"Oh—I'm a singer. My sister and I perform as the Sugar Babes." His back was magnificent, she thought. Really, really magnificent. Broad shouldered and deeply tanned, with muscles that flexed every time he moved, it was mouthwatering enough that just looking at it made her forget that she was supposed to be removing her own wet clothes as well.
"Older or younger sister?" His biceps flexed as he stood on first one foot and then the other to pull off his socks. They were great biceps, she thought. The kind of biceps that women salivate over.
"Older. There are only the two of us. And my mom. My dad died five years ago." Realizing that he was almost finished undressing and she hadn't even started, Charlie hurriedly pulled her T-shirt over her head and dropped it on the floor. Unbelievably, she was even colder without the soaked shirt than she had been with it. Fortunately her hair was very nearly dry. Shaking it back from her face, rubbing her hands briskly up and down her goose-pimpled arms, she cast him a quick look to make sure that his back stayed firmly turned—not that the idea of being naked in front of him didn't turn her on, because it did, but she barely knew the man, after all, and she didn't think she was quite ready to take that particular step—then discarded her bra and pulled on soft, dry flannel. It was pure bliss.
"So how old are you?" he asked.
"Twenty-seven. What about you?"
"Thirty-four."
"Old man." She said it teasingly.
With another quick look at him, she shed her jeans along with her panties, then quickly pulled her knees up to her chest inside the voluminous shirt, which covered her well enough in that position so that only her small bare toes peeked out.
"Try thinking of it as experienced."
Was that a subtle come-on? Charlie wondered, and at the idea her heart rate increased. She discovered that she liked the idea of him coming on to her. Then an unmistakable sound distracted her, and she looked up to find that he had unzipped his pants, and was shucking them with as much nonchalance as if he'd been alone, revealing an athlete's toned physique. He was wearing a pair of dark colored boxer briefs that clung to his narrow hips and muscular thighs like a second skin. Of course, they were probably as wet as the rest of him, she realized, which would account for how very faithfully they molded his flesh. He moved then, stepping out of his pants, and she had an excellent view of a tight, well-muscled masculine backside in motion.
She was, she realized, starting to feel a little warmer.
"Charlie." He glanced around then, frowning, and Charlie realized that he must have asked her a question she hadn't heard. She was, in fact, staring at his tush, and he had caught her at it. His eyes narrowed at her, and she frantically searched her mind for what he had last said. Whatever it was, if she had even heard it, it eluded her now.
"What?" she asked, defeated. She definitely was feeling warmer.
"I thought you and your sister trapped wild animals, or something.'' He was stepping into the oversize Bermudas.
"I don't. She does. I was just helping out for tonight," she said, hurrying to finish buttoning up the shirt before he could turn around and see that she was not quite done and guess the reason why. Really, getting all those little buttons into their holes was not easy with fingers made clumsy by—well, she preferred to think it was the cold, "Marisol—my sister—asked me to cover for her tonight so that she could celebrate her boyfriend's birthday."
"So you actually make a living by singing?" The Bermudas were so big that they threatened to drop straight back down to the floor the minute he let them go. Charlie looked on with interest as he bent to retrieve his belt from the soaked black pants. Really, watching all those muscles ripple was entertainment worth paying for.
It was only when he straightened and started threading his belt through the loops on the Bermudas that she remembered that he'd asked her a question. Exhaustion had to have something to do with her lack of concentration, she told herself. And her racing pulse and the weakness in the pit of her stomach that happened when she looked at him, as well. His wasn't the first male body she had seen, after all.
Although she had to admit that it might well be the best.
"Nothing very lavish." She grimaced, thinking of the small amount she actually took home each week. "I sing backup for various studio bands during the day, and at night I perform wherever I can get a gig, or wherever Marisol and I—the Sugar Babes—can get a gig. We're singing Saturday at the Yellow Rose."
A hint of pride touched her voice as she said that last. Along music row, a job at the Yellow Rose was considered pretty prestigious. Then she remembered that she might not be around to sing on Saturday at the Yellow Rose, and that effectively distracted her from the sudden attack of the hots she seemed to be experiencing for Jake.
"Maybe I'll come see," he said, turning around. The Bermudas clung to his hips by nothing more than the grace of God and the good offices of his belt and reached well below his knees. He would have looked utterly ridiculous if it had not been for his truly gorgeous physique. Just looking at his chest was enough to infect her with the hots for him all over again, Charlie discovered. Wide and well-muscled, with a thick wedge of black hair, it tapered in a classic vee-shape from his shoulders to his narrow athlete's hips.
She wanted to touch it, to run her hands over the firm muscles, to thread her fingers through the mat of hair so badly that her toes curled.
"Always assuming we'll be alive Saturday." She said it flippantly, partly to remind herself of the direness of their circumstances and partly to remind him. His words, plus the heated glint in his eyes as they moved over her, told her pretty conclusively that she wasn't the only one dealing with a sudden bad case of lust.
Not that good girl Charlie Bates was going to do anything about it, of course. It just wasn't in her to jump a sexy stranger's bones. She hadn't been raised like that.
Why did nothing in her life ever work out the way it was supposed to? This gorgeous guy had practically been handed to her on a plate, and there were half-a-dozen good reasons why she wasn't going to do anything about it.
"You forgot to put your pants on," he said, draping the blanket over his shoulders and picking up the sweatpants. Charlie was horrified to discover that he was right She'd been so involved in salivating over him that she had totally forgotten that she was freezing, exhausted—and only half dressed.
He moved around in front of her and bent, holding the sweatpants open for her as if she'd been a child.
"Put your foot in," he said, with a lurking half smile and that carnal glint in his eyes.
She did, first one, then the other, sliding her long legs into the cavernous depths of the wide-load fleece, conscious of his gaze on the slender curves of her calves and thighs all the while. He swept her with a single hot look as, kept decent by the length of the shirt, she stood to pull the pants up. Then he turned away to scoop the flashlight from the floor.
She watched him, and her heart pounded. Her mouth went dry. She was totally turned on, she realized, and the man hadn't even touched her. Yet.
She'd wished for excitement, hadn't she? Well, tonight she'd gotten excitement in spades.
The terrifying kind of excitement that came with stumbling across murderous drug smugglers she could do without, she thought. But the kind of charged sexual excitement that was sizzling between her and Jake— well, now she knew what had been missing from her life. She had never, ever, even when they had first started dating almost a year ago, felt that kind of excitement with Rick.
This was what she wanted.
"There must be kids in your life," Charlie said, glancing around to find Jake going through drawers behind her and striving to keep the conversation light until she could figure out what to do about him. The question about kids had sprung from the way he had held out the pants for her, as if it was a natural thing for him to do.
Then she realized what she had said. Kids in his life? Oh, God, she thought fervently, don't let him be married.
"Six nephews. I have t
hree brothers, and they have two boys each. Actually, when I'm home I baby-sit a lot."
"Where's home?" Without even thinking about it, she moved a little closer to him, caught herself doing it, stopped, and crossed her arms over her chest.
"Memphis."
"That makes you a local boy." What she was really trying to find out was whether or not he had a wife, but so far she couldn't quite seem to phrase the question subtly.
"Close enough."
"So are you married?" Right, Charlie, just blurt it out.
He glanced around at her, smiling faintly, and again she was aware of the smoldering quality of that look. "Nope. You?"
Thank you, God, she thought, but managed not to say it aloud. "No."
"Good."
Without warning, the flashlight went out. The cabin was plunged into total darkness.
"Shit"
"Jake!" Charlie moved toward him, reaching out for him in sudden alarm. Her fingers encountered the soft hair on his chest, and brushed over the warm hard muscles beneath before being reluctantly withdrawn. The contact produced a tingling electricity that shimmied along every nerve ending she possessed. The strength of her own reaction made her catch her breath.
"It's okay. Nothing to worry about. Damn batteries."
"We don't really need it, do we?" It was an effort to make her voice sound normal. She had to resist the urge to touch him again. It was too soon, she didn't know him, the situation was about as inappropriate as one could get.
She could hear him doing something that involved metal, shaking it until it rattled, screwing and unscrewing a lid.
"If we do, we're out of luck, because it's not coming back on. Here, wrap this around yourself. It's cold out there, and we've got to get moving. I wish to hell we'd managed to hang onto our boots."
"Ostrich leather, black, size seven. If we get out of this, you owe me a pair." Her tone was severe, but Charlie was smiling faintly as she said it.
"Yeah, okay. Fine. Blame me. I don't care." He sounded as if he might be smiling, too. Charlie felt something settle over her shoulders: the blanket. The gift of it touched her. For all his obvious physical toughness, he was as human as she was and he would freeze outside without it. It also settled something: However unexpected her attraction to him might be, it was something that deserved to be explored.
For once in her life, she meant to take a chance. And good girl Charlie be damned.
"Jake." She reached out for him again, and this time touched his arm. Her hand curled around one of the biceps she had so admired. It felt warm and hard beneath her fingers. "You know what? I think you're a pretty great guy."
Heart pounding, she took a step closer, rose up on tiptoe and kissed him. His lips were warm, and firm, and tasted faintly of the river they'd just left behind. For a moment, as she pressed her lips to his, he did nothing, just stood immobile as if he would absorb the touch of her lips.
"God, I've been wanting to do that." He said the words against her lips. Then his arms came around her hard and he pulled her to him and bent her backward over his arm and slanted his mouth over hers with a greedy hunger that made her quake.
By way of a reply, she wrapped her arms around his neck and put her tongue in his mouth and kissed him back for all she was worth. But it was he who controlled the kiss now as his tongue thrust urgently into her mouth and his hand came up to cover her breast. Charlie thought she would die at how good it felt to have his hand there. Her loins clenched and throbbed. Her breasts swelled, and the one fortunate nipple thrust boldly against the palm of his caressing hand. Quivers raced up and down her thighs as he pressed his knee between them. Her knees went weak. The bed was pushing against the back of her calves as he turned her around, and she swayed against it, wanting to be horizontal with him in the worst way.
Whether she pulled him down or he pushed her she didn't know, but suddenly she was on her back on the mattress and he was coming down on top of her, pulling up her flannel shirt, cupping her breasts, running his thumbs lightly over the distended nipples, kissing her ravenously all the while. Charlie moaned into his mouth, sliding her hands over his chest, tugging at his ridiculous shorts, so hot her legs were already wrapping around him and she wasn't even naked yet, hotter than she could ever remember being for a man in her life.
"Let's get your clothes off." His voice was thick as he lifted his head to yank the huge shirt over her head. His mouth returned to claim her breast; he slid his tongue over her nipple, then sucked it. At the same time he reached down between their straining bodies to slide his hand inside her pants and caress the cleft between her legs. His thumb found the place where she most wanted to be touched, and pressed.
"That is so—incredibly—good." She was panting, squirming beneath the ministrations of his mouth and that knowing hand, on fire for him, wanting him inside her so badly that she felt like she'd die if he made her wait.
She couldn't wait. Her hands slid between them to caress him through the soft cotton shorts. He was huge and hard and so hot that she could feel the heat even through the cloth. Her hand closed around him and he groaned.
"Charlie. God, Charlie." He jerked down her pants, baring her to the knees, and she kicked the offending garment the rest of the way off. Her legs parted, eager for him to come inside her, but instead of shedding his own pants he bent his head and pressed his mouth to her. She cried out as his tongue found the very center of her, gasping his name and digging her nails into his shoulders. His mouth was wet and scalding hot and well versed in the ways of women, and Charlie thought that she would die with the sheer pleasure of what he was doing to her.
"Oh, Jake!" It was a shuddering sigh as she let go of the last of her inhibitions and clutched at his hair.
"Gently, baby," he murmured. She was arching herself against his mouth and trembling and begging silently for release.
"Please don't stop," she gasped when his mouth didn't return to finish what it had started. But then, before she could even really begin to miss him, she felt something even better, the thick burning length of him sliding against her, pushing inside her, filling her to bursting, causing her body to pulse with a million fiery tremors as he sought his own pleasure at last. She clung feverishly to him as he took her with hard deep thrusts until she was striving with him, until she came, until her body exploded into a fireball of sensation that rocked her world.
If there was such a thing as sexual nirvana, that was where she landed.
She was just floating back to earth when the cabin door opened and two men carrying flashlights and God knew what else stepped inside.
11
A NUMBER OF THINGS HAPPENED almost simultaneously.
Sadie erupted barking from beneath the bed. The flashlights found them. Jake hissed, "Get under the bed!" and shoved Charlie over the far edge, then launched himself off the mattress toward the newcomers in a low, fast dive. A gun boomed.
Charlie hit the floor hard on her hands and knees, and screamed as a bullet tore through the mattress to lodge with a thud just inches from her fingers.
The men were now engaged in a desperate struggle. They were cursing and grunting and thumping around, and to her horror Charlie recognized the voices of Woz and Denton. Oh, God, if she and Jake had left just a few minutes earlier, they would have escaped.
The most mind-blowing sexual experience she had ever had in her life was going to lead to her death. How ironic was that?
The sickening sound of blows came fast and thick.
Sadie barked frantically. Both flashlights had apparently hit the ground at around the same time Charlie did, dropped in the newcomers' surprise at Jake's assault. One was rolling away across the room, casting weird shadows as it went. The other lay near the men's feet. Its beam pointed toward her, illuminating the floor, the underside of the bed, her and Jake's abandoned clothes—and the screwdriver.
With no very clear idea of what she meant to do but knowing that in a crisis of this nature any weapon was better than none, Charl
ie snatched up the screwdriver and, crawling on her hands and knees, rounded the foot of the bed. The men were very near. It was easy to tell which one was Jake because he was barefoot and naked. Jake was grappling with Denton, who was taller and thinner than Woz. Jake had a choke hold on Denton's neck and a grip on his gun hand and seemed to be using him as a shield against Woz, who circled the writhing pair, darting this way and that and lashing out with his fists and feet in a kind of deadly dance, looking for an opening. Woz had his pistol ready, but unless he wanted to risk hitting Denton it was obvious that he was going to have to be careful how he used it. It was, however, clear to Charlie that it was just a matter of time before Jake went down. Naked and weaponless, he couldn't best two armed men.
"Get the girl!" Denton grunted. Woz glanced around.
"Damn it, Charlie, run!" Jake roared.
But it was too late. Even as Charlie backpedaled frantically, then tried to roll under the bed, Woz was upon her, knotting a fist in her hair, locking an arm around her neck, hauling her to her feet. Charlie didn't bother to scream, or fight. She hung limply in his hold, letting herself be dragged toward where Jake and Denton still struggled.
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