The Commander. Kay David

whined loudly and the plane ended up alongside the waiting stairway. A moment later, the noise from the turbines died, leaving only silence.

      Lena walked into the bright sunshine and headed for the stairs.

      CHAPTER TWO

      ANDRES ROSE from his seat, nervous energy propelling him into the aisle before the jet had even stopped moving. Pacing the tiny walkway, he waited for the flight attendant to open the door, willing the man to hurry up, but without obvious results. A rush of humid air and sunshine flooded the cabin as the uniformed steward finally drew the door back.

      He told himself he was prepared.

      But he wasn’t.

      Lena stepped inside and Andres’s heart stopped. He could actually feel it thump once then quit. A moment later, it started again, but for a second, he hadn’t been sure it would.

      Her whiplike body filled the black SWAT uniform with unmistakable familiarity. She’d never had a voluptuous figure, but what she did have was perfect. She was fit and trim without an ounce of extra anything. Her brown hair, still shiny and smooth, was tinged with streaks of blond and cut shorter than he remembered. Her gray eyes weren’t as stormy as they’d been the last time he’d seen her, but there was something in her gaze that stabbed him, the pain unexpectedly pointed and physical.

      “Andres.” She said his name with aloofness. “Welcome to Destin.”

      “Thank you, Lena. It’s good to see you—”

      She didn’t let him finish, her brisk response impersonal and distant. “We need to do this fast, Andres. The longer we take, the more opportunity for trouble there is.” Tilting her head, she indicated the stairs behind her. “I’ll go down first. You follow me. Scott will get your back. Everyone else comes off after you’re clear.”

      He knew it was foolish but Andres found himself wanting something else from her, some-thing…more. The realization bothered him, but he put it aside and looked at the man behind her. He was young but had the hard air of a seasoned cop. Wearing the same uniform as Lena, black and tight, he acknowledged Andres with a quick bob of his head as Lena spoke again, her voice even more clipped and cold.

      “You’ve got on the vest?”

      “No,” he said brusquely. “The vest is not necessary.”

      “We’re not deplaning until you have it on.”

      “You’re wasting my time.”

      “No,” she answered in a no-nonsense way. “You’re wasting it yourself.” Her eyes flicked over his shoulder and she spoke to Carmen, figuring out her status instantly. “Do you know where his Kevlar vest is?” Carmen apparently nodded, and Lena continued. “Go get it, please.”

      Her manner brought forth another flash of irritation. She always did it by the book, no matter what. He glanced down at his watch then looked back up at her. “I have to be downtown in fifteen minutes.”

      Carmen appeared at Lena’s side and handed her a small black bag. Without even looking at it, Lena handed the pack over to him. “Then put this on, and we’ll leave.”

      He glared at her and she glared back, but a moment later, he snatched the bag from her hands and pulled out the black sleeveless garment. His eyes remained on her face as he ripped off his tie and began to unbutton his jacket. “This is ridiculous.” When he was upset a trace of Spanish inflection always came into his voice. He heard it now. “You’ve made the area safe, no? Why should I do this?”

      “Because I’m not perfect,” she told him calmly. “And neither are the men who work for me. We’ve swept the terminal and have people in place, but you never know. Someone could have slipped through.”

      He pulled off his black silk coat and shrugged into the Kevlar, the fabric stiff against his white, starched shirt. In the closeness of the cabin, he could smell her soap…or was he imagining it?

      “I’m trusting you to have done your job right,” he snapped. “You should be flattered, not giving me a hard time.”

      Her steady eyes revealed nothing in response to his words, but a vibration of energy came off her body, a low, silent humming that only Andres could have caught. His fingers stilled on the fasteners of the vest as she spoke.

      “My job will be done when you’re off this plane and still alive.” A heartbeat passed as her gray eyes locked on his. “Trust has nothing to do with it.”

      ANDRES GATHERED his briefcase and jacket while Lena stood at the door of the plane and surveyed the runway area one more time. Her eyes went slowly over the buildings in front of her, but in fact, she wasn’t really seeing them. The image coming to her instead was that of Andres and his hands. When she thought of him, she always thought of those hands. Other women might have noticed his trim stomach or the width of his shoulders or even his eyes as they’d stared at her, but not Lena. She’d watched his fingers move over the buttons of his blazer. They were long, his knuckles slim and well-formed, his wrists broad and strong-looking.

      She’d noticed the rest of him, too, though. Above the collar of his pristine white shirt, the café-au-lait tone of his skin, that sweet, smooth color she’d always loved, was darker than before, the contrast of the material against his face and neck sensual and appealing. When he was under a lot of stress, he spent as much time as he could outdoors, playing baseball usually.

      Beneath all the polish, though, he acted just as he always had—like a banked fire poised on the verge of explosion. She’d responded as she’d known she would, too, with the same mix of fascination and dread and anger he always created inside her. Nothing she could say to herself would make her heart stop crashing inside her chest. How could she do what she was supposed to do? How could she concentrate?

      All she could think about was the last time they’d been together, when he’d shown up after the canceled wedding and told her about the special operation he’d had to run. She’d been a cop all her adult life and a good one; even though his distrust had hurt, she had understood the need for secrecy, the reticence to talk. But she was a woman, too. He’d broken her heart and destroyed her self-confidence. She could never forgive him for that.

      As she always did when her thinking got too heavy, she turned to action, forcing herself to focus as she pulled her microphone closer. “L1 calling team leader. Package secure.”

      “Gotcha, L1. We’re clear. Wait for final check then proceed.”

      They transmitted on closed channels, but when doing protections Lena insisted on maintaining as much security as possible. With a precise, calm voice, she checked on each of the team members, using the code they’d already agreed on. Everyone was in place and ready to move. When Ryan, the sniper, issued a final clear from his vantage point, they’d go. She looked over her shoulder, past Scott to where Andres stood.

      He was giving some last-minute instructions to the woman who’d brought Lena his vest. His secretary, his assistant, his lover? Lena wasn’t sure of her position, but she’d immediately known how the woman felt about Andres. Her adoration of him was obvious. It meant nothing to Lena, of course, yet she couldn’t help but notice. When they’d been together, he’d continually attracted women. They couldn’t seem to resist him.

      Passing Scott, Andres moved to the front of the cabin and took up his position directly behind her. He’d donned his jacket again and the bulky vest beneath made his chest look vast. As he juggled his briefcase to his other hand, he bumped into her shoulder. “Lo siento,” he murmured. I’m sorry….

      The Spanish was unexpected and somehow too intimate. She looked directly at him then, and in the closeness, all her senses, the ones she’d been trying to tamp down since she’d walked into the plane and into his presence, heightened, as if someone had turned up a volume knob until the sound was out of range. She could smell his aftershave, a scent she didn’t recognize, thank God, and even see the tiny flecks of gold imbedded in the iris