Promised Ride by Joanna Wilson Page B

out of you?”
     
    Her shoulders drooped in defeat. She squatted slightly and reached between her legs as though she was removing a tampon, but what she took from inside her body was a light green cylindrical object that was rounded at both ends. The official name for the device was a “Personally Concealable Tracking Beacon.” Before putting the batteries in place, you set a delay of up to a week before the beacon activated. Then you inserted the tube into an appropriate body cavity.
     
    The PCTB had been developed by the CIA during the cold war to track agents who might be abducted during an operation. ATF agents used it when they were going short-term into a dangerous undercover operation. The reality, however, was that if things went that badly south, you probably weren’t going to survive and the only use for the beacon was to find the body. Thus, the more common name of “body finder.”
     
    “Take out the battery and put it on the rock with the rest.”
     
    Christie did as Zed had commanded. Gripping the green device in both hands, she twisted it and unscrewed the two halves. After the battery dropped to the ground, she placed the two pieces of plastic on the rock.
     
    Then Zed said in a much softer voice, “Get dressed. You’re riding with me.”
     
    ***
     
    As the motorcycles roared off into the night, Christie clung tightly to Zed’s back. Partly she clung to Zed to protect herself from the cold wind which whipped around him. She had left her jacket behind when she crept down into what she had thought was the perfect hiding place and was not otherwise dressed to ride on such a cool evening. Partly she clung to Zed to hold tight to the only person who could keep the other Ryswell Brothers members from killing her... for now. But mostly Christie clung tightly to Zed because, after all this time, it was a chance to be close, even for these few moments, to the only man whom she had ever really loved.
     
    She could feel the warmth of Zed’s body even through the leather jacket. The front of his jacket was partially open and she slid her hands inside to grip his firmly muscled abdomen. She found herself wondering if he still looked as good naked as he once had. She knew that she did, but in the years they had been apart, she had been required by her position as a federal agent to exercise regularly and her body was, if anything, better toned now that it was six years ago.
     
    She pressed in with her fingertips and Zed involuntarily tightened his stomach muscles in response. It was like pressing against a solid rock covered with a thin padding of warm leather. She inhaled deeply as she remembered them lying together naked in Zed’s bed. She had hoped that those feelings would have cooled slightly in the six years that they had been apart. She had promised him that she would always love him and would never forget him, but her mind had hoped that her heart would forget.
     
    It had not. She felt that old familiar heat rising within her as she pushed her face against Zed’s shoulder. Her fingertips were now tracing the ridges that defined the muscles on Zed’s abdomen. The rigidity of his abs was no longer an involuntary response to her squeezing him. He was consciously holding his muscles tight as she caressed him through his thin shirt.
     
    She smiled as she remembered how easily Zed could become turned on when she used to stroke his stomach early in the morning. He would pretend to be asleep as her light caresses awoke his manhood. Then, when his staff was fully awake, he would open his eyes and begin to return her caressing touch. She would already be highly excited from caressing him, and Zed’s light stroking of her back or breasts or between her legs would rapidly take to her to the edge. He would keep her here there in the heightened state of arousal for what seemed like forever, then he would enter her and together they would plunge over the edge into that deep well of passionate bliss.
     
    She