Lock and Load (SEAL EXtreme Team) (26 page)

“Amber,” he whispered against her neck. She didn’t wiggle this time, or move. She must have been too tired to be ticklish. He took a deep breath and lifted his weight off of her. He took the condom off. Turning on his side, he nuzzled her neck. Still nothing. He tucked her closer, one leg over her legs, his arm wrapped across her soft belly. It felt so good, so right. If he had a choice, they’d stay like this forever.

“Amber?”

Her answer was a tiny snort followed by deep, slow breathing. She was asleep.

No matter how much he wanted to wake her with kisses, he didn’t have the heart. She was exhausted and needed the rest. Besides, he planned on a repeat performance, soon. Very soon. Although, next time, he’d be in charge. It wouldn’t be fast, oh no, slow and delicious was the plan. He would get to kiss every inch of her, even if he had to tie her up to do it. He grinned at the thought.

For now, he’d let her rest in his arms. They had maybe an hour or two before the sun came up with full force and they had to get back to cracking the hard drive. He nuzzled into her neck.

“I love you, Hot Girl,” he whispered and let himself drift.

Amber floated along a river of pleasure and peace. Gentle warm breezes blew against her neck. She was wrapped in a blanket of love and safety. She hadn’t felt this good in…how long? Maybe never. Nope, she’d never felt like this. She could keep floating with Charlie—loving, making babies, sitting on a front porch of small house with an ocean view. Except…

Except something lurked just around the hazy edges of the dream. Something terrifying. She didn’t want to think about it.

“I love you, Hot Girl,” Charlie whispered in the dream.

“I love you too. More than you’ll ever know.”

Why? She puzzled. Why wouldn’t he know? She was keeping him, never letting him go, loving him every day for the rest of their lives.

Except…the Sadistic Bastards were chasing them down the river, shooting bloody bullets, launching RPGs made out of men’s skulls, and strapping her into the electric chair.

Her eyes popped open.
Oh, God.

She remembered where she was and what she had to do. Her heart pounded. She’d been trying to put the puzzle pieces together and her subconscious did it while she slept. It all made sense. Biting her lip, she forced herself not to cry. There was one way to save Charlie. Keeping very still, she listened to his breathing. His leg felt like dead weight on hers. He was asleep. Now was her chance.

Carefully, she lifted his arm off her belly and caught a glimpse of the black crow tattoo with the line crossed over it. Yes, it all made sense now. She remembered where she’d seen a similar tattoo, only this one didn’t have the red line. It was emblazoned on the muscular bicep of the creep who roughed-up Lilly, the sweet Chinese cashier at the Ho King Shopping Centre. The two men were most likely the snipers who shot the woman who looked like her and then blew up the place for good measure.

Crapcrapcrap.

She had to run as far away from Charlie as she could go. If the SBs knew the man who’d gotten them court martialed was protecting the data they wanted…and in love with the girl who knew too much…they’d torture him to death and enjoy it.

Oh, Charlie.
She loved him with all of her heart.

Quietly, she rose from the blanket and he turned over. She froze. He was still asleep. Good. She dressed and grabbed her shoes. She didn’t have time to put them on.

Run!

She took off, quickly leaving the old house behind her. The sun was creeping up, lighting the crazy cement steps, allowing her to take them two at a time. The rocks were rough on her bare feet, but it didn’t matter. She couldn’t afford to slow down. The plan was to get to the
junk
and pray that the team would assume she was working on the hard drive. Wouldn’t they be surprised when she started up the engine sped away from Po Toi Island?

Once she was further out in the South China Sea, she’d send a message to Director Lau—
I’ve got your data. Stole it back from the SEALs. Will trade for two million dollars and safe passage out of China.

The money was nothing to Director Lau and she wanted it seem like she was serious about the deal. It was a lie. She wouldn’t meet him and she didn’t have the memory card. Mack did. She hoped it would make it home safely and land in the right hands. She of course, would never go home again. The thought made her sad, but she couldn’t change things.

She jumped over a small boulder and landed hard on her bare feet. Stumbling, she pushed on. There wasn’t much time. She had to steal the
junk
without getting caught, set up a meet with Director Lau that she wouldn’t attend, and with any luck, disappear forever.

The problem?

Her luck had always been bad. The only good thing that happened to her was sleeping in Old Mo’s house. Charlie would be devastated when he found out what she did. And he wouldn’t know that she’d done it for him.

Tears filled her eyes. She forced herself to run faster.

No stopping now.

Charlie was awake when she left him. What in the hell was she up to?

Stealthily, he followed, stalking her like he did in the water. Why didn’t she put on her shoes? Why run at all? He almost called out to her to stop when she stumbled over that small boulder. She could have broken her ankle. The crazy woman kept going, running toward the pier.

Shit. The
junk
.

Did her mad flight have something to do with whatever she’d found on the hard drive? He really should have slipped away an hour ago to see what she was hiding, but he didn’t want to leave her. He wanted to trust her. Big mistake. Like believing that their time together in Old Mo’s house had meant as much to her as it did him.

She was limping by the time she’d made it to the
junk
. Her poor, beautiful feet. He’d find some antibacterial cream to rub into them and bandage her cuts himself. As if hearing his thoughts, she turned around to make sure no one was watching. She couldn’t see him behind a tree.

When she thought she was alone, she worked to pull off the camouflage netting that draped the
junk
. If he followed any closer, he’d be exposed and she’d see him. Determined to find out what she was up to, he held back until she went aboard.

He waited a minute to see if she’d come back out. Nope. The engine started.

“Hell, no!” he sprinted down the beach.

His mind raced, his boots pounded the sand. He was a good thirty feet away when the wooden boat pulled away from the dock. “Amber, stop!”

She must have heard him because she gave the boat full throttle to get away. Luckily for him, she stalled the engine.

One flying leap landed him on the wood deck.

“Charlie! You can’t be here.” She had the audacity to tell him to his face. Like she wished he was gone.

He took her by the shoulders and looked in her eyes. “What in the hell are you doing?”

She didn’t look away. “Running. Now get off.”

“You’re running?” He knew it and yet he couldn’t believe it. He turned off the engine. “Listen, sweetheart, just say last night was a mistake.  You don’t have to do a dangerous bare-footed run down the side of a hill to steal a boat just to get away from me.”

She put a cool hand on his cheek. It was trembling. “Last night was the best thing that ever happened to me. Thank you. I won’t ever forget you.”

He ground his molars. Anger and fear over losing her coursed through his veins while his heart shattered. “So that’s it? You were going to leave me without saying good-bye.”

“I did say good-bye. Just not with words.”

Right. That was how he said he loved her, and apparently how she said good-bye. He looked down at her dirty, bleeding toes and moved her to the bench. “Sit. Tell me what’s going on.”

“Eww. Don’t touch those.My feet are filthy.”

“Relax.” He grabbed a towel from the bucket behind the bench and gently started to wipe. “Continue.”

She chewed her lip. “They want me, Charlie. I won’t let them have you as well.”

He stopped wiping.

“I’m the girl, remember? The dead body?”

She didn’t honestly think he’d forgotten, did she?. “So you were going to…what? Run away and hide? All by yourself? That’s crazy. We’re protecting you, Amber. The team will keep you safe. I thought you trusted us by now, or at least trusted me. Let me do my job.”

“What if you can’t? What if…?” She took a stuttering breath and didn’t finish the sentence. “They’ll keep coming. They’ll kill us, Charlie, all of us. Unless my plan works.”

He cleaned the other foot. “What plan?”

“I’ll send an email to Director Lau once I’m far enough away from the island. I’ll tell him I have the memory card and I’d like to trade it for two million dollars.”

His head exploded. “That would lure them right to you!” Okay, he was yelling at her, but he couldn’t exactly control himself. Dammit! What was she thinking?

“Not exactly. I’d bounce the signal off several satellites, ping-pong it around the globe and send the final relay to Outer Mongolia. They wouldn’t know where I really was.”

“And then?”

“I’d be long gone.”

“Dammit, Amber, this is insane.” He cradled both over her feet in his hands.

“I’ve never loved a man before, Charlie. I don’t love easily. You are my first, probably my last. I was trying to protect you.”

She loved him?
“You can’t run like this. If they find you,
when
they find you, you’ll be alone.”

“That’s the way it should be. Don’t you see? I’ve put us all at risk. If I leave, they’ll follow me and you’ll be safe. Please, Charlie, let me do this. I can’t stand the idea that they’ll hurt you. I wouldn’t…”Grief closed her throat. “I wouldn’t survive it.”

“Oh, sweetheart.” He pulled her into his lap and kissed her temple. “Stay with me. It’ll kill me, dead, if you go out there by yourself. We’ll figure out who is giving the hostiles their orders and keep them from hurting anyone else. We’ll do it together.”

“I know who they are.”

For the second time that day, Amber had surprised the shit out of him. The sun had only been up for a few minutes. “Want to repeat that?”

“You call them sadistic bastards. They probably still call themselves Superior Buds-men.” She took a deep breath and pointed to his tattoo. “SBs. Crow’s men.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

T
he team gathered in the back room of the mom and pop seaweed store. The place was musty and smelled of fish and sea. They’d all been briefed on what Amber had figured out and were waiting for Mack to come back inside. Jenna stood by the window chewing her nail and watching Mack as he talked on the phone with her father.

Charlie and Amber sat at a small table covered with paper-flat strips of seaweed. Under the table, Charlie’s leg touched hers. He held her hand and drew mindless designs on her knuckles and up her arm. Like he couldn’t stop touching her.

Neither one had mentioned to the team that Charlie had caught Amber running away.