Hot for His Hostage (2 page)
Read Hot for His Hostage Online
Authors: Angel Payne
Tags: #Fiction, #Romance, #Military, #Contemporary
Table Of Contents
“Hi gorgeous. You wanna play lions? ’Cause I’m ready to chase your meat.”
Shay Bommer stared as the little redhead in skintight jeans wobbled on her five-inch
heels and finished the line with a playful roar. He expected her friends, a group
of ten women at a table in the corner of the LA International Airport bar, to applaud
her drunken effort. Clearly, they’d concocted a crazy version of “double-dare-you”
to pass the time and she’d drawn the wrong straw.
The moment provided more proof for a theory Shay had observed in nauseating detail
lately.
People did strange fucking things in airport bars.
A hand snaked around his waist from behind, elegant fingers topped by slick blue-black
nails. Its owner had a sultrier voice than the redhead’s, now murmuring in his ear.
“I have a better game. I wanna play war. You lay on the ground and I’ll blow you up,
baby.”
Hell.
Six months undercover with one of the world’s most notorious criminals, and the worst
bullets he dodged these days were lines like that.
Remember why you’re doing this. Remember who you’re doing this for.
He swung a polite smile at the redhead then swiveled to peer at her friend, an equally
petite woman with a deeper tint to her mahogany pixie cut, showing off ears with four
piercings apiece. “Ladies, I’m flattered but—”
“Ohhh, noooo,” flirt number one protested. “We don’t like the sound of that ‘but.’”
“Not to be confused with the butt we
do
like.” Her friend slid the goth fingernails under his ass, squeezing him through
the fabric of his tailored dress trousers. For the fifteenth time tonight, he missed
his regular camouflage “work attire” worse than Scout, the Siberian Husky who’d been
like another brother to he and Tait through boyhood.
“You’re so gorgeous.” The first woman pushed his knees apart and stepped in for a
feel from the other side, sliding a hand over the fabric covering his cock. “Oooo,
and
hard
. You don’t just look like Superman, do you? You feel like him—”
“
Everywhere
.” Her friend kept exploring, finally wrapping eager fingers around his balls. “Mmmmm.
He’s not Superman, Brynn. He’s Ironman.”
Shay tensed. He threw a subtle but thorough glance around the room, wondering if he’d
missed anything on the first five sweeps.
Ironman
. How the hell had the woman blurted his radio call-sign? Had Cameron Stock, the evil
prick he’d been hanging out with for half a year, directed the woman to act shitfaced
in order to drop the name and see how he’d react?
Or are you freaking out like a little girl now, Bommer? For fuck’s sake, her fingers
are all over the junkyard between your thighs—and the size of your “pipe” isn’t a
state secret. You may have earned the nickname by setting timed run records in PT
but your cock isn’t a bad ally for the cause.
He rolled his eyes at the smartass in his head as the woman nuzzled his neck. When
her margarita-heavy breath hit him, he had the answer to his dilemma. Her hit on the
name had really just been stupid coincidence, though he rarely believed in that kind
of cosmic shit. He couldn’t afford to.
Brynn sidled closer, fitting the apex of her thighs against the same part of his anatomy.
“Come on, stud. What about it? Ellie likes to share and so do I. Two redheads, grounded
by fog in the same airport as you, with a room waiting for us over at the Hilton…”
“And at least one of us isn’t wearing panties.” More margarita breath fanned his face.
Brynn giggled. “Make that neither of us. Horny, panty-free dancers from a hot Vegas
show. Find a blue moon somewhere in that muck outside and you’ve been handed a once-in-a-million
memory, honey.”
Part of him screamed to simply agree with her. That same part filled his imagination
with a fantasy painted in shades of
ohhh
,
fuck
, and
yeah
. Both women kneeling before him, servicing his cock in all the ways any heterosexual
male dreamed. He’d find a way to clamp their nipples as reciprocation for their naughty
behavior before they licked every inch of his erection, preparing him to fuck them
both…
Thoughts he didn’t dare indulge for another second. Not now.
He pushed off the barstool, rubbed the back of his neck, and faked an awkward laugh.
“I’m certain you’re right, ladies, but I can’t. I’m here on business. My colleague
should be here any minute.”
The reply was a string of lies. Where the fuck was Wyst? The guy was thirty minutes
late.
Not
a development Shay wanted to take with the normal calm that had earned him a fast
place in Cameron Stock’s inner sanctum. But tonight, everything was different. Within
the hour, they’d solidify the plans that would make this burglary happen, finally
bringing him to the last stretch of this disgusting mission.
Shay had been working closely with the spooks to make this shit go down as seamlessly
as possible. His personal investment in taking out Stock was intense. Last year, Stock
helped engineer a scheme that nearly drenched the US West Coast beneath a nuclear
fallout cloud, a plan thwarted in an operation by his brother Tait’s Special Forces
team—though the price had been devastating. Tait’s ladylove, Luna Lawrence, had eventually
died as a result of the standoff’s violence. The trauma had turned Tait’s heart into
a husk and his liver into a distillery. And watching that shit happen? Shay grimaced
from the memories. The term “emotional waterboarding” fit the bill nicely.
But exacting revenge on behalf of Tait was only the first half of the picture. Shay
never lost sight of the second goal for this escapade, equally driving every step
he took and move he made. He was going through this hell to find another victim of
Stock’s rise to criminal glory—a piece of prey who’d then been forced to become a
cog in the monster’s machine.
A cog he’d once known as Mom.
His gut turned. Certainly wasn’t a new experience, especially if he counted all the
years that had been wasted since she “deserted” them, as their father had always alleged.
He’d been only nine. Tait was ten though counting the days until his eleventh birthday,
when he’d enjoy the six-month period he was officially two years older than Shay.
Life’s concerns were so simple. They were still a halfway-functioning family. Dad’s
drinking was still just uncomfortable instead of unbearable. He only went after Mom
once a week rather than every other day—until the four-day bender that had ended with
her leaving in the middle of the night. And never coming back.
Hearkening the start of the shit years.
Tait did his best to make sure they were safe when Dad got bad. There was the “hideout”
in the basement next door courtesy of Mrs. Verona, stocked with canned food for emergencies,
thanks to Uncle Jonah. Mrs. V always baked fresh cookies, too. Damn, he wanted those
cookies again. He wanted the long conversations he and Tait had while savoring them.
Most of all, he wanted all the time he’d missed with his mother.
Who Tait and he had joined Dad in vilifying for the last eighteen years—when she’d
never intended to leave forever.
Who had signed on with Cameron for six months but had been forced by the man to stay
for the rest of her life, used for her brilliant scientific mind—and probably a lot
of other hideous things.
Who’d been forced to erase Melody Bommer and instead live as Melanie Smythe, never
once permitted to contact him and Tait. Not just a stranger to her children. A ghost.
Now, Shay was achingly close to raising that ghost. To finally finding and freeing
her.
All he had to do was help Cameron’s team steal a commercial airliner.
After an hour, when they’d landed the bird, he’d be standing at the front door of
her lab.
It was going to be a night for tricky feats—beginning with peeling off the women who’d
re-draped themselves against him.
Where the
hell
was Wyst?
His cell vibrated on the bar, dancing across the sticky granite to notify him of an
incoming text.
Not a second too soon, dickwad.
“Sorry, ladies. I really need to get this.”
While the message saved him from the paws of his new fan club, it also slammed him
with disappointment. Only three people knew the number to this phone, all smarmy sons
of bitches. The device belonging to Shay Bommer, not “Shane Burnett,” was secured
in a locker in Langley, Virginia, its voice mail stating he was on deployment and
didn’t know when he’d be back.
He yearned for that other phone now. For even five minutes on the line with Tait.
The last time he’d seen his brother had been such a bizarre fluke. Shay had just gotten
started on this assignment and was working his way into Cameron’s good graces, finishing
one of the man’s “special projects.” They’d been on the island of Kaua'i, where Cameron
had attempted to sell a beachfront estate to the North Koreans for use as their forward
base in an assault on the western United States.
To Shay’s shock, Tait and his sniper teammate, Kellan Rush, led the op to crush Cameron’s
scheme and save the estate’s owner, an islander named Lani Kail. The whole episode
actually helped seal Stock’s buy-in on Shay’s cover but had nearly made Lani another
casualty of the man’s evil. Not a great twist, considering Tait had damn near proposed
to the woman after she was safe. Tait’s fresh love for Lani made him deaf to any explanation
Shay had for his involvement with Stock, officially turning him into a traitor in
his brother’s eyes.
The four months since then had been complete hell. And this text likely represented
another extension of the ordeal.
Yo, Shane. You still at the airport?
Called that one right.
Shay clenched his jaw again. In addition to violating the team’s rule about refraining
from personal names on all mobile communication, Wyst also confirmed he wasn’t at
the airport, meaning the great airplane heist was again a no-go.
Damn it.
Am I supposed to be anywhere else?
The sarcasm wouldn’t translate but Wyst wouldn’t get it even if he stood here for
the verbal version. The guy’s DNA strand had obviously been taking a leak during the
distribution of higher brain function, making him Cameron’s ideal lap dog.
Guess you’ve been waiting for me. Sorry. Was eating dinner.
Shay refrained from jibing about whether the guy would indulge a manicure or a
Friends
rerun after eating. Mainly, he worried about Wyst actually answering.
So Cameron’s called off the op again?
Once more, there was a hell of a lot more he burned to type. No; to demand. Like why
the hell they weren’t moving on the plan when the Pacific Ocean itself was cooperating
tonight, dumping fog porridge over half of LA. He watched the departure gate crews
get itchier by the minute, waiting for word from the control tower that every flight
would be grounded until morning. Their wait wasn’t long. After a few minutes, the
PA system crackled.
We regret to inform passengers
…blah blah blah…
due to abnormal fog and dangerously low visibility
…blah blah blah…
Los Angeles International Airport will reopen at six o’clock tomorrow morning.
It was such a rarity for LAX, the crews clapped like kids on Christmas. In a way,
it was. All the tarmacs had just been turned into Cameron’s airliner goody bag, complete
with a cloak of subterfuge to better enjoy the “fun.”
So why the hell was Stock stalling this time?
New tactic. No joy on taking golden egg tonight.
Not enough yolk to hatch the plan. Extra roosters called to watch the henhouse.
“Fuck.”
Now
the guy switched to code speak? “Not enough yolk” likely meant none of the jets outside
had enough fuel in them, even for a short hop to the desert outside Vegas. But that
defense was thin. Why couldn’t Stock get a couple of fuel crew ID’s falsified, since
he’d passed off Shay and Wyst as “airport contractors” for the last month? And “roosters”
in the henhouse clearly referred to extra security for the terminals, determined to
keep the largest airport in the state a drama-free zone tonight.
No. That defense didn’t wash either. Stock had a shit-ton of resources for this kind
of thing. He’d called up a small mercenary army to face Tait’s Special Forces battalion
in Hollywood last year, not to mention the team of pretty-boy cutthroats gathered
by his bitch, Gunter Benson, for the Kaua'i adventure.
So what wasn’t adding up here?
Shay hoped to God it wasn’t his cover story.
His next text exchange with Wyst would supply the answer to that.
When is hatch time rescheduled?
If Wyst’s answer was slow or evasive, he’d know the jig was up. It’d be clear Stock
had learned about Shay’s true purpose and was plotting to cut him out of the mission—and
into a bunch of little pieces, too.