by Cindy Dees
* * *
Kinsey went back to sleep with a smile on her lips and woke up with one on them in the morning...if the first hint of dawn could rightly be called morning. The sky in the east was pink, but the sun hadn’t risen above the verdant mountains ringing Magen’s Bay when Mitch touched her arm lightly. At the brush of his fingers against her skin, she popped wide-awake.
He looked even rougher and more dangerous this morning with a stubble of beard darkening his jaw. “It’s time to go.”
She sat up abruptly, the covers pooling around her waist. His gaze dropped to her chest for an instant but then jerked away as quickly. She was startled to find herself relieved at the brief verification that a red-blooded male actually did live inside the cold predator. She crawled on her hands and knees across the wide bed and swung her bare feet to the cold floor.
“I wish I had some real clothes,” she remarked wistfully. “I’m going to get plenty sick of this bikini and
T-shirt in the next week or two.”
“I’m sure the folks at the Bat Cave can arrange for some real clothes. Maybe not the designer labels you’re used to, but clothes.”
“Would you get off your high horse about my financial background?”
“It’s hard to forget with you looking the way you do.”
She glared at him. “Whatever’s left of yesterday’s mascara is probably smeared all over my face by now. I undoubtedly have a bad case of bed head, and I haven’t had a shower in twenty-four hours. I’m wearing a junky T-shirt and not a whole lot more. I look like hell, and I know it. So cut the crap about my looks.”
He crossed his arms, his expression black. His molten gaze raked down her person, far too slowly and thoroughly, all the way to her pedicured toes and back up to her eyes. To say she felt stripped naked didn’t quite cover it. She felt...invaded. And caressed. And, oh my, appreciated in a very, very female way.
“Honey, if that’s as bad as it ever gets with you, I’d hate to see you gussied up. You look like a top-drawer princess just as you are.”
She frowned. How did he manage to make such a lavish compliment sound like such an insult? A strange sound intruded upon her ruminations. A distant, heavy thumping. She lurched in surprise and bumped into Mitch.
“What’s that?” she gasped.
Mitch turned quickly and took all three steps up onto deck in a single, athletic bound. “Stay here,” he ordered as a pistol materialized in his hand.
She briefly considered hiding in the closet-size bathroom but decided any bad guy would search there right away.
“You can come out, Kinsey. It’s the H.O.T. Watch.”
The H.O.T. Watch? He’d mentioned that before. Sounded like a bunch of comic-book heroes. Cautiously, she went up onto deck. Three male silhouettes filled the boathouse doors. She recognized Mitch’s sleek, powerful outline right away. He lifted a hand and gestured her to come over to him.
He was deep in conversation with another man in rapid Spanish she couldn’t entirely follow. Strange, because she actually spoke the language reasonably well. They were using specialized vocabulary she only vaguely recognized as dealing with weapons of some kind. She moved to his side and was startled when he absently reached out and looped an arm about her shoulders, pulling her close to him.
Oh, yes. Entirely male. Powerful, protective alpha male. It was really quite nice to cuddle up to all that brawn.
Eventually there was a break in the discussion.
“This is Kinsey,” Mitch said to the first man.
“I’m Brady. Nice to meet you, ma’am.”
Was that his first name or last name? He didn’t look like the kind of guy she could ask the question of readily. He had to be military with that short hair and
ramrod-straight bearing. And then there was the whole ma’am thing. The other guy was introduced as Captain Scott Cash. His dancing green eyes were much more inviting than the first man’s.
To him, she commented, “You get harassed about your name and rank a lot, don’t you?”
He grinned back at her. “Wait until I become Major Cash.”
Mitch interrupted sharply, “Ready to go?”
She looked up into his scowling visage. “Well, I’ve got a ton of stuff to pack. It’ll take hours before I’m ready.”
“Very funny. Let’s move out, gentlemen.”
His big hand wrapped around her elbow and he steered her out the door with easy strength. She felt like a panther cub with its mother’s jaws around her neck, carrying her to safety. Mitch’s touch was gentle but unmistakably powerful. The other men fell in behind her and Mitch as they stepped outside the boathouse. A chunky helicopter sat in the mansion’s backyard, its rotors spinning and a pair of helmeted pilots sitting at the controls. The paint job was blue-gray on the bottom and green on the top.
Mitch hustled her up the stone steps from the beach to the wide lawn and urged her into a jog when they reached the manicured grass. She couldn’t help crouching low as they moved under the rotor blades. A wide door swung open in front of them, and Mitch helped her inside.
She sat down on a hard seat and looked around for a seat belt. She started when Mitch crouched in front of her and plunged both hands behind her hips. His palms cupped her derriere and she’d have bolted out of the seat if that wouldn’t have flung her straight into his arms.
Their gazes met, hers wide with shock, his narrow with irritation. He yanked his hands back roughly, bringing with them the halves of her seat belt. He guided a pair of shoulder straps over both of her breasts, the wide nylon blatantly rubbing the sensitive flesh they were smashing. His hands came together in her lap and she grew possibly more shocked. His nimble fingers fumbled embarrassingly close to the junction of her thighs, and then his hands lifted away. She looked down. Her seat belt was a five-point affair with a round buckle sitting low on her belly. Thankfully the shoulder straps hid the way her nipples had hardened under her thin T-shirt at his touch.
“Are you done?” she muttered.
His blazing gaze caught hers. “I haven’t even gotten started yet,” he growled back.
She gulped as he slid into the seat across from her and buckled his own safety harness. Scott Cash sat on her right, and the enigmatic Brady took a seat beside Mitch. Two crew members took the remaining seats. As soon as one of them slid the big door shut, the bird lifted off the ground, swooping forward fast and then banking into a steep, accelerating turn.
“Where are we going?” she shouted over the noise to Mitch.
“It’ll take a couple hours to get there,” he shouted back. “If you want to take a nap, go ahead. I know you slept lousy last night.”
And how did he know that? Other than the nightmare that had woken her up so abruptly, of course. She didn’t want to ask in front of the other men, so she just glared at him for being rude enough to comment on it. He stared back at her implacably. Every now and then a jostle of the helicopter sent his knees banging into hers. At some point, he stretched his powerful legs out, his feet extending all the way under her seat. The pose forced her legs apart so his calves could slip between hers. It was intimate and aggressive. Like the man.
And yet, he’d declined to touch her last night, even when she’d needed and wanted a hug from him. Was he truly the bastard he claimed to be, or was there more to it than that? She studied him, his eyes closed, his arms crossed over his chest in an eye-catching display of bulging biceps. She’d been around plenty of men who were intimidated by her beauty and hesitated to touch her. Was that it? Was he actually attracted enough to her to be shy?
Mitch Perovski shy? The thought made her smile.
“What?” he bit out.
She started. How had he seen her smile? His eyes were closed. “I beg your pardon?”
“What are you grinning about like that?”
Her smile returned, wider than before. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”
He humphed, recrossed his arms over his chest and closed his eyes once more. Whether or not he actually slept, she couldn’t tell. But she eventually followed suit and let the rotor wash and jet noise coax her heavy eyelids closed. What was that thing he’d said last night about sleeping when she could? She took his advice and drifted off.
* * *
“Wake up, Kinsey.”
She jolted to consciousness. The helicopter was still vibrating, thumping loudly around her. Mitch was leaning forward, his hand resting on her bare knee. Darned if heat wasn’t shooting straight up the inside of her thigh to her nether regions. She drew in a quick breath of surprise. His all-too-perceptive eyes flashed in male satisfaction for the barest instant before he released her leg and leaned back, resuming his negligent, feline sprawl.
“Where are we?” she asked sleepily.
“Almost there.”
She didn’t even bother to ask where “there” was. If he’d wanted to tell her, he would have. She sighed. “How long was I asleep?”
“Three hours.”
Wow. How fast could a helicopter go, anyway? Maybe two hundred miles per hour? That meant they could be anywhere up to six hundred miles away from St. Thomas. That encompassed a pretty big chunk of the eastern Caribbean.
The helicopter dropped alarmingly and she clutched at the nearest thing, which turned out to be Scott Cash’s rock-hard forearm. “What was that?” she blurted.
Mitch scowled pointedly at her hand on the other man’s arm. “We’re coming in for a landing. Nothing to panic over.”
She released the captain’s arm with a smile of gratitude and apology. At least he was smiling back at her. Broadly. With dimples.
Mitch regained her attention abruptly by announcing, “Time to put the blindfold on you.”
“What for?”
He shrugged. “Secret location. You’re not allowed to see anything that might let you identify it later.”
“You’re kidding.” Bat caves? Secret locations? This was definitely turning into a comic book.
He leaned forward with a black cloth blindfold like an airplane passenger might wear to sleep in flight. He placed it over her eyes, then slipped the elastic strap behind her head. He gathered her hair in a rough ponytail, his fingertips caressing the nape of her neck and sending shivers shooting all the way to her toes. He pulled her hair through the elastic strap and released it in a cascade of silken softness against her skin. Goose bumps erupted on her arms.
“Can you see anything?” he asked.
“Like I’d tell you if I could?” she retorted. Cash chuckled beside her. She felt Mitch’s scowl without any need to see it. His fingers skimmed all the way around the edge of the mask, checking the seal and incidentally unleashing a horde of butterflies in her stomach. He was messing with her on purpose. Was he just trying to make her uncomfortable, or was he getting a kick out of her involuntary reactions to him? Or maybe he was testing her reactions to him for some other reason altogether. One that had to do with the way his eyes glowed whenever he looked at her.
The helicopter thudded gently to the ground. In a few moments the engines cut, and the thwocking of the rotor blades slowed rapidly.
“Okay, out we go,” Mitch muttered. His hand fumbled at her lap belt and her breath hitched far too revealingly for her comfort. Just as well she couldn’t see him. His strong hands guided her outside. A little light leaked around the edges of the mask, and the sun warmed her skin. She heard and smelled the ocean nearby and sand gave way underfoot. A beach, then.
“This way,” Mitch murmured. His hand slid under her elbow, and his big body rubbed lightly against her side. She was surprised at how horribly disoriented she became in a matter of moments. She leaned closer to Mitch, intensely disliking this sudden vulnerability. And yet, of all the men she’d ever met, she had the most confidence in him to keep her safe. After his lethal display of skills yesterday, she had faith he was one of the deadliest people around. Although frankly, his buddies hadn’t looked much less dangerous.
After maybe a hundred strides through more sand, she heard a door open in front of her.
“Steps downward,” he murmured.
She felt with her foot, stumbling a bit on the first step. But Mitch’s arm snaked around her waist, catching her and steadying her. Of course, it also plastered her against his side. Sensations of his body against hers slammed into her. Hard muscle. Lean waist. Hot. Vibrant. Powerful. Oh, so very male.
He cleared his throat and carefully set her away from him. She looped her left hand under his elbow once more. She stuck out her right hand for balance and encountered a cool, rough wall. Stone. The steps, while individually fairly shallow, went on forever. She lost count of them somewhere in the seventies.
And then, without warning, her foot reached out for another step and ran into level floor. It was hard and smooth like concrete. The air currents around her shifted, and the echo of their feet changed as if they’d stepped out into an open space.
Mitch stopped with her huddled close to him. She heard some metallic clanking and an odd hissing noise. Then he urged her forward with a solicitous hand on the small of her back. “Careful, now. This is a big step. You’ll have to bend down. Grab that metal bar right there. Now swing your right leg out and down.”
What in the world? It felt as if she was climbing down into something. As she put weight on her right foot, the surface beneath her gave slightly. Ahh. A boat. She frowned under the mask. A boat underground? What was this?
She stumbled forward a few more steps and then Mitch guided her down into a comfortable, cushioned seat. Her ears popped as if the space around her had pressurized and her frown deepened. “What is this?” she demanded. “Where am I?”
“You’re aboard a submarine. Not too much longer, now, and you can take off your blindfold.”
A submarine? Good grief. Sure enough, a low rumble started under her feet, and her seat began to sway gently. They must have motored forward and down for ten or fifteen minutes, and then the blindfold suddenly lifted away from her eyes.
She blinked around in the red-lit semidark. She was, indeed, on a minisub. A small, thick window at her left looked out on a mostly dark ocean. They were deep, then. From her experience with scuba diving, she’d estimate they were well over a hundred feet down. Momentary claustrophobia tightened her chest. So much water pressing down on top of them. The weight of it could crush them if this vessel failed.
“Where in the world are we going?” she asked Mitch, who sat across from her again.
“H.O.T. Watch headquarters. We’ve got to pick up some gear before we head into Cuba, and I need a last-minute intelligence briefing before we make our run.” He glanced down at her unclad legs. “And we’ve got to get you some clothes. I’m not going to be able to concentrate if I have to keep looking at your legs all the time.”
“What’s wrong with my legs?” She’d just had them waxed, and she had a pretty good tan going if she said so herself. Her limbs were long and toned and sleek. She’d always thought of them as one of her best assets.
“Nothing’s wrong with your legs,” he grumbled. “That’s the problem.”
Captain Cash piped up from her right. “Hark. Is Lancer actually showing signs of being human after all?”
Lancer? Was that some sort of nickname of his? It was a good name for him. Sharp. Lethal. Something that drew blood.
Mitch scowled at his comrade. “Shut up, Scottie.”
Brady laughed. “I think you’re right, Scott. The guy’s human after all. Thanks for answering that question for us, Miss Hollingsworth.”
She crossed one slender leg over the other, dangling her flip-flop from her toes in Mitch’s direction. “My pleasure,” she drawled at Brady. For good measure, she c
rossed her arms, pushing up her chest under her
T-shirt. Too bad she had the shirt over her bikini top. Nonetheless, Mitch’s gaze dropped involuntarily to the sudden curves. When it lifted again to hers, as brilliant and turbulent as the surface of the sun, she smirked back at him.
He crossed his own arms and turned a shoulder to her, staring fixedly out the window.
Triumph surged in her breast. She glanced over at Brady. “How long is this little joyride going to take?”
He shrugged. “A while.”
“Why all this secrecy?”
Brady replied, “The facility we’re going to is highly classified. Only a handful of people know it exists, let alone where it is. The only reason you get to go there is because time is of the essence and your father is a congressman. It’s as much for your protection as ours that we’re concealing its location from you.”
“Seems like you’re going to an awful lot of trouble. You could always just ask me to promise not to tell where it is. I’d give you my word on it, you know.”
Mitch interjected, saying harshly, “And when you’re taken prisoner and tortured for the information, how long do you think you could hold out?”
She jerked back, stung. The rest of the ride, which lasted upward of an hour, finished in silence, stony from him and irritated from her. At one point, she caught Brady looking back and forth between the two of them in quiet amusement, as if he thought they were perfect for each other. Whatever. Mitch Perovski was a jerk. She would prove to him that she was no dimwit socialite and smuggle his happy butt into Cuba, but then she was done with him.
Chapter 5
Mitch watched as the submarine ducked under a black overhang of rock, skimming close enough to it to make Kinsey gasp. He’d taken this ride a number of times and that spot never failed to make him hold his breath. There was a surface entrance to the Bat Cave, but because of its vulnerability to attack, nobody but H.O.T. Watch staff knew its location.
