Jungle Heat MM

Jungle Heat by Rachel Haimowitz Published by Rachel Haimowitz at Smashwords Cover design by L.C. Chase. Copyright 2011 Rachel Haimowitz RachelHaimowitz.com

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There were so many things to hate about the jungle, Pete hardly knew where to begin. The constant dampness, so pervasive even human skin grew mold. The heat, all the more oppressive in the long pants and sleeves of his BDUs. The insects that somehow found their bitey, stingy way to bare skin despite tight sleeve cuffs and pants tucked into socks. The snakes dropping out of trees and crawling into your bedroll (and once his boots—thank God he’d made a habit of checking). The damn birds and monkeys chittering so loudly he couldn’t sleep. And the drug cartels, of course. They were the worst. They were also the reason he’d been stuck here for the last five weeks, roughing it like Ranger School all over again. Him and his tiny team—sniper, spotter, flanker—sent in to do the jobs no one else could. Or maybe just the ones no one else wanted. What else was new, eh? They’d been watching the Morales cartel three weeks now, tracking the flow of their suppliers and shipments and personnel in and out. The base seemed quite small for the size of the operation: only fourteen men in their jungle camp, guarding and packing and shipping enough cocaine to feed a habit the size of the entire northwest United States. They’d gotten clever about it, too. They still used human mules, of course, but the bulk of their wares were going out on drug subs now. Harder to find, harder to stop. Not that any of that was Pete’s concern. At least not officially. No, they’d been sent here to kill one man and one man only: Mateo Morales Oritz, head of the whole Amazon Basin operation in Colombia. Neat, stealthy, no firefights, thank you very much. In and out without ever being seen or, God forbid, identified as American soldiers. Morales only dropped by once a week, choppered in from God-knows-where at noon on the dot to inspect the operation, choppered out by eighteen hundred the two times they’d watched him come and go. Would’ve been easier just to down the chopper, but invading sovereign airspace wasn’t exactly subtle, and a little more leeway than the Colombian government was willing to grant their US pals right now. So bullet to the chest it was. His team had located an ideal hide site up in the canopy of a kapok tree some 70 meters off the ground, high enough above its neighbors to draw a bead on their target. The helo landing zone was 607 meters distant—an easy shot. Especially since prior behavior indicated Morales wouldn’t exit the chopper until the rotors stopped

spinning, and once he was out, he’d stand there for upwards of twenty seconds while the outpost commander came to salute and escort him off. That wasn’t exactly forever, given the vertical drop and the variable wind speed and direction above and below the canopy, but for his team it was long enough. Speaking of his team . . . Diego was checking his gear one last time, and Mitchell was checking his calculations on his tablet. He’d already been through them a dozen times this morning alone—temperature, humidity, wind, angle of fire, ballistics—and Diego had checked his work more than once, but you could never be too careful, he supposed. They’d endured five weeks of man-eating terrain to take this shot. No one was willing to fuck it up. Pete checked his watch. 09:02. It took time to climb that monster of a tree, more time to set up the rifle, settle their heart rates, dial in last-minute adjustments. And be prepared, of course, in case the chopper came early. None of them wanted to be stuck here another week. Still . . . “I think that’s enough, Mitchell.” Mitchell looked up at him and narrowed big green eyes to slits. His face was far too baby-smooth, even after five weeks in the jungle, to pull that off; all he did was make Pete laugh. “Fuck you,” Mitchell said, perfectly amiable. Pete hid the uncomfortable little shiver those words sent through him by laughing again, and hey, it made Mitchell smile back, all straight white teeth and sunshine and a strange kind of kissability he tried very hard not to admit even to himself. Besides, now wasn’t exactly the time to be letting his mind wander, was it? He turned around before he got any more stupid ideas and snagged Mitchell’s ghillie suit from his pack. “Here, put this on. It’s go time.” Mitchell finally put his tablet away and pulled on his camo, a mesh of leaves and twigs picked fresh from a kapok tree this morning. His face and hands were already painted, and when he pulled the ghillie hood over his dusty blond hair, he half-faded into the jungle, even from five feet away. Good—from 600 meters, he’d be a ghost. Less than a ghost. The cartel wouldn’t have the first idea of where to look for them. Would hopefully be too busy trying to save their leader to bother, anyway.

He checked his watch again, then took a long look around for . . . well, anything, the constant chirp and hum and rustle of the jungle a strange comfort in the daytime for all the irritation they caused him at night. “09:08 boys,” he said. Diego was pulling on his harness over his ghillie suit. Mitchell was strapping on his spurs. The thought of their upcoming climb made Pete almost glad he’d drawn the short straw, but only almost—no sniper worth his salt was happy playing flanker. Everyone wanted to pull the trigger, or at least spot for the trigger-man, especially now they had shiny new XM2010s. He’d never fired one in the field. “Don’t worry, Petey,” Diego said, tossing him a wink as he shouldered his pack. “You’ll get your turn soon enough.” “I’ll take a picture for you,” Mitchell said. “You’ll take a picture for high command.” Mitchell shrugged and ducked his head to hook his flipline to his carabineer, but not quickly enough to hide his blush or his goofy smile. “I may take orders from the brass,” he said, “but in my heart it’s all for you, babe.” Diego snorted. “You two lovebirds want the nest? I’ll wait down here.” Fuck, yes. But he settled for, “I drew the short straw, remember?” He tried not to look too disappointed as he watched his team ascend the tree. At 09:22, Mitchell radioed down. “We’re in position.” Pete peered up into the canopy, but of course he couldn’t see a thing. “How’s it looking up there?” “Five by five.” He snorted at Mitchell’s cheery misuse of the phrase. “Thank you, Faith.” “Any time, Giles. Now go be a good watcher and keep us clear.” “Roger that. Out.” He patrolled the perimeter, a half-klick radius around the hide site. The boys in the nest had the clearest view of the camp by far, but the canopy blocked their view of nearly everything directly below. That’s where he came in. All was quiet as expected. The cartel patrolled the area, but his team had spent three weeks observing their habits and had chosen their hide site accordingly; he had no reason

to believe they’d cross paths now. Nor did the cartel have reason to be suspicious, though of course they were particularly vigilant this morning, what with their boss on the way. Fortunately, his own team was vigilant to match. Or so he thought, at least, even after he slapped at the sudden sting in his neck, right above the line of his throat mic. By the time he realized it wasn’t a bug, he was already falling. Tongue numb, throat locked, limbs gone to water. He tried to bring his rifle up, but couldn’t even raise his hands enough to block his fall. Couldn’t force his lips to form even one simple word to warn his team. Fuck all, he was supposed to be watching their backs. Shame no one had been watching his, eh? ***** Drugged though he’d been, he woke the way he always did, the way the Rangers had trained him: like a flip switching, pitch dark to blazing bright. Except this time he was vertical, and also shirtless—never a good sign—the familiar pressure of his tac vest and thigh holster gone. His head hurt, but that pain was no match for the one in his wrists, elbows, and shoulders. Familiar agony: he was tied to something, bodyweight hanging from his hands. He could still feel his fingers, though, so he hadn’t been out long. Nevertheless, the urge to stand up and take the load off them was powerful. But the enemy didn’t know he was awake yet, and the longer he stalled, the less time he’d need to survive before Morales’s chopper landed and his team took the shot. Modulate breathing. Don’t let the pain show on your face. Don’t move. But he must have done something to give it away, because a hand tapped at his cheek, and the cool round barrel of a pistol pressed to his shoulder. “Despertarse, Americano.” He very carefully didn’t respond, but he wasn’t fooling anyone. The cheek tapping turned into a full-out slap. “Sé que estás despierto. I know you’re awake. The drug does not last long.” He thought about maintaining the fake, but his captor would just end up shooting him or something to prove his point, which struck him as a hell of a lot more trouble than it was worth for the few extra seconds it’d buy him. “All right, you got me,” he said,

getting his feet beneath him—more or less, anyway; apparently his ankles were tied to something too—and gratefully taking the weight off his shoulders and wrists. “I’m awake.” He opened his eyes to the smirking (and infuriatingly handsome) face of the man they knew only as Teniente, the man Morales had left in charge of the operation in his absence. In that same second, he absorbed a mass of environmental information: He was tied spread-eagle to the exposed wooden studs of a decaying storage shed on the northnortheast edge of the encampment, thick lengths of rope around his ankles and wrists, a splintered joist digging into the small of his bare back. The sun was still fairly low in the sky, casting long shadows his inner math-whiz sniper used to calculate the time— somewhere between 10:00 and 10:30—with hardly a conscious thought. Eight of the camp’s fourteen inhabitants were within sight, though only four within spitting distance. Had the rest gone out to look for his team? Teniente grabbed a fistful of his hair, no easy feat with it cut so short, and jerked his head up. “I do not care who sent you, Americano. I only care where your friends are. You will tell me.” Pete shook his head free and laughed. It wasn’t bravado, not really. Just a genuine reaction to the enemy’s swagger. Clearly he’d never dealt with a Ranger before. He sure did know how to make a guy stop laughing, though: one vicious punch to the solar plexus that emptied his lungs and hazed his senses with overload and pain. But that was nothing new for Pete. He’d been there, done that, learned how to cope with it long ago. At last his chest unlocked and he sucked in one painful breath, another, and then said, “I don’t have any friends.” He was braced for the punch to the kidney that earned him. Didn’t even shout, though it took him a good ten seconds (more like ten hours, or so it felt) to straighten up again. “This isn’t going to work, you know.” Again, not bravado. Just simple truth. Followed, of course, by a lie: “I can’t tell you what I don’t know, no matter how many times you hit me. I’m here alone.”

Teniente locked eyes with him and very deliberately slipped a set of brass knuckles over his fingers. Internally, Pete flinched, but he didn’t let it show on his face. Or in his voice. He cocked an eyebrow at Teniente’s mean-looking fist. “That won’t change anything.” Teniente shrugged, smiled a nasty swaggering smile as he drew his fist back. “We shall see.” The next few minutes didn’t go so well. But Pete didn’t give an inch. After all, he only had to last an hour or two. . . . Assuming Teniente doesn’t call off Morales’s visit in light of your sudden appearance. Pete shoved ruthlessly at that treacherous voice of doubt before it could wedge through the cracks Teniente’s brass knuckles were making in his armor. If Morales doesn’t show, you’re dead. The team won’t jeopardize the mission to rescue you and you know it. “Shut up!” Pete’s command, barked to himself between clenched teeth, gave Teniente pause. Maybe the guy thought he was crumbling under the strain. Teniente studied him a moment—what a mess he must have seemed, chest heaving, fists clenched, streaked with dirt and sweat and blood—then turned to a nearby goon. “Esto no va a funcionar,” he said, and Pete wanted to shout I already told you it’s not going to work, so kindly stop trying, but of course he didn’t. “Dame la cocaína.” Shit. Not that. Anything but fucking that. Because, really, he’d never even so much as smoked pot in college, hadn’t considered it worth the risk to his body or his career—not to mention he’d have had to quit school if he’d lost his ROTC scholarship. If they dosed him with fucking cocaine, it might kill him. Or hook him. Or worse, pry his tongue loose. And shit again, but he must have let his fear show on his face because Teniente leaned in close, and a cold, knowing smile curved his lips. “Ah,” he said—practically purred. “Por lo que nos hablamos Español.” Well, never too late to play stupid, right? “What?”

But Teniente only chuckled and patted him on the cheek. “It does not matter,” he said. “You are never leaving here anyway.” The goon he’d sent to fetch cocaine returned, and shit but it was worse than he’d expected—a whole fucking bag of dicks, in fact—not powder but a Goddamned needle. Probably a dirty one, at that. Teniente grabbed him by the hair again, wrenched his head to one side. Given the position and the stress of the situation, he knew the vein on the side of his neck would be huge right now. Impossible to miss. He eyed the needle as Teniente lifted it toward him. “I’m no good to you dead,” he tried. Teniente shrugged. “You’re no good to me anyway.” Pete felt the cool of the needle touch his neck and twitched away as best he could—which, really, was hardly at all what with the grip Teniente had on his hair and the bindings on his wrists and ankles. But he felt no prick. Just a scraping instead, starting near the jugular and running down his neck, to his throat, across his chest. The fucker was dragging the tip of the needle across his skin, leaving a narrow trail of itching heat in its wake that set him struggling against his bindings with the urge to scratch. Teniente dragged the needle over a nipple, then back, and Pete couldn’t help it, he gasped. Gasped again when the needle pressed just hard enough into the sensitive flesh to draw a bead of blood. Jesus Christ, was this crazy fucker gonna shoot him full of blow through his Goddamned nipples? “Such a . . . well-kept body you have. Perhaps I can use you, after all.” The needle scraped back up toward his neck, and he held stock still, unwilling to show this lunatic the revulsion he was so clearly expecting. “We make the finest product in all South America. You will like it.” “No,” he said—not begging, just stating a fact. “What’s that?” Teniente raised a mocking hand to his ear, cupping it as if he couldn’t quite hear. “I’m sorry, my English is very bad.” Bullshit. The needle pressed against the skin over his jugular. Pierced it, though Teniente didn’t depress the plunger. The hand he’d curled in Pete’s hair slid down his neck, his

bare torso, his pants, cupped hard against his groin. “Tell me if you don’t want it,” Teniente whispered. Pete tried to shift away—from the needle in his neck, from the groping hand—but the bindings at his wrists and ankles and the joist in the small of his back made that impossible. “I don’t want it.” The needle jabbed in ever so slightly deeper, and Teniente tut-tutted. “No hablo Inglés, remember?” There seemed little point in indulging the fucker, but the language game was already up, and if there was even the slightest chance at all he could stop this, stop any of it . . . Through gritted teeth he growled, “Fine. No lo quiero. Aleja esa mierda de mí.” Teniente laughed, and Pete had just enough time to hear “Too bad!” before the fucker’s laughter emptied into his veins and stopped his heart. Fingers fumbled at the fly of his pants, yanked them down around his hips, wrapped around his cock, and oh . . . oh! He’d never felt this good in his life, never even imagined it was possible to feel this good. One stroke and he was gonna burst. He couldn’t even begin to contain it, found himself floating right out of . . . of . . . No, not floating but flying, flinging, launched right into fucking space, looking down on earth from a million miles away and out at the forever of planets and stars and nebulae and fuck if it wasn’t the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen, if he wasn’t whooping with the joy of it, weeping with it, and if those fingers touched him one more time he was gonna explode, splatter all over the whole fucking universe like some glorious fucking God seeding planets— Oh. Cock in his ass, God yes!, hadn’t felt that since college, since the giant fucking closet that was the Army, and fuck but it had never been this good—not just waves but whole oceans of pleasure rolling right down to his curling toes, to the tips of his hair, and he was babbling, begging, Yes and God and Please!, every inch of his flesh a taut live wire humming joyecstasyeuphoria so loudly he could barely hear the voice coming at him from across the ocean, asking something . . . something about his team. He strained to hear it, to force the words together through the blinding rush of yesGodyes! in a way

that made sense, certain if he could just give the voice what it wanted, it would give him what he needed. And there it was again, his team, his team, and it sounded exactly like . . . “Mitchell?” . . . felt exactly like he’d imagined Mitchell’s cock up his ass would feel, like Mitchell’s fist around his cock would feel, like Mitchell’s mouth on his throat, fingers on his skin, weight on his thighs, all that times a thousand, a million, a thousand-million, and his heart swelled and swelled until it blocked out the world, blocked out everything but the high, the bliss, a pleasure so exquisite it hurt, would kill him for sure if he— His orgasm slammed into him like a hollow-point against an armored vest, a fullbody breath-stealing whammy, and he couldn’t, he couldn’t— He came to with strong arms locked around his waist, his knees hooked over Mitchell’s shoulders, Michell’s cock plowing his ass like it was some kind of Olympic sport. He tasted come on his lips. His own? Yes, he thought so. God knew he’d blown his load hard enough to shoot him through the fucking stratosphere. That wild high was gone now, but the glow of it remained: a residue in his quivering flesh, a sleepy satiety, so heavy and thick he couldn’t even open his eyes. Laughter bubbled up his throat and curled his slack lips into a grin. Mitchell hitched him higher, changing the angle but never breaking rhythm. He reached down to stroke his cock—spent though he was, it was trying its damndest to twitch back to life—but he couldn’t. His hands were bound. Kinky bastard had tied him to the bed. How had Mitchell known his darkest fantasies? He’d never told anyone. Fuck but he wished Mitchell would touch him. It seemed just plain cruel to tie and fuck a man without giving him the relief he couldn’t give himself. But Mitchell just kept on pounding away, faster and harder and harder and faster until he grunted, stilled, hands clenching around Pete’s waist, and then withdrew. Pete wasn’t the type to fall asleep after sex, but right now, he couldn’t imagine a more perfect ending to a more perfect fuck. *****

He woke to a headache and a hundred sharp pains along his torso, heart galloping in his chest and limbs half-numb and rubbery. His ass hurt. Jizz had crusted on his chin and down his crack. His pants were still around his thighs. And he knew with a clarity that pained him more than any of his bodily ills that the man—no, the men, who’d fucked him had most certainly not been Mitchell. God, please tell me I didn’t give up my team. He couldn’t remember. Couldn’t fucking remember. And where was everyone? He tested his bonds. Couldn’t budge. Whether it was the quality of the knots or the lack of strength in his own body, he couldn’t say. But as long as the enemy was foolish enough to leave him unguarded, he had to keep trying. Yet he kept coming back to the question: why would they do that? And why was everyone shouting? He’d heard something, hadn’t he. Something had woken him. He closed his eyes, thought back as his wrists twisted bloody in their restraints. . . . Chopper. He’d heard a chopper. Which meant Morales had landed after all, thank God. Had he heard a gunshot, too? Tough to say if he would have anyway, given the suppressor and the distance and the hot humid air. But it stood to reason, didn’t it. Because otherwise, where was everyone? And yes, now he definitely heard shots. Sidearms. Diego’s M4. One of the baddies going shit stupid with an automatic rifle, emptying his clip in seconds. Screaming. More weapons fire. The unmistakable sound of an M67 blowing up a building. Silence then, save the ringing in his ears. Then the soft thump of a man in combat boots running across a field. His name being called in fear and relief, most definitely Mitchell’s voice this time. Mitchell’s hands, too, touching to his shoulder, cupping his neck, unsheathing that gorgeous fucking $400 Benchmade he carried to cut the bindings away. “Shit, Pete, you all right?” Mitchell bent to cut Pete’s ankles free, eyes no doubt skimming across the pants hanging open at his thighs, stained with his blood and the semen of God knew how many men.

He didn’t like the way Mitchell’s voice was shaking. He wasn’t some delicate virginal flower, for fuck’s sake. What was a beating and a coked-up gangbang compared to 61 days of sleepless starvation at Ranger School? Or at least that’s what he damn well intended to keep telling himself. “I’m fine,” he said, and okay, maybe he deserved that arching eyebrow, what with him not being able to stand on his own just yet. “Tell me you completed the mission.” A huge, cheery grin broke out across Mitchell’s face, and fuck all, maybe it was the coke, maybe it was the endorphins, but there was only one way to answer that smile: he grabbed Mitchell by the drag strap on the front of his vest and crushed his lips to that gorgeous, grinning mouth. It took Mitchell a second to get with the program. Pete was expecting tolerance at best, a fist to the jaw at worst—and hey, he could always blame the drugs later, no harm no foul—so he was more than a little surprised when Mitchell’s arms wrapped tight around his waist and Mitchell’s tongue slipped through his parted lips. Pleased—fuck pleased; fucking deliriously happy—but still surprised. He couldn’t help but mumble against Mitchell’s lips, “Sorry, I—” “It’s all right.” “It’s just I’ve been wanting to do that for—” Mitchell smiled against his lips, caught one between his teeth and nipped. “A year now, I know.” “And you’re—?” “More than okay. Now shut up, Petey, you’re ruining the moment.” An order gladly followed. After all, it was awfully hard to talk with someone’s tongue in your mouth. ~The End~

About the Author Rachel is an M/M erotic romance author and a freelance writer and editor. She's also a sadist with a pesky conscience, shamelessly silly, and quite proudly pervish. Fortunately, all those things make writing a lot more fun for her . . . if not so much for her characters. When she's not writing about hot guys getting it on (or just plain getting it; her characters rarely escape a story unscathed), she loves to read, hike, camp, sing, perform in community theater, and glue captions to cats. She also has a particular fondness for her very needy dog, her even needier cat, and shouting at kids to get off her lawn. She's a twitter addict (@rachelhaimowitz), and she blogs every M/W/F at Fantasy Unbound. She also keeps a website, of course, with all her current and upcoming projects. She loves to hear from folks, so feel free to drop her a line anytime at metarachel (at) gmail (dot) com.

Other Books by Rachel Haimowitz Counterpoint (Song of the Fallen #1) Crescendo (Song of the Fallen #2, coming October 2011) Anchored (Belonging #1) Where He Belongs (Belonging #2) Sublime Break and enter (Red Cell #1, coming December 2011) Find excerpts, reviews, extras, buy links, and more at RachelHaimowitz.com. On Goodreads? Find Rachel’s books at http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4165753.Rachel_Haimowitz.