“Marcus? Hello?”
She cleared her throat. “Hi.”
“Oh,” the man’s voice said, obviously a little confused as to why a woman was calling him from Marcus’s phone. “Hello. Who’s this?”
“I, uh, don’t think I can tell you. But I’m with Marcus.”
“Is he alright?” Anxiety creased the man’s tone and Iris suddenly felt terrible for making him worry.
“Yes, he’s sitting right here next to me. He told me I could call you as a character reference.”
There was a slight pause on the other end, but when the man spoke again, Iris could swear he was smiling. “Considering I’ve known him since we were four years old, yeah. I can attest to his character.”
Iris found herself smiling as well. “Alright. Is he a nice man?”
“Yeah. He’s nice enough, when he’s not being a grumpy asshole.” The man paused. “Are you pretty?”
“Excuse me?” Iris’s eyes bugged a little bit.
“I’m just wondering if you’re pretty or not. Because if you are, then he’s probably gonna be extra nice to you.”
“Oh.” Iris had no idea what to say to that. But she had more questions. “Would you send your sister alone someplace with him?”
The man paused. “I don’t have a sister.”
“If you did?”
“Well, that depends. In this scenario, is my hypothetical sister pretty?”
Iris couldn’t help but laugh. “Sure.”
“If you’re asking me if Marcus is gonna be respectful of you, then yes. He will be.”
Iris bit her lip and swallowed the song in her throat down. For the first time since she’d met the agent sitting next to her, she found herself resisting the urge to look at him. This entire time her eyes had been avoiding him of their own accord. “Alright. One last question. Can you confirm what his job is?”
“He’s a federal agent. Wait. Crap. Maybe I’m not supposed to tell people that. Shoot. Will you put him on the phone?”
“Sure.”
“Nice to talk to you, honey.”
“You too.”
Iris handed over the phone. “He wants to talk to you.”
“Hey,” the agent’s deep voice rumbled over her. “Oh, hey Eli. I wasn’t sure if she called you or Jay. I should have known it was you from the way she was smiling.” He paused and grunted for a second. Iris felt his eyes on the side of her face, he was looking at her again. “Yeah. You made her blush. What’d you ask her?” His gaze became even more intense and he shifted against the seat, his hard thigh brushing up against hers again. “Oh. Yeah. She is. Shut the fuck up.”
And then the agent did something that had every nerve in Iris’s body pulling wire tight. He laughed. A deep, rich laugh. Like melted dark chocolate. Iris felt something melt in her gut.
“Look, man. I can’t tell you exactly where we’re going. But, ah, don’t call the cops if any of your alarms go off, alright? Uh huh. Thanks. Love to Tia. Bye.”
He hung up the phone and lifted up to slide it back into his pocket. Silence hung heavy in the car for a moment.
“Feel better?” the agent asked her as he turned off onto another, smaller dirt road that opened up into a grassy field on either side. The ocean grinned cheekily from directly in front of him. On the other side of the field, Iris watched two other cars race in opposite directions down another road.
“Yeah,” she said in a whisper that accidentally turned right into a hum. She couldn’t stop the song now. It was coming out one way or another. So instead of swallowing it down, she kept it low and in the back of her throat, hoping that he wouldn’t hear too much of it.
She felt his eyes on her but she turned her head away and just a short minute later, they were pulling into a dirt parking lot that dead ended into a set of craggy bluffs that gave way into an ocean inlet. Iris could see a few other cars parked haphazardly in the lot and when she squinted, she saw that there were four or five fisherman, hip deep in the water, some of them with fishing lines and others dragging traps.
She expected him to park, but instead, he drove straight onto a dock and toward the tiniest little single car ferry she’d ever seen. In fact, she wasn’t sure it could be called a ferry. She thought it was much more likely filed under the category of pontoon. She crossed her hands in her lap and white knuckled them together.
He pulled the car up, almost onto the ferry, and idled it right next to a man in a folding chair, who had a newspaper resting over his face and his legs crossed at the ankle.
“Beau!” the agent leaned out of his window toward the man.
The newspaper fluttered to the ground as the man was up and out of his chair like a shot. Iris got a sudden eyeful of a nearly naked 70-year-old man. He was tan and leathery as a baseball glove. He wore not much more than a faded, European-style bathing suit that must, at one point, have been red. His chest was hairless and so was his head. His teeth shone out of his mouth like stars in the night sky. Shading his eyes with one hand, the man squinted at the truck.
“Well, if it ain’t Marcus the marvelous. Eli didn’t tell me you—” He sauntered up and leaned into the cab of the truck, his eyes widened as his words trailed off. “My, my, my. Introduce me to your lady friend.”
“I’m not giving you any advantages here, Beau, you’ve stolen enough ladies from me,” the agent evaded smoothly.
Beau grinned that toothy smile across the cab at Iris and she found herself grinning back.
“Can’t argue with that,” the older man said. “If I had a lady as pretty as you, I’d wanna keep her to myself.” He turned back to the agent. “Eli know you’re headed this way?”
The agent nodded. “Got the green light not ten minutes ago over the phone.”
“Yeah, I s’pose that’s alright then. I’ll take you over.” He squinted into the cab of the truck and then into the bed. “You ain’t got no damn groceries.”
“We’re in a hurry.”
The older man gave an exaggerated roll of his head. “Young men always in a rush.” He leaned even further into the cab and waggled his eyebrows at Iris. “You’re wasted on a young buck like him, darlin’. You want a man who knows how to take his time—”
“Alright, alright.” The agent gently elbowed the older man back out of the cab.
Beau grinned even more. “I’ll make the trip back over to the island around 4:00 this afternoon. Maybe I’ll leave a bag of groceries at the ferry launch on the other side.”
The agent nodded. “That would be much appreciated.”
“Y’all know how long you’re gonna be on the island?” Beau asked.
The agent cleared his throat. “Not sure yet.” He went to pull the truck forward onto the ferry but pumped the brake again. “And Beau? You get any strangers out here asking for a ride over to the island, you call the house phone fast, alright?”
Beau squinted at Iris and then his eyes flicked back out to the little green island floating in the not too far distance. Iris followed his eyes. It didn’t look barely populated. She wondered if this was the only way over to the island.
“Anything I should know about that?” Beau asked, bringing his attention back to the truck. “You know I don’t like trouble on my island.”
“No trouble,” the agent shrugged. And Iris felt his eyes flick over to her again. “Just the smallest matter of a jealous ex-husband.”
Beau puffed up at that, his eyes flicking back toward the parking lot. “Ah. I understand. I’ll let you know if we get anybody I don’t know out here.”
The agent pulled the truck forward onto the ferry then, and it was a good thing, because Iris couldn’t help but drop her mouth flat open. Jealous ex-husband? She had nobody jealous, no husband’s, and not even any exes. Except for Jet. Iris internally winced as she thought of the man. He didn’t count as an ex. You had to be an established thing in order to turn into an ex.
The agent didn’t turn to her, but she could have sworn he had half a smile on his face. �
�I had to think of something that would keep Beau from asking too many questions. Besides, he’s got a soft spot for love drama. He’ll be pulling for you now. And probably mean-mugging any man under fifty that comes this way for years.”
Iris hummed understanding in the back of her throat and was slightly dismayed when the hum dissolved into the melody she was fruitlessly trying to restrain.
A few minutes later, the ferry pulled jerkily away from the dock and headed for the small island in the distance.
Iris stayed where she was in the cab of the truck as she watched the land in front of her get bigger and bigger as they approached. The agent stayed right next to her, his thick, hot arm pressing into her side where they sat.
“What’s it called?” Iris asked, nodding toward the island.
“Lotus Island.”
Iris cleared her throat. “And, uh, what state is it in?”
She felt his eyes again. “We’re off the coast of South Carolina right now. A little south of Emerald Isle.”
She let out a long low breath. “Alright.”
The ferry stopped with a light jolt as Beau docked it on the little metal dock on the almost uninhabited island.
“Welcome to Lotus!” Beau shouted to her as he came to the passenger side and helped her down out of the car. The older man’s hand tightened on hers for just a second when he saw her black eye. He must not have noticed it before. Iris resisted the urge to bring her hand up and cover it. Beau cleared his throat. “I won’t let anybody come over, honey.”
He must think her “ex-husband” had given her the black eye. Uncomfortable with lying, even tacitly, Iris simply ducked her head and looked at the floor. Seconds later, the agent was coming up behind her and tossing his keys to Beau. “You mind parking her for me? We’re gonna start the hike.”
Beau nodded, with one last look at Iris, and started around to the truck.
The agent placed a hand on the small of her back and led her forward down an overgrown path, the backpack he’d collected slung over his back. “Usually we could drive up to the house,” he explained. “But it’s gotten overgrown this year, and since we don’t have any stuff, we might as well just walk it. It’s not far.”
“How many people live here?” Iris asked the agent as she walked side by side with him down the thin gravel road that was, indeed, very overgrown. She could hear the water lapping at the side of the island not far from them, and she wondered idly about what kind of wildlife she should be worrying about right now.
“There’s a few houses on the other side of the island, including Beau’s. But we’ll be the only ones on this side.” She could see the outline of a weathered cedar shake house through the ivy-draped trees. “This is my friend Eli’s vacation house. You talked to him on the phone. We’ll stay here for a minute while we figure out what to do next. It’s safe because there’s only one way on or off the island.”
“The ferry.”
“Yeah. Even boats can’t moor here because of the rocks that surround it. The ferry takes the only path possible. We can’t get snuck up on out here.”
Iris made a small noise, to show she was listening, but most of her attention was on the two-story house that was slowly being revealed as they walked around the curve of the road. It was humble in that it wasn’t particularly fancy. But the house was sturdy and impressive. It looked large enough to have a few different bedrooms and there was a spilling, overflowing garden in the front of the house that made Iris think of Ireland for some reason. Even with all the trees in the front of the house, she could see that the back of the house opened up right onto the ocean.
The agent stepped into the garden and kicked a rock aside, fishing a house key out from under it. When they stepped into the house, it was extremely dark and very musty.
“I’ll open up the shutters,” the agent muttered, dropping his backpack on the floor of the house.
Iris closed and locked the front door after her and ducked into the first bathroom she found. When she came out, she blinked against the sudden, bright light that flooded the house. She wasn’t sure where he’d gone, but she didn’t bother looking. She was momentarily stunned by what she saw. He had thrown open all the shutters on the back of the house and revealed floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out over the sparkling, jewel bright ocean.
Iris’s mouth dropped right open as she gasped and rushed forward toward the windows. Now that Owen was getting pretty famous as a musician, she’d stayed in a lot more fancy places. Views of the city and of the mountains. But still, her bare upbringing with coupon clipping and hand-me-down clothes often reared its head in moments like this. She still couldn’t believe that she’d ever be lucky enough to see the early afternoon sun over the sparkling ocean.
Every wave that rolled into the beach was frothy and tipped with white. She could see pearl white birds catching buffets of wind over the water, and she realized that the weather was slightly agitated, kicking up a fuss. She sucked in a breath of pure amazement and delight as the sun glinted off the perfectly turquoise water. Grass as green as turf on a golf course tumbled down toward the golden sand. Perfect. It was absolutely perfect.
She felt all the tension of her last two days dissolve away for just a perfect second as she absorbed the view in front of her. The smile on her face spread of its own accord, swallowing her and lifting her up all at once. Iris, without thinking, turned back to look behind her. The smile still fierce and consuming across her face, she saw that the agent, Marcus, was standing across the room, looking at her. And for the first time since she’d met him, her gaze clashed with his. She looked directly into his eyes. His eyes like the inky black of the ocean at night. His eyes that pinned her in one place. And when he didn’t look away from her face, she felt the slow impact of his eyes over every inch of her body.
His eyes. Holy god. Iris felt a new melody rise up through her, pounding at her temple. She wanted to look away, hide her face, hide her whole self. But she found she couldn’t. His face, handsome and soft when he’d slept in the hotel room that morning, was elevated to a whole other level when you added in those dark eyes. The man in front of her was dangerous, sexual. The man in front of her was primal. Every inch an animal.
CHAPTER THREE
Marcus Marinos was so screwed. He barely succeeded in swallowing back the groan that rose up within him when she turned around and finally, finally gave him her eyes. He’d been aching for those eyes since the moment he’d slammed into that freezing cold basement and seen the light slanting perfectly across her face.
He’d wanted her to give him those eyes when she’d sat so still in the bathroom while he’d washed her. He’d desperately wanted those eyes when he’d fed her slice after slice of that orange. He’d wanted those eyes, badly, when she’d started humming in the car, the delicate length of her thigh kissing at his every time the sway of the truck jostled her.
He hadn’t been sure what color they were and now that he knew—the clear blue of clean Arctic ice—he wished he didn’t know. The second her eyes melted into his, he knew that her gaze was going to be the last thing he thought of when he attempted to sleep tonight.
She was already consuming his thoughts professionally. And now he was worried that those eyes had just catapulted him into personal territory. A very dangerous place during a mission like this. He couldn’t afford to have his attention split. The life of the woman in front of him, finally giving him those eyes, depended on his ability to keep her safe from harm at any and every cost.
The thought hardened something inside of him and it must have shown on his face because suddenly she was dropping her eyes from his and turning back around to look out at the view. Marcus had to resist taking a step toward her. The second he lost her gaze he wanted it back. He felt the loss of it like the warmest blanket being tossed off of him on the coldest winter morning.
“It’s beautiful here,” she spoke and like usual, her gorgeous voice was shaking as she addressed him. It made him want to place a fir
m hand on her shoulder, to calm her. But of course, he stayed across the room and simply let his eyes rest on the graceful line of her back.
“Yeah.” He paused. “The bedrooms are upstairs.”
“Okay.” She turned obediently, her eyes on the floor like usual, and walked past him toward the stairs in the middle of the room.
He hadn’t meant to tell her to go up there, but the woman was very sensitive. She’d been trying to shrink away and hide pretty much from the moment he’d met her. He was totally fine with giving her the space to lick her wounds, but something told him that the second she disappeared into one of those rooms, he wasn’t going to see her again. That shouldn’t bother him. In fact, it was ideal in terms of keeping an eye on her.
She was moving past him, more than an arm’s length away, when he spoke again. His voice made her stop in her tracks, stare at her feet. “You can take any room you want, just not the one on the corner. That one has too many points of entry from the balcony to be safe.”
She nodded to show that she was listening and was gone, moving faster up the stairs than he’d thought possible for a woman so slight.
As soon as she was out of sight, the thin, tight line of tension that held between them finally gave way. Marcus let out a long breath as he walked toward the big sectional couch that looked out toward the ocean. He was fucking this up.
He flopped down onto the couch and pulled the black backpack toward him. The beginning of this job had been perfect, flawless. Well, except for the fact that she’d been abducted en route to him. Marcus had barely accepted the job when he’d gotten the call that he had to go rescue her. He’d been staring at her case file for the first time when the specs of the mission changed. It had gone from keep this girl out of trouble to get this girl out of trouble.
He thought of how he’d snuck up on the warehouse, lit only by a few dim streetlights in the distance. His handler at the bureau had led him there perfectly, given him every bit of information that CCTV had given her. He knew that there were ten men holding her in that building. He knew that she was being held somewhere in the southwest section of the building. He knew that the two bozos guarding the north door were hired muscle, bruisers with virtually no combat training. He’d dispatched the two of them easily, the element of surprise being pretty much the only thing he’d needed in that regard.
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