He ached. Boy, did he ever ache. Especially the right side of his chest and his shoulder. Fiery pain throbbed as if someone was knifing him over and over again.
He groaned.
Panic pummeled him at the soft rustle of clothing from somewhere nearby. For a split second, he believed he was back in that cell. Was she coming back to slice into him again? A woman hovered into view. A woman with flaming-red hair.
Reena?
He blinked in confusion as he recalled capturing Reena, Blade showing up and then Reena escaping.
Concern for her safety snapped through him like a live wire.
“Are they all dead?” he managed to croak.
The concern knitting her perfect eyebrows vanished and relief etched her eyes. She nodded. “I think so. I didn’t hang around long enough to find out, but I think so.”
“Are you okay?” His voice grew a bit stronger.
She smiled and his gut did the most fantastic flip and he knew she would be okay.
“Blade?” he asked with hesitation. He wasn’t sure he wanted to hear the news that Blade hadn’t made it out alive.
She barked a short burst of laughter, her eyes twinkling with happiness. “I don’t know about you two guys. I got the feeling you wouldn’t have had a problem killing each other, yet your concern for each other is killing me. I take it you two have a history?”
Cade couldn’t stop himself from smiling at the memory of him, Blade and his brother Colter making love to Ashley the sex slave. Colter had fallen in “love at first sight” with her during the Terrorist Wars. Thinking of Ashley made him think about how long it had been since he’d had sex with a woman.
Too. Damn. Long.
Had he died of his injuries, he would have died without making love to Reena. Yeah, he was crazy for thinking this way about a woman he barely knew.
Curiosity washed over her pretty face, yet a little tinge of pink crept into her cheeks.
“What? Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked, her voice a soft ribbon of caresses, melting over his senses.
Cade closed his eyes. Damned if he was going to share the memory of having sex with another woman while entertaining the thought of doing the same with this one. Reena was different than most women he’d known. He liked her defiance. Loved the fact that she’d saved his life and it seemed, based on her comment about Blade’s concern for him, she’d saved Blade’s life too. She was too caring for her own good.
“Can you sip some more of this tea for me? It’s medicine. It’ll help with the fever.”
She smiled again and his insides twisted in a really nice way. He’d do anything for her. He would have told her as much, but weariness threatened to pull him into sleep land. She pressed a spoon to his lips and he opened his mouth, accepting the foul stench of her tea. To his surprise, a sweet, warm liquid splashed over his taste buds. He was thirsty and eagerly accepted more spoonfuls. His eyelids grew heavier with every sip and finally, he closed his eyes. If he died, she would be the last thing he remembered. For now, that’s all that mattered.
* * * * *
Red sat on the edge of Cade’s bed, spooning something into his mouth while talking to him in low whispers. At one point, she laughed. It was music to Blade’s ears and instantly reminded him of another woman he’d once known…
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
“Excuse me?” Will couldn’t believe what SKULL Chief and Commander Bev White had just said. The US Government had recruited him for some top-secret special ops program? Him? A gynecologist? Were they fucking insane?
The woman didn’t look like a chief, a commander or a soldier when she’d entered the tent he’d been instructed to wait in just outside what the US Army called Soul City, Afghanistan. Well yeah, she’d flashed him an authentic-looking ID badge and she wore green fatigues and black combat boots, but she was a hot chick with cropped spiky blonde hair and melt-me dark-chocolate-brown eyes. Yet she told him he would be trained for some newly formed assassination team called SKULL and she was his new boss?
Uh uh. He didn’t think so.
“I’m sorry, lady, but I’m a doctor, not an assassin.” He figured his firm refusal would take care of it. She’d send him on his merry way back to the disgusting hospital tent crawling with rats and cockroaches. Then he could continue treating the scores of raped women and girls that streamed in looking for help from his small team of grossly overworked doctors and nurses.
“Sir,” she stated, a stern smile on her plump pink lips as she rounded the only desk in the tent and sat down.
He waited for her to continue, but then quickly realized she expected him to addressheras “sir”. Fuck her. When he didn’t speak, those luscious lips of hers tightened in annoyance.
“You’ll address me as ‘sir’, soldier.”
