Desert Ice Daddy (9 page)

He was kneading her calf muscles already. “We have a big day tomorrow. If your muscles stiffen up and you can’t move when you have to, or if you can’t move fast enough…”

He didn’t have to finish the sentence. She let go of all feelings of embarrassment over the fact that she was melting in his hands and gave herself over to the feel of his long fingers moving up her legs. She could feel the warmth of his hands through the fabric of her pants, and desire soon raced across her skin.

He was silhouetted in the moonlight, on his knees before her, leaning over her. She closed her eyes, meant to turn her head to the side but ended up arching her neck instead and even perhaps her back, too, as his hands moved above her knees.

She didn’t think he noticed, but when he stopped a few minutes later and asked, “Feeling better?” his voice was dangerously raspy.

The air was thicker than Houston at a hundred percent humidity, and they were in the desert. The guardhouse seemed to be getting smaller by the minute.

“Mmm, hmm,” she said, then realized how pitiful that sounded and gathered all her strength for a “Thank you.”

She should have probably returned the favor; his muscles had to be hurting as much as hers. But for once, she was smart enough to know when to stop. No way she could have touched him and not made a complete fool of herself. So she simply pulled aside to make more room for him on the floor.

He stretched out next to her and came up on his left elbow. “You look beautiful in the moonlight.”

Which was so not what she needed to hear. They would both have been much better off if he’d said something like her feet smelled. Too much touching, too much intimacy had filled the tiny place. They needed to neutralize that before one of them did something stupid. Okay, before she did something stupid. Because, God help her, she was on the verge of begging him to kiss her again and make her forget all the danger around them and the situation they were in, make her forget just for a night.

But she’d done the begging before. And he had said no and walked away. And she had sworn that if she survived the embarrassment, she was never going to do anything as stupid as that ever again.

“I think tomorrow—” She started into a random thought, having no idea what she was going to say next.

Which didn’t turn out to be a problem.

Akeem’s lips sealed hers long before she could have gotten to the end of the sentence.

Firm. Warm. Coaxing.

Surprise made her stiffen, but only for a moment. Her body took over next. She tasted him first, which surprised him in turn. His dark eyes flared with heat.

Fantasies that were nearly a decade old came back in full force as his dark eyes closed and his chest expanded under her palm. They were close enough for her to feel his body harden with desire. The thought that she had caused that surprised her again and aroused her at the same time.

Then some sort of Texas tornado formed inside the guardhouse and blew their clothes clear off before she even knew what was happening, leaving her in her bra and underwear, and Akeem in dark gray boxer shorts. She couldn’t remember touching a single button, yet the speed with which their pants had been divested indicated that she had helped.

All she knew were Akeem’s lips on hers, tasting her, demanding entry, his palm closed over her breast, her mind melting under the onslaught of desire.

His long fingers caressed her skin, heating her flesh further, melting her at her core as she arched her back. He immediately took advantage and sealed his lips around her sensitized nipple, with nothing but some flimsy lace between them. Her blood sang as it pulsed through her body.

It seemed crazy, but after all her wanderings, in that dilapidated guardhouse in the middle of Hell’s Porch, when she was in Akeem’s arms, she felt like she had found home at last.

Going slowly had been his mantra over the past few months when it came to Taylor. That resolution was flying out the glassless window with racehorse speed.

She was practically naked, and she was perfect. Beyond perfect. She was so beautiful it made his throat tighten. She was Taylor. Taylor McKade was in his arms. How long had he waited for this?

A century would have been worth every minute.

She needed distraction, just one moment in the midst of all danger and worry. He needed her, plain and simple. But this wasn’t going to be about him.

He wanted her to feel sheltered. Better yet, transported. And just good, plain good. As good as she was making him feel.

Taylor was in his arms and she was kissing him.

Getting carried away would have been the easiest thing in the world to do. So he made sure she was on board with every move he made. And he was eager to make as many moves as their limited time would allow.

He caressed her breasts first, breasts that had grown
fuller with motherhood. Her nipples tightened against his palm. The exquisite sensation pumped heated blood through his veins. And things only got hotter when he pulled his lips from hers and bent to take a nipple into his mouth through her yellow lace bra.

Yellow lace was going to be the death of him yet.

His hand slipped down her flat stomach, her hip, the outside of her lean thigh. Her skin was soft and smooth. He reveled in the feel of it as he hooked a hand under her knee and pulled the leg up. He wanted nothing more than to lose himself in her body and make her come apart in his arms.

On some level, he was aware that he wasn’t thinking, but he couldn’t bring himself to start. Feeling was so incredibly good. Who needed thoughts?

He soaked up the feel of her as her knees parted to let him closer.

“Are you sure?” He pressed against her core, leaving no doubt what he was asking.

She opened those cornflower eyes that looked midnight blue in the dark, and fixed her gaze on him. “Of course I’m not sure.”

And in an instant their circumstances came back to his mind again. Thoughts cranked into gear even as his body protested. He had sought to make her forget for a while, and instead it had been him who had forgotten just about everything. A car door slamming outside underscored the realization. He hadn’t even heard the vehicle roll up.

He swore and came up to a crouch to spy through the
window. One of the pickups from the day before was standing in front of the gate no more than thirty feet from the guardhouse.

One man got out. He had a key to the padlock. It wasn’t Jake Kenner, but definitely one of the guys who’d been there at the boulder.

The man got into the vehicle, rolled through the inner gate then got out to lock it again. Akeem yanked his pants on and pushed the door open, waited until the man was coming back to his pickup, not ten feet from the guardhouse. When the guy was close enough, Akeem rushed forward without a weapon. He needed both hands free.

The heightened emotions that had filled him just moments ago switched to determination and anger in a split second. This was the bastard who had taken Christopher. He felt his control snap, felt that Bedu warrior blood in his veins that he’d been hiding all his life. And this time, he didn’t care.

He brought the man to the ground, one hand going to the guy’s mouth, the other to hold him down. The bastard bit hard, to the bone, and in a reflex response, Akeem’s hold loosened. Only for a second, but that was enough. The man pulled a knife and embedded it in Akeem’s thigh.

Pain seared down his leg, but Akeem didn’t let go. He hauled the bastard up and kept the pickup between himself and the refinery, for cover, as he dragged the man back to the guardhouse with him, each step hurting like a sonofabitch. He had his own knife stuck in the
back of his waistband, but his hands weren’t free to reach for it.

“You raise your voice, you die. Now, where’s the kid?” he asked when he had the guy inside and hauled up against the wall. He kept his weight on his good leg as he loosened his hand around the guy’s mouth, keeping the bastard’s neck pinned with his other arm.

Akeem had him opposite the window so a slice of moonlight lit the guy. Looking into that shifty face filled him with anger. He and his partners in crime had taken an innocent little boy, shattered the child’s sense of safety probably for years or decades to come, for something as inconsequential as money. They might as well have ripped the heart from Taylor’s chest. And Akeem found that he knew no mercy when it came to someone hurting Taylor or her son.

Pain pulsed through him, honing his anger to a fine edge. “This is the last time I’m going to ask nicely. Where’s the kid?”

The man was glancing around, hoping to spot a possible weapon or a way out, no doubt. He didn’t understand the severity of his situation. He lurched against Akeem’s hold. “Who the hell—”

“Wrong answer.” He smacked the guy’s head against the wall. “Where is Christopher?”

They were running out of time. He reached for his gun on the small desk in the corner, pressed the barrel under the man’s chin, although he had no intention of shooting this close to their target and alerting everyone. Since the guy was here, he was even more sure now that
they had to be keeping something valuable at the refinery. Most likely they were hiding Christopher somewhere here. But the buildings were enormous. He needed to know where to go and where the traps lay that he needed to avoid.

At this moment, he was willing to do anything to get that information.

The man he’d captured didn’t have much of a choice. He had to know that he would either talk and be killed by his buddies when they caught up with him, or not talk and meet a bad end right now, right here. Akeem pressed his arm harder into his Adam’s apple and watched dispassionately as he gasped for air.

And as he waited for the guy’s head to turn purple, for some indication from him that he’d made his decision, he realized that Taylor hadn’t made a sound since he had come back inside. He knew what she must be seeing: him turned into a murderous animal, the violence of his true temperament showing at last. A quick glance sideways at her wide-eyed faced confirmed his thoughts.

But it had been a mistake to look. The guy dropped his weight and twisted out of Akeem’s grasp, grabbing for the knife still embedded in Akeem’s thigh and making him see stars as he yanked it. That split second, while Akeem caught his breath in the middle of the searing pain, was enough for the guy to throw himself at Taylor, the nasty-looking knife back in his hand.

The balance of power shifted as easily as that.

“Tell me where the boy is and you can go. I have no
argument with you.” Akeem dropped the gun, but not in capitulation. He needed to free his right hand.

“Get out of my way,” the man growled, pressing the tip of his knife to Taylor’s throat.

Akeem watched as a bead of blood formed, then ran down her pale neck. The trail of blood looked black in the dark.

Rage filled him, more powerful than anything he had felt before. Rage that pushed him to act without thought. And that was dangerous. So he tempered it to cold anger as he locked eyes with the man. And realized that the guy wasn’t about to negotiate. He clearly thought he had the upper hand, especially with his buddies nearby to back him up. Depending on where they were in the refinery, they might or might not hear a shout in the night.

The man was already opening his mouth. More blood ran down Taylor’s neck. She stood completely still, without so much as a whimper, her gaze locked on Akeem’s.

And he realized that he really had no choice. He brought his own knife from his back the next second and threw it with enough force to embed it in the man’s windpipe, with only the handle sticking out, a skill he’d learned from his uncles in the desert on their gazelle-hunting trips.

Then he grabbed for Taylor and yanked her from the man before blood spurted from behind the base of the knife’s handle. The kidnapper folded soundlessly to the ground.

When Taylor tried to turn and look, Akeem held her
to him and pressed her face into the crook of his neck, his body awash in adrenaline. “Go to the pickup. Get in on the passenger side. Get down. Don’t look back.” He wouldn’t let her go until she nodded against him.

He positioned himself between her and the body on the floor anyway, and waited until she was out before turning to pick up his shirt. He ripped off one sleeve to make a tight bandage around his thigh, the other to wrap up the bleeding bite on his hand.

Damn.

He drew a deep breath when he was done, his blood calming as he looked over the dead man. “Who the hell are you?” His gaze locked on eyes that stared into eternity.

Then he thought of Taylor.

He hated that she’d had to see this.

For him, it was different. Wasn’t the first time. Not that it got better or easier. He’d shot a man at sixteen in the Arabian Desert in self-defense. His grandfather had insisted on taking him to a tribal skirmish. To make a man out of him, the old sheik had said.

And made him fear just what kind of man he would become.

Now he knew. And so did Taylor.

He drew a slow breath, telling himself he needed to get moving, yet hesitating for another moment. When he had talked the kidnappers into letting him come along, he had known things might come to this. That was specifically why he was here, to protect Taylor and Christopher at any cost, even at the cost of human life, even if that life were his own.

Still, he couldn’t bring himself to take his knife back. He grabbed the attacker’s blade from the floor instead, then patted him down. No other weapon. He’d probably left his gun in the pickup when he got out to lock the inner gate behind him and open the outer one so he could leave. No identification. He pocketed the man’s cell phone, swore under his breath, pried up the floorboards in the corner then hid the duffel bags and briefcases after having grabbed a handful of items from the first-aid kit. Then he picked up the guy’s baseball hat and shoved it onto his own head before heading for the pickup.

“You okay?” were his first words when he got in and saw Taylor bent over to keep down. “How bad is your neck?” He couldn’t see from this angle.

“Just a scratch.” She straightened in her seat. “You?” She was watching him carefully.

Warily? He couldn’t see well enough in the dark to tell.

He remembered Carolyn all of a sudden.
“I just don’t feel safe around you. I’m sorry.”
She’d fidgeted across the table from him at one of Houston’s most expensive restaurants. It had been just after 9/11. He hadn’t bothered to discuss the issue. She hadn’t been that important to him. He had stood and walked away. But Taylor
was
important to him. He didn’t want her to be afraid of him. He grabbed the dead man’s gun from the dashboard and shoved it into his waistband, next to his own, out of sight.

“No damage.” He wanted to check her neck, to treat it, to see the full extent of the injury, but he didn’t want to turn on the light in the cab, in case someone
was watching from a window somewhere. There’d been enough funny business going on around the guardhouse to draw suspicion if someone was paying attention.

But so far, nobody had raised an alarm. Maybe they thought themselves safe and were resting up for the exchange in the morning.

Taylor glanced back to the guardhouse. “Now there’s one less of them. And we know they are definitely using this place for something.”

Her voice was strained, but she wasn’t falling apart, and he was grateful for that. Then grateful yet again to spot a half-dozen keys on the chain that hung from the ignition. He pulled the truck forward to the gate along the inner fence, ignoring the Posted and Illegal Entry signs, then took the key ring to try his luck with the padlock.

The first key didn’t fit. Neither did the second. If someone looked out from one of the buildings, they would definitely be able to tell that Akeem was not the guy they’d expected.

He glanced toward the pickup. Taylor was watching him. He should have told her to get back down again.

He tried another key, and that one slid in at last, turned in the lock. They were riding through toward the refinery complex within seconds. He kept the headlights turned off.

“Have you been to this place before?” she asked, taking stock of their surroundings.

“Once.”

“Inside?”

“Rode around it. I was camping not far from here for a couple of days.”

He kept an eye on the structures for any sign of danger as he navigated between two large pits then two brick tanks, driving toward the main tower and the utility building. The place looked ready to fall apart. He said as much to Taylor.

“They closed it up in 1980. My grandfather worked here for a while.”

“No kidding?” He glanced at her. “So you know this place?”

“Just heard the tales. Can’t be that many old oil refineries out here. Grandpa said they used to make roofing tar. His team, anyway.”

“He tell you anything else?”

“Not much. He hadn’t worked out here that long. Had a falling-out with the boss over an accident his best friend was involved in.”

He kept going, hoping to spot some other vehicles and figure out where the men were. Nothing. He drove slowly to keep the engine quiet as he weaved among the various structures, some of which looked like they might be ready to collapse at any second.

Long minutes had passed by the time he caught sight of two pickups—same as he was driving—parked under what looked like a covered loading dock.

Taylor leaned forward, gripping the dashboard as she peered ahead. She was growing more tense with every passing second. Then, when he turned off the car, she whispered a question. “Do you think he’s here?”

“We got three out of the five pickups. Sure looks like mission headquarters to me.” He wouldn’t let his concern over the two missing vehicles show.

She was plenty nervous already. And deep in thought.

He was about to get out when she drew her shoulders up, took a deep breath then went completely still the next second. Only her lips moved as she said, “I want you to leave me here.”