In Rides Trouble (Black Knights Inc. #2)(32)

“Fuck you, Angel,” he growled, unaccountably mad.

Of course, he had to admit, despite appearances, his anger wasn’t aimed at Angel. Nope. That would’ve been too easy, and he was not an easy man. What he was was truthful. And the truth of the matter was he was pissed as hell at himself, because every word out of Angel’s mouth was spot-on.

“Just mind your own damn business,” he finished with a weary sigh.

“Do you deny it?”

“Deny what?” He really considered picking the guy up and chucking him over the docks and into the ocean.

“That you’re not the right man for her.”

“No, goddamnit! I know I’m not!” And that’s what made the thing that happened between them in sick bay so fantastically terrible. Then a horrible thought occurred to him. “Do you think you’re the right man for her?”

Angel lifted that annoying brow of his, and Frank barely resisted the urge to rip the sucker clean off. “I might be.”

Like hell…

He opened his mouth to tell Angel exactly what he’d do to him if he so much as looked at Becky sideways, then snapped his jaws closed with an audible clack.

Maybe Angel was right. Maybe he was the right man for Becky. Lord knew he had to better for her than Frank. At least Angel was born in the same decade as Becky, which was more than he could claim.

Shit.

He lifted his good hand to rub at the sudden pain shooting through his chest and marched toward the transport vehicle that pulled up to the end of the dock.

Never in his entire life had he wanted to be home as badly as he did at this very moment. And that was saying a lot since he’d spent endless amounts of time in quite a few less-than-hospitable environments.

He just wanted to get back to Chicago, back to the compound, back to normal.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t help but wonder if things would ever be normal again, because right at that moment he caught Becky watching him, and the look in her eyes was one he easily recognized. He easily recognized it because it was the same look reflected in his own.

Abject longing.

That about summed it up.

And how was he ever going to resist her now that he knew she wanted him as much as he wanted her? How was he ever going to resist her now that he knew the sensation of her in his arms? The taste of her on his lips?

Sweet Christ, help me.





Chapter Eight


Northern Indian Ocean

Six hours later…

“Sonofabitch!” Sharif howled in frustrated impotence as the catamaran’s last working outboard motor sputtered to a hiccupping halt.

Ominous silence settled over the little sailboat.

He was out of petrol, minus a satellite phone, running low on food and fresh water, and without a breath of wind to fill the sails…

He had not signed on for this…for any of this. He was supposed to answer the bloody phones, not find himself wounded and afloat out in the middle of the goddamned Indian Ocean. And it was all the fault of that little blond American bitch!

He threw his head back and shrieked his rage over and over into the endless expanse of the cloudless sky, then fell to his knees and convulsed in a long series of bone-cracking shudders that made his back teeth ache.

“I’m dead,” he whispered into the lonely silence, lifting eyes that were as red and swollen from his vitriolic outburst as they were from the fever that wracked him.

I’m dead.

Strangely, the thought didn’t frighten him. Not in the usual sense, in the fear of the unknown sense. In truth, he didn’t much care what happened. He’d never been particularly religious, had always considered himself of a scientific mind, so he figured chances were pretty good that nothing happened. One second you’re here, having thoughts, making plans, eating, working, f*cking. The next second you’re gone. End of story.

So no, the thought of death held no fear. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t royally miffed by the idea. Because he was going to die, and Rebecca Reichert—that bitch—was going to go right on living her entitled little American life and that was just so incredibly unfair he could barely stand it.

He glanced around, looking for something, anything, on which to take out his frustrations. But there was nothing. Just him and kilometer after kilometer of placid, turquoise water.

For the first time in his life, he lamented the fact that he wasn’t surrounded by the dirty, seething mass of humanity. With his hand swollen to the size of a cricket glove, and the infection ravaging his system, what he wouldn’t give to see the face of one skinny, ignorant pirate or one snide British football fan—or soccer as the Americans liked to call it. Leave it to them to filch the name of a four-hundred-year-old sport and apply it to a totally new endeavor, then condescend to call the original sport something entirely new.

He hated American audacity. Scratch that. He just hated Americans. One small, blond American in particular…

Listlessly, he let his gaze roam around the sailboat, cataloging what would soon become his floating coffin.

Something sparkled over by the aft railing.

Struggling to his feet, he shuffled over to investigate.

What he found was a long, thin fillet knife, its tip wedged under the metal lip that secured the railing to the deck. Bending, ignoring the thick blood that pounded through his head and hand at the maneuver, he picked up the blade and studied it with a sort of abstract fascination.