He pushed Bear from behind into a tree trunk, the weight of his attacker trapping him. The man fumbled for his release, and the mag dropped from Bear’s weapon. Then he was after Bear’s sidearm, tossing it away. Bear twisted, shoving back with all the fury of a handler who had watched his fierce partner incapacitated, and the woman he was sworn to protect hit in the head, again. They crashed to the ground, wrestling, the world reduced to the hot, metallic reek of fear and the scrubby taste of dirt in his mouth.
The bastard pummeled him with flying fists, breath coming in ragged, animal bursts. Bear protected his face with his forearms, waiting for a break in his wild swings. Keeping his focus on the danger and not on Flint and Bailee. Through the man’s gasping breaths, he heard reinforcements.
Fuck. He acted, bucked his hips, dislodging the man, bringing his fist around like a battering ram and clocking the guy in the temple. He fell to the side, scrambling, grabbed a branch, and brought it down on Bear’s throat. His breath caught, and he struggled for air. The man scrambled for Bear’s M4, slammed the mag back in and brought it around toward him.
From the corner of his vision, Bailee lunged, more courage than balance. She swung something that was half desperation and half will, a heavy branch she’d grabbed from the ground as she’d pushed up. The makeshift weapon slammed into the man’s forearms so hard the rifle kicked sideways. A round spat into the canopy, whistling past and tearing a ragged seam through a leaf. The recoil rocked the shooter, and the second shot went wild, dislodging a shower of leaves and dirt.
Bailee’s wildness bought a breath and then a terrible second. The man lashed out with the butt-stock. It cracked across Bailee’s temple. She folded, blood leaking warm and slick where the stock had hit, and for a moment she went limp against the loam.
Bear’s world narrowed to the sight of her falling, and this time the enemy had the upper hand. He turned, aiming at Bear’s chest, finger easing toward a hair-trigger. The muzzle trembled, the iron smell of spent powder close enough to taste.
Something in Bear broke into motion. Flint growled, rolled to his feet, then erupted, black thunder tearing through flesh and bone, latching onto the man’s thigh with a savage, living clamp. The shooter screamed, twisting, the rifle skittering free again. Bear rolled, lunged, fingers closing on the handle of the knife sheathed in his vest, even as he tried to breathe, he came up barreling through the mess, chest heaving, grip like iron around the haft.
Bailee’s eyes fluttered open, fierce even through the fog and the dark smear at her temple.
The enemy lashed at Bear, a desperate swing that missed by inches. Bear drove the knife forward, clean and cruel, into bare flesh at the man’s neck. The shooter stiffened, eyes going glassy as he dropped Bear’s weapon, one hand clamping where the steel went home. He flailed, desperate, as his body crumpled, then went slack, and slid into the leaf litter like a marionette cut loose.
She searched the ground, spied her sidearm, crawled to it, even as the sound of the attacker’s friends closed in. A man broke through the trees, his aim unerringly on Bear. He was caught flat-footed. With a voice like a broken oath, she swore, aimed and fired one calm shot into his head, then sagged, the world tilting. Bear dropped the knife, both hands on her, sweeping her blood-warm body into his lap. He tasted copper on his own lip from a stray nick, and his heart hammered in his throat. He didn’t think about triumph or relief. He only knew the weight of her and the frantic, animal thanks that shook through him.
He closed his eyes. If he was going to die here, it would be holding this woman in his arms, and they would go to the Great Beyond together.
“You saved me,” Bear rasped into her ear. “But I’ve got you now, wildcat.”
She looked up at him and there it was suddenly, burning through him, his gaze drifting to her mouth. A hot, ruthless longing curled deep in his gut, tangling with the punch of adrenaline, sending blood into his groin, into his aching dick. His body answered before thought did, the ache fierce, consuming, undeniable. It was like pure power, an energy he couldn’t cage, surging through every vein until he thought he might break with it. He didn’t think he’d ever been this hard before.
“Dakota,” she whispered, as if she felt death breathing down their necks, as if she could read his mind. The sound of her voice was a spark in the dark, and he wanted to fuck her with a hunger that terrified him, here and now, be naked and thrusting into her to feel the last pulse of her life drawn into him, even as he died in her arms.
Gunfire erupted around him, and he looked up to see his team arrive with the fierceness of a blizzard—cold, calculated, lethal.
He touched her temple, fingers gentle just below her raw wounds. “You took some hits for me.”
Her lashes trembled, a ghost of a smile touching her mouth, though her voice shook. “Doesn’t matter,” she breathed. “I didn’t save you in Rio to lose you here, no matter how many hits I take. If I’m breathing…” She trailed off.
He wanted to think it was because she couldn’t bear the thought of him gone. Damn, he wanted to believe that. But it was most likely just duty talking, the same iron will that kept her standing when anyone else would’ve broken.
Flint nosed her shoulder, then pressed his head to Bear’s knee, growling low as the jungle began to close its teeth shut on the silence once more.
Bear held her to him and let himself feel, for one brutal, blessed second, the absolute gravity of it. He could barely contain his breathing and had to look away from her to let all that hot, aching energy bank. She’d found the will and the courage to step back into hell to save him again. He’d never tell her she was the dangerous one, the kind a man didn’t recover from.
Bootsteps crashed through the undergrowth, friend not foe this time. The team, rifles sweeping, eyes cutting through smoke and shadow.
“Damn, man,” Joker said, taking in the bodies sprawled around them, Flint’s bloodied muzzle gleaming in the dim light. “Didn’t need our help after all.”
“Show-off,” Buck muttered, smirking as he kicked a rifle out of reach of a twitching hostile.
“Overachiever,” Blitz added, though his grin held nothing but pride.
Bear ignored them, his focus pinned to Bailee. “I had some backup here.” Her weight, hot and trembling against him. Blood streaked her temple, eyes hazy but fierce. He adjusted his hold, protective instinct locking tight.
Then Zorro dropped to his knees, medic mode activated. “I’ve got her.” His hands were already gentle but firm, prying her from Bear’s grasp. “Sit her up. Easy now.”
Bear’s jaw clenched. “I can?—”
“You can rest now. We’ve got this,” Zorro cut him off without looking up. “She’s in good hands.”
Bailee sagged into Zorro’s support as he cleaned the wound, his voice soft with clinical reassurance. Bear’s chest tightened. It shouldn’t have mattered; it was protocol, Zorro doing his job, but watching her lean into another man’s hands, letting him guide her, lit a hot brand in his gut.
When Zorro finally finished with the square bandage and coaxed her upright, Bailee swayed. Instinct had Bear reaching, but she turned, pressing into Zorro’s side for balance.
