Target of Mine: The Night Stalkers 5E (Titan World Book 2) Read online

  Pete nodded, “Everyone make sure that your gear, weapons, and aircraft are fully serviced and restocked. By nightfall, we’re ready on zero notice. Sophia, grab a senior instructor with top clearance to cover for Zoe on your Avenger drone. Everyone clear?” No one would dare to do more than nod in agreement when Pete Napier used that tone.

  Breakfast was cleaned up and everyone had left for the hangar in under five minutes.

  Nikita simply sat at the table, staring down at her plate and half-empty mug long gone cold.

  Drake cleared it for her.

  By the time he turned around, they were alone and she was asleep with her arms sprawled on the table and her head cricked sideways between them.

  “Come along, you,” he coaxed her back to her feet.

  “Didn’t sleep on the damned flight back either,” she mumbled. Which meant she’d been awake for at least three straight days, maybe four. The last couple days in the Philippines hadn’t exactly been conducive to rest and relaxation.

  When she almost face-planted over her chair, he slipped a hand around her waist. She did the same and suddenly they were as close as a couple of teenagers walking along hip to hip. Now he was the one who wanted to stumble.

  Thankfully her room was on the main floor, though at the far end of the hall. No stairs to navigate.

  “Is there anything special I need to know about the files?” He needed something to think about other than Nikita draped against him. His palm had landed on the curve of her hip where it dipped upward to the soft valley of her waist. It wasn’t decent behavior, but he wanted to pull her in closer. Taking advantage of her current state, he did. For just a moment he could pretend.

  Then she slipped her hand into his back jeans pocket, raising his blood pressure about a jillion points.

  “You’ve got a nice ass, Roman.”

  He managed to guide her through the door between the common room and the residence without breaking their connection. Unlike the poster-plastered décor behind them, the hall was standard, unremitting, military-base beige with gray carpet, best practices posters that no one had ever read, and a couple too few lights. The place would pass well as a cheap motel anywhere in the country. It wouldn’t normally be wide enough to walk side by side, except for their current sideways clench.

  “Look who’s talking about having a nice ass. I assume that’s the main qualification to become a DEVGRU SEAL.” He’d certainly noticed hers, he just never thought he’d get a chance to be talking about it.

  “Helps if you can swim. You know, SEAL and all. Sea, air, and land is what we are. Can you swim, Duck-man?”

  “Only when I’m trying not to drown.”

  “You’re a sad case, Duck-man.”

  “How’s that?” They reached her door, but she didn’t seem to be reaching for her keys. Taking a deep breath, he began checking her pockets because if he didn’t get away from her soon he didn’t know what was going to happen. A few hand brushes, which he did his best not to enjoy (but failed miserably at), located them in her back left pocket.

  “You shoot like a heli-weenie. You’ve got the hots for busty babes in leather. And you barely swim.” She appeared to be talking to a poster on how to recognize athlete’s foot.

  He slipped his hand into her back left pocket and earned no complaints. By the time he had her keys extracted, he knew for a fact that DEVGRU women absolutely did have the best asses in the military—even if Nikita was the only one.

  “So damn much I gotta teach you if you’re going to be a decent man.”

  “Like what?” he unlocked the door and guided her into her room. Just like his: double bed, small desk, a hand sink, and a dresser. The difference was that she had five rifle cases stacked in a corner and three field packs that he knew from past experience were armor, ammo, and tons of the tech gizmos that SEALs always seemed to have. Her clothes wouldn’t fill a daypack.

  “Like,” she grabbed him by the belt, spun him around, and shoved him back against the door—slamming it shut, hard. “Like I’m tired, not drunk. You want to cop a feel, you better do it right.” She reached around his hips and double-grabbed his butt, then she leaned in and kissed him hard when his mouth opened in surprise.

  He certainly wasn’t going to argue and leaned in to the kiss. Her mouth was spicy with her breakfast and sweet with a taste that must be her own.

  Drake went to slide his hand down her spine. A dip of back muscle made her belt span the gap and his hand slid inside her pants instead of outside. He was rewarded with a handful of delightful, cotton-clad muscle.

  She hummed with pleasure for a moment. Long before he was ready to stop, she tipped her head sideways onto his shoulder.

  “You’re a good kisser, Duck-man. At least I won’t have to teach you that,” each word tapered softer and softer.

  The last one never got its final consonant.

  “Oh,” she roused for a moment, “the password on the file is ‘Sweet Cheeks’. Figured you’d appreciate my using Sugar’s nickname for you.” Then she was out.

  “You’re not drunk, but you’re not conscious either.”

  She didn’t answer. Her body slowly went limp until she was a deadweight leaning into him and pinning him against the door.

  “And here I am with my hand down your pants.”

  No reaction.

  “And talking to myself.”

  Extracting his hand, he pulled her tightly against his chest to keep her from slipping directly to the floor. Doing his best not to enjoy the moment, Drake slowly walked her backward toward her bed. He had to nudge her legs along with his own. They were in the closest contact possible while still clothed, from toes to her chest pressing against his to her hair brushing against the side of his neck. He wanted to twist around and sit back on the bed, pulling her the rest of the way into his lap.

  Controlling himself, he lowered her onto the bed. There was no way in hell he was going to be undressing her. It was September in Alabama; she wasn’t going to freeze on top of the covers. He undid her boots, then did his best to arrange her so that she wouldn’t wake up a dozen hours from now with an intolerable kink.

  Drake studied her for a long moment. He didn’t feel like a cad doing so, despite her butt-warmth still very real on his palm. Instead, he looked at her just in case he never had the chance to hold her again—he wanted to remember this moment. He brushed her hair out of her face and resisted running his hand down her lovely neck.

  Get out while you still can, Duck-man. It was good advice, which meant that normally he wouldn’t follow it, but this time he did.

  He was back at Nikita’s laptop with a fresh cup of coffee a minute later.

  When Altman checked in on him shortly after, he was past blushing about the “Sweet Cheeks” password and deep into the file, enough to have a feel for it.

  “Nikita did a lot of good prep here,” Drake said without turning. “Give me a couple of hours and I should have a handle on it.”

  Altman thumped him on the shoulder, a lot harder than would be appropriate for a “well done,” but Drake wasn’t going to point that out.

  He’d sometimes wondered if Luke Altman and Nikita were paired off. They communicated on some other level. It might just be a SEAL thing, but he couldn’t be sure.

  Then he thought about her kiss and was glad that he was facing away from Altman because he couldn’t stop his own smile.

  Chapter Five

  I uncovered a travel reservation in GSI’s name,” Drake looked very pleased with himself. “They were headed to a meeting in Honduras and apparently the owner liked to travel in luxury.”

  “I think you found this because you didn’t want me to sleep.” Nikita had managed five hours.

  Though she could have used fifteen, before Altman was kicking the bottom of her bed. “We leave for Miami in fifteen minutes. Shower, dress summer casual but upscale. A light engagement kit.”

  Light engagement meant she’d only brought two sidearms and one rifle in addition
to her clothes, spare ammo, and a diving knife. Upscale was a problem: her nicest clothes couldn’t pass and clearly there wasn’t time to go hit a wardrobe supply or go shopping. Well, back-of-her-closet shit would have to do.

  Once she could stop blinking against the painful midday sun, she saw that it wasn’t a Black Hawk waiting for her either. Instead, it was a sleek Bell 429 in a VIP configuration with comfortable armchairs and a minibar from which she grabbed an energy drink. Nikita had gotten ready in ten minutes and still was the last one on board—its rotors were already spinning up. The five leather chairs faced each other: two turned backward and three forward in the wide-windowed rear cabin. Altman and Drake sat in the back-facing seats, Zoe was across from Altman, which left her across from Drake. Rafe and Julian were up front in the pilots’ seats.

  Drake’s smile shifted from pleased about discovering the travel arrangements to tentative in a way she wasn’t used to seeing on his features.

  It took her a moment to catch up with why. For ten minutes she’d been at a dead sprint getting showered and ready. Now she remembered a tight ass in her hands paired with a jungle-steamy kiss—he could kiss even better than he could shoot his Minigun, which was saying something. She definitely wanted to try that again when she was conscious. But she wasn’t going to be admitting that in front of her commander, so she went with a short nod and didn’t trust herself with a “good morning.”

  “Oh my gawd! What is wrong with you people?” Chief Warrant Zoe DeMille rolled her eyes at Nikita as the helo lifted into the air. Zoe wore fashionable bright yellow shorts and tank top. Her white-blond hair was back in matching clips that emphasized the dark roots and she sported big, thick-rimmed round glasses that Nikita had never seen before so they must be merely decorative. Zoe even carried a ridiculously poufy jacket in the same yellow despite the warm day. She looked as if she’d popped right out of a designer magazine.

  “What?” For lack of any other options, Nikita had worn a tight black t-shirt and her only skirt, a summer weight in floral blue that her mother had picked out for her ages ago and she hadn’t worn since. She had one pair of strap-on sandals. Her running shoes and boots were in the pack she’d stuffed into the cargo area. It wasn’t as if there was a whole lot more back at her apartment in Virginia.

  She could tell that Drake liked the way she looked, and she liked how he looked in tan khakis and a simple, sky-blue, button-down men’s shirt. Again, keeping that to herself.

  Altman had dressed the same as Drake, except in dark pants.

  Zoe was still in a snit. “We so have to fix this before we land. You people are a disaster. They’re never going to buy in that we’re wealthy passengers. You said wealthy, right?” she asked Drake.

  “Passage for four in something called an Oceansaway Suite aboard the Oceanwide Whisperer.”

  “Oceansaway suite on an Oceanwide cruise? Oh my gawd!” Zoe’s Brooklyn accent was coming on strong in her obvious excitement. “I have a cousin who works booking cruise trips. That is awesome. Oceanwide is one of the luxury lines.”

  “There are luxury lines?” Nikita had never been near a cruise ship except during training exercises for taking down a terrorist attack on one.

  Zoe smacked a palm against her forehead. “Where have you been, Nikita? Carnival Cruises are for people who want to party. Disney for families with kids. Princess for people who want to be pampered, treated like, you know, royalty. Holland America draws an older crowd who still want to go out and see the culture and not just whatever party or sports thing is going on. Oceanwide is trying to take on Crystal and Silversea for the luxury niche and doing an awesome job of it.”

  Nikita blinked as she tried to absorb and categorize all that. But at the speed that Zoe talked, she’d already forgotten two of the cruise lines names. She’d thought a cruise ship was a cruise ship.

  Zoe glared about the cabin. “Next you’re going to tell me that you are planning on landing at Miami International and all crowding into a taxi to the ship. Please tell me that you guys aren’t that dense. Pretty please?”

  Nikita could see by the look Altman and Drake exchanged that it was exactly what they were planning.

  Zoe grabbed a headset, “Julian, we want to land directly aboard the ship—on the ship, not near it, not on the dock, on it. Get in touch with them and find out how to clear the helideck, these ships all have the capability in case they have to do a medevac at sea. And make it so that we arrive during the very busiest loading time. We want everyone to be looking at us.”

  “No,” it didn’t sound right to Nikita. “We’re undercover. We want no one to be looking at us.”

  Zoe hung the headset back on its hook without changing her instructions to the pilots. “Look, we are immensely wealthy, arrogant, and probably crooked contractors who have totally bought into our own hype. We’re arriving in a very pretty helicopter. We want to make a splash, right? We’re undercover, but our characters aren’t.”

  “Right,” Altman nodded, ending that part of the discussion. He smiled down at Zoe in approval. She was definitely the pixie in this crowd. At five-four she wouldn’t even reach Altman’s shoulder and she was one of those vibratingly slender types. She almost seemed to shimmer, blurring her own edges until she might disappear if you glanced aside for a moment.

  “They won’t see us,” Zoe fluffed her hair to make her point. “They’ll see our arrival. Well, they will see us if we can’t do something about the way you three look.”

  Again Nikita scanned their clothes but didn’t see the problem.

  Zoe rolled her eyes.

  Altman scowled down at her.

  “Okay, good,” Zoe pointed a finger at Altman. “That works. Big, tall, handsome, and dangerous-as-hell.” She leaned close to pluck the sunglasses from his pocket and slide them on him. She studied him a moment longer, then undid a button on his white dress shirt, then another.

  Nikita was surprised that Altman didn’t put her down hard for getting inside his personal space, but he just sat there as she ignored his glower and did what she was doing.

  “Delicious,” Zoe grinned. “Keep that fierce expression. You’re the muscle of this outfit. You’re the one all of the women will be looking at…and not a one will remember your face, not when they can see enough to imagine your beautiful chest, Luke.”

  Nikita had never heard anyone call Altman by just his first name, not even the captain who commanded DEVGRU. Nikita also hadn’t ever looked at Lt. Commander Altman in that way. He was simply her commander. But now that she did, he looked amazing: muscular, handsome, and lethal. And when he noticed her inspecting him, very fierce.

  “You two,” Zoe turned to face her and Drake. “You two are a problem. At least you have the good sense to buy designer shirts, Drake.”

  Nikita looked at it, but it just looked like a button-down shirt to her.

  The only sound during Zoe’s silent study was the beating of the rotor. Nikita had never been in a non-military helicopter before. On military helos you needed a headset or helmet just in order to survive. This aircraft must have used up half of its useful payload on sound insulation; they didn’t even have to raise their voices to speak.

  Outside the window, she could see that they soared over the Chattahoochee River and into Georgia, then moments later crossed into Florida where the river bent to the west. On their current line, they’d pass close over Disney World. Maybe she could get them to drop her off so that she could climb on a roller coaster and get some sleep there—at least that would make more sense than what was happening around her now.

  She didn’t like feeling slow, but the speed at which things were happening… Zoe seemed to be the only one keeping up with them. And then there was Drake Roman. Now that Nikita’s brain was coming back online, she was starting to second guess her actions last night. She remembered how good he’d felt.

  Heat crept toward her face until she ordered it to stop as she considered why what had happened had happened. It had started…when?
When Sugar had strode out into the field and fused the nerve endings in Drake’s gonads. Nikita had wanted to…mark her territory like a junkyard dawg? No! That was the merc’s style, not hers. She was a SEAL operator, first, second, and third. But she’d—

  “Take off your shirts.”

  “Say what?”

  Zoe did point-and-swap motions at Nikita and Drake. “Trade shirts.”

  Drake shrugged and began unbuttoning his shirt. He was lean-framed, but his chest and abs were soldier-fit. She remembered how he had felt when they were pressed together last night—this morning—whenever it was. Nikita had wanted to simply curl up against him. Actually, that’s exactly what she’d done and he’d felt glorious. Now she could see why.

  Drake noticed Nikita’s attention. And Zoe’s as well, which was flattering, but it was Nikita he’d been trying to figure out since the start of the flight.

  Her good morning nod of acknowledgement had been curt enough that he’d wondered if she indeed didn’t remember when she’d pinned him against her bedroom door.

  Tired, not drunk.

  So maybe irritated and wanting to pretend it hadn’t happened, which was about what he’d figured on while he dug through the data, then started chasing the leads that Nikita had bookmarked for further research.

  But now she also offered a thin smile. No, she wasn’t smiling at him, but she was definitely smiling.

  That in itself was unusual enough for her and he’d found it very encouraging.

  As he took off his shirt, she wasn’t taking off her own. Instead she was simply watching. When she realized that he’d caught her at it, she reached back over her head and yanked off her t-shirt in a single pull, then held it out.

  “A sports bra?” Zoe sounded aghast.

  Drake had seen Nikita strip off a shirt that was soaking wet from a hard workout to change into a fresh one before. He’d seen her peel off a shirt, rank with Burmese swamp water, to wring it out. He’d seen her in just a sports bra any number of times.