by Linda Howard
“I’m not the one who turned it on.” He grinned and hooked the towel away from her.
“Water’s getting all over the floor.” She tried to sound disapproving.
“It needed mopping, anyway.”
“It did not!” She pushed a strand of dripping wet hair out of her eyes. “We’re going to be kicked out. Water will drip through the floor into the room below and we’ll be kicked out.”
He grabbed her and swung her around so she was facing the shower. “Turn it off, then, if you’re worried.”
She did, because she hated to waste the water, and it was making such a mess. “There, I hope you’re satisfied.”
“Not by a long shot.” He turned her to face him, holding her lips against his and angling her torso away from him, so he could look his fill at her. “Have I told you today how damn sexy you are?”
“Today? You’ve never told me at all!”
“Have so.”
“Have not. When?”
“Last night. Several times.”
She tried not to be entranced by the way water droplets were clinging to his thick dark lashes. “That doesn’t count. Everyone knows you can’t believe anything a man says when he’s in…uh—”
“You?” he supplied, grinning.
She managed a haughty look. “I was going to say ‘extremis,’ but I think that applies only to dying.”
“Close enough.” He looked down at her breasts, his expression altering and the laughter fading. Still holding her anchored to him with one arm, he smoothed a hand up her torso to cup her breasts, and they both watched his long brown fingers curve around the pale globes. “You’re sexy,” he murmured, a slow, dark note entering his voice. She knew that note well, having heard it many times over the past two nights. “And beautiful. Your breasts are all cream-and-rose colored, until I kiss your nipples. Then they pucker up and turn red like they’re begging me to suck them.”
Her nipples tightened at his words, the puckered tips flushing with color. He groaned and bent his dark head, water dripping from his hair onto her skin as he kissed both breasts. She was leaning far back over his arm, supported by his arm around her hips and her own desperate grasp on his shoulders. She didn’t know how much longer she would be able to stand at all. Her loins throbbed, and she gasped for breath.
“And your ass,” he growled. “You have the sweetest little ass.” He turned her around so he could stroke the aforementioned buttocks, shaping his palms to the full, cool curves. Sunny’s legs trembled, and she grabbed the edge of the vanity for support. The cultured marble slab was a good six feet long, and a mirror covered the entire wall behind it. Sunny barely recognized herself in the naked woman reflected there, a woman whose wet hair dripped water down her back and onto the floor. Her expression was etched with desire, her face flushed and her eyes heavy-lidded.
Chance looked up, and his gaze met hers in the mirror. Electricity sparked between them. “And here,” he whispered, sliding one hand around her belly and between her legs. His muscled forearm looked unbelievably powerful against her pale belly, and his big hand totally covered her mound. She felt his fingers sliding between her folds, rubbing her just as she liked. She moaned and collapsed against him, her legs going limp.
“You’re so soft and tight,” the erotic litany continued in her ear. “I can barely get inside you. But once I do—my heart stops. And I can’t breathe. I think I’m going to die, but I can’t, because it feels too good to stop.” His fingers slid farther, and he pressed two of them inside her.
She arched under the lash of sensation, soaring close to climax as his fingers stretched her. She heard herself cry out, a strained cry that told him exactly how near she was to fulfillment.
“Not yet, not yet,” he said urgently, sliding his fingers out of her and bending her forward. He braced her hands on the vanity. “Hold on, sweetheart.”
She didn’t know if he meant to the vanity, or to her control. Both were impossible. “I can’t,” she moaned. Her hips moved, undulating, searching for relief. “Chance, I can’t—please!”
“I’m here,” he said, and he was, dipping down and pushing his muscled thighs between her legs, spreading them. She felt his lower belly against her buttocks, then the smooth, hard entry of his sex. Instinctively she bent forward to aid his penetration, taking all of him deep within her. He began driving, and on the second hard thrust she convulsed, crying out her pleasure. His climax erupted a moment later, and he collapsed over her back, holding himself as deep as he could while he groaned and shook.
Sunny closed her eyes, fighting for breath. Oh God, she loved him so much she ached with it. She wasn’t strong enough to send him away, not even for his own protection. If she had been really trying, she could have gotten away from him, but deep down she knew she couldn’t give him up. Not yet. Soon. She would have to, to keep him safe.
Just one more day, she thought as tears welled. One more. Then she would go.
Chapter 12
Ten days later, Sunny still hadn’t managed to shake him. She didn’t know if she was losing her touch or if army rangers, even ex ones, were very, very good at not being shaken.
They had left Seattle early the next morning. Sunny was too cautious to fly back to Atlanta; as she had feared, the morning newscasts had been splashed with the “real-life romantic adventure” she and Chance had shared. His name was mentioned, but by some perverse quirk his face was never clearly shown; the camera would catch the back of his head, or while he was in a quarter profile, while hers was broadcast from coast to coast.
One of the a.m. news shows even tracked them down at the hotel, awakening them at three in the morning to ask if they would go to the local affiliate studios for a live interview.
“Hell, no,” Chance had growled into the phone before he slammed it down into the cradle.
After that, it had seemed best they remove themselves from the reach of the media. They checked out of the hotel and took a taxi to the airport before dawn. The plane was refueled and ready to go. By the time the sun peeked over the Cascades they were in the air. Chance didn’t file a flight plan, so no one had any way of finding out where they were going. Sunny didn’t know herself until they landed in Boise, Idaho, where they refurbished their wardrobes. She always carried a lot of cash, for just such a situation, and Chance seemed to have plenty, too. He still had to use his credit card for refueling, so she knew they were leaving a trail, but those records would show only where they had last been, not where they were going.
Chance’s presence threw her off her plan. She knew how to disappear by herself; Chance and his airplane complicated things.
From a pay phone in Boise, she called Atlanta and resigned her job, with instructions to deposit her last paycheck into her bank. She would have the money wired to her when she needed it. Sometimes, adrift from the familiar life she had fashioned for herself, she wondered if she was overreacting to the possibility anyone would recognize her. Her mother had been dead for over ten years; there were few people in the world able to see the resemblance. The odds had to be astronomical against one of those few people seeing that brief human-interest story that had been shown for only one day.
But she was still alive because her mother had taught her that any odds at all were unacceptable. So she ran, as she had learned how to do in the first five years of her life. After all, the odds were also against her getting pregnant, yet here she was, waiting for a period that hadn’t materialized. They had slipped up twice, only twice: once in the canyon, and in the hotel bathroom in Seattle. The timing hadn’t been great for her to get pregnant even if they hadn’t used protection at all, so why hadn’t her period started? It was due two days ago, and her cycle was relentlessly regular.
She didn’t mention it to Chance. She might just be late, for one of the few times in her life since she’d starting having menstrual periods. She had been terrified when she thought they were going to crash; maybe her emotions had disrupted her hormones. It happened.
She might sprout wings and fly, too, she thought in quiet desperation. She was pregnant. There were no signs other than a late period, but she knew it deep down in her bones, as if on some level her body was communicating with the microscopic embryo it harbored.
It would be so easy just to let Chance handle everything. He was good at this, and she had too much on her mind to be effective. She didn’t think he’d noticed how easily distracted she’d been these past few days, but then, he didn’t know when her period had been due, either.
She had talked to Margreta twice, and told her she was going underground. She would have to arrange for a new cellular account under a different name, with a new number, and do it before the service she now had was disconnected. She had tried to tell Margreta everything that was going on, but her sister, as usual, kept the calls short. Sunny understood. It was difficult for Margreta to handle anything having to do with their father. Maybe one day they would be able to live normal lives, have a normal sisterly relationship; maybe one day Margreta would be able to get past what he had done to her and find some happiness despite him.
Then there was Chance. He had brought sunshine into her life when she hadn’t even known she was living in shadows. She had thought she managed quite well, but it was as if B.C., Before Chance, had been in monochrome. Now, A.C., was in vivid technicolor. She slept in his arms every night. She ate her meals with him, quarreled with him, joked with him, made plans with him—nothing long term, but plans nevertheless. Every day she fell more and more in love with him, when she hadn’t thought it possible.
Sometimes she actually pinched herself, because he was too good to be true. Men like him didn’t come along every day; most women lived their entire lives without meeting a man who could turn their worlds upside down with a glance.
This state of affairs couldn’t last much longer, this aimless drifting. For one thing, it was expensive. Chance wasn’t earning any money while they were flying from one remote airfield in the country to another, and neither was she. She needed to get the paperwork for her new name, get a job, get a new cellular number—and get an obstetrician, which would cost money. She wondered how her mother had managed, with one frightened, traumatized child in tow, pregnant with another, and without any of the survival skills Sunny possessed. Pamela must have spent years in a state of terror, yet Sunny remembered her mother laughing, playing games with them, and making life fun even while she taught them how to survive. She only hoped she could be half as strong as her mother had been.
She was full of wild hopes these days. She hoped she hadn’t been recognized. She hoped her baby would be healthy and happy. Most of all, she hoped she and Chance could build a life together, that he would be thrilled about the baby even though it was unplanned, that he truly cared about her as much as he appeared to. He never actually said he loved her, but it was there in his voice, in his actions, in his eyes and his touch as he made love to her.
Everything had to be all right. It had to. There was too much at stake now.
Sunny slept through the landing as Chance set the plane down in Des Moines. He glanced at her, but she was soundly asleep, like a child, her breathing deep and her cheeks flushed. He let her sleep, knowing what was coming to a head.
The plan was working beautifully. He had arranged for Sunny’s face to be broadcast worldwide, and the bait had been taken immediately. His people had tracked two of Hauer’s men into the country and maintained discreet but constant surveillance on them. Chance hadn’t made it easy for anyone to follow him and Sunny; that would have been too obvious. But he had left a faint trail that, if the bloodhounds were good, they would be able to follow. Hauer’s bloodhounds were good. They had been about a day behind them for about a week now, but until Hauer himself showed up, Chance made sure the hounds never caught up with him.
The news he’d been waiting for had finally come yesterday. Word in the underground of terrorist organizations was that Hauer had disappeared. He hadn’t been seen in a few days, and there was a rumor he was in the States planning something big.
Somehow Hauer had slipped out of Europe and into America without being spotted, but now that Chance knew there was a mole in the FBI helping Hauer, he wasn’t surprised.
Hauer was too smart to openly join his men, but he would be nearby. He was the type who, when Sunny was captured, would want to interrogate this rebellious daughter himself.
Chance would take him apart with his bare hands before he let that happen.
But he would have to let them think they had her, not knowing they were surrounded at all times, at a distance, by his men. Chance just hoped he himself wasn’t shot at the beginning, to get him out of the way. If Hauer’s men were smart, they would realize they could use threats to Chance to keep Sunny inline, and they had proven they were smart. This was the risky part, but he had taken all the safeguards he could without tipping his hand.
His interlude with Sunny would end tonight, one way or another. If all went well, they would both live through it, and she would be free to live her life out in the open. He just hoped that one day she wouldn’t hate him, that she would realize he had done what he had to do in order to capture Hauer. Who knows? Maybe one day he would meet her again.
He guided the Cessna to a stop in its designated spot and killed the engine. Sunny slept on, despite the sudden silence. Maybe he’d cost her too much sleep and it had finally caught up with her, he thought, smiling despite his inner tension. He had glutted himself with sex for the past two weeks, as if subconsciously he had been trying to stockpile memories and sensations for the time when she was no longer there. But as often as he’d had her, he still wanted her. Again. More. He was half hard right now, just thinking about her.
Gently he shook her, and she opened her sleepy eyes with a look of such trust and love that his heart leaped. She sat up, stretching and looking around. “Where are we?”
“Des Moines.” Puzzled, he said, “I told you where we were going.”
“I remember,” she said around a yawn. “I’m just groggy. Wow! That was some nap. I don’t usually sleep during the daytime. I must not be getting enough sleep at night.” She batted her eyelashes at him. “I wonder why.”
“I have no idea,” he said, all innocence. He opened the door and climbed out, turning around to hold his hands up for her. She clambered out, and he lifted her to the ground. Looking up at the wide, cerulean-blue sky, he stretched, too, twisting his back to get out the kinks. “It’s a pretty day. Want to have a picnic?”
“A what?” She looked at him as if he were speaking a foreign language.
“A picnic. You know, where you sit on the ground and eat with your hands, and fight wild animals for your food.”
“Sounds like fun. But haven’t we already done that?”
He laughed. “This time we’ll do it right—checkered tablecloth, fried chicken, the works.”
“All right, I’m game. Where are we going to have this picnic? Beside the runway?”
“Smart-ass. We’ll rent a car and go for a drive.”
Her eyes began to sparkle as she realized he meant it. That was what he loved best about Sunny, her ability to have fun. “How much time do we have? What time are we leaving?”
“Let’s stay for a couple of days. Iowa’s a nice place, and my tail could use some time away from that airplane seat.”
He handled his business with the airport, then went to a rental car desk and walked away with the keys to a sport utility.
“You rented a truck?” Sunny teased when she saw the green Ford Explorer. “Why didn’t you get something with style, like a red sports car?”
“Because I’m six-three,” he retorted. “My legs don’t fit in sports cars.”
She had bought a small backpack that she carried instead of the bulky carry-on she had been lugging around. She could get her toiletries and a change of clothes into the backpack, and that was enough for the single night they usually spent in a place. That meant her pistol was alwa
ys with her, fully assembled when they weren’t having to go through x-ray scanners, and he didn’t protest. He always carried his own pistol with him, too, tucked into his waistband under his loose shirt. She put the backpack on the floorboard and climbed into the passenger seat, and began pushing buttons and turning knobs, every one she could reach.
Chance got behind the wheel. “I’m afraid to start this thing now. There’s no telling what’s going to happen.”
“Chicken,” she said. “What’s the worst that could happen?”
“I’m just thankful Explorers don’t have ejection seats,” he muttered as he turned the key in the ignition. The engine caught immediately. The radio blared, the windshield wipers flopped back and forth at high speed, and the emergency lights began blinking. Sunny laughed as Chance dived for the radio controls and turned the volume down to an acceptable level. She buckled herself into the seat, smiling a very self-satisfied smile.
He had a map from the rental car company, though he already knew exactly where he was going. He had gotten very specific directions from the clerk at the rental agency, so the clerk would remember where they had gone when Hauer’s men asked. He had personally scouted out the location before putting the plan into motion. It was in the country, to cut the risk of collateral damage to innocent civilians. There was cover for his men, who would be in place before he and Sunny arrived. And, most important, Hauer and his men couldn’t move in without being observed. Chance had enough men in place that an ant couldn’t attend this picnic unless he wanted it there. Best of all, he knew Zane was out there somewhere. Zane didn’t usually do fieldwork, but in this instance he was here guarding his brother’s back. Chance would rather have Zane looking out for him than an entire army; the man was unbelievable, he was so good.
They stopped at a supermarket deli for their picnic supplies. There was even a red-checkered plastic cloth to go on the ground. They bought fried chicken, potato salad, rolls, cole slaw, an apple pie, and some green stuff Sunny called pistachio salad. He knew he wasn’t about to touch it. Then he had to buy a small cooler and ice, and some soft drinks to go in it. By the time he got Sunny out of the supermarket, over an hour had passed and he was almost seventy bucks lighter in the wallet.