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Mace didn’t want to be influenced by the fact that he thought she was a damned hot-looking woman. She couldn’t be more than in her late twenties. It was her wide green eyes, framed by thick black lashes, that grabbed his immediate attention. Big black pupils surrounded by that rich green color, a thin black ring around her iris. The look of an eagle. She didn’t miss a thing, Mace saw, as she aimed herself at a steady jog right up to where he was standing.
He saw the calm look in her face, and he couldn’t tell what the hell she was thinking as they silently sized one another up. She moved her XP sniper rifle, enclosed in its rainproof sheath, over to her left hand. Thrusting out her right hand toward him, he heard her say, “I’m Chastain. Sergeant Kilmer?”
Mace stared down at her offered hand. She had long, tapered fingers. A graceful womanly hand. He quickly observed a number of old, white scars across the back of it. A part of him wanted to grip her hand and feel her flesh, feel her feminine fingers. Another part reared back in anger. He refused to take her hand, glaring down at her. Mace saw her full lips purse, her eyes hardening as she dropped her offer of a handshake.
“Yeah, I’m Kilmer. Shield was supposed to send a man,” he snarled. “What the hell happened?”
“They decided a man couldn’t handle this assignment, Sergeant. So, they sent a woman instead.”
He reared back at her droll reply, her gaze unwavering and never leaving his, challenging him. Mace would have respected her if she’d been a man. Never mind that he could see the soft fullness of her breasts even beneath the thick cammie jacket she wore. Chastain was tall. Maybe five ten or five eleven. And she sure as hell wasn’t afraid of HIM, her face giving nothing away except the fact she was pissed off at his poor manners.
“This is a mistake,” he growled. He called in his men. They had to make tracks, or they could run into Volkov and his blood-thirsty team.
“Sure is,” she said, in a growl that matched his own. “Let’s get this show on the road. I want Volkov sooner, not later.” And then she added acidly, “So I can get the hell away from the likes of you as soon as possible.”
Mace almost laughed. Almost. Well, he could see she was nothing like Lauren Parker insofar as personality went. “What’d you do, Sugar? Drink a quart of vinegar this morning for breakfast?”
Her fine nostrils quivered, and her eyes narrowed as she considered his gruff reply. “I don’t like bullies, Sergeant.” She jammed her index finger down, pointed at the damp jungle floor between them. “Let’s settle this right now because I don’t want to spend one more minute in this team of yours with your attitude. I’M NOT YOUR ENEMY. Volkov is. So, get your head screwed on straight about this op and stop this sniping at me because I’m sure as hell not taking it from anyone. Especially you.”
CHAPTER 3
Why was herbody quivering inwardly like it was aching and yearning? Sierra couldn’t believe the rudeness this Special Forces sergeant gave her. She knew her body and knew when a man turned her on. And, dammit it all, Kilmer was a helluva ruggedly good-looking specimen of a man. There was a powerful, sensual aura around him. Nothing obvious, for sure, but she was picking up on it like he was the other half of her or something.No way.Sierra was shocked by her body responding like that, at his angry gaze sweeping across her face and torso. Her body reacting so blatantly to those eyes of his looking her up and down. His arms were sprinkled with dark hair, the cuffs of his cammies rolled up to just below his elbows. She caught herself almost about to become mesmerized by the play of muscles as he flexed his hands. The man was built. Tight, and in superb physical condition. Too bad his sour personality sucked in comparison.
Kilmer’s gray eyes were almost colorless, like ice. Like him. Her fingers flexed around the XP sheath in her left hand. He looked gut-shot when she took him to ground with her sharply worded comeback. What? He wasn’t used to dealing with a woman in a confrontation? Her lips twitched, but Sierra decided not to smile because he was clearly upset. His nicely shaped mouth was bowed into a downward curve. His glare did nothing to her. She’d been hazed, unmercifully razzed, and bullied by Marines a helluva lot tougher and bigger than he was. And she’d taken their shit and thrown it back at them. Still, she liked the way the man stood, his wide shoulders proud and thrown back with natural ease. He wasn’t pretty boy looking at all. But he had a darkly tanned face, three days’ worth of scruff on it, making him look dangerous.
She saw all the crow’s feet at the corners of his large, wide-spaced eyes, saw the intelligence in the man, despite his obvious prejudice against women. And, as her gaze drifted downward, across that magnificently sprung chest of his, her fingers itched to explore beneath his cammie to find out more. Where was her brain? Now, she was acting like a man: thinking between her legs! Sierra had never had this happen in her life, and it threw her completely off balance. Not about to go there, having a job to do, she lifted her eyes again, meeting his.
“Where’s your men?”
“Coming. Are you going to take over my team, too?”
For an instant, she saw a gleam of amusement in his eyes, and then it was gone.
“Tell you what, Sergeant. You stay on YOUR turf, and I’LL stay on mine. Don’t try to tell me what to do and I won’t do it back. Deal?” Again, Sierra saw that brief laughter in his eyes. She wondered if he was laughing at her. Most likely.
“You got a deal, Sweetheart.”
Sierra almost snapped at him to not call her by that nickname, but the southern drawl this man had was as if he’d reached out and stroked her flesh with that whiskey tone of his. Her skin DID react! She got gooseflesh up and down her arms, as if in reaction to the caressing quality of his low, sensual male voice. Instead, she gave him an irritated look.
Kilmer stood with one hand around his M-4, the other hanging loosely at his side, a man completely comfortable with himself. Sierra liked the way his damp cammies hung on his male frame. He wore a knife on his left, down on his hip. A .45 pistol in a drop holster was strapped to one of his thick, oak-like thighs. Like her, he wore a large ruck on his back. The man positively oozed sex. She licked her lips, an almost unconscious reaction, and quickly jerked her gaze away, focusing instead on the man coming in from Kilmer’s right.
The soldier was a few inches taller than she was, with short brown hair, a scruff beard, and eagle-focused blue eyes. He was dressed like Kilmer. The look in his gaze as he drew closer, and got a bead on her face, was one of shock. Yeah, they must have been expecting a man, not her. Sierra had no idea how the communications had gotten screwed up, but she didn’t care. The soldier halted, throwing out his hand to her.
“Chastain? I’m Cale Merrill. Glad you made it here safely.”
Sierra instantly like the warmth in the man’s eyes. “Thanks, Sergeant Merrill.”
“Call me Cale,” he said, shouldering the strap on his M-4 over his shoulder. “We don’t stand on much protocol around here.”
The third soldier arrived. He slowed, his green eyes going large as he looked Sierra over, surprise in his expression.
She gave him her hand. “Sierra Chastain,” she told him.
“Nate Cunningham. Just call me Nate. Glad to have you aboard.”
“Thanks,” Sierra said, giving Kilmer a dirty look. His men were a helluva lot nicer than he was. He merely gave her a bored look back, as if waiting for introductions to be waded through so he could get on to more important business.
“Sierra,” Nate said, shouldering his rifle. “An unusual name.”
