Thrill Ride (Black Knights Inc. #4)(26)
Vanessa carefully rolled off Rock onto her side, barely completing the maneuver when she felt him scoot down toward the mouth of the log.
“Be careful,” she whispered, and immediately rolled her eyes as she thought. Well, that’s ridiculous advice. Like what else would he be?
“Don’t scream,” he retorted, which had her heart—the sucker had just recovered from the initial shock to start beating again—once more screeching to a halt. She actually fancied she could hear a scriiiiitch echo in the darkness.
When someone warned you not to scream, it was generally followed up by something truly scream-worthy.
She bit her lip until the pain made her eyes water, but even then, she didn’t unclench her jaw. She figured it was better to chew the sucker right off than take a chance of letting so much as a peep slip out of her mouth.
The seconds ticked by, and the snuffling around the entrance to their hideout grew louder until Vanessa thought she’d go crazy waiting for whatever it was she wasn’t supposed to scream at to happen. Then she heard a loud thump followed immediately by an earsplitting yowl.
And that was what Rock had warned her about. Because the unholy, pissed-off roar that echoed outside was enough to raise the hair on the back of her neck and make goose bumps break out on her arms while a reactionary shriek lodged in the middle of her throat.
“After that boot to the head, he’ll think twice about sticking his nose in here again,” Rock said. She could make out the soft shush of his cargo pants brushing against the tarp as he scooted back to her. “Now, I’m gonna have to go out and erase the big cat’s tracks. If those teams heard that yowl, they’re gonna wonder if it has to do with us.”
“Y-yeah, okay,” she said, heart beating a mile a minute.
“You gonna be all right in here by yourself?” She could hear the worry in his voice.
“Yes,” she was proud to say. Even prouder when she realized it was the truth. For years she’d lived in constant terror of a place and situation exactly like this, but all it’d taken was ten minutes of being subjected to Rock’s astonishing brand of psychoanalysis and she was, maybe not cured, but at the minimum drastically improved.
Of course, that didn’t do a thing to alleviate her terror for the safety of the man’s hide when he exited the hollow tree to begin silently covering the jaguar’s tracks. The whole time he was out there, exposed, images of the big cat launching itself from the nearest tree to sink razor-sharp fangs into Rock’s jugular played like a horror show inside her head. Over and over again, she saw it happening. Cat. Launch. Claws. Teeth. Blood. And just when she’d had enough, when she was going to have to go out there and see for herself that he was okay, the greenery at the mouth of the log rustled and the air thickened as Rock scooted inside.
“Is he…” she began but stopped when she discovered someone had dumped a bucket of sand down her throat. She swallowed, trying to work up some saliva to battle the dryness, and tried again. “Is he gone?”
“For now.” She closed her eyes, whispering a silent prayer of thanks into the darkness. “And one good thing about his arrival: now we know the hit squad isn’t anywhere close. That cat wouldn’t come within a hundred yards of a big group of men like that.”
Okay, as far as silver linings went, she guessed that was a pretty good one. Blowing out a blustery breath, tilting her head from side-to-side to try to work out the kinks in her neck, she reached for him in the darkness. Now that they’d averted one crisis, it was time to deal with another. “So I guess it would be a good time to get a bandage on that cut before you bleed to death.”
Chapter Seven
Vanessa’s small hand landed on his forearm, and Rock tried and failed to ignore the fact that her palm was warm and smooth and sending little electrical jolts all through his body.
He should not have kissed her. And the last thing he should be thinking about right now was kissing her again. But that’s exactly what he was doing.
Thinking about kissing her. Kissing her and a whole hell of a lot more.
Mon dieu, but she’d been hot. A burning flame in his arms. Sexy and lusty and…feminine. She was soft in all the right places, firm in all the rest, and it boggled his goddamned mind that she’d even stop to give him the time of day.
Oh, not because he wasn’t used to getting attention from women, even beautiful women. He may not have Snake’s surfer-boy good looks or Ozzie’s movie-star profile, but he’d gotten more than his fair share of les jolies filles over the years, especially when he’d been with the Teams…
Oh, mama, had those ever been the days. When there’d been plenty of base bunnies only too happy to overlook his thick Cajun accent and lean, rangy body in order to say they’d bagged themselves an honest-to-goodness Navy SEAL.
But, unfortunately, since starting Black Knights Inc., his pace in the, uh, bunny department had slowed considerably. And more recently, ever since he’d been on the run—no, that wasn’t true; it was ever since they’d hired Vanessa—that pace had screeched to a full stop. Because every time he tried to take a woman home from the bar or local cantina, he was stopped by visions of long, inky-black hair, dark, flashing eyes, and an ass that didn’t know the meaning of the word quit.
And that scared him like a hound pissing peach pits. Because had that jaguar not showed up when it did, he’d likely be buried balls-deep in her sweet feminine warmth right at this very moment. And though the act would’ve undoubtedly been one of the most pleasurable experiences of his entire sorry life, it would’ve also been a mistake on too many levels to count…Because despite the fact that her actions had been screaming, Ride me, cowboy. Hard and fast—which, wouldn’t you know, just happened to be his particular specialty—he was fully aware that, deep down inside, Vanessa was the “forever” type of girl. So if he’d given in to the lust that’d momentarily grabbed hold of them, he’d have given her hope there could be a future for the two of them when there absolutely could not.