UndercoverSurrender (8 page)

“Things have to make sense, Samantha. As far as the others
are concerned, I killed Gunderson to keep you for myself. For greed and for
lust. If I tried to drop you off somewhere, to let you go, the others
would…wonder. I can’t have that.”

She watched him. “Maybe you’re just a good guy.”

“Believe me. That would be the worst conclusion for them to
draw. For me and for you.”

“Is that the reason, though?”

“I told you, use whatever backstory makes you happy.” But
because he wanted her to feel better—incredibly enough, even gave a shit about
how she felt—he added, “I won’t hurt you, Samantha. I won’t rape you and I
promise to do everything I can to keep you safe. Whether I’m a good guy or not
doesn’t change that. Besides,” he added, “your father very well may catch up
with us before we get through with this. Probably will.”

She looked doubtful, and then said quietly, “I hope so.”

Personally, he didn’t know what to hope for. He wanted her
safe. He’d jeopardized his whole mission just so that she would be. But he
wanted to complete the mission too.

A royal cluster all around.

And fuck, to make things worse, he
did
want her—not
that that was relevant to anything. But it didn’t exactly put him in a better
mood.

Unexpectedly, she said, “I guess I will go take a shower.”
She turned back right before she headed in to the bathroom. “But I warn you,
I’m locking the door.”

A minute later he heard the shower. Good. That was what he’d
been aiming for anyway. It would do her good. And he wasn’t going to join her
or peek at her.

Of course, he hadn’t said anything about fantasizing about
her.

He resisted it for a while. A good five minutes at least,
though it felt like five hours. But then he gave in and his hand went down to
his hard-on, freeing it from his shorts.

* * * * *

Damien Reynolds had considered it an act of God to come
across the yacht,
The Victory
, just three or four hours after being
marooned on the little raft. Not surprised by acts of God in his favor—like all
extremely rich men, he considered immense good fortune to be no more than his
due—he immediately explained his situation to the captain of the ship, a fellow
who introduced himself as Ryan Chaps.

The explanation he got in return infuriated him.

“Are you trying to tell me that your man
allowed
my
daughter to be kidnapped?”

“He’s on an extremely delicate mission and I can assure you
that he is undoubtedly doing everything in his power to keep your daughter
safe.”

“Show me a picture of this agent.”

Captain Chaps hesitated. “We don’t keep pictures for
security reasons.”

“What does he look like?”

The captain sighed. “Six-four or so—”

“Blond?”

“Dark.”

“Hispanic of some sort?”

“No.”

Damien knew exactly who the agent had been. “That miscreant
forced me into the raft.”

“He was probably trying to save your life.”

“How about the life of a twenty-two-year-old girl? Shouldn’t
he have been trying to save her life?”

“Mr. Reynolds, I can assure you he is.”

“That isn’t good enough. Goddamn it, somebody get me the
president. No, better yet, get my son Michael.”

* * * * *

After clicking the lock on the bathroom door, Samantha shed
her clothes and stepped into the shower quickly, as if the door might burst
open at any second. When she turned the knobs, the powerful jets of hot water
felt familiar and yet surreal at the same time. She turned around in the
stream, letting it hit her shoulders, her back, her arms. When had she last been
in this shower? Was it only a few hours earlier? What had she thought of? What
had she worried about then? It all seemed so petty, so distant. She didn’t
think she could even summon up Justin’s neat blond coif and patrician chin if
she tried. All she could see was a tanned, hard face and green eyes.

She reached for the soap. She could very well die, very
soon. It wasn’t something she had ever thought about and until today death
wasn’t something she had ever seen. Not in real life. The red puddle on the deck,
so dark it almost looked purple, was so there, so real. She shuddered, cranking
the knob farther toward the “H” until it was so hot it burned her skin. And she
scrubbed, hard and long, until she wore the tiny rosette of French soap down to
just a nub.

But she didn’t cry. Maybe
his
admonition that she go
into the shower and just have a good cry perversely had the opposite effect.
She was done crying. It had been a temporary aberration in her character that
she wouldn’t indulge in again.

She was going to get through this. She was. For all she was
in the middle of a group of bloodthirsty pirates, she hadn’t been harmed and
she had a—
yeah, go ahead and say it
—a protector of sorts. She didn’t
know why he was protecting her and his explanations were no better than a bunch
of “maybes”, but she believed that he was and that he would.

She just hoped she wasn’t showing what her father had always
called her usual horrendous judgment in men.

In any case, she would get out of this. Either her father
would come back for her or this Vik would figure something out or…or goddamn
it, she would just save herself. Somehow.

She turned the water up even hotter.

Vik listened to the sound of the shower through the bathroom
door. Christ, did he ever need this. Despite having taken the precaution of
jacking off during his own shower, just arguing with Samantha had made him hot
again. Physically, she was affecting him more than he would have expected. Just
the thought of
her
in the shower now…

The steam from the shower was all around them, and she
was holding her arms out to him.

“Come here. Come in. I want you to.”

He stepped into the shower, closing the glass door behind
him as her arms came around his neck. Pulling her closer, he could feel her
tits against his chest as his hands wandered down to her ass.

“Touch me,” she murmured. “I want you to.”

He fondled her ass and brought his mouth down to one
sweet, high—

His cock in his hand practically erupted at that image. He
squeezed the base to hold it off. Okay, fine. A little less foreplay since it
looked as if this wasn’t going to last long. Just as well since who knew when
she might come out of the shower. In real life, that was.

He flipped her around so her hands jutted out onto the
wet tiles of the wall.

“Do you want this, Samantha?” he whispered in her ear.

“Yes, please, fuck me.”

As impossible, or at least as unlikely, as it was, how sweet
that would be to have her ask him for it…

“You sure?”

“Yes. Fuck me, Vik. Now. I want you to.”

She leaned over a little, widening her stance, and looked
back over her shoulder at him—her big brown eyes as dark as he had ever seen
them—waiting for him to comply. And he complied all right, gripping her hips
and standing between her spread legs, before finding that soft pussy and giving
her one hard, smooth thrust that he could feel all the way up his cock. She was
wet and warm and he could hear her groan right over the sound of the shower. He
tugged her closer, just to be all the way up her, and then flicked her long wet
hair to one side so he could kiss her neck as he pulled out almost all the way
and then thrust back in to that soft, wet cunt. The rhythm as he did it again
overtook him and he pounded away as she braced herself against the wet wall,
squeezing him with her inner muscles as she drained him to a—

“Oh my God!”

He registered her shocked exclamation just as he was coming,
too intent on the relief of the physical release to stop pumping his cock as he
orgasmed even in the presence of one horrified little lady.

Fuck! But it was only for a second. He shuddered with it.
She had turned her back immediately anyway, standing with her hands up to block
her eyes for good measure as well. Grabbing a tissue from the nightstand to
quickly wipe up the semen from his belly, he pulled his shorts back up.

He threw the tissue in the wastepaper basket, swiftly popped
up to wash his hands, and then settled back into bed, his head on the pillows,
feeling better all in all despite this snafu at the end here.

“You can turn around now. Sorry about that.”

She took a second, probably suspicious his cock was still
out, but then turned around in fury.

“You pervert! You did that on purpose!”

He laughed. “Jacked off? Yeah, I did. It helps with that
constant erection thing you keep complaining about.”

“You timed that purposely.”

“For while you were in the shower? Again,
yeah
. Would
you rather I did it while you were in bed next to me? Because that works too.”

“You rat! You heard the shower go off. You knew I was coming
in.”

“No, as a matter of fact, I didn’t. I was kind of into it.
And for that, I am sorry. But I’m not sorry I whacked off.”

“God, you are so crude.”

He realized that even though they were arguing with each
other, she was using the same hushed tones as he was. Good girl. She was
learning.

She’d never seen a man masturbate. Not even in a movie. It
wasn’t exactly the kind of thing you ran into every day. It was so…primal. His
eyes had been closed, his hand fisting his penis—which, by the way, was
huge
—so
intently it looked as if it hurt. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t known he was
frustrated. She had. In some bizarre way, she supposed she should be grateful
that he was taking care of it without involving her. Unless he meant for her to
walk in on him. She felt as though she was involved in some complicated mind game
with this man, this criminal. Why was he doing this?

“Just come on and get into bed now, Samantha. I’m inoculated
from your considerable charms now.”

She hated how he was making light of this, but given the
mess she was in, she couldn’t find it in herself to be as outraged as she
otherwise might have been and since there was really nothing else to do, she
obeyed, climbing into bed and turning her back on him.

But suddenly, she didn’t feel very tired.

“That was really incredibly embarrassing, you know,” she
fumed.

“Everybody does it,” he murmured, sounding as if he was
drifting off. The jerk.

“Yes, but everybody hides it, too. That’s the point.”

“Do you have a hang-up about sex or something?”

“No, I don’t have a hang-up about sex! I have a hang-up
about guys I don’t even know kidnapping me and—”

“Do guys you know kidnap you?”

“What?”

“Never mind.”

“What I was saying was I have a
natural
reticence to
have guys I don’t even know—
criminals
—sleeping next to me in bed and,
and,
masturbating
right in front of me.”

With a sigh of disgust, he rolled over on to his side to
face her back. “Just a tip, hon, but discussing masturbation with a guy usually
doesn’t calm him down. It kind of gets him going again. You don’t know too much
about guys, do you?”

“Are you trying to make me mad?”

“I’m trying to make you shut up.”

“Better men have tried.”

“I bet.”

“What’s
your
last name anyway?” she snapped over her
shoulder.

“Why? Do you want to memorize it for the mug shot?”

She shook her head and rolled over to face him as well. “I
just want to know. It’ll make it less frightening.”

He sighed. “Standish. That’s the name I go by here anyway.”

“Victor Standish.”

“Vikram.”

“
Vikram
?” That did surprise her. “You don’t look,
what is that, Indian?”

“There are billions of people in India. They don’t all look
the same.”

“So you’re Indian?”

“I’m tired. Now, unless you want to know my mother’s maiden
name and my social security number—”

“Social security number? Are you an American?”

“No, but you sure as hell are.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“This conversation started out with me trying to get you to
stop crying and go to sleep and somewhere along the line we’ve veered wildly
off.”

“I suppose you mean I’m pushy. The stereotypical American.
Well, who stole whose yacht? I’d say that makes you the pushy one.”

He smiled faintly. “You’re not going to go to sleep, are
you?”

“I have trouble sleeping under the best of circumstances,”
she admitted.

“How about a drink?”

“That doesn’t usually help.”

“I meant me.”

“Can I watch the television?”

“This isn’t a slumber party.”

“It helps me fall asleep sometimes.”

“You know what helps me fall asleep, Samantha? Silence.”

She took a deep breath. “Okay.”

“Thanks.” He turned over onto his side again, away from her
and after a minute she heard his even breathing.

He was either sleeping or he was making a good show of
pretending at it.

And as he had told her, he was very good at pretending.

She sighed.

She guessed she would have to just get better at that. She
closed her eyes…and pretended she was safe and home and not in the middle of
some scary nightmare.

* * * * *

Michael Reynolds hung up his penthouse apartment phone with
hands that were shaking. It had rung, waking him up, and he hadn’t even flicked
the light on yet. He was glad he had broken it off with Tiffany earlier today,
despite her hysterics. He was glad he was alone in bed with no one here to see
the effect that phone call had on him.

For the first time in his life, Michael Reynolds was scared
as hell. And he had heard in his father’s voice—behind the domineering tone
that was always there, behind the tirade about fucking foreigners and their
fucking Interpol, behind the rattled off orders—he had heard in his father’s
voice a fear that had never, ever been there before as well.