The Mammoth Book of Special Ops Romance Read online

  “Yeah, I could have.” She jerked the door open. “Try to stay gone this time.”

  “Of all the pig-headed, stubborn—” Reese stomped over to the door, but Kate’s hand must have been fisted around the knob because when he slammed it she jerked forwards, crashing into him.

  Reese wrapped his arms around her; it was either that or they would both have gone down in a heap on the floor. She felt so damn good, like no time had passed – for either of them, if he was any judge of body language. She might be holding a hard line verbally, but her body told another story. She still wanted him. Bad. Probably why she was so pissed off. Too pissed off to step back, and he’d be damned if he flinched first.

  “You want to dance?” she asked, a challenge in her words, in her eyes, in the way she held her body against his, deliberately relaxed. She said it as if being pressed up against him meant nothing.

  “No,” he said, and kissed her. If she wanted to play games, they’d play, he thought. The taste of her burst through him. She was fire in his arms, fire that became an inferno when she kissed him back, her tongue tangling with his – just for a second – before he felt the barrel of her gun poking him in the stomach. His world turned to ice, between one racing heartbeat and the next. And that was before he heard her cock the hammer.

  “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t pull the trigger.”

  Two

  “If you shoot me you’ll never know why I’m here.”

  “I could live with that.”

  “Can your clients?”

  She didn’t move, her eyes just shifted up until their gazes met. Time passed, a second, a minute, and then she uncocked the gun Reese had forgotten about and stepped back. He missed her, death threat and all.

  “I’m listening,” she said.

  He snorted. “There ought to be a calendar around here so I can write that down for posterity.”

  She eased back a couple more steps, slipped the gun into her thigh holster, and flipped on a small nightlight that gave off barely enough illumination for them to see each other. “Did you just drop in to do a stand-up routine, or is there some other reason you darkened my door?”

  Stand-up routine? Hell, it was comic relief. Hearing her voice was hard enough without seeing her in a skin-tight tank and shorts, slim, curvy, hotter than any Hollywood gym body. And then there were the weapons. The Glock 27 – a back-up-size handgun with all the power of the full-size model – strapped to her thigh, a Smith and Wesson combat knife on her opposite calf, not to mention the look in her cool blue eyes. Kate Morris knew her weapons and she wasn’t afraid to use them. It was sexy as hell.

  “Reese.”

  He looked up, and Kate knew she was in trouble. More trouble than a little light could solve. But she couldn’t be in the dark with him. Not after he’d kissed her. And she’d responded. She rolled her eyes when she remembered that. Responded? Hell, the anger that had lain dormant for the last five years had flashed to heat so fast she’d have jumped him right then and there if not for the fact that her muscles had gone weak. There’d been too many nights she and Reese had spent filled with each other, too many memories she couldn’t help but relive, the feel of him moving over her, in her, the scent and heat of his skin . . .

  Her eyes lifted to his. She could see he was taking that trip down memory lane too, and that he knew she was right there with him. But he moved away, positioning himself in the entrance to the hallway.

  Kate pulled back, shoving the past out of her mind so she could focus. She didn’t waste any time wondering why he was bracing for a fight. Reese Kyle never borrowed trouble. He inflicted it.

  She eased over a few more steps, stopping so she had a clear view down the hall and into the living room and dining room. Reese had nowhere to go that she couldn’t get to him. Fast.

  He smiled slightly, one eyebrow inching up.

  “If we’re going to play cat and mouse,” she said, “I get to be the cat.”

  “Most women would object to that characterization.”

  “Most women wouldn’t do more than make a cutting remark.”

  His eyes dropped to the gun. Not so sure she wouldn’t use it on him, she thought, grimly amused.

  “You were telling me why the stuffed suits at the bureau sent one of their puppets to annoy me.”

  That hit the mark. The muscles in his jaw bunched before he got hold of himself. “We got a tip about Amir Kashani.”

  “Tip?”

  “Kashani and his family are being held hostage, as of about an hour ago.”

  Kate snatched a cell phone from the top drawer of the apothecary’s chest in the foyer.

  Reese closed his hand around her wrist.

  “I have two men in that house,” she said, switching the phone to her other hand and flipping it open.

  “I don’t know what shape they’re in, but they’re definitely out of commission. You try to call them in the middle of the night for no reason, the kidnappers will know you’re on to them, no matter how slick you are at hiding it.”

  Her thumb hovered over the speed dial. She snapped the phone closed instead, paced a couple of steps away, thinking about the bodyguards who were on duty with Kashani’s family. She knew them well, knew their wives and kids. Amir Kashani trusted her with his life and the lives of his family; that made them hers. And she had to stop thinking of their safety if she was going to rescue them.

  “Kashani is a member of the Balyks, the monarchist ruling party in Balykistan, but he has a reputation as a man who embraces democracy,” she said, putting herself back in the op, which was the only place she could be any good to the people who needed her. “He’s here to negotiate a peace treaty between his party and the Reformists. His people trust him to make the best agreement possible, and the other side believes his word will be honoured.”

  “Not everyone wants peace,” Reese said. “The men who are holding Kashani and his family are part of a militant faction of the Reformist Party. They won’t settle for less than supremacy, and that means they have to win the war, not end it amicably.”

  “The peace treaty negotiations are supposed to start first thing tomorrow morning. But Kashani will do whatever he’s told as long as his family is in danger.” And it was up to her to save them. She wanted to move now, but without more intelligence she could blunder in and make a mess, costing innocent lives. It was a mistake she refused to make again. But she couldn’t let past tragedy freeze her in place, either. “Tell me the rest of what you know.”

  “The Bureau is replacing you with an agent—”

  “No.”

  “Use your brain instead of your heart.”

  “I learned that lesson five years ago. From you.”

  This time he met her eyes, and his were hot.

  Direct hit, she thought. Too bad it didn’t make her feel any better. His being right wasn’t helping. “Those are my . . .” people, she’d almost said. Not the way to convince him. “Those are my employees and my clients. My reputation. It’s taken me five years to get this business up and running.”

  “Your incorporation papers were filed four years ago.”

  “And you think I spent a year mooning over you.” She huffed out a slight laugh. “I didn’t lose you, Reese, I left you behind. What I lost was a career I spent half my life working for.”

  “You walked away.”

  “Yeah.” She’d walked away before the Bureau could give her directions. And before Reese could add injury to insult by putting words to the silence he’d left between them after their last op went bad. “This time I’m sticking.”

  “I can’t walk,” Reese said.

  “Still the good little soldier?”

  “Is that why you really think I’m here?”

  Kate backed off from that, and not just verbally. “There’s no way I’m letting the FBI bully their way into my life and destroy what I’ve built. This is my job, and I’m going to do it.”

  “That’s what we figured you’d say.”<
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  “Then why are you here?”

  “I thought I could reason with you.”

  Sure, he wanted to reason with her, that’s why he was braced for a fight. “You thought you could put me out of commission and replace me with an agent.”

  At least he had the grace to look sheepish.

  “I know the layout of Kashani’s house, their routine —” she continued.

  “You can run the op with Mike.”

  “Right.” Mike Kovaleski was a rough, gruff, ex-marine who took no bullshit, accepted no excuses and wasted no time caring about anything but the missions and the agents under his direction. And he didn’t share authority. “I run the op, period. Mike agrees, or I run it without you.”

  Reese hesitated, weighing his options.

  Kate dropped her hand to rest on the Glock holstered at her thigh.

  He pulled a cell phone out of his belt clip, hit speed dial and handed it to her. She didn’t waste time with greetings or old-times’-sakes, just repeated her ultimatum.

  “Figured you’d say that,” Mike said in his distinctive rasp.

  “You could have called me. There was no need to send—” her eyes cut to Reese “—anyone, let alone a special ops hothead.”

  “Reese went to bat for you five years ago.”

  “And you’re telling me this because . . .?”

  “If you have to be saddled with a special ops hothead, it helps to have one who gives a shit about you. Or I can pull Reese and send in some other agents—”

  “Nobody else,” Kate said. “You send in a bunch of trigger-happy Feds and somebody will die.”

  “You’d know that first-hand,” Mike shot back. Then she heard him blow out a breath. “Shouldn’t have said that. You pissed me off.”

  “Nice to know I still have the touch.”

  “Been keeping my eye on you, kid. Wouldn’t let you handle this otherwise,” he said, as close to a compliment as she’d get, but – as usual – he spoiled it. “Try to send Kyle back in one piece. Lunkhead insisted on taking this op, even after I reminded him you’d as soon shoot him as look at him.”

  Her eyes cut to Reese’s. “I guess he still doesn’t trust me to watch my own back.”

  “Maybe not, but he’s trusting you with his.”

  Kate disconnected, handed the phone back. “It’s my op.”

  Reese’s jaw bunched, but he didn’t look away.

  “The family is my only concern. They already know me.”

  “So do the kidnappers.”

  “Then they know that what I care about is my client and his family, and they know I’ll do whatever it takes to keep them safe.”

  “They’ll be expecting you.”

  “Exactly. If someone else shows up, they’ll know the FBI is on to them. So . . .” She lifted her chin, stared him down. “It’s me or no one.”

  Three

  “You or no one,” Reese repeated, his mind taking an instant detour off the job and into the personal, his body already a step ahead of him. He was halfway across the foyer and reaching for her when she said, “I still have the gun,” and even then it didn’t really register.

  “You’ll have to use it,” he said, “because that’s the only way you’re getting rid of me this time.”

  She slipped away, deciding retreat was the better part of valour. Even as the frustration hit him, the aching need still clamouring to be satisfied, Reese knew he had to focus on the job and worry about the personal later. He managed his part by stopping where he was, then fisting his hands to stop from reaching for her. If he touched her again, he’d have to have her. Even if the whole world paid a price.

  “The kidnapping,” she reminded him. “It’s me or no one.”

  “Then it’s no one,” he said and started for the door.

  This time she stepped in front of him. “Why are you interfering?”

  He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to; they’d always understood each other perfectly.

  “We made this mistake before,” she said.

  “Yeah.” And she’d paid for it.

  Kate had been an FBI agent when he met her, one who’d risen through the ranks quickly to become one of the lead agents on a new FBI taskforce specializing in foreign terrorism on US soil, specifically those incidents involving hostages. Some of the men she’d outstripped had chalked up her fast rise to the fact that she was a woman in an organization trying to modernize their hiring profile. Anyone who’d run an op with her knew she’d gotten where she was on skill, courage and complete balls-to-the-wall dedication.

  Reese had come out of the military – army special forces, to be exact – about a year before he’d been assigned to her taskforce. He still recalled that moment, the first time he’d laid eyes on Kate Morris, five feet eight inches of strength and determination, a living weapon no less effective for being easy on the eyes. He still remembered the way their gazes had met across the room, the impact of it knocking him back a full step. He hadn’t been a man who believed in love at first sight. Hell, he hadn’t been a man who believed in love at all. He still didn’t. He’d seen too much of the horror people inflicted on one another in the name of religion, of loyalty. Of love.

  What he’d felt for Kate had been lust – desire was a prettier word, but there’d been nothing pretty about the craving running through him, the need to touch and taste, to throw himself head first into the flames with no regard to what that kind of fire would do to him. Thank God she’d felt it too, Reese thought. It had been nearly impossible to concentrate on the job, but she’d been with him every heated step of the way. There’d been a lot of down time between missions, and they’d been unable to keep their hands off one another. It hadn’t been a problem. Until it spilled over into work.

  There’d been a hostage situation involving a Colombian family being held in New York by a drug lord because the father had turned informant. After two days they’d reached an impasse in the negotiations. Reese had wanted to take the kidnappers by force. Kate had been equally convinced she could talk them out, so convinced she’d gone in without waiting for the green light from him. She’d never gotten the chance to find out if her way would have worked because the second Reese realized the risk she’d taken, he’d stormed the place. The bad guys had escaped, Kate had taken a bullet to her left shoulder, and the witness had been killed. The other casualty had been her job. She’d quit before she could be fired, and not for pride’s sake. Kate Morris was a woman who took responsibility for her actions. She’d screwed up, and she’d owned that.

  Reese hadn’t spoken to her since. He’d been pissed, at her, at himself. He’d forgotten the mission, put civilians in danger because all he’d been able to see was her. He’d believed distance would help, but not a day of the last five years had gone by without Kate being his first thought in the morning and his last at night. He’d kept tabs on her; he’d even picked up the phone a time or fifty. Thinking was as far as he’d allowed himself to take it.

  Five years should have cooled his blood. At least that’s what he’d told himself when he’d agreed to take this op. He’d been wrong. The wildness might have gone out of the fire, but the flame was still there, deep and warm and steady.

  And as long as Kate was pissed off, he didn’t have to decide what to do about it.

  “It could have been a lot worse,” she said, reading his mind again – but not his feelings, thankfully.

  “It will be this time if you don’t listen to reason. These people mean business.”

  “The bad guys always mean business. That’s why I have a job.”

  “You’ve got to be rusty.”

  “Sure, I was just sleeping away in complete oblivion when you showed up. Self-preservation is like sex, Reese, you never forget how to do it, you just find better equipment.”

  Though he stood in the shadows, she knew the expression on his face: one eyebrow quirked up, mouth tight, half pissed that she’d gotten the upper hand, half proud.

  And, as always,
he put emotion aside and focused on the problem at hand. “That gun isn’t going to do you any good out in the open tomorrow.”

  “It’s not doing me a whole lot of good tonight. You’re still—”

  The sidelight by the door broke and a bullet thunked into the wall about an inch above her left shoulder. The next bullet hit where her head would have been if Reese hadn’t tackled her. Her first reaction was gratitude because the weight of him, the solidness, felt damn good, comforting, protective. She closed her eyes, just for a second, and thought about what it would be like to let him run the show so she didn’t have to make the life and death decisions. And live with them. Then reality crashed back in and she shoved him off. “Still don’t trust me, I see.”

  He climbed off her, staying in a crouch. “Reflex.”

  “Don’t let it happen again.”

  “The next time I get you horizontal, there won’t be any gunfire involved.”

  “Don’t be too sure.”

  Kate drew her legs and arms under her, but stayed down, keeping away from the broken glass pane next to the door and out of sight of the other nearby windows. When Reese looked over at her, she nodded once and moved, heading in a low run for the back door as he went out the front. She circled clockwise around the house, gun out and ready. There wasn’t a lot of illumination, but she searched the yard, heading to the side fence line when she saw that the grass was flattened off that way. The climbing rose she’d been coaxing up the arbour at her fence line was mangled, probably dead, she decided, picking up a broken branch as long as her leg. It pissed her off, seeing as she’d spent hours on the damn thing.

  A car started and she flung the rose branch away, running flat out, despite her bare feet, for the twenty-year-old Camaro parked in front of her house. It was nothing much to look at, but she didn’t keep it around to buy groceries. It was modified for pursuit or escape, from the big-ass engine under the hood and the manual tranny, to the roll bars and bulletproof glass. She hurled herself through the driver’s door, snagging the key she kept in a magnetic holder under the front seat. Reese was already sliding into the passenger side when she fired it up, the throaty roar of the V-8 engine revving through her like a second heartbeat.