by Raina Wilde
She recalled seeing him at the pool on the top deck all chiseled muscles, tanned skin and rugged masculinity. Her eyes narrowed as she wondered what he was doing knocking on her door at this time of night. He appeared to be in complete control of himself, leaning forward to knock once more upon her door. Clearly, he had not been the fool who had spoken to Casper only moments before.
She dropped the floral curtain and moved to unlock the door. She had only eased it open a few inches when the man had brushed past her, spun around and shut the door behind him.
“What are you doing checking the curtains?” he lectured. “Fabric has too much motion for you to risk touching it.” He ran a rough hand over his face as he paced the floor of her cabin. Emily stood rooted to the floor unsure of what was happening. “If you had done that while they were out there you could have gotten us both killed.”
It suddenly occurred to her that the sober man standing in front of her was the same man who had been slurring his words less than a minute before. Now, his deep voice was recognizable from the few times that he had offered polite greetings as they had passed aboard the ship.
“Who are you?” she snapped, “What were you doing out there? What are you doing in my cabin?”
He held his hands up to slow her down.
“We really don’t have time for this. Tell me what those guys want from you and I might be able to get you off this ship before they kill us both.” He was canvassing the room as he spoke, checking drawers and looking underneath the bed that stood in the middle of the room.
“Are you kidding me? For all I know this is some kind of trick and you work for Casper. Get out! I don’t need your help, just go away.” She approached the man and attempted to push him toward the doorway. With her hands firmly planted on his chest, Emily put the full force of her five-foot-six frame behind the effort only to realize that the man had not budged an inch. She doubted that she had even caused his body to sway.
Emily craned her neck to look up into the steely gray eyes that were evaluating her with what, unfortunately, appeared to be amusement.
With a sigh she removed her hands and, crossing her arms beneath her breasts, tapped one foot as she waited for an explanation.
With a groan of annoyance the dark haired man began to pace back and forth across the cabin. He was taller, and much more broad, than Emily had realized from her distant evaluations.
“I woke up to a noise outside of my cabin. It’s only five rooms down from here.” He clarified. “When I went to investigate, I saw a speed boat, with all of its lights turned off, dock with the ship. Nine men boarded, three remained on the getaway boat. They have an arsenal of weapons and one of the men, Lorenz, is an international fugitive. So, I figured these are some bad guys. I pretended to be drunk, thinking that maybe I could get some answers, when they showed me your photo and asked where to find you. I lied, and off they went.” He turned toward her and began to walk a slow circle around Emily as if examining every detail about her. “I asked myself, what would men like this want with the quiet woman staying in 204? I figure, it couldn’t be anything good and maybe I need to check it out. Also, I’m fairly certain the cruise line doesn’t want armed thugs messing with their passengers so we should probably try to draw them away from the ship. If we move fast enough, I can take down the three on the boat and we can get away on that.” He summed up the situation with an eerie nonchalance that gave the impression that this was a normal day for him.
“Who are you and how do you know about Casper Lorenz?” she narrowed her eyes with suspicion.
“Ben Portman.” He sighed and proffered a hand, which Emily shook hesitantly. “The truth is, I’m a Navy SEAL. I was assigned to this ship to do recon about possible drug trafficking suspected from the staff on this ship. Until tonight, I had seen nothing suspicious. Now, with an international drug lord and his fugitive cronies boarding the ship under cover of darkness, I have the proof that I need to start planning a mission with my team.”
Emily stared in shock at the man standing in front of her. He was literally the answer to her prayers. If a group of Navy SEALs were planning a sting against Casper, she needn’t worry about her powerful ex-boyfriend any longer.
“You are going to send Casper to jail?” she asked hopefully.
To her dismay Ben laughed.
“Casper Lorenz is slippery. All sorts of teams have been trying to get something on him for years, and so far no one has any concrete proof. His residence is a veritable fortress and he keeps his hands clean of any direct dealing.” He shook his head. “No, the most that we can hope to do is attempt to collect proof against him. Hopefully, my team will be the first to actually get something but we’ve only just started with some basic reconnaissance.”
Emily’s heart sank. She knew what needed to be done. She could not leave the ship. The thought terrified her.
“Come on.” Ben Portman gestured toward the door. “We need to get out of here before they realize that I sent them to a cleaning supply closet.” He grabbed her duffel and attempted to guide her to the door.
“Stop!” Emily could not think with him taking charge all the time. “I can’t leave the ship.” She said with determination.
“You have to.” He argued. “Those guys are going to kill you, for whatever reason. You realize that don’t you? They are going to try to kill me too, if I don’t get out of here. I’m alone on this ship. My team is hours away at Lorenz’s house, where he is supposed to be.”
Ben placed a gentle hand on Emily’s upper arm in another attempt to guide her out of the cabin.
“Stop.” She whispered this time. As softly as she had said it, she knew he had heard when his body stilled. The impact of her whisper was much more effective than the shout. “I have evidence.”
“What?”
“I have the evidence that you need. All of it.” Emily repeated.
“What do you mean? How could you have…?” Ben cocked his head and looked at her as if he was seeing her with new eyes. “What is your name?”
Emily chewed on her lip, knowing that if Ben thought that she had anything to do with Casper’s criminal activities she would be in deep trouble.
“Emily Parker.” She watched as his gray eyes narrowed and then widened in disbelief.
“Lorenz’s girlfriend?”
“Ex-girlfriend. I didn’t know he was a criminal.” Emily clarified and Ben swore dramatically.
He ran his hand over his face and started pacing the room again. He never seemed to stand still, she thought. Suddenly, he started going through her duffel, pulling her toiletries and undergarments into a haphazard pile on the bed.
“It isn’t in there. That’s why I can’t leave the ship. I’ve hidden everything for safekeeping. I thought if Casper came for me and couldn’t find the disks that he might keep me alive, but now I realize that it just made everything more complicated.”
Ben shook his head again in disbelief. Despite the dangerous turn of events he was smiling, which made Emily a bit nervous.
“What do you mean by disks? I need you to be very clear about the type of evidence you have before I decide if it is worth staying on this ship.”
“It’s everything.” She began, but hurried on after seeing that he wouldn’t accept that answer. “A few months ago one of Casper’s employees started joking, in front of me, about all the terrible things they’ve done and all the money that they made selling drugs. He thought, with me being Casper’s girlfriend, that I must have known. I hadn’t. Casper was furious that I had found out that way. Suddenly, the man who’d told me was gone. I used to see him every day and then one day he just disappeared.” Emily found herself pacing the small room now. The motion seemed to calm her nerves as she told her story.
“I knew at that point,” she continued, “when all of the other employees gave me a wide berth, that Casper had the man executed. Casper told me that I was never to leave his home without permission, ever again. That was when I realized that there
was no chance of me getting out of there alive unless I had evidence to bargain with.
“I waited a month for my chance. You say his home is a fortress, and that’s true, but I had access to everything from the inside. Now that everyone was avoiding me, I had plenty of opportunity to collect anything that I needed.”
Ben perched on the edge of the bed as he listened to her story. Emily knew that if he believed her she might be able to get him to help her achieve her goal.
“What do you have?” he asked.
“Everything.” She repeated. “Video surveillance of everyone inside the complex and also from two of his remote delivery sites. He kept tapes of everyone involved so that no one could turn against him. I took all sorts of secret photographs that show the layout and security of the complex, guard counts and rotation times.”
Emily could see that Ben was practically salivating at her information. It was everything his team needed to complete a successful mission. She knew, however, that the last bit of information was the most important.
She took a steadying breath before she continued.
“On the day that I finally decided to make a run for it, Casper and his men were away on business. I booked a cabin on this ship under the name of an old friend, Bethany Stark. I thought that I would be safe if I stayed away from regular transportation. I never thought that Casper would be able to find me.
“I knew that I needed something really important in case I wasn’t able to reach the American authorities. If I couldn’t get home there was potential that I would have to bargain for my life. I decided to keep the evidence separate from my cabin so that any chance of Casper recovering it depended solely on my being alive.” She paused. “The morning that I left I stole three primary hard drives from the computers inside of Casper’s main office. Two of them contain all of the coded information about their dealings, including names and quantities. The third hard drive contains the program that deciphers the code.”
When she stopped talking she and the military operative stared at each other in silence for what felt like an eternity.
Finally, Ben swore under his breath.
“Where is the evidence hidden?” he asked.
She knew that he was trying to formulate a plan but with her life on the line she wasn’t certain that she wanted someone else calling the shots. Especially not a Navy SEAL determined to complete the mission of a lifetime. She had made it this far alone and she would not risk the chance that he might take the evidence and leave her at the mercy of Casper Lorenz.
Emily shook her head.
“I’ll retrieve it on my own.” She explained. “If you want to stick around, that’s fine, but I’m calling the shots.”
“You have no tactical experience.” He argued, standing up from his seated position. “I’m the professional and if you want to get off this ship alive you are going to have to trust me.”
“Not going to happen.” Emily moved to stand toe-to-toe with the SEAL. “I recently found out that my boyfriend of two years is a world-renowned drug lord and you think I’m going to trust my entire future to some macho beef stick that I just met ten minutes ago?”
“Did you just call me a ‘beef stick’?” Ben cocked a half grin that revealed his amusement at her terminology. He looked down at her upturned face. Emily watched his pupils contract as he raised a hand to her cheek. “I think you are confusing your types of hunger, sweetheart.”
Emily knew she was blushing. The intimate tone made her pulse jump in a way she couldn’t explain, and refused to examine. She suddenly realized how close they were standing; their bodies aligned in such a way that his enormous body overshadowed her slender form.
His gaze moved to her lips causing Emily’s breathing to become shallow.
Slowly his head descended and hovered mere centimeters from her own. She knew that his hesitation was meant to give her a chance to withdraw but she also recognized the challenge in dominance for what it was.
Leaning forward she pressed her lips against those of this practical stranger and was swept into an absolute tidal wave of sensation.
Emily wrapped her hands behind Ben’s neck and pulled his body closer to her own. His hands came to rest on her hips as she tantalized this stranger with a confidence that she had never exerted with any other partner.
She uncharacteristically took control of the encounter, rubbing her body against the hard length of his and governing his opened mouth with her plying tongue. She couldn’t explain what had taken her over, only that it was exhilarating and she wanted to explore the limits of her prowess.
She felt his body harden against her stomach and the low groan that slipped from the man’s mouth signified that this naturally controlled man was hovering on the edge of mayhem.
With a slow smile Emily drew away from Ben and watched with pleasure as he took a series of slow, calming breaths. She knew that her confident exterior masked the turmoil that was boiling inside. It was essential that she not reveal her reaction to this man. She would give him no tool with which to manipulate her trust, as Casper had.
“Like I said,” she managed to expertly control her voice into a cold, but sexy tone, “I’ll take your help, and suggestions, but I’ll be calling the shots.”
Five minutes later Ben had returned from gathering his belongings from the cabin down the hall. They had determined that her room was the safest due to the fact that she had used an alias that, Emily assured, Casper would not recognize. If Lorenz had criminals working on the ship it would not take him long to search the passenger list for Ben’s photo I.D. in an attempt to question him about sending them on a wild goose chase. Ben’s name was falsified, though his photo was not. Emily had used both a false I.D. as well as her friend’s image. Casper would have no reason to visit Bethany Stark in room 204.
An hour after Ben’s return, the pair listened intently to a gathering of men on the deck signifying that they had, in fact, attempted to gain entry to the Navy SEAL’s room. Ben had left enough belongings in the room to ensure that Lorenz’s men thought that he simply had not returned for the night.
“Hide your weapons and take that boat back to the mainland.” Casper commanded. “Tomorrow you will spread out on the ship until you find her, but you must blend in. Those damn Americans are watching us and I won’t have them suspecting that we have access to the cruise lines.
“When you find her you must hold her until it is dark enough to remove her from the ship without disturbing the passengers. That is the most important thing. No one must suspect our presence. When you get her back to the complex, do whatever it takes to recover the hard drives. I don’t care if you have to break every bone in her body. If the Americans get their hands on that information every major player in the trade is going to call for our heads on a platter. You find her and you find her fast.”
Finally, the voices receded. Moments later Emily heard the rumble of the speedboat racing off toward the mainland.
For the first time in what felt like hours she released her breath.
She looked up to see Ben, lounging on the bed, with a massive grin on his face. He was looking at her as if she were Mrs. Claus bringing Christmas early.
“How does such a small person cause so much trouble?” he asked with a voice full of wonder.
Emily shrugged. She did not think the situation was as amusing as he appeared to have found it. She leaned back into the plush armchair that she had been perched anxiously on for the last hour.
“What do you do for a living and how did you get involved with Lorenz?” He spoke again. Emily was already annoyed with the man that she would be trapped in the same room with for the foreseeable future. Weren’t military men supposed to be quiet? Why did he have to ask so many questions?
“I really don’t think this is any of your business.” Emily snapped a gruff reply.
Ben held his hands up in a gesture that implied that he meant no offense. He apologized for the question in such a sincere way that Emily felt terribl
e for her rude response. She sighed and rubbed her eyes, knowing the stress and sleep deprivation were wearing on her attitude.
“I met him while touring Europe.” She explained with quiet resignation. “We crossed paths in multiple cities which led Casper to introduce himself. He was traveling alone, without his usual entourage. He was really charming.”
Emily tried to remember how magical that trip had seemed. Her meeting with Casper had seemed almost too good to be true. Now she realized that it definitely was. She had been having the romantic encounter of her dreams, while he was likely traveling with a low profile in order to make covert contact with his widespread drug peddlers.
“What do you do when you are not touring Europe and dating world class criminals?”
Emily released a sardonic laugh. She could not believe that her life had truly come to this. She continued to laugh at her predicament with a slightly hysterical chortle that had Ben repeating his question about her employment.
“I’m a writer.” She giggled. “That’s how I have the free time to travel Europe and date shady villains. You’ll never believe what I write. That’s what is so darn funny.”
Ben waited for her to continue. She would bet that he thought that she was certifiably crazy at this very moment.
“Adventure novels.” She took a few moments to calm herself down before continuing. “I write silly adventure novels about all sorts of exciting events and you know what?,” she piled her hair on top of her head and secured it with a band from her wrist. “This is not nearly as fun as it is for my characters. In fact, this is downright scary and I really just want it to be over with.”
