“Only that her age, height and hair color was strikingly close to yours. Her daypack was stolen and she’s still in the hospital—they don’t know if she’ll live.”
Andra gasped softly and clung to Max’s hand.
“Almost there.” Lin Su stood up and the boat rocked. He pushed a hand against the hull of a sampan, stopping them. He took a rope as a middle-aged woman hurried out from the sampan’s interior.
“My wife is waiting,” Lin said as he threw the rope up to the woman, who hung over the sampan’s deck. Within seconds she had their boat temporarily lashed to a mooring post. He motioned for them to get off.
“My wife will return with me to our sampan.” Lin pointed into the murky distance. “This is a friend’s. He is working nights in the city this week and won’t be back until mid-morning.”
“You will come for us before then?” Andra stood up and the boat rocked. She stumbled as Max steadied her with his hand on her waist.
“Before daybreak,” Lin Su assured them as he balanced in the gently rocking boat with the ease of years of practice.
Andra shivered.
“Cold?” Max asked softly.
“No.” She shook her head. The boat rocked softly in the gentle waves. “I guess this is it.”
Max held the ladder as she swung up the short rope ladder and onto the deck.
Lin Su turned to Max. “Bao is dangerous and it is good that you’re leaving. He is like . . .” Lin Su fumbled for the word. “Bull dog.” He smiled. “We will get you out of here.” He motioned to the older woman. “Come, mother. We will go now.”
Max reached up to Lin Su’s wife and offered her a hand down into the smaller boat before he tackled the ladder. Once she was on board, he untied the rope that held the two vessels together.
Around them the smell of oil was sharp in the warm air as Lin Su pushed quietly away. And then there was nothing, only the lap of waves and the two of them.
“It’s all too much,” she sighed into his shoulder as the rumble of Lin Su’s boat faded into the distance.
“You’re in danger as long as we have the damn doll. Maybe we should throw it overboard right now.”
“Max, no!” She took his wrists as if physically stopping the idea. “What we know may be just as deadly to our safety as that doll. Besides, without the doll we’ll never find Mia.”
“I hate the danger it’s posing to you. I almost feel like we should give up except . . .”
“That we’re too close and I suspect that this is too important. Nushu possibly expanded, is possibly still alive. Neither of us can walk away from that.”
“You’re right,” Max replied. “But it’s rather disconcerting. There seems almost a conspiracy, a safety net if you will of people who have been pulled in to help. Lin Su was amazingly well informed and connected.”
“Word gets out, especially here on the harbor where much of the crime filters through. People like Lin Su see it every day when the drugs come in off the ships and when criminals rent services of some of the boat men.”
“So your friend is also at hire to criminals?”
“I don’t know.” She pushed a strand of hair from her face. And as she turned to face him, her hair lifting gently in the light breeze, he leaned down and kissed her. There was a taste of salt on her lips and her breath was warm and tantalizing as her tongue tentatively touched his. She leaned into him and he pulled her closer, her breasts soft against his chest, his hand on her waist. This wasn’t right nor was it the place. Yet he couldn’t stop. His hand slid upward, skimming the edge of her breast, it was a teasing caress and he only wanted more.
“Max.” She whispered his name against his lips. Her hand caressed his cheek and then she took a step back, putting distance between them.
“I want you, Max,” she whispered. “And I’m not sure it’s such a good idea.”
Her words hung between them as he leaned against the wheelhouse and stared out into the night.
“You’ve never spoken of your family,” he began softly. And he was surprised at what a relief it was to not speak of their growing attraction, the doll, or the danger it posed.
“Diversion, Max?” She laughed lightly and folded her arms across her chest, and even in the dim light he could see the pain on her face, and for a fleeting moment he wished he could have retracted the question, taken her back into his arms and despite all logic, made love to her.
“For now,” he admitted.
“All right, I’ll play.” She cleared her throat. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen either my brother or my sister. After Dad died, we lost touch. And I let them go without making an effort to keep us together.”
“You’re estranged from your family and yet you want a large one of your own.”
She sighed. “A red thread that connects the love of family—isn’t that what the Chinese believe?”
“And yet you’re disconnected from yours.”
“My brother and sister are both adopted and they’re both from different cultures, different races. Not that any of that mattered. Dad never really connected with us, he was too busy, and after my mother died it only became worse. I barely remember her but I do know that she loved children.” She shrugged her shoulders. “When Dad died, we drifted apart.”
“Drifted, such an easy word. But it isn’t that simple, is it?”
She shook her head. “It never is, but I really couldn’t tell you the point when we lost touch. Fewer phone calls, separated geographically. Dad left us a fortune, but what was important . . .” She sighed. “We lost.”
The deck light cast a warm glow and revealed the pain in her beautiful eyes. He wanted to take that pain away from her, claim it as his own, and yet he knew there was nothing he could do.
“So you are a wealthy woman with no family.”
“I suppose. I run trusts that my father created while he was alive. My brother and sister took their share and have nothing to do with his legacy.”
“Trusts? I was thinking . . . never mind what I was thinking. Trusts are another world.” Out of his realm. “You’ve inherited a lot of money then.”
She mentioned a figure that almost made him choke.
That explained her reluctance to tie herself down to any one employer, why contract work had more than sufficed. Unlike the majority of others, she wasn’t working for money.
She grimaced. “I think part of the reason my career path was so fragmented in my early twenties was because of the burden of money.” She laughed. “I know it’s an odd thing to say but money can be a multipronged sword.”
“I can only imagine,” Max said dryly.
Rich. It shouldn’t make any difference at all and yet he knew that it made all the difference in the world. They were different before but now they were worlds apart.
“We should get some sleep,” he suggested, desperate to escape his thoughts, and if he were truthful, his doubts. He looked at his watch and realized it was already two o’clock in the morning.
“I can’t.” She shifted away from him and shivered as a light breeze lifted a tendril of hair.
“Let’s go below, it’s chilly up here.”
“It won’t be much warmer below. There’s probably no heater.”
“I’ll keep you warm,” he said as his arm curved around her waist. He lifted a strand of hair that had drifted across her face. “It’s late—sleep would . . .”
She sighed and turned slightly as her lips met his. “It wasn’t exactly sleep I was thinking about.” She spoke softly against his lips. “I’ve thought of other things, things I shouldn’t think . . . with you.”
The words hung between them, staccato points of need in the darkness.
Her hair lifted gently in the light breeze. The ice blue edge in her gray eyes met his and locked. She trailed a finger down his cheek.
He leaned down and kissed her. As the kiss deepened his tongue teased her mouth open. Her arms wrapped around his neck and he drew her tighter against him.
His tongue met hers and she moaned softly into him.
“Andra, I’m going to make love to you unless you tell me different.”
“I don’t know anyone else that would ask.” She drew his head down until her lips again met his while her hand continued to caress his face. “Make love to me, Max.”
He kissed her and then took her hand, leading her down into the small cabin. A futon was pushed against one corner and a tiny fridge hummed in the other, and it was all he really noted before taking her in his arms, entering her with his tongue as he kissed her, and as desire throbbed between them.
Her arms wrapped around his neck, and his hand curved along her butt, pulling her tighter against him. She shifted, pulling away.
“No, Max. I need more.”
He looked at her, confused for an instant, not realizing what she meant.
She drew her T-shirt over her head and he sucked in his breath. She was like no other woman he had ever known.
He was hard looking at her, at the lacy bra that barely covered her generous breasts, at the nipples that puckered beneath the thin lace. He ached and only wanted to take her back into his arms, bare skin to . . . he pulled his T-shirt over his head as her fingers ran up his sides, her exploratory path sending shards of pleasure racing through him.
“Andra.” He covered her hands with his, forcing her to drop them. He took her in his arms, kissed her once again, the kiss deep and needy. His arousal pulsed between them as he brought her closer, with one hand on her lean butt, trim and just slightly rounded.
He took a step back trying to slow things down—but he couldn’t stop, couldn’t slow down. His hand slid over thin lace and her nipple puckered beneath it.
“Max,” her lips moved against his and her hands caressed his abdomen. “You work out.” Her voice held surprise.
“You were expecting?” he asked, but his brain had already turned off as his hand slipped beneath the lace and caressed silk and satin. His other hand released the thin garment and she was deliciously bare as he led her to the futon, laying her down, following. His lips trailed downward even as his hands divested her of her capris and she raised her hips to help him.
As her hands fumbled with his pants, his tongue met her nipple and her entire body trembled as she arced into him. Her skin was sweet and warm and her nipple puckered hot and hard beneath his tongue.
She moaned and his lips moved downward, lathing her belly button as her hands clutched his shoulders.
“Max,” she murmured and her hands were on either side of his face, raising him, forcing him to look at her. “I can’t take any more.”
He was beyond words. He only nodded as she began to remove his pants, and his briefs followed hers in a cluttered little pile. And then it was just skin on skin and the gentle rocking of the boat to up the sensuous ante until there was nowhere for it to go. They rode the sweet torture as it exploded and silenced everything around them and there was nothing, only two beings and the passion that had seeped into every pore and for a time made them one.
They lay silent for a long time after that before she turned on her side and drew a tentative finger down his chest. “There’s so much we don’t know.”
“And little time to learn it.”
“And here we lay.”
He chuckled and pulled her into his arms and kissed her.
And again she felt him hard and ready against her as the night air lifted.
She caressed his chest and ran her fingers along his skin. He took her hand, stilling it for a moment.
“Will we figure this out,” she whispered, “in time?”
His lips feathered her nipple as his hand slid down to finger the silken curls between her legs.
She turned on her side, her hand turned palm down on his chest, and the feel of her skin against his only made him draw her tighter to him as his index finger delved.
“Max,” she moaned.
He dropped his finger as he rolled over, taking some of his weight on his elbows as he took her onto her back with him above her and kissed her. Her lips were still mellow and hot from his kisses not so many minutes ago. His hand slipped down her flat belly as outside the sheltered ocean waters lapped rhythmically against the hull of the boat.
“Oh, God, Max,” she whispered as his finger again parted her.
His finger stilled, pressing on her clit. She squirmed.
“Max, please.”
“Ah, she begs,” he said with a grin and then he was inside her. He slid in easily and rode hard and she answered him back with everything she had. They met in an explosion of passion.
“Unbelievable,” she whispered a long time after and they’d had time to rest once again. Her finger ran down his chest, twirling in the sparse hair there and downward, flirting with the juncture of his legs.
“Andra,” he warned with his hand over hers. “God, I want to do it again, love. But . . .”
“I know. We should get dressed. Su will be here before daybreak.”
She kissed his shoulder, her tongue flirting with his abdomen as she hung over him, her breasts skimming his flesh, a teasingly erotic caress that had him hard again.
“Andra.” He pulled her up toward him, his hand sliding over the lure of her breasts, her silken skin arousing what her lips hadn’t.
“We’ve got to get dressed, go above deck.” She dropped a kiss on his lips and rolled off him, reaching for her clothes almost in the same breath.
He lay there unmoving until she finally grinned and threw his T-shirt at him.
“No more,” she teased. “At least for tonight.”
Minutes later they were on deck. The sky was taking on that distant streak of pink that warned of daybreak only hours away. He leaned down and kissed her. “No matter what happens on the way to this village, stay near me, at all costs.”
“Max.” She squeezed his hand. “Firstly, nothing is going to happen to me. And secondly, don’t be going all macho on me just because we had a randy time below deck.”
“Randy time?” He frowned. Sometimes he didn’t quite understand either her phraseology or her thought process.
“Nothing will happen to me. I promise.” She laughed lightly.
He sat down beside her, his arm brushing hers. His thumb skimmed along the inside of her arm and she leaned against his shoulder, a strip of her hair fanned across his face in a breeze that drifted through.
“Why have we managed to get here without being stopped?” His thumb continued to stroke. “I’d have you on the first flight out of here if you’d only agree.”
She shifted away from him, reached into the bag and took out a map.
“Where’d you get that?”
“Had one at my apartment. I don’t know why except that I still love the feel of paper. Picked it up a few years ago and I don’t know what made me grab it.” She shrugged. “Intuition maybe that when we left we wouldn’t be coming back.”
“We catch another break,” Max said with sarcasm in his voice. “Paper isn’t easily tracked.”
Andra smiled. “The village is more than likely in the area of Maling Gorge, as the website seems to confirm. We could begin at one of the fishing villages that skirt Guangdong province.”
“That narrows the field but it could still be any number of villages.”
“True.”
“And,” he said firmly, “it’s too dangerous.”
“Not to go,” she finished.
“You’re twisting my words.”
“Am I, Max?” She turned around, learning on one hand. “We need to get out of here anyway. I say we head there, to the coastline, and get a start. See what we can find.”
“Straight into the jaws of trouble,” he muttered darkly. “I don’t like it.”
“You agreed when it was a vague idea.”
“It seemed more palatable to consider heading to Maling Gorge, a populated tourist area and away from here.”
“You know that despite what I said earlier, that’s not even logic
al. Tourists will have no answers and the area is too large.”
“I know.” There was no apology in his words.
“What’s the other option?” She lifted her hands, palms up. “Giving up.”
He sighed. “I hate to agree but . . . Christ, Andra. This is dangerous and yet the only sane course seems to be forward.”
He took her in his arms, her lips hot and promising against his, her breath meshing with his and for a moment it was just the two of them. But in the darkness there were others, men with intentions as unclear as the murky water that lapped beneath their feet.
Chapter Fourteen
The scent of motor oil and rancid fish threaded through the mist and mixed into the sweet freshness of early morning. The darkness had shifted but the sun had not yet made an appearance as the uneven rumble of an elderly engine preceded Lin Su as he maneuvered his small motorboat alongside their sampan.
Andra scrambled down the ladder. The boat rocked as they found their seats.
“Questions are already being asked,” Lin Su said darkly.
“Bao?” Max asked. It was strange that once the idea had come to them, his name had grown with uneasy familiarity.
“It was a close call at the factory.”
“How the hell . . .” Max began.
“It’s a small world. Le handled it. The hood that killed the manager, Harry Lord, was taken out.”
“Killed?” Andra choked.
Lin Su nodded quietly. “In the meantime, Bao’s had some of his men checking the boats for you. They have asked specifically for you by name.” He steered the boat around the gridlock of boats and fifteen minutes later they were at the edge of the harbor and open sea, where they could see a fishing trawler, it’s hulking girth small in the distance.
“How far?” Max asked.
“About a mile,” Lin Su said as he nodded in the direction of the fishing trawler. “Bao is offering big money for someone to turn you in. Someone will talk. You’re between a rock and a hard place. Me—you couldn’t pay me to be caught between Bao and Le.”
“Le,” Andra mouthed the name as she looked at Max. Jeff Xiu had mentioned the name once. A man who protected Fu’s village, but would he protect it from ones such as them? Did he know of Fu’s request? Or did they need to fear him as much as the other shadowy men that followed their trail?
Legacy of Fear Page 9
