Which Spencer took as a good sign. The man he knew and hated was gradually coming back into the body of his former lover. The hike went faster as Drago regained his balance and recovered from the blast, and Spencer led him to the shallow cave he’d tucked his Land Rover in.
“I’ve got a Jeep a couple of miles from here,” Drago said. “I’d be grateful for a ride.”
As if Spencer was letting the guy out of his custody now that he had him. But they could at least swing by and pick up Drago’s gear. If nothing else, there would be expensive and classified American surveillance equipment in the Jeep that shouldn’t fall into hostile hands.
“Where is it?”
“Head west. I’ll call the turn to the south.”
They drove for fifteen minutes or so to a narrow wadi with a battered Jeep tucked in the bottom of it.
Drago said sarcastically, “Thanks for the ride, Spence. It’s been great seeing ya.” He reached for the door release. “Let’s not do it again soon. Oh, and if you ever fuck with another one of my ops, I’ll kill you.”
Spencer’s jaw tightened.
“Unlock the door, will ya?” Drago muttered.
“Can’t.”
“Why the hell not?”
Spencer turned off the ignition and turned to face Drago. He reached into the front pocket of his fatigue pants and palmed the object inside, in case this came to a close-quarters fight. “Because I was sent here to rendition your sorry ass, Drago.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake. You don’t think you can capture and actually hold me, do you?” Drago snapped.
“You’re in my custody now, aren’t you?”
“I haven’t tried to get out of it yet,” Drago growled. His body coiled, and his hands tightened into fists. “But I’m damned well going to—”
Spencer reached over fast and jammed the spring-loaded hypodermic against Drago’s thigh.
“Fuckety fuck fuck fuuuh….”
Drago slumped in the seat, unconscious.
Spencer worked fast. Drago was gonna be fighting mad when he woke up. He searched Dray’s pockets and found the guy’s car keys; then he jogged over to the Jeep and transferred all of Dray’s gear into the back of the Land Rover.
He left the key in the ignition of the Jeep—a gift to whoever might stumble across it out here at the ass end of nowhere.
He drove fast, heading south for the Jordanian border. Smugglers, militias, and the nomadic tribes who wandered this part of the world had created a network of unmarked roads and trails that crisscrossed the wasteland and made it an easy matter to slip across the border. Once his GPS showed him to be safely inside Jordan, he turned west and headed for Ar Ruwayshid, a dusty town swimming in poverty and despair, and the easternmost permanent settlement in all of Jordan, even though it was nowhere near Jordan’s eastern border with Iraq.
He pulled into a tiny fenced space behind the ramshackle one-story building he’d paid the owner a couple hundred bucks to squat in for a few weeks. It was an abandoned restaurant, a single open room littered with broken chairs and tables, with a primitive kitchen in the back. It had no electricity or running water, but there was a cistern on the roof with a few inches of rainwater in it. The floor was concrete, the roof covered in cheap tin that did little to fend off the daytime heat.
He dumped Drago’s limp body on the floor and cuffed his hands around the steel support post in the middle of the front room. Then he hauled in their gear and padlocked the gate. There. They were as safe as they could be in this lawless place beyond the edge of civilization, rife with smugglers, refugees, and the occasional journalist.
He stared down at Drago, taking in the strong, familiar features. There were a few new wrinkles around the eyes, and the roundness of youth had given way to hard maturity in his jaw and cheekbones. The lines of Drago’s body—the muscular legs, the rise of his shoulders from that lean waist, the wreathed muscles of his arms visible even in relaxation—made him think of classical art. If da Vinci had ever imagined and painted a panther in human form, this is what the creature would have looked like.
Taking advantage of the moment, he shamelessly rememorized Drago. For the past decade, when he’d been exhausted, wrung out, and lonely on an op, he’d closed his eyes and envisioned this face. And here the guy was again. Back in his life as suddenly as he’d left it. Although in all fairness, he’d been the one to walk out on Dray.
But it had been Drago’s fault.
He crouched down and rolled Drago into a more comfortable position that wouldn’t have the guy waking up in a few hours with limbs tingling and painful from lack of circulation.
Aww, heck. That scent. Most men’s sweat had a sour stink to it, but Drago’s musk was smooth and sexy. The guy could bottle it and sell it as cologne, for crying out loud.
He would never forget waking up with that scent on his bedsheets, his pillow. On his skin. God, he’d loved wearing the smell of this man—
Loved. Past tense.
He stepped back from the temptation to run his fingers through those sable waves of hair, to stroke that face, to taste that skin once more. No way on God’s green earth was he getting entangled with this man again, not physically, not emotionally. He knew from painful experience that Drago was an addiction that would nearly kill him to let go of.
Sitting on the floor and leaning back against a wall, well out of reach of Drago, he dozed while the second dose of tranquilizer worked its way through Dray’s system. Out of general principle, he slept with a handgun gripped in his fist.
He woke with a jolt as Drago said in disgust, “Really? Handcuffs? Isn’t this a little kinky for you, Captain Wholesomeness Police?”
“Good morning to you too, Commander Asshat,” Spencer retorted. He sighed and asked slightly more civilly, “How are you feeling?”
“You mean after you drugged me and dragged me to East-of-Buttfuck, Nowhere? Where are we, anyway? I feel like shit.”
Spencer smiled a little. He felt about the same, minus the brain fog he knew Drago had to be fighting off. He watched cautiously as Dray sat up, flexed his broad shoulders, and rolled his head around on that thick column of a neck, all corded muscle and tendon. Although Drago, part Italian, part Lebanese by heritage, was naturally olive-skinned, he sported a dark tan on top of that now. If the guy had let his beard grow in thick and full, nobody would know he wasn’t a local.
“Uncuff me. I have to piss.”
“No can do. Not until we’ve had a conversation.”
“Spence. I really do have to piss.”
Spencer huffed and climbed to his feet. He went to the kitchen and fetched the bucket he was using as a chamber pot. He set it down in front of Drago and backed away quickly.
The bastard held up his hands, rattling the handcuffs against the metal post. “You’ll have to undo my zipper.”
“You can reach it. Don’t be an asshole.”
“Don’t want to take the opportunity to fondle my epic dick, huh? Too bad.”
Sigh. Drago was gonna be an asshole this morning. Not that Spencer could blame him. If he’d been drugged and woken up handcuffed somewhere after being told he’d been renditioned, he’d probably be a wee bit cranky too.
The sound of piss hitting the metal bucket rang behind him, and he fought to keep an image of the man’s dusky cock, every bit as thick and muscular as the rest of him, from rising in his mind.