Code of Control (22 page)

“You’re such an
ass,” she donned out.

He turned his
face toward hers. “I was dead serious.”

She drew back,
saw the desire in his eyes, then leaned toward him, giving him a lingering kiss.
She eased back, licking her lips. “I know you were. Now go to sleep.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“I have a hard
on that won’t quit.”

“Make it quit,”
she mumbled, tucking up to his side again, sharing his warmth.

“Make it quit?”
he rushed out, his voice a thick rasp. “With you by my side, touching me?”

“Yes, Nolan. I am
not making the
General
happy for you tonight, even if touching you.”

“Why not?”

“Because Matilda
has had a long day.”

“Matilda?”

“Hey, if you can
name your penis, I can name my vagina.”

“Matilda?” he chuckled,
sounding aghast.

“It was the most
I could come up with on short notice.”

“Matilda,
Charlotte?” he repeated.

“Yes, Nolan,
Matilda. Now go to sleep.”

“Why not Desire,
or Delicious, or…” he threw into the conversation.

“You are not
naming my vagina Delicious,” she sputtered. “Ever.”

Dear God!
How did this
turn into a conversation bringing heat to her cheeks, enough to ignite her into
blue flame?

“They do say if
the shoe fits…,” he prompted suggestively, baiting continued banter about body
parts.

Charlotte was
too exhausted to dive into any sexual naming game. “You’re not naming my vagina
Delicious. End of discussion.”

“It is, you
know?”

“Jesus! How
would I know something like that?”

“The
General
could reconfirm this for you, if in doubt. I hear he has intimate knowledge in
that department and a bit of time on his hands tonight.”

“Go to sleep, Nolan.”

“Okay, okay. I’m
going to sleep…but with an unused hard-on,” he grumbled. “That should concern
you.”

“It doesn’t.”

“Party pooper.”

“This is not a
party, Nolan. This is the fucking middle of Belize and we don’t know where the
hell we are, or when we are even going to get out of here. We are fucking sleeping
on someone else’s bed, for Christ’s sake.”

“Can you kindly
keep any words associated with
fucking
out of this conversation?”

“You started
it,” she warned lightly.

“And I’d like to
finish it, but you won’t let me.”

“Go…to…sleep!”

Chapter Twenty-four

Nolan shook
Juan’s hand, sharing his appreciation for the hospitality of last night. He and
Charlotte slept while holding each other and the oddity that stuck in his head
throughout most of the night was that it felt good to have her in his arms.
Really good. He never thought he would miss having a woman in his life.
Charity’s betrayal kept him from getting too close with anyone. With Charlotte,
he could feel again. Perhaps too real.

He’d felt as if
they were a couple last night, sharing a bed, sharing warmth and not at all
concerned about impressing the other. Perhaps he was misreading what he saw
behind her eyes. Was he was letting her get too close to him, knowing very
little about her?

Charlotte Raven
was not who she said she was, and Nolan hadn’t any viable way of getting his
hands on pertinent information about her. He shook off the idea she was still
not telling him the truth, his attention returning to their host.

“Gracias,” he
told Juan, ignoring the gut feeling.

“Adios.” Juan
then smiled at Charlotte.
“Tu esposo te hace feliz.”

Charlotte turned
toward him, eyes wide. “Yes, he does make me happy,” she replied, staring at Nolan’s
face, but confusing their host by using English. She added, “Si’” to clarify
it.

“I make you
happy?” he asked, moments later, as they headed toward Juan’s boat. Juan had given
them directions to the river, and the boat was theirs if they did not turn him
in for stealing the salvageable cargo out of a downed airplane.

At least he’d
been kind enough to allow Charlotte her suitcase, but when she discovered the
man’s pregnant wife dressed in threads and little money to their name, she gave
the woman her entire suitcase, minus a hurried change of clothes and two pairs
of underwear she quickly shoved into her pockets. She may have been thinking a
little too positive about them finding help within two days, but he did not
have the heart to tell her this.

Juan hadn’t
found his suitcase while in search of the wreckage for salvageable parts, the
clothes on his back getting a little ripe.

His thoughts slipped
back to Charlotte. She did have a kind heart. He was glad he’d seen this of
her. Thus far, the hours and days she’d been with him, she was more a prickly
pear cactus than kind. Perhaps it was just he that made her prickly. Perhaps
calling her a lying bitch hadn’t helped. Then again, he’d seen the hot and
hungry side of her, too, and that was before he knew her as well as he did. She
had a soft side, but it did not come out as easily as the other two did.

“When we get to
the river, what’s your plan?” she asked from behind his back.

He felt much
better than he did yesterday. Juan’s wife had wrapped his ribs and he could
breathe without agony, so that was a good thing—for now. And Charlotte was
carrying their water.

“I don’t have a
plan, yet. We’ll see which way the current flows when we get there.”

“I’m certain it
flows downhill, and don’t we want to go up?”

“Yes, we want to
go up, but let me have a moment of peace without the usual bombardment of
questions.”

“Let y—” she
fluttered out, drawing in a deep breath.

He turned and
looked at her. “I’m sorry. That was mean.”

“Yes, it was.”

“We’ll get to
the river, and then I’ll make a plan. Sound okay?”

“It would make
me feel so much better if you had a plan before we get there,” she grumbled
loudly.

Nolan returned
to walking. He stopped dead in his tracks, facing her. “Do you want to lead the
way?”

“No.”

“Then shut the
hell up and let me lead. None of this was on my internal radar.”

She sent him an
icy glare, cutting him deep. “I can’t wait until we find civilization.”

“We just left
civilization.”

“That wasn’t
civilization. That was redneck, hillbilly-central—jungle style.”

“Judging folks
by the quality of their home, Charlotte?”

“No. I was
trailer trash in my early years. The fact they live in the friggin` middle of
the jungle is how I am judging them.”

“What if I lived
in the middle of a jungle?”

“I would not
have met you,” she reasoned. “No point for discussion.”

“How so?”

“
OSHIT
’s
headquarters would never be in the middle of a jungle,” she said quickly.

“I can make them
be,” he warned, “if feeling inclined.”

“No. Dead-alley,
sheep-screw-less Iowa is perfectly fine for guys like you.”

His brows arched
higher than expected. “Dead alley, sheep-screw-less Iowa?” He held back a laugh
with all his might.

“Well, it is. I
can’t call it Dead Cow Iowa, now can I, even if there are possibly one or two
of those because your brother did not take care of them when asked.”

Dumbfounded, Nolan
opened and closed his mouth, and then turned to start walking again. She truly
amazed him. He never quite knew what to expect out of her, and most of the time
whatever it was it made him smile.
Most of the time.
He was still sore
about her bringing up the night he’d accused her of sleeping with Devon. She
said she lied to him just to piss him off, but the more he thought about it,
the more this pressed hard into his gut. Devon lied to him about many things
over the years. The fact his twin was known by a drug cartel did not lesson the
unease, or Devon’s quick response that he’d slept on the floor when Nolan confronted
him.

He turned and
stared at Charlotte. Sexy, dangerous, she was the whole package to a man like
him—candy in an off-limits candy dish. Assumedly, the one thing he should
avoid.

“What?” she
asked, having drawn him out of his thoughts.

“Um, nothing.
Let’s get to the river, shall we?” he grumbled.

“I thought this
was what we are doing.”

“Just keep
walking, Charlotte.”

****

“Just keep
walking, Charlotte,” she parroted, getting the man in front of her to turn
around and glare.

“What was that?”

“Nothing.”

“I heard
something,” he warned.

She stood tall. “Then
close your ears.”

“Charlotte?”

“What?”

Nolan stepped
forward, grabbed her upper arm and pulled her to his chest. His lips hit hers
in blinding speed. Satisfied with the punishment, he drew back and smiled. “You
are so asking for it,” he promised

“Asking for
what?” she said, confused, dazed by another rock-her-world kiss. Damn! The man
could kiss her speechless when least expected.

“Asking for that
spanking over my knee.”

She drew in her quick
breath. “I’d like to see you try it.”

One lone brow
arched. “Don’t tempt me, sweetheart.”

“How exactly is
calling your bluff tempting you?” Her eyes had locked with his.

Nolan blinked.
“H—how—”

His response was
short-lived as she reached up, drew his face to hers and kissed him again,
leaving nothing to chance. She was putting everything she had on the table, making
herself vulnerable. He could either accept her for who she was, accept the fact
she’d lied to him, or he could turn and walk away from her, never looking back.

Nolan slid his
arm around her, drew her closer to his body, and tongue-battled with hers,
giving her much more than she expected. When done, breathless, they eased away
from each other, staring at the other in the shadowed light.

“Damn!”

“You can say
that again,” she mused.

“I think I will.
Damn, Charlotte!”

“Is that a bad
damn, or a good damn?”

“Just…damn!”

She could not
let him leave it at that. “Nolan?” He was starting to release her and she was not
ready for the loss and loneliness that would follow. “Would you have made love
to me last night, if not so broken?” she thrust out quickly.

It took him less
than a half-second to respond. “Yes.”

“Then why didn’t
you say so? We could have figured something out.”

“What was I to
say? I’m broken, so you’ll have to do all the work while I just lie there?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t work
that way.”

“Why not?”

He reached for
her wrist, pulling her hand to his crotch. Charlotte’s eyes rose, trapping him
in a lust-filled stare. There was no mistaking the huge hard-on under his
khakis, his engorged erection turning up the heat to unbearable.

“I need the
control, Charlotte. You can’t have it.” His voice was a caressing whisper to
her ears. “I can’t step back and not be the alpha-male. I crave control. It’s
what pumps through my veins, keeps me alive—at least it has so far. I can’t
give that up.”

She wished he
would just kiss her again, knowing he wanted her as much as he did. Very
slowly, she caressed him with her palm, drawing out a deep groan from his
throat. Her heart betraying her brain and her brain usually in control, she
wanted the sex, badly. He was what she craved, what she needed running through
her veins.

She looked up
and smiled. It was enough to force his hand. Nolan’s mouth lowered again and he
gave her a kiss that would certainly last her through the years. Animal
instinct then kicked into overdrive. Lust and desire bound them tight. They
were not polar opposites. They’d been glued together on the same magnetic field
because of one incredible night due to loneliness, uncertainty, and
expectations neither could control.

Fuck the code!
What they had was basic instinct attraction and too much pride keeping them
apart.

Chapter Twenty-five

Nolan eased away
from Charlotte, expecting wrath. What he got was a heavy sigh.

“We’ll do this.
I promise. Just not here. I want to.” Her eyes had turned away from him, so he
reached for her chin, drawing them back. “I promise.”

“I won’t hold
you to this promise, Nolan. There is a lot standing between us…”

“And a lot of
walls we can certainly break down, if really wanting to pursue this,” he
interrupted.

He was not going
to let her talk him out of caring about her, or wanting her in a purely
physical relationship. The commitment phobia he could certainly conquer later
on, when better able to step back and use a magnifying glass on the tiny cracks
and fissures between them. For now, it was enough to know she wanted him as
much, if not more.

“Let’s get the
river, shall we?”

Charlotte
nodded, remaining mute.

All of a sudden,
he heard the sound—rushing water. He wanted to hurry his steps but Charlotte
was exhausted, so he took it slow. They broke though the undergrowth and there,
in front of him, was Juan’s boat. Tiny, it would serve a useful purpose if it still
worked. Juan said he hadn’t used it in over a month.

“Ready?” he
asked her.

She was staring
at the boat. “Is it safe? It doesn’t look safe to me.”

“It’s safe
enough. Hell, at this point I don’t care if it is. I just want to get the hell
away from here.”

“I don’t want to
drown after going through all of this, therefore, I do care.”

He reached for
her hand, drawing her close. “You’re not going to drown. I’ll protect you.”

She gave out a
small laugh. “I can’t believe I have been reduced to having a man protecting me.”

“Why is that so
funny?” he mused.

“I know how to
protect myself.”

“I know you do,”
he reasoned.

Her eyes met his
in breakneck speed. “And yet I don’t care that you want to step up and take
charge. What happened to me out here? Did I lose my identity?” She seemed
stunned it was a possibility.

“Strange
circumstances can make you take stock of what’s really important, Charlotte.”

“How is you
protecting me something that is really important?”

“It’s not. It is
the aspect of giving up the control to a stranger, allowing yourself to be
vulnerable—be the soft and gooey woman you were supposed to be—letting an alpha
male into your life who is not going to hurt you. You haven’t had that from men,
have you?”

She shook her
head, turning her eyes away from him.

“Then it is
about time someone did this for you. Let me be that someone. Let me protect
you.”

Charlotte eventually
gave in. “You’ve been that someone for a full week, Nolan.”

“Oh?”

She nodded. “I
gave up the control the moment I woke up in that hotel room, feeling the guilt
instead of the high. I wanted to hurt you, make you feel ashamed, show you
buying a woman drinks until you got your way would backfire in your face, but
when I looked at your face while in slumber, peaceful and carefree, was when I
knew I couldn’t do it. I could no longer take one-night stands for granted.
There was real man in my bed…”

Nolan pumped out
his chest. “Of course, there was. Did you think there wasn’t?”

Charlotte
returned a soft smile. “Yes, of course you were.”

“Then your point
is…?”

She turned away
from him again, but he was not going to allow her the severance from this
conversation so easily. “You’re still stuck on the fact you’d purposely lied to
me, aren’t you?”

Her head whipped
to his, eyes wide. She licked her bottom lip.

“Dammit,
Charlotte!”

“What?”

“Every time you
lick you lips I know I am not going to like the next ten minutes of my life.”

“What?”

“You lick your
lips when getting ready to tell me another lie, and I’m in no mood to hear one from
you right now.”

“I’m not—”

He held up his
hand in her face. “Don’t.”

“But…”

“I said…don’t,”
he warned. He turned before it could get to him.

He found the key
to the boat, exactly where Juan had said it would be, tucked into a notch of a
tree.
Damn rotten place to hide a key
. He then motioned for Charlotte to
jump in. When she refused, he moved forward and she quickly did as told;
swearing profusely at his face.

Nolan started
the engine after a few, slightly unsuccessful tries, turned the wheel and did
not look back. Twelve miles downriver was a useable telephone.
OSHIT
needed contact. He would save contacting Devon until he was ready to accept the
fact his brother went rouge on him. For now, he was in no mood to confront the
man, any more than he wanted Charlotte to tell him what he did not want to hear.

****

Ugh, men! What
was wrong with her that she falls for a man who makes her teeth ache eighty
percent of the time, and the other twenty percent he makes her crave him more
than breathing. She had a job to do. She was here to find a killer, make the
bastard pay for the last eighteen years of Hell on Earth. He was so close she
could smell him…and Nolan was taking them away from the last known destination
her contact gave her before leaving the States.

She could not
let him take her too far. She’d never find her way back, and without telling
him the truth, he wasn’t exactly going to stop the boat. He was expecting she
wanted to get out of here and much as he did.

She drew in a
deep breath, pursing her lips.

“What now?” he
inquired.

“Nothing,” she
grumbled.

“You did not
wrench out a heavy sigh for nothing. Spill the beans.”

He was steering
the boat down the right side of the river. The left side’s current was a little
swift—the very reason she was death gripping her seat.

“I did not
sigh,” she lied.

He gave her a
look that said he was not going to believe her, even if she had told him the
truth.

“Okay, fine, I
sighed. I don’t like boats.”

“Jesus! What do
you like? So far, you have a fear of small places, death by burial, chickens,
airplanes, Howler monkeys, rivers…am I missing anything important?”

“I would not
think bringing up a list of my fears as wise right now,” she said.

“Why?”

“It might get you
tossed overboard.”

Nolan’s deep
chuckle sent shivers down her spine, his gaze returning to the river.

“And I have
every right to be afraid of airplanes,” she continued, scanning the shoreline
for anything out of the ordinary. Cha’rpa was not going to be agreeable to
losing two of its hostages, and one of those hostages mistakenly owing them
money. They’d been lucky to find Juan, but that was not to say their luck would
hold out.

“Yes, you do
have a right to hate airplanes. I’ll let you have that one. I might even join
you on that.”

“How very big of
you,” she said recklessly.

“Are we again to
arguing?”

“You started
it.”

“How the hell
did I start this argument?”

“You brought up
the fact I have phobias.”

“You do.”

“So?”

“I was just
saying…”

The shot at Nolan’s
head came out of nowhere. Thank God, whoever fired at them missed their target.

He shoved the
engine into torpedo mode—translation, about a mile faster than the speed of a
snail—while tackling her to the bottom of the boat.

“Are you hit?”

Charlotte was trembling
all over. “No. Oh, God! Are you?”

“No, but stay
down.”

“Stay down?
Where the hell am I supposed to go? Someone just shot at us.”

“I’m going to
check it out.”

“No! Stay with
me,” she pleaded. “Don’t you dare check anything out!”

He glanced at
her face, his mouth touching hers in a swift kiss. “I’ll be fine. They missed,
and unless equipped with a rifle, they won’t get another shot at us.”

He should not
have said this, because they did, and this time the bullet ripped through the
hull, water gushing into the bottom of the boat.

“Jesus Christ!”
he muttered.

“You can say
that again.”

She tried to sit
up, but Nolan held her down. “Dammit, Charlotte. This is not a game. Stay the
hell down!”

“I’m not going
to hide on the bottom of a boat, watching you get killed while we’re sinking!”

“We are not
going to sink.”

“Yes, we are.”

“No we are not.”

“How can you be
so calm?”

“I’m not calm,”
he said, smiling at her.

“You could have
fooled me.”

“I’m not calm,
Charlotte,” he repeated.

“Why is this
happening to us?”

“Someone knows
who we are,” he said, so matter-of-factly, it drew gooseflesh to her arms. “Any
idea whom this might be?”

“How the hell
should I know?”

“Is there a
possibility the man you’re hunting down found you first?”

Her eyes slammed
into his.

“You don’t need
to answer that. I can tell by the look on your face the answer is yes. Dammit,
Charlotte, when are you going to trust me?”

“When you start trusting
me.”

“I can’t trust
you! Every time I turn my head, I’m either getting clocked by the butt of a
gun, tied up, falling out of the sky, shot at, broken into pieces, or used. I
would say being shot at is topping the list, however.”

Aghast at these
hurtful accusations, she would not answer him. She had nothing to do with any
of them—except the used part.

“I don’t know
who would be shooting at us. We are sinking! Have you forgotten that?”

He looked down,
noticing water was now mid-ankle. “Get ready to jump.”

“Jump!?”

“Yes, Charlotte,
jump. The engine is in gear. If we jump out of the boat it’ll keep going. They
might think we are still on it.”

“Might?”

“Dammit! Just do
as I say.” He reached for her hand, yanked her to her feet and without warning
pushed her overboard.

No one ever
taught her how to swim. She flailed in the swift current, gasping for breath,
scared out of her mind. Nolan jumped in behind her, found her, wrapped one arm around
her waist, holding tight.

“I won’t let you
go,” he said. “I promise.”

Charlotte could not
stop the panic from flowing through her veins, the current much too strong. She
grabbed onto Nolan for dear life, trying to keep her head above the water and
nearly drowning both him and her. Gagging on mouthfuls of dirty water, while Nolan
swam them to the opposite shore, Charlotte held back vomiting. Her adrenaline
was so high it was making her dizzy. About to give up and call it quits, they
finally reached shoreline, Nolan maneuvering her onto the riverbank. She threw
up and without warning passed out. For how long, she had no clue. She awoke and
he was not by her side.

“Nolan?” she
screamed. “Oh, God! Nolan? Where are you?”

She scanned both
shorelines, looking for a floating body.

“Trying to wake
the dead?” he rasped out, as a shadow came over her and his large form moved
out from the undergrowth.

She had to look
up at him. “Where the hell were you? I thought you drowned! Do you have any
idea how that made me feel?”

“Happy?”

“Fuck you! I was
scared out of my mind. I thought you dead.”

“Does this mean
you would miss me if I wasn’t here?” he taunted.

Without any
thought, she yelled at him. “Yes!”

Nolan sat down
beside her, swearing and grabbing his side. “I had to hide. With you passed
out, they likely thought you were dead so they moved on.”

“They?”

“Yes, Charlotte,
they. The same bastards who think I’m Devon.”

“They must
really want their money from your brother.”

“They have their
money. Mine, remember?”

“Then why are
they still following us, hunting us like animals?”

“Tying up loose
ends would be my best guess.”

She grabbed his
arm, her fingernails sinking into his flesh. “Don’t you ever leave me again. Do
you hear me?”

“I just told you
I had to hide. Did you want me to sit by your side, holding your hand, and get
my brains blown out?”

“No.”