Rum Runner

by Tricia Leedom

  He kissed her neck, sucking so hard she gasped and clawed at his shoulders. He overwhelmed her. His big body. His scent. His roving hands and mouth. He was so different from her previous lovers, two in all. Neither man came close to making her feel the way Jimmy Panama made her feel with simply a kiss.

  His hands swept down and his thumbs and forefingers settled into the tender grooves where her hips met her thighs. The tips of his thumbs teased her bikini area, but didn’t go where she wanted them to go.

  His rough and ragged breath filled her ears as he lowered his forehead to her shoulder.

  Why was he stopping? “Don’t stop,” she said, wiggling against him. Her body was feverish with lust. “I… You can’t stop.”

  “Duchess—”

  “Say my name. Sophie. Say it.”

  “Duchess, you don’t know what you’re—”

  “Sophie,” she insisted. She took his face between her hands. His broad, freshly shaven jaw was smooth as satin beneath her fingertips. He was a ruggedly beautiful man. A fallen angel. She kissed him this time, showing him the passion that he and he alone could inspire in her.

  He held back at first. Then his callused hands skimmed up her back in a raspy tickle and he deepened the kiss. His coarse fingertips stroked along the tender skin of her inner thighs, gently urging them to part wider. She groaned into his mouth.

  “Sophie,” he whispered desperately as his fingers skimmed her jaw, raising her chin a little.

  Their gazes met. His held a question. Was she sure about this? No, her conscience shouted. This was wrong. She was a good girl and good girls didn’t sleep with men they hardly knew. But this was different. She was different with him. And she needed him as much as she needed her next breath. In answer to his unspoken question, she nodded once and then closed her eyes and braced herself.

  He went down on his knees instead. She was about to protest when he lifted the hem of her T-shirt, spread her legs even wider, and put his mouth to her. She gasped and grabbed his head, meaning to push him away, but her traitorous hands held him in place. Her fingers flexed and dug into his thick blond locks as she urged him on with small incoherent sounds. Her eyes closed, her head tilted back, and then she…oh God…she came hard and without question.

  When Jimmy stood up again and penetrated her with a deep thrust, her boneless body welcomed the feel of him stretching her to capacity. He smelled so good, and she felt so full. How could something that felt so right be so wrong? Her body pulsed around him, growing restless and eager for movement.

  “Please,” she heard herself say.

  Jimmy whipped her T-shirt up over her head and kissed her again, before he began to move inside of her with deep sure strokes. She leaned back on the palms of her hands and lost herself in sensation. The feel of his mouth on her breasts and neck and lips. His spicy scent mingled with fresh male sweat. The stickiness and heat. The hot, hard flesh relentlessly pounding into her core.

  Jimmy grabbed her hips and held her still as he increased the pace.

  She wanted this. Needed this. She needed to—

  “Come for me again, Duchess.”

  She gasped and gripped his shoulders. Could she? Again, so soon?

  When he stopped suddenly and picked her up, she clung to him, wrapping her legs around his waist as he cupped her bottom and walked toward the bed. His unwitting display of brute strength made her lower belly tighten and a fresh surge of lust washed over her. She locked her arms around his neck and licked his chin and cheek before she found his mouth.

  “Hold on, darlin’,” he said between kisses, “I’ve got you.” He laid her back on the bed and followed her down giving her another combustible kiss that decimated her wits.

  The angle was different now. His thrusts were deeper, harder, faster. It was too much. He was too much. She couldn’t take anymore. He had to stop, before she—

  “Don’t stop,” she heard herself shriek as her back arched off the bed.

  “Come for me, Sophie. Come for me now.”

  And she did.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  A hard pounding on the door woke Jimmy from a sound sleep. He cracked his lids and squinted at the alarm clock next to the bed. The neon digits read 4:27. A little too early for maid service. He threw back the bedsheet and reached for the gun he’d placed inside the nightstand drawer. The combination of sleep deprivation, plane crash, and cuckoo monkey sex had left his body stiff and aching. His joints cracked as he climbed out of bed and stood up.

  The insistent knocking came again.

  The Duchess’s voice, husky from sleep, tickled up his spine like a painted red fingernail. “Who’s at the door?”

  “A dead man,” he grumbled. “Stay here.”

  A yellowish glow from the lamppost outside filtered in through the drapes, lighting the room just enough to prevent him from bumping into furniture as he staggered toward the door buck naked. He peeked out the window for cops, or worse, Winston Wade and his cronies, but only one shadow spread across the pavement. He yanked open the door and pointed his gun at the person making the racket.

  “What do you want?” he said.

  “Yes, sah! Rispec.” The happy faced Jamaican kid was unfazed by the 9mm Sig Sauer pointed at his nose.

  “Shit.” Jimmy lowered his weapon and opened the door a little wider. “Do you know what the hell time it is, Romario?”

  “Yu say come when mi got de tings. So mi come.”

  Jimmy combed his fingers through his hair. “You better have what I want.”

  “First tings first.” The kid held out his hand.

  “Shit,” Jimmy said again and reached for the wallet in his back pocket only to come up with a handful of bare ass. “Wait here.”

  “Yes, sah.”

  When Jimmy closed the door, the bedside lamp clicked on. The Duchess sat up in bed with the sheet cranked to her neck. Her wide, luminous eyes blinked at him. “Who’s out there, Jimmy?”

  That incredibly sexy accented voice made something unfamiliar flutter in his belly. He pointedly ignored it and said, “The kid. Romario. It’s okay. Go back to sleep.”

  He set his gun on the dresser while he dug through the duffel for his bill roll and a pair of boxers, which he put on. He peeled off a couple of crispy Ben Franklins before he opened the door again. “Here. Now what do you got for me?”

  Romario tucked the bills into his pocket and then handed Jimmy an envelope. “Mi bwoys say Mad Dog flee by de sea, east to Saba.”

  “You sure?

  “Truss mi, sah. Mad Dog be inna crosses wid de handsome-faced mon, but he flee de rock in time.”

  “Give tanks,” Jimmy said in the kid’s patois and garnered another wide smile from him.

  “Yes, sah!”

  While Jimmy opened the envelope to make sure the travel instructions were inside, Romario stood on tiptoe, craning his neck to sneak a peek at the Duchess.

  Jimmy stepped into the doorway, using his shoulder to block the peep show. “Don’t tell anyone you saw me or the lady. Understand?”

  “Naa worries, mon.”

  “Give my best to your uncle. Now get.”

  The kid grinned again before he turned and slipped away into the night.

  “Did he have information about my father?” the Duchess said as Jimmy was bolting the door.

  “He was here. Florez cornered him, but Mitch got away. He caught a boat to Saba.”

  “To where?”

  “A Dutch Caribbean island a puddle jump away from St. Martin.”

  “Oh.”

  They both stared at each other as a big fat silence packed with all the things they needed to talk about passed between them. She was regretting what had happened in that bed. He could see it in her furrowed brow and bleak eyes, in the way her hands wrung the bed sheet, turning her pale knuckles whiter.

  A good shot of adrenaline could make a person drunker than a spring breaker on his first trip to Daytona. It certainly could make a person do things they might r
egret. Like piss off a balcony or sing Little Mermaid songs at the top of your lungs in the middle of a biker bar. Yeah, you’d feel like shit the next morning too and probably have a few bumps and bruises to go along with it.

  He wasn’t her usual libation of choice. She was used to Black Pearl cognac at ten grand a pop and he was pure rotgut Alabama moonshine. He could make you forget your name faster, but you were guaranteed a bitch of a hangover once the buzz wore off.

  Now that the Duchess was sobering up, she looked like she was feeling the effects of a night spent bingeing with the wrong type of booze. Fuzzy memory, dry throat, aches in unusual places, and she probably had to pee.

  “We have to talk,” she said, tucking the bed sheet under her arms more firmly.

  His chin dropped to his chest and he studied the faded pattern on the worn-out carpet. “I know what you’re gonna say, Duchess, and I—”

  “We didn’t use protection.”

  His head came up. “Wait. What now?”

  Her gaze met his and then slipped away. Her long, graceful fingers continued to white-knuckle the bunched bed sheet in her lap. “We didn’t use a condom.”

  Well hell. He moved forward and sat on the edge of the bed. The cheap mattress sank beneath his weight. “I’m sorry,” he said, exhaling heavily. He reached out to still her hands. “You don’t have to worry about catching anything from me. I’m not usually so careless.”

  “Neither am I. And I’m on the pill. Though I missed a couple of doses, but I’m sure it will be fine. That would be the icing on the cake, wouldn’t it though? Getting knocked up by some borderline criminal I can barely stand?” She let out a bitter laugh. Then she looked away and a visible trembled rolled through her body.

  The jab should have offended him, but it was only the cold hard truth. He shrugged and gently squeezed her hands. “Things could be worse.”

  “Worse?” She pressed her lips together and shook her head. Intermittent tears began to leak down her face. “I can’t imagine how things could be worse. Since arriving in Miami, I’ve shot a man, spent a night in jail for alleged prostitution, survived a plane crash, and entered another country illegally!” She sniffled and swiped a tear from her cheek. “The hell of it is I should be ashamed that I just slept with a man I’ve known for less than three days, but I’m not.”

  “No?” He raised a skeptical eyebrow.

  She pulled her hands away to readjust the sheet and crossed her arms over it. “No, I’m absolutely horrified, because what I really want more than anything is to have another go.”

  Little Sarge stirred at the suggestion, but Jimmy ignored his bodily urges and studied the Duchess. Her nose was red, her eyes were watery, and her lips were swollen from his kisses. He had mussed her up good and given her the healthy glow that flushed her fair skin. She looked gorgeous, vulnerable, and way too classy for the likes of him, but damn it, he wanted to have another go too. He wanted it so bad Little Sarge was holding a handstand-pushup in his boxer shorts.

  “I’m a terrible person,” she said, mirroring his own thoughts about himself.

  “Nah,” he said thickly, “you’re just human.”

  He’d never lost his head over a woman, not enough to forget the goddamned condom! He had to get his head back in the game or somebody was going to get hurt—if not physically, then emotionally—when he sailed off into the sunset alone like he always did, and she went back to her swanky bubble in London. If he was going to find Mitch Thompson and save Tulio Garcia, he had to stay focused on the mission. And that meant no more playing hide the salami with his target’s daughter.

  She stood on her knees, letting the sheet fall away as she moved forward to slide her arms around his neck. He caught her hips, holding her steady on the bed.

  She shrugged and offered him a coquettish smile. “In for a penny, in for a pound…”

  He glued his eyes to her mouth because if they dropped any lower he was afraid he was gonna embarrass himself. Absently, he stroked her satiny smooth skin with his callused thumbs, deeply regretting what he was about to do.

  “Keep your penny, darlin’. I’m not up for another pound,” he said, ignoring Sarge’s lurch of protest. He pulled away from her and went to the dresser. Bracing his hands on the edge of it, he closed his eyes and lowered his head, willing the massive erection tenting his boxer shorts to go away.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I’m not interested in a repeat.”

  Her breathy gasp did nothing to ease his teeming libido.

  The sheet rustled as she climbed off the bed and brought it with her. “You’re not interested?” She snorted derisively. “I’d be more inclined to believe that if your body wasn’t disagreeing with you quite so emphatically.”

  He met her gaze in the mirror. “I warned you there wasn’t a noble bone in my body. I got what I wanted and I rarely go back for seconds. And, let’s be honest, you got what you wanted too. Twice, as I recall.”

  She shook her head in disgust and looked away for a moment before meeting his gaze in the mirror again. “You’re not ignoble, Jimmy. You don’t go back for seconds because you’re a coward.”

  An urgent knocking on the door sent her back a step. Jimmy swiped his gun off the dresser and aimed it at the door. His lust withered and his brain cleared as his senses went on high alert.

  “Grab your clothes and get dressed.” When she hesitated, he spared her a glance. She was as pale as the sheet wrapped around her luscious body. “Into the bathroom,” he said. “Get your things and don’t come out until I give the all clear.”

  The knocking came again, the rapid beats more urgent than the first time. The Duchess grabbed her clothes off the chair beside the air conditioner and darted for the bathroom. Jimmy moved to the window to peek out. When he didn’t see a mob of Jamaican police officers or Winston Wade’s crew, he relaxed a fraction. He moved to the door. “Who’s there?”

  “Romario, sah. Open up! Mek haste, mon. Dey coming.”

  Jimmy yanked open the door.

  The kid stood hunched over, panting and holding a stitch in his side.

  “What’s going on?”

  “De po-po inna de office wid de manager. Dey coming for yu and de lady, mon. Yu have ta flee.”

  “Duchess,” Jimmy shouted. When the bathroom door clicked open, he said, “We’ve got to go. Romario, see if you can find us a car. We’ll meet you on the street behind the motel in two.”

  “Yes, sah!”

  The Duchess sprinted from the bathroom fully dressed, twisting her hair into a ponytail with a scrunchy as she went. She gathered the stuff on the sink without Jimmy having to ask and dumped it into his duffel while he threw on a T-shirt and a pair of shorts over his boxers. He was tying the laces on his sneakers when she clicked off all the lights and started straightening the bed.

  Unbelievable. They were running for their lives and she was tidying up?

  “Leave it, Duchess. We’ve got to fly.”

  He looped his free arm through the straps of his duffel and grabbed her hand before tugging her out the door and away from the direction of the office. A group of uniformed officers came around the far corner of the building just as they turned the corner on the opposite end. Jimmy led the Duchess past a pair of ripe dumpsters and through a row of overgrown shrubbery that separated the two blocks. They reached the street on the other side just as the shouting started.

  “Damn it, where’s Romario with the car?” There were plenty of vehicles to pick from right here. Jimmy moved up the sidewalk, looking for the kid in the parked cars. Maybe he was having trouble getting one wired.

  “You’re having a child steal an automobile for you? Are you mad?”

  “Don’t sound so appalled, Duchess. That child has been hotwiring cars since he was big enough to ride a bicycle without the training wheels. He knows I’ll compensate him for his troubles. If he comes through for me.”

  Wade’s posse grew louder as they moved closer. A pair of big po
lice dogs barked frantically. It was true manhunt now. Time was running out.

  “Hold the bag, Duchess. Looks like I’m gonna have to do this myself.”

  Tires screeched as a Porsche Cayenne skidded around the corner at the end of the long block. The four-door luxury crossover did zero to sixty in the seven seconds it took to reach the Suzuki Swift Jimmy was about to break into. The sleek, silver beauty stopped on a dime and grumbled like a chained tiger eager to burn off some steam. The kid was at the wheel.

  “Mek haste, mon. Dehs nuh time!”

  The Duchess moved past Jimmy, opened the back door, and climbed inside with the duffel. The first spray of bullets pinged off the Suzuki’s hood motivating Jimmy to dive into the backseat after her.

  He slammed the door shut and shouted, “Go, go, go!”

  Romario floored the Cayenne throwing Jimmy flat against the Duchess. He shifted his weight so he wasn’t smothering her and cupped her head between his hands. “Are you okay? Were you hit?”

  “I’m fine. I wasn’t hit. Were you?”

  His heart lurched. He shook his head. “No.”

  He studied her face in the flickering light. She was flushed and a little breathless, but otherwise unharmed. He stroked her hair away from her face and fought the urge to kiss her. Why the hell did he still want to kiss her after she’d called him a coward? He was a stupid MF’r.

  He shifted away from the Duchess and sat up. Bracing his hand on the driver seat, he leaned forward and said, “You couldn’t swipe a Yugo or Toyota, you had to go for the big guns?”

  “Yu naa like de ride, sah?”

  “I’m just curious how the hell you got past its high-tech alarm system.”

  “De alarm naa worries when yu got de key, mon.”

  Jimmy chuckled. He wasn’t going to ask the kid how he got it. He’d probably broken into a hotel valet’s lock box or picked a pocket earlier in the night.