by Tawny Weber
Fury dug into his gut.
He knew the first step in this mission was to get Lila to safety. Which meant getting her off this boat and away.
But he wanted to beat the hell out of whomever had done this to her. He wanted to set her in the corner and wait until the son of a bitch came back, then beat him into a bloody stain on this mold infested carpet.
It wasn’t training that had him shoving his personal impulses aside. It was the tiny tremors he felt in her wrists that beat time with her pulse.
Lila was the priority.
He’d beat the hell out of the guy later.
He jumped to his feet before he changed his mind. His knee pinged in an explosion of pain that shot from ankle to hip like shards of fired lightning.
Dammit.
He sucked in air, waiting for his vision to clear.
He gritted his teeth.
So much for freaking Super SEAL.
That part of his life was over.
Blown to hell, along with his goddamn knee.
“Um, Hawkins?” Lila kept her voice down, whether because she was afraid of alerting her captor or because she realized he was in excruciating pain, he wasn’t sure.
“What?” he snapped, damned if he’d take her pity.
“Can you help me up?”
Oh, yeah.
With a long, slow breath, Travis yanked control back where it belonged: firmly under his thumb.
“Rotate your ankles, make sure the blood is flowing before you stand. I don’t want to have to carry you out of here.”
“Such a gentleman,” she murmured under her breath, stretching her legs out so her toes pointed, then arched before she circled each foot.
While she did, Travis tried to figure out why watching her work on her circulation was sexy. It wasn’t the moves, so it had to be the woman.
“How many men did you see?” he asked, as much for distraction as because he wanted to know.
“One grabbed me, but I heard him talking to another one.”
Two, minimum. Easy enough on his own. But he wasn’t on his own.
“Let’s get out of here.”
Making sure to keep his weight on his left leg, he bent down and wrapped his hands around her waist. The move got him a face full of her hair and a lung full of what seemed like the smoky scent of flowers at midnight. Why the hell was that so sexy?
Gripping her waist tighter, he lifted her into a standing position and held on until he was sure she could stand on her own.
“There you go,” he murmured, setting his jaw. Since the scent of her hair was getting to him, he placed his hands on her shoulders, pushed her forward a few inches. “Now we need to get out of here.”
Before he did something stupid.
Really stupid.
* * *
Lila wished Hawkins hadn’t let go of her.
She might start shaking again or something. Her heart was still bouncing and her knees did feel a little wonky. And his hands were big and warm. And surprisingly tender.
Or she was in a state of shock from being grabbed, tied up and tossed in a smelly room.
A smelly room he was rescuing her from.
“You ready?”
“To leave this dump?” Lila turned to give him a sardonic look. “Lead the way.”
When he jerked his head toward the door, she figured it was a signal to head for the door. Despite the minute or so of circling her ankles, those first two steps were iffy. Her legs twitched and tingled enough to make her want to scream. It felt like a million spiders were electrocuting each other in her limbs.
Before she could do more than whimper, Hawkins wrapped one arm around her waist and half carried her to the door. Torn between embarrassment and a desperate desire to get the hell out of this pit, Lila grabbed the doorknob. Travis grabbed her hand before she could twist and yank.
“Have a little caution,” he said, his voice low.
His hand still over hers, he twisted slowly but instead of opening the door, he laid his ear against it. Listening for that horrible man, she realized, shivering as dread curled in her belly.
Without thinking, she angled herself behind Hawkins, wrapping her free arm through his and holding tight. She didn’t know what he was listening for, and couldn’t hear a thing over her pounding heart.
That guy who’d grabbed her was huge. What if he was out there?
It was hard to swallow since her mouth was so dry, but after a couple of tries, she managed it.
Hawkins opened the door a centimeter at a time. Before he hit two inches, she squeezed his arm.
“Stop,” she whispered urgently.
Shutting the door as silently as he’d opened it, Hawkins shifted just enough to give her a questioning scowl.
She didn’t care if he looked angry. Her safety was in his hands. She had a right to feel safe, dammit.
“What’s your whole name? First name,” she corrected, shaking her head to rid herself of the confused thoughts racing through her brain. “Full name, and your rank.”
His scowl sharpened as he lifted one brow.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Would you or would you not qualify this as a dangerous situation?”
His stare was hot enough to burn away the last remnants of sleep from her legs, but Lila didn’t budge.
“There is minimal possibility of danger, but it never hurts to be prepared.”
Lila pursed her lips and blew out a long breath. She knew doublespeak when she heard it. After all, she’d been hearing it most of her life.
“So if that guy and his friends are out there, it could get ugly. And while I’m sure you can handle anything that comes up, I believe that I deserve to know the full name of the man who’s going to protect me.”
He simply sighed before shifting his shoulders just enough to give the impression that he’d come to attention.
“Travis Hawkins, formerly Chief Petty Officer Hawkins of SEAL Team 7 under the command of Captain Jerry Traeger.”
Lila felt like returning to the pipe and tying herself back up. Her brother served on the same team. As far as she knew, so had hundreds of others. But this was her life, so this sexy beach bum of a Super SEAL was probably BFFs with her sibling.
“Problem?” he asked. “Need to know my mother’s maiden name or my BUD/S scores?”
Maybe. But she was too afraid the kidnapper might come back to take the time to ask.
“I’ll ignore your sarcasm and you can save my life. Go ahead,” she told him, giving a shooing motion of her hand. “Let’s do this.”
“Stay behind me.”
As if she needed to be told that? Lila rolled her eyes, grabbed on to the waistband of his still-damp jeans and took a deep breath.
“Let’s do this,” she said again.
She followed him out the door, doing her best to keep her steps as silent as his. She couldn’t do it, but she figured it was better to focus on that than wonder what they were going to face.
The boat might be filled with more creeps. The bruiser who’d grabbed her had bruised her with his big fat hand; he’d hurt her arms and legs tying her up so tightly. And he’d scared the hell out of her.
The idea of more like him scared her even more. Especially since she didn’t know what they’d planned to do with her. Whatever it was, she was sure she wouldn’t have liked it.
Nope. Focus on the steps. Watch where each foot goes to avoid the scattered trash. Toes first and ease to the heel.
She focused on her feet, following Hawkins from room to room. Cabins, she corrected after the third one. They were on a boat.
“It’s clear,” he said, his words so quiet she saw them more than heard them. When he tilted his head to the ladder, Lila stepped aside so she could follow his lead. She watched him grab the rails and pul
l himself onto the deck without his feet touching a single rung, and almost laughed. She wasn’t following that lead. Numb or not, she needed her feet.
“It’s the same crappy boat I saw earlier,” she said, looking around when she’d reached the top of the ladder. The deck was covered with crumpled trash, crushed beer cans, splintered planks and a nasty stench. It looked like the scene of a frat party on spring break.
Having experience with frat parties, she tiptoed over to a bench to peer behind it. She angled her upper body to the right to check the helm in case anyone was hiding behind the wheel.
She inched over to the hold, bit her bottom lip and, cringing, started to lift the lid.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Checking for creeps.” Duh.
“The boat’s clear. Let’s get out of here before your creeps return.” He pointed the fingers of both hands toward land.
“Are we swimming for shore?” she asked quietly. And, not that she didn’t trust his skills, but she couldn’t stop looking around in case the creeps were hiding nearby. “I can swim fast.”
“You can swim. Or you can join me when I take that boat,” he said, jerking his chin toward the dingy. “Either way, let’s get the hell out of here before they come back.”
“Boat. Definitely boat.” She gave him her brightest smile and fluttered her lashes. “My hair takes forever to dry.”
Since she was pretty sure that twitch on his lips was a smile, she grinned all the way down the ladder and into the boat.
While he settled onto the bench opposite her and took up the oars, Lila felt all of her adrenaline sink into her toes as she watched Hawkins row. His biceps bulged, then stretched with each stroke, the movement doing amazing things for his tight cotton tee. Was the fabric as soft as it looked? Were those muscles as hard?
She forced herself to look away, focusing on the water instead of the hotness, and blew out a long breath. The man had rescued her from a horrible situation; the least she could do to show her appreciation was to not objectify him.
She knew what it was like to be seen as no more than a pretty face. Her own father basically saw her as a windup doll to be pulled out for hostessing duties, fund-raisers and photo ops.
So it was rude, downright obnoxious, to reduce the man to a bunch of muscles.
Then she considered her day.
She’d been kidnapped by a monster goon, held in a moldy cabin, was rescued by a Super SEAL and had, somehow, survived it all.
She leaned back, resting her elbows on the back of the boat and let her eyes roam the muscled breadth of Hawkins’s shoulders, slide over the mile-wide temptation of his chest, then rest on those mouthwatering biceps.
Hawkins was hot.
So damned hot.
And while she was pretty sure it wasn’t even noon, she was pretty sure today had been the most horrible one of her life.
So if anyone deserved a treat, she did.
Chapter 7
It wasn’t a major op and he might be a team of one, but Travis was pretty sure he’d rocked it.
Then again, he was pretty sure a Boy Scout—with or without his handy-dandy compass—could have tracked down the victim, rescued her from a dangerous situation on par with a flat tire on the freeway.
Still, he estimated that the time from scream to rescue was twenty minutes, five of which were on account of her babbling. Lila was unharmed, they’d left nothing behind and nobody had spotted them. It was good to know that not all of his skills were rusty.
At least, his rescue skills, he corrected, glancing over at Lila. His decision-making skills might be on the fritz. Because now that Travis had her installed in his place, he wasn’t quite sure what to do with her.
She’d gone quiet in the boat, but she’d had a look in her eyes that touched off a flicker of heat in his belly and made him wonder if, once they’d found privacy, she’d suggest they strip naked for a round of sexual gymnastics.
But she hadn’t jumped him. Instead, as soon as they’d gotten here, she’d thrown herself on the couch like a fainting belle, complete with one arm thrown over her forehead.
Leaving him to grab a beer and toast a done job, if not a job well done. And debate whether he was relieved, or disappointed, that she wasn’t interested in acting on that heat bouncing between them.
Relieved, he finally decided, drinking the beer.
That was a very sexy woman on his couch. But she was a very sexy woman that he’d just rescued. Which meant he shouldn’t be focusing on the tempting curve of her breasts, thrown into sharp relief by the angle of her arm. His gaze traveled the length of her torso. Her waist was so small, he figured he could span it with both hands. By the time his eyes reached her hips, his mind was filled with all sorts of ideas, most of which needed a lot less clothing.
Damn, for a pain in the butt, the woman was seriously hot.
So, yeah. She had to go before she caused more trouble.
The kind that was a lot harder to get out of than abduction or murder.
He chugged half of his beer while he walked over to the couch.
“Are you ready to get out of here?”
“And go where?” Lila asked, her words muffled by her arm.
“To the police station, for starters. Then I’ll drop you at your hotel room where you can do this damsel in distress thing in private.”
“That’d be a no. A definite no on the first. And I am in distress, dammit. I was stuck in that smelly cabin for God knows how long. Don’t I deserve a few minutes of damsel drama?”
Since she wasn’t looking, Travis didn’t bother to hide his grin.
“Well, get over yourself. You need to call the cops.”
“That would be the same police department that called me a liar last night?” she said, dropping her arm to her side to give him a wide-eyed, incredulous look.
She had a point.
“They aren’t the only cops in Puerto Viejo.”
Her sigh was a work of art, but it did get her into a sitting position. She shoved both hands through her hair so it fell like a blond curtain over her shoulders, then tilted her chin to one side.
“And you think the other police in this town are going to believe me?”
He considered that, then shook his head.
“Probably not.”
“Then why bother?”
“Maybe because you were abducted, which is illegal.”
“So is murder.”
“But unlike the missing dead guy, you’re here to press charges.”
“Against who?” She pushed to her feet and threw her hands in the air. “It isn’t like either of us saw my abductor. And maybe, just maybe, that boat is registered or whatever to whoever is behind it, but what do you want to bet it’s not? Or given the way my luck is going, that it’s just gone.”
She hurried over to the window with a hard stare, as if she could see all the way to the water and beyond the dunes to where the boat had been anchored. It was gone now, which meant the goons knew she was gone, too.
“I don’t suppose you got any information about that boat? The vessel’s name? Registration number?” She shot him a doubtful look over her shoulder. “Anything?”
Of course he’d looked. Travis debated taking offense, but since the vessel’s name had been scratched off the hull and the registration painted over, he didn’t figure it was worth the energy. Instead, he downed another swig of his beer and shrugged.
“You were the one searching the deck. Didn’t you find anything significant?”
“I was looking for bad guys, not clues. Besides, you’re the Super SEAL,” she reminded him, turning around and giving him a look that made it clear that she didn’t think much of that designation. “Isn’t reconnaissance a part of your job description?”
“I was on rescue, not recon.”
“Likely excuse,” she said, and dismissed it with a flick of her wrist. “The bottom line is that we have nothing to take to the police that’ll ensure they cooperate. They already believe I make crimes up for attention, remember?”
“Your call.” He shrugged. “But your abduction might give credence to your murder claim. Something to keep in mind.”
“If you want the police involved so badly, maybe you should have brought them with you to the boat, then,” she suggested with a smile so sweet he was surprised her teeth didn’t fall out.
“I was too busy chasing after your screams to stop and call the cops,” he pointed out. “Rescuing you was the priority. And rescue you, I did. A little gratitude wouldn’t hurt.”
He’d expected a little more sass. So he was surprised when the corners of her mouth drooped and her eyes filled with regret.
“Sorry. I have a headache.”
“Take some aspirin.”
“I lost my aspirin when that horrible man grabbed me. My aspirin, my wallet and my phone.” For the first time since he’d met her, she looked pissed. “My passport was in there, dammit. All my credit cards. Everything. That’s going to make getting back home quite the adventure.”
Intrigued, Travis watched Lila pace her way from the window to the couch and back again. He’d never thought much about it, but if he had, he’d probably have figured a lone woman in a foreign country who’d just been kidnapped would be a little more freaked out or panicked. Instead, Lila just looked irritated.
“What do you do?” he asked. “For a living, I mean.”
“I’m a headhunter. I match wealthy clients with specially skilled employees. Chefs, nannies, concierges and the like.” She reeled it off in a matter-of-fact tone that told him she’d explained it plenty of times.
“That’s a job?”
“No. It’s a career,” she snapped. “A career that not only requires the right kind of connections and a talent for understanding what people really want, but also intelligence, and organizational skills and freaking determination. Maybe I’m not out there fighting off the country’s enemies, but I make a difference in people’s lives. Do you have a problem with that?”