Closer (The Unit #1) Read online

  He grabbed her hips and pulled her closer to the edge of the kitchen table.

  “Lose the shirt,” she demanded defying her mind. He complied, tearing the shirt over his head to stand in front of her in all of his sex-god goodness. She ran her eyes over his perfectly formed six-pack abs and followed the V which led to his holy land; a land she would surely worship. He leaned over and kissed her ever so reverently, paying homage to her body, to her being. He was falling for this smart, courageous, woman he was getting to know. Her earth scent mixed with his musky scent to form an aroma uniquely theirs. He could hear his heart beat in his ears as she lay bare before him, and he still had on his pants. He would remedy that problem really quickly. He left her laying on top of the kitchen table, her body bared to him as he pulled away from her touch, away from her lips and stood. This time he turned slightly around and bent to remove his boots. She devoured the even sexier V his back muscles formed. He made quick work of removing his pants and throwing them on the growing pile of clothes. He was just about to remove his boxer briefs when his cell phone rang. He contemplated not answering. However, as it was probably information he needed to formulate a plan to protect her, he had to get it. If he did his job, and if he kept her safe, he could have her to himself later. He bent down and kissed her hard and quick. Then he went to dig into his pants pocket for his phone.

  Pulling it out, he spoke curtly, “Yeah?” as he walked into the living room.

  She sat up suddenly again feeling deprived, the way she felt after coming last night. How had she come to like him so much, under the circumstances, in so little time? Clearly her head was not in the game. She realized she was led solely by her body. She got off of the table and readjusted her robe. She tightly tied the belt around her waist and sat back down at the bar stool. What was she going to do? She had to come up with a plan. She poured her and Michael a fresh cup of coffee. He sipped at hers and went back into her head.

  He reentered the room in just his boxer briefs, made his way over to the pile of clothing and started dressing. She watched under hooded eyes. Truth be told, she was still wet from the earlier contact. She really should get dressed herself. She made her way off of the bar stool and began to walk past him into the living room to reach the stairs. He grabbed her by the arm and turned her around to face him.

  “Where are you going?” he asked pulling her closer to him.

  “I am going to get dressed. I have been in this robe long enough,” she responded.

  “Just so you know,” he whispered his breath on her lips, “we are nowhere near finished.”

  She shivered at his promise.

  She returned to the living room fully dressed in a new pair of jeans and a turtle-neck sweater, one that hugged all the curves of her body. She sat next to Michael on the couch.

  “That was my employer, the real kidnapper. His name is Ahmed El-Amin, and he has a heavy Algerian accent, so I can only conclude he works for the GIA.” Michael continued, “I am to drop you off at a warehouse in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I told him it is a two-day drive from here. He said he would be there waiting for your arrival. I plan to make the drop.” She looked up at him with a sadness that touched his heart.

  “I am not leaving you with him for God’s sake,” he admonished. “When we get there, I will take him instead. Then I will interrogate him for information about his cell.”

  “You really think you can get him to tell you that type of information? I thought they were all martyrs willing to die for their cause,” she questioned.

  “Who said anything about killing him? I will just make him wish he were dead,” he choked on the laugh which escaped his throat.

  She wondered why he would take such pleasure in hurting another person. “What could possibly be so funny?” she asked.

  “I have a plan. I know exactly what I am going to do to the man who wants to take you from me,” he said.

  Did she just hear him right? Take her from him?

  “I am going to protect you,” he continued. “After we get the information we need, I will make a few phone calls to Homeland Security, and they can stop this cell in its tracks.” A logical plan, one her brain could follow. She liked that.

  “Go. Pack a bag. We will be gone a week max. Pack as light as you can. One bag, okay?” he asked. She started to go do as he bid, but before she could, he pulled her back down to him and moved his face quickly into hers.

  His lips were a hair’s breath away from hers when he whispered, “I promise on my life, nothing will happen to you. I need you to trust me. Do you trust me?

  She looked into his eyes and without a moment’s thought replied, “Yes.”

  He kissed her again tenderly. Taking his hand and wrapping it roughly in the back of her hair to tilt her face against his, he pulled her closer. With her lips parted, he took advantage and continued his exploration of her mouth. Their tongues met and danced a lover’s dance. They were both breathing heavy. She could feel her heartbeat pounding out a lover’s rhythm against her chest. She wrapped her hands around his neck and, although it was hardly possible, pulled him closer to her. Picking her up, he placed her on his lap. She smiled through their kiss. She would never grow tired of him tossing her around like she was light as a feather. She could feel how much he wanted her against her derriere. And her delectable ass did nothing but make his cock ache for release. Relinquishing her hair, he grabbed hold of her hips rocking them back and forth over his cock to try and get some satisfaction.

  How long could he wait to have her? She seemed willing enough. Still he did not want to rush her. Well, yes he did, he thought, but he wasn’t going to. After all, they both had a two-day drive ahead of them. He hesitatingly pulled back taking care to grind her hips into his bulging cock once more for good measure. If he didn’t stop now, he wasn’t going to.

  She stood up and reached out her hand. Placing his hand in hers and following her upstairs to the bedroom was hard for him because he knew he would not get any relief from his dripping erection. In the top of her closet she found her duffle bag, which she began filling with essentials. It was a good thing she never wore makeup she thought as she exited the bathroom with her toiletries. He sat on the corner of her unmade bed. Her limbs moved like a graceful ballet dancer and that enthralled him. Once again, he found himself imagining her body under his responding to his ministrations. The smell of lavender filled the room; it smelled like her. As if in a tense wartime situation, he had to take several deep breaths, holding them in the pit of his stomach before releasing his pent-up frustration into the air, effectively calming his mind. They had to get on the road.

  After she had finished packing her bag, a groan escaped her lips. She tried to quickly cover it with a cough, but it was too late, Michael heard her.

  “What’s wrong, Emma?” he asked.

  How could she answer that question? She didn’t want to leave the safety of her home when he was in it. She wanted him naked, on top of her. She didn’t want to drive two days to meet a terrorist. She didn’t want to talk to Homeland Security and risk jeopardizing her project that basically defined who she was. Her project meant everything to her; to risk it was unacceptable. Maybe it was just the situation, but he was mentally stimulating her and she was chemically attracted to him. She burned with longing to feel his hands on her bare body. Mostly, she didn’t want to leave his presence. After this was over, he would leave. Sure they would have sex, but he would leave and go back to his life before her. She couldn’t let her heart get involved. She needed to remain in her head.

  Determined, she got up. She put on pink socks and her brown Ugg boots. She had style that came naturally. She stepped into the bathroom and pulled her hair back into a loose chignon, pieces falling, framing her face. Squeezing toothpaste onto her toothbrush, she quickly brushed her teeth.

  She walked back into the bedroom and was once again met by his grin that spread ear to ear. She admired the way he looked in his long sleeve Henley t-shirt. She admired the way
the shirt showed off the muscles in his back forming a V.

  In the living room he retrieved his boots. He carried them into her breakfast nook and sat at the table.

  “Do we have time for one more cup of coffee? I usually drink two before I start my day,” she asked as she refilled the mugs from earlier.

  “We don’t have much time,” he said as he stood.

  Walking over to him, her arm outstretched, she handed him a cup remembering to add the cream, just the way he liked it. He took it with a smile and a wink. She blushed. This was just silly. She was being silly. She had to get a grip on her emotions.

  They drank their coffee smiling at each other to pass the time. Walking over to her, he grabbed her coffee mug and placed both mugs in the sink. Then he turned the coffee pot off.

  “We need to get going,” he said as he picked up his bag.

  She put her coat on and buttoned it up. “I’m ready,” she responded. They had to get this over with so they both could get back to their lives.

  “We’ll take my Jeep. It’s parked at the bottom of the hill. You wait here while I go get it,” he commanded as she sat his bag back on the floor. Not more than five minutes later he was walking back into her house and reaching for her bag.

  “I can get it,” she huffed at him trying to take the bag back from his grasp.

  “Don’t even think about it, pretty lady. My mama raised a gentleman,” he winked and went out the door.

  She took one look around her house consciously aware things may go wrong and she may never see her cabin again. She closed the door and locked it up nice and tight. Walking over to the jeep, she was greeted with his smile.

  “Aren’t you nervous?” she asked as she climbed in the front seat and pulled the door shut.

  He put the car in reverse to turn around and answered, “Nope. This is what I do. And I was trained by and worked with the best.” He was pretty sure of himself. Of course, that was something she admired about him, his sexy confidence.

  “What exactly did you do for the Army?” she questioned.

  “I can’t tell you a lot of what I did, as I am sure you can understand. Classified,” he responded briefly.

  A nagging feeling annoyed her. She wanted him to open up to her the way she had opened up to him. “I told you what it is that I do and that is highly classified information,” she argued biting on her thumb nail.

  She placed her hands in her lap twisting her fingers until they were white. Here she was divulging state secrets and he couldn’t come clean about his past work. Her face reddened and she bit into the cuticle of her thumb.

  He took notice of her maddening red face and asked, “What’s wrong, Emma?”

  “I basically told you everything about my work which I was never to tell to another living soul, and you can’t tell me about what you did in the past?” she spouted as she shot him a look of frustration.

  “Don’t get upset. What is it that you want to know,” he asked her to calm her down.

  “The basics would be nice,” she retorted.

  “I was what is known as a Special Forces Engineer Sergeant. Basically, I was responsible for blowing stuff up. Anything that had to do with explosives, I was the guy,” he answered keeping it brief and to the point.

  The color of her face was returning to normal, and she had stopped biting her cuticle.

  He continued, “I was cross trained with the Medic Sergeant, my good friend Rob.”

  “Did you ever have to save anybody’s life?” she asked.

  “I didn’t do the saving, I just patched up a few guys until they could be saved,” he told her, remembering how he couldn’t save his brother Leroy. His eyes saddened and he fought at the threatening tears. A lump formed in the back of his throat, and he needed a minute to regain his composure.

  “Did you do anything else besides blow things up and stop the bleeding?” she questioned.

  He swallowed hard and then casually said, “Well, usually we trained troops in foreign lands in the ways of war, but we also had our own missions like hostage retrieval, reconnaissance, unconventional warfare, counter terrorism, that kind of thing.

  “And how long did you spend in the military again?” She felt foolish for asking but after everything that occurred between them, she couldn’t remember this piece of information.

  “I was in for eight years. I joined right after I graduated with my Bachelors in Political Science, when I was 22.”

  “How old are you?” she wondered as she kept her eyes on the road in front of them. She knew she was pressing her luck by asking so many questions.

  Playing twenty questions with her wasn’t getting old. He found he liked being interrogated by her. “Thirty, as of last June,” he smiled. “Why? How old are you?” he asked as he looked at her.

  “I’m 28, also as of last June,” she returned his smile.

  Depressing the knob for the radio, he turned it on and quickly found “Lips of an Angel” by Nickleback, effectively ending her interrogation. He allowed the station to play until it faded out. Then he tuned the radio to find another contemporary rock station which was playing “Alone Together” by Fall Out Boy. That was his favorite song and he had watched “The Young Blood Chronicles” videos, parts one through eleven, over and over again.

  They drove on in enjoyable silence listening to bands like Linkin Park and The Killers. She was most surprised when he stopped scanning the stations at Adele’s “Make You Feel My Love.” He kept peeking at her during Adele’s song, and it was making her feel awkward. The song talked about love. She spent so much time in her head, she never allowed herself to feel. Could she have feelings for Michael; she wanted him; was that a feeling? She had heard those stories about love at first sight, but her head didn’t believe in such nonsense.

  They had been driving for three hours when he sat up and took notice of a car following close behind them. His erect posture alerted her to danger. He started driving more aggressively, weaving in and out of traffic. She looked behind her and spotted an SUV trying to keep up with them. “What’s going on,” she asked breathlessly as she gripped the grab handle above her head.

  “Hang on tight. We’re being followed. I’m gonna try and lose ‘em,” he explained.

  She sat up straighter herself, turning to stare behind them. All of the sudden, the driver’s side mirror exploded as she heard a pop. “They’re shooting at us!” she screamed.

  “Calm down. I will get us out of this,” he chided. If ever there was a time he needed her to trust him, it was now. He couldn’t be worried about her and this clown chasing them at the same time. “Just close your eyes,” he suggested as he overtook a Toyota and squeezed between two cars.

  She couldn’t. The man was still on their tail and was gaining speed. Michael took the next exit off of I95 onto a two-lane road. The man kept up and took the same exit. “Damn it,” he exclaimed.

  The SUV behind them started shooting again. This time Michael had to swerve or the bullet would have busted the rear window. “Turn off the music. I need to concentrate,” he demanded. She complied and pressed the button. Michael sped away into a small town and turned down an alley. The SUV followed. Michael wasn’t giving the car behind them any time to fire shots. He banked hard to the right and ended up on the road headed out of town. He made another quick left onto a back country road. Just when she thought they had lost the SUV, here it came again, even faster.

  “Whoever this fucker is, he’s trained,” Michael commented as he barreled, white knuckled, down the road.

  The SUV plowed into the right-hand corner of the Jeep causing Michael to swerve in order to keep the car on the road. The SUV rammed them again, same spot, but this time Michael lost control of the Jeep and crashed it head-on into a tree.

  Michael wasted no time going for his gun. He had it out of its holster before she could even lift her head. “Stay down,” he commanded. She tried to tuck her head between her knees and curl up into a tight ball, but the airbags were i
n her way.

  “Thank god for air bags,” she thought.

  Michael took out his knife from his hip holster and slit the airbags causing them to deflate. Just then her door jerked open and a man appeared. He reached in and began pulling at her arm, but she was still safely belted into the seat. Michael raised his gun and pointed it directly at the man’s face. “Let her go,” Michael growled.

  The man raised his gun and pointed it at her head. “I suggest she come with me, or I will just have to kill her here. You don’t really want to see that, do you?” he asked Michael as he reached in and undid her seatbelt. Michael kept his gun pointed at the man’s head.

  “Drop your weapon, or I will shoot her,” the man demanded.

  Michael couldn’t risk losing her. But if this bastard took her, how would he get her back? His car was totaled. He couldn’t follow them. He was at least five miles from the nearest town.

  “Drop it,” the man mocked.

  Michael found himself laying down his weapon. He got out of his Jeep and walked to the other side to see the man forcing Emma into the passenger side of a SUV. Michael mentally catalogued everything he could about the situation. The kidnapper was American, he could tell by his lack of accent and his three-piece, designer suit. Who would be after Emma besides the GIA? He forced himself to think. The CIA could be out for information; weren’t they always? That would explain the expensive suit and shoes and the standard issued GMC Terrain SUV Emma was currently being belted in to. Still, why would the CIA want her dead? She worked for the DOD. They had to know that. If he was going to go after Emma, he couldn’t call the CIA. They would tie him up in paperwork for the next year, not to mention the circumstances under which he and Emma had met. No, Michael would need help, but his own particular brand of help.