Secret Agent Seduction Read Free Page A

on his arm. She had the sensation of wrestling with a wild tiger.
    â€œLook,” she ground out. “My men are highly trained operatives with over twenty years of combat experience among them. The fact is, they don’t need your help, Magliore. But your family does. And so do the people of Muwaiti, who’ve been suffering under the brutal dictatorship of Alexandre Biassou for years. You owe it to them to make it out of this country alive. You’re their only hope, the only one who can ensure that Biassou is removed from power and punished for his crimes. Are you going to let them down?”
    Their gazes locked in a silent battle of wills. Leashed fury simmered in Magliore’s amber eyes. A pulse throbbed at the base of his jaw, and beneath Lia’s hand, his muscles were rigid, primed for action. She understood, even sympathized with his predicament. He was a soldier, trained to fight and defend his territory. He was born for battle, not to watch passively from the sidelines. It would be hard for him to surrender his power to another, let alone a woman. But that’s the way it had to be.
    At least for the next ten days.
    â€œWe have to go,” Lia said, quietly but firmly. “Now.”
    Magliore held her gaze for another tense moment, then relented. “We can leave through the back door. This way.” As he grasped Lia’s hand in the calloused warmth of his own, a flutter of heat ignited in the pit of her stomach.
    But she was too distracted by the jarring discovery she’d just made to dwell on her reaction.
    As Magliore led her quickly through the dark cabin, Lia realized that for the first time in her life, she had met someone whose mind she couldn’t read.

Chapter 2
    T he sounds of machine-gun fire and men yelling peppered the night air as Lia and Magliore crept stealthily away from the back of the cabin. After scanning the surrounding brush to ascertain that Biassou’s mercenaries were not lying in wait to ambush them, Lia signaled to Magliore, and together they quickly struck off into the deep jungle.
    Lia had returned Magliore’s weapons to him so that he could defend himself if they came under attack. He brought up the rear as she navigated through the thick foliage, her rifle set to burst pattern, her eyes fixed on the green-tinted shadows in her night-vision goggles as she searched for signs of other men on foot. She knew the mercenaries would be in hot pursuit once they realized that Magliore had managed to escape undetected from the cabin.
    All around them the dense, sultry jungle throbbed with plant and animal life. The air was damp and heavy with the scents of fecund earth and flowers that bloomed only in the dark. There was little visibility to the sky above, except where natural openings and thin spots in the forest canopy let in shards of moonlight. Wet leaves on the ground absorbed their footfalls, but the clay mud beneath the leaves made their footing tenuous, and every slime-covered log posed a hazard. Although Lia had been to Muwaiti once before, never could she have imagined the sheer vastness of the jungle.
    As they traveled farther away from the base camp, the sounds of the firefight grew quieter. Lia didn’t allow herself to contemplate, even for a second, the fate of her team members. She had to remain focused on the mission that had brought her to Muwaiti: to get Armand Magliore safely to the United States. That was her first, and only, priority.
    Glancing over her shoulder, she saw that Magliore was still shadowing her, his fingers clutching the barrel and stock of the AK-47 slung across his chest, ready to neutralize any threat. The rifle seemed an innate extension of him, as familiar to him as the rugged jungle terrain they were traversing. Lia could easily imagine him leading an army of brave soldiers into battle, conquering his enemy with a ruthlessness borne of pride, not cruelty.
    Catching her eye, Magliore inclined his head in a