UndercoverSurrender Page 5

  The man was staring at her, his back against the closed door. Vik they had called him. Could she plead with him? Reason with him? Would he show mercy?

  “Why did you kill your friend?” she asked softly.

  “Gunderson wasn’t my friend. And I killed him because there was no other way to keep him away from you. He was a persistent fuck.”

  Samantha backed away until her bare legs bumped the sharp corner of the bureau against the wall. “What are you going to do now?”

  He pivoted off the door and muttered, “I don’t know. You tell me.”

  “What?”

  He ran a hand through his longish, dark brown hair, making the waves of it even messier. She took a deep breath, feeling along the surface of the bureau, trying to remember if she’d left anything sharp on it that might come in handy right now.

  Sex was another one of those things each undercover agent had his own rules about. Some considered sex while undercover not to count. The agent’s “cover” was having sex, not him. He’d known guys who really thought that having sex while undercover was not cheating on their wives. They were just pretending…with their dicks in some other woman.

  Vik had never felt like that. Even though he didn’t have the complication of a wife, the thought of sex while undercover just made him nervous. Too much opportunity to blow it. Being undercover was about keeping complete control at all times and having sex was about losing it. The two didn’t mix as far as he was concerned.

  He’d made an exception in Jakarta, but he shouldn’t have.

  Which was all by way of saying that, even counting Jakarta, he hadn’t had a good fuck in a very long time. So he was kind of overdue for one.

  He looked at his “prize”.

  In any case, he wouldn’t even deserve a penis if it didn’t get hard at something like the sight that was greeting him now. Ripe high tits covered by no more than a thin wet camisole and legs so long in shorts so short he could almost see her hipbones. Even when he forced his gaze up to her face, the plush lips and wide dark eyes plus the waist-length silky brown hair didn’t do much to discourage his libido.

  So of course his dick got hard. Really hard and his jeans didn’t mask it. Though the clammy wet denim wasn’t making it very comfortable to sport an erection, his dick wasn’t discouraged. The only thing that could discourage him, if not his dick, was the expression on the girl’s sweet little face.

  Terror.

  The poor kid was convinced he was about to rape her, as well she might be, if it wasn’t really him of course. How to reassure her without blowing his cover…that was the issue.

  “Don’t look so scared,” he began, holding his hands out in what he hoped was a universally understood nonthreatening manner. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

  Score zero as far as reassurances went if her expression was any indication.

  “Would you like to get into some dry clothes?”

  She shook her head no emphatically. Oh yeah, getting into was preceded by getting out of. That was probably the part she objected to. He couldn’t exactly leave to let her change with the rest of them thinking he was in here enjoying his hard-won booty.

  “I’ll turn my back. Okay?”

  “I’m fine.”

  He whipped his own tee shirt off and to the floor, though he supposed he’d have to keep the jeans on since he didn’t have a spare pair handy. “Those wet clothes can’t be very comfortable.”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “I can see your tits right through that shirt.”

  “Fine, I’ll change. Turn around.”

  Vik chuckled at her abrupt reversal. He couldn’t help it. She glared at him and he turned his back.

  He was one of the good guys. He knew he was. Undercover work never confused that issue for him like it did sometimes with other guys.

  So she had nothing to worry about from him, even if she didn’t know it. He heard her rustling around in the bureau. This looked as if it could even be her room, the soft blues and light woods more feminine than the other cabins he’d noted when he searched.

  “Can I go into the bathroom to change?” she asked stiffly from behind him.

  He had no idea what the layout of the can was and he didn’t want to worry about casing it first just to make sure that there wasn’t a porthole she could fit herself through. “Just put the dry clothes on. I can’t see out of the back of my head. Don’t worry about it.”

  A rustle of clothes accompanied his refusal and when he heard nothing further, he turned back around. She was dressed in cargo shorts that went to her knees and an oversized tee shirt so big she probably normally slept in it. She had scraped her hair back into a tight ponytail as well, undoubtedly in service to this notion that she was making herself unappealing to him. It didn’t work. She still looked cute.

  And he still wanted to fuck her. With a bed in such proximity right there, of course he did.

  But he wasn’t going to. How to convince her of that? Without letting the others know. There would be no explaining tangling over her with Gunderson and then not sleeping with her.

  God, this was so a complication he didn’t need. Pretty soon, the agents on The Victory would be picking up the stragglers in the lifeboat and trying to figure out why he had let this whole mission go so off course after a year under deep cover. He had to figure out how to salvage this mess, and one doe-eyed girl could not get in his way.

  First things first, though. She had her arms crossed over her chest and was holding herself in such a brittle way she looked as if she might snap with the tension of it.

  He had to let her know he was on her side.

  Without letting her know he was on her side, of course.

  He tried the obvious, which happened to be true. “Look, I don’t get off on a girl being scared.”

  “Don’t you dare touch me!” she warned.

  It was impossible not to crack a slight smile at that. The odds were so far stacked against her, given their relative sizes and strengths and her situation, at least as far as she knew, and she was still coming out slugging. It was cute in a kittenish kind of way.

  “That’s what I’m saying. I don’t intend to sleep with you.”

  She looked at him suspiciously.

  There was no other way than to be straightforward with her—relatively straightforward anyway. “But I want the others to think we are. That’s the only way I can keep them away from you. If they think I’ve claimed you and will kill anyone who touches you.”

  “You’ve already done that. Killed someone.”

  He smiled. “So my credibility is pretty good at this point.”

  She stared back stone faced.

  He supposed he couldn’t expect her to feel as little empathy for that psychopath Gunderson as he did. He should show some remorse for sending another man to a watery grave, if for no other reason than to reassure her he was human.

  But unfortunately, he couldn’t quite summon up any. He wasn’t that good an actor. Gunderson had deserved to die, long ago, and he was just sorry if in giving him his just deserts sooner than planned he had screwed up the mission.

  “So anyway, as far as the rest of the crew is concerned, it would help if it looked like you’d made your peace with the idea that you’re my exclusive property.”

  Her lips pursed. She was probably suppressing her natural twenty-first-century-woman objection to the notion of being any man’s property. Not to mention making peace with the concept of sleeping with her kidnapper.

  “So I need to, ah, touch you when they’re around. As if I’m, er…”

  “I get the idea. Why?”

  Again with the suspicious look, specifically at the damned erection he couldn’t seem to lose right now, try as he might.

  “I told you. To reinforce the idea that you’re mine.”

  “I know that. But why the charade? Why are you supposedly leaving me alone? Are you gay?” she asked, as if there was some kind of version of gay that contem
plated getting a hard-on with a woman but not wanting to use it. Which he supposed there probably was.

  “Not exactly.”

  “That’s not an approximate thing as far as I know. You are or you aren’t.”

  Now that they were alone, she was bolder than he would’ve thought she’d be under the circumstances. Rich girls apparently didn’t take much crap, kidnapping or no kidnapping.

  “No, I’m not gay.”

  She hadn’t asked about bi since presumably that wouldn’t preclude him sleeping with her, but he offered it anyway.

  “I’m not bi either.” He sat on the bed, since he didn’t know what else to do. “Just plain old, you know, straight, I guess you’d say. But as I said, I don’t get off on it if a woman is scared of me.”

  “So are you, like, relying on that Stockholm Syndrome thing? Where I fall in love with my captor? Because that is so not going to happen, buddy.”

  “Thanks for the warning.”

  “You lay one finger on me and—”

  “What?” He couldn’t have her not playing along, or at least being scared enough of not playing along as to make it believable. Distasteful as having her scared of him was, it was better than having her gang-raped and then probably killed because his cover was blown. “Let’s be clear here. If I wanted to, you’d be right next to me on this bed, on your back with your legs in the air in two seconds and there’s nothing you could do to stop me. I’m sorry. That’s just how it is.”

  She looked a little defeated at the observation. “Okay,” she conceded. “I get it. You’re bigger than me. You could overpower me. But you don’t want to.” She didn’t bother to look down at his hard-on that time. They both knew what she meant.

  “Not with my big head, I don’t. Not under these circumstances.”

  “So you are trying to convince me you’re a good guy. Forget it.”

  He bounced up from the bed and crowded her, to put a little punch into his words. “I couldn’t give a shit what you think of me. I’m just trying to keep you from getting raped by the rest of the crew here. Okay? Can we at least agree on that objective?”

  Suddenly, she was holding the tiniest pair of scissors he’d ever seen up to his throat. “I’d throw in keeping me from getting raped by you as well.”

  He sighed and the pathetic little tip of the clippers pressed harder against his skin.

  “Don’t move a muscle,” she warned.

  He had to hand it to her. She had guts. Idiotic guts, but guts.

  “Really?” He asked. “You’re really going to threaten me with Barbie’s manicuring kit?”

  Shaking his head, he batted the scissors out of the way with next to no effort. She looked surprised as they dropped to the floor, so light they didn’t even make a sound on impact, and, after a second, she dove to try to retrieve them. But he grabbed her arm, hauling her back to her feet. He shook her a little as she struggled wildly, trying to free herself. “Hey. Stop. Cut that out.”

  When she wouldn’t listen, he flung her on the bed and climbed on top of her, easily overpowering her, stretching her arms out above her. He had to make her see how vulnerable she was so she wouldn’t try a stunt like that again and most especially not try it with somebody else on this boat.

  “You like this feeling?”

  She continued to struggle and he distributed his weight so she was rendered completely immobile, her only movement now her heavy panting as she stared up at him. Her eyes, only inches from his own, conveyed loathing pretty well and maybe, just maybe, a touch of fear finally.

  He’d have to make this quick, since he doubted she could breathe too easily in this position. “You like being this helpless? Do you?”

  She shook her head no.

  “’Cause that’s what you are. Helpless. Completely helpless if you try to pit yourself against me or any one of these guys. That was a stupid trick and don’t you dare do anything like that again.”

  “Or what?” she spat out.

  Well, now that was a tough one. He supposed he could use the multipurpose “or else”. Instead he settled on the truth. “Or you might just get yourself killed.”

  She harrumphed.

  “Are we clear on this?”

  At her sullen nod, he leaned off her and moved a little to the side so that she didn’t bear the full brunt of his weight. He noticed uncomfortably that she took a deep breath. He still held her hands over her head, though.

  “What’s your name anyway?”

  He almost thought she wouldn’t tell him, but then she said, “Samantha.”

  “Samantha, eh? The Samantha? You have a whole luxury yacht named after you? Your father must love you a lot.”

  She said nothing.

  “Well, Samantha, I’m Vik. And what you need to do, what we both need to do right now, is chill out. Okay?”

  For all that this girl had been in the middle of a cruise in the South Seas, her skin was creamy and white, with hardly a tan at all, just a flush of pink along her high cheekbones. Lovely.

  He cleared his throat and rolled off her completely on to his side, letting go of her hands. “So what’s your last name?”

  She took in another audible breath, as if each move he took away from her allowed her to breathe a little more. “Reynolds. My father is Damien Reynolds.”

  Oh shit.

  Could this day get any worse?

  “The Damien Reynolds? As in Reynolds Industries? As in former ambassador to—”

  “Yes. That’s my father,” she said, almost belligerently.

  Fabulous. Now he knew he was probably screwed. Damien Reynolds would undoubtedly board The Victory any time now, and then use his considerable influence to get a team of Navy SEALs out here to nab back his daughter. And blow Vik’s cover in the process. And that would be the end of trying to find the source of this whole sex trafficking operation. They’d arrest everybody on the boat and he would never find out who was really behind all this. Who that bastard Gunderson’s boss had been. A year down the drain.

  “My father’s probably out there right now mustering the troops to rescue me. I mean, assuming he’s been picked up by now.”

  If he hadn’t been picked up by now, he would be soon all right. Vik was sure of it.

  “You should tell your friends they picked the wrong girl to kidnap.”

  About to tell her to shut the fuck up, he heard the little hiccup at just the last minute. She was showing more bravado than she felt. She was probably still scared to death.

  “I think you may be right about that.” He punched the super-soft pillow.

  All he could do now was just wait to see how this all turned out. And try to keep her safe in the meantime. He could do that at least. Even if it meant that thousands of young girls just like her, only too poor to have Daddies who could save them, would continue to be sold into the kind of sexual slavery he was trying to keep her safe from.

  “Anyway, we can’t leave the cabin for at least an hour or so since we’re supposed to be, ah, otherwise occupied. Then, when we do leave the cabin, we’ll take a turn around the boat just to further emphasize you’re mine. Eventually, you may be able to go around on your own, but not for now. For now, you don’t leave this locked cabin unless I’m at your side. Got it?”

  The girl—Samantha, he reminded himself—watched him wordlessly. “Eventually,” she finally said.

  “Until I can figure out what to do with you.”

  “I thought you were going to ransom me. Isn’t that what you said?”

  “Yeah, that’s what I said. But it’s not high on my radar right now. I do want to get you off this boat and back to safety as soon as I can, though. I can’t have you in the middle of all this.”

  Samantha’s natural curiosity got the best of her. Or maybe she merely wanted to keep him talking so that the position they were in, lying side by side on a bed, didn’t get his full attention. “In the middle of what? Who are you people? What are you doing?”

  “We’re pirates, I gue
ss you’d say. This crew targets yachts.”

  “Yeah, I got that part of the puzzle on my own.”

  He rolled over, on to his back, staring at the ceiling. And then, incredibly, his eyes closed. “I’m going to rest, but I’m a very light sleeper. If you try to get off the bed, I’ll wake up.”

  She stirred, starting to sit up. “Can’t I just get up and wait on the stool over there while you, er, rest?”

  Not opening his eyes, he yanked her back down and muttered, “No.”

  She lay stiffly next to him, keeping a watchful eye on him as she scooted slightly over. Stretched out on the bed that she had always thought of as plenty big enough before, he made it look small. She’d never had a guy on the yacht before—Daddy was old-fashioned about stuff like that—but she doubted Justin or any of her other old boyfriends would have made the bed look so puny. He was huge, this Vik, much taller than her own five-foot-eight, with broad shoulders and flat abs even when he wasn’t lying down as he was now. His shirt was off, showing those flat, muscled abs, but he hadn’t bothered with his boots, military-like lace-ups, which must be pretty uncomfortable. Eyes closed, both his hands pillowing the back of his head, he apparently took a well-needed rest from his life of crime and mayhem.

  The bedside lamp was still bright from when she had flicked it on a million years ago as dusk settled on the yacht. She found some small comfort in the fact that he hadn’t made her switch it off.

  She watched her captor, unable to tear her eyes away. She supposed she should be grateful he seemed to be in her corner—“seemed” being the operative word though.

  The man paging through what Vik assumed was his file didn’t look like any policeman he’d ever seen in this shithole. The suit was too tailored, the shoes too shiny, the whole of the man too buff and healthy looking. And he wasn’t smoking. All cops around here smoked like chimneys. He spoke to him in English with an English accent. A posh one.

  “Are you an American? It isn’t clear from your file, but you speak English quite well.”

  Vik shrugged. Hell if he knew anyway.