by Unknown
God. She’d replayed that scene endlessly over the years, and even after all this time the memory of her own passivity made her cringe. Yet she’d also forgiven her and Dom’s younger selves, having come to realize that, similar to her attempt to hijack Condesta’s car, they’d been going full-out without a plan or a destination. Even if they’d managed to negotiate the obstacles in the road that would have cropped up over those next few months—her grandmother’s certain opposition, their physical separation, the gaping disparity in their financial situations—the fact was they’d simply been too young.
Regaining a semblance of control, she pushed the thought aside and scrambled to her feet, pushing through the tangle of vegetation until she had a narrow view of the road below.
An ancient pickup trailing an noxious cloud of black exhaust hiccupped into sight, the body so rusted that it was impossible to tell the vehicle’s original color. A tanned forearm rested atop the windowsill, only to be replaced by a gloriously familiar face as Dom stuck his head out and his gaze zeroed straight in on her hiding place. “Well?” He raised an inky eyebrow. “Are you coming or what?”
Relief flooded through her. He was all right. “I’ll be there in just a minute,” she called. With feet that felt suddenly light, she dashed back to retrieve their stuff.
She may have loved him as a teenager, she thought as she snatched up the backpack and slung it over her shoulder, but she’d been young and there’d been so much about herself that she hadn’t understood. What she’d felt then didn’t come close to the depth of her feelings for him now.
Fate or luck or life—whatever one wanted to call it—had given her a second chance. If things didn’t work out this time, it wouldn’t be because she hadn’t opened her heart and shared what she really felt. When the time was right, when she was sure disclosing what was in her heart wouldn’t serve as a distraction that could imperil their safety, she’d tell him the truth.
Until then…He was safe and they were still together.
And for now, it was enough.
Ten
T he pastel stucco buildings of Santa Marita were fading to silver and the rich midnight-blue sky turning to black as they finally rolled into town that night.
Although “rolled” was a relative term when it came to describing the pickup’s ride, Dom thought caustically. Limped was more like it. Or maybe lurched….
It had been a long thirty miles. The radiator had overheated, the choke on the carburetor had stuck, they’d had one flat tire, a near-flat spare and he’d had to rig a makeshift air filter out of the tail of Lilah’s T-shirt.
Add to the mix a road so narrow that for most of its length meeting another vehicle meant somebody had to back up until there was room to pass, and his too-late discovery that tomorrow was Santa Marita market day, which had meant the closer they got to the San Timotean capital, the more up to the fenders they’d been in bleating, darting, unpredictable goats. It was a journey he had no interest in repeating. Ever.
About the only good thing, he thought, glancing down at the woman whose pale golden head was propped on his thigh, was that Lilah was finally getting some much-needed rest.
She deserved it. Without qualification, she’d turned out to be a real trooper, doing everything and anything he asked. She hadn’t complained about their less-than-inspiring rations, or said a word about her mangled feet, or whined about being hot or dirty or tired, although she’d certainly experienced all three. She hadn’t dissolved into hysterics yesterday when she’d answered the call of nature and a constrictor had dropped onto her out of the trees. Hell, she’d even been stoic about today’s truck ride, not saying a single negative word, even though she’d been bounced and jounced and rattled around like dice in a gaming cup.
Unable to stop himself—hell, not even trying—he smoothed the back of his hand over the warm silky curve of her cheek. Murmuring drowsily, she surfaced just enough to clasp his hand and cradle it against the cotton-covered valley between her breasts.
A tired smile curved his mouth. Even dozing, she was luring him toward that coronary. It was just too bad for both of them that they were running out of time….
Smile fading, he reclaimed his hand, nudged the battered straw cowboy hat that had come with the truck a little lower on his forehead and told himself to knock it off.
Whether it was the hushed intimacy of the darkened truck cab or his lack of sleep finally catching up with him, he couldn’t seem to rein in his brain. And though part of him was totally focused on keeping the shaky truck tracking straight down Santa Marita’s traffic-clogged main street, while also keeping a watchful eye out for the policia as he considered the best route to the cantina he’d chosen as a fallback option before setting out for Las Rocas, part of him was fixed on Lilah…and him.
As galling as it was to admit it, a sort of melancholy had been niggling at him for the past several hours. And though he knew damn well it was just the normal letdown that usually accompanied the end of a job, he still couldn’t seem to shake it.
Most likely, he told himself, that was because despite the usual stress and worry inherent to any hostage recovery, when you got right down to it, he was having a helluva good time.
Yeah. That’s one way to put it. Or you could be honest with yourself and admit that not only is the sex a thousand times better than anything you’ve ever experienced in your life, but so is the company.
And he was about to bid adios to both.
He swore under his breath at the way his usually orderly brain kept circling back to dwell on that. Because, hell, it wasn’t as if anything had changed. He and Lilah still came from different worlds. And though the divide between them may have narrowed over the years, he still wasn’t a happily-ever-after kind of guy. Even if, for the first time in his life, the idea didn’t seem completely outside the realm of some future, distant, maybe-when-I’m-older possibility.
But it wasn’t going to happen any time soon. And definitely not now. Because if experience had taught him anything, it was that it was always a mistake to anticipate the end of an assignment. This was often the most dangerous time of all for various reasons. You were tired, the prospect of imminent success tended to tempt you to lower your guard, getting extracted usually required an increased level of exposure—the possibilities for mistakes were endless.
So until Lilah was safely beyond Condesta’s reach, he needed to keep his mind on the job. There’d be plenty of time to get his head back on straight and his tangled feelings sorted out later. Over that ice-cold beer he kept promising himself he was going to have back in Denver.
Up ahead, a lighted sign running vertically down the corner of a building flashed on and off, advertising cold drinks and hot women. Saluting the landmark with a flick of his fingers, Dom drove past it and began counting off the following blocks. When he hit number five, he stuck his arm out the window to signal, since the truck’s turn indicator didn’t work, and wrestled the wheel to the right.
Blacktop quickly gave way to dirt, and without streetlights to keep it at bay, the darkness pressed in. Dom counted himself lucky that the pickup’s headlights worked. God knew the dashlights didn’t, but then, it didn’t really matter. He didn’t need an odometer to tell him how far he’d traveled; he was accustomed to navigating strictly by memory. And in fact, the more cloaked in darkness he and Lilah were, the better he liked it.
He took a left at a dilapidated warehouse, passed a crowded row of apartment buildings, took another right at a vacant lot. And there, dead ahead, was his objective: a long low stucco building with a broad, trellised patio strung with hundreds of gaily colored lights. A flotilla of old cars and trucks, most of them as decrepit as the one he was driving, packed an adjoining parking lot.
He could hear the noise—amplified guitars, the heavy beat of drums, singers pounding out something that was a rousing mix of country and Caribbean, an occasional shout or burst of laughter—half a block away. Slowing as he got closer, he drove into the parking a
rea and headed for an empty space at the back, which happily happened to be sheltered by an enormous jacaranda tree. With an inexplicable twinge of regret and anticipation, he switched off the truck’s engine. “Li. Wake up, baby. We’re here.”
For a moment she didn’t respond. Then her eyelashes fluttered up. She lay still, clearly struggling to wake up.
“What time is it?”
“Going on eight.”
“Umm. Feels later.” Yawning, she sat up and stretched, rolling her shoulders. She looked around. “Where are we?”
“El Gordo Gato.”
“Okay.” She yawned again. “I’ll bite. What does El Gordo Gato mean? And why are we here?”
“Back home we’d call it the Fat Cat Tavern. And we’re here because it’s got a big, diverse, constantly changing crowd and a pair of pay phones that are actually maintained. It’s the perfect place to make a call and not get noticed.”
“Oh.” She shoved the hair off her face. “Okay. Just give me a minute to find my sandals and—”
“No.”
She sat back from her search of the floor. “Excuse me?”
“Think about it. The way you look—you’d attract attention anywhere. And how many blue-eyed blondes do you think they get in here?”
She blinked. “If I can’t go in, why did you wake me up?”
He shrugged. “The locks on this heap of junk are busted, like everything else. No way am I going to go off and leave you defenseless.”
She considered that for a moment, then smiled. “All right, I agree that’s a pretty good reason. Thanks.”
Her smile went straight to his gut and the now familiar need for her twitched to life inside him. The one that should have been long past satisfied, given the level of sexual intimacy they’d already shared—but wasn’t. “You can pay me back later,” he replied, as serious as he’d ever been in his life.
Twisting sideways, he reached into the gap behind the seat and dropped his pack into the space between them. He retrieved the gun, racked a round into the chamber, double-checked the safety and handed it to her. “Keep that beside you. And cover your head.” He removed his hat and thrust it at her. “Even in the dark, your hair stands out.”
He watched as she bundled up her hair and settled the hat into place. It was too big and on anybody else it would’ve looked silly. On her, it looked good. But then, as he’d come to expect, she could wear a burlap sack—or nothing at all—and still somehow manage to look stylish.
Feeling oddly as if he were losing some sort of battle he didn’t remember agreeing to fight, he dragged his gaze away from her and climbed out of the truck. Shoving the rusty door closed, he ducked down and leaned his head inside. “This shouldn’t take more than ten minutes. If anybody who’s not me comes close enough to touch the truck—shoot ’em.”
Pushing away, he headed inside.
“This is…heaven,” Lilah murmured, locking her fingers together over her head and stretching languidly atop the thin, blanket-covered mattress that took up most of the small, detached shed behind the cantina.
Dom glanced her way and shook his head. “You must have heatstroke. There’s no bathroom, no box spring, no sheets, no electricity, for God’s sake.”
“True.” She rolled on her side, propped her head on her hand and enjoyed the show as he stripped off his shirt and dropped it on the rickety chair in the corner. “I guess I’ve learned to appreciate the little things. Like being out of the truck, and getting to sleep on a level surface without bugs or rocks. Oh, and a hot meal. That was wonderful.”
She didn’t add that the very best thing of all was the gift of this night. Thanks to a storm that had apparently skipped past San Timoteo but was now blowing itself out to the north and east of them, they were on their own for at least the next twenty-four hours. And though that might change after Dom and his brother conferred again in the morning, for now it was just the two of them. Given the impending separation that she’d feared earlier in the day, that suited Lilah just fine.
“I’ll give you the food, the truck and the rocks, but I wouldn’t be so sure of the bugs,” Dom said, recapturing her attention as he leaned over the basin of lukewarm water balanced atop a wooden shelf nailed to the wall. He splashed his face, and the muscles in his arms and shoulders, which were tanned bronze by a week in the sun, bunched and flexed like a living sculpture.
Except for the small, puckered scar just below his left armpit, which, after a lot of prodding, he’d reluctantly explained was the result of a “slight miscalculation” he’d made, his back was perfect, Lilah thought: broad across the shoulders, tapering to narrow hips and a tightly muscular backside an underwear model would covet. Cleaving the center, like an exclamation mark of perfection, was the long smooth valley of his spine.
Her breath caught with sudden longing—to touch him, to hold him, to never have to let him go. “It’s also really nice,” she said softly, “to have the candlelight so I can look at you.”
He stopped drying his face on the threadbare cotton towel El Gordo Gato’s owner had, for the right price, cheerfully supplied along with everything else, no questions asked.
Tossing the towel in the general direction of his shirt, he turned to look at her, his posture suddenly acquiring a sort of coiled watchfulness. “That sounded a lot like an invitation, princess.” His gaze locked on her, he undid his pants and peeled them off, the washboard stretch of his abs hollowing as he flicked the garment toward the corner.
A little thrill of anticipation shivered through her. “You don’t need one,” she said honestly. “My door is always open to you.”
He’d started toward her, but just for an instant, as her statement registered, he seemed to check himself in mid-stride, the strangest look flashing across his face. Then he sank down on his knees, and his gaze slicked over her like liquid heat. She was sure she must have imagined that look.
“Lucky me.” His voice was hushed and as soft as cut velvet. “Now, what is it with you rich girls? Always over-dressed.” He made a chiding sound and reached for her, wrestling her out of her T-shirt. “It’s enough to make a guy—aw, man.”
She smiled at his reaction as she closed her hand around the thick, silky thrust of his erection at the same time she twined an arm around his neck and kissed him.
She flexed like a contented cat, exulting in the hard warmth of his chest against her breasts, the crisp tickle of the hair on his legs brushing her thighs, the rock-hard feel of his biceps as he braced himself above her.
Need tangled with all those delicious sensations, and it was way too much and not nearly enough all at the same time. The only thing she knew for certain was that she couldn’t seem to get enough of him. Not of the taste of him on her tongue, not of the heated masculine weight of his arousal straining against her palm, not of the blatant, brash suggestion of what was to come as his tongue breached her lips.
Yet Dominic clearly had ideas of his own when it came to their upcoming schedule. “Slow down, Li,” he rasped, lifting his head in the same instant that he captured her hands in his and stretched her arms over her head.
“But I want—I need—let go.”
“I don’t think so,” he murmured. “I like looking at you, too, you know. Especially when you look the way you do right now, all flushed and ripe and…ready for me. And I like the way you feel. You’re just so damn soft. All over….”
He shifted, his lips brushing unhurriedly over her temple and skating slowly, slowly down the side of her face. For all her impatience, there was something both electrifying and mesmerizing about what he was doing, and her eyes drifted shut as if weighted.
She savored the exquisite tenderness of his touch, her breath catching as he pressed butterfly kisses to her eyes, the curve of her cheek, the underside of her jaw, then shifted his attention to the silky stretch of skin behind her ear. She felt his mouth curve with satisfaction as she moaned, overcome by the contradictory sensations of his hands pressing her wrists into the matt
ress while his lips tied the rest of her in knots.
Once again he began a slow drift downward, honing in on the thudding pulse at the base of her throat, tasting it, testing it, stubbornly refusing to move on even as she began to twist restlessly beneath his touch. It seemed like a lifetime had passed before he finally painted a line of kisses down the midline of her chest, then blazed a trail up the soft inner curve of her breast.
Displaying a true talent for delectable torment, he slowly circled her nipple with the tip of his tongue. By then, she was strung tight and quivering, but still he refused to be hurried. With painstaking attention to detail, he repeated the action. Once. Twice. A third time.
Every nerve in her body screamed with expectation before he finally licked the sensitive tip of her breast, only to follow up with a soft stream of breath that sent her arching up off the mattress.
He laughed low in his throat, a purely male sound of satisfaction. “Aw, baby, you’re so damn gorgeous,” he told her.
His words soothed her only a fraction. Yet even as she blew out a breath of frustration, Lilah realized she wouldn’t trade this pulse-pounding torture—or his obvious enjoyment of it—for the entire Anson fortune.
Still, she didn’t want him to get too pleased with himself. “I see a pair of handcuffs in your future,” she warned when she could finally form a sentence.
“Yeah?” He sounded anything but repulsed by the idea. “You better be careful what you say, princess. I might just hold you to it.”
And just like that, she was twisting on the vision her own words conjured up. As if she were viewing a movie, she could see him lying on his back, tied to a massive bed, all that taut golden skin and sleek muscle on display, just waiting for her to explore.
There’d be candlelight, and she’d be dressed in something incredibly sheer and sexy. She pictured herself climbing up onto the mattress, straddling his narrow hips and giving him a taste of the same medicine he was giving her tonight. She’d string kisses along the achingly beautiful angles of his face. She’d feast on the hard curve of his mouth, lick an agonizingly slow path toward the shallow indent of his navel—