Quick and dangerous, p.2
Quick & Dangerous, page 2
“The crying baby?”
He gave her a harsh side-eye.
What the hell was up with this guy?
A muffled “shush, shush” followed the cries, and just as quickly as they started, they ebbed.
Rob’s throat undulated on a hard swallow before he shook his head and then glanced down at her. “Sorry.”
She kept her distance, but they began walking again. “It’s okay.”
“I, uh … I didn’t think it was a baby at first. Sounded like something else.”
She gave him her own side-eye, and her gaze fell on his dog tags. This guy probably had stories. He’d probably seen some crazy shit. Was that what that was all about? Was he having an … episode?
They reached bungalow number nine, and that’s when it hit Skyler that she was in number ten. Had she really lost all of her common sense the moment he’d walked through the door? How had she not remembered they were going to be neighbors?
Because you haven’t gotten laid in ages, he’s hot as fuck, and you secretly want to ride him like a bull.
Skyler swallowed past the hard lump in her throat. “Well, this is it. It’s not the Coral Gardens down the way, but it’s clean, has running water, a mosquito net, Wi-Fi, and in my opinion, one of the best views on the island.”
She spun around and spread her arms out, encompassing the stunning view of the beach, crystal-clear water and the lush green mountains of Lombok in the distance.
“Beautiful.”
Was he referring to the view?
“The view is nice, too.”
Nope, he wasn’t.
Merde. The thoughts running through her head were bad. All bad.
Taking the key from him, she marched up the stone path among the dry grass to the front porch of his new temporary home. “The lock’s a little old,” she said, knowing she needed to get the hell out of there and away from Sgt. McSexyPants in soggy combat boots. “You need to really jam the key in hard and wiggle it a bit.”
Was that a snort?
“Then throw your shoulder into it,” she continued, rearing back and preparing to ram into the door, only to be picked up like she was no more than a cricket and plopped down into one of the porch chairs.
“Allow me,” he said with a chuckle. Not even a grunt of effort and he was swinging the door open. “After you.”
“Um … ” Skyler bit her bottom lip.
Shrugging, Rob ducked and stepped inside. “It’s nice. Though it would appear someone is already staying here.”
“What?” she was up and off her chair and inside the cabin in less than a second. “Who? The schedule book said this one was vacant.” She expected to see either an open backpack on the floor, or personal belongings scattered around, or even worse, an actual occupant. But Rob just began to chuckle and pointed up at the ceiling next to where the mosquito netting was gathered.
“Looks like I have a roomie,” he said. “Cute little guy.”
Skyler rolled her eyes. “There’s more than one gecko that calls this place home, I’m sure.”
“As long as it’s a gecko and not a Komodo dragon I’m bunking with, I’m A-OK.” He yanked his backpack off, and it bounced once on the bed. A bed that suddenly seemed to encompass the entire room.
Well, not the entire room. Roberto Cahill was a big man, and the tiny bungalow reminded Skyler just how big he was. She felt like she was practically cowering in the corner and not standing directly next to him. Smelling him. Feeling the heat radiate off his toned, hard body.
Skyler swallowed and took an inconspicuous step to the side. Away from him.
It didn’t do a damn thing.
A man hadn’t made her engine rev quite so hard or loud in a very long time.
Perhaps since Nico.
And look how that relationship turned out.
Fucking Nico.
Nico Petralia had made her heart go pitter-patter every time he’d walked into a room, but now he was gone, and although she didn’t normally wish ill of the dead … good riddance.
But Rob was the polar opposite of Nico. At least in appearance. Where Nico had been slight and on the shorter side with jet black hair and eyes nearly as dark, Rob was tall and mighty with light brown hair and eyes to match.
And those arms ...
The man had the most unreal arms.
Holy God, those arms.
How did anyone get arms like that?
And he was wearing a bright white tank top to boot.
He had to know what he was doing. It was like goddamn lingerie for women.
Throw on a pair of grey sweatpants, and she’d probably be tearing off her bra and inviting him for a skinny dip.
She’d noticed the dog tags beneath his tank top the moment he’d walked into the dive shop. Who did he serve with? Was he still serving? Where had he served?
His slight drawl told her he was American. Army perhaps? Navy? What was he doing all the way over here? Vacation? The man demanded so many questions, but unless she wanted to answer the same onslaught of queries about herself, she had to just wonder from a distance.
However, her time abroad ...
Who was she kidding? It wasn’t time abroad. It was time on the run. Abroad made it sound like an adventure.
This was not an adventure.
Skyler was on the run.
For her life.
Her time on the run these past few years had turned her into a quiet observer. She was able to garner a lot about a person without having to ask them a damn thing. She didn’t let people get close to her, but she studied the shit out of them from afar. It’s likely what had served her well and kept her alive this long. And although Rob oozed mystery and intrigue, he also seemed far too casual to be currently serving. His hair was too long and unruly for him to be active but on leave. It was still military short, but with a touch of curl to the ends. The scruff riding his chin said he probably hadn’t shaved in a week or more. She loved scruff.
She also didn’t get a predatory vibe from him. She sensed the danger that surrounded him, practically seeped from his skin, but he didn’t seem like a threat. No, she was alarmed at how calm she felt in his presence, how safe she felt.
You’d felt safe with Nico too for a while. Didn’t get the predatory vibe from him until it was too late. Maybe you’re not the best judge of character after all.
Fucking Nico.
Her ex, may he burn in hell, had won Skyler over with his brains. The man was smart. Like crazy smart. He’d been the best coder Skyler had ever met. Could hack and forge and create unlike anyone she’d ever met. But he’d been corrupted. Brought over to the dark side of the family business and persuaded to use his genius for evil rather than good. His family had manipulated him, made him promises that would never come to fruition, all to get access to that big brain of his, and look where it got him? That brain had been blown to bits, all because he decided to use his powers for evil rather than good. And evil always has a way of catching up with you.
Skyler snorted. She was referring to Nico as if he were some kind of Bond villain.
Well, in a way he had been. She was no Pussy Galore, though. And there was no MI6 agent or equivalent out to save her.
No. Skyler had to save herself.
“It’s nice,” Rob said, breaking the silence. “Seems clean.” He wandered around the room, peering under the bed, pulling back the sheets. Probably looking for bedbugs. Skyler did the same thing when she moved to a new place, too. You could never be too careful.
“I’ll take it.” He wandered back over to her. There was scarcely a foot between them, and she was forced to look up, way, way up into those gorgeous light brown eyes.
“All right then,” she started, needing to get away from him and how delicious he smelled—like sun, sand, sea and sexiness. “I will see you in the morning, bright and early, for the dive. We leave at seven thirty, as the dive site is a good hour and a bit away.”
He nodded, flashing her another one of those lickably wicked dimpled grins. “Yes, you will.”
She turned to go. The room was getting stuffy despite the open window and breeze flowing in off the water.
Sexual tension?
Yeah, right.
“Oh, hey!”
Halting on the threshold, she held on to the doorjamb before turning back around to face him. “Mhmm?”
“Where’s the best place to grab a beer and some grub? I’m starving.”
She smiled, her mouth beginning to water at the mention of food. Her belly grumbled in response as well. “Barracuda Bar on the east side. Happy hour is from four to six. They have the best pizza and nasi goreng on the island.”
“Cool.” He sat down on the bed and began taking off his soggy boots and socks, revealing big, manly feet. Fuck, now even his feet were turning her on. “I’ll see you there?”
Skyler paused. She never went to any of the parties on the island. That’s where disaster struck. Drunk people, phones with cameras and poor choices. No, she went to work and then she went home. That was what was safest. That’s how she’d stayed alive this long. But his hopeful look and those big man feet of his made her survival instinct take a backseat to her libido, and before she knew it, she was saying, “Yeah, you will.” Then turned back around and headed to the dive shop.
Yeah, she was in trouble.
Big trouble.
Chapter 3
Rob
It didn’t matter that Rob was exhausted from the nonstop travel and recon. He had a job to do. He’d been chasing Skyler for months, constantly hitting dead ends, and now that he’d found her, he wasn’t going to lose her. He’d certainly gone with less sleep and done more while on missions. This was nothing. This was easy.
He quickly unpacked his backpack, changed into flip-flops and put his boots out in the sun to dry before ducking out.
Earlier, when Skyler had been tracing that sexy finger of hers down the vacancy book, he’d noticed that her name had been penciled into bungalow ten.
They were neighbors.
Lucky him.
Making sure there was nobody around, and double-checking she wasn’t home, he picked the lock and slipped inside.
You can tell a lot about how a person travels. The things they bring with them and deem important speak volumes of their priorities and what kind of a vacation they were after. Only Skyler wasn’t traveling. She was on the run, so her supplies would be very different than those of a college coed on a gap year backpacking her way through Southeast Asia.
Had she just tossed everything into her backpack in the dark of night, in too much of a rush to really think about what she was packing? Or had she fled with only the clothes on her back, buying what she needed along the way? He knew she had the funds at her disposal to purchase what she needed. She was the fourth and final heir of Randall McAllister, after all, inheriting ten million dollars from her father’s estate. She was probably traveling on whatever money she made working odd jobs. If she accessed her inheritance, she’d be traceable. She knew what she was doing.
She’d been traveling for a while now, though. How much money did she have left? Was she running out of funds?
Her behavior so far was not the way a typical person on the run behaved. Most people who sought protection or were hiding from trouble hid. They didn’t take jobs as dive masters at a dive shop that hundreds, possibly thousands, of people frequented each year.
Shaking his head at this mystery girl he was hired to find and escort safely to her older brothers in Tahiti, Rob reached into the back pocket of his dark gray cargo shorts. He pulled out black latex gloves and snapped them onto his hands. One could never be too careful about leaving fingerprints.
The woman certainly lived minimally. Only a few pairs of shorts and shirts, a couple of skirts, one or two dresses. And everything was rolled up inside her backpack. Nothing was out to say she was there for the long term.
She was prepped for a midnight run if she had to.
She definitely knew what she was doing.
He marveled at her perseverance. She was like The Little Engine That Could. Never stopping, never giving up.
Sliding his hand between the mattress and frame, he brought out a small tan satchel and emptied the contents onto the bed.
Over a dozen fake passports, all with different names and nationalities, held her picture. They were well done and obviously had been serving her well over the years. He found the one she was currently using: Scarlett Josephine McLeod.
Bringing out his phone, he began taking pictures of all the passports. He’d send the information to not only her brothers, but Aaron as well. Perhaps he could dig up more information on Skyler. Find out her fake passport source and if she was still in contact with them. Once he was finished, he scooped them all back up and was about to return them to the satchel when a loose photo slipped out from amid the pile.
It was a woman, probably mid-thirties, and a young girl of maybe six or eight. He could tell by the green eyes and freckles that the young girl was Skyler. The woman was probably her mother. He knew her mother was dead, but he didn’t know how she died or when. There was also the possibility that Skyler’s mother had gone into hiding as well and was still alive, they just faked her death to stop people from hunting for her. So much remained a mystery.
He took a picture of the loose photo and then put everything back where it was, leaving her room the way he found it and relocking it.
Slipping the gloves back into his pocket, he made his way down the beach and brought out his phone, found the number for Tate McAllister and hit “dial.”
“You find her?” a male voice asked after only one ring.
“I did,” he said flatly.
“You’re on speaker,” Tate said. “Gavin and Warren are here too.”
“Hey.”
“Hey.”
Rob clenched his teeth. “Hey.” He preferred to speak to the brothers one-on-one. Tate, the oldest, was far easier to discuss things with. The other two tended to behave impulsively. They couldn’t understand why Rob hadn’t found their sister already.
“So, you found her?” a different brother asked again.
“I did.” Didn’t he just say that?
“You guys headed home tomorrow then?” Warren asked, his Aussie accent making it easy to tell him apart from the other two.
“No.”
“Why the fuck not?” That had to be Warren. He was a bit more hotheaded than the other two.
“I just met her. Like half an hour ago. I can’t just throw a gunny sack over her head, toss her over my shoulder and meet our private jet at the nearest airstrip.”
“Why the hell not?”
“For fuck’s sake, she’s been on the run for years. She’s prepped and ready to leave at the drop of a hat. If she thought I was any kind of a threat, she’d be gone by the morning, and my trail would go cold again. I need to get her to trust me. Besides, is that really how you’d like me to treat your sister?”
There was a series of grumbles and curse words on the other end.
“Fine. But do it soon. She’s not safe. We can keep her safe.” That sounded like Tate again.
“Will do.” He hung up. He liked the McAllister brothers well enough, but they were men with infinite amounts of money at their disposal, and they had a hard time dealing with it when they didn’t get their way.
His phone said four o’clock. Happy hour.
Returning to his bungalow, he noticed Skyler walking through the water, letting it slosh around her ankles. Her flip-flops dangled from her fingers, and her head was tilted up toward the sky, allowing her honey-colored locks to cascade down her back. For someone on the run for her life, she seemed awfully carefree. But that didn’t mean that she was. Rob, too, had perfected the art of looking at ease while remaining on guard.
He waved from the porch of his cabin, offering her up his biggest, most sincere smile. Because it was sincere. He liked her. Well, at least he liked the first impression he got from her. But over the years, he’d learned how to tell a lot about a person in a very short amount of time. And what he garnered from Skyler, he liked. She was friendly and sweet, funny and patient. She seemed like a real people-person, which was probably why she put herself at risk and found jobs with the public. She wanted to feel as normal as possible, interact with the people rather than squirrel herself away and lose a piece of herself as each day hidden from the world ticked by.
Plus, the woman was damn fine. He adjusted his cock in his shorts. Skyler’s tight little ass as she walked him up the path to his bungalow flashed into his mind and reminded him just how long it’d been since he’d gotten laid. This was a job, though. Nothing more. He was allowed to like his job, in fact that made it a hell of a lot easier to want to save her ass, but he wasn’t allowed to touch his job.
He hadn’t met the McAllister brothers in person yet, but they had money, and if he harmed their sister, no SEAL training in the world would be able to save him from a world of hurt. That was just a given.
She didn’t wave back. Had she not seen him? Or was she ignoring him?
He waved again.
Nothing.
Deciding he needed to get her to trust him and the sooner the better, he leapt off the porch, ignoring the stairs, and crossed the path, making his way down to the beach.
“Hey!” he said, eating up the distance between them. He didn’t want to sneak up on her and spook her, so he entered the water and made sure he was noisy.
Slowly, almost as if in a trance, she opened her eyes and tilted her head back down. “Hello.” She didn’t bother to turn around and look at him though. She also didn’t bother to stop. She kept wandering through the water, down the beach past their bungalows.
“You okay?” he asked, wondering what she was up to.
She let out a long exhale through her nose. “I’m fine. Just taking in the peace and quiet of the early evening. This is one of the best times of day.”
He fell in line with her, enjoying the way the bathwater-warm sea lapped gently at his ankles. “Why’s that?”
“Because all the dive boats are in and the divers are exhausted. They’ve all gone back to their cabins and rooms for showers and a break. Soon they’ll head out to drink and eat and party. The families have all headed off to dinner for the parents to capitalize on the happy hour, and the new longboats of tourists don’t arrive for another hour, which will mean chaos as they travel up and down the island in search of a room. But right now, right now is the calm before the storm, and I’m just enjoying the peace.”
