by Hazel Parker
And boy, he fell right into that kiss with no hesitation. The second that I had stood up, he was suddenly in a different mindset. Yes, there was still something there.
He pushed me to the bed, continuing to kiss me. He rose up, and…
“Stop it, Kaylie,” he said. “Not now.”
He seriously looked like he was reconsidering his denial of his own desires. He looked down on me with hunger. If Liam wasn’t in the shower, he probably would have taken me right there.
Instead, he stood up, adjusted his jeans, and snorted.
“Liam will be back here shortly,” he said. “He takes showers quickly. I suggest you get ready.”
“For what?”
Scott chuckled.
“For getting you off this fucking island; what the hell else?”
It said something about Scott that he could get me so aroused and so heated that I would completely blank on why I’d need to get ready.
Chapter 21: Scott
You are going to be the death of me, Kaylie, I swear.
But it’s going to be a sweet, sweet fucking death if that’s the case.
Kaylie passed me in the doorway, brushing against me as much as she could as she headed back to the bed. I was never more grateful in my life to hear Liam turning off the shower; if Kaylie teased me for just a few more seconds, I would have pinned her wherever she was and taken her once more. Bed, floor, wall, it didn’t matter; she was driving me crazy enough that it became a mission in itself to teach this girl a lesson.
But when Liam walked out in his jeans, I knew that it was time to focus. Any arousal that I had vanished on the spot, and I remembered what he and I had talked about while Kaylie rested outside.
It was time for us to bring the plan to her.
After a minute or so of changing, Liam walked out into the main area. He stood by my side, and we both towered over Kaylie, sitting on the edge of the bed. Damn girl was so fucking hot right there—she wouldn’t have even had to get on her knees to…
Focus, Scott.
“All right, we’re getting you out of here, and we’re getting you home,” Liam said. “But I have to warn you, what we’re planning on doing is going to be enormously risky.”
“I trust you two.”
“Smart answer, because you don’t have any other choice,” I said. “The current plan right now is to hijack Snake’s plane and take it back to the States.”
I waited for Kaylie’s jaw to drop in shock. But she displayed no visible surprise. That surprised me, but it also spoke to Kaylie’s audacity—or her insanity.
“The issue is that right now, the plane is on the other side of the island,” I said. “And make no mistake, Snake will have guards there. He’s probably going to escalate whatever happens between us after this. But we have to do right by you, and once we get you into the States, especially to New York, you will be much safer.”
“You’re sure?”
I nodded.
“Snake goes after girls that are easy to catch,” Liam said. “That means vacation spots with low security, like where you were. Villas and condos without guards.
“He wouldn’t try and get you in New York City unless he was desperate,” I said. “And Snake likes to play games, but as soon as he sees you’re more effort than it’s worth, he’ll let you go. He’s not going to chase you down.”
We’ll pay the price. We’ll have to deal with a more pissed-off Snake. But we can handle it.
Well, that is, if I remain in DOM after this…
“When are we going to leave? Now?” Kaylie asked, answering her own question.
I nodded.
“We’ll give you a weapon just in case, but you should not use it unless your life is in immediate danger,” I said. “And I don’t mean one of Snake’s goons is trying to kidnap you. I mean he has a knife raised or a gun pointed and intends to use the weapon. If you provoke Snake or his men, that will get you killed. If you use it when you would have gotten killed anyway, it may save you.”
Kaylie did not look the least bit flustered or worried about anything we said. She was in absolute control, and I was so fucking turned on by that. Nothing was less attractive than a woman who lost her cool, and even though this circumstance would have broken most people, let alone most young women, it didn’t matter.
That Kaylie was handling it all with aplomb…I had to have her. When we got on that plane, when Liam piloted it back to the States, when we had some privacy in the back…
No.
I could not think about that.
I had a mission to handle. Nothing else mattered. Not her hot little mouth, not her curvy body, not her spunk, not her wet…
Nothing.
“Let’s go,” Liam said. “We’ll take two of the motorcycles out. We’ll probably be heard, but as long as we’re not spotted, they won’t send more than a single guard out to follow. And we’ll figure out quickly if we’re being followed and take care of it accordingly.”
“Sounds good,” Kaylie said.
She rose from the bed. I gave her a pistol, telling her to tuck it into her pants. I showed her how to turn the safety on and off and told her to use the gun only, again, in absolute emergencies. In truth, I didn’t think she’d have the mental awareness to turn the safety off in the heat of battle, but the odds of her misusing it were much higher than they were of her having to use it properly.
I put it in her hands, and I felt a warm glow as our hands touched for a moment. She looked into my eyes and I into hers. It felt so…
“Let’s get you home,” I said.
I forced myself away. I told her to get on the bike with Liam. I didn’t know that I would have had the self-restraint to not do something unbecoming of me if she rode on the bike with her arms clenched around my body.
But damn if that wasn’t a hard fucking decision.
I got on my bike and looked over at Liam and Kaylie. Neither of them looked especially comfortable having the other on the bike with them. Tough shit. This wasn’t the time to do what was personally preferable.
I nodded to Liam. He nodded back. We turned our bikes on, pulled out of the garage, and began the painfully long drive to the other side of the island to a private airstrip.
It wasn’t quite literally the other side of the island; our recon had suggested that Snake’s plane was near a small part of the island called East End, which, despite its name, was a few minutes west of the furthest point east. But that still meant we were on our bikes for over half an hour, a half hour that found my mind wandering through various scenarios. And my head never rushed like it did right now.
I thought about what would happen to Kaylie if she was kidnapped again. I thought about if—no, how—I would kill Snake if he interfered again. He’d had his men shoot at me, he’d tried to capture Liam, and there was so much escalation that it no longer felt like we had rules for how we fought. I had to end the threat of Snake.
Because as much as this situation with Kaylie was a nightmare, there was no telling what would happen with future girls he kidnapped. And if my thoughts for the future continued in the direction they were heading…
I pulled myself back to the present however I could. And as it turned out, in a weird way, half an hour was both longer than I expected—long enough to let my mind wander—but also short enough that the mind wandering did not last long enough for it to burn out. I had to cut myself off when I saw the distant airstrip just off the road.
I hopped off. We’d have to abandon the bikes here, but that was fine; the bikes weren’t worth much in the grand scheme of things, and they couldn’t be traced back to the bunker. And even if Snake did uncover the bunker, we tended to rotate bases and locations after every mission with Snake; one could never be too careful with him slithering around.
“There it is,” Liam said, pointing to a small private plane about a quarter mile away.
“You’re sure you can pilot it?” I asked.
“I’ll figure it out,” Liam said.
>
I trusted him. I just wished he’d spoken with a damn bit more confidence than that.
“The plane is on the other side of the runway, so we can sneak around to get there,” I said. “Let’s stay quiet as best we can, shall we? Kaylie, stay between Liam and me. And don’t make a fucking sound. Understood?”
She nodded and put a finger to her lips. I knew she wasn’t trying to be smart. In fact, she was obeying me quite well. Good.
We moved through the trees and vegetation as quietly as we could. We had to take out two guards at one point, but otherwise, we made it around the half-circle without much trouble. We got to within about fifty feet of the plane.
As far as I could tell, it only had one guard standing by it, who looked mighty bored.
“Take him out,” I said to Liam.
I was not going to take my eyes off of Kaylie if I could help it.
“And then we make a dash for it. Not much we can do at this point to remain quiet.”
Liam nodded. I looked to Kaylie and held her arm.
“Get ready to run as fast as you can,” I said, “and don’t you dare let go of me.”
She nodded. She looked like she wanted to kiss me, one last kiss before things got hairy. I almost—
BANG!
Liam pulled the trigger. I didn’t wait to see if Liam hit or not; I knew he did. I yanked on Kaylie, and we began sprinting—
Something held her back. She screamed. I turned around and saw…no.
Snake grabbing her.
“Liam!” I yelled. “Get the plane ready for us!”
I ran over, tackled Snake to the ground, and freed Kaylie from him.
“Get to the plane, now!”
She ran off. Snake bucked me off him and delivered a sharp kick to my ribs.
“You fucking asshole,” he growled. “How difficult are you going to make my life?”
“Kiss my ass, Snake,” I said, kicking his feet out from under him and sweeping him to the ground.
I felt so strongly about fighting him to the death. But when I turned around and saw three of his men running for Kaylie, everything changed. I delivered one hard elbow to his face, pulled out my gun, and aimed at one of the men.
The first fell. But then the other two turned their attention to me. I fired, missed, and—
One fell.
I quickly recalibrated my aim and took out the other. In a moment of brief silence, I saw Kaylie holding her gun, having fired it at the one guard I’d missed.
I’ll be damned. Girl used her weapon for me, not for her.
She’s a quick learner.
I looked back down. Snake was groaning, conscious but in no position to fight. There was no better time than now.
I pulled out my gun, pointed it at him, and pulled the trigger.
And the fucking thing jammed.
“Shit!”
I looked up. I could see more guards in the distance. We had to go.
I threw my gun at Snake’s head, hoping to stun him a little more, and turned and ran. Kaylie ran ahead of me, jumping into the plane. I also jumped into the plane as bullets began striking it.
“Punch it, Liam!”
I slammed the door shut behind me, even as gunfire continued to rain on the plane. I could hear Snake, somehow regaining strength, roaring as angrily as I had ever heard him. Kaylie was down on the ground, her hands over her head. She was safe—well, as safe as one could be in this moment.
“Liam, come on!”
“I can’t fucking make us levitate, Scott! Give me a damn second!”
The plane felt like it was turning like the Titanic. It was going far too slowly. Shit, someone could probably throw a grenade at the wheels and—
“Hang tight!”
I got to the ground just in time, but the force of the plane suddenly lurching forward still knocked me back. As I continued to roll back, something slowed me down.
No. Something—someone—held me.
Kaylie’s arm, though it hadn’t completely stopped me, held me back enough that I regained control of my body and laid on the ground. The plane was shaking, and I couldn’t see a damn thing around me.
But I turned my head to my left and saw Kaylie looking at me. She was smiling. For all of the chaos around me, the sight of my face brought her happiness.
And even if something terrible happened, she felt glad to be with me.
I squeezed her hand, smiled, and then put my head down and closed my eyes. I had done everything that I could—it was all up to Liam at this point.
I could feel the plane lift off the ground and climb in the sky, but until Liam gave us the all-clear, until I felt sure that we had evaded Snake’s goons, I wasn’t going to move a muscle. My hand still squeezed Kaylie’s, each of us providing comfort for the other.
“All clear,” Liam said.
I looked up. I almost refused to believe it. We’d only climbed for a minute or so!
But Liam was arguably more careful and certain than I was. If he had said it…
I slowly stood up, fighting the downward slope of the plane. I headed for the cockpit and took a seat in the co-pilot’s chair.
“You’re sure?” I said.
“Unless Snake has a fighter jet somewhere on the Cayman Islands, I’m sure,” Liam said. “And even then, he’ll probably decide it’s easier to hit us later. For now, we’re good. We are going home.”
Liam’s confirmation didn’t just feel like a weight was lifted off my shoulders. The burden of the entire mission was lifted off my shoulders. We had done it.
Kaylie was safe.
She was going home.
I had won.
“Oh, man,” I said, suddenly feeling so exhausted I could have slept for six years.
“Harder than expected, huh?” Liam said with a chuckle.
I shook my head.
“No. We’re safe.”
I stood up.
“Can you fly this plane on your own?”
“Did I need a co-pilot to get it into the air?”
I patted him on the shoulder.
“If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go sleep until we land wherever,” I said. “I’ve had enough work for the day.”
“Don’t worry. Probably won’t get all the way to New York, but we can land somewhere in Florida and procure arrangements to get her to New York from there.”
“Roger that,” I said.
I left the cockpit and shut the door behind me. Liam would understand. I just needed some peace.
I turned my eyes to Kaylie, who had seated herself. She looked up and smiled. I wanted to…
Shit, I just wanted to sleep.
“As great as this was,” I said, “I’m going to nap. I can finally sleep easy. Let me.”
Even Kaylie understood this wasn’t a point to argue. She nodded, tossed her head back, and fell asleep herself. I went to the very back of the plane, spread my legs out, and closed my eyes.
It was a lot easier to fall asleep when you knew that you had won.
But even now, even as I drifted to sleep, one question remained.
Had I won Kaylie?
And was she someone I wanted to win, all things considered?
Chapter 22: Kaylie
I was safe.
Safe!
After everything that I had gone through, being kidnapped from my villa, thinking Snake would do something to me, being blindfolded and not allowed to see Scott’s face for an eternity, moving places multiple times, having sex with him, wondering if I’d ever see him again, nearly getting kidnapped again just inches from safety…
I was exhausted.
I just wanted to be back in New York City right now and curling up with…
With him.
With Scott.
I had closed my eyes to try and sleep, knowing that Scott was in no mood to talk. But so much had happened, and I had so much excitement running through me, I could not make it happen. I couldn’t fall asleep. At first, I let him just sleep.
/> But then, while I wasn’t going to wake him up, I knew this might be the last chance I had to say anything. So I went back, found him reclining on some chairs, and sat across from him. I’d wait for him to wake up, and if Liam said something about the plane landing, I’d wake him up then so we could talk.
For an hour, I said nothing. I just looked at Scott. I just wanted to crawl over to him, to kiss him, to start…well, I’d see what happened. I couldn’t get too crazy.
But I did nothing. He’d rescued me. He had earned whatever he wanted me to do for the next little bit.
And then he woke up.
“You moved seats,” he said half-groggily.
“I didn’t think you’d wake up so soon,” I said. “I thought an old man like you would sleep much longer.”
“Clearly, you don’t know me,” Scott scoffed, though it wasn’t with quite as much forcefulness as he’d spoken during the mission. “I’m not a man who sleeps much. I’m a man who sleeps as little as he can while still functioning.”
“Hmm.”
Stop beating around the bush. You know what you wanted to talk about.
“So what happens now? Between us?”
Scott sighed.
“At least you’ll wake me up more than coffee,” he said. “You’ve made me do things I never fucking do on a mission. If I don’t retire, I should resign for the sake of my agency’s integrity.”
He chuckled to himself, shaking his head.
“I wouldn’t be good for you, though. Never mind if you’d be good for me or if we like each other.”
“What do you mean?”
Scott sighed.
“I’m a closed-off, dominant asshole,” he said. “What you think is fun in bed isn’t fun in real life. Sure, we’d have great sex. But I’m not the person that’s going to sing you a love song while I play guitar. I’m not going to be the person that buys you flowers on Valentine’s Day and slow dances with you in the living room. I’m the guy that wakes up, fishes on the dock for a few hours, comes back, reads, exercises, watches a little TV, and then goes to bed. And that’s when I’m at home. If I’m out on missions, you won’t hear for me for weeks.”
None of that particularly surprised me. But I didn’t necessarily agree with it.