Tactical Strike (12 page)

It had her now. That relentless hunger and the building
pleasure that promised a devastating orgasm. Ryan held her still while she
rocked onto him, controlling her movements. He seemed to know exactly how to
touch her, how to make her insane with the need for release. What rhythm and
pressure she wanted. When to stop caressing her to drive the craving higher,
leaving her desperate for more. And how to take her right back up to the edge of
that towering cliff.

Breathing hard, she thrust back onto him, using her whole body.
Shivers of ecstasy raced over her skin as the pleasure burned hotter. Her mouth
opened on a feral cry, but nothing came out except a low wail of
desperation.

Ryan made a low sound and released her nipple to brace one hand
next to her head, surrounding her with his body. Warming and sheltering her. His
teeth nipped her earlobe. “Yeah, take me, sweetheart.” The low murmur brushed
against her neck, across tingling nerve endings. “Take what you need.”

Another moan escaped, louder, full of indescribable ecstasy. In
answer he pressed her thighs further outward, opening her completely and raising
her hips in the air as he drove deep and sure into her greedy core. Rendering
her totally helpless while she dissolved around him and wordlessly begged for
more.

Yes
.
More
.
Never
stop
. She grabbed hold of his wrist and dug her
fingers in to anchor herself, her whole being focused solely on the building
sensation. The pleasure was brutal, more intense than she’d ever known. She
couldn’t bear it. The acute vulnerability tore a soft cry from her throat.

“Shh.” His fingers caressed slow and sure over her swollen
clit. “I gotcha.”

The deep murmur only made her shudder and strain back for more.
She needed him like this. Needed every hard inch of his cock deep inside her,
rubbing over that hot glow inside, making her want to scream. It was so good. So
incredibly good. Tears pricked her eyes. “
Ryan
.”

He moaned in answer and nuzzled her cheek, his big body tensing
behind her. Holding back even as his slippery fingertips stripped away the last
of her inhibitions and pride.

“More.” She drove back with her hips. “Harder,” she gasped out,
quivering all over, mindless with the need for release.

He brushed his thumb over her chin. “Baby—”

“
Harder
.”

With a rough growl he rose up on his arm and slammed into her,
over and over. The raw scream died in her throat as the pleasure coalesced into
a glowing white ball of fire and exploded. All that came out was a tortured sob.
Her body corded and released repeatedly, obliterating everything but the
unbearable sensation tearing through her.

Behind her, Ryan tensed and drove deep one last time, then
stiffened and shuddered with his own orgasm. It went on and on, ripping a low
sound from him. Finally he leaned down and pressed his scratchy face between her
shoulder blades with a deep groan of relief, fighting to get control of his
breathing. She collapsed forward onto the pillows, utterly exhausted. Boneless.
Her muscles quivered with fatigue, her panting breaths slowly returning to
normal. Eventually Ryan shifted and withdrew, ignoring her quiet whimper of
protest. He hooked his hands around the front of her trembling thighs and gently
eased them together before turning her onto her side. She was too tired to move,
let alone help him when he pulled her T-shirt over her head.

Candace braced for the inevitable awkward moment when he went
to leave and she was left alone to face the cold hard truth—that she’d been like
an animal in heat in his arms. But he shocked her to her toes by curling up
behind her instead and tucking her nice and secure into the curve of his body.
After a second’s surprise, she sighed and wiggled backward in utter bliss.

He chuckled against her nape and tightened his hold. His arms
were so strong and warm, cradling her protectively against him. Oh, damn, she
could stay like this forever. “I take it you like spooning, sweetheart?” he said
in a soft voice, the hint of a smile there.

“Mmmmm.” She let out another deep sigh of contentment and
turned her cheek to kiss the muscular forearm cradling her head. He stayed
locked against her, lulling her into a state of utter relaxation with his body
heat and the gentle fingertips strumming over her belly.

“I like holding you, Ace.”

“Candace,” she corrected in a sleepy mumble.

He kissed the back of her neck. “Candace,” he whispered,
sending another cascade of shivers over her skin. The sound of her name on his
lips made her smile.

She barely stirred when he crawled out of her bunk sometime
later and tucked the covers around her. Snuggling deeper into the blankets, she
smiled when he leaned over and kissed her cheek. He lingered there for a moment,
giving her a tender nuzzle.

She was half asleep when a gentle hand smoothed over her hair,
as though he couldn’t bear to stop touching her. “Sweet dreams, sweetheart. I’ll
see you later.”

She nodded but couldn’t summon the will to answer, preferring
to savor the sensation of being pampered in such a decadent way. Truth was, she
didn’t want to think about later yet. Right now she wanted to savor the
delicious fatigue in her muscles and the knowledge that she’d gained it from
spending the most incredible time of her life in his arms. Dimly she heard his
quiet footsteps on the way to the door. About to walk out into the unknown.

He might not come back at all.

Eyes snapping open at the terrible thought, she jerked upright.
“Ryan.”

He stopped, looking back at her with a fond smile. “Yeah?”

“Be careful.”

His expression softened even more. “Always, sweetheart. You
too.”

As the door shut behind him, she was shocked to realize she
wasn’t concerned in the least about anyone seeing him and speculating what he’d
been doing in her hut.

No, she was only worried about him coming back to her safe and
sound.

And that pretty much said it all, didn’t it?

Chapter Seven

Dropping the heavy rug into place behind him at the
opening, Khalid’s eyes adjusted slowly to the dimness inside the ancient cave.
The rough interior was slightly damp but noticeably warmer than outside. A
single candle burned on the turned-over crate that served as General Nasrallah’s
desk.

Bent over it studying more maps, the old man finally looked up
at him with a studious frown. “Ah, Khalid. You have news?” he asked in
English.

Khalid still spoke with a strong accent, but he was getting
better each day. “I have five more men.”

The other man’s frown deepened. “Where?”

“Outside.” Huddled around a tiny warming fire and trying not to
freeze in their thin coats.

Nasrallah set aside the map. “How old?”

Did it matter? “One in his fifties. Another in his forties, and
three of his nephews.”

“How old are the nephews?” he demanded, his tone harsher this
time.

He shrugged. “Fourteen, sixteen maybe.”

The older man’s lips thinned in displeasure. “I need
able-bodied men, not teenagers too young to grow a beard.”

He clamped down on the impatience growing inside him. “Few
villagers are willing to leave their families alone in the dead of winter with
the Americans prowling the area with their drones.” Weapons they couldn’t guard
against, which killed civilians indiscriminately.

“Can they shoot?”

“They’re hunters.” Every able-bodied man in this region was.
They had to be, to survive in this harsh place that in recent years had become a
battleground once again.

“We need more men,” Nasrallah snarled, slamming his palms on
the top of the crate.

Khalid took in the rare show of frustration dispassionately.
Their ranks were severely depleted since that day Sadiq was killed by American
forces, but they’d gained almost ninety fresh recruits over the past few weeks.
“I can get more.”

Nasrallah cut him a sharp look, his golden-brown eyes
narrowing. “Forcing men into service does us no good.”

“At least it gives us manpower.”

“It is a fine line you tread. Cross it, and you’re no better
than the Taliban.”

At
least
the
Taliban
aren’t
seen
as
weak
. “Fear is a necessary motivator.” If he ran
this operation, things would be very different around here.

“So is good leadership. Give them each a weapon,” the old man
said with a sigh, shaking his head warily.

Khalid strode past him to the back of the cave, pulling three
old AK-47s and some ammo out of a barrel serving as a weapons cache. The new
recruits would have to take turns learning to use them. Once the battles started
up, there’d be plenty of weapons available from the dead and wounded.

On the crate, the general’s radio crackled to life. Khalid
glanced up to find the general staring at him with a puzzled expression. As if
he couldn’t quite figure him out.

“Why do you hate the Americans so much?”

Khalid crossed back to him. “And you don’t?” The bitterness of
it filled his soul, burning like battery acid. “You were here when the Russians
came. You saw what they did to our people.” He leaned in across the crate until
their noses almost touched, but the old man didn’t back down. “My mother was
raped until she bled to death. My brothers and sisters were murdered.”

“Yet you lived.”

“I
survived
, by doing what had to
be done,” he corrected coldly. “Same as you. The weapons and money the Americans
gave us was too little too late, and then they pulled out, leaving us to our
fate. Now they see Afghanistan as a threat, and they’ve occupied us just as the
Russians did. For over twenty years they didn’t care what the Taliban did to our
people as long as the Russians were gone, and now because it suits their foreign
policy they use the Taliban as propaganda to sell their so-called ‘War On
Terror’ to their ignorant people.” He made a scoffing sound. “And you ask me why
I hate them? They are traitors and corrupt bullies of the worst kind. You were
their allies once too, but now you fight them.”

Nasrallah nodded solemnly. “I will fight any power that dares
occupy my homeland. God willing, they will be punished for their sins.”

“God can only guide us so far. Haven’t you figured that out
yet?” He held the automatic weapons in his arms, cradling them like a lover.
“When we begin this next fight and I find the Americans, I will send them to
hell with my own hand.”

* * *

“Here, Went, let me do that for you.”

Ryan looked up from packing his chute at the Special Forces
team sergeant standing over him, and glowered. “Fuck you, Kawaleski.”

The others chuckled, as if they found him the most amusing
thing in the room. And they probably did. At least the teasing meant they were
starting to accept him.

“Don’t trust me?” Kawaleski said, feigning insult.

If he had to allow anyone to touch his chute, it would have
been this man, the senior enlisted NCO with the hallowed rank of Master
Sergeant. He was the “Team Daddy” for a reason. “Nothing personal, but nope.” He
packed his own chutes. Period. Bad enough he had to jump out of a perfectly
functioning plane to use it, let alone entrust his life to someone else by
letting that person pack the chute.

“Jesus, Went, I didn’t know you were such a pussy. How many
jumps you done now?”

“Two hundred and eight,” he muttered, folding up the nylon
carefully. And it never got any easier. He got like this before every single
jump he made. His heart was already beating fast just from him thinking about
what was coming.

Kawaleski cuffed him good-naturedly on the back of his head.
“Lighten up, man. Hardly anyone ever dies in jumps nowadays.”

Scowling, Ryan finished packing his chute, then checked and
gathered his gear before boarding the C-130 with the rest of the team. Twelve
men of the ODA Team, an Afghan interpreter named Gul and him. The SF team
members were all multilingual, but having an interpreter with them who spoke
several local dialects was an asset in the field. It also helped them gain the
trust of locals if they ran into any.

Twenty-three minutes later, the four-turboprop Herc banked
northeast, making its final turn high above the peaks of the Hindu Kush.

The green jump light came on in the back. “One minute to target
area,” the co-pilot announced over the comms.

Oh
,
fuck
.
Already
? He activated the green
chemlights on his chest and to the left of his altimeter, then the ones on his
helmet and boots. Someone else took care of the ones on his back.

“Stand,” the jumpmaster commanded.

Ryan undid the harness of his jumpseat. His stomach balled up
into a knot as he stood with the rest of the team, shifting to adjust the weight
of his chute and the rest of his gear. Over two hundred jumps, and his palms
were still sweaty. Taking that last step out of the aircraft into nothingness
made him sick to his stomach every time. He fucking hated this part of his job,
but it came with the territory. Hell, he’d survived all the other jumps. Chances
were he’d make it through this one, too.

“Hey, Went—don’t puke in your mask,” Park, one of the medical
sergeants—advised dryly.

With a hard swallow, he aimed a dark glare at the guy and,
since his black expression was useless beneath the goggles and oxygen mask he
wore, he made a show of holding up his gloved middle finger. It stood out real
nice and clear in the glow of the plane’s interior. The SF medic chuckled and
moved past him toward the tail ramp.

Ryan stood near the tail ramp behind the ODA guys, the pale
cloud deck beneath them spreading out in a vast sea of gray. The jumpmaster
remained at his post near the ramp, watching the jump light while he waited for
the signal from the co-pilot.

Out the back of the noisy cruising aircraft, a
sixteen-thousand-foot HALO jump awaited them in the darkness. Raw adrenaline
streaked through Ryan as he awaited the signal. His breathing was loud inside
his oxygen mask, rasping in his ears. Fifteen seconds.

Ten.

Five.

“Go!” The jumpmaster slapped the ass of the first man on the
tail ramp.

Like a finely choreographed acrobatic group, they ran down the
ramp and leaped into the darkness. Ryan followed the others, his boots thudding
hard on the metal deck, the hundred pounds of gear on his back straining the
muscles in his thighs. Reaching the end, he leaned forward and kicked off,
throwing himself out of the belly of the plane. Instantly he brought his arms
and legs up and back to cushion his body against the air rushing over him,
stopping him from somersaulting in midair.

Keeping his eyes on the others via the glowing chemlights, he
routinely checked the altimeter on his wrist as he hurtled toward the ground,
his jaw clamped tight beneath his mask. Time seemed to slow, every heartbeat a
magnified boom in his ears. The seconds ticked past, stretching out like an
elastic band. The needle on the altimeter spun faster as gravity did its thing
and his velocity increased. Fifteen thousand feet...fourteen thousand feet.
Thirteen thousand. Twelve thousand five hundred.

At twelve thousand he waved off, alerting anyone around him he
was about to deploy his chute.

Bracing himself for the impact of the sudden deceleration, he
pulled the primary ripcord on the right side of his chest. The abrupt stop
jerked him straight up in his harness, knocking a grunt from him, the straps
barely missing his balls as they dug into his groin. But at least it meant the
chute had deployed.

Thank
you
, he added silently to the Big Guy Up There.

The loud rush of the air disappeared, replaced with an eerie
stillness and the rasp of his own breathing as he floated through the thick
cloud cover. Now safely under canopy, he pulled out his NVGs and switched them
on. The narrow valley below was shrouded in fog, lit up in iridescent green by
his goggles, but he could make out the landmarks he’d studied in the briefings.
Locating the target area, he applied fifty percent brakes to slow his descent
even more and turned the chute to avoid a sheer rock face jutting up out of the
darkness. On the ground below he could see the SF team landing around the drop
zone. Not too scattered, and a good thing considering how deep they were in
enemy territory.

Nearing the ground, he yanked down on the toggles to cushion
his landing and brought his knees up slightly. The instant his boots touched the
ground he executed a running stop. The swirling wind tugged at the deflating
chute, momentarily dragging him backward. As soon as he stopped he cut the chute
loose and got busy stuffing the endless reams of nylon into a crevice between
the rocks.

“All okay. Jackal seven on the ground,” he reported into the
mike, slinging his rifle in front of him.

“Roger that,” Captain Hawking responded. “Move to RV
point.”

Ryan headed a few hundred meters to the northeast, where the
others were forming a defensive perimeter.

“What’s the status?” Hawking asked him when he came close
enough.

“All clear.”

“Foxy saw some campfires a half klick east of us. He figures
maybe a couple dozen insurgents.”

Yeah, that he’d
seen
. No telling
how many more were hidden in the caves this region was infamous for.

When everyone was up and in position, Hawking spoke again.
“Okay, let’s do what we came here for. Went, you go with Diamond Dave.” The
detachment technician and 2IC, given his nickname because he was both Jewish and
a huge David Lee Roth fan.

Ryan nodded, turned to the engineer sergeant in question and
received a hearty slap on the shoulder. Together they climbed over the rocks to
get their first up-close look at the abandoned Russian airstrip. At first glance
it seemed to be in decent shape, considering how many years it had sat unused.
But closer inspection soon showed they had a lot of work to do on the far end
before any aircraft could land there safely.

“Contact. Three tangos, two hundred meters, four o’clock,”
someone said over the radio.

Ryan and Dave instantly went into a crouch, rifles at the
ready. Ryan pulled out his binos. The three men in question scrambled their way
up the thin trail leading higher into the mountains, moving fast despite the
cold and the flimsy sandals they wore.

“Insurgents,” he reported back. “They’ve got AKs.”

“Copy that.”

He and Dave stayed out of sight, hunkered behind a rocky
outcrop. A few minutes later three silhouettes appeared in the distance, heading
over a rise up the trail away from them. Ryan relaxed slightly. The rules of
engagement were clear: no firing unless fired upon. They didn’t need to attract
any unwanted attention. Clearing the airstrip was going to be tricky enough
without being detected. Sound carried a long way in this thin mountain air,
especially at night.

Long minutes ticked past. Ryan’s hands and feet were already
freezing, his nose numb. The balaclava he wore did nothing to protect his face
from the icy gusts of wind stabbing at him.

“All clear,” Hawking said at last.

Moving with caution, Ryan and Dave crept out of their hiding
spot and got busy using the metal detectors. Two other SF troops moved toward
them from the opposite end, clearing the far side of the runway. It was
painstaking work. They had to check each hole in the ancient asphalt, each
suspicious spot that might be hiding a mine or other IED the insurgents were so
fond of using. The back of Ryan’s neck prickled. Someone could have a bead on
them right now, ready to remote detonate an IED hidden close by, and there was
fuck all they could do about it.

“Contact. Enemy patrol moving in,” one of the others said.