“I’m not, huh?” She flashed a dimpled grin at me, cocking her head to the side. “What’s a girl like me got that will hold up against a man like you?”
Sliding my hands around her back, I stepped closer to her and lifted her knees to my sides. “I probably shouldn’t admit this to you, but you’ve got a whole arsenal you could use against me and I’d be helpless to resist. Something you’ve already proven,”—I pointed over my shoulder with a thumb—“by seducing me under a waterfall when I should be focused on keeping you safe while you get some much-needed rest.”
“I’d rather do what we just did than sleep.”
I slid one hand up and swiped a thumb under her eye, right over the dark circle there. “Part of being mine, my precious girl, is letting me do what’s best for you. Your well-being comes before anything and everything.”
“Even amazing sex?”
“Yeah, even then,” I chuckled before getting serious again. “Speaking of which, I wish you’d told me you were a virgin.”
“I tried,” she protested softly. “Sort of, right at the last minute. But I waited too long and then you were inside me and you already knew.”
She was so damn adorable, it was hard to be tough on her. I steeled myself to get my point across because what I needed to say to her was important. “I’m sure you had your reasons for not sleeping with anyone before today, Hadley, and I for one am damn happy you did because I’m the one who benefited from your decision. I can even understand why you were hesitant to tell me about your virginity, Hadley. But no more,” my voice firmed. “If it has something to do with your comfort or safety, then you can’t hold information back from me. No matter if you find it embarrassing or awkward to talk about.”
“You can’t just order me to talk to you about everything,” she huffed.
“I can.” I climbed out of the water, lifting her into my arms and carrying her into the cave. Sitting down, leaning my back against the wall, I settled her on my lap. “In fact, I just did.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” she grumbled. “You’re lucky you’re so hot or else I wouldn’t let you get away with stuff like this.”
“Lucky for me you think I’m hot.”
“Oh, please,” she laughed. “I don’t think you’re hot, I know it. Just like I know any woman out there would agree with me.”
“I don’t care what other women think, Hadley.” I dropped a kiss on the top of her head. “Just you.”
“You’re too good to be true,” she whispered sleepily, followed by a deep yawn. “I’m afraid to fall asleep and wake up to find out you’re not real. To wake up in that bed with the chain on my wrist and discover you’re only a dream.”
“I’m real, my precious girl.” I tightened my arms around her, pissed off at the thought of her being scared to sleep. “And I’m not going anywhere. I’ll be right here when you wake up.”
She tilted her head to look up at me, her eyes drifting closed. “Promise?”
“You couldn’t get rid of me now if you tried,” I answered.
“Don’t wanna anyway.” Her head dropped back onto my chest, her eyes remaining shut while the beat of her heart evened out.
“Not yet, you don’t.” I waited until I knew she was asleep and wouldn’t hear me finish my thought. “But I don’t think you’ve figured out yet that I mean to keep you forever. And when you do, you may change your mind. Not that it will make a difference after you gave yourself to me.”
She sighed in her sleep and cuddled deeper into my chest. “Hell, as long as I’m confessing my secrets, it wouldn’t have mattered before then either. Your fate was sealed the moment I laid eyes on your photo.”
I enjoyed the feel of her in my arms for as long as was safe before pulling her shirt over her head. She barely moved when I tugged her pants up her legs, put her socks and boots on, lacing them up. Then I laid her down on the ground on top of my spare shirt, using my pack as a pillow. She barely stirred through it all. I’d known she was tired but hadn’t realized the extent of her exhaustion.
Once I got her settled, I got dressed and did a quick survey of the surrounding area. There was still no sign of trouble, which meant I figured I could afford to give Hadley an extra hour of sleep. I spent that time finishing up the water in my canteen and refilling it before eating a couple protein bars, staring at her the entire time. It was a sight I’d never grow tired of. Not in a million years. Hadley was my salvation, the prize I earned for the shit I had to do in the Army. And nobody was going to take her away from me. Unfortunately, that meant I needed to wake her up and get us back on the trail so we could get the hell out of this jungle.
I gently shook her shoulder, bending down to whisper in her ear. “Sorry, precious, but we gotta go.”
Her eyes popped open, and she blinked up at me a couple times before sitting up. The first thing she did was look down and laugh when she noticed she was dressed. “Holy crap, I really must have been zonked out.”
I’d said it before, and I’d say it again—she was too fucking adorable. “I told you that you needed the sleep.”
“Nobody likes a know-it-all,” she complained, getting to her feet and dusting the dirt off her lush ass.
I chuckled at her annoyance, earning myself a dirty look. “Not quite true since you like me.”
She tried to hold her glare, but her lip curled up on the sides and her eyes filled with humor. “Didn’t you say something about us needing to leave?”
My heart filled with pride again at her acceptance of the situation as I reached out for her hand and she placed it in mine. “Let’s go.”
We headed back into the jungle, hand-in-hand, with a long way to go before we were safe.
Chapter 8
Hadley
It felt like we’d walked to the ends of the Earth by the time we stopped to rest for more than five minutes. The sun had set. The moon had risen and sunk again. And the sun was high in the sky once again. Brecken had walked beside me the entire way. Until he stopped and gestured for me to get behind him as he hunkered down on the ground, deep in the foliage, knees bent while he dug through his pack. Not a single word was spoken as we drank from the canteen and each ate another protein bar. A quick peek inside his pack revealed his seemingly endless stash of them was almost entirely exhausted. Only two bars remained, and I was nervous about what this meant for our journey.
The idea of going hungry again after my experience with my captors scared me so much I almost couldn’t swallow the bar I was eating, but I forced myself to choke it down and trust in Brecken. He hadn’t steered me wrong yet, and I’d already displayed my faith by having sex with him under the waterfall. Thinking about how it felt to have him move inside me soothed my nerves, shifting my focus away from my fears while I relived one of the best moments of my life.
“Here’s the plan.” Brecken’s voice, as soft as it was, startled me out of my thoughts and made me jerk. “My team should be here in the next thirty minutes or so. They’ll arrive by chopper,”—he pointed towards an opening in front of us about fifty feet away—“landing right there.”
The point where he’d pointed didn’t seem big enough for a helicopter to land. “Are you sure it’ll fit?”
Brecken flashed me a quick grin. “As certain as I was that I’d fit inside your tight pussy.”
I slapped his arm, covering my mouth to stifle my laughter since I didn’t think I could laugh as quietly as we were talking.
“Sorry, I couldn’t resist.”
He didn’t sound the least bit sorry, but that was okay with me because his joke lightened the moment. “Uh-huh, sure you are. I’ll remember that the first time you open the door for a that’s what she said joke.”
“I’m looking forward to it.” The humor drained from his face, his expression turning serious again. “We need to stay hidden while we wait. I want you to rest, and I’ll keep watch. The ground won’t be very comfortable, but I can’t hold you on my lap out here because I need to be ready for anything.�
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My head swiveled as my gaze darted around us. “Do you think we’re in danger here?”
“We’re a good distance away from the kidnappers, and I haven’t seen any signs of them tracking us here. But that doesn’t mean we’re in the clear and the chopper is going to attract attention from anyone nearby.”
“Okay, I’ll be ready too,” I whispered.
Brecken tilted my chin up with one long finger, staring me straight in the eyes. “I need you to rest, to gather your strength in case anything goes wrong when they get here. If this goes sideways, I need to know you’ll be able to make a run for the chopper while I cover your back.”
“No,” I gasped, shaking my head. “I’m not going to make a run for safety and leave you behind.”
This time his smile was blinding. “That’s my precious girl.” He dropped a kiss on my lips, pulling away to whisper against my mouth. “All the training in the world didn’t prepare me for you. If you’re in the line of fire, my concentration will be for shit. The best thing you can do for me is haul ass for the chopper and trust me to get us both out of here safely. Can you do that for me, Hadley?”
“Yes.” It was the only acceptable answer because it was what he needed to hear from me. But if the opportunity came for me to do more? Well, that was something we could argue about later.
We settled in for the wait, me with my back to a tree and Brecken directly in front of me. He was alert, his head turning to scan our surroundings every few minutes and one of his guns at the ready. It gave me too much time to think. As we sat in silence, my nerves found something else to focus on—what was going to happen next. Brecken had been hired by my dad, but I wasn’t sure I was ready to go back home. To face him and the role he played in what had happened to me. He’d let me rot in that hellhole for two weeks before sending Brecken in to save me. I was already pissed at him because of the whole arms dealing thing, and the situation took my anger to new heights. I didn’t know how we were going to move past this.
Then there was Brecken. I’d given him my virginity, but no promises were exchanged between us. It would be crazy for me to think he wanted a real relationship with me. This might not be anything more than a heat of the moment thing for him. I wanted to pretend it was only that for me, but it wasn’t. If it had been anyone other than Brecken who had rescued me, things would have gone differently. The circumstances behind us meeting might have lowered my inhibitions and made me act out of character, but only because the attraction was already there between us. I’d never felt the same pull towards another guy, and I didn’t think I ever would. Our relationship started under intense circumstances, but I wanted it to last. There was no way for me to know if Brecken wanted the same thing unless I asked him.
I gathered up my courage and lifted an arm to grip his arm. “Brecken,” I started, only for him to interrupt.
“Yeah, I hear it too.”
Hear what too? It took me a moment to realize the faint sound in the distance was the helicopter.
Brecken got to his feet and offered me a hand to help me up. “Let’s go. Stay behind me and stay quiet so I don’t get us killed.”
“Get us killed?” I repeated softly, moving quickly to keep up with him.
“We’ve got company coming in hot.”
I looked around us, seeing nothing. “We do?”
Brecken tapped his ear with his free hand, the other holding his gun, aimed ahead of us. “I just heard from Sera, the chopper didn’t go unnoticed.”
“Crap,” I muttered.
“There’s a group of armed men coming from that direction.” He pointed directly across the clearing from where we were approaching it. “Five of them. We don’t know if they’re the ones who took you, but at this point it doesn’t really matter who they are because they sure as fuck aren’t friendlies coming to welcome my team to their neck of the jungle.”
“What can I do?”
“Stay behind me until I tell you to make a run for it. My team will lay down cover fire for us while I cover your back.”
He didn’t have time to say anything else because all hell broke loose. The helicopter hovered over the opening in the trees and several men spilled from the jungle, guns up and firing at it. The sound was deafening, louder than I expected.
“Ready?” Brecken asked.
“But they haven’t landed yet!”
“They don’t need to land to get us out of here,” he answered as a ladder dropped from the side of the open helicopter door to the ground. “It’s time for you to haul ass now that they’ve realized this is an extraction.
Sure enough, he was right. Two of the bad guys started shooting at us instead of the helicopter. Brecken pushed me forward and returned fire. “Go!” he yelled.
I went, running like my life depended on it. Because it did, and so did Brecken’s. With my focus narrowed on the ladder, I sprinted full-out until I reached it, knowing Brecken wouldn’t follow until I’d reached the safety of the helicopter. As soon as I got close enough, I leapt for the second rung and hauled myself up. I scurried up a couple notches, ignoring the safety harness in favor of speed. Then the ladder was being hauled up and I hung on for dear life, my eyes closed while I whispered a prayer.
“She’s in!” one of Brecken’s teammates yelled, and the ladder was immediately lowered back down.
One of the men shoved me deeper into the helicopter, and I watched over his shoulder as Brecken ran towards the ladder, firing his gun as he went.
“Shit! I don’t have a clear shot and the guy in blue is going to have Boss in his sights any second now.”
The helicopter turned, jolting me forward, right towards the door I’d been hauled through moments before. My gaze landed on a spot of blue on the ground. It was a man, with his gun raised and pointed right where Brecken would be running past unless someone took this guy out before he got there. I couldn’t let that happen and acted on instincts deeply engraved.
Springing forward, I unsnapped the shoulder harness of the guy who’d shoved me out of the way, drawing his Beretta out of the holster. I undid the side mounted safety and dove towards the opening, landing on my stomach and bracing myself as Brecken’s teammate gripped my legs to prevent me from falling out. Taking aim, I fired, pulling the trigger over and over again until the clip was empty. Fifteen shots in all, but they were unnecessary because the first one had found its mark straight in the heart of the man who’d been trying to kill Brecken.
Frantic, I glanced down at the ladder and found him hanging ten feet away from the opening as he was being hauled up. As soon as he cleared the entrance, the helicopter lifted higher into the air and turned over the treetops of the jungle, out of danger. Brecken hauled me into his arms, squeezing me tight before pulling away to look at me, shouting above the noise so I could hear him. “How the hell did you make that shot?”
“I guess one good thing has come from having an arms dealer for my father,” I yelled back. “At least he taught me how to be a crack shot.”
Chapter 9
Brecken
Arms dealer? It was damn loud up here with the sound of the motor, but she was close enough to me that I’d heard her clear as a bell. My fascination with Hadley had apparently driven me to fuck up on the research end of this mission because I hadn’t done much looking into her father. He’d come to me on a referral from a well-respected Army General for fuck’s sake. I hadn’t seen the need to focus on him when a man I’d served under had vouched for him. Then, I’d become immersed in what I could find out about Hadley’s life. As soon as I’d tracked her down, I hadn’t waited to charge in and rescue her, assuming her kidnapping was connected to human trafficking and time was quickly dwindling before they moved her to somewhere I’d never be able to find her.
I held my tongue, resisting the urge to question Hadley and leveling Sera and Whit with a glare to ensure neither of them asked her what she was talking about. With her father’s connection to the General, odds were high there was more to the
story. The kind of more that usually came with a top secret stamp on the file. None of us were in the military anymore, but being civilians didn’t mean we were going to discuss what could possibly be classified information with Hadley. Especially not when it was possible the discussion could put her in more danger. Hadley’s safety was my top priority.
Whit drew my attention by waving an ear piece under my nose. I checked mine and confirmed it was working before realizing he meant for me to give it to Hadley, knowing damn well I’d be pissed if he put it in for her. I turned it on and slid it into place in her ear.
“It’s a good thing for you that she knows how to shoot, Boss,” Whit said, making Hadley smile. “Sera wouldn’t have gotten to him in time, and I’m the worst shot of the lot of us, her included.”
“Which is why we need to teach you how to fly one of these suckers,” Devon replied from the pilot’s seat. “To free me up to shoot.”
“Or he could spend more time at the shooting range with me,” Sera added. “Practice makes perfect.”
“I don’t know about that,” Whit drawled, looking at Hadley. “When’s the last time you were at a range?”
“Seven months ago.”
Those three little words held so much nostalgia. I needed to ask her about it later when we were alone.
“See!” Whit crowed. “She was damn near perfect without a hint of practice in almost forever. I was at the range last week and couldn’t have made the same shot she did. My point has been made, practice doesn’t always make perfect. Natural ability factors in and Boss’s girl was born to hold a gun.”
“Enough,” I barked out, feeling Hadley’s muscles tense. Whit, Devon, Sera and I had each killed during our time in the military. Some of us more than others, something Whit took for granted since the body count from his explosives was damn high. But Hadley was a civilian, an innocent twenty-two-year-old woman. Based on her trembling, I was certain her only previous experience with guns had been firing at paper targets. She’d proven herself to be incredibly strong with how well she’d held up over the last day and a half, but killing a man was another thing entirely. After her kidnapping, her time spent with her captors and her escape, this very well could be the straw that broke the camel’s back for her.
Save Your Soul (Body & Soul #2) Page 4