Thrill Ride (Black Knights Inc. #4)(33)

“Wow,” he said, trudging through particularly dense undergrowth, wincing when he crushed some of the plant life beneath his boot since it was basically the same thing as waving a semaphore flag for the guys who were hunting them. Of course, if his calculations were correct, and he was right about how far back that agent’s teammates were, they had enough of a head start to make it to the old Rio Verde road and the rusting 1966 Bultaco Metisse dirt bike he’d squirreled away there, before the spooks caught them. “Now, doncha go holdin’ back on me. I want you to tell me how you really feel.”

She snorted. “I just thought I should drag you down off that high horse you climbed up on. Wouldn’t want you to start suffering from altitude sickness or anything.”

He chanced a glance over his shoulder and—

Mistake.

Because her cheeks were red and rosy from the heat, her eyes dark and half-lidded from weariness, her hair all mussed and crazy from letting it dry without brushing it, and he realized…

This is what she looks like after making love…Warm and blushing and messy and…merde, merde, merde!

“You’re really beautiful, you know that?” The words hopped out of his mouth like they were attached to springs.

And the statement, blurted with absolutely none of his usual Southern finesse, caught her off guard. She stopped in her tracks, her chin jerking back on her neck as if she was a marionette and someone yanked her string. She stared at him for a long moment, her dark eyes searching for something in his face as the jungle around them chattered and buzzed and dripped, as the air hung heavy with the smell of wet foliage and exotic orchids. But when it became obvious he wasn’t going to give anything else away, she shrugged her shoulders and pushed forward, brushing aside a long vine that hung in the path. “I don’t get you,” she observed quietly.

“You wouldn’t be the first,” he retorted, cursing as his boot snagged on a root, causing him to stumble. Again.

Goddamnit! Twice in as many minutes he’d lost his footing. Which was saying something since he usually had the reflexes of a whole herd of cats.

But this woman, this one, small, spectacular woman muddled his thinking, caused him to lose his focus and—

“Seriously,” she pressed, “one minute you’re all stay back, Van; I’ll break your heart and the next you’re telling me how beautiful I am. What’s with that? Are you, like, some sort of sadist or something?”

No. More like a masochist. At least when it came to her. Which was just one more reason on his very long list of reasons why it was imperative he keep her at arm’s length.

“I didn’t tell you that to hurt you, ma belle,” he admitted, taking out his Bowie knife to slice into a vine. They were running dangerously low on water. And besides the ass-load of hostiles after them, the next biggest threat in the jungle was dehydration.

Unscrewing the cap on his canteen, he gripped the severed end of the vine and aimed it at the opening, allowing it to unload its precious cargo of water. Once the canteen was full, he dropped two iodine tablets inside before replacing the cap and re-hooking it to his pack.

Vanessa was silent through the process, but once they were moving again she asked, “Then why did you tell me?”

Why indeed…

He considered all the possible answers he could give her and decided on the truth. “I suppose because chances are pretty good I’m not gonna make it out of this thing alive, and I…merde…” He felt the air thickening around him. Rain was coming. Soon. “…I guess I…I guess I wanted you to know that while what I said last night was true; it has nothin’ to do with you and everything to do with me.”

“Not make it out of this thing alive. You keep saying that,” she snapped at his back. “But I don’t get it. If you didn’t kill those men, then there has to be a way to clear your name. There has to be some sort of evidence that proves you weren’t—”

He stopped and swung around, surprising her when he grabbed her by the shoulders. Now, normally he didn’t cotton to laying hands on a woman without her permission, but right now he needed to make sure she understood what he was saying. And that required him having her full, undivided attention.

From the diameter of her wide eyes and the way her mouth was hanging open, he had it.

“I might not have been the one to pull the trigger, chere,” he growled, hoping she could see the truth in his face. “But I’m the reason they’re dead all the same.”

And right at that moment, the sky opened up.





Chapter Nine


Vanessa’s heart beat with a terrible rhythm at Rock’s declaration, and the torrential rain instantly soaked her to the skin.

The reason they’re dead? What does that mean?

Had he…had he participated somehow? Maybe…hired the person who had done the deeds?

But that last one didn’t make any sense. She wasn’t sure about much when it came to Rock—not anymore; the man was an enigma wrapped in a riddle surrounded by beard stubble—but one thing she was certain of was that he wasn’t one to let another do his dirty work.

So…what? What was with that cryptic statement?

She opened her mouth to demand he explain himself, but he’d already turned and was trudging quickly away. Left with no other recourse, she clenched her jaw and followed, her mind spinning with exactly two thoughts…