“We get along.”
“What do you think of her?”
Hawk recalled her letting him carry Amber into her room. Their conversations this past week had been brief. She hadn’t questioned his sudden appearance in her and Amber’s plans; in fact, she had seemed subdued. “She has attitude,” Hawk said, stopping the punching bag with a taped hand, “and a lot of secrets.”
Amber had asked that his description of her and Lily’s side project be as minimal as possible. Jed, she had said gravely, would use that information for his own ends. She had added, with sarcasm, that it might pull down her percentage statistics with COS Command. Hawk hadn’t said anything, although he was privately amused at her direct heat.
“What’s new, then?”
Hawk put the punching bag in motion again. “Be ready for an upload of coordinates.”
“All of them?”
“Not sure, but enough info to map out where each drop point might be.”
“Good. Then we have to figure out which load has our target.”
Hawk started his routine again. “Ambrosia and I start our journey as soon as we have a map from your end.”
“Fax it to her?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sleeping with Ambrosia?” Jed’s sudden question made Hawk pause in midstrike and the bag bumped into him. He reached out with both arms to hug it to a stop, as Jed continued in polite tones, “Got the air knocked out of you?”
“Is there a policy against that?” Hawk asked, nursing the shoulder that had borne the brunt of the hit.
“We have only one policy. Do your job.”
“I’ll get it done,” Hawk said.
“I expect no less from one of the admiral’s Standing and Ready SEALs. Call me again when Sun is ready for his vacation. I should have the map and key positions ready for you and Ambrosia. I’ll also give you the name of the contact that will pick up the merchandise once it’s in your hands.”
After Jed rang off, Hawk gave the punching bag a quick kick for revenge before putting away the headphone. He’d forgotten what good interrogators those commandos were. By invoking his STAR status, Jed McNeil was reminding him to keep his focus on his job, which was to stay as close to Dilaver as possible, and not to a certain blonde with a sassy mouth.
He had to admit, he had been going to Amber’s place too much. Even Dilaver was teasing him about it, commenting that Hawk had finally rediscovered his libido. Which brought the focus back on the main problem. He did enjoy spending time with Amber, but he was also avoiding going to thekafenas.It was good to get away fromthatfor a while.
But Hawk could avoid it only for so long. To be close to Dilaver meant being with the Slav while he committed crimes that made his stomach turn. Thank God the big thug had the sense not to do hard drugs for recreation. Hawk had been trained on how to best avoid ending up an addict, if, in case, such a scenario cropped up, but it was tough for an inexperienced covert agent not to get into trouble when confronted with the unexpected invitation of joining the “fun.” Many had ended up addicts themselves, and some had lost the fight to get clean.
Oh yeah, he was one lucky devil, standing there like an idiot and not lifting a finger when a young woman was being beaten. Or, even worse, sexually humiliated. It made Hawk ashamed of his own sex when he watched the depraved things the men made the girls do. The first time he had accompanied Dilaver to one of his “training sessions,” it took every ounce of control he had not to pounce on and kill the scum who was doing the training.
He had the satisfaction of thinking that he had finally got-ten rid of one of them that evening during the battle by the hillside. That man was one of Dilaver’s closest aides and had been particularly vicious when it came to breaking in the new girls. Hawk had mentally killed him dozens of times in the last few months. However, he hadn’t found much relief in the act; the images of the girls still haunted him.
Amber. Hawk smiled every time he thought of her. She made him forget, at least for a while, what he had seen. Either his abstinence had sharpened his senses or she made him feel like never before. He couldn’t seem to get enough of her. Every time they made love, he craved more. How was it that he could want a woman so badly? Even now he wanted her.
But he couldn’t. Not tonight. He had to get back to playing Dilaver’s new friend. A knock on the door interrupted his reverie.
Hawk pushed the punching bag into a swing again. “Come in,” he said as he started punishing it. He knew it would be Dilaver, meeting him to go jogging. Without stopping, he continued, “Ready to run?”
“Fuck, no. I can’t believe I’m going jogging.” Dilaver still walked with a slight limp and sometimes needed his walking stick after being on his feet too long. He kicked his leg out. “It’s taking me longer to heal.”
“Yeah, they say it’s the feet that go first, then the face,” Hawk quipped as he stopped the moving bag.
Dilaver chuckled. “You’re just saying that because you’re a pretty face,” he said. “If you had pretty legs like mine, you’d say it’s the face that goes first.”
Hawk started to untape his hands. “Well, let’s see how your pretty hairy legs keep up with mine today.”
Dilaver tapped his foot. “I bet they are just as pretty as Amber Hutchens’s, eh?”
