by Cherry Adair
He had called her Dani this afternoon. Her mouth was dry, but she was incapable of lifting the water to her lips. She looked at him, mute. Her heart felt as if it weighed twenty pounds as it thudded in uneven, heavy strokes. It hurt her chest to breathe. “How do you know my name?”
He gave her a cool look. “Do you honestly think that I would welcome a stranger on board my ship, and endanger my friends and crew, without putting out feelers? You fed me one preposterous lie after the other. It’s my job to protect the people I care about.”
She took a shuddering breath. “I know.”
“Who are you running from, and why?”
Daniela felt relieved to finally share the truth. “Senator Victor Stamps.”
“Your fiancé?” he prompted, frowning darkly. “Why?”
“How did you—never mind. I own an art gallery in DC. He’s been using it to move cocaine from South America for distribution in the U.S.”
Logan’s brow arched. “Senator Stamps was responsible for getting the Ultralight Aircraft Smuggling Prevention Act of 2011 passed, right?”
“And the Habitual Offender Bill. Victor is big on drug prevention,” she said bitterly. “Just not his drugs.”
“Give me the Cliff’s notes.”
“My family is so normal, we’re abnormal. My parents have been married for almost thirty years. And they love each other and show it. We’ve always been close. Really tight. I used to talk to my mom every day … Then I met Victor seven months ago …
“At first it was magical. Like something out of a fantasy. He was the up-and-coming young senator being groomed for the presidency, people loved him, they loved us as a couple. We went to the White House for dinner, were invited everywhere. I wore designer gowns given to me by the designers.
“Victor and his people thought I looked Mexican enough to get him the Latino votes. Then they decided I looked a little too ethnic. His advisors suggested I go blond. I figured blondes had more fun. I liked being a blonde. For the first six months, I was on cloud nine. He, and my life, were everything I could wish for.”
“What changed?”
“One night after I’d locked up, I remembered that I’d left my phone in the storeroom when I’d been helping my manager unpack our latest shipment.” She and Victor had attended a formal dinner at the home of a fellow senator, and she’d gone home to her own condo after—after Victor had then insisted she accompany him to his house.
She’d been wearing a red Badgley Mischka, and should’ve felt like a million bucks. Instead she’d felt worn out, on her last nerve, and terrified. It had been a long and stressful day. But she needed the alarm on her phone to wake her for an early morning appointment the next day.
“I went back downstairs.” She had to swallow before she continued. “Cut a long story short, my manager and Victor were in cahoots, and Victor had been using my shipments of Peruvian and South American artifacts to smuggle drugs into the country. As soon as I saw all those bags of white powder, I raced back upstairs and locked all my doors.” The visceral memory of her fear that night still had the ability to make her shiver.
Logan rose and scooped her up, then sat down in the chair, wrapping his arms around her. He rested his chin on her head. “Get it all out.”
No. That she couldn’t do. “It was one in the morning, but I called the DEA right then. I was shaking so hard I dropped the phone a couple of times. The man I spoke to was Special Agent Steven Price. Over the next month, he was the only thing that kept me sane. There was no one else I could talk to, certainly not my parents.
“He tracked down Victor’s contacts and wanted to wait until the next shipment came in to close the trap he’d set. Because of who Victor is, he had to be sure all his i’s were dotted and his t’s crossed. I didn’t want to stick around while he did that, Victor was getting more and more—” She rubbed her face with both hands, and Logan’s strong arms tightened around her.
“I thought he was getting suspicious. It was harder and harder to act naturally. It just seemed to take forever for Price to get what he needed to secure a conviction.” And the drug issue hadn’t been the only thing going on at the time.
“So you ran, and now you’re waiting for Price to arrest him?”
Not quite, but close enough. “I went on a ‘business trip.’” Logan’s hand rubbed a soothing pattern on her back, but she was too keyed up to find comfort in it.
“So he knew you knew about the drugs?”
“I thought he was acting weird.” Weirder than usual. “He’d always been possessive, but suddenly he was questioning me on everything. Where I’d been, who I talked to. He went through my e-mails, and my phone … I wanted to get as far away as possible. Victor sent his men after me. I eluded them in San Francisco, and kept moving. Price tried to help me. He wired me money and false papers so I could travel.”
Logan frowned. “Why the hell didn’t he put you in a safe house?”
“I was in a safe house in San Francisco. That’s where Victor’s people found me the first time.”
He shook his head as he pulled her closer into him. “Jesus, Daniela…”
“I moved around. Cheap motels, expensive resort hotels, buses, trains, ferries—whatever. I was in Pensacola at this nasty little motor lodge, feeling safe for the first time in—well, I had a false sense of security. I hadn’t seen or heard from any of Victor’s men in a couple of weeks. I thought I was home free. On TV that night, I saw Victor at my parents’ house in New Mexico, pleading with my kidnappers to bring me home. He got a lot of coverage on that one.”
Logan snorted, his disgust clear.
“I called Price and begged him to get my parents out of the country until everything was resolved. He promised he’d give them new passports—papers to get out of the country without detection. He rigged it so it looked as though they’d won the trip.”
“Then they’re safely out of harm’s way, right? So you don’t have to worry about them. Finish up your story so we can go to bed. It’s been a long night.”
Go to bed? “I—I called my parents to make sure they were okay. Told them Victor and I had had a big fight and I didn’t want him to know where I was. They told me about the trip they’d won, and we agreed to meet when they got back. Price promised me it would all be over in thirty days.”
“And?”
“While I was in Pensacola trying to figure out where to go next, two men burst into my hotel room. I climbed out the bathroom window and ran like hell.” She’d slammed into a Dumpster in the parking lot and gone head over heels. “One of them shot at me.”
“Christ. Were you hit?”
She lifted her T-shirt to show him the bullet burn on her lower abdomen. “I got away. Stole a car and drove as far as the gas took me, then took a Greyhound bus, and a train…” She’d slept in places, eaten things, done things she didn’t want to think about. “I found my cousins. They didn’t know me from Adam. I told them my name was Annie Ross, and that I was their long-lost cousin from America, here on vacation. The rest…” She waved a hand.
Logan rose, carrying her to the bed. “That’s enough for now. We’ll deal with all of it in the morning.”
She was too tired to move, and too needy to protest as he lay down beside her. “Nobody will ever hurt you again. No one.”
She did not ask if he included himself in that promise. Because if he said yes, God help her, Daniela knew she’d believe him.
Twelve
Logan pressed his lips to the warm, satin smooth skin of Daniela’s belly. Lightly kissed the obscene, strawberry-colored scar just beneath the shadowy indentation of her navel. He squeezed his eyes shut, the only external show of emotion he allowed himself. He didn’t want Daniela to see how deeply her story affected him. He had to keep his own emotions out of this.
Impotent anger surged through him, and he wanted—no, fuck it—needed to retaliate. Let Stamps know that there was a new player in his twisted game. He controlled his fury; that was for later.
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Right now Daniela deserved his understanding, his patience. His gentle touch.
That he could do. Tonight.
His brain said slow and tender, his body urged hard and fast. “They’ll have to go through me to get to you.” It was a vow from his gut. To this woman, who’d endured so much, and to the man responsible.
Daniela let out a shuddering breath, but didn’t say anything, and he didn’t press for an answer. Yet he could practically hear the wheels turning in her brain. This wasn’t the time for her to think, or worry, or be afraid. He could give her that.
A bullet wound, for God’s sake. What kind of man would shoot at a woman? No wonder she’d lied. She had been, and still was, afraid for her life.
She didn’t know him well enough, yet, to understand that lies weren’t something he tolerated. Under most circumstances, anyway. Though Daniela had lied to him, repeatedly, he now understood why.
He’d fix Stamps and there would never be another reason for her to lie to him again.
She was exhausted. It had been an action-packed day for her. She lay exactly as he’d placed her, making no protests as he’d unbuttoned her pants, slowing pulling down the zipper, then brushed his lips gently over the scar again. The cabin was quiet, the lights dim, the slider door partially open to let in the cool evening breeze.
He slowly inched her pants down over her hips leaving her bare to the touch. With infinite tenderness he stroked his fingers down the supple skin of her thigh and at the same time drew a damp trail down her other thigh with his mouth. His fingers explored the shapely muscles of her calves, strong from running, and sweetly curved.
Logan drew the bunched fabric of her pants off one slender foot, then the other, then cast the clothing aside. Trailing his mouth down her slender ankle, he paused over the delicate medial malleolus, and discovered that her anklebone was sensitive to his touch when he licked the small knob and felt her shudder. He then did the same to her other ankle.
Daniela made a small inarticulate murmur that turned him on even more. She came up on one elbow. “Oh, um—I don’t think—”
“Good. Don’t. Lie back. I’ll show you how beautiful you are.” She had pretty feet, long and elegant with perfectly symmetrical toes, except her baby toes, which lay flat against their mates. He ran his tongue over the top of her toes, then backtracked to draw the baby toe into his mouth. She moaned as he sucked, swirling his tongue around the small digit until she squirmed and fell back onto his pillow.
The high arch was sensitive, her toes curling as he ran his tongue along it. Logan delicately kissed his way back up her leg, his fingers lightly leading the way, gauging what she liked from her movements. He glided his palms up the back of her leg, into the warm hollow behind her knee. Learning the shape of the muscles that flexed in her thigh as he brought his mouth back to the scar.
Sea Wolf’s chopper had taken off while Daniela had been talking. Wes and Jed were taking her cousins, and one dead intruder, into Arequipa for the authorities to deal with. The ship was quiet. Security tight and in place. He breathed in the scent of her skin, and felt the soft brush of her fingers as she combed them through his hair.
“I can hear you worrying. Stop it. I’m fine,” she told him quietly.
God. Was she comforting him? “Yes,” he tasted her skin as he slid his hand under her, cupping the taut globe of her ass in his palm. “You are.” He smelled her arousal, warm and earthy, and his body, already painfully turned on, ratcheted up another notch.
But this wasn’t about him.
He pressed his open mouth to the damp seam of her sex, hummed his appreciation of her wet heat. Her fingers flexed in his hair, and her voice broke as she said his name.
Logan drew out each caress, gauging her response by her slightest movements, and every hitch in her breathing.
He slid his free hand up the inside of her thigh where her skin was impossibly soft, and gently parted her with his fingers.
She hissed in a breath as he stroked, dipping his fingers into her honeyed heat. “You don’t have to be careful with me.” Her voice was thick and her fingers tightened in his hair. “I won’t break.”
“This time it’s all about you. Relax and enjoy the ride.”
“It’s impossible to relax,” she said breathlessly, “and I’d rather—oh, my! Ride together.”
“And we will, I promise.” He slid a finger inside her, then two, reveling in her response. “But for now … sweet and slow. Then we’ll go for hard and fast. Then we’ll—”
Her broken laugh shimmied down her body. “I didn’t realize you had an entire agenda planned. I’ll just lie here and think of—what’s on the menu.”
“Oh, I have an entire smorgasbord to choose from. This will take a while.”
Even as she laughed, Logan felt her internal muscles gather around the spear of his fingers. He added a third into the creamy channel. Her breathing became more and more rapid as she shifted restlessly against his hand. He pressed his palm on her clit and she arched off the bed, her fingers gripping his shoulders for purchase as she shouted his name.
He put his mouth to her and a long climax wrenched through her, jerking breathless little sobs of pleasure from her throat.
He pressed his smiling face against her damp, fragrant mound, breathing in the musky mélange of her scents, womanly, earthy, a hint of soap, and a hint of the sea, and beneath it all, the heady fragrance that was hers alone.
“I want you inside me.” Daniela’s voice was thick and husky as her nails scored his shoulders, urging him to shift where she wanted him.
Logan slid his body up her torso, careful to brace his weight on his elbows. He kissed a damp path from the gentle dip of her navel, stroked his tongue along the sensitive skin of her belly, then rose to lavish his attention on the impossibly soft underside of each breast. She felt so delicate beneath him, yet he knew she had a will of steel and a backbone to match.
Her knees rose on either side of his hips, and she slid her heels over the small of his back. Her fingers sifted through his hair and she gave a little tug. “Now would be good.”
“Shh. I’m distracted.” He ran his tongue around the ruched peak of her nipple, and she arched against him. “Later,” he murmured, closing his lips around the tight bud, sucking lightly, then using his teeth and his tongue to make her arch off the bed again.
Daniela hummed her pleasure low in her throat. Cupping the back of his head she pressed his face against her breast, and demanded, “Harder.”
Logan felt a surge of … What the hell was it? Euphoria? Joy? Something damned unfamiliar, but certainly addictive, that he’d never felt with any other woman.
He moved up her body and entered her in one hard, powerful thrust that had her hips pushing beneath him like a sail bent full by the wind. With every stroke, she shouted, “Yes!” It was so obviously a parody that it made Logan laugh. A first when he was in the middle of sex. But that quickly changed as his strokes intensified, leaving her too breathless for speech, and incapable of thinking about anything else at all.
It was all about Daniela’s pleasure, but each urgent movement of her body, each moan, made his control slip until he was the one with none left. He kissed her deeply as they peaked at the same time, and came together. He loved that she was noisy and vocal.
“You okay?” he asked, smoothing her damp hair off her glowing face a few minutes later, when he was capable of moving.
Her skin was deliciously flushed, her eyes slumberous and glittering. “Better than,” she murmured languidly, lifting her arms to wrap around his neck. “But usually one works their way up to that from a kiss.”
His eyes devoured her face. He’d never seen her this relaxed, this beautiful. “I kissed you,” he said with mock indignation.
He felt her laugh gurgle up through her chest, a sensation that filled him too. “Yes,” she told him with mock severity. “And very thoroughly too. However, there are some important parts that were completely ignored.”
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He grinned at her serious expression. “I wasn’t done.”
“Well, no. I hope not. While you’re catching your breath—” She lifted his hand and placed it on her breast.
He made up for the omission by rolling them onto their sides, bending his head to lavish her sensitive breasts with all the care and attention she craved. Sensations raced through her nerve endings like hot lava as he curled his tongue around her areola and sucked the nipple deep into the heated cavern of his mouth. Daniela dug her nails into his broad shoulders as his breath fanned the moisture his mouth left in its wake.
With every brush of his lips, with every gentle caress, she felt beautiful, desirable, and safe. “Don’t stop—” she begged, barely able to catch her breath as the heat and need climbed with every brush of his fingers, every hot wet lick of his clever tongue. The shadowy cabin was filled with pleading moans. His. Hers.
She couldn’t take it anymore. With the flat of her hand on his chest, Daniela shoved him onto his back—it wasn’t difficult, he was apparently putty in her hands. Sliding her knee over his hips, her own back arched, fingers curled into the hair on his chest, as she impaled herself. The sensation of him filling her made her shudder with the unbearable sweetness of it.
His large hands clamped on her hips, his thumbs tracing the path to where their bodies were joined as they moved together in a dance as old as time, and as new as tomorrow.
The orgasm, hard, quick, and unbearably sharp, made her shatter into a million pieces. She shocked herself by bursting into tears. She pressed a fist against her mouth.
“God. Don’t cry.”
“I’m not.” Salty tears leaked down her cheeks and pooled in the sweaty hollow of her throat.
“Did I hurt you?”
“Of course not.”
He wrapped his arms around her and drew her down onto his chest. His hands slipped up her body. “It was beautiful. Memorable. You’re beautiful.”
His face was very close to hers, and she saw all the shades of blue making up the extraordinary color of his eyes. Azure and navy, robin’s egg and sky, all there in a kaleidoscope of color that shimmered beyond her foolish tears. A sob ripped out of her throat, and he rubbed between her shoulder blades wordlessly, his touch speaking for him.
