Cover Me (Elite Force #1)(11)
Author: Catherine Mann

A tic flicked the corner of his eye. His hands fell away. “I can’t leave you out here to die.” He stood, extending a hand. “And believe me, if I go back empty-handed, there will be search teams.”

She clasped his fingers and rose slowly until she stood in front of him. “Tell them you found a bear, not a person.”

“There aren’t any bears up this high. I do not lie.” He squeezed her hand lightly, purposefully. “And I really hate it when anyone lies to me.”

He was a second away from insisting on answers. She knew it. Could see it in his dark, demanding eyes. Answers she wouldn’t—couldn’t—give him. But how could she keep those words from falling from his mouth when it was just the two of them out here alone together?

Completely alone.

A tempting possibility tickled at the back of her brain, a way of shutting him up right here and now. There was no chance their worlds would cross again. No chance she would ever know how things might have been had he simply walked into her life one day, asking to take a tour around the terrain, maybe even flirting a little. Things weren’t that simple for her.

And suddenly she was certain of exactly how to distract him. At least for a few minutes. One kiss, to silence his questions and answer one of her own. This was her one chance to know if the attraction was real.

And hopefully for her peace of mind, the kiss would suck.

***

What the hell?

Wade stood stunned with Sunny’s mouth pressed to his. But surprise shifted fast to hardcore need. He pulled away, only an inch, but enough to see her, to figure out what kind of crazy getaway plan she had in mind now, even when there wasn’t a chance in hell she could scale her way out of here without him right there with her.

She looked up at him with wide hazel eyes that should have been vulnerable, scared, or even angry. But instead stared back at him with an answering heat that felt so damned good as it radiated from her and into him.

It could be a ploy. But she was damn willing. He was at his wits’ end and she wasn’t going anywhere. He had nothing to lose by caving in to a need that had ridden him hard all night.

Wade sealed his mouth to hers again.

His arms locked around her and he clamped her close, near enough to feel the generous swell of her br**sts under the parka. Her leg was wedged between his and he shouldn’t be able to feel jack with so many layers between them. Shouldn’t. But could.

Her thigh pressed right against his swelling erection. Damned inconvenient time to get turned on. Really turned on. Arousal fed off the adrenaline pumping through him, devouring like a parched beast falling into an oasis.

He angled his mouth over hers, his tongue plunging deeper, tasting, stroking, stoking need higher and hotter. Her braid brushed against the back of his hand. He clasped the thick mass and wrapped it round and round his hand, binding them closer together as they stumbled back against the ice wall.

She tasted like peanut butter, crisp snow, and pure sex. Her tongue touched his without hesitation, met and thrust. He searched her mouth as she battled to explore his first. She kissed the same way she did everything else, with energy and confidence.

Her gloved hands pressed his head for a fuller meeting, then grasped at his shoulders, and God, he wanted to feel her bare fingers on his skin. Yeah, this was crazy and he was going on fumes after yesterday’s training mission then parachute rescue, followed by a long night sharing a blanket with Sunny, nearly naked. This was a more twisted and demanding exercise than even crazy-ass Major McCabe could come up with.

Images of Sunny’s mile-long legs walked through his memory, reminding him of just how wild she’d driven him, stripping last night. The back of his eyelids were hazy pale pink with the image of her thermals, which molded to her body and hinted at flesh tones. Legs and curves and br**sts, every inch of her was right there for him to taste.

He wanted to blame the mountain air for this insanity, but he knew full well what he was doing and he wanted more. Which was impossible for about ten reasons right off the top of his head, starting with the layers of clothes and their location. He wasn’t a monk by any means, but he’d been a while without sex and the grinding need to be inside her broadsided him.

Then reason whispered through the sex-crazed fog. She had to be setting him up. The passion wasn’t real—not for her anyway. She must be using her body to get something from him one way or another. If not at this moment, then to lure him into a false sense of security for when they climbed out.

His mouth stilled against hers and he eased away, just an inch, enough to see her without levering off her body in the narrow mountain gully. She stared back at him with what looked like confusion, but he knew better than to trust her. Everything she said and did was part of some game to hide a deeper agenda.

The uncertainty on her face, real or faked, faded. As determined as she was, she might even try to knock him out. Or worse.

The possibility that she might actually try to kill him splashed cold water all over his libido.

He locked her wrists with his hands to keep her still until he could clear his mind enough to think logically. Except he slowly realized she wasn’t moving after all. Her whole body was stock-still, her eyes wide as she gawked past his shoulder. Her confusion had turned to something that looked a helluva lot like horror as she kept her eyes averted, staring down. Yeah, he was pretty upset at himself too.

Except something about the way she peered downward made him want to look too. Was this another trick? He firmed his hold on her wrists. Warily, he tracked her gaze to the patch of slushy earth beside his boot.

A dead face stared back at him through the ice.

Chapter 4

Sunny screamed.

Horror raked up her throat as dead eyes peered at her through a thin sheet of ice and snow. Not just any eyes. Madison’s eyes. The woman she’d escorted through the pass just yesterday.

She clasped her throat, right where the gash gaped across Madison’s severed carotid. The dead woman’s blonde hair fanned around her. The fatal wound was outlined in crystallized drops of frozen blood, as if rusty red tears wept from her neck.

The screams kept coming and she couldn’t make them stop even as each panicked wheeze froze in her lungs. Wade clamped a hand over her mouth just as he’d covered her lips with his moments ago in that unwise, out-of-control kiss.

Oh God, they’d been kissing beside a dead body. Nausea gagged her.

“Careful,” he said softly, urgently. “Too much noise could cause an avalanche.”

His whispered warning launched hysteria at the possibility of being buried alive—with Madison.