Just a little feathery touch, right above her hip. The surprise made her jump, and she nearly bucked him off, but he straddled her thighs and grinned down at her. “Ticklish.”
“No,” she lied, but her quivering lips probably gave her away. He did it again and she couldn’t help giggling like a twelve-year-old. “Stop that!”
“Make me,” he taunted, both hands now going for the sensitive skin of her armpits.
She shrieked and lunged, managing to catch him off guard. She nipped at his neck, discovered he was ticklish too. The battle was on. They rolled and tumbled across the bed in an ever-escalating contest to be on top, squealing and laughing at the top of their lungs.
“Uncle!” she called finally, pinned down. He looked down at her with a feral gleam in his gorgeous dark eyes. “You win.”
“And what’s the prize?” he asked, licking his lips. The corners of his eyes crinkled, giving away the laughter he was trying to suppress.
She rolled her hips, dropped her voice an octave. “What do you want?”
“You.” The word was practically a growl.
“I think that’s doable.” She was getting wet again just thinking about it. She’d never had anybody who wanted to play in bed before, and it was more arousing than she could have ever imagined. Her whole body was quivering with excitement.
“Oh, I think you’re very doable,” he replied with a smirk. “In fact, I can think of a lot of ways I’d like to do you. But the guy from the DEA will be here in about an hour, so we’re not going to have time for all of them.”
“Damn.” She was panting, both from exertion and desire.
“Yeah.” Then again, so was he. She wiggled against his cock.
“So how about you just fuck my brains out now, then we get around to the other stuff later.” She squirmed underneath him, trying to free her legs so she could spread them.
“Sounds like a plan.” He swooped down and took her mouth in a ruthlessly carnal kiss. No quarter, no mercy. He forced her lips open, thrust his tongue inside and plundered. His thighs were iron bands, refusing to let hers open, but the rock-hard penis rubbing against her belly let her know that it wouldn’t be long.
It wasn’t. Only a few seconds after she’d forgotten to breathe, he stretched his legs, lying full-length on top of her, and broke the kiss. She gasped for breath like a landed fish, then reached up and pulled his head back down, returning the favor. This time he let her take the lead, plunging her tongue into the warm cavern of his mouth, seeking and exploring. With another quick shimmy of his hips, her legs were apart and he was pushing inside. He used her moment of surprise to regain the lead in the kiss too, and he forced her head back against the pillows as his tongue thrust in time with his cock.
All the teasing and play were gone now. This was just mating at its most primal, instinctual level. She twined her legs around his waist, pulling him deeper, and then she moaned at the sensation of being utterly filled. Apparently size did matter, more than she’d ever believed. Or maybe it was just Jake, so strong, untamed and purely alpha, filling a need she hadn’t even known was inside her. A need to be mastered, in bed if not anywhere else.
His hands gripped her shoulders from beneath, slamming her up to meet each thrust. Her arms were clamped around his shoulders, her short, ragged nails probably tearing into his skin. Sweat slicked both of them, allowing their skin to slide rather than stick as they moved. She nipped at the strong tendon cording his shoulder. The ocean taste made her stomach flutter and the walls of her pussy clench. His breath caught in a little grunt of pleasure, so she nipped again, harder, and reveled in his guttural moan.
He started pounding harder, and she bowed her spine to take him in, her own breath coming in short, harsh gasps. Pleasure spiked through every pore, raced along every nerve. When he twisted his head to bite the side of her neck, she squealed his name, and the climax slammed into both of them like storm-surge waves crashing onto a rocky shore.
Which was a little cliché, she thought a few seconds—or maybe hours—later, lying beneath Jake and trying in vain to catch her breath. But she was a marine biologist, after all. Waves were what she thought about.
Chapter Six
He went to the meeting with images of Heidi burned into his brain. Whether she was fully dressed and laughing in the sunshine or sprawled naked on his sheets, she was the most incredible, unforgettable woman he’d ever known. And that was dangerous. He needed to clear his head, keep his focus, and he’d never had trouble doing that before. He was worried about her alone on the boat even though he knew she was more than capable of taking care of herself. He’d left her his nine-millimeter Browning, after she’d shown him she knew how to handle it.
“I grew up in rural Minnesota,” she’d said with a wry chuckle. “I could field dress a deer long before I could drive a car.”
He’d also left her his cell phone, with Wen’s number and Marinucci’s on speed-dial. He carried his diving knife and another phone, a disposable he’d picked up on the way to the meeting. He didn’t want to bring anything to this meeting that could be traced back to him.
Wen’s contact had chosen the anonymity of the crowd, a safe choice in a border resort town. Trying to push all thoughts of Heidi out of his head, Jake scanned the place for exits and problem spots before he sauntered into the popular tourist bar. He shook his head at the crowd of American college students and local kids, and winced at the volume of the hip-hop blaring from the DJ platform. It was uncomfortable to his greater-than-human hearing, but it was useful. The noise would make overhearing anyone’s conversation difficult if not impossible. The darkness of the windowless club and the smoky haze would make identifying faces tricky as well. He skirted dancers, tables full of chattering Americans, and skimpily clad waitresses to take a position on a chrome and black vinyl stool at the very end of the black lacquer bar, leaning his back against the wall.
“Patrón, por favor.” Spanish had been one of his first languages, his father’s native tongue. Jake had spent enough time in Mexico to pick up the local dialect, and with his dark skin and hair, he knew that no one would take him for a gringo. His cut-off jeans and faded blue T-shirt were equally unremarkable. A few of the girls smiled at him, mostly Americans who wanted to be able to brag about a fling with a native when they got home. He didn’t smile back. While he might have normally taken one of them up on the offer, today they didn’t even look appealing. When the bartender, a perky young thing with dark hair to her waist and a toned body in a too-tight tank top, handed him his drink, he ignored her appraising look as well. She was cute, even willing, but she wasn’t Heidi. Instead he nodded his thanks and sipped the tequila sparingly. Alcohol didn’t affect him as much as it did most humans, but today he needed to have all his wits about him.
“Bueno.” Another darkly tanned man sank down onto the stool next to Jake’s and called to the bartender. “Cervesa, chica.”
Apparently dismissing him as uninteresting, she handed him a Corona with a lime wedge stuck in the top of the bottle, then moved on to a group of younger, rowdier men at the other end of the bar. The other man chuckled. “Makes a man feel old, doesn’t it, compadre?”
“You have no idea,” Jake replied in Spanish.
“A friend of mine says you want an introduction,” the other man observed, also in his native tongue. He lit a short, hand-rolled cigarette and Jake caught the tang of marijuana mixed with the stronger scent of tobacco. “To a local business leader.”
Jake sipped his drink and nodded slowly. Then he spoke with measured Spanish phrases. “I have come across a—business opportunity in northern California. But I need to find a supplier who can handle the volume.”
“Ah. This business opportunity, is it in the import business, perhaps?”
“It is.” Jake nodded again and sipped his drink, trying to appear only faintly interested.
“And the scale?”
“Large, but not enormous.” Jake waggled his fingers in a so-so motion
. “Perhaps two or three shipments of merchandise per month.”
“That is good,” the other man mused, his expression thoughtful, noncommittal. “I may know an exporter who would be interested. Now, would you be setting up in competition with older, more established retailers?”
“Not directly. My brother has taken a job as the head groundskeeper of a small private college. Currently the students must go into the San Francisco area to do their shopping. This limits their purchasing ability. My brother would like to make things more convenient. It is a very expensive school, you understand. Bored young people with unlimited disposable income.” This was the story that Jake and Wen had concocted on the phone that morning.
The Mexican nodded, blew a smoke ring into the air. “Are we talking about home-grown merchandise, or something more refined?” They both knew they weren’t discussing souvenir blankets.
“Definitely refined. Homegrown is already easily available,” Jake returned. In other words, cocaine, not marijuana. A much higher profit margin.
“I see. And do you have a transport method?”
Jake nodded. “I own a boat—I cruise up and down the coast all the time. Another brother is in San Diego—he drives north on a regular basis.”
“This sounds like a most interesting opportunity,” the man said, sipping his beer. “I do know a man who could supply you with high-quality merchandise on a regular schedule. I will see if he is interested.” He stubbed out his cigarette and drained his beer bottle.
“His rates are—reasonable?”
The Mexican waggled his hand. “They are standard, for the export business. There is a great deal of overhead, you understand.”
“Of course.” Jake named a figure suggested by Wen. It was low, but high enough to raise interest and make it worth negotiating.
The other man hesitated. “That will be between you and my friend. I will tell him your terms, then I will call you.” He handed Jake a cheap cell phone, which Jake slipped into the front pocket of his jeans.
“Fair enough,” Jake agreed. “I will be in the area until lunchtime tomorrow. Assuming, that is, that I can find a chiquita to come back to my boat with me. Otherwise, I may leave earlier.”
The other man looked around the crowded room and gave a snort. “I do not think that will be a problem.”
Jake shook his head. “It never is, amigo.” He held out his hand, the other man shook it firmly, neither willing to show any hesitation or weakness.
“Adios.” The other man turned to walk away.
“I prefer hasta la vista,” Jake replied under his breath. He had every intention of seeing this man again.
* * * * *
Heidi had stayed below as Jake had instructed, but she wasn’t sitting back and waiting. Jake had had a point about her being easy to spot in a crowd—one Heidi had actually already thought about earlier in the day. Six-foot-tall blonde women weren’t all that common in California, let alone in Mexico. While she couldn’t do anything about her height, hair was easy to change. They’d stopped at a drugstore on their way back to the boat and she’d picked up some supplies, just in case.
She read the directions on the box carefully, then mixed the chemicals before stepping into the shower and squeezing the mixture onto her hair. Afterward, she wrapped her hair in her own aged beach towel, then used the mirror to rub the mixture onto her eyebrows as well. Once it was all in place, she padded out into the salon to look for something to read while she waited.
Pausing at the bookshelf that lined one wall, she scanned the titles. There were at least six languages represented and she didn’t doubt for a moment that Jake spoke each of them with perfect fluency. Retired dot-com-er, her left butt cheek. Several of the volumes were fifty or more years old, and all looked worn but well cared for. He might have picked them up at a used bookstore or an estate sale, but she had no doubt he’d read every last one. He might or might not have any formal education, but she’d bet her ass he was every bit as intelligent as any professor she’d ever met.
Among the books was a row of paperbacks by John MacDonald, which caught her attention. Jake had mentioned the Travis McGee series. In fact he’d claimed the character was his role model. Well, she needed something to distract her and he didn’t have any of the romance novels she usually read for fun. Even if she didn’t end up liking the books, she could consider it background research. Jake Delos 101. One thing she’d already figured out was that he was almost compulsively well organized. Sure enough, the books were lined up on the shelf in order of publication date. Selecting the first one, she padded into the other room, flopped down on the bed and started to read.
Jake felt a moment of fear when he didn’t find Heidi waiting anxiously in the salon. He’d been sure she’d be pacing the floor, waiting for his return or ready to shoot an intruder. There was no sign of a struggle, no damage other than a half-full coffee mug on the dining table. His muscles tensed and his heart rate quickened as he dropped the bags he’d been carrying and strode across the floor to the master cabin.
There she was. Right where he’d left her. But what…
She looked up as he entered the room and smiled.
His breath caught at the sight of her. “Your hair! What did you do?” Her beautiful platinum-blonde tresses were now an unremarkable shade of dark walnut brown, as were her eyebrows.
“Relax,” she said with a laugh. “You were the one who said I stood out like a sore thumb.”
Jake stared at the brown-haired Amazon in his bed. She was still gorgeous, she just didn’t look like his Heidi.
“Besides, it will wash out in a week or so,” she said, taking pity on him. “I thought about cutting it too, but somehow, I couldn’t quite talk myself into that.”
“Good.” It was a sensible, rational thing to do, he told himself. Nonetheless, the idea of her cutting off those magnificent tresses horrified him. Slowly he forced his breathing back to normal and took a moment just to enjoy the view. Despite the change to her hair, the sight of her still filled him with longing.
She was sprawled on her stomach across the neatly made bed, with her knees bent and her bare feet waving in the air, showing off her chipped pink toenail polish. She’d tidied up while he was gone, he noticed, and dressed again in her figure-hugging top and shorts. Shifting to sit up, she kept her finger carefully holding her place in the paperback she’d been reading when he came in. She was more than halfway through it.
“This is really good.” She held up the book. The Deep Blue Goodbye.
Damn, she was hot, smart, funny, psychic, and she liked Travis McGee novels. He was sunk.
“How’d the meeting go?” she asked.
“It went.”
“Did you learn anything?” Her bright-blue eyes stood out even more beneath the dark brown brows as they searched his expression.
“Not really. This was just a go-between.” He held up the cell phone. “I’m supposed to get a message later about meeting with the actual supplier.”
She rolled her eyes. “More waiting.”
He nodded. “And we can’t go too far out from shore or I’ll lose the signal. But there is some good news.”
She cocked her head.
“I caught a ride out to your campsite. Apparently the record keeping is bad enough down here that our bad guys hadn’t found it, or they didn’t look. I couldn’t bring everything, but I recovered your suitcase and your laptop.”
She lunged at him. He barely kept his footing as she flung herself into his arms and rained kisses on his face. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”
He laughed. “Why do I get the feeling that you’re happier about the laptop than the clothes?”
“Are you kidding? That’s a whole month’s worth of research. Clothes can be replaced.”
“Wait until I give you your wallet and cell phone,” he teased. “I also called Wen. He’s going to have one of his guys recover your car and the rest of your gear. Does that earn me another kiss?”
&nbs
p; “Damn straight!” She planted one on his lips that rocked him to his toes. They were both breathing roughly by the time he pulled away.
“Any more of that, and dinner’s gonna be really late.”
“You brought food?”
“Umm-hmm. Which, if you recall, it’s your turn to cook.”
“Yeah. Here’s hoping you brought something simple then. I’m no gourmet.”
“Steak fajitas easy enough?”
“As long as I don’t have to make the tortillas from scratch.”
“No, I bought some fresh ones in town. Fresh salsa, too.” And tequila. He needed her to sleep again tonight so he could swim.
“In that case, amigo, fork over the frying pan.”
He’d even brought her flowers.
The cheerful bouquet was stuck in a plastic tumbler, making Heidi smile every time she looked at it. Jimmy Buffet and James Taylor serenaded them from Heidi’s MP3 player, which along with her speakers had been among the belongings Jake had recovered.
They sat out on the deck to eat. Jake’s call had come in while they were cooking, and now they were headed toward Ensenada for the next day’s meeting at noon. They’d anchored in a cove south of town, and the sun was just starting to descend in the sky when they sat down on cushions to eat, the large platter of food between them, not bothering with plates. They ate with their fingers, in companionable silence. Jake had shed his T-shirt and she watched the sunlight play off the ripples on his golden skin.
“So I get what you mean now about being retired until you run out of money, then going back to work again. Doesn’t sound like a bad way to live.” At least it didn’t when John MacDonald wrote it. She wasn’t sure it was a lifestyle her Midwestern Protestant work ethic could ever quite come to grips with.
He shrugged. “It works for me.”
Heidi didn’t know how to respond to that, so she didn’t. Instead, she changed the subject. “How many languages do you speak?”
“I don’t know. Never counted.” He tipped his head and she could see he was thinking about it. “Five, maybe? English, Greek, Spanish, French, Japanese. A little bit of Mandarin. I can read another few, and order drinks and find the bathroom in a couple more.”
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