Stranger Mine: a Base Branch novel (13 page)

“
H
e’s being kept
two hours away and you’re just now mentioning it!” she railed.

“We need sleep, food, and a plan. I’m not risking your life for anyone,” he shot back.

“My life? Since when do you think you have authority over my life?” The anger boiled inside her, breaching her high walls, and obliterating sane thought. Ryan wasn’t to blame, but he was the only one in easy reach. “You’re a fun fuck, but you don’t control me. Even the sex has been more trouble than it’s worth.”

“Stop.” Ryan stood, blocking her path to the bathroom or the exit. “You’re mad and I can handle it. But you’re going to regret this.”

“I already do.” She planted both hands on his chest and shoved. Nothing happened. “Goddammit!” She sagged to the floor, but his strong arms wrapped around her and lowered them both to the rough carpet. She stared into his tense face, those lighter-than-sky blue eyes. “I’m losing my mind. I want to hate her, but I don’t. I don’t want to love you, but I think I do.” She dragged in a breath. “That’s so stupid, isn’t it?”

“No, on both accounts.” His lips softened, but he didn’t smile. He also made no move to kiss her or reciprocate the sentiment.

She groaned into her hands. “Just give me orders to do something, so I don’t have to think.”

He stood, pulled her off the floor, and kissed her forehead. “Get us some food and lots of it. There’s a restaurant attached. See if they do room service. If not, order ahead and go pick it up.”

“Wow, I didn’t mean playing your handmaid. Unless it’s code for something naughty, like my hand on your—”

“If you want to get Matthew tonight, I have to send my people—as you call them—the data from that computer, we need to eat, nap, and then get going. We need time for recon.”

He stepped around her and smacked her ass. The playful gesture stung her flesh and rocketed a pulse of awareness to her core.

“Hop to, sweet. If you stand there much longer, I’m going to die of starvation.”

She turned and crooked a brow at him.

His large hand snagged the laptop case from beneath the bed and set it on a small desk. He curved a smile for her. “Because I’m going to fuck you until I prove it’s worth the effort.”

“Sorry,” she mouthed.

“It’ll take a lot more than that to hurt my feelings or make me leave, Piper.”

He opened the case she’d jimmied earlier that morning and slipped the silver laptop from its nook.

“Unless you’re some sort of computer genius, you’re not getting in.” She pulled the pre-shower T-shirt over her head. “I tried for forty minutes while you were busy with Gabrone. It’s password protected and then some.”

His smile got Steven-Tyler big.

Bullshit
. Sure it was stereotypical, but no way could someone look as good as he looked, do the kind of work he did, and be a technological whiz.

W
ell
, it was a damn good thing she hadn’t put money on the bet. Sure as shit, she shoved the door open with her hip, carrying one brimming bag of authentic Mexican take-out and another full of bottled waters, and found Ryan lounging on the bed. Hands behind his head, he watched the upload progress bar stretch across the screen in tiny increments.

“How? How in the hell are you computer savvy too?” She set the bags on the table and threw her hands up.

Ryan angled his head toward her. “I was big into sports, until Rebecca died. Then I was into staying quiet and out of my mom’s way. Any time I made a sound she’d hover and smother. Computers were quiet.”

“Makes sense.” She fought back the guilt of her earlier words. Sorrow also pinched her heart as she imagined Ryan as a young boy, trying to navigate grief and loss when his role models didn’t do a very good job of it themselves.

Piper arranged their meal on the table, bowed, and swept her hand through the air. “Dinner is served.”

He rolled from the bed and pulled on a pair of boxer shorts from his bag. Like a gentleman, he dragged the chair from the table and offered her the seat before walking the two feet to his side and sitting.

“Enjoy.”

“And you,” he nodded.

At that point, most anything would have tasted great. But the warm tortilla drizzled with cheese sauce and filled with rice and beans took her breath away. It had been a while since she’d gotten domestic. As far as she was concerned, this was twice she’d fixed Ryan lunch. She hadn’t cooked it, but the overwhelming warmth of caring for another human being settled over her skin. It combined with the heavy meal and sleep deprivation to weight her lids.

When Ryan cleared his throat she was well on her way to her fifth heaping bite. Piper smoothed her mouth, afraid he’d found a stray dollop of cheese on her lip. Finding no crumbs, she searched his gaze. That mischievous grin bloomed. One of his soft tacos had vanished along with two-thirds of another.

“You like it?” she asked.

“A lot. Too much, actually.”

“Don’t know how you can like Mexican food too much.”

“I’m not talking about food.” His thumb and index finger toyed with his lower lip, drawing her deeper.

“What then?”

“You love me.” Statement. Not a question.

That sure as hell roused her. Piper’s pulse skyrocketed and her nerves shook like someone set her to vibrate. “That’s not what I said,” she wheezed on a shard of chip.

That index finger tapped on his pursed lips. “Not in so many words. No. You said, think. You don’t want to love me, but you think you do. If there’s anything I’ve learned about you over the past few days, it’s that you’re a confident woman. Sure in your goals, your body, your mind, your heart. Sometimes your mind just needs a minute to catch your body and heart.”

She blushed clear to her gooey center. “Eat your food, so we can finish your check-list and go, please.”

And go
. Those two words hurt just as much as learning of her sister’s betrayal. Because after they went, after they completed the goal she’d been desperate to reach for the last six months, she may never see Ryan again.

He shoved the rest of his second taco down the hatch and drank the entire bottle of water in a long gulp. The lean muscles in his neck worked. His Adam’s apple bobbed. Soon Piper found herself gulping too and it had little to do with the third of a burrito in front of her.

“If I have to eat, and can’t talk—which is one of my favorite things to do, besides you—you have to eat too,” he insisted.

After they both finished, Ryan cleared their mess, clicked on the computer awhile longer while she paced, and then set the thing back in the case. “Everything they had is ours. Talk about a bad day to be a part of the SF.” He fidgeted with his watch, and then held his hand out toward her. “We have six hours to sleep.”

When she reached out he drew her close. His hand locked around her ponytail and he caressed her with a kiss. Hard slabs of muscle met her fanned fingers as she slid them around his torso. The rumble of his chest eased the last of her reserve. He tugged the band from her hair, setting the strands free as he had every other time they’d pleasured one another.

He levered her back and lifted her shirt over her head. “That leaves one for love-making, but I could be convinced to cut our nap back. If the argument was compelling enough.”

She reached for his boxers to bid her case, but he pinned her forearms in his hands. “Me first.”

Her body coiled at the command. At the authority in his grasp. It injected carnal lust into her blood and hazed her vision. She fluttered her lids in acquiescence and he released her arms at her sides.

“Don’t move, unless I say.”

“Yes,” she moaned.

Like lightning he struck, flicking her clit with his middle finger. “I need a sir to go with that.”

The shock slammed into her sensitive flesh, searing the tip for a fraction of a second before the bolt morphed into pure pleasure. It coursed over her nub, bathing it in electricity. “Oh, Ryan,” she panted. “Yes, sir.”

In tandem her nipples barbed. His mouth sealed over, latching on as though he were thirsty from days spent in the unforgiving desert. After an exquisite minute he released her breast and moved his head to just below her lobe. He sucked hard and her head fell to the side, giving better access. His teeth scraped her skin, then licked and sucked the sting away.

Piper rubbed her breasts against his hairy chest, rocked her hips into the massive bulge behind his shorts. When she found the angle and rhythm that promised her orgasm in seconds he released her neck and stepped away.

“Middle of the bed on your hands and knees. You teased me with that fine ass in the Cadillac. It’s mine now.”

“Yours as in…” Not wanting to say the words, she let the sentence hang.

“Mine, however I want it. Right?”

She crawled onto the bed, poked her bottom into the air, and looked over her shoulder. “Yes.”

The
crack
echoed in the sparsely decorated space and in her head. A sting from his swift hand licked her pussy. She rocked against the sensation, stoking the heat into an all out blaze. Her lids closed and her head craned toward the sky. “Yes. Sir. Yes. Sir.”

“It seems you enjoy that a little too much. I may have to change tactics.”

“No, sir,” she whimpered.

His palms spread over the swell of her cheeks while his fingers hooked in the curve of her hips. The bed sagged under his weight and his thighs met with the backs of hers. His bare cock nestled in the crack of her ass. Awareness prickled her skin, raising the tiny hairs from her nape to her mons. Despite her apprehension, she pushed against him and rocked on his length.

Looking over her shoulder, their gazes melded. What a picture he made looming over her. He stalled her hips and eased her from their contact. She didn’t dare complain. Especially when he fisted his dick. He stared at her and pumped the turgid, reddening flesh. Once. Twice. His pace steadied and she lost count. The muscles played along his chest and arms. Crimson tinged the bandage on his shoulder, but he didn’t seem to notice.

Pre-cum coated his bulbous head and Piper wanted to scream. She bit her lips between her teeth and enjoyed the show, trusting Ryan to make this worth the effort. Several strokes later, he pointed his cock at her and moved closer. The silky lubrication and pliant head circled around her puckered hole, slipped down between her folds to tease her clit, and then back again.

Her head lolled between her shoulders in desperation, and she found a wholly different view of the entertainment. His now-purple head peeked from between her wet lips before disappearing. “Oh, Ryan. Yes, please. I want to come.”

“But you don’t need to. You’ll be insane with need before I’m done with you.”

She snapped her head in his direction. “I need to, now. Oh, please.”

He rubbed his index finger over his tip, and then skated it over her pulsing rosette. “Are you sure you need to come?”

Adrenaline rode her heart like a jockey spurring his horse down the final stretch. Sweat slicked her palm and she gripped the bedspread. Her tongue swelled. She couldn’t speak.

Ryan wedged the head of his cock into her greedy cunt. She shoved back, trying to take him, but his left hand halted her efforts. He fucked her with his gaze while he rolled his hips in tiny waves, taunting her with a centimeter at a time.

“I need to come. Yes, sir. I need to. I trust you.”

His finger steadily massaged the ultra sensitive opening of her ass. “If you’re not ready, use your word.” With that he breeched her, dick and digit.

The invasion left her panting. Her entire body went oddly numb and acutely attuned to those two areas. His thick penis pumped home at a frantic pace, piercing her womb at an angle. The
smack
of his balls against her clit filled the room. The squeak of the bed joined in the chorus. Piper bowed and gave herself over to the experience. The tightness in her ass eased. He worked his finger in and out with slow, measured strokes.

The contradictory paces clashed into one blinding orgasm. The world around her went white and Ryan disappeared from sight. His touch remained persistent. It increased. Bore deeper. Pumped harder.

“Fuck. Piper. Fuck,” he roared as he filled her. Overflowed her. His thrusts slowed, but he didn't withdraw. He collapsed atop her, and then rolled, curling around her as he’d done before. “You know, I find I’m harboring terrifying feelings of affection toward you too.”

W
hat in the
hell did that mean?
Seven and a half hours and about eighty-four miles later, Piper still didn’t know what to make of Ryan’s comment. She knew she’d been pecking at the words for far too long, attacking the same simple sentence from this way and that. Life and death was once again preparing to hang in the balance, flap in the wind, teeter off the cliff, and all the other sayings for being possibly fucked. And not in a satisfying kind of way. Time to focus.

Outside, the last shred of light slipped behind the horizon, plunging the desert to absolute darkness. They left the land of streetlights long ago. The SUV provided the only blip in the night for miles around. Its display screen and lit dials combatted the murk.

Even though they’d had to detangle their limbs when his alarm jarred them both from sleep, Piper had made a valiant effort at ignoring him on the long ride. But once they’d turned onto the narrow highway and left the crowded streets of Hermosillo behind, he demanded her hand. Of course, she’d given it all too willingly.

For the first time since they’d climbed into the Escalade, she turned toward Ryan and found his gaze. He’d been on the phone half the time with his super-secret people, talking about super-secret things, but he didn't’ seem to worry she’d blab. His fingers tightened around her hand, released it, and then he straightened in his seat.

“Tucker said the vineyard is seventy acres with three structures. The processing and storage building sits near the road and is the largest of the three. We’ll clear it first. The main house is on the top of a small elevation, but we’ll reach the worker bunk first. It’s only fifty yards to the east from processing. Our objective is Matthew. Find him and get him out as quietly as possible. We have no way of knowing how many men the Sinaloa have guarding it. Could be none to twenty. We’ll hope they only grow grapes and not weed or coca. Those crops come with way more guns.

“Farms eat up the land in the area. I have coordinates to keep us straight. We’ll turn off of Highway 26 in fifteen miles. Two miles from the turn, the vines brush the dirt road. We’ll park behind them and advance on foot, weapons ready. We lay low and watch, until I say go. Do you understand?

“No matter what happens, don’t go without my signal. If anything goes wrong, get your ass back to the truck and move. One satellite phone stays with the truck. The other with me. Tucker’s number is the last dialed number. Tell the operator your name. He’ll accept a call from you.”

For the first time, fear wavered Piper’s conviction. What was she willing to lose to find Matthew? Before Ryan, she’d been willing to give her life for the cause, and still was, but she couldn’t stomach exchanging Matthew’s life for Ryan’s. She just found the person who got her, cared for her, and didn’t try to change her. Despite the fact that he had. He showed her love and understanding, which naturally shifted her ideals and perceptions. Whether he was firm in his feelings of affection or not, she planned on keeping him around. One way or another. For a very long time.

“Don’t give me that look.” His lids thinned to a scolding line. “You’re the most bull-headed woman I’ve ever met, but you can’t be about this.”

Piper simply held on to her shaking hands and followed the glow of headlights as they revealed their path to redemption or destruction. Nerves twisted her bowels and threatened to rattle her teeth out of her head. Never had she been this scared. Fear wasn’t her usual response for intense situations. In neither captivity, the damn shoot out, nor walking through a minefield had she been this on edge. But this was different because now she had something to lose.

“Lock it down, Piper. Or I’ll go by myself. You’re no help to either of us like this.”

“I know,” she agreed. “I’m working on it.”

Ryan switched off the lights as soon as they made the turn. For a second her freak-out level jet-set as they drove through the thick night.

“Thermal monocular,” he soothed.

She released an audible breath and sank against the soft leather.

“You’re one hot gray chick. Turn this way, I might be able to see your nipples through your shirt.”

Laughter bubbled, and then exploded in a release of anger, confusion, and fear. Her shoulders shook. Her belly rolled. “You’re crazy.” When he stopped the vehicle and killed the engine, the remnants of her laughter died.

Ryan’s scruff tickled her lips a moment before his mouth skimmed over hers. Light as a whisper their skin and breath mingled. His hand cupped her nape, hugging them cheek-to-cheek. “Make it through tonight and I’ll tell you exactly what I meant earlier.”

“Well,” she sighed, “that’s incentive enough for me.”

A rumble permeated his chest. He released her and retreated to his side of the car. Metal slid across metal. Velcro screamed. Fabric rustled. “Here, eyes on.”

Piper accepted a hunk of cool metal she recognized by feel alone as a thermal imagery monocular. She pulled on the contraption and welcomed sight, gray tinted as it was. Two M4’s and his trusty blood-spattered ruck piled high on Ryan’s lap. He handed her one of the assault rifles to accompany the two pistols and four extra magazines tucked away in the holsters and pockets of her borrowed BDU’s, which she buttoned so he couldn’t see her nipples and get distracted.

“Keys are in the ignition,” Ryan said before slipping out of the vehicle. She joined him at the front of the truck to get their bearings.

Rows of vines shown white in the eyepiece with only a hint of black. The shadows were tinted dark like puddles of swamp water. The succession stretched for a mile to the north and east. At the top of a gradual incline lights burned through conservative windows at the main house while the bunk and process buildings stood like dark boxes.

“What day is it?” Piper whispered.

“Saturday.”

“Is it harvest time?”

“By the looks of things, past. I don’t see any clusters on these tendrils. That’s not to say the other half of the field isn’t bursting with them. I don’t know when they harvest, if they grow different varieties, if they ripen at different times.”

“I’ve never planted a thing in my life,” Piper said. “But it looks so quiet.”

“It’s possible the workers went home for the weekend,” Ryan offered.

“What?”

“Gabrone may have influence over this place, but he doesn’t run it or own it. Thermal shows no guards.”

“So you’re saying they’d let Matthew…what?” she asked, jerking her hands to the sky. “Take a walk? Hitch a ride into town?”

“Small movements, sweet. Just because I can’t see any roaming guards, doesn’t mean there aren't goons in the house. And I have no idea. So let’s go find out.”

Best idea she’d heard since the sun went down.

Piper fell in behind Ryan, who stuck close to the foliage. He advanced at an easy pace. Several times he raised his fist just shy of his shoulder before he stopped. Like she wasn’t completely in tune with his every micro-gesture, every twitch of his ear, every shift of his spine. She didn’t see any movement besides Ryan’s and the chilly wind rustling the leaves. And still, she could have played the tight rope to any daring Wallenda.

Six yards away from the network of grapes’ end, he pointed to the ground, and then hit the dirt. The gravel and dirt pricked her palms as she followed suit. He crawled on elbows with the rifle lying atop his folded arms. Piper locked her fingers over the barrel and butt to keep hers from slipping. Earthy scents of roots and vegetation huffed through her airway. Only feet away from the open space between the three buildings, Ryan crouched, but gave her the flat of his palm. Then he left her, literally, in the dust.

He banked right toward the bunkhouse. The blood pumping through her heart congealed as she watched him vanish around a corner of black shadows.
Damn.
Piper yanked the useless device from her head and strained for any sound.

Nothing.

Time ticked, collecting in a big pile of worry at her feet. She hugged the M4 to her chest, rested her forehead on the stock, and offered a prayer.

A crash brought her head up fast.