by Cindy Dees
When she judged an hour had passed since full darkness had fallen, she put on her running shoes, picked up her bag and headed out. Here went nothing.
The beach bag converted to a mini-backpack, so she slung it over her shoulders and took off jogging down the trail that followed the coast all the way around the island. She prayed she could keep up a credible pace until she topped the ridge and disappeared from sight of the clustered buildings.
The rocks rose behind her and hid her from sight. She slowed, panting. Lord, she hated running. She walked carefully as her eyes slowly adjusted to the dim conditions. Although the trail was mostly smooth, washes of loose sand and gravel made it treacherous in spots. It descended the far side of the island’s spine in a series of sharp switchbacks that wound toward the eastern shore, but as she approached the lee side of the island, it leveled out. She watched carefully for the turnoff that led to the beach where she said she’d meet Jagger.
There. In the shadow of a koa tree. The faint white stripe of a trail. She turned down it, ducking into the lush undergrowth. This little corner of the island, protected from the worst of the trade winds, was thick with native Hawaiian plant life.
The tiny beach came into view. Maybe only fifty feet long, it was tucked between a pair of giant volcanic boulders at each end. Foot-high waves lapped quietly onto the sand, funneled up the beach by the outcroppings at each end of the inlet.
There was no sign of Jagger. Had he been caught? Panic turned her knees to jelly. Now what was she supposed to do? It would take hours for any police to arrive on the Rock, assuming they would even respond to an outrageous claim of a man held hostage for two years in a cargo container. Besides, Schroder and his men could have Jagger off the island and spirited away into a new and even more obscure captivity long before the police could get here.
“Jagger?” she called out quietly. “It’s me.”
Nothing.
She frowned. Maybe he’d already found some other way off the island. In which case, she’d wait here for a while, figure out she’d been stood up and return to her room. And then what should she do? Let him disappear again from her life? Spend the next two years wondering if he was AbaCo’s captive or worse? Knowing what she knew now, how would she survive that?
Losing him the first time had been more painful than she could’ve imagined. They’d formed such a close bond so quickly, had clicked so well, that when he ditched her she’d been utterly devastated. She never had actually gotten over him or moved past him. But then, how could she? She saw his face every day. Couldn’t help but think of him every day. Heck, she’d transformed herself into Danger Girl to be the kind of woman he’d be attracted to. It was as if that one magical night had taken over her life, as if it had never really ended. The whole past two years had been about Jagger.
And if she had to go forward again into another endless abyss of unanswered questions, of self-doubt, of missing him, she didn’t know if she could take it.
Of course, the whole blessed thing was out of her hands. He would either keep their appointment here or he wouldn’t. She hated being powerless like this! C’mon, Jagger. Show up.
Jagger crouched in a crevice high in the rock outcropping that bounded the south end of the tiny beach. Emily was sitting in the sand, jumping a mile high at every little night sound. He hadn’t spotted the trap yet, which worried him. Enough for him to continue holding his position here while he waited for AbaCo’s goons to show themselves. From time to time Emily glanced at her watch, but she gave no other visible signal to anyone who might be lurking nearby, watching her.
An hour passed. She was growing more agitated and jumpy by the minute. Still no sign of the ambush, though. Was it possible that she’d been telling the truth earlier? That she wasn’t in league with his captors, willingly or otherwise? He dismissed the idea as preposterous. How could she not be doing their dirty work? She was out here on this godforsaken island earning a paycheck from AbaCo, wasn’t she?
Her shoulders began to droop. If he wasn’t mistaken, she wiped away tears from her cheeks at one point. The stress must be getting to her. It was getting to him, too. Had he not spent the past two years sitting in a box, he’d have been squirming hard an hour ago. He had to give these AbaCo guys credit. They were patient.
His attention jerked back to Emily as she stood up with an audible sigh. His gaze narrowed as she made her way over to the outcropping practically at his feet. She put down a dark bag, wedging it into a crack at the base of the boulder and murmured, “Godspeed, wherever you are tonight, Jagger.”
As she trudged up the beach with her back to him, he hopped down silently and picked up the bag. He pulled the drawstring open and peered in at the contents. Something cracked painfully in his chest and his next breath was hard to draw. He stared down at the clothing, food and toiletries, flummoxed. What was she up to?
He glanced up and she was just disappearing into the trees. Still no movement whatsoever. No sign of an ambush anywhere. He should turn around and leave. Take the peace offering without looking back and use the gear and clothing to get off this rock.
But instead, he ran lightly across the beach and darted into the woods, parallel to the path, ducking from shadow to shadow. As hard as he found it to believe, he was forced to conclude that there was no one else out here.
Still, it was sheer insanity to call out low, “Emily. Wait up.” But call he did.
She whirled, peering into the trees, trying to spot him. He held his position cautiously, his eyes roving urgently, looking for other reactions to his voice. Nada.
“Go back to the beach,” he murmured.
She complied instantly, all but running back toward the strip of sand. He turned slowly to follow. Either there was more to this situation than he was seeing or he was the biggest idiot in the universe to fall for the same trap, baited by the same woman, twice.
There was only one way to find out for sure. And apparently he was going to do that one thing, since his feet were already carrying him back to the beach and whatever awaited him there.
Chapter 6
Emily’s heart lodged in her throat at that husky, familiar voice caressing her skin out of the darkness. Memories long repressed surged back into her consciousness. Sweat-slicked skin on skin, his hard power driving into her, her body arching up into that mind-blowing pleasure, all her fantasies and more come to life.
She stopped at the edge of the minijungle, waiting for him to join her, huffing from the quick hike. Yeah, that was the reason she was panting. The hike.
Only the waves and the wind in the palm fronds overhead broke the night’s sultry silence. But then something hard slapped over her mouth and she about jumped out of her skin. Heat caressed her ear—oh, God, his mouth—and he whispered, “Don’t move. Don’t make a sound.”
She nodded her head fractionally beneath his hard hand. The unrelenting pressure eased slowly. Had he not told her to be still she’d have turned in his arms and flung herself at him in her relief. She stood there for a long time, his presence druggingly close and emanating heat and sex, but never, not once, touching her after his hand fell away from her. It was maddening.
Finally, an eternity later, he murmured, “What’s in the bag?”
Her gaze snapped over to the beach bag still sitting at the base of the boulders across the beach. He’d seen that, huh? Then why hadn’t he shown himself earlier? Ah. It hit her. He’d been waiting to see if it was some kind of trap. She answered, “Clothes. Food. Supplies.”
He nodded, almost as if she’d passed some sort of test. Then he muttered, “I need to get off this island before I’m discovered missing.”
She replied lightly, “Ya think? By the way, can I move now?”
His low chuckle stirred her hair and her heart. “You know the drill, Danger Girl. Hold your hands well away from your body and no sudden moves.”
He remembers Danger Girl. What other details of that one night together did he remember? Then his terse instruction
s registered. “Sheesh, Jagger. I’m not a criminal. I’m helping you, for crying out loud.”
“It’s not you I’m worried about,” he responded. “I can take you. But a half dozen of your partners in crime? Not so much.”
He could take her? He undoubtedly meant that as in to take her down in a fight, but the images his double entendre sent spiraling through her mind stole her breath away. Dang it, where had her knees disappeared to all of a sudden? They’d gone squishy and would hardly bear her weight.
She whispered, “There’s no one else out here as far as I know.”
The sound he made in response was skeptical. Appalled, she looked at the surrounding undergrowth, peering fearfully into it in search of bogeymen and bad guys. She hadn’t seen anyone follow her out here, and she’d looked over her shoulder constantly on the hike across the island.
If she didn’t understand that he’d been through a horrendous ordeal and wasn’t yet clear from danger, she’d be hurt by his lack of faith in her. But as it was, she fully understood his caution. She only prayed he was wrong.
Her scan brought her gaze around full circle back to him. Even in the moonlight his face looked paler than it should be. So thin he was. As if all of his excess being had been pared away until only the essentials remained. His was the physique of a man who’d survived immense suffering.
“I know how we can get you off the island,” she offered.
“Do tell.”
“I borrowed the spare keys to a boat this afternoon.”
“One of the cigarettes?” he asked hopefully.
“No such luck. It’s a twenty-two-foot ski boat that the staff uses for recreation—snorkeling and diving and some waterskiing when the seas are calm. But it’ll take us to Lokaina.”
“And where are these keys?” he asked intently.
“In my right pants pocket.”
She started to reach for them, but he lurched violently and leaped forward to stop her movement, gripping her wrist in a vise that all but crushed her bones.
“I’ll get them,” he bit out.
Man. Touchy, touchy. But then his big hand slid into her pocket, only a thin layer of cotton separating his fingers from her groin, and her brain froze. Or maybe overheated was a better description. Her body went hot and liquid and achy all of its own volition, and suddenly her spine felt completely unhinged.
“While I’ve got my hands on you, I may as well go ahead and search you. I’ll have to do it sooner or later anyway.”
She blinked at his muttered words. He didn’t sound particularly thrilled at the prospect, and disappointment coursed through her. Was touching her like this doing nothing at all to him? Her pulse was far too thrilled for its own good at the prospect of having his hands roam all over her body once more. He took a step forward, looming in front of her, so close she could count his eyelashes.
And then his hands touched her ribs underneath her T-shirt. Her breathing hitched, suspended somewhere between a gasp and a groan. His palms skimmed up the sides of her breasts, across the ticklishness of her armpits, tracing her collarbones and then swooping down between her breasts. His hands spread apart then, cupping her breasts. Surely through the thin lace of her bra he could feel that she wore no surveillance wire. Of course, just as surely he could feel the way her nipples had pebbled up hard and eager in response to his touch.
Her face flamed. Not because she was embarrassed. Oh, no. It was far more humiliating than that. She was aroused. By a man who’d blatantly seduced her, and then disappeared from her life for long enough that she should’ve been way over him by now. By a man who made outrageous claims about being a prisoner in a box for the past two years and had some evidence to support him. By a man she barely knew and yet of whom her memories were mostly naked and intensely sexual.
One of his hands emerged from under her shirt to spear into the hair at the back of her neck while the other hand slid around to her back. Hard, hot fingers trailed down her spine, dipping into the crevice as the base of her spine possessively. She arched forward reflexively, away from the intimate invasion, and her hips ran squarely—and informatively—into his groin.
Well, then. He wasn’t completely unaffected by this search, either. Did it mean anything at all? Or was it purely a function of him not having touched a woman in two years? Whereas she could hardly stay on her feet as lust slammed into her, he merely shot her a shark’s grin that gleamed briefly in the dark. Clearly, he was enjoying torturing Danger Girl. If only she had the same power over him. Then the contest might be a little more even.
A quickly as he’d commenced the search, it was over. His hands withdrew, leaving her shivering and bereft. His voice, as calm as a glassy sea, flowed over her. “Okay. So we’ve ruled out a wire. Do you have a burr or some other tracking device on you? Will you tell me the truth or do I need to strip you naked and dunk all of your clothes in the ocean?”
Hmm. He could always have left her clothes on her and told her to swim out into the water a ways. But no. Getting her naked was on his mind, instead. Maybe the contest between Danger Girl and the Super Spy wasn’t quite so uneven after all.
She answered him earnestly, “I’m not wearing a radio or tracking device or anything else like that. I give you my word.”
He stared at her for a long moment. “I shouldn’t believe you,” he mumbled under his breath. “I know better.”
She frowned. What was he talking about? He’d commented earlier something to the effect of her helping AbaCo set him up. Of course, that was sheer lunacy. She would never have done such a thing, particularly not to him. Not a man she’d been wildly infatuated with and had even bedded. Heck, one with whom she was still wildly infatuated.
“Where’s this boat of yours?” he asked abruptly.
“That way.” She pointed off to her right. “At the employee dock. It’s tied up with the two cigarette boats and some Jet Skis, but I don’t have the keys to any of those.”
“Is this dock guarded?”
“From who? Everyone here works for AbaCo.”
“Perfect,” he purred. “Let’s go.”
Apparently, he was expecting her to assist in the next bit of grand larceny. She frowned. “I can’t go with you.”
“Yeah, you can—and are,” he retorted.
“But I’ve got responsibilities. I need this job.”
“Do you need to be dead also?” he snapped.
“I’m serious, Jagger. I don’t mind helping you escape, but I can’t up and leave. I’m not that carefree bachelorette you met two years ago.”
He snorted. “And when they discover my crate’s empty, what exactly do you think they’ll do?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’ll tell you, Emily. They’ll pull the surveillance tapes from the dock and spot you going aboard the ship. They’ll go through the ship’s security camera logs and find you going into that container and both of us coming out of it. And then they’ll come after you. Not to fire you. To kill you.”
She gaped at him, too horrified to say a word.
“Come on. You’re leaving tonight. With me.”
Stunned, she didn’t argue as he dragged her forward by the hand toward the black bag of supplies and then off toward the boat dock. What he said was logical. It just refused to compute. Someone would try to kill her? Not possible. She was a regular person living a reasonably regular life—even if her job was in an exotic locale. It was still mostly pushing paper at a desk. Danger Girl was about making adventurous choices, not fighting supervillains and risking death!
Jagger dragged her along for several silent and scary minutes. Then without warning he dropped to a crouch and yanked her down beside him. “That the dock?” he breathed.
She looked ahead and saw the small pier jutting out into the ocean. “Yes. That’s it.”
He watched it for several nerve-racking minutes and then announced, “It looks clear. Here’s what you’re going to do. Walk down to the dock and untie the boat. Don’t get
in it and don’t start the engine if there happens to be a key in the ignition. You and I are going to tow the boat clear of the dock and out into open water before we crank her up. Otherwise we risk drawing someone’s attention.”
“How are we going to tow it—”
He cut her off. “Just go untie the boat. And wait for me if I’m not there before you.” Before she could ask any more questions, he darted off down the beach toward the boathouse and was gone. How were they going to tow a boat? Why couldn’t she start the boat if there was already a key? Did he think it would blow up or something? And most important of all, how was she supposed to inform him that she wasn’t this kind of Danger Girl at all? That she was actually Giant Chicken Girl when it came to doing anything that involved adrenaline or death?
If he was right, it would be more dangerous for her to stay here on the island than it would be for her to march down there and steal a boat. That one fact alone was the sole reason she stood up and forced her feet into motion.
Her skin crawled with the nakedness of standing out here on the rocks like this. She tried reminding herself that she had every right to be here and her presence shouldn’t raise any but the mildest suspicions in anyone’s mind if she was spotted. It didn’t help. Danger Girl was officially retired. Trembling, she stumbled forward and nearly pitched face-first onto the volcanic rock. She righted herself at the last moment and stood still, panting, until she caught her breath.
Darn it, she could do this. She’d rescued Jagger and that had been way more scary than this. Besides, whether he admitted it or not, he needed her help. He was by no means operating at full strength physically, and probably not mentally or emotionally, either.
Doggedly, she pressed on. She fixed her gaze on the wooden dock and strode down to it, gazing neither left nor right as she approached it. If someone was out here watching her, so be it. There wasn’t a thing she could do about it. She would just have to claim sleepwalking or a sudden urge for a moonlit cruise around the island. Neither one would fly with Schroder—he was far too clever for that—but the excuse would have to suffice. It was all she had. That and a burning need to be with the man who’d stolen her heart and never given it back.
