The water was a lot cooler than the air and felt good against his skin, the pack dragging at his shoulders, but didn’t slow his swimming. The current was strong, but not anything he couldn’t handle. The crossing shouldn’t take long.

They hit the far bank as the sound of a motor broke the early dawn. He dragged Dana with him into the dense overgrowth. She was gasping, but he was barely breathing hard. He watched the boat pass slowly as if they were looking for something, but again, he was much too good at concealment. They didn’t detect the boat. But the guys on land, whoever they were, would stumble across it and then they’d be looking for them.

“Let’s never do that again. This side of the river is so nice.”

He led her through the jungle once again and chuckled. “It’s exactly the same scenery, but nice try.”

As they got deeper, the first drops started to fall. “At least we’re already wet,” she muttered, but trudged steadily behind him. He liked that she could keep up with him even at a punishing pace. She had mentioned she was a runner. Her choice of exercise had come in handy in the Gap.

“Darwin wasn’t full of shit,” she said, “It really is survival of the fittest.” Thunder rumbled in the distance, lightning shimmering in the haze. The wet vapor of the rain forest smothered down around them, the river to their left, dense jungle to their right.

Ruckus was compromised, by her voice, those serious brown eyes penetrating any wall he put between them. She was damn bound and determined to get those memory cards back, and he suspected her motivations were more personal than maybe she even realized. Not a good combination, going in blindly after a goal fueled by emotions. She didn’t know that he had other plans for her, plans that wouldn’t end pretty. It almost hurt to know that she’d feel deeply betrayed, and he couldn’t seem to find that detachment he needed. But those were the drawbacks of being in command. “You holding up okay, cupcake?”

“Yes, sir, LT.”

He chuckled softly, his vigilance honed as his affection for his unexpected package deepened, but hampered by the sounds of the incoming storm as thunder moved closer.

Yes, she was something else. Even with the dawn, there was a gray quality to the jungle as the overcast sky blocked out all attempts of the sun to break through. In the unnatural dusk, rain made a hissing sound against the leaves as the first drops of the promised storm hit them. Then it was a deluge, an ocean of water pouring out of the sky as the storm settled just above them. Sheets of water made it almost impossible to see even a few feet in front of them.

* * *

It was going to be a day of double time humping, preparing to close the gap between their leader and them. Kid was still getting amusement out of LT’s uncharacteristic break in SEAL protocol and locking lips with the terry cloth babe. Kid and the rest of the team were breaking camp, when Scarecrow shouted. “Fuck! Tangos moving in. Kid!”

Kid dropped everything and raced over to the computer. He keyed his mic. “LT! Bug out! Bug out! Tangos coming at you from the right. Move!”

But even as he looked at the computer Scarecrow held, his breath trapped in his chest, the blue blip didn’t move.

Then the sound of thunder from miles away rumbled like a waking beast and Kid’s stricken eyes met Scarecrow’s. “He can’t hear me.” He and the pretty reporter were cut off and on their own with three groups of red dots surrounding them.

* * *

“LT…” Static interrupted Kid’s voice. “…tangos….” Then it was gone, nothing but white noise. The heavy rain was blocking out his transmission. Ruckus immediately stopped moving and looked around. He wasn’t sure which tangos Kid had been referring to, the ones coming upriver or the ones across the river. He made the decision to head right, deeper into the forest. Moving blindly, the rain hampering their movement, they crashed through the overgrowth, beneath the canopy of huge trees. Mercifully, the rain started to abate as the storm moved off. The pattering of rain slowing as the saturated jungle tried to absorb even more water.

He paused and listened, all his senses alert. The sound of gunfire burst in the silence, rapid and close. He jerked a look in the direction. To his right! That’s what Kid had been warning him about. Assault rifles. More FARC? CLP? Panamanian troops, or a drug deal gone bad?

A second later he was grabbing her hand and pulling her back toward the river. Caught between the CLP, FARC, and drug runners was a trifecta of death and the river was their only hope. Crossing back over would put them behind the advancing tangos on the opposite bank, conceal them from the boat searching for them, and get them away from this immediate threat.

Baddies were all over the area. He sensed them, spreading out in the jungle, raking through it. He suspected they would shoot first and ask questions later. That was his locked and loaded plan of action.

As soon as they made the shore, he looked down the river and sure enough, the boat was on the shore. Looked like the CLP and another set of armed aggressors were going at it. He waded in and said, “Hold on!” before he took them both under. Swimming as fast as he could, with both his pack and the babe’s weight. He was across three-quarters of the way when he surfaced for a quick look. Off to his right, he spied them, two big, mother-f-ing caimans. They splashed into the water with their huge tails thrashing.

He had no intention either one of them would become gator food.

Doubling his efforts, he was almost to shore when he saw them swimming strongly toward him and Dana. He propelled her with all his might forward and she shot through the water, and God bless that beauty, she continued to swim.

He dropped his pack and reached for his knife as the first beast, maw gaping came for him. He avoided the jaws with a powerful push below. As soon as the animal was above him, he rose and jabbed in with his knife, piercing the soft underbelly and opened him up tail to jaw. Immediately swimming like hell. He bulleted through the water, but just as he was almost to shore, something powerful clamped onto his boot. The minute the caiman had him he started turning into his death spiral to pull off a chuck of Ruckus, dragging him deeper.

* * *

Breathing hard, Dana watched the water with frantic eyes. Ruckus hadn’t surfaced and she realized why. Gators. She saw their scaly backs as they briefly glazed the top of the water, then disappeared. The gunfire was loud behind her, but all her focus was on the churning water. When she saw the blood, she made a soft, distressed sound. The waiting crushing her. He surfaced ,and he and the gator rolled around, a knife flashing. Then they were gone again. Her breath trapped in her lungs as the water settled.

She picked up a stick and was about to head into the water when a cold voice said in Spanish, “Don’t move, Chica. Drop it.”

She did as she was told and put up her hands. Just then, a mountain of power exploded from the surface, water sluicing off him, his semi-automatic in his hands as he open fired, his face contorted into a savage mask, driven into survival mode, all his instincts active. She dove for cover as he took out whoever was behind her. Her face in the sand and her body drenched in sweat and river water. She blinked and pushed up, every inch of her aching. It dawned on her and really brought it home that he was the only thing that stood between her and death or something much worse. She knew that somewhere in the back of her mind, but everything rested on his broad, so capable shoulders. Her heart lurched in her chest, something shifting, settling, taking hold of her just like his mouth had this morning when he’d kissed her. God help her, she wanted more. With that came guilt and anticipation.

The next thing she knew, he literally jerked her to her feet and pulled her with him at a breakneck pace, away from the bodies, the river, armed combatants, and freaking gators. My God, he’d literally wrestled alligators for her. She held onto his hand like a lifeline. Rain started to fall again, closing her and this ruthless-eyed warrior behind a curtain of gray as the jungle swallowed them whole.

They ran for an hour, straight out, no slowing, but lack of sleep, food and water was getting to her. She stumbled, and Ruckus slowed, catching her in his arms. They took cover behind a tree and just like the first night she’d met him, he covered her body with his. The rain had washed the mud and sweat off them as it continued to fall. He was still vigilant, his wide chest heaving, he’d taken off his uniform shirt and was now in nothing but the green T-shirt and tech vest. His eyes scanned and all she could feel was supreme relief that he was alive, that he had the kind of skills that transitioned to just about anything from armed combat to swimming swift currents, to tangling with territorial marine life with very sharp teeth.

In the midst of all this danger, she’d never felt safer in her life.

“I think we’re in the clear,” he said, his voice low and husky. All she could do was look up at him helplessly. When she didn’t answer, he glanced at her, then back to the forest, but there must have been something in her eyes because his intense gaze went back to hers.

Wordlessly they stared at each other. Feeling unexpectedly close to tears, so aware of him as a man as if her body had a million little sensors in it and he tripped every one of them. It was as if he’d reached out and touched her, caressing her in the most intimate way. She flattened both hands against the hard muscles of his chest. What passed between them was definitely all about the man/woman connection as the intimacy grew and out-steamed the moist jungle around them.

His blue eyes created a dizzying effect, his wordless stare said he was just as aware of her as a woman, the savage light there making her body soften and ache. He touched her face, a familiar, intimate, protective touch. She closed her eyes and leaned into that light pressure. He made a deep, satisfied male sound in the back of his throat at her reaction.

Was this proximity? Was this his protective and amazing warrior instincts setting off a primal reaction in her? She was too jazzed by him to even sort that out. Jeff wasn’t someone she had to consider in this, not even the physical with him was as potent as Ruckus’s hand against her face. Her hands traveled up to his shoulders, roped with muscle, to the back of his neck and up into his hair, her arms twining around his neck.

Feeling totally shredded inside, she wrestled with her conscience and her burgeoning desire, the awful unsatisfied ache throbbing through her whole body. When his chest pressed against her sensitized nipples, she cried out.

Her eyes popped open when he crushed her in a hard, fierce embrace, his hand roughly tangling in her loose hair as he jammed her head against him.

Immobilized by the onslaught of need, Dana clung to him, certain she would collapse if he let her go. She had never experienced anything like it—the heavy, surging feeling of two parts merging, the awesome power of two strong personalities meshing, the stunning wash of wanting. It had been a lifetime of not knowing what it really meant to be alive. And now it was all out of control, the need, the hunger, the raw emotion. But even so, not enough. Never enough.

Her breathing out of control, she locked her arms around him, pulling herself flush against him, needing him, needing more.

Hoarsely whispering her name, Ruckus met her move, the day still unnaturally dark, then spread his hand wide in her hair and turned her head. His heart pounding in tandem with hers, he brushed his mouth across hers, and the surge of raw sexual energy was like being infused with pure lightning.

Her breathing paralyzed, she lifted herself higher and opened her mouth, needing the heat of him. Ruckus shuddered, grinding his mouth against hers as he crushed her even tighter. Full, blunt force body contact.

Everything she had ever believed about herself was incinerated by that hot, wet plundering kiss. Making a low sound of restraint, he tried to tear his mouth away, but she grasped his face, holding him to her, unable to let him go. She had to finish this, had to have him or she would break into thousands of frantic bits.

His breathing raw and labored, Ruckus ripped his mouth away and framed her face with his hands, “Dana, we can’t. I don’t have anything…”

“It’s okay,” she pleaded with him, her voice breaking. “Birth control.”

She took his hand and ran it down her body to the waistband of her pants. Another tremor shuddered through him when he released the snap, his other hand cupping her breast, kneading and rubbing his thumb over her nipple. “Fuck, cupcake,” he whispered brokenly, his breath hot against her ear.

She bit her lip as his big, hot hand slipped between her clothes and skin. Desperate for him, she cupped the hard ridge bulging beneath the placate of his camo pants, and he clutched her and stiffened, his body rigid with tension. She moved again, and he clutched her tighter, then his hand pushed against her pelvis, his fingers found her core, moist and hot. He teased his fingers over her again and again while she fondled any part of him she could, her hand going up to the stubble on his face, the scratch of it against her palm turning her on even more.

Bracing her weight, he thrust his fingers up inside her, his mouth taking her low cry of satisfaction at the penetration, aching for his hard cock.

Then his thumb was on her core and her world splintered as she came in a hard, blinding rush.

He fumbled with his pants, and Dana cried out when he pulled them down, crying out again when she felt him free and hard. Blinded by sensation, she arched, but instead of entering her, he gathered her hands above her head, his fingers locked around her wrists. “I want to fuck you until I feel all your cupcake sweetness clench around my cock.” He rubbed against her again, then said, his voice gruff and demanding. “Touch me, Dana. I loved the feel of your small hands all over me.” He pressed his face into her neck. She wrestled out of his grasp, reached out and slipped her hand around the length of him. He made such a deliciously deep male sound in the back of his throat she knew she’d never get sick of hearing that over and over. She rubbed the silky, engorged tip with her thumb and Ruckus thrust into her palm. His breathing ragged. “Feels so good, babe.”

She’d never wanted to go down on a man as much as right this minute, but they were too far gone for that. He tightened his hold and lifted her almost on her tiptoes. “Put my dick into you. I want to feel you around me.”

She guided him to her, on the brink from just the feel of him, his husky voice. He choked out her name and thrust into her, gathering her butt in his hands, he ordered, “Wrap your legs around me.” His eyes were dark and as deep and incandescent as a flame.

With her back braced against the tree, thunder rumbled again right over them, he lifted her and she locked her ankles to the middle of his back.

She opened her eyes and watched his beautiful face contort as he thrust into her slowly at first then faster, groaning at their first contact. Looking tough and sexy, his tousled hair glittered with moisture, running off his nose, dripping from his scarred chin. The bleeding from a gash on his forehead an angry red line.

Thunder rolled through the leaden skies and through them. The rain came a little harder as sensations gathered, centering right on where he was entering her. Every thrust brought her closer and closer, until her body felt as tight as a glove. Then everything exploded, and pulses of release ripped through her, the thunder overhead and was now trapped inside her, a tortured groan twisted Ruckus’s hips, his own climax pumping into her.

Incoherent and shattered, she hung on to him, a rock-solid handhold in this raging storm. It seemed like an eternity passed before bits of consciousness returned full force. She had her arms still wrapped around him. He was breathing deeply, supporting her with those heavily muscled arms, the rounded bulge of his bicep filling out the T-shirt’s short sleeves.

Trembling and weak, and feeling as if every bone in her body had been liquefied, she folded around him, aware of how tightly he was holding her, aware of how badly he was trembling.

Her face wet from the now diminishing rain, she cupped his head and tightened her legs, an unbearable tenderness welling up in her as she cradled him against her. This had been like spontaneous combustion and she had to face the fact that what she had with Jeff couldn’t even scratch the surface of what she had found with this stranger, this badass warrior. And, unlike Jeff, she wanted to know everything about him. Delve down into his soul and discover all his secrets, the very essence of him.

That thought rocked her, because there was no future here. He was pledged to the military and she spent more time running the globe then Ruckus probably did. Jeff could attest to that.

In hindsight, she should have broken it off with Jeff. It was why the thought of marriage with him had made her palms sweat. He wasn’t the man for her.

The fact remained that she and this SEAL had something going on for sure. She had no idea where it would lead, but her sense of adventure was all up for the challenge. The fact that she was having feelings for him was totally natural. He’d saved her life so many times. She rubbed her palm over his soft, wet hair.

Ruckus turned has face against her neck, his hands still supporting her. His voice muffled, he asked, his tone very gruff, “Are you okay, cupcake?”

Moved beyond words by his concern for her, and overcome with her need to be honest with him, she pressed her mouth against his temple. Her own voice was very uneven as she whispered, “You should know. You’re the one who literally wrestled freaking alligators for me.”

“Technically, they were caiman, a bit smaller.”

“Really, you want to split hairs here? They still had some pretty sharp teeth and were eyeing us both for dinner.”

He raised his head and gave her a wry smile. Damn, he had impossibly thick lashes. “Is everything an argument with you?”

“It’s a healthy debate. Do you have a problem with a woman having an opinion?”

“Nope, as long as she keeps it to herself.”

She gasped and smacked him on his very hard shoulder. “Put me down, you caveman.”

The muscles in his back bunched, and he wiggled his hips, sending aftershocks through her. “I don’t think so. I’m kind of enjoying having you at my mercy.”

Her heart tripped over itself then dissolved into a puddle. He gave her an incinerating look that made her want to find a resort, a bed and many days to delve into all that promise in those dark eyes.

“You really have a caveman complex, don’t you?”

He chuckled and the sound of his amusement moved through her like the desire had only moments before. “I’m interested in pulling your hair, but it has nothing to do with dragging you anywhere except beneath me.” With a breathless, mighty move, he caught her underneath her armpits and lifted her as easily as he’d fought those creepy predators. For just a moment, he held her aloft, then he leaned forward and kissed her mouth. Taking his time as those powerful arms kept her suspended.

He set her down, and she went to get her pants and underwear, wobbling a bit. He steadied her immediately, then said, “Allow me.” He bent at the waist, the quick view of his thick torso, those lean abs and groin much too brief. She’d never wanted to see a man naked as much as she wanted to see him. Completely buck ass naked for hours so she could explore every inch of his hard, muscled body.

He held her delicate panties in those big hands. “Step in, cupcake. We don’t have all friggin’ day,” he growled. She set her hand on his shoulder. God, she loved his grumpiness. She stepped into the panties as he kissed her stomach his lips soft, his breath warm against her skin. He pressed his face harder, breathing her in, his face scratchy, sending tingling waves out in surges. His tongue licked her ribs, then bit her gently before pulling them up. He released the waistband with a snap and she laughed.

His face was hard, aroused. “If we weren’t out in this jungle with all these bastards after us, a package to pick up and a mission to complete, I’d have you holed up somewhere for a freaking week.”

“Pants,” she said with a grin. “We don’t have all friggin’ day.” She mimicked his deep voice, poking fun at him.

He grabbed her around the waist and dragged her against him. “Do me up, first, will ya? If I go back down for those pants, I might just go down on you, my dick will get harder than I already am, and we’ll get ourselves shot to death because I’m doing you instead of watching our backs.”

The laughter faded from her face at his intense look. Reaching down, her breath trapped in her throat, her eyes never leaving his, she reached for the edge of his underwear and not meaning to, fondled him as she pulled it up over his hot erection.

“Fuck,” he said softly, pressing his forehead to hers, his breathing uneven. “Love those damn hands.”

Unable to resist it, she leaned forward and kissed him. Rubbing her lips over his mouth as she found and zipped him up, careful over that tantalizing bulge. Then she did up the button.

Her hands lingered around his lean waist, enjoying his warm skin. “How was that? Did I handle your…uh…hardware satisfactorily?”

He made a purely male sound in the back of his throat and crowded her against the tree. God, the man could kiss, putting his whole self into it, leaning in harder, making her mindless with the taste of him, never giving her a chance to catch her breath.

It was like running full out.

He slowed, then broke the kiss, pressing his forehead to hers. Taking a deep breath, he crouched and helped her with her pants, this time keeping his mouth and face away from her torso.

He had something that weakened her. Not so much his looks; she’d been around hundreds of handsome dangerous men. The way he kissed was a good contender, melting at the lingering feel of his lips against hers as they shouldered their packs and started out again. He could touch her in places she didn’t want any man to. The vulnerability warned her that connections to him would compromise her. She completely understood why she’d taken up with Jeff. He was no threat. He was easy going, sweet, and kind. All this time she was just marking time with him because he’d been safe.

Not the same kind of safe that Ruckus was, the SEAL was a challenge, arrogant, pushy, bossy, and amazing. Jeff was no effort. All she could do was feel relief.

That weakness attacked her again, the need to share, to not be so alone. But she couldn’t. She had a mission, too and it wasn’t to get lost in Ruckus. She’d promised her mom to do something important and she couldn’t let her down.

Not like she’d done six months ago. She’d failed so utterly in her pledge that guilt, the kind that twisted someone into something unrecognizable seized her and wouldn’t let go. How could she deserve to find any kind of happiness when there was so much suffering in the world? Her mom had given up everything for it.

How could Dana do any less?