Special Forces Rendezvous by Elle Kennedy Read Free Book Online Page B

gasped. “Seba—” Her jaw snapped closed when he swiftly held his index finger to his lips.
    A million questions ambushed her brain, but even if he hadn’t ordered her to remain quiet, she suspected she wouldn’t have been able to make her vocal cords work anymore. She was too dumbfounded.
    The man who slipped into the tent like a ghost was not the same one she remembered from Valero. Gone were the casual pants and T-shirt. Now he wore a skintight black shirt that clung to the rippled muscles of his broad chest, and black cargo pants encased his long legs. He had black boots on his feet, and a nasty-looking rifle slung over one shoulder, though not as nasty as that blade he skillfully wielded in his hand.
    Julia gulped as the sharp steel of the knife winked in the light from the electric lanterns illuminating the tent.
    She was looking into the eyes of a warrior. The playful, sensual twinkle from before had vanished. Sebastian Stone was all business now, those gray eyes grim with fierce determination. Waves of strength and danger rolled off his powerful body, making her mouth go dry.
    Without a word, he walked toward her and cupped her chin with one hand.
    She jumped, then relaxed when she saw the unspoken question in his gaze.
    Are you okay?
    Julia managed a shaky nod. God, what was he doing here?
    And why did she get the feeling that this man was the furthest thing from a freelance journalist?
    Sebastian took her arm and led her to the slit he’d created in the tent. “Stay close,” he murmured, his voice so low it was barely audible. “If I say move, move. If I say stop, stop. Do exactly what I tell you, do you understand?”
    She stared at him, wide-eyed. And then her pulse took off.
    Wait a minute—he was helping her escape?
    “This entire village is crawling with soldiers,” she whispered with a violent shake of her head. “They’ll shoot us if we try to run.”
    “They’ll kill you if you stay.”
    You. Not us. She didn’t miss the distinction, and she suddenly grew queasy. There wasn’t an ounce of confusion on Sebastian’s rugged face, only focused intensity, which told her he must know a hell of a lot more about what was going on here than she did.
    So maybe it would be prudent to listen to the man instead of arguing about his plans.
    He reached behind him and pulled a black handgun from his waistband. “Do you know how to use one of these?”
    She nodded.
    He promptly shoved the weapon in her hands. “Good.”
    Her heart pounded a frantic beat in her chest as she watched Sebastian carefully part the canvas to peer out. He seemed satisfied by what he saw, because he ducked back in and shot her a firm look.
    “Stay on my six, Doc. Do everything I say, and we’ll both get out of this alive.”
    Julia had never been more terrified in her entire life as she followed Sebastian out of the makeshift escape route. Darkness immediately enveloped them, disorienting her for a moment. She breathed in the night air, a combination of earth and pine and decay, but then she caught a whiff of something else, something woodsy, musky. Sebastian. Despite the fact that she was scared for her life, that masculine scent actually made her heart skip a beat.
    Go away, hormones, she ordered. I’m trying not to die here.
    A hysterical laugh got stuck in her throat. Oh, God, how was any of this happening?
    The back of the tent was perfectly positioned directly in front of the woods, and Julia stuck to Sebastian like glue as they crept toward the trees. For some inexplicable reason, she explicitly trusted the man leading the way. She had every intention of following him blindly and doing anything he asked without question, and that scared her almost as much as everything else that had happened thus far.
    She kept her gaze on Sebastian, noticing how the strong muscles of his back flexed with each precise step he took. She was so focused on him, in fact, that she didn’t notice the two bodies lying in the dirt until