CHAPTER 1
“Going on a hike was such a great idea of yours, Gage,” Alexa Culver said, her spirits high as she looked back at him as they hiked a trail deep in the Virginia woodlands. Around her, late September leaves were turning red, yellow, and orange. Some drifted down toward them, creating a picture-perfect fall morning. They had just reached the top of a large hill above their recently purchased 1850s farmhouse.
“Anywhere with you is always a great idea.” Gage grinned as he picked his way along the steep, rocky trail covered with crunchy, dry leaves. The eighty-degree morning breeze swirled playfully around them as he caught up with Alexa, watching as she absently tucked her auburn hair behind her ears.
Today, Gage was wearing fitted jeans that emphasized his lean, tall body. Alexa always appreciated his lithe energy: like a cougar, he prowled rather than walked. She recognized this was partly from his training as a Marine Corps sniper, but it was also an inborn quality that had served them both well recently.
Even when they’d met last November at the Bagram Army base north of Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital, she’d been aware of the powerful, undiluted sexual chemistry between them. But she had never imagined that in a few short days, Gage and his SEAL team would rescue her and eight other women from the Taliban. Since that time, they had grown even closer to each other, and were now back home in the States working for Artemis Security. It was the hidden security branch within Delos, the largest global charity.
But those terrifying, life-changing events had been indelibly burned into Alexa’s memory. She tried to bury them by working longer, harder hours—in fact, she was in the office seven days a week, and found that when she was focusing on being director of Artemis’s Safe House Foundation, she could crowd them out. Whether she could ever completely heal from those two devastating days, during which she had endured verbal abuse, assault, beatings, and nonstop sexual humiliation, no one could guess.
Now, Gage slowed his pace, his long fingers wrapped around the red shoulder straps of the large knapsack he carried on his back. “You look as if you belong out here,” he said, leaning over to brush her smiling lips with a kiss. His body, as always, hungered for Alexa. He’d missed making love to her, but because she’d been so devastated by her capture by the Taliban, he’d told her he would wait until she was ready to be intimate again.
Gage never kidded himself that he could read a woman’s mind, but he did know Alexa well enough to read her body language. Today, she looked particularly attractive in her white shorts and a sleeveless cotton tee the color of her auburn hair. She was free of makeup, and he saw the light sprinkling of girlish freckles peeking out across her cheeks.
He loved her. Gage knew her so well that he could read her moods from her eyes. He had learned that when the brown flecks in her eyes were prominent, she was emotionally upset about something. But if the green and gold were front and center, she was happy and at peace.
“Look at this,” he said, leaning down and capturing a red leaf at their feet. Holding it up, he brought it near her ponytail lying on her right shoulder. “The colors almost match,” he said, placing the recently dropped leaf next to her hair. Gage drew in her scent, which made his growing erection harden even more. Alexa gazed down at it, a playful look on her face; both were aware that they’d had no sex together for five days.
Now, she stepped forward and pressed her breasts against his chest. Unable to resist, Gage pulled her to him and captured her mouth, now soft and willing beneath his. Reluctantly easing away from her, drowning in those green-flecked eyes that showed how much she loved him, Gage breathed in the scent of almond oil in her hair, a fragrance that always aroused him.
Alexa’s mother, Dilara, who was Turkish with a bit of Greek, put a few drops in her own hair every morning to make it shine, and her daughter tended to follow her mother’s example—from her high-fashion clothing, to her perfect makeup and skillfully arranged coiffure.
“Wow,” Alexa laughed. “That’s quite a match.” Her eyes crinkled with humor as she examined the leaf. “Hey, are you calling me a dried up old leaf, Hunter?”
He chuckled. “Not hardly, Ms. Culver.” His heart swelled. It was rare, since her capture and rescue, that the Alexa he’d met and fallen in love with had resurfaced. And the wicked smile on those beautifully shaped lips, combined with the dancing glint in her eyes, boded well.
Gage silently congratulated himself on having dragged Alexa kicking and screaming away from the office for this noontime hike up into the hills. She had been getting ready at nine a.m. on Saturday to drive into work, but her face reflected the strain she was under. Gage had avoided telling Alexa what to do since her ordeal with the Taliban, whenever possible urging her to take control of her activities. But this time, he was damn glad he’d coaxed her into taking this five-mile hike into the Virginia hills above their farmhouse. Already, the strain and smudges around her eyes were gone. The young woman standing before him right now was the Alexa he’d met at Bagram, and he couldn’t feel more grateful to have her back.
“It’s beautiful up here,” Alexa breathed, gesturing around the hilltop crowned with colorful trees. The sky was a deep marine blue with a few fluffy clouds drifting overhead. Breathing in deeply, she leaned against him, her hand on his chest, looking skyward. “I love the smell of autumn leaves, Gage.” Turning, she gazed at his ruggedly handsome face, his light blue eyes warm with love.
“Do you wish you were flying your Stearman biplane instead of being chained here to the earth?” he teased, lifting his hand to graze her rosy cheek with his thumb. His touch always aroused her, and he watched her pupils grow larger, her lips part. He fought his desire to take her right there. They had been together for five days, and it hadn’t been the right time or place to resume their steamy connection.
“I don’t know,” Alexa murmured. “It’s a perfect day to fly. But right now,” she smiled as she moved her hips suggestively against the thick bulge beneath his jeans, “I like being earthbound with you.” Alexa saw how Gage’s expression changed from loving to lusty, and it made her inner thighs dampen even more. She grazed his recently shaven cheek, feeling completely loved and cared for as he tightened his arm around her shoulder. Slowly moving so their hips touched, she pinned herself against him. “I can’t really pilot the Stearman and make love with you at the same time.”
“Hmm,” Gage said, giving her a crooked grin. His long fingers caressed her sweet, rounded cheeks beneath her flimsy white cotton shorts. “If you had a choice, Ms. Culver, which would you prefer: making love with me, or flying into the arms of your beloved sky?” He saw her eyes crinkle, that wicked look deepening in her hazel eyes.
“Oh, my choice would always be you, Mr. Hunter. I’ve never met a man who could love me as wonderfully as you do.”
In response, he leaned over and nibbled on her ear lobe, feeling her breath draw swiftly inward, knowing it was giving her pleasure. She moaned as he continued to nip, kiss, and then lick his way down her exposed slender neck, her hips grinding against his. Yes, his woman was hungry for some great sex, and so was he. But with Alexa, Gage never called it “sex,” because it was a hundred times more powerful than two people simply getting physical pleasure.
Since her capture, Alexa was aware that the desire to make love with Gage came and went, mostly depending upon moods that she could not control. When she was in a “down cycle,” she sometimes couldn’t even let Gage touch her. That was when he knew she was reliving the horror she’d experienced within the Taliban caves in Afghanistan. Then, usually about three days later, she’d cycle up again and return to the Alexa she’d been before her capture.
“Then,” Gage rasped, moving his tongue over the arch of her delicate ear, “you have another big decision to make. It’s almost noon. Are you hungry for food, or for something else?” He heard her breathy sigh as her hand wrapped across his bulge beneath his jeans. Groaning, he caressed her butt, moving his finger down the crease, hearing her gasp with anticipation.
From the beginning, Alexa had brought out the hugger, toucher, and embracer in him. She had helped him heal from his own dark past so much so that it astounded him at times. Her natural warmth, her caring, and her need for a loving physical connection opened his heart in ways it never had before. Yes, Alexa was a sensual, highly erotic woman, and she genuinely enjoyed the pleasure her body received from him, but since her capture lovemaking had been erratic.
Right now, however, she was that sleek, sensual, purring animal who aroused him immediately, and she was ready for him. He could see it in her eyes and the movements of her body.
The day was perfect, Gage decided, loosening his embrace with her, allowing his hand to move between her thighs, close to her crotch, feeling the dampness there. His cock jerked in response, trapped in the tight, tough fabric of his jeans.
Alexa continued to caress his erection, driving him nearly insane with the need to plunge inside her. She looked around and said, “Hey, I see a really nice place to put down our blanket. Over there.” She lifted her hand away from his crotch to point at the very top of the hill.
“Hmm, looks like a well-protected spot, speaking as a sniper,” he suggested, easing her beneath his arm and walking her in that direction. Alexa slipped her arm around his waist, languidly leaning against him.
“Who better to trust for a hiding spot than a sniper, right?” She laughed, nuzzling into his chest, kissing his damp red T-shirt. Gage was the sexiest-looking man she’d ever seen in jeans and a tee. It oozed out of his pores naturally. He always claimed he didn’t realize it, but as a woman, she could sense it a mile away.
When she’d been an A-10 combat pilot, a captain in the Air Force, and had met Gage, a Marine Corps sniper, she hadn’t cared that the man was enlisted and she was an officer. He’d drawn her to him like a powerful, sexual magnet.
Then she discovered that he was kind, tender, and sensitive. He never treated her like an object, someone whose value was merely sexual. Nor did he think he was superior because he was a man. Gage had always treated her like an equal, his attitude a gift he was given by his very loving parents. His Marine Corps sniper father had openly shown affection, love, respect, and equality to his wife and their children, and Alexa silently blessed his now deceased parents. They had given Gage a healthy model for how to treat women, and for that, Alexa would be eternally grateful.
Gage slid a look down at her. “It’s a good position,” he agreed. The place he had brought her to was a circle of brush eight to ten feet tall on the crown of the hill, where the vegetation received a lot of sunlight. There was an entry point to the brush, and he led her into it, looking around. It reminded him of the caves of Afghanistan, and he suddenly felt concerned, watching Alexa’s face as she gazed around the enclosure. He was unsure how she’d take the fairly intimate, walled area.
“Perfect,” Alexa declared, releasing him. “Come on, I’ll open that ruck you’re wearing and pull out the blanket.”
Relief swept through him, and he turned toward her as she unzipped the back. “Like it, huh?”
“Yes, it hides us well.”
He arched an eyebrow. “And who is going to stop you from screaming when you have your first of many orgasms?”
She giggled and pulled out the bright green wool blanket from the ruck. “No one! You said this was the highest hill around and that there were no houses nearby.”
Chuckling, he eased out of the ruck and set it near the thicket wall. Alexa joined him in picking up two ends of the blanket and spreading it out in the center of the grass, away from rocks or fallen tree limbs. “I did say that, but you know—shrieks of pleasure do have a way of being carried in the wind.”
“Well,” she pouted, smoothing out the blanket. “Who’s going to hear it? The trees? The cows down below over in that farmer’s field?”
“Okay by me,” Gage murmured, giving her a burning look that made her lick her lower lip. His cock was killing him. “So what are we waiting for? Let’s get undressed.” He pulled the red T-shirt over his head, his toned chest and firm belly made Alexa hungrier than ever for him.
“You have the most beautiful chest and shoulders, Gage Hunter,” she admired, moving toward him and splaying her fingers across his lightly dusted chest. Leaning forward, she licked one of his nipples and he froze, then groaned as she continued to lick and then lightly nibble it.
“Baby,” he pleaded, easing her away. “I won’t last another minute with a frontal assault like that.”
Making a pitying sound in the back of her throat, Alexa stepped away and met his feral gaze. “Well, hurry up!” she laughed. “Last person undressed is a rotten egg!”
With that, she pulled her tee over her head, revealing that she hadn’t worn a bra. Had she been planning this?
Gage fumbled with the metal snap on his jeans. “No fair!”
“Gotcha!” Alexa laughed, shimmying swiftly out of her shorts. She’d worn no panties, either. In seconds, she’d pushed off her tennis shoes, standing proudly naked before him, her hands on her waist, grinning.
Giving her a dark look, Gage grumbled as he opened and unzipped his jeans. “Okay, you beat me. I concede to the world’s fastest stripper.”
“Ohh,” Alexa said, looking at his erection pop out of the opened zipper. “I think I’m the winner here.” She stepped forward and slid her hands around him before he had pushed his jeans down over his hard, curved thighs. Gliding her fingers up and down the warm, hard velvet shaft, she gave him a coy look. “You have the most beautiful cock, Gage. I know I’ve told you that before, but . . .” she sighed, lightly moving her fingertip over the crest, “you are a beautifully built man.”
Gritting his teeth, he stayed frozen in place as Alexa’s soft, exploring fingers, delicate and sensitive, wrapped around his aching erection. She’d damn near made him come, and Gage was already leaking like a sieve. That was the kind of effect she had on him.
“I’m not going to get undressed unless you let me go,” he told her gruffly, leaning over and giving her a swift, hot kiss on her smiling lips.
“Okay,” she murmured, reluctantly releasing him. “I’ll be a good girl.”
He snorted in disbelief and finished stripping. Then he grabbed her, hauling her slender body against his. She laughed, rubbing her pelvis against his straining cock, sending boiling heat licking through him.
“You are such a tease,” he rasped, nipping her neck just enough to make her want to dodge him. Gage would never cause her pain, but he knew how to create intense, building pleasure in her highly sensitive erogenous zones.
“Me? A tease?” Alexa said, her smile widening as she slid her arms around his shoulders, feeling him hardening, knowing he wanted her as badly as she wanted him. Rubbing her belly against his trapped erection, she focused on the intensity of his eyes, the combination lover/sniper/hunter that would always be within him. “I just know what I like, Hunter. What about you?”
Gage had to laugh out loud as she gave him that innocent look of hers. Alexa, a tough, aggressive combat pilot, wasn’t at all shy about going after what she wanted and taking it. She was a type A personality; but then, so was he.
“Well,” he said, lifting her off her feet and into his arms, “let’s get down to business, shall we?”
Her breathy laughter promised him dizzying pleasures ahead, and he wanted to be inside her now, surrounded by her thick, warm juices, and stay there forever. They had many things in common, among them strong sex drives that brought them both to climax again and again.
Gently depositing her on the blanket, he watched as Alexa lifted herself up just enough to pull him down on the blanket beside her, urging him onto his back. Gage saw the combat pilot in her expression now, as if she were getting ready to make a bombing run. His whole body flexed in anticipation. After five days of abstinence, both of them felt like boiling teakettles about to spill over.
“I’m today’s target of opportunity, huh?” he asked as she straddled his hips with her long, firm thighs.
“Yes, indeed,” she breathed, rubbing her wet core against his upright cock, making a low, satisfied sound in her throat. She splayed out her palms on his chest, slowly rubbing up and down on him, watching his eyes half close, and smiling as he couldn’t hold back any longer, releasing a hoarse moan. “Oh, baby,” he groaned, reaching for her.
“Uh-huh,” she said. “Keep your hands at your sides, Hunter. You can’t touch me. I want you to lie still.”
Grimacing, he muttered, “That will be pure hell for me.”
She closed her eyes. “Just for a little while. I feel so much pressure inside me, Gage, and I need to come . . . soon . . .”
Gage nodded, “I need to touch you, Alexa.” He slid his hands over her hips, helping her move, bringing down more pressure upon her body, rubbing her firmly onto his cock. He fought not to come, closing his eyes and gritting his teeth. “Ride me, baby . . . ride me . . .”
Gage damn near lost control as she settled against his wet, slick shaft. He was dying to taste her, kiss her, and suck her nipples. His body was on fire as she worked him over.
Alexa closed her eyes, her chin tipped upward, a sweet smile on her parted lips revealing how much pleasure she was taking for herself as she rocked back and forth on him. Every woman with experience knew that riding a man’s cock was the surest way to a swift, intense orgasm.
At this point, Alexa didn’t even have to be entered to accomplish the next stage: his thick, warm erection moved against her swollen, aching clit, in perfect alignment for an explosion. And it came suddenly, making her cry out.
Gage felt her thighs tighten around his hips as a low, keening sound began deep within her. A rush of moist, hot juices spilled over him and Alexa froze, unable to move as the powerful orgasm swept through her in undulating rhythm as he slid her back and forth. Gage knew how to milk her body, even if she couldn’t move, making her pleasure almost unbearably intense. More than anything, he wanted his brave, beautiful woman to be thrown into that faraway land of magic, heat, and soaring pleasure.
Spent, Alexa finally crumpled, lying down beside him so her brow nestled next to his neck and jaw, breathing raggedly. Her hand weakly opened and closed against his other shoulder.
Gage had a typical sniper’s patience and allowed Alexa time to stop trembling, meanwhile releasing small cries of pleasure. Her breathing was chaotic, punctuated by more happy, little sounds caught in her throat. As he gentled her heaving, quivering body, hand open and palm flat, lightly skimming her long spine, he kissed her hair. The scent of her sex almost undid him, but he controlled himself for her sake. There were few things that made her terrible memories go away and gave her some peace. Having an orgasm was one of them. The other was Gage’s slow, sensual loving.
Finally, the warmth of the noontime breeze, mixed with the scent of drying leaves on the dirt floor around them, conspired to soothe her as well. Gage kept his touch feather light as he grazed her damp shoulders and back. Alexa clung to him as if afraid that if she let go of him, she would lose him forever.
Gage knew it was a result of her kidnapping, being tied down to a steel gurney and sexually assaulted. Sometimes when he slept, he would awaken and find her clinging to him like a life raft. It was then that he knew she was caught up in another nightmare, little whimpers of terror coming from deep within. He would soothe her with his hands, his body curving protectively around hers, claiming her with his low, calming voice. Then, Alexa would begin to relax, stop clinging to him, and surrender to sleep instead.
Gage did the same now, wanting to lull her, maybe allow her to fall asleep with him and make up for all the sleep she lost nightly. He doubted she slept more than three or four hours a night, and it was broken, light sleep at that. Alexa was battling the monsters who had murdered part of her soul. She would never get that destroyed piece back, but Gage could be there to help her heal the rest of the emotional fractures that reminded her of the experience.
And little by little, Alexa was healing. But as a combat pilot who made things happen in a split second within the cockpit of her A-10, she was learning that life on the ground was very different.
Gage sensed her frustration with herself, always down upon herself, always expecting more, and far too quickly.
An assaulted body, brain, heart, and emotions took time to heal. Gage knew that because his sister, Jen, and his father had been torn from him and his mother. It took seven years for him to come to terms with the worst of the shock that day. Then, while Gage was in the Marine Corps, his mother had suddenly died and he was left with no family, only photos and memories.
Gage kissed Alexa’s mussed hair, feeling her burrow her face against his jaw. A soft smile tugged at his mouth as he continued to caress her hair, and with his other hand hold her protectively. She responded well to both, and he was grateful. “Okay?” he whispered in her ear, feeling her breathing shallow out.
“Mmm . . . that felt so good, Gage . . . thank you . . . thank you so much . . .”
Closing his eyes, he breathed deep and brought her sexy fragrance into his lungs. “Feel a little relief now?” He could hear the sleepiness in her voice and knew just how tired she really was.
“Mmm . . . much . . . better . . .” and her words slipped away.
Smiling to himself, Gage felt her entire body relax. She felt like a sweet, warm blanket placed over him. Alexa trusted him, and for that he was ever so grateful. He’d been afraid after her trauma that she would always see in him the Pakistani men who had assaulted her. Fortunately, she didn’t.
Tal, her older sister, agreed with Becka, the Artemis psychiatrist—because Alexa had fully trusted Gage before the assault, her brain still saw him as a “safe” male. Someone who would not hurt her. Alexa was such a little thing against him, sweet, relaxed, her moist breath soft and feathery against his neck. Often, Alexa would sleep after making love with him. It was a time when those arousing hormones cascaded down through her lower body, chased the anxiety away, neutralized it, and left her in a small corner of peace. Gage wished with all his heart he could absorb the painful memories of Alexa’s assault so she could be free of all her PTSD symptoms. But he couldn’t.
The birds were singing around them, the breeze light as it slipped through the tall wall of thickets. The smell of decaying leaves was one of Gage’s favorite autumn fragrances. He rested his hand against the center of her back, her flesh now air-dried. Today had turned out special, and Gage was so glad he’d been able to coax Alexa out into nature, rather than working all day at Artemis.
A blue jay called raucously from a nearby hill. The wind blew a little more, sending down a shower of new leaves twirling and dancing in the arms of the breeze. Gage was content. All he wanted out of his life since meeting Alexa was to love her, marry her, and settle in and eventually become parents. A faint smile tugged at his mouth. Alexa was such a mothering type. It was part of what drew him to her—her large, giving heart and genuine love of people, always trying to alleviate their suffering.
They’d just bought their farmhouse and were enjoying the process of looking for just the right antique furniture to fill it with. His mother’s engagement ring sat on the ring finger of Alexa’s left hand. Their commitment to one another was solid. Only this damned hormone assault was the monster that kept invading her daily world, anxiety ripping through her. When would her memory allow her some peace? When would those nightmares leave her alone?
Becka had told both of them that dreams and nightmares were a safe way for the experience to work its way out of one’s psyche. As time passed, it would be less intense and come up less often until finally, someday, months or years later, it would finally work out of her emotions and she would eventually find some level of peace.
How Gage wanted that day to come sooner than later. He lived to hear Alexa laugh, to see life in her large, intelligent hazel eyes shine once more. He wanted peace for her. Today was a gift, and he relished it. Today, he had the old Alexa back. The day wasn’t over, but he wasn’t going to rush Alexa or wake her up so she could eat lunch.
As a sniper, he had a unique sense of time. He could stretch it, bend it, or shorten it as he needed. What Alexa needed right now was deep, uninterrupted sleep and he was more than happy to be the mattress she lay upon. He held her in his arms because it made her feel safe. He didn’t care if he lay like this for the next five hours if it meant Alexa would sleep the sleep of angels—because she was one.