Short Fuse: Elite Operators, Book 2 (14 page)

That got his attention. “Matsulus? From the resistance movement?”

“Yeah.”

“What can we do?”

“Get authorization to fly up here. Spin it as a strategic extra-national maneuver to reduce the threat of Latadian instability to South African commerce.”

“Because the South African economy relies so heavily on those imported yams,” he replied dryly.

“I don’t know, say what you want. Matsulu terrorists may target South Africans given the government’s role in mediating the installation of the Kibangu regime?”

“I’ll tell the chief you need help. Dassie and I will take unpaid leave if we have to. You know he’s been trying to get hold of you for days, right?”

Warren frowned. “Who, Dassie? He texted me yesterday. Something about hiking up Table Mountain with stones in his rucksack and seeing a vision at the top. I didn’t read the whole thing.”

“No, the major. He says the line just rings. I think he must have the wrong number. Anyway, the investigation has been dropped. You’re fully reinstated, and he’s desperate to get you back.”

He stared at the fake-wood-paneled wall, but he saw the long corridor leading out of the major’s office, and then the insensitively bright sunshine as he crossed the parking lot at the Special Task Force headquarters, climbed into his car and drove away, wondering whether he’d ever be welcomed back.

“Dropped?” he echoed dumbly. “Why?”

“Turns out the two guys you, uh,
detained
were big-time sex traffickers. They’re at the center of a ring that brings in thousands of underage girls from all over the continent. Apparently their names are flagged, so someone at Home Affairs spotted them on the bail hearing schedule. Some departmental big shot was straight on the phone to the major, gushing about pulling out the biggest blocks in the pyramid and wanting to shake your hand. Rumor is the major told him you were on vacation and the status of the conduct investigation mysteriously changed to
withdrawn
on the database.”

“That’s it?” Warren pulled his feet off the desk and dropped them on the floor, the thud of his boots on the plywood failing to dispel his sudden irritation. “All those referrals to the unit psychologist, the anger management courses, the lectures about professional conduct and self-control, then it turns out the bad guys I arrested with allegedly excessive force really were bad guys, so everything’s fine?”

“Isn’t that what usually happens?”

“I don’t usually get suspended. I’m not usually threatened with dismissal. Usually I don’t have to take private security consulting assignments at dysfunctional gold mines in the middle of nowhere because I don’t know if I’ll have a job from one day to the next.”

“I know the major came down harder than usual this time,” Bronnik sympathized. “You deserve to be pissed off. He owes you a huge apology when you get back.”

“At a minimum,” he grumbled. “Anyway, I’d better go. We’re on the brink of a Biblical rainstorm. You’ll speak to Dassie about taking a luxury break at a gold mine?”

“We’ll be there,” Bronnik replied decisively. “It’s been too quiet around here. We need some excitement.”

“We’ve got plenty of that.”

“Look after yourself.”

“Always.”

He hung up and leaned back in the flimsy chair. He’d been so preoccupied with the situation at Hambani that he’d barely thought about his career—or its uncertain future—back home in Cape Town. He should be relieved that the investigation had been dropped and his job was safe—he should be ecstatic.

Then why was he so disappointed?

Because of Nicola
, he admitted to himself. She’d been occupying his thoughts far more thoroughly than the danger at the mine. He’d never met anyone like her, so smart, so confident, so flatly unthreatened by his line of work. He hadn’t dared to articulate it even in his mind, but some deeply buried part of him hoped they might have a shot at a relationship. Maybe it would be feasible to join her travels around the world, taking short-term contracts at the same sites where she assessing social responsibility, spending his days training indifferent security staff and spending his nights running his fingers through that red-gold hair.

He snorted at his absurd fantasy. Six weeks of that and he’d be so hungry for the action-packed lifestyle he’d left behind that he’d probably shoot himself in the leg just for a chance to fire his weapon. And Nicola would never fall for a man willing to chuck in his career and follow her around like a lovesick puppy. The clear-headed autonomy they both admired in each other was exactly what would keep them apart.

He shoved to his feet, bracing himself against a heavy sense of resignation. Never mind what lay ahead—they had tonight. He intended to make the most of it.

He tucked his phone in his pocket and was reaching for his flashlight when he froze. Had he heard a footstep outside? Was that a boot crushing a dry leaf? Or was it just the first few drops of rain hitting the flat leaves of the plants surrounding the cabin?

He crept across the room, alert to even the faintest sound. He put his hand on the knob, easing close to the door, straining for any hint as to what awaited him outside.

Rain started to fall in earnest, echoing on the tin roof until it was all he could hear. He unholstered his weapon and sucked in a bracing breath.

That was when the light in the cabin flickered and went out, plunging the room into total darkness.

Chapter Eleven

Nicola looked forlornly at her silent phone, watching the little staircase of signal bars decrease one step at a time. She’d left an explicit message for her boss, but unless he called in the next five seconds she doubted he’d be able to get through.

She sighed, glancing around the room. The low murmur of Warren’s voice was audible through the thin wall, so she knew he was still on his call. She felt too edgy to sit and read. She changed into her camisole and boxer-style pajama shorts but wasn’t any more relaxed as a result. A drizzling rain had commenced outside, accompanied by the occasional crack of thunder.

She flopped back on the bed with a frustrated sigh. It had been a long day, and it was going to be an even longer night.

She thought of Warren, the way his silent, enigmatic presence had given way to charm and humor over dinner. He’d showered and shaved before they left the site, and his slick, scrubbed appearance on the other side of the table had provided a thrilling contrast to the scruffy, slightly disheveled look he’d sported only a couple of hours earlier.

Damn, he’d looked sexy today. She draped her forearm over her eyes. That black hair temptingly tousled, the shadow of dark stubble across his jaw, the lack of hesitation as he sent Roger sprawling across the floor…

Groaning, she rolled onto her stomach and pressed her face into the pillow. She’d gone over and over the reasons why it could never work out with Warren, but although her brain seemed able to summon up the rationales, her body insisted otherwise.

She’d watched him in the office that evening, so absorbed in filling the safe that he hadn’t realized she was there. His expression was troubled, brow furrowed in contemplation. She’d wanted so badly to pry open his arms and slip into his embrace, to brush the dark hair from his creased forehead and kiss the worry from his face.

She pulled herself to a sitting position and blinked several times, trying to clear her head of these persistent fantasies. She had to focus on something constructive. She squinted at her toenails. Maybe fuchsia wasn’t her color. Maybe she should redo them in purple.

Just as she swung her legs over the side of the bed there was a clap of thunder so loud it rattled the lamp on the bedside table. The lights wavered and went out. Except for the flash of lightning visible through the curtains, the cabin was pitch black.

She leapt to her feet and stood motionless in the center of the room, heart thudding. Her mind raced with questions. Was it the guy with the green eyes? Had he cut the power to the mine? Were the cabins surrounded? She had to get to Warren—should she run outside? Or was this their pursuers’ attempt to flush everyone out and then set off another bomb, like the one in the shed?

She was paralyzed by terror and indecision. She wanted to go to the window to see if anyone was outside, but at the same time she had an irrational fear of what she might see out there. What if the green-eyed man was standing outside, staring straight back at her?

The knock on her door was soft, yet it startled a frightened squeak from her throat. She glanced around the room for a weapon, but there was nothing she could imagine using with any effectiveness. Out of utter desperation she picked up a thick paperback, moved toward the door and called, “Who’s there?”

“It’s Warren.”

Her knees weakened with relief. She swung open the door, book still in hand. By the light of the flashlight he held aloft, she could see his expression change from concern to amusement.

“Interesting choice of weapon. Were you planning to footnote me to death?”

“Keep smirking and I will. Do you know what’s going on?”

“Just a power cut from the storm.” He pushed past her into the room and dug in the desk drawer, producing a thick candle, a dented tin candlestick and a box of matches. He lit the candle and set it on the desk, and it cast a warm, flickering amber glow across the walls. “I did a quick sweep outside. No one’s been here but us, and I can’t see any lights from Dan and Alex’s cabins either.”

“The central site has a backup generator, but it’s really inefficient so the cabins aren’t hooked up to it.”

“Looks like we’re settling in for a dark night, then. Do you want me to—”

“Stay,” she urged. “Please.”

“Of course.” He leaned over to unlace his muddy boots, which he left by the door before crossing to sit in the chair beside the bed. “Did you get hold of your boss?”

She shook her head. “Left a message. Did you talk to your friends?”

“They’ll try to fly out and join us.”

“You think we need them?”

“I think it couldn’t hurt.”

She shifted her weight, feeling uncharacteristically awkward and uncertain.

“I freaked out when the lights went off,” she confessed. “It’s not like I’ve never been through a power cut in Africa before. I don’t know when I became such a wimp.”

“Just a guess, but I’d say it might be when you were chased down a dark road by men with guns.”

“Maybe.” She sat on the end of the bed, shoving aside the embarrassment of her panicked reaction. Warren was silent in the chair, idly rubbing the thumb of one hand over the knuckles of the other.

She indicated the movement. “Roger has a hard head. How’s your hand?”

“Fine.”

“Show me.”

He rose from the chair. He retrieved the candle from the desk and put it on the bedside table, then sat down beside her. Lightning illuminated the cheap nylon curtains and danced in his eyes, which were fixed on hers with an intensity that made her breath catch.

She thought he was about to touch her, could almost feel the brush of his fingertips. Instead he slowly spread his hand over hers.

“See?” he said as she examined his knuckles. “Fine.”

She traced the tip of her finger around back of his hand, then up to the forearm exposed by the rolled-up sleeve of his shirt. His skin looked golden in the candlelight. She pulled her knees beneath her, moved her hands to grip the defined muscles of his arms and pressed her lips to the hollow at the base of his neck.

He released a shaky breath, and as he clenched his fists in his lap she realized how much power was in this man, how much force of will it took him to restrain it. The thought should have frightened her, given her doubts about his ability to control himself, made her think twice about bringing him into her bed again.

Instead she found it unspeakably erotic.

She undid the first two buttons on his shirt, and he made quick work of the rest, shucking it off and tossing it to the floor. She spared a second to take in the masculine perfection revealed, then trailed her lips across the line of his shoulder, drinking in the scent of his skin. When she reached the swell of his triceps she drew back, and he used the moment to tilt her chin so their gazes met. His gray eyes were hazy with desire, lips slightly parted, and the speed with which he pulled her to straddle his lap was belied by the softness of his touch.

She could feel every contour of the fly on his jeans through her thin pajamas, and at the press of his erection she had to stop herself from brazenly grinding against him. Her hands drifted across the hard contours of his chest and his mouth captured hers. As she tilted her face to give his tongue access she imagined how it would feel when he penetrated another, infinitely more sensitive part of her. She moaned at the image, unable to help herself as she closed her thighs more tightly around his narrow hips.

His hands traveled up her ribcage from their place on her hipbones, dragging the hem of her camisole with them. When the top caught over her breasts she broke the kiss and leaned back, looking him dead in the eye as she yanked the camisole over her head.

She’d long considered her full breasts to be her best physical asset, but his reaction made her feel far more attractive than anyone else ever had. Rather than the greedy, salivating look that had come over most of her previous lovers’ faces, his expression was full of reverence, gratitude and privilege. Like he hadn’t just seen them last night—like he thought he might never be allowed to see them again.

“You’re so beautiful,” he breathed, barely above a whisper, as he reached out and stroked her cheek.

She smiled, her heart swelling with tenderness at these soft words from a hard man. Yet in the next instant her face contorted with pleasure as he brought his lips to her breast, laving her nipple with his tongue. She dug her fingers into his thick, glossy hair as the dampness of his mouth was replicated threefold between her legs, accompanied by a hot, insistent ache.

She reached between them and fumbled with his zipper, the urgency of desire making her hands clumsy and uncertain. He pulled back and gently slid out from under her, standing to undo the button and kick off his jeans. His arousal made a large, enticing shape in his light-blue boxers, and as she reached to tug down the waistband he stepped back, just out of reach. When she looked up, he wore a playful smile.

“Lie down.”

She eased onto her back, her sense of sensual excitement warring with her urge to make love to him as soon as possible.

He pulled her shorts down her legs so quickly that she gasped in surprise. Then he pressed lightly on the insides of her knees to part her thighs, and before she could fully process his intention his mouth closed on her core.

The guttural, primal moan that tore from her throat was entirely involuntary, and unlike anything she’d ever heard from her own mouth. His index finger moved inside her as his tongue stroked her clit, and within seconds she was seeing stars. She fought the looming climax, but it was like trying to stop a wave from crashing on the shore. Within seconds her whole body tensed and shook beneath his touch.

When the room stopped spinning he was running his lips over her abdomen, his hands sweeping over her ribs to caress her breasts. To her surprise, the simmering filaments of passion began to thread across her skin again, and as his fingertips closed on her nipple she felt the throb of arousal between her legs even though she’d had barely minutes to recover.

She heaved to a sitting position and shoved her hand beneath his thin cotton boxers. As her fingers closed on his hot, hard length, the urgency that had been momentarily dismissed came flooding back.

She kissed him. Hard. And then she whispered, close enough that their noses were almost touching, “I need you inside me.”

Something resembling a bear-like growl rumbled in Warren’s throat, and he brought her down to her back on the bed as he yanked off his boxers. He kissed her deeply, the pressure of his lips communicating all the emotion that brewed unsaid between them, and then suddenly pulled away to sit back on his haunches as he slapped his palm against his forehead.

“I don’t have any protection.” Abject despair strained his voice.

“It’s okay. I do.”

She leaned over to the nightstand and reached into the drawer for her makeup bag and the few emergency condoms stashed inside. He extended his hand to take the foil packet, but she snatched it away so he couldn’t reach, quickly confirming the expiry dates in the dim candlelight. Satisfied, she tore off a corner of one packet with her teeth.

She motioned him closer. “Let me do it.”

She felt his gaze fixed on her as she leaned over and slowly, slowly rolled the latex down over his erection. Then his hand fisted in her hair and in one smooth motion he flipped her onto her back and pushed inside her, his first thrust so swift and deep that she cried out in surprise.

He froze above her, his muscles taut and trembling with the pressure of his restraint. “Are you okay? Was that too soon?”

She rocked her head back and forth, her mind so overwhelmed with the swollen fullness of him embedded at the apex of her thighs that she could barely form words.

“Don’t stop,” she gasped, her fingers finding his hips and pressing him deeper.

Her words unleashed something wild in him. He plunged into her with a hunger she thought might never be satiated, his strokes confident and strong and determined, steadily marching them both toward the edge of a cliff.

She closed her eyes as she opened herself completely, giving him everything within her. Her control slipped from her grasp and its loss was delicious, as she let her body be utterly possessed, consumed by sensation, giving herself wholly to this dangerous man with the quiet voice and strange eyes.

The cliff edge was nearer now, and her pace toward it quickening. She dug her fingers into his shoulders, crossed her ankles behind his back, thrust up her pelvis to meet each one of his strokes more deeply than the last.

He breathed her name. Thunder boomed outside the window. The candle flickered, the wind howled and together they tumbled, hand-in-hand, into the void.

Warren lost all sense of time as he lay on his back, staring up at the candlelight dancing across the ceiling. Nicola curled into his side, her head on his shoulder, her hair spilling over his arm in soft coppery waves. He had no idea how long they’d been lying there, tangled together after their passion was finally exhausted, and he didn’t care. He could stay right where he was forever and be sublimely happy.

And that’s what’s different
, he considered, idly tucking her hair behind her ear. He wasn’t distracted, or annoyed, or impatient, or eager to move on with his evening. He didn’t have the urge to get up to ensure he hadn’t missed any messages on his phone, and he didn’t feel he had to make conversation or worry about whether the woman he was with still wanted to be there. He was peaceful and content and fully engaged in the moment. For once.

He was also more physically sated than he could remember being in a long time—possibly ever. Nicola was everything he’d imagined she would be as a lover—self-assured, sensual, exciting. The strength and energy of her personality translated into a confident, vibrant sexual partner, and he’d felt free to respond with equal vigor.

Her hand was splayed over his heart, and he spread his own on top of it. There was unfamiliar but delicious warmth in his chest, which filled his ribcage and surrounded his lungs. He’d never been so content, so comfortable, so free to be exactly who he was.