Dangerous Territory: An Alpha Ops novella (2 page)

Forget. Just forget everything.

He grabbed her hands. “Easy, tiger.” His breath whispered across her cheek.

Oh no. This was hers to enjoy. She
deserved
this. She stepped away from him and headed into the center of the room. She threw her jacket onto the bed and kicked off her biker boots. Then she undid the button of her jeans. “How slow do you want me to be, exactly?” Her hand hovered over the zipper and hesitated a bit longer.

He cleared his throat. “Did I say slow? I didn’t mean exactly that.”

Wrinkling her nose, she said, “Do you want to talk first or something? Thing is, I don’t really have anything to talk about. But there was that blonde in the corner booth of the bar. Maybe she’ll want to talk to you.” She started to slide the zipper down, and she knew that it revealed the very top of her lilac lace boy short panties. “Shall I go fetch her for you? I don’t mind. No harm, no—”

Josh closed the gap between them at the speed of a blink and cut off her uncharacteristic chatter with his mouth. His tongue drove her insane. She had never picked up a guy like this before, never had the need to forget so completely, and hell, she may have been missing out. Like badly. For a good ten years.

One-night stands were definitely not her thing, but she had no one in her life whom she could confide in about it, or anyone who could make her feel bad about it, and she really, really needed physical contact. And a place where she could forget the last few weeks of her life.

His hands slid up her T-shirt and gently stroked her ribs, circling up and farther toward her breasts.
Oh God. Touch me, please
. She pulled away from him and took off her T-shirt in one swipe. Then she ripped open his button-down, pausing when she heard the sound of buttons hitting the walls and floor. “Shit. Sorry.”

“I won’t need it in the morning. Don’t worry,” he said between bites of her neck. He shrugged it off and shivered as her fingertips explored the perfectly ripped chest. His nipples pebbled as her nails grazed them, and a low moan rumbled through his body.

He grabbed her jeans and yanked them down, all the way down, so he was eye to eyelet with her lacy panties. Without taking a second, his open mouth descended on her mound, the heat from his breath seeping through her underwear. He pressed his tongue against her clitoris, and the sensation made her vision cloud. She moaned and steadied herself as his teeth lightly grazed up, over her. It was as if she were totally inside his mouth.

It was heaven. Wonderful, forgetful heaven.

“You’re wearing too many clothes,” Grace protested in a whisper.

He looked up at her for a second and said, “And you’re doing too much talking.” Which made her laugh, or as close to laugh as she could in her state of complete arousal.

Nevertheless, he stood and pulled his belt through the loops of his pants and held it as if he were going to tie her up, or worse. Or better. Her heart skipped with a beat of natural concern. But as if he noticed the flash change in her, he smiled and dropped the belt to the floor and reached gently for her hand.

“I won’t do anything you don’t want,” he reassured her. “You can say no anytime and I’ll stop. I know you just picked me up in a bar, but I’m not a—”

“Yes, yes, yes,” Grace said as she pressed herself along the length of him, grinding lightly against his open fly. As soon as she felt his hardness against her pelvis, she imagined how he would feel buried deep inside her, moving… pushing her sad thoughts from her brain with every thrust.

Connections with no emotion. Connections with no emotion
. Tonight was the start of her new friend policy. No emotion. Just a connection. A very physical one.

He plundered her mouth with his lips and tongue, pressing rational thoughts from her mind. With every stroke of his tongue and every press of his lips, hard against hers, a stream of bright sensations burned through her veins and stomach, shooting to the part of her body that was straining against him.

She arched against him as his fingers oh so lightly felt the dampness his mouth had left on her panties. She could barely feel his touch, but whenever she did, those shots of excitement flooded her, wetness pooling between her legs.

He slipped off her panties gently with his hands at her hips, dragging them down her legs until they just fell to the floor. Suddenly, as if he had reached the point of no return, he divested himself of his clothes, and looked at her like he was assessing his prey.

Grace took off her bra, and for a second they just stared at each other in the dim light of the room. He had a gorgeous, well-toned body. Abs? Check. Large, hard thighs? Check. Chiseled jaw half illuminated by the light in the hallway to his room? She wished she could see more of him.

She smiled and backed up slowly until she felt the edge of the bed touch the back of her legs. He advanced on her and then laid one finger on her collarbone, tracing it from side to side, like his lips had done earlier. And then he pushed her.

She fell back with a squeak, and when she heard his low laugh, it sent the same frisson through her.

As she lay back, he slowly parted her legs, gently, as if to test her willingness. She let him push them open. Her eyes closed in anticipation; she felt his fingertips gently brush against her thighs. She couldn’t remember ever being this turned on.

He blew gently on her and she writhed, wanting more, so much more.

“Touch me…” she half whispered, half moaned.

“Did you say, ‘Taste me’?” he asked. But before she could correct him, the tip of his tongue stroked very slowly along her cleft.

Her hands went instinctively for the wrought-iron headboard to brace herself. To try to keep herself together.

Josh stroked her with his finger. “You’re so wet. So wet for me. I love that.”

He dipped his head between her legs again and touched his tongue on her clit so lightly that she wanted to grind down on him to deepen his touch. But she didn’t. His maddening touch teased her until her breath came in irregular bursts. Stars were blinking behind her lids as her hips rose to meet his mouth.

Just as she was tempted to touch herself, to give her that final release that was so elusive, he pressed his whole tongue hard against her and licked her clit. Once, twice, and she came, spasming around the fingers that he slid into her when she shouted his name. Hot waves of desire spread through her body, heating her from the inside out.

Her last thought was that he had burned her up. Burned away her memories. Mission accomplished. She reached for him… and then nothingness.

Khost Province, Afghanistan, three years later

This was Grace’s nirvana.

She shrank into the side of the MRAP—mine-resistant, ambush-protected—vehicle, clicked her recorder on, and listened to the patrol answer her question.

“My mom’s mac and cheese!” the staff sergeant said. “Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and swear I can taste it.”

“You’re such a mommy’s boy, Findlay!” The only woman on the patrol, Sergeant First Class Beth Garcia threw a Cheeto at him.

“What about you, Beth? What are you most looking forward to when you get home?” Grace probed gently. She loved these nighttime forays off base. The troops were always so much more willing to talk when it was dark outside.

Beth paused and adjusted her helmet strap over her long, pinned-up braid. “Seeing my dog. Smelling the pine trees around my house.” She paused and flashed Grace a wide grin. “Having complete control of my TV! These beasts only ever pick the goriest movies to watch in the rec room!”

The guys in the truck howled with laughter. “You’re just a big ol’ fraidycat, Garcia,” the driver of the armored truck said.

She shook her head. “Ain’t nothing scarier than your breath on morning patrol, dickwad,” Beth flung back to the front of the vehicle with a grin.

“No boyfriend waiting at the airport?” Grace asked.

“Hell no. I don’t need anyone holding me back.” She was quiet for a moment. “I’ve been told that I intimidate men,” she said with an air of defiance.

The two men in the front of the truck gave each other a side-eyed look and said in unison, “No kidding!”

Beth flipped them off, then burst out laughing. Grace had been with these troops for five weeks, and she had seen the way men looked at the staff sergeant. They might be intimidated, but they definitely appreciated the way she looked and the way she handled herself in this male-dominated world. She was fair, firm, and fun with them. She figured more than one of them had an unspoken crush on Beth.

Grace laughed with everyone. She envied these people. They all had firm roots and had something to go home to. Grace didn’t even have a potted plant. Or a home, come to think of it. Since she had been embedded for nearly four years, there had been no point in keeping an apartment.

Beth turned back to Grace. “What about you, then? What’s waiting for you back home?”

Grace’s thoughts flickered over her storage unit with her king-size bed and a mere five boxes of belongings and felt something twinge inside. She flipped back a few pages in her notes. “I am looking forward to two weeks at the Four Seasons in D.C., and then I am heading out with”—she squinted in the muted green light at a page in her notebook—“the 101st Airborne for a twelve-month tour in Helmand.”

“What the fuck?” Beth pulled an incredulous face. “You don’t have any family or anything to go back to? You’re just pulling back-to-back rotations?”

“I’m like a rolling stone,” Grace joked. Although even to her own ears it sounded a little hollow. Okay, a lot hollow. Like the biggest, hollowest hollow thing. She just had no idea what change she could make that would leave her life a little less… devoid of life.

“Dude, you are so coming out with me one night. We need to find you a man!” Beth said. “This is no place for someone like you to live. You need a life, girl.”

Grace fell silent.
Don’t get attached. Don’t get involved. These people are a job. Don’t form relationships.
She’d learned this the hard way. On her first embedded deployment, she’d become firm friends with a girl who was killed by a mortar bomb attack a week before they were due to return. She refused to go through that pain again.

Silence fell naturally as the convoy took a valley road to get to the outer reaches of their patrol. Beth shifted uncomfortably. “Something’s not right,” she murmured, peering out the tiny window. “Something… something. Come out wherever you are,” she said in a low, singsong voice.

“There!” Findlay hissed, pointing through the front window to the right.

Grace couldn’t see anything, but Walker, the air force guy with
TACP
on his uniform, started writing down coordinates on his small waterproof notebook. He was referred to as the “tac-pee”—Tactical Air Control Party—and it was his job to protect the Special Forces when they were outside the base. His finger flicked tensely over his radio control. He was the only person who could get air support here quickly to protect them. Bombs, guns, he could get anything to them if they were in trouble.

Adrenaline oozed into her system. This. This was what she lived for. She grabbed her camera from her bag and attached a night-vision lens. They were in a bulletproof vehicle, so she felt safe, but flirting with danger was her modus operandi. It’s how she’d gotten her Pulitzer. Going places that reporters with families wouldn’t.

“RPG! Incoming! Incoming!” David, the other tech sergeant driver, said into his radio. Immediately, the TACP made the call to the allied aircraft in the area.

“This is Playboy. This is Playboy. Reporting a TIC at the following coordinates…”

In the truck’s side mirror, Grace could see the two vehicles behind them reversing, spitting up dust as they did. The MRAP picked up speed as the sound of firecrackers echoed through the valley. They were Troops in Contact, all right.

A terrifying whooshing sound got louder, and Beth shouted, “Brace! Brace!”

Grace just managed to wedge her knees against the seat in front of her in the second of silence before an almighty explosion made the MRAP jump in the air. The rocket-propelled grenade must have exploded under the vehicle. Her helmeted head whacked the roof of the truck, as did everyone else’s.

After the sound of the dirt sprinkling on the vehicle stopped, the silence seemed to envelop them. Grace watched Beth lean forward to grab the driver by his face and make sure he was okay.

The radio clicked into action. “Findlay? You guys okay?” a voice from the trailing vehicle crackled into theirs. The driver clicked his radio once to signify “yes,” but Grace wasn’t really sure if everyone was okay. She shifted onto her knees and reached for Beth. Beth knocked her hand away.

“I’m fine, for God’s sake. Walker,” she addressed the TACP. “We need air support. Nothing slow. I don’t know how many RPGs they have. We can’t risk a helo. We need F-16s or a Strike Eagle, if there’s one in the area.”

“Already on it, Sergeant,” James responded. “This is Playboy,” he called in, “calling for close air support.”

He never once raised his voice in anxiety or terror. She’d been out with TACPs before, and they were all incredibly calm under fire. But she couldn’t help noticing that his eyes kept flicking to Beth in concern.

The radio crackled to life again. “This is J.D., reporting a TIC.”

Beth grabbed the radio. J.D. was in the MRAP behind them. “J.D., what’s going on?” she asked urgently.

“They’re all over us. I can see about twelve with AKs. They’re coming from the hill on the east.”

Beth tried to see out of the armored truck. “Shit. I’m not leaving them.” She slapped Findlay on his helmet. “Come on. Let’s go!”

The driver revved the engine, but the vehicle didn’t move. “Dammit. I think the axle must have blown out.”

“Findlay, you’re with me.” Beth reached for the handle of the door when Walker stopped her with a hand.

“Garcia, you’re sitting ducks if you go.”

She shook him off. “They’re sitting ducks if we don’t. I’m relying on you. By the time we reach J.D., I want air support raining shit on those bastards. And look after Grace.” She turned back to Grace and gave her a supremely fake grin. “I’m just running out for a pack of smokes. I’ll be right back.”

The heavy doors slammed with a bang that was nearly as loud as the explosive. The TACP just raised his eyebrows infinitesimally. “You’re not going to give me trouble, are you, ma’am?”

“I am not,” Grace said firmly, sitting back in her uncomfortable seat. “So ‘Playboy,’ huh?” She smiled at him to defuse the situation. “You have a reputation?”

“Not me, ma’am. It’s a TACP call sign from Vietnam. It’s an homage.”

“Really? Maybe when we get back to base you can tell me about that.”

“No, ma’am.” He didn’t stop messing with long strings of numbers on his PC.

“You don’t like reporters?” Unfortunately, a lot of troops were suspicious about journalists, about being judged by the world for what they said or did in war.

“No, ma’am.” He looked back at her quickly. “No offense.”

“None taken.”

She watched as he worked out the coordinates for other targets in the valley, and when he paused, she asked, “Off the record. Why are you here? What brought you to join the air force?”

He rolled his shoulders back and raised his arms to stretch out. “Escape, I guess. An unforgiving family, a job I didn’t want… Yeah, I guess you could call it an escape.”

“But surely you could have escaped somewhere other than the military and certain war?” She was always interested in their reasons for enlisting. She felt it gave a depth to her articles. Helped those back home understand who was fighting their wars for them.

“I wanted to serve my country. To protect and defend. It’s a good life. An honest life. I like that.” As soon as the words left his lips, another explosion cracked through the night. Walker got back on the radio as Grace grabbed a spare pair of night-vision goggles and tried to see what was happening outside.

“Shit. Shit!” Grace shouted. “Beth… I think she’s down. She’s on the ground. I’m sure. I’m sure that’s her. We have to get her.”

The TACP elbowed his way to the back of the MRAP and grabbed Grace’s goggles to peer out of her window.

He tapped his radio. “Garcia? Do you read me?”

There was a tense silence, and then a radio click and the sound of panting. “Hit in my leg. I’m fine. I’m trying to press to J.D. I’m laying cover fire from the dirt to keep them off his vehicle.” More panting. “Do you copy?”

“I copy. Where’s Findlay?”

“I sent him on. He’s fine. I didn’t want to hold him up.” The strain in her voice was apparent even over the radio.

Grace couldn’t bear it. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to think of something else. This couldn’t be happening again. The Four Seasons. Three years ago. The night that took her nightmares away. The man who had saved her sanity that night. The look in his eye, his kiss…

“You okay, ma’am?”

She tried to smile. “I’m fine. What do you need me to do?”

“I’m not leaving a troop out there alone. They will take her if they find her.”

Grace nodded.

“But I’m not leaving you here either. So you’re coming with me. Leave your cameras, and take your backpack and your Kevlar. That’s it. Okay?”

“Sure.” Grace fumbled in the storage area for her small backpack and her vest that had
PRESS
stamped across the front. “No, wait. I need my camera.”

“Don’t make me leave you here, ma’am.” He said it as if he were talking about leaving her in a café.

“No. I mean my camera has pictures of troops, their name tags, the base. I can’t leave it in case…”

Walker gave her a measured look. “Good thinking. Okay, bring it.”

He got on his radio again. “This is Playboy. We have some Cat Three injuries in a hot zone. We need immediate cover and pararescue. Over.”

“Copy that,” a brusque voice replied. “Stay where you are.”

“Copy that.” He turned and shrugged. “I don’t always follow orders.”

“God bless you for that. I’m ready.”

“You stay in the truck until I give you the okay. Then you stay three paces behind me, and if I say ‘drop,’ you better fucking drop.”

“Copy that,” she said.

He swung the heavy back door open and pushed her against the inside of the truck. No sound came except the distant pops of gunfire. He jumped from the truck and remained in a crouch, scanning the area for the enemy. Then he circled the vehicle doing the same.

He beckoned, and Grace jumped down. All she could hear now was her own panting and her heartbeat echoing in her ears. Never had she been so aware of the thin veil between life and death as when she followed him down the dirt road. The going was slow. Every few paces, he stopped to surveil the area again and check that they were walking in the tire-tread impressions that the MRAP had made minutes earlier.

Grace began to sweat. The country had been experiencing crazy warm weather in the middle of winter this year. She cursed herself. What was she doing? Had she been waiting for this to happen? She was nothing but a burden to these folks, and now, because she was here, she was putting more lives in danger. Walker would have gotten to Beth a lot sooner if she hadn’t been here. Dammit. Every step she wondered what was keeping her in this war zone. She’d been here for a total of four years, with a two-week break stateside at the end of every twelve-month tour. Otherwise, she had made this her home. She had made a combat zone her home. If she wasn’t so scared, she would laugh at herself.

Please God, if I get out of this, I will go find a safe home somewhere.

*     *     *

Master Sergeant Josh Travers and his team of pararescuers were in the rec room trying to persuade one of the tech sergeants to grill something for a midnight snack when the call came in. They dropped everything they were doing and, without even looking back, they raced to the ops center.

“Don’t know much right now. It’s a hot mission,” their commander said when they reached the central command room.

With a firefight still going on, getting to wounded and stranded troops was difficult and dangerous. Josh smiled to himself. Everything he had trained for. He looked around the room at the faces of his men. The tech sergeant, D.D., was pretty new to his team. He was young and earnest, something Josh recognized from his own experience eight years ago. He figured that D.D. might need a pep talk. While they awaited more information, he sidled around the room to the newbie and started throwing a stress ball up and down as if lost in thought.

“How are you doing, Deed?” he asked, keeping his eye on the ball.

“I’m fine, Master Sergeant. Thank you.” There was a pause that Josh allowed to sit in the air. “But this will be my first hot mission, and I… I wondered if you could tell me what to expect.”