Under Threat

by B. J Daniels

  She moaned against him, arching in the way that drove him crazy. He slid his fingers into her underwear, finding the soft, wet heat of her. Stroking and exploring until she wasn’t just shaking in his arms, but shuddering. Panting. Desperate.

  And he was desperate too.

  “The ground is rough. So I’m going to lay on my back, and you’re going to get on top.”

  “You just lay out orders everywhere you go, don’t you?”

  But she didn’t protest when he lay down and pushed his boxers off his legs. Not a complaint, just a steady gaze at the hardest part of him illuminated only by the flashlight he’d rested on the ground. “I believe that means it’s your turn to take off your underwear.”

  She grinned at him and shimmied out of her underwear. She knelt next to him and handed him the condom. He opened the packet and rolled it on himself, watching her as she watched him. She licked her lips and he groaned aloud.

  “How on earth are we going to do this?” she asked, and though it seemed like she attempted to make eye contact, her gaze never made it very far.

  “Just figure out however you feel comfortable.”

  She straddled him, that intimate place of hers not making contact with his body. She trailed her fingers down his chest and his abdomen. He could only barely make out the tight points of her dark nipples, only barely make out the seductive shape of her body.

  But she was here, straddling him, those smooth legs brushing up against his sides, her scent, her warmth permeating the very air.

  “Are you sure you’re comfortable?” she asked before chewing on her bottom lip in that sexy and distracting way she did whenever she was worried.

  “Baby, all I feel is you.” Which was true. When it was all said and done, he might notice the way the rocks dug into him, but for right now, all he could see, feel, think, want was her.

  She leaned over him, her breasts brushing his chest, her lips brushing his mouth. “Then take me,” she murmured.

  It was his turn to take the order, and he did, sliding home on a moan, moving deep and steady, paying attention to the way her breath caught and exhaled. The pleasure and excitement coiled so deep and so hard, he wasn’t sure he’d ever survive.

  His hands dug into the softness of her hips, but he let her set the pace. Slow and tentative at first, and then she moved faster, everything about her softness, her breathy moans, her driving him closer and closer to that reckless edge.

  She was beautiful, moving against him, sighing, gasping as she chased that rhythm that would lead to her release. It bloomed in him, big and hard, something more than where their bodies met.

  She said his name, pulsed around him. He thought he could make out the way the flush in her cheeks had spread across her chest as she sighed out her release.

  But it wasn’t enough. He pushed himself into a sitting position, pulling her legs around him. Her gaze met his, glazed with pleasure.

  “Again,” he ordered.

  And when she opened her mouth to protest, he covered it with his own.

  * * *

  Again. The harsh, demanding way Vaughn had said those words echoed in her head. Again? She’d just lost herself over some edge she’d never known, how could she possibly do it again?

  But he was kissing her, using that harsh, steady, hot grip on her hips to pull her forward. She arched against it, against him. She loved the way her breasts scraped across his chest. She loved the way his hands were commanding and sure. She loved this. Being with him. Being filled by him. Being driven to some sort of climax that was bigger than she’d ever known.

  She was starting to think it might be a dream.

  But Vaughn kept moving, urging her to take more of him, and then less, over and over again in a steady, unrelenting rhythm. The blooming edge of pleasure began to build again. The heat that should’ve been unbearable, but she couldn’t stand to lose. A fire in her veins that she didn’t want to be cooled.

  He broke the kiss and his mouth streaked everywhere. Her cheeks, her neck, her chest. He was everywhere, driving her into a faster and faster pace. She could feel his desperation grow, the closeness of his own release, just thinking about that, of being with him, finding that pleasure together, it pushed her over that last humbling, bright edge.

  Vaughn held her there, deep and strong, his harsh groan echoing in the expanse of the cave.

  She wasn’t sure how long they sat there wrapped up in each other, holding on for dear life. She wasn’t even sure how long the orgasm pulsed through her. She didn’t care. In this dark cave with Vaughn, it didn’t matter what time it was. All that mattered was that he was holding her, that he was a part of her.

  “You’re shaking again, and I think it’s cold this time,” he murmured into her ear, so gentle and sweet.

  It was hard to think she could be cold, but as he grabbed a sweatshirt and pulled it over her head, she realized he was right. She was shivering with cold, among other things.

  The sweatshirt he put on her was his, oversized and warm, and it smelled like him. Clean and soap and Vaughn. She wanted to snuggle into that smell and him forever.

  “We should get dressed.”

  If he hadn’t kissed her forehead and her cheek and then her neck before moving, she might have been fooled by that tense note in his voice. But he was so gentle, and affectionate, and she realized that his tenseness wasn’t about what had passed between them, it was just that he was coming back to the job he had before him.

  He was dedicated to her safety. He was dedicated to her. She couldn’t help but be warmed by that.

  She rolled off him and tried not to watch with too much interest as he got rid of the condom. He handed her a pair of pants that would be too big, but they would keep her warm. The cave was much cooler than the outside air.

  “You can change back into your clothes tomorrow when we set out. The sweats will be too big to move in, but the shorts and shirt won’t be enough to keep you warm tonight.”

  “Have you always been such a good caretaker?”

  “I guess it depends on who you ask.”

  “I’m asking you.”

  Those inscrutable gray-blue eyes met hers in the eerie glow of the flashlight beam. Something in his gaze shuttered, and she realized this was quite the sore spot for him. “You’ve done nothing but take care of me so far,” she said firmly, wishing she could erase those doubts in his eyes.

  “That’s my job.”

  “It’s more than that.”

  “Do you want to rest, or do you want to try to eat something first? All I have are some granola bars and some jerky.”

  “Vaughn, I want to talk.”

  “We can talk about whatever you want, except about my caregiving tendencies.”

  She frowned at him as he got dressed. He seemed to have an endless supply of things in that black backpack of his. She sat on the blankets that he’d stretched out, dressed in his clothes, watching something like irritation make his shoulders hunch.

  “So, is this the part where you’re just certain that I’m going to look at you like your ex-wife looked at you?” she asked, perhaps too bluntly, but if she was going to have ill-advised sex with the man, she was going to ask him too-blunt questions.

  If her life was in danger, she was going to push where she normally wouldn’t. She was going to demand what it would never occur to her to demand in her real, unassuming, obsessed-with-Gabby life.

  He faced her, and in the light everything about him seemed hard and unreachable. Granite she’d never be able to push through. Except she had. She had.

  “We had sex once, Natalie. I like you, I do. But you’re nothing like a wife.”

  It was a nasty thing to say, and it hurt even though she knew it shouldn’t. She wasn’t his wife, she wasn’t even close to his wife. She’d be lucky if there was anything they could salvage after this whole
ordeal.

  But just because words were designed to hurt, no matter the truths or lack of truth behind them, didn’t mean that she could let it go.

  “I’m not trying to be an ass,” he said on a sigh, rubbing his jaw. “But don’t make me into something I’m not.”

  “I’m not making you into anything. I’m reflecting on what I’ve seen from you, and if you can’t accept that part of yourself, that’s fine. Don’t take it out on me.”

  “I’m not big on sorry.” He said it with such a grave finality she opened her mouth to tell him he was a jerk, but he kept going.

  “But I’m sorry. Because I was feeling guilty for letting my personal feelings interfere with this case, and I took it out on you, and that’s less than fair.”

  Her heart ached for him then, because she knew that she’d initiated this. She’d pushed for it. Not that Vaughn hadn’t wanted it or hadn’t enjoyed it, but it had come at a cost to him. It required him to bend that ironclad moral code he lived by, and that meant something, not easily distilled no matter how great the orgasm might have been.

  It was crazy to think she might love him. She barely knew him. And yet everything in her heart said that love was what this feeling was. Love, or the seeds of it. There was so much possibility, and yet so much against them.

  “Apology accepted,” she said, hoping her voice sounded light rather than as ragged and rocked as she felt.

  “Just like that?”

  “This wasn’t a mistake, but I understand why it might be hard for you to accept. But I’ll never regret it. No matter what happens.”

  “You say that now...”

  “And I’ll say it always. No matter what.” She stood, because she needed to somehow prove to him that she was strong. That she meant it. “That was what I needed, at that exact time I needed it. And you gave it to me. Nothing you could do could take that away. Nothing that happens changes what you gave me.”

  He stared at her, and she thought she saw some pain there, and she assumed it probably had to do with his marriage that had dissolved. No matter how much or how little he’d given, that relationship had clearly left scars. She wished she could sew them together, kiss them, make everything okay.

  But she couldn’t. And not just because they had dangerous men after them.

  “Let’s eat something, and then one of us can try to sleep.”

  He kept staring at her for a few humming seconds of silence. Then slowly, oh so painfully slowly, he crossed to her. He touched her face, his blunt fingertips tracing the lines of her cheekbones and then her jaw, then her neck. His eyes bore into hers, and her heart hammered against her chest.

  She wanted to say silly things like I love you, and she knew she couldn’t. She absolutely couldn’t.

  “For the record, I’ll never regret it, either.”

  When he kissed her, it was gentle, and it was sweet. And Vaughn Cooper gave her something that no one else had for a very long time.

  Hope.

  Chapter 14

  Vaughn managed a few hours of sleep, after he watched Natalie sleep for far too long. It had been tempting to lie next to her, to wake her with a kiss. So, he’d done neither. He’d stood guard the entire time she’d slept, and then he’d woken her by nudging her with his foot.

  Because he was a bit of a coward, all in all.

  Though his brain and body were nothing but a swirling mass of confusion he didn’t have time for, exhaustion won out and he slept quick and hard.

  Natalie woke him at the first sign of dawn, just as he’d instructed, and then he began to pack everything.

  “Are we going back to the cabin?” she asked him, trepidation coloring her every movement.

  “No. We’re hiking farther.”

  “Until what?”

  “I know the area well enough to lead us toward civilization. Somewhere our phones work and we can call for help. It’s too dangerous to go back to the cabin.”

  “But what about your truck?”

  “They slashed the tires,” he returned. He hadn’t wanted to tell her all the things he’d noticed as they’d escaped from the cabin. That they took care to not shoot anyone, that they’d snuck their way into a position to take not murder.

  He supposed murder would be scarier, but the idea of Natalie being held by those men... He wasn’t going to let that happen.

  “When did you notice that?” she asked incredulously.

  “When I kicked Worthless Number Two over, I saw the tires were flat.” And that the man had been carrying handcuffs and rope. Duct tape. Vaughn swallowed at the uncomfortable ball of rage and fear in his gut.

  Natalie blew out a breath. “How long will it take to get us back to civilization?”

  Vaughn pulled out the map of the Guadalupe Mountains that he kept in his emergency pack. He’d studied it last night while Natalie was sleeping, but he was worried and thorough enough to look at it again.

  He inclined the map so she could see too. “This is the path we’re going to follow.” He showed her with his finger the mountains they would have to cross to get inside the national park and finally find service or a ranger station to assist them. “I don’t know exactly where we’ll get cell service, so we just have to keep going until we get it. Or find someone who can help us. My hope is that they don’t expect us to keep moving forward this way, and it’ll give us enough of a head start that by the time they realize it, we’ll be close enough to call for help.”

  Natalie chewed her bottom lip and studied the map. “Do you have enough supplies to get us through all of this?”

  “It’ll be tight and we’ll be hungry, but we’ll survive.”

  “You don’t know the meaning of sugarcoating, do you?”

  “Do you want me to sugarcoat it?” Because he would, if that’s what she wanted. He wasn’t sure who else he’d afford that to.

  She sighed again, pulling her hair back in a ponytail. It stretched the tight T-shirt across her breasts, and he had to stop himself from wondering how much he’d be able to see if they indulged in each other right now. In the pearly light of dawn easing its way into the cave. Her skin would glow, she would—

  They didn’t have time for that, and even if he’d lost his mind once, he couldn’t do it again. At least not if it meant wasting daylight. Maybe tonight...

  He shook his head and told himself to focus. “First things first, we’re going to start moving toward higher ground. Hopefully that gives us a tactical advantage, and we can see if anyone’s following us before they catch up.”

  “What do we do if they are?”

  “Well, that depends on how close they are. We’ll either book it, or we’ll pick them off. But that’s a lot of what-if, Natalie.”

  “You shot those other men. Do you think...” She swallowed, and he didn’t know if it was her conscience or something else bothering her, but either way that was something that she was going to have to work out on her own.

  Every officer who vowed to protect the innocent and took up a weapon had to come to terms with what that meant and the power it offered. They had to come to grips with what they were willing to do. He couldn’t convince her of his morality or his lack of guilt, and, in the next few days should she have to use her weapon, only she could deal with the aftermath of that. He couldn’t do it for her, no matter how much he’d like to.

  Because if he had the choice, he would save her from every hard decision. Which was another thing in a long line of things he didn’t have the time or energy to think about right now.

  “It was my intention to give them non-life-threatening wounds, but without medical attention, it’s hard to know if they survived, and quite frankly I can’t concern myself with it. The only thing I can concern myself with right now is keeping you and me safe.”

  She didn’t say anything for a long while, and he let her be quiet as they walked
out of the cave. They would need to make it to another shelter by nightfall, and though he could read the map and do some general calculations, he couldn’t be sure where they’d end up when the sun set.

  So, they needed to head out and get as far as they could. He didn’t think they could make it to cell service today, but if they got good enough mileage behind them, they could hopefully get there tomorrow.

  They hiked in silence for most of the morning, and though Vaughn was sorry that she was obviously brooding about a difficult situation, he couldn’t feel bad that there wasn’t any conversation to distract him from his task at hand.

  Occasionally they stopped and ate a snack and drank some water. Vaughn would consult the map, but mostly they walked. He knew she was exhausted, and probably on her last legs, but he also knew that she was strong and resilient, and that he could push her and she would survive. That was one of the things he most admired about her.

  “You’re holding up remarkably well, you know,” he said as they sat on rocks and Natalie devoured a granola bar.

  She glanced at him, the granola bar halfway to her mouth. Her gaze didn’t bother to hide her surprise. “I haven’t really had a choice, have I?”

  “We always have a choice. One of the choices is to lie down and die, to give up. One of the choices is to think that you can’t, and so then it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. You could be so busy complaining about the lot you’ve been given that we never got anywhere. But you’ve chosen to move forward. To keep fighting. Not everyone could have done that, not everyone has that kind of wherewithal. I’m not sure anyone should have to have that kind of wherewithal, but it’s special. And you deserve to know that.”

  She smiled a little and looked down at her granola bar for a second before leaning over and giving him a long, gentle kiss. Her arm wound around his neck, and it took all the willpower he had not to lean into that, not to pull her into his lap. He couldn’t let her distract him, but...

  She pulled away, that sweet smile playing on her lips. “You know Vaughn, I like you a lot. That’s not something I would have said about five days ago.”