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  He lowered his head and again caught her upthrust nipple in his mouth. The scrape of his teeth and lash of his tongue sent a fresh tremor of pleasure curling through her. Combined with the change in the angle of his penetration, it jolted her up and over the top.

  “Dominic. Oh. Oh.” She held on to him with every ounce of her strength as satisfaction beckoned, just beyond her reach. Dimly she heard him give a choked roar and felt his big body begin to shudder. And then her own pleasure blasted through her, sweeping her away.

  And everything else ceased to matter.

  Eight

  D om lay sprawled on the tarp from his pack, which he’d retrieved in the last glimmer of twilight earlier that evening. Nestled in the crook of his arm, her head resting on his shoulder, Lilah slept with the stillness of complete exhaustion.

  She was entitled, he thought, absently rubbing his cheek against the silken crown of her head. Even he’d found the day physically challenging, so it was no great surprise she was worn out.

  Still, it was hard not to chafe at their slow pace. On his own, he would have hiked all the previous night and day and probably arrived in Santa Marita by now.

  But with Lilah, her stamina impaired by weeks of poor food and confinement, it just wasn’t possible. He had no choice but to do his best to pace their journey in a way that preserved her limited strength.

  Making adjustments to suit the situation was just part of the job, he reminded himself. Even if it gave him far too much time to think about matters he’d prefer to ignore.

  Because if he were sleeping, he wouldn’t be thinking.

  Like why just the innocent press of Lilah’s thigh against his hip, the wash of her breath tickling the crook of his neck, the warm weight of her breast against his chest, was enough to keep him in an unrelenting state of arousal.

  Or how there was a reckless, unfamiliar part of him that would like nothing better than to shift her beneath him and satisfy that persistent hunger.

  And he sure wouldn’t have to think about the moment when he’d looked down at her earlier as he carried her out of the water and felt something inside him shift.

  It had taken him a while to figure out what bothered him most, but as the moon rose high in the sky he knew it was that last thing.

  Damned if he didn’t like her. Not just as somebody to share his body and his bed with, although there was no denying that was a factor. But also as a person, a fellow human being. Granted, if all you did was count up the hours, they hadn’t spent a great deal of time together. But when you spent crisis time with someone, when you faced danger together, you quickly got their measure. And Lilah was simply not the pampered, self-absorbed, status-conscious snob he’d painted her to be.

  Dom shifted, feeling restless. This wasn’t the way things were supposed to go, he thought somberly. Hell, if he were honest about it, he had to admit he’d never even considered liking her as a possibility. He wasn’t particularly proud of it, but the hard truth was that he’d expected this little interlude to cure him of his yen for her.

  He’d thought—well maybe not thought, exactly, since his brain hadn’t been the organ doing the bulk of his decision-making at the time—but he’d believed on some level that giving into his desire for her would prove, once and for all, that he’d exaggerated their past pleasures, that he’d been deluding himself into believing that sex with her had been something special. He’d expected that sleeping with her would get her out of his system once and for all and allow him to relegate her to the past where she belonged.

  Instead, he wanted in the worst way to roll her onto her back and bury himself deep inside her once again. Far more alarming, a reckless part of him that he barely recognized wanted to hold her close and tell her things—his secrets, his needs, his fears, his hopes.

  And he didn’t like it. He didn’t like it at all. He knew what his old man and his brothers had gone through when they’d lost his mother. He may only have been nine, but he’d seen—and felt—the void her passing had left. And it hadn’t taken him long to realize that no one else would ever fill that vast black hole. It had also seemed to him that the best bet to avoid falling into a similar abyss was to steer clear of attachments.

  Yet with the reckless optimism of youth, he’d gone ahead all those years later and let himself fall for Lilah. And then she’d dumped him.

  It had hurt at the time. Although in truth, he still wasn’t sure how much of his pain had sprung from actual love and how much from injured pride.

  It really didn’t matter, because in the end Lilah had done him a favor. Like a sharp slap to the face, her rejection had brought him to his senses and made him think long and hard about what he really wanted. And what he’d concluded was that it wasn’t a good idea to invest himself in someone else so much that losing them could put a permanent hole in his life. Unless it concerned his brothers—and for a while his SEAL teammates—he’d found it was better by far to rely on himself, to keep his own counsel, to guard his own back.

  And when it came down to it, nothing had changed. This—whatever this was—was just an interlude, a minor detour, a short trip down a dead-end path. Getting Lilah out of San Timoteo, back to her grandmother and her safe, privileged life was still his number one priority.

  “Dominic?” Lilah’s quiet voice curled over him.

  He shifted his head and found her looking up at him, her gaze impossible to read in the shadowed light. “You’re awake.” It was an effort, but he deliberately relaxed his expression. Yeah, he needed to reestablish a little necessary distance between them, but he didn’t want to hurt her.

  She yawned and settled a little closer, sliding one hand up his chest to gently knead the point where his neck met his shoulder.

  “I’ve been thinking. How are we getting off the island?” Rolling onto her side, she propped herself up on one elbow, the better to see him. Almost absently, the fingers of her free hand stroked the sensitive patch of skin behind his ear.

  “Most likely someone will be coming to pick us up,” he said, the ache of need he’d felt when she’d been sleeping throbbing annoyingly to life at her touch, “but I won’t know for sure until we get to Santa Marita and I can check in with home.”

  “We’re going to the capital?” Her dismay was obvious.

  “Absolutely.” He felt a spark of pleasure ignite as her hand wandered down his neck and trailed across his collarbone to tickle over the curve of his shoulder. “The safest place to hide is almost always in plain sight. Besides, it’s the only location on the whole island where we’re likely to find a boat fast enough, or better yet, a plane, to get us out of here, if that’s what we have to do.”

  Her hand paused. “A plane?” she said dubiously. “What about a pilot?”

  “You’re looking at him.” He jerked involuntarily as the warmth of her palm passed over his hip and her fingertips lightly brushed the aching length of him.

  “You know how to fly?”

  Her hand and the slender thigh she’d draped over his leg was making it harder to concentrate with every passing second. “SEAL stands for Sea, Air, Land. Part of the training is learning how to pilot anything that has an engine and moves.”

  “Seriously?” Her own voice was more than a little breathless now as, her gazed locked on his, she closed her hand around him, measuring his hard circumference.

  “Oh, yeah.” His brain had gone hazy, and his tongue suddenly felt thick, making it hard to talk. Still, for a moment he considered calling a halt, except that it was hours yet until dawn and this beat the hell out of being alone with his thoughts….

  “Do you have other hidden talents?” she queried.

  She gently tightened her grip and once again he felt the desire to be deep inside her. “Why don’t you come here—” reaching across his body, he caught her by the hips and shifted her on top of him, gritting his teeth as he centered her and felt the slippery warmth of her settle against him “—and let me show you.”

  She laughed, low a
nd throaty, a sound so innately sexy it made his skin prickle with need. “I don’t think so. I think it’s my turn to be…in charge.”

  Catching him off guard, she pushed herself up so she was straddling him, then rocked up on her knees. Before he could do more than swallow, she positioned him and rubbed slowly over the tip of him.

  Then she wet her lips and came sliding down, her own breath catching as she took the full length and breadth of him. It was all he could do not to cry out as he felt the squeeze of her inner muscles tighten around him.

  Oh, yeah. It’s definitely going to be a heart attack that takes me out…just merciful heaven, don’t let it happen now….

  His mind went blank altogether as she reversed course, riding him up, paused again at the height of her stroke, then once again began to slowly, slowly lower herself.

  “Li, you’re killing me,” he said in a guttural voice he barely recognized as his own.

  “At least you won’t die alone,” she murmured, settling into an unhurried rhythm that threatened to turn him inside out. “And you have to admit, there are worse ways to go….”

  Swallowing a groan, he squeezed his eyes shut and spent the next few minutes focused fiercely on holding back the tide already threatening to sweep him away.

  Then her control faded, as well. “Dominic,” she whispered urgently. “Oh, yes, there…right there, yes…Deeper. You feel so—oh, sooo good—”

  The sound of her voice shattered his concentration. His eyes snapped open and locked on her. Bathed in moonlight, she looked stunning, her eyes rapturously closed, her pale hair tumbled around her like a golden cloak. A faint sheen of perspiration clung to her skin, making it glow as she began to pick up the pace, rocking up a little faster, sinking down a little harder—

  Like a blind man caught in a whirlwind, he could feel himself spiraling out of control, tumbling toward the slippery edge of his own release. Needing an anchor, he slid his hands up her torso to cup her breasts, gently squeezing her nipples between his thumbs and forefingers.

  Lilah’s enthralled cry and the heart-stopping sensation of her clamping down and clenching around him shoved him over the brink.

  In a sudden fever of need, he locked his hands around her slender waist, holding her in place as his hips slammed up, his back bowed. Nothing else mattered as he spilled himself into her, spinning away in a rush of pleasure greater than any he’d ever known.

  Dom had just finished packing the last of their gear when he heard the distant whomp-whomp-whomp of the helicopter.

  He scrambled to the clearing’s edge. Scanning the sky as he stuffed his shirt tail into his pants, he narrowed his gaze against the rising sun and finally caught a flash of silver skimming the treetops. It was a whole lot closer than he’d expected, and all it took was a glance to identify it as a Bell Huey with the San Timotean flag painted boldly on its tail.

  “Get back!” he ordered as he turned to find Lilah on her feet, coming his way. Charging toward her, he hauled her into the dense shadow behind the base of the largest tree.

  No more than ten seconds later, the large metal bird passed directly overhead, making the trees shimmy violently in the rotor wash.

  Ducking her head, Lilah burrowed against him and he instinctively wrapped his arms around her. “Do you think they’re looking for us?” she asked the instant the chopper’s deafening roar had subsided enough that she could be heard.

  He let go of her and took a step back, starkly aware that if they’d broken camp even five minutes earlier the chopper would have caught them out in the open. “No. Most likely they’re making a transport run. By the time we get something to eat and break camp, they should be long—”

  He cut himself off as he heard the bird turn and head back.

  What the hell? He knew damn well they couldn’t have been spotted from the air. Even if the men aboard were equipped with high-powered binoculars, their incoming angle had been all wrong, and the trees were too dense, the shadows too deep, for him and Lilah to have been seen. He was equally certain that there was nobody on the ground close enough to have called in their location; he trusted his instincts and would’ve sensed their presence.

  Which meant the chopper had to be flying a predetermined pattern.

  Dom tried to tell himself he was wrong, but when the bird finished its current pass, moved roughly a quarter mile to the east, then turned yet again, his doubts vanished.

  His mind churning, he turned to look at Lilah. “You want to tell me,” he said, trying not to leap to conclusions even as he felt a tightness in his stomach that warned that somewhere along the way he’d dropped the ball, “what’s going on?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Some of his tension eased at the look of genuine puzzlement on her face. Deciding she had no reason to lie, he glanced away long enough to finish securing the straps on the pack. “I wondered what the deal was when I heard that El Presidente kept raising the rent on you; it’s not his usual pattern. And then I wondered again when I got here and found out that instead of being in Santa Marita, like every other person who’s ever been detained, you’d been sent to Las Rocas.

  “Now this. No way would Condesta send out what amounts to the entire San Timotean Air Force to look for you without a damn good reason. You want to tell me what it is? Does it have something to do with that guy you were with?”

  Lilah’s expression turned blank. “Guy?” she echoed. “Why would you think I was with a man?”

  “Because your grandmother said so,” he said flatly.

  “She did?” And then her face cleared. “Oh! You must mean Diego.”

  “Yeah.” His gaze held hers. “I guess I do.”

  A sudden flash of amusement lit her eyes. “Diego is irresistible—for a twelve-year-old!”

  “He’s a kid?”

  “Yes. I was his family’s guest at the Cinco de Mayo celebration at the town square. Things got out of hand, the guarda showed up, and somehow in the melee we got separated. The next thing I knew, a policeman had him. I tried to explain that he didn’t have anything to do with the troublemakers, but the policeman wouldn’t listen. He struck Diego—” a trace of remembered repulsion colored her voice “—I objected, and there was an altercation. Diego got away, and I got arrested.”

  Terrific. Diego was a victim, Lilah was a saint and he was an idiot. A jealous idiot. The discovery didn’t do a thing to improve his mood. “And the chopper? You have any idea what that’s all about?”

  She pursed her lips a moment. “Did Gran explain why I came here?” she asked finally, falling in behind him as he hefted the backpack into place and they headed out.

  He nodded, took a quick look around to get his bearings, then chose a path headed southwest. “Yeah. She said you’d come to see about providing money for what I assume is the kid’s school.”

  Lilah was silent a moment, then made a soft sound that somehow conveyed both resignation and exasperation. “Apparently she didn’t mention that I have an advanced degree in international finance. Or that for the past two years I’ve been running the Anson Foundation, which has a half-billion dollar endowment and now does educational outreach for children in thirty-seven countries. The school here is a good one, worthy of support, but obviously the situation is complicated by the government. The trick is figuring out a way to help without lining certain people’s pockets. That’s why I came myself. I’d just dealt with a similar problem in East Africa, so I thought I might be able to expedite matters here.

  “The problem is, I couldn’t. And when I told El Presidente there’d be no money, he was visibily angry.” She fell silent as he helped her scale an enormous downed log. “Everything just happened so quickly,” she went on as they resumed walking. “I went straight from the meeting with Condesta to meet Diego’s family, and then I was arrested. I never even had time to call home and report I’d decided to pass on the money at this time.”

  It made perfect sense, Dom thought as he pressed ahead along the narrow track
. Clearly Condesta intended to get his hands on the Anson money, no matter what it took.

  “Any thoughts on why he’s increased his demands the longer he’s held you?”

  “He has?” she said with surprise.

  “Yes.”

  “I have no idea. Unless—”

  He swiveled around to glance back at her. “Unless what?”

  “Well…if I had to hazard a guess, it would be that he’s still upset about his Mercedes.”

  “His Mercedes?”

  She gave a faint, apologetic sigh. “Yes. I wrecked it. I’m afraid he didn’t take it very well. The very next day I was shipped to Las Rocas.”

  “Lilah, what in the hell are you talking about?”

  She tugged her hair away from a bush where it had caught. “When I was first being held, in Santa Marita, I tried to escape. Which must be why they upped the ransom demand,” she added thoughtfully. “Anyway, Condesta is inordinately fond of the sound of his own voice, so after I got caught the second time—”

  The second time?

  “—he came to lecture me about the folly of my behavior. And since he fancies himself a ladies’ man, and especially likes blondes, or so rumor has it, he delivered his message while trying to impress me with a tour of his new, private marina, built to house his yachts and speedboats and brand new seaplane. It didn’t seem to occur to him that in a country where most of his people don’t have enough to eat, I might find his conspicuous consumption less than laudatory.”

  She waved her hand as if that were beside the point. “Anyhow, when we finally got back to the part of the compound where I was being held, his driver assisted his excellency from the car—El Presidente doesn’t walk anywhere he can drive, even on his own property—then came around to open my door. And that’s when I realized the car was still idling and I just…I lost my head.”

  Dom quirked an eyebrow at her. “I’m afraid to ask.”

  “Well, it wasn’t that big a deal, I simply climbed over the seat and put the car into gear and aimed it at the front gate. The Mercedes held up surprisingly well despite that barrier, and I still think I would have made the turn, except there was a woman on a bike and when I swerved to avoid her, I lost control and—” she drew a breath and gave a little shrug “—that was the end of the Mercedes.”