the rescue operation. As long as she had a good computer and the necessary uplink, she’d be able to access anything that the team needed. Tech had always been her specialty.
Then the jeep turned and headed through the high gates of the resort. Sydney put a smile on her face. She could pretend to be a happy honeymooner. With Gunner at her side, she could do anything.
And she was happy, even if painful memories were trying to push their way into her mind. Peru had been a nightmare for her once, but it didn’t have to be again.
The valet hurried over to the jeep. Gunner was already out and reaching for Sydney. His hand curled around hers, swallowing her fingers. His hold was strong, possessive. And the kiss that he brushed over her lips—it felt possessive, too.
Just for show…or was that something more?
Cale was laughing and saying something, playing his part. Gunner responded, but Sydney was lost.
She actually wished that this moment could be real. That she was just a happy honeymooner. A woman with Gunner.
But this wasn’t her life. She had a mission. A rescue. A civilian who needed her. She’d get the job done.
She’d get her man, too.
Gunner’s arm wrapped around Sydney’s shoulders. He steered her toward the entrance to the resort. She took a deep breath and slipped into her role.
LOGAN’S BODY WAS pressed tightly to the ground. He kept only his head up as he peered through the binoculars to get a visual on the small camp that sat at the base of the mountain. Not a typical rebel group, from what he’d been able to tell. These guys were armed to the teeth, patrolling constantly, and that one tent to the back…the one that housed the hostage…
There’d been no movement from that tent for the past four hours. Logan knew that fact for certain, because he’d been unmoving in his own position for that time.
He shouldn’t have come out alone, he knew that, but before he brought Sydney out there, before Gunner got the rebels in his sights, Logan just had to be sure of his target.
An armed guard headed toward the tent, lifted the flap, and went inside. Logan stopped breathing.
Then the guard came out again, leading the hostage. Logan’s fingers tightened around the binoculars as he stared at that prisoner. Long hair and a beard that hadn’t been trimmed in what looked like months. The man was walking with a faint limp.
This wasn’t a hostage who had been taken a few days ago. This was a man who had been held for a very, very long time.
Logan stared at the man’s face.
And knew the mission was going to be personal.
GUNNER TIPPED THE bellman and shut the door. Then he flipped the lock and turned his attention to Sydney.
She stood in front of a big bed, her blond hair framing her face. Her eyes were wide and fixed on him, but she wasn’t smiling.
Sydney looked nervous. An unusual situation for her. As far as he knew, Sydney was never nervous.
He took a step toward her, and she tensed.
What the hell? “Sydney?”
She shook her head. Then she smiled and gave the light laugh that always made his chest ache. “I swear, I feel like I’m on a real honeymoon.”
If only. He wouldn’t say he hadn’t thought about what it would be like to marry her, because he had. Too many times. Even when she’d been planning to marry his brother, he’d thought—
She should be mine.
Then Slade had died, and he’d hated himself for the jealousy he’d felt.
“Are you…are you okay with being back here again?” Sydney asked him quietly.
He strolled toward the window, then looked out over the lush resort. Within the resort’s walls, everything was beautiful, perfect. But there were other parts of Peru that were savage. Dangerous. Once you left the city and journeyed into the jungle, civilization truly faded away. “I’ve been back here a few times since his death.”
“You have?” Surprise lifted her words.
He knew she’d stayed away. But he’d had to come back. “I tried to find him.” Again and again. “My grandfather would have wanted him brought back.” I wanted him back. He shrugged, trying to push away the past. “But I couldn’t find Slade.”
The floor creaked behind him, and then Sydney’s soft hands were on his shoulders, curling over him. Her touch was warm, soft, and he remembered all the ways that she had touched him during their night together. The ways he’d touched her.
The ways he would touch her again.
He had Sydney now, and he didn’t plan to let her go. Gunner turned toward her. His fingers skimmed over the curve of her cheek. He’d spent the past two years guarding her, determined to protect her from any danger that came their way.
Because Sydney seemed drawn to the danger.
She was the strongest woman he’d ever met, and her brain—hell, the things the lady could do with a computer amazed him. She’d been in the air force, he knew that. A lieutenant colonel. So in addition to her computer skills, there was no plane the woman couldn’t fly. She’d flown their team out of more than a few hot spots around the world.
Slade had been a pilot, too. Not in the air force, though. His brother had done a stint in the army, then gotten civilian flying lessons after his tour of duty.
On a charter run to South America, Slade’s plane had crashed in the wrong spot at the wrong time.
Against orders, Sydney and Gunner had gone in after him.
But they’d failed to bring him home.
“Gunner?” Her voice was soft.
He’d pulled her out of the jungle in Peru. He’d been so afraid she’d die on him. Her blood had stained his hands. She’d shuddered and jerked, cried out desperately.
For Slade.
But Gunner had been the one there for her. He’d always be there for her.
He offered her a smile, when he wasn’t normally the type to smile. He wasn’t like Cale or Logan. They could flirt and charm at will. He knew he had a dangerous edge. One that frightened more than it charmed.
But Sydney didn’t seem frightened. He shook his head and asked, “Why?”
She blinked; then her blond eyebrows rose in confusion.
“Why me?” he asked her. He should have probably just kept quiet, but, hell, he was no prize. His body was scarred…sliced open, literally. He’d been caught by the enemy more times than he wanted to count. And during one bloody, pain-filled capture, he’d been sure that death would take him.
His captors had tied him up and come at him with a knife. They’d wanted information. He hadn’t given it to them, so they’d sliced him over and over on his stomach, his chest. Cuts meant to break him.
But he’d gotten away.
They’d died.
There was nothing light or easy about him—nothing safe.
So why in the hell did Sydney want to be with him? She could have anyone.
“What do you mean?” Sydney still seemed confused.
She was so beautiful. Fragile, though that delicacy was a deception, he knew.
“Why was it me…and not someone else?” Not that guy in the bar who’d had his hands all over her. Sydney could have taken another lover over the past two years. She hadn’t. He knew because he always watched her too closely.
If she had tried to take another lover, what would he have done?
Better not think about it.
With her, his control could be a delicate thing. If she’d actually turned to another, Gunner wasn’t sure that his control would have lasted. That other guy would have found himself in a battle.
“I’m with you because you remind me that I’m alive.”
Her smile seemed bittersweet. “When I’m with you, I feel. I want. I need.”
He felt too much when he was with her. That was dangerous—for them both.
“I don’t like being back here,” she told him quietly, “but I’m glad that I’m with you.” She rose onto her toes. Her lips brushed over his. “I’ve wanted to be with you for a long time.”
He’d been rough with her before, so hungry and desperate. This time, before the mission started, he was determined to use care with her. She deserved care.
Gunner lifted her up. Held her in his arms and then took her to that big, giant bed. He laid her down, slowly stripped her, kissed every inch of flesh that was revealed to him, and he kept a stranglehold on his control.
This time, he’d show her the way things were supposed to be between them. This time, it would all be for her.
He kissed her breasts, loving the tight peaks of her nipples. Like candy. So good and sweet and perfect for his mouth. Her stomach dipped down, and he explored all of her, sliding his fingers gently over her skin, over her sensitive core.
She arched against him, whispering his name. He kept touching her, kissing and enjoying the silken feel of her skin.
“Gunner, I want you.”
Those were the words he needed. He’d never be a stand-in for a ghost, but Sydney wasn’t asking for a stand-in. She wanted him.
He pulled away from her just long enough to push down his jeans. Then he positioned his body between her thighs. One strong thrust—yes—and he drove into her, pleasure pulsing along his aroused length.
Her legs wrapped around him. She urged him to thrust deeper, harder, and he gave in to her. Moving quickly, wanting to give her as much pleasure as she could stand, wanting to give her everything.
When her body tensed beneath his, he knew her release was close. His spine tingled, his body tightened, but he forced himself to hold back.
He needed to feel her pleasure first.
Then she was gasping, calling his name, and her nails were scoring his shoulders. The pleasure washed across her face, brightening her eyes and flushing her cheeks.
Only then did he give in to his own need. He drove into her and let go.
The climax ripped through him, just as strong as the pleasure he’d gotten the night before.
He’d always known that Sydney was a dangerous woman, but he hadn’t realized that once he’d had a taste of the paradise she offered, there would be no turning back.
THE RAP SOUNDED on their door an hour later. Gunner glanced up to see Sydney coming out of the shower. Her hair was still wet, and her clothes clung tightly to her body.
“Must be Cale…or Logan,” she said, glancing toward the door.
Logan would know what they’d been up to. Even though they’d tried to fix the wrecked bed, Gunner knew that the minute Logan looked into his eyes, he would know.
Logan was his friend, and the man could read him too well.
Logan also knew well enough not to say a damn word that would make Sydney feel uncomfortable.
Gunner rose and headed for the door. He checked through the peephole and saw Logan staring straight ahead. After opening the door, Gunner stepped back so that Logan could enter.
Their team leader stalked inside, his body tight with tension.
Frowning, Gunner locked the door behind him. “Did you get a visual?” Sydney asked as she approached him.
Logan gave a grim nod.
Then Gunner saw Logan’s gaze sweep from Sydney, to the bed, to Gunner.
Logan’s stare was…guarded. No emotion.
Gunner’s gut clenched.
“Is Cale coming in for the update?” Sydney glanced toward the door. “I’m sure he needs to hear—”
“I need to talk to the two of you first.” Logan’s words were emotionless. Just like his eyes.
Gunner didn’t like where this scene was going.
“Mercer…Mercer is the one who handed down this job. He asked specifically for our team to handle the mission.”
“We are the best,” Sydney said, grinning a bit.
Logan didn’t smile. “He had a tip about the hostage, and he wanted us to follow up. I wanted to get a visual before I passed on the suspicions to the team.”
“Just what kind of suspicions are we talking about?”
Gunner crossed his hands over his chest and waited.
Sydney came to his side. Her grin was gone. Her shoulders brushed against his.
Logan’s watchful gaze noted that light touch. His eyes narrowed, and he blew out a hard breath. “Mercer had intel that an American pilot was being held. A man with strong ties that could potentially be…manipulated by the group holding him.”
“What kind of ties?” Sydney asked.
“Military ties to a covert team.” Logan’s shoulders straightened. “To our team.”
Gunner’s heartbeat kicked up.
“I saw the hostage earlier.” Logan’s hands were clenched. That wasn’t a good sign. Not good at all. His gaze came back to Gunner. “I got the visual confirmation that we needed.”
Why wasn’t he just coming out and saying—
“The hostage…it’s Slade.”
Sydney’s body swayed next to him, and Gunner automatically reached out, wrapping his hands around her shoulders.
Then he froze.
Slade?
“He’s thinner. His hair’s longer. He’s got a beard and a limp but…it’shim.”
“Slade is dead.” Sydney’s voice was hushed.
Logan’s gaze drifted to her. “No, he’s not.”
“We buried him.”
Gunner felt like ice was wrapping around him. “We put a tombstone over an empty grave.” He stepped toward Logan. “I saw him die. I was there.” This couldn’t be happening. “There was no pulse,” he growled out the words. “I checked. There was no surviving the hits that Slade had taken. With that much blood loss…”
He’d been dead.
Because Gunner never would have left him if he thought his brother had still been alive.
“I saw him, Gunner. I. Saw. Him.” Now Logan raked a hand through his hair, and Gunner realized just how agitated the team leader was. “The features are the same. Hell, I’m not one hundred percent on this…we’d need DNA for that…but the intel Mercer has…what I just saw…it looks like him.”
“G-Gunner?” Sydney sounded shocked. Lost.
He couldn’t look at her right then. Because he was afraid of what he might see in her eyes.
He’d had her beneath him on that bed, been inside her…
While his brother had been held captive in a camp.
Slade’s fiancée.
“We’re going to do more recon tonight. We don’t have time to waste. We need to use the darkness while we can,” Logan said. His voice was stiff. “Syd, I’ll need you to get working on the satellite imagery. We’ll all go in to sweep the area. Then we’ll plan for extraction at 0600.”
Extraction.
His brother’s extraction.
The silence in the room was too heavy.
“Gunner, I want to talk to you alone.” Logan’s words held the snap of command.
And Gunner realized he was staring at Logan, but seeing nothing.
But he gave a rough nod and turned toward the room’s door. He brushed by Sydney—can’t look at her yet, can’t—because he didn’t want to see the regret in her eyes.
She loved Slade, not him, and to find out that he might still be alive, after everything, had to be tearing her apart.
Logan shut the door after them. They were in the hallway. Alone. There was no sound from the room behind him.
Nothing at all.
“You gonna be able to handle this?” Logan whispered.
This? Finding my brother? Losing Sydney? Gunner nodded. “I’ll get the mission done.”
Logan grabbed his arm. “I saw the way you looked at her. I know you were with her in Baton Rouge.” His voice was a bare whisper of sound. “Man, I’m so damn sorry.”
Sorry that Slade was alive? They should be celebrating that miracle. Sydney would be celebrating.
And Gunner was glad. His brother’s death had weighed on him for two years. They’d fought just before Slade’s plane went down. Fought because…Slade knew how Gunner felt for Sydney.
Gunner had known that Slade didn’t deserve her. He’d caught his brother cheating on Sydney, twice. He’d threatened to tell her the truth.
“You don’t deserve her.” That had been his snarl to Slade. But the truth was…
Neither of us deserved her.
But it looked as if one of them would still get her.
“Mercer wanted you on this mission because Slade’s your blood, but the boss didn’t know about you and Sydney—”
“There is no me and Sydney.” He forced himself to say the words. There couldn’t be a he and Sydney. Not now. Maybe after the mission, maybe after—
Stop lying to yourself.
His dream had ended, just as he’d known it would. But he’d just wanted more time with her.
More.
“Gunner…”
He shrugged away from Logan’s hold. “We’ll do the mission. We’ll get him out—if he’s Slade, if he’s someone else…we’ll get him out, either way.” Because that was what they did.
The mission.
Always.
He hated the pity in Logan’s eyes. He’d rather have seen the guarded mask come back.
“She wants you,” Logan said.
Gunner stiffened. “She wanted to marry him.”
Maybe it’s not him. But Logan wouldn’t have said that he thought it was, not unless the evidence he had was compelling.
Logan exhaled on a rough sigh. “We go out in an hour.”
Gunner’s head jerked in a nod.
“Gunner—”
He held up his hand. “Let’s just get him free.” That was all he could think right now. Do the mission. Save the hostage.
Let everything else go to hell.
“Okay.” Logan’s sigh was rough. “But you’re to stand back on the actual extraction, got it? You’ll provide the cover for the team.”
The way he always did. Shooting, killing, from a distance.
“I’ll need you and Syd to survey the area more. When I left, it looked like they were bringing in more men.” He paused. “Are you going to stay in control?”
Sydney was the only one who could make him lose control. Sydney…who wasn’t his.
“Yes.” He didn’t want the word to be a lie.
And maybe it wouldn’t be.
He didn’t walk back into the room with Sydney then. He walked down the hallway, went outside.
I shouldn’t have touched her. I should have stayed away.
Because now—now he knew what he’d be losing.
What he’d lose, even as he found his brother again.
I’m sorry, Slade. Because he’d just taken the one thing that his brother loved most.
HER EAR WAS pressed to the door. The resort might be fancy, but the room doors were thin, and Sydney could hear every word that Gunner and Logan said.
There is no me and Sydney.
The words hurt her, pounding through the numbness that had surrounded her ever since Logan had said that Slade might be alive.
Alive? How was that even possible? Gunner had been so sure that he was dead, and she’d seen Slade’s injuries. Too many injuries. Too much blood.
Slade had been dead. She’d been sure of it. If he hadn’t been…
We left him alone? For two years?
A tear trekked down her cheek, and once more, she heard Gunner’s gruff words echo through her mind.
There is no me and Sydney.
Chapter Three
Gunner wouldn’t look at her. Sydney crept quietly through the jungle, stepping so that she wouldn’t so much as snap a twig, and she was too aware of the silence that came from the man behind her.
Cale and Logan were scouting on the west side of the area. She and Gunner were alone on the east side. The chirps and calls from the insects and creatures in the dark jungle drifted in the air.
And no sound came from Gunner.
She stopped. Took a deep breath, and turned to face him. “Say something.”
The moon shone down on him, but she couldn’t read his expression. Like Logan, Gunner was too skilled at hiding what he felt.
“Are you happy? Stunned? Talk to me!” Didn’t he realize that he was her best friend? When she had a secret to share with someone, she always went to him.
He was her rock.
Her…lover.
Slade’s alive.
“It was a mistake,” Gunner told her. Her heart slammed into her chest. “You don’t think it’s Slade?” Her voice was quiet, so she stepped closer to him. So close that she could feel the seductive warmth of his body. “Logan’s wrong and—”
“We were a mistake.”
Her body trembled, but she kept her chin up. She kept her eyes on him only because she wouldn’t break there, not in the jungle. Not in front of him. “Is that really how you feel?”
She didn’t feel that way. Being with him had been the only thing that seemed right in her world.
Something that felt so amazing, no, it couldn’t be a mistake.
“It won’t happen again. We won’t be together again.”
A bullet wound would probably hurt less. Actually, she knew from personal experience that it would. “It might not even be him.” Her hoarse voice. But it was true. She’d given up on Slade, put him to rest and moved on.
“And if it is?” Now Gunner was the one to take a step toward her. “I left him. I thought he was dead. If he was alive, for all this time, do you know the hell he would have been put through by his captors?”
She didn’t want to think too much about that. She couldn’t think about it now.
“I’m his older brother. I was supposed to keep him safe.” Disgust tightened his mouth. “Not screw his fiancée.”
Pinpricks of heat shot across her cheeks. “Is that what you did? Because I thought we’d been making love.”
Her mistake.
“We need to finish scouting so we can secure the area. “Now isn’t the time to talk about this.”
Right. Of course. But would there ever be a time when he wanted to talk? “It was more to me,” she said, and turned away.
That was when she realized…all of the chirps and calls had stopped. The jungle was eerily silent around them, and clouds were starting to drift across the surface of the moon, making the shadows even darker.
Sydney brought up her weapon, and she knew Gunner was doing the same. She stepped forward, her body tensing now. Something had changed in the jungle. Shifted.
She and Gunner had been hunting before, but now she had the feeling that they were the prey.
The rebel camp should have been about a mile away. No one should be in their immediate area.
But the brush was so thick and heavy.
Sweat coated Sydney’s back and slicked her fingers as she held her weapon.
Then she heard it. The snap of a twig. Twenty feet to the left. She swung around with her gun.
Another twig snapped.
That snapping came from thirty feet to the right.
Trouble.
She felt, rather than saw, Gunner’s movements as he swung to the right. One word whispered through her mind: surrounded.
Her breath barely left her lungs. She reached up with her left hand and tapped the communicator near her ear. “Alpha One…” Her words were a whisper as she signaled Logan. “We’ve got movement in our perimeter. There’s—”
Footsteps thundered toward them, coming fast and hard. She took aim, ready to shoot, but then she saw the hostage. A man who was being pushed through the jungle, with some kind of brown sack over his head. His hands were bound in front of him, and a gun was pressed to the top right side of that sack, just where his temple would be. A flashlight was held on the man, the better for them to see just what trump card the captors held.
“Deje caer sus armas!” The shout came from the man who held the gun. Drop your weapons.
Sydney took aim at him. “Deje caer sus armas!” She snarled right back at him.
He wasn’t alone. There was another armed man who’d come out from the right side. Sydney had heard his rushing footsteps. Gunner hadn’t fired on him, because, like her, he had to be worried about the hostage.
An innocent getting injured in a firefight wasn’t on the agenda.
But neither was getting captured.
A radio crackled behind her. The other man was calling for backup. If they didn’t do something, soon, this mission was about to go bad.
I shouldn’t have gotten distracted. This is my fault. I should have kept walking, kept searching the area. But I was too caught up in Gunner.
Now they were both in trouble.
The man near the hostage laughed and shook his head. “Voy a disparar contra él.”
I will shoot him. Yes, she’d just bet that he’d shot plenty of men in his time.
“Please!” The broken cry came from the hostage. “Help me!”
“We will,” Sydney promised him, but she wasn’t dropping her gun yet.
Only…a weapon did hit the ground. She turned at the thud. Gunner had tossed away his gun. His hands were up. What was he doing? Surrender wasn’t the way the team operated.
“Sydney?” It was Cale’s voice in her ear. If she could hear him, Gunner could, too. They were all on the same comm link. “We’re coming for you.”
But would he come soon enough?
Gunner walked forward, putting his body before her. Sydney didn’t know if he was protecting her or blocking her shot, but either way, the result was the same.
“No dispare,” Gunner said, voice loud and carrying easily. With the transmitter so close to his mouth, Cale would hear every word and understand exactly what was happening to them. “Puede tener tres rehenes en lugar de dos.”
Don’t shoot. You can have three hostages instead of two.
That was a terrible plan.
But then she felt the cold metal of a gun being shoved against the base of her neck.
It looked as though it was their only plan, for the moment.
Sydney let her weapon drop, and she lifted her hands in surrender.
Cale, hurry up, she thought.
Because she wasn’t sure how much time they had.
HE’D MADE A deadly mistake.
Gunner sat in the old chair, his hands tied behind him, his ankles lashed to the wooden chair legs. A heavy black sack covered his head. When he strained his eyes, he could just make out a form across from him. The shadowy outline of—“Sydney?” he rasped.
“Yes.”
He’d been distracted by her in the jungle. Too aware of her every move. He should have been on the lookout for the enemy, but they’d gotten the drop on him.
On Sydney. As if they were both rookies.
Now the hostage was gone, taken to another tent, and he and Sydney were about to be interrogated.
The last time he’d been interrogated in a South American jungle, he’d had to spend six hours getting enough stitches to close all of the wounds in his body.
Those stitches had been given to him by a relief worker on the edge of a river. There’d been no anesthesia. He’d roared at the pain.
And called Sydney’s name.
Something he’d never told her. What would have been the point?
“It was his voice,” Gunner growled as he yanked against his bonds. “You know it was him.” There were guards right outside their tent. Guards who’d foolishly thought that they’d taken all of his weapons.
Not that Gunner needed a weapon to kill. He was very good with his hands.
As his last interrogators had discovered.
“I—I can’t remember his voice.” Her words were soft. Sad. “It’s been too long for me, Gunner.”
He stilled. That had been his brother’s voice, hadn’t it? Because if it hadn’t, then he’d dropped his gun for no damn reason.
I could have taken them out. But he wouldn’t have been able to do it without hurting the hostage. If that had been his brother, then Slade had already been hurt enough. Gunner wasn’t going to add to the man’s pain.
Gunner cleared his throat. “Are you bound?”
“Tied like a pig, with a sack over my head.”
He’d thought so, but they’d been separated on the way to the camp. Then he hadn’t heard her voice for a while, and he’d…worried. “We’re gonna get out of here.” His comm transmitter was gone. Taken and smashed in the jungle, just as hers had been.
But this camp wasn’t in the location that they’d been told of. Either Logan had been given bad intel or the group had a second and, from the sound of things, much larger base. Because they’d walked east. Been dumped into the back of a vehicle, and they’d zigged and zagged through the jungle before they’d stopped.
Good thing he and Sydney were both equipped with a special GPS locator, courtesy of Uncle Sam. They both had trackers inserted just beneath their skin. Cale and Logan would be able to find them; it was just a matter of time.
“We’ll get out of here,” Gunner told her as he twisted his wrists. The ropes were rough, and he could feel them tearing into his skin. So what if he got cut? The blood would just make it easier for him to break loose.
Then he heard voices outside. The group leader’s voice—that would be the one who’d come for them in the jungle. The one who’d held the hostage and laughed as he stared into Gunner’s eyes.
“Sounds like the fun is about to start,” Sydney said. There was no fear in her voice. She could have been terrified, and he wouldn’t have known. She was in her mission mode now.
“We’ll get out of here.” He needed her to understand that.
He heard the rustle of the tent’s opening. Footsteps came closer. He listened carefully and counted the tread of those footsteps…two men.
One man went to stand behind him.
The other—“You shouldn’t have come into my jungle.” Heavily accented English, and Gunner knew it was the leader. The guy was standing right in front of him. He could make out the outline of the man’s body through the fabric of the sack that covered him.
He could see the guy’s body and see the weapon that the man lifted and pointed toward Sydney. “Coming here was a terrible mistake for you both.”
“Stop!” Gunner barked, heart racing.
Laughter. Low. Sinister. From the man with the gun. The rebel behind Gunner didn’t make a sound.
Rebels…what cause were they fighting for? As far as he could tell, Logan thought this group was little more than drug runners. Weapons dealers.
“I am not going to shoot the señorita yet. Not just yet.” But he still had the weapon near her head. “First, you talk, sí? You tell me all about your team. About the men who think they can come into my jungle and take what is mine.”
The rope cut deeper into Gunner’s wrists. “There is no team. Just us.”
Silence. Then, “I can start by shooting her in the knee, if you want.”
“There is no team!” Sydney snapped at him.
But Gunner didn’t speak. The man’s words were replaying in his head. “I can start by shooting her in the knee.”
“You both wore…what are they? Ah…transmitters of some sort. That means you were talking to someone else.”
“There is no team,” Gunner said woodenly, because that was the response he had to give. When the enemy caught you, you didn’t turn. You didn’t reveal your intel, and you didn’t jeopardize the others still out in the field.
“So sad.” Now the man’s voice had deepened. Behind him, Gunner heard the other rebel shifting from foot to foot. “He must not care for you at all, señorita.”
Gunner yanked on the ropes. They weren’t giving. Not yet.
“I don’t like hurting women. It’s not in my nature, but…” A regretful sigh drifted in the air. “If I do not learn what I must know, there will be no choice for me.”
“Let her go!” Gunner demanded as fury swirled inside him. “That’s the only choice you need to make.”
“No, I need to know about your team. About your…EOD.”
Gunner’s mind whirled. The rebel—no way should he have known about the Elite Ops Division. They were off the books for a reason.
Classified cases. Classified kills.
“How many EOD agents are in Peru?”
“I don’t know what the EOD is,” Gunner told him.
A growl broke from the man behind him, and Gunner felt the blade of a knife slice through the sack and press right against his throat.
“Ah…I’m afraid my companion is more impatient than I am.”
The companion…he’d moved quickly but wasn’t getting a reprimand of any sort by the guy Gunner had pegged as the leader. Unusual. Very unusual. Leaders didn’t usually like it when someone jumped the gun.
Maybe he isn’t the leader.
Maybe the real leader was the man getting ready to slice open his throat.
The man with the knife hadn’t said a word, but the other guy kept talking, throwing out, “Her life doesn’t matter to you, but what about your own? Care to tell us about the EOD…now?”
“We don’t know what you’re talking about!” The angry words came from Sydney. “We can’t tell you when we don’t know!”
Sydney had been trained not to break, too. They’d both learned how to hold out against torture.
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