Hot & Bothered (A Hostile Operations Team Novel - Book 8) Read Online Free PDF

me. I know it can’t be easy for you.”
    She smiled. It was easy because it was him. “You’ve always been so good to me. I appreciate it more than you know.”
    He turned and sat back against the headboard, then pulled her into his arms. “You deserve happiness, Emily. You deserve everything good in life. And you deserve to be treated like the special woman you are.”
    She wrapped her arms around his as they sat there together. There was so much she wanted to say to him. So much she couldn’t say. Somehow, Ryan had become her best friend. But how did you tell your best friend you were about to do something he definitely wouldn’t want you to do?
    “I wish we’d met under different circumstances,” she said quietly. “I wish so much was different.”
    He hugged her tight. Then he nuzzled her hair aside and spoke in her ear. “The only thing I wish is for you to be happy and safe.”
    She turned in his arms, tilted her face up to his. “I am happy when I’m with you.”
    He looked torn, intense, and she knew he was thinking they couldn’t do this again. But he didn’t know the real reason—and she wasn’t going to share it with him.
    “Kiss me, Ryan,” she whispered.  
    His head dropped to hers. Everything faded but the heat between them.

CHAPTER FOUR

    TWO MONTHS LATER…

    “Flash, ready room. Now.”  
    Chase “Fiddler” Daniels had just peeked his head around the corner of the team storage room and barked out the words before disappearing again. Ryan stood and opened his locker, stowing the gear he’d been checking for worn areas, before heading down the corridor and into the ready room.
    When he walked inside, his teammates were all there. So was Echo Squad, another team they often worked closely with on assignments. Cade Rodgers, Echo’s leader, nodded at him as he went over and sat next to Fiddler. Cade was a big motherfucker, tall and broad and about as mean as a rattlesnake. Just the kind of guy you wanted in your corner.
    Then again, all the men in this room—and the two women, of course—were the kind you’d want in your corner.  
    Fiddler gave Ryan a look. It was one of concern and puzzlement. Hell, all the guys had been looking at him like that for the past two months. They knew something was wrong. They just didn’t know what.
    But it had been going on since they’d learned Emily had left the country with Ian Black. Fucking Ian Black. Ryan’s gut clenched tight. If he ever got in a room with that bastard again, he’d kill him. Didn’t matter if the dude was on their side—or at least he’d appeared to be at last count—Ryan was going to kill him for involving Emily in whatever scheme he had going.
    Ryan clenched his fists. It didn’t matter how many days had passed since that last night with her, he still couldn’t fathom that she’d walked away from her life—from him—the way she had. She hadn’t told him a fucking thing! She’d lied to him that night. Lied about everything.
    She’d made love to him for hours and then left him to return to the Middle East. The last time she’d gone to the desert with a man, the experience had chewed her up and spit her out and changed everything for her.  
    Jesus. Ryan scrubbed a hand over his face.
    He still didn’t understand. He refused to understand.  
    He looked at Victoria, at the tight lines around her mouth, and he knew she didn’t understand either. She’d been filled with rage the day Mendez delivered the message from Black. Victoria had wanted to hop on a plane and go to the desert right away. Ryan had wanted to go with her, and to hell with everything else.
    But Colonel Mendez had rightly pointed out that they had about as much chance of walking into any part of Qu’rim or the surrounding states and extracting her safely as a snowball had of surviving a furnace. They didn’t even know if she was actually there. She could be anywhere, and until they knew more, they couldn’t do a fucking thing about it.
    Every