Garrett slammed his eyes open. Squeezed them shut again. “No.” His voice was a croak, absorbed by the grimy walls of the room in this no-name Bangkok hotel he’d checked into last night. He looked down, trying to piece together this new truth. The precome was real. One of his hands was still wet with the stuff. His fingers were also really wrapped around his aching boner as he lay beneath a mound of cheap, cloying sheets.

Sage was nowhere to be found.

Of course not.

Because she was dead. For a year, two months, sixteen days, and almost twenty-four hours now.

The knives of grief, all ten million of them, reburied in his chest. As he gulped through the resulting dearth of air, he raised his clean hand to his chest, scrabbling for his dog tags. More accurately, he searched for the gold band that hung on the chain between them.

Though his head ordered him not to do it, he slipped his ring finger back through the band. For one wonderful extra moment, the knives went away, and he relived the day he and Sage had picked out the jewelry… The day when he’d thought it would soon become a part of his wardrobe for good.

He remembered every detail of how beautiful she’d looked. It had been a brilliant late-spring day. Her hair was a cascade of light-brown sugar that earned her his favorite nickname, falling against the freckled shoulders that peeked from her pink sundress. But her smile… Ah, he remembered that the best. Her lips had glistened with her joyous tears and quavered with her soft whisper.

I can’t wait until you get to wear it for good. I can’t wait until you’re all mine.

A month later, he’d gotten the phone call from Heidi Weston that upended his world forever. The woman who was preparing to become his mother-in-law stammered that he needed to come over right away. He’d actually packed a bag, thinking Sage had been hurt, maybe badly, judging by the sound of Heidi’s voice. He was prepared to stay long enough to get as much info as he could about her condition and then head for the base to force himself onto whatever flight was headed anywhere near Botswana. When he’d walked in to see the Casualty Notifications Officer and the Chaplain sitting there, on either side of a sobbing Heidi, his knees hit the floor along with his pack. Only half their words had reached his brain through his roaring senses. Tribal warfare…region unexpectedly unstable…van sidetracked off the main road…likely rebels…found burned out…nothing but ashes found…

He swallowed hard and pulled his finger back out of the ring. As expected, his brain crowed while his heart screamed on the torture rack of memory. He waited, breathing hard, for the agony to end. He begged the wounds to bleed hard and fast, letting the anger get here and turn the pain into a scab. After that, he’d be able to move again. To function again.

“Hawk! Damn you, man!”

Anger moved in on the grief. Thank fuck. Fortunately, nothing got him more pissed off than Zeke’s mommy-hen act. After rolling from the bed, he tugged on his briefs and then stumbled across the room. The dirty light and sound of traffic beyond the thin shutters told him it was about midday. Or maybe his growling stomach did.

“Okay, why are your panties in a wad?” He glanced at Zeke after opening the door, the last of his grogginess obliterated by the lime green and banana yellow print of his friend’s tacky tourist ensemble. Z’s khaki shorts were baggy on his timber-log legs, which marched him into the room before Garrett could even think about reclosing the portal. “Don’t tell me you’re bored, with all of Bangkok out there for the taking. We don’t roll on this mission until nightfall. That gives you at least five hours to work your flogging arm and your kinky cock through a lot of cheap tail, my friend. I’ll bet the girls at Club Subjugate are missing you something fierce, Sir Zekie.”

“Sir Zekie. Aw. That’s cute, honey.” The guy kicked the door shut behind him. Zeke’s six-foot-six frame was only a couple of inches taller than Garrett’s, but the man’s mountainous build intensified the effect of his stature, especially in this room seemingly designed for people half his size. “As much as Chelsea and Chyna like my side-by-side spanking special, shit like that gets boring by myself. You tried the fun-filled dungeon field trip once. Think you want to sign up this time?”

Garrett snorted and flopped on the bed again. His friend wasted his breath with the memory. Yeah, he’d gone. Yeah, he’d tried it. Z had gotten him in a weak spot around the six-month mark after Sage’s death. He’d been desperate to forget the pain for a while, hoping “the magic of BDSM,” as Z called it, would help. More urgently, he’d been hoping to figure out the kinky-minded demon that had been crawling in the back of his imagination since…well, he knew since when. The secret would go with him to his grave. An occasion, God willing, that would come sooner than later.

Needless to say, he’d scratched the itch just fine that night. Or, as truth would have it, hadn’t scratched. That part wasn’t such a state secret, and it justified the response he tossed at his friend.

“You really think that offer’s relevant?”

Z shrugged. “Lots of water has passed under your bridge, dude. Maybe commanding a sweet little subbie will fire your rockets this time around.”

“No,” Garrett snapped, “it won’t.”

“Right. Because you’d rather stay here and just beat off after your wet dreams about Sage.”

“Fuck off.”

“It’s been over a year, Hawk.”

“Fuck off.”

“Fine.” Z pulled the faded Yankees cap off his head, revealing the miniature broadcasting station literally sewn inside it, before scrubbing a hand through his tumbling dark-brown hair. “Turns out free time just got drastically cut, anyhow. That’s why I’m here collecting your sorry ass.”

He’d just cracked open a lukewarm soda and was about to take his first guzzle. He stopped the can halfway to his lips and shot a quizzical look across the room. “What do you mean, ‘cut’?”

Zeke dropped into the room’s sole chair and shrugged. “CENTCOMM received a line of new intel. Seems we’re gonna be more effective going in to rescue these girls as the badass uniformed machines we’ve been trained to be instead of a bunch of American dorkgasms looking for some girl-next-door-type pussy.” He stretched his tree trunk legs out, crossing them at the ankle on the foot of the bed. “So as soon as you get your ass dressed, we’re buggin’ back to the embassy. They’re gonna let us change and get haircuts and shaves.” He scratched the scruff on his jaw. “Thank all that’s holy.”

Garrett cracked a dry smirk. “You sure it’s not just because you blew our cover with that shirt? Maybe somebody with half a brain looked at you and realized no normal person, even a dorkgasm, would willingly dress in that.”

Z looked at his getup with a frown. “What’s wrong with the shirt?”

“Oh c’mon. It’s hideous. It’s not yours, is it? Central gave it to you, right?”

“Yeah, uhhh, right.”

Zeke followed up his hasty answer by cracking one of the shutters and feigning interest in the activity outside. Garrett rose, shoved into jeans and a plain white T-shirt, and listened to the scene that his friend beheld. Scooters zoomed, taxi drivers argued, bicycle bells dinged, and food sizzled. All in all, it was a typical day in Bangkok—probably the same kind of day that ten American aid workers had been enjoying just six weeks ago, prior to boarding a plane for their mission in Myanmar.

The five men and five women had never arrived for their flight. Two days later, the men had been returned unharmed, spelling out the abductors’ purpose with more clarity than a Soi Cowboy titty-bar sign. Undercover CIA agents had been rapidly inserted on the case, and sure enough, after ample questions were asked and money was tossed around, they were invited in on the newest trend for discerning American businessmen looking for a good time in East Asia—American girls who would do everything a native girl would, at exactly the same price.

Tonight, the assholes running the racket were going to find a new surprise waiting for their sorry dicks. Garrett’s blood surged with the anticipation of delivering that surprise. He hoisted his pack, slipped into his “lazy American tourist” loafers, and then cocked his head at Zeke.

“You gonna sit there moping because I called your shirt a fashion disaster? Come on, Fashion Sparkle Barbie. Let’s depart this fair establishment.”

To his perplexity, Zeke didn’t budge. He closed the shutter with unnerving calm. “Just another sec, Hawk.”

The gnat of suspicion in his senses morphed into a mosquito. “What is it?”

“Sit down. There’s one more thing we gotta discuss.”

The mosquito started biting. “No,” Garrett snapped, “there isn’t.”

Without looking back at Z, he went for the door and had his hand on the knob as his friend’s rejoinder hit the air.

“You don’t get to load up for the op unless we drill down on this.”

Garrett watched his fingers go white around the knob. Officially he and Zeke were equal rank, but his friend’s tone clearly pulled a top dog on him. That only meant one thing.