Catching Eagle's Eye (13 page)

Coward! The voice screamed inside his head.

That, too. And still he sat and watched the window, picturing Will undressing, getting into bed, hissing perhaps from the rasp of the sheets against his still sensitive skin. Dane tortured himself with those images. Then, when the light in the window went out, he had no more excuses to stay. He put the jeep in gear and drove away from the best thing that had ever happened to him.

Chapter Eight

Herat Province, Afghanistan, five months later

“Word is you’re taking supplies to the medical clinic outside of Marwah in a few hours.”

The young warrant officer, Truman, looked up from the maintenance check she was running on her bird. She gave Dane the fish eye before returning to her task. “Yes, sir. You need something delivered there?” Her tone made clear her skepticism.

He couldn’t blame her. Having spent the last couple of months in the northern mountain region, he was doing his Grizzly Adams impression. Scraggy, filthy, and smelly, he looked like the meat eater he was. He did not look like someone who’d be shipping office supplies and ace bandages.

Scratching the back of his neck, he said, “I was hoping to hitch a ride.”

The woman gave him another what the fuck look before shrugging. “If you don’t mind riding on top of boxes, I can make room for you.”

“Thanks. I’m going to clean up a bit. Two hours?”

When the woman nodded in agreement, he took off for the showers. This was a dumb idea for sure, but he couldn’t help himself. Ever since that weekend, as it had become known inside his head, every stray moment had been occupied with thoughts of Will Chadwick. When he wasn’t picturing the younger man offering up his submission, he was worried about his being the target of some extremist. By the time he’d finished this latest op, he had decided his choices were to either give into his obsession about Will or lose his fucking mind. Chasing down the guy in this large and dangerous country to alleviate his worry seemed the better choice.

He wasn’t so sure now that he was close to his quarry. It hadn’t been difficult finding out where Will was stationed. Being a SEAL had its advantages. A bullshit story about his leg giving him trouble and wanting to consult with his physical therapist had produced the information within about five minutes. It wasn’t total crap, either, given that his leg was aching a tiny bit after lugging him and his gear up and down craggy mountain terrain. It was his story anyway and he was sticking to it, damn it all, even when his teammates had looked at him as if he’d sprouted a second head. He didn’t give a rat’s ass if it made him look weak. He just had to see Will, one little peek at the guy, maybe a minute or two of conversation, to make sure he was hale and hearty. Then they could go their separate ways again. No harm, no foul. And he was a shitty liar, especially when he was already sporting wood in anticipation.

Two hours later he gripped a ceiling strap as the pilot lifted her bird off the ground. Another two hours, give or take, was what Truman had estimated as their travel time. Will was working out of a clinic set up to offer basic medical care to people too far away to travel to a city even for life and death issues, let alone physical therapy. It was an area that had been quiet for over a year, no terrorist attacks.

The knowledge should have given Dane some peace of mind, yet as the bird soared through the air, his nerves jangled more than ever. His possessive feelings for the man transcended those of a Dom for his sub. His feelings of affection, for lack of a better word, grew as he got closer to his destination. It was crazy to think in those terms given how little time they’d spent in each other’s company. Crazier still considering how he’d thrown any chance at a relationship away. Still, inside his head, he urged Truman to go faster.

****

Will smiled broadly at the blue-shrouded woman standing off to the side. Her son was walking again for the first time in two years as opposed to hopping or crawling. Sure, his gait was clumsy and tentative, but it would improve with time. He had to get used to his new prosthetic leg. It wouldn’t be long before the little boy would be scampering around with the other children in the village. When the child turned and returned a smile, Will knew that his decision to come to this almost hopeless country had been the right one. While there was nothing he could do about terrorists, he was helping to change lives in this small way. He could give at least some people this amount of hope.

The boy said something to him, and the translator standing nearby said he was asking if he could try his new leg outside. “Sure,” Will said with a nod. “If it’s okay with his mother.” When the translator said the mother was deferring to Will on the decision, he suppressed a groan. Baby steps. This country wasn’t going to change overnight, and right now, as a man, he had more say than even the kid’s own mother. “Just take it easy,” he said through the translator and watched the boy gingerly make his way out of the hut that served as a clinic.

He watched as other boys gathered around his patient and ogled the artificial limb until a familiar noise captured his attention. A supply helo approached. Excellent! He’d been waiting for some new prosthetics. There were still active mines in the area from the fighting that had been so fierce only a year or so ago. With the way the boys searched through trash heaps for scrap metal, the number of blown off limbs from those mines being triggered had increased. He only had a few months left of his tour, and he was determined to fit as many kids as he could. Time he had, supplies not so much.

He went outside to the landing area and waited for the bird to touch ground before approaching it. His feet stumbled to a halt as he saw someone hop out of the cargo area. It was a man, tall, broad, dangerous even from a distance. When his heart skipped a beat, he admonished himself. It wasn’t Dane. It couldn’t be. Sure, the guy was probably somewhere in the country fighting, and knowing that had given him plenty of sleepless nights. But he wouldn’t be here in this remote village where mercifully nothing was going on that would attract the attention or need of the SEALs.

As the passenger got closer, though, Will’s heartbeat sped up and his breath hitched. It wasn’t his overactive imagination or his desperate longing for someone he couldn’t have that made him see what he wanted to see. It was Dane! Expression as hard as ever, the man, who Will, try as he might, couldn’t get out of his mind, strode toward him. When there were no more than a few feet between them, Dane stopped. His broad chest rose and fell on what appeared to be a hard sigh. There was a look of—what?—relief maybe on his face as he simply stood and stared at him.

Apparently it was going to be up to Will to make conversation. “Dane, what are you doing here?” Okay, that wasn’t the friendliest opening remark he could make. It was just that “do me now, sir” didn’t seem appropriate.

The sides of Dane’s lips lifted in what could have been termed a smile. “I could say I happened to be passing through the area or that I needed some extra PT, which is what I told my command. We’d both know those were lies, so the truth is I had to see you.” He shrugged. “I was worried about you.”

Disappointed that the SEAL was only there to check up on his welfare, Will could only shrug back. “I’m fine. I told you I would be.” He forced a smile. “This is a pretty quiet part of the country now if you don’t count the occasional abandoned ordinance going off. But that’s what I’m here for anyway, to help fix the devastation they cause.”

He motioned to where his latest patient was doing his best to keep up with his friends running around the village square. The sight made him smile. When he looked back at Dane, though, he realized the man’s gaze still bored into him. The heat of it singed his face and caused his smile to falter.

Dane licked his lips. “What I just said is only partially the truth.” His stare pinned Will to the ground. “It’s been at least five months, and I still can’t stop thinking about you, about being with you.”

Will swallowed hard at the admission and had to look away for a moment as he gathered his thoughts. He understood what Dane meant as he had also been unable to put that one fantastic weekend at the back of his mind with all of the other sweet memories of his life. Seeing the Dom made it impossible to pretend it hadn’t been as great as he remembered.

“I can’t stop thinking about you either, sir,” he murmured. He hesitated to confess the rest, then decided what the hell? Dane had sought him out so why bother to pull his punches. “Sometimes at night, I pretend that I’m still under your control and stroke myself for ten minutes while thinking of you—without coming, of course.”

Dane exhaled hard on a muted grunt. His hands curled into fists by his side. “And I thought I was the sadist.”

Will gave him a wry grin before turning to watch the boys again. “You still are. Coming here to see me when we still can’t be together should be added to the Geneva Convention’s list of things you can’t do during warfare.”

There was a heavy sigh. “Yeah, I know. I’m sorry. It’s not fair, and I tried to resist the urge, but…”

The rest of the words were drowned out by a high pitched whine from overhead. A few seconds later, the ground shook and a great cloud of dirt rose up about a hundred yards from where the boys were. A second ticked by filled with utter silence before pandemonium broke out.

Amid screams, came Dane’s loud, deep voice. “Incoming!”

The breath left Will’s body as he was shoved down from behind, and the heavy weight of Dane’s body slammed on top of him. There was another explosion, closer this time. The screaming and yelling increased. So did the pressure from Dane as he covered Will more completely, wrapping his arms around Will’s head. There was a third explosion, then sharper sounds that Will recognized as the rapid fire of bullets.

“Fuck,” Dane shouted. “They’ve got at least two shooters trying to pick people off. Safe area, my ass!”

Will’s heart thudded painfully while his mind reeled with the reality that they were under attack. He heard a high-pitched scream and thought of his patient. The kid was out in the open and slowed down by his new prosthetic. He tried to push Dane off so he could at least look around. It was like trying to move a stone slab. It didn’t matter, however, because Dane moved him instead. With a hard yank of Will’s collar, Dane had them both on their feet and heading for a low stone wall. He tossed Will against it and snuggled up beside him.

“Stay down!” the SEAL ordered him over the din of the chaos around them.

Will did as he was told, but now had a chance to scope out the surrounding area. He saw a few bloody bodies lying in the dirt already. Where the boys had been playing, there was no one left except for one small form curled up on the ground. The prosthetic leg lay stretched out at an odd angle. For a frantic moment, Will thought the boy was dead. Then he saw his arms flail as more bullets landed nearby.

He gave it no more than a second’s consideration before he was up and running in a serpentine fashion to the boy. He heard Dane shout his name, but ignored it. There was no way he’d leave that kid to be gunned down or blown up after all he’d suffered already.

The heat of a couple of rounds raised the hairs on the back of his neck. Ignoring them and the fear they engendered, he reached the boy as if sliding into home base. He immediately threw his arms around the screaming boy and held on tight. Speaking soothing words he hoped could be heard and understood on a primitive level, he gathered the small body in his arms to stand up.

Will hadn’t made it into anything more than a crouch before something slammed into his side and sent him sprawling down. The child in his arms shrieked with renewed terror. Before he could gather them up again, however, strong hands grabbed him, hauling him and the boy up and propelling them both forward. It was Dane, of course, and knowing that the SEAL was in control gave Will renewed hope that they’d reach safety.

He focused his efforts on keeping the boy tight in his arms even as he remained engulfed by the other man’s. A blast louder and stronger than anything else that had occurred threatened to knock them down once more. It was Dane’s strength that miraculously kept them upright and moving.

“Shit, they got the supply helo!” Dane bellowed into Will’s ear.

An image of Truman and her co-pilot popped into Will’s head, and he hoped they hadn’t been in it. Through the thick dust, he saw the supply hut, really just an abandoned farm house, looming up in front of them. Of course, it was the closest building, and while it wouldn’t keep them safe from any mortars, at least it would shelter them somewhat from the bullets.

As they stumbled through the doors, he caught sight of the helo’s two person crew. They were getting off shots of their own through the windows. There were others there, too, male villagers of various ages. A man ran up and took the crying boy from Will’s hand and immediately spoke to him in a reassuring way.

Will followed them to take the displaced prosthetic off. At least he tried to follow them. His footsteps faltered as his legs went weak. He would have fallen to his knees except Dane still held him tight in his arms. He fought the hold, trying to regain control of his body. The arms simply tightened around him as his knees buckled. A searing pain shot through his side.

“Take it easy, baby.” Dane’s voice hovered over Will’s ear, and it held a strained quality. “You’re hit. Let me lie you down someplace quiet.”

As the meaning of Dane’s words sank into Will’s increasingly fuzzy brain, fire licked up his torso. All his limbs turned to jelly, and his eyes blurred with unshed tears of pain. His SEAL lover was all but carrying him by the time they reached an empty corner of the room. He groaned as the other man lowered him onto his back.

When he looked up, Dane peered down at him. He was wearing the same grim expression as he had when tackling a new exercise. There was another look, too, lurking in his eyes, something Will had never seen before. Fear.

Will looked down the length of his own body and saw the red blooming just above his waist. “Oh, shit,” he exclaimed in a quiet voice.