“
Jesus!”
He reached down, closed a hand over hers to guide her, increasing the pressure, his hips rocking so that he thrust smoothly into her fist.
She kissed his chest, ran her tongue over a tight, flat nipple, then nibbled him, her heart racing. It felt right to give him pleasure. After all he’d suffered . . .
His rhythm quickened until his hips bucked wildly, his fingers clenched in her hair, his body strung tight, muscles straining. She increased the pressure slightly and felt him stiffen. Then he arched and shuddered, a deep groan tearing itself from his throat as he came in her hand.
It was she who went for the hot washcloth this time, his gaze following her as she climbed back into bed and carefully wiped him clean, the friction and heat of the washcloth making the muscles of his belly jerk. Then she snuggled up against him, his arm going around her, holding her close.
He made a contented sound deep in his throat, his fingertips stroking lazy lines down the skin of her back. “That’s one hell of a way to wake a man up, angel. I thought all you Cajun girls were good little Catholics.”
She laughed, then gave him her most innocent smile. “Why, yes, we are. But you’re forgetting—we’re French.”
“Ah. In that case . . .” He bit the tip of his tongue, then drew it back into his mouth, slowly pushing her onto her back, a grin on his face, his eyes full of mischief, a playfulness about him she’d never seen before.
She felt a hard flutter in her belly, pretty certain she knew what he meant to do.
He rolled on top of her, then slowly slid down her body. “I want to taste—”
Thumpthumpthump!
Someone beat on the door.
In an instant, Zach was out of bed, gun in his hand. He hissed at her in a whisper. “
Get to the bathroom!
”
Thumpthumpthump!
Heart thudding, Natalie jumped out of bed, ran to the bathroom, and stepped into the tub, drawing the shower curtain into place, suddenly feeling very naked. If she had to deal with those Zeta bastards again, she’d rather do it with her clothes on.
Thumpthumpthump!
“
¡Servicio de mucama!
” A woman’s voice. The housekeeper?
“
Por favor no me molestes. No necesito servicio de limpieza
.
Quiero dormir tranquilo.
”
Natalie understood most of that. Zach had just asked the woman not to disturb him and said he wanted to sleep in peace. The rest of it had gotten by her.
“
Sí, señor
.
Gracias.
”
“You can come out. It’s just the maid.”
Natalie heaved a sigh of relief and stepped out of the shower. But the interruption had broken the fragile bubble that had surrounded them since last night. Reality had intruded.
Zach glanced at the clock, the playfulness gone. “It’s noon already?
Shit
.”
“You needed the sleep.” Natalie sat on the bed, covering herself with the sheet.
“We’ve got a big day ahead of us.” He walked toward the bathroom, small gun in one hand, AK-47 in the other, clearly in military mode again. “I’m going to take a quick shower, grab us some breakfast, and then we need to talk. If anyone knocks at the door, come straight into the bathroom. Don’t respond in any way.”
She watched, puzzled. “You’re going to take a shower—with your guns?”
“I’m not actually going to take them into the shower. I just want them close by.” Then he turned, a grin on his face, some of the playfulness returning. “You know, if you’re going to hang with me, you need to learn the correct terminology.”
He held up the AK-47, the muscles of his arm bunching against the weight. “This is an assault rifle.”
Then he held up the handgun. “This is a semi-automatic pistol.”
Then he gave a little thrust of his hips and looked down at his penis. “
That
is my gun. As you’ve discovered, it’s pumpaction like a shotgun, but it doesn’t fire bullets.”
Then he shut the door behind him, leaving Natalie to giggle into her pillow.
ZACH RAN THE soap over his skin, working up a lather, his body still strung out from that unexpected orgasm. Strange to think that three days ago he’d been in the worst pain of his life and close to dying. Today, he’d awoken in heaven.
He’d been dreaming that he was making love to Natalie, his dick buried deep inside her. It had felt so real. His heart had almost stopped when he’d opened his eyes to find that what he was feeling
was
real, the sight of her hand on his cock shocking him wide awake. He wouldn’t have guessed she’d do something as bold as that, but then she was full of surprises.
French, huh?
Too bad he hadn’t had the chance to show her what he’d learned to do with his tongue when he was on shore leave in France.
This isn’t what you should be thinking about right now, man.
No, it wasn’t. He needed to get them some breakfast and then go shopping for supplies, which would mean either leaving Natalie alone in the hotel or locking her in the trunk for hours. He didn’t like either option, so he needed to find another.
He also needed to find a way to explain that just because they’d had sex didn’t mean they had a relationship. He wanted to do this right, to find a way to tell her without hurting her. She was without a doubt the most amazing woman he’d ever met—smart, strong, sweet, sexy.
He mulled this problem over while he washed his hair and rinsed himself off, thinking about what he would say, how he would say it. And as he turned off the water it hit him in a way that it hadn’t before—and he didn’t like it.
In four days at the most, Natalie would be out of his life.
ZACH FINISHED OFF his third breakfast burrito and started in on a banana. “If I leave the backseats down, the trunk won’t be dark, and you’ll be able to see out. I’ll pile the supplies in the backseat, so it will get crowded. And it
will
get hot. You’ll be in the car with the windows rolled up. Do you think you can handle it?”
“It’s better than being left in this room alone.” She dabbed her lips with a paper napkin, not yet finished with her first breakfast burrito. “I’d feel like a sitting duck.”
“That’s not what I asked.” He leaned forward, his gaze locked with hers. “Do you think you can handle it?”
She looked away, nibbling her lip, clearly thinking it through and clearly worried. Then she nodded. “Yes, I can. Can you check on me from time to time?”
“I will as often as I can, but I still have to buy a lot of things and stand in line in the checkout lane. I have no control over how long that will take.”
“I understand.”
“There’s something else we need to talk about.” Zach tossed the banana peel in the trash, took a moment to line his words up in the right order. He reached out, ran a finger over her cheek. “Last night was incredible. We didn’t plan it, but it happened. I can’t bring myself to regret it, and I hope to God you don’t either.”
She looked away, a shadow passing quickly over her face. Then she met his gaze through clear blue eyes. “I don’t regret it. It was . . . perfect.”
Perfect.
She sure as hell was.
Maybe that’s why what he had to say next didn’t come easily. “When we get back to the U.S., you and I will go our separate ways. That’s just how it is. My life—it’s not the kind of life a man shares with a woman. I don’t want to mislead you, and I don’t want to hurt you, so—”
“Relax. It was just sex.” Natalie stood, turned her back to him, and carried her paper plate and burrito wrapper to the trash. “It’s not like I could get serious with a man who lives the way you do.”
“Right.” That was exactly Zach’s point.
Good. She understood.
So why did he suddenly feel like shit?
THEY LEFT ALTAR after supper—and after Zach had given Natalie some basic firearms instruction for both the Glock and the AK. Her hair still damp from one last shower, she sat in the passenger seat, wearing brown camo fatigues, a tan T-shirt, and a brown camo jacket. A fully loaded semi-auto Glock 17 sat in her lap, an AK-47 leaning against her thigh, her gaze drawn to every license plate in search of the dreaded Z as Zach drove the car north along the rutted dirt road to a place he called El Sasabe.
“Don’t forget to breathe.” Looking every bit the military man, he wore camo fatigues, too, his eyes concealed behind new sunglasses, two semi-autos hidden beneath his jacket in a shoulder holster. “Do as I say, and we’ll get through this.”
She drew in a deep breath, her stomach swarming with butterflies. It was bad enough to think that they were going to spend the next four days walking through this inhospitable landscape. But knowing that the Zetas were on this road and looking for them made things much worse.
Zach had overheard a couple of
federales
talking about it outside the Pesquiera Hermanos, Altar’s big grocery store. He’d played the role of gringo tourist and chatted with them about it. They’d told him that the Zetas had put up roadblocks on every road leading to a U.S. port of entry from Tijuana to Loredo and were searching cars at gunpoint. That included El Sasabe. No one knew why the Zetas were doing this, but word on the street was that a shipment of cocaine had been stolen and Cárdenas was trying to catch the thieves—and make them pay.
The good news was that the Zetas clearly had no idea where he and Natalie were. Zach’s plan for evading them had worked—so far.
The car bounced over the rough dirt road, the washboard bumps making her teeth rattle. “How far are we going to be walking total?”
“I’m guessing it will be about forty miles.”
“That’s not so bad.” She’d run in a few 10K races. That was six miles.
He glanced over at her, his eyes concealed behind sunglasses. “If you say so.”
Despite the rough condition of the road, traffic was heavy, kicking up plumes of dust that made it hard to see. “There are so many vans and trucks. It’s like rush hour.”
“Drug traffickers mostly. Some human traffickers. They’re trying to reach El Sasabe before sundown and get set for tonight.”
It unnerved Natalie to be surrounded by them. “I hope one day you’ll tell me how you know that.”
He said nothing.
His plan was to leave the highway on the outskirts of El Sasabe and drive as far as the car could take them along the dirt roads that fanned out like tentacles around the town and ran across the desert toward the border. Once the car died—which Zach had assured her would be sooner rather than later—they’d put on the enormous backpacks that sat in the backseat and go on foot.
He’d spent what seemed like forever adjusting the straps on her pack and trying to balance the weight. “You’ll thank me later,” he’d promised.
Her pack weighed about thirty pounds, his at least twice that.
And then there were the weapons.
She was going to be carrying both an AK-47 and the Glock, together with two spare magazines and extra ammunition, while he carried two semi-autos in shoulder holsters, as well as two AKs, extra magazines, and most of their ammunition.
The brake lights on the van ahead of them came on.
Traffic was slowing.
ZACH DIDN’T LIKE this.
If this slowdown was the result of the Zetas’ roadblock, then the bastards had chosen their position well. A gully big enough to swallow a Humvee ran perpendicular to the road just ahead, making it impossible for vehicles to avoid the roadblock by simply going off the road and driving around it.
He searched for options.
He didn’t want to try fighting his way through the roadblock, because he had no idea how many Zetas were there or what kind of weapons they had. All it would take to end Natalie’s life was one bullet. No, Zach wouldn’t risk it.
They could head back to Altar and hole up until the Zetas left. But there was no guarantee that the Zetas would leave—or that they wouldn’t raid the hotels. Besides, the longer he and Natalie were missing, the greater the risk to other Americans in Mexico.
The only option was to backtrack along the road, find a good place to head cross-country, and travel north—on foot if necessary.
Ahead of them, the van drew to a stop.
“Maybe it’s just an accident.” Hope failed to conceal the fear in Natalie’s voice.
“I doubt it.” He leaned his head out the window, looking around the van for oncoming traffic. “It’s time to leave this party.”
He was about to flip a U-turn and head back the way they’d come, when he caught sight of three black vans hurtling north in the southbound lane. He slammed on the breaks as the vans streaked by, catching just a glimpse of a man with a grenade launcher—and a license plate without a Z.
The roadblock was about to become a bloodbath.
“Get down!” He checked again for oncoming vehicles, then made a quick and dirty U-turn, just as the sound of AK fire exploded behind them. “Hang on!”
And then—
BAM!
—a grenade exploded.
He hit the gas, knowing that the plume of dust behind them would conceal the make of the car and its license plate. No one was paying attention to them anyway. The car bounced over ruts, pebbles and rocks hitting the undercarriage as Zach tried to put a fast mile between them and the shoot-out. Then he saw what he’d been looking for—tire tracks leading off the highway and north into the desert.
He hit the breaks again, then cranked the wheel and drove off the road, the car fishtailing in loose gravel. Beside him, Natalie was still bent down. “It’s okay. You can sit up now.”
She sat up, glanced around them, blue eyes wide. “What just happened?”
“I think the Sinaloa boys got pissed off at the Zetas for holding up traffic and decided to take down the roadblock by force.” He stopped the car, waited for the dust to settle, then pointed. “Look.”
In the distance, black smoke rose into the air, the report of automatic weapons sounding like firecrackers. But even at this distance, stray rounds were a danger.