Baddest Bad Boys(63)

The hot spring.

Pure, warm water surging over naked flesh, erotic, skin-softening steam, and the scent of cedar boughs heavy with rain. The textures, the silkiness of Mac, deep, deep inside her. Four days. She had four days. She’d done her reality check, revisited the rules—all sex, no expectations. She’d be a fool if she didn’t take all of Mac Fleming she could get. “No. I haven’t changed my mind.” She got to her feet. “I’ll get a heavier sweater.”

A few minutes later they were on the front porch, Mac with a rifle in his hand, and her with a knapsack strung over her shoulders, full of towels and goodies she’d raided from the kitchen.

When he put his arm around her and leaned to kiss her, she raised her mouth to his, eagerly, avidly, her body already overheated thinking of what they’d be doing in less than half an hour.

Mac scanned the lodge compound, hiked the rifle over his shoulder, and took her hand. They headed for the path.

From the far edge of the clearing, Reid watched them duck into the trees. He couldn’t believe his luck. They were out in the open, exactly where he wanted them. He gave them a five-minute head start, then darted across the open compound.

Mac led the way as he had before, this time holding Tommi’s hand. They moved along the path in silence, Mac concentrating on missing as many snags and puddles as he could, while Tommi’s attention centered on keeping pace with his long strides.

A few minutes in, Mac stopped in the middle of the path, so abruptly she collided with his back. “What—”

“Shh!” He shook his head, put a finger against her mouth, and stared back in the direction they’d come, listening intently.

Tommi’s heart pounded, and she put her hand over it. She listened, too, but didn’t hear a sound—not even rain.

Suddenly Mac cursed softly. “This way!” He dragged her roughly off the path and into the heavy underbrush. There, he put his hand on her shoulders and forced her to her knees. When she opened her mouth, he shook his head again, whispered, “Stay down and stay quiet.”

For interminable minutes, they crouched deep in the bush.

When Tommi saw who came down the path, her lungs seized. She clapped a hand over her mouth, felt the cold air against her fear-widened eyes. Every muscle in her body tensed. When he stopped to look around a few feet from where they’d taken cover, she clamped her teeth together to stop them from chattering.

“Easy,” Mac muttered near her ear. “Easy, sweetheart.”

Stunned by seeing Reid McNeil in this impossible place, she couldn’t take her eyes off him. Couldn’t move.

She felt Mac’s breath on her ear, then the first drops of rain on her cheeks, sharp as ice pellets. “McNeil?” Mac whispered, his gaze locked on the man on the path.

She managed a nod. Reid turned, rotated slowly, and looked around as if to get his bearings. Her hands clenched on her knees, froze there. “He’s got a gun.” The words came out on a hiss.

“I know.” Mac took her hand. “Let’s go. I need to get you to more cover.” Still crouching, he pulled her deeper into the bush, his movements low, fluid, and furtive.

Tommi’s movements were awkward and stiff. The uneven ground, broken branches, fallen logs, and lethally slippery leaves made it impossible for her to find her stride.

Her foot caught on a fallen branch, and she fell, hard and headfirst into a rotting, moss-covered stump. Her forehead scraped along a protruding branch and blood trickled down beside her ear.

Mac dropped to his knees at her side. “You okay? Can you get up? You have to get up, Tommi.”

He grasped her arms, tugged her to her feet.

Too late.

“Well now, isn’t this convenient.” Reid stepped out from behind a tree, raised the rifle, and leveled it at Tommi. He looked around at the dense bush, amused. “I won’t even have to bury the bodies.”

Beside her, Mac shifted his weight. Reid immediately swung the rifle barrel toward him. “Drop it. Now.” Reid’s face was as hard and relentless as the rain now growing in force and dripping in pellet-sized drops from the branches over their heads.

Mac’s eyes blazed with a deadly determination. She saw him tighten his grip on his rifle. “I don’t think so, McNeil. I prefer the odds with this in my hand.”

Reid swung his rifle back toward Tommi.

She sucked in a breath, paralyzed by the sight of the evil black hole at the point of the barrel—the thought of dying. “You don’t have any odds.” Reid curled his lip. “Drop it or you watch the lady chew on a bullet.”

Mac, his face taut, dropped the gun.

Reid trained his rifle on Mac. “Actually, while I was walking in here, I decided I’d do you first.” He cast a glance at Tommi. “I never did get to f*ck this bitch. I figure, out here, why not?” He slanted Mac a filthy look. “Trouble is, I don’t think you’d sit still to watch.” He lifted the gun barrel, centered it on Mac’s chest.

“No!” Tommi went for the gun—Mac’s death in Reid’s hands. She almost made it…

A searing pain shot across her shoulder, and she heard Mac yell, “You son of a bitch!” Then a crunch of bone on bone, before she crumpled to the sodden moss at her feet. She tried to get up, fell again…everything colorless, hazy…dark.