The Heart's Command Read online

  She truly had him at her mercy, and she loved it.

  When she started to kiss his thighs, he gripped the sheet with both hands and groaned. Not yet, she thought. Not yet.

  She bypassed his sex in favor of the hollows of his hips on either side. His muscles quivered beneath her mouth, and another groan escaped him. This time he writhed, as if trying to bring his manhood closer. But she eased away, denying him. Her way, her time.

  The heat was filling her, too, but instead of weakening her, it seemed to be making her stronger. More wicked. A shower of kisses across his abdomen promised, but didn't deliver.

  "Bethany..."

  She almost laughed, but somehow she seemed to have lost the breath for that. Higher, teasing, approaching his small erect nipples, then backing away. He writhed and groaned her name again, and this time she did the most teasing thing of all.

  She backed away, and started on his hand.

  "You tease!" he groaned, but she could hear how he loved it.

  The heavy musk of lovemaking filled the air around them as she sucked each of his fingers slowly, taking her time. His palm was sensitive to the touch of her tongue, and the inside of his wrist. As soon as she released his hand, he was gripping the sheet again, fingers digging into the mattress as if he desperately needed to hang on.

  The inside of his elbow drew a low moan from him, and she dallied there awhile before moving up his biceps, then on to his neck.

  The cords there proved sensitive, too, drawing shudders from him as she kissed, then nipped him gently. And finally, finally, she closed her mouth over one nipple.

  He jerked as if electrified, mumbled something about "you witch," as she nipped him, then her world turned topsy-turvy as he rolled her onto her back.

  "Your turn," he said, and his dark eyes promised no quarter.

  He straddled her, pinning her arms at her sides, and began to tease and torment her with his lips and tongue, giving kiss for kiss. Heavenly kisses, starting behind her ears, causing wonderful shivers to pass through her. Then down to her neck, grazing along the curve of her collarbone, soft dabs with the tip of his tongue in the hollow of her throat, wispy touches of lips taking her pulse. She arched her head back, baring her neck to him, open to her very core.

  Now his teeth followed where his lips and tongue had gone, hard little nips that made her wince and growl and moan. Down over her shoulders, breasts, nipples, belly, until his eager mouth found and then avoided her molten, pulsing sex in a way that drew a shuddering cry from the back of her throat. On down her thighs to the backs of her knees, her calves, ankles and feet, his teeth maddening as they dragged across her soles.

  "Take me," she demanded. "Take me now!"

  "Or?" he asked playfully.

  "Or I'll make you think Paris Island was paradise."

  "Is that a threat, Gunny?"

  "It damn sure is, Staff Sergeant. And a direct order. Take me now!"

  He smiled. "I always follow orders, ma'am."

  And with that he crawled up between her legs and used his lips and tongue to drive her to the precipice of bliss and beyond, until her entire world spun and shimmered and exploded in a thousand colors and lights. Her ragged breaths seemed to propel him onward, milking her climax until she felt as if her entire womb must have wrung itself out on his dancing tongue.

  "Your turn, Marine," she said, and grabbed his hair, pulling his body upward until once again he plunged deep within her, then wrapping her legs tight around him, so tight he couldn't thrust, but could only accept the pulsing of her inner muscles. She clenched and released, again and again, her thighs still pinning him, until finally he cried out in frustration, an instant before she felt his own pulses explode through her.

  As they lay together, gasping, clinging, their skin silky slick with each breath, she reached up and bit his earlobe hard, then whispered, "You do follow orders, Marine."

  And somehow it seemed so unbearably right that they both started to laugh breathlessly.

  Chapter 7

  Laughing with almost carefree abandon, wrapped in blankets against the night chill, they went to the kitchen for a snack. Bethany had lots of snacks on hand, largely because she hated to cook for one. Soon, bags of chips, mounds of chocolate-covered peanuts and a couple of granola bars sat on the table next to a loaf of rye bread and cold cuts, along with other sandwich fixings.

  Joe dug in as if he were starved, building a sandwich of epic proportions. Bethany settled for a piece of chocolate.

  "You know," he said, "we've got a problem."

  Her heart nearly stopped. He was going to tell her this had been a big mistake, and she didn't know if she could bear to hear that now. Not now. Not when she felt as if she couldn't bear to let him go. "What's that?" she finally asked, feeling as if she had to squeeze the words out.

  "It's tough for two marines to be married. Different duty stations, long separations...."

  "What?" She couldn't believe what he'd just said. "What?" she repeated, sure she had imagined it.

  He looked up from his massive sandwich and smiled almost wryly at her. "Maybe I'm jumping the gun."

  "Which gun?" She seemed to be growing more confused by the minute.

  "The marriage gun."

  Marriage. She hadn't imagined it. He'd actually spoken the word. "Umm...you hardly know me."

  "True. But I know you enough to know what I feel." His sandwich appeared to lose his interest, and he shoved it aside. "Okay, this is fast. I was never a believer in love at first sight. Until now."

  "Love?" At some level she knew she was sounding like a stupid parrot, but she couldn't help it. A deep self-protective urge was refusing to accept that he could mean what he was saying.

  "I know it's fast," he said. "But what the hell. I've always leaped in where angels fear to tread. So how about this—I know I'm madly in love with you. But I'll wait six months or a year, until you can figure out if you feel the same. Assuming, of course, that we get to see each other during that six months or a year, which is the problem I'm talking about."

  Her heart was fluttering like a frightened bird as she stared at him, filling her eyes with him, filling her heart with him. But even as she wanted to leap along with him, she knew he was right.

  "It's a problem," she agreed.

  "Hell yeah." He picked up his sandwich and took a bite. She waited while he chewed and swallowed, almost afraid to start thinking of solutions when the moment seemed so tenuous. Reality said he'd go back to his unit, he'd forget about her and that would be that. Her heart wanted to draw a whole different picture.

  He put his sandwich back on its plate and pushed it aside again. "I'm not hungry. I'm too nervous. I'm having a fight-or-flight response right now, and everything is telling me to fight for you, Bethany. Fight as hard as I have to."

  "You, uh, don't have to fight," she admitted. "It's just that...we have a problem."

  "Yeah. A big one. I mean..." He looked at her, and surprise dawned on his face, as if he'd just understood her. "You love me, too?"

  Tension began to ease out of her, and she knew she was going to take another one of her leaps, but this time she was going to risk everything in order to get what she most wanted in the world. "I love you, Joe."

  He was up and around the table in an instant, kneeling by her chair and drawing her into his embrace until they were as tightly knit as one. "God, I love you," he said. "I love you. We can work all the other stuff out. We can learn each other and make it together if we just have that. If we're willing to try."

  She sighed, happiness beginning to run through her veins, and pressed her cheek to the top of his head. "I love you," she said again, and this time saying it filled her heart with joy. Profound joy.

  He moved, looking up at her, and she looked at him.

  "So, Mathison, we have a problem," he said. "How do you want to deal with it?"

  "The way other couples in our shoes deal with it. We deal with it. We live with it. And we apply for joint assignments un
til we get one."

  He nodded. "I'm willing. It won't be easy but... Bethany, what about kids?"

  Kids. Children. Babies. It had been so long since she'd allowed herself to think about that that she'd begun to envision herself as childless for life. A shiver of pure pleasure ran through her. Only in that instant did she realize just how much she wanted children.

  "I'd like to have kids," she admitted.

  "Me, too. But we can't both be globe-trotting if we have children. Listen, I'll apply for a position as an instructor. Maybe I can get stateside and stay stateside."

  "I...could resign." Her heart fluttered again. What a choice to have to make.

  He shook his head. "No. Not unless you really want to. This is your career, too, Gunny. I'm not about to forget that."

  He tipped his head forward, resting it on her shoulder, and sighed. "I'm sick unto death of making war."

  "We don't have to decide about that immediately," she said, stroking his hair and kissing his temple. "There's no rush to start a family. We can see how things go, first. Maybe something will pan out. All I know, Joe, is I don't think I can live without you."

  He lifted his head and kissed her, then he started laughing exuberantly. "I love you, Bethany. I love you, love you, love you...."

  Sometimes the demons still haunted them, but they were married in December. Snow fell like magic dust as they exited the church arm in arm beneath a glistening arch of swords. Both of them had chosen to wear their dress blues for the occasion, a true marine marriage.

  The gods of war had chosen to smile on them, for a little while at least. Joe's unit had been pulled out of the Middle East, and after a month's leave, they would both begin their new assignments, at Headquarters Marine Corps in Washington, D.C.

  Somehow they knew they would handle whatever came their way, because they believed in each other.

  And they had both found their dream marines.

  UNDERCOVER OPERATIONS

  Merline Lovelace

  * * *

  This story is dedicated to the men and women who serve their county—in any and all capacities.

  Dear Reader,

  To paraphrase an old saying, you can take the man out of the military, but you can't take the military out of the man. Or woman!

  After spending the first twenty years of my life as an air force brat and the next twenty-three as an air force officer, I confess the military is in my blood. So you understand why I think warriors make such great heroes and heroines. There's that sense of responsibility to country and comrades, that determination to complete a mission, that touch of reckless daring so necessary to win against all odds.

  The events of 9/11 have demonstrated that these qualities reach across economic, social and national boundaries. I salute the heroes, both in and out of uniform, who risked all to save others. And to those now fighting to make the world safer, fly high, stay true and come home safe!

  All my best,

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 1

  Captain Danielle Flynn had walked into some seedy joints during her eight years in the Air Force. Hitting the bars came with the job in her line of work. But on a scale of one to ten, she'd rank this dark, smoke-filled dive set smack in the middle of Oklahoma's panhandle as a minus four.

  The place reeked of spilled beer and old grease. Yellowed posters of half-naked babes touting everything from booze to tractors vied for space with the rust spots decorating the corrugated tin walls. A thin layer of red dust coated every horizontal surface. The handful of patrons wore boots, jeans, sweat-stained ball caps and expressions that ranged from mild curiosity to avid male interest as they surveyed Dani.

  Except for one. He sat slouched at a table in the corner, nursing a beer. Eyes narrowed against the smoke, he slanted her a sideways glance, let his gaze roam lazily from her neck to her knees, and went back to his beer.

  Dani's inspection was considerably more thorough, and what she saw didn't impress her. Jack Buchanan certainly fit the mental image she'd constructed after reading the information she'd gathered about him. If the bristles shadowing his cheeks and chin were any indication, he hadn't seen the sharp edge of a razor in days. Dark circles ringed the armpits of his blue denim work shirt, and his leather boots wore a collection of scuffs and scars.

  Hard to believe this down-at-the-heels crop duster once flew supersonic F-117 Stealth fighters. Or that Dani's father, Colonel Dan Flynn, had risked his life to fly through a hail of enemy fire to pluck this loser from the wreckage of his burning aircraft.

  Well, it was time for Buchanan to return the favor.

  Threading her way through the tables, Dani slid her hand into her shoulder bag, pulled out a flat case and popped open the top. The Medal of Honor lay nested in its bed of dark velvet. The shiny gold disk embossed with the head of Lady Liberty hung suspended from its blue satin ribbon. The nation's highest award for valor in the face of the enemy, it was given only to the bravest of the brave.

  Ignoring a sharp little stab of pain, she dropped the case on Buchanan's table. It landed with a soft thud, barely audible over the chink of glasses and the tinny wail of the radio.

  "I'm Danielle Flynn. Captain Danielle Flynn. United States Air Force. That medal belonged to my father."

  Buchanan tilted his chair back on its rear legs and pushed up the brim of his ball cap, revealing a thatch of blue-black hair badly in need of a trim. Whiskey-colored eyes surveyed her through the thick screen of his lashes. He made a more detailed inventory this time, taking in her windblown hair, her wilted white blouse, her jeans. His gaze lingered on the Air Force Academy ring on her right hand before lifting to her face.

  "You don't favor the old man much."

  "So I've been told."

  It could have been a compliment or an insult. Dan Flynn had been a big, bluff Irishman, as handsome as sin. Dani had inherited his name, his height and his dark auburn hair, if not his laughing blue eyes and easygoing charm.

  Without waiting for an invitation, she claimed the chair opposite Buchanan's. Her long legs tangled with his under the table. He didn't move, didn't alter his sprawl so much as an inch to accommodate her.

  "My father was awarded that medal for saving your life, Buchanan. Yours and six others. It's payback time."

  One dark brow arched. "That right?"

  "That's right."

  He toyed with his beer bottle, tilting it in a circle. His fingers were long, blunt. Scars traced fine white lines on the back of his hand.

  "Last I heard," he said after a moment, "Dan Flynn was buried in Arlington with full military honors. You want to tell me how I'm supposed to settle accounts with him?"

  The pain came again, a quick, sharp hurt Dani suspected would take a long time to dull. Three years after his death, she still missed the man who'd been her friend and mentor as well as her father. She couldn't remember her mother, who'd died in a car crash when Dani was just a few months old. She and her father had been so close, so happy. Even happier when the colonel had married widowed Claire Stevens. For the first time, six-year-old Dani had had a real family. Now...

  Now what was left of that family was being ripped apart. Dragging in a deep breath, she spelled out the urgent matter that had brought her from Boiling Air Force Base, just outside Washington D.C., to this corner of the Oklahoma Panhandle.

  "You can settle your account with my father by flying his daughter—my stepsister—out of Mexico."

  She had to force the words. Each one stabbed into her like a stiletto.

  "Patricia's a hydroelectric engineer," she explained tersely. "She flew down to Chihuahua on business three weeks ago, then took a few days' vacation at a mountaintop resort in Copper Canyon. She drove off the hotel grounds one afternoon and didn't return. Her company received a call two days later, demanding five milli
on dollars for her safe return."

  Buchanan's eyes narrowed. The five million had snagged his interest, Dani saw cynically. Somehow, she'd suspected it would.

  "I take it her company didn't cough up the ransom."

  "No, it didn't. In an attempt to stop the apparently lucrative business of snatching foreign executives, the Mexican government refuses to negotiate with or allow payment of any kind to the kidnappers. Even if they did, Patricia's company doesn't have that kind of money."

  "Bull!" Those gold-flecked brown eyes locked with hers. "Any corporation sending executives abroad these days takes out insurance to cover situations like this."

  "Their policy contains a one million dollar cap. And a clause requiring the host nation's cooperation in all release negotiations, which lets the company completely off the hook."

  His lip curled in disgust. "They should fire the fool who got suckered in with that policy."

  "They have, but that doesn't help in this particular situation. So I'm using my own assets. I'm offering you a hundred thousand, Buchanan. It's every cent I could pull together."

  She'd expected him to jump at the offer, was surprised when he didn't. She knew darn well he desperately needed cash. He'd walked away from his Air Force career in a last-ditch attempt to save a marriage that went bust anyway. Had walked away from the subsequent divorce with only the clothes on his back. If the information she'd gathered was correct, his sole possessions these days consisted of a dilapidated pickup and the Stearman biplane he'd patched together with chewing gum and baling wire.

  "You could buy a new plane with that hundred thousand, Buchanan. An aircraft constructed specifically for agricultural aviation, with computer controlled aerial dispersal systems. Assuming, of course, you want to spend the rest of your life dusting crops."

  She hadn't intended the remark quite the way it came out. She understood farm aviation performed a vital and necessary function. Her Air Force bias had just slipped in.