Full Throttle (Black Knights Inc. #7)(55)

“Okay, Carl—” Her words cut off the instant she looked into his face. No surprise, really. Considering some of what he was feeling had to be plastered there. I mean, he was thunderstruck. Awestruck. Dumbstruck. Every kind of struck you can imagine.

He waited breathlessly for her response to the love in his eyes, to the adoration scrawled across his face as if he’d written it there with a big black Sharpie. But then he realized his expression couldn’t be all that obvious when she said, “Oh, what the hedge cutter’s ass? Are you sick or something? Was it the rambutans?”

Hedge cutter’s ass? Oh, Abby. Sweet, wonderful, hilarious Abby…

And just like that, the laughter was back. This time, he didn’t try to contain it. This time he let loose with it. Let it echo up into the roiling, cloud-filled sky. Let it fill his chest, and warm his heart.

He loved her!

If it wouldn’t have scared the ever-loving crap out of the villagers, he would have shouted it to the world. Roared it through the jungle like a lion. And f*ck the fact that he was a maldito bori and she was the president’s daughter. Fuck the right side of the tracks versus the wrong side of the tracks. Fuck everything that had ever kept them apart in the past or threatened to keep them apart in the future. Because he loved her. And, by Dios, if it took him moving heaven and earth to have her, that’s exactly what he’d do!

As if the universe knew and understood the weight of the pledge he’d made, the boiling clouds chose that second to rip open. Rain surged from the sky in a deafening roar, drenching him in an instant. He continued to laugh, lifting his arms wide as he let the downpour wash away the last remaining vestiges of the hurt he’d felt when Abby rejected him eight years ago. Let it wash away any lingering doubt that she would reject him again.

He was hers. And she was his. And she had to see that. She had to know that.

With one last bellow of unfettered delight, he lowered his arms and his chin. Rain sluiced off his face in sheets, running into his eyes. But he had no trouble seeing the shocked, wary expressions of the villagers. They probably thought he’d lost his mind. Flipped his lid. Gone clean crazy. And, in a way, he had. Because from one second to the next, he’d fallen crazy, head-over-heels in love.

A bolt of lightning crashed overhead, cleaving the angry clouds in two and casting the tiny village in harsh, white light. The tart smell of electricity burned through the air, and somewhere in the distance a monkey screeched out a frightened call. Then it was as if a spell had broken. The villagers jumped and scattered, climbing up ladders to run inside their high-built huts. The children screamed with glee as they raced in from the stream’s edge, scampering up the latticework built beneath their bamboo homes to disappear inside. And Abby…well, Abby stood there in the deluge, gaping at him.

And, yes, she, too, probably suspected some of his screws had come loose. And maybe he was proving her right by grabbing her wrist and jerking her forward. Maybe he had gone stark-raving mad. But the truth of the matter was he didn’t give a rat’s…uh…hedge cutter’s ass. Because he loved her. And, hue puta, he wasn’t going to go one more second without letting her know it.

“Carl—”

But that’s all she managed before he threw his arms around her, lifting her feet from the waterlogged ground and dipping his head to hungrily claim her mouth. Since it was already gaping open in a little O of surprise, it made it that much easier to slide his tongue inside. He tasted her, savored her, drank in her surprise and bewilderment, and gave back promises of devotion and tenderness. She was so sweet, so pure. Her breath candied by the lingering juice of the rambutans. And despite the fact that he’d filled his belly, he was ravenous. Starving. So hungry for her that he probably would have laid her down right there in the mud and the muck, showed her with his hands and mouth and body all the things he felt for her, had not an incessant tapping on his shoulder forced him to lift his head.

“What is it?” he growled, a little surprised to see Yonus standing in the rain beside them. He’d completely forgotten the man existed.

“You should take shelter in the ceremonial hut!” Yonus yelled above the violent crack of another bolt of lightning. The rain had drenched the man’s jeans, darkening the material and causing them to hang heavily on his thin frame. He was pointing to the central structure at their backs. “I will go take refuge with the family next door”—he hooked a thumb over his shoulder—“and come for you once the storm has passed! My truck is parked on a logging road about a mile away! I can drive you to a petrol station and then take you back to your motorcycle!”

And suddenly Steady remembered why laying Abby down in the mud and the muck was out of the question. Because it was time for them to be on their way toward the safety of the Thai border. Well past time for them to be on their way.

Flicking a harried look toward the edge of the village where the jungle grew thick and green, blinking away the rain that ran into his eyes, he tried to imagine dragging Abby through the undergrowth in the middle of this torrential downpour. She could do it, he knew. Hell, the wonderful woman had proved she could do almost anything. But was that really their best option?

Lifting his wrist, he checked the time, doing some quick calculations. Afternoon storms here tended to be violent and fleeting. Lasting no more than an hour or two. So, even if he decided to take off and haul Abby through the worst of the drencher, they still wouldn’t be able to make better time than simply staying here, waiting out the storm, and taking Yonus up on his offer of a ride. Though, unbeknownst to the young Orang Asli man, he wouldn’t be carting them back to the Ducati, but rather the remaining ten miles to Thailand.