Protecting Jenna (NCIS Series Book 8) Read online

  Something new was awakening in her, something that she had never experienced before—this…this was passion.

  He caught her hips and molded her flush against him, his mouth wide and hot. The feel of him drove the breath right out of her, and she made another helpless sound against his mouth. Austin tightened his arm around her back and dragged his mouth away, his breathing labored. Her heart racing and her pulse thick and heavy, she turned her face against his neck, the warmth of his touch filling her with a heavy weakness, her whole body trembling.

  She was trying to process why this felt so good. Was it the danger they were in? Was it because it was forbidden? Did she just need comfort from the fear? Why did this feel more real than her marriage?

  Unable to step away from his body, her breath jamming in her chest, she clutched at him. His breathing ragged, he held on to her. He roughly whispered her name and found her mouth again. She lost a whole piece of reality when he caught her hair and twisted her head back, covering her mouth with a kiss that told her he wanted more. She cried out, her voice muffled against his lips. Adjusting the fit of his mouth against hers, he absorbed the sound, running his hands up her rib cage.

  The emergency alarm blared across the compound and they froze, broke apart. The rat-a-tat-tat of gunfire galvanized her. Chests heaving, they stared into each other’s eyes. For a millisecond, there was regret, pain, longing, fear, and desperation in his, which she was sure were mirrored in her own.

  Then Austin moved, snatched up his helmet, jamming it on and fastening the chin strap. Then he reached for his rifle. Someone was shouting, the sound of his voice audible through the headset. The sudden rumble outside sent her stomach dropping to her shoes, and she gave Austin a terrified look, her heart suddenly lurching.

  “They’re breaking through. We’ve got to bug out.” He grasped her arm.

  “Safe haven?”

  “No. Hear that?” Relief in his voice, he started moving toward the door. “Blackhawks.”

  She heard the powerful whop, whop, whop of the blades mixed with the roar of a crowd that was out for blood, the automatic gunfire unending. They must have heard the choppers, too, and had no intention of letting the Americans get away. Both sounds were getting stronger and louder.

  Phones were ringing everywhere, and gunfire erupted close, the sound of the crowd surging. Explosions ignited, dulled booms in the room, a fireball flaring up right outside the window. They were blowing up the compound, breaching the front doors.

  He took her through the adjoining door, and they stepped out into pandemonium. The barrier was rocking as people were pouring out of the offices all along the hallway, rushing up the stairs in a blind panic. Then pop, pop, pop flashes behind the barricade, the sound of whizzing, some people dropping to the floor amid screams and panic.

  The fact had no sooner registered than a steely arm wrapped itself around her waist. Before she could take a breath or even register the depth of her alarm, Austin pressed her up against the wall—pressed hard, his whole body flat against her back, immobilizing her.

  Adrenaline washed into her veins on a river of stark, icy terror.

  “I’m going to take you up, then I’m coming back down.” His voice was soft, gravelly and very close to her ear, his breath blowing across her skin as he spoke. “Do you copy?” She had to focus on him, focus on her breathing and slow it down.

  She managed a sharp, terrified nod.

  “Good. Don’t stop for anything.”

  It was so darn hard to control her fear. Her heart was racing, totally at odds with the slow, steady beat of his. She could feel it against her back. She was frightened, but he wasn’t. He was calm, breathing normally, holding her. She felt shrink-wrapped between his body and the wall.

  He released her, turned her toward escape and the waiting choppers. They were caught up in the press of humanity running up the stairs at a breakneck speed. They burst onto the roof, the sky full of helicopters, lights brightly illuminating everything. The screams and shouts of both the civilians and military personnel rushed around her like a chaotic, disorienting merry-go-round. She saw her husband being hustled toward the first helicopter to land. People poured in after him and shortly after that, it lifted off.

  Her heart sank. He never even looked back. Never even tried to find her.

  Austin set her inside the chopper. “Stay here.” He grabbed a headset and bellowed, “There are wounded. Do not lift off until I return.” He listened, then shouted, “Ten minutes! Copy that!”

  He ripped off the headset, and then he was gone. She heard the sound of automatic weapons and then minutes later Austin was back. He was carrying two women, one over each shoulder. One of the crew leaned past her and took the wounded, crying, and hysterical women into the chopper.

  “Everyone’s out,” he said, but his voice was weaker. Then she saw the blood on his uniform, and he stumbled, grasping his shoulder.

  The crew member grabbed him and hauled him into the vehicle, straight across her lap, as the protesters burst onto the roof. The chopper lifted off with a whirring, deafening roar as the crowd discharged its weapons, but the guns of the chopper held them back as they ran toward the safety of the building. Austin’s gasp of pain brought her eyes to his. She unsnapped his helmet and eased it off, cradling his head, his hair soft against her fingers.

  Blood, stark red against her shirt, galvanized her. Pressing both palms over his wound, his blood was warm and wet against her fingers.

  Their eyes met again and locked as time twisted out into a slow-motion kind of free fall. The look in his said more than words could ever express. It was a longing that sucked at her very soul. She managed a shaky breath, her chest suddenly aching. She couldn’t feel this way, this intensely, about a man she’d just met. But parting from him seemed impossible, and Lord, but it hurt. More than anything, more than her next breath, she wanted…him.

  She shivered from all the feelings welling up inside her, and she opened her mouth to speak, to tell him what was in her heart, but his eyes drifted closed.

  Chapter Two

  San Diego, California

  Six years later

  The Santa Ana winds were in full swing. Jenna Webb could detect that electric feel in the air as she drove away from the San Diego Valley View concert arena. The dry, eerie-sounding wind gave her the heebie-jeebies, as if the heat it brought were trapped inside her. With that atmospheric phenomenon came the very real chance that one spark could set off wildfires, which tended to plague Southern California this time of year. She had been used to a climate where it didn’t rain much, at least in the desert where she was living, but lightning was a factor, crackling across the sky in spectacular shows of bright white danger.

  Fresh from seeing a concert by Nora Anderson, a jazz piano and sultry blues singer who was very popular, she drove toward home. Nora wasn’t exactly one of Jenna’s favorites, but the performance had been free. Jenna’s cousin, Sarah Taylor, had had tickets to the concert, but she wasn’t feeling well and had stayed home. She was scheduled to fly with the Blue Angels, the Navy's elite flight demonstration squadron. They flew in airshows across the country, promoting goodwill and performing feats of skill and precision for awed audiences. She wanted to make a good impression, being one of two women on the team, and the first female demo pilot. Given the nearly two-hour one-way trip to San Diego from El Centro where the Blue Angels had their winter quarters and training site, Sarah had decided that getting rest was a better idea. She’d offered the tickets to Jenna, but there was no one Jenna really knew that well to ask to the concert, so Jenna had gone alone.

  She’d been pretty much alone for the last six months.

  Yeah, that’s what happened when she went through a traumatic, life-altering situation and her husband…ex-husband, Robert Webb…had still treated her like a fragile little girl who needed constant pampering. He had no more power over her now that they had been divorced for several months. But she had separated from him six months before
that.

  All her life she’d been put on a pedestal, and she really found it so suffocating. The first few days after they had returned to DC, Jenna had thought she might have just imagined any real connection between her and Austin. She had been unhappy, and they had been in an intense situation. Austin had never tried to contact her, but she’d inquired through Robert to see how he was doing. He’d been treated somewhere overseas and then had been flown back to the United States to his home state to recuperate.

  Austin was the only man who had treated her like she mattered.

  But that was six years ago, when she’d been married to Robert. He was now a retired US ambassador. But the takeover of the US Embassy in Khida had been a blow to him. He'd done an admirable job of re-establishing the mission in Ja'arbah, and they had stayed for another year before getting an assignment to Cairo. He could never seem to forget about the takeover, and Jenna held on to the memory like it was a lifeline. Her perspective had been changed then, and she couldn’t go back. Their relationship only eroded more as time moved inexorably on.

  As the years passed with more postings—safer ones—their distance grew, until they were sleeping in separate bedrooms. Right before the term of Robert's post came to an end and they were to leave Khida, Jenna overheard a couple of the Marines talking about Austin. They said he’d gotten out of the Marines, and his girlfriend wanted him home. They joked that he would soon be married to the old ball and chain.

  But none of that seemed to mar the memory or dim it.

  It was Austin Beck that stood out in her mind.

  The first time she’d seen him, he’d tilted her world on its axis. The first time they made eye contact, she had been breathless—completely winded, as if she’d run a mile. She tried to tell herself that it was because he was so young, but later, when she’d been cloistered with him, she had to admit to herself that it hadn’t been his age. She was four years older than him. She was now thirty-two while he was only…twenty-eight.

  As she approached the city proper, she gripped the wheel as memories flooded back to her. A horn sounded, and she jerked as the headlights rushed past her. Had she drifted? So lost in her memory? Her divorce from Robert became final months ago, but after Ja’arbah, there had been no going back.

  The memory of him stuck with her as she drove into her parking space next to Sarah’s car. Sarah should be sleeping, but Jenna hoped she was up. With a T-shirt and CD in a bag, knowing her cousin would be thrilled, she entered the hall that led to their apartment. Unlocking the door and stepping inside, she froze. It was pitch dark inside. No ambient light from anywhere. Jenna tried the light switch. Nothing happened.

  Frowning, she cursed under her breath. What had happened to the power? She would check the breaker box and see if they had blown a fuse. “Sarah?” Jenna called, but there was nothing but an ominous silence. She must be sleeping like a log after taking her cold medicine. It is late.

  A shiver coursed down Jenna’s spine. She pressed the flashlight app on her phone to light her path. Making her way into the kitchen and to the closet, she tripped. That damn rug was a hazard. She opened the door and walked inside.

  She shone the light over the equipment and froze. That was odd. The fuse box door was open. When she checked the breakers, they were all off.

  She threw them into the on position and lights came on in the kitchen and the hall, then she backed out of the closet, the heel of her foot connecting with something solid. She stumbled backward and swore, but the word crumbled in her mouth on a soft cry. She hadn’t tripped over the rug.

  Her cousin lay face up, wedged against the counter, her long blond hair spread across the hardwood floor, her open, staring eyes looking up at Jenna.

  Jenna let out a piercing, sobbing scream.

  San Clemente, California

  Special Agent Austin Beck woke edgy and twitchy, as if heat were trapped underneath his skin, a kind of fever that sent restlessness spiraling through him. He hated this time of year. With the winds came the memories, all unwanted. “Damn you, you bleak, bitchy harbinger of change,” he mumbled as he turned over. “Yeah, I’m a drama king, so sue me.”

  He wanted nothing more than to take leave and get out of Dodge, but Derrick Gunn, one of his NCIS team members, had taken some time off and his other coworker Amber Michaels was nursing a cold, which left them strained and severely understaffed. His window of opportunity had slammed shut.

  Cursing at how the Santa Anas made his nerves jump and skin itch, he growled as he flung the covers off his naked body and sat on the edge of the bed, breathing around the discomfort.

  For a moment, the heat radiated off him. Running his hands through his shaggy hair, his teeth on edge, he rose and walked to the window. Pushing the drapes open and pulling up the blinds, he peered out. Gray rain fell in the parking lot and on the beach beyond, the ocean full of white foam and an angrier gray. Heavy cloud cover obscured the rising sun, a faint glow tinging the horizon, the wan light unable to penetrate the secluded shadows and silence. As he stood in the gloom, trying to will away the awful sensation in his gut—a sensation comprised of regret and old shame—he took a much-needed stabilizing breath.

  The winds had been a part of one of the worst times of his life. After the embassy debacle in Ja’arbah, he’d spent some time at Walter Reed near Washington recovering from the bullet wound to his shoulder. He rotated it in memory of the pain from that day, the pain he’d seen on Jenna’s face in that chopper running like the streaks of rain on the window glass into the pain of Melanie’s eyes the day she’d walked away from him.

  Everything had changed between them when he went home to recover fully, but she hadn’t known it. He’d let it go and shipped out again as soon as he was well. He’d tried to convince himself that it was just a moment in time; he’d been lonely and had needed female companionship. He’d resolved to forget Jenna and recommit to Melanie.

  Folding his arms across his naked chest, Austin rested his shoulder against the window frame, watching the reflection of the lamplight against the glass. The darkened lot below glistened with the inky puddles collecting along the curb. Rain slashed the surface and rattled against the window, and Austin stared out, his thoughts detached as he watched a gust of wind send rain skittering along the pavement. His apartment was on the third floor, and this window offered him an unobstructed view of the dark, deserted beach beyond. All he had to do was open this window to hear the ocean.

  He pushed off and headed for the closet, dragging out his full wet suit, especially designed for the fifty-seven-degree water temp. He stepped in and worked the thick neoprene up his legs and over his hips, leaving the top of it flopping against his butt as he grabbed his board. At the door, he slipped on flip-flops and went out into the rain. It was drizzling as he trekked toward the beach, the unseasonably warm, seventy-degree weather feeling good against his still-sizzling skin.

  A gust of wind caught his hair and his board, rattling against the building, buffeting the streetlamp he walked under.

  Yeah, he’d separated from the Marines mostly because of Melanie’s nagging. He’d tried. He’d even asked her to marry him. They’d made plans. He was going to work and go to school to become a lawyer. She’d already finished her law degree and she supported them. But he’d gotten a contract job to help with finances until he was admitted to school, gotten exposed to NCIS and everything had changed. He’d done a three-sixty and joined, excited about the prospect of using his tech smarts and his mind to catch bad guys, as close to a military group without being active military as he could get.

  In the process, he’d broken Melanie’s heart.

  She’d been livid that he hadn't discussed this major decision with her and was once again in a job that would take him away from her, one where he was again in danger. They had fought bitterly. She’d given him an ultimatum that January three years ago to either go to school and forget about NCIS or she would leave him, and he had to finally follow his gut. He’d told her he wasn�
��t changing his mind, law enforcement interested him more than anything else, and she had walked. He’d chalked it up to being too young. Not ready. He still wasn’t sure after all these years, and given the time between then and now, why was he rehashing this?

  Maybe because he was lonely and felt as if he were in stasis, limbo. No man’s land. Sure, he’d dated, but no one had interested him for longer than a few weeks.

  He came to a halt near the crashing waves, knowing that the ocean, even angry and wind-tossed, would soothe him.

  So he needed to stop standing here, staring out at an empty sea, a caged-cat feeling eating a hole in his gut.

  A twist of black humor surfaced, and he watched the rain against the frenetic swells, the kind of waves that made a surfer grin. Maybe he was standing here feeling like a caged cat because he hadn’t really understood why he’d made the decisions he had. Why he had trashed their plans. He pushed her to break off the engagement. In hindsight, he’d found his calling, but somewhere in the back of his mind, he had been aware she wouldn’t accept his career choice.

  A pair of cobalt blue eyes and bouncy black curls broke into his musings. Experiencing a hot rushing feeling to his gut, he clenched his jaw.

  He had to stop thinking about Jenna.

  Time for some distraction.

  “Hold up there, dude.”

  A female’s authoritative voice coming out of the gloom made him whip around. Special Supervisory Agent Kai Talbot, his boss at NCIS, stood in the sand, her hair pulled back in a ponytail, revealing the strong bones of her attractive face.

  He groaned and slammed his surfboard into the sand. “I haven’t had a day off for two weeks straight.”

  “I know,” she said with sympathy. “I’ve been right there with you. But turning off your cell is not exactly responsible.”