Dangerous Attraction Romantic Suspense Boxed Set (125 page)

Christ
. That was a problem.

It took an eternity to find the strength to crawl off her and even then he didn’t want to withdraw. She lay there sprawled against the blankets. Eyes closed. Silent. And he wanted to do it all over again, so they didn’t have to talk, didn’t have to think about never doing it again.

But things were never that simple, and sacrifice was part of the job.

He got rid of the condom and pulled on his trousers and T-shirt, finished his cold tea to try to ease the ache in his throat. She got dressed too, her amazing body disappearing from sight, and he knew chances of getting her naked again were close to zero. Frustrated, he pressed his lips together.
Get used to that feeling, pal.
He was on a mission, for fuck’s sake—he shouldn’t have been having sex in the first place. Especially not incendiary sex that had blown his head off.

With the exception of their boots they were now both ready to go. Her eyes reflected his sadness. Damn. He hadn’t meant to make her feel sad. He pulled her against him and dragged the blanket across them, feigning self-assurance he was far from feeling. “
Now
can I go sleep?”

She elbowed him in the gut, which was answer enough.

* * *

Nuristan Province, Afghanistan-Pakistan border

October 1980

A car approached the barren, dusty outpost. The first in two days. Winter was fast approaching and Dmitri wrapped his greatcoat tighter around his waist. The clouds overhead were a bruised angry white that promised imminent snowfall. Only a desperate man would try to cross the Hindu Kush in the face of a winter blizzard, but this was Afghanistan and everybody here was desperate.

He stood, stretched out his muscles, and walked to the barrier next to a guard box that straddled the road to the Pakistani border in eastern Nuristan province.

The middle of nowhere.

Grinding monotony.

Silent ridicule.

This was his meteoric fall from grace.

It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except obediently doing his time and getting back to Magdalena and their young son, Sergei. He had no pride left. No loyalty to the motherland he’d once loved. Bide his time, get out of the Red Army, and settle back on the farm his parents had worked before him. That was all he wanted now.

The sound of jackboots hit the ground. “Someone must be in a hurry to leave this shithole to risk crossing this late in the year, huh, Dmitri?”

“
Ya
,
Serzhánt
,” Dmitri checked his weapon. A decrepit Kalashnikov that he’d stripped and cleaned and repaired until it was finally reliable. Dmitri’s skill with weapons more than compensated for the gun’s lack of accuracy.

The car approached, the exhaust rattling like a tin can beneath it. A young man, maybe seventeen, was driving. Dmitri watched the vehicle carefully. A dark head bobbed in the backseat. He stood in the middle of the dusty road and held his weapon on the car as it rolled to a bumpy stop ten feet away. The traveling companion was a woman. A girl. Dmitri took a step forward, but his superior office stopped him with a hand on his arm.

“I’ll deal with this,
Yefréytor
.”

From a
kapitán
in Russia’s premier army division to a common soldier in less than twelve months. The bitterness had diluted. The sourness had receded. He did not care. Not anymore. They couldn’t take anything else from him except his family. He would not risk them for anything.

Dmitri walked away and leaned against the hut, waiting in case his asshole boss needed help carrying the cash he was about to steal from these poor unfortunates. He lit a cigarette and made toe prints in the dirt.

“Papers,” the man snapped. The sound of paper rustled in the wind and Dmitri heard them ripped away by a strong gust. Dmitri walked slowly over to where the documents had pressed themselves tight against a rock. He picked them up and straightened.

There was a reason his companion was manning an almost deserted border outpost. A reason that did not involve the injured ego of a Russian spy.

“Get out of the car,” the
serzhánt
barked at the young man.

Dmitri stood at his boss’s shoulder and handed back the paperwork.

“Take him and search him.” He snatched the documents and threw them into the car. His eyes flashed with malice. “Search him properly.”

Dmitri hid his distaste but took the youth by the shoulders and pushed him roughly against the side of the hut and started a slow and thorough investigation of the man’s clothes and hidden crevices. It wasn’t dignified but Dmitri didn’t have much use for dignity. Not anymore.

He heard the girl scream as she was hauled out of the car, heard the smack of a fist on flesh, felt the young man go rigid beneath his hands. Dmitri pinned him firmly against the wall. For his own sake.

“My sister. Please, don’t hurt my sister. She’s pregnant,” the young man pleaded. Dmitri tensed even though he kept searching for weapons and drugs and other illegal paraphernalia on the youngster. “We are making our way to her husband’s village in Pakistan so she can have her baby in safety.”

“I don’t care,” he grated into the young man’s ears. The young woman was screaming louder and louder.
Don’t look, Dmitri. Don’t fucking look.
A quick glance told him what was about to happen. That and the terror in the girl’s black eyes—as black as Magdalena’s—as she met his gaze from where she was splayed on the bonnet of the car.

His illustrious
serzhánt
punched the girl in the mouth again, then held her by the throat as he shoved her skirt over her swollen belly and wedged her thighs apart with his own. The young man bolted away from his grasp and Dmitri grabbed him before he’d gone four paces and slammed the butt of his rifle into his temple to stop him getting killed.

“Good. You can have the little whore next,” the
serzhánt
said with a sneer. “If she’s any good I won’t shoot her brother.”

Her eyes flashed and Dmitri watched a terrified smile try to form on her lips. Because a young woman about to be violated should smile at her attacker.

“That’s better,
devotchka
. I’ll even let you lick me clean when we are done.” The
serzhánt
undid his pants, penis jutting, red and ugly in the wind.

Bile burned along Dmitri’s throat, acid and disgusting. Patriotic pride withered and died. He was completely ashamed to be Russian.

The
serzhánt
ripped her blouse and clamped his hand to her full breast. It hurt her. Dmitri could tell. His heart shriveled as he watched the animal spread her legs wider and open her woman’s flesh with his thick fingers—flesh only a husband or a doctor should see or touch. The
serzhánt
spat on his fingers and forced them inside her, excitement blazing a fierce blush against his cheekbones. “See? She is already wet for me.”

Dmitri squeezed the trigger of his gun and the man fell dead in the dirt.

The woman stared at him with shocked eyes and swallowed a huge sob of air. He took a step closer and pulled her skirt down. “Move. You must leave. Now. Hurry.”

She ran to her brother, who was out cold. Dmitri lifted him—childlike in his arms—and threw him into the back seat. Then he went through the
serzhánt’s
pockets and removed all the money and cigarettes and ammo he could find.

“You can drive?” he asked the girl.

Her eyes wouldn’t leave him. “What will happen to you?”

“They’ll probably shoot me.” Magdalena would have wanted him to save the girl. He knew it, even though it meant he’d never see her again.

“Come with us.”

“What?” he asked.

She hesitated as if gauging the strength of her trust. “Come with us. My brother and I are going to join relatives in Pakistan. Amir is going to fight with the mujahedeen. You’ll be safe with us.”

“A Russian safe in Pakistan? You’re crazy.” Despite everything, he almost laughed.

“Please. I need you. I don’t know how to drive. Amir is unconscious.” She gripped his sleeve with small, strong fingers. “Our family is rich. We can protect you. You will be a hero in my town.”

The word “hero” bit him like a bullet in the chest. He’d wanted to be a hero once. Now he’d lost everything and the words meant nothing to him anymore. His career, his wife, the son he’d never met, even the cold callous bitch of his homeland were stripped from him now. He opened the passenger door and helped the girl inside.

What did he have to lose?

Chapter Thirteen

Axelle woke with a start and her eyes widened as Dmitri Volkov stood with a matte-black pistol pointed straight at Dempsey. Dempsey was thankfully fast asleep. She closed her eyes and opened them again, but it wasn’t her imagination playing tricks. The man actually stood there, tired, grim, and resolved. She blew out a silent breath. He was a determined sonofabitch, that was for sure. Volkov pressed his finger to his lips, pointed his finger at her, then jerked his thumb in the direction of the door.

Dammit.

Not only was the man not done with her, odds were he’d shoot Dempsey if he woke up and tried to stop them. She couldn’t let that happen. She’d started to care deeply about this man and no one knew the danger of getting involved more than she did. She edged out of bed slowly, moving carefully away from the man she’d made love to, keeping her body between the Russian and the soldier. Volkov held her boots and jerked his head to the curtained doorway. If she made a wrong move, all the Russian had to do was squeeze that trigger and Dempsey was dead. She nodded, silently snagging her fleece and jerkin on the way out, and getting outside as fast as she could to try to draw Dmitri’s attention to her rather than Dempsey.

Two horses waited in the darkness. Dmitri stood behind her as she put on her boots.

“What’s the point in taking me again?” she asked quietly. “My family has already proven they won’t meet your demands.” Her throat went dry as she recalled the vest of explosives he’d made her wear and the terrible cascade of rocks that had been the West’s response to her capture. She couldn’t cope with that again. She gazed around in desperation but there was no one outside. Everyone was asleep.

He stuffed a rag in her mouth and tied a stinking oily cloth around her lower face to keep it in place. She tried not to gag, strove for calm as her heart pounded. He pulled her wrists behind her back and bound them tight enough her arms screamed in protest. He was punishing her for her escape—although it hadn’t exactly been her fault. She forced herself to breathe calmly through her nose. She would not panic. This insane old man was not going to destroy her. But she knew that if she struggled, if she made noise and alerted help, someone might get shot. Better to go with him and figure out another way to escape when they were far from the village.

Dempsey would find her.

She blinked back emotion because somewhere over the past few days she’d learned not only to trust the soldier, but to rely on him. She didn’t want him to die because of her. She could survive pretty much anything—even being buried underground—as long as he was around. But she could not survive his death.

He might not be hers to keep, but she didn’t want him to die. Not now. Not ever. But he had the skills to find her and he would help her.

Axelle squared her shoulders as they started walking. Dmitri nudged her forward and caught the lead rein of the horses. She straightened her back and raised her chin. They went quietly around a low-slung house, and something flew over her head and smacked into the Russian like a wrecking ball. The whirling mass of arms and legs was nothing but a blur in the darkness. For a second she stood there like a fool, then she started running back to the village. A man rose out of the ground like a phantom, and she froze as he pointed his gun straight at her heart. Two shots later his head exploded. Blood sprayed her face and she was struggling not to choke as he crumpled in front of her.

Suddenly gunfire rang out from every direction, muzzle flashes lighting the darkness. She threw herself to the hard ground and rolled toward the nearest building as bullets flew overhead. Screams rang out from the terrified villagers, who found themselves in the middle of a raging gun battle. Crap. She couldn’t help anyone until she got rid of the gag and bonds, but no matter how she wriggled she couldn’t dislodge either. Finally the shooting stopped and she looked around not knowing what the hell was going on. Or who’d won the fight.

Someone touched her shoulder and she startled. It was the soldier, Cullen. “Where’s Dempsey?” he asked, pulling off her gag and helping her to her feet.

She twisted so he could untie her wrists. “I left him asleep in that hut.” Her mouth parched with sudden dread. “He didn’t come out when you started shooting?”

The man she knew as Taz limped toward her.

“Where’s Volkov?” Cullen asked him.

“The bugger slipped away once the firefight broke out.”

“You okay?” Cullen eyed his limp.

Taz nodded. “I twisted my ankle when I brought him down. It’ll be all right in a minute.”

Axelle threw off her bonds and raced across the dusty ground toward the hut she’d shared with Dempsey. Had he already been dead when Volkov kidnapped her? Had the old man tricked her? Her heart vibrated in an unsteady rhythm of dread. She sprinted through the door, the other soldiers on her heels, thrust open the curtain and ran to the bedside. She touched her hand to his chest but he was breathing steadily. Fast asleep.

Cullen poked him and he still didn’t stir.

Taz leaned closer and lifted his eyelids. “Drugged.”

Her hand shot to her mouth as her thoughts whirled. “We ate separately.”

“The villagers were helping Volkov. I saw one of them meet with him to the east of the town and the guy gave him horses,” Cullen told her.

Baxter stuck his head through the door. “Four armed men dead. No identifying insignia.”

Taz was checking Dempsey’s vitals and Axelle tried to slow her breathing, but the fear she’d felt for him made her hands shake. This was crazy. Getting involved with a man who did this sort of thing on a daily basis was emotional suicide. Feeling this much reminded her of how desperately it hurt when it all went wrong.