Dragon's Triangle (The Shipwreck Adventures Book 2) (45 page)

“Cole, stuff happens to people you love, and it’s not your job to protect them twenty-four/seven. What happened to Theo—that wasn’t your fault. You’re not his keeper. This business with Irv and Benny would have happened whether you were around or not. Irv did know my grandfather, I’m sure of it. You can’t protect me from my own family. Now let’s get out of here and go look at the rest of your boat.”

He didn’t move. Instead, he reached up and ran a finger down her cheek. His touch was so light she wondered if she was imagining it, as she had so many other times.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

She turned her head aside. “For what?”

“For being an idiot. I wanted to protect you. My heart was in the right place, but I really mangled it, didn’t I?”

She nodded, her throat too tight to speak.

“I couldn’t bear the thought of losing you, so instead I put you through the very thing I feared. And now they’re after you anyway.”

He reached up and stroked her hair. When his palm slid down to her cheek again, she closed her eyes and tilted her face into his palm. Then she stepped back.

“I can’t,” she said. She took another step back and her backside bumped into the chair at his desk.

“What’s wrong?”

“I’ve had to compartmentalize my feelings just to keep moving. To get to this place. Now you want me to open that box. I don’t know if I can.”

He stepped closer. “Riley.” He reached out and touched her arms just above the elbows.

“How do I know you won’t disappear?”

“I don’t blame you for not wanting to go through that again. But there is nothing that will ever make me leave you now.”

She wanted to tell him then—the truth about Lima. To find out if what he was saying was true. But when his arms slid around her and he pulled her body to his, she tilted her head back and met his kisses with hungry lips.

Riley closed her eyes and lost herself in the pleasure of his mouth on hers, their tongues dancing, tasting, caressing. His hands slid up her neck and into her hair, grabbing handfuls, his kisses going deeper still. She knew she should stop, that she would not survive having him
and then losing him again, but all she wanted at that moment was more. More of his mouth, more of his hands on her body.

He framed her face with those hands and leaned back. “I can’t believe you’re really here.” He extended his leg behind him and nudged the door closed with the toe of his boat shoe.

She smiled at him. “And I can’t believe your boat-tour-as-foreplay gambit actually worked.”

He placed his hands on the waistband of her shorts and began steering her toward the bed. “Yes, Magee. Very clever, no, ending the tour in my cabin?”

“Oh yeah,” she said as the bed touched the back of her knees and he eased her down. “And I do appreciate a clever fellow.”

He sat next to her on the bed, took her in his arms, and kissed her again, slipping his cool fingers under her shirt onto her hot bare skin. A shiver rose at the base of her neck and swept down her spine as she arched her back. He took hold of the hem of her polo shirt then, leaned back, and lifted it over her head.

Riley reached back to unhook her bra, but his hands were on hers, gently pushing them to one side.

“Allow me,” he said. “I spent too many nights alone in my bunk fantasizing about undressing you.”

When her breasts were free he kissed his way down her neck to her collarbone, and she groaned aloud when he finally arrived, his tongue teasing first one and then the other nipple until both were pebble-hard.

“Cole,” she said, running her fingers through his sun-bleached hair and grasping handfuls of it in her fists, “if this is all a dream, don’t wake me.”

After some delicious, maddening minutes he sat up, and began to unbutton her shorts. “I don’t know about your dreams,” he said, wetting his lips, “but mine are never this good.”

He slid her free of her remaining clothes and she stretched out before him, naked on his bed.

He stood for several seconds slowly unbuttoning his shirt and shorts, taking a long look at her. She half smiled at him, wishing he’d hurry and stop torturing her. Her world had been reduced to the aching hollow need between her legs.

When he shrugged off his shirt, she enjoyed the sight of his hard chest and the washboard shape of the muscles across his abdomen. The years had changed his body, erasing any vestiges of softness. When he’d stepped out of his shorts and crawled up the bed to her, she slid her leg between his, wanting to connect her soft skin against the hardness of him.

What
was
it he did with his fingertips? They danced over her skin. By the time he kissed her neck, her whole body was trembling. Again she was arching her back, and pushed her hips against his. Her throat, her breasts, her lips—he seemed to be kissing her everywhere at once, his mouth on her skin sending white-light explosions of electric pleasure through her body. More powerful than all of this was the bone-deep connection she felt to him, as though the waves of pleasure were silk filaments wrapping them in their own cocoon. When at last he pushed inside her, she felt like gravity itself had released them, and together they burst free and took flight.

Benguet Gold Mine
Baguio, Philippines

December 4, 2012

The only four-wheel-drive vehicle Elijah could find to rent in Manila was a Mitsubishi Strada, the turbo-diesel crew-cab pickup truck. He didn’t mind the truck so much except that he couldn’t relax in the backseat like he could in a limo or a luxury SUV. He had to sit up front next to Benny. But since he didn’t know what to expect over the next few days, and he wasn’t going to have the resources of the Enterprise at his disposal, he thought the truck bed might come in handy.

By the time they pulled up in front of the main office at the mine in Baguio, Elijah was sick of Benny’s odor of sweat and cigarettes. As usual, Jaime Belmonte had appeared on the porch as the building came into view, and he fluttered around like an obsequious moth drawn to the light when Elijah climbed out of the truck. Elijah ignored him.

“Listen, Benny,” he said to the savage. “Until further notice, you are now my driver. That’s your job. So don’t go wandering off. I won’t be long. I have to go down to see Wolf in the lab. Then you can take
me to my hotel in town.” Elijah turned to Belmonte. “Jaime, find a room for Benny for tonight.”

“Yes, sir, I’ll be happy—”

“Shut up, Jaime. You don’t speak unless I ask you a direct question.”

Wolf was waiting at the door when Elijah approached the lab building.

“Good afternoon,” the German said.

“Same to you, Wolf.” Elijah knew the man was not happy to see him. Wolf had to know why Elijah had come.

“Are you getting any closer to finding this Dragon’s Triangle site? I complain when I have too much work, but too little work is just as bad. In fact, I think it is worse. I’d rather be tired than bored.”

“Yes, my people are at the site now. But salvage work takes time, as you know,” Elijah said.

“They say it will be bigger than anything we have seen since the days of Marcos.”

“I hope so.” Elijah walked over to the cabinet where Wolf stored the sword. “You know why I’ve come.”

“Yes. It’s in the same place. I haven’t touched it.”

Elijah bent down and removed the velvet-covered parcel. He set it on the table, then opened the cloth. The sword was even more spectacular than he remembered. The intricate gold work of the dragon’s face on the hilt and the jagged, teethlike spikes along the outer curve of the blade surpassed the images in his imagination. He could feel the power from the sword flowing into him. He had been right to make this side trip into the mountains to get it. Having the sword with him would change his luck now.

Wolfgang said, “Swords from this period have sold for several million dollars at auction recently. I am not an expert, but it is possible this one is as valuable. And to think Belmonte wanted me to destroy it.”

Elijah had no idea it was worth that much. But it didn’t matter. He couldn’t sell it. He patted Wolf on the back. “Ulrika would be proud of you for saving it.”

Wolfgang looked like he was going to be sick. He spoke in a low whisper. “Even though I couldn’t save her.”

“What did you say, Wolf?”

The German stood on the opposite side of the table, staring down at the gold hilt of the sword. “I thought of taking it, you know. Like the old man did.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The sword. I thought about taking it and leaving this godforsaken place.”

Elijah shouted, “Forsaken? God has blessed us. Look at all the gold he has given us.”

Wolf moved around to the end of the table. “God didn’t give you anything. You took it. Just like you took my wife. She killed herself because you raped her.”

“Rape? I didn’t rape her. You were there. You watched and you got off on it.”

“You had a knife.”

“I fucked your wife because you couldn’t. She needed it. She wanted me. You heard her screaming. She loved it.”

Wolf made his move then, grabbing the sword with both hands and swinging it back. Elijah was ready for him and threw a punch straight to the man’s abdomen. The sword clattered to the floor when his fist buried in the doughy flesh, and Elijah heard the
whoof
of air when Wolf doubled over. Elijah clasped his hands together and lifted them over his head and brought them down hard on the back of the man’s neck. He crumpled to the floor.

Elijah walked over and picked up his sword. He laid it down on the velvet cloth and folded it into a tight package.

“You shouldn’t have dropped my sword, Wolf. You have no appreciation for beautiful things.” He tucked the package under his arm and turned to look at the body on the floor. He swung back his boot and delivered a hard kick to the man’s ribs. Judging from the satisfying depth his boot sunk into the body, Elijah broke more than a couple of them.

“Wolf, maybe your bad luck with women has to do with your ugly face.” He drew back his leg and kicked the toe of his cowboy boot right into the German’s nose and blood gushed from the mangled flesh.

“Oh, Wolfie, now you’ve made me really mad. You just got your blood on my Lucchese alligator boots. You’re going to have to pay for that, my friend.”

As Elijah was walking back up to the office, his phone rang. He held the sword tight under his arm and reached into his jeans pocket for the phone.

“Mr. Hawkes, it’s Nils.”

Elijah stepped away from the building and into the shade of the pine trees. “What do you have for me?”

“I joined the party in Subic Bay and this morning we flew up to Camiguin Island.”

“That’s a different island than the one you mentioned before.”

“Yes, the woman seems to think the map leads here. She hasn’t had a chance to explain why.”

“Okay, so what have they found?”

“Nothing so far. We just got here. Right now they are trying to sort things out with the local officials. They’ve always been very touchy up here about treasure hunters.”

“I want to know everything they know as soon as they know it.”

“That’s a problem. There is no cell service up here. I came ashore with them, and I’ve borrowed a satellite phone from some campers. I don’t know when I will be able to call you again.”

“Figure it out, Skar. That’s what I’m paying you for.”

“Yes, sir.”

Elijah disconnected and hurried back to the front of the camp where they had left the truck. He didn’t see the savage around, so he bounded up the steps.

Both men were sitting inside Jaime’s office drinking whiskey.

“Belmonte, did you do the research I asked for on the phone this morning?”

“Yes, sir, and I had a difficult time finding a contact—”

“Jaime. I don’t care about what you did to get the information. Just give me what I asked for.”

“The man Cole Thatcher was no longer being actively pursued because he was presumed dead; however, the bounty from the Patriarchs remains intact. It’s five hundred thousand dollars.”

“Do they want to talk to him?”

“No, sir. They want him dead.”

Camiguin Island
The Philippines

December 5, 2012

Riley had been awake for a while when she felt Cole stir, slide his arm off her waist, and roll out of the bed. She admired the view as he walked naked to the door. He opened it a crack, then quickly eased it closed again.