Deadly Promises (Tracers #2.5)(45)

“Good observations. I counted around twenty guards.”

“Twenty-four,” she corrected.

“All with automatic weapons,” Cav muttered absently as he lowered his mouth to the curve of her throat and traced her ribs with his fingertips in search of more injuries. “And there are what… a hundred and forty, maybe a hundred fifty workers?”

“Something like that.”

“I saw five vehicles. Two trucks, two old jeeps, and the sedan that brought me here. That sum it up?”

She nodded. “They use the trucks to transport supplies, fresh troops, and new batches of workers. The general makes use of the two jeeps to move around the mine site.”

He traced the welt that ran from just below her left breast, under her arm, and around her back, where it stopped under her shoulder blade. Her skin was very soft. Her bones extremely fine. And damn…

She sucked in a quick, pained breath when he pressed at the swelling.

“Bad?” He studied her profile with concern.

She bit her lower lip, shook her head in denial of the pain.

“You’re not much of a liar,” he whispered, then said in a louder voice, “It’s okay, baby. You can scream if you like it. Turns me on.”

What came out was more of a growl but she stuck to her guns about the pain. “It’s better than it was.”

Yeah, he was right about the tough part. And she was very sexy, too.

He backed away from that thought in double time. Wrong time, wrong place, and Jesus, wrong thinking. Damn, he wanted another drink.

“I don’t think anything’s broken,” he said gruffly, and he quickly applied the salve from his backpack. “Now we need to move this to the cot, before the natives start questioning my motives.”

And before the swelling action in his pants embarrassed her even further.

CARRIE ROSE SLOWLY from his lap, placing a hand on his shoulder for balance. She was anxious to get some distance from his probing, yet she was reluctant to move even a few inches away from him. What if she’d gone off the deep end and this was all some cruel fantasy, and the minute she broke contact he disappeared?

But he’d felt real enough, she thought, walking the few steps to the cot. His body had been hard and hot beneath hers. His hands had felt strong and rough even as he’d taken care not to hurt her.

When she’d leaned into him his heart had beat like thunder against her breast. His breath had been warm and scented of whiskey when he’d whispered in her ear. And while she knew he hadn’t intended for it to happen, she’d felt him grow hard against her hip.

She flushed hot, thinking about it as she sank down on the cot’sthin mattress. After a deep breath, she made herself look at him when he sat beside her. Big. Imposing. Strong. If he wanted to, he could overpower her in a heartbeat.

Thank God this seduction scene was just for show.

And thank God he was real. Real and here and… “I don’t even know your name.”

He turned the most intense dark eyes on her. “Sorry. It’s David. David Cavanaugh.” He smiled then, and all she could do was stare as it transformed his face.

Wyatt sent one of People magazine’s hundred sexiest men alive to save me.

She almost laughed at her absurdity, but it was true. With that dark hair falling over his forehead and the smile that was a little bit reckless and a lot rogue, she couldn’t shake the image of Johnny Depp with a little Hugh Jackman thrown in for good measure.

And he’d just seen her naked. Just touched her bare skin.

“My friends call me Cav,” he added. “Now lie back and let the sex fiend indulge in his twisted foot fetish, while I take a look at those poor battered tootsies of yours.”

She smiled, as he’d no doubt intended, and her opinion of him rose even higher.

She tried to remain covered as she lay back and he lifted her calves over his thighs. Her best efforts, however, couldn’t keep the coarse blanket from parting at mid-thigh and separating slowly by degrees. Seeing her problem, he reached for the ends of the blanket, folded it over her legs, then tucked it tight beneath the outside of her thighs. Seen from outside, the action could have been misinterpreted as an unwrapping.

She felt like a mummy, a little bit pampered yet a lot intrigued. She watched his face as he administered to her foot with gentle, sensual hands. So sensual that anyone seeing their shadows would have assumed he was caressing her in sexual foreplay.

She gasped in pain and surprise when he probed an open sore on the bottom of her heel.

“Sorry,” she apologized, her voice tight, then let loose of another yelp when he probed deeper into the cut.

Cav hated that he’d hurt her but couldn’t let it sidetrack him. He didn’t like the look of that cut.

“Make all the noise you want.” He notched his chin toward the tent wall. “The louder the better. Convince ’em we’re having a party in here. It’ll be good for my image.”

She went so still he realized he’d embarrassed her again.

“You do have very tender southern sensibilities, don’t you?” he teased, charmed by the flush on her cheeks.

“I passed tender about five days ago.”

He hadn’t meant to sound like he was discounting all she’d been through. Then she smiled, and damn if he didn’t feel a whole new level of respect for her.