UndercoverSurrender (6 page)

He was one of the good guys. He knew he was. Undercover work
never confused that issue for him like it did sometimes with other guys.

So she had nothing to worry about from him, even if she
didn’t know it. He heard her rustling around in the bureau. This looked as if
it could even be her room, the soft blues and light woods more feminine than
the other cabins he’d noted when he searched.

“Can I go into the bathroom to change?” she asked stiffly
from behind him.

He had no idea what the layout of the can was and he didn’t
want to worry about casing it first just to make sure that there wasn’t a
porthole she could fit herself through. “Just put the dry clothes on. I can’t
see out of the back of my head. Don’t worry about it.”

A rustle of clothes accompanied his refusal and when he
heard nothing further, he turned back around. She was dressed in cargo shorts
that went to her knees and an oversized tee shirt so big she probably normally
slept in it. She had scraped her hair back into a tight ponytail as well,
undoubtedly in service to this notion that she was making herself unappealing
to him. It didn’t work. She still looked cute.

And he still wanted to fuck her. With a bed in such
proximity right there, of course he did.

But he wasn’t going to. How to convince her of that? Without
letting the others know. There would be no explaining tangling over her with
Gunderson and then not sleeping with her.

God, this was
so
a complication he didn’t need.
Pretty soon, the agents on
The Victory
would be picking up the
stragglers in the lifeboat and trying to figure out why he had let this whole
mission go so off course after a year under deep cover. He had to figure out
how to salvage this mess, and one doe-eyed girl could not get in his way.

First things first, though. She had her arms crossed over
her chest and was holding herself in such a brittle way she looked as if she
might snap with the tension of it.

He had to let her know he was on her side.

Without letting her know he was on her side, of course.

He tried the obvious, which happened to be true. “Look, I
don’t get off on a girl being scared.”

“Don’t you dare touch me!” she warned.

It was impossible not to crack a slight smile at that. The
odds were so far stacked against her, given their relative sizes and strengths
and her situation, at least as far as she knew, and she was still coming out
slugging. It was cute in a kittenish kind of way.

“That’s what I’m saying. I don’t intend to sleep with you.”

She looked at him suspiciously.

There was no other way than to be straightforward with
her—relatively straightforward anyway. “But I want the others to think we are.
That’s the only way I can keep them away from you. If they think I’ve claimed
you and will kill anyone who touches you.”

“You’ve already done that. Killed someone.”

He smiled. “So my credibility is pretty good at this point.”

She stared back stone faced.

He supposed he couldn’t expect her to feel as little empathy
for that psychopath Gunderson as he did. He should show some remorse for
sending another man to a watery grave, if for no other reason than to reassure
her he was human.

But unfortunately, he couldn’t quite summon up any. He
wasn’t that good an actor. Gunderson had deserved to die, long ago, and he was
just sorry if in giving him his just deserts sooner than planned he had screwed
up the mission.

“So anyway, as far as the rest of the crew is concerned, it
would help if it looked like you’d made your peace with the idea that you’re my
exclusive property.”

Her lips pursed. She was probably suppressing her natural
twenty-first-century-woman objection to the notion of being any man’s property.
Not to mention making peace with the concept of sleeping with her kidnapper.

“So I need to, ah, touch you when they’re around. As if I’m,
er…”

“I get the idea. Why?”

Again with the suspicious look, specifically at the damned
erection he couldn’t seem to lose right now, try as he might.

“I told you. To reinforce the idea that you’re mine.”

“I know that. But why the charade? Why are you supposedly
leaving me alone? Are you gay?” she asked, as if there was some kind of version
of gay that contemplated getting a hard-on with a woman but not wanting to use
it. Which he supposed there probably was.

“Not exactly.”

“That’s not an approximate thing as far as I know. You are
or you aren’t.”

Now that they were alone, she was bolder than he would’ve
thought she’d be under the circumstances. Rich girls apparently didn’t take
much crap, kidnapping or no kidnapping.

“No, I’m not gay.”

She hadn’t asked about bi since presumably that wouldn’t
preclude him sleeping with her, but he offered it anyway.

“I’m not bi either.” He sat on the bed, since he didn’t know
what else to do. “Just plain old, you know, straight, I guess you’d say. But as
I said, I don’t get off on it if a woman is scared of me.”

“So are you, like, relying on that Stockholm Syndrome thing?
Where I fall in love with my captor? Because that is so not going to happen,
buddy.”

“Thanks for the warning.”

“You lay one finger on me and—”

“What?” He couldn’t have her not playing along, or at least
being scared enough of not playing along as to make it believable. Distasteful
as having her scared of him was, it was better than having her gang-raped and
then probably killed because his cover was blown. “Let’s be clear here. If I
wanted to, you’d be right next to me on this bed, on your back with your legs
in the air in two seconds and there’s nothing you could do to stop me. I’m
sorry. That’s just how it is.”

She looked a little defeated at the observation. “Okay,” she
conceded. “I get it. You’re bigger than me. You could overpower me. But you
don’t want to.” She didn’t bother to look down at his hard-on that time. They
both knew what she meant.

“Not with my big head, I don’t. Not under these
circumstances.”

“So you
are
trying to convince me you’re a good guy.
Forget it.”

He bounced up from the bed and crowded her, to put a little
punch into his words. “I couldn’t give a shit what you think of me. I’m just
trying to keep you from getting raped by the rest of the crew here. Okay? Can
we at least agree on that objective?”

Suddenly, she was holding the tiniest pair of scissors he’d
ever seen up to his throat. “I’d throw in keeping me from getting raped by
you
as well.”

He sighed and the pathetic little tip of the clippers
pressed harder against his skin.

“Don’t move a muscle,” she warned.

He had to hand it to her. She had guts. Idiotic guts, but
guts.

“Really?” He asked. “You’re
really
going to threaten
me with Barbie’s manicuring kit?”

Shaking his head, he batted the scissors out of the way with
next to no effort. She looked surprised as they dropped to the floor, so light
they didn’t even make a sound on impact, and, after a second, she dove to try
to retrieve them. But he grabbed her arm, hauling her back to her feet. He
shook her a little as she struggled wildly, trying to free herself. “Hey. Stop.
Cut that out.”

When she wouldn’t listen, he flung her on the bed and
climbed on top of her, easily overpowering her, stretching her arms out above
her. He had to make her see how vulnerable she was so she wouldn’t try a stunt
like that again and most especially not try it with somebody else on this boat.

“You like this feeling?”

She continued to struggle and he distributed his weight so
she was rendered completely immobile, her only movement now her heavy panting
as she stared up at him. Her eyes, only inches from his own, conveyed loathing
pretty well and maybe, just maybe, a touch of fear finally.

He’d have to make this quick, since he doubted she could
breathe too easily in this position. “You like being this helpless? Do you?”

She shook her head no.

“’Cause that’s what you are. Helpless. Completely helpless
if you try to pit yourself against me or any one of these guys. That was a
stupid trick and don’t you dare do anything like that again.”

“Or what?” she spat out.

Well, now that was a tough one. He supposed he could use the
multipurpose “or else”. Instead he settled on the truth. “Or you might just get
yourself killed.”

She harrumphed.

“Are we clear on this?”

At her sullen nod, he leaned off her and moved a little to
the side so that she didn’t bear the full brunt of his weight. He noticed
uncomfortably that she took a deep breath. He still held her hands over her
head, though.

“What’s your name anyway?”

He almost thought she wouldn’t tell him, but then she said,
“Samantha.”

“Samantha, eh?
The
Samantha? You have a whole luxury
yacht named after you? Your father must love you a lot.”

She said nothing.

“Well, Samantha, I’m Vik. And what you need to do, what we
both need to do right now, is chill out. Okay?”

For all that this girl had been in the middle of a cruise in
the South Seas, her skin was creamy and white, with hardly a tan at all, just a
flush of pink along her high cheekbones. Lovely.

He cleared his throat and rolled off her completely on to
his side, letting go of her hands. “So what’s your last name?”

She took in another audible breath, as if each move he took
away from her allowed her to breathe a little more. “Reynolds. My father is
Damien Reynolds.”

Oh shit.

Could this day get any worse?

“
The
Damien Reynolds? As in Reynolds Industries? As
in former ambassador to—”

“Yes. That’s my father,” she said, almost belligerently.

Fabulous. Now he knew he was probably screwed. Damien
Reynolds would undoubtedly board
The Victory
any time now, and then use
his considerable influence to get a team of Navy SEALs out here to nab back his
daughter. And blow Vik’s cover in the process. And that would be the end of
trying to find the source of this whole sex trafficking operation. They’d
arrest everybody on the boat and he would never find out who was really behind
all this. Who that bastard Gunderson’s boss had been. A year down the drain.

“My father’s probably out there right now mustering the
troops to rescue me. I mean, assuming he’s been picked up by now.”

If he hadn’t been picked up by now, he would be soon all
right. Vik was sure of it.

“You should tell your friends they picked the wrong girl to
kidnap.”

About to tell her to shut the fuck up, he heard the little
hiccup at just the last minute. She was showing more bravado than she felt. She
was probably still scared to death.

“I think you may be right about that.” He punched the
super-soft pillow.

All he could do now was just wait to see how this all turned
out. And try to keep her safe in the meantime. He could do that at least. Even
if it meant that thousands of young girls just like her, only too poor to have
Daddies who could save them, would continue to be sold into the kind of sexual
slavery he was trying to keep her safe from.

“Anyway, we can’t leave the cabin for at least an hour or so
since we’re supposed to be, ah, otherwise occupied. Then, when we do leave the
cabin, we’ll take a turn around the boat just to further emphasize you’re mine.
Eventually, you may be able to go around on your own, but not for now. For now,
you don’t leave this locked cabin unless I’m at your side. Got it?”

The girl—Samantha, he reminded himself—watched him
wordlessly. “
Eventually
,” she finally said.

“Until I can figure out what to do with you.”

“I thought you were going to ransom me. Isn’t that what you
said?”

“Yeah, that’s what I said. But it’s not high on my radar
right now. I do want to get you off this boat and back to safety as soon as I
can, though. I can’t have you in the middle of all this.”

Samantha’s natural curiosity got the best of her. Or maybe
she merely wanted to keep him talking so that the position they were in, lying
side by side on a bed, didn’t get his full attention. “In the middle of what?
Who are you people? What are you doing?”

“We’re pirates, I guess you’d say. This crew targets
yachts.”

“Yeah, I got that part of the puzzle on my own.”

He rolled over, on to his back, staring at the ceiling. And
then, incredibly, his eyes closed. “I’m going to rest, but I’m a very light
sleeper. If you try to get off the bed, I’ll wake up.”

She stirred, starting to sit up. “Can’t I just get up and
wait on the stool over there while you, er, rest?”

Not opening his eyes, he yanked her back down and muttered,
“No.”

She lay stiffly next to him, keeping a watchful eye on him
as she scooted slightly over. Stretched out on the bed that she had always
thought of as plenty big enough before, he made it look small. She’d never had
a guy on the yacht before—Daddy was old-fashioned about stuff like that—but she
doubted Justin or any of her other old boyfriends would have made the bed look
so puny. He was huge, this Vik, much taller than her own five-foot-eight, with
broad shoulders and flat abs even when he wasn’t lying down as he was now. His
shirt was off, showing those flat, muscled abs, but he hadn’t bothered with his
boots, military-like lace-ups, which must be pretty uncomfortable. Eyes closed,
both his hands pillowing the back of his head, he apparently took a well-needed
rest from his life of crime and mayhem.

The bedside lamp was still bright from when she had flicked
it on a million years ago as dusk settled on the yacht. She found some small
comfort in the fact that he hadn’t made her switch it off.

She watched her captor, unable to tear her eyes away. She
supposed she should be grateful he seemed to be in her corner—“seemed” being
the operative word though.