by Karen Anders
His muscled arm went around her and he pressed her to him. “Sleep. We’re safe for now. I’ll take the first watch.”
“Derrick—”
“No arguments, Emma.”
They were two fiercely independent people, but right now, this minute, leaning on him felt so damn good. Along with the feeling of safety his arms offered, there was emotion filling her chest.
There was a line she couldn’t cross. She couldn’t. And it had everything to do with her sister and Matty. Everything to do with this man, who was doing something to her that no other man had been able to do.
They had a job to do, working together imperative.
Blurring the lines, getting romantically or physically involved with Derrick was a big no-no. Emma wasn’t going to go down that road. The biggest reason really had nothing to do with her sister or this mission.
Derrick, stoic, brooding Derrick, scared the living daylights out of her.
Chapter 7
Emma rested heavily against him as he propped his back against the outcropping. The sun had been up for hours. They were resting in the depression in the earth he’d made to bring down their body temperatures, along with the cool, dark shadows that kept the increasing heat directly off them. But more important, it hid them from sight.
His arm tightened around her, both protective and impressed. Time to assess the damage. They were compromised here, stranded in the desert without adequate food and water, pursued by the cartel and he was wounded. But they had his cell, ammo, his wound wasn’t that severe, and they both had their documents still around their waists.
He was under no illusions here. This was a serious situation and the Sonoran Desert was no joke. But he was a master at surviving in a large desert—in Afghanistan.
He shifted and winced as his arm protested. He flexed it; the pain was manageable. He’d been shot before, but grazes were the worst and the best. At least the bullet wasn’t still in his body.
Taking a steadying breath, he looked down. Emma’s thick, copper lashes lay on her cheeks and he caressed the fine bones of her beautiful face with his eyes. Her cheeks were flushed, her skin glistening. It was hotter than hell in the Sonoran Desert in mid-June, sometimes reaching 120 degrees. It was imperative they sleep in the day and travel at night. But Derrick didn’t like the feeling of being pursued. He wasn’t exactly the full-frontal assault guy. He liked to work from the shadows. Traversing the desert was dangerous enough without having a bunch of crazy, gun-toting killers after them. He also felt protective of this woman, even though she knew how to handle herself. He wanted her out of danger. He would put his mind to a plan.
She was asleep beside him, a disquieting feeling settling in his gut. She was lying with her head on his shoulder and her arm around his chest, the rhythm of her breathing indicating a very deep and heavy sleep. It wasn’t a surprise. They had pushed themselves hard yesterday.
He focused on her mouth. He couldn’t help it. Her lips were slightly parted, pink and inviting, looking soft and warm. All he had to do was move his head just a bit and he could press his mouth against them, take something he’d been thinking about since she’d eyed him coming out of the shower.
He wasn’t oblivious to the kind of attention women paid him. He understood he was handsome. He’d used that to his advantage more than enough in the past. His looks aside, he was aroused by the way her eyes sort of...took him in. She wanted him, at least physically, but he wanted something more. Disturbed by that thought, he tightened his arm around her reflexively, the erection he’d woken up with hardening. The attraction between them was inescapable. He was a realist and Derrick wasn’t going to waste his time or energy denying it. Emma might, but that was her prerogative.
She shifted and made a sleep-soft murmur, then settled deeper into his arms. Never in his wildest dreams had he expected something like this to happen. Not now. Not after so many years of keeping himself...separate. In the deepest part of his heart where he’d let go of his love for Afsana and the pain of not being able to claim his son, he acknowledged that getting involved with someone he worked with again was completely stupid.
And, he wanted to get involved.
Completely, with full-body contact involved.
His expression grew more somber. He was aware why that rock in the pit of his gut sat there heavy and undeniable, growing into a boulder. He was self-aware, analyzed his feelings as he was taught, looking for a work-around. He was heading for the kind of mistake that could really screw him up, screw up this mission, something he wasn’t about to let happen.
The memory of the day his son was born took shape in his mind, and Derrick rested his free arm over his eyes and clenched his jaw, an old anger rushing up inside him. Anger over the last meeting with Afsana and how he’d sworn her to secrecy because her life and that of his unborn son depended on her silence, her heartache. He wasn’t worried about his career like she’d accused him. He kept tabs on them through his web of contacts. He had to keep them safe because it had been him who’d put her and the baby she carried, his child, in danger in the first place.
Experiencing an acid rush to his belly, he stared out at the landscape as barren as his thoughts. He’d lost focus back then and it had almost led to disaster. If he gave in to this attraction, could he be making the same mistake here?
Emma stirred beside him, and Derrick glanced at her and rubbed his hand up her arm, wishing for more contact. Intimate contact. Tightening his arm around her, he watched her for a moment, then stared back out at the landscape, trying not to think at all. He felt as if everything was closing in on him.
She stirred again and murmured his name, and Derrick glanced down at her, realizing she was caught in that half-conscious state between sleeping and coming awake. He wondered why she’d said his name like that, breathless, with longing. The kind of longing that caused a hollow sensation in the pit of his stomach.
“That air conditioner is a joke. Hot, so hot,” she whispered.
He looked down at her, a small twist of a smile working loose. He would have been happy to oblige, if only they were in a place that afforded them cool, refreshing air. His expression softened just a little as he watched her come awake. He got lost in thinking how easy it would be to arouse her when she was like this, how quickly she might respond, how soft and yielding she might be. But he shut that thought down almost immediately. He couldn’t afford to slide into that trap again. He had made one mistake; he shouldn’t compound that by making another. Assets...working partners...were best left alone.
That thought dissipated when she opened those crystal-blue eyes, still lost in some dream, unfocused and so warm when they met his. “Derrick,” she said, the same breathless longing there. “You saved me.”
He had no idea if she had been dreaming about him or if she was referring to yesterday. He just got lost in the way she looked at him as if he was her hero, the kind of man she needed. She reached up and smoothed her hand along his jaw as the desert temperature climbed another impossibly hot degree. Her fingers brushed over the bruise from the blow yesterday; concern filled her eyes and she pushed up so her mouth could press against his jaw.
He closed his eyes and breathed her in deep. The scent of heated woman, her mouth soft and aching as she kissed him. He’d been so lonely and his connection with Emma had been volatile from the beginning. Now he knew why. He’d been fighting something that seemed beyond him, no matter how much he fought against what he wanted.
He still wanted it.
His mind clouding over with desire, feeling raw, he cupped her jaw, then applied pressure with his thumb to get her to lift her head. Inhaling unevenly, he covered her mouth with a soft, searching kiss. Now that he had what he wanted, he tightened his hold on her jaw, his tone commanding as he whispered against her mouth, “Open up for me, babe.”
Her breath caught,
but she yielded to the pressure of his thumb, and Derrick adjusted the alignment of his mouth against hers, deepening the kiss with slow, lazy thoroughness. Working his lips softly, slowly against hers, he drank from her, probing the recesses, savoring the taste of her. Her breath caught again; then she finally responded, and he grasped the back of her head, her hair tangling like silk around his fingers. His chest tightening, he softened his mouth even more, and her muscles went slack, as if all the fight, all the common sense, just drained out of her.
Slipping her arm around his neck, she devoured his mouth, meeting his lips with heated and moist caresses. Derrick let his breath go in a rush, an electrifying weakness radiating through his lower body. She did it again, and he tightened his hold on her hair as his erection grew even harder.
The buzz in the distance froze them both as they listened, then broke apart. Her startled eyes fixed on his.
“Helicopter,” he whispered. But he was sure it had nothing to do with their rescue. The cartel had taken to the air.
“Stay here,” he ordered and inched his way to the edge of the outcropping, still in the shadow of the massive rock. He peered out at the sky and spotted the “bird” coming directly toward them. Of course, the cartel members might be cold-blooded killers, but they weren’t stupid. They would be searching rocky areas looking for them. They knew as well as Derrick did that it was their only chance of survival to find shade in the heat of the day.
The chopper hovered along the ridge of rock, obviously searching for any sign of them, but Derrick was adept at hiding. His whole life had been about being invisible.
Finally, after a few more minutes of searching, they buzzed off and Derrick relaxed. The sun was low on the horizon. It would be nightfall in a few hours. Their priority here was finding a source of water and filling the bottles they had.
But with the appearance and disappearance of the helicopter, he’d smiled, a predatory gleam in his eyes. He’d just gotten a germ of an idea. It was time to turn the tables.
The hunted would become the hunters.
When he turned around, Emma was watching him, and even though the danger had passed for now, she hadn’t relaxed. She was sitting on the ground, staring up at him with concern in her eyes, but it didn’t have anything to do with being exposed to the cartel searching for them.
And everything to do with that damn kiss.
He cleared his throat. “We can deny it as much as we want, but we both know there’s something here. It’s not smart and we should... I should be better at resisting.”
“But you’re...” She bit her lip. “We’re not.”
“We should focus on getting out of here and back to civilization in one piece. I can’t promise what we’re feeling will go away. We just have to process it separately for now. Can we agree on that?”
“Don’t,” she whispered. “Just don’t.”
His expression sobering, Derrick stepped forward and caught her along the jaw, turning her head so she had to look at him. “Don’t what?” he commanded quietly. She hesitated, her expression stark, wariness dilating her eyes. He gave her head a small shake, prodding her to answer. “Don’t what?”
She took a deep, unsteady breath, then looked away, her face pensive. “Don’t diminish it.” She paused, obviously struggling; then she looked up at him, pleading with her eyes. “I liked kissing you,” she whispered. “But I get it. We have to soldier on. We don’t have time for this.” She frowned and looked away, as if her emotions were too raw to hold his gaze. Finally, she looked up at him again, her face drawn and anxious. “I’m not sure I can keep everything in perspective.”
No matter how unbelievable it had been kissing her, wanting her, it was no quick fix. Sex was a bodily need, but even as they stared at each other, he was well aware this...thing...with Emma was more than just his body wanting something, more than just stirred up hormones. It was all about Emma and wanting to see her in every nuance, every experience, that was jacking him up. Not just her beauty or her delectable body.
Before he thought better of it, he hauled her up and pulled her tight against him. He whispered in her ear. “I liked kissing you, too.” She hugged him, hard and brief, staring deep in his eyes for an instant, then she pulled away.
She released a breath and they started to prepare to leave, packing up the blanket they’d been resting on, cleaning up any sign they were there, and slathering on generous coatings of sunscreen.
“Let me change your bandage,” she said when the sun was almost gone. He nodded and sat down while she unwound the bandage, her touch anything but impersonal. She was so gentle when she reapplied the gauze and antibiotic ointment and then wrapped it again. He thanked her and she nodded.
They buried all the debris and started off toward the west, still keeping parallel to the hotel. Trudging through the spotty underbrush, Derrick headed steadily toward more shelter for their second day in the desert.
When they came to a dry riverbed, Derrick stopped and set down the pack. He took the flashlight and searched the ground. Sure enough, there was green vegetation, an indication there was water just under the soil. “Emma, find me a bunch of small rocks.” While she went off looking for them, he searched the area for something to dig with and found a flat, hollowed-out rock. He shoveled two feet across and about a foot deep. As he scooped, he noticed that the soil was getting moister. He redoubled his efforts until water started to fill the small well.
“Emma,” he said and she dumped a bunch of rocks near him. He lined the hole as the water inside rose. The stones would help reduce the amount of dirt stirred up by movement in the liquid. She pulled out the bottles and they filled them, using his T-shirt to filter out the sediment. Then he dropped in purification tablets.
They sat down and rested. Moonlight cast long, faint shadows across the ground, and off in the distance, a lone coyote yipped. The call was answered, then answered again, until a discordant yodel resonated along the length of the shallow valley, the sounds carrying for miles on the cool, clear air.
Emma inched closer to him, and without thinking about it, he wrapped his arm around her. “They are some ways away. It’s okay.”
“If you say so. You were pretty good at finding water. I’m so impressed by you, Derrick. If I’m ever in a wilderness situation, I’d always want you by my side.”
He leaned back against the wall of the creek bed. “We’ll rest here and drink our fill, then pack the bottles with us to travel.”
“I’m looking for good places we can hide.”
“That’s good, but that chopper gave me an idea.”
“Oh, I’m all ears.”
“We still have my clothes in the backpack. I think we can use them to our advantage.”
“How do you propose to do that?”
“Lure the chopper into landing.”
“What? And how are you going to do that? Signal them. They could take us out from the air.”
“No, by giving them our...dead bodies.”
* * *
Trying to stay detached from the emotions rolling inside her, Emma lay perfectly still on the sweltering ground, the cloth of Derrick’s shirt visible in her line of sight. Her weapon was tucked neatly underneath her. This was going to be tricky, but she had confidence in Derrick’s plan.
What she didn’t have confidence in was her own stupid proclivity to melt whenever that man looked at her or touched her. These weren’t the kind of thoughts she should be having right now. But she couldn’t seem to help reliving that kiss over and over all night long. Even as the sun of the new day beat down on her, the heat from the kiss stirred her deeply.
Get a freaking grip!
She took some deep breaths and tried to tell herself that getting involved with him would be too scary. He was too virile, much too alpha. They would most likely butt heads when they weren’t in be
d together. Although, so far, since the initial tug of war between them just after Matty had been kidnapped, they seemed to be working together just fine. But they were caught up in survival mode. Who knew what it would be like when they got back to chasing down the kidnapper and got more involved in the case? That should be her priority and was another really good reason to forget how good his mouth tasted, how good his muscles felt beneath her hands. Derrick was the kind of man who liked to be in charge and Emma hadn’t released her hold on her independence since she’d gotten free of her grandmother’s house.
All her thoughts scattered when she heard the sound of the helicopter in the distance. She focused on one thing: remaining calm.
She didn’t move a muscle when it hovered above her, the wind from the rotors beating the ground, dirt and debris blowing across her body. She kept her eyes closed, her muscles loose. The chopper buzzed away and she heard the sound of it getting closer and closer. It was landing. She worked at staying calm. Derrick was depending on her and she couldn’t let him down.
She heard the crunch of boots getting closer and closer, then stop. “Chica?” the man said, his voice wary. She didn’t respond. He kicked her with his boot tip and she groaned softly. She pushed up on her hands, but his foot came down in the middle of her back. “Don’t move,” he ordered. When he flipped her over, she shifted so her gun was under her hip. There were only two men, but Derrick was most likely right; they were in communication with the others. He looked over to where Derrick’s shirt could be seen above a depression in the ground.
“Get up!”
“He’s dead,” she whispered brokenly. “He died from the gunshot wound.” He looked down at her and an appreciative gleam came into his eyes.