Black Ops Warrior
“And waste good food?” She shook her head at him and picked up her fork. “I’m not going to perpetuate the stereotype of the ‘ugly American.’ Not if I can help it. It’s cold, but it’s still edible.”
They made small talk as they ate. And Savannah couldn’t believe this was really her. Where was the woman who was tongue-tied in the presence of the male of the species in a social situation? But everything seemed natural with Niall, as if she’d known him forever instead of meeting him for the first time this morning.
She frowned as she acknowledged the truth of that thought; she really knew nothing about Niall.
“Are you still a marine?” she blurted out.
He shook his head. “Four years was enough for me. My older brother made it his career, though, until—” He stopped abruptly, and Savannah wondered what he’d intended to say.
“Until...?”
“Until he was wounded and they gave him a medical discharge. Now he does something else.”
“If you didn’t make the Corps your career, what do you do?” She almost missed his slight hesitation.
“Security.”
She wondered about that infinitesimal pause, but didn’t ask him about it. Instead she said, “What made you decide to take this trip? I mean, it’s mostly couples. And it’s mostly people who are...” She cleared her throat. “Well, retired. I know why I’m here, but...”
He smiled at her. “I’m forty. Not retired yet, but not so young, either. And I have a bucket list, just like you. Everything seemed to dovetail with work, and so...”
He wasn’t being completely truthful. She didn’t know how she knew that; she just did. But she wasn’t ready to call him on it. Yet. Someday, she vowed, he’ll trust me enough to tell me the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
As soon as that thought occurred to her, another thought crept into her consciousness. What made her think there was going to be a someday with Niall?
* * *
They strolled leisurely through the hotel’s vast lobby afterward, in companionable silence for the most part. When they passed the shop where Savannah had purchased her dress, she stopped momentarily to look at the others in the window. “I almost bought that one,” she murmured, pointing to a red silk sheath with the most gorgeous gold embroidery in a very Chinese design.
“Red’s not your color.” Niall turned, and when his gaze traveled over her from head to toe, Savannah felt it as a caress.
“No?”
“No. It’s all wrong for you.”
She didn’t know what made her say it—she never flirted—but she teased, “I didn’t know you were a connoisseur of women’s clothing.”
A short huff of laughter answered her. “I’m not. But I’m a connoisseur of you.” His voice dropped. “And what you’re wearing is perfect...for you.”
She caught her breath at the blatant desire in his eyes, kindling an answering desire in her. And all at once she remembered this morning, and her determination that if Niall wanted to make love to her, she wasn’t going to say no. Except for that one time she’d fallen in love in her teens, she’d played it safe all her life where relationships were concerned. How many chances like this would come her way? How many opportunities would she have to live the fantasy?
You even planned for this, she reminded herself. There’s a box of condoms waiting upstairs. But she couldn’t make her lips form the words to invite him up to her room. She wanted to. But she couldn’t.
* * *
Niall saw Savannah safely back to her hotel room on the thirty-eighth floor. He leaned in and kissed her lightly, not trusting himself any further than that. If he kissed her the way he wanted to—the way she deserved—he wouldn’t have been able to walk away at all. And he needed to. The shy invitation in Savannah’s eyes was an indictment of him. Of his assignment. And of what he’d actually—for a brief period—considered doing. How do you make love to a woman you’d convinced yourself you could kill?
He could have done it yesterday, if absolutely necessary. He could have slept with a traitor without a qualm and gone after the evidence to convict her, or kill her, when she was still his target. But not now. Not when he knew his assignment was most likely pure BS. He’d done things for his country that kept him up at night, things he wouldn’t necessarily want his mother or sister to know about, but he’d never done anything of which he was ashamed...until now.
“Lock your door,” he whispered when he raised his head.
“Lock my door?” Bewilderment shone from her gray eyes.
“I want to hear that lock click behind you. Then I’ll know you’re safe...from me.”
She caught her breath. “What if I don’t want to be safe?”
The sound that issued from his throat was nothing more or less than a growl. “Damn it, Savannah! You don’t know the first thing about me.”
She stared up at him, an enigmatic expression on her face. “You’re wrong,” she said quietly. “I know you better than you think.” A tiny smile tugged at the corners of her lips. “The fact that you have no intention of following me into my room despite what your body is saying tells me all I really need to know about you.” She reached up and touched two fingers to his cheek. “Good night, Niall. Thank you for a lovely evening.”
Then she was gone, closing the door in his face the way he’d told her to do. And the click of the lock was audible.
He walked next door and inserted his keycard in the slot. Savannah didn’t know it, but he’d arranged to have the room right next to hers. She was also unaware he’d broken into her room last night while she was at the lavish three-hour Peking duck banquet outside their hotel, which Niall had missed.
He’d searched everything Savannah had with her and had found nothing. No incriminating papers. No CDs, DVDs or thumb drives that might contain top secret files. He’d hacked into her laptop, too, and copied her data files for perusal back in his hotel room, which he’d done into the wee hours of this morning. He’d also installed worm software on her laptop. Every keystroke she made, every website she visited, every email she sent—Niall would know about it.
And he’d planted nearly invisible voice-activated cameras and listening devices, all of which weren’t necessary if she wasn’t a traitor or a security risk. He wouldn’t turn off the electronic monitoring system yet, just to be on the safe side. But they were checking out of this hotel day after tomorrow. When she went down to breakfast that morning, he would retrieve the equipment he’d installed last night, then install it at their next hotel. Assuming he didn’t get called back to the US in the meantime.
Her laptop was a little more problematic. The worm he’d introduced into her operating system wasn’t as simple to remove as the cameras or audio devices. It could be done, but it would take hours. He’d have to wait for another time, and there wasn’t a rush to uninstall it. And if he was recalled, well...the worm would stay where it was.
That didn’t mean he had to review the data logs, though. He’d have to see what his boss had to say. And he wouldn’t watch the voice-activated video, either. Listen, yes. Just to make sure she didn’t meet with someone she shouldn’t in her hotel room. And if he heard something suspicious, the video would still be there. But otherwise Savannah’s privacy would be inviolate. That was the least he could do, now that he knew she was probably innocent.
But not watching Savannah on video didn’t mean he’d turned off his imagination where she was concerned. He lay on the top of the covers, his arms beneath his head, and closed his eyes.
He could see her clearly in his mind as she’d first appeared when she opened her hotel door. She’d brushed her mousy brown hair until it shone, then piled it on top of her head. Even with that and her two-inch heels, he’d still towered over her. But then, at six-two-plus, that wasn’t unusual for him. She’d done something different to her eyes, too—mascara on her lashes and that shadowy stuff women used to make their eyes appear larger. But it was her mouth that had nearly poleaxed him. He wanted that mouth on him.
“Damn it!” He was fully aroused now, and he had no one to blame but himself. “Stop thinking of her,” he ordered, but it was easier said than done.
He unbuckled his ankle holster, which contained his totally-illegal-in-China-and-he’d-serve-hard-time-if-he-got-caught-with-it Beretta M9, and laid it on the nightstand. He’d carried a Beretta since his days in the Marine Corps, and he loved it. It fit his hand as if it had been made for him, and he always felt naked without it.
Then he turned up the volume on the electronic monitoring system—although nothing in Savannah’s hotel room had set off the voice activation so far—before stripping to the buff and padding into the bathroom. He’d already taken one shower this evening, before he’d knocked on Savannah’s door at dinnertime, but he needed another one now.
Preferably cold.
Two shivering minutes later his arousal was tamed...barely. He fished his toothbrush out of his travel kit, squeezed on toothpaste and was just about to slide it under the tap when he remembered. He cursed himself softly for almost making what could have been an error his body would pay for later. He cracked open a fresh bottle of water, shaking his head at his near stupidity and the necessity.
Not that this was new to him. It wasn’t. He’d been stationed places where bottled water was necessary for everything during his years in the Corps. He’d traveled on assignment to the jungles of Africa and South America, where the sanitary conditions were much worse. But it still bothered him.
He turned out the bathroom light, then crawled naked under the covers...where his thoughts stubbornly returned to Savannah. Wondering what she was doing at this very moment. Was she already in bed on the other side of the wall? Did she wear nightclothes—a gown, a T-shirt, PJs? Or did she sleep in the nude as he did?
Crap! Stop thinking of that, you pervert.
Then he remembered he hadn’t done what he’d intended to do the minute he returned to the privacy of his room. He rose and grabbed his secure laptop from the safe, brought it back to bed with him, then turned it on. It took a few minutes to boot up—the security precautions installed meant jumping through a few extra electronic hoops. Then, of course, he had to log onto the Virtual Private Network. And since he had to access it through a satellite feed, it took even longer. But eventually he was connected securely.
He’d already composed the email he would send while he was waiting for his laptop to be ready, so now his fingers flew over the keys as he typed. Finished, he scanned what he’d written, then hit Send and left the computer on.
The twelve-hour time difference between Beijing and Washington, DC, at this time of year meant he could expect a fairly prompt response. It was—he glanced at the clock on the nightstand—10:06 p.m. So it was just after ten in the morning in DC, which meant he might hear back in a few minutes.
He pushed the laptop to one side and lay back against the pillows, waiting. Hoping to receive the “stand down” command he’d requested, because he didn’t want to waste another day on this meaningless assignment.
There was another reason he wanted to leave China sooner rather than later, and it had nothing to do with wasting his time. He wanted out of here because being around Savannah was dangerous to his peace of mind and to his closely guarded heart. She’d already elicited things from him he never talked about. Like how his dad’s death had affected him. Like his brother’s medical discharge from the Corps.
He was just dozing off despite telling himself to stay awake—too little sleep last night, his body was telling him in no uncertain terms—when he heard an odd thump from the room next door, followed by Savannah’s voice, which he could hear clearly on the monitor, saying, “Who is it?”
Chapter 4
“Housekeeping.”
Savannah frowned. She hadn’t called housekeeping for anything, and she remembered the warning given to women traveling alone—never open your hotel door unless you know who’s on the other side. And even then, be on your guard. She peered through the peephole but couldn’t see anyone, and that alone roused her suspicions.
She was just about to tell whoever was on the other side of her door that she was calling hotel security when she heard the oddest noise, followed by what sounded like the thud of running footsteps on the carpeted hallway floor. Then nothing.
She raced to the phone and was poised to dial the operator when there was a light tap on her door, followed by a deep voice she recognized. “Savannah? It’s Niall. Are you okay?”
She dropped the phone back into its cradle and made a mad dash for the door. She threw it open without even checking the peephole, something for which she’d berate herself later, but at the moment seemed utterly unnecessary.
A barefooted, shirtless Niall stood in her doorway, as if he’d somehow divined she was in trouble and had only bothered to pull on his jeans before coming to her rescue. “Are you okay?” he repeated, running his gaze over her from top to bottom as if he needed to reassure himself.
“I’m fine.” Then her curiosity got the better of her. “How did you know I needed help?”
He hesitated. “My room’s right next door. I heard something and came to investigate. I didn’t want to intrude, but better safe than sorry, my mother always says.”
A tiny pang went through her at the familiar phrase. “My mom used to say that, too.” Only then did she realize blood was trickling from Niall’s forearm. “Oh my God, you’re hurt!” She dragged him by his uninjured arm into her room and closed the door behind him. Then turned him so she could examine the wounded area. “What happened?”
She didn’t wait for an answer, just darted into the bathroom for a clean, dry washcloth and her toiletries case, which also contained her little emergency kit.
“Sit,” she ordered, when she came back. Niall glanced at the foot of the bed, then pulled the desk chair out and swiveled it around before taking a seat. Savannah pressed the washcloth against what was little more than a six-inch scratch, which was a good thing. It wouldn’t need stitches, just disinfecting and a gauze bandage. “What happened?” she asked again as she efficiently applied first aid.
“There were a couple of masked—I guess you could call them intruders—outside your door when I stepped into the hallway. Not sure exactly what they were after, but the masks were a dead giveaway they weren’t there for a legitimate reason. They took off like bats out of hell as soon as they saw me, but I gave chase. I had my hand around the arm of one of them when the other produced a knife and lunged for me.” He didn’t even wince when she applied the alcohol wipe against the cut.
“I turned to avoid the thrust,” he continued, “and the blade grazed my forearm. But I had to let go of the other intruder, and that was all she wrote. They vanished through the fire door and did something to it so it wouldn’t open from this side. Which reminds me,” he said as an aside, “I need to call hotel security, have them clear the blockage just in case there’s a real fire and people need to escape that way.”
“Good idea,” Savannah said, but her mind wasn’t really on what Niall was saying about the fire door. She was laser focused on patching him up. “There,” she said with satisfaction as she patted the last piece of adhesive tape into place. “Almost good as new.” She smiled down at Niall, but her smile soon faded as her gaze slid farther down and she noticed for the first time a devastating scar near his heart, a bullet wound if she hadn’t missed her guess, and the surgical scar bisecting his chest. “Oh, my God,” she breathed. “What...?”
She automatically went to touch it, but he caught her hand in an iron grip and prevented her. “Sorry.” His voice was brusque. “I know it’s offensive, but I was in a hurry and didn’t take time to put on a shirt. I’ll go back to my—”
He started to rise, but she pushed him back down. “Not until you tell me how it happened,” she insisted, quietly but firmly. “I’m not offended. And I’m not disgusted. What I am is appalled you think I would be.”
When he didn’t say anything, she nodded to herself as understanding dawned. “Someone told you it was offensive. A woman. A woman you cared about. A woman you...loved?”
Not by the flicker of an eyelid did he betray she’d guessed correctly, but she knew she was right. “Oh, Niall,” she whispered, her eyes filling with tears. “I’m so sorry.”
This time she didn’t try to stop him when he rose. “Don’t pity me, for God’s sake,” he rasped. “That’s the last thing I want from you.”
“Not pity. Empathy. Because human beings can be so cruel to one another. Intentionally cruel. And it’s those intentional cruelties by those we love that inflict the most damage because we have no defenses against them.” It had been twenty years, but she still remembered when someone had done that to her, and she breathed raggedly. “Please tell me what happened.”
At first she thought he wasn’t going to. But then he admitted in a low voice, “I took a bullet meant for another man. That’s all.”
“That’s all? That’s all?” Without even thinking about it, Savannah reverently pressed her lips against the scar, wishing with all her heart she could “kiss it and make it better” the way her mother used to do when Savannah scraped her knee or cut her finger. Wishing she could draw the poison from Niall’s soul that way, poison planted by the woman he’d once loved, the one who’d told him the scar on his otherwise beautiful body was disgusting.
Then one muscled arm closed around her, dragging her against a body that had no give at all, and his free hand tilted her chin up. His mouth descended on hers, completely obliterating any memory she’d had of any other man’s kiss. The kiss went on and on, until surrender was the only possibility. Until every nerve ending in her body was inflamed. When he finally raised his head, she stared up at him, mutely pleading for more.
His face hardened. “Don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you want me.”
“But I do.” Savannah had never—never—been this upfront with a man about what she wanted, what she needed. Which was quite possibly why her few sexual relationships could be summed up in one word: Meh. But she had no reservations about telling Niall. And she was sure right down to her bare toes that sex with Niall would be anything but meh.
“Savannah...”
The rejection in the way he said her name stung, but not as badly as it could have if it wasn’t patently obvious by the impressive bulge in his jeans that he wanted her, too. And despite the need that hummed through her body, she understood.
“‘Not tonight, dear, I have a headache,’” she murmured in a teasing fashion, and was rewarded by his masculine chuckle.
“No headache, just a hard-on I’d give anything to bury deep inside you.” She gasped at his forthright language, although she wasn’t offended. “But there are reasons I can’t share with you why that would be a very bad idea.”
“Why can’t you share them?”
He laughed again, defusing the sexual tension. “Trust me, you wouldn’t want to know. And besides, there’s another, even more important reason why not.”
“And that is?”
“Because my parents raised me to be a gentleman. And a gentleman doesn’t take advantage of a lady when she’s vulnerable.” He kissed the tip of her nose. “And you, Dr. Whitman, are definitely vulnerable. Not to mention one hell of a lady.”
It wasn’t until Niall had returned to his own room and Savannah was snuggling under the covers alone that she suddenly wondered how he knew she held a doctorate. She cast her mind back over their conversations, but she couldn’t remember ever having mentioned it to him. And her name badge only said “Savannah Whitman,” not “Dr. Savannah Whitman,” or “Savannah Whitman, PhD.”
That’s odd, she thought, meaning to ask Niall about it the next day. Then her brain shut down as she slid into sleep, and the question completely slipped her mind.
* * *
Niall picked up the phone the minute he was back in his hotel room. He called the operator, who transferred him to hotel security. He didn’t mention Savannah’s name or that masked intruders had tried to gain entrance to her room, because he was fairly sure this was no random attack. He merely reported that he’d seen the perpetrators and tried to give chase, but they’d escaped into the emergency stairwell on his floor and had apparently jammed the fire door from the inside. Could security look into it?
Then he checked his email. Sure enough, his inbox contained the recall he’d asked for, a recall he no longer wanted.
He quickly considered his options. One, he could meekly acquiesce to his orders, pack his bags and head back to DC. He dismissed that idea immediately.
Two, he could tell Savannah his suspicion that someone was trying to kidnap her. He didn’t know who, but he was pretty sure he knew why—the highly classified data in her brain. And though the obvious suspect was the government of the People’s Republic of China, he didn’t think so. Someone had convinced the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Defense that Savannah was a security risk. Why? If a foreign government was behind the kidnapping attempt, getting Niall dispatched here was contrary to their interests.
Which meant someone was deliberately trying to make it appear as if the PRC was involved, so that when Savannah disappeared the US government would either think she’d defected or the Chinese were behind her disappearance. Suspicion would be diverted from the true culprit either way.
But unless he confessed everything, he doubted he’d be able to convince Savannah she was in ongoing danger. And if he couldn’t convince her, no way would she go back to the States with her bucket list unfulfilled, not with the motivation driving her.
Three, he could ask to have his recall rescinded and instead be assigned to guard Savannah while she was in China. Bodyguard would be a divergence from his usual role, but not completely outside the realm of things he’d done in his career.
Could he keep her safe for the next two weeks? There were no guarantees in this world, but he had faith in himself. Hell yes, he could keep her safe. Would keep her safe, or die trying.
But he’d have to word his request carefully if he went with option number three.
He clicked Reply and started typing. He read back through what he’d written six minutes later, modifying a word here, a phrase there. Satisfied at last he was conveying the message that would get him the result he wanted, he clicked Send.
He lay back against the pillows, one arm beneath his head. He had no qualms about what he’d done. No second thoughts about telling his boss Savannah was in danger...and potentially an unwitting security risk. He hadn’t come right out and said it, but he’d implied that if the PRC was trying to kidnap her in a way that wouldn’t cause an international incident, then his original assignment still applied—he had to prevent Savannah from revealing the top secret military defense information she possessed to the enemy, even if she didn’t intend to do it. And the only way to do that was to guard her 24/7.
And how are you going to do that, hotshot? How are you going to guard her 24/7?
The only answer that came to him was the one he was most afraid of—becoming Savannah’s lover for the remainder of this trip. Afraid, because he wanted this deep down in the secret recesses of his soul. Not just to keep her safe, but because he wanted her. Plain and simple.
But he didn’t just want her in his bed. He didn’t just want to sate himself with her body, although that urge was getting stronger by the minute. He wanted the woman who’d kissed the scar on his chest as if it were a sacred badge of honor. He wanted the woman who’d cried for his pain.
And that scared the hell out of him.
* * *
Savannah woke early and was dressed and downstairs before the hotel restaurant opened for breakfast at six. She was hoping she’d run into Niall and invite him to join her. But though her eyes searched everywhere, she didn’t see him.