Target Engaged Read online

  “Look at this room,” Colonel Gibson ordered in that deceptively quiet voice of his. “Study it. Think of it as a problem. How would you attack this room and take out the six bad guys”—he waved his hand at the armed dummies—“without hurting any of the civilians in it?”

  There weren’t any civilian dummies, but there were chairs, sofas, plenty of places they might be.

  The seven of them prowled the room. There were no windows, so the only point of entry was the door, and it was heavy steel. They discussed lines of fire and angles of attack. She liked that she didn’t feel too far behind on tactics, despite being the only one who wasn’t Special Forces or Special Operations trained.

  One thing they agreed on—it would be a total bear to take this room, and the collateral damage in the form of dead hostages was going to be high.

  “Now…” The Colonel called for their attention once more. Even as he spoke, the trainees were still scanning the living room, creating strategies.

  Carla would have to think later as to how she felt about Colonel Gibson. The man who had killed her brother’s killer. She’d never thought to find out anything about her brother’s death. Yet on her first day here, she’d met this senior officer who had been there in the field with Clay as he died. Delta had been there and still called it unavoidable. Was it truly, or was there a failure of The Unit’s abilities to protect and react to—

  “Rearrange this room to make it more difficult.” The Colonel interrupted her thoughts. “Make it so that every line of attack you have just thought of would fail. Make it so that the collateral loss of life would be near a hundred percent, no matter what strategy the attacking rescue force might use. Then have a seat as a hostage and we’ll discuss it.”

  So, they were the hostages. That clarified the scenario, made it easier to change it from bad to awful.

  They shifted a couch and put a bad guy crouching behind the arm with his rifle leveled to cover both the couch’s occupants and the only door. They placed two more mannequins behind a table that they flipped onto its edge to act as a shooting barrier. They worked around the room until it truly was a nightmare scenario.

  The seven of them sat. Carla ended up on the couch. She shifted the villain’s rifle slightly so that it wasn’t pointed right at her, but it was still unnerving.

  Kyle flipped the dead bolt on the steel entry door and then chose an armchair that masked a shooter behind him. It was in the corner of the room opposite the door, so there was almost no way to spot the hidden shooter.

  She was just turning to see if she could find yet another way to make it harder when the world exploded.

  The lights went out.

  A massive explosion blew the door off the hinges.

  A flash-bang filled the room with a blinding light, and she threw up an arm to protect her eyes.

  Silenced gunfire spit around her. She heard a bullet whine so close to her ear that the krak of its supersonic flight hurt. The gust of another moved her hair. The heat of muzzle flash washed across her skin.

  The lights came back on.

  Three seconds.

  Four max.

  The bad-guy dummy crouched behind the couch arm was now sprawled on the floor with two holes in its forehead.

  Four men were moving through the room with night-vision goggles shoved up on their foreheads, stripping the bad guys of their weapons. Each dummy received a third bullet in the head from a silenced revolver as they went.

  Ten seconds, it was done. The room was clear and not a hostage was touched.

  “I think,” Colonel Gibson said drily from where he stood at ease in the middle of the room, “that concludes the discussion. Please feel free to inspect the results.”

  The seven of them rose from their chairs, some steadier than others. She looked up at the corners of the room’s ceiling, but could identify no spy cameras. A glance at the Colonel, and he shook his head. So, no prior intel and they’d somehow done this with live ammo passing inches from her head—despite her being in motion to protect her eyes—without one of the “hostages” bearing a single scratch.

  She went out into the hall and found the electrical panel with the simulated charge placed to blow it, though all they’d really done was turn off the breakers.

  The door had not been treated so gently. It was definitely blown, but not blown to shit or it would have sent shrapnel into the room. They’d cut the hinges and the locks with small charges and then jerked the door aside with a heavy rope attached to the door handle on one side and a set of powerful suction cups on the other. It wasn’t rope, but rather heavy bungee line. So the door had flown out of the way the instant the hinges were shattered. It made entry a half second faster.

  These guys were all about half-second advantages. Damn cool.

  Every bad guy, including the one crouched out of sight behind Kyle’s armchair in a corner of the room, was down with the three bullet holes. Not a single stray shot pockmarked a wall. Four attackers, six dead terrorists, eighteen shots total—less than a single standard magazine for just one of the HK416s that the Delta operators were carrying.

  “How the hell…?” the class was starting to ask.

  Carla shared a quick look with Kyle. “How” is what they were here to learn.

  “How soon?” is what she wanted to know.

  At least now she truly understood.

  If Delta Colonel Michael Gibson said that her brother’s death was wholly unavoidable, she was going to believe him.

  “You get tomorrow off. We suggest you sleep. Training begins the day after at 0600, and you can see that you’d better be sharp.” Colonel Gibson and the four Delta shooters started to leave the room.

  He stopped at the door and waited until the shooters were clear.

  “These four men”—he turned back to face the room—“they’re the sum total of the previous class. Just like your class, there were seven of them at the start of OTC out of a hundred and twenty applicants.” Then he was gone.

  The Operator Training Course was six months long. Three hadn’t made it, but now she had the answer to how soon she could do this.

  “Six months!” she mouthed to Kyle.

  “Can’t wait,” he mouthed back.

  Chapter 6

  OTC was not at the top of Kyle’s “can’t wait” list. And despite the Colonel’s suggestion, sleep was about the farthest thing from his mind.

  He showered, pulled on his civvies and a leather jacket, and walked out to his Ducati. He hadn’t been on it in thirty days.

  Parked beside his machine was a midnight-blue Kawasaki Ninja. Leaning back against it was Delta Trainee Carla Anderson in those same long, lightning-bolt-yellow and smoke-gray leathers he’d seen her in on the first day.

  “Damn!” Not the best greeting, but it was just knocked out of him. She was about the most amazing sight he’d ever seen.

  She grinned and waited him out while he recovered.

  “I was thinking of going for a ride before dinner.” He went for the casual glance up at the sun still a few hours above the horizon, though it was hard looking away from her for even a moment.

  “There a good pizza place in Beaufort,” she offered lazily.

  “A hundred and sixty miles. Take us an hour and a half tops.” Kyle’s bike was just as fast as hers.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Awfully close to the Marines down there.” Camp Lejeune wasn’t the issue; keeping his hands off her for that long was.

  “Yeah, Marine cooties are a problem.” Her voice remained casual and lazy, and wrapped around him with all the certainty of a cowboy’s lasso. “I know another spot. I’ll lead, you follow.” She didn’t give him a chance to argue, just pulled on her helmet and climbed on her bike.

  He pulled on his helmet and swung onto his own motorcycle.

  “That’s assuming you can keep up
with me on your pansy-ass lipstick-red machine. Don’t get lost, tough guy.”

  “I’ll be right on your tail, girlie. And it’s wildfire-red.”

  “Uh-huh.” She grinned and fired off her machine.

  They idled out of the Delta gate along with the other five trainees, two on bikes, a Camaro and a Vette, and Richie’s older model Toyota Prius. They were really going to have to talk to him—the man was going to be an embarrassment. Most of them turned for the South Gate, headed to Fayetteville. Chad was seeing a girl in Raeford, so they lost him at the Longstreet Gate. Carla led Kyle across the width of Bragg to the Manchester Gate, out past Pope Army Airfield. No one else was headed out that way.

  She opened the throttle before the gate’s stick was even half raised. She had to duck to clear it. If he’d hesitated even half a second, she’d have been gone.

  One thing Kyle had learned from this afternoon’s demonstration of the room clearing: never hesitate.

  On that very first day, he’d wanted to see Carla Anderson flying down the road in her lightning leathers, but he’d never imagined it like this.

  She hung low over her machine, laying into the corners. His view from close behind was spectacular; that part was much as he’d imagined. It was the heat he hadn’t accounted for. July in the North Carolina lowlands was brutal, but he didn’t give a damn. It was the heat he had for this woman that was all out of proportion.

  If there were cops in Carthage, they didn’t stand a chance. To Carla, a red light was an excuse to explore the back roads, only at highway velocities. The open highway itself was more akin to a race course, a race that there was no way in hell he would be losing.

  It was only when they flew out of Carthage and were cracking 130 that he saw the sign for their possible destination flash by.

  No way!

  A dozen miles and five minutes later, the answer was “Yes, way.”

  They crossed into the Uwharrie National Forest going about thirty times faster than the last time they’d been here.

  Now that he knew where they were headed, he could have hiked there over the rough country, but he had no idea how to get there by road.

  Carla did. A wild part of her brain had tracked the truck’s route that had hauled them back from the Forty-Miler.

  The woman was incredible.

  * * *

  Carla took the dirt fast. Might have been able to dust Kyle if she’d really tried, but somehow she doubted it. You couldn’t dust the likes of Kyle Reeves unless he let you. She was counting on him not letting her and wasn’t disappointed.

  She caught air coming over the rise where they’d met at the end of the Forty-Miler, and Kyle was flying right beside her. They hit the final RV exactly in sync, as close together as when they’d hiked it just seventy-two hours before, but this time they were going over sixty across the grassy clearing in the trees.

  After crossing the RV, she throttled back and let the bike ease down and coast along the narrow trail to where the final campfire had been.

  “Hope you brought the spiced wine,” she called out as she shut down her machine and peeled her helmet off. His machine thudded to silence close behind her.

  When he didn’t reply, she turned to face him.

  Kyle Reeves, five-foot-nine of hard-bodied soldier, slammed into her. From standing apart, they went to full-body contact, lip-lock, and full-on grope faster than she could blink.

  She unzipped his leather jacket and shoved it off his shoulders. It trapped his arms at the elbows. While he struggled to free himself, she had his T-shirt up so that she could get to his chest. Oh, damn, but the man had an amazing chest. After the workouts of the last month she shouldn’t be surprised, but…damn!

  Carla broke their frantic kiss so that she could step back and see his chest. Yep! It looked exactly as good as it felt.

  Kyle finally freed one arm and shed the jacket and the shirt.

  She let him come at her, caught him as they slammed back together. Her need to get skin to skin was fire-hot, but that was a discovery he’d have to make on his own.

  His teeth raked her breast through the leathers. If he left bite marks on the leather, it would be his last act on Earth no matter how incredible it felt.

  Then came the moment she’d been waiting for.

  Kyle pulled down the front zipper on her leathers and froze. His dark brown eyes went nearly black as he looked down at the exposed narrow V of skin that started at her neck and reached down to her solar plexus with no other material to block the view.

  For an instant, he looked her in the eyes, and then, like the good soldier he was, returned his attention to the primary target zone. So slowly that she could feel each zipper tooth release right down inside her, he ran it the rest of the way down.

  He may have whispered a prayer of thanks when he peeled the leathers back off her bare shoulders and down to her waist. He stared down at her chest for a long moment in silence.

  Carla expected him to grab, to devour, to take. That’s why she hadn’t worn a stitch of clothing under the leathers. She’d been aching for a month for this man to simply take her. Instead, he brushed fingers along the side of her breast so gently it sent shivers up her body.

  She didn’t want gentle; she wanted heat, but she couldn’t do anything. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think as he bent down to take her in his mouth. The heat she wanted slammed into her like a physical blow.

  The sound started low. For half a moment she wondered if another bike or a bear was coming to their corner of the woods. Then she identified the source. It was rising from the depths of Kyle’s throat.

  Without warning, he stripped off the rest of her leathers with a violence that tested the strength limits of the material and tossed them aside. He scooped one arm around her shoulder and the other between her legs with a hand clamped on her butt and lifted her like she weighed less than a rifle.

  He knocked half of the wind out of her as he slammed her down to lie atop her own clothes. His mindless growl grew louder as he fought off his pants and dug protection out of a pocket.

  There was nothing delicate in how he took her or in how she welcomed him when he landed on her. He entered her in one clean shot, all the way in until they couldn’t get any closer. The heat she’d wanted was nothing compared to the roaring fire that erupted between them.

  She locked her arms around his neck and her legs around his hips, and held on for the best ride of her life. He wasn’t some do-it-and-done guy. He’d proven his stamina on the trail and he proved it now.

  It wasn’t a question of driving each other upward. They started at the top and shattered themselves into the beyond from there.

  If she were the sort of woman who clawed, she’d have shredded his back. Instead, she simply held on as the ball of heat exploded and rolled through her in massive waves of raw power.

  She wasn’t often on the bottom, submissive wasn’t her style, but she was past caring, past control. He pawed her breast and shifted down to drag it once more into his mouth without breaking the amazing rhythm of him pounding into her.

  Men satisfied her; she enjoyed them.

  Kyle must not be a man then, because he sure didn’t stay within the bounds of those mundane descriptors. Her body writhed of its own accord. The more he did to her, the more it writhed. Her breath came shorter and shorter, until her hard gasps were exploding out of her with each stroke of his driving rhythm.

  She’d never been vocal but couldn’t stop the cry that ripped from her throat as her body came apart in tidal waves of glory.

  Kyle clamped her hands in his and pinned them above her shoulders, but it wasn’t entrapment. It was merely a way to hold on to each other as he drove his mouth against hers and drank down her next cry of sweet agony.

  She arched up to meet him. To meet his heat. Because everywhere they touched, Kyle was pu
re heat…except deep inside her where he was raw fire.

  At his release, the waves inside her were reborn, flashing to life and rebounding across her body. All she could do was ride them until they subsided to gentle washes, then echoes…and finally silence.

  Kyle lay heavy in her arms, his heart still thudding against her chest, his breath still rough and close by her ear.

  He shook it off enough to prop himself up and look down at her. “I didn’t hurt you, did I? I’ve never needed anyone the way I needed you.”

  “Kyle, I hereby issue you a permanent pass to hurt me just like that anytime you want. That was delicious.”

  “Delicious?” A smile quirked his lips, so she kissed them and discovered that her own were quite sore.

  “Mmm,” she managed, a hum of contentment—all that was in her.

  “You want delicious? That’s different.” And he kissed her lips, nuzzled her neck, caressed her hip.

  “No. Kyle. I—” Any further protests died as he began working his way along her body. She could do no more than lie back against the bank—the very bank where they had stretched out side by side when they finished the hike—and watch the trees and the darkening sky as he took her aloft once more.

  Delicious didn’t begin to describe it.

  * * *

  Kyle had known Carla was a smart woman. She’d proven it again by stuffing energy bars and a bedroll into her pack.

  Kyle’s head had been too clouded with lust to grab more than a water bottle.

  He figured tomorrow they’d find a restaurant and a hotel room. Or maybe a hotel room with delivery pizza. Right now, she was snuggled up against his shoulder, her soft hair spilling across his chest and one of those impossibly long legs thrown over his hips. He wasn’t sure how such long legs fit on a woman her height, but they looked just fine.

  Impossibly, despite everything they’d done to each other this evening, the mere thought of her was arousing him again. He didn’t want to wake her. After all, she deserved her rest as well.