by Sherrilyn Kenyon; Dianna Love; Cindy Gerard; Laura Griffin
Her body.
She was naked beneath the blanket. He did his damnedest not to think about it. Or to remember the generous perfection of the breasts the guards had brutally forced her to bare.
What he needed to think about were the bruises crisscrossing her shoulders and back. The angry welt on her rib cage, just below her left breast. The cuts on her feet, the blisters on her hands.
A motor roared to life in the distance, and a bare bulb flickered to dim life overhead. He’d noticed the gas-powered generator on the other side of the camp earlier. Its noise would provide partial cover for their conversation.
“How are you, physically?” he asked, still cautious, leaning in close so they wouldn’t be overheard.
“Much better now.”
“Infections? Fever? Anything broken?”
She shook her head, and the ends of the blanket picked that moment to slip and fall away from her breasts. She reached up and caught it, but not before he got a glimpse of a dusky rose nipple.
“I need to check your ribs.”
Her face flushed pink in the pale light. “It’s just a bruise.”
“The skin is broken.”
Her eyes met his, beseeching.
He got it. She was humiliated over the way they’d stripped her, then held her there for everyone to see her naked from the waist up.
Yeah, he got it, but he couldn’t give her a pass. Besides, he had to start acting the part of the paying customer. Daylight had actually provided more anonymity inside the tent than the night did. The overhead light, anemic as it was, cast their shadows against the tent walls for inquisitive eyes to see.
“Trust me,” he mouthed and sat down cross-legged beside her. “On my lap.”
Her eyes widened, suspicion rampant on her face as she glanced at the strip of condoms he’d dropped on the table earlier.
“They’re props,” he assured her quickly. “If you talk the talk, you gotta walk the walk to convince the bad guys. Trust me,” he whispered again, and nodded toward the tent wall.
He saw the moment she understood. Just like the condoms, this was for show. Whoever was out there would see their shadows and assume they were watching a man having his way with a woman.
Very gingerly, she moved toward him and settled herself sideways on his lap, her right side pressing against his chest.
She was tall and lean, and while she’d doubtless dropped some weight during her captivity he was very much aware that she still had plenty of curves.
“That’s more like it, baby.” Even if the guards didn’t understand English, they’d recognize his lewd tone. “How about a little gratitude for getting you out of your cage for the night?”
She stiffened but let him pull her against him.
“Easy,” he whispered, pressing his mouth against her ear and trying not to think about her firm ass nestled up tight against his groin. “Once we make our break, we have to head through some rough territory. In this climate, in this terrain, even a small cut is ripe for infection.”
She turned her face toward him, her mouth very near his. Anyone outside watching their shadows would think she was letting him kiss her. “When? When are we leaving?”
The anxious edge in her voice made it clear she wanted him to say “now.”
“When I say it’s time.” He ran his hand over her hair to enhance the visual, then stroked her shoulder and reached down to her thigh. “Now I need to look at those ribs.”
She stiffened involuntarily and he made himself slow down.
“You trust Wyatt, right?”
She swallowed, then nodded.
“And he trusts me to get you out of here. You need to follow his lead. Let’s just get this over with so we can move on.”
She closed her eyes and, in what must have taken formidable effort, lifted her right arm and wrapped it around his shoulders.
Progress. Only he was the one shaken now. He’d asked for her trust and now that he had it, it felt like a Mack truck had just parked on his shoulders.
“What about the others?” she asked tentatively. “When we go, we can’t just leave them here.”
Cav had already thought about releasing the workers, creating a little pandemonium to buy them some time, and then he’d thought better of it.
“If we release them when we make our break, it will wake up the entire camp. The guards will come out shooting and a lot of people will get gunned down. We’ll do more harm than good.” He saw the compassion in her eyes and felt regret in his gut.
“But—”
“No discussion, Carrie. We go out alone tonight. But I promise you this: I’ll be back.” He had made that decision the moment he’d set foot on the mining site. When the time was right he would get these poor souls out of here. Until then, he’d be haunted by the dead eyes that had looked right through him.
“Take it to the bank,” he assured her. “I’ll be back with a team to get them out.”
The regret in her eyes slowly transitioned to grim acceptance.
After a long, quiet moment, she finally relaxed enough to lean against him. Like a lover. Like a woman who knew what the action would do to a man.
The tent was warm. Her skin was hot. Flickering light played along the slender line of her throat and the gentle slope of her shoulder. Her thigh was warm beneath his hand, and her weight was all woman and enticing on his lap. In the moment, the idea that she’d been summoned to his tent as a sexual diversion felt a little too close for comfort.
He still didn’t understand why he was having such a strong reaction to her. She was just another woman in a long line of them.
“How do you know Wyatt?” she asked quietly.
“Long story. We can talk about it later,” he said, then warned her so she could prepare herself. “I’m going to pull the blanket away now.”
Louder, he said, “Okay, doll. Let’s have another look at the merchandise… Nice,” he said when the blanket pooled around her hips.
She closed her eyes and covered her breasts with her free arm, a small concession to her modesty and an action that would appear seductive from the outside looking in.
Hell, it was seductive. And it was very… southern. Like her voice. And very sweet.
Yet she was very, very tough, he conceded as he probed her bruises and she barely flinched.
“Give me a groan,” he whispered. “A loud one. And make it sexy.” If nothing else, it would give her a cover for the pain he knew he was inflicting.
She hesitated but then gave it her all.
“Oh, God,” she whispered, lowering her head. “That sounded ridiculous.”
He smiled against her hair. “Trust me. They’re panting out there.”
“Then they’re sick.”
He chuckled softly. “Tell me what you can about the camp routine. When do the guards change shifts?”
Her breath was warm against his throat as she leaned farther into him to enhance the show. “They change around eleven and again around seven. Maybe also around four in the afternoon. That’s as close as I can figure, judging by the position of the sun.”
“Good observations. I counted around twenty guards.”
“Twenty-four,” she corrected.
“All with automatic weapons,” Cav muttered absently as he lowered his mouth to the curve of her throat and traced her ribs with his fingertips in search of more injuries. “And there are what… a hundred and forty, maybe a hundred fifty workers?”
“Something like that.”
“I saw five vehicles. Two trucks, two old jeeps, and the sedan that brought me here. That sum it up?”
She nodded. “They use the trucks to transport supplies, fresh troops, and new batches of workers. The general makes use of the two jeeps to move around the mine site.”
He traced the welt that ran from just below her left breast, under her arm, and around her back, where it stopped under her shoulder blade. Her skin was very soft. Her bones extremely fine. And damn…
Sh
e sucked in a quick, pained breath when he pressed at the swelling.
“Bad?” He studied her profile with concern.
She bit her lower lip, shook her head in denial of the pain.
“You’re not much of a liar,” he whispered, then said in a louder voice, “It’s okay, baby. You can scream if you like it. Turns me on.”
What came out was more of a growl but she stuck to her guns about the pain. “It’s better than it was.”
Yeah, he was right about the tough part. And she was very sexy, too.
He backed away from that thought in double time. Wrong time, wrong place, and Jesus, wrong thinking. Damn, he wanted another drink.
“I don’t think anything’s broken,” he said gruffly, and he quickly applied the salve from his backpack. “Now we need to move this to the cot, before the natives start questioning my motives.”
And before the swelling action in his pants embarrassed her even further.
CARRIE ROSE SLOWLY from his lap, placing a hand on his shoulder for balance. She was anxious to get some distance from his probing, yet she was reluctant to move even a few inches away from him. What if she’d gone off the deep end and this was all some cruel fantasy, and the minute she broke contact he disappeared?
But he’d felt real enough, she thought, walking the few steps to the cot. His body had been hard and hot beneath hers. His hands had felt strong and rough even as he’d taken care not to hurt her.
When she’d leaned into him his heart had beat like thunder against her breast. His breath had been warm and scented of whiskey when he’d whispered in her ear. And while she knew he hadn’t intended for it to happen, she’d felt him grow hard against her hip.
She flushed hot, thinking about it as she sank down on the cot’sthin mattress. After a deep breath, she made herself look at him when he sat beside her. Big. Imposing. Strong. If he wanted to, he could overpower her in a heartbeat.
Thank God this seduction scene was just for show.
And thank God he was real. Real and here and… “I don’t even know your name.”
He turned the most intense dark eyes on her. “Sorry. It’s David. David Cavanaugh.” He smiled then, and all she could do was stare as it transformed his face.
Wyatt sent one of People magazine’s hundred sexiest men alive to save me.
She almost laughed at her absurdity, but it was true. With that dark hair falling over his forehead and the smile that was a little bit reckless and a lot rogue, she couldn’t shake the image of Johnny Depp with a little Hugh Jackman thrown in for good measure.
And he’d just seen her naked. Just touched her bare skin.
“My friends call me Cav,” he added. “Now lie back and let the sex fiend indulge in his twisted foot fetish, while I take a look at those poor battered tootsies of yours.”
She smiled, as he’d no doubt intended, and her opinion of him rose even higher.
She tried to remain covered as she lay back and he lifted her calves over his thighs. Her best efforts, however, couldn’t keep the coarse blanket from parting at mid-thigh and separating slowly by degrees. Seeing her problem, he reached for the ends of the blanket, folded it over her legs, then tucked it tight beneath the outside of her thighs. Seen from outside, the action could have been misinterpreted as an unwrapping.
She felt like a mummy, a little bit pampered yet a lot intrigued. She watched his face as he administered to her foot with gentle, sensual hands. So sensual that anyone seeing their shadows would have assumed he was caressing her in sexual foreplay.
She gasped in pain and surprise when he probed an open sore on the bottom of her heel.
“Sorry,” she apologized, her voice tight, then let loose of another yelp when he probed deeper into the cut.
Cav hated that he’d hurt her but couldn’t let it sidetrack him. He didn’t like the look of that cut.
“Make all the noise you want.” He notched his chin toward the tent wall. “The louder the better. Convince ’em we’re having a party in here. It’ll be good for my image.”
She went so still he realized he’d embarrassed her again.
“You do have very tender southern sensibilities, don’t you?” he teased, charmed by the flush on her cheeks.
“I passed tender about five days ago.”
He hadn’t meant to sound like he was discounting all she’d been through. Then she smiled, and damn if he didn’t feel a whole new level of respect for her.
“Yeah. I imagine you did.” He reached into his backpack, powerfully tempted to reach for her. “I need to do some deep cleaning on this cut.”
He came up with a plastic packet of antiseptic wipes, then made a big production of running his hands up the length of her calf and caressing her foot. “This is going to sting like blazes.”
“Man of your word,” she said through clenched teeth as he squeezed antiseptic liquid directly into the cut, then held the wipe against the wound before cleaning it.
“Sorry. I’ll dress it with ointment, bandage it, and hope it’ll see you through.”
“I’ll be okay.”
He finally looked at her. Ever since she’d lain down on the cot he’d had a damn hard time not looking at her.
“I know you will,” he said. “I know you’re going to be just fine.”
Six
Carrie’s heart kicked up.
“I know you will. I know you’re going to be just fine.”
She heard more than simple conviction in those few words. She heard a world of respect. Felt it in the way he gave her foot an affectionate squeeze before he dug in his pack for the bandages.
She swallowed back a lump of gratitude along with the sudden threat of tears as he finished with the dressing. For the past several days she’d been treated like a mongrel dog. No dignity. No hope. Above all, no respect.
He’d just given it all back to her. And as she watched his amazing face in profile, his head lowered over her feet, she realized that he’d also made her feel something like a woman again.
It was a feeling she’d lost even before she’d been arrested. Yes, she’d had altruistic reasons for coming to Myanmar. She had a good life and she wanted to give back. But she’d also left her mundane routine because, frankly, she’d always had a thing for Wyatt Savage. When he’d come home for a visit a year ago, she’d made that clear to him.
Only Wyatt didn’t love her. He’d made that clear to her. He’d been very kind, but the truth was he loved someone else. Loved her so much he’d married her last spring.
That had broken her heart a little, just enough that she’d needed to shake things up.
Well, she’d shaken them up, all right.
She forked her hair out of her eyes and glanced at David Cavanaugh, wondering at her lack of disappointment that Wyatt himself hadn’t come.
She still couldn’t believe that this man—this stranger—was actually here to save her. She was really getting out of here.
And that’s what she thought about when he lowered her foot, then planted his hands on either side of her ribs and leaned in close.
“You need to get some rest,” he whispered, lowering his mouth to the corner of hers, “but we probably ought to make this look good.”
Her reaction was instant and knee-jerk and embarrassing. She reached between them for the blanket and tightened it over her breasts like a schoolgirl. “How much longer do we play out this charade? When can we leave?”
He brushed his lips along her jaw line. “Patience, Miss Granger.”
She was out of patience. And all this pretend love play was driving her out of her mind.
“So are we going to steal one of the vehicles? Is that how we’re getting away?” She needed a distraction from the physical contact as much as she wanted to know what he had planned.
He shook his head. “We’d never get past the checkpoints. I was blindfolded but I could tell they were heavily fortified.”
“They’re all manned by at least a dozen armed guards.” When t
hey’d trucked her up here with the others who had been “convicted” at trials, there had been several roadblocks. “All barricaded by trucks that don’t move unless they get a chain-of-command clearance to proceed.”
“They’ve got a lot to protect. Wouldn’t do for the wrong eyes to see the rubies or the slaves.”
“What is the plan?” What if they couldn’t get out? What if they were caught trying to escape?
“You do have a plan, right?” she pressed when he didn’t say anything.
“Sweetheart.” He leveled her a smile that, if she hadn’t already been lying down, would have put her right on her back. “I always have a plan.”
He saw her frustration.
“Look, Carrie. Let’s revisit that trust issue one last time, okay?” he suggested gently. “I know you’re scared, but you have to trust me to know what needs to happen, and when it needs to happen.
“And what needs to happen now is that you rest. Then we’ll talk about whether you’re up for making a run for it.”
She nodded. “I’ll run barefoot over broken glass to get out of here but I can’t run very fast wrapped in this blanket.”
“I’ve got it covered. There’s a T-shirt and a pair of cargo pants in my backpack. I guessed on the size but they’ll have to do.”
Another worry undercut her relief. “What about shoes?”
He thought of her poor bruised and cut feet, thought of the guard. The one who had been so happy to hit her with the whipping stick and prod her down the rough trail without any regard for how difficult and painful it was to walk across the jagged rocks.
“You will by the time we leave,” he promised her. The bastard’s sandals would fit her just fine.
CARRIE WAS TRYING to interpret the sudden dark look that crossed his face when she heard movement outside the tent. Suddenly Cavanaugh was lying flat on top of her, covering her mouth with his and grinding his hips into hers.
She’d been riding the razor’s edge of flight or fight for days and both kicked in with a vengeance, rocket-fueled by panic.
She bucked, she rolled, she pulled his hair and rammed her knee up hard into his groin.
