Aleksandr Voinov

Having been a mercenary for the past decade, Mikhail Volkov is a man without a country and that suits him just fine. Playing by his own rules, on his own terms, for the price he sets, is the way he likes it best.

But when a CIA contact dangles a carrot he can't resist to entice him into a clandestine search-and-rescue, Mikhail is brought face–to-face with the biggest foe he has yet to vanquish—his own loneliness.

Growing up, Devon ‘D’ Dearborn planned to follow in his father's footsteps as part of the Army's Delta Force. Once commissioned, D's own ambitions took root and he became a top-level tank commander, occasionally serving as a go-between for his CIA-employed brother and a sexy Russian mercenary.

When his doubts about his chosen career and his own desires impacted the perfection he demanded of himself, D resigned his commission and exchanged his Abrams tank for a 18-wheeler.

After six years, the last face D expects to see when he pulls his rig into a truck stop is that of Mikhail Volkov. D wants nothing to do with his brother's new cloak-and-dagger job, but the temptation of working alongside the Russian is too hard to resist.

Their complicated mission may prove to be their last, but neither of them will give in to their hearts nor their enemy without a fight.

Get the book here.

Mikhail’s first order of business -- at Sam Dearborn’s suggestion -- was to hit the nearest shower. Though he normally would have told the pompous American to shove it up his ass beside that governmental stick he sported, Mikhail was only too glad to wash the latest layer of mountain shit off him and change into the most civilian-looking clothes he had.

When he entered the lounge where he and Sam had parted ways earlier, he couldn’t suppress the grin that lifted the corners of his lips when he saw that the American was snacking from a small bag of M&M’s candies.

Of course, that sight brought to mind something else, someone else who loved candy in care packages from home. But that was something he didn’t want to remember just now.

“There. Clean,” he announced. Only dirty thoughts left.

He fished a 1.5-liter bottle of still water from his pack -- and Allah be merciful on anybody telling him he couldn’t fly with that amount of liquid -- tore open a small foil packet, poured the lemon-flavored electrolytes in the bottle, then closed it with a thumb and shook it before pushing the foil into his pocket. Once Special Forces, always Special Forces. He never left any packaging behind. He drank, watching Sam finish off the candies. Looked like he was about to lose the waiting game.

“You haven’t come to celebrate my birthday with me.” Mikhail prodded.

“Of course I have.” Sam flashed a full-of-shit smile. “Your gift is a trip to Langley.”

“Not interested.”

“You might be once you see D.”

Mikhail took a long swig of his drink. “I heard he resigned his commission.” He’d scored a direct hit with that one. Had the firstborn son become the family disappointment? Now he was more curious than ever to find out what had prompted tank commander Devon Dearborn to leave the only life he knew.

The CIA operative simply stared for a moment, then pushed his chair back. “You don’t want this job, I’ll see that you get back to the mountains before nightfall.”

Mikhail moved his water bottle from one hand to the other and watched the American walk toward the door. He wasn’t surprised to see the younger man pause and then return. He took another long, slow drink of water while Sam stopped beside him. He capped the bottle and stood, not about to give up his height advantage.

“It burns my ass to say this, but I need somebody I know who can get the job done. And I need somebody I trust implicitly.”

Mikhail smirked. “I know which part of that equation I am. It amuses me to wonder how you’ll achieve the other.”

“Don’t you owe us a favor?”

“I paid plenty, Sam.” I paid plenty, he repeated internally, looking to the side for a moment. “Need somebody to get the job done. Need somebody who can walk the mountains of Afghanistan with no backup.” It was always the same kind of talk. They didn’t seem to realize that he excelled at what he did not to please anybody or make himself indispensable, but because he simply wanted to excel. And it wasn’t the right brother who stood here asking him for help.

“I think we’re about quits.” With that he stepped away until Sam Dearborn’s softly spoken words slammed into his back. “I hear D asked about you not long ago.”

Mikhail glanced back. “The fuck I care.”

Sam shrugged and pulled his sunglasses from inside his suit jacket. “I saw D’s old gunner at a party my parents threw. Said he ran into D at a travel plaza in Texas last time he was on leave. Said D asked about the old crew and wondered if they knew whatever hole you crawled into over here.” He put on his sunglasses. “My flight back is at 1800. There’s a seat for you if you change your mind.”

Mikhail watched the annoying operative brush past him, then went to buy an apple from one of the vending machines lining the far wall. He strode back across the wide room and stood before a window, finishing the apple off in a few precise bites. The only thing that remained was the stem, which he added to the electrolytes wrapper in his pocket.

A trip away from this hellhole might not be such a bad idea after all.

* * * * *

It wasn’t so much changing his mind as giving in to an urge, Mikhail told himself. Damned CIA knew him backward; Sam did too. Sometimes he wondered how much Sam knew about him and D. Had he spied on them? Had his brother spilled his guts? Or was he guessing?

He could find Afghan tribal leaders on the warpath; finding D wouldn’t be that hard by comparison. It didn’t involve bribing or running around at a ridiculous altitude loaded down with water, evading even more ridiculous Yanks who shot everything that moved. And Sam did provide him with great intel. He wished the military intel boys were half as good. What he got when they stepped off the airplane was a surveillance-camera photo of Devon Dearborn standing beside a gas pump, talking to his old comrade at a travel plaza in Texas. Too blurry to make out details -- just his build, height, the features of his face, but no detail. Much like D had become in his mind. A well-worn image that was beginning to fade from his memory long before he was ready.

Mikhail knew he was moving along like a puppet on a string, just as expected, but he couldn’t resist the lure. It was the best one they could have used.

He hitched a ride with a trucker on the way in, then simply waited at the travel plaza, filling himself up with the only thing he’d missed about America -- pancakes and peanut butter -- keeping an eye on the steadily changing crowd.

* * * * *

Devon chuckled. The fluffy cat who’d been dozing for the past eleven hours on the seat beside him perked up as the truck changed lanes. She jumped onto D’s lap and purred, her soft head nuzzling his hand once he turned off I-10 to spend the night at the travel stop.

“Don’t worry, Baby. We’ll take a piss, get something to eat, and then you can settle in and watch your SpongeBob.”

D’s good humor faded once they exited the truck cab and took care of business. With Baby waiting patiently outside the door, D glanced around the spacious restaurant and retail space. Damn if his old combat senses weren’t tingling as if an enemy had him in his sight.

The place wasn’t very crowded, and no one seemed out of place or even too concerned with his presence, barring the two older ladies checking him out as they paid for their bottled water and granola bars across the way. Shaking off the weird feeling, D placed his order in the restaurant and sat at the counter to watch the sports recap on the news while waiting for the food. Still, the feeling lingered as he ate his two sandwiches and broke up the pieces of grilled chicken he’d bought for Baby. Finally D gave in and placed a call to his mother to make sure all was well with his father and younger brother.

Once the call ended, D decided he must be coming down with something. He’d probably caught a bug from the illegals who’d loaded him up out in LA. Shit, maybe he needed to join the border patrol and shove all their asses back to Mexico where they belonged.

Baby finished her meat and began to lick herself clean. D scooped her up and carried her back to the cab of his truck and attached the window-mounted control module at the stopping station that provided power, Internet service, and cable TV. He took one of the cartoon DVDs he had stored in the back of the truck cab and placed it in the player attached to a small television mounted on the side wall behind the passenger seat.

He ruffled the cat’s furry head. “Knock yourself out, Baby. I’m gonna get a shower.”

* * * * *

Obsessed with his target, Mikhail felt like a stalker. The first sight of D had hit him in the gut, clenched his stomach, which, with all the pancakes inside, nearly nauseated him. Look at you, Misha, almost losing your dinner over some bastard you haven’t seen in years.

But it wasn’t just some bastard. It would have been easy if D had been nothing else but that. Mikhail wasn’t the type to hanker after a man who was just some random encounter. And seeing him as a trucker hurt somehow. He didn’t look unhappy. That rugged, stubbly, self-sufficient look didn’t go with unhappy. Who did he fuck these days? People hitching a ride? Other truckers? Or had he settled down and was glad he was on the road all day anyway so he didn’t actually have to settle down?

Fuck this, Mikhail thought and followed D when he went back. He paused a moment when he noticed where D was going. This was going to be easy. He slid his backpack down and followed, for all intents and purposes just another trucker heading for a shower.

He saw D undress, unconcerned with the world, and undressed too, smiling to himself. This whole training to stalk and move unseen, never attracting attention, was working out too well. He wanted D to notice him. He stepped under the shower next to D, teasing himself with the proximity of the wet, glistening body he knew so well and wanted even more.

Soaping his head and torso, Mikhail appraised the younger man through his peripheral vision. Still taut and toned, D’s lean frame was visibly strong and well muscled, his height a good ten centimeters less than Mikhail’s. Perfect for the commander of a cramped armored vehicle.

The dark hair was still cut short, the cascade of water glistening on the soap-spiked strands as it rolled down over those well-formed shoulders, taut back, and down across the curve of his firm ass.

D remained completely oblivious, and Mikhail smiled to himself, turned his back, and quickly jerked off, his mind filling with memories of his cock buried deep in Devon Dearborn’s hot mouth.

The rush of water behind Mikhail lessened, and the sharp intake of breath, bearing its hint of recognition, was all it took to take him over the edge and caused him to spill into his hand, the cum washing away while the water spray hit his back.

“Fuck. Is that really you?”

“As if any American has a tattoo like mine,” Mikhail responded without turning. Instead he reached to shut the water off on his side, then spun and lunged forward, shoving D into the hard tile wall. Claiming the younger man’s mouth with his own, he took possession of those lips and conquered D’s tongue.

D’s response told him everything he needed to know. D never yielded without at least some resistance. They’d wrestled almost more than they’d fucked, before or after. The hard cock pressing against him told him the most fundamental truth of all. D wanted. Maybe not him -- cocks were notoriously bad at ID’ing people, but never mind. The crisp taste of D’s mouth was courtesy of Wrigley’s, but the feel of wet skin and muscle against him drove Mikhail wild. He never let his guard down, not since he’d been conscripted as a raw recruit, and he always kept an eye on his surroundings, but if any man could daze him enough to forget everything else, it was Devon.

It seemed that D was yielding. Hands touched his sides, traced his hips, slid forward to his chest. Then, once D had leverage, the American shoved him back with both hands, every ounce of strength in the move. Mikhail’s hands slipped off the wet skin. He took a step back, too surprised to deflect the uppercut to his jaw that made his teeth click painfully.

Fuck. He shook his head, dazed, then took another step back and moved into a defensive stance, hands open before his chest. “Yes, nice to see you too,” Mikhail growled, still tasting him.

D’s expression was hard, searing, the time deployed in the Iraqi desert lending maturity and character to the young man he remembered. But something was missing as well, that spark of idealism that made him mourn his own loss of same. What the fuck had happened to him in Baghdad?

 

Anger and need twined together in a thick, tight cable and coiled through Devon as he stepped back and swiped a towel over himself. His gaze never left the Russian’s as he backed out of the shower to the small locker room to retrieve his clothing. He didn’t need to look back to know Mikhail leaned in the doorway, watching as he sat long enough to pull on his boots. The power of that stare was damn near legendary. He’d seen it stop battle-hardened men in their tracks, but it didn’t stop him from grabbing his jacket and striding out of the shower facilities without so much as a fuck-you glance.

Sneaking up on him like that. He could still feel the smooth muscle where he’d shoved him. The clean-shaven jaw. He’d always looked weather worn, sunburned, his light blue eyes surrounded by lines formed from squinting against the glare of sun reflecting off mountains four or five thousand meters above sea level. The short pale blond hair masked the fact that he was well on the way to turning gray, his hair cut in that archetypical Russian style -- short and combed forward. Big arms and shoulders, round from climbing and weight lifting and hundreds of daily push-ups. He hadn’t changed one bit; flaunting that tattoo hadn’t even been necessary. It was a rendering of Ivan Bilibin’s Prince Ivan and the Firebird, almost too elegant for the Russian, not coarse at all, the last thing anybody would have expected on a mercenary’s body. The firebird taking flight across Mikhail’s left shoulder and Ivan reaching for it, about to fall on his ass, his other hand down to steady himself on Mikhail’s hip bone. He half hoped Mikhail wouldn’t follow. That the message was clear. That the man was too proud to keep pushing.

He headed back to his truck, determined to get a few hundred miles between himself and the Russian.

D wasn’t lying in the truck’s sleeping compartment a minute before he heard the sound of metal scraping metal. Of course a simple lock wouldn’t stop the Russian. “Can’t you read, asshole? That means you,” he shouted, referring to the NO LOT LIZARDS decal at the bottom corner of the door window.

The door lock clicked open. Baby arched her back and hissed from her perch on Devon’s stomach. D stroked her fur. “It’s all right, Baby. He’s nothing to get worked up over.” The cat looked at him as if to ask, You telling that to me or yourself?

He kept staring at the cartoon still playing on the small TV as Mikhail climbed into the truck cab and then shifted to sit in the passenger seat, giving him a clear view of the back. D made certain not to smile as his cat and Mikhail sized each other up with predatory stares. Eventually Baby caved and approached, sniffed the Russian’s knee, then used him as a climbing post to get to the top of the seat, where she perched herself to finish watching her show.

Mikhail gave a short laugh. “That little bug reminds me of your brother.”

“Yeah, he does.” The observation was too perfect, the parallel of their thoughts once again tugging that invisible bond formed on a deserted mountaintop in Virginia. Devon finally swung his gaze to meet Mikhail’s. “Sam was always plotting and scheming and trying to get my ass in trouble when we were kids. No one was the least bit surprised when he became a spook.”

Mikhail nodded, then smirked. He pulled a folded white envelope from his rear pocket and handed it back between the seats. “He sends his love.”

D’s jaw tensed as he took the letter, the familiar official logo on the envelope’s corner a painful reminder of broken promises. He tore it open to remove the letter -- the orders -- within. “The fuck they are.” Lowering the paper, he looked at Mikhail, seeing instantly that the contents were no secret. “They’re putting me back in commission?” He let the paper fall and threw his forearm over his eyes. “Fuck that shit.”

“That’s what I told Sam. At first.”

“How did he rope you in?”

Mikhail made a noncommittal gesture, like it didn’t matter. He never did that when it really didn’t matter. “I swore a sacred oath when the CIA got me out back in the day. Your brother came with the signature written in blood.” He snorted. “What else would get me out of fucking Afghanistan?”

He left that rhetorical question hanging for a moment -- and it was purely rhetorical. Mikhail must be the only foreigner who was actually happy in that place. “From what little he told me during the stopover in Ramstein, it’s a secret mission he has lined up for us. Spook shit, hush-hush, totally deniable assets. I’m not even part of the US military, and you’re…pretty deniable now too.” He stretched his legs out, but there was tension in his face. “Seemingly he wants us, and he wants us pretty bad for this, so this is one of those jump-how-high moments. Everything’s undisclosed. This is so top secret, I wonder if it’s directly authorized by the president.”

“Great.” Devon rubbed his forehead. “Okay.”

Mikhail looked at him with undisguised surprise. “What? You’re doing it?”

“I said okay, didn’t I?” Devon inhaled deeply and blew the air out. “My brother would have blocked all escape routes anyway.”

Mikhail grinned. “True.”