Can't Run (Danger and Desire Book 1) (4 page)

Carrie poked her head in and looked around with a coy grin, “He’s still hot, Sara, shouldn’t let that go to waste.”

Sara rolled her eyes impatiently in response.

“So you get the floor,” Sara muttered, throwing her bag on the bed.

Eric just nodded and quietly responded, “of course”.

Sara was about to go back on deck to watch as they disembarked, but Eric sat down on the bed. “Sara, we need to talk.” He spoke firmly.

Sara shut the door and stood across from him folding her arms, “okay, so talk.”

She wasn’t going to get soft on him. She was still pissed, even more pissed that she was still so attracted to him.  There he was in his white V-neck t-shirt and blue jeans, and he looked just so fucking hot. She burned with anger, or passion, or something like the two.

He glanced up at her, and thought a moment to himself before speaking.

“Can’t you make this a little easier on me?” he asked, his voice sounded so sincere, “I don’t like this anymore than you do but this is just a job.”

The last part still managed to sting Sara.
She
was just a job. He unnecessarily worked her at the pub when they met, and kept tabs on her through text message so he could always stay one step ahead.

“Speaking of your job, did my father say it was your job to kiss me that night at the pub?” Sara asked sarcastically, “when I get cell reception maybe I will have to call and ask him.”

He eyed her, “I needed to get close to you.”

“Then you could have stalked me like you did in Rio! Or however long you did before I met you. I didn’t need to know about you!” Sara’s voice was rising in volume, “You didn’t need to manipulate me, Eric. You didn’t need to hurt me! I am
just your job
! But you, you were potentially something else!”

She was embarrassed to realize that her eyes were full of tears.

He ran his hands through his hair, “Jeeze, Sara, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…”

Sara cut Eric off, “You didn’t mean it! Yes, I fucking got that, Eric, remember two seconds ago when you said I was just a job?”

She couldn’t take any more of it. She stormed out of the cabin on deck realizing the boat had just departed. She had been too upset to pay any attention to the feeling of the boat moving through the water.

Sara saw Carrie and Amanda standing at the stern and quickly walked towards them.

“Where’s Gabriel?” Sara asked, looking around the deck.

“Taking a nap in our cabin.” Carrie said grinning, “Where is Eric?”

“Probably spying on me from somewhere.”  Sara scowled.

“Common, Sara, it’s not like he’s an ogre.” Amanda laughed putting her arm around Sara, and gently squeezing.

“Better an ogre than a liar,” Sara shrugged.

The girls laughed sympathetically.

~

The first night on the boat was restful for Sara, although she couldn’t say the same for Eric who slept on the floor with his bag as a pillow and his jacket as a blanket. The evenings were surprisingly cold, Sara almost felt guilty. The guilt faded as daylight came.

On the second day of the river cruise they were seeing even more animals. There was a rainstorm that lasted for about an hour after which Sara went fishing in the dingy with Eric, Amanda, and Carrie. Gabriel didn’t feel like fishing and waited back on the river boat.

The girls were almost thankful that Eric came with them, especially since they kept catching red belly piranhas and didn’t want to have to take the toothy little fish off the hook. Every time Eric had to de-hook the fish the girls would scream as his fingers got close to the piranha’s mouth. They had heard stories about the fish detecting blood, frenzying, and eating full grown people. Now, while that sounded like some sort of story that is told to foreigners to terrify them, they didn’t want to find out if there was any truth to the tale.

The murky dark waters were full of mystery and creatures that they knew could easily cause devastation.

Their luck catching piranhas seemed to have slowed down, having not caught anything for half an hour they were about to head in when Sara felt a strong tug and she fell to the side of the boat only to be grabbed by Amanda and Eric, the strong pull on the line caused the boat to dip to the side and back. The girls screamed, worried that they were going to flip the boat into the water that was full of toothy fish and caimans.

It took Sara a few seconds to realize what was happening. She quickly began trying to reel her line in but the strong tugs kept pulling her forward, whatever was on the line sure as hell did not want to be caught.

“It’s too strong!” Sara cried, struggling with the rod.

Amanda was still gripping the back of Sara’s shirt to try to prevent her from falling in. The rod arched fiercely and Sara was sure that it was about to snap when she felt two arms around her and another pair of hands over her own hands on the rod. Her heart thumped harder, realizing whose arms were around her, forcing herself to not react to the surge of electricity he shot through her she concentrated on the fish.

She no longer had to do the work as the large hands commanded hers to real, the strong arms worked the rod giving and pulling, giving and pulling until the fish began to surface. It was huge, and still putting up one hell of a fight.

“Grab the net!” the deep voice barked out.

Carrie scrambled obligingly, holding out the large net.

“Use it!” He shouted, a hint of irritation sounded in his voice.

Carrie leaned over the side of the dingy with the large net, Amanda crawled over and set next to Carrie, placing her hands under Carrie’s on the pole of the net. It took all four of them to get the aggressively fighting fish into the boat.

“Stay away from its mouth” Eric warned the fish flopped around on the bottom of the boat.

The girls didn’t need the warning, they had gotten on the far ends of the dingy to be as far away from the fish as possible. If they had thought that the piranhas were terrifying, this fish was absolutely monstrous:

At least two feet long, it was large and gray, darker on the top and lighter on the bottom. It had big eyes that that seemed to look at nothing in particular as it fought and thrashed uselessly, only tangling itself more in the net. The most terrifying feature of this creature was its mouth. The fish had two giant fanglike teeth on the bottom center of its jaw, no smaller than four inches long. The rest of the monster’s mouth was filled with shorter but very formidable teeth.

“What are we going to do with it?” Amanda asked, her voice having the smallest hint of a tremble.

Eric moved near it.

“Don’t get near it!” Sara squealed, putting her arm out to pull Eric away from the fish.

He turned to her and gave a grin while moving carefully towards the monster that desperately fought entangling itself further. Seeing this desperation, Sara felt bad for the fish, who she doubted stood a chance.

“You have a gun, right?” Carrie cried out, “Shoot it!”

Amanda smacked Carrie’s arm, “He’s not going to shoot a fish in a rubber dingy!”

Eric instead pulled a knife out of an attachment on his holster, “I need to do this humanely and quickly… I don’t recommend any of you look.”

The girls all turned away, trusting his judgment. Whatever he had done it was quick, and they were all thrilled to be heading back to the boat to show off their catch.

That evening as the boat was anchored the crew and passengers together celebrated as they ate their catch. Dinner was followed by the crew’s favorite music, some sort of samba, and dancing that was heavily inspired by alcohol. As the girls danced hand in hand, sometimes with the obliging crew members, Gabriel and Eric kept to themselves. Gabriel in his own little world, Eric watching Sara carefully.

Sara could feel Eric’s eyes on her, she felt so vulnerable when she realized the way he watched her dance.
It’s just his job,
she silently told herself, but her primal instincts were taking over. She swayed her hips and moved her body in a way that she knew he would notice. She knew she couldn’t have him, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t torture him by making him feel the hopeless desire she felt. She deserved to be vindictive after learning his true intentions when they met.

“The feelings that hurt most, the emotions that sting most, are those that are absurd - The longing for impossible things, precisely because they are impossible; nostalgia for what never was; the desire for what could have been; regret over not being someone else; dissatisfaction with the world’s existence. All these half-tones of the soul’s consciousness create in us a painful landscape, an eternal sunset of what we are.”
― Fernando Pessoa

Eric had become a man that he sometimes couldn’t even recognize. Since losing his father he strived to be just like him, unfortunately, he wasn’t much of a man who liked workplace politics. He left the military at his first contract re-up but after dedicating so much time he had no real skills outside of the military.

He went into private security to have a little more control over his life, and for the money, of course money played a role. He took this job because he thought it would be easy, following a spoiled trust fund baby around. It turned out that babysitting was anything but easy.

He had followed her around for weeks, he was hired following a threat that had been made on her family when she was in London. His travel and food expenses would be covered and it paid well. It truthfully seemed like a great gig.

The first time he saw Sara, she was in the library sitting by herself flipping through books. She had her thick framed glasses on, her long blonde hair fell into her face, and was gently cursing under her breath. He sat behind her and watched her for hours, her soft movements were mesmerizing.

The more he watched her the more enthralled he became. She was evidently a kind hearted woman, the kind of woman who would take a homeless man to the grocery store and buy him food. She was the kind of woman who would try to be the mediator in an argument, and never look down on anyone who was speaking to her.

One night while she was at dinner with her friends he sat at the bar, as he usually did when watching her, on the phone with her father. Mr. Bexley had been growing more and more concerned about Sara, and was sure that someone was going to try to inflict harm upon her.

“Why don’t you tell her about the danger?” Eric asked, “It’s only a matter of time before she spots me and realizes that I’m following her.”

“No, I don’t want to worry her. She’ll ask too many questions that I simply can’t answer yet.”

“What do you want me to do if she sees me?” he asked.

“Whatever it takes to protect her,” Came her father’s firm reply, “Just keep my baby safe.”

“Yes sir.”

He had just gotten off the phone with Mr. Bexley when a man sat beside him at the bar and ordered bourbon on the rocks. He glanced in the direction Eric was looking in, “What a prize,” the man said drunkenly referring to Sara who was engaged in a lively and evidently humorous conversation with her friends, “looks like we got the best seats in the house.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Eric said bulkily, turning and facing the stranger.

“You know exactly what I am talking about, I see you looking at her,” the man smirked, wrapping his fat greasy fingers around his glass and taking a sip of his drink, “I like them virginal too. Nothing like ruining an innocent.”

The man chuckled to himself, while Eric’s body tensed. The creep could have been a threat, though he probably wasn’t, just a creep. He clenched his hand into a fist and took a deep calming breath.

Sara laughed amongst her friends, not knowing that she was being stared at by most of the men in the restaurant. Her hair was tied up on top of her head in a way that drew attention to her beautiful long neck, her natural beauty stood out, although she wore trendy dark lipstick. She wore a strapless white dress, which maybe did make her look a little virginal, but that wasn’t for anyone to say. Especially that creep.

The man kept staring, “Well if you’re not going to do anything, I think I’m going to send over some drinks.”

Eric ignored him, and stared down at his own club soda and lime trying to calm the unnecessary rage that was flowing through him.

The old creep ordered sugar-drop martinis and asked for them to be sent over. As the bartender turned around to fetch a tray the man emptied a capsule into the drink and winked at Eric who was now seething.

“Nothing wrong with helping them girls have a little more fun,” the man said nonchalantly.

Eric was surprised that flames weren’t dancing in his eyes as he stood up and leaned over the over the man staring into his eyes.

“You had better get the fuck out of here right now,” Eric said.

“Easy man, just wanted a little fun. No harm no fowl.’ The man said standing up and backing away.

“One more thing,” Eric growled, “I have your finger prints, you try this shit again and once I’m through with you you’re going to wish you’d never been born.”

Eric got the bar tender to dump the drinks, he realized that she really did need protection. Not just from whatever threat her father perceived, but from the disgusting men who looked and saw a beautiful naive young woman.

After that night he became increasingly protective of her, and he swore he would never let any harm come to her.

He continued to follow Sara to classes, dinners, and nights out dancing; she never noticed him. At least, not until the night before she had left for Brazil.

That night he had completely lost control. He tried to keep to himself at the bar, but she had persisted that he accompany her back to the table.

Never before had she met someone so vivacious, so funny, so kind, and so incredibly beautiful. He couldn’t keep his eyes of her. He realized that the peculiar pang in his stomach that he felt whenever he saw her likely wasn’t going to go away anytime soon. But he was okay with that

The night when he walked her to the taxi, just for a moment, he lost himself in the wonderment of what it would be like to taste her beautiful lips. He knew it was wrong, it was unprofessional, but he knew that it was one thing he would regret never trying if he was ever randomly hit by a bus.

After she drove away he knew that she would never be his. It was unprofessional, he was all wrong for her, and it would never work. He resolved that she would remain his to protect, and that he would never let anything ever happen to her.

Unfortunately, things changed in Brazil when he discovered that she was going on the boat cruise. He would never be able to follow her onto a private chartered riverboat without her finding out. Furthermore, he didn’t trust Gabriel. He did background checks on this so-called bartender, and couldn’t find any information on him. It was like the man didn’t even exist, so either he had a perfect squeaky clean record or he wasn’t who he said he was.

Sara, it turned out, hated being lied to more than most women. He thought he could reason with her, somehow diminish her fury. It just didn’t seem to be possible, he had never been hated the way she seemed to hate him and he knew that there was no coming back from it.

Now that they were stuck together on the boat he realized the torture that was waiting for him. Every time she lightened up with him, every time she showed her soft and almost forgiving side he wanted to take her mouth in his. He wanted to show her just how he really felt about her

At night he would listen to her soft breathing, and it was already driving him mad with desire. He had never wanted something or someone so bad, what made it worse was that she was the one thing he could never have. He was stuck in a purgatory of longing and desire. All he could do was pine.