Protector (22 page)

She fumbled with the buttons down his cabana shirt. Whipping the shirt down his arms, she flung it on the floor. His silver chain glinted in the light streaming through the windows. She touched a tentative hand to defined muscles dusted with dark hair.

Chuck unstrapped the holster and set the gun on the back of the piano. The sight of the weapon chilled her, threatening her with thoughts of the outside world.

He pulled her close, melding the heat of their bare skin. Her breasts, already sensitive, tingled meeting his bristly chest. She arched into his touch.

“Your ribs,” Chuck groaned as he moved his mouth to her neck. “Need to be careful,” he said as the protector-warrior peeked through his passion.

“Forget about being careful.”

Chuck dropped to his knees, his hands skimming across
her bruised side before his lips followed. His healing touch was so whisper soft she wouldn’t have felt it except for the jolt of electricity shimmering up her spine.

He finished unbuttoning the front of the dress, nudging aside the sleeves and bunching it down and off her body. Kneeling at the foot of the bed, he paused, just staring at her in nothing but her underwear.

The longer he gazed, the more she ached for his touch. Her breasts pebbled inside the satin of her bra, her panties growing damp with her desire.

The intense flame of his eyes devoured her, flickering over her body. Jolynn stretched along the bed, enjoying the way his eyes lingered on her breasts. Growing up, she’d walked past all those busty statues that littered her life, and sometimes standing by those double-D stone goddesses, she’d even felt self-conscious of her barely A cups. But right now, she felt her body was one hundred percent as worshipped as any stone goddess.

She hooked her finger in the waistband of his shorts… and unsnapped. A quick swipe of her hand freed the zipper as well.

Her eyes locked on the thick length of him straining from his boxers, and yeah, she couldn’t help the shiver of appreciation that rippled through her. She knew well what pleasure his body could bring her. She gazed up to find him watching her with a very self-satisfied grin on his face.

“Thanks, Red.”

She rolled her eyes at his audacity. “You’re welcome.”

She slid her hand inside and wrapped her fingers around his heat and stroked the grin right off his face. Chuck closed his eyes, his head falling forward, his breathing ragged.

By the time she’d finished her sentence, he already stood by the bed again. He tossed his gun and a box of condoms
on the table before he flung the rest of his clothes away with uncustomary negligence.

Smiling, she noted the strange combination beside the bed. Her Chuck, always protecting her in some form or another.

She stared into the eyes of Chuck, valiant warrior and passionate man. However, Chuck, angel protector and gentle scholar, was every bit as real. Mortality had smacked her in the face more than once over the past days, throughout her life for that matter. She wasn’t going to pass up even a minute’s chance to be with this man she’d already fallen halfway in love with.

Jolynn hooked her thumbs in her panties and slid them free. She linked her fingers with his and tugged him back down to rest over her. She sank into the bed, anchored by his warm weight.

“Jolynn.” Chuck whispered her name on a groan as he rolled to his side without releasing her.

They lay side by side on the mattress, so much wider than the little bunk on the ferry. She traced the outline of each muscle clearly defined across his chest, taking wicked pleasure in the reflexive twitches at her touch. She refused to skirt past the scars. Those were a part of him, too, although she would respect his obvious wish not to talk about them.

The setting sun streaked through the window, casting shadows along the cut of his defined muscles flexing under burnished skin. He kissed, licked, nipped first one breast, then the other, laving equal attention. She threaded her fingers through his coarse dark hair, urging him closer. Wanting more. Wanting everything.

Drawing her into his mouth, he sent sparks of pleasure deep inside her, gathering between her legs. As if following her thought, his hand slid low between them. He massaged
the heel of his hand against her. Her fingers tightened against his shoulders in synch with the clenching inside her. She writhed, seeking relief. So close, release tormented, waiting, ready for her to plunge over if only she would let herself.

“Chuck.”

“Hmmm?”

“No more. Hurry.”

He pressed a soft kiss to her lips and turned to the bedside table, tearing open the box. Jolynn stroked her hands over his shoulders until he faced her again.

Shifting her to her back, he molded his full length to hers, the blanket of his body a sensual, welcome weight. He held his full bulk off her. The muscles of his forearms bulged. But she wanted him, all of him.

Jolynn hugged her arms around his waist, nestling against his hips until he began to fill her, the prodding sensation foreign, yet wonderful. Almost painful, yet so right to be with this man. Chuck moaned into her mouth, his tongue dancing a mimic of his body.

She hooked her ankles around his legs and urged him closer. Smiling up at him, she brushed her fingers against the somber furrows in his forehead.

An added edge of tenderness tempered his urgency. Chuck lowered to his elbows, sinking farther within her tight passage, stretching her. He combed his fingers through her still damp hair and tugged her lip between his teeth, her body writhing beneath him. Damn his torturous patience.

She arched her hips against his, encouraging him to move faster, harder, and unwind the coil inside her. Chuck thrust deeply, firmly.

He coupled powerful strokes with gentle touches, and something about this coming together was more intense,
more personal with those shared confidences between them that said she was more than a mission to him. The feelings growing between them were special, shared.

The power, the intensity surged through her, and she pushed, rolling him to his back. Straddling his hips, she rode him, milked the angle of his erection pressing all the deeper. Her head flung back, and
yeesss
, he seemed to hear her unspoken need as his hands took advantage of the freer access to her breasts. The way he cradled, fondled, plucked, doubled the tension inside her as he continued to thrust, fill, rock against her. Flames of blue and red intensity entwined throughout her, singeing every corner of her with showering sparks until her fingers twisted in the bedspread.

Her head flung back with the power of her release rolling through her, over her until she shouted in pleasure. The force of her voice ripped free without worry of anyone overhearing, doubled the bliss pumping through her. He tensed beneath her, his hoarse shout of fulfillment sending another shimmer shooting through her until she shuddered in the aftermath, collapsing on top of him in a depleted heap.

*  *  *

Chuck felt her body relax on top of him. Looking at his hands clenched around fistfuls of her hair, he wondered how one man could feel so complete and so damned confused at the same time. He buried his face in her fiery mane and delayed confronting his conscience a moment longer.

She felt so good, so right. Already he dreamed of the next time he would watch her face as he eased inside her.

The breeze from the open window cooled his heated skin, and he pulled away. Chuck stretched the length of the bed and tucked her against his chest. He smoothed her hair away from her face. He wasn’t good with flowery speeches, but
women wanted to be held afterward, right? He could offer her that much, found he even wanted to.

Resting her head on his shoulder, she hooked a finger along the links in his silver chain. “Where did you get this?”

He watched her hands move and remembered the feel of them on him. “One of the nuns gave it to me when I left.”

“I should have guessed.” She quirked an auburn eyebrow. “And?”

“Saint Christopher is supposed to protect travelers. Since I’d accepted the ROTC scholarship, Sister Mary Esther told me the medal would protect me in my military journeys.”

“It hasn’t let you down yet.” She dropped the chain.

There’d been moments back in Turkey where he’d thought he’d been forgotten. Forsaken. Left to die. But looking back now, on the other side of hell, he suspected he’d had some help even then.

“I’m still here, so I guess not.” Chuck pulled her closer, fitting her to his side. The medal had been taken from him when he was captured. He’d thought it was gone forever, but when authorities had been searching through Marta Surac’s residences, it had been uncovered. Somehow Nuñez made the connection and returned it to him— a miracle in and of itself. “Why don’t you try to get some sleep?”

“What about you?” Her husky voice swirled over his chest. “I know you were only pretending to sleep on the ferry. You must be exhausted.”

“A little, yeah.” He rubbed his hand over her back, the silk of her skin stealing up his arm and flooding through him. “Don’t worry about staying awake, too, though. I’ve got security and warning devices in place. We can afford to relax our guard for a little while and recharge.”

For now, he trusted the systems he’d set up along the perimeter. He could afford to soak up this moment with
Jolynn, this rare time when he felt relaxed enough… to… sleep…

*  *  *

Some people feared the dark. Chuck Tanaka embraced those increasingly rare opaque moments when no one touched him. No one beat him.

He rolled from his back to his side on concrete as cold and unforgiving as his captors. The chain on his ankle shackle rattled in time with the muted music thrumming above him from the bar. A groan slipped between his cracked lips and echoed in the damp cement cell, which reeked of cigar smoke wafting from the guard outside his door.

Which battered part of his body summoned the sound? Who the hell knew? He’d gone past pain two days into captivity.

Now he focused on one thing. Keeping his brain locked away from the sadistic bastards who’d been working him over.

And the she-demon. She worried him more than those two goons. She utilized mind games with a skill that scared the crap out of him. Early in his “stay” he’d heard screams from the next room. The only screams lately had been his own.

He didn’t expect to live. Even if somehow beyond the odds he was rescued, he could feel himself bleeding out inside. Still he fought the Grim Reaper to give the tracking chip a chance to work, to lead someone here to break up this twisted woman’s operation.

The device would continue to transmit even if he died, but the reading would show he wasn’t alive, rendering their search less urgent. Someone else could be taken. If by
chance, he could hang on long enough to tell them what he’d seen…

His focus faded. He grazed his fingers along the back of his shoulder, where the flight surgeon had embedded the tracking device. How much abuse could the microchip withstand? What a way to field-test the thing. The bitch’s clowns had put it through every pace with their fists.

He couldn’t keep on with his nonanswer policy. He needed something else to help him hang on.

Try to think. Work up plausible misinformation in advance. Pray the chip kept working.

He heard the tap, tap, tap of high heels advancing in the hall. Bile burned his raw throat. Light flooded his cell.

Chuck pushed against the cement floor and forced his body into an upright position, keeping his eyes off the battery they’d placed in the corner yesterday as taunting evidence of how far they were willing to go. He sagged back against the wall, but by God, he was sitting.

The door creaked wider to reveal the nameless woman. His devil sure as shit did wear Prada. His eyes traveled from her shoes up her legs to her smile. “I have your Jolynn, you know…”

*  *  *

Chuck bolted upright in his bed.

Sweat soaked his body from his nightmare. His brain was screaming with the image of his she-devil captor taunting him, claiming she had Jolynn.

Impossible.

Scrubbing his hand over his face, he pried his eyes open and looked around the one-room cottage. How long had he slept? He flung his arm wide and encountered cool sheets.

Oh God, where is she?

He rolled out of bed and to his feet. Chuck grabbed his gun off the piano and sprinted across the room toward the front door.

Marta Surac was in a high-security prison for the rest of her life. Most of her contacts had abandoned her like rats from a sinking ship. And the rest, she’d sold out to save herself from a firing squad.

So why then was he right back here on this side of the world cleaning up the mess from all the secrets she’d pried out of captured and tortured members of the military? Did she still pull strings? Did she have unshared contacts?

Mike Nuñez was married to Marta’s illegitimate daughter. Were they all wrong to assume he hated the woman every bit as much as they did? He could have sworn Nuñez wanted her dead because of the way she’d used her own daughter to gain power through sex.

Damn it, Nuñez wouldn’t have sold him out. He was sure of it. Nuñez could very well be dead now, a possibility he’d avoided thinking about and now brought bile up his throat.

Just as he yanked open the front door, Jolynn came out of the bathroom. He sagged against the leather sofa, swamped by feelings too profound to be labeled as simple relief.

Jolynn sauntered past and perched with a hip resting against the counter. Her red hair hung in a snarled mass just past her shoulders. Bare legs seemed to stretch for miles below his cabana shirt, which she wore with sensual elegance.

So much more beautiful than even the first time he’d seen her all decked out in the casino.

“I’ve made breakfast even though it’s already past lunchtime.” She motioned to the two place settings at the bar stools in front of the counter with small glasses of orange juice and a boxed pastry.

“Are you okay?” he
asked, unable to shake the chill of his dream.

“My ribs are fine. We slept together. And while it was amazing, we didn’t swing from a trapeze.” She brushed her body against his, the pastries and orange juice between them. “Yes, I’m fine. Thanks for asking.”