Shadows and Silk (19 page)

Her love was a heady sensation, going straight to his head as he felt the come shooting
from his cock and filling her womb. And as his strength gave out and he collapsed
on top of her, he realized that there was still hope
of her not walking away after all.

They dressed quickly and in silence, and Darcy didn’t dare look at Brant as she gathered
her belongings and stuffed them back in her backpack. How could she be so stupid as
to say the words aloud? The slipup left her without any protection for her own heart,
and she waited, the tension coiling in her shoulders, for Brant to denounce her claim
as unreal.
As a lie.
As if she didn’t know what the hell she was feeling.

Her mood turned black the more she thought of it, and she kept as much distance between
them as possible as he led her back down the multitude of stairs to the base of the
temple and back into the jungle.

The sun had almost completely set, so once they were in the dense cover of the trees,
it was almost black and Darcy
could barely
see the hand in front of her face. That didn’t keep Brant from pushing her along
and helping her to avoid fallen limbs or vines she might trip over.

Two long whistles sounded to her left and then two answering whistles sounded to her
right. Her clothes were damp
from perspiration, but a decided chill had settled once the
sun set
, and now she was shivering with the cold.
She could feel Brant’s seed still wet between her thighs, and she was grateful for
the darkness so the others couldn’t see how disheveled she looked.

Smith and
Huxley
were standing outside the Jeep, a small green glow stick in each of their hands to
provide a little light.
Darcy’s heart pounded as Brant helped her in the back seat
.
Smith navigated the Jeep through the jungle and back to the main road without headlights,
and she had a fleeting thought that that might be a helpful skill to acquire at some
point. All three of the men in the car seemed to have eyes like cats, while she was
fumbling around like an idiot.

“We received the all clear from Declan a few minutes
before you guys came back down,” Huxley said to Darcy.
“
He and Max didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, but he wants you to call him and
give him an update.”

Brant dialed in the number on the sat phone and passed it to her. The shivers were
starting to become uncontrollable—a combination of the cooler temperatures and fading
adrenaline—and she hu
ddled in the corner of the back
seat even though Brant had tried to pull her closer to share his body heat.

She realized someone was speaking to her through the phone, and she shook herself
out of the fog.

“Darcy?” Dec asked. “Darcy, answer me.”

“I’m here,” she said, softly.

“Are you okay?” he asked, perceptive as ever at reading emotions.

She didn’t answer him, but instead went into what she’d discovered from the glyphs
at the temple.
“You need to start searching the area where those girls were taken. The glyphs are
like a scavenger hunt. It’s a game to them,” she said, her voice breaking. She cleared
her throat and refused to look at Brant.

“What do you mean?” Dec asked.

“I found the pattern once I started connecting the glyphs on the map. They leave a
new set of glyphs after each drug drop for the next team of Ramos’s men to find.”

She noticed Smith and Huxley become very alert at the mention of the pattern, and
Huxley turned in his seat so he could listen more closely.

“Damn, how did we miss that?”

“When Donovan
Jax
was still alive he was messing up the game because he was feeding you information,
and the drops weren’t being made like they were supposed to. After he was killed,
that’s when the pattern becomes more noticeable. If you go back and look, every time
glyphs were found, there was eventually a body found in the corresponding place. I
didn’t always understand the clues, and your guys didn’t always find glyphs at the
drop locations, but they were there somewhere. We just missed them, and we didn’t
know exactly what we were looking for.”

“And now you do?” he asked.

“Yes. Wherever those girls were taken from will have the next set of glyphs. They’re
not always going to be easy to find, so we’ll need to look in obscure places at times.
The sooner we find those glyphs, the sooner I can decipher them and we can get to
those girls.”

“Good work,
Darce
. Put Brant on the phone.”

She handed the phone over to Brant, but still refused to look at him. If she was honest
with herself, she was embarrassed because he’d made her lose her control, and not
once had he ev
er shown that she had the same e
ffect on him.

Brant took the phone, and she could feel his eyes on her as he answered her brother
in monosyllabic tones.
He hung up and handed the phone to Huxley in the front seat.

“Dec says it’s time for you to relocate for the night,” Brant told the
two
men
. “
We’ve got a sneak and pee
k at 0 dark 30.”

They nodded, but no one bothered to interpret for her. Exhaustion seemed to come from
nowhere, and she slumped down in her seat, knowing she needed to be alert when they
went to look for the glyphs.

Her eyes drifted closed, and she must have dozed because she woke in Brant’s
arms. She stiffened against him
and looked around, recognizing the path that led to their villa.
She’d slept for longer than she’d thought if they were already
back
at the resort.

“I can walk it,” she said, her voice husky with sleep. The moon was bright and full
in the sky—a cloudless clear night that smelled of salt and sea.

“I know, but I’d rather carry you.”

She could tell he was on alert, constantly searching for someone who might be lurking,
and he didn’t relax until they were inside. He
laid her down on the bed and the
n went into the bathroom to turn on the shower.

He came back out to get fresh clothes, but didn’t do more than glance over
at
her as he said, “You should go ahead and get some sleep. It’s been a long day, and
you’re exhausted.”

The fact that he thought she’d go to sleep in sweaty clothes with the sex still drying
on her body alerted her that something was up. He’d been quiet ever since he’d talked
to Declan
, and she pushed off the bed and went to her suitcase to grab clean underwear and
something to sleep in. She should probably unpack at some point, but Brant hadn’t
exactly given her time.

The bathroom was luxurious, and the shower was big enough for multiple people and
surround
ed
by frosted glass that went from floor to ceiling on three sides. Steam billowed behind
the glass, and she could barely see Brant’s outline. She tossed down her clothes on
the counter and stripped out of the ones she’d worn to the temple, and then she opened
the shower door and watched as he looked up at her in surprise.

Her curiosity at his sudden odd behavior was stronger than the embarrassment she felt
for making a fool out of herself earlier.

“Want me to scrub your back, sugar?” he asked, giving her the grin that had made her
heart melt as a teenager.

She stepped beneath the spray and let the hot water rain down on her—her muscles welcoming
the heat
,
and the stickiness from her body washing away.

“You can do my front too,” she said, answering his grin with one of her own.

His eyes widened and his grin turned sensual.
H
is cock bobbed against her hip, and she raised a brow in question, as if to say
again?

“Always with you,” he said softly. “But I have to say I’m much more interested in
your back for the time being. I haven’t been paying it near enough attention.”

His hand slid around her hip and squeezed her ass, and she gasped as his finger ran
down the cr
evice
and slid into her pussy from behind. Her nipples grazed his chest, and she held completely
still as he worked two fingers inside.

“I haven’t taken you from behind,” he said, kissing her temple and trailing down to
her cheek. “I dream of bending you over and holding on to that fine ass as I slide
inside of you.”

She shuddered against him, but felt like she should be remembering something—focusing
on something important—but he stole her senses.

“And what about here?” he asked, removing his fingers from her pussy and back to the
puckered star of her anus. “Have you ever been taken here?”

A gasp escaped as he circled the hole once before pushing the tip of his finger inside.

“
Mmm
,” he said. “I don’t think you have. I like that I’
ll be the first, and that sweet ass will belong only to me.”

He removed his fingers completely and reached for the soap, squirting some into the
rag he pulled from the towel bar. Darcy was surprised as he began washing her as if
he hadn’t been teasing her for the last few minutes.

“Change your mind
?” she asked.

“When I take you like that it won’t be in a shower.
I’ll need to prepare you first.”

“Hmm,” she said, her mind working over the way he was acting.
Almost as if he were in a hurry.
“So what’s a sn
eak and pee
k? And when’s 0 dark 30? I’m assuming this is something to do with looking for the
glyphs.”

He finished scrubbing her and then started on his own body while she w
ashed her hair. “A sneak and pee
k is just a term for a recon mission. 0 dark 30
is
any time after dark. Not such a puzzle,” he said.

“So when are we leaving?”

“I’m going in with Shane’s SEAL team. They’ll be here in another half hour. It’ll
take some time to get there and be briefed before we get into position.” He paused
as he rinsed the soap from his body. “Jade’s going to be here to stay with you, and
SEAL team 2 is still keeping watch from the water. You’ll be safe until I get back.”

Darcy finally realized what he’d been trying to keep from her until the last minute,
and she shook her head in denial, turning off the water with a flick of her wrist.

“You can’t leave me here. I need to go with you so I can decipher the glyphs, and
you know it. I’m going.”

He sighed and opened the shower door, and the steam billowed out into the
air conditioned
room.
He handed her a towel and then grabbed one for himself.

“It’s too dangerous. We don’t know what we’re going into, and it’s best to use precaution.”

“
You’re going in with the SEAL
s
. What about your safety?”

“I used to be a SEAL. I know what the hell I’m doing.”

“
And are you willing to take the chance that something could happen to those girls
because I wasn’t there to decipher
the glyphs
immediately?”

He wrapped the towel around his waist and gave her a look she couldn’t interpret.
“Your brother and I agreed, and it’s not up for discussion. You’re staying here until
we know what we’re dealing with. We might not even find the glyphs, but there’s sure
as hell the possibility that Ramos still has men watching the area. We don’t want
one of them to see you.”

“So you and my brother make all the decisions, and I’m just the puppet you pull out
whenever you think I might be useful.”

“It’s not like that, Darcy.” He dropped the towel and went to his suitcase, where
he pulled out a black Speedo bathing suit and a neoprene dive suit.

“It certainly feels like that. What am I supposed to do if something happens to those
girls when I know a matter of hours could mean their life or death? How can I live
with that? How can you live with that?”

“In this business you have to learn to live with a lot of things,” he said, the tone
of his voice telling her he’d had more than his fair share. “And in the end you just
have to make the best choice and move
on. We need you alive and viable for the whole mission, not just part of it, and
our goal is to take down Ramos and destroy his lab. We can’
t do that without you.”

“I wish I could discard human lives as easily as you and my brothers seem to,” she
spat out. The words were meant to cut, and she immediately felt shame for even saying
it aloud.

“Never easily,” he finally said. “But sometimes necessary.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, biting her lip. “I shouldn’t have said that. I didn’t mean
it.” Brant and her brothers were heroes. She knew they did what they did because they
loved their country and they wanted nothing more than to protect the innocent.