Out of Control (56 page)
Jones cut him off. “Amazing what a man will do to get laid.”
“Amazing what a man who’s in love will do,” Jaya countered.
“Yeah, well, I wouldn’t know about that. What’s new?” He changed the subject as, keeping his eyes on Jaya, he got the money—local currency only—to pay him.
“Couple of Americans lost in the jungle,” Jaya told him. “A woman and a man. Seen ’em?”
He looked the other man in the eye. “No.”
“Rumor has it they’re carrying a lot of money.”
Jones shrugged. “Rumors have been wrong before.”
Jaya smiled. With his skinny face, it made him look ghoulish. “Rumor has it the woman is worth millions.”
Millions. Jones kept his face carefully expressionless. Perpetually disbelieving.
“General Badaruddin was told she’s some kind of royalty,” Jaya said.
“Great, except America doesn’t have royalty,” Jones pointed out as he slapped the money into Jaya’s hand.
The Indonesian man counted it carefully. “If you see them, the Americans, the general’s offering a hundred-dollar reward.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” Jones unlocked his door again, and Jaya slipped out.
He relocked the door, but didn’t turn off the light. He sat down at his table with a bottle of warm beer, thinking about the money that was no longer buried in the jungle outside. No, he’d dug up the attaché case this afternoon and took out the cash, putting it into a duffle bag—easier to carry—and bringing it into his Quonset hut for safekeeping. It was hidden inside the packing craft upon which the box with the alternator rested.
He’d counted it.
Inside that duffle, there was two hundred and seventeen thousand dollars.
As Jones drank his beer, he thought about what a man could do with money like that. He thought about how long it would take him—once there was some small amount of daylight to work in—to get the Cessna ready to fly.
And he thought about Molly.
Who was leaving for Africa in less than a month.
“We can’t fall asleep like this,” Kenny whispered. He was running his hand up and down and up and down Savannah’s bare back and it felt decadently delicious.
Her head was on his shoulder, her legs straddling his hips. It shouldn’t have been all that comfortable, but it was. “I’m okay,” she murmured.
“I’m still inside you,” he said.
“I noticed.”
“That’s not good.”
“Speak for yourself.”
Ken laughed. She loved the sound of his laughter. “Let me rephrase. It’s dangerous, unless you want to get pregnant.”
“I do.” She paused. “Someday.” She lifted her head and kissed him on the side of his face. “Scared you for a minute there, didn’t I?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Not really. I’d love to have sex with you without a condom.” He paused. “Want to get married?”
Savannah’s heart skipped a beat, but she laughed because he was obviously joking. “That would go over really well with my parents. ‘Hey, Mom and Dad. Meet my new husband—Wildcard Karmody . . .’ Do you have a tattoo?”
“Yeah.”
“Really?”
“No, I’m lying to you, Savannah. Jesus.”
“It’s kind of dark in here.”
“I’m deeply hurt that you don’t remember.” He kissed her, clearly not hurt at all.
“Where is it?” she asked. “What is it?”
“A two of hearts,” he told her. “You know, like a playing card. A wild card. Upper arm. Right. And—”
“You have two?”
“Yes, Miss Highly Observant. Miss Capable of Four Orgasms in One Hour But Can’t Seem to Notice Her Extremely Virile and Competent Lover’s Physical Characteristics, I also have a frog. On my ass. Don’t ask.”
She giggled. “Excellent. ‘Mom, Dad, this is Wildcard Karmody and—’ Do people really call you that? Wildcard?”
“Yes.”
“Really?”
He laughed. “Yes.”
“Is that weird?”
“No, I like it. I don’t really think of myself as WildCard, you know, I’m still twelve-year-old Kenny-the-dork in my head, but if they want to call me that . . . It’s a compliment that I’ll gladly accept.”
“ ‘He’s got two tattoos,’ “ Savannah continued. “ ‘One’s a frog on his ass—and we got married because he wanted to have sex without a condom.’ It’s almost as good as the reason Priscilla wants me to get married—because dear Vlad has a title. He’s actually a count.”
“Being a count is almost as good as having a frog on your ass,” Kenny told her. “But not quite.”
Savannah laughed. “Kenny, I—” She stopped herself, uncertain about what she’d been intending to say. I love you? She had no clue how he would react to that news. And what they had right now was so good, she didn’t want to screw it up.
“What?” he asked.
“Can I see you when we get back home?” she said instead.
“Well, yeah, it’s going to be kind of hard for you not to see me if we’re getting married, right?”
She lifted herself slightly off him. “No, seriously.”
“Seriously, I have to clean up, Van, because I will be goddamned if I get you pregnant without the complete whistles-and-bells, no-condom fun.”
Savannah scrambled off him, searching in the darkness for her clothes. “Why is there a frog tattooed onto your posterior?”
He laughed. “Because I went out drinking with some of my classmates right after we officially became SEALs, and we all got a frog tattooed onto our posteriors.”
She slipped into her shorts and shirt. “Not a SEAL?”
“You can come back now,” he said, so she settled against him. “Clothes?” He sounded disappointed.
“Bugs,” she explained.
“Frog because the granddaddy of the SEAL was the Navy Frogman. Our posteriors because believe it or not the Navy frowns upon tattoos and we figured the COs wouldn’t notice ’em there. And seriously there’s nothing I’d love more than to keep seeing you when we get back home. But this is probably where I should give my warning about how completely I suck at long-distance relationships and how I swore I’d never get involved long distance again.”
“Well,” Savannah said slowly. “There are probably lots of options in between ‘we have a long distance relationship’ and ‘we have no relationship at all.’ “
“Yeah,” he said. “Sure. But . . . I’m a SEAL, so I’m gone a lot.”
Well, that was none too encouraging.
“It’s not easy on girlfriends and wives. And it’s not going to change. I mean, I’m not leaving the team. Not in the near future, anyway. You know, I’ve had job offers—good ones, too—but I love what I do and I’m going to do it for as long as I can.”
“I would never even consider asking you to do something like leave the SEALs,” Savannah said quietly. “That’s not one of the options I was thinking of.” She kissed him. “What did your father think when you became a SEAL?”
“And she changes the subject,” Ken said. He sighed. “Maybe you should consider a career change—from lawyer to therapist. Because you get me to tell you things I never tell anyone. And, like, I’m eager to tell you. What’s up with that?”
“You like telling me things because you think that’ll make me want to have sex with you,” she reminded him. “And it works, remember?”
Ken laughed. “Right. My father came to BUD/S graduation,” he said. “All the way out to Coronado. And afterwards he comes up to me and he says, ‘How come you’re not an officer?’ “
“Oh!” Savannah said. “Let me at him! Good thing he’s dead, or I’d kill him!”
“It was okay.” Kenny kissed her. “I’d realized a long time before that, that this was my life. I didn’t join the SEALs so that my father would be proud of me. I joined so that I would be proud of me. I did it for me.”
Savannah kissed him back, and the spark that was always right beneath the surface in everything they did leapt into flame. But all he did was kiss her and kiss her. Slowly, lazily, deeply. God, he was a good kisser. And just when she thought she couldn’t take anymore, he took off her clothes and put on a condom and . . .
And then it wasn’t much longer before they were right back where they’d been when they’d first started talking.
She heard him smile in the darkness.
“Five,” he whispered.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Seventeen
Ken awoke to find Savannah gazing down at him. “Hey,” he said, smiling as a series of extremely vivid memories from the night before flashed through his head. He was instantly alert, instantly happy, instantly wanting more. Except he could see her face. He sat up. “Shit, how long has it been light?”
“For a while, I think.”
They had to get moving. It was kind of weird, being able to see her, to finally be able to look into her eyes after everything they’d done last night. He knew he was grinning like a fool, and she was smiling back at him.
“Last night was amazing,” he said.
She nodded. She’d gotten dressed—in an attempt to keep the bugs at bay that was more psychologically effective than anything else. “For me, too.”
He kissed her, looking into her eyes right until the very last split second before their mouths met. Oh, yeah. She wanted him again, nearly as much as he wanted her. And, God, the idea of making love in the daylight, while he could see her, while he could hold her gaze, was pretty damn compelling.
“I can’t get enough of you,” she breathed.
Oh, yeah. “We don’t have to leave right away,” he decided. “I mean, what’s another thirty minutes, right?” He reached for the buttons on her shirt.
But she pulled away from him. “I have to go to the bathroom.”
He gestured to the corner of the blind. “I’ll dig you a hole.”
He could see from her face that that was not the response she’d hoped to hear.
“I won’t watch,” he told her.
“Oh, God, that’s just too weird.”
“What’s weird? Big deal. I did it—must’ve been right before dawn—while you were still asleep.”
“Kenny, it’s a miracle I can go to the bathroom in the woods at all.” She started moving a few branches. “I’ll just slip out and find a nice big fern to hide behind and slip back in here. And then . . .”
She smiled and unspoken promises hung in the very air around him.
“Go,” he said. “But be fast and stay close.”
Molly woke up alone and feeling blue.
It was stupid. She’d been sleeping by herself for most of her life. It didn’t make sense that one night spent with Jones’s arms around her should rattle her routine so completely.
She dressed quickly, humming while she did so, trying to lift her dragging spirits.
It was Angie’s turn to cook, and Molly greeted her with a smile as she helped herself to a bowl of fruit. “Where is everyone today?”
“Father Bob took the boat down river to the falls to perform a funeral service. One of the Montemarano children died. We think it was blood poisoning.”
Molly closed her eyes. “I should have gone with him.”
“He left early this morning.” She opened her eyes to see Billy pouring himself a cup of coffee. “He didn’t want to wake you.”
“He should have,” she said.
“Guess he thought you needed the sleep after staying out all night, huh?”
Molly put down her bowl with a thump. “If you have some problem either with me or with something I’ve done, Billy, talk to me. Don’t passive-aggressive me to death.”
Billy put down his coffee. “You slept with Jones.”
“Yes. Thanks for your concern, but I’m well aware of any potential complications.”
Angie pretended to be fascinated by the vegetables she was cutting for the lunchtime salad.
Billy took a step toward her. “I am concerned, Molly. None of us know this guy—”
“I know him,” she said.
Billy wasn’t concerned, he was jealous, but Molly let him pretend he was on the high road. It was just as well.
“He’s a smuggler and a thief and God knows what else.”
“Yes,” she said. “God does know what else. He’s a good man, and I’m completely in love with him.” Well, that was much more than she’d intended to reveal to anyone, and Billy, bless him, somehow knew it. Maybe it was from the way her eyes suddenly filled with tears.
“Oh, Molly,” he said, and there was real sympathy, genuine kindness in his eyes. He held out his arms to her, and she went into his embrace.
“What am I going to do?” she asked. “I’m supposed to leave in just a few weeks and I don’t want to go.”
“So maybe you don’t leave,” he suggested. “Maybe you stay.” He kissed the top of head. “I wish it was me. I’m sorry for being such a jealous shithead.”
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