Abbie grabbed at anything to slow her down. She slid over snow, then hit rock and sand patches. The world barreled by at lightning speed. Momentum flipped her onto her back. All three shirts climbed up her body, letting the scrub-board-rough mountain scrape a streak of pain along one side of her back.
She spun sideways, then slammed into a snowbank… hiding a boulder. The world wobbled unevenly, trying to level out. She gasped cold breaths that burned her lungs and groaned, but damn, what a good sound. Meant she was alive.
She lay there, gulping for air.
Talk about a huge flaw in her escape plan. She took mental stock of her body and considered sitting up, but not just yet.
“Abbie!” a voice roared from way up above her.
She covered her eyes to look up against the glare of sunlight. Hunter charged down that incline like an enraged bull, almost as quickly as she had, but he wasn’t bodysurfing.
She took stock of the damage now that every raw nerve wanted to report in, screaming with pain. One patch on her side felt seared, but the layers of clothes had protected the rest of her skin. Her knee throbbed. She wiggled her feet, lifted her legs, and stretched her shoulders.
Hallelujah. Nothing broken.
Branches snapped above her. Boot heels pounded against rock-hard ground toward her. Interspersed with cursing.
Better get ready to face Hunter.
Using the hem of her shirt, she wiped her face, hands, and clothes. Blood seeped from the scratches on her palms and wrists, but not so badly.
She pushed up to a sitting position and tugged her shirts down, gritting her teeth when cloth touched that one abrasion on her back.
Hunter jumped the last six feet, landing in a skid close to her. “Did you break anything?” He sounded panicked, which sort of surprised her since he’d been so calm with the killer. He squatted down next to her and examined the tear in her stolen jeans, then gently touched her leg above and below the rip.
If he kept acting so concerned and careful with her, she’d lose her grip on her shaky control.
“I don’t think I broke anything. Help me up.” She meant for him to give her a hand, but he hooked his hands under her arms and lifted her to her feet. When she pushed his arms away to prove she could stand, she hissed at the ache in her knee.
“You hurt your knee,” he accused.
“No worse than getting knocked around in a pen full of sows,” she muttered.
“What the hell did you think you were doing?” Muscles along his neck flexed with each breath he shoved in and out.
She jutted her chin up at him, in no freakin’ mood to be criticized. Especially when she noticed he’d made it down the same incline without even getting his jeans dirty. “Don’t yell at me when I just survived a near-death experience.”
That might have been the wrong thing to say.
The brown chamois shirt practically vibrated with energy rippling off his body. He lifted his hands to touch her, then pulled back and crossed his arms. “I told you last night to stay in that bedroom until I came for you.”
She’d had enough of this. “I don’t give a damn about your orders. When will you get it through your thick skull that I have my own set of problems?”
His lips pressed tight, caging the fury riding his shoulders. “Do you realize you could have been killed?”
“No, that was just a practice run. I’m thinking about trying it again because it was so. Much. Fun!” she shouted, now shaking with anger. “What the hell do you think?”
His eyes had widened with each octave her voice jumped until he just shook his head. A vein pumped in his temple. He stood there all intimidating, which was a waste of time.
She was too damn hurt, tired, and spent to be intimidated.
“I never thought a pissed-off woman could be hot until I met you.” He blew out a stream of air and unfolded his arms to reach for her hands.
Hot? He thought she was hot when she was ticked off? Why did he have to say things that knocked the legs out from under her anger?
He took her hands in his and studied the scratches across her wrist. And a cut on her palm. That didn’t improve his mood one bit. He scowled. “Sure you didn’t break anything?”
“Yes. So don’t start in on me.” She would have added some heat to that order if not for the way he gingerly handled her damaged hands, carefully wiping off dirt and barely touching the cut that trickled blood.
“We’ll get you cleaned up back at the cabin.” He looked up, eyes searching the terrain.
“Aren’t you listening to me?”
“Tough to avoid.” He released her hands and fixed her with a green stare hard as malachite. “Did you really think you could escape?”
“I did escape,” she pointed out, sure that had to rub on his James Bond ego. “In case you forgot I’m in a bit of a time crunch. I mean, what’s going on? Am I a prisoner or what?”
His lips moved with unspoken words. He cupped a hand over his eyes, his fingers rubbing his temple for a second before he lowered his hand. “Where did you think you were going?”
She was out of patience. “Answer my questions first.”
Hunter took her in from head to toe and back with a wry frown. “The idea of gagging and hobbling you is tempting, but, no, you’re not technically a prisoner.”
“‘Technically’? What kind of crap is that?” She crossed her arms at her waist. “You kidnapped me. I thought you were some kind of law enforcement. Was that a scam? Who the hell are you?”
“I’m with a branch of law enforcement you’ve never heard of and I can’t disclose. I have not kidnapped you or taken you prisoner, but you’re connected to Gwen Wentworth’s shooting so technically you’re in protective custody.”
“I want my lawyer.” Shock from the scare had settled in to foster a serious chill she couldn’t hide when her teeth chattered.
“Do you even have a lawyer?” He shrugged out of his jacket. “Put this on.”
She opened her arms to put on the jacket, because warm beat cold any day. Her fingers didn’t appear. The bottom of the coat hit her midthigh. She looked up with a begrudging “Thanks,” then added, “I’m still not through discussing this.”
He zipped the front of her jacket, jerking the tab up with a quick flick that telegraphed his waning tolerance. “You’re not getting a lawyer and if you try another unauthorized attempt to leave here I will consider handcuffing you. You can’t get off this mountain without me. Where did you think you were going?”
No point in lying since she didn’t have any other answer. “To find the truck, then I was hoping to find a neighbor. I was going to tell them I got lost hiking and ask them to help me get to Chicago.”
His eyebrows dropped severely in what she saw as a prelude to lecture mode, so she added, “I wasn’t going to say anything about you or that you’d brought me to your cabin… against my will.”
She waited for him to say something, to give her any indication they were back on speaking terms. But no. He just stood there pulsating with unspent words. “I am not going to sit here doing nothing, Hunter. I’m tired of waiting for you… to…” She lost her thought when he leaned forward, cramping her space.
His voice dropped to a dangerous decibel. “Listen closely. The truck is so well hidden you’d never find it. The nearest structure is a fire tower that isn’t manned. The first residence is twenty-six miles away through country that would test the best outdoorsman. You triggered a security device from the wrong side that could have caused you to break your reckless neck. And-” his voice had started to climb, reaching for a shout “-if by some unimaginable chance the next booby trap hadn’t stopped you, there’s a mountain lion den on this path. They’d have been thrilled at lunch showing up.”
She swallowed. Mountain lions?
What he’d said before that sank in. “You set booby traps out here? When I asked you where we were going last night you said you couldn’t tell me, that no one knows about this place. Not like you should have unexpected company.”
“It’s to prevent unwanted company, like the kind you had yesterday in your apartment.”
Point taken. She tried to push hair out of her eyes and only managed to swat a sleeve at her face.
“Lift your hands.” He rolled one sleeve until her fingertips stuck out.
“Aren’t booby traps illegal, or don’t you care?”
“The traps are meant to detain, not kill,” he muttered, and worked on the second sleeve. “But they were never tested for going downhill from the cabin.”
Her gaze fell to his worn jeans, where a banged-up silver karabiner hung from a belt loop. The thing looked professional quality but bent, which would render it useless, right?
Couldn’t someone with Hunter’s money buy a good one?
He took her hand, careful of the scratches, and waited until she looked up at him. “I’m trying to keep you safe. Don’t go outside the cabin without me. Got it?”
“Got it, but you should have told me this place was booby-trapped.”
“Now you know.” He turned, surveying the area as though choosing their direction. “I’ll take us back on an easier trail-”
“I don’t think so.” She planted her foot, unwilling to move another step until she got some answers.
“What now?”
“Stop snapping at me. I haven’t done anything to be stuck here in the first place. What’s got your jockstrap in a wad?”
Hunter wished counting to ten really worked.
Abbie glared at him in silent defiance. Hair wet and tangled from the fall. A scratch on her chin marred her creamy skin. She could have died.
Hell, he could count to a thousand and still not calm down. She’d fallen like a rag doll bouncing along the mountain. He hadn’t been that scared in a long time and didn’t like the feel of it one bit. Now that he knew she was going to be okay his body was screaming for her in a primal way.
The need to feel her alive beneath his hands.
More than just assuring himself she was safe. He fought a rush of lust that burned through his veins. Every whiff of her drove that lust like oxygen feeding a fire.
If she caught a hint of what he had on his mind she’d go racing away again like a crazy woman. Didn’t she have any survival instincts? What had she been thinking to strike out on her own with no map, no weapon, no supplies…
She’d been rattled in the woods last night.
Had she thought the threat of animal attack was any less in daylight?
He had to stop thinking about all the ways she could have been severely hurt or killed. Every one of them would have been his fault.
“Hunter?”
“We’ll talk back at the cabin.” If she didn’t like the surly edge in his voice she needed to stay put in the safety of the cabin and follow directions.
“Do you have any other tone than pissed-off?”
“I used to.” Before I ran into Abigail Blanton again and she turned me into one big frustrated dick. Drawing a long breath he hoped transmitted his short patience, he said, “Make it quick.”
She crossed her arms again and lifted two soft eyebrows, giving him a to-hell-with-you look. “I am done with blindly following you. I want answers.”
“I already told you there are a lot of things I can’t share. You’re just going to have to trust me.”
“Trust you? The last man I trusted shared my bed with another woman after he put a ring on my finger. Taught me just how naïve I had been to believe in words alone.”
How could he argue with logic he shared? He’d heard his mother say, “I love you,” to him and his brother many times, but she’d proven him naïve for believing those words the day she sold her children for bonus money.
Maybe he could use that topic to get Abbie on his side again. “Your fiancé sleep with someone you know?”
“Yep. Someone much younger and prettier.”
“What was she? A teenager? She sure as hell couldn’t have been prettier.” He meant that. Young and cute was fun but not hot. Not in his book. Abbie was definitely hot.
Her eyes turned buttery soft for a moment, then she shook off whatever she’d thought. “See, that’s the kind of sweet-talkin’ trash that got me in trouble before. I believed what he said and let him humiliate me. Then I made it worse by demeaning myself with you. I was on a roll that week.”
So that’s what had sent Abbie into the bar the night he met her.
His anger lost its sizzle.
She had a gift for pissing him off with quicksilver speed, but watching hurt replace the hellion spark curbed his irritation.
Six years ago she’d charmed him with her laughter.
If he didn’t take care, she’d charm him all over again with her spirit this time.
But six years ago she’d been looking for a man to spend the night with to pay someone back and Hunter had been more than willing at the time. Until he realized she wasn’t the cavalier bar hopper she’d pretended to be.
He shouldn’t have let that golden opportunity pass when they first met, because this sure as hell wasn’t the time to find out what it would feel like to make love to all that fire.
But damn, he wanted to and couldn’t believe some moron screwed her over for a kid, because she had to be early twenties when he met her. “You didn’t demean yourself that night.”
“Easy for you to say, but I don’t remember much.” The admission cost her a chunk of pride. “And it’s not like you’d tell me the truth if I asked.”
She didn’t remember telling him she wanted to lick him up one side and down the other, no strings attached? Shit. Wrong thing to think about right now if he didn’t want to limp back to the cabin.
She was showing him a vulnerability he could use to manipulate her, which was what he’d been trained to do.
What he did naturally.
But could he play with those emotions and hint that they’d been intimate, knowing another man had used intimacy to break her heart? He needed information fast-sixty-two minutes left on Joe’s deadline-but using her that way would be cruel.
His job required being cruel, dangerous, manipulative… whatever it took to succeed regardless of the toll his soul paid.
The breeze picked up, spiraling loose curls around her forehead and face.
He stepped forward, closing the distance between them to inches. He ran a finger along the side of her cheek and under her chin, tilting it up until their eyes met. He gave her the only answer he could. The truth.
“You showed up at the bar without a car, clearly planning on drinking and not driving. By the time I realized you were too drunk to make it home on your own I tried to send you home in a cab, but you wouldn’t give me your address and you were determined to have someone in that bar take you home. That’s when you asked me, firmly, to take you home with me.”
Embarrassment tinted her cheeks pink over the careless image that painted. Her eyes locked on something beyond his shoulder. “I stand corrected. That sounds about right.”
He could see the play of thoughts on her face. How after she’d thrown herself at a stranger she believed he probably judged her as a tramp, jumping from bed to bed.
But any man with experience would have seen through her façade that night.
“And then?” she asked in a whisper, as though afraid to hear what they’d done.
Yes, he could use this to his advantage, but he couldn’t bring himself to hurt her. He’d find another way to get what he needed. “I didn’t touch you, because you were too intoxicated to meet my criteria for consensual sex.”
Instead, he’d held her all night until he felt her start to wake the next morning. He hadn’t held a woman all night before that. Or ever again.
She opened her eyes. An ocean of worry and mortification washed through them before she pulled her defenses back into place. Her words came out stinging with self-recrimination. “A truly unmemorable night, huh?”
Not memorable?
He couldn’t count how many times he’d wake in a strange bed in some godforsaken location, alone and thinking of that night with her. She’d smelled of bath powder and sweet wine. Her laughter had eased his dark soul for a few hours. He’d climbed into bed next to her, intending to ignore the warm body in spite of how much he wanted her.
She’d rolled over and curled up against him tight as a kitten looking for heat. He’d cursed her sweetness, the blatant lack of experience that prevented him from stroking her into a night of rousing sex he knew she’d regret in the morning.
That hadn’t meant he’d intended to let her off without something in trade, so he’d wrapped her up in his arms and stolen a night with an angel.
“You’re a very memorable woman,” he whispered, his hand cupping her face. One kiss would soothe the insecurity that had crept into her voice. But if he kissed her like he had last night, he’d have her flat against the boulder behind her in seconds. He was supposed to be earning her trust. Stripping her naked on the side of a mountain wouldn’t aid his cause. Instead, he pointed out, “Don’t you think not touching you that night proves I’m trustworthy?”
“It proves you didn’t want to make love to me any more than my ex-fiancé did.” She frowned at herself, clearly not happy about that admission either.
“The hell I didn’t.” He still wanted her. So badly he was starting to ache.
She glanced up at him with surprise, studied his face, then gave a little shake of her head as though refusing to let herself accept some thought. Skepticism flashed in those turquoise beauties. Strong eyes that had suffered but survived. “You expect me to believe that? You forgot me the minute I walked out the door.”
Forget her?
He remembered how the moonlight had fingered through the window to dance across her pale skin when she slept.
He remembered how her walking out of the hotel room had left him in an unusual state of mind. Lonely.
She might look different now with the spiraling hair and a lusher body, but she’d been memorable six years ago.
His fingers twitched with indecision. Pull her into his arms and show her just how much she had affected him-and still did-or turn away and keep a distance between them for the sake of the mission?
“Abbie, I-”
“Give it up, Hunter.” She offered him a tough look, but he still saw the shimmer of hurt hanging deep in her eyes. “I saw the women at the Wentworths’ that night. I’m not a sex kitten guys like you go for. I know I’m not Lydia-”
That did it. He pulled her into his arms and lowered his mouth, covering her upturned lips.
She gasped, a soft sound of surprise.
He cupped her head, kissing her deeper, savoring the taste and feel. Just enough of a kiss to let her know she was not Lydia. She was so much more.
Her arms hooked around his back. She opened her mouth, slipping her tongue in to dance with his. Not a sex kitten?
He’d argue that point.
What man-with a normal life-had been stupid enough to walk away from someone this soft and inviting?
A fool.
When she moaned, he decided to let the kiss go on a minute longer to send her a message. Last night’s kiss had been a dare to make her think twice about challenging him or trusting him.
This kiss was an apology for letting her leave his hotel room six years ago thinking so little of herself.
He slowed the kiss, preparing to end it.
She must have felt the change. All hesitation gone. Her fingers dug into his back. She kissed deeper and deeper, her mouth burned with pure sex.
Desire flared across his skin. He wanted to feel her naked and damp. She went up on her toes, the motion rubbing her against his ready and willing erection. His body tightened at her response. Heat coiled inside him fast as a snake ready to attack. He held the target. His heartbeat tripled with craving her touch on his skin.
He fingered the jacket zipper and ripped downward, slipping his hand inside and under the pile of shirts. He unclipped the front of her bra.
Zeroing in on her sweet breast.
“Ohhh,” she groaned in pleasure. She turned to her right, giving him better access he made good use of by cupping the soft mound. He brushed his thumb across her beaded nipple.
She made a high sound of want that pressed him for more.
He leaned her back across his free arm, exposing the curve of her beautiful neck. Burrowing his face between the jacket and her neck, he kissed his way down the curve.
Her breathing hitched. She rubbed her hips against his stretched-so-full-he-ached erection. He sucked in hard, wanting to free the surge of heat dammed up inside, waiting to explode.
He wanted all of her. Naked and ready.
Not out here on dirt and rocks.
Back at the cabin… where something waited on him. Something important. He lifted his head from kissing her, forcing his mind back on task with brutal strength.
Joe’s decision. Probably less than an hour to go.
Shit. How had he let this happen? He had better control than this.
Operative word there appeared to be “had.”
He eased his hand away from Abbie’s breast and pulled her shirts down to cover her breasts as he lifted her up until she stood on her feet.
She stared at him through glazed eyes as though she still spun with the world and he lagged behind, falling out of orbit.
“We’ve got to get back to the cabin.” Where he still had to convince her to tell him everything she knew.
She blinked, glanced down between them to where his hands no longer held her. When she looked back up, the fire in her eyes had nothing to do with lust. “What was that all about?”
Stupid decision-making, thanks to letting the wrong head take over. “Just a kiss, Abbie.”
“Why did you kiss me?” Frustration burred her voice.
Toying with her hadn’t been his intention, any more than torturing himself in the process. “We’ve got more important things to talk about than kissing. I need you to tell me about your conversation with Gwen.”
“You kiss me like that and act like it was just another kiss?” She could freeze a hot coal with the look she was giving him now that said he was every bit the bastard she’d thought. “I am sick to death of you jerking me around, doing whatever you want-”
He cupped her face between his hands, kissing her silent again. She clutched his shirt in two fists, pushing… then pulling. Her lips melted against his.
Damn, she was something, but if he kept this up he’d get them both killed. He lifted his head away.
“Why’d you do that again?” she sputtered, mad as a dunked cat. She shoved away from him.
“Listen to me.” He latched on to each side of her jacket and pulled her back to him, close enough to see each fine hair in her eyebrows when he leaned his head down. “I kissed you because I wanted to, just like I wanted to six years ago and didn’t get to do enough of. But if I did everything I wanted, you’d be naked right now and we’d be out here for hours.”
That quieted her to the point where she was listening.
“I checked on your mother early this morning while you slept and left word at the nurse’s desk that you were out of town, working on locating additional medical care so your sisters wouldn’t worry. Your mother’s condition is stable. Her doctor hasn’t checked in, but doctors tend to work on their own schedule. Okay?” When she nodded, he continued. “I can’t help your mother unless you help me, and that means trusting me. If I don’t make a phone call in the next-” He glanced over at his watch. “-forty-three minutes I’ll have to find a safe place for you. I don’t want to do that. I’d rather keep you where I can protect you myself.”
She listened intently, processing what he said, then pushed her hands up to each side of his face. Her touch was like sunshine on his cheeks after a long cold night. “Why? What happens in forty-three minutes?”
When he hesitated to answer she said, “If you want trust, you’re going to have to give it in return.”
Hunter had heard those same words from Eliot the first time they’d climbed together. Abbie deserved to know something.
“I should have turned you over to my people last night instead of bringing you to my safe house,” he explained. “They’re looking for you. I don’t think they’ve figured out that you’re with me and they don’t know where this is, but that won’t stop them from finding this house or us. If I don’t call in time with a plan for me to enter Kore to retrieve data files, they’ll send a team after me.”
“A team? To like… bring you in?”
He didn’t care for worrying her this way, but she had to know what was at stake since her life was at risk, too. “Not alive.”
The rosy shade in her cheeks faded. “Oh, God. Okay, I can tell you how to access the data, but I want your promise I can get the information on what they did to my mother.”
She only wanted information. Done. “Fair enough. I have a plan for getting inside, but I have to find out how to access the data files. Once I break into the files, I’ll get you all the information I can find on your mother.”
Abbie’s eyes sparked, anxious. “Deal. It’s a complicated system that requires something important to unlock the system.”
“What’s that?”
“Me.”