White Hot (4 page)

“You’re really Naval Intelligence?” she asked, her voice still hoarse from fear, or possibly from being awakened in the middle of the night. By a maniac.

“I really am,” he confirmed with a shade of embarrassment.

She scowled. “So this is how Naval Intelligence officers usually conduct themselves? Bursting into the captain’s cabin, taking her hostage, and scaring the crap out of her?”

He flashed her an apologetic smile. “Uh, not usually, no. Only when they’re being complete morons. Sorry.”

Her scowl didn’t even crack. “How the hell did you get onto my ship, anyway?” She tossed back his creds, and he caught them. “I have a guard posted.”

He gave her a wry look. “I wouldn’t be very good at my job if I couldn’t get past one guy pacing the deck drinking coffee and looking bored.”

Her lips thinned briefly. He did his best to ignore how plump and lush they were when they relaxed again. Jesus, what was
wrong
with him?

She stooped to pick up an old, once-white cap he must have knocked to the floor, and hung it back on a peg next to the door. “You said you need my help. All right, talk.”

Sitting on her bunk was a bad idea. Her scent clung to the bedclothes, making it impossible not to think about that glimpse of her gorgeous breasts. He dragged his gaze up to her eyes and for an instant struggled to remember why he was there. Because it
wasn’t
for what he was thinking.

“Are you the intruder who tried to climb up our mooring line earlier?” she prompted when he didn’t speak right away.

Right.
He focused. “Yeah. That was me.” He raked a hand through his short-cropped hair and stood. Immediately she backed up against the door and gripped the gun harder. He stayed where he was. “The thing is, I need to bum a ride to the mainland.”

Her gaze turned incredulous. “That’s it? You need a ride?
That’s
why you broke into my cabin at gunpoint?”

“I did knock first,” he pointed out. Lamely.

She rolled her eyes. “Wow.”

At least she wasn’t scowling any more.

“I thought I heard someone coming. I don’t want to be seen,” he said.

“Why not?” she demanded, her suspicion back in full force.

He debated how much to tell her. Too little and she wouldn’t understand the urgency. Too much and he’d be putting her in danger. Even more danger than his mere presence on board her ship engendered.

“There are some men chasing me,” he finally settled on. “They want to kill me.”

Her brows flared. “Why does that not surprise me? What did you do to them?”

“Nothing.” He shifted on his feet. That much was true.

“Then why do they want to kill you?”

Damn, the woman was persistent. “Sorry. I can’t get into that. Classified.”

She regarded him evenly. “In that case, sorry, I can’t give you a ride.”

He pursed his lips. How to handle this? “What if I said it’s a matter of national security?”

She hesitated. “Is it?”

Thank God, a patriot. He nodded. “Yes, ma’am, it is.”

Apparently the look on his face was serious enough that she didn’t dismiss his claim out of hand. “Would your superior officer confirm that story if I called and asked about you, Lieutenant Commander Walker?”

So she’d been paying attention to his introduction. He was mildly impressed. Under the circumstances most people wouldn’t remember his name, let alone his rank. “No doubt he’d deny any knowledge of my existence,” he said. “It’s a sensitive mission.”

She blew out a breath. “Naturally. So I’m just supposed to trust you about all this.”

He gave her a faint smile. “I’d be grateful if you did, ma’am.”

Though still annoyed, she seemed to come to a decision, and relaxed a fraction. “Captain Richardson.”

“Ma’am?”

She glanced down at the gun in her hand. “Not ma’am. I’m Captain Samantha Richardson. I know it’s protocol, but I hate it when people call me ma’am. I keep looking over my shoulder for my mother.”

He regarded her. “Trust me, you’re the only one thinking of anyone’s mother,” he murmured.

Hell. Had he said that aloud?

“I also dislike guns,” she said, ignoring his sideways
compliment. She crossed the short distance to the bunk, and unracked and placed the Glock in a shoebox-sized night cubby built into the bulkhead.

That she trusted him this far was definitely progress. Especially since his own weapon was still tucked in its holster under his arm. “So. Will you help me, Captain Richardson?”

For the first time she looked straight at him, and her eyes met his. They were green, like celery. He loved celery. “God knows why I believe you,” she said with a tight sigh. “But I do. So, yeah. I’ll help you, Lieut—”

He held up a hand. “Since we’re doing names, when I’m undercover I prefer Clint. And thanks for trusting me.”

She ignored that, too. “I think the word I used was ‘believe,’ not ‘trust,’ Lieutenant Commander.”

He took a step toward her, holding her gaze. “I’m serious. Call me Clint. No rank. Only you can know I work for the navy. I wasn’t kidding about the national security thing.”

She regarded him for a long moment. Finally she said, “Tell you what, Mr. Walker. Since you’re a navy man, I assume you’ve served as a ship’s officer.”

He nodded, giving up for now on the name. And, unconsciously, on anything else. Obviously she had no interest in being friends. Or anything else. Not that this was the time or place to indulge in such things.

“I just fired my first mate, so I’m a man short,” she went on. “You can take over his place on the crew until we get to Seattle.”

“First mate?” Another surprise. Although he was an officer, he’d been a SEAL and knew more about explosives and oxygen mixes than ordering around sailors. Or whatever a first mate did on a civilian vessel. “Not sure I’m up to that task on a merchant ship,” he admitted. “I have no idea what the position entails.”

She waved a hand. “I’ve already put Second Mate Bolun in charge of the cargo, so basically you’d be responsible for the safety and security of the ship and crew. Right up your alley, I’d think.”

“Security I can handle,” he affirmed with a small curve of his lips. At least it wasn’t dragging in putrid-smelling fishing nets.

“You’ll need a uniform,” she said, frowning at his ragged, grubby attire. “Jesus, what’d you do before this, stow away on a garbage scow?”

He winced. “Not far off. Fishing trawler. They had me chumming and hauling nets. Sorry about that. I could definitely use a shower or three, and a change of clothes. Not to mention a bed.”

His gaze caught hers, and yet again he was reminded of her naked body under that flimsy robe. Apparently she remembered, too. He saw a light flush sweep her cheeks. But this time she didn’t look away.

They stared at each other for a taut moment, but before he could decide if and what he should do about it, she turned abruptly. “You can take the chief mate’s stateroom. It has a shower,” she said pointedly. “I’ll show you.”

He eased out a breath of disappointment, all the while berating himself. Well, what had he expected? That she’d invite him to share hers? The way he looked—and smelled? Get real.

“Thanks,” he said. “It’s been a rough week. I could probably sleep all the way to Seattle.”

She shook her head as she padded barefoot to the cabin door. “Not on my ship, you won’t.” She glanced at the glowing dial of the wall clock. “Since it’s nearly two a.m., I’ll give you a break and let you slide on your first watch.” He knew that traditionally the first mate stood the oh-four to oh-eight hundred shift, at least on navy ships. “But we depart at six a.m. sharp. I’ll expect you on deck.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said agreeably, and just smiled at her annoyed glance. Two could play the name game.

Reaching for a long, gray coat that hung by the door, she muttered, “I’ll dig up a spare uniform so you can burn those clothes. God forbid we have to smell them all the way to Nome.”

Hello.

“What?” In two strides he’d reached her. He put a hand on her arm.
“Nome?”

She jerked away from him, startled. “Yeah. Nome. We’ve got a ton of cargo to offload there, and we’re on a strict schedule. Is that a problem?”

Yeah.
It was.

“It’s imperative I get to Seattle ASAP,” he said. That was the closest naval base, where he could finally catch a ride on a military transport plane to D.C. without risk of running into Xing Guan and his team of assassins. His commander had told him to take the time to get home alive, but the navy really needed the data card he was carrying. Like, yesterday.

“Well, it’s imperative
I
get to Nome ASAP,” she countered. “You’re welcome to find another ship to stow away on, if you don’t like our schedule.”

He let out a groan. “Fuck.”

She hiked an eyebrow.

“Sorry.”

The intel on the micro storage card in his pocket really
was
a matter of national security. A growing number of the compact, torpedo-sized Chinese UUVs were already being detected running sorties along the North American coast. Used for both intelligence and military purposes, UUVs were rapidly replacing their much larger, more visible, and massively more expensive submarines. The sooner Clint got the plans for the new Chinese guidance system to D.C. and the navy’s experts, the sooner they could start designing countermeasures against the all too real threat of coastal incursion, industrial and military espionage, and even sabotage.

He couldn’t tell her that, though.

He also couldn’t phone in the plans, or e-mail them, or use any other unsecure, unencrypted method of communication to transmit the top secret intel to the navy. He was under strict orders from the brass. He had to
personally
get the storage card to D.C., or at the very least Seattle. Which was not proving easy. After jumping off a Russian submarine
ten days ago, he’d been forced to traverse the most remote, sea-swept ends of the earth, with no money, no map, and nothing but a wetsuit, a small dry-bag, and sweat equity to trade for transpo across the two thousand miles of frigid, largely unpopulated Aleutian Islands just to get this far. It had been an adventure—right up until that damn fishing trawler. That he could have done without.

“If this mission is so damn important,” Samantha observed, “why don’t you just call the navy and have them send a helicopter or something to pick you up?”

Like he hadn’t already tried that. Twice. But a combination of the navy’s newly mandated budget cuts and always fanatical bean counters, the great distance to the nearest military base, and the usual bullshit of bureaucratic and jurisdictional red tape, had made his commander throw up his hands and decide, fuck it, it would be faster and safer for an ex-SEAL to make his way back home on his own. Even with nothing but lint in his bartered pockets.

Clint agreed. With Xing Guan and his henchmen hot on his heels, he’d take his chances on his grandfather’s lessons, his SEAL training, and his own ingenuity on the run, rather than cool his heels, exposed and vulnerable, waiting for transport to be procured and sent the two thousand miles from Seattle.

“Yeah, the helo didn’t work out,” he merely said, frustration starting to whir in his gut once again.

This entire week had been one long series of frustrations. Which in itself was aggravating as hell. Not so long ago, none of this would have bothered him in the least.

Jesus, he really was getting old and crotchety.

Or horny.

Maybe that was why he felt so damn frustrated.

He looked pointedly at Captain Richardson.
Samantha.
“So. About that bed…”

She astutely avoided his gaze. “Yeah.” She turned, grabbed her long coat, and slipped it on as she slid into a pair of battered deck shoes. “Come on.”

He was both disappointed and glad that she’d covered
herself up completely before taking him to his stateroom. If she hadn’t, he’d be sorely tempted to—

Never mind. He had to stop this. He wasn’t
that
horny.

Except he was, which was totally unlike him. What the hell was it about this particular woman that got his juices flowing and his thoughts veering into places they seldom inhabited? Normally it would never occur to him to slam the door and rip that ugly coat off her, and then open that flimsy robe, and—

Fucking hell.

She gave him an odd look as she led him along the passageway to another stateroom two doors down. Way too close to hers.

She opened the door and flipped on the light. “Head’s over there.” She pointed. “The shower’s the size of a breadbox, but the water’s hot.”

“Don’t suppose you’d like to join me?” he asked, unable to stop himself.

She blinked. Then gave him a long, assessing look. Her focus started at his hair, dropped to his shoulders, then his waist, and then his— He cleared his throat as her gaze continued down his thighs, then slowly traveled back up to his face.

To his shock, she said, “Tell you what, Mr. Walker. Ask me again when you don’t smell like a bilge rat.”

With that, she turned and went out, closing the door behind her.

The next morning as she got ready for the day, Sam was still wondering what on earth had possessed her to make such a blatantly suggestive comment to Lieutenant Commander Walker.