Page 347 of Wild Mustang Security Firm

It didn’t feel that way.

“Everything has a price,” he said again. “I’ve known for a long time, I was going to have to pay for what I’ve done.” Cupping her face between his hands, he pressed his forehead to hers just long enough for her to melt against him. “I promise I’ll find a way to make sure you’re okay.”

“How are you going to do that if they send you to prison?” she asked thickly, all the good feelings he’d evoked just mere seconds ago melting away, leaving her feeling nothing but the dread and uncertainty of the future stretching out before them.

“I’ll find a way. Just do what I tell you, and keep your nose clean. Fariq’s gone. If they’re looking to pin his crimes on someone else, I’d rather they pinned them on me instead of you. Got it?”

She folded her arms across her sheet swaddled chest, staring at a point on his chest, so he wouldn’t be able to read the minute defiance she felt her eyes betrayed. She was pretty sure he saw it, anyway. After a moment, his arms opened, and he pulled her in for a hug.

“Got it?” he asked again, breathing his fondness for her into her hair.

She melted into his embrace.

“Got it,” she finally repeated, but she didn’t have to be happy about it.

The phone in the sink started its third round of humming, which gave her an excellent excuse to get out of this before she dissolved into tears… again.

“Oh, for God’s sake!” She reached behind her to grab it. “He needs to cut the umbilical cord if whoever he’s been talking to can’t stand not hearing from him for five seconds.”

He got the pocket door open, allowing her to finally break away from him. The distance became immediately unbearable, but she made herself walk away—her back to her seat, and him back to the handcuffs waiting for him at his.

Her legs still hurt, so did her back, but the swim of endorphins in her system meant the minute discomforts that accompanied every step were located in a whole new set of places. Like, the inner slopes of her thighs. Her legs were never meant to stretch the way he had when he’d been pushing to get deeper inside her, and—she eased herself down to sit—her poor bottomhole. She couldn’t remember ever being so aware ofthataspect of her anatomy, but, oh—she rolled her lips to prevent any telltale sound from escaping as her weight settled onto the seat—did she ever feel it now.

“Enjoy yourphone call?” her Mustangs companion asked with a smirk.

“Yes, thank you. Here.” She handed him his phone back. “Now, you can enjoy yours. She hasn’t stopped calling for the last ten minutes.”

He startled and quickly checked his phone. His eyebrows quirked.

“I don’t know that number.”

She turned back to the window, giving him what privacy she could in an enclosed helicopter. Resting her head on the window, she tried not to think about all the things that could go sideways once they landed. He kept calling her princess, but this wasn’t a fairytale, and no matter how positive she tried to be, she couldn’t imagine this coming to a happy storybook ending.

“Holy shit.” Sitting straight up in his chair, the man beside her turned to the Wild Mustangs’ leader. “I have three missed calls from the Pentagon on my phone.”

“I’ll do you one better,” the female pilot suddenly called back over her shoulder. “I’m being redirected to Morón Air Base,and we are being ordered to take the handcuffs off Christian Reid. They’re not saying, ‘right fucking now,’ but it’s certainly implied.”

Chapter

Seventeen

Reid sat on the end of a very comfortable medical examining table in Morón’s on-base hospital, dressed in a fresh, clean military uniform he had absolutely no business wearing. The electrical marks Fariq had burned into his chest and thigh had been treated and rebandaged. He’d been given two injections, which was two IV drips and one injection less than what Aliya had received after being whisked off for treatment. He had no idea where she was, but he knew it wasn’t far. There were two officers stationed outside his door—not so much to prevent anyone from talking to him, he suspected, but to keep him from ‘wandering’ off. A third man, a young soldier with glasses who introduced himself as General Markoff’s aid, Tannehill, kept him appraised of her progress.

“Sepsis isn’t fun, but they think she’ll make a full recovery. If someone hadn’t treated her, she’d be doing a lot worse than she is.”

“Is she going to be released after this?” he’d asked.

Tannehill blinked at him twice. “I assume so. At least, I haven’t heard any differently. General Markoff should be here momentarily. I’m sure he’ll have more information for you.”

“Am I under arrest?” he persisted, pretty sure he already knew the answer but not quite able to let himself trust it. He knew the wrong he’d done over the years, and yes, he’d done it under the guise of being an undercover agent, but that only protected a man from so much. Yet when the Pentagon called and ordered handcuffs to be removed, they were.

So, here he sat, awaiting the General’s leisure, wondering who Aliya had called and what she’d said, knowing this absolutely flew in the face of the ‘do nothing’ edict he’d given her, although he also knew she’d done it before he’d passed that edict down. Unless, of course, one counted the time on Fariq’s yacht when he’d told her to stop playing spy games before she got them both killed.

He wasn’t sure it was fair, but if by some miracle they both got out of here, he was absolutely going to count it. Then he was going to spank the hell out of her. He didn’t care how long or how hard, he would forever emblaze the print of his palm across her ass if that’s what it took to finally drum into her head that she couldn’t afford to remind anyone she had once shared her brother’s last name. He meant to take care of that personally with a ring… and a collar. No one—be they good guys or bad—would believe she was innocent if she dabbled so much as her tiniest toe in politics, expressed an opinion in foreign affairs, was seen with a gun in her hand, or so much as talked to the wrong man in a coffee shop.

She was tainted. She might not understand that, but he did. Her brother had a lot of enemies. She would never, ever be completely free of the consequences Fariq’s actions had wrought.

Neither would he, for that matter, but at least he’d had the choice.

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