Breaking Protocol

by Michelle Witvliet

  “Definitely, not dressed like that,” Carter adamantly reiterated.

  “All I need is five minutes to change.”

  He considered his options and reached the conclusion he didn’t have any. As much as he’d like nothing better than to keep her out of harm’s way, he had to remind himself she was every bit as capable in these situations as he. He’d waited a long time to cross this line with her. He wasn’t about to let these surprisingly protective instincts screw it up now.

  He rubbed his temple scar and answered in the only way he could. “All right, follow me.”

  “What was that?” Piper questioned. “Why’d you hesitate like that?”

  “What? No, I didn’t,” he said, leaning his weight against the steel door and turning the handle.

  “Riggs!” she exclaimed, poking him in the back. “You definitely hesitated.”

  “There was no hesitation,” he insisted as he pushed the door open halfway. “I may have paused—briefly—to collect my thoughts.” Grateful to have something to do, he peered around the door to check the outer structure for storm damage. Finding none, he shoved the door open wider and moved toward the staircase with Piper following close behind.

  “Collect your thoughts, huh? Well, wherever those thoughts were taking you, they’d better not be thinking about going without me.”

  Carter kept moving. “Why would I do that?” He reasoned she was bound to have a much better explanation than any he could improvise.

  “Because you’d be amazed at how a couple of orgasms can turn some men into overprotective lunkheads.”

  “Really?” Carter tried to sound appropriately unconcerned by her revelation.

  “Hard to believe, isn’t it?”

  It wasn’t all that hard, but he knew enough not to admit it out loud. Not if he hoped to get any more of those aforementioned orgasms.

  The upstairs was dark and quiet, eerily so, when they entered the main living area. While Piper scurried down the hall to change, Riggs checked to see how the exterior of the beach house had fared. From the living room, he opened the sliding door and shoved aside the metal storm shutters.

  He stood on the balcony and surveyed the storm’s aftermath. They had been fortunate. Only the outer bands of the storm had touched the little island. There appeared to be minimal damage to the landscape and even less to the structure. To say they’d been lucky would have been a gross understatement when they could have just as easily found the house a pile of rubble.

  Piper came up behind him dressed in a pair of jeans, running shoes, and a too-big, gray T-shirt she had obviously pilfered from his closet.

  He fingered a rolled-up shirtsleeve. “Is nothing sacred?” he questioned, feigning abject violation.

  “Not anymore,” she tossed off with a cheeky grin. “I’ve always preferred men’s shirts. They’re more comfortable.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind if I ever have to commandeer clothes for you again,” he said as he ushered her back down the interior staircase and out the less-visible lower-level rear exit.

  While the front of the house overlooked the open beach and ocean, the entire back length was overgrown with lush tropical foliage. It made it that much easier for them to move through the underbrush and remain concealed. In the unlikely chance that something other than wildlife had tripped the alarm, the last thing Carter wanted to do was traipse up an open stretch of beach without so much as a palm frond for cover.

  * * *

  The rain had subsided but the sky remained dark and threatening. The rolling expanse of black clouds clearly indicated they were in for another stormy go-around, and the air was thick with humidity. In a matter of minutes the moisture-wicking shirt she’d pilfered from Riggs hung from her shoulders like she’d taken it straight from the washer instead of his closet, and from what she could tell, his shirt clung to his back in the same sodden manner.

  Stepping over or around broken branches and piles of storm-tossed foliage, Riggs occasionally stopped to listen. Piper listened, too, but quickly realized there was very little for them to hear.

  “I can’t believe how quiet it is,” she said in a hushed tone usually reserved for sanctuaries and funeral homes. Piper found the unnatural quiet more disconcerting then the earlier howling wind and roaring surf. “A little too quiet, if you ask me. It’s creepy. Tell me again what we’re doing out here?”

  “Does checking the source of the perimeter alarm sound familiar?” Carter asked, ducking under a low-hanging frond.

  “Right—perimeter alarm—got it,” she said, absently adjusting her grip on the Beretta. That particular weapon, with a fully loaded magazine, was considerably heavier than she liked. It was a big-ass handgun, and her preferences leaned more toward the lightweight compact models, just as she knew from experience the Brigadier was Riggs’s personal favorite.

  Piper never much liked routine reconnaissance. The process was tedious and usually accomplished nothing in the end, which was why she allowed her mind to ponder more interesting subject matter to keep her brain from going numb. That she’d been relegated to bringing up the rear made the situation that much worse.

  She glanced again at the hefty Beretta and couldn’t help recalling the locker room banter comparing a man’s equipment to the size of his weapon. A single snigger escaped before she could catch it.

  Carter cast a questioning glance over his shoulder. “You find something amusing back there?”

  “No...” she replied. “Well, sort of...” she amended. “Actually, yes,” she finally confessed.

  “Care to share?”

  “Not really.” His blissfully unaware expression made her suck in her cheeks to keep from laughing out loud. She stared straight ahead in an attempt to refocus. Bad idea, she realized as her wandering gaze zoned in on Riggs’s nicely rounded backside.

  “Oh, what the hell,” she blurted before she exploded. “I was thinking about...your...I mean this big gun.” She held up the Beretta in a way she hoped would explain her behavior.

  Riggs stopped in his tracks, turned slowly and stared wordlessly for a long, silent moment. It was clear he wasn’t buying it.

  “Reached any conclusions?”

  Without skipping a beat, Piper struck a cocky stance reminiscent of a streetwise urban hustler. “Honey,” she said, jacking her head from side to side, “you ain’t overcompensating for nothin’ with this thing here!” The weight of the weapon pitched and jerked recklessly in her hand in an obvious effort to stress her point before dropping like an anchor to her side.

  Lord, he was a trusting soul when it came to this woman. She’d just waved a fully loaded Brigadier in the general direction of his man parts and he never so much as flinched. If anyone else, friend or foe alike, had dared swing a pistol at him like that, they would have found themselves either tackled to the ground or shot outright. He sure as hell hoped he wasn’t confusing lust for trust, because if he was, he could be making the biggest mistake of his life.

  In spite of his firsthand knowledge concerning her consummate acting abilities, he couldn’t quite believe the sudden personality transformation he’d just witnessed, and he seriously wondered where the accomplished actress ended and the genuine Piper began.

  With a shake of his head, Carter cleared his head. “Is there anything else you’d like to get out of your system, or can we continue?” There was a level of seriousness in his tone that brooked no further foolishness.

  “C’mon, Riggs, that was funny, where’s your sense of humor?”

  “Must have left it back at the house,” he grumbled as they neared the place of the security violation. And took his suspicious mind instead, he silently added.

  Carter paused and looked all around, searching for some sign of human interference. He found nothing inordinately suspicious and relaxed his stance.

  T
ucking the Beretta into his waistband, he motioned for Piper to keep hers at the ready while he used both hands to clear away the debris from the security eyes, although from what he knew about the system that alone shouldn’t have triggered the alarm.

  Because there were so many variables in securing an outdoor location, the eyes worked in tandem with the strategically placed solar-powered surveillance cameras. Both had to be blocked or knocked out of sequence to trigger the alarm. The program attached to the computerized surveillance system was also capable of detecting the differences between wildlife and human movement. It was a sophisticated system, but not without its flaws. For every default and safeguard implemented, there was always something or someone ready to muck it up and expose its fallibilities.

  Upon closer examination, he realized the rotating bracket that held the panning camera had been knocked askew. That combined with the blocked laser eyes would have been more than enough to trigger the warning alarm. He did what he could to realign the camera and eyes, but it was going to take additional fine-tuning before he could get the system up and running again. He didn’t like it, but he was going to have to leave the exterior part of the system disarmed until it was fixed.

  This made him exceedingly uncomfortable about their overall vulnerability. The storm had made him acutely aware of the site-specific variables connected with securing the location, and it started him thinking about getting off the island sooner than he planned.

  He crouched down, balancing on the balls of his feet, and examined the wind-damaged palm branches scattered over the rain-soaked ground.

  As expected, they were snapped and cracked and gave every appearance that they were broken and strewn from the storm. There was nothing specific that indicated otherwise.

  Then why did he have the strangest feeling that something, or rather someone, other than the wind and rain had tripped the alarm? Absently fingering a damaged frond still wet and slick from the storm, he glanced across the open stretch of deserted beach and scanned the dark sea beyond before glancing up at the camera mounted above him. Something caused his gut to twist and tickle with unnerving apprehension, and he couldn’t ignore the familiar sensations prickling the back of his neck.

  “There’s something wrong about this.”

  Piper came up behind him and studied the area. “I don’t see anything unusual.”

  Layer by layer Riggs removed the scattered palm leaves and broken branches, tossing them aside until he reached the wet soil beneath. Here again, the sand looked almost too perfect in its randomness. Granted, a storm had just passed and everything was scattered and strewn in every direction by the whims of nature, but still, it didn’t look right to Riggs. There were no footprints, no hard evidence of intrusion.

  Then it hit him. There should be footprints. The island teemed with wildlife, including a prolific species of small deer. But in this area there wasn’t one thing to substantiate the fact. Under the fallen foliage there should have been some evidence of animal activity. That’s when he knew the area had been sanitized.

  Not sure what he was looking for but certain he’d find it, he picked up a stick and started to poke around. And there it was. Buried under six inches of loose sand he found a neat cluster of cigarette butts. Every one had been neatly field stripped, a method of scattering any of the remaining tobacco from the snuffed butt and compressing the filter into a tight wad. It was a long-standing habit of military personnel. A civilian probably wouldn’t know enough to do so, or bother even if he did.

  “Looks like we’ve had company.”

  “You don’t know when those were buried there.”

  “You think it’s a coincidence that these stripped butts were hidden not three feet from where we found the camera and eyes knocked out of alignment?”

  “As a matter of fact, I do,” she stated unequivocally, turning all around to see if she could find anything that would possibly change her opinion. “Sorry, Riggs, I’m not seeing the connection. I think the incidents are totally unrelated.”

  “I don’t want to take the chance.” Tossing the frond aside and standing, Riggs announced, “We’re leaving.” He caught her by the hand and pulled her away.

  Piper hurried to keep up with his pace. “What do you mean, we’re leaving? Where are we going? The house is that way.”

  “We’re not going back to house. We’re taking the speedboat and getting the hell out of here.”

  “What? No, wait. Shouldn’t we grab our bags and lock up first?” She cast a glance at the receding house.

  He shoved aside dripping foliage to clear their path. “I’ll contact the rental office when we reach the mainland and tell them where to send our stuff,” he said.

  “Riggs, this is ridiculous. I think you’re overreacting again.” He seemed to be doing a lot of that lately.

  When they reached the clearing near the dock, he came to such an abrupt halt Piper nearly slammed into him. “How could I have made a mistake like this?” Riggs said aloud.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Don’t you see? In my haste to get you out of Colombia and in a safe location, I totally isolated us.”

  “If that was our transportation out of here, then yeah, I’d say you’re absolutely right because we’re not going anywhere in that boat.”

  The Chris-Craft sat half-submerged and listed heavily to one side with an uprooted tree trunk lying across the stern. The only thing keeping it from going under was the tether line tied to a cleat attached to the dock.

  “Now we’re stranded with no way off this island.” Spouting a string of expletives, Riggs ran down the pier, raised his foot and gave the bow jutting out of the water a hard shove with the sole of his canvas deck shoe. The boat rocked and thumped against the pilings as it shifted and settled lower in the lapping water churned murky from the storm. Then he grabbed her hand and moved hastily away from the unprotected cove. He didn’t slow his pace until they neared the rear of the house.

  Piper was stunned into compliant silence. This was a side of Riggs she’d never seen before. Of course she’d seen him angry plenty of times, but never to this extent. His entire body radiated with unrestrained fury, and it both frightened and fascinated her. She found herself wondering what he’d do next.

  She didn’t have long to wait.

  Less than twenty feet from the house, he whirled and pressed her against the trunk of a palm. Then he kissed her hard with the same unnerving intensity as the uncharacteristic anger he had exhibited minutes earlier.

  Only it wasn’t anger that provoked this impetuous act. It was uncontrollable, undeniable, unleashed passion. He gripped her hands and pinned them over her head as he shoved his thigh between her legs, working it higher and higher until he wedged himself tightly against her crotch. His panting breaths hissed and whistled against her cheek. Pressing his thigh increasingly harder against her pubis, he rubbed and ground against her in a rhythmic way that compelled her to respond in the only manner she imagined he intended. Finding the sweet niche between her legs, he pressed harder into her until she gave a little shriek and spasmed against him.

  The moment he released her, Piper lowered her head, wondering what the hell had just happened. Having no memory of dropping it, she eyed the Beretta near her feet and bent to retrieve it. Weak-kneed, her legs gave out from under her and she landed on her butt in the wet foliage. Stunned and disoriented, moisture seeping through her jeans to her skin, she gave herself a moment to collect her shattered thoughts.

  Crouching beside her, he pushed aside a tendril of hair, now stringy and wet from the misty rain. “You okay?” he asked.

  She nodded and accepted the hand he extended to pull her up. She was barely on her feet when he turned and headed for the house. So much for that tender moment, she thought as she studied his receding form a good ten feet ahead of her.

  In spite of
his conflicting behavior, if there was just one thing she knew for certain about Carter Riggs it was this—he never did anything without a solid reason to back up his actions. There was something that drove him to act that way, and she’d learned the simplest way to find the answer to something was to come right out and ask. Bush-beater she’d never be.

  “What was that all about?”

  He tipped back his head and raised his gaze to the sky. “Whatever I say is going to come out wrong, so it’s probably best for me not to say anything.”

  “Try.”

  He let out a long, deliberating sigh. “It’s just that—well...” He paused, rubbing his knuckles across his beard-roughened chin as he obviously grappled for the words. “You’re good at what you do.”

  “Why do I feel like this isn’t leading up to a compliment?”

  “In a way it is,” he said. “It’s not always easy knowing what’s real or affectation with you, Piper. I watched you change personalities in the blink of an eye a while ago. You can’t blame me for wondering what you were really reacting to in that storm shelter. Was it really me or just the extraordinary circumstances that put us there?”

  Angry disbelief pushed the air from her lungs. “Do you question the motives of every woman you sleep with?”

  He shook his head.

  “So it’s just me who brings out this none-too-charming side of you?” She took a couple of steps back to establish some distance between them and crossed her arms, adapting a rigid stance somewhere between defensive and protective. She wanted to make sure her posture could not be left open to misinterpretation for anything other than what she intended. His expression clearly conveyed he received the nonverbal communication, loud and clear.

  “Sorry to disappoint you, Riggs, but you’re just going to have to keep wondering, because I’ve no intention of justifying my actions to satisfy your baseless suspicions. If what you just did to me wasn’t enough to convince you, then there’s nothing more I can do or say to change your opinion. Either you trust me or you don’t. I’m sure you can grasp the simplicity of that concept.”