Defender Read Online Free PDF Page A

someone had a warm blanket up there. All flames from the explosion aside, she was freezing her tush off.
    Explosion. Now that she was almost safe, the magnitude of how close she’d come to dying punched her. Hard. Concerns about her scantily clothed body didn’t matter one whit. She was lucky to have cheated death. Again. Damn it all, she’d taken on this stint with the USO as a payback to the dead soldier who’d donated her kidney so Chloe could live.
    The cable jerked to a stop just shy of the ramp. She stifled a scream and clamped her legs tighter around him. His wet uniform rasped against her bare calves. “At least I’m not afraid of heights. That would really suck.”
    He grunted.
    The cable eased into motion again, drawing them inside, and just that fast, they were both standing on blessedly dry metal. Now she couldn’t make herself let go of this guy who’d jumped into a shark pit. She gasped in air heavy with the scent of musky male and something akin to engine oil. She soaked up the heat of him because she must still be cold, otherwise why would her teeth chatter? The whump, whump, whump of the rotors synched up with his heart under her ear.
    A blanket draped over her shoulders, and she forced herself to step deeper into the cavernous cargo hold full of equipment, soldiers, and soaked USO crew members. Adrenaline tingled away, almost as if dripping from her toes like the salt water pooling around her feet.
    Her rescue guy grasped her arm. “Are you hurt?”
    “Only my fashion sense.” She found her footing and grabbed for the blanket sliding from her shoulders. “I noticed nobody else is wearing sequins to the beach this year.”
    No wonder everyone was staring at her. Especially the towering man who’d hauled her tookus out of the sea.
    Like he would be as interested if she wore her regular wardrobe of white shirts and khaki, khaki, and more khaki, varied only by the donning of her black formal wear for orchestral performing. She wondered what he would do if she flashed him her favored Vulcan salute along with a salutation of Live long and prosper.
    And God, her thoughts were rambling. Must be shock in the aftermath of what she’d been through. How totally awkward. She needed to find a seat. Then people would look elsewhere.
    She frowned. They weren’t just staring. They were gaping.
    Had she suffered a costume malfunction? She didn’t normally need to think about wardrobe hazards in floor-length black taffeta or velvet, but she wasn’t used to regulating showy getups that were vintage Cher.
    Chloe clenched her fists, restraining the impulse to flatten her hands to her chest and check on “the girls”; now wouldn’t that really get everyone gawking? She snuck a quick peek south instead as she leaned to scoop her blanket from the metal grate.
    Her breasts were still tucked securely in the sequin-speckled costume. She blinked once, twice, and sure enough, her eyesight didn’t lie. Oh damn.
    “The girls” were safely constrained inside sopping-wet, transparent silk.

TWO
    ISTANBUL, TURKEY
     
     
    Marta Surac killed her first man at thirteen.
    Thirty years later as she writhed to the pulsing electronic techno beat, she still didn’t feel guilty. She wouldn’t have even wasted a thought on the past except for the popping of a cork in her new pub.
    She plunged her hands in her hair, raising her arms higher until her bracelets hitched on her elbow. She pumped her hips closer to her young military dance partner. His eyes swept down her with an appreciation that didn’t affect her in any way other than the power it provided. Marta stared right back, smiling, because this trained soldier didn’t know she’d already taken down one of his own tonight.
    He could be next, if she gave the word.
    Glasses clinked while people at a nearby table toasted with the freshly decanted wine. She swayed faster in frenetic synch with the strobing lights and flashing thirty-year-old memory.
    Her uncle had ripped off