Page 22

R yker

The first night out on the road, I could feel the weight of every eye on us.

The security team was professional, sure, but even through their stoic expressions and rigid postures, I knew they were watching.

Maybe it was curiosity. Maybe it was caution.

Either way, their presence kept Naomi and me from fully exploring the kind of moments I craved to share with her.

We'd opted to sleep in the vehicles. It was safer that way. The terrain was unpredictable, and the risks too high to pitch a tent, leaving ourselves exposed to the elements—or worse, to the unknown dangers that lurked in these desolate lands. The utility vehicles offered enough room to sleep if you didn’t mind the cramped quarters, and though it wasn’t the most comfortable option, it kept us close, in ways that made the entire situation all the more… charged.

Being so much smaller than me, Naomi took the front seat of our transport, lying down across the bench, her delicate features illuminated by the soft glow of the moonlight seeping through the window.

She hadn’t said much after we’d pulled off the road to settle for the night, but her silence wasn’t cold—it was contemplative, like she was figuring out her place in all this.

With the rest of the team settling into their own vehicles, I sat up on the back bench seat, pretending to check my gear, but really, my focus never left her.

There was something in the way she looked at me now, an awareness that hadn’t been there when we’d first met.

A certain tension simmered beneath the surface of every glance we exchanged, every quiet breath we took in each other's presence.

I wished we were alone together.

The security detail rotated shifts, always on alert, but there were moments—brief, stolen moments—when it felt like it was just the two of us.

Those moments where her eyes would flicker up to meet mine, and I’d catch a glimpse of something raw and unspoken passing between us.

I wanted to reach for her, to touch the soft curve of her cheek or feel the way her body would lean into mine, but not here. Not yet.

Instead, I leaned back in my seat, keeping watch over her, and over the darkened horizon beyond the vehicle's window.

The rhythmic hum of the engine provided a kind of intimacy, a white noise that blocked out the rest of the world, leaving just the two of us in this strange limbo between duty and desire.

And so, we handled the nights like this, pretending the security team wasn’t there, pretending we weren’t on the edge of something neither of us fully understood yet. But in the quiet, in the darkness, our connection deepened, bit by bit.

In some ways, the days were easier. I tried to keep myself from touching her. I failed. I took advantage of every private moment that presented itself.

Snaking in between the overgrown trees of the forest and traversing gnarly roots and deeply pitted and eroded ground, it soon became clear that we weren’t going to be able to go much further like this and would have to hike the last several miles.

We’d put some distance between ourselves and the larger vehicles following, so I’d begun looking around for a likely place to stop and get ready to proceed on foot.

I pressed the gas a little to crest over a ridge we were climbing, but slammed on the brake with both feet when I realized there was nothing but open air on the other side.

Naomi cried out. She had been sleeping beside me and the sudden stop had jolted her awake.

My arm had flown out as we skidded to a stop, pinning her against the seat so she didn’t hit her head on the dashboard.

I soon realized that the front wheels were no longer on the ground.

“Do. Not. Move,” I dictated. Her eyes flicked to me, full of questions, but she obeyed.

She didn’t even twitch a single muscle as the vehicle rocked threateningly back and forth.

I dared a glance out of the side window, careful not to lean forward.

Down beneath us was a deep crevasse. Much of it was overgrown, but I could see red rock peeking out from between the brush.

It went on for miles to either side, and I’d almost driven us right off the cliff.

“If we lean backwards, we might be able to stabilize it enough to get out,” she breathed. Her eyes were trained on me. There was a very slight hint of panic in her eyes, but she remained calm, nonetheless. She didn’t rush to action, waiting instead to see what I thought the best course might be.

“Good thinking. I want you to reach very slowly to your side and lower your seat backwards.”

“Okay,” she said softly.

At the same time, we both reached down, and the car groaned dangerously loud. I paused, allowing the car to level out before I lifted the handle.

“Keep pressure against the back so the seat doesn’t pop forward,” I warned.

“Got it,” she said quickly.

Slowly, we both lowered our seats back, taking care to pause anytime the car rocked.

My heart was threatening to beat right out of my chest by the time I lowered it all the way flat.

I looked in the rear-view mirror behind me, but the security team was nowhere to be seen.

Maybe they’d gotten cut off by a falling branch or worse, gotten a flat tire, but I couldn’t spent any time worrying about them.

“We should move into the backseat,” she offered. With trepidation, she looked out the front windshield, watching as the horizon wavered in the distance.

“Slowly. Very, very slowly,” I directed.

Inch by inch, we each slid back on the seat. The car rocked back and forth like a seesaw the entire time. I gritted my teeth, having a hard time keeping myself from grabbing her and just leaping out of here as fast as possible.

Eventually, we made it into the backseat and the car swayed a little bit less. Overhead, a tree creaked.

“We need to get out now,” she murmured, looking up.

“When I say Go, open the door and throw yourself out. Jump as far forward, away from the vehicle, fast as you can. Do you understand me?”

“Yes,” she answered quickly.

We took a moment to breathe and prepare.

“Ready?”

She nodded.

“Go!” I roared. At once, we both slammed our door open. Using my legs, I vaulted out of the car. Immediately, I threw myself forward, not wanting to get caught in the door or underneath a wheel in case the vehicle lost balance because of the sudden loss of our weight.

I rolled and jumped up, immediately searching for her, trying to see if she’d cleared the vehicle too.

“Naomi?” I yelled.

“I’m here,” she shouted. She was at the back of the vehicle. Her hand groped for the release to the cargo hold, and she swung it open. “Quick! We can save most of this.”

I sprinted over to her.

“It’s not worth it,” I growled.

“We need some of the maps at least,” she insisted.

She grabbed a handle of the oversized crate and yanked it toward her.

The vehicle pitched precariously but settled back quickly.

I realized that since the hold opened like a car door, it had probably shifted the center of gravity more toward the back than before.

She was right. If we acted fast, we could save much of the supplies and maybe even the vehicle if we were lucky. Fuck. If the security team was here, we could attach a winch to the back of the car and pull it back off the edge, but they still weren’t here.

We’d have to handle this on our own.

“Just help me. Grab the other handle. If we work together, we can get everything we need,” she was commanding me for a change. Without another word, I did as she asked. In less than thirty seconds, we emptied the trunk of supplies. Another crack overhead echoed like thunder.

“We need to move,” I said. “Leave everything here on the ground.”

Knowing I had to move fast I grabbed her around the waist and threw her over my shoulder.

In an all-out sprint, I raced back the way we had come.

Another deafening noise came from overhead in the tree canopy.

Without pause, I dove behind a tree and cradled Naomi in my arms as I watched a thick dead tree branch crash down onto the nose of the car.

It tipped too far forward to recover. Above us, the canopy turned into a shower of leaves and twigs, and I did my best to cover her with my body so that she wouldn’t be hurt if anything fell on me.

My vehicle pitched forward, heading straight down into the deep gully far below. The crunch of metal groaned throughout the valley as it rolled. I squeezed my arms around her that much tighter, thankful that her body wasn’t still in that car, broken and mangled along with the rest of it.

Her arms snaked around my neck just as the forest turned quiet. Several leaves flittered down to the ground, but thankfully no more twigs or branches fell.

Silence surrounded us completely. Then a bird sang somewhere off in the distance, breaking the tension and somehow reminding me to breathe.

“We’re okay,” she whispered.

“Your fast thinking saved us both,” I breathed.

“You’re not angry?”

“No. I’m just happy you’re okay.” I shook my head.

The roar of an engine sounded not far off, and she leapt out of my lap. Quickly, she waved her arms in warning.

Seth was driving one of the other two cars. He slammed on his brakes. Vince did the same not far behind them. Tires crunched in the rock and both vehicles skidded to a sudden stop. Seth looked around for ours, only jumping out when he realized there wasn’t one.

“What happened?” he called out.

“Gravity,” Naomi answered quickly. She winked in my direction, and I grinned with my own relief. As much as I wanted to hold her right now and tell her everything would be okay, she was fine.

She impressed me in new ways every day as I got to know her better, be it her intelligence, expertise, or now, ability to keep a steady head in a time of crisis.

Fuck. It made keeping my hands off her that much harder. Not that I’d been that successful thus far anyway.

“Our vehicle decided to take a joyride over that cliff right there.” I gritted my jaw, hating that these other men were here while I just wanted to grab Naomi, strip her bare, and fuck her senseless.

My relief that we were both safe had me a little desperate to hold her, claim her.

With a hesitant glance up, she walked toward the edge where our ride had just been not minutes ago.

I was about to yell at her to be careful, but she reached out and grasped the trunk of a tree, using it to hold much of her weight as she leaned forward.

I strode over to her.

The vehicle had fallen several hundred feet below. The only reason I could spot it was because there was a column of smoke spiraling up from it. I could only see hints of its mangled tan exterior, but it looked like it was on fire.

Suddenly it exploded with an echoing boom.

“Well, I guess there won’t be any fixing that,” Naomi grunted.

“Yeah. Even I’m going to have to back away from that one,” I chuckled in amusement.

“What do you want to do?” Seth asked her.

She glanced quickly at me and then out at the horizon. “I need you and your men to load the maps and books into the back of your vehicles. It might be a bit of a tight squeeze for all of us, but we’ll manage,” she began.

“Got it. Anything else?”

“Let’s backtrack a little. There was a clearing about a mile back that would make a good campsite for the night. Ryker and I will come up with a plan and we’ll move out in the morning when it’s light again,” she explained.

“Good thinking, Dr. Vaughn,” I grinned.

Her face lit up and I winked at her when no one was looking. She crossed an arm over her shoulder bashfully, as if to hide from me, but nothing took away the delicious pink tint across her cheeks.

She was fucking perfect.