In her shoes, Logan would probably be pissed, too, but he wasn’t about to leave without the woman. Even if the duchess was as feisty as a wolverine. Blonde hair, eyes like the Montana sky and a pouty mouth that spewed bile. He knew the type.
Stunning and difficult.
But women like her had a way of making Logan’s blood boil. This was his mission, his “cock-up” as she’d so ungraciously put it in her stuck-up English accent. But the spy could say anything she wanted as long as he got her ass off the boat and to the beanstalk before the yacht blew.
He was finished with talk. His jaw twitched, but Logan resisted the urge to bend back the finger she shook under his nose and snap the appendage from her fine-boned hand. Instead, he grabbed her wrist and slung her over his shoulder, then headed across starboard deck at a run.
“Put me down!” she demanded in the same heated whisper.
“Glad to.” In two steps, he leapt over the rail, his fingers sinking into her butt—a well-formed, solid butt at that. What did he expect? She’d nearly emasculated him with a vicious side kick.
They smacked the water hard.
The duchess fought to swim to the surface but, as the bubbles rushed in his ears, Logan didn’t mistake the sharp churning sound of bullets hitting the surface. Damn, he couldn’t release her just yet. He tugged her legs down until his arm clamped around her waist, then he took an inhale from his SEAL-issue regulator before he pressed it over her mouth.
She fought him, her tight ass wriggling against his crotch until she realized what he’d done. The air hissed through the breathing tube as she relaxed. He moved to her side and encouraged her onward while keeping a light grasp around her waist. Thank God she started swimming with him rather than against. In fact, she was a stronger swimmer than he’d expected. Fast, too. And with the oxygen tank on his back, she had no choice but to stay with him.
Visibility was just as bad now as it had been fifteen minutes ago. He stopped for a moment to borrow his regulator, which also allowed him use of his voice. The duchess slipped her hands around his waist, working in tandem with him as if she knew exactly what he was doing. Though she was also careful not to cling too tightly. Any man on earth had to be dead if he wasn’t keenly aware when a hot blonde wearing a skimpy negligee was an inch away from pressing her breasts flush against his wetsuit. Logan ignored the spike of heat shooting to his groin and inhaled deeply. “Red Riding Hood and the duchess underway,” he said into the hydrophone.
“Sounds like she gave you some sass,” the captain responded immediately.
“Expected that.”
“Beanstalk has acquired your signal and is honing in.”
“Roger and out.”
Taking her hand, he again slipped the regulator to her mouth, listening for bullets. Though he heard nothing, he wasn’t ready to take a chance and break the surface. With the way this mission had gone, Logan wouldn’t put it past Khalil to employ a sniper on his yacht. They swam like hell. Using the compass on his watch, he steered “her grace” in the direction of the Washington while he relied on the crew in the recon boat to detect the microchip in his watch. When he was confident they were out of range and would be undetectable in the Mediterranean’s swells, he arched his back, pulling her for the surface. As his head broke through, an orange ring splashed in front of his face right on cue.
He grabbed the duchess by the back of her skimpy dress and moved the ring against her ribs so she’d latch on.
She jerked away from his grasp. “Would you stop manhandling me, you ape?”
Nothing like a drop-dead gorgeous woman to make him want to kill something. Logan gritted his teeth and carried on with the mission, making sure the crew safely hauled the woman into the inflatable. As soon as she was in, he launched himself over the side. “Go, go, go!”
The motor revved to the sound of distant machine gun fire.
The duchess ducked.
“We’re out of range, princess,” Logan said, giving her thigh a slap.
“My name is Olivia, and I am well aware of that, cowboy.”
He slid against the rubber wall and smirked, catching the eye roll of one of his teammates. Logan never minded being called a cowboy. He’d grown up in Montana—Big Sky country. What soured his stomach was this MI6 debutante made wranglers sound distasteful. If only he could take just one of the European princesses he’d worked with to the ranch he’d inherited from his parents, they’d change their minds—unless they were too citified. He looked at his watch. “Detonation in eleven, ten, nine…” everyone watched as he counted to zero.
Nothing happened.
“God damn—,” just as the curse spewed from Olivia’s lips, the charge blew. Blinding white light flashed through the sky followed by an earsplitting boom while waves rocked the inflatable and pushed it further on its path toward the ship.
Logan turned his head away from the others and let a long breath slip through his lips. No one on earth would have been able to save his ass if he’d blown an MI6 mission because of a dud.
***
Watching Khalil’s yacht blow sky high was bittersweet. Where on the other hand, Olivia felt like a prisoner of war who had been freed after two years of hell behind enemy lines. She’d have to deal with her demons later because, right now, she was livid. In her book, being gutted trumped PTSD. In one blinding explosion, everything was gone. It wasn’t like writing a five-hundred-page book and losing all the words. This mission had sucked her under, chewed her up and had just spat her out. Worse, she’d lost her fucking self. She’d compromised every single one of her values for this job. Why? Because she thought she could do something to put an end to terrorism.
The commander sitting beside her like he was on a pleasure cruise just added new meaning to the words “poof you’re gone”. Fortunately, it took about twenty minutes for the craft to reach the ship, giving Olivia time to ratchet up her ire. She would have her say.
Once aboard ship, she cuffed the cowboy on the shoulder. “Commander Rodgers, did you say?”
He’d taken off his black hood, making his dark hair spike. Those intense teal-blue eyes slanted her way. Then his tongue slipped to the corner of his mouth while his gaze snapped down and back up to her face. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Take me to the captain.”
He gestured aft with an exaggerated bow, blocking his eyes with one hand as if shading them from a bright light. “This way, milady.”
She snorted. The light was dim at best.
A sailor handed her a towel. “For you, ma’am.”
Olivia glanced downward and nearly died. She’d been so irate she hadn’t even realized she was freezing—and wearing a negligee. No wonder Rodgers was trying to pretend he hadn’t noticed. Her nipples jutted through the white silk like a pair of homing beacons. She tugged the towel around her shoulders and raised her chin. “There wouldn’t be a spare jacket?”
Logan pointed. “Give her your shirt, sailor.”
“Sir?”
Rodgers glanced to his wetsuit, spreading his palms. “You heard me. I’ll see it’s returned.”
“Aye, sir.”
This time, the commander looked her straight in the eye without a flinch. “I’ll ensure you get a change of clothes ASAP, ma’am.” Jesus, those eyes could be disarming.
“Thanks.” Once Olivia had the oversized, blue-digital camo buttoned, she tied the towel around her waist. “Lead on.” Disarming eyes or not, the officer was about to hear exactly what she thought of his misshapen rescue.
By the time they arrived at the navigation room on the bridge, she was ready to explode. Pushing past Rodgers, she glared at the captain—the man with the gold leafs on his collars. “I’ll have you know I spent two years infiltrating the Jamal Abdullah Khalil operation, and you just lost our only chance to nail Fahd al-Umari.”
The man looked up from the illuminated navigation table, all color draining from his face. Even in the darkened CIC, lit by red overhead lights and computer monitors, he looked paler than a seasick landlubber. “I beg your pardon?”
“You heard me. Fahd al-Umari. At oh-nine-hundred tomorrow, the evilest terrorist in the world would have climbed aboard the yacht you just blew to hell.” Olivia leaned in and met the captain’s indignant stare. “What, pray tell, is your ship doing out here?”
“This was my mission.” Commander Rodgers moved beside her and crossed his arms over his wetsuit. “Our intelligence gave us the directive to strike.”
“Oh yeah? Who in God’s name was that? I’m going to do everything in my power to see that moron never makes another misinformed, dickhead decision in his life.” She pointed to the captain’s sternum. “I want your ass, the commander’s ass, and every American ass responsible for this debacle. Go back to Hawaii and cruise the goddamned Pacific.”
She turned full circle, making eye contact with every stunned face in the CIC. They all knew they’d screwed up and screwed up big.
The captain looked confused as if he didn’t realize she had just handed him his balls on a platter. “But Khalil is…was on our ten most wanted list.”
She jammed her fists into her hips. “Khalil was our best conduit to ISIS.”
“We lost Fahd al-Umari? Christ.” Rodgers closed his eyes and shoved the heel of his hand into his forehead. Maybe the cowboy actually understood how much hot water they were in.
“Yes, you did.” Olivia threw up her hands. “Someone get MI6 on the line. I need to break the news.”