Lambert made a sound of disgust, and Torsten replied, “Your objections are duly noted. But we’re doing this my way.”
“It’s a mistake—” Lambert started.
Torsten cut him off, snapping, “We’ve already had this discussion. Report back to me after you’ve gotten your head out of your ass.”
Lambert spun on his heel, scowling. “Let’s go, Wilkes. I’ve got places to go and things to do.”
She hefted her pack wearily over one shoulder and headed for the door after “Lambo.” She would lay odds he got that handle not entirely because of his last name but also in honor of a Lamborghini—the sleek, sexy Italian sports car.
“Hustle up, Wilkes,” Torsten said sharply. “Your ride’s already waiting. You’re late.”
She scowled. She couldn’t very well be late for an appointment she didn’t even know she had until ten seconds ago. “What about my gear back at the dorm?”
“It’ll be shipped to you.”
Wow. He really had it in for her, didn’t he?
She paused in the doorway and looked back at him. She spoke with quiet certainty, not by way of a whine, but stating a fact. “You’re making a mistake, Major.”
“I’m absolutely certain I’m not. And someday you’ll come to agree with me,” he retorted.
Never.
Tears burned at her eyes and she blinked them back furiously. She would be damned if she cried in front of these jerks. They didn’t deserve her tears. And she didn’t deserve this rude treatment. She was a freaking Army officer with a distinguished career behind her and ahead of her.
The walk of shame from the Quonset hut to the parking lot with Captain America at her side like a jailer was perhaps the worst hundred yards of her life. She felt the eyes on her. Everyone...everyone...noted her departure. She could physically feel on her skin the satisfaction of the boys’ club as it closed ranks against her. It was all she could do not to vomit up Torsten’s bottle of water in her humiliation as she climbed into a Hummer, her head held high.
It was a fight, but she wrestled back another bout of threatening tears as Lambert started the Jeep’s engine. She wasn’t going to cry for this jerk, either. A girl had to have a little pride, after all.
Lambert backed out of the parking spot and headed for the airfield. She commented sourly, “I knew folks around here hated the idea of women special operators, but this dramatic show of expulsion is a little excessive.”
“Take it up with Torsten. I’m just following orders.”
Orders he sounded irritated as heck over. What did he have to be mad about? He wasn’t the one being publicly humiliated. She had to get her mind off what was happening or she was going to break down and sob in front of all of them, and she would never give them that satisfaction. Searching desperately for a distraction, she mumbled, “What’s in Phoenix?”
Her escort merely shrugged. Even that casual gesture of his shoulder, fraught with rippling muscle under smooth, bronzed skin and a tight black T-shirt, was sexy as hell. At least Torsten had given her one last piece of eye candy to enjoy before he dashed her dreams and ended her life.
Lambo drove her straight to the airfield without saying a word. But disapproval rolled off him in tangible waves. All these guys were flaming jerks. Too bad she was so wasted from the run she couldn’t think up any better epithets to call him in her mind.
She spied an airplane, apparently waiting for her, and stared. It was a twin turboprop plane that would carry about eight passengers. Except there didn’t appear to be any other passengers milling around waiting to go. Surely, Torsten hadn’t ordered up an entire airplane just to get rid of her.
Lambert came around to open her door for her as she stared back and forth doubtfully between aircraft and man.
He smiled wryly at her. All the oxygen in her vicinity disappeared, and she caught herself swaying toward him slightly. Dang, that man was attractive. Like a giant, man-shaped electromagnet. The pull of him crackled through her individual cells, realigning them into his orbit whether she willed it or not.
Maybe she was reacting to him so strongly because she was frazzled from the run and her abrupt ejection from the Special Forces pipeline. Whatever the reason, being this close to Lambert was throwing her seriously off balance.
She took a step out of the vehicle—or tried to, at any rate—and pitched forward, straight into her escort.
Impressions assailed her from every direction. His stomach was as hard and ridged with muscle as it looked. Heat poured off his body. He smelled like a forest on a lazy summer day. And he made her think of hot, sweaty sex.
He grabbed her by her upper arms and dragged her up his body deliciously. An unmistakably hard, impressively large bulge pressed against her belly. He acted as if he barely noticed her weight. His strength was breathtaking. Literally. She had trouble inhaling properly as her entire body melted in a puddle of unwilling lust. Oh, who was she kidding? It was totally willing lust.
* * *
Beau Lambert stared down at the smoking-hot woman plastered against him. Her skin was a totally edible shade of café au lait, her hair wavy and dark, coffee brown. But what really stood out were those eyes of hers, mint green and practically glowing against her darkly tanned skin. She wasn’t model material unless modeling agencies went for exotic types, not quite beautiful but undeniably unforgettable. He would 100 percent buy her a drink if he saw her across a crowded bar.
At the moment her cheeks were flushed, her eyes wide with surprise. His nostrils flared at the sudden sexual awareness he sensed in her.
Dammit, this was exactly why he hated the idea of women special operators.
His stare dropped to the neck of her tank top and the curves of her upper breasts. How was a woman as buff as she was that bountifully endowed? Talk about winning the genetic lottery. This woman had hit the mega millions jackpot in that department.
Get your head out of your crotch, man. Tessa Wilkes was an Army officer, not a sex object. But he couldn’t resist a last glance at that swelling cleavage. She checked pretty much every box on his hot female checklist. She even had the cocky attitude and sassy mouth he secretly loved.
He murmured, “If you can’t stand on your own two feet, this little adventure is going to be over before it ever gets rolling.”
“What adventure? What are your orders?” she demanded. “Let me guess. Put me on that plane and make sure I don’t bolt before it goes airborne.”
If only. He would love nothing better than to toss her on a plane and send her anywhere far, far from him. He’d argued stridently against the assignment Torsten had given him, but the bastard hadn’t budged. Torsten was convinced that he, Beau Lambert, was the only man for the job.
Wilkes tried to stand on her own, grimacing in pain, but her legs weren’t cooperating yet. He wasn’t a complete ass, and he held her upright. Which, of course, meant more belly-to-belly, sex-fantasy-conjuring contact.
She hung in his arms like a rag doll devoid of bones. He remembered that level of exhaustion from his own initial training. A frisson of shared sympathy passed through him. But he shoved it aside. He had no time for sympathy for this woman. Not if he was going to prove Gunnar Torsten wrong.
She mumbled, “First a public humiliation, and now this. I’m so sorry.”
She was right about the public part. His orders were to make sure everyone in the program saw him haul Wilkes out. There had to have been at least a hundred