That really pissed him off. How could she not know he’d come for her? The caveman scenario had been a fantasy, or so he’d thought until, gone some kind of stupid, he picked her up and tossed her over his shoulder.
“Where the hell you going?” Kincaid called after him. “You’re supposed to be on your way to Egypt.”
“I will be. Tomorrow,” he tossed back. And he would be after he and Maria got a few things straight between them. If it took all night, all the better.
“Damn men in love,” he heard Kincaid mutter. Damn straight, Jake thought as he kept going.
“Put me down,” Maria said when he was halfway to her car.
That she’d kept quiet that long was actually amazing. “No.” Fuck no. “You really need to shut up,” he said and trudged on. If she didn’t heed his advice, he might very well lay her down in the middle of the road and screw her until her eyes crossed and she admitted she loved him.
Wisely, she didn’t say another word. Seeing that bastard put his hand on her breast had sent him into a murderous rage. By the time he reached her car, he’d managed to walk off some of the fury threatening to put him over the edge and was able to refrain from claiming her in the cramped backseat of her car parked at the abandoned house. Barely.
In silence, he drove on the I-10 to the next exit where the road sign had three pictures of motels on it. The first one he came to was a Ramada, and if it wasn’t his first choice of where he’d like to take her, he didn’t care about that either.
“Don’t move,” he said as he stepped out. After securing a room, he followed the clerk’s directions to the back and pulled up in front of room 116.
During the fifteen minutes it took for them to get to the motel, she’d not taken her eyes off him. He knew that, even though he’d not once looked at her. He was afraid to. If he did, he would yell at her for scaring twenty fucking years off his life.
She’d been through an ordeal he’d wish on no one, and it wouldn’t be very nice to give her hell about it. But, Jesus, he wanted to. He wanted her to know he would’ve willingly killed a man tonight for simply touching her. Never mind the bastard had intended much more than that. Thinking about it, he was sorry he hadn’t killed Fortunada.
“Jake?”
Finally looking at her, he took in the uncertainty in her eyes. “Tomorrow, I have to get on a plane and fly seven thousand miles away from you. I won’t be here to keep you safe, and that just about makes me crazy. But tonight, I’m here and you’re mine.”
Not giving her time to answer, he got out and went to the door, sliding the key card into the slot. He turned and stared through the windshield until she got the message that this room was where she’d spend the next eleven or so hours.
When she reached him, she lifted on her toes and pressed her lips against his, and Jesus and all his angels, he almost took her against the open door of a Ramada Inn with traffic whizzing by on the road two hundred feet away.
Between the walk to the car and the drive to the motel, enough time had elapsed for some semblance of reason to return. There had been no way for her to know his flight had been delayed, that he’d still been in Pensacola when Nolan’s call came. How could she know he’d defy orders no matter the consequences and not stop until he found her?
He’d given her no indication by word or deed that she meant more to him than a bit of fun for a few weeks. The anger at her for not knowing he’d come for her had been entirely misplaced, and he owed her an apology for going caveman on her. And he would apologize, as soon as he had her naked and under him.
What was going through that mind of hers as she stood silent and still, her arms at her sides and her gaze fixed on him? “You’re being scary quiet, Chiquita.”
“I’m unsure if I’m supposed to talk. Last time you were mad at me, you ordered me not to. Are you going to invoke that rule again?”
“Sweetheart, you can talk my ears off if you want.” If she wanted to blabber all night about Hollywood gossip and fashions, he didn’t care. All that mattered was he’d found her and she was safe. He trailed his knuckles down her cheek. “For the record, I’m not mad at you, but if my ordering you about turns you on, I’ll be happy to oblige.”
In response, she threw herself at him and wrapped her legs around his waist. “I was so scared, Jake, and then there you were. I don’t know how you did it, but the minute I saw you, I knew I was safe.”