Operation Swift Mercy (17 page)

Grabbing a shoulder, he spun the intruder around to face him and threw him across the room. He spared only a brief glance at Mercy to
see
her
shaking—e
yes wide with terror
and
dripping wet. Immediately he turned back to face the intruder, his vision turning red as a rage so ferocious it almost scared him, took control of the situation. Lifting the man by the collar, he slammed his fist into his face, not pausing as the first gush of red flowed from the man’s nose. At some point he was aware of Tupper yelling at him, and coming to prise him off the now prone figure on the floor of the room, but he couldn’t stop
. I
t wasn’t until he felt the coo
l, damp hand tugging on his arm
that he stopped pounding and looked up
.

She was crying. Tears streaked her face and she was pleading with him. His vision seemed to clear and suddenly all around him noise erupted. It was like he’d been in a vacuum of rage
.
He heard shouts of abuse coming from the doorway where Tupper had stationed himself to block the way of the man’s friends coming in to join the fray and Mercy now, quietly sobbing, as she held his arm and stared at the man beneath him bleeding on the floor.

Letting go of the man’s shirt, still wrapped tightly in his fist, he lifted his hand to stroke her face, but she flinched and backed away, causing his stomach to drop in despair
.
What the hell had he been doing?
He wasn’t the fighter in the group—not like this, not with a complete disregard for anything other than inflicting as much pain as he possibly could to nullify the threat against the woman he loved. He froze as his brain made the connection the rest of him had been clamouring to reach.
He was in love with her.

Tupper swore violently and drew his attention
.
“
We gotta
’
g
et this guy out of here—we’re going to have a mob banging down this
door any
second.”

Climbing
to his feet, Chase
helped
drag the man by the arm to the doorway and rolled him outside. Two other men
outside,
hurled abuse at him as they picked up their friend
, looping
his arms across their shoulders to take him away.

“We haven’t hea
rd the end of this,” Tupper warned.
“Stay in here with her and I’ll go head off the Captain and fill him in on what happened before they do.”

Chase
switched the lock,
rest
ing
his forehead against the back of the door, bracing his hands either side for support
.
He flinched slightly when he felt the flutter-like touch of her cool hand on his back, but took a deep breath and turned to face her.

“Are you okay? Did he…hurt you?”

He saw her shake her head slightly, and hated the wide eyed, fearful way she was looking at him. Calling himself a number of derogative names, he wished she hadn’t been here to see all that. His lack of control was inexcusable—he was trained professional for God’s sake—what the hell had that all been about? He knew exactly what that had been about—he’d come running the minute she’d screamed
, t
o save her—no matter what the cost.

“What happened?”
H
e managed to get out, glad he sounded a lot calmer than he was feeling.

“I was in the shower,” she almost whispered. “Then all of a sudden he was just there, in the bathroom.”

“Why didn’t you lock the room door before you took a shower? You saw the kind of men who work here when we came on board
. W
hy the hell didn’t you make sure you were safe before you went in there?”
What he was really thinking was
why the hell
he
hadn’t made sure she
’d
locked the door…why
he
hadn’t made sure she was safe
.

“I just didn’t think…I mean I didn’t think anyone would come in…I—”

“He had his hands all over you,” he grated, pushing away from the door to pace the room.

“Why are you acting as though it was my fault? He broke into
my room
! I didn’t exactly ask him in!”
S
he yelled and Chase smothered another curse at his stupidity. He was handling this all wrong.
God damn it!
Out of all of them, he was the one who usually knew what to do in situations like this—at least he had, until it was
his
woman in the line of fire. Now he was a hyped-up testosterone filled maniac who couldn’t seem to say the right thing.

He saw fresh tears building in Mercy’s eyes and forced himself to calm the hell down. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to yell.” He reached out to draw her close to him, but she grabbed his arm and pulled his hand closer to her for inspection.

“You’re hurt,” she said and he heard her voice crack slightly.

H
e didn’t bother looking at his hands, he knew his knuckles were covered in blood—
most of it
wasn’t his though and he headed into the bathroom to wash
it
away—he didn’t want anything belonging to that man anywhere near Mercy.

Behind him, he felt her enter the room. There was very little space with one person in
there;
two made it
little more than standing room only. She placed her hands on his back and she felt her tug at his t-shirt.

“You’ve got blood all over your
clothes
,” she said quietly, continuing to move the fabric up over his torso and over his head.

Chase didn’t dare breathe in case it broke the fragile moment. She’d never been the one to
initiate a
move until now.
He closed his eyes and searched for a measure of control as she gently caressed the skin on his back. He knew she would be looking at the scars across his back—a legacy
of wounds
he’d received over his long career in Force Recon. They’d never taken the time to really look at each other when they’d made love before—it had always been a
heat
of the moment kind of thing. He vaguely worried that seeing him now, with all his faults and scars now visible, she’d have second thoughts about wanting him but she continued to explore him, taking her time to caress the puckered and risen scar tissue with a gentleness that almost undid him
.

“I want to see you—all of you,” she said quietly, so quietly, he wasn’t sure at first he’d heard her. Slowly he turned to face her, his gaze locking onto her face and holding her gaze
steadily. He slowly reached down and unbuttoned his fly, slowly tugging at the zipper, careful to manoeuvre over the all too eager part of him that had been straining for release.

He watched as she lowered her gaze, and felt himself leap in anticipation. He would have apologised, even though he had no control over how Chase junior chose to react to a beautiful woman touching him with the softest hands he’d ever felt in his entire life, but it didn’t seem to bother her.

He stifled a groan as she gently stroked him and clenched his fists by his side to keep from grabbing her and doing her right here against the wall of the bathroom.

She began rhythmic
ally
sliding her
hand in
long sure strokes,
the movement causing
sweat
to
break
out across his brow
.

“Baby, I don’t know how long I can stand here and take this,” he groaned, dropping his
cheek
to rest on top of her
head, weakly.

“So don’t just stand there,” she said, pulling back slightly to look up at him with a shy smile.

****

Mercy couldn’t believe she was being this brazen. Part of her wondered if this was some left over adrenalin fuelled reaction to having almost been raped, and then watching Chase almost beat the man to death before her…but she didn’t want to analyse it now—all she knew was that for a moment that had seemed to pass as slowly as an hour, she thought she was going to be attacked by the gap toothed, leering man who had barged into her room, and then suddenly Chase had been there, pulling him off her like some avenging angel.

“I need you, Chase,” she said, pulling away from him to look deep into his eyes. She needed to make sure he understood that she knew what she was doing. “I need you to make me forget that he touched me.”

She saw his features harden and his hands clench into fists at the side of her head at the mention of the attack and placed her hands either side of his face. “You can be angry later, but right now,
I
need
you
,” she whispered.

Her words seemed to penetrate his anger and she saw the tension slipping from his face to be replaced with a tenderness that brought tears to her eyes
.

Slowly he lowered his lips to her neck and moved to cover her body with his own. This was what she needed. This was what she wanted. When she closed her eyes, she wanted to see Chase’s face, not the man who had tried to rape her. As Chase worked his magic, rational thought left her head and all she could do was hold on tightly to the man she was falling way too hard and fast for.

****

He didn’t need to be asked twice. Chase wasted little time, tugging the towel off and moving her back towards the door. Lifting her to straddle his waste, he carried her out into the room and gently lowered her onto the bed, their lips locked and hands roaming.

It took more effort that he thought imaginable to erase the murderous instinct that arose at the mention of another man touching her, but he did—he knew that she needed him and even though he struggled against the desire to seek out the guy and beat him all over again—he did it.

At the first touch of her hands on his waist, urging him to fill her, he immediately forgot about everything except the burning, gut twisting desire to slip deep inside her and wipe
her
memory of any other man she’d ever known before. He wanted to be everything she ever needed—the only man she
would
ever desire
and even if that made him soun
d like some dominating
son
-
of
-
a
-
bitch
—he didn’t give a shit—all he knew was this woman posse
sse
d him and drove him to the brink of insanity
. I
f he died tomorrow—he’d be a happy man for having experienced this
all-consuming
fire that ignited whenever they made love
.

As he entered her, he heard her moan, that breathless little sound she made that could almost bring him undone in a second.
Sweat began to cover their bodies and he looked down at her, watching as she bit her lip and groaned. The sound seemed to hum right through their bodies to where they were joined and he swore a string of profanities inside his head to focus on not ending this before it had even begun.
He let out a sharp hiss between his teeth, clenching them against the pure agony of pleasure as she squeezed him tightly and began moving with him to set a slowly building rhythm that would carry them faster and faster towards what felt like the brink of certain oblivion
.

****

“
Lock
the door behind me,”
Chase said kissing her gently on the lips before ducking out through the doorway a long time later. It was getting dark and she was starving.

Tupper had sent a text message to let them know he’d sorted things out with the captain and that the man responsible
had been locked in his cabin until they worked out what to do with him
.
Under normal circumstances, when a crime such as an assault occurred, the captain had a duty of care to his crew and passengers on board to protect them and the attacker would be locked in his quarters or some other suitable area until they reached the nearest port where they could hand him over to the authorities to deal with. In this situation though—it was a little tricky, considering Chase, Tupper and Mercy were on board without having gone through any customs checks, which would cause more than a few awkward questions for both the captain and themselves.

It was obvious the captain wasn’t above making a little cash on the side by taking paying passengers such as themselves
and Mercy suspected, it was quite possible he may also be into other illegal activities as well
, in
which
case
getting tangled up with the authorities could pose somewhat of a problem for all involved.

Mercy was torn—she hated that this man would be getting off simply because they weren’t in a position to press charges, although the beating he’d received from Chase had probably been a more fitting punishment than a slap on the wrist he may have gotten from the legal system
.