Thrill Ride (7 page)

But dreadful seconds ticked by and Rock didn’t say anything, just pulled her closer, anchoring her against his warm, reassuringly solid side as his thumb gently rubbed a circle in the fabric of her sleeve.

So, okay…

Maybe she could…maybe she could do this.

“We were…” she licked her suddenly dry lips, trying and failing to slow the rapid slideshow of images burning through her brain. “We were in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, visiting my aunt for Christmas. On the way back to the hotel, we…we hit a patch of ice on a bridge. My dad was driving.” And she remembered the sound of her mother screaming in the passenger seat as they blasted through the guardrail and catapulted over the edge, remembered the look of horror and soul-tearing regret on her father’s face as it was reflected in the rearview mirror. “We went over the side and into the river. I was in the backseat and that’s—” Her voice hitched and she had to swallow the lump of torment and grief that lodged in her throat. “That’s the only thing that saved me.”

Again, he said nothing, just held her close, rubbing that circle on her arm. The motion, and the accompanying soft rasp of the fabric of her sleeve, was soothing, almost hypnotic. It gave her the strength to go on despite the fact that the memories were so close to the surface her skin actually crawled, like she was covered with fire ants.

“The nose of the car buried itself into the riverbed and stuck there. The water was only about six feet deep, slow moving, and with a thick layer of ice covering the top. I slammed into the door and window on impact. It knocked me out.”

And, oh, the horror of coming to. Of knowing…

“When I regained consciousness, I was hanging from the seatbelt, my arm broken, the water only a foot from my face.”

She heard him exhale slowly in the darkness. And, yeah, he could probably guess what came next. “I knew my parents were under that water, but my seatbelt was jammed. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get it undone. And, with my arm so severely broken, I couldn’t slither out of the straps either. I struggled so hard for so l-long—” Her voice broke. The memories of the crushing ache in her arm—that hadn’t come close to the debilitating pain in her heart—washed over her in a tidal wave. Even though her rational mind had told her there was nothing she could do for her parents, some instinct inside her, some animalist drive had spurred her to fight with everything she had. She’d understood in those moments how wild animals chewed through their feet to free themselves from hunters’ traps. The urge to live was as intrinsic as it was intense. And the urge to save those she loved was stronger still. But, in the end, she’d been helpless. Infuriatingly, pathetically helpless…

“But I couldn’t get free,” she finally finished. “So I just…I just h-hung there, slowly freezing to death.”

He lowered his chin to place a soft kiss on the crown of her head but didn’t so much as utter a sound. No words of sympathy or condolence. And it was like he somehow knew this was the first time she’d been brave enough to speak of the accident, been brave enough to relive it. As if he understood that any little thing, any word or sudden movement, would make her lose her nerve again.

“I…I stayed that way for an hour, in the pitch black, listening to the water trickling by beneath me, knowing all the time…” She had to stop. Had to take a second to slow the dizzying excess of oxygen entering her lungs with every rapid breath. Because if she didn’t get control right now, the next stop on this crazy train of emotional upheaval was a little place she liked to call Dead Faint. So, she closed her eyes, held her breath, and slowly counted to ten.

It was a trick she’d learned as a child and, more often than not, it actually worked. This was no exception. By the time she reached nine, her head no longer felt as if it was floating away from her shoulders. “Knowing all the time that my parents were dead only a couple of feet away.”

And she’d screamed. Screamed until her throat was bloody. Screamed for help. Screamed in horror. Screamed at the gut-wrenching sorrow that’d invaded her soul like a foul, acrid disease. Just…screamed…

But no one had heard her. And when she couldn’t scream any more, when no more sound could escape her swollen, ravaged throat, she’d silently continued screaming in her head.

“Finally, a passing car saw the broken guardrail and called it in. The local fire department cut me loose and fished me out of the river but, of course, it was too late for my parents.” She finished the rest in a rush. “And ever since that night, anytime it’s dark like this, I feel like I’m back there. Stuck in that car. Unable to see, but knowing all the same that the two people I love most are dead and gone.”

And, there. She’d done it. She’d told the story. She couldn’t
believe
she’d actually had the guts to finally tell the story.

She was in the middle of congratulating herself, blowing out a relieved breath and patting herself on the back, when Rock finally spoke. But his words were not what she expected. “Go on. There’s more.”

More? There wasn’t any more. She’d told him—

“Tell me more about the darkness,” he said, and despite the sultry heat inside the log, a harsh chill slipped up her spine.

She swallowed, the sound clicking in her dry throat. He grabbed her hand and flattened it over his chest until she could feel the firm beat of his heart against her palm. It steadied her. And when she pressed her ear to his chest, the slow, unwavering drum of his heartbeat grounded her enough to admit, shakily, “I…I feel like it’s…I don’t know, out to get me or something. Like it missed me that night on the river, and it’s just…just
waiting
to finish the job.”

And until she said the words, she hadn’t realized that was what she was afraid of.

Her racing blood slowed to a halt, and she stilled, searching inside herself. And the harder she looked, the more she peeled back the thick layers of her psyche, the more she realized,
yes.
Yes, that’s exactly what had been haunting her for the last half decade…

Okay, and
seriously
? She’d installed nightlights all over her loft-style bedroom back at BKI, broke out in a cold sweat anytime she was inadvertently caught out in the night, and squirreled away flashlights all over the shop because she was afraid the dark was, like, what?
Alive?
That it was a sentient being purposefully and personally stalking her?

Jesus Christ! Was she crazy?

Abruptly the fingers of darkness that’d been squeezing her heart and lungs withdrew. The weight of the blackness pushing in around her suddenly felt less oppressive.

Holy crap! That’s all it took? Just to put a name to it and,
poof
, the fear was gone? She looked inward again, seeking that paralyzing terror, the sense of impending doom, but…nothing.

Oh, the pitch black wasn’t comfortable by any means. It still brought back stark memories of that night. But now she could look at the whole experience without nearly blacking out from fear. Now she could view it rationally and see it simply for the heartbreaking tragedy it was and—

Holy, holy,
holy
crap!

“How do you
do
that?” she breathed.

“Like I said, it’s my training.”

“It’s more than that,” she whispered, awed and grateful at the same time. “It’s a gift.”

She felt him shrug.

For long seconds after that mind-blowing revelation, they remained silent. Then, he murmured, “I
am
sorry about your folks. It’s tough to be an orphan, no matter what your age.”

Orphan…And, yep, that’s all it took for the dam to break.

The tears she hadn’t realized she’d been holding back threatened to overflow. Turning her face into his chest, she fisted the fabric of his wet tank top into balls beside her cheeks and tried to steady herself. But she couldn’t. Especially not when Rock whispered softly, “It’s okay to let go,
chere
. There’s no one here but you and me.”

Uh-huh. And, just like that, she could no longer pretend she was tougher than she really was. Then Vanessa did something she never,
ever
allowed herself to do in front of anyone…

She cried.

And it wasn’t one of those tragic, lip-quivering, slow-crocodile-tear cries either. The kind most actresses perfected. Oh, no. This was a full-on, ball-your-eyes-out, tears-and-snot-everywhere kind of deal.

It was humiliating and liberating at the same time.

Humiliating because, come on, this was
Rock.
The one man on the entire planet she wanted to impress with her grace and poise and strength. Liberating because finally saying the words out loud, telling the tale and admitting to the root of her fear was freeing in a way she could have never imagined. Letting someone else share in the horror of her experience, having someone hold a mirror up in front of her face so she could address the foolishness of her irrational fear, relieved her of a burden she hadn’t known she’d been carrying around like a two-ton bolder of shame.

Pushing up from his chest, she wiped a shaky hand across her eyes and beneath her nose. “Thank you,” she breathed.

“
De
rien
,” he whispered—
you’re welcome
—and, oh, sweet merciful Lord, his mouth was right there.

She couldn’t see it in the dark—she couldn’t see
anything
, which for the first time in years didn’t scare the living crap out of her
—
but she could feel his lips moving, could feel the heat of his breath.

And, suddenly, she didn’t care about the impropriety of the situation. She didn’t care that he’d made it quite clear there could never be anything permanent between them. She didn’t even care that there were men skulking through the jungle outside, looking for the first opportunity to blast an extra hole in each of their heads. All she cared about was this moment, when she had him exactly where she’d always wanted him.

Without a second thought, she reached up to fist her hand in his short hair and pressed her lips against the lush pad of his mouth. His stubble tickled her nose and chin; she could taste hints of the papaya he’d eaten for dinner on his breath, and—

Okay, so this was obviously a big mistake.

Because the man did a pretty good impression of a brick wall. He didn’t move. He didn’t even appear to breathe. And his lips were sealed shut like he’d applied the ChapStick version of Krazy Glue.

Yep, in the Great Handbook of Kisses, this was going to go down under the title
Worst
One
Ever
.

And just as she was about to pull back and apologize for what was obviously a stupendously dumbass move, his mouth softened and the tip of his tongue swept over the seam of her lips. A hot flower of desire bloomed low in her abdomen, and opening her mouth to him was instinctual. Of course, the part where she sucked on his tongue was totally deliberate. And what had started out as tame quickly became tumultuous.

He growled deep in his chest—the resulting rumble against her breasts was delicious—and slid his hand down her waist in order to pull her on top of him. Her thighs fell to either side of his lean hips, her pelvis cradling the stark evidence of his desire. And, just like that, the traffic light blinked from red to green, and they were a
go
!

Teeth and tongues and hands everywhere.

Sucking, licking, laving…

He grabbed her ass with both hands and ground her against his erection. The friction was unbelievable and so delicious it had her toes curling inside her boots.

Once he realized she was more than happy to oblige him in the bump-and-grind they had going, he released her ass to snake a hand between their bodies so he could undo the buttons on her shirt. She lifted herself slightly, to give him room to work, and then…

Bliss.

The rough pad of his thumb found the aroused bead of her nipple even through the ACE bandage she’d wrapped around her chest in order to flatten her breasts. He pinched it gently, coaxing it into an even harder point, and a longing whimper sounded in the back of her throat.

This was what she’d wanted for months. To push past his barriers. To get him to drop his guard. Because she’d always known it would be like this between them. Explosive and succulent and—

A rustling outside alerted them to the fact that they were no longer alone in this part of the jungle…

“Shit, Eve,” Bill growled as the lady of the house bent to set a plate full of little sandwiches, all with the crusts cut off—
how
sweet
—on the coffee table. He slammed shut the copy of
To
Kill
a
Mockingbird
he’d be reading—or, more accurately,
trying
to read. Usually losing himself in a classic calmed his nerves, but he figured nothing short of a lobotomy was going to come close to mitigating his anxiety when Eve was in the same room. “This isn’t a goddamned cocktail party, so you can stop playing the attentive hostess.”

“Leave her alone, Billy,” Becky snarled from her position at the other end of the sofa. Her livid expression crowned him King of the Assholes more eloquently than any words could. Still, she felt the need to follow that up with, “And quit being such an asshole.”

“It’s okay, Becky,” Eve said in that cultured voice of hers that always just…just
got
to him. And that was the kicker, wasn’t it? That despite everything, despite the fact that she’d booted him to the curb well over a decade ago, he still hadn’t found another woman who could get to him the way Eve Edens could.

Not that he hadn’t tried. Especially in the six months since she’d crashed back into his life…

Oh, yeah. It was official. He was quickly outpacing both Ozzie and Steady when it came bagging babes, which was really saying something since, between the two of those bastards, there wasn’t a barmaid or hostess left in Chicago who hadn’t taken a…
ride
, if you will…on one or both of the Black Knights. And yet for Bill…?

Nothing. Nada. Zilch.

Not
one
of the women who’d shared his bed in the last six months, not to mention the scores—okay, maybe not scores, but certainly more than his fair share—who’d shared his bed in the last ten or so years had inspired the kind of passion that Eve managed to inspire just by walking into the room.

“Billy can’t help himself where I’m concerned,” she finished, smiling down at him sadly and, yeah, so maybe he
was
king of the assholes. Because it wasn’t her fault he’d been young and dumb and unable to see that she’d only been tiptoeing on the wild side, taking a little spin around the block with the bad boy from the wrong side of town before settling on someone more appropriate.

God
damn
it!

“But just so we’re clear,” she continued, holding his gaze, and
that
was something new. The Eve he’d known years ago was as shy as a church mouse on a Sunday morning. But this new Eve? Well,
she
was showing a backbone made of pure, forged steel. And,
sonofabitch
, that just made him want her more. “I cook because it soothes me. I’m not yelling at you for reading that book and telling you this isn’t a…a
gosh
darned
”—now
that
was the Eve he knew; the one who blushed anytime she tried to curse—“library visit.”

“You’re right,” he told her, meeting her wide eyes unhesitatingly. Eve had always reminded him of a china doll. Milky-white skin, jet-black hair, eyes as clear and deep as sapphires, and a fragility that brought out the Neanderthal in him. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t take out my frustration on you.”

She blinked like he’d just sprouted a second head from his ear. And, yeah, so he was probably overdue on quite a few of the apologies he owed her.

“Well…I…well…okay, then,” she sputtered and turned to make her way back toward the kitchen. He watched her walk away and gave himself over to the sheer joy of examining the graceful movement of her long, tan legs. That is, until his sister interrupted his pursuit.

“I don’t understand why you have to do that,” she said. When he turned to glance at her, Becky was wearing “the look.” The one that informed him a lecture was coming.

He hoped to head it off. “You heard me apologize, right?”

“I heard you. I’m just not sure I believe you. Why can’t you just forget about it? It was a lifetime ago.”

“Maybe I’m just no good at letting go of grudges,” he admitted. But he knew that was only partially true. Because no matter how hard he’d tried, the fact remained that what he wasn’t good at was letting go of Eve.

“Yeah. And maybe you’re just an asshole.”

He shrugged then fought a smile because he knew just how to derail his sister from this current line of badgering. Clearing his throat, he said in his best orator’s voice, “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view—until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”

Becky rolled her eyes. “And that would be from…?”

He picked up the book from his lap and turned it so she could see the cover. “Atticus Finch, baby. A man of inordinately wise words.”

“That’s a really annoying habit you have.”

“Which one? Being an asshole or quoting classic literature?”

“Both.”

He winked and was rewarded when one corner of her sullen mouth twitched. She could never stay mad at him for very long. That was the thing about Becky. She could blow up quicker than a stick of dynamite, but her anger always burned out just as quickly.

She reached for one of the sandwiches Eve had delivered, just as Boss strolled into the room. Bill went on instant alert. Boss’s face looked like a thundercloud on a good day—thanks, in part, to a bevy of scars—but today? Well, today it looked like an F5 tornado.

A stone of dread settled at the bottom of his stomach, and he figured it wouldn’t be long before his ulcer started acting up again.

“General Fuller confirmed a CIA operation over Monteverde Cloud Forest,” Boss announced. “Says there’s nothing he can do about it. His recommendation is for us to convince Rock to turn himself in.”

Yeah, right.

“Not likely,” Bill snorted. “Even if there was a way to contact him, Rock would rather die in the jungle with a bullet in his brain than rot away in an eight-by-ten.”

“Dying in the jungle with a bullet in his brain is looking more and more likely,” Boss scowled. “Those teams have orders to shoot on sight.”

“Sonofabitch.” Bill shook his head, wondering, again, how it had come to this. Surely Rock wouldn’t—

“Still no word from Vanessa?” Boss asked, breaking into Bill’s thoughts.

“Nope,” he glanced over at the end table and the blank screen of his cell phone. “It appears she still has her phone turned off.”

Boss nodded and ran a big hand back through his hair. Then he turned to survey the room as if it had the answer to the question he asked next. “Any idea how they, the CIA, I mean, found them?”

“If I had to guess,” Bill mused, running a finger under his chin, “I’d say that despite her disguise, and despite all her precautions, somehow Vanessa was followed. And then maybe she got herself tagged while she was in Santa Elena.”

“That was my thinking, too,” Boss nodded. “I guess we didn’t give those spooks enough credit, huh?”

“Guess not,” Bill agreed. “Which is why we need Zoelner”—the Black Knights’ resident ex-CIA operative—“down here to fill us in on their operating procedures. Any luck getting in touch with him?”

Besides the General, Boss had put out a war cry to all the Knights. Telling those who weren’t currently on a mission to get their asses to Costa Rica ASAP.

“Nope. He’s incommunicado in Syria. And even if he could manage to cross the border to Turkey, it’d take him nearly forty hours to get here. And I don’t mean to go all Han Solo on your ass, but I got a bad feeling this is all gonna be over long before that. Goddamnit!” His jaw hardened until the scar cutting up from the corner of his lip went stark white. “I knew we never should’ve let Vanessa go in there alone. She isn’t trained for this shit.”

At this point Becky piped up with, “Now, come on, Frank. You know that was the best option we had at the time. We couldn’t
all
go traipsing over to Santa Elena after she jumped the gun. And she was right, you know. She
was
the only one of us capable of speaking the native languages, of blending in with the locals and asking the right questions.”

Boss had nearly shit a brick when Vanessa decided to pull a Lone Ranger—minus Tonto—on them. Taking it into her fool head to track Rock on her own before they’d agreed on the specifics of an exfiltration strategy. But to follow her would’ve raised more than a few eyebrows, so they’d been left with no other option but to let her do her thing. And, miracle of miracles, she’d actually found the guy.

Unfortunately, it appeared the CIA had found
her
.

Boss was right. She wasn’t trained for this shit. But there was nothing to be done for that now.

Boss blew out a hard breath, “Yeah? And now I not only have one, but
two
operators out there with their heads on the chopping block.”

“Rock won’t let anything happen to Vanessa,” Bill assured him, as certain of that fact as he was that Eve was in the kitchen cursing him to hell. Because no matter what Rock had done…scratch that, no matter what the government was
saying
he’d done, he would never let harm come to a woman under his protection. “He’ll die before he allows her to get hurt.”

“Yeah,” Boss grimaced. “And that’s exactly what I’m afraid of.”

***

Snap. Crack.
The sound of footfalls in the undergrowth drew closer.

And it was back to being a brick wall for Rock. He stilled beneath Vanessa, his chest, which moments before had been heaving with passion, barely moved. She followed suit, raking in a shallow, silent breath as her heart clenched into a tight ball of fear.

Had Rock been wrong? Had the hit teams already made it down this far? Or was that just an animal out there…?

The air inside the hollow tree felt too dense to breathe, like she was sucking molasses into her lungs.

Schick. Tick.

Oh, shitballs, whatever it was, it was big. And, as if on cue, a snuffling sound reached her ears, followed closely by a barking grunt.

Jaguar.

Vanessa’s stomach flipped as every hair on her head stood on end.

Just
an animal?
Just?
Had she really been foolish enough to have that thought? Because there was no
just
when it came to a friggin’ two-hundred-pound jungle cat with razor sharp teeth and two inch claws.

“Don’t. Move.” Rock whispered.

Yeah, she hadn’t planned on it.

She felt him reach down beneath her thigh, and for a moment she entertained the crazy notion that he was going to try to pick up where they’d left off. And if they were, indeed, seconds away from being devoured by the big cat, she couldn’t say she really blamed him. At least they’d both die happy, doing something pleasurable. But then the hard steel of a gun barrel kissed the inside of her leg.

Okay so they’d likely survive the cat. A couple of slugs from Rock’s SIG would insure that. Unfortunately the resulting gunfire would undoubtedly bring hell raining down on them in the form of the teams of men currently scouring the jungle.

It seemed their luck was holding steady. Because this was definitely a lose/lose situation.

“He smells the blood,” Rock murmured.

Blood? What blood?

“What are you talking about?” she breathed into the darkness, her nearly silent words still managing to sound like a shout inside the hollowed-out log.

“From my neck.”

Huh?

She reached up, careful not to make so much as a sound, and felt the neck in question. Her fingers raked across a long, deep gash and came away sticky with blood. “
Jesus
, Rock,” she hissed, “are you hit? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“No.” She could feel him shaking his head. “Just a sliver of wood from a tree.”

Like that was
so
much better. Because bullet or woodchip didn’t make a damned bit of difference when it came to nearly severing your jugular.

“Slowly,” he instructed, “I need you to slide off me
.
I hear him comin’ ’round to the base of the log.”

And that was bad. Because if
they
could squeeze inside the tree, the jaguar would have no problem doing the same. The thought of that big cat in here with them was just too horrifying to contemplate.

Vanessa carefully rolled off Rock onto her side, barely completing the maneuver when she felt him scoot down toward the mouth of the log.

“Be careful,” she whispered, and immediately rolled her eyes as she thought.
Well, that’s ridiculous advice
. Like what else would he be?

“Don’t scream,” he retorted, which had her heart—the sucker had just recovered from the initial shock to start beating again—once more screeching to a halt. She actually fancied she could hear a
scriiiiitch
echo in the darkness.

When someone warned you not to scream, it was generally followed up by something truly scream-worthy.

She bit her lip until the pain made her eyes water, but even then, she didn’t unclench her jaw. She figured it was better to chew the sucker right off than take a chance of letting so much as a peep slip out of her mouth.

The seconds ticked by, and the snuffling around the entrance to their hideout grew louder until Vanessa thought she’d go crazy waiting for whatever it was she wasn’t supposed to scream at to happen. Then she heard a loud
thump
followed immediately by an earsplitting yowl.

And
that
was what Rock had warned her about. Because the unholy, pissed-off roar that echoed outside was enough to raise the hair on the back of her neck and make goose bumps break out on her arms while a reactionary shriek lodged in the middle of her throat.

“After that boot to the head, he’ll think twice about sticking his nose in here again,” Rock said. She could make out the soft shush of his cargo pants brushing against the tarp as he scooted back to her. “Now, I’m gonna have to go out and erase the big cat’s tracks. If those teams heard that yowl, they’re gonna wonder if it has to do with us.”