Danger Mine: A Base Branch Novel (8 page)

“Look who’s bossy now.”

W
hat had
the kid been lying about?

Street dragged the razor over his cheek. The quad-blades blazed a trail through the suds, leaving smooth skin in its wake. He maneuvered the cutting edge around his ear lobe, and then rinsed the tool under the steaming water.

Isay Polzin lived by his own set of rules. The blatant use of alcohol and illegal drugs said as much. If he wasn’t worried about getting hauled to jail over some pot, what did he have to hide?

He cupped water into his palms and washed away the excess soap. The warm water soothed the tiny nick he’d carved out of his neck. Water pooled in his hands and he submerged his face in it as much as he could and held his breath, willing his desire away. He wanted answers. He wanted Khani more.

Three hand-jobs in as many hours had only provoked his body and deteriorated his self-control. His gaze slid to the glowing red clock on the end table sandwiched between two queen beds. He’d only slept on one.
What a waste
.

Twilight started at the unholy hour of three forty a.m. with sunrise following an hour behind. The digital readout said he had just enough time to rub one out, get dressed, and then meet Khani in the lobby. Street cupped his sore balls and massaged away the ache, which would only multiply with another orgasm so closely behind the last three. They relaxed into his touch. He lifted his chin, closed his eyes, and pictured her long legs wrapped around his waist.

A groan echoed off the bathroom walls. His touch moved higher, toying with his sensitive skin before he palmed the solid length. Stroke by stroke his hips joined the lightly rising tempo of motion.

Three abrupt knocks ricocheted through the room and his thickening haze of lust.

“Fuck me hard, why don’t you?”

A small, but insistent hand wrapped on the door again.

Street released his reddened cock with another soft curse and stalked through the room. Through the peephole he watched Khani lift her fist to knock again. He snatched the door open before she made contact. “You’re early,” he barked.

Her gaze widened for a second, and then tightened on his erect dick. The grey of her eyes clouded. She squeezed the rucksack’s strap so hard the padded fabric crinkled under grip.

His cock bobbed in appreciation of her reaction. His lungs tightened. He waited for her to do something. To say something. ‘Get on the bed,’ ranked high on his list of things he silently begged her to say.

Khani’s lips parted. Her breaths came in shallow pants. “Sorry for the interruption.”

She extended her index finger, and then swiped it across the slit at the crown of his cock. The touch lit his fuse, burning it to the very edge of his skin. Khani studied the clear pre-cum beaded on the end of her finger. Her pink tongue extended. She swiped the evidence of his desire off the tip of her finger. His heart exploded inside his chest.

Her tongue rolled around her mouth. Her eyes closed. A moan purred in the back of her throat.

Like a loyal dog, he stood rock solid and eager to follow her instructions. Ten years ago the notion that he’d follow anyone’s instructions—especially a woman’s half his size—would’ve stitched his sides in laughter. But there was nothing funny about Khani’s blatant passion and the need she had for control. Even more sobering was his willingness to give her what she needed.

Slowly her lids fluttered opened. She licked her lips, and then her mouth formed a solid line. “Get dressed. We have shit to do.”

The words punched him in the nuts. He wrestled with the pain of rejection and the arguments poised on the end of his tongue. She obviously wanted him. He was blatantly willing. His ornery cock refused to submit.

Street scrubbed a hand over his face. He moved to the bed, snatched his boxers, and then shoved his legs inside. Grey hiking pants to his white tee, she stood in the open doorway and watched him dress. Instead of deflating, he grew impossibly harder. How did she make getting dressed a form of foreplay? He dove into his light jacket and jerked his pack onto his shoulder.

“Ready, mum.”

“I’m driving.”

He almost said, ‘no shit,’ but he clenched his jaw and followed her out the door and into the stairwell. Her almost black hair bounced as she descended the flight with rapid stamps of her treaded boots. Out the front door the SUV idled by the curb. Its lights cut through the darkness.

“When did you wake up?”

She hurried ahead. “Couldn’t go to sleep.”

“You should’ve come by earlier. I know a good way to beat insomnia.”

“That wouldn’t have helped me sleep.” She tossed her gear into the back and hurried to the driver’s seat.

Oh, he could fuck her into unconsciousness, if she’d let him. But what little trust he’d gained with her seemed to be slipping through his fingers. Street deposited his sack beside her lopsided one. They left the long-range rifles and heavy artillery behind, since this was a scouting mission of sorts. As it was, the two bags nearly devoured the entire footprint of the back. He righted hers, closed the hatch, and climbed into the passenger seat.

“How long has it been since you’ve slept?” he asked.

Khani shifted the vehicle to drive. “About forty-eight hours now.”

“If you don’t take care of yourself, you won’t do Zeke any good.”

“Like forty-eight is a big deal. You know it’s not.” She rocketed away from the hotel.

“Buckle up.” Street gave the order and pulled his own safety belt into place.

“Fuck you.”

“Even better.”

A breath snorted through her nostrils. She took the corner so hard Street grabbed the oh-shit handle near his head.

“You can buckle it or I will,” he said.

“I’d love to see you try,” she challenged.

“I bet you would.” He dropped his grip. The handle smacked the SUV’s roof. He shifted and the leather beneath him squeaked.

She yanked the buckle across her chest and stabbed it into the receiver. The click rang off the windows.

“And forty-eight isn’t bad when you’re in the middle of a mission, but I have a suspicion we’ve just started this adventure.”

“If you don’t close your mouth, I’m going to use my ball-gag on you.”

“You have one of those?”

She snapped her gaze to his and rolled her eyes before returning her attention to the road. “What do you think?”

“I think you need control to be able to get off, but I didn’t think you were a full-on dominatrix.”

“Maybe you’re not as smart as you think you are.” A hostile grin contorted her red lips.

This woman had rolled until midnight and had been ready to go again at three a.m. with no sleep to speak of over the last two days and still make-up perfectly accentuated her face. Why? Who the hell did she have to impress in a town where flannel and feather-stuffed jackets were all the rage? It certainly wasn’t him. She only used him to hone her latest torture techniques.

Khani drove like the sunrise would turn them to a pile of ashes. Her gaze bounded from the road, to the clock lighting the dash, to the left where the burning ball of gas brightened the sky one lumen at a time.

“Stop worrying.”

“Stop talking,” she snapped.

“Hikers won’t set out until sunrise and most of the people near the lakes and rivers are there to fish. They’ll hang around shore at the campground all day.”

“I’m really going to have to teach you how to listen.”

“Promises. Promises.”

Her head shook back and forth. “You’re not a submissive.”

“No, but I could be yours.”

She straightened and rolled her shoulders. “It doesn’t work that way. You either crave it or you don’t.”

“Khani…” He waited until her gaze met his. It took two-and-a-half miles for her relent. Only when their gazes locked in a dangerous embrace did he speak. “I crave you.”

The car slowed. Their gazes held for too long on the winding valley roads. His heart beat double-time. Her head jerked back to the windshield with a huff.

Grey cotton-candy clouds stuck to the tops of the mountains on either side of the vehicle. They thickened the air and revealed the source of all slicked streets and saturated ground. On their left a swollen river weaved through the valley, bowing and arching at the roadside. To the right sheered off slopes stood as impassable sentries to the wilderness.

“We’re getting close to the campground. Take my phone and send the latest picture in my camera roll to your phone. It’s the last picture I have of Zeke.”

“It won’t be the last,” he said, praying he was right.

“We’ll split up the immediate area. Use the picture. Look for him. Ask people if they’ve seen him.”

He didn’t bother telling her he knew how to search for someone.

“Also, watch your ass. If he knows a giant is looking for him and doesn’t know I’m there, he might come after you.”

“Awe, you’re worried about me. How cute,” he cooed.

“You think Seward has a kink store?” She slid a smirk over her shoulder. “I don’t think I can wait ’till DC for that gag.”

Street chuckled and grabbed her phone. He transferred the picture, and then stared at it for a minute. He’d done research on Zeke, as much as he’d dared without pissing her off. He’d seen a picture of the man before. The chap had been decked in black with bronze stars, his chin stony, eyes sharp, and shoulders at attention in his Royal Marines dress uniform. In the picture on the screen he looked like a different man. He donned nice leather shoes, jeans, and a casual sweater. His cheeks stretched wide in a grin and his eyes rolled slightly up as though he’d only allowed the picture to appease his sister.

“How do all these people have time to be fishing in the middle of the day? Don’t they have jobs?” she asked.

When he lifted his gaze more than thirty cars filled the blacktopped lot and another handful crowded the dark gravel extension. Past it, RV’s and tents sprinkled across the green grass. Half the occupants already dressed in hip-waders lined the shore almost shoulder to shoulder in what Street guessed were the best spots. Only a few lines breached the water. Most anglers situated their gear, checked their lines, and watched the rushing water.

“Most of the jobs in Alaska are seasonal. And you’re looking at one of them. Besides, a person could feed their family for a year with a good spring catch.”

“If you’re right, maybe we’ll get lucky and some of them will have seen Zeke. He was here nine days ago.”

“According to Isay.”

“Yes, according to the guide who was supposed to lead him through the three parks over seven days.”

“But didn’t,” he reminded. “That seems lavvy to me.”

“Lavvy?”

“Like the toilet. Stinky. Suspicious.”

“You don’t know my brother.”

“No, but I know people and business. If anything happened to your brother when they were supposed to be guiding him, that’s their company gone.”

“But Isay didn’t tell them.”

“It’s a bloody small town and that boy isn’t quiet about anything. You really think they didn’t know he was in Seward gettin’ bevvied every night?”

Khani opened her mouth, but no words came out. She clamped it shut. Her lips wiggled back and forth. “Aren’t they worried about bears?”

Avoidance. He should have expected as much. It’s what she did. “Only the slowest one,” he chuckled.

“It’s not funny,” she snapped.

He laughed about, her evasion not the bears, but she didn’t know that.

Khani whipped the SUV into an impossibly tight spot between a dually and a truck with wheels that would hit him mid-thigh. “Did you know one swipe of a grizzly’s paw can kill a person?”

“Did you know one strike of your little fist can kill a person? And you’re a quarter of the size of one of those things.”

“That’s why it…” She clamped her mouth closed and shook her head. “Forget it.” Khani swooshed him away with her hand and climbed out of the car. Squeezed was the more accurate term.

Luckily she’d given him more room. He sucked in things that wouldn’t move on an inhale and hobbled on tip-toes toward the back of the car. “I hope we don’t have to make a fast getaway. You know, from a bear or something.”

Her finger poked into his side with enough force that he winced. “It’s not funny.”

“That you—a trained operative, who has faced down mass murderers and mob lords—are scared of being attacked by a grizzly bear? Yeah, it’s a little funny.” He winked.

“There aren’t any big predators in all of the United Kingdom,” she growled.

“Not right now, because I’m here, with you.”

“Just make sure your weapon is easily accessible and you have an extra magazine, and come on.” Khani hiked her pack onto her shoulders and then tightened the straps.

Street locked down the urge to laugh. It truly tickled him that the toughest person he knew, one who’d never shown an ounce of weakness, strapped on the pack like it were a life preserver and she was diving into the middle of the ocean. And damn it, it endeared her to him even more. He groaned, grabbed his sack, and slung it onto his back. Under his hand the back hatch closed with a resounding
boom
.

She surveilled the area with a sweeping gaze. “I’ll take the east side.”

“Sure,
you
take the roadside with over half our target group and send me to the woods to be supper.”

“You played rugby, right?” Her bronzed eyelids lifted.

“How’d you know? Been checking up on me, ’ey?”

“Look at you.” She flourished her hand down his body. “You could take a juvenile bear.”

“What about a ma bear or the da?”

Her small shoulders bobbed. “Then you shoot the guy next to you, run like hell, and hope there is only one of them or that you packed that extra clip I told you to.” With that she pivoted and strode to her section of the grounds.

Being a guy who dwarfed most of the population, he’d learned the subtle approach intimidated the least. Street ambled toward the bank. He popped the collar on his jacket against the slicing wind and cursed. The only thing he hated worse than cold was hunger so voracious it used his spinal cord as dental floss. His heavily treaded boot threatened to lose traction on the slick lining the bulging river.