by Sam Cheever
He nodded toward the steps. “Yeah. That would be best.” He didn’t move either. His gaze scanned her face hungrily, his hands hanging at his sides, fingers clenched. She fought the urge to look down to see if she’d been imagining his need for her.
“Okay, I’ll just,” she pointed toward the stairs again, half turning but not actually taking a step in that direction.
He nodded, his lips parting slightly as he held her gaze.
Heat consumed her. For a moment Nici thought it was the fire that made her skin heat and her sensual core boil, but she realized it was him. It was all him. She took a step but somehow it wasn’t in the direction she’d intended. She suddenly found herself mere inches away, his heat reaching out to scald her with pleasure. “Franco,” she whispered as she reached for him.
His head lowered and he leaned closer as her hand found his hip, resting there. “Nic...” He rested a hand at her waist and she gasped softly at the feel of him touching her.
“I...” She swallowed again. “I don’t want to go up those stairs.”
He lowered his head until his lips were nearly touching hers. “I don’t want you to go.” He pulled her closer and she suddenly found herself pressed against the bulge in his jeans again. She’d been right the first time. He was definitely interested.
His breath bathed her face, sweeping her with his slightly wild and sexy scent. She licked her lips and he made a small sound of need, deep and husky in his throat.
Her stomach jumped at the sound and lust flared through the tightness in her core. “What do you want to do?” she asked him in a breathy whisper. As soon as the words were out she cringed inwardly. What kind of alpha female asked a man that? “I mean...”
He put a finger over her lips. “I want to make love to you.”
She pulled air into her lungs, her body a raging inferno. “I don’t...”
He stilled.
“I don’t not want that too.”
He gave her a slow, crooked smile. “My mind’s a little muzzy right now. You know, swamped with lust as it is. But I’m pretty sure that was a yes?”
Nici put her hands on his face, her palms sliding over the ever-present bristle of hair from a determined beard. She let her gaze fall to his lips and, without thinking, rose up to take them in a gentle kiss.
His body hardened to steel. He didn’t move. Didn’t move except to kiss her back with a hunger that made the molten need in her belly twist more tightly, her sexual core throbbing almost painfully.
She pressed herself against him, her arms sliding around his neck and, like a dam bursting, he finally set himself free.
Franco deepened the kiss, his head tilting as his arms wrapped around her and pulled her so tightly against his long, hard body she wasn’t sure where the line dividing them was anymore.
He groaned softly against her lips, one big hand sliding down to her buttocks as he ground himself slowly against her.
Bliss jolted through Nici as the hard ridge of his erection found her throbbing core. She wrapped a leg around his thighs and pushed closer, rubbing the tingling nub of her clitoris against the delicious firmness beneath his jeans.
Her breathing grew labored. His kiss became more intense. She slipped her fingers through his silky black hair and held him in the kiss as their tongues did a frantic dance, tasting and teasing and building passion into desperation.
Franco’s hand slipped beneath her shirt, gliding over the skin of her back. Wherever he stroked the skin burned and tingled, irrevocably altered by his touch.
Moaning helplessly, Nici tore her lips from his. “Clothes. Off. Now.”
He reached for her shirt as she reached for his. Then they tugged at each other’s jeans, dragging them down to the floor and barely stepping out of them before they were lunging toward each other again. Lips meeting lips, breasts crushed against super-heated pecs, and hips gyrating in a demand to get closer, where heat pooled into rabid lust.
Franco reached down and grasped the backs of her thighs, lifting her without removing his lips from hers. He walked them around to the end of the couch and placed her on the armrest, bending her over one arm as he pulled first one rigid nipple into his mouth and then the other. He sucked and licked the turgid peaks until Nici thought she’d lose her mind. “I need you inside me,” she panted.
Franco gave her a lingering kiss and stepped away. “Don’t move.”
She watched hungrily as he stalked back to his jeans and pulled out his wallet. He tugged a square foil packet from the wallet. She barely noticed what he was doing. She was transfixed by the sight of him.
His body was long and hard and perfect. His buttocks were round and firm, his legs muscular, his stomach firmly rippled and his shoulders broad. And the column of hard flesh bouncing jauntily before him when he walked... Nici licked her lips, mesmerized by the sight as he came back to her.
She watched the way his shoulders flexed as he fitted the condom over his shaft. Watched the way his eyes found hers as he lifted his head and stepped closer. She watched the way his forearms bulged when he grasped her legs and lifted them, stepping between her quivering thighs.
She couldn’t stop watching as he slid his length into her. And then fire exploded in her belly and she couldn’t watch any longer. Her eyes went closed and her body fell back against the protective frame of his arm as he thrust slowly and deeply into her.
Her core tightened around him, embracing the delicious invasion with jolts of sheer pleasure that curled her toes and made her nipples jut happily skyward.
She clasped his arms and held on as his thrusts quickened, his erection plunging deep and gliding bliss over the pleasure centers of her body with every stroke. Delight built to an almost painful state and Nici tensed, waiting out the explosion she knew would come.
He built the fires of that pleasure like the virtuoso he was and carefully nursed the explosion to a fever peak. Then, when Nici’s body couldn’t hold back any longer, he lifted her lips up to his and took them in a kiss that was only slightly less rabid than the thrusting of his body into hers. The taste of his lips, along with the added sweetness of his breath heating the air they shared, urged Nici’s body to give up its joy in wave after wave of muscle softening bliss.
She clung to him with both hands, her head dropping back to give him full access to her throat as her orgasm drew him violently into his. Franco followed her over the peak with a throaty groan and a final series of deep, fast thrusts as his body found its own pleasure within hers.
Franco picked her up and carried her to the floor before the fire. He kissed her face, her throat, the soft mounds of her breasts as he laid her out on the soft rug. Then he slid his big body over hers, worshiping every exposed and blissful inch of her flesh. And, even before her sexual core had stopped pulsing with pleasure from the first bout of lovemaking, Franco dropped over her and started the dance again, pushing the outside world and their problems to the side where they could be forgotten, for at least a few hours of heat and fire.
###
Nici sang while she worked, her mind finding happier things to focus on during the hard and bloody work of gutting and fileting the fish they’d caught together that morning. She was pleased by having caught the fish and happier still for the passion she and Franco had started to build. Maybe the days ahead wouldn’t be as painful as she’d thought.
Except for not being able to tell the people who loved her that she was okay.
Thoughts of her parents and brother sent a thrill of pain through her and she faltered with the knife. It slipped across the headless fish and sliced into her finger. “Ow!” Nici dropped the knife and stepped back, examining the wound. It was fairly deep but hadn’t started bleeding yet. She grabbed a paper towel and wiped slime off her finger so she could look more closely at the wound. As she did, fresh blood welled up and dripped down her finger.
She hurried inside and ran the finger under water, hissing as it stung. Then she dried the wound with a clean paper towel,
applying pressure to slow the bleeding.
A bright bloom of crimson spread through the toweling so she twisted it tighter. Rummaging in the bathroom cabinet, she found an ancient first aid kit with alcohol wipes and some band aids. Quickly dressing her wound, Nici caught sight of herself in the cloudy mirror and grimaced. Her dark hair was a mess, flat on one side and sticking up on the other. She looked like a woman who’d been well and truly loved and she’d been too sated and too happy to even notice how rumpled she was.
Nici grimaced, not believing she’d spent the morning with Franco looking like that. Then she checked herself. Despite their lovemaking, Franco wasn’t her boyfriend. He was her kidnapper slash bodyguard. What did she care if she didn’t look her best around him?
But even as she tried that argument on, Nici knew she was lying to herself.
She cared. A lot.
Nici grabbed her toothbrush and quickly brushed her teeth, then washed her face and applied mascara to her lashes. She briefly considered putting a light layer of shadow on her lids, knowing the color would bring out the smoky green-brown of her eyes. But she discarded that idea as being too obvious. They were in hiding in the middle of god knew where and people were trying to kill them. She frowned, still not fully believing it.
Nici settled for a quick brushing of her thick hair, using a little water and hairspray to tame it into the ragged bob she preferred.
She smiled at the results. “Much better.”
A ray of sunlight slipped through the high, small window of the bathroom. With it came the sound of something sharp hitting wood. Curious, Nici stepped onto the side of the tub and hoisted herself up, peering outside.
She sucked in a breath at what she saw there. Franco, wielding an ax, wearing only low-slung jeans and boots. His flannel shirt was tied around his narrow hips. “Gulp,” she murmured. He was beyond delicious. It was no wonder she was having trouble keeping her hands off him. But she’d always considered herself too smart to fall for a pretty man. Pretty generally meant stupid and self-involved. Pretty was generally only good for one thing. Watching his broad back bunch and glisten in the rising sunshine, Nici decided she was on board for that one thing. Even if it came to nothing in the end. She’d take a few sizzling hours between the sheets with her hot bodynapper anytime.
“Stop it!” she scolded herself. “You’re such a hussy.” Shaking her head at her own stupidity, Nici stepped down off the side of the tub and started to turn.
Her gaze caught the mirror over the sink and something flashed past.
She stilled, listening carefully for the sound of footsteps in the outer room. A beat later her attention was rewarded by the softest scuff of a shoe on the hardwood floor.
“Dammit!” she whispered, looking around for something to use as a weapon. Then she thought of Franco, outside with his back turned to the cabin. He wouldn’t even see trouble coming his way.
Nici’s frantic gaze scoured the room, finally seeing a useful combination in the jumble of things scattered around the sink. She grabbed the can of hairspray and a lighter stick Franco had been using to light the fire in the main room. He must have set it there when he washed his hands after building that morning’s fire and forgotten about it.
On a whim, Nici turned a faucet on in the shower and tugged the curtain closed. She slipped behind the door, leaving it open so she could peer through the crack by the hinges.
Then she waited.
It didn’t take long.
A tall, form appeared like smoke alongside the doorway. The intruder was dressed in black slacks and a black turtleneck, a ribbon of silvery hair framing a pale cheek. As the intruder slipped silently into the room, Nici took a deep breath and stepped out from behind the door, spraying the hairspray at the surprised intruder and flicking the lighter stick into life.
Fire roared through the air, directly toward the woman in the doorway, but didn’t quite reach her as she dived toward the floor and disappeared.
Nici screamed Franco’s name and dived through after her, hoping to tackle the intruder while she was discombobulated.
She never got the chance.
She was tackled from behind, thrown to the floor, and the bloody knife she’d been using to filet the fish shoved against her chin. The scent of lemons wafted over her and a soft breath bathed her ear.
The form draped along her back was soft and hard all at once, the muscles of her assailant’s arms and thighs flexing as she breathed a warning into Nici’s ear. “You can’t trust him. Come to the park outside of town at eight tonight. Come alone.”
The back door slammed shut and Franco called her name. The weight disappeared from her back and soft footsteps trailed away.
A moment later, as Nici was pushing to her feet, Franco crouched down next to her, his gun drawn. “Are you hurt?”
She shook her head, letting him help her to her feet. “Somebody was in here. She...”
Nici suddenly realized what the woman who’d tackled her had said. Had she meant Nici couldn’t trust Franco?
She hesitated, running a hand through her hair.
Franco grabbed her hand and she jerked away.
He frowned. “You hurt your hand.” The words came out brusque, almost angry, and Nici bristled.
“I told you I’m fine. It’s just a small cut.”
He narrowed his gaze on her but didn’t press. “You said there was somebody here?”
“A woman. She had the knife...” Nici looked around, realizing the intruder had taken the knife with her. Shaking her head, she pulled breath into her lungs, trying to calm. “She tackled me and, when she heard you she left.” Nici couldn’t meet his gaze. She didn’t know why she’d left out the information about meeting the woman at the park. Nici didn’t really believe the woman. She didn’t even know who she was. Still, when Franco told her to stay put while he checked the rest of the cabin, she bristled. “She’s gone.”
“Let me just make sure,” he told her, his voice softening. “You gave me quite a scare.”
Nici shrugged, her feelings a jumble and her thoughts unsure. “I don’t know where she came from.”
Franco moved through the living room and did a quick look behind the fridge in the kitchen. He checked the few closets in the house and went upstairs to check the bedroom. As he descended the stairs he slipped the Glock back into his jeans. That was when Nici realized that, though he hadn’t been wearing the holster outside chopping wood or during fishing, he must have had the gun with him none-the-less.
It was a harsh reminder to Nici of what he was. What they were. He was her bodyguard and she was his client. Nothing more. She headed toward the front porch again.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“To get the fish. I don’t know about you but I’m starving.”
She wasn’t really. Her stomach was tied up in knots. But she needed to stay busy while she worked through the events of the morning. Cooking breakfast was as good a way as any to do that. And then there was the harsh plea of her attacker to meet later that night.
She’d be crazy as a loon to do it. It would be dangerous and she had no idea who the woman was. But none of that seemed to matter as her mind played over the harshly whispered command.
Something about it drew her in. Something about the woman made her want to shove fear aside and examine the possibilities.
Maybe she was just tired of the subterfuge and the hiding.
She couldn’t actually be considering going.
Could she?
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“Have you found her?”
“Yes. We’re going in tonight.”
Osgood closed his eyes, relief softening the tension from his neck. “Good. That’s good. I don’t want her hurt.”
“So you keep telling me.”
He frowned. “Yet you continually put her in danger with your recklessness.”
“I’m doing the best I can. Maybe you’d like to try.”
Osgood felt his eyes go wid
e. “Not an option.”
“You still don’t want her to know you’re involved?”
The question seemed innocent enough, but Osgood sensed the threat behind it. “You’ll do well to remember who’s in charge. If you don’t think you can accomplish your assigned tasks, please, just let me know. I’d be happy to find someone to replace you.”
Silence met his bluff and he knew he’d gone too far. There was so much at stake and the players they’d put into place were all important. Each one had a skill or connection that was vital for their assigned tasks. Still, he couldn’t allow the people underneath him to get cocky. Too much confidence and the next thing you knew your minions were trying to take things into their own hands. It was the reason he told most of them very little. Unfortunately, the man on the other end of the line came with too much knowledge to start with. It was that knowledge, and his connection to the situation, that made him valuable. But it also made him dangerous.
“That won’t be necessary,” he finally said.
“Good. Let me know when she’s on her way here.”
The line went dead and he slipped the phone into the pocket of his dress shirt. Its weight was a gentle reminder that his entire operation was founded on a series of unseen connections, setting into motion a different series of secondary actions. It was all so tenuous and the end result was so incredibly important that that tenuousness was turning his life upside down.
He couldn’t eat. He couldn’t sleep. His neck and shoulders were rigid with fear and his head screamed from the constant tension. He’d be relieved once he managed to put the first cornerstone into place. Hopefully the remaining pieces would fall into line more easily.
God knew they couldn’t possibly be any harder to wrangle than the first piece was proving to be.
###
She sat on the end of the dock, legs folded close and arms wrapped around her knees. Something had changed that morning. Something that he suspected had to do with the attacker who’d disappeared like smoke before he could set eyes on her. Nici had been visibly shaken, as she had every right to be, but it was more than that. She’d been affected somehow by the elusive intruder.
