Target Engaged

Chapter 6

6

OTC was not at the top of Kyle’s can’t wait list. And despite the Colonel’s suggestion, sleep was about the farthest thing from his mind.

He showered, pulled on his civvies and a leather jacket, and walked out to his Ducati. He hadn’t been on it in thirty days.

Parked beside his machine was a midnight-blue Kawasaki Ninja. Leaning back against it was Delta Trainee Carla Anderson in those same long, lightning-bolt-yellow and smoke-gray leathers he’d seen her in on the first day.

“Damn!” Not the best greeting, but it was knocked out of him. She was about the most amazing sight he’d ever seen.

She grinned and waited him out while he recovered. “I was thinking of going for a ride before dinner.” He went for the casual glance up at the sun still a few hours above the horizon, though it was hard looking away from her for that moment.

“There a good pizza place in Beaufort,” she offered lazily. “A hundred and sixty miles. Take us an hour and a half tops.” Kyle’s bike was as fast as hers.

“Uh-huh.”

“Awfully close to the Marines down there though.” Camp Lejeune wasn’t the issue; keeping his hands off her for that long was.

“Yeah, Marine cooties are a problem.” Her voice remained casual and lazy, and wrapped around him with all the certainty of a cowboy’s lasso. “I know another spot. I’ll lead, you follow.” She didn’t give him a chance to argue, simply pulled on her helmet and climbed on her bike.

He pulled on his helmet and swung onto his own motorcycle.

“That’s assuming you can keep up with me on your pansy-ass lipstick-red machine. Don’t get lost, tough guy.”

“I’ll be right on your tail, girlie. And it’s wildfire-red.”

“Uh-huh.” She grinned and fired off her machine. They idled out of the Delta gate along with the other five trainees, two on bikes, a Camaro and a Vette, and Richie’s older model Toyota Prius. They were going to have to talk to him—the man was going to be an embarrassment. Most of them turned for the South Gate, headed to Fayetteville. Chad was seeing a girl in Raeford, so they lost him at the Longstreet Gate. Carla led Kyle across the width of Bragg to the Manchester Gate, out past Pope Army Airfield. No one else was headed out that way.

She opened the throttle before the gate’s stick was half raised. She had to duck to clear it. If he’d hesitated half a second, she’d have been gone.

One thing Kyle had learned from this afternoon’s demonstration of the room clearing: never hesitate.

On that first day, he’d wanted to see Carla Anderson flying down the road in her lightning leathers, but he’d never imagined it like this.

She hung low over her machine, laying into the corners. His view from close behind was spectacular; that part was much as he’d imagined. It was the heat he hadn’t accounted for. July in the North Carolina lowlands was brutal, but he didn’t give a damn. It was the heat he had for this woman that was all out of proportion.

If there were cops in Carthage, they didn’t stand a chance. To Carla, a red light was an excuse to twist onto back roads—at highway velocities. The open highway itself was more akin to a racecourse, a race that there was no way in hell he would be losing.

It was only when they flew out of Carthage and were cracking a hundred and thirty that he saw the sign for their possible destination flash by.

No way!

Ten or so miles and five minutes later, the answer was Yes, way.

They crossed into the Uwharrie National Forest going thirty times faster than the last time they’d been here.

Now that he knew where they were headed, he could have hiked there over the rough country, but he had no idea how to get there by road.

Carla did. A wild part of her brain had tracked the truck’s route that had hauled them back from the Forty-Miler despite how hammered they’d been.

The woman was incredible.

Carla took the dirt fast. Might have been able to dust Kyle if she’d honestly tried, but somehow she doubted it. Couldn’t dust the likes of Kyle Reeves unless he let you. She was counting on him not letting her, and wasn’t disappointed.

She caught air coming over the rise where they’d met at the end of the Forty-Miler, and Kyle was flying close beside her. They hit the final RV exactly in sync, as close together as when they’d hiked it seventy-two hours before, but this time they were going over sixty toward the grassy clearing in the trees.

After crossing the RV, she throttled back and let the bike ease down and coast along the narrow trail to the charred remains of the final campfire.

“Hope you brought the spiced wine,” she called out as she shut down her machine and peeled her helmet off. His machine thudded to silence close behind her.

When he didn’t reply, she turned to face him.

Kyle Reeves, five-foot-nine of hard-bodied soldier, slammed into her. From standing apart, they went to full-body contact, lip-lock, and full-on grope faster than she could blink.

She unzipped his leather jacket and shoved it off his shoulders. It trapped his arms at the elbows. While he struggled to free himself, she had his t-shirt up so that she could get to his chest. Oh, damn, but the man had an amazing chest. After the workouts of the last month she shouldn’t be surprised, but…damn!

Carla broke their frantic kiss so that she could step back and see his chest. Yep! It looked exactly as good as it felt.

Kyle finally freed one arm and shed the jacket and the shirt.

She let him come at her, caught him as they slammed back together. Her need to get skin-to-skin was fire-hot, but that was a discovery he’d have to make on his own.

His teeth raked her breast through the leathers. If he left bite marks on the leather, it would be his last act on Earth no matter how incredible it felt.

Then came the moment she’d been waiting for.

Kyle pulled down the front zipper on her leathers and froze. His light brown eyes seemed to go nearly black as he looked down at the exposed narrow V of skin that started at her neck and reached down to her solar plexus with no other material to block the view.

For an instant, he looked her in the eyes, and then, like the good soldier he was, returned his attention to the primary target zone. So slowly that she could feel each zipper tooth release all the way inside her, he ran it the rest of the way down.

He may have whispered a prayer of thanks when he peeled the leathers back off her bare shoulders and down to her waist. He stared down at her chest for a long moment in silence.

Carla expected him to grab, to devour, to take. That’s why she hadn’t worn a stitch of clothing under the leathers. She’d been aching for a month for this man to simply take her. Instead, he brushed fingers along the side of her breast so gently it sent shivers up her body.

She didn’t want gentle; she wanted heat, but she couldn’t do anything. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think as he bent down to take her in his mouth. The heat she wanted slammed into her like a physical blow.

The sound started low. For half a moment she wondered if another bike or a bear was coming to their corner of the woods. Then she identified the source. It was rising from the depths of Kyle’s throat.

Without warning, he stripped off the rest of her leathers with a violence that tested the strength limits of the material and tossed them aside. He scooped one arm around her shoulder and the other between her legs with a hand clamped on her butt and lifted her like she weighed less than a rifle.

He knocked half of the wind out of her as he slammed her down to lie atop her own clothes. His mindless growl grew louder as he fought off his pants and dug protection out of a pocket.

There was nothing delicate in how he took her or in how she welcomed him when he landed on her. He entered her in one clean shot, all the way in until they couldn’t get any closer. The heat she’d wanted was nothing compared to the roaring fire that erupted between them.

She locked her arms around his neck and her legs around his hips, and held on for the best ride of her life. He wasn’t a do-it-and-done guy. He’d proven his stamina on the trail and he proved it now.

No question of driving each other upward. They started at the top and shattered themselves into the beyond from there.

If she were the sort of woman who clawed, she’d have shredded his back. Instead, she simply held on as the ball of heat exploded and rolled through her in massive waves of raw power.

She wasn’t often on the bottom, submissive wasn’t her style, but she was past caring, past control. He pawed her breast and shifted down to drag it once more into his mouth without breaking the amazing rhythm of him pounding into her.

Men satisfied her; she enjoyed them.

Kyle must not be a man then, because he sure didn’t belong in such a mundane category. Her body writhed of its own accord. The more he did to her, the more it writhed. Her breath came shorter and shorter, until her hard gasps were exploding out of her with each stroke of his driving rhythm.

She’d never been vocal but couldn’t stop the cry that ripped from her throat as her body came apart in tidal waves of glory.

Kyle clamped her hands in his and pinned them above her shoulders, but it wasn’t entrapment. It was merely a way to hold on to each other as he drove his mouth against hers and drank down her next cry of sweet agony.

She arched up to meet him. To meet his heat. Because everywhere they touched, Kyle was pure heat…except deep inside her where he was raw fire.

At his release, the waves inside her were reborn, flashing to life and rebounding across her body. All she could do was ride them until they subsided to gentle washes, then echoes…and finally silence.

Kyle lay heavy in her arms, his heart still thudding against her chest, his breath still rough and close by her ear.

He shook it off enough to prop himself up and look down at her. “I didn’t hurt you, did I? I’ve never needed anyone the way I needed you.”

“Kyle, I hereby issue you a permanent pass to hurt me like that anytime you want. That was delicious.”

“Delicious?” A smile quirked his lips, so she kissed them and discovered that her own were quite sore.

“Mmm,” she managed, a hum of contentment—all that was in her.

“You want delicious? That’s different.” And he kissed her lips, nuzzled her neck, caressed her hip.

“No. Kyle. I—” Any further protests died as he began working his way along her body. She could do no more than lie back against the bank—the same bank where they had stretched out side-by-side when they finished the hike—and watch the trees and the darkening sky as he took her aloft once more.

Delicious didn’t begin to describe it.

Kyle had known Carla was a smart woman. She’d proven it again by stuffing energy bars and a bedroll into her pack.

Kyle’s head had been too clouded with lust to grab more than a water bottle when they left base.

He figured tomorrow they’d find a restaurant and a hotel room. Or maybe a hotel room with delivery pizza. Right now, she was snuggled up against his shoulder, her soft hair spilling across his chest and one of those impossibly long legs thrown over his hips. He wasn’t sure how such long legs fit on a woman her height, but they looked absolutely fine.

Impossibly, despite everything they’d done to each other this evening, the mere thought of her was arousing him again. He didn’t want to wake her. After all, she deserved her rest as well.

But the need was building, not diminishing.

And Carla didn’t strike him as a woman who complained much.

She mumbled something unintelligible when he brushed his fingers over her.

She seemed only half-awake as he rolled her on top and she straddled him, her hands braced on his chest, her head hanging down. Her face remained masked behind the fall of her hair—the ends of which tickled his chest.

Her body came fully to life as she arched back in the moonlight that painted forest shadows against her dusky skin, and she moaned when they came together and he sent her flying once more.

He’d never had a woman like her before. Of course, no woman had ever been Delta before either.