Power: Special Tactical Units Division (In Wilde Country Book 3) Read online

  “Your father.”

  “Who?”

  “General Wilde. Your old man.”

  “Stubby and Skinny contacted him?”

  “They sent a ransom note to your pals at that wildlife place.” He finished cleaning up her left wrist, tucked the used antiseptic pads into a small baggie and stuffed it into his backpack. “Now take off your shirt.”

  “What?”

  “Take off the T-shirt.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Protocol requires a wounds assessment.”

  “Protocol requires you to answer my question. Are you telling me the coalition contacted the general? Because there’s no way that could have happened. Nobody’s aware of the—the connection between the general and me.”

  “It’s a small world,” Tanner said flatly. “Evidently, somebody at the coalition knew you and the general are related. He got in touch with State, and a guy at State contacted your father. Take off the shirt, Ms. Wilde.”

  “It’s Bellini. And they wasted their time. My father isn’t terribly interested in my branch of the family.”

  The lieutenant sat back on his heels. His expression was stony.

  “Your problems with your old man aren’t my worry. He wants you back in one piece. That’s why I’m here. And we’re wasting time. Get that shirt off.”

  Alessandra glared at the man sent to bring her home. No wonder he was so pissed off.

  “You’re here,” she said sharply, “because you’re the general’s lackey. He says jump, you—dammit! Let go!”

  Tanner’s hands were hard on her shoulders, his eyes hot with rage as they burned into hers.

  “I don’t jump for any man,” he said in a low, dangerous voice. “I’m here because I wanted to be.”

  “Right. And I’m here because I couldn’t get a reservation at the Ritz.”

  “You’re here because you’re a spoiled little girl with too much money and too little to keep you busy, and maybe some guys like to play your game, but I’m sure as hell not one of them.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

  “All you have to know is that I’m responsible for you until we’re back in the States, and that means you’ll do what I tell you to do when I tell you to do it. Clear?”

  “What’s clear,” Alessandra said furiously, “is that you’re not just the general’s flunky you’re also a brainless, muscle-bound bully.”

  “I’m going to count to three. If you haven’t taken that shirt off by then, I’ll do it for you.”

  “You wait until we’re back home, Lieutenant. You just wait.”

  “One.”

  “I’ll file charges that will write finito to your cushioned career.”

  “It’s cushy, not cushioned. Two.”

  Crazy as she knew it was, him correcting her English made her even angrier. She spoke perfect English. Everybody said so. The only time it slipped was when she was upset, really upset, and, goddammit, how could she let this—this lapdog of her father’s upset her?

  Except, he couldn’t be a lapdog.

  It wasn’t possible to think of him taking orders or even sitting in an office, and what did any of that matter?

  What did anything matter, except surviving this nightmare and getting home?

  Besides, he was right.

  She was a mass of bites and scratches and cuts, and even though she’d had to take a zillion different vaccinations just to come to San Escobal, the coalition had still given her an endless stack of documents to read, most of them about the dangers of botfly bites and killer bee attacks and, worst of all, infections.

  “Three,” he said grimly.

  Alessandra twisted free of his hands, turned her back and yanked the shirt over her head.

  “Do what you have to do,” she said, just as grimly, “and be quick about it.”

  * * *

  He was quick and he was efficient, and there was nothing in the way he touched her or looked at her that made this anything but the wound assessment he’d called it.

  She held her crumpled, filthy shirt against her breasts while he eyeballed her shoulders and back.

  He poked. Prodded. Asked, “Does this hurt?” a couple of times, and she said no, nothing hurt, at least not any more than it should have.

  She heard the whisper of paper tearing and then the cold swipe of antiseptic on her skin.

  “What’d you do?” she asked coldly. “Raid a pharmacy?”

  “Turn,” he said, and she complied, the shirt still clutched to her breasts.

  More poking and prodding. This time, a couple of the pokes and prods made her jump, and he muttered something under his breath.

  “This will hurt,” he said, and, merda, it did, but she knew he was doing what had to be done, pulling out thorns, testing whether a swelling near her collarbone was a simple reaction to an insect bite or plant toxin, or if it was an indication that some creature had burrowed beneath her skin. None had, evidently, because he finally grunted in what she figured was approval and swabbed her with more antiseptic.

  She could tell when he found the bruises from Skinny’s fist under her rib cage.

  He went very still.

  Then he looked up at her and she caught her breath at what she saw in his eyes.

  “Which of them did this?”

  His voice was low, an animal’s growl.

  “It doesn’t—”

  “Which one?”

  “The tall one.”

  “Was he also the one who hit you in the face?”

  He sounded casual, as if he were asking who’d made the dinner reservations, but that look in his eyes was still there.

  “Yes.”

  He nodded and went back to work.

  Okay.

  She’d made a bad judgment.

  This man was absolutely not a lapdog.

  He was hard and dangerous, and she knew he would do whatever it took to protect her. Silly, because she was a modern, independent woman. She didn’t need any man to protect her. She didn’t even like the concept and yet…and yet…

  His gaze dropped to her breasts.

  Her breath caught in her throat.

  She wasn’t wearing a bra.

  Was he going to ask her to let go of the shirt? Was he going to run those lightly calloused fingers over her breasts?

  It was a ridiculous thought to have in a ridiculous situation.

  He wouldn’t.

  And even if he did, it would only be in the interest of finding out if she had wounds on her breasts. There would be nothing intimate in his touch.

  Somebody should have told that to her libido.

  Just watching him look at her breasts, all that hot male intensity directed at her, and she felt a rush of dampness between her thighs.

  Was she out of her mind? They were fleeing from men who’d held her captive, the jungle was all around them, she was hurting. and her rescuer was a surly SOB who pretty much saw her as a pain in the ass…

  He looked up.

  Their eyes met.

  The world seemed to stand still.

  Then he shot to his feet.

  “Okay,” he said briskly. “You’ll live.” He dug into the backpack, took out a navy T-shirt and tossed it to her. “Put this on.”

  She shook her head.

  “No. I mean, thanks, but you’ll need it.”

  “I have another. Take it. I don’t want you putting your old stuff over the areas I disinfected.”

  His tone was authoritative, his explanation sensible, and whatever nonsense she’d experienced a moment ago was exactly that.

  Nonsense.

  She took the shirt, turned away from him, let go of her own shirt and pulled on his. It ballooned around her, yards of soft cotton that she suspected would cover her from throat to knee once she stood up.

  “Got the shirt on?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Now get those pants off.”

  Had she actually had even a two-second fantasy
about this man? A drill sergeant would have been a better choice.

  “Yes, sir,” she said briskly.

  She unzipped the cargo pants, or what was left of them. He took out another couple of antiseptic packets.

  “Lie back.”

  She lay back, her weight on her elbows.

  He squatted at her feet.

  His entire body tensed.

  Her feet were a mess. That the bastards who’d held her captive had forced her to talk until her feet were bloodied and torn filled him with cold rage.

  He dealt with them as best he could, but he needed water, sterilized water, to do the job right. He tried to be gentle, but he knew he had to be hurting her even though she took it all in silence.

  “I’m sorry,” he said when she winced.

  “No.” Her voice was raw with pain, but she managed a quick smile. “Don’t apologize. I understand.”

  She gritted her teeth while he took care of her feet, then moved his attention to her legs.

  Amazing.

  His hands were big and hard-looking, just like the rest of him, but his touch was soothing, almost sensual. The soft brush of his fingers over her skin. The concentrated expression on his face as he bent over her, encircled her ankle with his fingers, lifted her leg…

  Heat shimmered in her blood, half embarrassment, half something ridiculous even to contemplate.

  She wanted to hook her leg around him and draw him down to her.

  She wanted to jerk back, get up and run.

  Instead, she played it safe and sassy.

  “Next time,” she said, “you might want to send flowers first.”

  He looked up.

  Her face was pale, except for the rosy flush of pink that had bloomed in her cheeks. He tried not to laugh, but he couldn’t stop the slow smile that angled across his lips.

  “Good point,” he said, deadpan. “I’ll suggest they include that in the field manual.”

  Which, he thought suddenly, might not be a bad idea.

  He’d done lots of wound assessments, but none had involved a beautiful woman wearing only his oversized shirt and a pair of white cotton panties.

  Hell.

  He could feel his body tightening. Which was ridiculous. Get with the program, Akecheta.

  She was a recovered hostage. He was responsible for her. It was as simple as that.

  Same as all STUD operatives, he’d had extensive medical training. You never knew when you’d have to save a life, your own or your teammate’s, and part of hostage recovery protocol was to check for medical problems. It really was in the manual. You were expected to perform a Field Medical Assessment. An FMA, to use one of the military’s endless acronyms.

  How come his dick didn’t seem to know all that?

  Even as he’d done a clinical assessment of her chest and back—Insect bites? Check. Scratches from thorns? Double check. Cuts and scrapes and, goddammit, those black-and-blue marks just under her ribs— even as he’d done all that, he’d been aware of her as a woman.

  The graceful arch of her throat.

  The rise of her breasts under the T-shirt.

  The silken texture of her skin.

  What in hell was wrong with him?

  He shot her a quick look. Her expression was veiled. She was staring hard at a place just over his shoulder.

  He felt a muscle jump in his cheek.

  For Christ’s sake, man, you’ve done a dozen of these exams before, some of them on women. Just get it over with.

  He grabbed another antiseptic pad, sent his gaze moving swiftly over her legs again. Not too bad. Bites. Stings. Scrapes.

  Ah, hell, scrapes on her thighs. That had to hurt. Her thighs were lovely, round and firm, the color somewhere between tan and gold.

  Was she that color all over?

  Were her breasts, her belly that some shade? What would her skin taste like? Cream. Sweet, silken cream…

  “How do I look?” she said.

  His head jerked up. “What?”

  “I said how bad is it? I mean…I mean…” Her face colored. “Going over that dead tree the first time, you know, sort of, uh, sort of scooting across it… I thought I might have picked up some splinters.”

  “No. No splinters.”

  “Good.”

  Better than good. Bad enough he had to look at her thighs. Touching them might have been an embarrassment to them both.

  “Here,” he said briskly. “Take this wipe. Use it. Then smear on some of this antiseptic.”

  She nodded, did as he’d told her, and when her fingers disappeared between her thighs, he damn near groaned.

  Sweet Jesus, Akecheta, what in hell is wrong with you?

  Tanner swung away, made himself look busy going though the backpack.

  His long recovery had kept him out of STUD action for months, but not out of female action. The units hung out at a bar half a dozen miles up the coast from Camp Condor. Women hung out there, too, the kind attracted to men who served in Special Ops. Meaning they were, for the most part, ready, willing, beautiful…and hot.

  His involvement with Red had ended badly, but it hadn’t dulled his sexual appetite. All it had done was remind him that sex was sex. Take what’s offered, give back what you can, enjoy each other for as long as it lasts, end of story.

  There hadn’t been a scarcity of women in his bed while he was rehabbing. If anything, there might have been more of them than usual and no, he didn’t need a shrink to point out the obvious, that when you had to sit back while your brothers were out in the field, proving yourself still capable of sex assured you that you were still a man.

  Still, he hadn’t been with a woman for a while. Two, three weeks. He’d been too busy concentrating on trying to get his body back in shape to do much partying.

  Okay.

  That explained what he was feeling now. It had nothing to do with Alessandra Wilde Alessandra Bellini, whatever name she called herself. It had to do with having an itch that needed scratching, and as soon as he got back to California…

  “You can turn around now.”

  He took a deep breath, expelled it, and then turned to face her. No problem. All he saw was a woman he needed to take care of.

  “Roll over,” he said briskly. “On your belly.”

  The backs of her legs were cut and bruised, but not as bad as the rest of her. He applied antiseptic to the small wounds quickly and impersonally, dabbed on ointment the same way.

  The crisis, or whatever it had been, was over.

  “All done,” he said.

  She sat up. He dropped the pale blue scrub pants beside her.

  “They’ll be big, but at least they’re clean.”

  She nodded. “Thanks.”

  “After you’ve changed,” he said, “I’ll bury or burn your old stuff. I’m pretty sure we’ve lost Mutt and Jeff, but why take chances?”

  “You mean, Stubby and Skinny.”

  “Yeah.” He flashed a quick smile. “Nice names.”

  “Hey,” she said brightly, “nice guys deserved nice names.”

  He had to give her points for how she was handling this. Experience had taught him that humor always helped, even in the worst situations.

  “Did you ever actually hear their real names?”

  She shook her head. “No.” She paused. “Do you think they’re still looking for us?”

  He didn’t. Or, sure, they might be looking, but probably in all the wrong directions. The ransom note hadn’t suggested the men who’d taken her had much going on between their ears. He was starting to think that snatching her had been opportunistic, that the pair of them had spotted her and figured they could make some easy money.

  But anything was possible…including his real concern.

  Running into Bright Star.

  No reason to tell her that, though. Not yet.

  “You know the old saying,” he said. “Better safe than sorry.”

  “Thanks,” she said. “For fixing me up.” She nodded at t
he scrubs. “And for the clothes.”

  “Nothing to thank me for.” He got to his feet and tried not to wince. His leg hurt. It had been hurting for hours.

  “You okay?”

  “Of course I’m okay.”

  “You don’t have to snarl at me, Lieutenant. I just thought—”

  “Let me do the thinking for both of us, Ms. Wilde. We’ll be better off.”

  Her eyes flashed. “It’s Bellini. If you’re so good at thinking, how come you can’t get my name straight?”

  Hell. She had a right to be pissed off. He’d all but taken her head off, and it wasn’t her fault his damn leg was giving him trouble. Quickly, he turned away, picked up the rifle and slung it over his shoulder. Then he dug the coiled paracord out of the backpack, measured out an appropriate length and cut it off with his knife.

  “Sorry I barked at you,” he said briskly as he looped the canteens and the pot over the improvised carry strap, then hung it over his other shoulder. “But I want to get us organized before sunset.”

  “Is that as close as you can come to an apology, Lieutenant?”

  He swung toward her. “Do you ever give an inch?”

  “No,” she said, chin up, her hands on her hips. “Not if I can help it.”

  Amazing. She was bruised, battered, undoubtedly scared and hungry, and she was still ready to take on the world.

  “Okay. You want it to be an apology? It was an apology. Right now, I’m going to see if I can find us some water.”

  She scrambled to her feet. “I’ll go with you.”

  “It’ll be faster if I go alone.” The look on her face made him soften his tone. “I don’t want you to do any more walking tonight. You’ll be safe here and I’ll be back in five minutes, I promise.”

  She nodded, but she was nervous about being alone. He couldn’t blame her.

  Still, he couldn’t see taking her with him.

  She was holding up well—better, really, than he’d expected—but he’d just seen her assortment of bruises and bites. The more rest she got now, the better their chances of reaching the river ASAP tomorrow.

  The obvious choice was to leave her with a weapon, but handing over a pistol to someone who knew nothing about pistols would be incredibly dangerous.

  The knife, then. It was sharp, equally dangerous in untrained hands, but it was the preferable option.

  Quickly, he opened his belt, started to slip off the sheathed SOG-TAC…