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Would you keep them as youtrainedme?
I realized where she was coming from. Tanner had been very clear about Nina’s hot-button issues. Cheating had wrecked her family and her childhood. I wasn’t Tanner, but even an ass like me could relate. Laura’s infidelity had hurt at the beginning. The irony of Nina’s situation didn’t escape me. After all, she was already sleeping with two guys, who were also my best friends. But if Nina was willing to be faithful to us, then we were willing to be faithful to her. It was her and us only. Being with other women while I was with Nina was a non-starter anyway, because if I made a deal with Nina, I was never gonnabreakit.
If you devoted yourself to me, I wrote,you’d betheone.
This time, her answer bounced back fast.I’m a littleafraid.
You should be, I typed. You should also be wet andaroused.
The horned emoticon she sent made me chuckle. The picture of her with her legs braced apart and the middle panel of her pink panties stained with a darker blotch shocked the hell out of me.My panties are officially drenched,shewrote.You?
Hard, I typed. Very hard.My cock might as well be encased in steel. I wanted to rip off her panties and plunge in her pussy. I wanted to fuck her so hard she’d leave a dent on my bed. It was true. I sat in the middle of a jungle swamp with a huge boner throbbing in mypants.
My com came alive in my ear. “Bravo, this is control, come inBravo.”
Damn, the timing couldn’t be worse. “Control, this is Bravo, six, eight,six.Over.”
“Bravo, we’ve got rebel troops rolling your way, ETA, threeminutes.”
“What the fuck, control?” I snapped my fingers to get my team’s attention and rotated my wrist, indicating the need for a quick exit. “I thought you’d gotten us highanddry.”
“That’s negative, Bravo, your position is compromised. Rebels coming from the south. Government troops approaching from thenorth.”
I stuffed the cell in my pocket, strapped down my backpack and clutched my weapon in the ready position. No time for chitchat. Both factions would love to trap us and rip us topieces.
“Bravo, do you read me?” The operative sounded frantic, never the kind of tone one likes to hear from a handler. “I repeat, you are compromised and in the line of fire. Execute evasion pattern Charlie, Alpha, Fox, move to backup extractioncoordinates,now.”
“Control, we are on the move.” I exited the hut and took my command position right behind my front man. I found myself missing my old crew, Tanner’s calm, professional voice in my ear, brimming with good intel and confident as it led me to safety, and Aiden’s crazy skills to analyze alternatives and propose solutions to the quick exit problem. Alternatives were something I needed STAT as we topped the ridge and looked down at an estimated five hundred rebels blocking our path to the extractionpoint.
I clicked on my headset and whispered into my mike. “Control this is Bravo. The route to Charlie, Alpha, Fox is compromised. I repeat. We are not able to proceed to Charlie, Alpha, Fox. Relay instructions for alternative coordinates, over.” The com in my ear crackled with static. “Control, this is Bravo, doyoucopy?”
More static and then…nothing.
This clusterfuck was only getting worse by the moment. The roar of the government trucks speeding up the road confirmed my assessment. I met the eyes of my men as they huddled around me, waiting for orders. They knew, as I did, that death was just around the corner. They had wives, kids, parents waiting for them at home. I had the guys, and my son, all solid reasons to fight. As I gave my orders, I had one other reason to add to my list, one I’d never had before. Nina was waiting.Forme.
Chapter21
Aiden
Nina didn’t look happy when she returned to the bunker with Tanner trailing her, hair wet, eyes gleaming with exasperation. Tanner and I were taking turns teaching her how to swim and she’d just finished her daily lesson. Tanner flicked a quick but telling glance at me. It’d been another difficult session. Whenever she tensed, she sank like a rock to the bottom. But we were making some progress. She could float a little, and we’d practiced some basic water safetyprocedures.
The line between her eyes was deeply etched. She was worried sick about Zar. He’d stopped replying to her messages. She feared something terrible had happened. Tanner and I had tried to reassure her, but it wasn’t working. Tanner said she was reliving the nightmare of her brother’s injury and death. She was stuck in a hell of “whatifs.”
She sat at her workstation and put on her glasses. I leaned over and kissed her, catching a whiff of her, oatmeal soap, lavender shampoo, and distant traces of the pool’s saltsystem.
“Hey, you,” I said. “Everything’s gonnabefine.”
She didn’t lookconvinced.
I’d pulled out of my funk slowly but surely during the last few days. Tanner had talked me through the worst of it and, thankfully, Nina hadn’t asked any questions or treated me any differently. She’d simply taken me to her bed every other night and fucked the gloom out of my brain. It helped that I lusted after her like an elk bull in rut, and that all my energy was totally invested in her and thecyberhunt.
“Report?”Tannersaid.
“I finished mapping Dimayev’s systems.” I put the diagram on the big screen. “I found out something interesting. Can youseeit?”
Nina squinted at the diagram. “You’ve got two extra servers we hadn’t detected before,” she said immediately. “Where the hellwerethey?”
“You’re not going to believe me when I tell you.” I pulled up the map of Dimayev’s sprawling complex and parked the mouse pointer where X marked the spot. “They’re in his office, or better yet, in the private bathroom attached to his office, behind a hiddenpanel.”
