Per protocol, the comm stayed quiet as they circled wide to the back of the building. Connor ran to the far side. His back hit the wall and he slid down until he balanced on the balls of his feet. One hand snaked up as he tested the window and found it locked. He knew Cam had the same experience when the word locked came over the comm in an almost soundless whisper.
Connor wanted to spring up and look inside, but he waited, doing a mental countdown as he reached for patience and held for the signal. The line clicked once. That meant they were ready to go.
Four against two, and with Corcoran in the mix, Connor knew this should be an easy takedown. Clean and quick. But that depended on it being surprise-free and he’d been around long enough to know things rarely turned out that way.
A second click came right before a loud crash. Men’s voices filled the quiet air. They were yelling, then the bangs started. Gunfire and shuffling. More shouting.
Connor didn’t wait another minute. He jumped up and stepped out just far enough to get leverage. Ducking with his shoulder forward and head tucked, he ran. His body slammed into the window and the hit jolted through him. Glass shattered around him, the crackling and crunching filled his ears.
Gunfire continued to pop as momentum had him flying through the air and sliding across the hard floor on his hip. He rolled, keeping as much bare skin away from the sharp and broken edges as possible. When he stopped spinning, he looked up and saw Jana tied to a chair a few feet away. Shards of glass were scattered around her feet and a few caught the light where they stuck in her hair and across her lap.
He took in her wide eyes and the tear rolling down her cheek and scooted over to her, ignoring the crunching underneath him. When the shots grew closer and footsteps pounded on the front porch and near the open door, he gripped his knife and sawed through the bindings on her legs. After a few cuts, her ankle kicked free and she moved on the chair. It wasn’t until that moment that Connor noticed the second spray of glass in front of him and Cam crouched down, loosening the ties on her arms.
Just as they released her, the door slammed open. Connor didn’t hesitate. He yanked on Jana’s arm and tugged her to the floor on top of him. Firing with one hand, he used the other to shield her under him while they flipped over. Glass crushed under his arm and cut into the back of his hand where he cradled her head, keeping it off the dangerous floor.
One man peeked into the doorway then his head shot back out of sight again. The second time the guy’s gun came around first. Right when Connor spied one eye, the guy’s gun dropped and his body followed face forward to the floor. It took another beat or two for Connor to realize the thunder of gunfire had stopped and silence filled the room.
Blood oozed from the downed man’s head and puddled around his hair. Holt and Shane stepped over the lifeless body as they stormed inside.
Seeing his men snapped the stillness that had frozen Connor in place. “Everyone okay?”
“Two down and all is quiet.” Holt didn’t stop watching Jana as he talked.
Careful not to crush her underneath him, Connor looked down and stared into the big brown eyes he loved so much. Jana’s pale face couldn’t hide the high cheekbones and sexy mouth that drove him wild. After months apart there was so much he wanted to say. But not in front of an audience.
He went with the obvious. “Are you hurt?”
Without saying a word, she reached up and slipped a hand around the back of his neck. When she tugged his head down, he didn’t fight her. Inches separated them until his mouth covered hers and men standing around didn’t matter. Everything faded into the background except her and those lips and the kiss that sucked him under just as it always did.
His mouth wandered and his breath caught. He wanted to deepen the kiss. To ask her to come home right there, to forget all that had just happened and not take no for an answer. He settled for what she let him have now and tried to make that enough.
After nuzzling his nose in her hair, he forced his head to lift. “Jana?”
“You came.” She shifted and looked around. “And brought the big guns with you.”
How could she doubt he would get there? He would have stolen a plane if that’s what it took. “Of course.”
She still didn’t move. Just laid in his arms and let Connor keep the majority of her body off the glass on the floor.
Her gaze went back to him. “Did you get them all?”
“Yes.”
It was what she needed to hear and it wasn’t a complete lie. They got the ones they saw and the ones shooting back. As soon as he got her off the floor, he’d worry about the other men lurking out there and try to figure out why someone wanted him enough to take Jana. If the person knew him at all, he had to know touching her was a death sentence.
A smile kicked up at the corner of her mouth as she started to sit up with his help. “Funny, but I thought you were going to tell me it was too easy.”
He winced. His wife wasn’t stupid, so he didn’t treat her that way. “Well...”
The corners of her mouth fell. “Connor?”
“It was.”
Chapter Three
At Connor’s words, Jana shook her head and forced her mind to clear. She looked at the impressive devastation around her. The walls of the small cabin were all torn up from gunfire and glass covered the floor.
The front door hung from its hinges and a wall of muscled, fierce men surrounded her. She knew each of them would protect her. All would step in front of her and take a bullet. That’s who they were—quiet men who saved others for a living and refused the title of hero...no matter how much they deserved it.
Seeing Connor hit her like it always did. Made her breathless as her stomach performed a little dance. From the beginning, the combination of broad shoulders, black hair and dark eyes had battered her control.
He carried his emotional baggage with him and it showed in the serious expression on his face. He wasn’t pretty. He was tough and sexy and still had the power to make her heart stutter.
But the hesitation followed by the admission felled her. Putting aside the fear buzzing in her head and making her dizzy, she grabbed on to Connor’s arm and let him lift her to her feet. Pieces of glass hung from the ends of her hair and stabbed into her legs through her jeans, but she ignored all that.
She wanted to hide in a corner, but she forced her body to remain steady, even as she kept a hand locked around Connor’s arm. “How many men did you take out?”
“Two.”
That number was way off from what it should have been. She closed her eyes for a second and tried to remember the voices and faces of her attackers and kidnappers. Panic crashed over her but the feel of Connor’s hand over hers helped her push through it.
She swallowed hard to regain her voice and composure. “Let me see the bodies.”
With a hand skimming her hair, he frowned at her. “You sure?”
The soothing gesture almost did her in. The urge to curl up in his arms and let him make it all better nearly swamped her. She wasn’t weak and after a lifetime of being dragged around to camps and medical centers across the most poverty-stricken parts of the world by her doctor father she didn’t shake easily. But the knee-buckling kiss she gave Connor the minute the shooting ended was only part of what she wanted from him.
Drawing in a deep breath, she pushed her needs aside. There would be time later.