Mackenzie's Pleasure by Linda Howard

abandoned it when their victim seemingly escaped? Or was this their regular
    meeting place? If so, how many were there, and where were they? He had to know all that before
    he risked moving Miss Lovejoy. There was only another hour or so until dawn; he had to get her
    to a secure location before then.
    He stopped at a turn in the corridor, flattening himself against the wall and easing his
    head around the corner just enough that he could see. Empty. Noiselessly, he moved down the
    hallway, just as cautiously checking the few rooms that opened off it.
    He had pulled the black balaclava into place and smeared dust over his bare arms to
    dull the sheen of his skin and decrease his visibility. Giving his shirt to Miss Lovejoy and
    leaving his arms bare had increased his visibility somewhat, but he judged that his darkly
    tanned arms weren't nearly as likely to be spotted as her naked body. Even in the darkness
    of the room where they had been keeping her, he had been able to clearly make out the pale
    shimmer of her skin. Since none of her clothes had been in evidence, giving her his shirt was
    the only thing he could have done. She'd been shaking with cold—evidence of shock
    because the night was warm—and she likely would have gone into hysterics if he'd tried to
    take her out of there while she was stark naked. He had been prepared, if necessary, to knock
    her out. But she'd been a little trooper so far, not even screaming when he had suddenly
    loomed over her in the darkness. With his senses so acute, though, Zane could feel how fragile
    her control was, how tightly she was strung.
    It was understandable. She had likely been raped, not once but many times, since she had
    been kidnapped. She might fall apart when the crisis was over and she was safe, but for now she
    was holding together. Her gutsiness made his heart clench with a mixture of tenderness and a
    lethal determination to protect her. His first priority was to get her out of Libya, not wreak
    vengeance on her kidnappers—but if any of the bastards happened to get in his way, so be it.
    The dark maw of a stairwell yawned before him. The darkness was reassuring; it not
    only signaled the absence of a guard, it would shield him. Humans still clung to the primitive
    instincts of cave dwellers. If they were awake, they wanted the comfort of light around them,
    so they could see the approach of any enemies. Darkness was a weapon that torturers used to
    break the spirit of their captives, because it emphasized their helplessness, grated on their
    nerves. But he was a SEAL, and darkness was merely a circumstance he could use. He
    stepped carefully into the stairwell, keeping his back to the wall to avoid any crumbling edges of
    the stone. He was fairly certain the stairs were safe, otherwise the kidnappers wouldn't have
    been using them, but he didn't take chances. Like idiots, people stacked things on stair steps,
    blocking their own escape routes.
    A faint lessening of the darkness just ahead told him that he was nearing the bottom of
    the steps. He paused while he was still within the protective shadow, listening for the
    slightest sound. There. He heard what he'd been searching for, the distant sound of voices,
    angry voices tripping over each other with curses and excuses. Though Zane spoke Arabic, he was
    too far away to make out what they were saying. It didn't matter; he'd wanted to know their
    location, and now he did. Grimly he stifled the urge to exact revenge on Miss Lovejoy's
    behalf. His mission was to rescue her, not endanger her further.
    There was a stairwell at each end of the building. Knowing now that the kidnappers were
    on the ground floor at the east end, Zane began making his way to the west staircase. He
    didn't meet up with any guards; as he had hoped, they thought the rescue had been effected,
    so they didn't see any point now in posting guards.
    In his experience, perfect missions were few and far between, so rare that he could count
    on one