Code of Control (21 page)

“Good,” he said,
“because I did not want to hear any answer from you…or make the stupid move of
backing off and letting my brother have you when he doesn’t deserve you.”

“You’re such as
ass,” she said firmly.

“You said you
liked my ass,” he balked at, his rakish grin playful.

“I said I like
you
.
Your ass needs a hard kick when there’s time.”

“Can you save
the sexual beat down for later? We need to get the hell away from here before
it gets too late.”

“Ugh, men!”

A half mile
later, she re-broke the silence. “Nolan?”

“Yeah?”

“I had sex with
your brother.”

“Liar.”

“What? You don’t
believe me?” she sputtered.

“Not on your
life.” His laughter came out, loud and clear.

“We did. Sweaty,
rough…” she taunted.

“Charlotte?”

“Yes, Nolan?”

“Shut the hell
up before I punch you.” He was not going to show her how much the words affected
him, moving forward again.

They stumbled
upon a small village an hour later.

Chapter Twenty-three

Charlotte
grabbed Nolan’s arm to hold him back from jumping into something that might get
them into a ton of trouble, especially in the dead of night.

“Wait,” she
whispered.

He turned and
gave her a toothy grin, touching her hand. “It’s fine. They’re locals.”

“You could have
said this about those other men, too. I’m sure they were locals.” She was not
convinced rushing into the unknown was such a great idea. She did not want to
sit back to back with him on another dirt floor either, waiting fate’s hand.

“We’ll take it
slow, weigh out our options,” he said.

“My option is to
keep going. We can look for a small town, not this tiny village that looks like
it’s from out of the stone ages.”

“Tiny villages
are generally occupied by very friendly people,” he rued.

The more he
tried to convince her of this, the more she did not believe him. It was as if
he was trying to coerce her into walking toward a trap.

“Can’t we just
keep going?”

Nolan shook his
head. “No, Charlotte, we can’t keep going. I have a broken rib in my gut and we
need to find a phone.”

She kept forgetting
about his injuries. He did not act injured, treading through jungle brush into
the unknown like a crazed lunatic.

Two seconds
later, a man darted out from the bushes right in front of them. Charlotte
screamed. The man threw his hand over his heart, and Nolan rushed forward to
keep the guy from bolting.

“Puedo ayu
darnos?” he asked the stranger.

After the
initial shock two white Americans were traipsing in his neck of the wood, in
the dead of night, and likely looking like death run over, he nodded, remaining
mute.

“Entiende usted
ingles?” Nolan broached.

The man shook
his head. He understood English, but he made motions to indicate he wasn’t very
good at speaking it. At least this is what she got out of the erratic gesturing.

He cautiously guided
them toward a small domicile, checking over his shoulder every now and again.
“Tienes hambre?” He set his fingers to his lips, motioning eating.

“Yes. I’m
starving,” Charlotte blurted rudely, Nolan chuckling near her side.

“He said he does
not understand English, Charlotte,” he reminded her. “You have to speak to him in
Spanish.”

“Speaking is the
hard part. I can understand some of it, but not all,” she admitted.

“Then let me do
the talking.”

“Fine by me.
Control is all yours, Mr. Know-it-all.”

Nolan mumbled
something inaudible as the man gestured they were to take a seat at his crude
table once stepping over the threshold, if one could call it that. There really
was not a door on the man’s home.

“Vienen. Sit.”

Charlotte
collapsed onto a chair. Nolan sat down slowly, holding his side. “Necesito
encontrar un telefono,” he said, moving his hand to his ear to indicate the use
of a phone.

The man nodded.
He understood, but his answer made Charlotte’s expectations crumble.

“No tenemous
una.” There was no telephone in their village.

“A
que distancia?” Nolan asked.

The man pointed
to the East. “Doce kilometros.”

“Twelve
kilometers to the East!” Charlotte flashed Nolan an apology for interrupting. A
phone located twelve kilometers from where they were was a death sentence to
her. She could not imagine walking another twelve kilometers in the dead of
night.

The man rushed
over to his stove, removed a kettle of something boiling from it, and gestured
if they would like some.

“Si`,” Nolan
agreed. Charlotte’s head bobbing. She’d eat anything at this point.

He served them a
small bowl each then smiled. “Pollos.”

Charlotte
groaned.
Chicken. Go figure. He couldn’t find beef?

“I’d eat mono at
this point,” she replied, shocking their host and causing Nolan to groan.

“He’s not going
to serve us monkey, Charlotte.”

“Right now, I
wouldn’t care if he did.” She thanked the man then dug into the stew, gobbling
it up within seconds.

Nolan did the
same.

“Sed?” the man
asked, indicating to a pitcher of water. Water that did not look as filtered as
she would have liked.

Nolan grabbed
for it before she could. He nearly drained it dry, then remembering she was probably
as thirsty as he was handed it to her. She finished off the remaining water,
praying dysentery was not about to hit when least expected.

The man quickly sat
down at his table, smiling. “Juan.”

“Nolan,” Nolan
replied, awkwardly shaking the man’s hand. “Charlotte,” he added, indicating
her name by jerking his head toward her.

Out of the blue
the man gestured to the ceiling then held out his arms. “Avion?”

Nolan said “Si`,
Avion.”

Juan looked
saddened. He pointed to Nolan’s wrist.

Nolan nodded.

He then pointed
to a pile of goods near a side wall, his smile blurred by what looked as if guilt.
Charlotte hurriedly glanced at the wall between mouthfuls of delicious chicken
stew. She hadn’t noticed the suitcases and carry-ons before, too hungry and
thirsty to care, but she sure as hell recognized at least one of those cases
now.

“Nolan, my
suitcase,” she whispered. Her attention then turned to Juan. He was gesturing
the airplane falling from the sky, pointing West.

Nolan nodded.
“Aves,” he said, telling Juan birds had brought down their plane.

“Dos
sobrevivientes?”

This tugged at
Charlotte’s heart. She wished no one would keep bringing up the fact there were
only two survivors from an unnecessary tragedy.

Nolan suddenly said,
“Luna de miel.”

“Ah,” Juan
announced brightly, smiling at Charlotte. He seemed to find her amusing. “Si`.”

“Se caso con,”
Juan added, his eyes darting to her ringless finger.

Charlotte slowly
withdrew her hand off the table and set both on her lap. She and Nolan were not
on their honeymoon, but it was a damn good lie to those who did not need to
know the truth.

“Le
semana pasada,” Nolan elaborated.

“Le semana
pasada?”

Nolan reached
over to her and grabbed one of her hands, bringing it to his lips. He gave her
knuckles a quick kiss and while looking at her, nodded. They weren’t married.
This was not their honeymoon. But they did have sex last week, so maybe she
could play along with the tender gesture and still convince a man she did not
know that Nolan was her husband.

She leaned
forward and kissed him in front of Juan.

Juan clapped his
hands. “Vienen.” He rose from the table, suggesting they come with him.

“Hacia
donde vamos?” Nolan asked.

Charlotte had a
huge desire to know where they were going, as well. The last time someone in
Belize told her to move, she ended up tied by rope, shoved into an airless room,
and spilling her guilt.

Juan pushed
aside a curtain, showing them a bed. He then said it was for their use. They
could stay the remainder of the night, enjoying their honeymoon.

“Gracias,” Nolan
responded, smiling at Juan. He set his good hand at her back and pushed her
into the small room, directly toward the bed.

Juan departed
quickly, giving them privacy.

“I don’t want to
sleep on someone else’s bed,” she whispered at his face, Nolan cautiously maneuvering
her into his arms.

“We don’t have a
choice, Charlotte. It’s either here, or in the middle of nowhere, and I would much
prefer the use of a bed over soggy jungle floor. I can’t go on as we are,
exhausted and without water in possession. My rib is ripping apart my insides.”

“I keep
forgetting that you’re hurt.”

He set his mouth
against hers, giving her a weak kiss. “I wish you wouldn’t.”

“Why did you
tell him we are married and now on our honeymoon?”

“What was I
supposed to tell him? You’re trying to hunt down your father? The Cartel
mistakes me for my identical twin? Folks are trying to kill us? I’m a
billionaire who owns an intelligence company?”

“Um, excuse me?”
she sputtered.

“You heard me.”

“Repeat that
part, please?”

He set his fingers
against her lips, stalling the inevitable.

Charlotte
wouldn’t agree with this ruse. “You’re a billionaire?”

“Care to inform
the whole world?” he asked, smiling.

“Is there more to
you I don’t know?” she said waspishly. She then baited him with a raised brow.

“I’m a
billionaire. So what? Plenty are. It’s not an oddity in today’s world.”

“So what?” she
said flabbergasted, hands pressed against his chest.

“Yes, so what?
It doesn’t change much about me. You will still be able to call me an
alpha-male whenever it suits your needs.”

“You’re not
getting off the hook that easily, Mr. Morgan.”

“I’m not?” he
feigned innocently.

“No, you’re not.
You and I need to have a long talk—about a lot of things, it would seem.”

“Let’s talk after
we make love. How’s that sound? We do have the use of a bed for a few remaining
hours.”

“After? I’m not
mak—” she began, thinking he’d gone insane. His huge grin and indication to the
bed produced a deep groan out of her. “I’m not having sex on someone else’s bed.”

“Fine. We’ll do
it on the floor,” he said.

“No, we will
not!”

“Why not? Afraid
it might get a little too dirty for you?”

Charlotte
chuckled, even if before the man so angry with her he’d threatened leaving her
for dead in a Belize jungle.

“No. I am afraid
you might like it too much,” she said.

“Charlotte,
sweetheart, just being able to hold you in my arms, both of us still alive,
will be enough for me tonight.”

“Really?”

His head bobbed.
“Yes. Really. We are not having sex in another man’s home. I do have my pride
to consider.”

“Won’t he expect
us to? Honeymoon, and all…”

“Are you asking
me to change my mind?”

“No,” she said
forcibly. Perhaps too forced, as his dimples sunk in deep, his hand rubbing up
and down her arm, drawing out the gooseflesh.

“Sure about
that?”

“Positive,” she
responded.

Nolan stepped
away from her, flinched, gasped, and then gingerly moved to the bed. “Left or
right side?” He did not bother to pull back the tattered quilt.

Charlotte’s eyes
met his. She could not imagine the amount of pain he was in, Nolan’s upper lip
beaded with moisture. She again glanced at the bed. “I don’t care which side.
You pick.”

Nolan took the
right side of the bed, nearer the curtained doorway. He sat down, wrenched his
legs up with a lot of swearing, finally succumbing to exhaustion. Charlotte
lying next to him, sleep would not come so easily for her, however.

“Nolan?” she
whispered in the dark.

“Yes?”

“I thought you
said you were going to hold me for the rest of the night?”

Flat on this
back, his breathing slow, he sounded almost asleep. He turned, reached out for
her, swore loudly, and then broke into heavy sweat again. “I’m sorry. I can’t.”
He quickly rolled to his back, the swearing much worse.

“Can I hold
you?” she wondered aloud, guessing how much he hurt. His face had gone ashen
just by rolling to his side.

“Sure thing,
babe.” He slowly raised his arm to ease a path to his chest.

Charlotte carefully
molded her body to his side, laid her arm over his chest as gently as possible,
and then snuggled as close as she could without hurting him. “Thank you.”

“What am I being
thanked for?” His words spoken near the side of her face. All she would have to
do is tip up her head and they could kiss.

“For being you,”
she said groggily, yawning into her hand. She’d had a long two days, and none
of it good. She needed rest, same as he did. Thank God, their kind host had
caught this weariness, giving up the use of his bed and most of his evening
meal to strangers.

“You know, that
is the first time anyone ever said that to me?” he responded.

“It is?” She
felt his nod from under her arm.

“It is,” he
said.

Two minutes
later, Charlotte thinking him asleep, Nolan interrupted the mutual silence. “If
you’re still interested in a honeymoon, the
General
could use a little
attention from you.”