Running Fire (7 page)

“You're used to having a spotter. Right?” Leah didn't want to spend one more day in this cave if she could help it. She'd go crazy with nothing to do.

“SEALs sometimes work without them, but I do work with a spotter when I can,” he agreed. Kell searched her face. Her chin was stubborn for a reason.

A part of him felt uneasy about leaving her alone and unprotected with the Taliban so close. He knew Leah was trained and could shoot, but with so many enemies gathering a short distance away, he weighed the options.

There was a side to him that was damned protective of women and children in general. Yes, Leah was military, and she sure as hell could kick ass when it came to flying. But on the ground? Ballard wasn't so sure about leaving her alone, open to possible attack. She'd be outgunned.

“Okay,” he said, “I'll let you go with me. We'll be getting up before dawn, though. I have to find a hide on a ridge that looks down on those caves. I have to get a count of men, weapons, and try to look for their leader, Khogani. A lot of what snipers do is recon and that's what we'll be doing. I'm not about to shoot and give away our position. Are you up for that?”

“Anything is better than staying here alone,” Leah said, relieved. “I'm a fast learner, Kell. If you tell me to do something, I will.”

He rubbed his palms slowly up and down his thighs, thinking about her flight suit. “We're going to have to fix you up a set of my cammies to wear.”

Leah got up. “Okay,” she said, “give me those scissors. I'll alter the pant-leg length. If you can get me a cammie blouse, I'll do the same for the arm length.”

He liked her attitude. The Shadow pilot was emerging, in charge, confident and assertive. He liked it a whole hell of a lot. “I have a second ruck in the other cave. While you're cutting a pair of my trouser legs off, I'll get it, stock it and bring the shirt back with me.”

Her spirits rose as she sat down and began to cut the thick fabric, making the trouser length shorter for her legs. Kell's T-shirt was huge on her, but she wasn't going to cut it.

Kell came back about ten minutes later. In one hand, he had a ruck just like the one he wore. In the other, his blouse. He handed it to her.

“Put it on and I'll shorten the sleeves for you with the scissors,” he told her.

Getting up, Leah saw the trousers length was fine. She'd taken dark green nylon rope this morning and fashioned a makeshift belt out of it, the trousers staying around her waist instead of sliding down to her hips. She shrugged into his blouse. It was huge on her, his shoulders were so broad.

Kell grinned, taking the sleeve that hung below her long, beautiful fingers. “You're a little thing, aren't you?” he murmured, quickly cutting away the extra fabric. She turned, holding out the other sleeve.

“Little but mighty,” Leah said, smiling up at him. If Kell was upset with her going along, he didn't show it.

“That you are,” he agreed gruffly, the cuff material falling away.

“This is fine,” Leah said, her hands visible now. She turned and looked at the ruck. “What's in it?”

Kell put the scissors away and walked over to the ruck, opening it up. Kneeling down, he said, “It's an identical copy to the one I wear. SEALs believe one is bad and two is good. Your ruck is going to weigh around fifty pounds. I'll transfer most of the mags out of it and into mine. I don't want you humping sixty or seventy pounds. It will really throw you off your stride and quickly tire you out.” His eyes narrowed. “And you need to remind yourself that you're not fully recovered yet, Leah. We don't need to go far tomorrow, which is good, but the heat out there is a killer, too.”

“As long as I have water and a hat, I'll be fine.”

“Ever done any covert intelligence work?”

“No.”

Kell double-checked the ruck, took out a boonie hat and then closed it up. “You're going to have to stay close to me, Leah. There's a lot to stalking and you're going to have to learn it on the fly.”

“I'll learn, Kell. And I won't be a pain in the ass.”

Shaking his head, his lips curved. “You would never be that to me, Leah. Come on, let's get all your gear ready now before we bed down for the night. Tomorrow, when we get up, we're going roll fairly quickly, then eat a protein bar once we get set up for the recon.”

For the next half hour, Leah felt as if she contributed. Used to working as a team, pilot and copilot, she felt excited about being Kell's partner. An ignorant one, for sure, but she promised herself she'd catch on fast so she wouldn't be a distraction.

Finally, she sat down on her bag after everything she needed was nearby. Surprised, Kell came over and knelt down beside her, his face unreadable

Resting his hands on his thighs, he frowned. “I'm worried because you've had a nightmare every night you've been here.”

Leah nodded, feeling guilty. “And that's not good,” she agreed, apologetic. Voices carried. And in a cave system like this, Leah realized she could possibly alert the enemy to their whereabouts. “What can I do? I know I'm a liability.” Feeling bad, there was no way she wanted to put them at risk. Maybe stuff a sock in her mouth? She cast around for solutions and found none. “Maybe I could go sleep in the other cave?”

He shook his head. “No. If you screamed like you did last night, Leah, we'll be in trouble no matter where you're sleeping.”

“Do you have a sleep med on you? Something I could take that would knock me out?”

“I do, but they don't work like that,” he admitted, his voice low as he held her guilt-ridden gaze. “It doesn't guarantee that you won't have another nightmare and wake up screaming again.”

Groaning, she rubbed her face, frustrated. “I'm sorry. I wish I could control it.”

“It's not your fault, Sugar. You've been through hell and it's the shock working out of your system, is all.” Giving her a slight smile, Kell saw how anguished she'd become over their dangerous situation.

Desperate, Leah tried to think of a way to not scream or make sounds as she slept. Every time he called her Sugar, her heart opened just a little more to Kell. “I don't want you discovered by the Taliban because of me,” she managed, suddenly emotional. “This is my fault—”

“Whoa,” he said, touching her shoulder, “don't go there, Leah. None of this is your fault. You're human. You're hurting. Shock and grief wreak hell on all of us. On you.” He saw her eyes grow moist, felt her sudden desperation. His fingers became more firm on her shoulder. He could feel the soft firmness of her skin beneath the material, and wanted to feel more. Kell felt he was caught in a special hell with her.

“Maybe I'll try to stay awake tonight?” She dug into his narrowing gaze. Her conscience ate at her.

“You'd never make it staying awake all night,” Kell murmured. He dropped his hand back to his thigh. “Besides, if you're working with me tomorrow, you have to get some sleep in order to be alert. I've given it a lot of thought,” he told her hesitantly, frowning.

“Did you come up with an idea?” Leah saw him shrug, his expression suddenly uneasy. Why? Maybe take her up that other tunnel and sit her outside to sleep tonight?

“You probably won't like the idea,” he began, holding her gaze. “But I thought if I held you...if we slept together, it might make you feel safer.”

Stunned, her breath jammed in her throat. She stared at Kell, fear sizzling through her. “What?” she gasped.

He opened his hands. “It's the only thing I can think of, Leah. I know you're an officer. I'm enlisted. I'll just hold you. I promise not to do anything to make you uncomfortable. It's just that we have to do something or there's a good chance we're at risk here.”

Staring at him, Leah felt herself quiver inwardly. Oh, it wasn't him she was worried about. It was her! Mouth dry, she saw the unhappiness in his eyes. Okay, maybe Kell didn't want to do this, but he was making the best of a bad situation. His logic was sound. “I have no idea if it would stop me from having a nightmare.”

“I know,” Kell admitted heavily. He had to go with his gut. Every time he'd held her before, she settled down in his arms. Leah relaxed. She trusted him for whatever reason. “I'm open to any other ideas you have. I can see you're uncomfortable about mine. I knew you would be.”

Her heart wrenched in her chest. If only Kell knew how much she
did
trust him.

Pushing her hair away from her face with her fingers, a sign of nervousness, she whispered, “I don't have another idea, Kell.” She gave him a rueful look. Leah couldn't live with herself if she screamed out in the night. It would put both of them in serious jeopardy.

“I'm sorry,” Kell offered quietly, holding her fearful stare. “Can you do it, Leah, or not?”

Could she? “There isn't a choice...”

CHAPTER SIX

L
EAH
'
S
PULSE
RACED
. She was tense as Kell placed his bag next to hers. Frightened in so many ways, Leah tried to hide her reactions. Most of all, she didn't want to put them at risk.

She saw the serious cast to Kell's face, his brows drawn down, his mouth thinned. He probably didn't like this any more than she did. How long had it been since she'd lain with a man?
Three years. Not since Hayden.
Not that she'd lain in bed with him that much. He liked sex, took what he wanted then left her and went into his own bedroom afterward. In college, she'd been stupid enough to have two affairs, neither of them satisfying. Both men had wanted sex, not a meaningful relationship.

But this was new. And different. They both wore T-shirts and trousers, boots off but socks on their feet. She sat there, feeling trapped again. Fiercely reminding herself Kell had held her before and nothing had happened, Leah forced herself to believe nothing would happen this time. It couldn't. Feeling shaky inside, Leah watched him lie down on his back. Kell laid his long arm across her wool blanket pillow and shut off the flashlight.

Darkness enclosed them and Leah breathed a sigh of relief. She was sure she looked scared. Hands damp, she sat there unmoving, trying to control her breathing, as if nothing were going on. The past slammed into the present.

“Come on,” Kell coaxed quietly, his fingers curving around her right forearm. “I'm not going to bite you.”

His soft Kentucky drawl loosened the fear around her pounding heart. Leah felt a rush of shame. Her inexperience was making her question herself as never before. “Kell?”

“Yes?”

“I'm...uh...” Leah shut her eyes tightly, feeling the dry warmth of his hand on her arm. She absorbed it like a starving thief. “I'm nervous,” she admitted, the words coming out with embarrassment. Leah tensed, waiting for him to call her a bitch as her husband had often done when she'd shown hesitation or hadn't wanted to do what he wanted her to do.

Kell released her arm and sat up, hearing anguish in her voice. He couldn't piece everything together yet about her ex-husband, but he went on his intuition that had never led him wrong. He slid his arm around her tense shoulders. “It's all right. We'll make this easy for you. We'll sit up, prop our backs up against the wall and sleep. Come on, I'll just hold you like this. Put your head on my shoulder like you've done before. You trusted me then, didn't you?”

His warm, moist breath fell across her brow and cheek. Feeling his arm move around her, Leah released a ragged sigh. This wasn't Hayden. This was Kell Ballard, her heart whispered to her. He wasn't pulling her toward him to hurt or control her. Her mind was racing back and forth between the past and the present. “You must think I'm crazy,” she muttered, forcing herself to relax.

The T-shirt lay between her cheek and his heavily muscled shoulder. Tonight, Leah could smell his male scent strongly, the cleanliness of his flesh. It sent spirals of yearning deep into her body. She'd never felt so sensual, or so hot and bothered, in her entire life. Could just the smell of a man send her into some crazy orbit of aching yearning? Leah didn't have the experience to answer her own question. Plus, when Kell had held her before, she'd been wounded, the concussion lowering her protective walls, and she hadn't had this reaction. Now that she was much improved, her walls were up and she struggled with her past overlaying her present.

“You're not crazy,” he reassured her, quietly.
Just scared.
Maybe not of him in particular, but rather men in general? Her ex-husband? Kell leaned his back against the wall, feeling Leah slowly relax against him. He had to make damn sure she never became aware of his erection. There had been veiled anxiety in her voice, and he sensed her trepidation. “That's it,” he crooned, “just relax. I'll hold you safe tonight, Leah.”

She hesitantly allowed her left arm to move across his slab-hard belly, angling her hips against his to get comfortable. The slow rise and fall of his chest and the lazy thud of his heart against her ear conspired to calm her. With every breath he took, she relaxed a little more. “You can't hold me all night like this, Kell,” she protested softly, worried. “You'll get so cramped up from it—”

“You'd be surprised to learn I can stay in one spot for twelve hours straight and never move a muscle.” Because that's what a sniper did when he had to do it. They had infinite persistence and he had that same patience with Leah.

She closed her eyes, feeling his warmth stealing into her. Leah felt him bring up a blanket over her shoulders and tuck it around her. “Thank you...” His scent was perfume to her, lulling her toward sleep.

“Close those beautiful green eyes of yours and let the wings of sleep take you,” Kell told her in a gruff tone. Leah's tension dissolved beneath his voice and he was grateful.

Kell's senses honed in on her. The hesitation of even touching him as she laid her left arm across his belly told him a helluva lot. She had a distrust of men. Due to her ex-husband? She'd screamed out Hayden's name the first night.

On the second night, Leah was fighting and struggling, terror in her expression as he'd awakened her. And she nailed him with a right hook to his chest. What had that bastard done to her to make her react like that?

Oh, he could understand some hesitation because of her being a warrant officer and him an enlisted man. But that wasn't what had driven her to be so damned tentative with him just now. Something bad, very bad, had happened between Leah and her ex-husband. That much Kell knew. He just didn't know what. And anger burned in him as he thought of anyone touching this woman in a way that hurt her. She was brave, caring and intelligent.

His fingers moved more firmly against her upper arm and he wanted to pull her deeper into his embrace, to give her protection she hadn't asked for but that he wanted to provide, anyway.

Leah's hair, soft and silky, tickled his jaw and chin. Her breasts were pressed against the left side of his chest and he could feel their fullness. Kell ached to slide his hand beneath that T-shirt and move his fingers up her long rib cage and gently hold one of those breasts in his palm. Frowning, Kell allowed himself to feel her lush, curved body against his.

Very soon, Leah was asleep. He could feel her body sag against his, her breath softening and becoming slow and shallow. Yeah, she trusted him. It sent a giddy joy through Kell but he tried not to celebrate it.

With the Taliban practically next door, Kell set his body cycle up to catnap. It was important Leah got some seriously healing sleep. Judging by her slow breath, her breasts barely rising and falling against his chest, she was doing exactly that. His mind revolved forward to their present danger. This was close-quarters contact with the enemy. He didn't tell Leah, but for all intents and purposes, they were trapped. There wasn't anywhere to go if they were discovered except out that exfil point, then making their way carefully down a two-thousand-foot cliff on the backside of this mountain. And he didn't have rappelling gear with him to do it, either. Worse, he was sure Leah had no climbing experience whatsoever.

* * *

T
HE
NEXT
TIME
Kell awoke was because he felt Leah shift in his arms. She had almost crawled across him, her head near his right shoulder now, her left arm stretched limply across his waist, her breasts fully pressed against his chest. Taking a slow, deep breath, Kell savored the full contact. She must have shifted but he'd not felt it until now.

What would it be like to feel her naked against him? Just like this. The fullness of her breasts against his chest. Her long, tapered fingers touching him, sensing him, sending hot, scalding signals down into his lower body. He could feel the silk of her hair across his chest.
Breathe
, he ordered himself.
Just breathe.

Ballard wanted to absorb this moment, understanding it would never happen again. Her cheek was warm against his T-shirt. He could feel the moisture of Leah's breath lightly across it, tightening his skin beneath the fabric. Her left hand had curved over his left shoulder, her fingers wrapped around the nape of his neck. She trusted him. At least, in her sleep she did. She might not in her waking hours, however.

Kell lowered his left hand, smoothing the wrinkled T-shirt gently down along her long spine. Leah moaned. Nothing loud, just a soft moan of pleasure, maybe? Yeah, Kell knew he could give Leah pleasure, make her wild with need. He knew how to please a woman, make her first in his life, make her happy to be with him, sharing the same bed. Becoming one.

He had it bad for her, disgusted where his mind and body were going. Leah didn't deserve this from him. She'd given her trust. And it was sacred to Kell.

His memory turned to the past, looking at his fated marriage to Addy. They'd had a great sex life, but the marriage fell apart because he was gone so often and for so long. She was a high-maintenance woman who wanted to be courted, pleasured and have everything life offered her. She loved his body, told him how beautiful he was, appreciated his strength and power. But in the end, sex could never hold a marriage, indeed, a relationship, together for the long haul. That was what Kell had learned from the experience.

He and Addy were still friends. She had remarried and was happy. And he was happy for her because she was a bright light in the world, wanting to make a positive difference. It was just that her passionate light required full-time attention. Sadly, Kell couldn't give that to her. He couldn't give that kind of attention to any woman right now.

Sometimes, especially with Leah lying across him, Kell missed the warmth of a good woman in his arms, beside him in his bed. He missed talking with a woman because they saw life so differently than he did. Kell didn't see that as a minus. He'd always found it a plus. He'd always wanted a woman in his life, but somehow, it hadn't happened since his divorce.

Without thinking, Kell moved his hand gently across Leah's shoulders. It wasn't sexual. It was simply an act of care, of happiness on his part, that she was sharing life with him in this crazy place called Afghanistan.

Could he have ever imagined a woman dropping in like Leah? Here? Out in the middle of some of the worst fighting in this country?
No way.
Not in a million years. And yet, here she was, sprawled like a sated cat across his body, fully trusting him, sleeping soundly in his arms. He felt his erection and released a ragged sigh, looking at his watch. It was 0300. In another hour, he'd have to awaken Leah and they'd have to quietly make their way out of this place and go to work.

* * *

L
EAH
FELT
THE
calloused warmth of roughened fingers against her cheek. Her sleep was so deep that all she did was sigh and absorb the tender touch. It felt so good, so safe. The hand left her cheek and she felt his fingers moving slowly down the strands of her hair, her scalp tingling, the pleasure increasing beneath his strokes.

“Sugar?”

It was Kell's low accent near her ear. Leah felt his hands slide beneath her arms as he lifted her upward. The movement forced her lashes to slowly rise. Moaning, she pressed her face into Kell's strong, thick neck, not wanting to wake up, wanting to continue to enjoy his grazing touches. She felt him laugh. There wasn't a sound, but she could feel the reverberation through his massive chest. Dragging her hand up, she groaned and drowsily rubbed her eyes.

“Time to get up, sleepy head,” he told her, amused. Kell had lifted her off his body and eased Leah up beneath his left arm, her face pressed against his neck and shoulder. She was sleeping so damned hard he felt bad about rousing her. But they had to get going.

“Mmph.”

His mouth curved as he slid his fingers into her hair. “Come on, darlin', we have to get moving.”

Half-awake, all Leah wanted to do was luxuriate in the intimacy strung hotly between them. It felt so natural. So real. So good. Turning she struggled into a sitting position. Her hair was mussed, falling across her face, and she slowly moved the strands aside with her fingers. Kell's arm was loose around her waist. She could feel her body coming alive. Wanting him. Wanting something, but she had no idea what.

“Okay?” Kell asked, turning on the penlight. The blackness fled to grayness and he saw her groggy features as she struggled to wake up.

“Yeah...okay...”

Her voice was thick with sleep, a little husky, and it only made him harder, wanting her even more. Kell forced himself to his feet. If he didn't move away from Leah, he was going to do something really selfish and stupid. He was going to curve her back into his arms and kiss her until she gave him that sweet, husky moan of hers she'd shared with him last night when he'd stroked her back.

Focus, Ballard.

It was the last thing Kell wanted to do. As he grabbed his boots and pulled them on, he saw Leah reach for hers.

“Drink plenty of water before we leave,” he warned her. He walked over to the pool, kneeling down and splashing the icy water across his face. That sure as hell woke him up in a heartbeat. But it hadn't eased the pain of his erection in the least. The danger they faced would force his mind onto other, far more important priorities. He just didn't want Leah to realize how much he wanted her. That would throw a hell of an issue into their relationship. She didn't trust men. Okay, he got that. And if she saw him hard, that would destroy the tentative, fragile trust she had given him, probably thinking he was like the rest of the men who lusted after that sweet, curvy body of hers.

Grimacing, Ballard stood up and turned, walking over to her. Leah had her flight boots on, was taming her hair into a ponytail and had the floppy boonie hat nearby. Somehow, Leah didn't look like a SEAL, but she was damned appealing to him, nonetheless.