UndercoverSurrender (7 page)

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.

“It says here you’ve been jailed at least three times.
Once for the all-purpose disorderly behavior, once for burglary and once for a
knife fight. Quite an impressive criminal resume at your age, which is…” He
looked up from the file.

Vik shrugged again.

“Clearly, you’re going places. The question of course is
where.” He closed the file and dropped it onto the bare metal table. “Jail,
most certainly, if nothing changes. The morgue at some point, probably before
you’re twenty at this rate. Does that cover it as far as your aspirations go,
young man?” Then he hastily added, “Save me the shrug this time, will you?”

Vik shrugged, deadpan.

Vik woke up with a start from his dream about meeting
Crenshaw for the first time. The girl was still beside him on the bed, watching
him, just as she’d been the last time he cracked his eyes open to verify her whereabouts
before he’d dozed off. He sat up, glancing at his wristwatch. It was almost
midnight, but he didn’t want to turn in for the night without checking out the
situation up on top.

“Okay,” he said, as if she’d said something, which she
hadn’t. “Give me a minute to go to the can and then we can go up on deck. I
don’t need to tie you up or leave the bathroom door open or anything to make
sure you don’t dart out of here while I’m in the head, do I?”

She shook her head no. He believed her. She probably wasn’t
looking forward to seeing the rest of his merry band of thieves at all, let
alone on her own.

“Can I get up from the bed though?” she asked, sounding
quieter than the last time she’d spoken.

“Yeah. Sure.” At his permission, she popped up and went to sit
on the vanity stool as he went into the bathroom.

After he’d taken care of his business in the can, he came
out and found her in the exact same spot. She hadn’t even gotten up from the
stool. Without asking, he gently tugged the rubber band off her ponytail,
allowing the luxurious silk of her long brown hair to flow around her
shoulders. He spread it out, ignoring the flinch she gave at his touch, noting
that the thick strands were almost dry again.

“You have beautiful hair.”

Which from her expression she translated into
I’m going
to rip your spleen out and feed it to the sharks.
She looked that horrified
by his compliment.

“Look, relax, Samantha. I’m just making conversation. You’re
pretty. I’m appreciating the fact. I haven’t seen a girl as pretty as you in
quite some time.”

“Save your compliments,” she said, getting off the stool.
“Let’s get this, this demonstration or whatever, over with.”

He nodded and led her out of the cabin. God, how he wished
he really had just been laid by this beautiful, prickly girl. As it was, he’d
be content not to have to kill anybody else tonight defending her honor.

Or get killed himself of course.

Hand in hand with her captor, trying not to flinch from him,
Samantha let him lead her down the passageway and then climbed the steps behind
him to the upper deck.

The other men were lurking around, grins on their filthy
faces as they caught sight of them emerging from below. The small motorboat
from which the pirates had boarded the yacht was nowhere in sight, and a few
duffle bags were now tossed around here and there. The landing force’s
belongings presumably. None of the men seemed in much of a rush to do anything
at this point. They’d broken into the yacht’s stash of beer and were drinking
companionably, which she supposed wasn’t all that surprising since there wasn’t
really that much to do. The yacht practically ran itself, as her father used to
say.

Samantha hiccupped back an odd surge of emotion.

“First test,” Vik whispered in her ear, pulling her closer.

If he meant what he said, he wasn’t going to rape her. Just
maul her a little for appearances sake. He was probably some kind of pervert
who got off on this whole twisted scenario. Because he sure as hell wasn’t
impotent. He’d pretty much proven that.

Why she should trust him, she had no idea. But it wasn’t as
if she had a Plan B or anything.

He held her chin in his long, roughened fingers and tilted
her face up to him, leaning down a little as he did so. He brought his lips to
hers firmly, closed mouthed at first, cool and competent, and then his tongue
traced the outline of her lips. She stiffened. She couldn’t help it, even
though he tasted clean and minty and the sensation of his mouth on hers was not
at all unpleasant, from a technical standpoint. He pulled away to kiss along
her jaw, her neck, making it up to her ear to whisper, “Relax.”

“I don’t know, Vik,” one of his cohorts called out. “I’m not
sure your girl likes you any more than she liked Gunderson.”

Vik lifted his head to glance over at the grinning speaker,
the Hispanic-looking man who had held her arm in a vise grip as Vik fought with
the blond giant.

“I’m working on it,” he told the other man, turning to face
him, his arm casually around her waist. She tried to relax. She really did.

“I’ll soften her up for you if you want,” one of the others
cracked.

“Hey, watch it,” the first one responded. “That’s what he
fed Gunderson to the sharks for trying.” He held his palms up playfully. “Hands
off, Vik. See?”

Vik nodded. “Good. See that it stays that way.”

Samantha tuned out of the conversation as the men conferred
on the details of their criminal plan, whatever the hell that was. She just
hoped it involved dropping her off at the nearest possible strip of land or at
the very least ransoming her and allowing her father to come collect her in his
helicopter, or his smaller yacht, or even that damn lifeboat if it came down to
it.

She glanced at the dark rolling waves, which seemed more
frothing than usual since the yacht was travelling faster than her father had
run it. His only purpose had been to talk some sense into his daughter on his
own turf in the middle of nowhere, not make a quick getaway. Her father was
probably having a fit, Michael and all the others calling every cop and private
detective they could find to rescue her. There was probably a task force
devoted to it, sporting some cool name like “Operation…”

Actually, she couldn’t think of a cool name and she didn’t
care what it was called. Just as long as it got her out of this nightmare. She
stiffened her posture. And he would. Her father would.

Unless of course he was at the bottom of the ocean by now,
the fragile raft no match for these seas.

The railing seemed to beckon and she started to veer toward
it before Vik yanked her back to her side.

“Okay, everything seems in good shape. I’m going to go back
down for the night.” Still holding her arm, he swooped down to pick up one of
the duffle bags. “Work out a little more tension.”

He steered her back to the cabin to the accompaniment of
catcalls and lewd suggestions she resolutely refused to decipher.

Once they were closeted inside, the door closed behind them,
she breathed a sigh of relief. That hadn’t gone too badly.

He dropped the duffle bag onto the bed and without warning,
backed her to the wall and held her there.

For a long, open-mouthed kiss.

Fuck. He couldn’t have her shivering like a virgin every
time he came near her. They had to at least look as if they were fucking. He
was very good at pretending—part of the reason why he was such a good agent—but
not everybody was. She was the kind who apparently wasn’t. Big-time. She had
reacted to the kiss out there as if it was exactly what it was—a first kiss by
somebody who had no business kissing her. Even if he had already raped her and
she had fought against him for every second of it, she wouldn’t have looked
like she had looked out there. That hesitance, that wariness of the unknown.
Untouched
.
She just wouldn’t have. It was hard to explain to someone. But it just wasn’t
right.

And anyway, he wanted them to look as if they were bonding.
That would help too.

But she needed a little more reality to carry off the
pretense.

So fine. He’d give her some reality.

When he had her backed against the wall, he took advantage
of her surprise to kiss her, hot and heavy and with everything he had. No
acting involved actually. Her closed-mouth kiss up on deck had been enough to
turn him on. Having her soft wet mouth open for him to plunge his tongue into
was heaven. His cock of course reacted accordingly and he rocked it gently
against her stomach, his hands going from her shoulders to her ass, cupping it
so he could get better purchase. It was high and firm and rounded just like a
woman’s should be.

Only then did she become aware enough to start to struggle.
She planted her palms against his shoulders, trying to push him away as she
attempted to turn her head from the kiss.

He let her, but only for a second, during which, her mouth
free, she demanded breathlessly, “Get away from me.”

He ground his hard cock into her now squirming form, a
little ashamed of the pure shot of pleasure that rocked him as he pulled the
cradle of her thighs up a little higher. “No,” he muttered. “I promise I won’t
fuck you.” She still struggled wildly and he loosened one hand from her ass to
grab her chin and hold her face so he could look her in the eyes, forcing her
to meet his gaze. “I promise. I won’t fuck you. But you have to get more used
to my touch to be able to carry this off. I promise I won’t fuck you,” he said
again.

She quieted. “You’re probably some weird wacko,” she finally
said, wrenching her chin from his hold, but keeping eye contact, which was what
he wanted so he let her.

“Probably,” he conceded. “For not fucking you, certainly.”

He bent his head, murmuring as he did so, “Just let me kiss
you.”

And she did, resting her hands lightly on his shoulders.

Was this how Stockholm Syndrome, or whatever the hell it was
called, got started? With wild intoxicating kisses and promises not to go any
further? Was that how the captor managed to lure the captive in? Because if it
was, this guy was very, very good at it.

By the time he lifted his head and smoothed her hair back
from her face, she had forgotten where she was and who she was. More incredible
still, she had forgotten who he was. A very dangerous thing indeed.

“That’s better,” he said.

“Why are you doing this?”

“It’s not important for you to know why I’m doing this. Just
that I’m the only chance you have on this boat. As long as you believe that,
you’ll get out of this.”

“Are you banking on getting some kind of reward from my
father, on top of the ransom or something?”

He came at her again. Suddenly, he was back kissing her and
she was back letting him. His thumbs caressed the hollows of her cheeks as his
tongue explored and his hips leaned into her so she could feel his erection
against her stomach. In a good way.

When he pulled back this time, he whispered, “Stop trying to
figure it out. You can’t. Just go with it.”

His kisses on her neck, her throat, made her shiver. What
was that thing he was doing with his tongue? What… She got hold of herself,
just barely, and pushed against him. “Why are you doing this?”

“Kissing you? I told you why.”

“No, not kissing me. I mean not, er…”

“Not fucking you?”

She nodded briskly and he sighed, pulling back, bracketing
his forearms on the wall behind her so that he kept her in his little cocoon,
but wasn’t touching her otherwise. “Invent any backstory you want,” he said.
“Maybe my mother was raped a long time ago, or my sister and there was nothing
I could do about it. So I’m helping you now.”

“Is that why? Really?”

He set his lips to her temple. “What does it matter?”

“It matters to me,” she whispered.

“Okay. Yes then.”

“How do I know you’re not just making that up?”

“You don’t. I make a lot of things up.”

He cupped her chin and leaned down to kiss her again. And
idiot that she was, she let him, not that she could have really stopped him
anyway. She wanted to forget, to feel good again, to feel like herself, the
empty-headed pampered girl she was, just for a minute.

“Hmm,” he said against her lips, pulling back after a
moment. “Now you look like you should.”

And with that, she promptly burst out into tears.

Chapter Three

Vik didn’t have much experience with women crying. Well,
none actually. And he wasn’t interested in getting any.

He wondered if it was safe to leave her alone just yet. She
could lock the door behind him. The rest of the crew seemed to accept his
possession and she seemed to be less intent on flinging herself overboard.

Or she had until now, until these endless sobs that racked
her delicate shoulders. At least she was being quiet about it.

“Christ.” He stomped into the bathroom, not sure what he was
looking for, but settling on a washcloth which he held underneath the tap until
it was soaked through and then brought out to her like some sacrificial
offering. “Here.”

She took the cloth and sopped her face, taking deep breaths
as she fairly sagged back against the wall.

“Better?” he finally said.

She nodded, straightening.

“In the spirit of coaching you on how to get through this,
I’m just going to have to mention that giving in to a crying jag right after we
make out is not going to be very convincing on this ‘you’re my babe’ thing.”

She nodded. “Yes. I know. I understand.” Another deep
breath. “I’m fine now.”

“If they think I’m just raping you nonstop, these animals
will want to join in the fun.”

Her full pink bottom lip trembled.

“I’m not saying that to upset you. I just think the best
hand we can play is that I want you for myself and you’re bonding with me or
something. Go ahead and think of that Stockholm Syndrome thing if it helps
you.”

“Yes. Yes, I will. I understand.”

“Good.” His hands went to the waistband of his still-damp
jeans. “Now don’t let this freak you out, but I’m going to have to get out of
these if I’m going to get any sleep.” He reached for the duffle bag, rummaging
through it and extracting a pair of shorts. Christ, it was hot as hell. “I’m
going to go in the bathroom and shower and change and you’re going to sit in
here and calm down.”

She nodded.

“And when I come back in here, we’re going to lie down to
sleep in that nice comfortable bed and get some rest.”

“
What?
”

It was so loud he practically jumped himself.

“Shush,” he warned, wondering why the hell he hadn’t used a
good old-fashioned “shut your mouth”. “Keep your voice down whenever we talk in
here, for obvious reasons.”

“I thought I’d sleep on the couch,” she whispered back. The
cabin was so goddamn big, he just noticed, that there was a bed and a vanity
and a couch in what was its own separate sitting room. This was by far the
biggest yacht they’d ever hijacked. “Or
you
can sleep on the couch.”

He said quietly, “Neither of us is sleeping on the couch.
Appearance is reality.” Not to mention he wanted to keep her close while they
slept, just in case somebody got crazy and burst in here. But she didn’t need
to be thinking about that possibility. He didn’t want another crying jag.

He went back to the door of the cabin and checked the lock.
It was solid. If he put a chair in front of it, it’d just freak her out.

He headed for the bathroom. “If you want to continue this
conversation, you can do it while I’m in the shower.”

She declined to of course and he closed the bathroom door on
her. He needed to think for a minute without babysitting her. He stripped off
the clammy jeans and stepped into the glass block shower.

The hot spray of the state-of-the-art showerhead was heaven
to his sore muscles. The knife fight had affected him more than he’d let on.
His body always tensed up after something like that for hours and he had a hard
time ridding himself of the tension. Even his brief nap hadn’t helped. The
pulsing jets of water were exactly what he needed.

Well, not
exactly
.

He thought of the girl back out there in the cabin, ashamed
of himself for being turned on by her given the circumstances, but there it
was. His cock stiffened as he pictured her in the wet tee shirt on the deck.
God, it would be nice to take one of those firm, high tits in his palm and just
feel her up, for real, not for show as he had in front of Gunderson. His hand
settled for feeling up his own cock, and he tugged on it sharply.

The sooner he got off, the easier it would be to go back
into that cabin and sleep next to her all night, protecting her—from them and
him.

Samantha never cried. It was one of the things she prided
herself on. Like never obeying one of her overbearing brother Michael’s direct
orders or never going to sleep without flossing or never failing to leave a
generous tip, no matter how bad the service. It was just who she was.

She may have been a motherless girl since she was seven
years old, but
not
a crybaby.

So she was disgusted at herself for resorting to tears, even
under the circumstances. It was just that the sight of that man’s handsome satisfied
features as he murmured his approval at her enjoying his kiss just drove her to
it. He was a thug, a killer, no matter how he pretended to be nice to her, and
yet he was all she had. The others were even worse.

For once in her life, she had absolutely no idea what to do
and absolutely no one she could summon to help her. The concept of getting out
of this all on her own—or only with the help of one confusing thug who also
happened to have saved her from a worse thug and who claimed to be not about to
take advantage of that—well, it was daunting. And the fact that he was gorgeous
and a really good kisser was the last straw. Could she be any more humiliated?

She heard the shower switch off and pushed the palms of her
hands against her eyes, hopefully stemming any further wetness, for her own
sake and also because it clearly had annoyed him. When he came out a few
moments later, bare-chested, rubbing a towel against his wet hair with only a
pair of shorts around his lean hips, she made a resolution.

She was so not going to floss tonight.

Samantha hadn’t moved. He noticed that was getting to be a
pattern with her. It should make her seem more tractable, that he left her in
one place and when he came back she was in exactly the same place, but it had
the opposite affect somehow. It made her seem more
in
tractable. As if
she was a chess piece he was going to have to move around in order to win the
game.

He dropped the towel casually on a chair and went to the
side of the bed facing the door, the one opposite the lamp. It happened to be
the side she was sitting on.

“Go on. Get in bed.”

She didn’t move.

“I’m not going to argue with you about this.” He heard a
telltale hiccup and to try to ward it off, he offered, “Why don’t you go take a
shower. You’ll feel better.”

“I’m fine.”

He leaned down and peeled the oversize tee shirt off her
before she could react. He knew she wouldn’t be naked under it anyway and it
was damn hot. She crossed her arms quickly over the camisole she was left in.
“There, that’s better. I’d take those huge shorts off too, but I’m sure I’d
have to wrestle you for that and I’m too tired. So just lie down and switch off
the light.”

She scooted over on the bed, the better to stay out of his
reach probably, but she made no move to turn off the lamp, just stared at him
with those wide brown eyes, although at least they were dry now. He folded back
the sheets on the bed and slid into it. The sheets were astonishingly luxurious
compared to what he was used to, probably one thousand thread count. He turned
the light off himself, reaching over her.

“Now shut up and go to sleep.”

After a minute, she lay down on top of the sheet.

“Underneath the sheet,” he grumbled, pleased a moment later
when she obeyed him, although she left a wide space between them and turned her
back to him.

That was fine with him. He followed suit, turning onto his
side, faced away from her. He needed some time to think, since he hadn’t
devoted much time to that in the shower as he pumped his cock dry to the
thought of the lovely Samantha, mortified as she would undoubtedly be at the
knowledge. He had to figure out what his next step in this mission should be.

He got about a minute of peace and quiet before it started
up again. That choked, suppressed version of sobbing. Low, but discernible. And
for some reason, understandable as it was, it bugged the shit out of him.

He didn’t know whether to comfort her or to really give her
something to cry about.

He chose the middle road instead, muttering, “If you’re
going to cry, go in the shower and do it.”

She hiccupped, apparently trying to stifle the sound, which
just made it worse.

“Oh no, that’s right,” he needled her. “You’re afraid to go
in the shower because you’re afraid I’ll pounce on your naked body.”

“Shut up,” she managed to say, swallowing her tears still by
the sound of it.

He sat up, glaring at her hunched-over shoulders at the top
of the tiny little corner of the bed she had allowed herself, apparently
convinced it was paramount that their bodies never be within two feet of each
other. “Will you go in the shower and just have a good cry already? Get it all
out so we can both get some sleep here. I promise I won’t join you in the
shower and I promise I won’t peek.”

She sat up too and glared right back, though the effect was
muted by the near-darkness in the room. “Stop acting like I’m being
ridiculous.”

“You are being ridiculous. If I had wanted to rape you, I
would have already.”

“Don’t pretend you don’t want to. You keep pointing that,
that thing,” she gestured at the tented bed covers over his lap, “at me. How
could I not notice that?”

Shit, he’d barely noticed getting an erection again himself.
What the hell did she expect though?

“I didn’t say I don’t want to fuck you. Obviously, I want to
fuck you. Who wouldn’t want to fuck you? I said I don’t want to
rape
you. And I won’t. And just for the record, in case you don’t know much about
men, honey, it’s hard to control getting an erection sometimes. It just doesn’t
work that way. Can you control when your nipples harden?”

She gasped in outrage. “I don’t equate a physical reaction
when I’m cold with a—”

“Bullshit. It’s not exactly cold around here in case you
haven’t noticed.”

“Go to hell!”

He glanced down. “They’re hard right now.”

“I’m mad!”

He laughed. “You’re turned on.” He had no idea whether she
really was or not. He was just trying to make the point and didn’t feel like
bringing up the possibility she might be wet. That did seem a little forward.
Not to mention he’d be dreaming to think she would be under the circumstances,
as she saw them anyway. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of when we’re in bed
together, in a position that would normally signal sex. Your body prepares for
it. So does mine. It doesn’t mean we’re going to have it.”

She scrambled off the bed. “I am not turned on!”

He was undoubtedly just trying to bug her and she
was
annoying him, big-time, not least of which because she was a complication he
just did not need. But he was tired of whatever game they were playing. He
needed to stop playing it so he could think or get some sleep or both.

“I get that you’re a rich girl. I get you’ve probably never
had anything bad happen to you in your whole privileged life before this.”

She audibly swallowed a sob. “You kidnapped me!”

“Bad things happen to good people. Didn’t you ever hear of
that? They even happen to mediocre spoiled brats sometimes.”

“Don’t you make me out to be the bad guy. You’re the bad
guy.”

“Christ! Would you shut up for five seconds?” She did and
then he found he didn’t know what to say. He really didn’t want her to fall to
pieces. He really did want to get her out of this safely. He leaned back
against the headboard and tried again. “I’m sorry you got caught up in this. I
am. It isn’t fair. But it is what it is and you just have to trust me that I’ll
do everything I can to help you get out of this.”

“Why should I trust you?”

“Because you have absolutely no other alternative. You’re
not dead. You haven’t been raped. So I’m doing pretty well so far, aren’t I?”

“The night is young,” she muttered.

“Look, get over yourself, Samantha. There’s more happening
here than whether every guy on this boat, me included, is lusting after your
luscious little body. We are, okay? Big surprise. It’s not the worst thing in
the world.”

“What
is
happening here?” she whispered.

He contemplated how much he should tell her. Given her
apparent inability to playact, he figured not much. So he said, “What’s
happening is we’ve been contracted to bring this yacht to a very important
guy—”

“A criminal.”

“Yeah. Like the rest of us, only bigger, and more dangerous.
And when we deliver this yacht to his, er, his headquarters, I guess you’d say,
he’s going to let us in on his operation, which is very secretive and very
lucrative. That’s what’s happening.”

“The man you killed, won’t this other man be mad at you for
doing that?”

He snorted. “Gunderson worked for him, but I don’t think his
death is going to come as any shock. He’s not going to care as long as he gets
what he wants, which at the moment is a very luxurious yacht that he can use
for, ah, things.”

“And the others? They don’t care that you’ve killed that
man? Gunderson?”

He shrugged. “You saw. They only care in the sense that they
don’t plan on being next.”

“And how do I fit in?”

“You don’t.”

“Then couldn’t you just, I don’t know, drop me off somewhere
before you got to this headquarters place? It was the other man who wouldn’t
let me go on the lifeboat with my father and the rest. Now that he’s dead—”