She repeated the motion again, making him groan, making him sweat, before she took his face in her hands and kissed him.
Brand’s hands rode up her back, skin like satin and cream, and she trembled when he ran one finger up her spine too. One of her hands was curved around his nape, while he controlled her motion, enough to give them both so much pleasure that they cried out.
He kissed her quiet, maybe to swallow her cries, maybe to not let anybody else know where they were, but he kissed her quiet.
And then she rode him.
Hard and fast and in an agony to reach some kind of finish line, where there was heat and stars and action. When she came, her eyes blinded opaque by the power of her orgasm, he raised her higher and suckled her so that it continued to ripple through her.
Ariana gasped and bit into shoulders which were slick with sweat and effort and he continued to thrust into her.
“More,” he growled, when he rolled her over the poncho, keeping one hand on her back, while he thrust over and over into her.
Her legs opened wide, wider, to take as much of him as she could while she could still breathe, and the world didn’t swallow her whole. Sensation piling on sensation piling on skin, until she knew she’d break.
She opened her eyes to see him, saw the fierce pounding need inside of him. It broke her and made her offer her whole self to him then.
Her orgasm swept her away a second time before she could open her mouth to scream, shout, beg, and, this time, he couldn’t just watch. With a shudder, he came into her, and he groaned.
Akira bit him right on the spot where his neck met his shoulder, because she was losing her mind and all power, all control, and if she didn’t hold onto him she’d splinter and die.
Brand kissed her, before he heaved one final time and then shuddered apart in her arms.
Her arms held him to her, while he spent himself in ways he couldn’t even imagine.
His head dropped on her shoulders when he couldn’t stop anymore. And he held her so tightly he was afraid he’d crush her bones, but he couldn’t stop anymore.
Thirty-Six
When Akira woke up, she was dressed in Brand’s tee shirt and a belt and nothing else. And he was looking at her with a strange expression. He was also fully dressed.
Right down to his shoes.
He was fiddling with the GPS nav-system and talking on what looked like a satellite phone. She’d seen pictures of one when she’d done a story in Europe on one of the larger telecomm giants unveiling a prototype model. It was supposed to cost in the six figures, and very hard to come by.
Just how much was he rolling in, if he could use expensive, no, make that super-expensive, equipment like this?
She smiled at the serious, almost brooding picture he made. The sun was all out in their little clearing now, and she could better see and appreciate what she’d missed last night. Of the man and her new surroundings.
The forest was alive now, with birdcalls and other forest-like things. Most of which Rumi, a survivalist would be able to identify, but Akira just found charming.
Plus, the green canopy was excellent shade against the high sun. For which she was grateful.
She could make out glimpses of blue sky, where the leaves broke pattern and, for a second, considered the vast beauty in which she found herself…a real live part of the Amazon forest.
Then she shifted sight to the man brooding magnificently at the phone.
Brand was sitting against a tree trunk, a chaste ten feet away from her and tapping something now on the phone. He’d somehow found the time to clean up his battered face and dress his wounds. Plus, he was shirtless which just made her mouth water.
“Looks like we’re all set, aren’t we?” Akira stretched and sat up.
~~~~~~
Brand glanced up irritably. His brain froze with whatever thought was going to come out of it.
He had thought all the desire was sated. Certainly after round two, when she’d been dead to the world, and he’d clothed her as best as he could, he’d thought it was all under control. This flaming, uncontrollable want.
But, she’d been sleeping. And he’d been lying to himself.
Now she was awake, yawning and smiling at him, while the action did interesting things to her body and his own. Even ten feet of distance, and a smart talking-to hadn’t really changed anything inside him.
“Good morning, Akira.” He deliberately made his voice sound cooler than he felt, the one-eighty, of what he really felt. All hot, all burning up. It had to be the fever from the leg wound.
It just had to be.
Akira’s warm smile faded as she caught the ice in his tone, and saw the familiar blankness in his eyes.
She walked over to him, and look at the communications devices in his hands. “So, what time’s the cavalry get here?”
He glanced at her. He’d been prepared for a lot of things when it came to her reaction. Anger, frustration, irritation. But not casual acceptance.
How could she let him get away with treating her like that?
Brand concentrated on his breathing, willing the anger to disappear with will alone.
Akira was digging into the backpack and shaking her head.
Again, he suppressed the need to just go to her and hold her. Just that. Nothing more.
She looked about twelve in her current outfit, with just the huge-tee shirt on, and the belt cinched at her waist; her legs were displayed to stunning advantage. And she should have looked grubby, filthy.
With the kind of day and night they’d had, she should have looked horrible.
And, he supposed, if she looked into a mirror, she might think that.
But, with her hair all tangled in a halo through which the sun streamed and the creamy complexion of her skin, a foil against the warm brown of her eyes, he ached. He ached to sit and look at the vibrant, alive woman who seemed to grab at everything life threw at her and make the best out of really bad situations.
It scared the hell out of him.
“What are you searching for, Akira?” he asked, finally. After staring at her for a good two minutes.
“A damn toothbrush,” she muttered.
~~~~~~
The rescue team - consisting of Lucas, Murad and a new guy called Jared - came in a Sikorsky, landing on a ledge off one of the lesser cliffs, a good mile’s walk away from where they’d spent the night.
And she began to understand the vast resources and connections Brandon Rice seemed to possess.
Akira and Brand scrambled on a rope ladder and the helicopter rode off with them dangling in mid-air, before Brand made her climb the rungs. They’d clambered in quietly, and spent the next three hours in silent contemplation of the waters of the Strait of Magellan.
It unnerved her that she’d counted on him to come through for her. Not just last night, but this morning as well. She was dealing with the weight of that knowledge even when they landed.
Akira had known the mess she was landing herself in when she first took up Sebastian Delgado’s cause. It involved death and mayhem, for herself certainly if not others.
But she saw Brand sleeping, dozing while the chopper flew them to a safe house. There was worry and stress and pain on his bruised, turning yellow face even while he slept. And she knew some of it could be attributed to her.
Last night had seemed like such a good idea. Especially after he’d made her so mad, she’d literally spit at him. But now, in the cold clear light of the morning, she was less sure. Especially because she knew he was.
She’d expected Brand to come through for her personally too, she admitted to herself.
And that’s what made her turn resolutely towards the window and stare out of the chopper with no thought in her mind except a clean shower somewhere.
Don’t believe in anything, it will do wonders for you.
And because she was a woman who could make her will work for her, she’d done her best to talk to Brand’s team members. Disco
vering, to her delight, that all her work was happily saved on the team’s personal somewhere, when he’d ‘accessed’ her research and uploaded it for his team to sift through, every single night.
She was so glad she even forgot to be mad at him for hacking into her life.
They landed at the island and drove for an hour up winding roads. The men laughed and talked to her, telling her some hairy stories about their time together with Brand.
Brand, who’d been administered morphine for his wounds, continued to sleep on the journey.
The resort was on top of an unscaleable peak, and she liked it immensely.
They stowed the luggage in the hallway because Brand informed her in a slurred voice that someone would take care of it, and she asked the whereabouts of the bathroom.
Then she walked into a spacious, half a football-field length spacious, bathroom which had a whirlpool bath, an indoor Jacuzzi with a stall that held twelve shower jets. And a full-length mirror over one wall.
She dropped dead at the sight of her reflection.
Her hair was a tangled mass, her arms and legs were full of little cuts and the bandage on her cheek was smudged with dust and green stuff. All in all, she looked completely awful. Exactly like someone who’d escaped death only twelve hours ago.
The truth knocked into her with the force of a blow.
And she gasped out loud. In pain.
She had to stop this, didn’t she? She had to stop putting people at risk because of her.
Wasn’t Brand right? She had no respect for her life at all. And she’d lose it one day. And she’d never get to do all the things she ever wanted to do. She’d never get to be an award-winning journalist, or raise orchids, learn to use the oven, or be a wife and mom….
With a soundless sob, she let the anger and the fear, the mind-numbing fear pour out of her in great torrents.
~~~~~
Brand found her like that twenty minutes later.
Standing in the middle of the huge bathroom. One canvas shoe on, one toed off, staring at herself in the mirror. And crying so soundlessly that his heart actually stopped at the sight of her tears.
He then did the one thing he’d promised himself he wouldn’t do. He went to her.
And just held her.
Thirty-Seven
“I am really stupid,” Akira said in a wobbly voice, snuggling into him. And heard the reassuring beat of his heart against a clean white t-shirt.
She’d needed him, she realized now, as the tears were spent out of her. She’d needed him to hold her exactly like this, silently and without reassurances, just for these few minutes.
It should have alarmed her, because she didn’t make a habit of needing people, especially of the male variety, but for now she suspended her judgment and just felt.
Just needed.
He’d come through for her.
She closed her eyes as she felt him brush a soft kiss on the top of her head, his stubble catching on a few strands, before Brand asked, “And, although I don’t disagree with that character assessment, why do you think so?”
She sighed. “Because, it took my ratty hair to make me see how insane I am, trying to be James freaking Bond.”
Her hands were around his waist and they were just holding each other in a ginormous bathroom.
This felt nice.
He laughed, and leaned back to look down at her. “James Bond is a hell of a lot more cautious than you.”
Akira laughed, shakily, but she laughed. “He’d take offence at being called cautious.” She was wry as she stepped back, reluctantly, from him and decided that as much as canoodling rated for itself, a hot shower and clean clothes were very much in order.
He smiled then, a slow, devastating smile that made his eyes turn into warm black holes she could fall into. It turned her heart out from the inside out.
Akira thought, consciously thought, for the first time, I could fall in love with this man.
It scared her senseless, even more than being shot at or being held hostage for torture.
“Although on second thoughts, I’d have to say, he wouldn’t look as sexy in this outfit.” He gestured at the barely there t-shirt dress.
Her smile was extra-wide, a little sultry. “Why, Mr. Rice, are you flirting with me?”
He smiled back. Innocently. “I do not flirt. I take what I want, I don’t have time for flirting.”
“Ooh, a caveman. How original!” She walked to the huge shower stall and opened the throttle to the different jets, adjusting the temperature as she went.
“Well, they were incredibly good at what they did. And clubbing a woman is effective. Especially if she is as mouthy as you, love.” He shrugged at her fulminating look.
“My mouth is very talented,” she shot back, shedding the belt and the t-shirt.
All thought fled well south of his brain and his eyes narrowed. He took a step towards her.
She grinned back at him and shut the shower stall door. It wasn’t glass-covered so he could barely make her out over the covering.
“And I’ll prove it to you next time.”
He pivoted on his heel and thought about bad luck and bathrooms all through his own cold shower.
~~~~~~
Lucas and Murad had good news and excellent news.
The good news was that the safe house in Vienna had not been infiltrated and nobody had discovered Sebastian’s whereabouts. Plus, the new contingent of guards was doing better than the old ones.
And the excellent news was that, for once, Sebastian was behaving himself.
And they didn’t even have to ask why.
Lucas finished his briefing with the conclusion that their guest and employer was doing as well as could be expected under the circumstances.
It was Jared who brought up Akira’s name into the conversation. They were all in the cellar of the resort, where temporary communications had been set up, and they had at least one commandeered satellite tracking Sebastian for them. Not that he was stirring out of his rooms in the villa in Austria.
“The president has a crush on the reporter,” Jared commented, looking at the monitor that held Akira’s image.
She was brushing her hair, bundled in a robe that was two sizes big for her. She was humming too, and looked to be in remarkable good spirits for someone who’d just had an emotional breakdown.
Brand raised an eyebrow at that remark, because he was busy looking at file photos that could possibly help identify the dead leader to them. Plus, there was all that data that had been collated from Akira’s research on his computer that needed to be parsed and analyzed.
There was the small matter of Gerald De La Hoya and his head on a platter. La Reine De La Mer. A thousand details to oversee and organize.
“Why do you say that, Jared?” It was all Brand permitted to ask himself.
Jared grinned and shrugged. He hadn’t been with Brand’s outfit as long as the others. And he did not recognize the difference between avid curiosity and genuine curiosity.
Lucas, on the other hand, understood the perfect stillness in his boss. He tried to shoot the cocky man a warning glance that went unheeded.
Jared grinned, while he played around with the console near the monitors. Now there were two monitors that had Akira brushing her hair, instead of just one.
“Well, for one, he waits eagerly for your daily updates and mutters over the parts that concern her. And I saw him reading his own obituary with unholy interest. The man’s hooked,” Jared replied logically.
“Then why would he send her over on a quest that could possibly end in her death?” The question slipped out before Brand could stop himself.
Jared laughed aloud as he saw the black look his boss gave him.
Lucas, his blue eyes dancing, shot up one hand and whirled from the computer console to warn. “Jare, shut up. Seriously. You’re going to get us all fired.”
Brand glowered at him. “Obviously my time away from you guys has completely destroye
d your intellect,” he remarked quietly.
Banking down the unreasonable anger he felt at Sebastian’s feelings for Akira… feelings he was perfectly entitled to have.
Even if they were involved right now, and had spent a memorable night together, it didn’t mean that tomorrow they wouldn’t go their separate ways.
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