UndercoverSurrender (15 page)

He made a thorough survey of this second room and then the
bathroom, which was really more of an outhouse. There was no one else here. “He
was probably their dinner,” he observed as the mutt licked her nose and she
shot him a scowl, putting the puppy down.

“What now?” she asked.

“For now, I need to bury the bodies, and then we figure out
the next step.”

Luckily, the rain-drenched ground was soft enough that, with
the help of the shovel he’d found in the back toolshed, burying the bodies was
not too arduous. The tower had a rudimentary shower—actually, more like some
buckets of water strung up with a rope attached—for him to wash up in when he
was done as well. Samantha had done the same it looked like, although she still
wore the wet pajama things she had sported all this time as she cuddled the
puppy to her. Him, he’d borrowed one of the dead guy’s shorts. They looked
clean at least.

He sat at the radio. “You should get out of those wet
clothes,” he said gruffly.

“Is that an invitation?” The pert response was delivered
with a smile as she put the dog down on the ground. She seemed pretty pleased
with herself since she’d come to his rescue, as damn well she should be. The
girl had a lot of guts. He’d thought that at first, but even more so now. He
couldn’t resist smiling back at her, though he knew they were probably in as
much trouble as they had ever been. If the men at this outpost had not radioed
in their presence before he killed them, they were probably supposed to do some
check-in periodically. And if they didn’t do it, that would bring attention and
investigation.

The trouble was he didn’t know how much time they had before
that.

Maybe he should have taken Samantha back to
The Victory
.
Had he made the wrong split-second decision? He usually didn’t second-guess his
decisions, but he found that with her safety at stake he seemed prone to it.

“No, it wasn’t an invitation,” he scolded playfully,
although the sight of her sitting with her long legs curled up under her on the
bunk certainly got him thinking—which was another of his problems. He was not
only second-guessing himself, he was thinking about making love to her, which
was just so not appropriate under the circumstances.

For one thing, they were still in a hell of a lot of danger,
with no game plan out.

He stared at the radio.

“Couldn’t we put a call in to my brother?” she asked, and he
knew that now was the time to tell her who he was.

Oddly, though, it was frozen on his tongue.

“I’m going to do better than that,” he finally said, turning
to the radio and plugging in a special frequency.

He’d call Crenshaw.

Samantha didn’t know who Vik had radioed. He seemed to be
speaking in some kind of code with whoever was on the other end. After a while,
she tuned out and stopped listening. With slow hands, she peeled off her wet
boy shorts and then her clammy camisole. Only when she realized that Vik had
stopped speaking did she see he was watching her. The voice on the other end of
the radio called out a question that made no sense to her as Vik watched her. Then
the radio voice called it out again, garnering Vik’s attention finally and he
finished the conversation.

She went into the bathroom and came out with a towel,
rubbing her body as he watched her. The puppy was curled up contentedly in one
corner of the room.

“Who was that?”

“Someone I trust. Maybe the only man I trust to get us out
of this mess. Or at least the only man I trust who I can get in touch with at a
moment’s notice.”

She brought the towel to her long damp hair as he watched
her. “So is he going to help us?”

Vik nodded. “If we last long enough, he just might rescue
us.”

She smiled. “I thought you were in charge of rescuing us.”

He smiled back. “I’m passing the buck up, although you did a
pretty good job of rescuing us too.”

“I did.” She went and lay on the bunk, naked. “How long do
we have?”

He joined her, slipping his shorts off. “Long enough.”

When they were naked side by side, he brushed the hair from
her face, running his fingertips along her jaw, her ear. “I should not be
making love to you now.”

“You aren’t.
Yet.
”

“I should be keeping watch or doing reconnaissance. And
instead, I’m…”

“You’re what?”

He kissed her. “I’m letting down my guard.”

Her hand slipped below. “Your guard feels pretty
up.
”

He grinned and flipped her over on to her stomach.

“Hey!” she called over her shoulder, laughing. “Watch it.”

“Oh, I am. Believe me.” He pulled her to her knees so her
bottom was sticking up in the air as he climbed between her legs. “I’m going to
watch
it
the whole time I fuck you.”

Like before, on the yacht, when he had taken her so deep.
She widened her stance in anticipation.

But he didn’t. Take her. Not right away. Though she could
feel his erection prodding the tender skin of her inner thigh, he didn’t mount
her. She closed her eyes and groaned as his hands wandered along the curve of
her neck, down her spine, between the cheeks of her ass. She shivered at his
light touch, soothing and inciting at the same time. His fingers wandered
everywhere but where she needed them the most, needed something.

Needed
him
.

Rotating her hips, she tried to entice him without words and
heard his low chuckle. “What? I’m watching.”

“I’m waiting,” she murmured.

He leaned over and kissed her shoulder, his hands on her
hips now. He tugged her closer. “For what? For this?”

The head of his cock was suddenly at the very entrance of
her pussy, pulsing, nudging, but not going in.

“Oh, you’re going to be so wet and tight for me, aren’t
you?” He kissed her neck and nipped her earlobe and she pushed her ass back,
trying to seat him in her. But he held her hips firmly, not letting her,
keeping his cock just at the entrance of her, rubbing against her wet aching
flesh, taking his own sweet time. “Feel how much I want you, Samantha. How hard
I am for you.”

“Please.” The word came out more breathy than she’d
intended. And a damn sight more polite.

“Please what?” He pushed his cock in a little more.

“Fuck me.”

And then, as if he couldn’t take this teasing any longer,
any more than she could, he thrust his cock all the way into her.

She gasped at the fullness, the pleasure of him deep within
her.

For a moment, he didn’t move. “This is just where I want to
be, Samantha. I don’t care what happens.”

Burying her face in her arms, she thought of what
had
happened. Of all that had happened. Bodies tossed into a fathomless sea or
buried in soft wet ground. This man had killed, without a qualm, to protect
them, to protect her. But it must have taken its toll. So much death.

He gripped her hips, as if he had to hold her there to keep
them joined. And then he moved, slowly, hypnotically. She felt the pulse of
him, the strength of him. So much life.

“I don’t care what happens either, Vik.”

This was just where she wanted to be too.

* * * * *

He hadn’t heard a sound. Not a single sound. That was
apparently what mind-blowing sex did to you. Of course they’d been damn quiet
too.

“Hi there.”

A red beam of light found the center of his forehead
unerringly as Samantha started with a little yelp. He tried to push her behind
him slightly while not moving the part of him targeted by that red light.

The dog started to bark. Where the hell had that mongrel
been that it piped up and barked now, when it was too late? Some guard dog.

From the darkness, a familiar voice sounded. “I got to say,
Vik, you sure as hell know how to land on your feet.”

The red beam lowered and he could just make out several dark
figures, guns raised, pushing into the room, then the can. “Clear,” one of them
called out and the lights were flicked on.

J.D. Kates removed his night goggles and grinned.

“Hey, J.D.,” Vik said mildly. “I was kind of wondering who’d
show up.”

Samantha was quickly trying to cover her nakedness with the
sheet they’d long since kicked down to the foot of the bed. J.D. politely
looked away for a second and then to his men, indicating they should leave.

They did, out the window, on the ropes they’d apparently
climbed up on.

“Miss Reynolds,” he said when they had, and the sheet was
safely pulled all the way up to her chin, “your father is going to be mighty
pleased to see you, although I told him that Vik here would keep you, er, safe.
We got here as soon as Crenshaw gave us your location. I take it nobody got
here before us?”

“Was that the reason for the raid tactics?”

“Yeah. I hoped like hell it was you, but we had to be sure.”

Vik nodded. “Nope. Nobody here but the three stiffs I buried
out there. The radio crackled a little now and then, but I’ve ignored it.”

The mutt was at the foot of the bed now, whining, and he
picked it up, a little mollified at its failure to bark now he knew the
invading force was friendly.

“So maybe somebody’s on their way,” J.D. said.

“Maybe.” He glanced at Samantha practically hiding under the
sheet and handed her the pup. “We’ve got to get her out of here.”

“My orders are to get both of you out of here.”

Vik was about to argue, but then just nodded his assent.

“We got a landing craft down on the beach. I’ll wait for you
on the ground.” J.D. glanced at Samantha. “Her father is waiting on
The
Victory
, Vik, so you might want to get your clothes on.”

“You sure we should go to
The Victory
?”

“Chaps got the warning from Crenshaw.”

“How do we know it wasn’t Chaps to begin with?”

J.D. shrugged. “I got your back, bro. We’ll make sure she’s
safe there until her father can get her away.”

He winked at them and then grabbed a rope and climbed out of
sight.

Only then did Vik stop to think what Samantha may have made
of all this.

She was staring at him open mouthed, clutching the puppy,
and finally said, “My God! He’s a friend of yours? What is going on?”

“What’s going on is that’s the task force sent to rescue us,
or I guess you really.”

“A task force? I thought you’d called…I don’t know…”

“Another criminal?”

She nodded.

“Afraid not. That was your proud U.S. Navy SEALs, care of
your father’s influence and my call to a friend of mine to tell them where we
were.”

“But why—I mean, why aren’t you—”

“In custody?” Vik finished for her, pulling his pants on as
she scrambled to put the dog down and similarly dress herself.

“Yes.”

“Let’s get dressed and go out and I can explain everything.”

She slipped her flimsy pajamas on and he found a tee shirt,
long enough to hang to her knees, to pull on over it. “You can explain now,”
she snapped.

“I’m an Interpol agent. I was undercover.”

A slap across his face was the last thing he expected to get
at that news. He held one palm up to his stinging cheek. “Why the hell did you
do that?”

“You were a cop and all this time you let me believe you
were one of them? How could you do that?”

“Look, at the beginning, I had to do it. Both our necks
depended on it. You’re not very good at pretending.”

She pushed him angrily. “I was getting better. I pretended
to like you, didn’t I?”

Vik looked at the bed. Well, if that didn’t beat all. He
shook his head.

“I mean before. On the yacht. In the kitchen and everything.
Not just now.”

“Save it. It doesn’t matter anyway.” He grabbed the rope and
held it out to her politely. “Ladies first.”

“Get the puppy too,” she said sullenly.

Vik was talking in low tones to a man who looked like the
captain of this ship,
The Victory
. From the little she’d been told, this
was the ship Vik and his cohorts were supposed to take, a ship outfitted with
Interpol tracking and agents. And instead, they’d stumbled on
The Samantha
first and decided to take that—and her—before Vik could convince them
otherwise.

Now, hands folded across his broad chest, stance wide, Vik
looked capable, official even. Instead of being relieved that he was “good”,
she found herself oddly wounded by it. Not stopping to analyze why, she turned
back to her father who was watching Vik as well.

“So was everybody else, the crew I mean, were they all
okay?”

“Fine. Fine,” her father said.

“The puppy—”

“They’re giving him some food in the galley.” He jerked his
head toward Vik. “Did that fellow treat you all right?”

She hesitated. “Yes,” she finally decided upon. “He did.
Just fine.”

“Why were you in his bed?”

She should have known. Damien Reynolds always had his
sources. Probably one of the landing force of SEALs had reported every detail
to him right away.

“That’s none of your business.”

“None of my business?” Her father’s tone had risen and Vik
glanced over. “I lose ten years of my life worrying about how to get you out of
here and call in every favor I have ever been owed and when I
rescue
you, it turns out you’ve been having a romantic jaunt. Did you even know that
man was a policeman or were you just showing your usual horrendous taste in
men?”

“Hey.” Vik was suddenly at her side and it was apparent he
had heard. “That’s enough.”

“This is a private conversation between my daughter and me.”

“Then don’t have it full voice in a room full of people.”

Her father looked around. “Will you excuse us?” he said
politely to the others, who hurriedly exited.

But not Vik. He stayed right there. Her father raised an
eyebrow at him. “Perhaps the meaning of private eludes you at the moment.”