Page 11 of Peace Under Fire

A dagger pierced his throat. He choked as he inhaled.

She was facing away from the camera, but there was no mistaking that petite frame, with its sweet ass and voluptuous hips. Nor was there any mistaking that long, shiny ponytail anchored high atop her head with a scrunchie.

He coughed to clear his throat. “That’s her.”

He recognized that damn ponytail…intimately. He’d awoken so many times, sweaty and achingly hard, still locked in the erotic dream of that ponytail whipping wildly about her head as he’d hammered into her from behind.

In the next clip she was facing the camera, unsmiling, her face tense, sunglasses perched on top of her head. Her tits pressed against her t-shirt, with its sprawling field of flowers. He’d bet his trident that shirt was purple—the scrunchie too. He’d never met anyone so enamored with the color purple and flower petals.

He scanned the solemn face. The picture was black and white, but he knew her eyes were brown. Deep brown. Beautiful brown. Too-damn-trusting brown. The big, soft eyes of a doe just before the bullet struck. Too innocent for the likes of him.

“You sure?” Tex asked.

“Yeah.” He held his breath a second to steady his voice before letting it out slowly. “That’s her. I’m sure.”

The hard press of his dick against his shorts confirmed the identification.

He rolled his eyes in pure disbelief. He’d gotten hard because of a damn picture of her? A fucking photo? Christ, that hadn’t happened since adolescence, when a spread in his mom’s Cosmo magazine could get him horny.

And this crazy reaction wasn’t because of that damn brain injury either. He’d reacted to her with hound dog enthusiasm from day one.

It was insane how a woman who was not his type—like, not in the slightest—still managed to get him so hot and hard.

“She’s cute. Girl next door kinda cute,” Tex said. “But I can see why you weren’t interested. The porn star next door, now that’s more your style.”

Squish opened his mouth to disagree. The fact that his cock was trying to drill through his pants at the mere sight of her was evidence that Tex didn’t know what the fuck he was talking about.

He managed to wrestle the comment back, though. Rumor had it, the former SEAL had turned into a bit of a matchmaker. The last thing he needed was for Tex to turn those terrifying tendencies in his direction.

“Anyway…” Tex’s voice went distant for a moment, and Squish could hear tires on pavement. “You nailed it when you said she erased herself after she called you. She did a good job of it too. Such a good job I’d guess she had experience doing it before. This isn’t her first rodeo.”

Squish scowled at that news. “You think someone’s after her?”

The only reason a person would go AWOL from their life—at least an innocent like Mandy—was if someone was after them. Someone dangerous.

And he hated, he really hated that possibility.

“I haven’t found any evidence of that.” Tex’s voice strengthened, and the road sounds disappeared. “But that would be my guess. If she does have the ability to predict the future, well hell, that would be prized by a lot of people, people who might not care whether she wanted to help them or not. If she exposed her talent to the wrong people… Well, they could be after her.”

“Like we are.” Squish’s jaw tightened. He rubbed a tense hand down his face.

He hated the thought of Mandy on the run, in hiding, terrified. But even more so, he hated the realization that he was the reason she’d fled this time. That by exposing her ability in the hopes of saving his life, she’d made herself vulnerable. Again.

He, Tex, and Commander North were no better than the nameless, faceless someone who’d threatened her in the past.

“Like us,” Tex agreed, his voice as grim as Squish’s had been. “But we don’t have a damn choice. She may be the only one who can find Lucky. The only one who can identify the traitor in our midst. Her help could save dozens of spec op lives.”

True.

Fuck.

Squish grunted, rubbing a hand over his tight, achy chest. Without her help, Lucky would likely rot out there in the Amazon. And more of his brothers would fall beneath their traitor’s release of classified information.

They needed her. Yet that knowledge didn’t calm the guilt.

Tex’s voice smoothed out. “But that doesn’t mean we won’t protect her from whoever else is after her. I’ve got North’s okay to put a security detail on her once we find her.”

Squish’s lips twisted. Of course North wanted guards on her. They couldn’t afford to let Mandy give them the slip. Not until they’d extracted the info they needed from her.

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