Retribution (SSU Trilogy Book 3) (The Surgical Strike Unit) (13 page)

Gabby heard Larson’s sharp inhale. But before he could reply to Rafe, the beep of a cell phone interrupted.

“Ah,” Larson murmured. “Duty calls. Dear lady, do keep me first in line when this oaf grows tired of you.”

Gabby didn’t bother to respond, and a moment later she heard his footsteps fading away.

Rafe’s muscles relaxed. “Don’t mind him. He likes to play the prick with other guys and steal their women, but he’s a good operator.”

Gabby stepped away from him. She wasn’t sure how she felt about being classified as one of Rafe’s women. Not that it mattered. She couldn’t allow him to kiss her again. Hadn’t she just warned herself about feeling anything for Rafe? Letting the nearly orgasmic power of his mouth distract her from her work would be the shortest route to heartbreak.

“I really need to get back to work,” she said.

“Gabby—”

“No. Don’t.” She held up her hand in a warding gesture. “Just let it go. You’re leaving tomorrow. I—” She shook her head. “Forget it. The kiss was amazing, but it’s just a temporary thing.”

“Like hell,” he said with a sexy intensity that sent shivers of longing down her spine. From the look in his eyes, she was about sixty seconds from being pushed against the wall and racing toward orgasm.

He took a step toward her. Oh, God, if he touched her, she was lost.

So she took the coward’s way out.

She fled.

R
afe watched Gabby run. He wanted to go after her. To demand that she acknowledge the strength of the attraction between them.

But he had to stay focused on his upcoming mission. Letting Gabby worm her way into his emotions was the quickest way to distraction, and in the field distraction meant capture or death.

He was not going to lose another man to Kaufmann. Having Nate die was bad enough.

Rafe turned and headed back toward the conference room. He wanted another look at the mock-up. Wanted to run a couple more scenarios. Because shit happened and he was determined to be fully prepared no matter what Kaufmann’s security team threw at them.

Yet as he walked down the corridor, he couldn’t get Gabby’s passion-clouded eyes out of his head. His poor little scientist. This past week had been one unforeseen, uncontrollable event after another for her. Outside her lab there was precious little order to this new world. The crazy, overwhelming lust between them had to be scaring her to death, because sure as shit there was no way to control the fire between them whenever they touched.

As that kiss proved.

His resolve weakened. But when he glanced back over his shoulder, she was gone.

Chapter 11

R
afe stared down at the man lying motionless in the hospital bed. “Damn, Nate,” he murmured. “Guess I won’t be pulling your ass out of any more midnight bar brawls.”

He touched Nate’s shoulder. Christ, but this was hard. Nate had lost weight, and his once robustly ebony skin was now tinged with gray. It reminded him too much of when his father had died.

The pneumonia had made his dad even thinner and more haggard than Nate. Sitting by his father’s bed, Rafe had felt a burning mix of frustration and gut-wrenching grief. Even four months later, he still couldn’t stop his outrage at the injustice of his father dying from a bacteria. A fierce, proud man like his dad you expected to go down on the job. Not from pneumonia, for Christ’s sake.

But at least he’d been able to say good-bye. Niko had been deep in Afghanistan, recovering from a bullet wound, when their dad went into the hospital. Rafe had said his good-bye to Pop, then hauled ass to find Niko and bring him home. But Pop had died before their plane landed in the States. Sometimes Rafe caught the bleak knowledge of the lost opportunity in Niko’s eyes and he cursed fate all over again. If anyone should have been given the chance to say good-bye to Pop, it was Niko.

So yeah, Rafe appreciated being able to say good-bye to Nate. He understood what Gabby hadn’t said. Nate probably wouldn’t be alive when he returned.

He gave Nate’s shoulder a squeeze. “You give ‘em hell up there in heaven, Ngoro. Hear me?” He thought Nate’s breathing hitched as if he understood, even deep within his coma. Picking up Nate’s hand, Rafe murmured a brief prayer in French, the language of Nate’s people back in Senegal. Nate always recited these words, basically a request for safety while ass-kicking, just before they dove into action.

Then Rafe set his friend’s hand gently on the bed and walked away without looking back.

“There’s enough trouble up ahead,” Nate had once said when one of the men asked why he never took the rear-facing seat on any transportation. “Why look back at the trouble I left behind?”

“Amen,
mi amigo
,” Rafe said as he let himself out of the room. “Amen.”

Rafe headed down the corridor, wondering what to do next. He’d finished briefing his team. They’d run over their plans until they were confident they’d planned for every contingency. He’d said good-bye to Niko and Jenna. Sleep would be good, but there was a low hum in his body that meant sleep was still hours away.

Knowing this restless, almost melancholy mood wasn’t good for his pre-mission preparation, Rafe decided to head down to the gym and work himself into his usual optimistic state of mind.

Instead, he found his feet leading him toward another hospital room.

“About fucking time,” Kai Paterson snarled when Rafe pushed open the door. “Thought you were going to take off without saying good-bye, asshole.”

Rafe laughed, relieved to find his friend awake. “Some of us have real missions to prepare for. None of this lazing about in hospital beds, flirting with the nurses.”

He looked Kai over and frowned. While it was great to see Kai awake, his skin was almost cadaver pale and his amber eyes glittered with a touch of fever within his sunken sockets. His brother-in-law almost looked worse now than he had over three months ago when they’d pulled him broken and bloody out of Jaime Alvarez’s dungeon.

“Christ, man, you still look like shit. I thought those new anti-malarial drugs were working.”

Kai narrowed his eyes and shot Rafe the finger. “I’m alive, right? That’s good enough for me.”

Rafe studied his friend. Kai looked like an academic, but he had a core of steel most people didn’t catch when they first met him. Rafe knew what his brother-in-law had been through since the attack that killed his parents and the twins. In fact, thanks to a late night drunken confession, Rafe thought he was the only one who knew not just what Kai had done to the assassins, but what it had cost Kai in terms of self-respect.

Rafe supposed that compared to Kai’s inner struggle to keep his rage and newfound thirst for violence under control, malaria would seem like a walk in the park. Even if the mutant variety Kai had picked up continued to threaten his life.

For Rafe, it was unsettling to realize how close he’d come to losing another friend. There had been too many losses in his life lately. First, Pop had died. Then the aunt he’d thought was dead had turned up alive, only to sacrifice herself in an attempt to kill Alvarez. Now Nate was on the brink of death.

It was almost enough to make a guy nervous.

A
n hour later, Rafe knocked on the door of the cabin Gabby had moved into after accepting Ryker’s job offer.

Gabby had spoken the truth when she said that taking their relationship farther made no sense with him leaving tomorrow, but Rafe didn’t care. He had to see her again. This attraction between them was special. Too powerful to ignore. He had every intention of jumping right back in when he returned from the mission. So she’d damn well better wait for him.

He’d just raised his fist to knock again, when the door opened. His jaw dropped. Gabby stood there in a short cotton robe. Her hair was messed up, as if he’d woken her from bed. His eyes flicked to the clock hanging above her kitchen sink. Almost two in the morning. He winced, knowing he probably
had
woken her.

But he wasn’t sorry. She looked too good blinking up at him with her eyes slightly unfocused.

“Rafe?” God. Just the sleep-husky tone of her voice was enough to bring his body to full alert like a randy teenager.

“Is something wrong?” Her eyes sharpened and her brows drew together as that super-computer brain of hers started calculating probabilities. If he didn’t say something fast, she’d worry herself into a panic over nothing.

But his tongue had frozen in place. Stunned by how much he wanted her, all he could do was stand there like an idiot, memorizing the way she looked so he could carry the image with him on his mission. Strands of golden hair clung to her cheeks and eyelashes, making him itch to reach out and smooth it into place. The sleepy look in her hazel eyes made him wish he was watching her from across a pillow after a long night of loving. Her lips were slightly parted, an invitation he didn’t think she was aware of. Then her teeth worried her bottom lip and her gaze sharpened.

Knowing he had to say something before she concluded the world was at an end and raised the alarm, he stepped toward her. She instinctively moved back to let him into the cabin and he took full advantage, herding her inside. As soon as he’d cleared the doorway, he reached behind him and shoved the door shut.

Gabby’s mouth formed a surprised “O” but before she could speak, his mouth covered hers.

Ah, God, yes. He hadn’t intended to kiss her, but now he realized Gabby’s sweetness was what he’d needed to calm his restlessness.

Just for tonight, he wanted to put all the ugliness of his mission aside and drown in Gabby’s warm, fragrant female body. Her lips, soft as he remembered, moved underneath his hesitantly. He knew she thought this was a bad idea, so he finessed the kiss, molding his lips to hers without going deeper. He didn’t want to scare her. To do anything that might make her pull back.

Despite the raging tension in his body, he thought he could spend the rest of the night chastely kissing Gabby with their mouths closed. Then she made an impatient sound deep in her throat, pulled him closer and opened her lips. That was all it took for the kiss to turn carnal.

She kissed him as if devouring him was her sole purpose in life. Making it very hard for Rafe to remember that he hadn’t come here for sex. But as his tongue sparred with hers and she pressed her slender little body against his, all his good intentions crumbled.

Gabby pulled back, sucking in air as she stared up at him with heavy-lidded eyes.

Distance. Okay. This was good. Rafe forced himself not to reclaim her lips, no matter how enticingly shiny and swollen they were.

Say good-bye and get out of here
, his conscience warned him.

Gabby’s hands moved to the tie holding her robe closed. She undid the knot, fumbling a bit with the thick cotton ties before pushing the robe off her shoulders. It slid to the floor in slow motion.

Dear, merciful heaven, she was naked.

Rafe let himself just look at her, incapable of forming speech even if his life depended on it. Underweight or not, her body still had an innate feminine softness and grace that both made his knees weak with desire and made him feel as invincible as King Kong.

When her hands lifted to hide her pert little breasts with their pouting nipples, he finally found his tongue. “No.” He sounded like he’d swallowed a box of razorblades, but that’s how he felt, every breath, every word a painful combination of lust and awe. “Don’t hide. You’re so beautiful.”

She made a sound of disbelief and his eyes flew to her face. The seductress who’d thrown off her robe was gone, replaced by a woman timid with uncertainty. “I know you think I’m too skinny. I’m—” Her teeth pulled on the corner of her lip and she searched his eyes as if looking for reassurance.

“Gabby.” Her name was both prayer and thanks. “God, if you had any idea how many times I’ve imagined you naked. Reality is so much better. You’re perfect. Your skin looks so soft, I can’t wait to get my mouth on it.”

She flushed and he felt a wave of tenderness. How long since she’d had a man in her life? Someone to make her feel special? In that instant he knew that what he felt for Gabby wasn’t just lust or strong affection. He wasn’t ready to put a name to it, but his focus shifted. Tonight would be about Gabby. About making her understand how sexy she was. How badly he wanted
her
. Just her. Gabby.

He tried to put all that into a long, heated gaze that traveled up her body. When he saw her nervousness fade, he reached for her.

She danced out of reach, stopping just short of the couch. Her eyes marked him from head to toe, destroying him with heat. “You have too many clothes on, Andros,” she said. “I’m feeling at a disadvantage.”

“Oh really?” He let his fingers hover over his belt buckle, waited until she focused on his hands, then darted forward and grabbed her around the waist.

“Hey!”

He ignored her shriek of protest and hauled her up against his body, taking her mouth in another kiss. Ah, shit. He was seriously drowning here. She tasted like nothing he’d ever known and everything he’d ever needed.

He slid his chest slowly side to side, loving the way her breath caught as the cotton of his t-shirt abraded her sensitive nipples. Then it was his turn to gasp as she shimmied against him. He tightened his hold on her and deepened the kiss, tangling his tongue with hers.

Then her hands yanked his t-shirt out of his jeans, shoving the material out of her way so she could touch his bare skin. She stroked his back muscles, ran her nails up and down his spine, then, when he thought he was going to come if she didn’t stop, she slid her hands down and tried to wedge them between the tight fabric of his jeans and his butt.

Ah, man. His little scientist was going to kill him.

“Hang on.” He pulled back just far enough to pull off his shirt and undo his belt. Before he had the button on his pants undone, Gabby’s hands were once again trying to slide down his butt.

He groaned, kissed her, and unzipped his jeans before the pressure against the denim cut off blood supply to a very critical portion of his anatomy.

Seconds later Gabby’s questing hands reached their goal. She squeezed his butt cheeks and hummed in approval, the sound vibrating against his lips.