His gaze had followed the falling cloth and he was already moving across the room. “Quick, Babe! Let’s go! We don’t have much time!”
Claire immediately scrambled out from under the bunk.
Maddie was a little slower to follow, reluctant to be dragged into what she realized must be a jail break. “He’s going to get us killed!” she hissed at Claire.
Claire whipped a look at her sister as Nick, gripping one arm firmly, hauled her toward the door.
“If you want to take your chances at ever seeing the light of day again at Gitmo, suit yourself, but Claire ain’t goin’!” Nick growled. “Move it if you’re coming with us! That knockout gas won’t hold them long!”
As confused and terrified as Claire was, she was ready to get out of the jail cell they’d occupied for close to a week and anxious to avoid landing in the prison at Guantanamo. “Maddie, come on!” she hissed. “It’s our best chance!”
Madelyn didn’t look like she was convinced, but she followed them from the cell.
“Who’s this?” a man dressed in black demanded.
“Her sister. You got a problem with that?”
“Yeah, I got a fucking problem! You said pick up two! We’re prepped for two!”
“I told McGinn two women—me and two women, god damn it!” Nick snarled.
“I’ll stay.”
“Like hell!” Claire growled. “If she can’t come, I’m not leaving her!”
“We don’t have the fucking time to debate this!” the man in black snarled.
“So don’t!” Nick growled back at him. “If it’s about the money, I’ll pay the difference.”
The man looked like he still wanted to argue, but he turned away and, after a quick look out the door, apparently to make sure no one had shown up to challenge his passage, flung it wide and headed down the tight corridor at a good clip. “Your funeral,” he flung over his shoulder as he darted out.
Claire wanted to demand to know what he meant by that, but she assumed they needed to move as fast and as quietly as possible.
She found out what he meant when they finally reached the deck of the ship agonizing minutes later after traversing two corridors and four flights of stairs. There was a man standing at the railing with two masks and two oxygen tanks. He handed both to Nick and took off down the stairs.
Claire and Maddie exchanged a terrified look.
“We’ll have to buddy. We’ve only got two.”
“Shit! I should just stay, Claire!”
Claire was trying hard not to think about ‘buddying’ with the tanks and masks. “No! You don’t know what they might do, Maddie! My god! Look what they’ve already done!”
That was enough to convince Maddie. She charged full tilt down the stairs without further argument. Claire scrambled down behind her sister and Nick took up the rear. When they reached the small platform at the bottom, Nick handed the masks to Claire and her sister and helped them get the tanks on and the gauges set. “We’re going to have to dive till we’re out of sight and range of anybody on the ship that wakes up and figures out what happened. Twenty maybe thirty minutes. Then we can surface, but we’ll have to share the air in the tanks till then. And we’ll have to make it quick. The guys have a boat anchored just out of range, but they won’t wait long. They aren’t going to risk getting caught.”
Fearful he meant the submersible wouldn’t carry all three of them there fast enough, Maddie and Claire both nodded jerkily and jumped in. Nick untied the underwater jet and jumped in behind them. Showing them where and how to grip the jet, he started it, pulled away from the bow of the ship and then dove beneath the waves.
She didn’t know how Maddie felt about it, but it was disorienting and terrifying for Claire. She felt like her arm was going to be torn from the socket from the drag of her own body as the jet shot through the water and she could see Nick was having a hell of a time steering with three people hanging on to a machine that had been designed to carry one.
Poor Nick! He didn’t even have anything to protect his face at all!
She thought he must be ready to pass out from lack of oxygen by the time he finally indicated he needed air. Sucking in a big gulp of air, she handed him the mouthpiece. He dragged in several gulps of air and handed it back to her.
She was already beginning to feel desperate before he did and wondered how he could handle doing without air so long.
The entire trip was a nightmare. They shot past a shark so fast Claire’s mind didn’t even register what it was until they had passed. She struggled to look behind them, to pierce the eerie darkness in their wake, trying to dismiss the fear that the shark would make like a dog and chase them because they’d raced past him. She couldn’t see well enough to tell whether it tried to catch them or not, but she was able to completely dismiss the shark from her mind when they heard the engines of the boat they were supposed to rendezvous with start up before they even reached it.
Instantly, Claire’s misery over her discomfort and uneasiness about the shark—and other things she couldn’t see that might be in the water around them—shifted to sheer terror. They were all screwed if the boat left them. They would have no choice but to try to return to the ship they’d just escaped from and if they didn’t manage to find it or catch up with it they were dead meat because they were in the middle of the ocean, miles and miles from any land of any kind.
It was a near thing—way too close for comfort for Claire’s liking! The boat had already cut a wide arc when they surfaced and Claire was convinced they’d been about to take off without them, regardless of what the man at the wheel said to the contrary.
Thankfully, the boat paused beside them long enough for Nick to tie up the jet and the three of them to tumble onto the deck. Nick rested with them for a hand full of moments to catch his breath and then bounded up and headed toward the wheel house.
The boat looked a lot like a shrimp boat, but it didn’t have the engine of one. It moved across the water like a speed boat.
Fortunately, they managed to put some distance between them and the military boats before the men on board realized that their quarry had gotten clean away. Alarms were sounding when they’d surfaced and Nick had cut the engine to the water jet. But apparently the military was convinced the escapees had to be hiding on board.
Thankfully!
Despite the residual shock and fear, or maybe in part because of it, Claire was so exhausted from the ordeal of escaping that when someone tossed her a dry blanket, she curled up in it on the hard deck and fell asleep.
* * * *
The decision to tank his career hadn’t actually been a hard one for Dominick to make—not nearly as hard as it should have been. But it had taken a bit longer to work himself around to accepting that the only thing he could do to save Claire was to go against everything he’d ever believed in, to turn against his government.
That had been a hard decision to make and an even harder hurtle to clear once he’d decided to.
And yet by the time he’d contacted his ex teammate-turned-crazy-mercenary—Lyle McGinn—he’d so completely familiarized himself with the target that he didn’t need help in planning what would be his last mission, regardless of what happened. Executing it was where Lyle came in.
He knew about shift changes, guard duty, and the positions of every man he was going to have to neutralize during the period he’d discovered to be most ideal for his plan to work. But he needed a way off the ship once he’d sprung Claire and her sister.
And he knew just the man that was crazy enough to be willing to pull it off—for a price.
Lyle had been a hell of a S.E.A.L. until he’d been discharged on a mental … on account of he’d become reckless to the point of dangerous for the rest of his team. For the right money, he would do pretty much anything.
Hell sometimes the redneck would do it just for a lark!
There were two problems Nick had to overcome—coming up with the money and contacting the mercenary wit
hout tipping off anybody about his plans.
They were watching him. They’d been watching him since he’d tried regular channels to get the women out and then tried to go over his direct superior’s head to speak to the Admiral about it.
That made the escape all the harder to plan and execute.
But it had gone off almost like clockwork!
Almost.
The stupid fuck!
He didn’t know what pissed him off more, the fact that Lyle hadn’t brought enough gear or that he’d tried to lay his fuck up off on him.
Claire was never going to believe he had planned to rescue her sister all the time anymore than either of them were going to believe he’d had no idea what was going down when they’d been captured and imprisoned. Not that he could’ve stopped it even if he had.
He thought, if he had known, that he would’ve made a damn good attempt to get them out of harm’s way before it went down, but even doing that much was doubtful, considering his position, and it was a moot point.
Claire was just going to have to forgive him for something that he’d been powerless to change. She was surprisingly reasonable for a woman. He was sure, given a little time, she’d see it wasn’t his fault and that he’d done his utmost to rescue her as soon as he knew what was up.
When he was satisfied, for the moment, that they were in good shape and Lyle hadn’t decided he could make more money ransoming them back to the government now that he’d paid the bastard, he returned for Claire only to discover she was curled into a shivering ball on the deck and barely conscious. Alarmed, he scooped her off the deck and headed toward the stairs that led down to the main cabin. Her sister, he discovered, had already found her way down or been shown the way. She was curled up on one of the crew bunks.
After glancing around, he headed toward the captain’s quarters. He figured Lyle was going to be occupied for a while and wouldn’t need it and, in any case, he’d damned well paid enough to cover a little comfort.
Settling Claire on the edge of the bunk, he studied her pale face worriedly. She’d roused when he’d picked her up but, despite her protests, she didn’t seem a lot more alert. “Can you handle undressing yourself? You need to get out of those wet clothes.”
Claire nodded and began struggling with them, but between her exhaustion and the strange weakness that went with it and the clingy nature of wet clothing, she gave up pretty quickly. Glancing around, she tried to move onto the bunk and curl up again, but Nick wasn’t having that.
He pulled her back and they fought with her soggy clothing until it was removed. She was actually colder without it since the wet cloth had absorbed most of her body heat. But Nick remedied that situation, too. Shoving her toward the wall, he shucked his own wet clothing and climbed in beside her, tucking the thin blanket around both of them.
He was so warm! All Claire could think was that she would be warm if she could just wrap him around her. She snuggled closer. Nick stroked her—briskly at first—trying to generate friction warmth, but as they both warmed up and relaxed his touches became more akin to caresses.
As foggy as Claire’s mind was, she wasn’t entirely convinced that she was being caressed and it wasn’t simply an attempt to warm her, but she became fully aroused at his touch, as his heat and scent warmed her. And she began to move against him less with the intent of finding warmth and more from a search for tactile stimulation because of her own rising desire.
Dominick kissed her tentatively—on the forehead and then her bare shoulder. When she tilted her head to give him better access to her neck, he followed her shoulder to the juncture and nibbled a light trail of kisses along the column to her ear. That time the goose bumps that rose all over her weren’t from the chill. Her nipples puckered, digging against his chest and the faintly abrasive hairs on his chest and belly aroused her more as she moved against him, enjoying the contrast of his heated, slightly rough skin against hers.
Nick’s cock rose, thrusting against her belly.
Claire lifted her head and stared into his eyes for a long moment. He swallowed audibly. “I missed you, Babe,” he murmured thickly, drifting closer and covering her mouth with his own.
She’d missed him, too. She hadn’t realized how much until that moment, when she was engulfed by this being—his heated skin against hers, wrapped up in his strength, scent and taste. Warmth fluttered through her—the warmth of affection and the heat of desire. They intertwined, shooting her arousal higher as she absorbed his taste and scent with his exploration of the tender inner surfaces of her mouth in a substitute mating of their mouths, lips, and tongues.
A preliminary mating.
She kissed him back, stroking his body wherever she could find a patch of skin to explore with her fingers and palms.
She had missed this! She’d missed him!
He began to tremble as she’d been shivering with cold, but she knew it wasn’t cold making him quake and his desire set her on fire.
He rolled with her, slipping into the cradle of her thighs and spearing the head of his cock into her body’s opening as smoothly as if they were performing a dance move they’d perfected with infinite patience and practice. When in truth they were so new to one another they should still have been at the awkward stage, groping because of unfamiliar territory, clumsily searching for erogenous zones.
She was slippery wet with anticipation and it still took glorious effort to achieve full penetration. A lovely struggle that brought them both so close to the pinnacle that they were struggling to hold their culmination at bay to enjoy the connection as long as possible almost the moment Nick managed to work himself deeply inside of her.
A choked groan escaped Claire as if she’d been gored as he abruptly broke the gridlock of reluctant flesh and achieved full penetration.
Nick immediately covered her mouth again, absorbing her groans of ecstasy as he began a pounding rhythm that bespoke his own desperation. She broke the kiss and gasped as she felt the first shudders of her climax rip through her, curling her fingers so tightly into Nick that he hissed—she thought in pain at the pinch of nails.
But he stopped abruptly—hesitated, more like—as if struggling with a sneeze, trying to gain control.
He lost it. The hesitation was only a heartbeat in length, long enough to send a void through Claire’s climax, a stammer, and then a hard surge on the heels of it as he resumed his pounding thrusts that sent her into orbit and spiraling over the moon.
It was as well the boat engine made enough noise to deafen everyone aboard, Claire thought with wry amusement as she drifted in descent from the pinnacle of rapture. Otherwise they might have thought Nick was beating her to death.
Chapter Four
It wasn’t good daylight when Claire was aroused by furtive movements within the room.
“In the hole. Now! We’ve got maybe five minutes before they board us!”
Nick, Claire discovered, had already rolled from the bunk and was crouched beside it in a defensive position. It took her several crucial moments to assimilate what was happening even though she vaguely remembered Nick had said they had to be ready to hide if the Navy boarded the boat they were on. When it finally sank in, though, she scrambled to claw her way out from under the tangle of covers and half climbed half fell out of the bunk, sprawling next to Nick in all her naked glory.
Fortunately, the man who’d roused them was more intent on lifting the bunk where they’d been lying. Beneath it was a hinged mattress support—or what appeared to be—that was actually a hinged door.
Beneath that was a cavity that looked like a coffin—for one.
Both men looked at Claire expectantly.
She stared at the ‘hole’ with revulsion.
“Get in!” the man hissed.
Claire jumped and reluctantly climbed in. Nick was right behind her. They hadn’t even managed to find a comfortable position when the man slammed the lid down and they heard, and then felt the weight, as he landed on the mattress above
them.
Claire hadn’t realized she was holding her breath until Nick placed his lips to her ear. “You can breathe,” he said, a faint trace of amusement in his voice, “just don’t talk or make any other noise.”
Claire nodded jerkily and tried to force herself to relax, but she was shivering. Nick folded her against his warmth but they were both naked and the ‘coffin’ they’d been hidden in seemed to be made of metal. It felt as if it was sucking the warmth from both of them.
After what seemed like an eon, Claire felt and heard a heavier thud–as of a boat bumping their boat—and then heard the rumble of distance male voices. She couldn’t make out what anyone said, but she heard what she thought was several different voices. Then she could hear feet tramping around above them—she thought on the top deck. She was certain of it some fifteen to twenty minutes later when she heard the men troop down the ladder and much closer footsteps above them.
“What the fuck?” the man on the mattress above them growled.
“You didn’t hear the order to get above deck?” a stranger demanded in a clipped military tone.
“I don’t take orders from anybody but the captain and I ain’t heard the captain tell me to roll out.”
Despite his obvious reluctance to leave, though, she heard/felt the man on the mattress get up and heard retreating footsteps as he apparently left. She tensed, tightening her hold on Nick and holding her breath in snatches while she listened to the movements of the men in the cabin above them, searching. The end result was that she was near to passing out from oxygen deprivation by the time she heard the men leave the cabin.
As they did, it abruptly dawned on her to wonder about Maddie.
“Maddie!” she gasped on a breath of sound.
Nick tightened his hold on her in warning and Claire held her tongue, realizing it certainly wouldn’t help Maddie to reveal their own hiding place if Maddie had been shown a place to hide as they had.
And she hadn’t heard any commotion to indicate they’d found Maddie, she realized with a wealth of relief. Maddie would certainly have fought them! And she would’ve heard a woman’s voice—Maddie’s voice—because Maddie would have argued and probably cursed at them.
Exiles Page 5
