by Lisa Hughey
Birth control immediately popped into his head. He cocked a saucy eyebrow at her. “All of them?”
Di rolled her eyes again. “Really?”
“It’s going to be a long trip,” he said with another suggestive smile.
No bites at all. Riley knew he was trying too hard but he was so thrown off by the fact that she wasn’t falling for his charm that he couldn’t help it. He was overthinking this. And why did he care? Women usually fell at his feet. So what was it about her dismissive attitude that made him want to press up into her personal space and make her admit that she was attracted to him?
He knew when a woman wasn’t interested. But she was usually still receptive to his particular brand of charm. Not Di. She resisted everything he threw at her. However, her body didn’t lie.
Physically, she responded every time he was near enough to kiss her. Her pupils dilated, her nipples peaked, and her cheeks flushed. She tried to disguise her reaction with temper but he recognized the signs.
And he couldn’t help but try and provoke her.
Huh. The response was so odd and out of character he hesitated for a moment. What the hell? But if she wasn’t interested in him, he might as well make it official. She was going to flip a lid once he was done giving her his conditions for traveling on Jolo Island. “While we’re waiting, we need to go over the rules once we hit the Jolo Airport.”
“What rules?” she asked suspiciously.
And he got down to business. “Once we are in country, I am the law. If I tell you to duck, you duck. If I tell you to stay in the room, you stay. Whether you like me or not, I know what precautions need to be taken to keep you safe so we can deliver these supplies without any incidents. I can’t be hampered by worrying if you’re going to ignore my directions.”
With every word he uttered, her body had gotten stiffer and stiffer. He had known she wouldn’t like what he had to say. But since she insisted on coming with him, she was going to follow his rules. Or she was going to find herself hog-tied and on a plane back to the U.S. without stepping foot out of the Jolo Airport.
“Are you freaking serious?” She carefully set her coffee on the little Formica table between the two banks of chairs and stood. She jammed her fists on her hips and then cocked her head as if she were going to go off on him.
Riley crowded closer to her, using his larger body and slightly taller height to try to physically intimidate. At six one he was the shortest of his brothers and yet still damn tall. But when she stood, they were almost nose to nose. It was disconcerting as he tended to date women much shorter than him and far more petite. And why his mind went straight to women he dated, he didn’t know. But she was so close he could feel the heat emanating off her, and practically see the steam coming out her ears.
And the urge to grab her and plant a hot, carnal kiss on those lips was nearly overwhelming. She’d be a damn handful in bed, and her lean, muscled body would fit his like they were two pieces of a puzzle.
“You insisted on coming along,” he rebutted before she even got started.
“I need to come, they’re my contacts, they won’t deal with just anyone.”
“Your contacts. My rules.” Riley’s tone brooked no refusal. “No compromises, and no arguments.”
She opened her mouth to object. He tried to ignore the lush, rounded bow of her lips. For such a rigid, high strung, intensely focused woman, she had the most delicately feminine X-rated mouth he’d ever seen.
Riley held his palm up, right in her face, in the classic, ‘talk to the hand’ gesture. “Not. Negotiable.”
For a moment, he wished she’d stick out her tongue and lick right along the center of his palm.
Instead she nodded curtly, and dropped back down into the hard plastic chair without a word.
That went well.
Three
Di had thought she’d have to fend off Riley Stone the entire twelve hour flight to Jolo, but to her relief, and maybe tiniest disappointment, he sat up in the cockpit with the pilot, Shane, and co-pilot, Ethan. Fortunately she’d brought her Kindle along and after she reviewed their projected delivery routes and the timeline to get all the school supplies where they needed to be and calculated the time they would need to get to the most remote village for her secret and most important delivery, she decided to read a romance.
Di refused to defend her reading choices to anyone. Books had saved her. Growing up she’d been the odd girl out in so many ways, but through books she learned to embrace her own individuality and learned about worlds outside her own.
And she loved romances, even if she wasn’t even close to the romance novel heroines with their perfect bodies, full breasts, and classic beauty. She loved to read about the developing relationship between two people. And maybe she hadn’t found her hero yet, but she had faith she would.
She didn’t need the perfect man, the gorgeous, wealthy, experienced guy. She wanted the right guy. She wanted a man who had similar interests, who felt passionately about making a difference, who would love her for who she was, and nothing else. She wanted to connect with a man on a level so profound that it was intangible and untouchable.
Of course she’d had relationships. Starter relationships to figure out what she liked in a man and what she didn’t. She really thought she’d fall for an intellectual type like Geoffrey, her first long-term boyfriend, grad student and environmental activist. But after awhile he’d bored her to tears.
She’d tried accountants, tech guys, even a scientist. She’d even been engaged once. Each relationship had definitely taught her what she didn’t want.
And maybe, just maybe, she’d had the hope when she’d met Jack Stone that he would be accompanying her to the island of Jolo at the bottom of the archipelago. He was everything she finally realized that she appreciated in a man: large, alpha, gruff, a little awkward, and the tiniest bit sweet.
You couldn’t always see the sweetness but it was there.
Instead she was stuck with Mr. Suave and Superficial. The kind of guy who thought he could charm his way into and out of situations. She knew the type. She’d almost married one. Until she figured out that hot glances and meaningless words didn’t mean true love. It meant she had some use to him.
Riley Stone would just as likely use her as discard her, and she could never be sure if there wasn’t some ulterior motive in his actions. What you saw, definitely wasn’t necessarily what you’d get. Give her a straightforward, honest, emotional cripple vs. a guy who could manipulate any situation to get what he wanted.
Unfortunately, as she read the very steamy sex scene in her current novel, her brain kept substituting Jack’s younger, more annoying brother in place of the hero, until finally Di put her Kindle away and tried to sleep. She wasn’t interested in Riley Stone. She wasn’t. He was a smooth, smarmy playboy who likely had more than one woman in every port.
So why every time she closed her eyes did she see Riley, his sleek body in a tux, top buttons undone, showing just a peep of muscles through the V in his shirt, and an impressive bulge in the front of his exquisitely tailored pants?
Ugh. She squirmed in the surprisingly luxurious passenger seats at the front of the Lockheed C-130 Hercules cargo plane and attempted to clear her mind and get some rest.
Di finally fell asleep. And dreamed. Riley, smiling and sensual, starred in her fantasies as he kissed a path along the side of her neck, his hot wet mouth finding her erogenous zones, the tender curve of her neck where it met her shoulder, the hollow of her throat, and the sensitive dip on the inside of her elbow. She could feel him smiling as he kissed his way over her skin.
He blew a breath in her ear, and her nipples pebbled. Her breasts grew heavy as he trailed his large hands over her body teasing her with firm strokes and sensual squeezes but never touching her where her body craved his touch. Finally, he palmed her breasts and lavished his attention on the sensitive mounds.
Their clothes melted away and they were skin to skin. She reveled in the hot press of hi
s naked body as he wrapped his muscled arms around her and anchored her to him. One hand was on her butt, the other twisted in her hair, her breasts flattened against his pecs, and his thick hairy thigh pressed between hers, rubbing against her sex and rocking her to orgasm.
The throaty moan was what woke her and Di fidgeted in her seat as she realized her subconscious brain had substituted Riley for the hero in her dreams. Di squared her shoulders and shook her head to dispel the lingering images of Riley Stone and her twined together as he blew her mind and sent her soaring into the sexual stratosphere.
And as she felt the vibration of the plane she realized that their descent and the lowering of the wheels was what had truly awakened her.
Thank goodness, no one else had been in the passenger area to hear her.
They landed at the Jolo Airport in a torrential downpour. Di peered out the window but it was impossible to see anything but sheets of rain. She wasn’t even sure how Shane had done it. Although tag-ulan usually lasted thru November, the heavy rain of the rainy season was supposed to be over. That’s why she’d waited until late November to visit and bring the supplies.
Just one more detail about this trip that was not going in any way according to plan.
“Hello, sunshine.” Riley stretched his arms over his head and arched his back, the black t-shirt pulled from the waist of his cargo pants and shot tantalizing glimpses of a hard, eight pack. She wouldn’t have guessed his muscles were that defined. His shirts were just the slightest bit loose and his pants a little baggy and failed to emphasize his clearly muscular physique beneath those concealing clothes.
“Did you have a good nap?” He smiled lazily and Di couldn’t help the embarrassed flush that crept up her face. Hopefully he’d mistake the color for the close air of the stuffy plane.
Riley didn’t say a word but his gaze sharpened as he observed his surly passenger.
If he wasn’t mistaken, and he wasn’t because damn, he knew women—she was aroused. The pink on her sharp cheekbones deepened.
“Sweet dreams?” he asked languidly, and wondered what in the hell she’d been dreaming about.
Di unbuckled from the beat up leather seat and stood abruptly. “I’d like to use the restroom before we deplane.” The Jolo Airport bathrooms tended to be small and weren’t always the cleanest.
“Good idea.” Riley nodded. “I need to coordinate with Shane to get the pallets offloaded to the storage facility. Can you help us out when you’re done?”
Part of reason she needed GHR was because she didn’t have a huge shipment. Jolo was a smaller island and didn’t need the amount of supplies needed to ship on a shipping container. And sending the pallets commercial cargo was too expensive.
At this point, Riley seemed almost businesslike as he spoke to Shane, his fists propped on his narrow hips as they discussed the best way to offload the supplies from the plane to the truck and the storage area. They were going to have to use the airport storage facilities to hold the extra pallets and make several trips in country using Jolo city as their home base.
Di came back out of the lavatory and headed toward the two men. Shane glanced her way with an easygoing smile that revealed crooked white teeth in a round, black face. Instinctively Di smiled back. His biceps strained the short-sleeved flight suite he wore and emphasized the corded muscles in his arms. Was every man at GHR hot?
Di fought the urge to fan herself.
Riley shoved the clipboard with their delivery itinerary and daily schedule in her hands. “We’re going to inspect the pallets and mark them. Can you read the schedule as I go?” For once he wasn’t smiling, he was frowning.
“How about you read it and I’ll help Shane mark them?” She raised an eyebrow, her bitch quotient rising, as once again Mr. Perfect rubbed her the wrong way. Di smiled at Shane.
“Shane needs to get some shuteye so he can load up and return home in the morning.” His abrasive attitude took her by surprise. Mr. Suave was showing some cracks in his happy go lucky demeanor.
Di shrugged. “Fine.”
“Thank you,” Riley replied shortly. Then he visibly reined in his temper, and reverted back to his more laid back persona.
Di read off the list of schools and towns they were going to visit. She had numbered the pallets before they left so that it should be easy to identify which supplies went to which villages and schools.
She faltered briefly, so briefly, hopefully neither Riley or Shane noticed when she rattled off the last school.
“We have an extra set of supplies.” Riley frowned as he stared at the last pallet. The special delivery. The reason she had to make this trip. Now.
Di’s heart beat harder against her breastbone. “No. We’re good.” The slight tremble in her body didn’t reflect in her voice at all, as she visualized a calm placid lake. She’d perfected her lying voice years ago when she and Lailani would lie to Sister Maricel, insisting that their mothers wanted them to help with the laundry, and instead they would sneak out to the river to play hooky.
Sister Maricel had always gazed at them suspiciously but she’d never caught them in the lies and since they had actually helped with the wash, their mothers had never ratted them out.
But Riley snapped his head around and pinned his laser gaze on her. He prowled over to her, moving so much like a predator that mesmerized its prey that she was caught in his knowing, accusatory gaze.
Di’s mouth dried as she stared into his jade and amber eyes, sinful, rich and critical. “What are the extra supplies for, Diana?” he asked silkily, his tone suffused with a pleasantry that was noticeably absent from his body language.
Every muscle stood out in harsh relief, the illumination from the overhead lights, shone down on his body, his chest seemed bigger, harder, his pectorals strained against the black t-shirt, his biceps stretched the hem of the short sleeves, even his neck seemed thicker, as if every muscle were tensed, ready for aggression.
His face, highlighted by the harsh lights, was set in brutal lines. The charming, smiling playboy had disappeared. In his place was a warrior. And he was not happy with her right now. “What aren’t you telling me?”
She held her breath, held her ground, and stared straight into his judgmental cold gaze. Her heart triple-timed in her chest at sense of menace he exuded. “Nothing.” But the word escaped in a puff of breath, more sexpot than firm denial.
Di swallowed.
“Either you tell me, or you go back to the States with Shane and Ethan.” The sensual lips that had enticed and cajoled and smiled a few weeks ago were tightened by an anger so fierce it nearly pulsed in the still, tense air of the cargo hold.
Di refused to cower in the face of his ire. If she refused to be charmed by his lazy sensuality and blatant male interest, then she certainly wasn’t going to be swayed by his fury. “You can’t refuse to take me.” She’d made sure that was in the contract.
“I can if the client, that would be you,” he snarled, “lies to the GHR employee, that would be me, and knowingly puts the client or the company in danger.”
“We’re not in danger,” she scoffed. Although that was likely true, no one could guarantee that island of Jolo was completely safe. Nowhere on earth was totally safe.
“Really?” Riley stalked closer until Di’s back was slammed up against the shrink-wrapped pallet so tightly the hard corners of the ten-year-old encyclopedias dug into her lower back.
She straightened her spine but if she moved even an inch, or breathed too deeply, she’d be pressed up against his hard, intense muscles. He was so close the heat from his body wrapped around her senses. He was up in her grill physically, very intimidating, and not the least bit charming. His surface persona was eradicated by rage. Even with all that anger simmering in him she should be recoiling or at least a little nervous, instead her body to responded to his nearness as if he were trying to seduce her. Her core softened, her nipples hardened into painfully tight buds, and tingles cascaded through her like she was a li
ghtning rod and he was a bolt of electricity.
Clearly he wasn’t feeling any of that as he narrowed his striking eyes—a warm amber surrounded his pupils and the color bled to a deep fractured jade—and loomed over her menacingly. “You have an in with the Moro National Liberation Front that you’d like to share with us?”
Di blinked. Her mind stuttered at his nearness. Usually she was taller than the men around her, not close to the same height which she was with Riley. But somehow his anger had morphed him into a larger, more physically intimidating man.
She needed to push away the unwanted attraction and focus on Riley Stone and placating him so that she was still a part of the delivery of the supplies. She had to get the school supplies to Lailani’s sitio. And she couldn’t do that if Riley blocked her from accompanying him on the delivery route. Dammit.
She did have somewhat of an in with the MNLF, at least with Magtanggol, the husband of her friend, but she certainly wasn’t about to share with ‘angry Riley’. Magtanggol wouldn’t hurt her. He supported Lailani’s efforts to improve the school in their village.
“Of course not.” She put on her best sweet, ‘donate to my cause’ smile, swallowed her natural impulse to argue, and shifted her gaze so that she wasn’t staring directly into his. “But the government and the MNLF have a peace accord in place right now. We’ll be safe.”
“You’ve got to be shitting me.” He shifted back on his heels, his intense regard pulled her gaze back to his. He stared into her eyes, his gaze compelling and penetrating, before he looked up and to the right over her shoulder.
“What?” Di tried to turn around, ostensibly to see what he was looking at. She succeeded in breaking the connection, nearly visible in its intensity, that seemed to crackle between them.
In that moment, Riley knew she was lying. Her pale eyes were wide and she was trying so hard to keep her expression even that she forgot she usually looked at him with a sneer. She hadn’t looked at him this way, ever. The sheer fact that she wasn’t trying to bluster and argue her way out of his question was the most damning of tells. If she didn’t have anything to hide, she’d be ripping him a new one.