Chapter Four

Exhaustion had settled in on the drive. Ivy faced the dock to Liberty as if it were telescoping before her.

“I’d offer to carry you, but someone needs to carry CAM, and I can’t do both,” Jack said.

She cast him a wry smile. Given the impressive muscles he’d displayed, she had no doubt he could carry her the distance, and given her height and healthy appetite, she was no featherweight. “Another time, maybe.”

He leaned close and said, “Count on it.”

The flirtation in his tone gave her a shot of energy. Enough to push forward to Liberty’s slip, anyway. At last they were aboard, and Jack made a beeline for a control panel in the salon. He typed on a keypad and stared at the screen.

“We’re clear. You can sleep easy,” he said. “This boat is rigged with the best security available. The previous owner was…probably not on the up and up. Every window, door, and hatch is wired and monitored. No one comes in or out without me knowing about it. No one boarded while I was out tonight.”

That was a relief. She’d been counting on Patrick’s buddies not knowing where she’d fled to; it was good to know that if they found her, Jack would be alerted.

He led her to the guest stateroom in the bow, then showed her how to convert the head into a shower stall. “There’s plenty of hot water while we’re at the dock. Take as long a shower as you need.”

As exhausted and dirty as she was, she wasn’t ready for that. She had no doubt she’d collapse in the bunk the moment she was clean, but she needed to decompress first, or her sleep would be far from restful.

“I’ve imposed enough on you already, but…you wouldn’t happen to have any booze would you? I wouldn’t mind sitting on the deck for a bit to get my bearing.”

He smiled. “Sure. I’ll join you.”

He opened the liquor cabinet in the galley. “I keep a stocked bar for charter clients. What would you like?”

She studied the selection. “Vodka if you have something fruity to mix with. Otherwise, gin and tonic.”

He made them both drinks with an assortment of tropical fruit juices. The end result was the color of a sunset, and when she finally settled by his side on a bench seat on the upper deck, she discovered it tasted heavenly.

“How long did you say you’ve lived in Palau?” she asked.

“Since December.”

“Not long, then. You planning on staying?” Her feet ached from running barefoot through muck. She toed off the tennis shoes she’d donned in her hotel room and tucked her feet beneath her on the bench. The position had her leaning toward him. She stiffened as if hitting an invisible barrier.

“Not sure.” He smiled and draped an arm around her shoulder, pulling her to his side.

She relaxed into him. Frankly, she could use the comfort, and it was nice of him to offer it considering she smelled like mangrove swamp. But then, she’d seen the blood splatters on his shirt. He wasn’t exactly pristine either.

His arm tightened around her. “I love Palau, but the US is my home.”

His voice was a low rumble against her ear, deep and masculine. She closed her eyes and could see the fight in her mind, the brutal beauty of it.

Jack Keaton was nothing like Patrick. Nothing like any man she’d ever dated. That was probably why he’d managed to wake a part of her she’d been certain was dead.

“You falling asleep on me, Ivy?”

She opened her eyes and met his gaze. His mouth was just above hers. She could so easily kiss him. “Maybe.” She dropped her gaze and took a sip of the drink she held loosely in one hand. She smiled into the glass. “This is delicious.” She pushed away from his side and sat straight. “I needed this. Thank you.”

“I needed it too.” He rolled his shoulders. “The adrenaline after a fight like that… I needed to come down.”

She gazed up at the starry sky to avoid seeing the blood on his shirt. His swollen knuckles. The darkening bruise by his right eye. They were quite a pair, battered as they were and sitting on a boat a mere seven degrees above the equator.

It was a sultry, beautiful, clear night, and the stars were a map across the sky. Grandpa Cam had taught her how to navigate by the stars when she was in elementary school. For many years, she’d believed she’d study astrophysics and still harbored a crush on Neil deGrasse Tyson. But then the siren call of GIS and Lidar had caught her at the age of seventeen and she’d gone into the family business after all.

The star map here was so very different from the sky in DC, but the North Star was still there, sitting on the horizon, barely visible above a finger of Babeldaob Island that jutted into the Pacific to the north. She had her compass. Her bearing.

She took another sip of the fruity drink. As long as she had north, she could find her way.

The night had been a trial, but north remained true. She finished her drink and stood. “I think I’m ready for that shower now.”

He followed her down the ladder and reset the security system while she filled her glass with water in the galley. In spite of the humid night, her throat was dry, and she downed the liquid in one long drink, then set the rubber-based container on the counter and stared out the window, seeing nothing, not even her reflection on the glass, as exhaustion won at last.

Sounds behind her told her that Jack had entered the room, but she was frozen in place, unable to even pour a glass of water for him.

An arm slid along her waist, and she felt his warm chest at her back. “C’mon, Poison. You need your shower.”

She smiled instead of protesting the silly, obvious nickname. Only fair that he’d dubbed her Poison when she’d been mentally calling him Death Valley for days.

He was right about the shower. Her skin itched with dried mud, and her back ached where the machete had struck her.

“I’d blame the vodka, but I’m not usually such a lightweight.”

“Adrenaline crash. I expected this twenty minutes ago. The fruit juice bought you time.”

She leaned against him, looking up. He was taller than her by at least five inches, which she found comforting in her exhausted state. She remembered the feel of his smooth skin against hers when he’d kissed her, and she reached up and stroked his jaw.

Too bad that kiss hadn’t been real. He was good at it, and she could use a kiss right now. That fake kiss was her first since the divorce. She missed kissing.

She missed sex too, she realized. That was new. She hadn’t really missed it before. Aloud, she said, “The mud itches.” She wasn’t so far gone she lacked a verbal filter.

He nodded and steered her across the galley to the head next to her stateroom. He released her and lifted the hatch in the floor to open the shower drain and pulled the curtain that would prevent the spray from hitting the toilet and the counter, then he turned on the water, leaving his hand in the spray to check the temperature.

The silk adhered to her skin, glued by the dried muck. She tried to reach the zipper at her back, but her arm was sore. The blow from the machete. She closed her eyes against the memory. “I can’t…I can’t get my dress off.”

He nudged her into the tiny shower stall, dress and all. The dress was beyond ruined anyway. She relaxed into the hot spray. The water felt heavenly on her skin, washing away the slime and smell. Mangroves might be vital habitat, but they stank to high heaven.

Jack slipped off his shoes and emptied his pockets, removing the gun and cell phone. He then stepped into the shower with her and pulled the door closed.

He took the massage showerhead from the cradle and sprayed her down, gently washing away the mud glue. She closed her eyes, enjoying his tender touch combined with the spray. The shower was so small, her body pressed to his even as he washed her.

He replaced the wand, then unzipped the back of her dress. He spread the split wide, then let out a low grunt. “I should have hunted them down.”

She must have quite a welt across her spine.

His touch was gentle as he probed the mark with his fingers. She opened her eyes and saw his arms planted on either side of her on the wall. Not his fingers, then.

His lips. He caressed her abused skin so gently with his mouth, heat unfurled in her belly.

Exhaustion left her as adrenaline surged anew. Her body woke with the feel of his soft lips.

She didn’t know this man. She shouldn’t feel this way.

But it had been so long since she’d felt this way.

The fear that had been with her from the moment she saw the armed men entering the garden washed down the drain along with the grime of the mangroves. She felt safe with Jack Keaton.

And warm…and wonderfully alive.

She’d been struck and choked. Those men might have succeeded in abducting her, if not for the man who was now running his lips down her spine.

He’d defeated the men inside the ballroom. Then he’d raced back to the garden to find her, scaring her abductors off.

She turned to face him. The spray filled her open bodice and the narrow straps slid down her shoulders. She swept the ruined silk down her arms and stepped out of the dress, standing before him in a satin strapless bra and panties.

She pressed her nearly nude body to his wet, clothed one, and slid her hands around his neck, threading her fingers through his short hair as she pulled his head down for a very real kiss. Her tongue slid between his lips. Just one kiss. That was all she would take.

He hesitated.

For the space of a heartbeat, his body was stiff against hers and his mouth unresponsive. Then his hands slid across her wet skin, pulling her tight against his chest, as his tongue delved deeply into her mouth, stroking with a slow sensuousness that was as hot as the water that steamed up the tiny bathroom.

The kiss went on for a perfect eternity, a long exploration of mouths and nothing more. His erection grew in scale with her arousal, but he made no move to touch her beyond where his hands rested at her lower back.

She ended the kiss and pressed her forehead to his shoulder, taking a deep breath.

She should let it end there. It would be simple to push him out of the shower and wash her hair. But she didn’t want it to end. Didn’t want to be alone.

But she had her security clearance to consider. Sex with random strangers was…frowned upon, to say the least.

But he wasn’t a random stranger. He’d saved a room full of politicians. Mara knew she’d bolted with Jack Keaton, and that Jack would hide her and CAM from the terrorists who’d escaped from the mangrove swamp. Curt was probably running a background check on him even now.

Her body ached with arousal. She’d forgotten this part. How it was possible to want sex so desperately, she could make excuses for anything. But then, sex in the last months of her marriage had been perfunctorily procreative, even before Patrick’s cutting words destroyed her confidence in herself. She knew exactly why her libido had died. What she didn’t understand was how Jack Keaton had managed to resurrect it.

And that was what she wanted to explore now. This feeling of being alive and desirable.

But still, her rational side held the reins, and she reached for the shampoo. Jack’s hand covered hers, and he filled his palm with the mint-scented gel. He massaged the lather into her long hair, and she let out a soft groan at the feel of his fingers on her scalp.

He used the shower wand to rinse the suds away, then started over with conditioner. His gentle touch was her undoing.

She’d needed this for so long…and she’d had no idea. She’d forgotten how it felt to be cared for. To be desired.

Hair rinsed, she turned and pulled his mouth to hers again, sinking into the pleasure of his touch, his kiss, his attention.

She was reclaiming a piece of herself she hadn’t realized she’d lost. Her sensual side that she’d buried under pain and humiliation.

His kiss was deep, sweet, and hot, but his hands never strayed from where they’d settled on her hips. He didn’t touch her breasts, which ached for attention. Nor did he leave her mouth to explore her neck or any other part of her awakened body.

She needed his lips on her neck like an addict craves a hit. Musical notes without progression to melody was like hovering on the edge of a sneeze for eternity. Sensual, with ever-ratcheting tension, but hollow. Endless waiting.

He was letting her know with his hot, stroking, magnificent tongue that he wanted her, but this would go no further if she didn’t want it to.

She released his neck and began opening the buttons on his shirt. She ended the kiss and pressed her lips to his skin as she exposed him to the hot spray.

Jack let out a low groan when she stroked the wet slacks that covered his erection. In one smooth movement, he scooped her up, pulled her legs around his hips, and pinned her to the wall beneath the showerhead, grinding his erection against her center.

Yes. Oh yes.

Her libido was back, riding into town on a rush of faded adrenaline. It brought tears to her eyes to feel this intense desire again after being dormant for so long.

She purred as he kissed her. God, she wanted this. Him. Everything. She wanted him hard and fast and wild.

She wanted him to pound into her until she was sore, so the violence of their coupling overshadowed the violence of the night. She wanted to hold off on her orgasm until she was certain she’d lose her mind and her body was shaking with need. Then she wanted him to take her from behind and finish her off with his cock inside her and his fingers on her clit. There would be no cuddling afterward. She’d pass out from sexual exhaustion, and in the morning, she’d thank him for his service by going down on him while she stroked herself to orgasm.

She ended the kiss so she could tell him exactly what she needed, but he spoke first. “I don’t think we should do this, Ivy.”