On the Move

by Aislinn Kearns

  “Mike,” she called softly, but of course he didn’t notice.

  She glanced around, spotting low-hanging fruit a few feet away. She yanked one off the tree and lobbed it towards him, landing it perfectly between his shoulder blades.

  He immediately whipped around. When he caught sight of her his face changed from questioning to concerned. He jogged over.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, eyeing her. He didn’t need the flashlight now. The sun had fully risen, illuminating the rainforest even through the thick canopy above. She could now see the gigantic trees shooting towards the sky above them, the detail on the ferns behind Mike, and—

  “Is that a spider?” she asked, momentarily forgetting her hunger. It was as big as her hand and furry.

  He turned. “Yes. Not a deadly one though.”

  Jessica stumbled back, keeping an eye on the spider. She didn’t know if they jumped, but she wasn’t about to take the risk. At least it wasn’t a snake.

  She hated snakes.

  She tore her gaze from the spider and met Mike’s gaze. “I’m sorry, I need a break.” Her gaze was drawn back to the creature behind him, but it wasn’t particularly interested in the humans standing below it.

  “Sure. Can you hear anyone?”

  She shut her eyes and listened again, then shook her head. Either they were farther behind them, or they’d taken a different route. Hopefully, Mike’s would be the fastest. Besides, there were only two of them, which would be faster to move than a whole rebel army.

  Mike glanced up, then took his pack off and dropped it on the ground with a thud. Without warning, he launched himself into the nearest tree. She blinked in surprise. He climbed, faster than she would have believed possible. He must have crazy arm strength. She licked her dry lips as her imagination went into overdrive.

  When he reached his destination, he wrapped his thick thighs around a branch and leaned out. His hand closed around the fruit hanging from a tree next to the one he’d climbed, about thirteen feet into the air. He tugged off a couple of them and pocketed them. Then, he clambered back down. The whole thing only took about a minute or two.

  Jessica was reluctantly impressed.

  Mike dug into his pocket and pulled out one of the fruits. He cut it in half with his kukri blade and then handed her one side. She took it gratefully.

  “Papaya?” she asked.

  He nodded. “It’s the best food to get around here. You can eat it straight off the tree. No boiling or fussing required.”

  “Fussing?” she asked, amused. It wasn’t a word she’d associate with a man like Mike. He seemed far too macho for that kind of thing. But maybe he had hidden depths.

  She bit into the papaya as he made a face.

  “You know what I mean. A lot of plants only have certain parts that are edible. You have to extract tiny seeds or strip them, cook them, that kind of thing. Fussing.”

  “Right,” she said on a laugh.

  Apparently, Mike was the kind of guy that liked things easy and straightforward. It didn’t surprise her, but it did make her curious about her rescuer. What else didn’t she know?

  “How long were you in the military?” she asked. Long enough to learn some impressive skills, she’d gather.

  “Ten years, give or take,” he replied, then took a huge bite of his papaya. The white juice ran down his chin and he mopped it up with his thumb as he chewed. Jessica’s eyes followed the movement, oddly mesmerized by the sight of his strong jaw, dusted with stubble.

  She took her own bite of fruit to distract herself from the heated thoughts. The sweetness was refreshing, knocking her mind out of the weird headspace it was in. She was dizzy from lack of food, that was all.

  “And the…deafness?” she asked hesitantly, making sure to keep the fruit away from her mouth so he could read her lips. His eyes locked, so intently it made her breath catch. His focused gaze made her insides still, as if her whole body waited for him to do something. Like kiss her.

  She shook her head to dismiss the mad idea.

  He was silent for a second, and Jessica wondered briefly if she’d been insensitive about his deafness. She was usually much smoother—she was a politician’s daughter, after all—but between her hunger and her strange reaction to Mike, she clearly wasn’t on the top of her game.

  But then he shrugged. “About three years ago. It was an IED. Went off right near me.”

  “I’m sorry,” Jessica said, brows pulling down in sympathy.

  “It’s okay. I only lost my hearing, which isn’t so bad. A lot of my men lost their lives that day.” Shadows darkened his eyes. Despite the casual way he talked about it, he wasn’t unaffected by his experience.

  “I’m so sorry. Did you lose friends?”

  “Yeah.” He half-turned his body away, indicating he had no desire to continue that line of conversation. She grasped around for another question.

  “And then you found Soldiering On Security?” she asked, to pull him out of wherever he’d gone in his mind. His eyes were vague, no longer focused on her lips.

  “Hmmm?” he asked, returning his attention to her with a clear effort of will.

  “You found work with Soldiering On Security?”

  “Right. Duncan took me on. He and his partner Mandy started the company a few years ago. I wasn’t part of the initial team, I came on about a year ago.”

  “And you enjoy it?”

  His eyes lit up, and she knew the answer before he spoke. “Yeah. It’s great being a part of a team again. When I lost my hearing, I figured it would all be over for the action and adventure stuff, but now I can still do it, thanks to Soldiering On.”

  Jessica grinned, his enthusiasm infectious. “That’s great.” She wanted to ask more about it from a business side. It sounded like a partial charity, which fascinated her, considering her own calling. But she didn’t know how to ask about that without sounding like she was calling him a charity case—which he clearly wasn’t—so instead she simply said, “They sound like great bosses.”

  “They are. I think you’d like Mandy. The two of you are similar.”

  Jessica filed that away later, wondering at the warmth with which Mike spoke of this Mandy woman. Was it platonic affection? Or something more?

  She shook off the speculation.

  “So, Soldiering On sent you to rescue me, right? You said it was because you were the only one with experience at treejumping. What the hell is that?”

  He grinned and pointed up. “Parachuting into trees, and then lowering yourself down with a rope attached to the parachute.”

  Jessica followed his finger up. “Wait. You parachuted out of a plane, into the trees, managed not to get impaled or knocked out by something, then abseiled to the ground from all the way up there?” Incredulity made her eyes widen.

  “Yeah. It’s kind of dangerous. Since I was a paratrooper, I trained for this. But none of the other guys had. That’s why this gig fell to me.”

  “You didn’t want to do it?” she asked, confused by his wording. It was like he’d been forced to rescue her, not volunteered.

  He grinned. “Oh, I wanted it,” he said, and Jessica was pleased he wasn’t here unwillingly. “I hadn’t done a jump in forever. And I’m always up for a mission.”

  Maybe Mike was a bit of an adrenaline junky. She pressed her lips together, hoping that wouldn’t mean he’d take unnecessary risks with her. Whatever he did in his own time was none of her business, but she refused to get killed because this man wanted a rush.

  Though surely her parents wouldn’t send someone who’d risk her life, since they’d gone to the effort of sending someone at all.

  His eyes narrowed, still fixated on her lips, and Jessica made a conscious effort to smooth out her features. She didn’t know what her expression had shown that annoyed him so much, but she suspected it was disapproval. She had a tendency to show her emotions, much to her politician mother’s disappointment. That little flaw was enough for them both to know Jessic
a could never follow in Senator Vanderslice’s footsteps.

  “Thank you for rescuing me,” she said, smoothing over the moment of awkwardness.

  He nodded. “You’re welcome.” He took a large bite of papaya and chewed.

  “After a week, I figured that no one would come. That my parents had refused to pay the ransom, and the rebels had no more use for me.”

  His expression darkened again. “They were stalling, giving us time to get you out.”

  Jessica was reluctantly touched by the fact that her parents hadn’t left her to die for her mother’s political ambition. She’d doubted her mother would ever pay the ransom, since it would be like admitting she negotiated with the bad guys. And her tough reputation wouldn’t survive the public’s shock. To Senator Vanderslice, public image was everything.

  Her mother wouldn’t have finagled US troops in, either, or convinced the military to launch a rescue mission. She wouldn’t risk creating an international incident with Zolego, or the UN.

  It hadn’t occurred to Jessica that her mother might handle her kidnapping privately, instead. She hadn’t even known there were companies that did things like this, but she shouldn’t have been surprised.

  Jessica had no doubt all the employees at Soldiering On Security had been made to sign Non-Disclosure Agreements about the whole incident, ensuring they couldn’t mention their role in the rescue. It was a good sign that the company wasn’t fame-hungry, since they’d get no publicity out of this. And if they’d failed to get her out of the country safely, her mother could deny all knowledge of the entire affair, since no one knew about the rescue mission. It gave her plausible deniability, which was something the senator was incredibly fond of.

  “Well, thank you all the same. It can’t have been easy. And that’s just dealing with my mother.”

  Mike’s eyebrows shot up. “I only met her briefly, but she seemed okay.”

  Jessica scoffed. “Of course she seemed okay. She’s a career politician. She can work a room with the best of them.”

  “You don’t get along, huh?”

  Jessica sighed. “Let’s say we have our differences.”

  He hesitated for a moment. “For what it’s worth, she was really worried about you.”

  Jessica’s heart lurched at the words. It had been a long time since she’d believed her mother cared much about her. But that didn’t stop her from childishly, desperately, wanting her mother’s affection and attention.

  But she couldn’t rely on that. Her mother wasn’t one to show concern. Jessica was fairly certain the senator didn’t truly care about anything other than her career, and she wasn’t willing to become the desperate, hoping child again who kept getting her heart broken.

  She chewed on the last of her papaya and threw away the skin.

  Mike was messier than her. Clearly, he hadn’t grown up learning to eat at foreign diplomats’ tables as she had. She almost asked about his childhood, but then Mike produced a bottle of water from his pack and held it out to her. She drank deep, then used a tiny trickle to wet her hands, wiping away the sticky juice on her pants.

  She wished she could wipe away the mud so easily—it was horribly uncomfortable on her skin now—but she knew it was better to wait until tonight, when they were flying back to the US.

  Mike also cleaned his hands, then announced, “I’ll check you for chigoes.”

  Before she even knew what was happening, he’d stepped behind her and raised her shirt, exposing her bare back to the air—and his gaze.

  She squirmed and twisted out of his grip, facing him in growing outrage.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  He gave her an exasperated look. “Checking you for chigoes,” he repeated.

  “For what?”

  “Chigoes. The fleas that burrow under your skin and lay eggs and infest you.”

  Jessica’s stomach roiled, seconds away from losing all the papaya she’d eaten. “Even if that is a real thing, you can’t manhandle me without my permission. Explain first.”

  His jaw ticked. “They are a real thing. And they can be dangerous. In case you’ve forgotten, we are being hunted right now, by men with guns. I don’t have time to coddle you. I need you to do what I say, when I say it.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest. Clearly, this man did not spend any time with civilians. “That may be so, but I’m not under your command. I’m a woman who doesn’t like strange men touching her without permission. It would have taken you less time to explain about chigoes and asked to touch me than it would to have this argument.”

  “Fine. I’m sorry. I figured you already knew about them because you’ve been in the country for a while. I was saving time, but in future, I’ll ask.” He paused. “Unless you are in imminent danger. I won’t ask before saving your life.”

  She rolled her eyes. “And I wouldn’t ask you to. But I’m hardly in imminent danger from a flea.”

  “How do I know you haven’t had one buried under your skin for a week?” Mike asked. “You could very well be in danger of losing a limb at the very least.”

  “Is everything in this rainforest trying to kill me?” she lamented.

  “It’s probably safer to think like that. Rainforests are both the best and worst places to be stranded. Plenty of food and water, yes, but also plenty of deadly creatures and plants that can make you sick enough to die.”

  “I’m so glad I’m going home,” she exhaled gustily.

  “Yeah, rainforests aren’t my favorite. Chigoes are sneaky little things, and they are native to this area. So, unless you want to risk infection, I’ll check you all over, and then ask you to do the same for me. Okay?”

  Jessica stared at him for a long moment, but his expression gave no hint he was pranking her or inventing an excuse to see her naked. In fact, he looked bored and disinterested at the possibility. And it was that which convinced her.

  “I’ll check you first,” she said. That way, if it was all a come-on, he’d have to go through the humiliation first.

  He shrugged. “Fine.”

  He grabbed the base of his loose, long-sleeved shirt and pulled it over his head, revealing his chest. And what a chest it was. Broad shoulders tapered down to a narrow waist. Large pecs and a flat stomach, both covered with a light dusting of hair. She’d always been a chest woman, and this wasn’t changing her mind in the slightest.

  She licked her lips and reached for his water bottle again to moisten her dry mouth.

  Who knew men actually looked like that outside the covers of romance novels? The men she spent the most time with were either rich charity types who didn’t value muscles, or the people she volunteered with, who couldn’t afford the bulk.

  But this was something else. Mike’s body was clearly a tool for his profession. He needed to keep it in good shape so he could jump out of planes, rescue women, and then hike through jungles without breaking a sweat. Though, that was metaphorical. Because there was a light sheen across his skin, most likely caused by the humid heat.

  “Come on,” he said impatiently, and Jessica shook herself out of her trance-like state. She met his gaze, only to see a hint of amusement along with his impatience.

  Jessica rolled her eyes at herself. She supposed she deserved him laughing at her. She hadn’t managed to hide her interest in his body at all. Well, she’d have to claw back some dignity.

  She straightened her spine. “What do these chigoes look like?”

  He described them in enough detail for Jessica’s stomach to churn again. But she gamely stepped forward and peered closely at his chest. No hardship. Even up close, it was a thing of beauty.

  She didn’t see anything like what he’d described on his chest or arms. He turned at her instruction, giving her a view of his solid back. That, too, was pristine. Her hand drew towards his spine like a magnet, completely against her will. Jessica snatched her hand back before she touched him, face flaming.

  When he turned back around, she r
aised an eyebrow. “Pants?”

  He gave her another amused look. “You’re not going to buy me dinner first?”

  “You bought me dinner,” she said, indicating the remains of the papaya.

  “So I did.”

  He unbuttoned his camo pants, and Jessica watched shamelessly.

  She was enjoying herself now. This moment was fun, flirtatious, a million miles away from her kidnapping and the people chasing her. She was under no illusions that the rebels would let her go without a fight. She was worth too much to them, and they wouldn’t get another chance like this again since few wealthy American heiresses wandered into their country.

  So she let herself enjoy this playful moment with an attractive man.

  When his pants were off, revealing black boxer briefs, she crouched down to examine his legs. When she glanced up, their eyes met, and Jessica was struck by the intimacy of their position. She cleared her throat as heat bloomed across her cheeks. A light flirtation was one thing. But kneeling in front of a mostly-naked man with his junk in her face was a bit more than she’d bargained for.

  Hopefully he wouldn’t get any ideas.

  Hell, hopefully, she wouldn’t get any ideas.

  She finished the rest of her examination as quickly as possible, then stood.

  “All clear,” she told him, not quite meeting his gaze. “Other than the bits I didn’t see.” She waved her hand near his boxer briefs.

  He nodded and donned his clothes again. “Your turn.”

  Jessica swallowed, but she reluctantly unbuttoned her shirt and pulled off her tank top. She expected Mike to make some crass remark, or at least leer. But he didn’t do anything to make her uncomfortable. He examined her as perfunctorily as a doctor would, even when she lowered her pants.

  He barely noticed she was a woman, as far as she could tell, and Jessica was absurdly grateful he didn’t take advantage of the situation. She might find him attractive, but she was at his mercy out here. And she had no intention of acting on said attraction, anyway.

  He finished, announcing she was clear, and then stepped away, turning his back as she got dressed again. When she was ready, she tapped him on the shoulder. He spun around and gave her a cursory once-over, then nodded in satisfaction.