by Unknown
But then, he liked to improvise. And he was good at it. Good enough that, so far as he could see, there was now only one problem that might really give him grief.
And she was standing a few feet away.
Hell he’d forgotten just how pretty Lilah was. Damned if she still didn’t look just like the Disney version of Cinderella, all gilt hair and big blue eyes and the sort of skin you usually only saw in body lotion commercials.
Unfortunately—at least as far as he was concerned—unlike a proper G-rated fairy-tale heroine, she was also hot. She’d been hot at eighteen and, if his current itchy-fingered reaction to her was any indication, the subsequent years hadn’t done a thing to dim her fire.
Not that there was anything blatant about it. Or her. Far from it. She had a way about her, all elegant carriage and air of restraint that made a guy think of garden parties and symphony openings, not mud wrestling and strip joints.
And that was a big part of the problem. Call him perverse, but at age twenty it had been her look-but-don’t-touch demeanor that had first attracted him. He’d always loved a challenge—still did—and her sorority girl air of being unattainable had been like a red flag snapped in a bull’s face. All it had taken to hook him had been one look. After that, the only thing he’d been able to think about was sinking his fingers into her pale silky hair, cradling her close and kissing the primness right off that delectable mouth.
Of course, that’d been then and this was now. He was thirty years old. A man, not a boy. And she hadn’t just burned him all those years ago, she’d barbecued him. Which was not an experience he had any intention of repeating.
So how to explain the gut-wrenching, skin-tightening, gotta-have-some-of-that desire that had blasted through him the instant she’d laid her hands on him earlier?
“I just want to be sure I understand,” Lilah said, mercifully interrupting his thoughts.
Well, yeah. That makes two of us, sweetheart. I’d like to understand how I can be standing here thinking of all the different ways I’d like to have wild, swing-from-the-chandeliers sex with you when I haven’t seen you in ten years.
“Gran came to your office and hired you to rescue me?”
“That’s right.”
“And your brother has worked for her in the past. That’s why she went to him and how you came to be here?”
“More or less.”
“And after we…knew…each other you left Denver and joined the Navy?”
“Yeah. Now, if you don’t mind, we don’t have a lot of time before the sun goes down and the guards bring dinner, so let me ask the questions.” He’d think about his backstabbing libido later. Say back in Denver. Over a tall cool one at his favorite tavern. In the year 2025. For now, it was time to get down to business.
“How do you know that?” she asked.
“Know what?”
“About dinner.”
He reminded himself to be patient, that it was understandable she’d have questions. “Because I spent yesterday surveilling this place. There’s a big tree about five hundred feet from the compound entrance. It’s tall enough that I could see them ferrying food from the kitchen. Now I need you to tell me whether they come back after dinner to pick up your plate or wait until morning.”
“So far, they’ve always left it until morning.”
“Good. Do you see anybody in between time? Do they do a bed check or come in when the guard changes shifts?”
“No. Why?”
“Because.” He felt for the opening in the seam of his pants just below his hip. “If that’s the case, then once the food comes we essentially become invisible until dawn. And I plan on us being gone from here way before then.”
Disbelief—and a gleam of longing?—flashed in her eyes. Yet she was too well-schooled to expose her emotions longer than that single moment. “Well, yes, that would be nice. But short of dematerializing and squeezing through the bars—” her voice was suddenly cool and uninflected “—I don’t see how you’re going to accomplish that. And even if you could, you’d still have to get the corridor door unbolted and then get past the guards you’re so intent on avoiding. Somehow I don’t see any of that happening.”
He pulled the thigh-length, razor-thin cutting blade free from its hiding place. “Neither do I. That’s why we’re not going out that way.”
“We’re not?” Lilah’s lips parted in astonishment.
And just like that, that prickly wanna-touch sensation washed over him. Because she really did have the most luscious mouth….
“No, we’re not,” he said firmly, forcing himself to concentrate on their surroundings, to triple-check that he hadn’t overlooked anything, even though the layout was already firmly inscribed on his brain. Located on a windswept headland on San Timoteo’s southern tip, the cell block occupied the far end of the walled-off compound that was also home to a commandant’s residence and modest barracks.
The jail itself was the shape of a basic rectangle. At the top of the shorter, western wall was a solid iron door that opened from a guard house into a narrow corridor boasting a single small, skinny window. The corridor, roughly five feet by forty, fronted four small, barred cells that were identical in size and shared a common solid back wall. Their only other notable feature was their utter lack of creature comforts.
Deciding the surroundings were stark enough to depress even his overly active libido, Dom returned his gaze to Lilah.
Who’d taken yet another step back from the bars and was now standing in the sole shaft of sunlight, allowing him to see what he’d missed before due to the deep shadows that draped the room like a heavy blanket.
A smudge of bruises circled her right wrist, a larger contusion ran from shoulder to elbow on her opposite arm, and a fading but still telltale smear of yellow-tinged purple marred one side of her jaw.
The sight made him go cold. Suddenly wishing he could turn back time and have a real go at the sons-of-bitches guards instead of pulling his punches the way he had when he’d let them overpower him, he struggled to contain his anger and keep it out of his voice. “Lilah.”
His voice may have sounded normal, but clearly something—the rigidness of his stance, the muscle that had twitched to life in his jaw—must have tipped her off to his sudden tension because she went very still. “What?
“Did they hurt you?” he asked softly.
“Hurt me?” Despite her cautious response, the fingers of her right hand reflexively touched her battered wrist, revealing she knew what had prompted the question.
“Were you raped?”
Abruptly, her expression cleared. “No.” She shook her head. “No. I’m not positive, but I think El Presidente issued orders that I was off-limits…that way.”
“Oh, yeah? Why would he do that?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe because he only wants my money.”
“So the bruises are from what?” he persisted.
“This—” she indicated the area above her hand and gave a little shrug “—one of the guards got a little rough. The rest—” inexplicably, a faint flush colored the curve of her elegant cheekbones “—are from when I was being held in Santa Marita. There was a car accident. Well, I suppose accident might not be exactly the correct term—”
“But nobody forced themselves on you?” he interrupted, wanting—needing—to be sure.
“No.”
“Okay, then. That’s…good.” As if his vision had suddenly improved—maybe he’d taken a harder hit to the head than he’d thought—he now saw that in addition to having been roughed up, she was on the brink of being not slender but fragile, the kind of look people got when they’d gone too long without adequate food.
The discovery didn’t improve his temper. He wanted her out of here now. Even more than he wanted a piece of the guards, and he wanted that pretty damn bad.
The fierceness of his feelings caught him off guard, but he’d think about it later. Over that beer he planned to drink back home. Without a certain
blue-eyed, satin-skinned blonde to distract him and make him crave things he didn’t need.
“If we’re not leaving through the door, how do you plan to get us out of here?” Lilah asked.
She was nothing if not persistent. “If I tell you, will you stop with the Twenty Questions?”
“Yes, of course. I—”
“Deal,” he said flatly, cutting her off. “To answer your question—we’re going out through the hole I’m going to cut through the wall.”
Lilah watched in shock as Dominic turned his back on her. Stepping close to the expanse of rough gray concrete that formed the back of the cell block, he began to run his hands over it like a blind man exploring a lover’s face.
A score of questions screamed for answers in her head, competing for space with a dozen exclamations. The two common themes seemed to be “how on earth?” and “you’re out of your mind.”
Yet his silence, combined with his averted back, made it perfectly clear he didn’t want to talk.
Well, neither did she, Lilah thought, retreating to her bed. She could use some time to think. And to sift through all the contradictory emotions that were bouncing around inside her like rubber balls in a cement mixer.
She was barely settled, however, and nowhere close to sorting through the jumble of doubt, hope, fear and frustration vying for her attention, when the sound of the bolt being drawn in the outer door splintered the silence.
Her gaze snapped to Dominic. In the fraction of time it took for the door to swing open, her jailmate whirled and slid down the wall to sit in a crumpled heap on the floor, his arms dangling limply, his eyes shut, his head flopped to one side.
If she hadn’t known better, she’d have believed he was an injured man just barely holding on to consciousness. Heaven knew, the guard certainly bought it. Flicking the big American a dismissive look, he said something clearly contemptuous in San Timoteo’s version of Spanish as he headed for Lilah’s cell.
To her surprise, Dom answered back, his voice slurred convincingly.
The guard laughed. The sound was ugly, as was the lecherous look he sent Lilah’s way as he stooped down and slid the small tin plate clutched in his meaty hand through the gap at the base of the bars. He stood and spoke again, blew her a noisy kiss, then strolled back out the door.
The second the sound of the bolt sliding into place faded, Dominic straightened. “Bastard,” he bit out, his voice low but lethal.
Curiosity overcame Lilah’s earlier pique. “What did he say?”
“Nothing you need to hear.”
She pursed her lips. It was hardly the response she’d been seeking, but at least he was talking to her again. “I never knew you spoke Spanish.”
“I learned as a SEAL.” He hitched his muscular shoulders a fraction of an inch in one of his trademark shrugs. “Turns out languages are easy for me.”
“Oh.”
His gaze flicked to the plate. “You should eat.”
She considered the meager portion of beans and flat bread. The food was an unappetizing shade of gray, and she knew from experience it looked far better than it tasted. Even so, the sight of it made her stomach squeeze and her mouth water.
Yet how could she eat when he didn’t? “We’ll share it.”
His reply was immediate and forceful. “No. We won’t. You need it a hell of a lot more than I do.”
He clearly didn’t intend to budge. Since arguing would no doubt be fruitless, Lilah dutifully stood and retrieved the plate. She picked up the crude wooden spoon, unhurriedly ate exactly half of what was there, then walked over and slid the plate under the narrow gap between the floor and the bars.
Without a word, she went back to her bed. When she turned, he was giving her a hard look. She gazed unflinchingly back.
With a curse that made her wince, he reached for the plate, jerked it close, and ate.
“Do you really think you can hack through solid concrete with that flimsy bar?” she asked a moment later as he mopped up the last morsel of beans with the last scrap of bread. “And what about the guards? Won’t somebody outside notice what’s going on?”
“The wall’s aren’t made out of concrete. They’re made out of concrete block,” he corrected, climbing to his feet. “Cemented together with a local mortar, which is made out of straw and mud, and which is what I intend to go after. My flimsy little bar, in contrast, is made of a space-age titanium alloy ten times stronger than tempered steel. And nobody’s going to see what’s happening because the back wall’s built right on the edge of a drop. So yeah. I think my plan will work.”
He walked over and chucked the empty plate at the outer door with a fierceness that startled her. Yet when he turned, he appeared calm and in control, and when he spoke it was with an easy confidence she wanted desperately to believe in. “Give me a little credit, okay? I didn’t just get myself tossed in here hoping an idea would come to me. I know what I’m doing.”
“Yes, of course,” she said faintly. He might look like the boy she’d known, but clearly he was all grown-up. What’s more, he was right. He was her best, her only, hope of escape and questioning him at every turn wasn’t doing either of them any good.
“And now, since our hosts really don’t seem inclined to check up on us despite my bad manners—” he slid his blade free of its hiding place and once more headed for the back of his cell “—I might as well start. Why don’t you try to get some rest? You’re going to need it for later.”
She was being dismissed. Again. Yet this time she didn’t take offense, simply did as he suggested and laid down. Partly because there was nothing to be gained by arguing, but mostly because between the heat, the lack of nutrition and the internal uproar his presence caused her, she was worn out.
She curled on her side, tucked a hand beneath her cheek and lowered her lashes, pretending not to watch as he started his assault on the wall, using his handy-dandy blade thingy to hack away at the mortar.
God help her, but she couldn’t take her eyes off him. And it wasn’t only because of the mesmerizing way his back and shoulder muscles bunched and shifted with his every move.
No, it was also because of her realization that she’d been fooling herself for years, believing the picture she carried of him in her mind was accurate.
It hadn’t been. She knew that now; the proof was right in front of her. At some point in the passage of time, she’d clearly forgotten just how vividly alive he was. Just as she’d forgotten that when she was in his presence, the whole world seemed sharper, brighter and infinitely more interesting.
It had been that way from the very first time she’d laid eyes on him, she thought, remembering….
Once again, it was a hot, lazy June day. She lay languidly on a chaise longue by the swimming pool at Cedar Hill, the palatial Denver estate owned by her grandmother’s newest husband.
Off in the distance, she heard the distinctive whine of an approaching lawn mower and ridiculously, her pulse skittered. Grateful for the camouflage of her sunglasses, she casually shifted her head to the left toward the emerald swath of the five-acre back lawn. She was rewarded for her effort by the sight of a tall, bronzed young man cutting the grass.
She’d first noticed him the previous week; he wasn’t the regular lawn man, and a casual inquiry of Mr. Tomkins, who looked after the pool, had provided her with the information that he was a vacation fill-in.
Whatever the reason for his presence, with his broad shoulders and confident swagger, he was hard to miss. She knew he’d noticed her, too. Unlike the well-mannered boys she was accustomed to, he’d stared boldly at her, his gaze lingering in a way she’d told herself was totally annoying.
Which hardly explained why she’d been lying here for the past hour, hoping to get another glimpse of him. Or why just looking at him now made her throat feel tight. Nor did she understand the panic that bloomed inside her when, as if he’d sensed her regard, he abruptly brought the lawn mower to a halt, shut off the engine and began to walk
toward her, his long legs rapidly eating up the distance between them.
Before she could act on a sudden impulse to flee, he was standing at the wrought iron fence that encircled the pool. “Hey.”
For a moment she couldn’t move. Then, driven by pride and an abruptly awakened sense of self-preservation that warned he was a threat—although to what she couldn’t clearly pinpoint—she slowly sat up. “May I help you?” She used her best drawing room voice in a desperate bid to hide the way her heart was pounding.
“Yeah.” He flashed her a smile that made her stomach flip. “Would you mind getting me a glass of water?”
A bead of sweat tracked down the column of his neck, adding to the damp that made his black T-shirt cling to his muscled chest, and an unfamiliar heat twisted through her. Embarrassed, she reached up and slid her sunglasses off, using the action as an excuse to look away. “Pardon me?”
“I’m thirsty. You don’t seem to be doing anything, so if you wouldn’t mind, I’d appreciate you getting me a drink.”
Her gaze snapped back to him as she tried to decide which was more unsettling: his nerve or her realization that an unfamiliar part of her wanted to do his bidding. “I don’t think so.” She picked up her book and sat back, waiting for him to take offense and stalk away.
He didn’t. Instead, he cocked a hip and leaned closer, muscles flexing as he rested his tanned dusty arms against the top of the fence. “Aw, come on. You’re not too good to mix with the hired help, are you?”
Stung that he’d think such a thing, she ratcheted her chin up a notch. “Of course not.”
He raised one straight, inky eyebrow. “So what’s the problem?”
Their gazes locked. To her fascination, his eyes, which she’d expected to be dark due to his near-black hair and olive complexion were a clear compelling green. And his mouth looked hard and soft all at the same time, the lips full and….
She scrambled to her feet, appalled by the direction of her thoughts. Tossing her long braid over her shoulder, she marched over to the wet bar and filled a tall glass with icy water from the tap, staunchly ignoring the fact that her hands were shaking. Head high, she stalked back to the fence and thrust the tumbler at him. “Here.”