Incriminating Evidence (34 page)

She ground against him. “Condoms?”

His eyebrows dropped, then he felt below her thighs for his jeans, and grinned. He plucked out a strip of condoms. “These are the same jeans I wore last night to the firing range.”

She ripped one open and handed the latex circle to him. He held her up with one hand as he sheathed himself with the other. She gripped his shoulders and pressed her center down on his hard cock. “Get inside me.”

He chuckled. “Yes, ma’am.”

He thrust into her in a single smooth stroke.

“Oh
yes
.” She threaded her fingers through his hair and kissed him, venting her moan of pleasure into his mouth as he thrust a second time, triggering a delicious friction she needed more than air.

He was thick, hot, and perfect in every way.

She groaned again, this time loud, wild, unrestrained.

That would scare any bears away.

This was insane. And hot. And everything she wanted. He was the CEO of Raptor, and she was taking him deep inside her body, giving him the most private part of herself without regret or reservation.

She leaned her head against the trunk and clenched tighter on his thrusting cock.

His eyes drifted closed. He tilted his head back and let out his own guttural groan. She loved watching him this way. The tension that always hovered around him momentarily gone. He wasn’t thinking about his business, his campaign, his abduction, or the attacks on her. He was lost to sensation. To her. She held the power to make him surrender. And it wasn’t just sex. There was more to it than that.

This was a hell of a lot more than a hot screw against a tree.

His fingers slid between their bodies and pressed against her clit. His rhythm changed from fast and urgent to a leisurely stroke that sent immediate jolts of pleasure through her. His mouth found hers, and again, coherent thought vanished.

Pressure mounted with each thrust. The friction of his fingers intensified the pleasure times a thousand. Sensation built. She whimpered and moaned in his mouth. She couldn’t possibly last another second without splitting in two.

With one hard stroke, she crested. Orgasm pulsed through her. Not a short, hot flare. He kept her coming with slow, continuous caresses. His own growl of release mixed with hers as he came with a final deep thrust.

Silence descended as he held her against the trunk. He nuzzled her throat, and she felt his body shake with silent laughter. “Holy crap. I didn’t think anything could beat the firing range, but I was wrong.”

She laughed with him. She cradled his face, gazed into his clear blue eyes, then kissed him, sliding her tongue deep into his mouth.

When the kiss ended, he leaned his forehead against hers. “There are a whole lot of things I want to say to you, but this, unfortunately, isn’t the time.”

She nodded. This thing that was happening between them, she wasn’t ready to put a name to it, and it was probably more than she could handle. All she knew was she simply wanted to live in this moment. Forever.

Except for the sharp knob that penetrated the thick moss and dug into her spine. She could do without that.

She wiggled, and he stepped back from the trunk to release her, but then stopped. “It was way easier to get into this position than it will be to get out of it,” he said.

She gripped his shoulders as he lowered her to the ground and, with some effort, managed to extract his legs from the circle of hers. She adjusted her bra and pulled up her pants. Clothed again, she stood to gather Alec’s T-shirt, which she’d tossed to the side of the stump in the heat of the moment. As she bent to pick up the shirt, something glinted in the moss, catching her eye.

She studied the ground, searching for the item that had caught the light. There weren’t any ATV tracks, but she didn’t expect to find tracks again after Saturday’s rain.

The light flashed again. There.

She dropped down and reached for the object.

“What have you got there?” Alec asked.

She frowned, staring at the chipped piece of plastic. “I think it’s a broken headlight. Could be from an ATV.” She explained about the tracks she’d seen on Friday. “We’re close, Alec.”

He picked up her backpack and helped her slip it on. Once it was settled on her shoulders, he buckled the belt at her hips, then he kissed her. “Let’s go find Vin’s petroglyph.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

A
lec followed Isabel, who retraced the ATV tracks from memory. Several times they had to double back and start over from the last recognizable point, because she lacked both her notes and photos from Friday.

Alec was now certain whoever had taken her computer, notebook, and cell phone had been out to cripple her search. He was impressed as hell that she was able to retrace her steps, given how much time she spent in the woods. The terrain had to blur together in her mind. But one thing he’d known about her from the beginning, she was smart as hell and determined. He had a feeling she was a lot like her big brother, who, in a better world, Alec could have imagined becoming a friend.

Vin would probably have fit right in at the private dojo in DC. A small gym in the heart of the city owned by JT Talon, it was where Lee, Curt, JT, and Alec worked out and sparred several times a week. They’d recently added Keith and Sean to the mix, and for Alec the dojo was the one place where he could be himself. Not a candidate. Not a boss—even though Keith and Sean were there. In the dojo, everyone was equal, with the possible exception of belt ranks. The three men who’d studied martial arts the longest and had the highest belts—Curt, Lee, and JT—were also the three who’d never served in the military, which made for an interesting mix.

In a different, better universe, Vin would have lived and been transferred to the Virginia compound on rotation, and odds were he’d have hit it off with Alec, Keith, or Sean and been invited for a round of sparring with the inner circle.

In that universe, Alec would have met Isabel under entirely different circumstances, and he had no doubt that he’d have been ass over teakettle just the same.

Some things were meant to be.

He was meant to get on that bus when he was twenty-one. He was meant to be a Ranger. He was meant to buy Raptor. And Isabel Dawson was meant to come into his life with the destructive power of a tsunami.

Because even if he’d met her in a better world, he had no doubt meeting her would wreak havoc with his organized life.

“You can’t remember the questions they asked,” Isabel said as she pushed a branch out of the way. “But do you have a guess as to who it was? Height and build?”

Her question pulled him back to their conversation. He’d told her he was certain he’d been interrogated in the cave. “No. I think they dilated my eyes and stood behind spotlights. It was so bright, even though it was a cave. The only thing I could see was above—the petroglyph on the ceiling. A lynx with a smile like the Cheshire Cat.”

“But who do you suspect?”

He ducked under another low branch. “I’ve avoided naming names with you, because I didn’t want either of us to develop a favorite suspect, blinding us to other possibilities. I believe in suspecting everyone equally.” He paused, then added, “But at this point, I think it’s fair to say I believe whoever abducted me is on Falcon.”

She nodded. “Yeah. Falcon has all my top suspects too. There are some I would rather it be over others. I’d ruled out Chase from the start, because of the timing.”

He’d finally had a chance to tell her Chase was her stalker, but neither of them could begin to guess what it had to do with the rest, given that Chase had only been with the company for a few months. Keith felt the young man was underqualified for Falcon, but Nicole had a point about being short of options.

That both Chase and Isabel had been hit with infrasound inside the most secure building only confirmed the belief that someone within the company was behind everything.

“You think someone picked up where they left off with infrasound development when Robert Beck was arrested?” Isabel asked.

He’d thought long and hard on that point. “Yes. I had all employees vetted—weeding out those who were loyal to Beck—but obviously, a few were missed.”

“Why didn’t you change the name of the company, like Blackwater did, when you bought it?” she asked as she climbed up on a rock. She shaded her eyes and scanned the woods from her slightly higher elevation.

“Raptor wasn’t in the same sort of trouble as Blackwater”—he allowed sarcasm to enter his voice—“or whatever the hell they’re called now—was in the first time they changed the name. I felt it was important to show the company was under new ownership, but not hide from the fact that it was the same company. Raptor had good training and good rules of engagement, but was led by a corrupt man with a handful of loyal followers. With Beck and his supporters gone, there was no reason to hide. And frankly, I bought the name recognition as much as the company.”

“No such thing as bad publicity?”

“Pretty much. Can you name another private security company, besides Raptor and Blackwater?”

“Apex,” she said distractedly as her gaze skimmed the forest from her perch on the rock.

He laughed. He should have seen that coming. “Could you name Apex before Friday night?”

“No. I’d never heard of them.” She jumped off the rock and lifted a branch that covered the path ahead. She examined the end. “It’s been cut. Recently.”

He studied the raw end and saw she was correct. He helped her move the long bough, and the reason for the cut branch became clear. The ATV had slipped and torn the moss ground cover. There was no way to repair the gouge without making it more obvious. Whoever had created the rut had covered it with the branch.

She pulled out her quad map and marked the location, then traced the route they’d taken with her finger. “The ATV went along this swale. The fact that there are no other permanent ruts means they don’t use the same route often. So there have to be several ways to get to the cave, or they rarely come here.

She sat on the rock, her focus on the map. Alec dropped down beside her. She pointed to a dotted blue line on the map—a seasonal stream—and said, “I think this is the stream where I lost the tracks. We should find it just below that line of trees.”

“If you lost the tracks in the water, they probably drove down the riverbed.”

She nodded. “I think the water is low enough. So the question is, upstream or down?”

Alec studied the map. “Up. The sharp elevation drop downstream could be a waterfall.”

She nodded and stood. “We’ll head upstream, then.”

He caught her arm when she would have started toward the stream. “We’re getting close. I go first from here on out.”

She looked like she wanted to argue.

He pressed a finger to her lips. “You’re a helluva hiker. And given the fact that you managed to find a piece of headlight and covered tracks in thick forest, my guess is you’re a hell of an archaeologist too. But I’m the soldier here, and we’re likely dealing with people who are armed and dangerous. If I didn’t know you’d zap me with bear spray for suggesting it, I’d send you to the car right now.”

She pursed her lips and said nothing.

“Here’s the deal, Iz. You got us this far. I’m impressed you’ve found the proverbial needle in the haystack, but from this point forward, I’m in command. You will follow my orders, or I’ll handcuff you to a tree and leave you while I search for the cave. It’s that simple.”

“You’re bluffing. You don’t have handcuffs.”

“Wrong. I have two pairs in my pack. I grabbed them before I left the compound, because if there’s anyone in the cave, I intend to take them alive.”

She made a grumbling sound and said under her breath, “I should have known that if you remembered condoms, you’d remember handcuffs.”

He laughed. “I
didn’t
remember condoms. Those were already in my pocket. Lucky break. Now. Are you taking the deal, or do I need the cuffs?”

She met his gaze unflinchingly, then finally said, “Fine. But for the record, this is the
only
time you’re permitted to order me around like one of your employees.”

He grinned. “Honey, when we get back to my suite, you can order
me
around all you want. I’ll even give you control of the handcuffs.”

She paused. “What if in that situation, I
want
to be handcuffed?”

The thought of Isabel strapped to his headboard gave him an instant hard-on. “That can be arranged.” The words came out huskier than he intended.

She gripped the straps of his backpack and slipped her tongue into his mouth for a fast kiss, then said, “Sounds fun. My safeword will be…tiger.”

He had no clue what word he expected her to choose; all he knew was it wasn’t
that.
“Tiger? You called me that before. Why?”

“Because you’re the tiger king.”

“Tiger king? But tigers are solitary. No pride. No kings.”

“Tigers are sexier than lions, ergo, you’re a tiger.”

He laughed at that leap of logic and couldn’t wait to get back to his suite to discuss the issue in detail. “Fine. Your safeword is tiger, but when I have you handcuffed to my bed, you won’t want to use it.”