White Hot (13 page)

Despite being in the middle of a critical op, he’d then made the inappropriate decision to shift into civilian mode…and succumb to the temptation of an affair with Samantha. Sure, he’d thought he would have four days without a goddamn death squad nipping at his heels. Four days to finally let down his guard a little and enjoy the rare physical chemistry that had instantly blossomed between him and Samantha. Four stress-free days where the only difficult decision he’d have to make was how many times they could sneak away to be alone together.

He fucking should have known better.

How quickly the situation had changed. He’d now been hurled back into full combat mode, and instead of making love, they were engaged in a deadly battle with a ruthless enemy.

In combat, the rules were very different. There wasn’t time for personal issues. Not when lives were on the line. Clint knew as well as he knew his own name that mixing business with pleasure in his profession was never a good idea. It always ended badly.

Too bad he hadn’t listened to the warning bells in his
mind last night as he’d fantasized about getting the pretty captain alone and slowly stripping her naked. Or this afternoon when he’d made fantasy into reality.

The worst was, now that they’d been intimate, he found he couldn’t reclaim the distance he so desperately needed between them. Couldn’t get back to that cool, professional space he should occupy in their personal interactions. Couldn’t, because he’d been deep inside her, and enjoyed a passion with the woman he hadn’t felt in more years than he could count. He couldn’t separate himself from that no matter how much he wanted to. Or how dangerous it was not to.

However unwillingly, he felt a bone-deep connection with Samantha Richardson. And as foolish as it was, he wished down to the marrow that she felt the same way.

Most of all, he wanted her to trust him.

But it was clear she didn’t. Not on any level.

Hell, he wasn’t even sure she
liked
him. She definitely didn’t like the way he automatically took charge of a situation. Issuing orders, she called it. He called it expediency. And leadership.

Damn it, he was just trying to
protect
her. What kind of woman didn’t want that from a man? Especially the man she was sleeping with? Clint wanted Samantha to feel safe with him. Wanted her to feel safe
because
of him. But he always seemed to have the exact opposite effect on her.

Definitely something going on there in her head. Some kind of armor she’d built up against him. What had she said earlier about not trusting men? Was it
all
men she didn’t trust? Or just him in particular, because of his tendency to take charge…?

Unconsciously, he shook his head, wondering what had brought such an outwardly confident woman to such a cynical place inside.

On second thought, no. He didn’t want to know. Knowing stuff like that would only bring them closer, and right now he needed distance.

Like about a thousand miles.

Thankfully, he was jerked from his uncomfortable musings when the guard suddenly tossed aside the plastic bottle with a hollow
thunk
and stretched his arms, glancing down the passageway toward the staterooms.

“This could be it,” Clint whispered.

They watched alertly as the guard did a thorough 360° scan of the crew deck, his gaze pausing at the nearest stateroom doors. He strolled to the stairs leading up to the quarterdeck and bridge, checked it, then turned and peered down the narrower metal stairs that went past the main deck level to the ro-ro deck—and right at them. They held perfectly still.

“Get ready,” Clint murmured when the guard was finally satisfied he was alone, and turned back toward the staterooms. “You remember what to do, right?”

To her credit, she just gritted her teeth and said, “Yes, Clint. I remember.”

They’d only gone over the plan a dozen times as they waited.

He coiled his muscles, preparing to spring into action the instant the guard strolled into a stateroom to do his business.

He
really
didn’t want to take Samantha along on this sortie to the uniform closet. But he didn’t see a way around it. He’d have maybe forty-five seconds, maybe a minute, to grab the wetsuit, boots, gloves, snorkel, and mask. Without Samantha along to show him exactly where they were stored, he’d surely waste half that time just looking for the damn things.

This was not an idle exercise. Without the Arctic gear, he wouldn’t survive a swim in four-degree water. Not for more than a few minutes. But if the guard returned from the head before they got clear of the passageway, they were both dead meat.

They both held their breath as the man turned and ambled toward the nearest stateroom.

Clint really,
really
wished he could leave her behind.

“You’re not going to try and be a fucking cowboy, right?” he pressed.

She just smiled. His stomach sank.

The guard opened the stateroom door and disappeared through it.

“Go!” Clint vaulted up, sprinting noiselessly for the stairs and the uniform closet.

And right behind him, he swore he heard Samantha murmur, “Yippee kayay, baby.”

Sam didn’t miss Clint’s questioning look as they hit the crew deck running.
What?
Hey, she could do Bruce Willis when she wasn’t having a nervous breakdown. It helped to have a mission and a role model.

She was breathing hard when they reached the closet and wasted precious seconds fumbling with the bolt until she finally managed to unlatch it and swing the door open.

They surged in. God knew how many—or few—seconds they had to find the gear. Her heart was pounding out of control, but she forced herself to stop in the dimly lit space and point out the cupboard containing the wetsuit to Clint. Then she spun around to the shelves on the opposite wall. The regulator, snorkel, mask, and other things should be stored somewhere among the clutter of equipment they contained.
Should
be.

Groping along the shelves in the murky darkness, she came up empty. Her pulse skyrocketed.
Where the hell are they?
Finally, way in the very back, her fingers touched the stiff neoprene of the dive boots. She shuddered out a sigh of relief.
Thank God!

“Got them,” she whispered. “You?”

“Yep.” She heard a grunt and the click of a weight belt.

Swiftly gathering the other things from the shelf, her hand brushed over a knife in a sheath. Her pulse leapt and she grabbed that, too. “I found a dive knife.”

He made a sound of approval. “Excellent. Keep it in your hand. We may need it. Ready?”

“Yeah.”

He cracked the door, checking the passageway for any sign of the guard, who’d be returning any second. A thin sliver of light spilled over them. She knew from experience that the extra thick wetsuit was super heavy and unwieldy to carry. But somehow Clint had managed to roll it up and tuck it under one arm. The weight belt was around his waist and the fins dangled from his other hand.

“We’re good. Let’s go,” he ordered.

She didn’t dare look over her shoulder, just made a mad dash for the stairs back down to the ro-ro deck. But she stumbled at the landing, and Clint knocked into her, dropping one of the fins in his effort to keep them both from falling down the stairs.

The fin hit the metal steps like a shot and clattered down the two flights like a string of firecrackers, sending Sam’s pulse straight into hyperspace. She gasped and started to freeze, but Clint grabbed her arm.

“Keep moving!”

They flew down the stairs as fast as they could. Above, the stateroom door banged open and rapid bootfalls thudded down the passageway. They hit the deck and rolled back under the earthmover just as the guard loomed over the landing rail. Cowering behind the Caterpillar treads, Sam was shaking so hard she had to clap both hands over her mouth to stop her teeth from chattering.

That’s when she saw the fin.

Lying on the deck, right next to the stairs.

In plain sight
.

Oh, God!

She shot Clint a desperate look. But his attention was
lasered in on the guard, who had moved to the top of the stairs and was gripping his machine gun in his stubby hands, head swiveling slowly back and forth as he scrutinized the cargo for whatever had made the noise.

A lump of fear wedged in her throat, throbbing painfully. There was no way he could miss seeing the fin. As soon as he turned his head this way—

Oh, God.
It was all over. They were going to die.

All at once, Clint shot from their hiding place in a roll.
What the—?

In terrified disbelief she watched him dart out fast as a snake’s tongue to grab the fin, then dart back under cover—less than a nanosecond before the guard turned back in their direction. He halted next to her, clutching the fin to his broad chest, a grim but satisfied look on his face.

The most irrational thought burst through her. She suddenly wanted to be that fin, held so tight and secure in his strong arms. Rescued from disaster. Safe from harm. She swallowed.

His dark eyes captured hers, steady and unflappable. Telling her it would be okay.

But would it?

The guard’s heavy boots clomped down the metal treads, one by one, coming closer and closer. As the sound grew louder, Clint carefully set the fin aside and plucked the dive knife from her hand. He slid his other hand over hers, cool and confident, lacing their fingers together.
How could he be so calm?
She squeezed her eyes shut, as she’d done as a kid at the scary parts of movies. Okay, she still did that.

It didn’t help. This was no Hollywood film, and it would not be okay. It could never be okay. Shandy was not going to jump up and shake off the fake blood when some director called “Cut!” And the bad things that would happen to her and Clint if that guard found them hiding here were all too sickeningly real.

Time ground to a halt, suspended on the numbing crest of fear.

She wanted to scream, but managed to hold it together
thanks to the comforting feel of Clint’s hand on hers. God, she was being such a wuss!

Maybe her father was right. Maybe she really did belong in an office, not in command of a multimillion-dollar vessel and valuable cargo. And other people’s precious lives.

As if reading her thoughts, Clint tightened his grip and gave her hand a squeeze. She took a steadying breath.

A nanosecond later, the guard stepped off the stairs onto the hard deck. Clint let go of her, silently slid the sheath from the knife, and eased his body up into a spring-coiled crouch, deadly and still. He looked like a panther ready to take down its prey. She shivered involuntarily, very glad he was on her side.

The guard’s footsteps paused on the other side of the earthmover’s bandolier tread, practically on top of them. The man was so close she could smell the acrid odor of sweat and gun grease and the cloying scent of Cherry Coke that clung to him. If she extended her fingers through one of the gaps between the big metal treads, she could have traced the seams of his black ninja pants.

He hung there, poised in a mute vigil, his head slowly rotating, searching for any movement among the vehicles, his gun raised in readiness.

She didn’t move a muscle. Not even an eyelash. Nor did Clint.

They waited. And waited. Clint crouched there like a spring-loaded statue, ready to attack. She just did her best not to let her teeth chatter, or cramp up and give them away.

After torturously long moments that dragged like hours, the guard turned and padded away, still listening attentively as he inched up the stairs, silent as a shark.

Sam’s heart was still pounding painfully fifteen minutes later. But at least she could breathe again.

The minute the guard had reached the crew deck and turned his back, they’d scrambled out from their hiding place and fled back to the hideout. Well, she’d fled anyway.
Clint had more like stalked. The look on his face…Let’s just say he looked angry. Sam was glad they hadn’t run into the guard in engineering, for more reasons than one.

She glanced uneasily between him and the pile of diving gear as he started stripping out of his clothes. So different from when she’d watched him undress this afternoon…There was nothing remotely sexual about his movements this time. He hadn’t even glanced her way.

The man was all business. Determination bled from his pores.

She tamped down a growing sense of doom. “So you’re really going to do this?”

He tossed his uniform shirt onto the hammock. “I really am,” he responded, unbuckling his pants. The broad expanse of his chest gleamed bronze in the dim overhead light. She made a vain attempt to distract herself from thinking about what he intended to do, by following the ripple and play of the tattoo on his impressive muscles as he grabbed the wetsuit’s Farmer John and held it up to his front, measuring the size against his body. But it was no use, even the sight of his powerful body couldn’t distract her. It only made her worry more, imagining what might happen to it—to him—if he went through with this.