He twisted the knob and entered low and fast, duckwalking, back pressed against the wall, moving to the right, weapon extended, sweeping with the eyes, finger on the trigger. The room was dark, shades pulled tight, but there was someone in there, he could smell… fuck, perfume. Who? He'd caught that scent before. On the set.

"Is that a gun?"

Althea. Wilder slowly rose out of his crouch, as his eyes became accustomed to the dark, the weapon suddenly feeling very heavy as he dropped his hand to his side. "Uh. Yeah." That sounded lame, so he told himself, You're in control. You're the one with the gun, for Christ's sake.

He turned on the light.

She was in his bed, the sheet up to her neck. Had she looked under the bed and found his backpack? He hoped not. She shifted and he smelled perfume again. Perfume had not been in his plans, either.

She smiled at him and ran the tip of her tongue over her lower lip.

Well, plans were made to be changed. They'd taught him that in Ranger School. "Improvise, Ranger," the Ranger instructors had screamed at the starving, sleep-deprived students. But they hadn't covered this kind of ambush.

Still, Wilder thought as he returned the gun to the holster in the middle of his back, an ambush was an ambush. And the U.S. Army Ranger School-approved solution was to assault right into the enemy force with overwhelming power and take control of the situation. Anything else meant being stuck in the kill zone.

Althea half sat up, and the sheet slid, catching on her breasts. "What kind of gun is it?"

Wilder swallowed, frozen. He was in the fucking kill zone. The RIs would have flunked him.

"A Glock." Had that come out wrong? He tried to replay what he'd said, but his brain wouldn't back up, it was going fast-forward.

"A what?" Althea placed a long, thin hand over her chest as she leaned forward, exposing her side and confirming that she wasn't wearing anything.

"A Glock Model 20."

"Can I"-Althea's voice went an octave lower-"touch it?"

Oh, fuck. They might as well get his body bag now. He drew the gun. Some semblance of sanity made him eject the magazine and then pull back the slide, ejecting the round in the chamber and pocketing it before he extended the weapon to her.

She reached with the hand that had been holding the sheet, and- he was so screwed-it dropped to her waist, exposing her breasts. She took the gun from his frozen hand, cradling it with both of hers.

"Tell me about it." She brought the gun closer to her. "I saw you and Bryce talking all night. Talk to me."

"Uh," Wilder said, trying to think of something besides breasts.

"What he did with the knife today. That was stupid, wasn't it?"

"Bryce. Well." Breasts. Right here. "You know. No harm, no foul."

"He could have cut someone."

"But, hey, he didn't." Wilder was starting to sweat.

"Tell me about the gun." Althea cradled it in her slender hands, the muzzle pointing, well, damn, toward her face, her mouth. He'd just handed his gun to someone. Fuck. His buddies at the Special

Warfare Center would be kicking his ass up and down Bragg Boulevard if they knew.

Althea now had one hand cradled around the pistol grip and the other one on the barrel. Stroking it. Not subtle, but Wilder didn't care.

Maybe his buddies wouldn't give him shit. Not if he told them who he'd given the gun to and under what circumstances. LaFavre would be buying him beers. And wanting to hear about it. Not that he would ever tell. There were some things you just didn't talk about. Wilder hated guys who talked. Which was just as well because right now, he was having a hard time forming words.

Althea brought the gun closer to her body, between her breasts, still stroking it, and Wilder made no pretense of not staring. Everything he wanted to see was now in one tight shot.

"Tell me about your gun," Althea said again.

Wilder swallowed. "It holds fifteen rounds of ten millimeter. That's the diameter of the bullet."

"Is that a big bullet?"

Just throw a knife in my throat and have it over with. "It's a good-sized round. Most people carry nine millimeter." He was still staring at her breasts and the gun. "So I went one larger. Like Spinal Tap. You know, the amp turns up to eleven."

Shit, he was showing his age. Get out of the fucking kill zone.

"It's got an integrated laser sight built into the recoil spring guide assembly, uh, there-" He pointed, his hand less than six inches from the gun and her breasts. He was definitely sweating. "-Just below the barrel."

"Oh, you mean the red dotty thing you see in the movies?"

"Yeah. Touching the trigger activates the laser."

"Can I do that?"

Touch the trigger? "Sure. It's safe. I've taken the bullets out." He forced his mind to focus. Had he cleared the chamber?

Althea turned the gun in her hands. She put her finger on the trig-aer. A red dot appeared on the far wall. She pointed the gun at Wilder. The dot was on his chest. "Neat."

Never point a weapon at anyone unless you're going to shoot him. Wilder bit back the words. It would be bad timing. And he had told her it was safe. And he had taken the round out of the chamber, right? Shit. He tapped his pocket and felt the magazine and extra round and resumed breathing.

''What was that double-tap thing you talked about?"

Wilder put two fingers to his forehead. "When you shoot someone, you always fire twice. You want them to go down permanently. So this is the spot."

She nodded.

"You know, the gun is only half the equation." He reached out and retrieved it from her. She looked slightly disappointed and he got a much better look at her breasts. He knew they weren't real, but so what? They were here. In his bed.

He took the magazine and round out of his pocket. He pulled the slide back and put the round in the chamber, letting the slide go forward. Then he put the magazine in. A round in the chamber, not approved for police departments or gun clubs, but Wilder had never been a cop or a member of a gun club.

"I load the rounds myself," he said as he put the gun back in the holster.

"Why?"

"They're hot loads."

Althea laughed and he was mesmerized by the way that made her breasts jiggle. "And what's a hot load, Captain Wilder?"

The way she said his name reminded him of Armstrong. Well, why the hell should he give a shit what Armstrong would think? Bryce said she was doing that asshole Nash. Bryce was doing the makeup girl. Nobody had any morals in this place. When in Rome…

Althea leaned back on the pillows, her nipples pointing up at an im-possible angle, straight at Wilder, her version or designating a target. She had him, he was resigned to it. She might even know something about Finnegan.

She smiled at him.

Although now was not the time to ask. Well, if he had to take one for the team, so be it. He'd been worse places and in worse situations. Plenty of them.

"J.T.?" she said. "Hot load?"

"Hot loads. They're, um, designed for max muzzle velocity, able to punch through body armor, and then disintegrate inside the body for maximum damage." Geez, he sounded like some lame-dick instructor on the range at Bragg.

"Oooh."

Was that a coo? He'd heard the term; he wasn't sure he'd ever heard the reality.

"Maximum damage." Althea leaned forward. Her breasts jiggled but they didn't droop. It wasn't natural but at the moment Wilder didn't give a shit. "Where did you learn that?"

"Uh, Fort Bragg. Special Forces training."

She touched her lip with her tongue. "I bet you've seen a lot of action."

Wilder swallowed. "Some."

She shivered a little and that looked good, too. "Where?"

"Iraq," Wilder said, trying to remember. "Afghanistan." Here.