Taming Alaska (So Not Prince Charming Book 1) (4 page)

When I met Cyn last night, I thought she was older than me from the way she dressed, wore her makeup, her hair up in some…something. That dress gave me a hard-on last night—brilliant red, low cut back—no girl that young should look so damn nasty or wear a dress like that. I had her undressed the moment I saw her until she dropped a nuclear bomb.

Fuck. Sixteen. That shot a painful arrow through my erection.

I push the chopper hard, flying over the featureless desert, and reach the county jail in just under two hours. I land in the sheriff’s parking lot, which pisses off a few deputies. Ignoring their complaints, I stride into the building.

“Where’s Cynthia Diaz?” I ask, shoving past the officers staring at the helicopter.

Cyn sits just inside the lobby, her eyes bloodshot from crying. Poor kid. I walk toward the front desk to find out the status of the search.

“They just reached the abandoned shack in the desert, and CSI is investigating,” the officer says at the front desk. “We had no idea who she was. Honest.” He looks me up and down. “Miss Diaz said you were her bodyguard.”

“She did?” I hold back a laugh, impressed by this young girl’s smarts. “Thank you.” There’s no point in antagonizing the deputy. I gesture for Cyn to follow me. “Cyn, let’s go. Do you think you can find the place where you last saw your mom?”

She nods, more tears tumbling down that precious face. I blow out a breath. Sixteen, I remind myself.

Her shapely long legs stretch out before her, but her bare feet are bloodied. On some level, their captors were smart by removing their shoes. My admiration grows for Cyn’s spunk and courage and escaping.

“You can’t go out to the crime scene,” the deputy says.

“I’m sure they’d love to have someone trained in search and rescue assisting.”

The deputy gives me an odd look. “Where?”

“Wilderness SAR in Fairbanks.” I take Cyn’s hand, but instead, she nuzzles up against me and her spicy scent almost undoes me. I drape an arm around her, and she weeps against my chest. I have never wanted a woman—girl—this bad, but it’s not going to ever happen, and I need to focus on finding Mrs. Diaz.

“They took your shoes?” I ask while her face is buried into my chest. “Never mind.” She’s too upset to talk, so I pick her up and carry her to the chopper.

“You can’t take her,” another deputy yells at me. “You have to be a legal guardian.”

“I need her, so I’m taking her, and I’m her bodyguard,” I say with a chuckle.

“I’m going with him,” she says adamantly, locking onto my arm, which I wish she wouldn’t do. Given the way she’s holding on, I doubt any cop could break her away from me.

Once in the chopper, I hand her a headset. “Put these on.”

She nods and slips into the seat next to me. I lean over and strap her in. After today, I will stay the hell away from this young spitfire.

“Where did you last see her?” I ask.

She gives me the highway and the diner Jose’s that I actually know. Between the tears, she manages to tell me everything that happened. Within minutes, I land a hundred feet away from the crime scene so that I don’t disturb any tire or footprints.

“Wait here for a moment,” I say to Cyn, getting out of the chopper.

She drags her knees to her chest, pulling her skirt over her legs, and says, “Okay.”

“I’ll do my best to find her.” I push back the long silky black hair hiding her face.

She thins her lips, fighting off more tears and probably a meltdown.

I tug off my sneakers and give her my thick cotton socks. “I may need you.”

“I’ll put them on.” She clutches my arm before I leave. “Don’t be gone long.”

I peck her forehead, like I do for my younger sister, and brush a stray tear away. “I won’t.”

Near the shack where Cyn and her mother were held, four cops and one fed are standing around and aren’t happy to see me. Before approaching them, I stop and study the tracks leading to the old building. There are multiple sets—some very deep but older and wind blown, possibly a few days ago.

“Who the hell are you?” an obvious fed in a suit and tie says. I only wear jeans or shorts and usually flip-flops to work. What’s the point of not being comfortable?

“This is a heavily traveled road.” I point away from the building. “From the deeply embedded tracks, you’ve probably either got human traffickers or drug runners using it.”

“How the fuck do you know?” the fed says, smirking while extending his hand. “Special Agent Carson.”

“Lots of tracks on a road that shouldn’t have much traffic,” I say, studying where the truck stopped in front of the shack. “These tracks have the same tread pattern.” I pick them out. “But these are much deeper—a few days old.”

“Cyn?” I signal for her to join me. Wearing my socks that pool around her ankles, she climbs out of the chopper and trudges toward me, her arms visibly shaking.

“Who is she?” the fed asks. “Damn, even dirty and grimy, that woman’s hot.”

“Her mother was the one taken, and she’s sixteen.” Dickwad.

“Hell, these young girls keep looking older and older.”

It’s good that she is far enough away that she won’t hear. She comes over to stand next to me, so I fight off the gravitational pull she has on me.

“Is this where your mom hit her head on the rock?” I ask. Sand has scattered over the trail of blood where they must’ve dragged her, and so far from the evidence and what Cyn told me, this isn’t looking good for Mrs. Diaz.

Cyn nods, swiping tears from her smoky eyes. She needs to remember that she got away and her mom wanted her to survive.

I pull her under my wing. “Don’t lose hope,” I say, although I already have.

“I’ll be damned,” a cop says, gesturing CSI to come over and gather evidence, but the blood’s not what I’m after. I need to find her mother.

I walk around the tire tracks and footprints until I notice recent, deeper tread marks leading away from the shack. A body was dragged from it toward the truck, then the kidnappers drove toward the mountains. From the brush marks over the tracks, the kidnappers tried to cover them.

Nausea swirls in my gut. This doesn’t feel like a recovery. It’s like…

“Stay here, Cyn,” I order.

She’s shaking, bunching her lips together, and my heart pours out to this woman-child.

I jog down the tracks, following the tread. The more the tire tracks dig into the dirt and swerve the more panic works into my heart. The kidnappers were in a hurry and not just because Cyn got away.

Two cops and the fed chase after me because I’m running all out now until the tracks abruptly stop and then veer off in another direction. At this juncture, two sets of footprints walk away from the truck.

The rocky terrain leads up to the base of the mountains. The two men were carrying something or someone, which forces me to swallow hard. I slow as I approach a rocky outcrop, breathing hard. A pair of bare feet sticks out from behind the clump of rocks.

Before I even reach the body, Cyn lets out an ear-piercing scream. On the other side of the boulders, Mrs. Diaz’s headless body lies prone in the dirt.

Jesus Fucking Christ.

The sight is a gruesome reminder of finding my little brother whose guts were ripped open.

I spin around where Cyn stands next to me. Young girls, just like women, never fucking listen. I pick her up.

She kicks and screams. “I can’t leave her. I need to go to her,” she cries, reaching for her mom. She’s hysterical, fighting and clawing me, but I’ve dealt with much worse when it comes to women.

Cyn is sobbing uncontrollably. “I should’ve never left her. This is all my fault.”

I shake her hard until she sees me and not her mother’s lifeless body. “She made you leave, and you should be thankful.” My eyes narrow, taking on a serious expression, so Cyn understands the love her mother had for her. “There is nothing worse than watching a parent cradling his dying child. She wanted you to live, so you do just that. Goddammit.”

“How can I?” Cyn buries her face into my shirt, soaking my chest.

I have more to do here, and Cyn cannot stay where her mother lies dead. I hand Cyn’s broken and beaten body to an officer. “Take her back.”

I momentarily draw her into me. “I’ll be there shortly, Cyn.”

She drags her feet back to the chopper alongside the officer.

Agent Carson fists his hips, shaking his head. “Why kill her? Her family would have paid handsomely for her safe return.”

After Cyn is out of earshot, I kneel by Mrs. Diaz while pain stabs at my chest. “I think her death may have been accidental.”

“Why is that?” a cop asks.

“Not much blood anywhere when they sawed off her head. Cyn said a guy knocked her mom out then she was kicked out of the truck and hit her head again. Cyn also told me her mother threw up and seemed out of it. I bet it was blunt-force trauma that killed her.”

“Why hack off the head?” the fed asks.

I shake my head, biting my lip. Just last night I was enjoying Mrs. Diaz’s company. The shock hasn’t even really hit me yet. “That’s for you to figure out along with what they did with her head.”

I hand the fed my business card. “I should take Cyn home.”

He examines my card then says, “We could use a guy like you.”

“I do well at what I’m doing, but thanks.” In a few years, I can probably sell my company.

I hurry back to Cyn because she needs a familiar face, even if we don’t know each other well.

Next to the chopper, she sits on her haunches, looking broken and fragile and vulnerable. I pick her up, slide her into the jump seat, and harness her in. She doesn’t talk but leans her head against the door after I secure it shut.

“Let’s get you home,” I say, adjusting the headset onto her soft hair.

On the flight back to the airport, she cries herself to sleep. I understand grief all too well. I practically raised my younger brother Skyler and my little sister Julie, and losing Sky has never left me.

I carry Cyn from the chopper. Her nose nuzzles into my chest against my nipple that treacherously responds to her teasing touch. After many slow breaths, I tuck her into the passenger side of my Mom’s boyfriend’s BMW.

Cyn stirs. “Are we home yet?” Her innocent eyes question mine.

“Soon.” I buckle her into the seat.

Cyn’s beautiful eyes smolder like burning embers. “Thank you.”

Unexpectedly, she grabs me by the collar, yanking me off balance and right against those temptingly sweet lips. Our foreheads butt, and she lets out a seductive moan as her tongue flicks across my teeth to torment me with her delectable mouth. An erection comes on strong now.

If I were sixteen, I’d fuck her senseless, but I’m not. It’s how I got over losing my brother. Poor Lindsey, my first girlfriend, walked funny for a few days. That wild girl never once complained, but that crazy bitch also took a blade to my throat while I was sleeping. I still bear a nasty scar along my jawline.

While testing the waters of heaven with this underage siren, my soul plunges into the burning heat of hell’s smokehouse. My brow nervously twitches, reminding me of my first time when Lindsey popped my proverbial cherry at fifteen, but Cyn’s taste is so much more enticing. God, at this moment, I wish I were sixteen.

What I’m doing is dead wrong, but I can’t help myself. I want this strong, courageous woman-child in the most carnal, animalistic way. In a moment of weakness, I draw her nearer to indulge in the kiss, stopping myself short from dragging her into the backseat to fulfill my wildest fantasies.

I cannot let this flame of a girl further lure me into the murky depths, her siren song dragging me down so deep I’ll drown. I find her almost impossible to resist, but the threat of sexual predator looming over my head wakes me up.

“Don’t stop,” she says, “You don’t have to worry. It’s consensual.”

Reality of her age slams into my chest, holding me back and softening my cock. “Given our age difference, it does matter.”

Her pretty face scrunches up. “It’s Fay. Isn’t it?”

A smile creases my lips that were just pressed against hers. “No. It’s not.” I lift Cyn’s chin. “You have a fire that burns so bright no real man cannot help but notice you.”

That beautiful and provocative innocence of youth sparkles in those dark eyes and crinkles her lips in disappointment. “I know she’s prettier.”

I draw in a long breath while eyeing this very sexy girl, the fire kindling in her eyes and melting me. “Cyn, you got away and that makes you a survivor. It’s a trait everyone admires but some fear. Use it to your advantage.”

She sniffles. “You don’t want me.”

I draw her into me and hold her, the scent of her hair and sunbaked skin practically unraveling me. “Have faith in yourself, Cyn. You are a strong, capable young lady.” And someday soon you’ll be one sexy as hell woman. “It’s not that I don’t want you. It’s because I cannot have you.”

Two years. In that time, I won’t forget the taste of her forbidden fruit. It still lingers on my tongue as I drive her home and out of my life.

Chapter Four

Shane

It’s been two years since I’ve seen Cyn’s infectious smile lighting up her face. It’s the first thing I noticed at the award ceremony, and on this leggy, olive-skinned girl with silky hair the color of black gold, it looks incredibly sexy and inviting.

I last saw her at her mom’s funeral, so she’s legal now, and it’s impossible for a man to forget the taste of a sassy, young girl. Girls that young should never look so frustratingly hot, and my attraction to Cyn has caused many sleepless nights ending in me gratifying my own sexual needs.

The first time I met her, she handled herself like an adult while I acted like an idiot, though I did make up for it by finding her mother. I wish it had turned out differently though. Grace Diaz was a good-hearted woman, so I was deeply saddened by her murder, and her killers were never caught.

Seeing Cyn now, I imagine my hand running through her soft hair then gliding onto her back and all the way down to her toned calves while nibbling and licking on everything in between.

Arm-and-arm with Gina and Christine and a bombshell blonde I have never met, Cyn seductively sways her sweet Sofia Vergara ass down the aisle of booths at Stews career fair. They must attend the university here now. I met Gina, the pasta loving, wine guzzling, flirtatious Italian, and Christine, the cabernet haired, temperamental fireball at the funeral. They’re Cyn’s closest friends and allies.