Immersion Playground
Book #3: Flight to Paradise
Chapter 3
The morning birds had ended their matins an hour before when Kate wakes with the feeling of a hand gently stroking her, sliding slowly over the skin of her bare thigh, bringing her nerve endings to peak awareness. She sighs and stretches slowly, eyes still closed, as her lips curl into a small smile before opening her eyes and turning to face the owner of the hand. She watches as Mac's lips quirk into a crooked half smile as she stretches and groans.
"That's a nice way to wake up," she murmurs as her eyes close again, her smile fading slightly. Not yet fully awake, she raises her hand to his face to touch him softly on the cheek. "How long have you been watching me?"
"Not long. About fifteen minutes," he murmurs, gliding his hands over her body as he slowly brings his hand to her breast to tenderly caress it, dragging a finger slowly around the stiffening nipple. "I could wake you up even more, if you like," he adds, the half-smile becoming broader and more playful as he brushes her lips with his.
She breathes deeply at his kiss, her eyes opening again as she works to throw of the mantle of sleep. "And how would you do that?" she asks as their lips slowly part, holding his gaze as a smile plays at her lips.
"Maybe you'd like this," he says as he gently squeezes her taut nipple, pulling it just enough to make her hiss in pleasure before he takes her lips again, a bit more firmly but doing nothing more. "Or maybe you'd prefer this," he rumbles as he lowers his head and takes each nipple in turn into his mouth for a thorough treatment, licking and suckling on them until she's squirming beneath his onslaught. "Or would you like this, instead?" he asks as he moves up to kiss her again, this time teasing her mouth open so he can take her tongue.
When she softly moans with desire for more, he reaches down and slides his hands slowly over the flat of her stomach, tickling her navel on the way to her womanhood. He strokes her lightly, feeling her wetness but not going past the pouty outer lips. She trembles slightly as he teases her, deliberately winding her tighter, making her squirm and move under his touch. He loves sex, particularly enjoying it with sexual women, but this... thing... he's unleashed with Kate is unlike anything in his experience. He can't seem to get enough of her smooth skin, her delightful curves, her long legs, or her passionate responses. Especially her passionate responses.
She can't understand how she can need Mac's touch so badly after he'd positively obliterated her last night. She's had more orgasms, and on rare occasions, harder orgasms, but never has she had so many orgasms of such power, and yet, after only a few hours' sleep, it's as if none of it had happened. As his mouth and hands roam her body, her fires of passion return, her need for him so great that she can scarcely contain it.
"Do you like that?" he asks her, his voice low and hoarse, testament to his struggle for control as he gently strokes her womanhood.
When she nods, her eyes closed, mouth slightly open, apparently even less able to speak than he is, he smiles and gently opens the petals of her flower, seeking her clitoris to tease it out of its home, waking it to a tender hardness to match the hardness of his penis. She writhes against his fingers, groaning, and he can feel his cock twitch in anticipation of her moans when he sinks into her once more. He moves a finger inside her, stroking her, touching her sweet spots, probing and stroking her most intimate areas as he suckles at her breasts until she mewls while thrusting against his hand.
She loves what's happening to her, her orgasm roaring through her like a wildfire, her entire body alive in tingles as she writhes and bucks in pleasure, wanting the feeling to never end. As if he hears her wish, he moves over her, opening her legs and holding her ankles as he sinks into her depths. He thrusts into her, possessing her over and over again, taking her and making her his. His pants and groans of pleasure egg her on, her orgasm finally washing away but seemingly never ending, arousing her past fever pitch. With a gasp he releases her legs and falls forward, pinning her to bed with his weight as he takes her lips in a deep and hard kiss. She tears his lips from hers and buries his face in her neck, unable to breath, her teeth bared in a feral sneer of passion. With each of his inward thrusts she rises to meet him, slamming her hips against his hungrily, needing the contact between them to ground her as he fucks her with beautiful savagery, and she relishes each thrust, each groan, and each beat of his heart.
She begins to keen as he takes her, her second orgasm approaching like an oncoming train, terrifying and unstoppable in its power. As he plunges into her, she begins to move and thrash as pleasures tears at her. She moans, her muscle control destroyed as pleasure overloads her control, her body moving of its own accord as muscle works against muscle. She wants to scream, needs to scream, but even that ability has been stolen from her. She begins to gasp as she climbs higher and higher in pleasure, almost losing the ability to breathe as her orgasm closes in around her to suffocate her with the approaching storm.
As his climax approaches, his body begins twisting in on itself. His head first pulls up and then down as he growls in effort and contained passion. He kisses her hard on the neck, his need to climax shredding him, his skin burning as his orgasm builds. He drives into her harder, faster, his world focusing down to the need for Kate, and himself, to rapture. His pounding strokes are pushing his knees away, causing his thrusts to lose some of their power, but with barely a hitch in his driving hips, he pulls her hard to him, slamming her ass into his legs as he yanks her back. The slight change in the position is all it takes as he tips over the edge into the raging torrent or his orgasm, growling his release into her shoulder.
"Fuck!" she wails when his cock touches her most sensitive spot. She's coming again, hard and furious, so hard she doesn't think she can withstand it. His snarling roar of satisfaction as he empties himself into her, pushes her higher still as her orgasm savages her unlike any she can remember. She clings tightly to him as she twists and writhes in pleasures she can scarcely contain.
He holds her tight as she thrusts her hips, tearing at him, her fingers digging in painfully tight while fighting through her orgasm, her movements sending searing pleasures through him as his cock stirs inside her. As she thrashes, seemingly trying to throw him off, he holds her while rolling over, protecting her and preventing her from hurting herself as she flails about until she finally relaxes in his arms with a hard shudder, her stillness allowing his own titanic orgasm to wash away.
Her thrashing ends with a gasp and a shudder as her orgasm finally releases her. She lies on his chest, unsure how she ended up there, panting from passion and exertion. They lie together, his thundering erection still inside her, allowing their passions to cool and their hearts to slow. She expels another hard gasp as her muscles loosen, her breathing slowing and falling into sync with his. She has had some fantastic lovers, but few have given her an orgasm like the last one.
"Fuck..." he murmurs with a long exhale, his arms holding her loosely to him.
She smiles weakly, not moving save the slight nodding of her head in confirmation. She's spent, her last mind twisting orgasm wringing the last of her strength from her and leaving her unwilling to move. She reaches up to lightly pat his cheek as her stomach rumbles, causing her to giggle when his stomach shakes beneath her with his chuckle.
"Hungry?" he asks as his snicker dies away.
She sighs, snuggling in a bit more on his chest, sleep pulling hard at her. "I don't know how I can be hungry," she replies, her voice thick and slow, "when I just had my fill of sausage."
He chuckles again. Kate has quite a tongue on her. "Would you like some eggs to go with that sausage?" he asks, gently pushing her off him and onto the bed. "Just lie here for bit. I'll make breakfast." He sits up before pausing, looking at her with one eyebrow arched. "You do have breakfast food, right?"
Kate heaves another deep sigh of contentment, sleep beginning to wrap her in its folds as she nods, her eyes already closed.
"Okay. Just rest a minute. Do you have a tray or something? If you do, I'll bring it to you here."
"By the washer," she mumbles, as she slips into sleep.
Mac kisses her gently on the cheek, lightly caressing her back, before he rolls out of the bed and pulls on his pants, Kate already asleep. Padding into her small kitchen, he begins a quiet search, opening refrigerator, drawers, and cabinets to see what he has to work with for breakfast.
A long moment of looking tells him what he needs to know. Kate is a zapper girl. She has a large selection of zapper meals but scarcely any fresh food, and even fewer spices, for cooking. He does find a few eggs, an onion past its prime, some decent smoked ham, sliced thin for sandwiches, and some shredded yellow cheese of unknown variety. The packaging says Mexican Cheese Blend but doesn't list the contents. He pinches a bit of the cheese between two fingers and takes a nibble, making a face at the taste. The cheese is so bland and flavorless further identification is impossible beyond its color. He tosses the package on the cabinet in disgust, suspecting the packaging would have more flavor than the contents. He finds a pan easily enough but decides after a thorough search that Kate has no wooden or plastic cooking spoons, or a spatula.
He mutters to himself, wondering how anyone can live eating nothing but prepackaged food. He begins to prepare an omelet by slicing the onion with a knife so dull he could sit on it without fear of being cut. Onion sliced, he smears a bit of the ham around in the heating pan with a fork to grease it since butter is nowhere to be found. He prepares the omelet as well as he can, given his lack of ingredients, spices, and tools, sliding the eggs about occasionally to keep them from sticking. As the eggs cook, he finds the tray, more like a writing desk actually, and sets it aside for later use. With an expert flip of his wrist he folds the eggs, only to realize that while he has bread, probably to go with the ham, he has no toaster.
Holding his hands palm up and silently beseeching the heavens for a toaster, he finally decides army toast, prepared in the pan, would have to do. He also can't tell if Kate didn't drink coffee or drank only purchased coffee, because he can't find coffee or a coffee maker. He opens a container of orange juice of recent vintage and pours that up for her as well as a glass for himself. Sliding the eggs onto a plate, he drops the bread into the pan, waits a moment before flipping it over with a flick of the wrist. A moment later the bread lands on the plate beside the eggs. Not the prettiest toast he's ever made, but he's seen worse, and she'll have to eat it dry because there's no butter.
Adding the glass of juice to the tray, along with utensils, he carries the breakfast to Kate. With her limited supply of fresh food, he decides he'll either skip breakfast, or grab something after he leaves, rather than decimate the remainder her meager stocks.
He enters the room to find her as he left her, sprawled face down across the destroyed bed, sleeping completely nude. Even though it's been less than twenty minutes since she'd fucked the shit out of him, his penis twitches at the sight of her in the rumpled bed as he remembers how it got that way.
He sits on the edge of the bed, holding the tray on his lap with one hand as he gently shakes her awake with the other. She groans and stretches, once again pulling herself up from sleep before she rolls over and begins to sit up.
"Breakfast is served," he says, placing the tray in her lap when she's finally awake and sitting up, her back against the headboard.
"Wow, you actually made breakfast!" she exclaims after another huge yawn, holding a hand over her heart. "I'm impressed," she adds, her eyes finally alert, lips curving into a teasing smile.
He smiles in acknowledgement before turning away and rising to dress. He looks ruefully at his wrinkled clothing in the floor, then smiles as he dresses, thinking about why they're the way they're. He's willing to be a little rumpled if it means he can spend the kind of quality time he has with Kate.
She's propped on pillows piled against the headboard, the very headboard they'd tried to drive through the wall last night, and again this morning, slowly eating her breakfast. She watches him as he dresses. The food's good, but the view's better, being this is the first time she's seen him in good light with his shirt off.
My God is he good looking!
He strips off his slacks, laying them over the foot of the bed before retrieving the boxers he neglected to put on earlier from the floor. She almost chokes on her toast at the sight of his manhood, his cock semi-erect and hanging in a most inviting manner.
She slowly sips her juice to control the saliva that gathers on her tongue as she watches him don his underwear. His muscled ass, when he turns to retrieve his pants, has her groaning softly to herself and gripping the side of the tray, biting her bottom lip softly, as his strong hands pull the trousers up his long, corded thighs. She forgets she's eating, engrossed by the unintentional show. His body is ripped, toned, and built to perfection, his six-pack clearly defined, and from where she sits, there's beauty in his form, without even the hint of a scar or spot to mar him.
He turns as he dons his shirt and catches her looking, smiling at her as he buttons, then turns back to comb his hair with his fingers, crouching slightly to look into her dresser mirror, trying in vain to smooth hair that had been tousled by their lovemaking. No, not lovemaking, fucking.
He finishes straightening his hair the best he can, then sits on the edge of the bed again, moving the breakfast tray to the side, enjoying the sight of her body once more.
She can feel his eyes roaming over her. She pulls the sheet up a bit higher on her breasts but feels it hides nothing from his piercing gaze. Sometimes, since the first moment he'd dropped his sensuous mouth on hers inside her front door, she's had the feeling that it wouldn't take much for him to see straight through to her soul. She has the feeling he can see what she's thinking right now, how her breasts are tingling, wishing for his big hands to close around them again, to treasure them, how her pussy weeps for the touch of his hands, his mouth, or his hard cock. She closes her eyes when he bends over to kiss her goodbye.
"Thank you for inviting me over," he murmurs, looking deep into her eyes before pressing delicate little kisses over her eyes and her cheeks. "I enjoyed it," he breathes on her lips before dropping a teasing, feather-light kiss on them. "Did you?"
She can't bear for him to know how much she wants his touch. She keeps her eyes closed and just nods, for the moment incapable of speech, unwilling to let him know how even his leave-taking is ratcheting up her desires. She's not some needy, vulnerable woman who wants to beg him to stay and make her crazy! She's in control, always!
"Tell me," he insists, his voice low as his lips brush over her collarbone, his hair tickling her cheek. "Tell me," he repeats, drawing each word out, his voice a command just before he takes her mouth in a deeper kiss, suddenly savage and demanding.
She answers his kiss with equal fervor, letting go enough to show him she's hungry too, until he slowly pulls back. "Yes, I enjoyed it too," she replies, trying to catch the breath lost to the intensity of the kiss.
He smiles against her lips, busses them one last time before leaning away from her. "I'll ping you later, after my appointment, okay? We'll go out for dinner if you like."
She feels the loss of his body heat at once and pulls the sheet closer around her. "I'd like that," she answers, returning his smile.
He stands up and walks to the bedroom door before turning back. "Get some rest," he says before dropping his voice into a more suggestive tone, "You may need it." He winks at her mischievously then breaks in a huge smile before walking out.
She hears him quietly close the front door before she begins to giggle like a schoolgirl at the implied promise, or was it threat, in his parting words. She'll definitely need her rest if they're going to heat up the sheets like they had last night and again this morning. And she's going to bring her 'A' game this time because apparently this man is immune to her usual charms.
Her mouth crooks up in a half smile as she decides she's going to best him, best him as she has all the other men she's taken to her bed. She's determined to show him who's in control in her bedroom, though she suspects that she's met her match in Mac. It thrills her even as it scares her, but she relishes the challenge.
She pulls the tray back in front of her to finish her very tasty homemade breakfast before it gets any colder. If she's going to go another 10 rounds with Mac tonight, and she plans to, then she'll need to keep her strength up. She smiles to herself as she finishes her eggs. She'll get her to-do list taken of this morning, and then maybe take a short nap this afternoon. He may have had his way with her this time, but not tonight, oh no, not tonight. Tonight she's going to wear his ass out and wipe that smug smile right off his face.
Breakfast consumed, she sits aside the tray and slides down in the bed while stretching luxuriously, the mere thought of the coming labors making her wet again.
***
Mac uses the net to checks the time as the big Mercedes glides silently down the road. He has time for breakfast, or to get himself cleaned up and presentable before he arrives at the clinic, but not both. He decides to go with the shower and fresh clothes. He hadn't expected last night to take, well, all last night. He'd gone with Kate thinking they'd have a quick tumble to take the edge off, do a little slap and tickle, then he'd be on his way back to his suite. He'd underestimated her sexual energy and she'd fucked him but good. It's been a very long time since he's been with a woman that can give as good as she gets, and if he can get her into his bed tonight, he's determined to see just how hard, and how far, he can push her. He smiles at the thought. After—was it Abby—at the clinic gets done torturing him this morning, he might lie down for a while. He has a feeling he's going to need his strength for tonight.
He valets the Merc at his hotel and takes the stairs two at a time up the ten floors to his room to get in a little exercise. Winded from his sprint up the steps, he enters his suite and strips out of his rumpled clothes, tossing them onto the bed before entering the bathroom. He uses his depilation cream on his face and swishes his mouth with the sanitizer to remove the morning fuzz, both on his face and in his mouth, and then steps into the shower. Standing under the hot water he scrubs himself clean as an involuntary thought of taking Kate in the big two-person shower makes his cock twitch with anticipation. Twenty minutes later he calls for his car as he dresses casually in khaki pants and a loose, white, short-sleeve cotton shirt. Dressed and tidy once more, he bounds down the steps to the lobby. He sees his car waiting under the portico as he stops by the concierge's desk and arranges to have his clothes from last night cleaned and pressed, and orders a dozen red roses to be sent to his room for Kate, in case he can get her back there tonight. Walking out of the hotel he slides behind the wheel of his waiting car.
"Fuck..." he mutters to himself as he pulls away from the hotel. The visit to the clinic isn't going to be nearly as much fun as last night.
***
Abby, the interface technician, arrives in another whirlwind of activity, pushing a cart with his leg and her computer on it, her hair is as white as freshly fallen snow. "Good Morning, Mac! How are you this morning?"
"I'm doing good... uhhh... Abby isn't it?" he asks, mentally crossing his fingers he gets the name right. He's sitting in a different, but identical, room to the one he was in yesterday, once again wearing only his boxers, his old leg removed and lying on the table beside him.
"That's right," she says, her brilliant smile flashing, flattered he remembers. "Hang on a minute while I get ready, then we're going to plug you in and see if you can wiggle some toes this morning. Are you up for that?"
Mac looks the young woman over again as she dithers over her computer, the blue hair of yesterday replaced with the white of today. The sudden change in hair color is a little off-putting, but her patter is still nice as she moves about with an easy, accomplished, grace.
"Nothing like a good wiggle in the morning to start the day off right, I always say," he replies with a grin.
She snickers but says nothing as she continues getting ready. "Okay. I'm going to plug you in. Let me know when you're ready, because this time, it's going to hurt."
He takes a couple of deep breaths and gives his head a quick nod. She plugs the cable into the interface port in the stub of his leg, the other end of the cable already plugged into the leg lying on a table. Another cord runs to the leg from the computer. He sucks in his breath with a hiss as the pain rockets from the artificial limb, a pain that feels eerily like the pain he felt when the bullet took his leg. Less than a second after the connection is made, the pain stops, gone as quickly as it arrives. He lets out a slow exhale as the pain fades.
"I know that hurts. I'm sorry. One of these days we're going to figure out how to prevent or block the pain when you jack in." She kicks her chair, rolling back to her computer. "Okay. Here we go," she says before pressing a key on the computer. The moment she touches the key the leg begins to jerk and spasm, flopping around on the padded cart like a dying fish. "Whoa there, boy," she mutters to herself, typing furiously on the keyboard.
He stiffens as the leg begins to flex and jerk, gritting his teeth against the terrible muscle cramps, cramps coming from a mechanical leg lying on a cart three feet away. It only takes a few moments of furious typing for Abby to get the leg under control and he blows out his breath as the cramps ease.
"Okay. I think we're past the worst of it now," she says with a brilliant smile. "The leg is synchronizing to your port. That'll take about three minutes to complete. Then we can see what we have to work with." She sees him leaning over, trying to see the screen, so she turns the computer to give him a better view. "This is the progress bar," she says tapping a blue bar on the right side of the screen. "When it gets to the top, the leg should be synced to your nervous system. The rest of this gobbledygook," she says motioning to a fast scrolling box of words and numbers, "is just the diagnostics on the leg as it does its thing. We'll only have to dig into that if when you try to wiggle your toes the leg jumps off the cart and runs out of the room."
Mac barks out a short laugh. "I hope you're the one to chase it down. I'm not up to full speed at the moment," he says waving a hand over his missing leg.
Abby gives him the once over then offers another brilliant smile. "I don't know. You look like you might be faster on one leg than most are with two." She looks at the screen, checking to make sure the sync is still progressing, then turns her attention back to him. "I saw in your charts you lost your leg in the Army. I've never heard of Dr. Abbington, but he did brilliant work. You're lucky he was there, or you wouldn't be here."
He smiles wistfully. "Luckier than some, that's for sure."
"It was bad?" she asks, her smile fading.
"Pretty bad. Took a sniper round right in the back of the knee. That was lucky break number one. I must have been nearly out of range because those guys just don't miss. A little higher and to the left and I would have been dead before I hit the ground. Thank God I was already at our rendezvous point when I took the round, or I would have bled to death before they could have done anything. That was lucky break number two. Then the medic jumped out and dragged me the rest of the way to the chopper. Stupid bastard. He knew there was a sniper out there and he came out anyway. I guess you could call that lucky break number three, that he was willing to put his life on the line for mine. And not just him, but a couple of the guys on my team too. And the pilot, holding the bird there, taking fire, while they saved my sorry ass. I owe everyone on the chopper my life."
Her eyes had widened as he tells his story. "Jesus..." she mutters.
Mac smiles another small smile. If she only knew...
***
Captain 'Knife' McMillan crouches at their go point, sweating from more than just the night's heat. The near silent chopper had dropped them off then vacated the area, leaving them alone and exposed. Their native guide hasn't shown up and Mac, and the five men under his command, have been sitting in the open for five minutes, waiting on the guide, making him feel exposed and vulnerable.
"Bull. You get the feeling we've been set up?" Mac asks quietly.
Sergeant First Class Sidney 'Bull' Toro grunts. "I don't think the fucker is coming. What're we going to do, Knife?"
On the parade ground Captain McMillan expects the troops under his command to show proper military respect, but that shit goes out the window when they're in bandit country and he becomes just Knife, the shortened version of Mac the Knife, a nickname he earned when he beat his hand-to-hand combat instructor in a knife drill.
"Goddammit!" Mac grinds out through gritted teeth. "You can't depend on the CIA for shit! We need to start hauling their asses out here with us and then I bet shit like this doesn't happen. Fuck it. Get the troops. We know where we need to go, and anything beats sitting here with our dicks hanging out."
Iran has been rattling their sabers again. Mac and his team are in country, illegal as hell, to take the edge off those sabers by calling in a Navy strike to take out yet another nuclear weapons facility. Iran builds them, and then America, or one of its allies, knocks them down. It's been a game that's gone on for decades.
Bull grunts again and moves off, returning moments later with four more men. "This mission is already going to shit, so listen up," Bull growls.
Mac turns on his glasses, giving him direction and distance information. "Bull, take Rod and Goose, and circle around to the West. Nickel, you and Derby come with me. We'll meet at," he pauses as he looks at his map, "32.5 by 26. We should be able to put the designator on target from there. Nickel, get on the horn and tell those Navy pukes what's going on. And make it damn clear that when we call, they'd better be hauling ass. I have a feeling the shit is about to get deep." He looks around and everyone has their game faces on. Good. They're about to start kicking some ass. "Let's rock," he says.
"You heard the man," Bull says getting to his feet. "Let's go step on Abdul's dick."
"Bull," Mac says as the men prepare to move out. "If the shit hits the fan, you light 'em up and run like hell for the rendezvous. We'll do the same. I have a feeling we are about to step into some serious shit, and I have no problem pulling the plug on this fucked up mission if a shit storm starts. Clear?"
"You got it, Knife. You got it."
Forty-five minutes later Mac and his team meet up with Bull and his team. Despite his concerns, they'd apparently arrived undetected on a small hill overlooking the compound. "Rod, get the designator on target. Nickel, bring the thunder, and tell them we are going to evac from... 32 by 27." Mac looks around. "Better make it 32 by 28. We are going to have to hump it to get there in time, but it'll beat walking out if the chopper takes it in the ass."
Nickel snorts once at Mac's comment before talking quietly to the air, then turns to Mac. "Twelve minutes to thunder, Knife."
Good. The Navy is on the ball today. "Roger that, Nickel."
At eleven minutes, thirty seconds, Nickel speaks again. "Thunder's here. Light it up Rod."
Corporal Alvin Rodriguez flips a switch on the designator he's holding like a rifle, causing an invisible infrared beam to paint a quarter size spot on the target building. Invisible to everyone but Rod as he watches through the infrared scope, Rod holds the brilliant red beam steady, guiding the missiles to their target. Less than thirty seconds later three AG3100 Battleax guided missiles launched from a pair of Navy jets scream overhead, impacting on the building a mile away, guided to their target by that quarter size spot of light. Rod barely flinches, continuing to hold the designator beam on the target.
"Get ready to bug out," Mac says. "It's going to get hot around here, and quick. Rod! See anything?"
"Still too much dust, Knife, but it looks like the pukes did okay this time." He pauses, still peering through the scope, looking for any standing structure in need of another strike. "It's clear, Knife. They blew that place to shit."
"Roger that, Rod," Mac says. "Alright people, assholes and elbows. Nickel, tell evac we are forty minutes out."
In less than one minutes Rod has the designator broken down and they're ready to travel. The six start out at a hard trot, staying in the depressions between the low hills as they work their way to the rendezvous. Mac knows they have a few minutes before the rag-heads can recover and start a search, plus the Iranians have no way to know where they were or which way they were traveling. He wants to make the most of this time by putting as much space between his team and the hornets' nest they'd just stirred up as he could. For thirty minutes they trot through the night with no sound of pursuit, so despite the fuck up at the beginning, Mac is starting to believe this is going to be an easy in and out mission.
Mac is on point, Bull bringing up the rear, when Mac hears the soft woofing of the chopper blades as the machine closes in on them like an angel of death. The chopper is quiet, eerily quiet, so quiet in fact that he hears the heavy thud of the bullet hitting Bull. He instantly grasps what's happening.
"Run!" Mac screams before turning back for Bull.
The door gunner sees Bull go down and squeezes the triggers on the mobile gun. The chopper opens up, firing blindly, trying to pin the sniper down, the heavy machine gun in the door ripping the night with light and sound, the tracer rounds a near continuous streak into the night.
Mac skids to a stop by Bull, falling to the ground to make himself less of a target. The bullet took Bull high in the left shoulder, nearly taking his arm off.
"You stupid fuck," Bull grunts out against the pain.
"Shut up, old man. I've bought you a beer after every one of these fucking missions, I'm buying you one tonight," Mac says getting to his feet before heaving Bull over his back with a grunt. The chopper swings in to pick them up, still lighting the night with hell-fire, the rest of the men already aboard. Six pairs of hands strain out of the door, reaching for them, when Mac hears the bullet whine by his ear, blood spraying his face as the bullet passes through Bull, thocking into the armor of the chopper. He goes down hard, the force of the bullet taking him to the ground.
He leaps back to his feet, grabbing Bull's uniform in one hand as he closes the last few feet to the chopper. Goose and Rod bail out of the chopper to help Mac with Bull.
"Get aboard! Get aboard!" Mac roars as he lifts Bull, heaving him up to the waiting hands. Bull is being pulled aboard when Mac experiences the most exquisite pain in his right leg, and despite a desperate leap to get aboard the chopper, his legs fail him and he goes down.
Mac's vision begins to dim as shock sets in. Goddammit! So close!
The chopper swings around and squats over him, protecting him with its bulk, the heavy gun in the door roaring, splitting the night as three men jump to the ground, Goose, Nickel and one of the two medics on the chopper. Ducking under the hovering tilt-rotor, Nickel, only twenty-one, is nearly sick seeing Knife's leg attached by a piece of skin not two fingers wide. And the blood, so much blood.
The medic drops to the ground beside Mac and severs the leg with a brutal swipe of his knife before snapping Nickel out of his daze with a vicious roar. "Move your ass, soldier!"
The three men haul a nearly unconscious Mac from under the chopper before lifting him to the three pairs of hands reaching out to help from aboard the chopper, the roaring and spitting machine pulling up and away the instant the remaining three men are aboard. The two medics leap into action, working on Mac, trying to stop the bleeding, pumping him full of painkillers and coagulants as they stuff bandage after bandage into the place his leg once was, his team silent and grim face as they watch.
The Sikorsky shrieks across the sky, the navy jets watching over the sprinting chopper and protecting it from attack. The chopper pilot holds the throttles so hard against their stops that his palm will bruise later, willing the machine to go faster, just a little faster, running the engines deep into the red as they race for the waiting carrier, both medics working frantically to save Mac's life, Bull beyond the help of mortal men.
***
Abby watches Mac drift away for a moment and then come back to the present. She knows she has empathy with her patients, all her patients, but this giant of a man sitting on the table is different than most. Some like to talk about their wounds, describing their injuries in graphic detail. Others avoid the subject entirely, but Mac, he's different. She has no idea what went down that caused him to lose his leg, but she gets the distinct impression there is a hell of a lot more to it than he makes it out to be, but the way he talked about it, so matter of fact, intrigues her. Here's a man that had his leg shot clean off, apparently nearly bled to death, and according to his medical chart, nearly died three times over, mostly from the loss of blood, yet he describes the ordeal it with no more emotion than she would use to describe a paper cut.
"It must have been awful," she says.
"I've had better days," he says with a small smile.
Her attention is pulled away from this fascinating man when her computer chimes, signaling the end of the synchronization process. "Okay, Mac. We're online. You look like a guy who likes to get right to the point, so let me see you do some toe curls."
He focuses on curling his toes, and the leg just lies there, inert. "Nothing," he says. He's been through this drill twice before, so he knows the routine.
"Okay, hang on a minute," she says, scratching at her nose as she stares at the computer screen. "I saw in your chart that you live in Paradise. Now that sounds like a place I'd like to live," she says with a grin, never looking up as she pecks away at the computer.
"It's not bad," he says as he smiles at her. "I actually don't live in the town, that's just my mailing address. I actually live on Lake Oroville. Now that's paradise."
"That's way up north, north of San Francisco in the mountains somewhere, isn't it? Long drive," she says, distracted as she adjusts the interface on the leg, touching and typing away on her computer.
"It is, and it would be, except I fly."
"God, I hate flying," she says, never looking away from her computer. "If I can drive there in twelve hours or less, I'd rather drive than to fight the crowds."
He chuckles. "Yeah, me too. But when I said I fly, I meant I fly my own airplane."
Abby stops pecking at the computer, looking at him. "You fly? Or you have someone fly you? No offense, but most people who can afford one of these has a pilot to ferry them around."
Mac chuckles again. "No, I fly myself. I have a 1942 Grumman Goose. I call her the Bathing Beauty. It's a seaplane."
She returns her attention to the computer. "I don't know what that's, but I'm not sure I want to be in a plane that's almost one hundred fifty years old," she says, striking a last key with a flourish. "Okay, give me a wiggle."
Mac focuses and sees his toes move, just a little. "That's something at least."
"Yeah, we're getting there," Abby says, wrinkling her nose and pursing her lips as she studies the computer screen. "Hang on a second. So, tell me about this flying antique."
"Well, first off, the plane is fully restored and upgraded. There isn't much of the original plane left, it just looks like Grumman Goose. Secondly, as I said, it is a seaplane. That's why I live on Lake Oroville. I fly in, land on the lake, park the plane in the garage, and I'm home. Pretty nice."
"Try it again," she says after sliding icons around the screen. "And where did you fly into here in LA?"
Mac tries to wiggle his toes and is rewarded with movement. He can actually feel his toes move. "John Wayne. Just because it floats doesn't mean I can't land at a regular airport," Mac says as he watches his toes wiggle, then the foot, but when he tries to bend his knee, nothing happens. "The knee isn't working."
Abby makes some thinking noises as she peers at the screen before making more adjustments. "Now try it."
He tries to bend his knee, but still nothing happens. "Nope."
She scowls at the leg as if it just insulted her, then turns her attention back to the computer. "Hang on a second. Let me look at this. Your leg is being cranky this morning," she says to no one, pecking away at the computer. "This should work!" she cries three minutes later, gesturing impatiently at the computer screen. "I've turned the reflex up to full. If it doesn't move now, something is wrong. Give it a try."
He strains to move the knee, but the leg just lays there. He looks at Abby sheepishly and gives her a small shrug. "I think there is a hammer in the car if you want to use it."
She snorts out a laugh. "Let's save that for any last-minute adjustments." Growling in frustration, she begins to pound on the keyboard, her fingers a blur of motion, the screen of her computer changing faster than Mac can keep up with. "Ah-ha!" she suddenly cries moments later. "Now why did you do that, you stupid thing?" she mutters as she squints and types. "For some reason the knee has configured itself in the 'limp home' mode, no pun intended," she says, looking at Mac with a grin. "That's a new one. Just when you think you've seen every problem there is, these things come up with something fresh. I bet it moves now."
Mac bends his knee and the leg moves. He then moves his toes and ankle again, just to make sure. "You know, I'll never get used to seeing my leg move when I flex the muscles and it isn't even attached. That's just creepy for some reason."
She grins. "Yeah, it used to bother me too, but after hundreds of these it doesn't bother me anymore. Besides, if you think this is creepy, you should see a hand. That's like something out of a horror vid, this disembodied hand grasping at things, or dragging itself along by the fingers. I remember one of the first times I did a hand, the guy I was working with grabbed me by the wrist while it was still on cart. Made me scream like I'd been stabbed." She grins at the memory. "He thought it was a lot funnier than I did at the time. Okay, I think we're good to go. Now that the scanner is working again, I need to take a scan of your mount so we can mill the fitting, but that should be it." She unplugs all the cables from Mac and the leg. "Now comes the fun part. I have to strap you down. You okay with that?"
"Will you hold my hand if I get scared?" he teases.
She laughs. She really likes this guy, and she notices he isn't wearing a wedding band. "For some reason I think you already have your big boy pants on. Turn around here so we can get this done."
He turns and allows Abby to tightly strap his leg down so it won't move during the scan. She sets the scanning rig in its mount and turns it on. A red laser beam begins to sweep back and forth over the mount, making a map of Mac's prosthetic mount that's accurate to a thousandth of a millimeter. The scan lasts less than a minute then she releases him.
"Done for today, Mac. Normally we would mill your mount today and fit you tomorrow, but we're a little backed up with the milling since the scanner was down. If we don't get your mount milled today, we'll get it milled tomorrow so we can fit you Friday. Thanks for being a good patient. I wish all my patients were as easy to work with, not to mention fun to talk to," she says, leaving out the part about also being sexy as hell. She hands him his old leg.
"Thanks," he says, taking the leg and standing it on the floor. After a couple of deep breaths to suck up the courage and to get ready for the jolt of pain, he pushes his mount into the leg, gritting his teeth as the stabbing pain hits again. "Tell me Abby, who do I ping to bitch at about how much this hurts to put on?"
She softens. "I know it hurts. We're working on it, we really are, but the body interprets the sudden influx of feeling as pain. It's the body that's confused, not the prosthetic."
"Well, whatever it is, it still hurts like hell. Why can't you bring the feeling on slowly?"
"We've tried that. Then it just hurts longer. I'm sure we'll crack it eventually, but for now, just remind yourself of the freedom that shock of pain gives you."
He sighs. "Yeah, I know. I don't mean to bitch, but damn, it hurts to put on."
She actually pats his hand. "I know. Listen, if you're available tonight, I'd love to take you around, show you the big city," she says with enthusiasm, thinking if he played his card right, she might show him her bedroom too.
He chuckles as he slips on his pants. "Show the country bumpkin around, eh?"
She smiles her brilliantly. "I hardly think you're a country bumpkin, but if you don't live here, you can't possibly know all the best places to eat. You do eat, don't you?"
"I'm flattered Abby, but I already have other plans for tonight. But I'll see you tomorrow, or the next day. Keep your lunch plans open and I'll treat."
"Deal, but if you stand me up, I'm going to beat you to death with your old leg," she says with giggle.
"I wouldn't dream of it. The last thing I want to do is upset the lady that can make me kick my own ass." Normally he'd have taken her up on her offer for a tour. He knows his way around the city pretty well, but she's right, it's the locals that know all the best places. She's not hard on the eyes either, but his tumble with Kate last night and again this morning has blunted his libido. That, and he'd like to have another run at Kate before he goes home.
She laughs in delight. "I like a man who knows the score. The office will call you later to set up an appointment for your test fitting. I'll make sure it's in the morning." She zones out for a moment. "I have to run Mac. I'm already late for my next appointment." She sticks out her hand. "It's been a pleasure working with you again, and I'll see you tomorrow or Friday."
He shakes her hand. "Looking forward to lunch."
She grins broadly once more before gathering her things and hurrying out the door, pushing the cart ahead of her.
***
Mac walks out of the clinic and settles into the Mercedes. It's a nearly one and he's hungry, having missed breakfast, so he stops at a drive-through for a takeaway salad before returning to his suite. The clothes he asked to be cleaned are gone and a beautiful bouquet of roses has been delivered in their place, stylishly arranged in a crystal vase. What he knows about flowers he can sum up in one sentence—they grow in the dirt and women like roses—but he admires their color and scent all the same.
While he eats, he tries to ping Kate but gets her auto-attendant. Since she's not taking pings at the moment, he leaves a message that he'll pick her up at six for dinner, if she wants to go, to dress nice, and asks her to ping him back to confirm. He hopes she's sleeping, husbanding her strength for the toils to come tonight.
He then pings BLT Steak and makes a reservation for seven o'clock that evening, knowing he can always cancel if she doesn't want to go. Finishing his salad, he dumps the container in the recycler and flops on the bed, not bothering to remove his clothes. Muting his pings and setting an alarm he lies still, closing his eyes with a sigh, and is asleep in minutes.
***
A little over three hours later, Mac's chip wakes him to the sounds of chirping birds, his preferred wakeup signal. Groggy from his unaccustomed nap, he struggles up out of sleep, stretching, yawning, and shaking off cobwebs. He'd received two messages while he slept. The first is the hotel telling him his clothes will be ready for pickup after five, or they can be delivered to his suite, which he immediately deletes before pinging the front desk to have the clothes sent up when they're ready.
The second ping is from Kate, received a bit over an hour before, stating that she'd love to accompany him to dinner and that she'll be ready at six sharp. He wonders at the hold Kate seems to still have over him. She didn't say anything even remotely risqué, yet her rich contralto voice in the message makes him think of all the things he hopes they're going to do after dinner. Chuckling to himself he rolls out of the bed and wanders into the bath where he relieves himself, then decides to shower again, both to help throw off the remainder of sleep and to make sure he's presentable. There was no way he can compete with Kate, but he didn't want to look like the frog to a princess.
After his shower, Mac swishes his mouth clean with the sanitizer before pulling out the only suit he packed, a medium grey coat and pants paired with a very light blue shirt and a tie that's trying to decide if it is a very deep blue or purple. A bit after five, Mac calls for his car and leaves the hotel to pick up Kate, sending her a text ping that he's on his way as he trots lightly down the steps.
Book #3: Flight to Paradise
Chapter 3
The morning birds had ended their matins an hour before when Kate wakes with the feeling of a hand gently stroking her, sliding slowly over the skin of her bare thigh, bringing her nerve endings to peak awareness. She sighs and stretches slowly, eyes still closed, as her lips curl into a small smile before opening her eyes and turning to face the owner of the hand. She watches as Mac's lips quirk into a crooked half smile as she stretches and groans.
"That's a nice way to wake up," she murmurs as her eyes close again, her smile fading slightly. Not yet fully awake, she raises her hand to his face to touch him softly on the cheek. "How long have you been watching me?"
"Not long. About fifteen minutes," he murmurs, gliding his hands over her body as he slowly brings his hand to her breast to tenderly caress it, dragging a finger slowly around the stiffening nipple. "I could wake you up even more, if you like," he adds, the half-smile becoming broader and more playful as he brushes her lips with his.
She breathes deeply at his kiss, her eyes opening again as she works to throw of the mantle of sleep. "And how would you do that?" she asks as their lips slowly part, holding his gaze as a smile plays at her lips.
"Maybe you'd like this," he says as he gently squeezes her taut nipple, pulling it just enough to make her hiss in pleasure before he takes her lips again, a bit more firmly but doing nothing more. "Or maybe you'd prefer this," he rumbles as he lowers his head and takes each nipple in turn into his mouth for a thorough treatment, licking and suckling on them until she's squirming beneath his onslaught. "Or would you like this, instead?" he asks as he moves up to kiss her again, this time teasing her mouth open so he can take her tongue.
When she softly moans with desire for more, he reaches down and slides his hands slowly over the flat of her stomach, tickling her navel on the way to her womanhood. He strokes her lightly, feeling her wetness but not going past the pouty outer lips. She trembles slightly as he teases her, deliberately winding her tighter, making her squirm and move under his touch. He loves sex, particularly enjoying it with sexual women, but this... thing... he's unleashed with Kate is unlike anything in his experience. He can't seem to get enough of her smooth skin, her delightful curves, her long legs, or her passionate responses. Especially her passionate responses.
She can't understand how she can need Mac's touch so badly after he'd positively obliterated her last night. She's had more orgasms, and on rare occasions, harder orgasms, but never has she had so many orgasms of such power, and yet, after only a few hours' sleep, it's as if none of it had happened. As his mouth and hands roam her body, her fires of passion return, her need for him so great that she can scarcely contain it.
"Do you like that?" he asks her, his voice low and hoarse, testament to his struggle for control as he gently strokes her womanhood.
When she nods, her eyes closed, mouth slightly open, apparently even less able to speak than he is, he smiles and gently opens the petals of her flower, seeking her clitoris to tease it out of its home, waking it to a tender hardness to match the hardness of his penis. She writhes against his fingers, groaning, and he can feel his cock twitch in anticipation of her moans when he sinks into her once more. He moves a finger inside her, stroking her, touching her sweet spots, probing and stroking her most intimate areas as he suckles at her breasts until she mewls while thrusting against his hand.
She loves what's happening to her, her orgasm roaring through her like a wildfire, her entire body alive in tingles as she writhes and bucks in pleasure, wanting the feeling to never end. As if he hears her wish, he moves over her, opening her legs and holding her ankles as he sinks into her depths. He thrusts into her, possessing her over and over again, taking her and making her his. His pants and groans of pleasure egg her on, her orgasm finally washing away but seemingly never ending, arousing her past fever pitch. With a gasp he releases her legs and falls forward, pinning her to bed with his weight as he takes her lips in a deep and hard kiss. She tears his lips from hers and buries his face in her neck, unable to breath, her teeth bared in a feral sneer of passion. With each of his inward thrusts she rises to meet him, slamming her hips against his hungrily, needing the contact between them to ground her as he fucks her with beautiful savagery, and she relishes each thrust, each groan, and each beat of his heart.
She begins to keen as he takes her, her second orgasm approaching like an oncoming train, terrifying and unstoppable in its power. As he plunges into her, she begins to move and thrash as pleasures tears at her. She moans, her muscle control destroyed as pleasure overloads her control, her body moving of its own accord as muscle works against muscle. She wants to scream, needs to scream, but even that ability has been stolen from her. She begins to gasp as she climbs higher and higher in pleasure, almost losing the ability to breathe as her orgasm closes in around her to suffocate her with the approaching storm.
As his climax approaches, his body begins twisting in on itself. His head first pulls up and then down as he growls in effort and contained passion. He kisses her hard on the neck, his need to climax shredding him, his skin burning as his orgasm builds. He drives into her harder, faster, his world focusing down to the need for Kate, and himself, to rapture. His pounding strokes are pushing his knees away, causing his thrusts to lose some of their power, but with barely a hitch in his driving hips, he pulls her hard to him, slamming her ass into his legs as he yanks her back. The slight change in the position is all it takes as he tips over the edge into the raging torrent or his orgasm, growling his release into her shoulder.
"Fuck!" she wails when his cock touches her most sensitive spot. She's coming again, hard and furious, so hard she doesn't think she can withstand it. His snarling roar of satisfaction as he empties himself into her, pushes her higher still as her orgasm savages her unlike any she can remember. She clings tightly to him as she twists and writhes in pleasures she can scarcely contain.
He holds her tight as she thrusts her hips, tearing at him, her fingers digging in painfully tight while fighting through her orgasm, her movements sending searing pleasures through him as his cock stirs inside her. As she thrashes, seemingly trying to throw him off, he holds her while rolling over, protecting her and preventing her from hurting herself as she flails about until she finally relaxes in his arms with a hard shudder, her stillness allowing his own titanic orgasm to wash away.
Her thrashing ends with a gasp and a shudder as her orgasm finally releases her. She lies on his chest, unsure how she ended up there, panting from passion and exertion. They lie together, his thundering erection still inside her, allowing their passions to cool and their hearts to slow. She expels another hard gasp as her muscles loosen, her breathing slowing and falling into sync with his. She has had some fantastic lovers, but few have given her an orgasm like the last one.
"Fuck..." he murmurs with a long exhale, his arms holding her loosely to him.
She smiles weakly, not moving save the slight nodding of her head in confirmation. She's spent, her last mind twisting orgasm wringing the last of her strength from her and leaving her unwilling to move. She reaches up to lightly pat his cheek as her stomach rumbles, causing her to giggle when his stomach shakes beneath her with his chuckle.
"Hungry?" he asks as his snicker dies away.
She sighs, snuggling in a bit more on his chest, sleep pulling hard at her. "I don't know how I can be hungry," she replies, her voice thick and slow, "when I just had my fill of sausage."
He chuckles again. Kate has quite a tongue on her. "Would you like some eggs to go with that sausage?" he asks, gently pushing her off him and onto the bed. "Just lie here for bit. I'll make breakfast." He sits up before pausing, looking at her with one eyebrow arched. "You do have breakfast food, right?"
Kate heaves another deep sigh of contentment, sleep beginning to wrap her in its folds as she nods, her eyes already closed.
"Okay. Just rest a minute. Do you have a tray or something? If you do, I'll bring it to you here."
"By the washer," she mumbles, as she slips into sleep.
Mac kisses her gently on the cheek, lightly caressing her back, before he rolls out of the bed and pulls on his pants, Kate already asleep. Padding into her small kitchen, he begins a quiet search, opening refrigerator, drawers, and cabinets to see what he has to work with for breakfast.
A long moment of looking tells him what he needs to know. Kate is a zapper girl. She has a large selection of zapper meals but scarcely any fresh food, and even fewer spices, for cooking. He does find a few eggs, an onion past its prime, some decent smoked ham, sliced thin for sandwiches, and some shredded yellow cheese of unknown variety. The packaging says Mexican Cheese Blend but doesn't list the contents. He pinches a bit of the cheese between two fingers and takes a nibble, making a face at the taste. The cheese is so bland and flavorless further identification is impossible beyond its color. He tosses the package on the cabinet in disgust, suspecting the packaging would have more flavor than the contents. He finds a pan easily enough but decides after a thorough search that Kate has no wooden or plastic cooking spoons, or a spatula.
He mutters to himself, wondering how anyone can live eating nothing but prepackaged food. He begins to prepare an omelet by slicing the onion with a knife so dull he could sit on it without fear of being cut. Onion sliced, he smears a bit of the ham around in the heating pan with a fork to grease it since butter is nowhere to be found. He prepares the omelet as well as he can, given his lack of ingredients, spices, and tools, sliding the eggs about occasionally to keep them from sticking. As the eggs cook, he finds the tray, more like a writing desk actually, and sets it aside for later use. With an expert flip of his wrist he folds the eggs, only to realize that while he has bread, probably to go with the ham, he has no toaster.
Holding his hands palm up and silently beseeching the heavens for a toaster, he finally decides army toast, prepared in the pan, would have to do. He also can't tell if Kate didn't drink coffee or drank only purchased coffee, because he can't find coffee or a coffee maker. He opens a container of orange juice of recent vintage and pours that up for her as well as a glass for himself. Sliding the eggs onto a plate, he drops the bread into the pan, waits a moment before flipping it over with a flick of the wrist. A moment later the bread lands on the plate beside the eggs. Not the prettiest toast he's ever made, but he's seen worse, and she'll have to eat it dry because there's no butter.
Adding the glass of juice to the tray, along with utensils, he carries the breakfast to Kate. With her limited supply of fresh food, he decides he'll either skip breakfast, or grab something after he leaves, rather than decimate the remainder her meager stocks.
He enters the room to find her as he left her, sprawled face down across the destroyed bed, sleeping completely nude. Even though it's been less than twenty minutes since she'd fucked the shit out of him, his penis twitches at the sight of her in the rumpled bed as he remembers how it got that way.
He sits on the edge of the bed, holding the tray on his lap with one hand as he gently shakes her awake with the other. She groans and stretches, once again pulling herself up from sleep before she rolls over and begins to sit up.
"Breakfast is served," he says, placing the tray in her lap when she's finally awake and sitting up, her back against the headboard.
"Wow, you actually made breakfast!" she exclaims after another huge yawn, holding a hand over her heart. "I'm impressed," she adds, her eyes finally alert, lips curving into a teasing smile.
He smiles in acknowledgement before turning away and rising to dress. He looks ruefully at his wrinkled clothing in the floor, then smiles as he dresses, thinking about why they're the way they're. He's willing to be a little rumpled if it means he can spend the kind of quality time he has with Kate.
She's propped on pillows piled against the headboard, the very headboard they'd tried to drive through the wall last night, and again this morning, slowly eating her breakfast. She watches him as he dresses. The food's good, but the view's better, being this is the first time she's seen him in good light with his shirt off.
My God is he good looking!
He strips off his slacks, laying them over the foot of the bed before retrieving the boxers he neglected to put on earlier from the floor. She almost chokes on her toast at the sight of his manhood, his cock semi-erect and hanging in a most inviting manner.
She slowly sips her juice to control the saliva that gathers on her tongue as she watches him don his underwear. His muscled ass, when he turns to retrieve his pants, has her groaning softly to herself and gripping the side of the tray, biting her bottom lip softly, as his strong hands pull the trousers up his long, corded thighs. She forgets she's eating, engrossed by the unintentional show. His body is ripped, toned, and built to perfection, his six-pack clearly defined, and from where she sits, there's beauty in his form, without even the hint of a scar or spot to mar him.
He turns as he dons his shirt and catches her looking, smiling at her as he buttons, then turns back to comb his hair with his fingers, crouching slightly to look into her dresser mirror, trying in vain to smooth hair that had been tousled by their lovemaking. No, not lovemaking, fucking.
He finishes straightening his hair the best he can, then sits on the edge of the bed again, moving the breakfast tray to the side, enjoying the sight of her body once more.
She can feel his eyes roaming over her. She pulls the sheet up a bit higher on her breasts but feels it hides nothing from his piercing gaze. Sometimes, since the first moment he'd dropped his sensuous mouth on hers inside her front door, she's had the feeling that it wouldn't take much for him to see straight through to her soul. She has the feeling he can see what she's thinking right now, how her breasts are tingling, wishing for his big hands to close around them again, to treasure them, how her pussy weeps for the touch of his hands, his mouth, or his hard cock. She closes her eyes when he bends over to kiss her goodbye.
"Thank you for inviting me over," he murmurs, looking deep into her eyes before pressing delicate little kisses over her eyes and her cheeks. "I enjoyed it," he breathes on her lips before dropping a teasing, feather-light kiss on them. "Did you?"
She can't bear for him to know how much she wants his touch. She keeps her eyes closed and just nods, for the moment incapable of speech, unwilling to let him know how even his leave-taking is ratcheting up her desires. She's not some needy, vulnerable woman who wants to beg him to stay and make her crazy! She's in control, always!
"Tell me," he insists, his voice low as his lips brush over her collarbone, his hair tickling her cheek. "Tell me," he repeats, drawing each word out, his voice a command just before he takes her mouth in a deeper kiss, suddenly savage and demanding.
She answers his kiss with equal fervor, letting go enough to show him she's hungry too, until he slowly pulls back. "Yes, I enjoyed it too," she replies, trying to catch the breath lost to the intensity of the kiss.
He smiles against her lips, busses them one last time before leaning away from her. "I'll ping you later, after my appointment, okay? We'll go out for dinner if you like."
She feels the loss of his body heat at once and pulls the sheet closer around her. "I'd like that," she answers, returning his smile.
He stands up and walks to the bedroom door before turning back. "Get some rest," he says before dropping his voice into a more suggestive tone, "You may need it." He winks at her mischievously then breaks in a huge smile before walking out.
She hears him quietly close the front door before she begins to giggle like a schoolgirl at the implied promise, or was it threat, in his parting words. She'll definitely need her rest if they're going to heat up the sheets like they had last night and again this morning. And she's going to bring her 'A' game this time because apparently this man is immune to her usual charms.
Her mouth crooks up in a half smile as she decides she's going to best him, best him as she has all the other men she's taken to her bed. She's determined to show him who's in control in her bedroom, though she suspects that she's met her match in Mac. It thrills her even as it scares her, but she relishes the challenge.
She pulls the tray back in front of her to finish her very tasty homemade breakfast before it gets any colder. If she's going to go another 10 rounds with Mac tonight, and she plans to, then she'll need to keep her strength up. She smiles to herself as she finishes her eggs. She'll get her to-do list taken of this morning, and then maybe take a short nap this afternoon. He may have had his way with her this time, but not tonight, oh no, not tonight. Tonight she's going to wear his ass out and wipe that smug smile right off his face.
Breakfast consumed, she sits aside the tray and slides down in the bed while stretching luxuriously, the mere thought of the coming labors making her wet again.
***
Mac uses the net to checks the time as the big Mercedes glides silently down the road. He has time for breakfast, or to get himself cleaned up and presentable before he arrives at the clinic, but not both. He decides to go with the shower and fresh clothes. He hadn't expected last night to take, well, all last night. He'd gone with Kate thinking they'd have a quick tumble to take the edge off, do a little slap and tickle, then he'd be on his way back to his suite. He'd underestimated her sexual energy and she'd fucked him but good. It's been a very long time since he's been with a woman that can give as good as she gets, and if he can get her into his bed tonight, he's determined to see just how hard, and how far, he can push her. He smiles at the thought. After—was it Abby—at the clinic gets done torturing him this morning, he might lie down for a while. He has a feeling he's going to need his strength for tonight.
He valets the Merc at his hotel and takes the stairs two at a time up the ten floors to his room to get in a little exercise. Winded from his sprint up the steps, he enters his suite and strips out of his rumpled clothes, tossing them onto the bed before entering the bathroom. He uses his depilation cream on his face and swishes his mouth with the sanitizer to remove the morning fuzz, both on his face and in his mouth, and then steps into the shower. Standing under the hot water he scrubs himself clean as an involuntary thought of taking Kate in the big two-person shower makes his cock twitch with anticipation. Twenty minutes later he calls for his car as he dresses casually in khaki pants and a loose, white, short-sleeve cotton shirt. Dressed and tidy once more, he bounds down the steps to the lobby. He sees his car waiting under the portico as he stops by the concierge's desk and arranges to have his clothes from last night cleaned and pressed, and orders a dozen red roses to be sent to his room for Kate, in case he can get her back there tonight. Walking out of the hotel he slides behind the wheel of his waiting car.
"Fuck..." he mutters to himself as he pulls away from the hotel. The visit to the clinic isn't going to be nearly as much fun as last night.
***
Abby, the interface technician, arrives in another whirlwind of activity, pushing a cart with his leg and her computer on it, her hair is as white as freshly fallen snow. "Good Morning, Mac! How are you this morning?"
"I'm doing good... uhhh... Abby isn't it?" he asks, mentally crossing his fingers he gets the name right. He's sitting in a different, but identical, room to the one he was in yesterday, once again wearing only his boxers, his old leg removed and lying on the table beside him.
"That's right," she says, her brilliant smile flashing, flattered he remembers. "Hang on a minute while I get ready, then we're going to plug you in and see if you can wiggle some toes this morning. Are you up for that?"
Mac looks the young woman over again as she dithers over her computer, the blue hair of yesterday replaced with the white of today. The sudden change in hair color is a little off-putting, but her patter is still nice as she moves about with an easy, accomplished, grace.
"Nothing like a good wiggle in the morning to start the day off right, I always say," he replies with a grin.
She snickers but says nothing as she continues getting ready. "Okay. I'm going to plug you in. Let me know when you're ready, because this time, it's going to hurt."
He takes a couple of deep breaths and gives his head a quick nod. She plugs the cable into the interface port in the stub of his leg, the other end of the cable already plugged into the leg lying on a table. Another cord runs to the leg from the computer. He sucks in his breath with a hiss as the pain rockets from the artificial limb, a pain that feels eerily like the pain he felt when the bullet took his leg. Less than a second after the connection is made, the pain stops, gone as quickly as it arrives. He lets out a slow exhale as the pain fades.
"I know that hurts. I'm sorry. One of these days we're going to figure out how to prevent or block the pain when you jack in." She kicks her chair, rolling back to her computer. "Okay. Here we go," she says before pressing a key on the computer. The moment she touches the key the leg begins to jerk and spasm, flopping around on the padded cart like a dying fish. "Whoa there, boy," she mutters to herself, typing furiously on the keyboard.
He stiffens as the leg begins to flex and jerk, gritting his teeth against the terrible muscle cramps, cramps coming from a mechanical leg lying on a cart three feet away. It only takes a few moments of furious typing for Abby to get the leg under control and he blows out his breath as the cramps ease.
"Okay. I think we're past the worst of it now," she says with a brilliant smile. "The leg is synchronizing to your port. That'll take about three minutes to complete. Then we can see what we have to work with." She sees him leaning over, trying to see the screen, so she turns the computer to give him a better view. "This is the progress bar," she says tapping a blue bar on the right side of the screen. "When it gets to the top, the leg should be synced to your nervous system. The rest of this gobbledygook," she says motioning to a fast scrolling box of words and numbers, "is just the diagnostics on the leg as it does its thing. We'll only have to dig into that if when you try to wiggle your toes the leg jumps off the cart and runs out of the room."
Mac barks out a short laugh. "I hope you're the one to chase it down. I'm not up to full speed at the moment," he says waving a hand over his missing leg.
Abby gives him the once over then offers another brilliant smile. "I don't know. You look like you might be faster on one leg than most are with two." She looks at the screen, checking to make sure the sync is still progressing, then turns her attention back to him. "I saw in your charts you lost your leg in the Army. I've never heard of Dr. Abbington, but he did brilliant work. You're lucky he was there, or you wouldn't be here."
He smiles wistfully. "Luckier than some, that's for sure."
"It was bad?" she asks, her smile fading.
"Pretty bad. Took a sniper round right in the back of the knee. That was lucky break number one. I must have been nearly out of range because those guys just don't miss. A little higher and to the left and I would have been dead before I hit the ground. Thank God I was already at our rendezvous point when I took the round, or I would have bled to death before they could have done anything. That was lucky break number two. Then the medic jumped out and dragged me the rest of the way to the chopper. Stupid bastard. He knew there was a sniper out there and he came out anyway. I guess you could call that lucky break number three, that he was willing to put his life on the line for mine. And not just him, but a couple of the guys on my team too. And the pilot, holding the bird there, taking fire, while they saved my sorry ass. I owe everyone on the chopper my life."
Her eyes had widened as he tells his story. "Jesus..." she mutters.
Mac smiles another small smile. If she only knew...
***
Captain 'Knife' McMillan crouches at their go point, sweating from more than just the night's heat. The near silent chopper had dropped them off then vacated the area, leaving them alone and exposed. Their native guide hasn't shown up and Mac, and the five men under his command, have been sitting in the open for five minutes, waiting on the guide, making him feel exposed and vulnerable.
"Bull. You get the feeling we've been set up?" Mac asks quietly.
Sergeant First Class Sidney 'Bull' Toro grunts. "I don't think the fucker is coming. What're we going to do, Knife?"
On the parade ground Captain McMillan expects the troops under his command to show proper military respect, but that shit goes out the window when they're in bandit country and he becomes just Knife, the shortened version of Mac the Knife, a nickname he earned when he beat his hand-to-hand combat instructor in a knife drill.
"Goddammit!" Mac grinds out through gritted teeth. "You can't depend on the CIA for shit! We need to start hauling their asses out here with us and then I bet shit like this doesn't happen. Fuck it. Get the troops. We know where we need to go, and anything beats sitting here with our dicks hanging out."
Iran has been rattling their sabers again. Mac and his team are in country, illegal as hell, to take the edge off those sabers by calling in a Navy strike to take out yet another nuclear weapons facility. Iran builds them, and then America, or one of its allies, knocks them down. It's been a game that's gone on for decades.
Bull grunts again and moves off, returning moments later with four more men. "This mission is already going to shit, so listen up," Bull growls.
Mac turns on his glasses, giving him direction and distance information. "Bull, take Rod and Goose, and circle around to the West. Nickel, you and Derby come with me. We'll meet at," he pauses as he looks at his map, "32.5 by 26. We should be able to put the designator on target from there. Nickel, get on the horn and tell those Navy pukes what's going on. And make it damn clear that when we call, they'd better be hauling ass. I have a feeling the shit is about to get deep." He looks around and everyone has their game faces on. Good. They're about to start kicking some ass. "Let's rock," he says.
"You heard the man," Bull says getting to his feet. "Let's go step on Abdul's dick."
"Bull," Mac says as the men prepare to move out. "If the shit hits the fan, you light 'em up and run like hell for the rendezvous. We'll do the same. I have a feeling we are about to step into some serious shit, and I have no problem pulling the plug on this fucked up mission if a shit storm starts. Clear?"
"You got it, Knife. You got it."
Forty-five minutes later Mac and his team meet up with Bull and his team. Despite his concerns, they'd apparently arrived undetected on a small hill overlooking the compound. "Rod, get the designator on target. Nickel, bring the thunder, and tell them we are going to evac from... 32 by 27." Mac looks around. "Better make it 32 by 28. We are going to have to hump it to get there in time, but it'll beat walking out if the chopper takes it in the ass."
Nickel snorts once at Mac's comment before talking quietly to the air, then turns to Mac. "Twelve minutes to thunder, Knife."
Good. The Navy is on the ball today. "Roger that, Nickel."
At eleven minutes, thirty seconds, Nickel speaks again. "Thunder's here. Light it up Rod."
Corporal Alvin Rodriguez flips a switch on the designator he's holding like a rifle, causing an invisible infrared beam to paint a quarter size spot on the target building. Invisible to everyone but Rod as he watches through the infrared scope, Rod holds the brilliant red beam steady, guiding the missiles to their target. Less than thirty seconds later three AG3100 Battleax guided missiles launched from a pair of Navy jets scream overhead, impacting on the building a mile away, guided to their target by that quarter size spot of light. Rod barely flinches, continuing to hold the designator beam on the target.
"Get ready to bug out," Mac says. "It's going to get hot around here, and quick. Rod! See anything?"
"Still too much dust, Knife, but it looks like the pukes did okay this time." He pauses, still peering through the scope, looking for any standing structure in need of another strike. "It's clear, Knife. They blew that place to shit."
"Roger that, Rod," Mac says. "Alright people, assholes and elbows. Nickel, tell evac we are forty minutes out."
In less than one minutes Rod has the designator broken down and they're ready to travel. The six start out at a hard trot, staying in the depressions between the low hills as they work their way to the rendezvous. Mac knows they have a few minutes before the rag-heads can recover and start a search, plus the Iranians have no way to know where they were or which way they were traveling. He wants to make the most of this time by putting as much space between his team and the hornets' nest they'd just stirred up as he could. For thirty minutes they trot through the night with no sound of pursuit, so despite the fuck up at the beginning, Mac is starting to believe this is going to be an easy in and out mission.
Mac is on point, Bull bringing up the rear, when Mac hears the soft woofing of the chopper blades as the machine closes in on them like an angel of death. The chopper is quiet, eerily quiet, so quiet in fact that he hears the heavy thud of the bullet hitting Bull. He instantly grasps what's happening.
"Run!" Mac screams before turning back for Bull.
The door gunner sees Bull go down and squeezes the triggers on the mobile gun. The chopper opens up, firing blindly, trying to pin the sniper down, the heavy machine gun in the door ripping the night with light and sound, the tracer rounds a near continuous streak into the night.
Mac skids to a stop by Bull, falling to the ground to make himself less of a target. The bullet took Bull high in the left shoulder, nearly taking his arm off.
"You stupid fuck," Bull grunts out against the pain.
"Shut up, old man. I've bought you a beer after every one of these fucking missions, I'm buying you one tonight," Mac says getting to his feet before heaving Bull over his back with a grunt. The chopper swings in to pick them up, still lighting the night with hell-fire, the rest of the men already aboard. Six pairs of hands strain out of the door, reaching for them, when Mac hears the bullet whine by his ear, blood spraying his face as the bullet passes through Bull, thocking into the armor of the chopper. He goes down hard, the force of the bullet taking him to the ground.
He leaps back to his feet, grabbing Bull's uniform in one hand as he closes the last few feet to the chopper. Goose and Rod bail out of the chopper to help Mac with Bull.
"Get aboard! Get aboard!" Mac roars as he lifts Bull, heaving him up to the waiting hands. Bull is being pulled aboard when Mac experiences the most exquisite pain in his right leg, and despite a desperate leap to get aboard the chopper, his legs fail him and he goes down.
Mac's vision begins to dim as shock sets in. Goddammit! So close!
The chopper swings around and squats over him, protecting him with its bulk, the heavy gun in the door roaring, splitting the night as three men jump to the ground, Goose, Nickel and one of the two medics on the chopper. Ducking under the hovering tilt-rotor, Nickel, only twenty-one, is nearly sick seeing Knife's leg attached by a piece of skin not two fingers wide. And the blood, so much blood.
The medic drops to the ground beside Mac and severs the leg with a brutal swipe of his knife before snapping Nickel out of his daze with a vicious roar. "Move your ass, soldier!"
The three men haul a nearly unconscious Mac from under the chopper before lifting him to the three pairs of hands reaching out to help from aboard the chopper, the roaring and spitting machine pulling up and away the instant the remaining three men are aboard. The two medics leap into action, working on Mac, trying to stop the bleeding, pumping him full of painkillers and coagulants as they stuff bandage after bandage into the place his leg once was, his team silent and grim face as they watch.
The Sikorsky shrieks across the sky, the navy jets watching over the sprinting chopper and protecting it from attack. The chopper pilot holds the throttles so hard against their stops that his palm will bruise later, willing the machine to go faster, just a little faster, running the engines deep into the red as they race for the waiting carrier, both medics working frantically to save Mac's life, Bull beyond the help of mortal men.
***
Abby watches Mac drift away for a moment and then come back to the present. She knows she has empathy with her patients, all her patients, but this giant of a man sitting on the table is different than most. Some like to talk about their wounds, describing their injuries in graphic detail. Others avoid the subject entirely, but Mac, he's different. She has no idea what went down that caused him to lose his leg, but she gets the distinct impression there is a hell of a lot more to it than he makes it out to be, but the way he talked about it, so matter of fact, intrigues her. Here's a man that had his leg shot clean off, apparently nearly bled to death, and according to his medical chart, nearly died three times over, mostly from the loss of blood, yet he describes the ordeal it with no more emotion than she would use to describe a paper cut.
"It must have been awful," she says.
"I've had better days," he says with a small smile.
Her attention is pulled away from this fascinating man when her computer chimes, signaling the end of the synchronization process. "Okay, Mac. We're online. You look like a guy who likes to get right to the point, so let me see you do some toe curls."
He focuses on curling his toes, and the leg just lies there, inert. "Nothing," he says. He's been through this drill twice before, so he knows the routine.
"Okay, hang on a minute," she says, scratching at her nose as she stares at the computer screen. "I saw in your chart that you live in Paradise. Now that sounds like a place I'd like to live," she says with a grin, never looking up as she pecks away at the computer.
"It's not bad," he says as he smiles at her. "I actually don't live in the town, that's just my mailing address. I actually live on Lake Oroville. Now that's paradise."
"That's way up north, north of San Francisco in the mountains somewhere, isn't it? Long drive," she says, distracted as she adjusts the interface on the leg, touching and typing away on her computer.
"It is, and it would be, except I fly."
"God, I hate flying," she says, never looking away from her computer. "If I can drive there in twelve hours or less, I'd rather drive than to fight the crowds."
He chuckles. "Yeah, me too. But when I said I fly, I meant I fly my own airplane."
Abby stops pecking at the computer, looking at him. "You fly? Or you have someone fly you? No offense, but most people who can afford one of these has a pilot to ferry them around."
Mac chuckles again. "No, I fly myself. I have a 1942 Grumman Goose. I call her the Bathing Beauty. It's a seaplane."
She returns her attention to the computer. "I don't know what that's, but I'm not sure I want to be in a plane that's almost one hundred fifty years old," she says, striking a last key with a flourish. "Okay, give me a wiggle."
Mac focuses and sees his toes move, just a little. "That's something at least."
"Yeah, we're getting there," Abby says, wrinkling her nose and pursing her lips as she studies the computer screen. "Hang on a second. So, tell me about this flying antique."
"Well, first off, the plane is fully restored and upgraded. There isn't much of the original plane left, it just looks like Grumman Goose. Secondly, as I said, it is a seaplane. That's why I live on Lake Oroville. I fly in, land on the lake, park the plane in the garage, and I'm home. Pretty nice."
"Try it again," she says after sliding icons around the screen. "And where did you fly into here in LA?"
Mac tries to wiggle his toes and is rewarded with movement. He can actually feel his toes move. "John Wayne. Just because it floats doesn't mean I can't land at a regular airport," Mac says as he watches his toes wiggle, then the foot, but when he tries to bend his knee, nothing happens. "The knee isn't working."
Abby makes some thinking noises as she peers at the screen before making more adjustments. "Now try it."
He tries to bend his knee, but still nothing happens. "Nope."
She scowls at the leg as if it just insulted her, then turns her attention back to the computer. "Hang on a second. Let me look at this. Your leg is being cranky this morning," she says to no one, pecking away at the computer. "This should work!" she cries three minutes later, gesturing impatiently at the computer screen. "I've turned the reflex up to full. If it doesn't move now, something is wrong. Give it a try."
He strains to move the knee, but the leg just lays there. He looks at Abby sheepishly and gives her a small shrug. "I think there is a hammer in the car if you want to use it."
She snorts out a laugh. "Let's save that for any last-minute adjustments." Growling in frustration, she begins to pound on the keyboard, her fingers a blur of motion, the screen of her computer changing faster than Mac can keep up with. "Ah-ha!" she suddenly cries moments later. "Now why did you do that, you stupid thing?" she mutters as she squints and types. "For some reason the knee has configured itself in the 'limp home' mode, no pun intended," she says, looking at Mac with a grin. "That's a new one. Just when you think you've seen every problem there is, these things come up with something fresh. I bet it moves now."
Mac bends his knee and the leg moves. He then moves his toes and ankle again, just to make sure. "You know, I'll never get used to seeing my leg move when I flex the muscles and it isn't even attached. That's just creepy for some reason."
She grins. "Yeah, it used to bother me too, but after hundreds of these it doesn't bother me anymore. Besides, if you think this is creepy, you should see a hand. That's like something out of a horror vid, this disembodied hand grasping at things, or dragging itself along by the fingers. I remember one of the first times I did a hand, the guy I was working with grabbed me by the wrist while it was still on cart. Made me scream like I'd been stabbed." She grins at the memory. "He thought it was a lot funnier than I did at the time. Okay, I think we're good to go. Now that the scanner is working again, I need to take a scan of your mount so we can mill the fitting, but that should be it." She unplugs all the cables from Mac and the leg. "Now comes the fun part. I have to strap you down. You okay with that?"
"Will you hold my hand if I get scared?" he teases.
She laughs. She really likes this guy, and she notices he isn't wearing a wedding band. "For some reason I think you already have your big boy pants on. Turn around here so we can get this done."
He turns and allows Abby to tightly strap his leg down so it won't move during the scan. She sets the scanning rig in its mount and turns it on. A red laser beam begins to sweep back and forth over the mount, making a map of Mac's prosthetic mount that's accurate to a thousandth of a millimeter. The scan lasts less than a minute then she releases him.
"Done for today, Mac. Normally we would mill your mount today and fit you tomorrow, but we're a little backed up with the milling since the scanner was down. If we don't get your mount milled today, we'll get it milled tomorrow so we can fit you Friday. Thanks for being a good patient. I wish all my patients were as easy to work with, not to mention fun to talk to," she says, leaving out the part about also being sexy as hell. She hands him his old leg.
"Thanks," he says, taking the leg and standing it on the floor. After a couple of deep breaths to suck up the courage and to get ready for the jolt of pain, he pushes his mount into the leg, gritting his teeth as the stabbing pain hits again. "Tell me Abby, who do I ping to bitch at about how much this hurts to put on?"
She softens. "I know it hurts. We're working on it, we really are, but the body interprets the sudden influx of feeling as pain. It's the body that's confused, not the prosthetic."
"Well, whatever it is, it still hurts like hell. Why can't you bring the feeling on slowly?"
"We've tried that. Then it just hurts longer. I'm sure we'll crack it eventually, but for now, just remind yourself of the freedom that shock of pain gives you."
He sighs. "Yeah, I know. I don't mean to bitch, but damn, it hurts to put on."
She actually pats his hand. "I know. Listen, if you're available tonight, I'd love to take you around, show you the big city," she says with enthusiasm, thinking if he played his card right, she might show him her bedroom too.
He chuckles as he slips on his pants. "Show the country bumpkin around, eh?"
She smiles her brilliantly. "I hardly think you're a country bumpkin, but if you don't live here, you can't possibly know all the best places to eat. You do eat, don't you?"
"I'm flattered Abby, but I already have other plans for tonight. But I'll see you tomorrow, or the next day. Keep your lunch plans open and I'll treat."
"Deal, but if you stand me up, I'm going to beat you to death with your old leg," she says with giggle.
"I wouldn't dream of it. The last thing I want to do is upset the lady that can make me kick my own ass." Normally he'd have taken her up on her offer for a tour. He knows his way around the city pretty well, but she's right, it's the locals that know all the best places. She's not hard on the eyes either, but his tumble with Kate last night and again this morning has blunted his libido. That, and he'd like to have another run at Kate before he goes home.
She laughs in delight. "I like a man who knows the score. The office will call you later to set up an appointment for your test fitting. I'll make sure it's in the morning." She zones out for a moment. "I have to run Mac. I'm already late for my next appointment." She sticks out her hand. "It's been a pleasure working with you again, and I'll see you tomorrow or Friday."
He shakes her hand. "Looking forward to lunch."
She grins broadly once more before gathering her things and hurrying out the door, pushing the cart ahead of her.
***
Mac walks out of the clinic and settles into the Mercedes. It's a nearly one and he's hungry, having missed breakfast, so he stops at a drive-through for a takeaway salad before returning to his suite. The clothes he asked to be cleaned are gone and a beautiful bouquet of roses has been delivered in their place, stylishly arranged in a crystal vase. What he knows about flowers he can sum up in one sentence—they grow in the dirt and women like roses—but he admires their color and scent all the same.
While he eats, he tries to ping Kate but gets her auto-attendant. Since she's not taking pings at the moment, he leaves a message that he'll pick her up at six for dinner, if she wants to go, to dress nice, and asks her to ping him back to confirm. He hopes she's sleeping, husbanding her strength for the toils to come tonight.
He then pings BLT Steak and makes a reservation for seven o'clock that evening, knowing he can always cancel if she doesn't want to go. Finishing his salad, he dumps the container in the recycler and flops on the bed, not bothering to remove his clothes. Muting his pings and setting an alarm he lies still, closing his eyes with a sigh, and is asleep in minutes.
***
A little over three hours later, Mac's chip wakes him to the sounds of chirping birds, his preferred wakeup signal. Groggy from his unaccustomed nap, he struggles up out of sleep, stretching, yawning, and shaking off cobwebs. He'd received two messages while he slept. The first is the hotel telling him his clothes will be ready for pickup after five, or they can be delivered to his suite, which he immediately deletes before pinging the front desk to have the clothes sent up when they're ready.
The second ping is from Kate, received a bit over an hour before, stating that she'd love to accompany him to dinner and that she'll be ready at six sharp. He wonders at the hold Kate seems to still have over him. She didn't say anything even remotely risqué, yet her rich contralto voice in the message makes him think of all the things he hopes they're going to do after dinner. Chuckling to himself he rolls out of the bed and wanders into the bath where he relieves himself, then decides to shower again, both to help throw off the remainder of sleep and to make sure he's presentable. There was no way he can compete with Kate, but he didn't want to look like the frog to a princess.
After his shower, Mac swishes his mouth clean with the sanitizer before pulling out the only suit he packed, a medium grey coat and pants paired with a very light blue shirt and a tie that's trying to decide if it is a very deep blue or purple. A bit after five, Mac calls for his car and leaves the hotel to pick up Kate, sending her a text ping that he's on his way as he trots lightly down the steps.