Chapter Sixteen
Saved by the red flashing lights, Candy thought. A moment ago, when Josh had her cornered and his incredibly ripped body had been within inches of her, she had about come undone. She’d been secretly drooling over him since she’d first laid eyes on him in his office hours ago. But being that close to him, smelling his manly scent, she about gave in to the building desire.
Shit, when he’d been naked outside, she couldn’t take her eyes from him. He was freaking perfect. Muscles defined like the marble of a Greek god statue. And if a normal male’s johnson was supposed to be small when in the cold, dammit to hell, he’d be huge when excited. Her stomach churned, making her feel sick. But she squashed that weakness immediately.
She was surprised by her reaction—or lack thereof—to him telling her he and his team were shifters. That explained her one SF mission. Actually, the idea of changing into an animal wasn’t foreign to her. When she was little and her parents yelled at each other, she used to pretend she was a fairy princess in a distant kingdom where families loved each other, never hurt each other. Not much of a difference between fairy and wolf, except one was real. One was deadly and scarier than shit. Okay, maybe there was big disparity.
And then when his lips touched hers. Oh, fuck—that was exactly what she’d wanted to do to him. She wanted to feel Josh touch her in ways no man ever had. Perhaps it was the genuine concern she saw in his eyes or just how cute he was whenever he grinned, but she’d never wanted to have sex this badly. She wasn’t a virgin, by any means, but she wasn’t that experienced, either. When in camp with no solid walls and people always moving around, there was little opportunity for sexual encounters.
Sex wasn’t that big of a deal to her, anyway. Her early trysts had been short-lived and quick. A lot of the time, she never reached orgasm. But that was what she got for hooking up with young guys who had little idea exactly where her clit was, much less what it took to bring a woman to climax.
She felt sure Josh wouldn’t have that problem. Not at all. Then imagining his hands on her body, that old fear came screaming forward. Goddammit, she thought she could handle these stupid feelings. This gorgeous man weakened her emotionally and physically. If she stayed with him, he would break her down until she was a blubbering mess like she had been when she’d enlisted.
Life had taught her how to not let her feelings and emotions get involved where logic was needed, but with Josh, the line was getting fuzzy. Josh made her feel things. Things she wasn’t sure she could explain. Things she shouldn’t even be considering. Too long had she lived in a dark corner, and he tempted her to go out into the sun.
Her body responded to him in ways it never had to any other man. She’d never cared much about having sex or how good it could be. Good was never really in the cards. But here she was, really thinking and questioning, hoping and, hell, even daydreaming of what he might do. Of all the ways he could bring pleasure to her and take her over the edge.
The military philosophy was to cut each soldier to the bone in basic training, making them nothing, lower than dog shit. Then build them into the amazing soldiers who protected the liberties this country enjoyed.
Didn’t take her long to get to the building stage since she was already at rock bottom. But once in, she never looked back. The men and women around her were her new family, one she would fight for, die for. Now, for the first time, she was considering what life would be like if she married and had children.
No! She couldn’t think that. She couldn’t let that ever happen. Children were not an option. How did that even slip into her mind? She’d been determined her whole life about that and suddenly she was having visions of kids and by god, they had Tumbel’s eyes and adorable grin. Her heart raced. She was sweating. What was happening to her?
A diversion. She needed to change her thoughts. She didn’t want to go down that lane of memories. Too much hard work had gone into getting past her childhood. Moving on.
She sighed, watching the police swamp the street. She looked around for Dotson in his uniform, saw him heading toward one of the lead cars. He should be able to keep the force in line, doing what they should outwardly, and not planning anything covertly. Later, she’d have to ask how the police had gotten word of the situation. Someone had finally gotten to them.
Her eyes glanced at the image of Yulian and his men to see their reaction. The man snapped his phone closed and looked at his watch again, then walked to the front of the lobby.
“Hey,” she said to Josh, not looking at him pacing behind her, “we have movement.” He stood behind her chair—right behind. Heat poured off his hot skin. She shuddered at remembering how silky and hard his chest was. Oh god, she felt wetness slip from her core. He breathed deeply and she knew he smelled her. Oh god, oh god, oh god. Could she be more embarrassed?
A voice came over the speakers from the mics out front. Yulian stood with the news reporter’s microphone again, talking to the camera. “As a consequence to hurting my family, I demand $100 million to be deposited in de next hour or everyone in here dies.” Yulian threw the mic on the floor by the door.
Behind her, Josh said, “What? That’s it? What the hell?”
Candy was breathless. She knew a lot of the people in that room. And all of them killed? What did Josh mean by “That’s it”? She could only gape at him. “What?” she said.
“He demands money,” Josh said, “but doesn’t give a bank account to put it into? No demands of unmarked bills?”
He had a point. Yulian had set this up to fail. No matter what. He said “deposit” and not “cash”, which was what she’d guess was the preferred way. The terrorist was arguing with one of his guys again. Dammit, she needed Day to translate. He was outside, naked, or in animal form, or whatever.
“I don’t care how fucked-up the scenario is, we have to do something,” she said. “If all the bigwigs here are killed, our intelligence community will be in chaos for months. If our enemies found out about that, all hell would break loose.” She stood and pulled her phone from her pocket. “I need to call the president.”
“You have the president’s personal number?” Josh sounded astonished.
She laughed and replied, “This president is different from any other in history. He knows who he trusts and he likes to work directly with the source, not the ‘in-between’ people. He wants the facts firsthand.”
She dialed, hoping the president was available. It was close to eight o’clock already. She waited for his atypical answer: “Talk.”
“Mr. President, it’s Sergeant Obermier.”
“That’s what my caller ID says.”
Shit, she knew that. The president was a strict no-nonsense kind of guy. His sense of humor lacked, but his negotiating skills and law smarts were top of the line. “Yes, sir. Sorry, sir. We have a situation in the NIA building needing your attention.”
“Go on,” he said.
“As you know, we are under a hostage situation with the Steganovich brothers from Russia.”
“Yes, I’ve been briefed on that. What’s changed?” he asked.
“The leader has made a demand for $100 million for deposit but left no account numbers or anything. Has information of that type come to you?”
“No, nothing yet but we do not negotiate with terrorists.” The president sounded calm and cool. She had been until this last statement.
“Sir, do you know who all is here? Our intelligence department will be decimated. We’ll be vulnerable.” She couldn’t believe this. The people downstairs were among the top intelligence in the community. Pommer, the NIA Director; Lancaster, FBI Director; Homeland Security, and others were all here to congratulate their highly regarded and most rigidly kept secret, the ALFA team.
“I’ve just been handed the attendee list. Stand by one minute.” The line turned silent. Candy couldn’t sit any longer. Her legs were too anxious, as was her mind. When she paced to the door, she opened it a crack and whispered-yelled for Agent Day.
Josh and all his sexy skin came up behind her. When she turned, he was there, in her face. And she loved it. She took in his smell: woodsy and all male. A growl vibrated from his chest, surprising her. Her eyes snapped up to his. Their golden glow lit a flame in her lower stomach. Another memory wanted to surface. She refused it. Her breath left her. She had to force wind into her lungs. A whine behind her got her moving. Josh pushed the door open for the wolf to enter.
She smirked as she was about to talk directly to the animal. “We need your translation skills. They’re talking a lot.” She tilted her head toward the monitor board. Her eyes glanced at Yulian answering his phone. She turned up the volume knob then went back to pacing. After another minute of phone silence, Candy looked at her phone’s screen to make sure the signal was still intact. It was. What was taking so long? It couldn’t be good. She leaned her forehead against the cool metal of the gun locker.
Finally, noise traveled down the line. Sounded like several voices. “Candy, someone’ll call you back. I’ve got a damn dog sniffing my feet.” Then the president was gone. She looked at her phone and sighed. Her peripheral sight caught the movement of the hidden floor trapdoor leading to the tunnels, that Dotson had left through earlier.
She turned to see a stranger’s face pop up from the stairwell, ASh gun in hand, pointed at her. A shot echoed in the small room.