Dangerous Attraction Romantic Suspense Boxed Set (35 page)

“Stay with me. I mean it, Ann. No matter what!” He didn’t even break his stride as he set her down on the ground. Then he had her hand in his hand as they sprinted down the hill towards the crowded streets. She was right, she was fast, and they plunged into the crowd a good block ahead of the five men.

Looking around as they entered the crowd, he realized they still stood out. He’d been able to follow her in the crowd the other night easily by following her bright blond head. She hadn’t even known he was following her. He’d been able to blend into the crowd very easily. Looking at her now, he knew this was going to be a problem again.

He stopped and taking her shoulders, turned her towards him. Then in one quick movement he ripped her tattered shirt off her as she squealed. The crowds around them cheered.

“What?” She tried to cover herself.

Long strings of beads were thrown in their direction by the masses, and he quickly gathered a handful up. He placed them over her head, to make her look more festive. Then he knelt in front of her and took her tattered pants in his hands, ripped each leg up high on her thigh, exposing her soft skin. He could see small cuts and bruises forming on her perfect legs, but in the dark, most would go unnoticed by the crowd. He removed her last shoe so she stood on the street barefooted.

Then he quickly ripped his own tattered shirt off, to the cheers from all the women around him. More beads were thrown and even a few bras. He smiled and looked at Ann who was gaping at his chest.

He assessed her and realized that her hair was the only problem left. She had long, bright blond hair, the kind that took bleaching every week. It was a beacon in a sea of darker heads. Looking around, he found a woman with a large headdress of bright flowers and feathers. He grabbed Ann’s hand and started towards her.

When they reached the woman, he smiled as he approached her. Two minutes later, they were making their way through the crowd, eating up as much distance as they could. It took a while for them to push their way through the party-goers. Most were dancing, but were drunk enough to try to grope them as they walked by. He could smell all the alcohol around him. It was on everyone’s breath as they passed by. That and the smells of cooked food surrounded them.

He looked back to make sure Ann was right beside him so he didn’t lose her. Even though her hand was locked in his, he just needed to see for himself that she was there. Several times they were surrounded by people and had to push their way out through the crowds. Finally, they made it to a place where the crowd was thinning out.

Ann quietly walked behind him, not putting up much of a fight. He looked back at her and smiled. The purple headdress covered her bright head, and with her bra and very short shorts, she looked like a real party goer. At least until you noticed the frown and the tears slipping silently from her eyes. He’d have to deal with those later. Right now he needed to get them to safety, and he knew just the place to go. All they needed was some luck.

He kept his eyes peeled for anyone that looked out of sorts in the crowd. This was hard in a sea of heads and faces. He knew they still had a dozen or so more blocks to walk and hoped that the crowd would stay thick enough that they could hide in the ocean of people the entire way.

* * *

He watched silently from the crowd as her blond head disappeared into the masses. How could he lose sight of her so quickly? She’d been an easy target to follow the first night he’d been here. The fact that he had a dozen men out looking for her assured him that she’d be easily found by the morning. There was no place she could hide for too long. She didn’t know anyone here and there wasn’t a place that would take her in that he didn’t have eyes or ears on.

He wanted this all tied up nice and clean by the time he had to go back to the States tomorrow afternoon. He couldn’t afford to be out of sight for too long. He needed to be seen, to be in the public eye, where he belonged.

He spotted one of his men across the crowd and watched as the man crossed the crowd to meet him.

“Have you spotted her?”

“No. Somehow I lost them after they entered the street. We’ll find her; she couldn’t have gotten that far.”

They were supposed to have her in their hands before the explosion ripped through the hotel, but when they’d arrived at the van, she hadn’t been there. She must have gone into the building without the scouts seeing her.

He’d watched from across the street as the cameraman, Nathan, had carried her out. At first he’d thought everything was over, that she was dead.

He’d breathed a sigh of relief when he’d seen her move. There was no way his boss would have let him live if she’d been dead. Even if the old man was going to kill her later, he’d been told to deliver her alive.

The crowd was nothing but a nuisance to him. The screaming, dancing fools bounced around him dressed in little to nothing, drinking like there was no tomorrow. They were making it hard for him to do his job. The job had been so simple, and yet his men had let her slip out of his grasp. He knew he needed to deliver Ann to his boss or he would have his head. But he wanted his hands on her first. His boss never told him she had to be untouched when he delivered her.

This was his last night in Rio and he needed to find her quickly, or he’d have to wait and let his men do all the work.

“Tell the men to look harder. They can bring in anyone they need. I’ll double the price to whoever brings her to me tonight.”

The man’s eyes got large and he sprinted off, no doubt to relay the message to the other men he was paying.

Now all he had to do was go back to his hotel room and wait for her to be brought to him. Then he could finally get his hands on the beautiful Ann, before he turned her over and got his reward.

* * *

Ann was feeling light headed. Not only had she lost the disk that had caused all this mess, now Mark was dead and Joe—she realized she didn’t know what had happened to Joe. Nathan had been pulling her along for over an hour in the crowd and she was sure he must be lost. After all, the man was a flake.

The loud music and the cheers from the crowd did little to clear the pounding in her head. The bottom of her feet hurt due to the lack of shoes. When she looked down, she realized her feet were completely black, and the nail polish on her toes had chipped off. The stupid headdress he’d plopped on her head for some reason weighed a ton and she wanted to yank it off. Her body was hurting, her muscles were sore, and she had dried blood all over her. She was complaining in her mind, but she made a point to keep her mouth shut and not do it out loud. After all, Mark was dead.

Finally, what seemed like hours later, Nathan pulled her into a small building out of the crowd. The tears had stopped and she was starting to shake as the cooler air hit her. Since her clothes were all gone, she felt the night chill on her exposed skin. The cuts and bruises just added to her discomfort.

They walked down a long, dark hallway and when they reached the end, he knocked on the door and stood back. His feet were braced wide apart and he looked like he was preparing himself for a fight.

It took a minute before she heard someone on the other side of the door, possibly someone looking through the small hole at them. Then the door flew open and a large black fist reached out and hit Nathan square in the face. Nathan did nothing to block or dodge the giant fist. Ann couldn’t help it, she squealed and tried to pull Nathan away from the next blow, which landed on his jaw again, causing his head to snap back.

“Javan, I gave you the first two, but after that, I may just have to hit you back,” Nathan growled out.

Ann looked and saw the man attached to the fist. He was almost as impressive as Nathan. His shoulders and arms were as thick, but he was almost a foot shorter and looked about ten years older.

“Damn boy, I told you if I ever saw your ugly face again, that would happen,” Javan said in a thick Jamaican accent. Then the men shocked Ann by grabbing each other in a man-hug as blood trickled down from Nathan’s nose.

Half an hour later, Ann sat in an oversized chair with the god-awful head dress sitting next to her on the floor. She drank hot tea with a blanket wrapped tightly around her, as she listened to Nathan and Javan talking. She was totally confused as to why the man was calling him Ethan instead of Nathan. Her head hurt and her vision was starting to go gray. Before she realized it, she was being shaken awake, and Nathan was looking down at her. She was lying on the soft couch and she’d been covered by a blanket. Then she realized that Nathan was fully dressed in clean clothes and it looked like he’d just showered.

She sat up and shook her head clear. “Where is Javan?”

“He took off. He’s going to let us stay until tonight. We have some things we need to take care of before we leave. I hope it’s okay, but I left some stuff in the bathroom, through there,” he said, pointing to a door at the end of a small hallway. “I need you to take care of everything, shower, change into the clothes I left you. I’ll make us some breakfast. Then once everything is ready and Javan reports back, we can leave.”

She looked towards the small window near the back of the room and realized the sun was already up. When she moved to stand, her head spun a little. Nathan’s hand rushed out to steady her as he pulled her closer. She smelled the soap on his skin and felt his body heat through the beads she was still wearing. Then she remembered that that was pretty much all she was wearing and pushed his arms away.

“Why did that man call you Ethan?”

He smiled at her and said, “Because it’s my name. Take a shower, Princess, then I’ll explain everything.” He turned and walked into the small kitchenette without another word.

She watched his back and missed seeing the naked muscles that she’d followed for most of the night. She’d gotten used to seeing them and had even, at one point on their long trek last night, wished she could reach up and feel them, wondering how they would feel under her hands.

Walking down the hall, she stepped into the small bathroom and leaned against the door. How could she be thinking of him like that? He’d been a thorn in her side for weeks. She was going to get him fired when she made it back to Austin.

Shaking her head, she noticed a small box on the countertop sitting next to a bag of clothing. Grabbing it up, she marched back into the other room.

“Is this some kind of joke?” She shook the box in front of his face. He held a spatula in one hand and a pan of sizzling eggs in another.

“No, Princess. It’s not. Now go on and get ready.”

“I am NOT coloring my hair…” she looked at the box and then shook it again, “…black!”

“Sorry, that’s the only color Javan had. He says he uses it to hide his gray.” Nathan laughed and turned his back on her again as he placed a few slices of ham in another pan. The smell was wonderful and Ann felt her stomach growling.

She felt like throwing the box at the back of his head. Then she noticed a large gash and a fresh line of blood coming from the base of his skull.

She dropped the box and reached for his head. “You’re bleeding, you fool. Didn’t you take care of this?” She stepped closer and saw a large chunk of wood sticking out of his skin. “You have a chunk of wood in there.” She took his head and tried to turn it towards the light. He didn’t move.

“I’m fine, Princess. Just go get ready.”

“No, I’m not moving until I clean out this wound.” She crossed her arms and glared at him. He was a fool. Didn’t he know that injuries like that could become infected?

“If I let you clean it up, will you color your hair and get cleaned up?”

She thought about it, “Why do I have to color my hair?”

“Because this blond,” he reached out and ran a lock of her hair between his fingers, “sticks out in a crowd and we need to blend in. Plus, whoever is after us, is looking for a blond woman. This might throw them off our trail until we can get out of Rio.”

She tilted her head and thought about it. He did have a point.

“Yes, fine. Now come into the light so I can get the wood out.” She pulled out a chair at the small table near the window and motioned for him to sit.

He took his time removing the pans from the heat, then wiped his hands. He walked over with a towel and a bottle of alcohol, then sat with his back to her. She was reminded of following him last night and the gentleness in which he’d talked to her as they made their way through the crowd. His hand had always clasped hers tightly, almost as if he was very concerned he’d lose her.

As she started to pull the wood from his skin, she asked, “Do you think Joe made it out of the hotel?”

He was quiet, too quiet. She stopped what she was doing and walked around to look him in the eyes. “Nathan? Did Joe make it out?” She saw the answer in his eyes. “What—how—?”

“Before I found you, I walked into our room and he was there. I think they’d gotten to him first before shooting up the van and Mark. They must have left a bomb in the room with him. Maybe they hoped to get us with it.” She closed her eyes and thought of Joe’s two daughters. He had a seventeen- and a fifteen-year-old. Mark had been single, but that didn’t stop her from mourning them both equally.

“I was stupid,” she said, keeping her eyes closed on a wave of new tears.

She didn’t realize that he’d stood up until she felt his arms on her shoulders.

“Ann—” She opened her eyes and looked at him. She could tell he was struggling with the right words to say, and she knew that he thought she was to blame, as well. Using the back of her hand, she dashed away the tears and walked back behind the chair.

“Sit. I want a shower and clothes.” He sat and she got back to work getting the splinter out of his skull.

Then she went into the bathroom and used the box of color on her blond hair. She’d had her hair many colors in the past, all variations of blond. This had been the lightest she’d gone and to be honest, it had been nothing but a pain since she’d bleached it. She’d thought it would make her look better on camera, but it had only ended up washing out her skin tone. Plus, the upkeep was more than she wanted, not to mention how impossible it was to make it look shiny for the cameras. She had multiple bottles of oils she had to use just to keep her ends from breaking.