by Nikki Logan
She rolled off him just long enough to shrug out of her cargos and peel off her tank top with fumbling hands, then straddled him again, watching his jaw clench as she slowly lowered the functional cups of lace down her breasts. He stared at them as though they were the first pair he’d ever seen.
“So beautiful.”
He reached up and trailed the back of his big hand down her shoulder, across her décolletage and down her cleavage, snagging the under-wire between her breasts pulling it like a handle. Clare tipped forward until they lay chest on chest, her breasts flattening against his hard pecs, doubling in size and creating two mountains of creamy flesh. He tipped his head forward and ran his mouth up and over one mound—excruciating, seductive—then the other.
Rising up on her knees she bent forward to kiss him, her breasts now hanging an inch from his hard body. He reached to undo the fabric clasps and the lacy bra fell away.
“You kill me, Clare…”
He took their full weight in his hands, his roughened thumbs torturing her tight nipples. Spasms of pleasure cut through her. She sucked his lips, his tongue, ravaging his mouth with hers. He matched her just as fiercely.
Finally, she lifted her lips long enough to gasp his name. “Alpha…”
“Simon,” he rasped.
He froze the moment he said it. And paled.
The bush-chenje filled the silence between their ragged breaths. She understood the enormity of the mistake he’d just made and so she paused too, giving him a moment to adjust to being so exposed.
Welcome to my world.
She stretched out on his chest and tested his name on her lips.
“Simon.” She regarded him druggedly, her body suspended in a thick, pulsing fog. “That suits you.”
“God, you’re sexy.” His words seemed as involuntary as the hand now stroking her back. Dismay stained his eyes.
She smiled, catching her breath. “Simon says…don’t move.”
She scooted down and traced the ridges of his abdomen with her lips, roaming up to taste the sweat slicked on his chest. She sucked one tempting nipple into her mouth and teased it with her tongue.
He groaned and tried to grab her shoulders.
“Uh-uh,” Clare tutted. “Don’t move.”
Reluctantly he lowered his hands. She continued, tasting, nipping and then lavishing his other nipple. Just before moving on, she dragged her bottom teeth across the bullet of flesh.
His whole body jerked.
She kissed her way down his chest, until she was eye level with his navel. That deserved a moment’s exploration, too.
He moaned with pleasure.
Satisfied, she moved on, following with her tongue the arrow of hair leading down his pelvis.
Finally, she found him. He jerked.
“Simon says don’t move,” she reminded him huskily, looking up at him from down low.
His laugh was strangled. “Afraid I can’t help it, love.”
She sighed dramatically. “I guess I’ll have to take care of it then.”
Her touch brought him half upright and his fists beat into the mattress while she worked him with her tongue. The pleasure in his curse made her smile, exposing his ultra-sensitive skin to the gentle scrape of her teeth.
That ended it.
He dragged her off, up along his body, and flipped her onto her back. Reaching down, he dug in the back pocket of the jeans tangled around his feet and tore the top off a small, aged packet.
“You have those on hand for bullet wounds, too, I guess?” she laughed, wriggling into a more braced position.
His smile was as strained as his breath as he rolled the condom on. “Keeps dirt out of your weapon.”
She looked at the faded, battered packet. “Been a while since you’ve had your weapon out, then?”
“You have no idea.” His laugh was half a groan as he pressed her into the mattress and settled between her legs. “Last chance, Clare…”
She lifted her hips for answer.
He slid strongly into her. His eyes fluttered shut a breath before hers did. He paused inside her, and the two of them lay there—feeling, not moving—for a long, exquisite moment.
For as long as she lived she would remember this feeling.
Complete. Safe.
She opened her eyes and stared deep into Simon’s as he scraped her hair back from her face and, lowering his mouth, he took hers in a sweet, soulful kiss. It was at once full of passion and gentleness. Sadness and promise. A beginning and an ending. He started moving within her, over her, their hips pressed tightly together, rocking in a duet. Her breath came faster. Her thinking slowed. The power of his movements easily matched by the strength of her inner muscles.
Finally, he fastened his mouth comfortably below her ear and sucked deliciously on her skin. They moved as one, up and up.
“Clare—”
He choked a half-apology, and then jacked himself up on his arms, pounding into her harder. She took every glorious hammer until he froze on an oath, strained, and arched over her, his damp forehead pressed to hers.
His raw cry was her undoing. Her vision burst into a blazing light show seconds behind him, her muscles in spasms of pure pleasure, squeezing a final groan from him.
They shuddered. Clung together. Then collapsed into each other’s arms.
…
Simon used the last of his strength to kick off his jeans and pull a sheet over their naked bodies. He lay curled around Clare, protecting her. He wanted to talk to her, explain everything. But he couldn’t. Even now. He had a signature on a document that didn’t officially exist and a pledge to the Crown that left no option but silence.
“That was… God, I was too rough. Are you okay?”
“Mmm,” she smiled into his chest, nodding softly. Her lips tasted his skin again. He watched those beautiful pink petals, swollen from his kisses, flirt with the hairs scattered across his torso.
A dull bruise marked her creamy throat where he’d sucked too hard. The pleasure of possession flared in him. He wanted her marked, wanted the world to know she was his.
His.
“Simon—”
He winced, hearing his real name on her lips. Apparently sense had fled his brain with all the blood.
“I want you to know I won’t tell anyone,” she went on. “When I get out of here. I’ll say I never heard your name, I’ll—”
He silenced her with a kiss. “You’ll do what you have to do to be safe.”
“But once I’m out of here, I don’t care what you’re all doing. It won’t matter then.”
“It will matter when you find out what we’re doing. And you will tell, and that’s okay. It was my mistake. I shouldn’t have… I was…” Breath hissed out of him. “It was my mistake.”
Her eyes clouded slightly and she shifted away. “Well, it’s a moot point anyway. I’m not out of here… Not yet.”
Desperation welled up and spilled over just as his passion had moments before. He curled his fingers into her hair. “Clare…I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to keep you safe.”
He wasn’t sure he’d ever said those words out loud. To anyone. It tore him apart.
“You do. Just like this.” She nestled further down into the shelter of his arms.
Jesus, it felt good. And feeling good only made him feel worse.
“I don’t know how I’m going to get you out of here.” Anxiety burbled up again. His only plan involved killing Sergeant in the morning, dumping his body into Lake Kariba, getting Clare to safety, and then dropping off the radar. Possibly for good.
It meant throwing away two years of work and possibly his career, but what choice did he have?
Fuck.
Fuck.
Clare leaned up on one elbow and looked down at him, her dark hair tumbling over one perfect shoulder, her eyes intense and focused. Had he ever seen anything so beautiful in his life? He speared one hand deep into the rich, thick lengths.
“I can�
��t talk my way out of this, Clare. It’s not like the dogs. You’re too real a threat to the others,” he said. “A witness who can identify them all.”
She studied him for a long moment, and then slid her hips more firmly under his. The sirens of insensibility seduced him with the opportunity to escape back into Clare’s body, to run from the inevitable, to pretend for just a few more minutes that he didn’t have to decide between his future and hers. It felt way too good letting go of all the responsibility, the worry, the angst. How long had it been since he’d allowed that?
Had he ever?
A man could get used to it.
“Let’s not think about it, not right now,” she whispered. “Let’s just enjoy this moment. Please.” There was a smile in there somewhere but it was half-hearted. “We’ll solve it in the morning.”
She wrapped her arms around him and held on tight.
“Together.” Her eyes clouded over, then closed to block him out. “We’ll think of something together.”
Chapter Six
It had to be well after midnight when Clare heard the bakkie rumble up to the farmhouse. The man driving it was going to wake up in the morning and expect to see her dead body—not very much alive and cuddled up in bed with one of their own. She didn’t know which of the bastards had returned, but she had prayed one of them would come back for Simon.
She needed that vehicle.
Her body ached from the hours of passion. Punctuated by bouts of exhausted sleep, they had come together all afternoon and evening. Their growing desperation had been palpable as the daylight waned. In the end, she could swear he’d had tears in his eyes as he’d gripped her tightly to him and moved inside her.
Now, he slept soundly next to her, his face not entirely relaxed. It was as if he still had the weight of the world on his shoulders, even in sleep. Did he really care for her? Or did he feel about her the way she’d felt about the wild dogs.
Responsible. Guilty.
Trapped by the complication of her presence.
Lying in the dark, she watched him, memorizing every inch of his moonlit face, listening to the sounds of the other man bumping around in the farmhouse kitchen. She kissed his luscious lips, gently parted by sleep.
After tonight you’ll have one less problem to solve.
Minutes ticked into an hour. Finally, she heard footsteps move in the direction of the bunk-room. A short time later she heard what she was waiting for. The distant rattle of snoring.
Her pulse rocketed and her limbs grew leaden with apprehension, but she had to take action. There would be no better opportunity than now.
Drinking in one last look at Simon, she traced a finger down the strong forearm tossed over his head in sleep, knowing once she started, she would have to keep going.
Until it was over. One way or the other.
Late in the afternoon, she’d stolen a glance at the floorboards. With all the activity on top of it earlier, the bed had well and truly shifted sideways but, thankfully, one leg had bumped right past her hidden stash, leaving it accessible.
How ironic—and tragic—if she’d been unable to escape at all because of the beautiful experience she and Simon had shared?
She dressed quietly and, using Simon’s discarded T-shirt to muffle the noise of the floorboards lifting, she gently pulled the bottles and the loaded syringe from the cache. She crept through the unlocked door, moving directly toward the bunk-room. She flicked the cap off the hypodermic. She slipped silently through the open door, tip-toeing to the bedside and the figure in it snoring away like a miniature saw mill.
Baldy.
Her body sagged in relief. He wouldn’t take as much sedative, but she wanted to be sure. She recalculated and squinted at the syringe in the moonlight streaming through the window.
On a pile of discarded clothing at the foot of the bunk, a set of keys glinted. Yes! She lifted them quietly with Simon’s T-shirt and wedged them into her pocket. Then, without hesitation, leaned forward and shoved the hypodermic straight into Baldy’s exposed shoulder. As she plunged the syringe to the three-quarter mark, she had a moment of fear that a miscalculation on her part could kill him.
He lurched upward, crying out. Simon may have been sated enough not to hear her dressing, but Baldy’s loud cry would have penetrated even his exhausted ears. Clare clamped the T-shirt down over his mouth and flung the nearly empty syringe onto the next bunk, leaning hard into the weakening man below her. The sedative worked quickly, but not instantly, and she had to wrestle against him for several moments. With the last of his conscious strength, he managed to head-butt her on her lower jaw and her yelp of pain ricocheted through the hollow farmhouse.
She swore silently.
As soon as he fell back onto his bunk, she grabbed the quarter-filled hypodermic and the second bottle of sedative. With shaking hands, she stuck the needle into the rubber top and drew every last drop of drug into the syringe.
Please be enough.
She turned toward the door. She had intentionally left Simon for last, knowing that anything could go wrong in the bunk-room and she might need his help. But she wasn’t looking forward to doing what she must. He was bigger and more powerful. And could hurt her easily, even when drugged.
She had to trust he wouldn’t.
Throwing the second empty bottle down, she dashed through the door into the dark hallway.
Her heart leapt in excruciating conflict as she caught sight of him thundering toward her from the other end of the hall, dressed only in half-zipped jeans, the gun in his hand aimed toward her.
“Clare?” he shouted through the darkness. “I heard you cry—”
She steeled herself against the concern in his voice and met him half way. His free hand reached for her.
And she plunged the syringe deep into his beautiful, tanned bicep.
Guilt assailed her with long talons. He’d been coming to help her. She let out a sob, pushing the plunger fully down.
He grabbed her wrist and yanked the spent needle out with his free hand, tossing it to the floor just as she fell back, confident its entire contents were now in his system.
He looked at her—a pained, confused expression—and her heart broke completely in two.
“I have the keys,” she said through her anguish, unable to twist out of his grip. “I’m sorry. But this way you weren’t involved. They’ll find you both knocked out, and I’ll be gone.”
He didn’t speak, but his clouding eyes were thunderous. Then he staggered.
It would be enough.
“I got the keys myself,” she repeated, trying to make him understand. “You didn’t have to help me. They can’t blame you.” She followed him as he collapsed to his knees, his hand still locked around her wrist. One of her scabs broke open and began bleeding. He started to topple. She threw herself to half lie under him, hoping to cushion his body as he came down hard. It would be only seconds now.
“Clare…?” he wheezed, still lost in incomprehension.
She tried to stroke the confusion from his face as his weight grew heavier. She eased him fully onto the floor, her tears coming steadily now. “I’m sorry. Oh, God, I’m so sorry.”
“Go,” he croaked.
She knew she should run away as fast as she could go. But this was the last time she’d ever see him, this man she’d come to care so much about. Suddenly, she couldn’t bear to leave him.
“Simon, I—”
“Go!”
With what little strength he had left, he pushed his gun into her shaking hands and shoved her away from him. She stumbled to her feet as his head dropped to the floor. His eyes rolled up and fluttered closed. With a mewl of regret, she staggered away, half blinded by tears.
Forcing herself not to look back, she fell out the screen door, down the rotting timber steps, and rushed to the bakkie. Her frantic fingers fumbled the key, but on the third try the lock popped. She yanked the door open, vaulted in, and slammed the locks to from the inside. As if that
would keep her any safer if Baldy miraculously came to life with crowbar in hand. She shoved Simon’s gun into the glove compartment and used the shirt to stem her bleeding wrists.
On the first twist of the key, the engine puttered, and then died. Oh, no. No, no, no.
She darted a glance at the house. Still silent.
She turned the key again, adding a fervent prayer. The bakkie roared. Thank God.
She shoved it into gear, fumbled for headlights, and headed for the open compound gate. She struggled to jam it into a grindy second gear, and then third, as she jolted up the rocky drive leading away from the farmhouse.
Away from captivity.
Away from Simon.
She bumped up the long, primitive track out to the main roadway, wiping her streaming eyes with an arm and pressing Simon’s T-shirt to her nose. Somewhere south was a nearby village, she knew from overhearing them, but she headed north, wanting to avoid the predictable.
She needed to drive as far from them as she could. It would take hours longer to reach Lusaka, and even more hours before the police followed her directions back to the farmhouse. Hours in which Simon could come to and get away.
That meant the others would also get away—and get away with whatever crime they were involved in—but she just couldn’t risk Simon being arrested. This was a man who had pledged to keep her alive, who had touched her and kissed her and loved her like no man had done before.
A man who had lain on the dirty floor of an abandoned farmhouse, drugged to the eyeballs, but still managed to croak two words at her as she flew out the door to freedom.
Good girl.
Chapter Seven
Zambia, Africa
June, six months later
Exhaustion bubbled like nausea in Clare’s stomach.
It was a long haul from her home in Boston’s suburbs to WildLyfe’s camp in central Zambia. A two-day stopover in London to collect their equipment, two more flights, and finally a long road trip split by an overnight bivouac in the empty transporter until they reached the remote Kafue National park in the middle of Zambia.
