Danger Close by Kaylea Cross Page B

floor only partly because he was more used to that, but more because it gave him an excuse not to have to sit close to her. If anything he was more attracted to her with every hour that passed, rather than leveling off. He’d been telling himself he was hot for her simply because it was a natural reaction for a man who’d been without a woman for four years to want one as beautiful as her, especially when they were staying alone in a house together. But if he was honest it was way more than physical attraction. Erin was kind and brave and sweet. She made him simultaneously want to gather her up in his arms to protect her and pin her to the nearest flat surface and kiss her until she melted and wrapped around him. The thought made his cock swell uncomfortably in his jeans.
    Realizing she was watching him with a quizzical expression, he blinked. “Sorry?”
    She seemed to smother a laugh. “I asked if there was anything else you knew about the situation that you could share with me. You know, before I go to the meeting tomorrow at Langley.”
    Well, that shot his arousal all to hell. Good to know in case it got out of hand again, which it probably would if he wound up spending more time alone with her. “How much do you know about Rahim?”
    “Not much. Is he Taliban?”
    “No, but he’ll work with them when it suits his purpose. Or anyone else, for that matter.” And he was far more dangerous than people outside of the intelligence community realized. “There’s something else you should know.”
    At his grim tone she straightened. “Go ahead, I’m already sitting down.”
    The quick comment damn near made him smile, in spite of how serious a conversation this was. “He’s American.”
    She blinked. “What, you mean born here?”
    “In Michigan. Grew up there as Gary Dyer. Enlisted in the Army at twenty. Few years later he served two tours in Afghanistan, fell in love with Islam and decided he was fighting on the wrong side of the war.”
    Her eyes widened and she sat forward a little. “Are you kidding me?”
    Wade shook his head.
    “The CIA’s number one high value target right now is an American. A veteran .”
    “Yep.”
    She blew out a breath and ran a hand through her hair. He liked that she’d left it down to swirl around her shoulders. Made him wonder if it would feel as soft as it looked if he stroked his fingers through it. “How the hell did that happen?” she asked.
    He was on semi-shaky ground here. The CIA had bound her to a confidentiality clause, so she couldn’t repeat anything she learned about the investigation—and he knew she wouldn’t anyway, because she was smart and loyal—but very few people knew the details he was about to disclose. Still, she deserved to know now, rather than be taken off guard later.
    “He was raised in a survivalist, doomsday-type cult, with an ultra-strict Christian upbringing. Sometime after high school he left his family, got involved with militant groups online and became interested in, if not outright sympathetic to their cause. He began to study the Quran. After he joined the military and deployed to Afghanistan, it solidified his belief that the U.S. and its allies were occupiers. Then he was wounded in a friendly-fire incident.” He paused. “The damage to the area was bad enough that they never located his body and assumed he was KIA with the rest of his platoon. Crews went in to recover the remains but he was never accounted for and it was assumed he was vaporized in the explosion. DNA tests from some of the samples recovered confirmed he was in the area when the hellfire missile detonated. In reality he used the opportunity to fake his own death. Locals found him a few days later hiding at the bottom of a deep ravine and took him in. The military didn’t know he’d survived until he turned up in an online video months later, as Rahim.”
    “Holy crap,” she breathed. “What does he look like? I mean, he’d have to blend in well enough