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After they ate and readied their stuff, she cuddled up to him. He moved to his uninjured side with a grimace. Her body wanted him, and she couldn’t deny it. He was hurt and really needed his rest. “I wish you hadn’t been shot.”
“Not more than I do,” he whispered, the tension intolerable between them. “I want you so badly right now.”
She closed her eyes, nodding, her breath rushing out. “Same,” she said, trying to inhale past the sudden unbearable pain in her chest.
He caressed her arm slowly, soothingly. “It’s going to be okay, Jack. Trust me.”
She longed to run her hands over his body, to lose herself in his arms, but instead, she whispered brokenly, “I do trust you. It’s Ramos who scares me—and the lengths he’ll go to get to me.”
Clenching his jaw, his eyes welded on her, immobilizing her with that delicious intensity in him. His hand was unsteady as he touched her face, then slowly, so slowly brushed back a strand of her hair. “He’ll have to come through me, Jack,” he said, his voice a tortured whisper. “I promise you.”
A low sob slipped out, the galvanizing love she had for him so intense that it drove the air out of her and set her trembling even more violently. He covered her mouth with the kind of kiss that was so sweet and so comforting. Then, their mouths moved frantically, hot and searching. A shudder coursed through him, and he whispered her name over and over. A hoarse sound of need as he kept her close to him.
When he broke the kiss, she buried her face in his neck, his chest heaving, simply fighting for rationality like she was. She clung to him until his breathing evened out and he fell asleep.
Him going against Ramos. That was her biggest fear of all.
* * *
Shark was dozing lightlyin the back of the troop truck, feeling rough and raw. Juan had turned up yesterday, and Ramos had been livid when he’d told the man he’d lost them in the mist and wandered for some time.
Shark was content to know that Easy had received medical attention, pulled through okay, and was still planning on taking Crazy Choos to the rendezvous. Tex and the team were ready, and they would come together at zero dark thirty.
Ramos’s phone rang, and he answered it. The flimsy covering between the cab and the rear of the truck let Shark hear every word.
“Falk,” Ramos said, and Shark startled fully awake, sitting up in the back. Men were sleeping all around him. “You know where the woman is?”
Falk…that tickled his memory cells. Falk…as in Mitchum Falk? The PAY-TV president? What did he have to do with Jack’s arrest and incarceration?
“How dare you question my competence when your government is helping her.” There was silence. “Of course, you don’t have control, especially with mewling weaklings like Kyle Nost,” he said, his condescending tone vicious. “Sí, Sí, I will find her. Tell me where she is.” Another break in the conversation. “Maria Dorado?El Vigia. Yes, I can get that information.” He laughed softly. “Don’t worry, I’ll make sure she never sees the light of day again.”
Shark rose and exited the troop truck on the pretense of taking a leak. In the cover of the forest, he called Tex and told him about the conversation.
Then he called Easy and told him to get the hell out ofEl Vigia.
15
Easy was tornbetween just facing down the bastard Ramos, and leaving Maria and her children unprotected when he showed up. He sighed. Tactically that would be suicide. There were way too many troops.
When he’d woken up, the pain in his side wasn’t bearable, but now that he’d swallowed the first of his MS15 tabs, he barely felt a twinge, even though he was well aware he had a serious injury.
Shark assured him he would be there when they got to Maria’s small townhouse.
Since she didn’t know anything, and she could deny they were even there, it should be all right. He had to trust Shark to handle the situation. The danger they had put Maria in was on them, as was their doctor friend whose car they were currently in, heading toward the Catatumbo. The doctor had already secured them a boat that would take them up the river toward the exfil point to get them out of here, across the lake and into the Caribbean Sea then finally back to Curaçao and a C-130 ride to the States.
Now that they were getting close to leaving Venezuela, Easy felt the tug of losing touch with Jack. He hadn’t been kidding when he’d said he cared about her. He felt the pressure of time and the inevitable goodbye. Saying goodbye to her—that wasn’t something he wanted to do. But he had to be realistic. She lived in Texas, and he was in Virginia, deployed so often that even a long-distance relationship would be challenging. Not to mention, she had a lot to deal with once she got back to the States now that she was aware her company had been behind her bogus arrest and incarceration. The State Department had been notified, along with the FBI, and they were already putting a case together.
“You must be careful around this area. There is bandit activity with robbery and kidnappings,” Dr. Castillo said. “I won’t ask you where you are going, but beyond the river on the western side is devoid of civilization. It’s a deep jungle, but there are no dangerous animals, except caimans on the river. But due to conservation, they get really big.”
“Thanks, Doc. I’ve been traversing deep jungles for some time. I’ve got it covered.” The jeep powered up a steep hill. Around them, the forest was a blanket of rolling green, the air thin and the jungle so dense he could barely see a few feet beyond the road.
He nodded. “You recover fast, but those stitches are still fresh. You really needed another two weeks of rest at least, but I understand your predicament.” He looked into the rearview to the back seat where Jack was sitting. She was subdued and quiet. He wasn’t sure if it was because they were heading into some rough terrain, she was worried about him, or she was stewing over PAY-TV’s betrayal.
“She is a lovely woman. Do take care of her.”
Easy looked over at the older man. “I plan to.” Her beauty still affected him, even when she had been more of a princess of dirt and grime. While he watched her, she frowned, then looked somewhat pensive. She was such a jumble of virtues and flaws, but most people were. His heart had damn near melted out of his chest when she’d handed those Jimmy Choos over to Maria and at her statement of how they weren’t important anymore. She’d decided to validate herself, and that was a huge growth from that woman in the cell who had refused to leave without those shoes. Those shoes were no longer tied up with her identity. That was so damned admirable.
He wanted to stick close to her. Wanted to know this woman better in ways that had nothing to do with getting her into bed and everything to do with getting more intimate than they’d ever been before. It was a dangerous path to pursue. Mostly because, rather than hope time with her would diminish her appeal, thereby giving him the eventual easy exit he would have pursued in his past, he was hoping a better understanding of her would give him a clue as to what to do about his already impossible attraction to her. No matter what happened between them, he doubted there was going to be anything easy about any of it.
