Seduction Under Fire (16 page)

“Don’t do that. Please.” She squirmed in a halfhearted effort to break free of his grip, but she didn’t want to draw attention from passersby.

“You don’t want to hear it, I know. We haven’t always gotten along, but...” His lips grazed her temple and nipped at her ear.

Camille’s mouth went dry. She may have stopped breathing but it was hard to tell with the way her pulse started racing and her insides grew heavy, as if all her blood was relocating to the sensitive juncture of her thighs. What had she been about to say? She couldn’t remember.

“I’m trying to be patient,” Aaron murmured, “so I’m going to give you a little more time to think about what you want.”

“What I want?” This was not going according to plan. She was supposed to be fending off his advances. While she was grateful that she retained the ability to speak, she couldn’t get her brain past the urge to tear his clothes off.

“The clock’s ticking, Camille.”

“What?” Did she miss something? What clock?

“What I’m saying is, you’ve got a little more time to think about what you want before I haul you onto our bed and give you what I know you need.”

Her knees wobbled. She was saved from having to form coherent thoughts by the opening of the garage door on the side of the building and the emergence of a familiar sedan.

Aaron released his hold on her waist. “Showtime.”

Camille tried to snap her body out of its trance, but it had frozen.

“Camille? Let’s go.”

“Just a sec.” She blinked, trying to clear the fuzz from her mind.

The sedan drove southeast, toward Pichilingue. As soon as it disappeared, Aaron patiently removed her hand from his shirt collar, one finger at a time.

* * *

Aaron watched Camille walk south in order to approach the alley from the opposite direction. Once she was out of view, he walked the dirt bike around the north side and propped it against the wall a few feet from the alley entrance.

He gripped his gun, concealing it inside his jacket. Then he waited anxiously for Camille to reappear. She’d call him a chauvinistic jackass again for entertaining such a thought, but he hated to have her out of his sight for even a minute. As his anxiety mounted, she rounded the corner, walking toward him. The entrance of the alley gaped between them like a chasm. Setting her voluminous orange beach bag on the ground, she removed her coat.

Aaron’s mouth went dry. He’d seen the red swimsuit she purchased, but he hadn’t thought much about how it would actually look painted on her creamy-skinned, curvaceous body. Oblivious to his dismay, she gave him a determined nod and stumbled purposefully, spilling the contents of the bag. Hair spray, lipsticks and other womanly goodies rolled, exactly as planned, into the alley. Camille chased after the scattering contents, bridging the distance to the guard.

Sure enough, as soon as he caught sight of her, the man rose from his stool and sauntered her way, lecherously appraising her body. Thank God Camille didn’t understand Spanish. Aaron, on the other hand, understood every single filthy word. While her bikini had been an unwelcome surprise, he was even less prepared for the rage that surged through him as he listened to the guard demean her.

The plan was for Aaron to hold his shot until the guard was standing near the Dumpsters in the middle of the alley. Aaron stood with his finger on the trigger of his gun and tried to be patient. But when the guard unzipped his pants and told Camille to get on her knees like the whore she was, Aaron pivoted into view and put two bullets through his chest.

Camille looked questioningly at Aaron but said nothing. They dragged the body between the Dumpsters, out of view from the street. While Aaron repositioned the bike in the alley for a getaway vehicle, Camille changed into sneakers, a T-shirt and shorts from her bag. She dropped the heels in the Dumpster, slung her rifle over her shoulder and got out a handgun with silencer—going from eye candy to warrior in seconds flat.

With Camille in the lead, they skulked into the bar.

Chapter 12

T
he bar was empty.

No people, no tables or chairs, no alcohol. Exchanging a worried look with Camille, Aaron checked the solitary bathroom—empty. They took positions against the wall next to the front door. He pushed it open a few inches to get the bouncers’ attention and stepped back into the shadows, hoping the men were curious sorts.

They were.

The bouncers advanced into the room with their guns drawn. Aaron aimed, as did Camille, only her gun hand shook so badly he couldn’t see how she’d hit her target. Damn. He forgot about that complication. Without waiting to see if she got control of her aim, he shot both guards in the back. Camille fired, but her bullet lodged in the wall behind the bar.

She closed her eyes. When she reopened them, she nodded to Aaron with a look of cool determination. He squeezed her shoulder in a show of encouragement and motioned to the interior door on the far side of the room.

He tested the knob. Unlocked. Widening his stance, he put his finger on the trigger of his gun and gestured for Camille to open the door.

It only took a second to realize what a mistake they’d made.

At least a half dozen sets of eyes fixed on them from inside the room, which had been made up to look like a living room with sofas and a television. A little girl was seated on the floor.

At the first crack of gunfire from the room, Camille cursed and took off in a dead run for the alley, with Aaron outpacing her through the bar and onto the bike. Their helmets lay abandoned in the alley as they peeled away.

In no time, two Jeeps pulled into view, tailing Aaron and Camille and gaining ground fast. Aaron gunned it, but the Jeeps kept up with the punishing pace.

They flew through the city, negotiating the cars and people, ignoring stoplights and signs. Aaron shot west through the outlying neighborhoods of town where the roads were wider and less crowded. He took every possible shortcut through dirt lots and alleys but could not lose the Jeeps.

They sped past the airport, then the highway that marked the last vestiges of civilization, into the open desert. The landscape of Baja was denser than the California desert, but Aaron was banking on his experience with all-terrain vehicles as a Park Ranger to gain the advantage.

The butt of Camille’s rifle poked him in the ribs. Aaron tried to keep the bike steady while she sprayed a quick staccato of shots. A loud screech and clattering sounded behind them.

“What’s happening?” he yelled.

“One Jeep down, one to go.”

The men in the remaining Jeep fired back. It sounded as though they only had handguns, but a bullet was a bullet.

Camille and Aaron’s best hope of survival was to stay unpredictable. With that in mind, Aaron took each foothill fast, jumping dried riverbeds and weaving around the shrubs and rocks while Camille continued to fire.

“How many men?” he asked.

“Three—the driver and two shooters.” They were fired at twice and Camille responded with another cluster of shots. “Check that, one shooter now.”

Aaron swerved around a boulder the size of a shack and realized too late they were approaching a huge fissure in the earth too wide to jump and too near to stop or turn. Putting on the brakes, he pushed Camille off the bike and attempted a controlled crash. The momentum was too great. He and the downed bike skidded into the fissure.

Camille crawled to the edge. “Aaron!”

He clung to a tiny outcropping on the inner wall, his shoes pedaling against the side.

The rumble of an engine warned them of the Jeep’s approach.

“Stay there,” she whispered, scrambling out of view. Her rifle discharged a dozen more rounds. Aaron prayed she was hidden behind a boulder as the men’s return fire echoed through the fissure.

The Jeep’s engine cut out and a man shouted in English at Camille to freeze. A shuffle of feet on the sandy ground made Aaron brace for discovery, but no one peeked over the edge. Maybe they didn’t realize he was there.

A sharp smack of flesh hitting flesh reverberated in the quiet, and Camille grunted softly.

They were hitting her. The men were hitting his Camille.

Aaron dug deep, finding a strength he didn’t know he had. He pulled up on the ledge and got a toe on it, then a knee. He pocketed a handful of sand, then got out his gun.

Smack.
A man’s laughter.

“Is that all you got?” Camille sneered in a hoarse voice.

In a state of focused fury, Aaron surrendered to the most ancient, savage part of his being. He vaulted out of the fissure with gun drawn.

Only one man was hurting Camille. A body lay slumped over the Jeep’s passenger door as blood pooled on the dirt below.

Aaron took aim at the short, mustachioed, middle-aged Mexican who had Camille by the hair, jamming her own rifle into her shoulder as she knelt on the ground. The man’s eyes were wide, as if Aaron had surprised him. Good.

“Aaron, you idiot. You should have saved yourself. Now we’ll both die.”

Aaron ignored her. He sized up her captor and plotted his next move.

“Drop your gun or I kill her,” the man shouted in heavily accented English. He sounded nervous, as if he was in way over his head. Aaron knew exactly how to play this guy. He took a few steps forward.

“Forget about me. Kill him.”

Unable to resist the impulse, he snorted. “You’re killin’ me with your whole martyr thing, Cam.” He put his hand in his pocket as casually as possible, gathering sand.

“Drop the gun...now,” the man hollered.

Aaron raised his arms in surrender, then took a few more steps forward and placed his gun on the ground too near to Camille for her captor to let it stay there. When the man let go of her hair and reached for the gun, Aaron flung the sand into his eyes, blinding him. Grabbing the rifle’s nose, he deflected it into the sand as it fired.

The man doubled over with his hands covering his face, shrieking in pain. Aaron gripped the handle of the spare gun he’d stashed in a makeshift holder between his shoulder blades. He killed the bastard with a single shot, right through his ear.

* * *

Camille, under the light of the full moon, glowed an ethereal shade of blue. She sat in the cocaptain’s chair, clad in loose-fitting white pants and a white T-shirt, hugging herself and gazing at the distant sea, exactly as Aaron left her when he went to wash the sand and blood spatter from his hair and skin.

After driving the cartel’s Jeep to the outskirts of town, they’d snagged a taxi ride to the marina. The whole time, Aaron’s nerves were a jumble of live wires. He never took his hand off the gun hidden beneath his shirt, nor his eyes off their surroundings, anticipating ambush at every turn. Even on the boat, after he’d anchored in the cove of an uninhabited island two hours from the mouth of the bay, he still didn’t feel safe.

He wasn’t sure if he’d ever feel safe again.

They’d survived the day but in infiltrating the cartel’s hideout and killing more of its operatives, the targets on their backs were bigger than ever.

When Aaron cleared his throat to alert Camille of his presence, she looked at him and shivered. He removed the black flannel shirt he’d donned over his T-shirt and held it out in offering. She shook her head.

“Don’t argue with me. Not tonight.”

After a moment’s hesitation, she accepted the shirt. He helped her on with it, then settled in the captain’s chair. The sight of Camille wearing his clothes was unexpectedly erotic. The collar pressed against her cheeks, accentuating the ivory glow of her skin and her slender fingers peeking out from the cuffs. Their eyes met and she shivered again.

Aaron felt the air surrounding them charge, crackling with electric current. He swallowed, then gestured to her bare feet. “I’ll bring you some socks.”

Mechanically, he walked through the cabin and found a pair of her socks. Camille watched his approach with eyes as black as the flannel shirt, as deep as the night around her. He sat and swiveled her chair to face his.

With a racing pulse, he brought her feet to his lap and inched his fingers up the lengths of her calves inside her pants. He’d never touched her here, not like this.

“Aaron, stop.” Her voice was breathy, aroused. He stopped but didn’t release his hold on her leg. “I don’t...I don’t want...”

“Don’t try to tell me you don’t want me, Camille. I know you better than that.”

He captured her right foot in his hands. It was velvet against his calloused palms.

“You don’t know me at all.”

What a load of crap she was feeding herself. He’d spent every moment of the past week memorizing her—from her body to the cadence of her speech, every sigh and every look. He’d lain awake each night listening to her breathe, drenching his senses with the feel and scent of her hair, her skin. He knew Camille Fisher as well as he knew himself, better perhaps. “What have you convinced yourself of? What’s going on in that sharp mind of yours?”

“I...”

As she searched for words, he cradled her foot, warming it.

“I don’t want this between us.”

He tipped her chin up until she looked into his eyes. “Baby, it’s already between us.”

The torment in her expression spoke of a battle raging within her. She knew he was right.

“If you tell me to stop again, I will. But you know as well as I do there’s no changing the truth. Even if we never act on the way we feel, this will always be here between us.”

She stiffened and, for a moment, Aaron thought he’d ruined his chance. His fingers froze on her foot. He sucked in a frustrated breath.

Her right hand twisted the flannel as she seemed to consider his words.

She met his gaze, her green eyes piercing, as if testing his merit, weighing his honor.
Trust me, Camille. Let me show you how we could be together.

With a nod, she slipped low in the chair and her knees fell open. It was sexy as hell.

Releasing the breath he’d been holding, he slid both thumbs along the arch. Her breath stuttered. Suppressing a smile, he concentrated on her foot, kneading and exploring, rolling each toe and sliding his index finger between them. She squirmed and purred softly, a response that ignited within Aaron something wholly atavistic. Before this night was over, every secret little place on her, previously ignored, was going to be branded by him.