by Zoe Dawson
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 were 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 four 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 again, as if her emotions were too raw to hold his gaze. Finally, she looked up at him, 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 tha
nked 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 of 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 four 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 bed 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, one standing over her, the other still in the chopper, 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.
“Well, his troubles are over. Don’t fight me, and your death will be painless and quick. Weapon?”
“I lost it when you chased us out of the hotel.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Search me, then.”
He smirked. “Take off your clothes.”
She reached for the buttons of her shirt just as a shot rang out from behind the cartel member. He whirled, bringing his gun up, but it was too late. Derrick had already gotten the drop on the pilot and he was dead, slumped in the seat. Emma went for her gun, and Derrick fired just as she pulled the trigger. The guy dropped to the ground.
Then she was up and running, rushing over to his clothes stuffed with brush. The ploy had worked perfectly. Derrick had concealed himself beneath their blanket, disguised it with rubbed mud, while Emma had placed brush around it. He’d looked like a rock mixed into the desert landscape. Then she’d assumed her “I’m unconscious” position on the ground. She gathered the clothes up with a relieved breath and shook them out. Then she turned and raced for the chopper. Derrick had already pulled the pilot out of the seat and was ready to take off.
She climbed into the passenger’s seat and the chopper lifted into the air. “So you can fly, too?”
“Yeah, and in a pinch, I can make a mean lasagna.”
“I might hold you to that.”
They flew for about twenty minutes until Derrick spied a dilapidated gas station below them with access to the highway beyond. He landed and when they got out, the owner, clutching his old, beat-up hat, came up to them. In Spanish, Derrick offered him the helicopter for a vehicle.
He gave them a toothy grin and led them over to a pickup truck. After shaking on the deal, they exchanged keys and Emma and Derrick were soon tooling down the road. As the truck let out a belch of noxious black smoke and backfired, Derrick shifted and said, “I think, even with the cartel connection, he got the better part of the deal.”
Emma laughed.
They drove back to the hotel and Derrick parked the truck behind some vegetation off the side of the road. They walked back on foot and when they reached the manager’s office, Emma had to hold back her bile. There was dried blood splattered against the back wall with no one in sight.
The cartel must have killed him for giving them shelter and information. “Poor old guy,” she murmured. Derrick didn’t even pause. Under the cover of darkness, he made his way to where they had parked their first vehicle. It was gone.
“Looks like we’re going to the next city in the pickup. Nothing here to salvage.”
“I would love to get my cell phone.”
“Let’s check inside.”
They entered the hotel room, and she found her phone where she dropped it, luckily out of sight. She snatched it up and they hightailed it back to the truck.
Derrick called the office, and from the one-sided conversation, she could tell he was touched by his boss’s concern. When he hung up, he turned to her and said, “She wants us to head to Hermosillo, a much larger city located almost two hours from Santa An
a, where we can blend in and lie low. Our original plan to catch up to the kidnapper took a direct hit, as he now has a much larger lead. We need to recover and restock. She’ll be in touch with instructions.”
“I bet everyone was relieved to hear from you.”
“They were glad we were both alive and well. They feared the worst when we didn’t check in.”
“I bet.” She was aware of every move he made, and ever since she’d met him, she hadn’t been able to shake it. He was so masculine, the heavy growth of facial hair only adding to that rugged quality he exuded without even trying. “That was a great idea. Risky, but it paid off.”
“Yeah, it was lucky I had a change of clothes in my bag. I think he would have just put a bullet into me. But with your beauty, that guy didn’t have a chance.”
She turned to look at him. His profile was tense, but she was sure he was quite aware of what he had said about her being beautiful. This could so easily get out of control with this man.
“Derrick?”
He looked at her, and she said, “I was right about you.”
“Oh yeah? That I’m a crazy son of a bitch?” he said roughly.
“Well, that and…you’re one of the heroic ones.”
He slipped his hand over hers where it rested on her thigh, squeezing. She tightened her hold on him. He said nothing, just held her gaze for the longest moment. Then he brought her hand to his mouth, all the while holding her gaze. He closed his eyes and placed a soft, quick kiss on her knuckles. Wrapping his hand around hers, he looked up into her eyes, his an almost impossible indigo-blue through a thick fringe of dark lashes. Experiencing a flurry of emotions, a thickness in her chest, he gave them both a minute then eased his hold but didn’t let go.
Knowing she had to maintain a balancing act, Emma managed a smile.
“Considering it’s late and we’re both completely exhausted, I say we get some food and sleep in the truck. Safer.”