Heated Pursuit (Alpha Security #1)(48)
“Why would anyone want to help a monster like him?”
“Money. Power. Greed—in all its forms—is a powerful motivator. We’ll find a village, get someplace where we can contact Sean and the team, and then we’ll work on flushing out the turncoat. Right now, we need to create some distance. Once daylight hits, we’ll start cycling in sleep. We’ll be less easily tracked if we move at night and sleep during the day.”
Trekking through the dark jungle turned out to be a lot less precarious when not hurdling sprawling shadows, but it wasn’t a cakewalk either. Especially at the insane pace Rafe set. By the time daylight peeked through the treetops, hours had felt like weeks.
There was nothing special about the place where they finally stopped—no holes in the ground, no caverns. She watched as he circled the base of a particularly high tree as if he were a lumberjack estimating a trajectory.
“We’re stopping here?” she asked curiously.
“To rest and recharge. Once the sun sets, we’ll get on the move again.”
“Do you have a tent in your little bag of tricks?”
“Unfortunately, Diego’s man didn’t pack a tent…but we do have this.” From his procured bag, Rafe pulled out a long segment of climbing rope—and shot her a boyish smirk. “Ever sleep in a tree?”
Penny blinked. Nope, the mischievous grin still twisted up his lips. “Are you kidding me right now?”
Not even Rafe’s smile was enough to erase the dread that made her eyes scan up the length of the tall, tall tree. Her gazed swayed from Rafe to the tree, and back again. He wasn’t joking.
Feet sore. Leg throbbing. She did the only thing that would get her closer to sleep. She took the rope from his hand. “Give a girl a boost, will ya?”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Waking up perched in a tree shouldn’t have led to the morning wood from hell, but with Penny tucked firmly between Rafe’s outspread thighs, his dick had long since turned from wood to granite. One little shift, a slight nudge, and he’d come in his pants like a randy teenager. They needed to find civilization before he started envisioning ways to use the damn rope that didn’t involve tying his ass up in a tree.
His job had always been enough to pull his mind from the sexual gutter. No one could get a hard-on while calculating the amount of C-4 needed to drop a building. If he needed a bit of feel-good stress relief post-mission, he’d work out his sexual frustrations with a blonde or a brunette and get back to work the next day. Hell, a few hours later.
It wouldn’t be that simple with Penny. There wasn’t a thing about her that didn’t mess with his head or other parts of his anatomy. Her death-ray glares created an instant erection. When she got that pain-filled, faraway look in her eyes as she thought about Rachel, he craved to kiss the pain away. And when she ravaged him with a simple glance, he mentally mapped a route to the nearest flat surface—vertical or horizontal.
No woman had ever affected him this way, not on a physical level and most definitely not in a way that made him worry over everything going on in her head. He could no longer deny it when, with a sleepy sigh, she shifted innocently against his crotch. The only thing that kept him from expelling his load was the sight of the viper not four inches from her bare left foot.
He should’ve seen it, should’ve realized that as the sun set, day-sleeping creatures would start to rouse. And of all the venomous snakes, it had to be an eyelash pit viper.
He swallowed a curse as the small, coiled yellow snake shifted securely on the branch where Penny’s sneakers were tied and air drying. One eye on its movement, Rafe nudged his mouth against Penny’s ear. “Red, baby. I need you to wake up. And don’t move.”
With a sleepy groan, she shifted. This time, the movement didn’t create a single stir in his pants. As a matter of fact, the snake extinguished his hard-on completely.
“Penny.” He gave her ear a gentle nip. “We have a bit of an issue here, and I need you to wake up. Slowly.”
“Is there ever a time when you’re not raring to go?” Slow to rouse, her words sounded sluggishly amused.
“Around you? No. But right now I’m more concerned with creating a little distance between us and the snake.”
“The what?”
He knew the instant she saw it because her body stiffened like a flagpole. “Oh God,” she whispered breathlessly. “Please tell me that thing isn’t venomous and that it’s more afraid of us than we are of it.”
“Wish I could. It may look small and dainty, but the eyelash viper suffers from a continual streak of general bitchiness. We must’ve invaded its home turf.”
“You mean it lives in trees?” The tight squeak of her voice made the viper lift its triangular head.
“If it’s any consolation, there’s a whole hell of a lot more poisonous things on the ground. Trust me—you don’t want a dart frog jumping into your pants.”
“Oh yeah. That’s much more comforting. Any idea how we’re going to get out of this?”
“Can you get to the knife strapped to my left thigh? Just move slow. Be careful. And if the snake moves, you freeze. Immediately.”
“We really need to talk about this reassurance thing you seem to lack.” Penny inched her trembling hand slowly onto his thigh.