by Kat Martin
Derek’s smile held approval as he ate half, plucked a big green leaf off a tree and used it to wrap up the other half. He stuffed it into the pocket of his wrinkled navy slacks and glanced at the armed band of men around them before returning his attention to her.
“You’re doing great, Bree. You just have to go a little farther. It’s too dangerous to travel at night out here, so they’ll be making camp soon.”
“Maybe we’ll reach the new camp by nightfall.”
Derek shook his head. “Now that the hostages have been released, the Honduran military will be looking for the men responsible for the hijacking. There’ll be soldiers all over the airstrip. Batista has to get his men farther away, somewhere they can’t be found.”
Her shoulders slumped.
“Sorry, princess. I wish I had better news.”
An ache slipped through her at his use of the name. “My dad used to call me that when I was a little girl.”
Derek smiled. “I’m not surprised. With your blond hair and those pretty blue eyes, you must have looked like a fairy princess.”
Warmth slipped through her at the compliment. “When I got older, I hated the name. I felt like it made me sound pampered and spoiled.”
“You’re beautiful. And the way you’ve held up today—whatever happens, you can be proud of yourself.”
She glanced away, her eyes suddenly stinging. “I hope I can do as well tomorrow.”
Derek took her hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “You’ll do fine. With any luck, your dad is putting the money together to buy your release. In a day or two, this will all be over.”
“If I’m leaving, so are you.” She leaned over and kissed him, just a soft brush of lips, but Derek groaned. “That’s so you’ll remember.”
She caught a flash of heat in his golden-brown eyes, which he tried in vain to disguise. At least the attraction wasn’t one-sided.
“Vamanos! Pronto! Pronto!” Cisco used the barrel of his rifle to nudge Derek to his feet. He helped Bree up and they set off once more along the trail.
Another hour passed. The sunlight was beginning to fade when Batista halted the march in a clearing beneath a tall canopy of trees.
Bree surveyed the dense grasses and endless jungle around them. It wasn’t their final destination. A temporary camp at best. Derek was right—tomorrow was going to be another exhausting day.
CHAPTER SIX
DEREK SAT DOWN next to Bree on a fallen log and heard her tired sigh. She’d been amazing today, never complaining, just keeping her eyes on the trail and placing one weary foot in front of another.
She had surprised him—again. She was a wealthy heiress, daughter of one of the richest, most powerful men in the world, a fact he’d never come close to suspecting. Her sincere, down-to-earth attitude was one of the things that had attracted him to her.
Aside from being beautiful, on the plane she’d been fun and interesting to talk to—and interested in what he had to say. He remembered the way she’d helped the woman in the seat behind her. Carmen and her baby were merely fellow passengers, and yet Bree had been eager to lend a hand.
He didn’t regret leaving the plane with her. He hoped her name would be enough to keep her safe, but with men like these, there were no guarantees. Whatever happened, he’d do everything in his power to protect her.
He glanced up to see the general moving toward them in his ominously graceful way.
“In the jungle, the sun sets early,” Batista said as Derek rose from the log. “We will make camp here.” His thin lips curved. “As honored guests, you will have your own sleeping platform. Please follow me.”
Bree rose unsteadily, and Derek rested his hand on her waist to support her. They crossed the clearing to where a group of men were stripping thick tree branches and binding them together to form a makeshift deck several feet off the ground.
“Tomorrow we will reach our destination.” The general turned to Bree, a cool smile on his face. “I hope your father has his finances in order. If he wishes to see his daughter again, he will not waste too much time.”
Derek said nothing. Neither did Bree. Both of them understood the implication. If Wingate wanted to see her alive, he would pay—and pay promptly.
“Cisco will see to your needs,” Batista said. “Sleep well, my friends. Tomorrow will be a long day.” As Batista strode away, Bree turned and slid her arms around Derek’s waist. She rested her head on his shoulder, and he could feel her trembling.
“It’s going to be okay.” He smoothed back a lock of blond hair that had escaped her bedraggled ponytail and managed to smile. “At least we’ll be sleeping off the ground.”
Bree looked up at him, still looking uncertain. “I’m really glad to have you with me, Derek.”
Something stirred inside him. Though she was tired and disheveled, her clothes damp and her shoes muddy, she attracted him as no woman had in a very long time.
“Damn, I’d like to kiss you.”
Her eyes met his. “I’d like that, too,” she said softly, and a jolt of heat went straight to his loins. He started getting hard, clenched his jaw against his growing arousal.
“Not a good idea,” he said, surveying the rough men around them. “At least not here.”
Bree glanced away. “I know.”
Derek let her go as Cisco arrived and handed them each a bottle of water. “You will sleep there.” He pointed toward the platform. “Pilar brought clothes. Soon she will bring you food.”
The female hijacker. It was the first time Derek had heard one of them call her by name.
There wouldn’t be a fire. Too much chance of smoke being spotted from the air.
Cisco left, and Derek helped Bree up on the platform, then spread the bedrolls open on top, both of them cleaner than Derek would have expected. Two sets of neatly folded camouflage fatigues and two pairs of lace-up leather boots sat a few feet away. Another platform, probably for Batista, was barely visible through the foliage thirty yards away.
They sat down on the bedrolls, and each cracked open a bottle of water. They had climbed into the mountains during the day, and the temperature had dropped, making the evening air surprisingly comfortable.
Pilar, a tall, lean woman in her thirties with straight black hair parted in the middle and clipped at her nape, appeared carrying tin plates of food.
“Eat. The march will be long tomorrow.” She handed each of them a plate filled with some kind of meat and more baleadas. “You will need your strength.”
“Gracias.” Bree started eating with her fingers. Derek bit into a chunk of cold meat, the strong, gamey taste unfamiliar. He didn’t want to know what it was.
“At least it’s filling,” Bree said.
“Whatever it is, we won’t go to bed hungry.” But Derek was feeling another kind of hunger. The more time he spent with Bree, the more he wanted her. And he was pretty sure she wanted him.
He wished things were different. Wished she weren’t Jonathan Wingate’s daughter and he wasn’t the trailer trash son of an unknown man who had merely contributed his sperm to the equation. He wished the circumstances were different all around.
Bree ate slowly, making each bite last, saving half of one stuffed tortilla for tomorrow. Derek did the same. It was dark by the time they finished and Pilar picked up their empty tin plates.
As they prepared for bed, Derek took off his shoes and smoothed some of the sanitizer Bree carried in her bag over the sore spots on his feet. She carefully placed a waterproof Band-Aid over the red marks, and he prayed the boots they’d left for him came close to fitting.
“We need to get some sleep,” Derek said when he had finished, stretching out on his bedroll. Bree surprised him by moving her bedroll closer to his.
“You don’t mind, do you? I’ve never, you know, slept in a jungle before.”
Hell no, he didn’t mind. “Darlin,’ you can sleep next to me anytime you want.”
It was too dark to see her smile, but he was beginning to know her well enough to imagine her pretty lips curving. He could hear the rustle of fabric as she adjusted her clothes to get more comfortable, and tried not to imagine her taking them off altogether and lying down naked beside him.
She settled herself on the bedroll, facing away from him. Derek moved closer so they were snuggled together, spoon fashion. When he draped an arm over her waist, she released a relieved sigh.
“That better?” he asked.
“Much better.” But instead of going to sleep, she shifted a little and rolled onto her back. “It’s really dark out here.” Not even the twinkle of stars could penetrate the thick canopy overhead.
“Yeah.”
“Will you kiss me, Derek?”
His groin clenched hard as arousal burned through him, making him start to get hard. Jesus. She wanted him to kiss her? Derek wanted that more than his next breath of air—that and a whole lot more. If she had any idea the things he wanted to do, she would probably run screaming into the jungle.
Or maybe not.
Leaning over, he trailed soft kisses across her cheek, then settled his mouth over hers. Bree made a sweet little sound in her throat, and his blood began to pound. He wanted to hear that sound while she was moving beneath him. Wanted to strip away her garments and burying himself as deep as he could get.
Struggling to slow things down, he only managed to take the kiss deeper, delving in to taste her, inhaling the scent of aroused woman and making him hard as stone. Bree whimpered. Her arms went around his neck, and the kiss turned hotter, wetter, wilder. He didn’t remember unbuttoning her blouse until his palm filled with her soft bare breast. It perfectly fit his hand, and Derek groaned.
His thumb slid back and forth across her nipple. The small bud went diamond hard, and his erection throbbed with every heartbeat. Unable to resist, he slid his hand over her smooth skin, inside the jeans she’d unzipped for comfort, inside her panties. Curving his palm over her round behind, he lifted her a little, pulling her into him, letting her feel his arousal.
“I want you,” he said. “Bree, I want you so much.”
Bree softly kissed him. “I want you, too, Derek. Please...” Her whispered words sounded like a plea, and it was the need in her voice that brought him to his senses.
“Jesus, we can’t do this.” He shook his head and moved away from her, rolled onto his back and dragged in deep breaths of air. “Not out here.” Not with an army of rough, unkempt men ready to take his place the minute they realized what was going on.
“I’m sorry,” she said in the darkness, sounding uncertain as she hadn’t before. “I’m not usually... I don’t do this kind of thing with men I barely know. I just...” She sighed into the darkness. “I just wanted to control my life again, even if it was only for a while.”
Derek gathered her into his arms. “Don’t be sorry, princess. If we were anywhere but here, I wouldn’t let you sleep until morning.” He kissed her softly one last time. “Hey, we still have that date at the Sagebrush Saloon, yeah? Afterward, we can finish what we started in the jungle.”
He felt her body relax, knew she was smiling again. “Okay.”
Derek kissed her forehead. “Get some sleep, darlin’. We have a long walk ahead of us tomorrow.”
Bree rolled onto her side and snuggled against him spoon fashion, the way they were before. Derek inwardly groaned. He was still hard as a brick, still aching for her.
It would be a long day for Bree tomorrow.
But it was going to be one hell of a long night for him.
CHAPTER SEVEN
BREE WAS SURE she couldn’t sleep. Not with the eerie sounds that warned of the terrible danger in the jungle. Big cats screamed in the darkness. Bugs whizzed past so close she could feel the brush of their wings. Crickets, owls and frogs all chimed in to create a menacing cacophony that made the hair on the back of her neck rise.
Then the warmth of Derek’s solid body began to seep through her clothes, and she stared to relax. Whatever happened, she wasn’t alone. Needing the rest to keep her strength up, and knowing Derek was near, she closed her eyes and eventually drifted off to sleep.
She wasn’t sure what time it was when she felt Derek’s solid body move away from her. Bree opened her eyes and saw that the moon was up. A few silver rays cutting through the branches of the tree next to the platform gave her enough light to see Derek’s big hand wrap around a branch and twist it off to one side, holding it away from his face.
“Don’t move,” he said softly, sending a chill down her spine.
The clouds shifted, and more moonlight slanted in, giving her a glimpse of a huge snake slithering down the heavy branch that Derek was holding, creating a route for the reptile to travel away from their sleeping platform.
Bree made a sound in her throat as the snake slid over his hand, its forked tongue sliding in and out of its wide, predatory mouth. Her heart was pounding, her blood pumping so hard she could hear every thick beat.
She didn’t move. She didn’t think she could. She watched in terrified silence as the snake continued along the detour Derek had fashioned, along the branch into a different tree, winding its big body around the trunk on its way to the ground.
A breath whooshed out. “Oh my God.”
Derek let go of the branch, turned and pulled her into his arms. “It’s okay. It won’t bother us now. It was a python—a constrictor, not a venomous snake.” He didn’t mention that a python that size could crush your ribs, drive the air out of your lungs and suffocate you to death.
Bree burrowed into him, trying not to tremble. “What if you hadn’t been here?”
“I am here,” he said. “That’s all that counts.”
She wanted him to lay her back on the bedroll and kiss her again, wanted to feel the heat of his mouth moving hotly over hers. Wanted him to touch her, continue where he had left off.
“Get some sleep,” he said instead. “I’ll be right here.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll sleep once we reach the camp.”
She didn’t argue. She was pretty sure it wouldn’t do any good. She stretched out beside him and closed her eyes, but it was hours before she fell asleep and only a few minutes later that the female hijacker roused them.
“Get dressed,” Pilar said. “I will bring food.”
Derek was already wearing the cargo pants that had been set out for him, Bree saw as she sat up rubbing her eyes. The pants fit perfectly over his rounded, muscular behind, looking nearly as tailored as his expensive suit. When he turned and started stripping off his wrinkled, once-white dress shirt, she told herself to look away, but all those lean muscles snagged her attention and wouldn’t let go.
Powerful pecs, amazing biceps and six-pack abs that laddered down a rock-hard stomach. The man clearly stayed in shape. When he pulled the long-sleeved camouflage T-shirt over his head, covering his magnificent chest, she managed to bring her lust under control and start getting dressed herself.
As she fastened the bra she had unhooked for sleeping last night, a memory arose of Derek’s big hand cupping her breast, his finger sliding over her nipple, making it ache and tighten. Desire slipped through her. Considering they were in the middle of a Honduran jungle, it was insane, yet there it was, making her ache for him all over again.
With a sigh, she took off her dirty pink-flowered blouse and pulled on the V-necked camo T-shirt that must have belonged to Pilar, a woman close to Bree’s same size.
“How are the boots?” she asked Derek as she turned her back to take off her jeans and pull on the cargo pants.
“Pilar seems to have a good eye for sizes. The clothes and the boots are a pretty good fit.”
Bree wasn’t so lucky. Pilar was
thinner. The borrowed T-shirt stretched uncomfortably across her breasts, and the cargo pants were a little too long and a little too snug over her hips. She remembered the feel of Derek’s hand sliding over her curves last night and bit back a moan.
Forcing her thoughts back to the task at hand, she slipped on the boots, which were slightly too narrow, but the socks would keep them from rubbing. She prayed that by the end of the day, her feet wouldn’t hurt too badly.
“Once they get wet, they’ll stretch a little,” Derek said, looking down at the leather boots. It had already started to rain, a light patter that could rapidly turn into a downpour.
Bree stepped off the platform into the foliage to take care of her needs while Derek kept watch for the snake and any uninvited men who might wander in her direction.
Pilar arrived with more baleadas, these more heavily spiced and stuffed with some of the leftover meat. “You must eat quickly,” the woman said. “We will be leaving soon.”
As Bree ate her makeshift breakfast, she gazed at the jungle-covered mountains stretching into the distance around them. There was no sign of civilization as far as she could see.
She looked back at Derek. “Another day of traveling out here and no one will ever be able to find us.”
He followed her gaze into the forbidding wall of green. “That’s the idea. Let’s just hope your dad comes through with the money.”
Bree shivered. She didn’t doubt it. The question was, would the hijackers let them go after the ransom was paid?
* * *
THE LONG, MISERABLE DAY seemed to go on forever. The rain had been manageable for a while, then the sky opened up and poured down in earnest. Rivulets of water cut the trail, turning it muddy and making it even more difficult to hike. The wind came up, blowing leaves and sticks with enough force to dig into their skin. They hadn’t had enough water and had only eaten a handful of nuts since breakfast.
