by Cindy Dees
A stack of firewood was piled in a corner, and Alex moved to it quickly. In a matter of minutes, he’d built a fire her Boy Scout brothers would have been proud of. Out of the steady wind, the silence in the cave was palpable. And it got on her nerves fast.
“Where’d a city slicker like you learn to lay a fire like that?” she asked to break the quiet.
Alex didn’t deign to answer and merely shrugged as he pushed a series of smooth, melon-sized rocks close to the fire. The thin, dry wood crackled loudly and burned fast, but it heated up the small chamber surprisingly well. A thin layer of smoke accumulated near the ceiling, seeping sluggishly toward the rear of the cave. Must be a tunnel or vent back there. The back walls, which retreated into shadows—who knew how far back—were pocked with round holes at even intervals, big enough for her thumb to fit in. Maybe those were the vents.
Surprisingly little light seeped in as day broke outside, but that also meant very little cold seeped in, either. Before long, the cave was actually reasonably cozy, enough that she shed her coat and made a nest out of it for Dawn.
Alex unwrapped the infant and, at long last, trimmed the umbilical cord and wiped the last birth blood off her. He frowned down at her, and Katie moved to his side rapidly. “What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Take a look at her. Notice anything odd?”
She stared down at the pink, chubby baby, who had adorable blond peach fuzz hair. Ten fingers. Ten toes. Two eyes. Two ears. Limbs of equal lengths. No visible deformities... Whoa. What?
“Blond hair?” she said questioningly. Every baby they’d birthed so far had had black hair. All the locals she’d met were dark-haired.
“Exactly.” He stared at her significantly.
“How did that happen?”
“The mom was an unmarried girl. Good-looking, right?” Alex asked tersely. “What color was her hair?”
“Yes, she was stunning. And she was dark-skinned and dark-haired like all the locals.”
Alex murmured, “Too much pigment in Dawn’s skin for her to be albino. Only way for her to have blond hair, then, is for her father to be Caucasian.”
Katie’s jaw dropped. “Where did a local girl meet a Caucasian?” To her knowledge, she and Alex were the only Caucasians for hundreds of miles around.
Alex snorted. “Soldiers. Spies. Civilian contractors. Drug dealers.”
“And aid workers like us,” she added, appalled.
“The way I heard it, we’re the only aid workers foolish enough to venture into this area in years,” he retorted.
She grimaced. “That’s what the women have been saying to me, too. Okay, so strike aid workers from the list of possible fathers.”
They stared down at the baby, who was settling down to sleep in her warm nest.
Alex announced without warning, “Strip off your clothes. All of them.”
“I beg your pardon?”
He was already shrugging out of his coat and pulling the black turtleneck over his head. Lord, that man had acres of gorgeous muscle. He reached for his belt buckle and she squawked, “What are you doing?”
He looked up, and his gaze went from concentration on something worrisome to smoking hot in the blink of an eye. “Worried about delivering on the bet you lost?” he purred.
“No, I’m not worried,” she lied belligerently. “I just don’t think now is the time or place to collect.”
He moved to stand a little too close to her for comfort, and she was abruptly aware of how much bigger than her he actually was. And stronger. And they were so very alone out in the middle of nowhere. Literally. He could force himself on her and there wouldn’t be a soul around for miles to hear her scream.
“Angel, when I collect on our bet, it will not be in a squalid cave, and you will beg me for it.”
Her eyes flashed as she instinctively rose to the challenge. “I don’t beg.”
The corner of his mouth turned up in that sardonic half smile of his. “Wanna bet?”
“No, thank you,” she replied tartly. “I’m already indebted to you. I don’t need to add to it.”
“I still need you to strip. All the way down to your skin.”
“Why?”
“I need to check for tracking devices in our clothes.”
She blinked, shocked. “Excuse me?”
“Tracking devices. I need to make sure none were planted on the gear or clothing we bugged out with. I did a quick check before, but in light of last night’s events, I need to do a more thorough search.”
“Who on earth would want to track us?”
“I can think of any number of candidates, and some of them I’d rather not have knowing where we are.”
“Like who?” It was starting to feel like all she did with him was ask questions.
“Not on the list of approved topics between us.”
She scowled. “I’m not stripping unless you answer me.”
His gaze snapped up to hers, and this time amusement flashed before he banked all emotion. “Fine. The CIA. Their Russian counterparts, the FSB. The U.S. Army. Various mob groups. That’ll do for starters.”
“Why would the mob track you? And which mob? What did you do to them?”
“I relieved both the Russian mob and the American Mafia of substantial funds some years ago and have yet to give them an opportunity to win any of them back. For that matter, the Ukrainians don’t like me very much, either.”
“What did you do?”
“I hung out in casinos they owned. In my rebellious youth, I went on a short-lived, but highly productive, gambling spree.”
Math genius. Master’s degree in probability. Cryptography postgrad... “How much did you take them for?” she blurted.
“A lot.”
Huh. And he still had the money? Well, well, well. So the good doctor was rich, too? It hardly seemed fair given how smart, sexy and good-looking he was.
“Why would the CIA and FSB track you?”
He threw her a stubborn look and merely shimmied out of his black jeans. Dang, that man was built.
“Let me guess,” she said wryly. “Not on the list.”
“Bingo.”
Oh, Lord. There went his underwear. Yowza. The good doctor was blessed in every single department of his life. She spun away quickly lest he catch her looking at his junk. The temperature in the cave shot up at least ten degrees as sexual heat abruptly filled the air.
“I’m not kidding about your clothes,” he said grimly from behind her.
Which would be worse? Getting naked at the same time he was or waiting until he was fully dressed again and forcibly undressed her? Wow. That was about a toss-up. A tiny part of her loved the idea of him tearing her clothes off her.... Maybe it was the whole caveman vibe coming out of her deepest, darkest DNA. But she didn’t have any spare clothing and needed what she had on to stay intact. Practical necessity won out, and she pulled her pink turtleneck over her head reluctantly.
Ohmigod. He was watching her. And he was stark naked. Gloriously, unconcernedly so. He’d already seen her in her bra—less than her bra. This was no big deal, right? Except her heart was jumping in her throat and her hands shook like leaves in a hurricane.
She reached for her jeans and unzipped them slowly. Pushed them off her hips reluctantly. Heat blossomed in her face as her lace thong was revealed. She could literally feel his blazing-hot stare taking in her pert little rear end. Men had been commenting on her derriere since she’d been old enough for it not to be creepy. She knew it was firm and high and lush enough to turn men on without Alex having to tell her so.
“Nice.”
“Could you at least be a gentleman and turn your back?” she blurted.
“Kitten, I’m a lot of things, but a gentleman is not one of them. You owe me sex anyway. I’m eventually going to see you naked, so why not now?”
Because she barely knew him. Because he was naked, too. Because part of her wanted him to take advantage of the situation, and she was a big, fat c
hicken about that part of herself. Fantasizing about a dark, dangerous man like Alex Peters was one thing. Being naked and alone with him for real was another thing altogether. She didn’t want it to be that way, but it was. She was a fake, and she couldn’t handle a man like him.
Damn.
The promise of sex hanging thick and heavy in the air pulsed between them, pulling her toward him. An urge to run her hands over that magnificent body, to pull him to her, to make love to him, surged within her, startling her. Sure, she felt attracted to guys at work and joked around with her girlfriends about jumping various guys’ bones. But that was all in fun. This compulsion originated low in her belly, deep and primordial. Lust in its purest form. Mindless. Insistent.
“What’s wrong?” he murmured.
She resorted to mumbling, “You’re making me strip in front of you and you have to ask that?”
Something warm and soft dropped around her shoulders, making her lurch. It smelled of sandalwood and spice. His coat. “Sometimes I forget what an innocent you are. Wear this until I check out the rest of your clothes.”
The driving need she’d experienced at the sight of his naked body subsided, and she all but cried in her relief as she tossed her thong and bra over her shoulder to him. An innocent? Was she really, in spite of her best efforts to get people to let her grow up—and then it hit her. Other people weren’t preventing her from growing up. She was preventing herself from doing it. Chagrin roared through her. A real man was within arm’s length, naked or close to it, and she owed him sex. All she had to do was reach out and take it. And yet...
And yet. Fear held her back.
Alex worked in silence, turning each piece of clothing inside out, running his fingers carefully over each seam, examining tags and pockets and anywhere else a burr might be attached.
“How big would a tracking device be?” she asked curiously without turning around to see if he was still starkers.
“Depends on how big a battery it has and how long the person who plants it wants it to work. A short-term device, say, for a single day, could be the size of a pinhead. Something a little longer term, like I’d expect to get used on us, might be the size of a grain of rice.”
“Long grain or short grain?”
He chuckled briefly. “Okay. Your lingerie is clean.” A big, tanned hand emerged over her right shoulder, the lacy bits dangling from his fingertips. She snatched them from his hand and maneuvered into them awkwardly underneath his coat. Who would have guessed two tiny scraps of fabric could make her feel so much better?
Her shirt took longer, and her jeans longer still, to check. But eventually he passed them over her shoulder, and she was safely clothed once more. But no sooner had she pulled the shirt back over her head than Dawn started to fuss.
“She’s hungry again,” Alex announced.
Katie had been around a lot of little kids in her day, but not many infants. She would take his word for it. She scooped up the baby and the IV bag that he held out to her and moved over by the fire with her back to him to coax the baby to drink a little more.
It took giving Dawn her breast again to get the infant to swallow, and Katie pinched her own nipple, mortified at how turned on doing it made her, before Dawn could find it and latch on. The sensation of the tiny mouth sucking vigorously at her breast was overwhelming and confusing. It felt good, but not in a sexual way.
It also felt very wrong. Like she was co-opting a moment that belonged to someone else. That poor dead girl should be doing this. Although, given how much she’d hated Dawn, Katie doubted the mother would have fed the child. More likely, she’d have drowned the baby or suffocated her. Katie clutched Dawn more tightly and fell in love a little.
“I need my coat back,” Alex said apologetically. “I have to check it.”
She passed him the garment, and he stepped close to drape her coat over her shoulders. As he did so, he paused to watch the baby suckling at her breast and swallowing the IV fluid Katie was sneaking into the baby’s mouth.
“Beautiful sight,” he said in a hushed voice.
She looked up at him in surprise. That was the last thing she’d expected to hear from the dark, sexy bachelor.
He reached down to cup the baby’s tiny head in his hand for a moment. “Such a rotten start in life, baby Dawn. I’m so sorry I couldn’t save your mother.”
“You did your best. And if that girl had lived, I expect she would have killed Dawn as soon as they left us. Maybe this is how it was supposed to work out—that the baby lived and the mother did not. Goodness knows, that girl would have had some tall explaining to do if and when she married. Not only would she not have been a virgin, but her body would have shown the signs of having borne a child. She would have been beaten to death if she was lucky. Perhaps a quick end on that mountain was the merciful way for her to go.”
“God, the barbarism of it,” Alex muttered.
“If we take Dawn to America, she’ll grow up in a very different world.”
“There’s no ‘if’ about it. Not with that blond hair of hers. We have to take her with us. She’d be a pariah at best in this society and horribly abused at worst—assuming she were allowed to live at all.”
Katie shuddered and cuddled the infant a little closer. She was starting to feel downright maternal toward the small bundle of squirming warmth.
Alex went back to the business of inspecting his coat and then all the gear in his emergency pack, which he spread out over the floor of the cave. She was surprised to recognize an array of survival gear in among the medical supplies—energy bars, matches, Cyalume sticks, compass, water purification tablets.
“How is it that you had a whole backpack of medical and survival supplies ready and waiting to go last night?” she asked.
He shrugged. “Call it a hunch. Those rebel forces kept showing up at exactly our location and attacking, and it made me suspicious.”
“Of?”
“Do you always ask so many questions?” he demanded.
“When people are being cryptic with me, absolutely,” she declared.
He sighed. “I was suspicious of somebody not being happy we’re out here.”
“Are we in direct danger? And don’t dodge the question. I grew up listening to cops and soldiers. I know exactly what kind of danger we’re in if someone wants us dead.”
He shrugged. “I won’t ever bullshit you, Katie. That I promise. I may refuse to answer a question, but I won’t lie. Deal?”
“Deal.”
“I think someone not only knows we’re out here, but wants us dead. Which makes me question Doctors Unlimited. They are supposedly the only people who know we’re here. Someone within D.U. isn’t who they claim to be.”
“There’s a mole? Why would anyone spy on a humanitarian aid group?”
“That is the question, is it not?”
She thought hard. Placing and maintaining a full-blown mole had to be a difficult and expensive proposition for a spy agency. Why go to all that trouble to watch a bunch of doctors and nurses.... Unless they were not just doctors and nurses? She looked up at Alex and asked soberly, “What do you think D.U. does besides render medical aid?”
“I don’t know.”
“If you had to guess?”
He shrugged. “That’s obvious, isn’t it? They insert people right in the middle of the hottest conflicts on the planet with covers that make them more or less immune to attack or arrest.”
“Spies?” she breathed. “For whom?”
“You tell me.”
She stared at him, shocked. “I don’t know anything! I didn’t even work for D.U. until they needed a Zaghastani translator for you.”
Alex was studying her far too closely again. Like he was trying to look inside her soul and see what truth she was hiding from him.
“Maybe we’re just being paranoid,” she said a little desperately. “Maybe it’s coincidence that the fighting has flared up in the places we’ve been.”
He sno
rted. “I can calculate odds out to nine figures in my head in under a minute. And you don’t want to know how many zeros line up after the probability of it being random chance.”
She put her coat down on the rough bed and tucked Dawn back into her nest, now surrounded by hot rocks to keep her warm, and turned to Alex in the dancing firelight. “Do you trust D.U. enough to call and ask for transport out of here?”
A derisive snort was his only answer. Frankly, she shared the sentiment. If someone in the organization had set them up to be killed, she didn’t want to talk to D.U., either. She asked, “What do we do now?” Interesting that she had complete faith in him to have an alternative plan. No doubt about it, he was one of the smartest people she’d ever met.
“We’re going to get some rest and wait for dark.” A look of deep reluctance crossed his face. “There’s a place I know...not too far from here... I was really hoping not to have to go there.” Grim determination replaced the reluctance. “Can you hike twenty miles or so over rough terrain if we break it up into a couple of days of travel?”
“Depends on the terrain, but I guess so.”
He sat down beside the fire, leaning back against a convenient rock. He held his arm out to the side. “Share the fire with me?”
She stared, shocked. He was inviting her to cuddle with him? He so wasn’t a cuddly kind of guy! He was a torrid sex, love ’em and leave ’em kind of guy. Stunned, she sank down beside him and tentatively rested her head on his shoulder. His arm went lightly around her waist and she hesitantly did the same.
“What do you do to work out?” she murmured.
“Vigorous sex. You?”
She grinned and retorted, “Pole dancing, of course.”
“Show me sometime?”
“Not on your life.”
Silence fell between them, and she savored the slow, steady beat of his heart against her ear. The warmth of the fire and the flames’ mesmerizing dance had lulled her mostly to sleep when he murmured under his breath, “I’m a devil you can’t handle, angel. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll stay far, far away from me.”