Barefoot With a Bodyguard (35 page)

He reached the zipper and traveled lower, one finger over creamy, tight skin, over the mound. Lower.

“You’re
really
smiling now.”

“I’m
really
happy now.” He dipped his finger lower to touch the wet folds of his woman. His woman.
His
.

She’d hate that, but…that’s how he felt. Like she belonged to him in the most fundamental way.

He’d ruin everything if he told her that. “I’ve never…”
Felt like this.

“Touched me? You did it the other night on the beach. I liked it. I loved it.” She lifted herself so she could push the jeans farther down. “I
really
loved it.”

He stroked the tender center, making her hiss. “I’ve never…”
Wanted to make love.
He’d wanted to get off, to get laid, to get a much-needed release. “I’ve never thought I could make you feel like this,” he finished.

She lowered herself, letting her hair tickle his cheeks and giving his finger even more access to her body. “You do, Alec. Now stop talking and get inside me.”

He rolled her over and helped her get rid of the jeans completely, stripping his own off with surprisingly shaky hands. He stroked the skin between her breasts, letting his cock rub against her for a preview of what was about to happen.

Fire licked through his balls, up his back, into his chest. This was too real, too much. Too good.

And he was leaving tomorrow.

“What?” she asked, lifting her head.

“I didn’t say anything.” He cupped her behind and lifted it.

“You sounded frustrated. Disappointed. You don’t have a condom?” There was a slight rise of panic in her voice that, for some reason, he adored.

“I have one.” He rooted on the floor for his jeans to get the wallet from his back pocket. “Nino took my ID and credit cards, but left the important stuff.”

“I wonder if he thought you’d need one.”

He grinned around the packet between his teeth. “Nino’s a pretty smart old guy.”

Her eyes popped as the foil ripped. “Do you think Gabe set this up and planned, you know, us?”

He pulled out the rubber disk and slid it over his shaft, loving that she reached to help him. “If he did, he shouldn’t send me to fucking Costa Rica tomorrow.” The words came out gruff, mostly because he didn’t want to talk. Not about that. Not about anything.

But she lifted her hands and cupped his face as he got into position on top of her, forcing their gazes on each other. “We’ll work it out tomorrow. Let’s just…”

“Yeah. Let’s.” The words got lost in the next breath, a gasp of pleasure as he slid into her.

He kissed her forehead and her cheek, then pressed his lips against her ear as he eased in with a ridiculous amount of control, considering how his body was screaming to plunge all the way.

She was so hot and tight, a perfect pocket, warm and wet, whispering his name between each strangled breath. He kissed her ear and held her so close she was almost as inside of him as he was in her.

They belonged together. The thought slammed his head with as much shock as her body slammed his other head. They belonged together, no matter what. Was that possible? Would she…

“Kate,” he murmured, his mouth barely working as ecstasy took over. “Come with me, baby. Come with me.”

“Not yet.” She bit the words.

And somewhere in the fog of his sexed-up brain, he realized she’d taken that the wrong way, and this was no time to tell her. He gave in and thrust all the way, calling out as the pleasure whipped through him.

She dug her fingers into his shoulders, and he just squeezed his eyes closed because everything was hazy and hot and unfocused as she rocked with him.

He found a rhythm that felt like heaven, all the way in and out and in again, pushing her closer and closer to the edge, forgetting everything.

Only one thought with each stroke. One thought. She was his. In and out, harder and faster, more and more. She was his. She was
his
.

This beautiful, brilliant woman who didn’t want to belong to anyone. She…was…his.

He rose higher, as deep into her as he could be, heat bouncing between them, the sounds and scent of sex filling the room, and the hole in his heart—the one he didn’t even realize he had until he met this woman—closed and even disappeared while he claimed her the only way he knew how.

“Kate, I can’t stop. I can’t stop. I can’t…” With a hard spasm, he surrendered to his orgasm, stunned by the perfection of it. Every nerve exploded, unraveling into a dead spin of pleasure as he released everything he had into her and she lost all control against him.

“Come with me,” he murmured again, hoping she’d understand what he meant this time.

“I just did,” she moaned.

No, she didn’t understand. And, honestly, neither did he.

*

An hour later, Kate stared at the ceiling, listening to crickets outside and the easy rhythm of Alec’s breathing. But he wasn’t asleep. She realized that she’d slept with him fifteen feet away for enough nights to know.

“What’s wrong?” she finally asked, rolling over to look at his profile.

“Nothing.”

“You’re lying.”

He turned and met her face-to-face. “How would you know?”

“Your breathing. I know when you’re sleeping. I know when you’re…troubled.” She stroked his face, traveling the masculine lines that she once thought were beastly. Now they were beautiful. “Tell me.”

A smile pulled at his lips. “You have to know everything, don’t you?”

“No. Yeah. Only about you.”

“Well, you do now. You know my past and secrets and real name.” He closed his eyes as her finger trailed over his face and chest, slipping under the covers to continue south.

“I know your soft targets.”

“Mmm. Keep doing that, and that target won’t be soft for long.”

“That a challenge, Petrov?” she teased.

He didn’t answer, still studying her face, his expression so serious it was almost stern. “I asked you to do something when we were making love.”

She frowned a little, trying to remember all that he’d said. Most of it had been the desperate murmurings of a lover. All of it, right? But from the look on his face, she was forgetting something.

“I asked you to come with me.”

“And I told you I did.” She gave him a playful squeeze. “Couldn’t you tell?”

“That’s not what I meant.”

It wasn’t? Had she done something wrong? Disappointed him in bed? Was he…oh.
Oh
. Oh, God. “You mean tomorrow? To Costa Rica?”

He nodded, and a million emotions clashed in her chest like fireworks. He wanted her to be with him, and he wanted her to move and hide and run with him. Could she live a life like that? “No,” she mumbled. She couldn’t. There had to be another way. There had to be some solution for him to live a normal life and for her to live it with him. Because that’s what she wanted. Costa Rica and Australia? “No,” she said again.

“Shit.” He rolled off the bed, and she realized how he’d misinterpreted that.

“Alec, no. Don’t leave. I just meant—”

“My phone’s ringing.”

She scrambled to the side of the bed. “Ignore it. This is important. Please.”

“It could be Gabe.” He marched down the hall, the sound of a man wounded in every way.

Damn it.
Damn it all
. She pushed off the bed, hitting the floor as she heard him say, “Hey, Gregg.”

His mentor and friend. Ignoring the fact that she was as naked as he, she followed the sound of his voice, stepping over the evidence of their lust littering the hallway.

Come with me.

Could she?

Better question: Could she
not
?

“He has her? Are you sure?” His voice cracked with fear, the same way it had cracked when he’d told her about the teenage girl. Of course. Vlitnik had Robyn.

“Where is he?” Alec asked.

In the silence that followed the question, Kate tiptoed closer, already knowing where this call would go.

“Okay, tell him I will.”

He will
what
? Except, she already knew.

“Hey, he’s dangling the bait, Gregg. I’m just taking it.”

She swallowed hard. He was going to Vlitnik to save that girl. No doubt he was the ransom itself.

“Sorry, but I don’t have anything to lose,” he barked into the phone.

Not now. Now that he thought she’d just refused his offer.

“What do I give up if that SOB kills me? Some fake life on the run, always missing out on real life? Sorry, but that girl has a baby on the way and a life and a future. She can have mine to save hers.”

How could she have even doubted that she’d follow this man to the ends of the earth? He was so worth it.

“Production Park. Naples. Domestic Drive. Last warehouse. Got it.”

So, so worth it.

“Then I have to come up with a way to explain how I know where he is,” Alec said. “I’ll tell him I put a tracker on Robyn. I won’t blow your guy’s cover. You get him to video that fat fuck trying to kill me. That ought to fly nice with the FBI.”

She heard the truth in his voice. He’d die or Vlitnik would, but this life had to come to an end before another fake one started.

“Thanks, Gregg,” Alec said, lowering his voice to make his point. “You’ve always been there for me, man, and if this helps you bring in Vlitnik, then maybe I’ve come close to paying you back.”

But what if he died trying?

Kate took a deep breath, stepping out of the shadows as Alec hung up. “I’m going with you.”

“Like hell you are.”

“Alec, I’m going with you.”

“Don’t even—”

“I mean to wherever you’re going. Costa Rica. Australia. Wherever. I want to come with you.”

He let out a soft grunt. “You didn’t seem to love the idea five minutes ago.”

“I don’t. But I’m pretty sure I could love you. I might already.” She wrapped her arms around him. “You’re going to save Robyn, aren’t you?”

“I have to.”

“Yeah, I already love you.”

“I know how that feels.” He pressed his lips to her head. “One more good-bye, Kate. Let me do this.”

She inched back. “Come back to me.”

“I will, but if you tell Gabe where I went, it’s a deal breaker. The only way to stop him is to catch him in the act.”

“Of killing you?”

“I have a helluva reason not to let that happen now.” He tipped her chin up and looked at her. “You belong with me. Not
to
me, but
with
me.”

She waited for the revolt possessive words like that always caused, but for some reason, there was none. She kissed him lightly. “Yes, I do.”

If she died, her baby died.

The words had echoed in Robyn’s head since she’d been dragged from the laundry truck—by a son of a bitch she once thought she loved—and tied up, taped shut, and thrown in a corner of some dark, giant metal box that stank like fish and was hotter than hell.

If she died, her baby died.

So Robyn had to do whatever it took to stay alive. The problem was, she had no idea what that was.

Her hands ached to rub her hard belly, especially when her baby kicked, but they were tied behind her, the rope Cole had tied her in burning her wrists every time she moved.

Cole. She couldn’t believe what he’d turned out to be. A thug. A mobster. A heartless yes-man who worked for that horrible Dmitri Vlitnik. She hadn’t seen the fat bastard yet, but she put it all together easy enough.

But what happened next?

Not knowing was the hardest part.

She tried to adjust her position, the hard concrete painful on her backside. Someone would be in here soon, and she had a feeling she knew what they wanted from her: Alec Petrov. Would she tell them?

Only if that would save her, and her baby. Or she could play dumb, and then maybe they wouldn’t hurt her or her baby. Or maybe she should just tell them where Alec was, and they’d let her go.

Yeah, and maybe angels would drop from heaven and take her home. Except she didn’t believe in angels and couldn’t remember ever feeling like somewhere was home.

A low-pitched rumble and a splash of bright light told her the big garage door was opening and a car was pulling in. From where she was, she couldn’t see the car or who was in it.

What if it was someone who’d come to save her?

No, Robyn, no one is going to save you.
No one even knew she was here. Poppy probably figured she’d bolted, and they’d left it at that. And that Gabe guy was just so pissed, he probably didn’t care if she died. And Alec? Well, she’d blown everything for him, so he certainly wasn’t going to save her. The lump in her throat grew, and a sob she couldn’t swallow threatened. She was so alone. Just Robyn and this—

“Where is she?”

Vlitnik. Her heart dropped, and her stomach rolled and not in the
feeling the baby
way she’d come to love. No, this was more like,
I’m going to die now
.