Operation: Midnight Guardian Read Free

leaves. Blinking hair from her eyes, she looked up, found herself staring into icy, blue eyes.
    “There are four heavily armed men less than two hundred yards away,” he said in a low voice. “Make another sound and they’ll kill us both. Do you understand?”
    For an instant the sense of helplessness and terror nearly overwhelmed her. But Mattie could tell by the look in his eyes that if he wanted her dead, he would have already done it.
    She jerked her head. Never taking his eyes from hers, he removed his hand from her mouth and put his finger to his lips. His eyes scanned the surrounding darkness. Reaching out, he grasped the base of a long-dead bush and dragged it over them. The bush was large and full and in the semidarkness would cover them completely.
    He turned to her and looked into her eyes, his expression tense. He was lying squarely on top of her with some of his weight on his elbows. “Don’t move,” he whispered. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
    His body was rock hard, his muscles taut. Atsome point during the struggle her legs had opened, and he was lying between her knees, pressed intimately against her. He was no longer breathing hard, but she was.
    “The tracks end here!” A heavily accented voice cut through the night like a blade.
    “She’s using the stream to hide her tracks.” Another voice. Frighteningly near.
    “We should have had her by now. We’re running out of time.”
    Mattie listened, praying they wouldn’t be discovered when she saw a pair of boots and the butt of a semiautomatic rifle a few yards to her right. He was standing so close she could smell the stench of his sweat. Her breaths grew rapid and shallow.
    “We’re safe,” the man lying on top of her whispered. “Just calm down.”
    In the last hours she’d seen too much violence to keep a handle on the fear barreling through her. She could feel her entire body vibrating as a fresh wave of panic engulfed her. She began to hyperventilate. Her face and hands were tingling. If she didn’t get a grip, she was going to give away their hiding place and get them both killed.
    Dry grass crunched as one of the killers drew closer. For a terrible instant Mattie thought he’dheard her panicked breathing. She imagined him raising the rifle and shooting them the same way he’d gunned down the three marshals. The urge to jump to her feet and run was strong. She could feel her muscles twitching as the flight instinct kicked in.
    “Easy,” the man lying on top of her whispered. “Slow, deep breaths.”
    But Mattie was beyond hearing, beyond logic. She tried breathing through her nose, but she could no more slow her breathing than a marathon runner who’d just run ten miles.
    Grass and leaves rustled nearby and she knew one of the men was approaching. This is it, she thought. I’ve given away our hiding place and now they’re going to kill us.
    The man on top of her shifted, and suddenly she was aware of the way his body fit against hers. Surprising her, he set his hands on either side of her face. His palms were warm and amazingly gentle as he brushed back the hair from her face. Mattie looked into the startling blue of his eyes. And even though the threat of death was so close she could feel the cold scrape of it against her spine, her only thought was that no man had ever looked at her the way this man did.
    “What are you doing?” she asked.
    “Saving our lives,” he said and lowered his mouth to hers.
     
    CUTTER CONSIDERED HIMSELF a master of improvisation. He possessed an uncanny talent for making the best of a bad situation and the ability to adapt to current conditions. They were traits that made him the best of the best. At the moment, kissing this woman seemed like the most expedient way to keep her from getting both of them killed.
    He hadn’t expected to get caught up in the softness of her mouth. Sean Cutter didn’t get caught up in anything, especially when it came to his job. But that was exactly what