Blind Ambition

by Gwen Hernandez

  Closing her eyes, she focused on the sensations running through her body instead of his intense gaze. Something in his eyes made her heart flip over and she couldn’t bear it.

  He lifted her hips as he slid from her body, and then lay back, pulling her down next to him. She snuggled against his chest, already bereft at the loss of him inside her. But he held her tight, stroking her hair, her arm, her hip. He knew her so well. Knew how to turn her on, how to send her to the stars, and how to ease her down without abandoning her cold and naked to an empty bed.

  He was honorable and caring, and everything she could ever want. And she didn’t know how to explain to him why that made her feel so guilty. Why she couldn’t let herself get serious about him or any other man, no matter how fabulous.

  Not when Despina had never experienced this kind of incredible connection. The ecstasy of a man’s loving touch. The joy of being held in a strong, loving embrace. All because Alexa had been infatuated with a boy in her English class. My fault.

  “Hey,” Dan said. He waited until she opened her eyes. “What just happened?”

  Forcing a playful smile, she said, “We just had incredible sex. Did you miss it?”

  He frowned at her intentional misunderstanding and tugged gently on her ponytail. “I miss it already.”

  She swallowed hard and scooted to the edge of the bed until her feet found the platform. Dan rose to a seated position, the crease between his brows deepening as he watched her back away.

  She leaned over and gave him a quick kiss on the lips. “I’m going to get cleaned up.” Another minute of his probing hazel-eyed gaze and she might do something foolish. “How long until your team arrives?” she asked, hoping to distract him.

  He studied her for a several seconds, sending her pulse into overdrive before he sighed and covered his lap with the duvet, leaving his magnificent torso on display. After a quick glance at his watch, he said, “Less than an hour.”

  “Okay.” She snagged her clothes from the floor, palmed her locket, and made a beeline to the head without looking back. Inside, she twisted her hair into a bun and turned on the shower, letting her tears mingle with the water as she soaped the scent of Dan and sex from her body.

  For just a minute she pressed her palms to the slick wall and let herself imagine what it would be like to have him in her life permanently. To sleep with him every night and wake up next to him every morning. To share the joys and sorrows of each day with him. To love him freely without holding back. To start a family together…

  Absolute heaven.

  She pictured her sister as she’d found her during the assault, broken and crying in the basement of a stranger’s house while drunk teenagers partied in complete ignorance upstairs. All but the three responsible.

  Alexa’s hands balled into fists. Imagining a life with Dan would only lead to heartbreak.

  She washed her face, turned off the water, and toweled dry. Five minutes later she found him on deck, studying his maps again. “Is there anything we need to go over?” she asked.

  He glanced up, his face blank. Gone was the passion, the desire—and maybe more—he’d shown her below decks. He rubbed the back of his neck and took a deep breath. “I’d like you to stay here when the guys and I return to St. Isidore.”

  “Dan, no.”

  “My original mission was to get you home safely,” he said, his voice hard. “Putting you within striking distance of SIR’s rebels again is the exact opposite of that.”

  She understood, and she didn’t want to get in the way, but what if—God forbid—someone needed medical attention? What if Dan and his teammates decked out like soldiers scared the kids? “Your new mission is to rescue the children. That’s what I’m paying for.” She leaned forward and pleaded with her hands. “And I can help. There are eight of them and only three of you, right? Seems like you need all the hands you can get.”

  “It’s too dangerous for you to be involved.” His face reddened in the glow from the helm light and his hand fisted at his side. “And I don’t want your goddamned money.”

  “That’s not what you said earlier.”

  “Yeah?” he asked, his voice rising with anger. “Well, that was before we fucked.”

  Alexa inhaled sharply. Her body flushed, but her ire quickly cooled to sorrow. I’m so sorry.

  The sound of someone clearing his throat cut through the thick silence and she spun toward the dock. Two tall, solidly built men stood in a circle of lamplight wearing matching expressions of chagrin.

  Heat rushed to her cheeks, but she held her chin high.

  The light-skinned black man stepped onto the boat and gave them an exaggerated grin and a wave. “Hey, so, we’re here.” He was movie-star handsome with high cheekbones, a square jaw, and a strong chin. And he looked somehow familiar, though she was sure she’d never met him.

  Dan regained his composure and moved from the deck onto the diving platform, then grabbed the man’s hand and did that back-slap-handshake thing guys did. “Jason. I should have known you’d be fashionably early.” Then he turned to the redhead, who jumped onboard, and he repeated the process before leading the two men up to the cockpit.

  “Guys, Alexa.”

  “Ma’am,” they said in unison.

  Dan gestured to his teammates. “This is Jason Chin and Todd Brennan,” he said in a clipped voice as the men stepped forward in turn to shake her hand.

  She suddenly felt very small and vulnerable, and very alone. Dan was freezing her out, rebuilding the emotional walls that had surrounded him when he first rescued her. His reaction was nothing less than she deserved, but it hurt anyway. And she’d find no refuge with his friends.

  How could she have been so selfish? She had wanted comfort and sanctuary and one more night with him, but what had he wanted? More than she could give.

  Still ruminating, she followed all three men to the helm, where Dan explained the situation and they reviewed maps of the compound where the children were being held, the airfield nearby, and the runway where they intended to land on the south side of the island. Apparently Jason knew the owner somehow and had secured his permission. Dan showed them egress routes and known guard positions, and fielded questions from the guys, his demeanor all business now.

  Occasionally the other two men glanced her way, but she did her best to ignore their looks.

  “Our chief concern is that they’ll move the kids before we get there,” Dan said.

  Alexa crossed her arms, resting her right thumb against the locket tucked into her new bra. “Either to another camp, or just another building.”

  All eyes turned her way, then Jason and Todd glanced at Dan for his reaction. “Yeah,” he said, running a hand through his hair. “I never said this was going to be easy. A lot of it depends on how many rebels we have to deal with and how cooperative the children are.”

  Which was why they needed her there.

  “How are we going to get them to our plane?” Jason asked.

  “Most of them are under age four, so we’ll have to carry them.”

  She shook her head. “Which is why you need me to go with you. There’s no way can you each carry a wiggling, crying baby or toddler and keep them safe at the same time.”

  Todd blanched. “She’s right.”

  Dan’s jaw jumped. “No way. She’s the fucking client.” He looked at her for the first time in almost thirty minutes and her heart took a dive. “I’m not letting you anywhere near those pricks again.”

  The anxiety and pain in his eyes almost convinced her to back down, but she couldn’t let his concern for her safety endanger Flore and the others. “You need me. Those children know me. If I’m there, they’ll cooperate. Who knows what they’ll do if you show up without me, looking all scary in your commando clothes and face paint?”

  “Alexa,” he warned, his voice low and dangerous.

  Stiffening her spine and her resolve, she stood tall and held his angry gaze. Softly, she said, “If you can honestly
tell me that my presence on this mission will do more harm than good, then I’ll stay here.”

  He glared at her for several beats. Then he looked to Todd and Jason in turn. His hands balled into fists, the muscles in his forearms rippling in response. “Fuck.”

  She held her breath.

  He glanced through the windshield and took several slow, deep breaths. “Fine,” he said without facing her, his voice tight. “You win.”

  Somehow it didn’t feel like a victory.

  An hour later, Dan crouched at the edge of the jungle and ignored the itch of sweat trickling down the back of his neck as he surveyed the SIR camp.

  Five guards—that he could see—were stationed around the perimeter, holding AR-15s, standing just outside the bright glow of the floodlights attached to the front of each villa.

  Next to the Jeep Dan had disabled, a dented blue van stood with its cargo doors open as two men wrestled a third-row bench seat from the back. They set it next to a dilapidated boat shack, while a third man loaded the cargo space with blankets. Across the quad, a door opened and a man in a red shirt stepped out of the building carrying a sleeping infant.

  Dan hustled back to the team on silent feet and met Alexa’s worried gaze. “It looks like they’re prepping to move the kids.”

  A black bandana covered her bright hair, and like the rest of them, her face, neck, and hands were dark with shades of green, brown, and black greasepaint.

  They’d hardly spoken in the last hour, but he was acutely aware of her. Every breath that fell from her lips, every step she set on the spongy soil, her scent. Her fear. She was a distraction. Which was exactly why Dan hadn’t wanted her to come along. That and the fact that she was putting herself in danger. Again.

  He could hardly breathe at the thought.

  Shit. Yeah, he was undeniably, head-over-fucking-pathetic-heels in love. Jesus, what the hell had he been thinking coming to St. Iz? Had he really believed he could see her again and not turn into an idiot?

  No. He’d known. He should have told Kurt he couldn’t take the job, but that had never been an option. No matter the outcome, he couldn’t have walked away from this mission. From her.

  She didn’t love him back, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except keeping her—and those children—safe.

  Dan wrenched his red-tinted flashlight from his pocket and shone it onto a rough map of the resort that he and Alexa had drawn up on the yacht while Todd and Jason were off “liberating” another kayak.

  “There are at least five armed guards spread out across here.” He pointed out the locations of the men he’d spotted. “There’s a cargo van here. I think that’s how they plan to evacuate the kids.”

  He laid out the rest of what he’d seen.

  “Why don’t we let them take the kids?” Jason asked.

  Alexa gasped, but Dan held up his hand and she clamped her mouth shut.

  Jason squeezed her shoulder. “Not to let them get away, but to even the odds. We’re vastly outnumbered, and though I don’t doubt our ability to take these men down, it could get messy. We can’t afford that with you and the kids in close range.”

  “Yeah,” Todd chimed in. “If someone sounds the alarm, there’s no telling what these guys will do to the little ones before we can get to them.”

  Dan gave Todd his best shut-the-fuck-up look, but the man merely shrugged. Dan focused on Alexa. “What Jason’s suggesting is that we take the van after they’re out of the camp, so we only have a few guards to deal with instead of an unknown number with superior firepower.”

  “Exactly.” Jason nodded. “Plus, with the kids already in the van, we can drive them straight to the airfield. No baby brigade necessary.”

  “Why can’t we just drive them all the way to Sancoins, then?”

  “Too risky,” Dan said. “We don’t know how long it will take the rebels to realize what we’ve done, but we want to have the kids far away from here by then.”

  “Okay,” she said. “How do we do it?”

  He didn’t like her use of “we” but they’d already been down that path, so he swallowed the curse on the tip of his tongue. “There’s only one road out, so we either need to block it or figure out another way to get them to stop.”

  Jason crossed his arms. “If we block the road, then we have to unblock it to escape. And if we take out a tire, then we’re driving on a flat.”

  Everyone stood silent for a second.

  “They have no idea what happened to us, right?” Alexa asked. “No idea if we got away together. Only that the Jeep is gone.”

  Dan nodded, even as dread put the screws on the muscles in his neck and shoulders.

  “Use me as bait.”

  “No.”

  She huffed. “You guys will be there to back me up. All I have to do is stand in the road and act like we got separated somehow, or that you got hurt and I’m looking for help.”

  He was shaking his head, but Jason and Todd were nodding.

  “Correct me if I’m wrong,” she said, her voice like shards of ice, hands on her hips, “but you can’t just barricade the street and point rifles at them. The risk of getting into a firefight with the kids in the van is too high.”

  “Right,” Todd said.

  Dan skewered him with a look, but it went right over the man’s head.

  “We can’t block the road or disable the van, and trying to rescue the kids at the compound is too dangerous.” She paused and looked at each of them in turn. “They’ll stop for me. I’m worth two million dollars to them.”

  As if anyone could put a dollar amount on her value. She was sure as shit worth more than two million.

  She held Dan’s gaze and pressed a dainty fist to her chest. “Let me do this.”

  He put both hands on top of his head and looked up into the dark canopy. Fuck, fuck, fuck. What choice did they have? Alexa was right. She was here and she could be useful. He let out a long, slow breath and glanced at Jason. The man raised an eyebrow, reminding him of an earlier conversation where he had suggested Dan recuse himself from the mission because he was emotionally compromised.

  He glared at Jason, aware that he was absolutely emotionally compromised.

  “She’s right,” Jason said, his voice grim. “But whatever we do, we need to bust ass if we’re going to get in place before they move out.”

  Dan growled and resisted the urge to kick something. He hadn’t asked for the man’s opinion, but he knew better than to ignore it. “Fine,” he managed through gritted teeth. “Let’s go.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  ALEXA MADE LIKE A ROCK under a canopy of banana palms while Dan removed the makeup from her face with wipes he’d pulled from his backpack. She wanted to drop a witty quip on him to ease some of the tension, but his touch was so soft, so tender that she could hardly force air into her lungs, let alone conjure a clever line.

  Yet for all that he was gentle, his face was unreadable beneath the dark paint, the hard angles of his cheekbones and jaw blunted by the lack of reflected light.

  He stuffed the used cloth into his pocket and held out the pack to her. “Here. Get your neck and hands.”

  They were about a quarter of a mile down the road from the Bent Palms, hiding in the dense growth along the road. Todd and Jason were already in place, Todd closer to the resort so he could warn them when the van was coming, and Jason up ahead.

  Without using guns, their team was going to have to disarm the guards as quickly as possible. The rebels might expect Dan to be hiding close by, but Jason and Todd were the ace in the hole.

  When she was done cleaning off the greasy makeup, Dan gestured for the wipe. “You missed a spot.” He took a long, leisurely swipe beneath her ear, sending shivers along her spine before he stopped near her collarbone.

  For a long moment he stared at his hand hovering over her skin. His gaze met hers in the dim light, but quickly bounced away. Then he stood back to inspect her, clearing his throat. “Okay. Take off the bandana
.”

  With shaky hands, she removed the wrap from her hair and handed it to him. “I’m too clean. It rained on us, and we were covered in mud before.” Her lips tingled at the memory of kissing him under the palms. She was itching for a repeat, but even if they had time to indulge, it wouldn’t be fair to Dan. She had pushed him away after their lovemaking.

  “They don’t know about the mud,” he said, turning away to stuff the wipes and scarf into his backpack. “But you are overdressed.”

  Some part of her balked at stripping for the rebels, but then she thought of Flore and Carter and the other children. Her shirt wasn’t white, and it didn’t reach her knees, but it would have to do. She quickly shucked her pants and handed them to Dan to stow.

  While she was glad he had agreed to her plan, she also felt sick at the thought of facing the SIR soldiers again. So many things could go wrong.

  She pressed a hand to her stomach and took a deep breath.

  Dan faced her took hold of her shoulders. “You don’t have to do this.”

  Steeling her spine, she held his fierce gaze in the dim moonlight that filtered through the broad leaves. “Yes. I do.”

  “We can find another way.”

  She shook her head. “If I were one of the guys—”

  “But you’re not one of the guys.” His hold tightened. “Goddammit.” Striking fast, he closed the gap between them and kissed her hard. He was not gentle or loving or hungry. This was an angry kiss. A fearful kiss. A desperate kiss.

  A kiss she felt down to her toes.

  Just as she found her bearings and started to kiss him back, he pushed her away. “Keep your head down. Be smart. You’re no good to Flore if you’re…if anything happens to you.”

  Still struck dumb from his bruising kiss and the dark look in his eyes, she just stared as he faded into the jungle.

  Turning, Alexa wiped her lips as she moved on shaky legs to the center of the muddy, rutted road. She’d never felt more alone. Rationally, she knew that the guys were out there watching her, ready to jump in and protect her. But fear still weighed down her limbs and made her breaths hard-won in the damp air.