Hero for Hire Read online

  Sensation after sensation pelted her. His hot tongue rasping her nipple. The thrust of his knee high between her legs. His work-roughened hand dancing over her belly, then lower, slipping into the heat of her. The glide of his fingers as he stroked the tender, swollen flesh between her thighs. The growl in his throat as he found her moist enough to sink into.

  She nearly jerked right off the bed.

  “You’re going to come this time,” he promised.

  She sucked in a breath. “Yes.” Her body arched, her legs opened wider, letting him have his way. She flexed her hands over his back, and he trembled beneath her touch.

  With wonder she blinked up at him. “You are shaking.”

  “I want you, Nina.”

  He wanted her. He had passion and need and hunger for her, and the knowledge lit a fire unbridled until now, a fire that wouldn’t go out. Not this night.

  His fingers were working magic on her, something simple really, just a steady, soft stroking, but it made her wild. “Please, please,” she breathed against his neck. “I need—”

  He knew what she needed, and gave it to her before she had to put it to words, pressing just a little harder, a little deeper, and within seconds, she was writhing beneath him, crying his name, pulsing around his fingers.

  “Another,” he commanded. Lying between her thighs, holding her open to him, he gave her exactly that, made her come again.

  And then again with his mouth.

  Catching her breath, she stared at him in dazed wonder as he climbed up her body, towering over her.

  She was still shaking.

  Never in her life had she felt so...so desired, so needed, and she opened her arms, drawing him down to her.

  Holding her gaze, he reached down, guiding himself to her opening, easing himself inside her a fraction, just enough to rip a groan from his throat and a welcome cry from hers.

  He pushed himself deeper, and then deeper still. The fit was tight, the friction ecstasy as he slowly pulled out, only to thrust in again.

  Her mouth opened, she could hardly breathe. “Rick—” She arched her hips up to meet his. “This is good for me.”

  He let out a laughing groan. “It’s good for me, too.”

  “I mean this is good for me. With you.”

  He went still, looked into her face. “I know.”

  Their rhythm was as old as time. Perfect. And in an unexpectedly tender gesture, he cupped her face, whispering her name in a voice of hushed awe. She whispered his back, just as awed. Impossibly, he grew even harder, and quickened his thrusts.

  Wrapping her arms around him, she held on, meeting him stroke for stroke until it all exploded again, together this time, bigger and brighter, all the more intense with him buried so deep within her, and just as lost in the impossible pleasure.

  Eventually she came back to earth and found herself plastered against Rick’s side. Her body still occasionally shuddered from the incredible love-making, her heart soft and melting with so much emotion she could hardly stand it.

  She didn’t dare put it into words.

  His body was slick and hard and warm. His hand had curled around her almost possessively, making her feel...safe. Closing her eyes, she pretended they could stay this way forever.

  Forever.

  She liked that, and along with feeling languid and incredibly sated, she realized she was sleepy... so very...sleepy.

  “Nina.”

  “Hmm.” Maybe he was going to tell her now. Maybe he’d say the three little words she’d never heard from anyone, but would be so welcome from him.

  She needed to wake up for this, but she couldn’t, she felt so...relaxed. The events of the past few days had just caught up with her, that’s all. Her eyes wouldn’t stay open, and actually, she wasn’t sure if that was really exhaustion, or from having her first orgasm.

  Orgasms.

  Either way, she really wanted to hear him. Couldn’t wait to hear him, because with this out of the way, they could do anything.

  Together they would face this mess and survive.

  Together.

  Oh yes, she liked the sound of that, and for the first time in her life, her heart opened up. Her soul stirred.

  And she yawned widely, her brain drifting off without permission.

  “Nina, it’s about Terry.”

  She opened her eyes again, though it was a huge effort. She found his gaze on her, no longer dark with passion, but with an intensity she found unnerving. “Terry?” she asked, her voice thick, her tongue unruly.

  “I told you I came here to find her.”

  What did this have to do with what they’d just shared? “Yes.” She sighed, smiling, yawning again, her brain fuzzy. “You came to find Terry.”

  “For Mitch,” Rick added. “Nina?”

  “Yes...because he loves my sister. Very sweet.”

  Something flickered in his eyes. Regret? Guilt? Whatever it was, it vanished in a flash, replaced by a disturbing emptiness. “Yes,” he whispered, dragging her close. “I think he loves her.”

  Her eyes were heavy, so heavy, and she tried to stay awake, but it was an uphill battle.

  “Nina?”

  Sleep had claimed her.

  * * *

  DAWN CHASED the night away, and after having watched Nina sleep for hours, Rick sank his fingers into her thick hair, stroking until she stirred. “I have to tell you the rest,” he whispered.

  Eyes still closed, she stretched like a cat and smiled. “There’s more? Why do you not just show me?” Reaching out, she ran her finger down his chest, down, down—

  He grabbed them. “Not...that.” His heart was in his throat, but he couldn’t hold the words back any longer. “Wake up, okay? Last night I should have... Aw, hell. I need to tell you everything I didn’t before. Nina, Mitch has Terry’s baby. Their baby.”

  Her eyes flew open. “Mitch has...what?”

  “Someone left a baby at the apartment building where he’s staying in San Antonio.” He was nervous, he’d never been so nervous. “A paternity test proved it was Mitch’s. Doing the math, he figured the mother had to be Terry. There—there was no one else during that time for him.”

  Nina sat up and tugged the sheet over her body. Her hair was wild, her eyes right on his, wide with confusion. “Terry had a...baby?”

  “Yes.” He reached for her arm, but she pulled away.

  “I do not understand, Rick.”

  “From what you’ve told me,” he said more quickly now, realizing he wasn’t going about this right, “your sister’s on the run, possibly from real gem smugglers. Fearing for the baby’s life, she left it with Mitch.”

  “She left a baby—her baby—with Mitch?”

  “Yes. It—”

  “You keep saying it.” She got out of bed, keeping the sheet around her so that Rick could no longer see the body that had taken him to heaven and back during the night. “A baby is not an it.”

  “She. Hope. Nina—”

  “You knew this, these past few days? That Terry had a baby? You knew this and kept it from me, even after last night?”

  “Yes. I...” He frowned when Nina walked into the bathroom, and he leaped up, but not fast enough.

  She shut the door in his face.

  “Hope,” he heard her whisper softly, sounding devastated. Destroyed.

  “That’s the name Mitch gave her.” He stood there with his palms on the door, bare-ass naked. “Nina.” God, how had this happened? “Let me in.”

  “You should have told me, Rick.”

  Yes, he should have. Playing with the handle that didn’t budge, he said, “Open up.”

  “I do not think so. No.” Her voice cracked, killing him.

  “Nina—”

  “Why did she not bring Hope to me? I would have died to protect that baby!”

  Rick’s blood ran cold at the thought. “Which is exactly why she didn’t. She was protecting both of you. Nina, open up.”

  “Why? So you can handcuff
me again to get your way? Wheedle more information out of me for your case? No, Rick Singleton, you are through using me.”

  He’d really done it this time. “I didn’t do this to hurt you—”

  “I know.” Her voice was so soft he had to put his ear to the wood. “It is because you did not trust me. Maybe you thought I had my own sister arrested? Framed? Maybe you thought that she was on the run from me?”

  “No. No, I never thought that.”

  “Then why?”

  “Why didn’t I trust you? You didn’t trust me until last night.”

  “Because you kidnapped me!”

  This was stupid. He wanted to see her face, wanted to haul her close and bury his face in her hair and be forgiven. He wanted to make her understand it wasn’t her, it was him and his own irrational fears that had held him back from her.

  God, wasn’t this a joke. Somehow, while busy protecting his life, his emotions and his heart, all three had ganged up to play some sort of cosmic joke on him.

  They had turned on him and opened up to Nina.

  Whipping around, he shoved all ten fingers through his hair and stared out at the calm ocean. What had happened? When he’d first come to Rio, his life had been as calm and placid as the sea. Yes, there’d been danger and excitement and thrill, but that had been his work, and work no longer touched him.

  But now his life was no longer peaceful, not even close. Nina had walked into it and turned it upside down with one shy, beautiful smile.

  At a soft gasp, he jerked around and found her standing in the now open doorway, fully dressed.

  Her eyes were on his body, wide and dilated, reminding him he was still stark naked.

  She turned away. Grabbed her bag. Headed for the door.

  “Wait,” he said, leaping after her.

  “I do not think they allow naked people to fly.”

  At least she was still coming with him. Unless—“You’re going to wait for me.”

  She studied the ceiling.

  The floor.

  Anywhere and everywhere but him.

  “Nina.” He grabbed her arms, shook her slightly until she looked at him. “You’re angry. I get that. I deserve all your fury and more, I know, but damn it, wait for me.”

  A slight shrug was his only answer, and he had to trust that even as angry as she was, she wasn’t going to be stupid enough to try to go after Terry without him.

  With one last look of warning—which she completely ignored—he grabbed his clothes and headed into the bathroom.

  “You didn’t trust me until last night,” he called out. “I’m just slower than you, okay? Nina?”

  “I did not hold out news about a baby.”

  He shoved his clothes on as fast as he could. “No, you only nearly got yourself killed. Twice.”

  “At least I trusted you as soon as I knew I could. You only trust me out of guilt.”

  He came out of the bathroom to see her standing by the door, smoke still coming out her ears. “Look,” he said. “Before we go, we should finish this—”

  She opened the door of the hotel room and walked out.

  “Or not,” he muttered into the thin air before following her. But he stopped her outside. “We’re talking on the flight, Nina. Because we both know your pride is what’s hurt here. Terry didn’t come to you. That’s what this is about.”

  She yawned, making it clear what she thought of that.

  “On the plane,” he repeated firmly. “We talk.”

  * * *

  THERE WAS A JET waiting for them at the designated airstrip. The pilot, a man in his early forties, took a sip from a can of vanilla cream soda before tipping his hat to nod at Nina.

  She nodded curtly back and got onboard without looking at Rick.

  Rick followed the stiffest spine and squarest shoulders he’d ever seen.

  She was still not speaking to him.

  The pilot didn’t speak either as he prepared for takeoff.

  Before Nina could sit, Rick took her arm and forced her to face him. The look of utter misery on her face almost did him in. “I don’t know what’s ahead,” he said, and because he couldn’t help himself, he stroked her cheek. “But we’ll get through this.”

  Her eyes misted and his gut twisted.

  Trust me, he wanted to tell her.

  But the words wouldn’t come.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  NINA WAS NOT a stranger to flying—she’d been in this company jet many times over the years, zipping all over the world to collect gems and unusual designs. Africa, Europe, Asia, the States...she’d been everywhere.

  Normally she loved flying, and thrived on the freedom she had to travel anywhere she chose, often spending the time in the air with her drawing pad, doodling ideas for new designs.

  But since Terry’s disappearance, her life had completely changed, and due to her extra burdens with the business, she’d stayed in Rio.

  There was no joy in this first trip in too long, nothing but fear and angst.

  And, she had to admit, if only to herself, there was hurt pride, too. Rick had been right on that score.

  Even knowing it was impossible, she couldn’t help but wish Terry had brought the baby to her. A baby, she thought, both her stomach hurting and her heart twisting. Her niece.

  Oh, how she wished Terry had been able to trust her.

  The plane rumbled through the air, low enough to avoid any commercial jets on the route. It allowed an incredible view. As the beaches of Rio gave way to the mountainous terrain of northwestern Brazil, heading toward Texas, Nina tried to relax, but with Rick watching her every move, it was impossible.

  They’d made love, and just as the romances all claimed, the earth had moved.

  Only he didn’t trust her, anymore than Terry had.

  When she felt his touch, just his fingers on the back of her hand, she closed her eyes, but all that did was allow the rest of her senses to kick into overdrive. She imagined she could taste his kiss, smell his delicious, undeniably male scent, see his smile.

  “Still mad?” he asked in the same low tone he’d used to coax shockingly erotic things out of her only the night before.

  She didn’t answer, as she honestly didn’t know what she was.

  “Yeah,” he said for her. “You’re still mad.”

  More minutes passed, long minutes where, due to the lower altitude, Nina sightlessly watched the scenery morph again, from mountains to the Amazon rain forest. There was nothing beneath them now that remotely resembled civilization as they knew it, and she shivered. Right beneath them were more kinds of wild animals than anywhere else in the entire world.

  After a while, the Amazon River came into view, wide and calm and deceptively serene, surrounded by nothing but the emerald broadleaf evergreens that formed the top layer of the forest as far as the eye could see. Not so much as a single bridge marred the second longest river on the planet.

  “Talk to me, Nina.”

  She kept her eyes on the view. “And tell you what, exactly?”

  “Anything.”

  “I do not believe you want to hear it.”

  At the first conversation in nearly an hour, the pilot glanced at them over his shoulder and Rick shot him a fulminating look.

  The pilot reached for his can of soda and hastily turned away, making a show of downing the rest of his drink, keeping his face forward.

  “It is not his fault,” Nina whispered.

  “I’m well aware of who’s to blame here, thanks.” Rick shifted closer. “God, Nina, forget him. Tell me you hate me. That Terry hurt you. Tell me that you’re hungry, tired...anything at all, just talk to me.”

  “Okay. I hate you, Terry hurt me, and I am definitely hungry and tired.”

  The pilot made a sound that might have been another strangled laugh.

  Or a snicker.

  “I’m sorry about not telling you sooner.” Rick glared at the back of the pilot’s head. “But from the very beginning I told you I was ou
t for myself, remember? I told you I was on a job.”

  “I suppose you deserve a medal for that honesty.”

  “I kept you safe.”

  “Only because you needed me.”

  That took him aback. “You...don’t really think that.”

  She just lifted a shoulder.

  “Nina.” He sounded devastated. “No.”

  “I understand. I held back, too, remember?” And she’d never regretted anything more. Maybe if she’d been more open, he would have been as well, and they wouldn’t be at this impasse she didn’t know how to get around. “It is just that...”

  “What?” He touched her hand again. “Please, tell me.”

  She stared at him. “You have never said please before.”

  He blinked, then grimaced. “Proof positive I’m an ass.”

  Nina shook her head, unable to resist the pull of his green eyes, deep, dark and conflicted. “I do not hate you.”

  “But you said—”

  “I just...I thought we had something. For the first time in my life, I really thought it.”

  At the pity that crept into his expression, she felt the heat flush her cheeks, but she had to finish. “I let myself hope and dream that everything might be different...with you.”

  “Oh, Nina.”

  Closing her eyes, she swiped angrily at a tear that escaped. “And I feel really stupid for that.”

  “No, you’re not the stupid one—”

  Again, that choked noise came from the pilot, and this time Rick craned his neck around. “Hey, what the hell’s your problem? This is a private conversation—” Breaking off with a startled oath, Rick leaped forward, just as the pilot slumped in his seat.

  The plane took a nosedive.

  With a scream, Nina lurched forward against the restrictions of her seat belt, nearly smashing her face into the pilot’s seat in front of her. Just as quickly, the plane pitched upright, overcorrecting, throwing her back into her seat so hard her teeth rattled.

  Dizzy, nauseated, she looked up to see Rick leaning over the far too still pilot, his hands on the controls. “What are you doing?” she cried.

  “Flying.” His mouth was grim, his eyes straight ahead. He stood in an awkward position, reaching around the seemingly unconscious pilot for the controls, every muscle in his body tense and delineated beneath his clothes. “Do you know CPR?”