Page 9

CHAPTER NINE

Violet

“Keep your eyes open,” Wick said as mine squeezed shut the second the speedboat lurched forward. “It’s like when you are a little too drunk. When you close your eyes, it makes the spinning worse.”

I forced my eyelids open as my stomach whirled around ominously. And I really, really didn’t want to lose those two plates of carbs I’d just shoveled in my mouth.

I was hoping that Wick would let me catch a nap in a real bed before we had to head out.

As it was, he’d only let me have a few hours to set my clothes outside to dry in the sun, pack my duffle with anything I might want from his cabinets, and say a little goodbye to Hank before he insisted we had to get going.

I figured Marco had some sort of schedule to keep. Even though I’d yet to hear the man utter a single word. Which was weird since Wick talked to him. In Spanish. So I only caught on to every couple of words. I heard something about a map, a flight, and a Jeep. But that was all I got.

Then, well, we were loading onto our boats, and I was too busy reasoning—and bargaining—with my stomach to ask Wick any questions.

Thankfully, Wick decided to show me more mercy this time, lagging well behind Marco on the way back to the other islands. And even I had to admit, it was much better standing with my eyes open than lying in the back squeezing my eyes shut as my body rocked around.

“See? Not so bad,” Wick said, hopping out of the boat to tie it down.

“What are we doing now?” I asked.

“Now, we get back to the mainland and gather some more supplies,” he said, finished with tying the boat down, and offering me a hand.

Normally, I would have pushed his hand away, said I could help myself off a boat thank you very much . But for some reason, I took his hand.

Sure enough, it hadn’t just been a fluke from being stranded and close and reliant upon each other. The spark sizzled from the contact and up my arm, across my chest, then down .

“Why did we have to come all the way out here if we were only going to go back?”

“I needed cash to pay Marco,” he said, shrugging.

“You keep cash at an unattended house on a remote island? What if someone else happened upon it?”

“That’s unlikely. It’s well-hidden. And has a code to protect it. And it’s not all my money anyway.”

“Right. You have that in offshore accounts.” At his raised brow look, I added, “Your case said the DOJ never found the money. I figured you were smart enough to move it offshore before they came down on you.”

“To be fair, I moved it offshore just for privacy and tax reasons. But, yeah, it worked out in this case too. What are you looking for?” he asked as my head went on a swivel.

“Marco.”

“Marco does his own thing. He’ll be at the rendezvous point by the time we get there. Where are you going?” he asked, grabbing me around the waist when I went to head toward the small town we were passing.

“That sign said coffee.”

“I’m afraid we are on a time crunch,” Wick said, pulling me away. “This is the only flight off the island today. We have to catch it.”

“Why do you hate coffee? And, more importantly, me getting coffee?”

“I promise to get you a coffee before all this is over.”

I’d thought at the time that he meant before the day was over.

But, nope.

Wick was a stickler for his own little made-up schedule.

Which meant he’d dragged me through the airport back in Ecuador before I could even think about getting on line for an extra-large, extra-sweet, lightly creamy coffee.

Cut to us sitting in a crowded bus, my arms crossed, glaring daggers at him.

While he pretended he didn’t see me.

The bus dropped us off somewhere in the middle of nowhere later that evening.

“I swear to God, if you are going to say we are walking to the rainforest from here, I’m going to knock you over the head and drag you back to the States right now.”

“Marco will be getting us with the Jeep then driving us the rest of the way.”

“How far is it?”

“Another two hours or so. The resort should be reasonably easy to find from where we are going. If it exists at all. I think this could all be done in a day or so.”

I would throw those words back at him many times in the coming days. But right then, I lowered myself down in the thick grass on the side of the road, feeling the full day of travel weighing down on me.

It wasn’t until Wick suggested I move closer to the trees, then lowered down as well, using his pack as a pillow that I got suspicious.

“ When is Marco coming to get us with the Jeep?”

“Sometime before morning.”

“Sometime before morning? Then why was there such a rush to get out here?” It would have taken all of five minutes to let me get in line at a café.

“Marco isn’t great with exact times. I wanted to make sure we were here when he does show up. Better to be early than late. You can take a nap. I’ll wake you when he gets here.”

Normally, I struggled to sleep around strangers. But, I guess, when I’d literally slept on this guy’s chest, he was no longer a stranger. And he’d proven himself a worthy opponent in a fight, even though I’d been training since I was in diapers, per my parents’ demands. So I was safe.

With that, I found myself drifting off. I thought lightly. Until, suddenly, I felt arms sliding under me, lifting me up.

“Shh,” Wick’s voice reached my half-conscious mind. “Just moving you into the Jeep.”

I should have startled awake. But even half-asleep, it felt so good to be held.

I wasn’t exactly the kind of woman most men would think to pick up and carry. Nothing about my personality suggested I would be okay with that. So it was a new experience for me that had me drifting closer to consciousness so I could really soak into the moment.

The breadth of his chest, the strength in his arms, the warmth of him, the steady thud of his heartbeat, the whisper of his breath across my hair.

I expected to be lowered down in the backseat.

But Wick moved into the back with me, cradling me to his chest as the Jeep pulled off, rocking lightly on the road.

I let myself sink into Wick.

He thought I was asleep. He’d never know how awake I was, how much I was enjoying the closeness.

One of Wick’s arms stayed around me. The other slipped up to drift through my hair, making the coconut smell of his shampoo fill the air around us.

When his fingers moved up to start rubbing gently at my scalp, it took every ounce of self-control I possessed to keep from moaning.

Scalp massages were my favorite kind. And where they usually created a comforting type of relaxation, Wick’s touch was stirring up nothing but desire.

Within a few minutes, I was reasonably sure there was no way Wick could have thought I was still asleep as my breathing went quicker and got shallower, as little shivers racked my system.

My thighs were pressed tightly together, trying to ease the ache with little success.

The Jeep suddenly stopped, the car rocking, then a door slamming.

Not a moment later, Wick’s hands were off of my scalp and working my pants’ button and zipper down.

I tensed in surprise, not objection.

Wick’s hand stilled.

“Let me make it better,” he said, his voice a sexy rumble.

The only answer I could muster was to let my legs part in silent invitation.

He wasted no time, his fingers sliding into my pants, then under the waistband of my panties, slipping down to tease up my cleft.

“So wet for me, duchess,” he murmured as his thumb found my clit at the same time two of his fingers slid inside me, making a needy moan escape me.

A growling sound moved through Wick as my walls tightened around his fingers.

There was no thinking then, just feeling, as his fingers thrust and his thumb swiped.

My soft sighs grew to deep moans as he drove me up, up, up, then sent me right to the edge.

Wick’s free hand suddenly moved, grabbing the back of my neck and forcing my face tightly against his shoulder, muffling my cries as the orgasm crashed through me, the waves pulling me under over and over.

I was barely able to suck in a breath afterward before Wick’s fingers were out of my pants.

Just in time for Marco’s door to open again.

Something was tossed to the passenger seat, then the door was slamming, and we were pulling off, the music once again coursing through the speakers.

By the time the car started bouncing on the road once again, I had finally come back to my senses.

Meaning I realized what an epic screw-up that was.

I shot off of Wick’s lap, moving against the opposite door and discreetly—I hoped—buttoning up my pants once again.

It was then, looking backward, that I realized where we’d been stopped.

At the edge of a little town.

“We stopped at a town? Why didn’t you tell me?” There could have been coffee there! One last actual bathroom stop before we took to peeing behind bushes again.

“You were… sleeping,” Wick said, making me glance over. Just in time to see him slip his fingers into his mouth, tasting me.

If I were a blushing woman, I’d have been crimson right then.

Thankfully, I wasn’t. So I could offer him a convincing glower as I crossed my arms.

“Marco stopped to get you a backpack with some supplies,” Wick said, unbothered by my attitude as he reached around the front seat to grab the bag off the passenger seat.

“Hey, stop touching my stuff,” I grumbled, grabbing my duffle from him as he started to rifle through it.

“This is all you packed?” he asked, brows pinching as he kept digging even as I tried to pull it away from him.

“I was supposed to be chasing a skip. In the States. Where there are stores around for anything I might need, not stranded on an island or trekking through the rainforest. Maybe if someone had told me we were hitting up a town, I could have stopped to stock up.”

“Who are you kidding? You would have spent the whole time trying to track down a cup of coffee.”

“And you should have allowed me to. You would be much more tolerable if I were caffeinated.”

To that, Wick’s lips twitched, and I didn’t like the sparkle in his eyes.

“Yeah, because clearly sleep doesn’t fix your mood.”

“Well, maybe it wasn’t very good sleep .”

It was great ‘sleep,’ and we both knew it. But I’d be damned if I admitted it out loud.

I needed to keep a wall up between us.

Partly because he was my skip. But there was also the whole lying-to-me thing. And, most egregious of all, his one-man mission to keep me uncaffeinated.

“Whatever you need to tell yourself, duchess. Pack your backpack.”

I hated being ordered around.

Seeming to sense that, Wick shot me a cocky little smirk.

“Or I will do it for you. Do you really want me rifling through your bras and panties? Have any other purple get-ups in there?”

I wanted to hate that he knew what my one pretty bra looked like. But I felt another little sizzle of desire despite myself.

“Worry about your own bag,” I suggested, shoving things into my new backpack all willy-nilly. What’d it matter if my clothes were wrinkled if Wick was going to be the only person to see them? And, of course, Marco. But I’d still yet to hear the man utter a single word, so I imagined he wouldn’t have much to say about my clothes either.

Luckily, my duffle wasn’t as pathetic as it had been when I’d landed in Ecuador, thanks to raiding his drawers back at the house. But it definitely didn’t have secret first aid kits or, I imagined, a compass or whatever else people might need deep in the jungle.

But if we were only going to be in the rainforest for a day or so, I couldn’t imagine I would need much.

“What are we doing for food?” I asked an hour or so later, after stubbornly looking out the side window to avoid talking to Wick.

“You can’t be hungry already.”

I was. But he didn’t have to know that. What can I say? I had a very healthy appetite. And was usually just active enough to keep that from packing on the pounds.

“Did you pack protein bars for later?”

“We won’t starve.”

That didn’t exactly sound promising but Wick didn’t seem any more interested in talking to me than I was to him right then.

So we sat in mutually stubborn silence for the rest of the drive.

I dozed on and off.

Then very, very off.

Until Wick’s voice barked at me.

“Get up, duchess. Or we’re leaving you here.”

I’m pretty sure I growled at him.

And the jerk had the audacity to laugh at that.

It was going to be a real joy to haul him in, cuffed, and shove him at the cops.

But first, I had to get through the damn jungle with him.