See, he wished he could call and tell Dan, sometimes it’s better to Lone Wolf McQuade things…
Abby squirmed against his back, interrupting his thoughts and alerting him to the feel of her supple thighs pressed against the outsides of his hips and legs. Which, in turn, immediately focused his attention on her soft breasts—and distended nipples?—grazing his back.
Okay, so who was he kidding? Like he hadn’t been keenly aware of each of those things since the first moment. Even while worming his way through the dense undergrowth of ferns and vines after escaping the encampment and hiking back to the Ducati, he’d been hard-pressed to concentrate on anything other than the feel of Abby squeezed all nice and tight against him. Abby’s soft skin touching his. Abby’s sweet smell—even sweaty and bedraggled, she still emanated a soft cloud of dryer sheets and cocoa butter lotion—filling his nose and making his head spin.
That stiffy he hadn’t been able to finish off at the hotel was back to doing its best impression of a baseball bat—the imbécil. And you want to talk about one of the most pleasurable and uncomfortable rides of his life? It was this one right here. No contest.
“Um… Sorry to say, but I have to pee again,” Abby proclaimed from over his shoulder. The poor woman, dehydrated because she’d been unconscious and sweating for hours without so much as a sip of water, had been emptying his hydration bottles one right after the other since the moment she regained control of her arms. They’d already had to stop once to let her stumble into the jungle and relieve herself.
He felt for her. He really did. But he wouldn’t rest easy until they crossed that border…
“You’re killing me, woman,” he called back to her as he throttled down. Coasting to a slow stop, he planted his boots on the earthen road and steadied the bike while she crawled off. Even in the sweltering heat, he missed her sweet warmth all along his back.
“It’s a proven fact that we women have smaller bladders than you men,” she told him, stumbling slightly. He grabbed her elbow, steadying her. She was still weak, but she was toughing it out just as he’d always known she would. Abigail Thompson might look fragile, but scratch her surface and what you found beneath was one hundred percent pure, brass-balled grit. As if to underscore his thoughts, she added with a smirk, “I think it’s to make up for our bigger brains.”
He snorted, the wet earth and lush green scents of the jungle tickling his nose. He’d always thought Abby had it all, looks, smarts, charm… But it was her sense of humor he found most attractive.
“Hop to.” He shooed her toward the jungle’s edge. “I want to make Thailand sometime before next year.”
“Thailand?” she asked as she brushed aside the fronds of a humungous fern, disappearing into the forest a second later. It was amazing how the jungle could swallow a person in one verdant bite. Gulp! But even though he couldn’t see her, he had no trouble hearing her crashing through the undergrowth. She was wearing a traditional straight-cut Malay skirt, and it wasn’t exactly made for roughing it in the backcountry.
“Sí,” he called to her. “How does homemade curry and a few hours of R&R while we wait on an extraction team sound, eh?”
“Like heaven,” she answered, her voice muffled and slightly distant.
Heaven. He knew a little about that. It’d been heaven to hold her in his arms back in that hut and know, no matter what, that he had her and come hell or high water, he wasn’t letting her go. Heaven to ride with her these last few miles, to feel her sweet breath huffing against the back of his neck, tickling the fine hairs that grew there.
“Will this extraction team be my Secret Service people?” she called from deep within the bush.
Damnit, he’d known the question was coming and had been wondering how to answer it. Taking a bracing breath, he gave her the truth. “No. It’ll likely be my people or else some SEAL team or Delta Squad force your father sends in.”
“Oh,” her voice drifted to him, and he could just make out the hesitation in her tone above the soft purr of the Ducati’s engine. She sensed he hadn’t told her everything, and he wondered if she’d push the issue. When a few seconds of silence stretched out into an even dozen, he breathed a sigh of relief.
Digging his phone from his hip pocket, he thumbed it on and noticed he had only three percent battery life left and absolutely zero cell coverage. No matter. If he was quick, he could use the maps he’d downloaded, along with his relative speed and trajectory since leaving the JI encampment, to get an approximation of their location.