Swept Away (4 page)

For now, he was off the hook—but he’d have to think real carefully about how he wanted to
play Francisco from this point forward. Did he act like this had never happened, like things really were cool between them? Or did he act like an asshole now, hold a grudge? That might
give him the upper hand, make his charade more convincing.

Thankfully, time was on his side. The pickup was this afternoon. Five million dollars worth of
Mayan artifacts looted from ancient cities in the Guatemalan wilderness and smuggled out of
the country to be sold to wealthy collectors stateside. Late tonight they were scheduled to meet the head of the operation, code name Omega Man—a really stupid code name, in Brock’ s
opinion, that made him picture the guy in a cape and tights—then as soon as he could get away
and make a phone call, a team of agents would swoop in to seize the items and make the
arrests. So all he had to do was keep Francisco in the dark for the rest of the day—and the
night. Surely he could do that.

“Looks like the party’s over, girls,” Brock said apologetically. But not too apologetically—
thugs didn’t treat their women overly nice in his experience, and it was a good time to be sure
he acted like enough of a thug.

“Doesn’t have to be,” Blondie said, curling up next to him anyway now that the tension had passed, pressing her ample cleavage against his arm as she slid one palm over his shoulder. “In
fact, I think a party is exactly what we need right now.” She flashed a scolding glance to
Francisco, and Brock hoped it didn’t get her slapped by the gruffer brother.

But Francisco only glared and said, “Pickup’s in an hour. I don’t care what you do ’til then— just be ready.” After directing that last part specifically to Brock, he turned his back, peering
out over the vast, empty waters that stretched before them.

As Blondie leaned near Brock’s ear to say, “What’s your pleasure, cowboy?” it occurred to
him that maybe the best strategy was to continue going with the flow, to simply let the party
commence. Francisco wouldn’t expect a fed to do that. Especially right after the accusation.

He cast a cutting glance at Francisco for good measure, though—still acting pissed. “Why
don’t you surprise me,” he said to Blondie, adding loudly enough for everyone to hear, “Do something to take my mind off all this shit being flung at me so I can concentrate on work in a
little while.”

“What about me?” the brunette asked.

Okay, this was getting a little sticky. Or good. Depending upon how he looked at it.

Go with the flow, dude—anything else and you look like the fed you are. “No reason you girls can’t play nice and share,” he said with a wink. Fact was, the girls were hot—and whatever
happened, it wasn’t exactly gonna be torture.

And when the brunette began raking her fingernails lightly down his chest, torture became the
furthest thing from Brock’s mind. He’d been working pretty much around the clock on this
case for the last two months, with little time for play, and he didn’t usually mix this kind of
play with work—but it looked like that was about to change.

The brunette rained scintillating little kisses on his neck just as the blonde slid her slender hand
down his stomach beneath the water, going lower, lower. She cupped him through his trunks,
and he pulled in his breath. He peered down at her, eyelids heavy with arousal as his brain turned to a glob of mush and sex.

Don’t get too caught up in this. And yet, how did he not? Sex was sex, and if he was gonna do
it, he had to be into it. And if he didn’t do it, he’d look pretty damn suspicious.

As the brunette rubbed her breasts against his arm, the blonde said, “Want more, baby?” and
squeezed him lightly.

He was just about to tell her exactly what he wanted, when Francisco called over to him easily.
“Hey, Brock.”

He looked up from the sensual haze. “Yeah?”

And realized that trying to go with the ßow had just distracted him—fatally. Shit.
“Who’s Brock?” Carlos asked from somewhere to his right.

“He is,” Francisco said, pinning Brock in place with eyes so sinister they could have belonged
to the devil himself. “Brock Denton, FBI agent.” The evil brother looked toward the less evil
one. “See, bro, the guy who just e-mailed me knew the asshole fed’s name. And the asshole
fed just answered to it. And it’s going to be the last fucking time he answers to anything.”

Brock pushed to his feet beneath the hot sun, tensing for a fight—a fight for his life. But as lots of Spanish began ßying back and forth between Carlos and Francisco, he slowly gathered that
instead of shooting him, Francisco wanted to deliver him to Omega Man. “Let this scum see
what they do to feds who try to screw us over.”

Damn, he’d known when Carlos had insisted on swim trunks and the hot tub earlier that it had
been a bad idea—because it meant his gun had stayed downstairs with his clothes—but there’d
been no way to argue it without looking suspicious. Now, he stood helpless before them as
Francisco snatched up a Colt .45 automatic, complete with silver grips, leveling it at Brock,
then told Carlos where he could find some rope to tie up “your good friend, Jimmy.”

Brock tried not to see the wounded look in Carlos’s eyes as he went to find the rope. Not that it
mattered. This was his job, bringing down bad guys. And Carlos was a bad guy, so of course
Brock had lied and pretended and gotten inside his world, same as always. He just never
particularly enjoyed the part where the guys who trusted him found out the truth—at least when it was a guy like Carlos, whose biggest crime was going along with his bully of a brother.

Brock soon lay trussed like a pig belowdecks, alone in a small, tidy bedroom, listening to the
boat’s motor chug through the water—it was all he could hear, coming through the wall behind
him. He lay on the ßoor, on rough carpet, his hands tied behind his back—in a sturdy knot
from what he could tell. But he happened to be pretty skilled at getting loose from sturdy knots.
Carlos never should have left him unguarded.

Twenty minutes and a lot of sweat later, he’d freed his hands and started working at the rope
that bound his ankles. He should have been scared shitless—if they found him getting loose,
they’d probably just shoot him to end the nuisance—but something about concentrating on that
gentle chug of the engine calmed his breathing and helped him focus on the task at hand.

When he got to his feet, he looked around the room for anything he could use as a weapon. Nothing, of course—after bringing him down here, Francisco had ordered Carlos to take all the
guns to the upper deck. So he was loose, but now what? He was on a goddamn boat in the
middle of the ocean.

Well, no weapons, maybe, but there was still a missing key somewhere on this boat, which
Francisco had likely shed with his clothes when he’d changed into swimwear. Not that Brock had time to waste—but he figured there was a pretty good chance that key might open a lock
that guarded the Mayan treasures.

So giving a quick glance to the doorway, Brock quietly pulled open a dresser drawer. Then
another. And another.

Until finally his eyes fell on the key and its thin silver chain, cradled in the fabric of Francisco’s tropical print shirt. Whatever happened now, it couldn’t hurt to make the key disappear and turn the Morales brothers’ job a little more difficult—so he closed it in his fist, then tucked it into a
zipper pocket in his trunks.

Next, he approached the room’s one tiny porthole and looked out, more in search of inspiration
than any tangible sort of help—but he nearly stopped breathing at the sight before him. Land.
In the distance. A small island of some kind, sprouting the requisite groves of palm trees
rimmed with a thin, sandy beach.

It was about half a mile away, and probably uninhabited, too.

Brock had no idea how far they were from the mainland, but they couldn’t be too far—the
pickup was soon and the delivery to Omega Man was tonight, so they had to be reasonably
near the Florida coast. Which meant that a man, even on an uninhabited island, would be found.
Maybe not tomorrow. Maybe not even next week. But on the other hand, there were such
things as signal fires, and if he had nothing else to do all day, he could figure out how to start
one. Yep, no question—getting to that island was a lot smarter than staying on this boat with a
well-armed guy who was really pissed at him.

Taking a deep breath, Brock eased open the bedroom door and took a few steps toward the
bow of the yacht. Above, voices—Carlos saying he still couldn’t believe Jimmy was a fed,
Francisco berating him for his ignorance.

“Stop, you two.” It was one of the girls, he couldn’t distinguish which. “Haven’t you ever
heard the saying, ‘Make love, not war’? Why don’t you boys calm down and let us make you
feel better before your big pickup.”

“No time,” Francisco said. But then he let out a light moan that surprised the hell out of Brock
—since up to this moment he’d thought Francisco was stronger than that.

Come on, Frankie, let her have her way with you. He knew from very recent experience that a
little sexual distraction could be a man’s downfall, and he needed the evil brother to start
thinking about something besides business for a few minutes.

“Come on, baby, let’s play,” the same female voice pleaded. “Work can wait a little while.”

“I don’t think so,” Francisco said, but he sounded weak, and another moan made Brock smile.
Give in, dude.

“I can make you feel so good—you know I can. Let me show you.”

“Later.”
“Now.”

And then... silence.

And another moan. From Francisco or Carlos?

Maybe it didn’t matter, since other than the moans and a little rustling, and then a hot female sigh, everything else was quiet. The only sounds were sex and the boat puttering through the
Gulf.

Brock eased back the narrow hallway toward the rear of the lower deck to another spiral staircase. He didn’t think about the fact that each step brought him closer to death if he was
heard—he just concentrated on being quiet and moving as quickly as possible. The current
goal: get off the yacht without being noticed. With any luck, by the time they found out he’d
escaped, they’d have no idea where he’d disappeared to. Being stranded on an island didn’t
hold a lot of appeal, but as long as they didn’t know he was there, he’d be safe.

Once topside, he made his way to the boat’s stern, where the engine was the loudest and would
camouflage any other noise. Without looking back, he eased under the railing, dropped ten feet
into the water, and hoped like hell he was as good a swimmer as he thought.

Kat felt herself slowly emerging from a delicious little nap in the sun, becoming pleasantly aware of the rushing tide and the tropical rays warming her skin. Ah, she’d been right—this
was just what she needed. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt so relaxed.