Shadow Pawn, page 9
Call her paranoid but she believed they could. She had no doubt these people had that capability.
Whoever had been holding her would know she’d escaped. They’d be looking for her. They might be watching her house. They’d monitor her work too. That knocked out any chance of emailing home or work.
Phones and email at both places—home and work—were out of the question. What did that leave? Who could she contact?
The FBI? How did a person even contact the FBI?
The local Maryland police department where she lived? Her paranoia kicked in. What if the local police were in on it?
Now she was thinking like a crazy person. This wasn’t some Hollywood thriller. Though sometimes it sure felt like it.
Nothing about what was happening here was normal. From the abduction in Shanghai to the rescue by the mysterious mercenary to her current abandonment on an island in South Korea.
Maybe she wasn’t paranoid. She had to be careful.
Sitting back, she considered her very limited options.
The frustration had her sucking down more of the wine before a solution hit her.
Her summer intern from two years ago. Faith.
They’d worked together for the entire summer before she’d gone back to college for her senior year.
Faith had just graduated. Angela had mailed her a card with a gift certificate inside. Or at least she’d had her assistant do it.
But the point was, she still remembered Faith’s email address from her resume because it was so cute. Have Faith at Gmail dot com.
When Faith worked for the company, she’d been given a corporate account. Her Gmail account wouldn’t be in the system. It was only on the paper resume buried somewhere in the filing system. Not trackable by whatever cyber criminals had breached her communications.
Faith lived not too far from the company. If Angela emailed her, explained this crazy situation and asked her to go directly to Lou—in person, no phone calls, no emails—Faith could tell her COO what was happening. That Angela was all right but trapped in Korea with no ID and no plane ticket.
He’d know what to do to get her home.
As Angela typed in the email, letter by letter, she realized how crazy it all sounded. What worked in her favor was that her disappearance should have been in the news there.
She had to ignore the typos. Keep her words short since typing out the message was painfully slow. Figure out how to not sound like a scammer or a spammer who was spoofing Angela Lewis, CEO of a Fortune 500 Company, with a Yahoo account.
It was infuriating, trying to make her hands work as they shook. The television manufacturer might have done a good thing including a browser feature in their smart TV, but someone should have realized no one in their right mind would want to type on a remote control.
Her mind spun with crazy, pointless thoughts.
Who used this browser feature anyway? She’d never even noticed it on her own televisions. And given how agonizing this process was, she wouldn’t use it again when—if—she made it home.
What did other people do? A Bluetooth keyboard maybe? It didn’t matter. She didn’t have a keyboard or anything else to make this process faster or easier.
Finally, she got the message typed in and was reading it over, restraining herself from trying to navigate around in the text and edit her words and fix a typo, when there was a knock on the door.
Her heart stopped and she nearly dropped the remote as she jumped.
Fumbling, she somehow retained control of it. Shaking, she navigated her way over to the SEND button and clicked.
Amazingly, the email shot into cyber space. She hit the power off button and spun to face the door.
Who was it?
She turned to glance back at the television. The screen was black. But if they powered it back on, would the browser window pop up? Would they see her email account?
Would they know help was on the way?
She looked at the clicker, still in her shaking hands. To make sure they wouldn’t use it and catch her, she shoved it under the sofa, out of sight. Then she turned back toward the door.
The taser. She still had it. Adam had left her with it.
She ran to the bathroom where she’d taken it out of her pocket. It was still there next to the sink.
Grasping it in her shaking hands, she crept toward the front door, wishing she’d had the lights off. Too late. She couldn’t turn them off now.
Too bad. It would have been more convincing if the house was dark so she could pretend to not be there. Besides, she’d feel better—more invisible—in the dark. Especially if they kicked in the door.
If she could see them but they couldn’t see her she’d have the advantage. She might have a chance of overpowering them.
Then what? Run? Run where?
Hit them again with the taser so they’d stay unconscious? Did the taser even knock a person out?
She was getting ahead of herself.
Maybe it was the rental company, checking on her stay.
In a normal world, that would be perfectly logical. But nothing about her life was normal right now.
She felt like she was close to passing out when the person—whoever it was—pounded on the door again.
Tears gathered in her eyes. She couldn’t do this. Not anymore. Not alone. It had been a living hell since she was taken. It was too much. She was ready to break.
Let them take her. Let them kill her. She didn’t care anymore. As long as the constant fear ended.
“Angela! It’s me.”
A shallow breath whooshed out of her.
Adam.
She dropped the taser on the floor as she tried with both hands to unlock the door, before flinging it open.
He stood in the rain, water dripping off the hair on his forehead and into his eyes. He was the best thing she’d seen in a month.
“Adam.” She breathed out his name as she flung both arms around him. That’s when the tears broke through. Huge wracking sobs that shook her body as he wrapped his arms around her.
“Hey, it’s okay.”
He backed them both inside. She was barely aware as he closed and locked the door, all while keeping one thick arm wrapped around her as she clung to him.
“Are you okay?”
She shook her head. With a hand on each of her shoulders, he pushed her far enough away from him that he could look at her.
“What happened?” he asked.
“Nothing… I was just… alone.” She drew in a breath that turned into a huge stuttering sob instead.
“Shit.” He pulled her against him again, tighter this time.
His arms felt like a barricade around her. Protecting her from the world. From all danger. If only that were true. But for now, it was enough.
He held her tight, resting his head against the top of hers as she buried her face in his damp shirt.
Finally, the tears stopped. She didn’t know how long they’d stood there, clutched together. But now that she was no longer in the middle of a hysterical breakdown, it felt odd to be in his arms. A man she’d known for only about twenty-four hours.
She pulled back and dared to glance up at his face. “I’m sorry.”
He shook his head. “No. I’m sorry. I should have never left you.” He blew out a breath. “But we’re in better shape to defend ourselves from whatever might come our way since I did.”
His use of the word our made her heart clench. She wasn’t in this alone. Not anymore.
That brought back the flood of tears that she’d just conquered.
He mouthed another curse and reached out to pull her against him again. “I’m so so sorry.”
She shook her head. “No. It’s okay.”
“It’s not okay.” He pulled back and cupped her face between his palms so he could deliver that message eye-to-eye.
He did look sorry. But there was more. Something else in his gaze as he looked at her from so close she could feel his breath against her skin.
He’d come back for her.
All anger toward him had fled leaving relief. Gratitude. And—proof that she was losing it—desire.
She wanted nothing more than to lose herself in this man’s arms. Feel his weight on top of her. Forget about this living hell, just for a little while.
Why shouldn’t she? There was still a good chance she—they—wouldn’t make it out of this thing. If she was going to die, maybe it was time to live a little.
His face still close, his eyes locked on hers before his gaze dropped to her lips.
It had been a long time, but she hadn’t been out of the dating world for so long that she was completely unaware when a man was interested. His emotions were so near the surface she could feel them radiating off him.
He wanted her as much as she wanted him. Why shouldn’t they both get what they wanted?
She rose on tiptoe to close the few inches between them, leaned in and pressed her lips against his.
For a brief moment he froze before sucking in a breath through his nose and pulling her against him.
Then he was kissing her harder. And she was kissing him back, matching his intensity.
The kiss got frenzied as he turned them and pushed her up against the door.
He reached down and hoisted her up with one hand on each of her ass cheeks. She wrapped her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck as his tongue stroked between her lips, making love to her mouth.
She was shaking, but not from fear. She pulled back to catch her breath.
His breath came in gasps after she broke the kiss.
He lowered her so she was standing on her own two feet. With her bracketed between him and the door, he pinned her with a gaze heavy with desire. Watching. waiting.
She didn’t make him wait any longer.
Breathing through parted lips, she said, “I want you.”
Her voice sounded strange in her own ears. Husky. Needy.
She’d never heard herself sound like that before. In fact, she’d never said those words before either. Then again, she’d never been with a man like him before. Or in a life or death situation like this.
“You sure?” he asked.
“Yes.”
That was all it took. She was in his arms again, his tongue between her lips.
His hand snaked between them, sliding down her belly beneath the waistband of her pants.
He connected with her heated core and she let out a gasp.
She felt him smile against her mouth as he forged ahead, tantalizing her.
With just the tip of one finger he had her gasping. Then he really started to work her.
Legs shaking, she clung to him.
Head pressed back against the door, she closed her eyes and let the sensations consume her, until the sounds of her pleasure echoed off the walls of the sparsely furnished room.
When the orgasm rocked her, it was only his body pinning hers against the door that kept her upright.
Her muscles clenched, wracking her body with ecstasy she hadn’t felt in far too long. Since long before the kidnapping.
She was breathless by the time the waves slowed, leaving just a tingling memory of the tsunami that had come before.
His mouth had covered hers during the loudest portion of her climax, swallowing the volume of her cries.
At least one of them had been thinking clearly. They were on the run. They needed to be able to hear. Listen. Yet all she had cared about was feeling. Not thinking.
She sank against the door and dared to glance up at the man who had provided her much needed release.
His nostrils flared as his chest rose and fell with every deep breath. His hazel eyes, hooded beneath narrowed lids, locked onto her gaze.
Those clues, combined with the rock hard ridge of his erection pressing against her through their clothing and the hunger in his expression told her one thing. He wasn’t nearly done yet.
In fact, he’d just begun.
Her lips parted as he watched her with a hunger she’d never seen in any of the men she’d been intimate with.
Swallowing hard, she glanced toward the door across the room, then back to him. “Bed.”
It hadn’t been a question and he didn’t answer. At least not in words. Only with actions.
Palms braced against the door, he pushed himself off her, stopping to grab the handles of the two bags in one hand before he reached for her with the other and turned toward the bedroom.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
If he was going to break Charley’s rules, he might as well break a few of his own too.
Flying back here to have sex with the woman he’d been sent to rescue and ordered to leave definitely violated a whole truckload of rules—both personal and professional.
That knowledge did nothing to stop him as he knelt on the mattress between Angela’s legs and reached for the waistband of her pants.
He tugged them down and saw what he’d already felt with his hand. She hadn’t put back on her underwear after she showered.
Good thing he hadn’t known that before. It would have seemed like an even longer journey to the base and back if he’d had a raging boner the entire time because he’d been thinking about her being commando.
She was pulling her top off over her head so he figured she was as anxious to get naked as he was to have her so. He slid his palms over her warm smooth skin as he worked the pants down.
His gaze roamed over her long legs and he imagined them wrapped around his waist as he plunged inside her.
Soon.
As soon as he could get his own clothes off. But he was having so much fun as they removed hers, he got distracted.
Leaning down, he sucked in one taught brown nipple. She hissed in a breath and, encouraged, he tugged harder. He felt the tremor run through her in response and liked it. Too much.
What else could he do to her with his mouth? The possibilities were right there in front of him as he grasped her ankles and yanked her legs apart.
She gasped and he proceeded as planned, latching onto her core with his mouth. She was bucking beneath him in minutes. And he was more needy than before, ready to explode.
If he didn’t have her soon, he might do just that. Like a horny teen coming before even getting inside.
He moved up her body, positioned himself at her entrance and thrust into her.
The feeling of her surrounding him had his lids slamming shut. He forced them open again so he could see her face, contorted in passion as her eyes squeezed shut and her mouth opened wide on a breath.
He imagined his cock between her lips and nearly lost control. He forced his mind off that image and ran his hands down her sides before wrapping them around her waist, nipped in before the wide flair of her hips.
Anchored, he pistoned into her, hard and fast. The frenzied pace brought about the end too soon. He felt the telltale tingle as his balls drew up, tightening, ready for release.
He pulled out and, grasping himself in his fist, directed the spurts onto the bed next to her.
Shaking, his arms were barely supporting his weight as he collapsed onto the mattress at her side.
“We shouldn’t have done that,” she whispered.
“Nope.” They most definitely shouldn’t have. Although that she regretted it so quickly didn’t do much for his ego.
“We should be on alert in case someone comes.” She turned her head on the pillow to look at him.
That she regretted their lapse in security and not having sex with him made him feel moderately better. Enough so that he laid one hand on her stomach as he said, “You’re right. But we’re in better shape now than we were before as far as security.”
A frown creased the forehead above her ebony eyebrows. “You said something like that before. What do you mean by that?”
He tipped his head in the direction of the two bags on the floor. One, the familiar bag they’d had with them when they fled Shanghai. But since his trip, it had been joined by a second canvas bag.
The extra weapon inside was a comfort. Not that he thought the people who had been holding her at the hotel in Shanghai would be able to find them here. Hopefully if anyone came knocking it would just be her ride home. But without knowing exactly who Charley worked for, he wasn’t going to let his guard down completely.
She glanced in the direction of the two bags, then back at him. “What’s in there?”
“I paid a little visit to a buddy of mine. He, uh, bolstered our defenses.”
She eyed the bag again. It was larger, longer, than the backpack.
“With what? A gun?” she asked.
He snorted at her understatement. “Not just a gun. A sniper rifle. Plus more ammo for the handgun.”
That frown returned as she asked, “Do you know how to use a sniper rifle?”
His brows lifted at the question. “Uh, yeah. I’ve had some experience with one.”
Now he was the one throwing around the understatements. Navy SEAL sniper training was some of the best in the world. And he’d been damn good at it—before his career blew up.
“Have you heard from the company?” she asked.
“No. I, uh…” He hesitated before continuing, “I powered down the cell and took out the SIM card.”
“Why?” she asked, eyes wide.
“Because my orders were to abandon you here and return to the States immediately. I didn’t exactly do that. And I don’t want them to know.”
“Why didn’t you? Follow orders, I mean.” Her voice had softened with the question.
He didn’t look away but met her stare as he confessed, “Because nothing about leaving you felt right.”
Where the fuck was all this honesty coming from? He wasn’t a man to wear his heart on his sleeve. Or offer up more information than absolutely necessary.
With her, he seemed to be doing both. Spilling it all. But it seemed to be working. She let out a soft breath as her emotions played across her face.
“I’m glad you came back,” she said softly.
“So am I.” More than she knew. More than he wanted to admit.
She leaned in a bit closer as he itched to reach out and pull her on top of him.
Settle her right over his hardening cock and let her ride him until this ache to have her went away.
