Diana Palmer Collected 1-6: Soldier of Fortune / Tender Stranger / Enamored / Mystery Man / Rawhide and Lace / Unlikely Lover. Diana Palmer

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СКАЧАТЬ looked up. “No. But they seem to be nice people. J.D., it just dawned on me that you must trust me a lot to bring me here,” she murmured.

      “There isn’t anyone I trust more,” he said in a deep, rough tone. “Didn’t you know?”

      He stared into her eyes until she felt the trembling come back, and something wild darkened his own before he turned away and got it under control.

      “We’d better get to it,” he said tautly. “And when we go back out there, for God’s sake, don’t say or do anything to encourage Laremos, you understand? He’s a friend of mine, but I’d kill him in a second if he touched you.”

      The violence in him made her eyes widen with shock. He glanced at her, his face hard, and she knew she was seeing the man without the mask for the first time. He looked as ruthless as any one of those men in the other room and she realized with a start that he was.

      “I’m territorial,” he said gruffly. “What I have, I hold, and for the duration of this trip, you belong to me. Enough said?”

      “Enough said, Jacob,” she replied, her voice unconsciously soft.

      His face tautened. “I’d like to hear you say my name in bed, Gabby,” he breathed, moving close. “I’d like to hear you scream it…”

      “Jacob!” she gasped as he bent and took her mouth.

      She moaned helplessly as he folded her into his tall, powerful form, letting her feel for the first time the involuntary rigidity of his body in desire.

      He lifted his lips from hers and looked into her wide eyes, and he nodded. “Yes, it happens to me just as it happens to other men,” he said in a rough tone. “Are you shocked? Haven’t you ever been this close to a hungry man?”

      “No, Jacob, I haven’t,” she managed unsteadily.

      That seemed to calm him a little, but his eyes were still stormy. He let her move away, just enough to satisfy her modesty.

      “Are you frightened?” he asked.

      “You’re very strong,” she said, searching his face. “I know you wouldn’t force me, but what if…?”

      “I’ve had a lot of practice at curbing my appetites, Gabby,” he murmured. He brushed the hair away from her cheeks. “I won’t lose my head, even with you.

      “Let me show you,” he whispered, and she felt his mouth beside hers, touching, moving away, teasing, until she turned her head just a fraction of an inch and opened it to the slow, sweet possession of his lips.

      She could barely breathe, and it was heaven as his arms came around her, as his mouth spoke to her in a wild, nonverbal way. The opening of the door was a shattering disappointment.

      “Excuse me—” Laremos chuckled “—but you were so long, I thought you might be having trouble.”

      “I am,” J.D. said in a voice husky with emotion, “but not the kind you thought.”

      “As I see. Here, let me go over the sequence with you and discuss the frequencies—they are different from the ones you are familiar with, no doubt,” he said, sitting down in front of the equipment.

      Gabby brushed back her hair and tried not to look at J.D. She tried not to think about the long night ahead, when she’d lie in his arms in that big bed and have to keep from begging him to do what they both wanted.

      The radio wasn’t difficult at all. It took only minutes to learn the routine. It was the code words that took longest. She made a list and walked around the house memorizing it while the men talked in the spacious living room. At the dinner table, she was still going over it.

      Only Laremos, J.D., and Gabby ate together at the table. The others carried their plates away.

      “They’re still antisocial, I see,” J.D. murmured over his food.

      “Old habits.” Laremos glanced at Gabby. “And I think they do not want to disillusion this one, who looks at them with such soft eyes.”

      “I didn’t embarrass them, did I?” she asked, contrite.

      “No,” J.D. said. “I think you flattered them. They aren’t used to all that rapt attention.” He chuckled.

      “How did they come to be mercenaries?” she asked softly. “If you can tell me, I mean. I don’t want to invade anyone’s privacy.”

      “Well, Shirt was in the Special Forces, like I was,” J.D. said, pausing over the sentence, as if he was choosing his words carefully. “After he got out of the service, he couldn’t find anything he liked to do except police work, and he wasn’t making enough to pay the bills. He had a contact in the mercenary network and he asked some questions. He was good with the standard underworld weapons and something of a small-arms expert. He found work.”

      “And Apollo?”

      “Apollo started out as an M.P. He was accused of a crime he didn’t commit, and there were some racial overtones.” J.D. shrugged. “He wasn’t getting any justice, so he ran for it and wound up in Central America. He’s been down here ever since.”

      “He can’t clear himself?” she asked.

      “I expect I’ll end up defending him one of these days,” he told her with a quiet smile. “In fact, I can almost guarantee it. I’ll win, too.”

      “I wouldn’t doubt that,” she murmured, tongue in cheek.

      “How long have you worked with this bad-tempered one, Señorita Gabby?” Laremos asked.

      “A little over two years,” she told him, glancing at J.D. “It’s been an education. I’ve learned that if you shout loudly enough, you can get most anything you want.”

      “He shouts at you?”

      “I wouldn’t dare,” J.D. murmured with a grin. “The first time I tried, she heaved a paperweight at my head.”

      “I did not,” she protested. “I threw it at your door!”

      “Which I opened at the wrong time,” he continued. “Fortunately, I have good reflexes.”

      “You will need them tomorrow, I fear,” Laremos told him. “The terrorists will not make things easy for us.”

      “True,” J.D. said as he finished his coffee. “But we have the element of surprise on our side.”

      “That is so.”

      “And now, we’d better go over the maps again. I want to be sure I know the terrain before we set out in the morning.”

      Gabby went on to bed, feeling definitely in the way. She took a quick bath and settled in on one side of the big double bed, wearing the long, very modest nightgown she’d brought along. Unfortunately, the material was thin, but perhaps J.D. would be too busy with his thoughts to notice.

      She lay there trying to stumble through a Guatemalan newspaper, СКАЧАТЬ