Tortoise Tango Read online

  “Well now, I hope someone got shot. They had you tied up way too long. You are gonna hurt like hell tomorrow morning.”

  Her tongue refused to work as well. The outer room was silent. It was an eerie end to the nightmare. So quick and quiet, somehow, she just couldn’t wrap her mind around the concept that it was really over.

  The light from the outer room dimmed as a body stepped into the doorway. Even covered from head to toe in black, she knew who it was. Every cell in her body recognized Joe. It happened on an instinctive level.

  His boots hardly made contact with the floor as he approached. The hands working on her muscles disappeared as he bent his knee and lowered his head to eye level with her. His face was covered in black makeup of some kind. Even his lips were covered with it. The eyes that inspected her were almost foreign to her.

  Every civilized mannerism was stripped away. She stared at the iron-hard truth that she’d only suspected Joe held inside him. He waited for her to see it. His eyes watched the realization dawn on her. A slow nod was her approval.

  He ran a firm hand over her quivering legs. She wanted out of that chair so bad, yet her body failed to give her the strength to even rise under her own strength. Blood was making a slow, agonizing path back down to her feet.

  The strength she suspected was in his body materialized as he simply lifted her from the chair. She landed against this chest as his arms cradled her.

  Being in contact with his flesh sent of a wave of relief so great her conscious mind simply shut down as it hit. There didn’t seem to be any reason to struggle anymore. Faith and trust merged with her relief, making it impossible to ignore the need to surrender to exhaustion.

  Her head hit his shoulder as Amber collapsed. Joe let his rage free as he crossed over the bound bodies of her captors. Facedown on the carpet, they were hogtied and gagged.

  He didn’t spare them a second glace. His team would get around to hauling them off to a more secure location. Amber was his concern now.

  The night air was crisp. It emphasized the warm brush of Amber’s respiration hitting his neck. He savored the feeling as he continued on to a Hummer that had pulled into the yard after they’d penetrated the structure.

  Second-rate scum. They were the soft kind who never really dealt with true battle. Idiots like that were used to surrendering and getting a lawyer to defend them when they screwed up a job.

  Joe had hoped they’d give him an excuse to fire on them. Disappointment flooded him as he gently let Amber roll onto the rear seat of the Hummer. Her body was limp and chilled as shock set in. He yanked a trauma blanket out of the seat back and tucked the silver edges around her body.

  He smoothed the red curls back from her face a second before sealing her inside the vehicle. Deep satisfaction flooded his body as he watched his team load their cargo onto the flatbed of another Hummer.

  SEALs were known for their effectiveness—not their hospitality.

  Dirt flew up from the tires as they quit the scene as quickly as they’d taken it.

  Chapter Nine

  “You could just kill me quickly, you know!!”

  A soft male chuckle was her answer. Amber glared at the man responsible for that sound. She knew it on a subatomic level now. A pair of amused eyes watched her fume from her padded prison.

  A place that was also known as her bed. Two solid days of confinement and she couldn’t take it anymore! She glared at the SEAL Joe called Snip and kicked the bedding aside. His face lost its grin and a bit of its color too.

  “Now behave, Ms. Talisman. Chief would skin me if I had to tussle with you.”

  She was counting on that fact too. Joe had set his buddies to watching her and they did it with perfection. They even followed her to the bathroom. She was never alone. Their muscle-packed shoulders were always in sight as were their guns.

  Black, deadly looking pistols. They were tucked into waistbands and sometimes shoulder harnesses but she hadn’t seen a single male since her rescue who didn’t have a weapon clearly displayed. She was beginning to wonder just who was expected to see the firepower—her kidnappers or herself.

  Joe called it protective custody. Somehow, Amber got the feeling this was a little more than the normal brand of that service. These men wouldn’t just defend her, they intended to kill anyone that even flinched in her direction. Their vigil had given her the space to sleep but now it was chafing. Her life was always full of conflict, and adopting hiding as a defense wasn’t going to happen as long as there was breath in her lungs.

  “I need exercise, Snip. Give me a break, I just want to try a little walking.”

  “Doc said three days bed rest.”

  She hissed and crawled onto all fours. Her fanny was numb from being in bed for two days. All right, so maybe the rest of her body was screaming from every movement she made but she would get up!

  “I bet the Chief you wouldn’t stay in bed for three days without being tied to it.” Snip clamped his mouth shut as he heard his own words. “Hell, no…ah… I meant…”

  “You meant what you said.”

  Amber grinned at the man’s slip before taking another deep breath and swinging her feet over the side of the bed.

  Her feet hit the floor and her legs erupted with pain. Amber gritted her teeth and forced her body up off the bed’s surface. She was getting up! Right now! Snip groaned under his breath before aiming all two hundred pounds of his muscled frame at her.

  “I got her, Snip. Take a break.”

  The man stopped exactly three feet in front of her. His eyes mirrored relief as he suddenly grinned at her. Amber felt the color leave her face. That hadn’t been a friendly sort of grin, it was the kind you gave somebody when you knew they were going to catch a ration of hell.

  Snip moved aside to show her Joe. His hands were tucked into his waistband as his face reflected his determination to bend her to his will.

  And that wasn’t an exaggeration either.

  How did you go to bed with a man and never really know what he was? The man who stood in front of her had dropped his civilian camouflage. It was like seeing the fangs on a rattlesnake for the first time. Somehow, she’d convinced herself that Joe was just a cop and that kind of man she could handle. Sure, he carried a gun, but his basic mode of operation was capture and containment of scumbags, not devour and destroy.

  Her stomach made a nervous flop in her belly as she considered the hard glitter of his eyes. The tingling sensation crossing her bottom as blood circulation was restored tightened her resolve. Need moved through her body like a theme song as her eyes traced his shoulders. It was an immediate reaction to him. One that happened the second Joe walked into her line of sight.

  Idaho…

  “I am getting out of bed.” Amber moved away from the edge of the mattress and those black eyes snapped at her. Amber bit her lip as her arms sent out a painful wail.

  “Amber, stop being so stubborn. You need to rest.”

  “What I want is to get out of this room.” She wasn’t going to win the need question. Joe had doctors backing him up. She shifted her weight between her feet as she tested her legs for stability. After a day tied up, her muscles were like noodles that refused to respond to her commands.

  “I mean it, Joe. I need to get up! Stop treating me like a baby.” Amber pushed her feet forward two steps despite the twinges of pain racing along her muscles. “It’s not that bad! Besides, a little exercise just might loosen the whole mess up.”

  He wasn’t treating her like a baby. Joe never had seen her as anything but a woman. But he was taking her confinement as the chance to avoid certain issues. Small beads of sweat shimmered on her forehead as she forced her legs to move. The pain wasn’t unbearable and he had to admire her tenacity. Her spunk had always impressed him.

  That didn’t mean she had what it took to accept him. Truth was most women didn’t. They fantasized about having a real live alpha man, but when faced with one they ran for the nearest apron-holding mama’
s boy they could twist around their whims.

  Just letting the idea that Amber might want to run away cross his brain made him want to dissolve into complete revolt. Her leaving wasn’t an option as far as he was concerned. Not now and possibly not ever. Those drops of water on the side of her face touched his pride with how much spunk she really had. It seeped into his brain and hit some dark spot where a man thought about a woman in the most primitive way. Amber was the female he wanted to see his baby growing inside of. He wanted to kill any male who looked at her the same way and his cock was rock-hard just thinking about pumping another load of his seed inside of her.

  “See? Just fine and dandy.”

  Joe grunted and crossed his arms across his chest. The posture was ultra-male. It pricked her pride with its complete superiority but it also touched that deep part of her that turned on anytime Joe looked at her with his sharp eyes. The part of her that had clung to him when all rational thought shredded and she tried to hold him between her open thighs.

  “I think that tremor working down your legs is going to drop you on that sassy bottom in about three minutes.”

  “Sassy?”

  Her cheeks turned as red as her hair. Amber choked that one word out in a squeak while her hands tightened into little fists. It was the honest truth that her temper made him itch. His cock rose to immediate attention as he watched her emotions bleed over her porcelain skin.

  “Oh yeah, honey, first thing I noticed about you was that sassy seat. It makes me hard just looking at it.”

  “I am not your honey!” She worked her shoulders back and forth with her words. Her fists were propped onto her hips making her breasts jiggle with her temper. Joe clenched his teeth together as his jeans became painfully tight. In another ten seconds, he’d be imposing those doctor’s orders just for the joy of putting her back into that bed. Only she wouldn’t be going alone.

  Joe captured her body with one solid arm around her waist. She sputtered as her head tipped back to point her fuming gaze at him. He stroked the side of her face as he cupped one side of her bottom to keep her from curling her hips away from his. He wanted her to feel the swollen erection she’d inspired in him. Watching her eyes turn glassy with desire soothed the need pounding in his blood to restate his claim on her.

  She suddenly ached in a completely different way. The pain of her abused limbs was nothing compared to the yearning erupting inside her body. The walls of her passage felt so empty. The hard promise of his body tempting her to once again forget any form of thought. Instead, to embrace her yearnings and the man who had proven his ability to satisfy her.

  “You are a lot of things to me, honey.” Her eyes flashed as she squirmed against his hold. Joe controlled her movements before lowering his head until their breath mingled. His fingers caught the back of her head and kept her in place.

  “Just as soon as you recover, we can get back to playing traffic games.”

  His mouth thrust her denial right back into her throat. Amber listened to her own moan of weakness even as she frantically tried to muster some form of resistance. Instead her tongue went to meet his. Twisting and stroking the length of his as her lips opened to completely surrender to his kiss. Her body surged forward towards the hard length of his cock. Wanting it closer. Needing it to fill the empty walls that were heating and moistening in welcome for him.

  Her feet left the ground and she wound her arms around his shoulders. Their mouths still mingled as he took her back to the bed that suddenly seemed like the most important destination she had ever had.

  “How about a hot bath?”

  A little moan of approval escaped her lips before she clamped her jaw shut. His eyes lit up with enjoyment, making her simmer.

  “There’s a hot tub out back, you can try some exercise in it. Agreed?”

  Her body shouted approval but her pride struggled against letting him see it. Just exactly why was it the man seemed to be able to read her so well? It was extremely annoying. He was so brutally male, it would be nice to think of him as a male creature that couldn’t possibly understand a woman’s needs.

  Instead he offered her a delight that any female would have lavished attention on him for suggesting. It was stuff like that that made her heart melt. How did you plan to move to Idaho when there was a man heating up a hot tub just for you?

  “It sounds great.”

  “You know, honey, some women like being looked after.”

  Amber shot him a harassed look and rolled her eyes. “Maybe I should start acting like one. I bet that would bore you in one-hour flat.”

  Her mouth was her worst enemy! Amber groaned as Joe’s eyes lit with amusement.

  “You understand me better than I thought.” His eyes went somber as he considered her. Deep consideration watched her from his dark eyes. It was almost like he was looking right into her soul. Her eyes were glued to his as she looked right back and found him letting her look at him for a change.

  He let her feet down but held a solid arm around her waist. The water was already hot and bubbly. A little mutter of delight slipped out of her mouth as she sat on the edge of the tub and dipped her bare feet into the warm water.

  Joe couldn’t help but grin as he watched her. She played with the bubbles before kicking her feet in the foam. Her face was radiant as her eyes sparkled and little giggles came through her lips. She pushed off the edge of the tub and right into the water in her pajamas. The tank top and short set instantly turned transparent where the water hit the fabric. Amber didn’t take the time to notice, she was too busy being happy.

  This was so much better than her bed! Amber felt her body loosen up and her blood start flowing through her veins again. It was like her entire circulatory system had been limping along with huge lumps flowing through it. She rolled her shoulders and sank down in the water to let the heat work on the knot sitting over her spine where the chair had hit it.

  A male foot stepped into the tub and she looked up to discover Joe joining her in the hot water. Her lips pressed together as she stared at the magnificent example of manhood he displayed without a single stitch of clothing on his body. Dark curly hair covered his chest and his abdomen where his cock stood out from his body in blunt display. She just couldn’t help but look at that swollen rod. The large head was ruby red with a small drop of fluid sitting in its slit. He lowered his second foot and it bounced before Joe sat down and his cock disappeared beneath the water. Amber jerked her eyes up to his face to find him watching her. He suddenly laughed at her.

  “I love the way you blush.”

  Well, she hated it! The damn habit turned her face the same shade as her hair and even if a person was color-blind, she doubted they’d miss her face changing shades. Snip moved past the patio, making her eyes widen as she realized that Joe’s team of cloak-and-dagger action men were currently watching them.

  “What are you doing in here?” Her hands fluttered as she tried to think of a way to state the most pressing part of her concern. “Ah…like that?”

  “Like what? You referring to me being naked, bare, maybe even raw?”

  Amber shoved her hands in the water and sent a wave of it at his face. It hit him right across his nose but he shook his head and grinned at her. “Your friends are watching us!”

  “They’d better be, the governor isn’t paying them to sit on their seats.”

  “But you’re naked.”

  His lips twitched as he lowered his torso into the water and groaned with appreciation for the hot water. “Trust me, Amber, they know what a cock looks like.”

  Well, fine! He was telling her she was being ridiculous, and in a really testosterone sort of way she supposed he was right. Didn’t guys all have some kind of locker room code that said seeing each other in the buff was just manly? “Sorry, I forgot that women have manners, that’s all.”

  Joe leaned against the side of the hot tub and let his eyes trace her blush again. “Honey, if you think a wooden door masks all those little sex
y sounds you make, you’re wrong. My men would know exactly what we were doing.”

  “I am not into public displays.” Oooh, but the idea made her nipples tingle. Her body surged with ideas that bordered on taboo as her mind flatly refused to consider changing her decisions. But her eyes roamed over his chest and the ridges of muscle sitting so close to her fingertips. Her memory decided to replay the image of him stepping down into the tub and the hard erection he was hiding beneath the foaming surface.

  The things her mind chose to remind her that that erection did to her, made her body shiver before she felt fluid rushing to her passage. Jesus! Somehow, giving in to the urge to have sex with Joe made it impossible for her to ignore any further impulses about him and his hard body. The cock hidden by the hot tub bubbles made her weak as she thought about how simple it would really be to take a little step and reach out until her fingers curled around its hard length.

  Ohh…and it would be hard too. Her fingertips would tell her exactly how delightful that stiff flesh would feel slipping up into her body as the hot water swirled around them.

  “You could burn me with those eyes, baby.”

  Her lips formed a round expression of surprise right before Amber took a jerky step away from him. She slipped on the bottom of the smooth fiberglass tub and went towards the ground. Joe plucked her up just before her head went under the bubbles.

  Amber listened to her own moan and for once didn’t blush. She had been so right! His cock was hard beneath the bubbles and it burned into her belly making her snap her teeth together to hold back a whimper. Her hands smoothed over his chest as she refused to keep her fingers away from his skin. He just felt so damn good!

  Joe’s lips brushed her neck before stopping next to her ear. His hands moved over her bottom as that hard cock burned against her. “Games can be a whole lot of fun, baby. Right here, I could slip into that tight little body of yours and see how long you could keep your lips closed.” One of his hands gripped her thigh and lifted it. His cock slipped between her open legs and lay against her burning sex. There was nothing between them but some wet fabric and temptation screamed at her to take a wild chance and just give in to Joe’s words.