Thrill Ride (Black Knights Inc. #4)(30)
Not that she’d been hungry, of course. Quite the contrary. The granola bar he’d handed her had gone down about as easy as a handful of woodchips dipped in habanero sauce, but she’d managed, by God. Because she’d been determined not to let him see how much he’d wounded her.
And in keeping with that line of thinking, this morning she pushed his hand away from her mouth and whispered in what she was proud to say was a completely firm and completely non-pride-shredded voice, “Holy shitburgers, I can’t believe I actually slept.” Especially not with you stretched out beside me, each one of your breaths echoing in the darkness and reminding me that, no matter what my fantasies, you’ll never be the man for me.
Yeah, she went ahead and left that last part out.
“It’s the adrenaline wearin’ off,” he murmured, and his voice was rock steady, too.
Well, goody. We’re both just hunky-dory after last night’s little Come-to-Jesus chat.
Great. Perfect…
Goddamnit!
She pushed into a sitting position, trying to beat back the humiliation that threatened to choke her even as she blinked owlishly in the dimness. No longer was the inside of the hollowed-out tree pitch black. Subtle light drifted through the small breaks in the dense foliage over the opening. And despite her having named her fear—and, in the process, found a way to, maybe not beat it per se, but at least mitigate it—the break in the inky blackness was a welcome reprieve.
Well, at least one thing seems to be going my way…
“We need to get movin’,” he declared, stuffing all the trash, the granola bar wrappers and empty pouches of antiseptic wipes, into his pack.
Vanessa highly suspected his actions had little to do with the fact that he was conscientious about leaving the jungle unspoiled and more to do with the fact that rule number one when trying to outfox a hunter was don’t give him a place to start. If for some reason the men gunning for them happened to stumble upon this log, Vanessa knew Rock didn’t want to leave any trace that they’d passed the night here.
Which was fine by her. She’d rather there not be any telltale reminders of this place left lying about either, reminders that this was the spot where she’d offered herself up, body and soul, and been soundly rejected.
A hot morsel of shame and indignation burned in her chest, but that was nothing compared to the city construction workers operating jackhammers inside her skull.
“I have a headache so big it makes the Sears Tower look like a domino,” she admitted, lifting a hand to her temple.
“It’s dehydration and heat exhaustion,” Rock said, shouldering into his pack and checking that the clips for his SIGs were loaded before slamming them back into the grips with his palms. The maneuver flexed the large, stylized skull tattoos with their crossed swords and the words sea, air, and land that were inked on each of his bulging biceps, and emphasized the barbed wire and thorny rose tattoos ringing his muscular forearms.
Grrrr. Why did he have to be so damned sexy?
I mean, seriously? He had a voice like an angel, a heaping helping of that oh-so-delicious Southern charm, a dangerous streak that was guaranteed to have a girl squirming in her seat, and a body like an Adonis? Not to mention that, while she smelled like she’d spent the night in wet clothes on the inside of a hollow log, he still managed to emit a…well, not necessarily a clean scent, but it was definitely a hot manly scent. Manly enough to have desire swirling through her belly and her toes curling inside her boots.
Frickin’ frackin’ shitballs! It’s just not fair!
“Well, don’t you just have the answer for everything this morning?” she griped then wished she could call the words back. One sure way to let him know that her whole hey, I’m cool you just want to bone me and toss me aside demeanor was all just a big fat act was to turn into Lady McBitchesAlot. “Sorry,” she added hurriedly, wincing and rubbing a thumb in the center of her forehead. “Headaches turn me into a total bear.”
“Take this,” Rock passed her the canteen. They’d emptied it last night—scratch that, she’d emptied it last night; it was the only way she’d been able to choke down the woodchips and habanero granola bar—but Rock must’ve already made a trip down to the river to refill it.
And it was good thing she hadn’t been sleeping like a baby with a whole group of CIA agents out to kill her or anything. Sheesh! She hadn’t even heard him leave, much less return.
Then again, she comforted herself with the knowledge that Rock was incredibly stealthy. Maybe not scare-the-holy-crap-out-of-you silent like Ghost, the Black Knights’ crackerjack sniper, but he could still hold his own against the best of them. And let’s admit it, she wasn’t the best of them.
Tilting the canteen to her lips, she hesitated when she remembered the number of untold microscopic organisms that bred in these jungle waters, most of them nasty enough to cause an otherwise healthy person to turn into a sweating, convulsing, shitting machine.
“Did you add iodine tablets to this?” she asked.
Rock slid her a look that questioned the validity of both her college degrees. “This isn’t my first rodeo, chere.” And, okay, so she wasn’t the only one who was cranky this morning. He was doing a fairly decent impression of Lord McBitchesAlot.
Raising her brows, she eyed him over the top of the cantina as she let the cool, slightly chemical-tasting water slip down her parched throat.