Hush (29 page)

His elbow digging into her chest.

Acadia started to giggle. The whole situation was crazy.

He dropped his forehead onto hers. “I've never had a woman crack up when I'm putting my best effort into seducing her.” He sounded amused.

Since his free hand was trying to undo the zipper on her vest, he wasn't supporting himself over her, so he was extremely heavy. She liked the jut of his erection pressed intimately against her, and the weight of his hips pinning her in place. She started yanking his T-shirt from the back of his pants.

“We could take a lovely hot shower,” she suggested, kissing his throat and jaw as she glided her fingers up his bare back. His skin was hot, smooth, and very touchable. “With
soap
. Then we could put on whatever your friend left us to put on—”

“Nothing.”

“Okay. We'll sit and eat dinner naked. We'll have a glass of wine, and then we'll come back in here and—”

“Excellent idea, with one modification.”

“What's that?”

“We finish what we started here first.
Then
we'll follow through with your most excellent plan.”

All his hard places were aligned with all of her soft, moist places. A win-win as far as Acadia was concerned. Heat suffused her entire body, and moisture pooled between her thighs.

He whipped the sling off over his head, tossed it across the room, and concentrated on attacking her zippers. He almost didn't wince at the obvious pain in his shoulder. Big brave macho man that he was. “Zak! You'll pull out your stit—”

He crushed her mouth under his in a kiss so hot, so explosive, she forgot what she'd been trying to say. She'd
have words with him later when she called the doctor in to sew him back up. Silly, silly man …

With three hands frantically trying to undo zippers and get her T-shirt off, Zak gave up and just took one side of her vest in his teeth, the other with his hand, and ripped. She gasped. “I'll buy you a dozen,” he growled. “Get it off, it's in my way.”

She didn't get it off. She got the zipper down and her T-shirt bunched up. And while she was doing
that
, Zak was running his mouth from her throat to her navel. “That's very ahh … distrac—”

He undid the top button of her pants with his teeth, which was a nifty trick, then yanked down the zipper with his fingers, spreading either side of the khaki pants with one large hand, fingers stretched wide. “Commando again. This saves time.” He nuzzled his nose into the juncture of her thighs. “God, I love the way you smell. Earthy. Sexy. Hot for me.”

Acadia cupped her breasts, since he was busy and
someone
had to do it. Her nipples were tight little buds, hard and begging for attention, and so sensitive her lightest touch was enough to send her skyrocketing into a massive climax.

All the lights in the room were on. The drapes, should anyone out there in one of the tall downtown Caracas buildings close by care to look, were wide open, and she was flat on her back straddling a piece of fine furniture. All firsts.

In no way hampered by having use of only one fully
functioning arm, Zak dragged her pants down her legs and instructed, “Lift,” while his mouth was pressed against her.

She arched her back and lifted, pressing herself firmly against his open mouth. He hummed his pleasure, which vibrated straight through her. The smooth wood beneath her bare skin was warming up, but it was still hard as she settled her behind down again.

“Maybe we could go into the bedr—
Ahhh!
” She practically levitated off the hard surface as he opened her with his tongue and unerringly found the swollen bud nestled in her folds.

Her hands tightened on her breasts as he swirled his tongue across the knot of nerves and gently, deliberately, closed his teeth around her.

The climax rolled through her in wave after wave after wave of glorious, Technicolor sensation, so that she couldn't tell one from the next. The fireworks explosion at the end left her deaf, dumb, and blind as her sensory-overloaded body splintered into a thousand pieces.

“Good?” Zak asked, now standing between her limp, spread legs.

Her lashes fluttered up. “W-what?”

He slipped his forearm under her knees and slid her down to the very edge of the sideboard. “Just checking to be sure that was good for you.”

Acadia lifted a weak hand. “You need to ask?”

Zak chuckled as he wedged his narrow hips between her spread knees. “Ready for more?”

“N—Are you insane? I can't breathe, let alone—Oh. My. God. Z-Zakary!” His penis was hard as a rock, thick and sleek, as he flexed his hips, plunging so far inside her in one powerful thrust that she shifted up the sideboard when she came again. He pressed a splayed hand on her quivering belly and kept pumping as she struggled to gather her scattered wits. Impossible.

The next climax rolled right behind the first until she couldn't tell if she was coming over and over or if it was one giant climax that was going to kill her with pleasure. But what a way to go.

She came again, hard, and the lights did pinwheels around her as she felt the pounding of her heartbeat in every pulse point.

With a guttural cry, Zak collapsed on top of her, stealing the last sip of air from her already collapsed lungs. She didn't have the strength to gasp for him to move.

Sweat glued their skin together, and he was still deep inside her. Acadia had never been more satiated. If she'd had an ounce of energy left she would've pulled up her pants and run far and fast, before he ripped out her heart and threw it over the edge of some distant killer mountain.

Right before he intended to snowboard the damn thing.

“Shower?” His voice was muffled against the hot, sweaty curve of her throat as he kissed her.

“Minute. Can't walk.”
Can't breathe. Can't talk. Can't think straight.

“I'll carry you.”

Acadia choked out a laugh. “Oh!”

Zak lifted her with his good arm and tossed her over his bandaged shoulder in a very efficient fireman's lift, her bare ass right next to his lips. “Time for that shower.”

Since she was suddenly dangling down his back, she tasted his damp skin as she tried to push his pants all the way off his hips. It took a while before they made it to that shower.

THIRTEEN

Z
ak left Acadia sleeping and followed the dim light to the living room. Seated at the large mahogany desk, he picked up a pen and held it poised over a piece of hotel stationery.

The shadowed suite smelled of sex and the crushed flowers he'd stuffed back into the vase after picking them up off the floor. He smiled. He might just buy that credenza thing and have it shipped home to Seattle.

Although he played sports ambidextrously, could even manage to brush his teeth or fire a weapon with either hand, writing with his right hand was a laborious process. But the damned number thing hadn't allowed him to sleep.

He was worried sick about his brother. Had that bitch captured him again? Was Gideon even now back in one of those stinking cells in the middle of fucking nowhere?

Zak rubbed his forehead. What had she said to her men the other day? “Hunt them until we find them. Kill either one on sight. Bring the other back.” He pressed
two fingers into his eye sockets, trying to get rid of the numbers so he could concentrate.

Loida Piñero had ordered her men to kill
one
of them.

Why not both? She'd had proof of life. The ransom demand had been made. Why keep one? Kill the other?

Zak didn't want to think the worst, but he and Acadia were several days late for the rendezvous. Gideon could be having difficulties obtaining transportation out of the jungle. He, too, might have sought medical attention, for his broken ribs. Injuries festered in the hot humid climate … And if there'd been any internal bleeding … Fuckit. He couldn't even think about it.

Christ. Zak's brain was cluttered with what-ifs.

He picked up the phone and dialed Seattle to see if Buck had heard from Gideon yet. Zak looked at the clock on the wall and let the phone continue to ring. Anthony Buckner was one of the calmest men Zak knew. Nothing alarmed their partner, even at 5 a.m. and woken from a deep sleep, and God knew there'd been lots of those calls over the years.

Buck cut him off neatly. “Before you say anything, no, God damn it, I still haven't heard from Gideon,
or
the kidnappers. And yes, I realize we have a policy, but I'm paying the ransom anyway. I'm in the middle of liquidating personal funds to cover it.”

Zak closed his eyes for a moment, his gratitude profound. A few years older than Gideon, Buck had been in on the ground floor when they'd had the idea for a revolutionary new Internet search engine. Buck had worked his ass off side by side with them to form ZAG Search,
now the biggest search engine in the world. It was a hell of an accomplishment, and one that had made all three of them wealthy beyond their wildest dreams.

Buck enjoyed the day-to-day grind, and Zak and Gideon had been happy to hand that off to him. The brothers worked hard, but they also played hard. What the hell was the point of all that money if they couldn't enjoy it?

At one point, at the beginning, they'd matched each other in being workaholics. Long hours, longer meetings, code-grinding, and the legalities of it all had made for caffeine-fueled sessions that didn't stop for hell or high water. But they had thousands of people to do the grunt work now.

The arrangement worked.

Buck was married, with two great teenagers and a very hot wife. He, Nikki, Zak, and Jennifer had been very close when Zak and Jen were first married. When their marriage had started falling apart, Nikki had taken Jen's side, and Buck had stuck to Zak. Zak knew that his marriage difficulties had put a strain on his friend. And here the man was, paying multimillions of dollars out of his own pocket.

Christ, that showed Zak the kind of guy Anthony Buckner was—had always been. Zak heard his friend getting out of bed as he took the phone into the den of his lavish Queen Anne home in Seattle to talk without waking Nikki.

“What did you expect? Fuck the policy. It's just money—you and Gid are more important. I've liquidated the sixty mil; picking it up later today.”

Zak clenched his fist. “Gideon didn't leave a message on your home or private office line you might have missed?” He was grasping at straws. If his brother had contacted Buck in any shape or form, his friend would've said so. “Look, Gid could stroll in here in the morning none the worse for wear, but it might be good to have the money ready just in case. You should have used the company money.”

“I didn't want you screaming about breaking company policy—and as your partner, and friend, I know you're good for it. I'll have the cash hand-delivered to you at the hotel. We'll need to bring in security people,” Buck said. “We can't mess around with a kidnapping. Especially not in Venezuela, where it's considered a national pastime. If these guerrillas have Gideon in their clutches again … Shit. Sorry. You've gone through the variables yourself a million times, I'm sure.”

“At least.” Zak heard the chink of pottery as Buck poured himself a mug of coffee in the kitchen. He knew Buck's house as well as his own.

“Try not to worry. I know exactly who to call. Zak, waiting for if or
when
Gid shows up at the Gran Meliá might be too late. Think about it. Let me liberate the cash and pull a team in, send them to you, just in case? An insurance policy. Okay, buddy? And then if you don't need them, you and Gideon can use the company jet to come home.”

Zak and Buck discussed logistics and what assets could be liquidated immediately, then hung up. Buck was
nothing if not efficient. He'd have their security people arrive in one of the corporation's aircraft by nightfall. Cash in hand. Ready to hunt the guerrillas down if Gid hadn't shown up by then.