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He watched the sexy sway of her backside as she moved ahead of him, the flex of muscles in her shoulders and back left bare by her halter top. He remembered running his fingers over those ridges and dips, following them with his lips and tongue. God, she was sexy, and so damn beautiful. He couldn’t believe she’d actuallyistened to him when he’d said she was built like a teenaged boy. Didn’t she have eyes? Couldn’t she see what he did?
She swatted at a bug, reached for a vine and carefully stepped over it, kept on going. And from where he stood, he almost thought he heard her . . . humming.
No, he realized, listening to the soft lilt of her voice. Fame and money and modeling aside, Lauren Kauffman was as different from Sylvia Grace as apples were from, well, crabapples.
Her humming stopped abruptly, her feet stilled on the path. But it was the squeal that slipped from her mouth that shocked Finn back to reality.
He pulled his gun from the small of his back and sprinted to catch up with her, his heart in his throat because he’d spaced out when he should have been paying attention. But when he reached her, he realized she wasn’t hurt or scared or in danger. She was smiling. Excitement illuminated her face and brought a sparkle to her eyes.
“Look,” she whispered, pointing through the trees toward what he now realized was a small river. She stepped forward.
“Slim, wait.”
She took off running, her flip-flops clacking against the soles of her feet. By the time he caught up with her, she was already tearing off her shirt and shimmying out of her skirt.
Holy hell. All he could do was watch as each inch of glowing skin came into view. He’d had his hands on that last night. Had run his fingers over that slim hip, had caressed those luscious breasts, had drawn his tongue over and around that sweet little belly button. His gaze slid lower. He swallowed back a rush of arousal. He’d tasted that. . .
She dropped the garments on the riverbank, kicked off the grimy flip-flops and didn’t even look back as she ran into the water and dropped down until all that was left was the tip-top of her golden head.
Common sense finally kicked in. He moved to the edge of the water and waited until she came back up. She emerged on her back, where she floated with her head reclined, water sliding down the curves of her naked flesh, making her skin sparkle like diamonds in the sunlight flittering through the treetops. “Okay, Slim. Get out of the water.”
“This feels so good,” she said, ignoring him as she let the current carry her downstream. “You should get in, Tierney. Cool off.”
No shit, he needed to cool off, but he doubted water was going to do the trick. He picked up her clothes and shoes, followed her down the riverbank so she didn’t float away from him. “You don’t know what’s in that water. There could be snakes, bugs . . . crocodiles.” Were there crocodiles in Mexico? Shit, he didn’t know.
“At this point I’m willing to take my chances.” Her eyes slid closed, and she moaned, the same sort of sound she’d made last night when he’d been deep inside her. “Oh, my God, Finn. This is heavenly.”
His blood warmed and his skin grew tight, but he pushed down the desire because what he needed was for her to get out of the damn water. “Slim, Archer’s waiting for us. We don’t have a lot of time to dick around here.”
“Yeah, okay. Just . . . a few more minutes.”
He clenched his jaw, stepped over a downed palm tree. The foliage on the edge of the river thickened, so he moved around a clump of mangrove. A crashing sound met his ears. For just a split second she was out of view. A scream cut through the hot, humid air.
Shit.
He raced around the treestopped on the edge of the river again, but Lauren had disappeared.
“Lauren!” He dropped her clothes, rushed into the river. The cool water reached his thighs. Heart in his throat, he pushed his free hand through the murky depths, searching for her. Laughter echoed from somewhere close.
He turned, looked ahead, realized that the river dropped and the crashing he’d heard was actually the rush of water over rocks. He pushed himself through the water toward the sound and stopped at the top of a fifteen-foot waterfall. Lauren looked up at him from the pool below, treading water with a smile on her famous face.
“Now that was a rush!” she hollered up at him. “Better than Blizzard Beach! Come on down!”
Holy shit, she was . . . She had to be kidding. She wanted him to . . .
He turned before he said something he knew he’d regret. Made it back to shore without losing his cool. Yanking her clothes from the rocks, he headed down the embankment toward the edge of the pool, water squishing in his shoes as he moved, muttering to himself about all the other, more important things he could be doing right now. Like pulling hostages out of a refugee camp, saving orphans from crime lords in South America, guarding a fucking president, for crying out loud.
He pushed through the palm fronds on the edge of the pool and found her floating in the middle of the lagoon, the tips of her breasts visible above the surface. She didn’t even seem to care that she’d just scared the shit out of him.
He stomped two feet into the water, worked like hell to keep his voice calm. “Get out of the water now, Slim.”
Her head popped up, and she shot a sassy smile his way. “I’ve still got the necklace, don’t worry.”
Like he cared about the damn necklace right now? His jaw clenched. “I’m not kid—”
“Oh, come on, Tierney. No one knows we’re here. You said yourself we weren’t followed. We’ve got time.”
That was true. But it didn’t mean they had time for screwing around. He needed to get her to safety sooner rather than later—if not for her sanity, then for his. “I’m not going to tell you again.”
