The deep voice was all too soothing under the circumstances. Surprisingly, it forced her over-eager muscles and frayed mind to relax as she squinted around in the dim interior of the helicopter.
“Hey there, girlfriend.”
“Knox?” she croaked. A frown creased her brow at how pathetic her voice sounded under the hum of the chopper’s rotors.
“Yep, we’re all here,” Kezlin Bates, the youngest on the Red Reign PI Team, said to her left. She glanced around and noticed that Jared Bates, Cruz Parker, and Tanner Hogan, who made up The Cobras, were all watching her with concern.
She cringed as her gaze collided head on into the furrowed brow of her best friend and co-owner of the Red Reign PI Agency. Paxton looked pissed. Jordan couldn’t blame her. She had promised to contact her at the first sign of danger.
“Don’t look at me like that, Paxton. I could hardly tell the bastards to hold on while I made a Sat phone call before they clobbered me.” She froze as she felt a pair of arms tightening around her.
Arms? He’s holding me… Hell no! I’m sitting on his goddamned lap!
Jordan struggled to break free but Brock had other ideas. She wasn’t going anywhere.
“Settle down.” The grating tone delivered evenly belied the urgency of the warning. It annoyed the living daylights out of her that his deep drawl resonated deep inside her and toggled at the submissive inside her to obey.
“I’m not angry with you, Jordan,” Paxton said. “I’m furious at the FBI and the platoon you were with for their slackness in attempting to rescue you. You were assured this was a safe mission and only your expertise in locating the terrorist group was required. You weren’t even supposed to be in that camp.”
“Yeah, I’d like to know how you ended up there too.” Brock leaned back to stare at her.
“Why do you care?” Jordan darted a quick glance at the man still holding her in place. Strangely enough, she was being comforted by his protective gesture— not that it meant she was any less annoyed with him putting her out of commission.
“The only reason any of us conceded to you coming to this war-ravaged country on your own was because of the assurances the FBI gave us that you would be safe in a guarded hotel room in Mosul at all times.”
Jordan sat up like a Jack-in-the-box. “Youconceded? You, Brock Carter, have no right to concede to anything as far as I’m concerned. I’m a grown woman and I don’t need your permission to do anything I put my mind to. More than that, I’m a professional goddamned Army Ranger and capable of kicking your ass if I choose to do so.”
“I’d like to see you try.”
Jordan rolled her eyes at Paxton then slowly turned to look at Brock.
“Really? Well, aren’t you the tough guy? Christ almighty. Memorized word-for-word, Nancy boy and still using it like a magic mantra, too. How many times did we all hear that exact response on the playground when we were kids? I’d expect nothing less from a puffed-up, dumbass, pencil-dick like you.” Jordan extended her pinky finger and waved it around. “I’d be more than happy to bloody your ugly mug, you pompous little shit. I suggest you never turn your back on me because when I strike, you won’t know what hit you. For now…” she twisted in his arms and took hold of his face. “It would be remiss of me not to thank you for coming to my aid.”
In true Jordan fashion, she acted on impulse as she leaned in and kissed him, passionately with a sensuality that rocked the large man to the bone.
Well, it wasn’t an impulse really. She’d been wanting to smooch his full lips since the first day she’d met him. He did things to her libido that no other man had come close to achieving. And all it took was to cast his charcoal gray eyes in her direction to set her loins aflame.
She was done wasting time, especially since she was already a forty-two-year-old spinster and had learned over the past couple of years that wasted opportunities could never be regained. It was high time the usually morose man realized his bachelor days were numbered. When he didn’t push her away but returned the kiss with equal fervor, his fate was sealed.
Jordan Sutton was going in for the kill— and he was her prey— all six-feet-two inches and two-hundred-and-thirty pounds of steely muscle!
He didn’t stand a chance.
“And now you can turn this chopper around and head back to Mosul, Commander Bates,” she said to Jared who was flying the chopper. “I signed up for a special ops mission and I have every intention of seeing it through.” Jordan folded her hands primly on her lap as she turned back to the group, ignoring the surprised looks from her team and the leering smiles of Brock’s team.
She couldn’t really blame them. As an ambivert, she wasn’t known to draw attention to herself in public, least of all to initiate intimacy. To have done it so blatantly must’ve been a big surprise to her friends.
“Reconnaissance first, Jordan,” Jared said curtly. His tone warned her that it was not up for debate.
“Look, you don’t understand. It’s imperative that I get back to Mosul. Now that we confirmed my intel was correct and have the bastard Fadhil’s location, we have to follow through. I guarantee you, if we don’t, he’s going to disappear underground again and the U.S. can tattoo it on their foreheads if they think they’ll ever find him again,” she urged.
“You heard the Commander, Jordan,” Brock’s gravelly voice vibrating so close to her ear teased the vellus hair at the nape of her neck to rise among a patch of newly stimulated goosebumps. “You might as well stop harping at us. We’re not turning back until we know exactly what we’re dealing with and how to eliminate all the risks. You, little kitten, aren’t going back to that shithole alone.”
“I don’t need you to protect me, Carter. I can—”
“I’m afraid this time I am in agreement with Jared and Brock, Jordan,” Paxton said in a crisp tone. “I’m not going to allow any of you to rush ahead blindly ever again, not after my own stupidity that resulted in Kezlin being kidnapped not so long ago. There will be no more solo operations.”
“I wasn’t alone. I came here with an entire platoon of highly seasoned and combat-hardened soldiers.”