CHAPTER5
Sig
“You could help,” I muttered through clenched teeth, as I tried to subdue the wildcat in my arms. She was fighting with all her strength and though I outweighed her by at least fifty pounds and was a few inches taller, she was doing surprisingly well. The fact that we were both in our underwear made it a bit more fun.
“Rafe toldyouto tie her up,” Arsen said with a smirk as he leaned back on his cot to watch the show. He had his tree trunk sized arms tucked up beneath his head. His laugh rumbled out like thunder as Colby nailed me in the shin with her foot.
I’d flip him off if I could spare taking a hand off of her. As it was, it was taking more strength than I thought it would to muscle her back to my cot. Once I had her in position, I fell back onto it, with her secured against my chest.
Her gasp was loud in the room and I took the precious seconds of stunned immobility to shift and roll on top of her. I was careful to secure her legs with mine so she couldn’t knee me in the nuts the way she had Arsen.
Rafe walked over and handed me four strands of rope.
Colby’s eyes widened, seeing them, and she shook her head. “Please don’t. Just let me go.” She wasn’t fighting anymore.
It wasn’t until that minute that I realized she thought we were going to hurt her. Cold seeped into my bones as my gut twisted. We were assholes, that much was true, but we weren’t into hurting women. The truth was I’d never had to resort to force and I never planned to. Women flocked to me; wherever in the world we found ourselves, I was never short on female company.
Although you’ve never helped pull one out of a firefight and held her against her will before.
Out here, there were no women. Ghosts weren’t seen and that was the entire point. So I couldn’t help that I was hard as a fucking brick when a gorgeous woman was squirming beneath me. That didn’t mean I was going to fuck her. I was going to do my damndest to convince Rafe and Arsen to drop her off at the nearest American base. We didn’t need the kind of trouble she was going to bring.
“Hurry up and bind her,” Rafe said. He’d switched back to Russian.
She’d clearly picked up on a little of what he’d said earlier, though she’d started speaking Spanish, so we wouldn’t go back to Italian. It was best for now if we pretended we didn’t speak English, although I was beginning to think she suspected we did. We’d stick with speaking Russian for now, at least until we knew more about her. Arsen had a difficult time with Swedish, and she knew some words of Italian—thanks to what she knew of Spanish. Between the three of us we could speak fifteen different languages, but were limited to four that all three of us could communicate in.
“We still have work to do.”
I tied each hand to the posts of the cot. Once they were secure, I shoved off her and did the same with her ankles. She was lying spread out on my cot like a fucking offering. I’d be a filthy liar if I didn’t admit my cock jerked at the sight and I could feel pre-cum lubing up the tip. It’d been a long time since I’d touched a woman and she was an exceptionally sexy one.
Turning, I grabbed my pants from the floor and pulled them on. I needed to get her out of my head, but that image was burned there. It was going to be front and center in my mind every time I closed my eyes. “Are we still going after Roj?” I asked, tugging my shirt on.
A quick glance over my shoulder and I saw Colby watching us with a distrustful gaze. The fact that we were putting clothes on, rather than taking them off, seemed to be helping her relax. She still had no idea what we were up to, but she knew what weweren’tgoing to do.
“No. We have something else to do today,” Rafe said, his eyes drifting over to Colby.
Arsen was lacing up his boots, but he cursed in Bosnian. He was muttering to himself in his native language and I picked up enough to know he wasn’t thrilled either.
We both knew what Rafe had planned, but I still asked. Pausing in the act of lacing up my own boots, I shot Rafe a hard look. “Please tell me we aren’t going back to that village.”
The determination in his eyes was all I needed to see to know we were. “Her team is dead,” I said, gesturing back at her. Her head moved, so she could watch me as I spoke. We knew she didn’t understand Russian so we spoke freely in front of her. “We all know it.”
“It’s likely,” he agreed.
“So why are we going back?”
“We don’t owe them anything,” Arsen interrupted. I was surprised he was on my side. He usually backed Rafe with whatever he wanted.
“I know that. Hurry the fuck up,” Rafe growled at us before walking out the door.
“We don’t owe her anything either,” I barked, irritated that he wasn’t listening.
He didn’t answer me, not verbally. Instead he narrowed his eyes on me like I just challenged him to a duel.
Sighing, I finished getting ready and grabbed my weapons. “What about her?” I asked.
Checking the knots I had tied, he said, “She’ll be fine here for a few hours.” Together we went out the door. There was no point in fighting with him when he’d made his mind up.
I shaded my eyes while they adjusted to the early morning sun. It wasn’t too hot yet, but it would be. We’d changed from our black clothing to brown. It blended in better for daytime missions.