Hunt Her Down (30 page)

don’t know who they are or why they want us here. Hell, Viejo could have orchestrated this

for revenge.”

He put his gun and phone down, then stretched out next to Maggie. “The view’s nice, I’ll

give you that.”

“The colors keep changing,” she said. “First it was a muted peach, then it was fiery

tangerine, and now it’s a soft, ripe plum.”

“Someone’s hungry.” He twisted around to grab the bag and dug for some protein bars and

two bottles of water. “Pretend it’s peaches, plums, and tangerines.” He gave her a warm smile

and in response got . . . tears? “Hey, what’s the matter?”

“I miss my son.”

He nodded, giving her arm a rub. “I bet you do.”

“I mean, when I look at you. He has so many of your expressions. Funny, how those are

genetic and not just picked up arbitrarily.”

He did his best quintessential teenager impression. “Dude, that’s, like, so tight.”

She laughed and unwrapped a protein bar, leaning back to gaze at the natural beauty around

them. “What did you and Quinn talk about when I left the media room?”

Not a thing. The kid was locked up and the key’d been tossed. But there was no reason to

upset Maggie by sharing that. “I told him that Max was going to let him drive the Testarossa

in an empty parking lot later in the day.”

Her mouth dropped open. “Wow. I bet that perked him up.”

Not enough. “I believe he said ‘cool.’ Then we just talked about the movie. How we both

fast-forward through the face-sucking scenes. His words, not mine.”

“He didn’t always skip through those parts,” she said as she broke off a piece of the bar. “A

few years ago, when we had ‘the talk’ and I explained what a man and a woman do when they

are in love, you know what he said? ‘Oh, so that’s what Maverick’s doing to the instructor.’ “

That made him laugh hard. “So it was up to you to tell him the facts of life, huh?”

“As well as I could. A few of the guys at the bar might be augmenting my efforts. I found a

Penthouse
in his room, and I know where he got it because one of my regular customers

quotes that magazine like it’s the last word on human behavior.”

“Must be tough, doing that all alone.”

She shrugged. “We’re muddling along.”

“You’re doing more than muddling, Maggie. You know he’s a good kid.”

“He’s moody and, in case you hadn’t noticed, he’s mad at me right now.” She rolled up the

protein bar paper with her last bite, tucking the trash in a side pocket of his bag. “He doesn’t

like change. Even temporary.”

“That’s not a trait I can take any credit or blame for. I live for change.” He pulled her closer

to lay her head down on his thighs. “Here, get comfortable and watch the show.”

“So you get bored easily.” There was the faintest note of accusation in her voice. “Is that

why you’ve never settled down?”

“That’s why I do what I do for a living,” he told her, stroking her hair. “Every few weeks or

months, a new country, a new principal, a new assignment.”

“A new woman.”

He caressed her cheek softly, the smooth olive skin warm under his finger. “That could

change.”

As soon as he said it, and her pulse kicked, he waited for regret. The last thing he needed to

do was give false promises to the one woman he’d already hurt more than any other.

But oddly, he didn’t regret saying anything to Maggie. So he just cradled her head and

lifted her face, bending over to kiss her forehead. Then her cheeks. Finally, her mouth. She

rose up partially sitting, deepening the kiss to a natural, warm exchange. Not sexual, just

intimate.

When she broke the kiss, he cuddled her into his chest and rested his forehead against hers.

“Why do you live for change?” she asked. “Something in your past?”

“Sorry—no torturous memories, no bleak childhood. I had decent parents, a cool sister.

Well, she’s a pain, but we’re close. I grew up in Pittsburgh, had Roper as my best pal, aced my

way through Penn State, the FBI, and the Bullet Catchers. It’s all good.” So why was intimacy

difficult, while the sex was so easy?

“I have enough mess for both of us,” she said dryly. “But maybe that’s why you like

change. Everything comes too easily for you.”

“I do like a challenge,” he said. “Don’t get enough of them.”

Behind her, the flash was so bright, Maggie whipped around with a quick intake of breath,

turning just in time to see a fiery red-orange spark electrify the entire sky, followed by a

millisecond of incandescent light that bathed the blackness in a shock of white.

The Catatumbo lightning.

“There’s no thunder,” Dan said, wrapping his arms around her waist, her back to his chest

so they could watch together. “And that’s a blessing, because if a boat comes anywhere near

us, even rowed, I need to hear it.”

In seconds, it happened again, more dramatic because the color was magenta, and the white

light bounced between two clouds as if the gods were tossing it back and forth.

“I’ve never seen anything so majestic,” she said.

“You probably think it’s a sign.”

She chuckled. “You know, I didn’t even think of that. What I think is that if we have to be

stuck in the middle of a lake, it can’t get any better than this.”

“Oh, it could get better.” His lower half stirred, already well aroused. He slid his fingers

under her T-shirt and touched the warm, sweat-dampened flesh of her belly. “Much better.”

With a sweet sigh of consent, she tilted her head, offering him her neck. Her curls had long

ago been tied up in her little palm-tree ponytail, and he trailed a few kisses along the tender

flesh, enjoying how that made her stomach muscles clench and goose bumps flourish on her

back.

He glided his hands upward, closer to her breasts. She turned her head to get to his mouth.

Meeting her lips, he flicked the front catch of her bra and captured her breasts in his palms.

Her tiny, budded nipples made heat shoot straight down to where his erection pressed into her

backside.

“I’ve always loved your breasts,” he said, adoring them with his hands, circling and

tweaking her nipples.

“You once told me they were small but mighty. I must have used that description a hundred

times.”

“Did you think of me when you did?”

“Yes.” She arched, pressing more flesh into his hands and more pressure on his hard-on.

More lightning flashed in black cherry strobes, followed by jagged white slashes in the sky.

Electricity crackled as she turned to face him, their tongues curling, fusing, fighting with the

same spark that lit the sky.

“When you thought of me,” he said, her ass in his hands as she straddled him and wrapped

her legs around his hips, “was it ever anything good?”

She smiled wickedly. “Yes. It was.”

Intrigued, his hands stilled. “Really? What?”

She toyed with the bottom of her T-shirt, whispering, “I’m hot.” She pulled her top over her

head, taking the bra with it, then leaning back to slay him with a full view her twin peaks,

rosy and damp and just heavy enough to make him want to close his mouth over one, then the

other.

“I used you right back.”

For a moment, he wasn’t sure what she meant. “You used me?”

“Later. For fantasies. For pleasure.” She grazed her breasts with light fingertips, torturing

him with the image.

His mouth went bone dry as he watched her twirl her nipple between her finger and thumb,

her eyes shuttering momentarily.

“What did you think about?” His voice was barely a rasp.

“You. Us. What we did.”

The clouds flared again, electric purple pulses that lasted for five or six suspended seconds,

just long enough for Maggie to reach up and whip the elastic out of her hair and shake her

curls over her shoulders. She kneeled, her eyes sparking like the lightning, her body lithe and

damp and perfect, her fingers already at work undressing herself.

As fast as the last flash of lightning, she went to the back of the hut, picking up the

hammock canvas.

He just watched her move, mesmerized, still half in shock that she had fantasies about him,

half in lust over the sexiness of her naked body. She spread the canvas on the floor and

kneeled on it. “Come here.”

He did, kneeling right in front of her. “What do you fantasize about, Maggie?” He reached

to kiss her, but she ducked away from his touch.

“Something I’ve only ever done with you.” She tugged the tie of his camo pants, pushing

them down to reveal his erection. She dragged the pants over his thighs, then pushed him to

stand up. He did, taking a quick scan of the water and horizon from every direction. A

blinding yellow bolt careened across the sky and water as she closed her mouth over him.

His back arched at the first sensation of her tongue.

She gave him a quick look upward, her dark eyes wide as she released him from between

her lips. “This is how I come. Every time.”

She dropped her head and bent over him. How
she
came?

He braced for the impact of her mouth again, but she didn’t take him. Instead, she blew a

cool breath over his hot skin, eliciting a drop of creamy liquid on the head. He could only see

her thick waves, her profile from above, dark lashes brushing over her flushed cheeks, her

tongue flicking out to take a sweet lick of his flesh. Then she cupped his sac with one hand

and used her finger to stroke the smooth skin between. He hissed in a breath, groaned it out.

“You love that,” she said, knowing.

“Yeah.” Enough to die if she stopped.

She quickened her touch, slamming more blood into his cock.
This
was her fantasy? The

way she pleasured herself? Then she swiped her tongue over the head, and every remaining

drop of blood in his body coursed to the fiery spot where she licked him.

She pressed a kiss on his shaft, then fluttered her tongue and lips down the sensitive vein

that she’d long ago discovered.

He gripped her shoulders and held on for the ride of insane, indescribable pleasure as she

feathered kisses and licks along the length of him. “Maggie.”

She lifted her head and looked up at him. His fingers knotted into her hair. “This can’t be

your fantasy, baby.”

She smiled. “We’re just starting. It gets better.”

She closed her mouth over him, sliding her palm down his shaft while the head sank deeper

into her velvet-soft mouth, her teeth scraping just lightly enough to make him drop his head

back, eyes closed, balls tight, willpower gone.

She sucked lightly, then a little harder, faster, bringing him right to the edge of control.

Then she stopped.

He let out a groan of disappointment, but she took his hands and pulled him down to the

floor with her. “You know what happens next in my fantasy?”

He kissed her, tasting his salt, licking it off her tongue and giving it back. “Yes.”

Reaching for her, he kissed her as he laid them down on the scratchy cloth, the colors of the

sky changing in a frenzy of red and orange and pure white flashes all around them.

“How often did you think about this and touch yourself?” he asked, stroking her cheek.

“A lot.”

He was glad he hadn’t completely robbed her of happiness all those years ago. “So you

didn’t always hate me.”

“I didn’t hate this memory. Now stop talking, and make it real for me.”

He kissed his way down her body at a leisurely rate, despite the ache in his balls that made

him want to get there faster. He took his time suckling her breasts, licking the concave of her

stomach. Finally, he spread her thighs gently and placed his very first kiss on the wet, warm

center of her womanhood.

She melted under him, letting out a soft moan of pure pleasure, spreading her legs and

lifting herself into him. He swirled his tongue, sliding up and down the slit, his mouth

covering her mound, his hands closed over her tensed thighs.

She urged him on with her fingers on his shoulders, responding to every sensation but

definitely wanting more.

He turned head to foot so his body was opposite her, sliding one of her thighs over his

cheek, positioning himself so that she could reach his shaft.

She opened her mouth and drew him in, so deeply that he had to stop tonguing her, to let

the wave of insane pleasure roll over him.

Under his lips, her clitoris thrummed. Blood raced through his veins as fast as the nonstop

lightning, molten and furious, his senses torn between the savage pleasure erupting in his

body and the delicious taste and feel of her in his mouth.

This was her fantasy.
He
was her fantasy. All those years, all those nights she was alone.

For a second he stopped, breathing hard against her womanhood, helpless, lost, close to the

brink. He thought of her many, many times, too, but no fantasy was as good as this.

She sucked harder, her fists wrapped around the base, squeezing, pulling, stealing his

orgasm.

He slammed his mouth back on her, annihilating her with his tongue over and over, until

she bucked against him and he shot into her mouth with mind-numbing intensity.

Their bodies shuddered and her heart galloped so hard he could practically feel the blood

rush through her whole body. Slowly, she pulled her mouth off of him.

“I have to kiss you.” he said, already turning to get faceto-face. He did, the juice of his