Chapter Thirteen
Quaid eased up the stairs with two coffees on a tray and went to Alanna’s door.
He didn’t have the smooth moves Niles had, but she was still asleep, and he had an irrational need to be the only one in her bedroom.
How he’d gotten so dissatisfied with his lonely bed after sleeping with her once was a thought he couldn’t tackle.
She was still in his house, across the hall, obviously no dreams this time, and probably trying to sort out why he’d kissed her goodbye last night.
First kiss to devouring kiss showed a lack of control on his part and a shift in intimacy for both of them. She’d kissed him back.
After midnight, he’d received a work alert from QM’s second in command in Operations, Casey Miner.
He had to return to the office. A protection detail in Dubai had run into a serious security risk and needed to exit the client and the four man team from the country as rapidly as possible amidst bombing activity.
Quaid had questioned serving this client from the beginning, but the rich and famous trusted him, and he knew Dubai from high school, college, and the CIA.
He wasn’t a big fan of the Patton hotel there, but it became a safe space for the team to wait until exfil could be arranged.
With friends arguing with friends and enemies attacking enemies, it wasn’t a good time to hang with strangers for a money deal when you had no knowledge of what they fundamentally believed.
If only this client practiced the same logic.
Instead, he’d put at risk four of their people.
A two-hour flight from Dubai to Riyadh was the simplest with a Saudi Arabia non-stop connection to New York.
The timing sucked. The architecture and culture of the Patton hotel might not be his favorite, but the staff was stellar.
While they gave him every option possible, he drank diet coke and replayed kissing Alanna.
Now, he stood at her door, dithering. Playboy Quaid who had all the moves had none. The door opened before he could decide between walking away or knocking.
Alanna’s neutral expression he recognized from their day one meeting, and he made friends again by lifting her coffee.
“Good morning.”
She took the mug and walked back into her room. He followed. Her bed was rumpled, pillows laying in all directions, with clothes scattered on the bed. “Are you just getting home?”
“No. I got a few hours sleep.”
“Problem?”
“Yes, not with this case, with a protection detail in the Middle East.”
Her brow rose, but she didn’t ask. With Navy slacks, blue and white striped shirt, dark hair braided, she looked beautiful and rested.
She set her coffee cup down without sipping, took the tray from him, and slid it next to her cup.
She came to him then, cupped his face, and kissed him, catching him between apology and confusion.
God, her mouth was soft. And she smelled so good.
He should slow this, but her sweet lips were in stark contrast to his experience, and he loved it.
Given her background, he expected tentative and got the Wildcat instead.
He backed her against the closet door and shifted his mouth, desperate to learn textures, tastes, and tingles.
She moaned, slipped her hands into his hair, and held his head in place while she mimicked what he was doing. Every disciplined part of him failed.
“Lani,” he whispered against her mouth.
She lifted her lips, but then kept nibbling around his. “Don’t kiss me in front of your crew ever again.”
Confused, he traced a finger across her cheek. “Why?”
“Because this is what will happen.” She slid a leg around him, and he lifted her into his arms. The heat. God. Up higher, she maneuvered her legs around his waist, pressing close. Achingly hard, he tightened the reigns. Not yet. Not like this.
“What did I miss?” He was still stuck in protecting her, easing her into intimacy. She was claiming.
She left his mouth and kissed his neck, her breaths brushing his skin until he couldn’t draw any of his own.
“I have missed so much.” She pulled back and the emotion in her blue eyes undid him. “You don’t understand. I’ve thought about you all night.”
He held her close and stepped away from the closet door. He sat on the bed, letting her straddle him or move aside if she wished. She stayed wrapped around him.
“Is this what you want?”
“What? You?” She licked her lips and everything in him seized.
Words came hard. “Yes, me.”
She shook her head, then nodded, and he was lost in the a turbulent river. “Lani, there’s time. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Not true. I either act or I lose.” Her fingers toyed with the buttons on his shirt. “And I don’t even know who I am anymore.”
Quaid huffed out a laugh. “You aren’t the only one. You’re the one who convinced me to give up my playboy persona. I don’t know how to live this Quaid either.”
“But does it feel right? Do you want to cover up again?”
“I’m not covering up. You were right. What about you?”
“I like kissing you. I want more. I’m living a half-alive existence buried in violence, and I don’t like it.
I mean, not the work part, but I’m turning away from friends, from moments that could bring enjoyment, from closeness with a person I care about.
I’ve turned those emotions off, shoved them somewhere, but my heart is fighting me. ”
“I understand that. I have been hiding – from people’s expectations to family commitments. I need them to see me, but I won’t show them me. Well, except Mackey and Hunt and Cait. And Elizabeth. They earned it.”
Lani shifted, her hands stroking his shoulders. “What happened in Afghanistan? Can you tell me?”
Quaid tightened his grip, pulling her closer to the ache in his groin.
Distraction was desperately needed to talk about this.
“I had a friend. His name was Reid. I’d known him since junior high.
His father was an ambassador, and their family crossed mine periodically.
We went to the same boarding school. He followed me into the CIA – which went over with his family about as well as it did with mine. ”
He shut his eyes, struggling against the grief, and stroked Lani’s back.
The warmth bleeding through her shirt eased his turmoil.
“He went undercover in Afghanistan and disappeared. The CIA set up a mission using SEAL assets and the Joint Command Hospital in Bagram. It was supposed to be a humanitarian mission to help a warlord whose son had been injured, but they added me to their roster and took me to his mountain retreat so I could search for Reid.”
“Hunt’s team?”
“Yes. It’s how we all met. Mackey I already knew from another mission, but I met Hunt and Cait there.”
“I sensed some wartime connection.”
“Well, it wasn’t a simple search. We got ambushed by terrorists, escaped into the mountains, did a hide and seek with weapons and RPGs.
It got ugly. I got shot. I’m sitting here today because Cait and Hunt’s medic, Carter, kept me alive until we got to an extraction point.
Thirty-six hours in that hellhole from start to finish.
Never been more happy to see a medevac. I swear Cait kept her hands in my guts until they dumped me in a hospital surgery. ”
“But you didn’t find your friend?”
“I didn’t, no. I ended up in a hospital in Germany. But Hunt kept searching. Finally found him.”
Her hands cupped his face. “He wasn’t alive?”
“No, dead. Hunt found his body.” He shifted his hands to lift Lani to her feet, but she wouldn’t let him. Her mouth settled on his with a gentle sweep over his eyes and his forehead.
“War is hell, whether its true war or the one I fight every day with killers and criminals. We live in a screwed up world, Quaid, and you and I both choose to operate there because we’re the tough ones. We protect.”
He stayed silent, listening with his heart not his head. Because those words were exactly why he’s joined the Marines, why he spent those years in the CIA, and why he chose QM with Mackey. But with this woman, it was more.
“I want time with you alone, Lani, not squeezing in moments on this madman’s agenda to kill you.
She moistened her lips. “I won’t let him succeed. I’ve been fighting him and his ghost for so many years. I need it to stop.”
“I’ll be right here.”
“Do you know what happened to your friend?”
“Yes, got a letter from him, mailed before his death. Explained everything and nothing. I’ll show it to you sometime.”
“You were his friend. Sounds like a good one. And you looked for him. There is only so much you can do, and you did it.” She kissed his eyelids again.
He plundered her mouth to chase away ghosts, savoring her response, and wished it were that easy.
&&&&&&&&&&
Quaid lay back on the bed, and Alanna went with him. She shifted her legs, ending up next to him full length with her head on his shoulder.
“Mackey came in while I was dealing with Dubai. They got a hint of Whit.”
Alanna raised up, temper barely in check. “Way to lead with that.”
“I got distracted.” His eyes traced over her mouth to breasts straining against the buttons.
“Describe said hint.”
“Church. Sanctuary.”
“That’s it?”
“Did Whit ever go to church?”
“No, but he had relationships with a lot of people in the streets – business owners, junkies, priests. It was all the same to him.”
“I left Mackey working with Kerry to explore the churches. They’re going to visit each one. They’ll call if they find anything, and we’ll join them.”
Alanna wanted to argue. She wanted to go out and search with them, but she’d already walked those streets and found nothing. Obviously, QM had the resources and people to use who had good information sources. Her sense was they would get the job done.
“Any word from Frank?”
“Not yet. And I don’t want to nag him. He’s not someone I want mad at us. What did your boss say?”
“Keep the reports coming. He’s sorting through the classified information and will inform me if any of it can be passed on.”