Then he held up the handgun. “This is a semi-automatic pistol.”
Then he gave a little thrust of his hips and looked down at his penis. “Thatis my gun. As you’ve discovered, it’s pumpaction like a shotgun, but it doesn’t fire bullets.”
Then he shut the door behind him, leaving Natalie to giggle into her pillow.
ZACH RAN THE soap over his skin, working up a lather, his body still strung out from that unexpected orgasm. Strange to think that three days ago he’d been in the worst pain of his life and close to dying. Today, he’d awoken in heaven.
He’d been dreaming that he was making love to Natalie, his dick buried deep inside her. It had felt so real. His heart had almost stopped when he’d opened his eyes to find that what he was feelingwasreal, the sight of her hand on his cock shocking him wide awake. He wouldn’t have guessed she’d do something as bold as that, but then she was full of surprises.
French, huh?
Too bad he hadn’t had the chance to show her what he’d learned to do with his tongue when he was on shore leave in France.
This isn’t what you should be thinking about right now, man.
No, it wasn’t. He needed to get them some breakfast and then go shopping for supplies, which would mean either leaving Natalie alone in the hotel or locking her in the trunk for hours. He didn’t like either option, so he needed to find another.
He also needed to find a way to explain that just because they’d had sex didn’t mean they had a relationship. He wanted to do this right, to find a way to tell her without hurting her. She was without a doubt the most amazing woman he’d ever met—smart, strong, sweet, sexy.
He mulled this problem over while he washed his hair and rinsed himself off, thinking about what he would say, how he would say it. And as he turned off the water it hit him in a way that it hadn’t before—and he didn’t like it.
In four days at the most, Natalie would be out of his life.
ZACH FINISHED OFF his third breakfast burrito and started in on a banana. “If I leave the backseats down, the trunk won’t be dark, and you’ll be able to see out. I’ll pile the supplies in the backseat, so it will get crowded. And itwillget hot. You’ll be in the car with the windows rolled up. Do you think you can handle it?”
“It’s better than being left in this room alone.” She dabbed her lips with a paper napkin, not yet finished with her first breakfast burrito. “I’d feel like a sitting duck.”
“That’s not what I asked.” He leaned forward, his gaze locked with hers. “Do you think you can handle it?”
She looked away, nibbling her lip, clearly thinking it through and clearly worried. Then she nodded. “Yes, I can. Can you check on me from time to time?”
“I will as often as I can, but I still have to buy a lot of things and stand in line in the checkout lane. I have no control over how long that will take.”
“I understand.”
“There’s something else we need to talk about.” Zach tossed the banana peel in the trash, took a moment to line his words up in the right order. He reached out, ran a finger over her cheek. “Last night was incredible. We didn’t plan it, but it happened. I can’t bring myself to regret it, and I hope to God you don’t either.”
She looked away, a shadow passing quickly over her face. Then she met his gaze through clear blue eyes. “I don’t regret it. It was . . . perfect.”
Perfect.
She sure as hell was.
Maybe that’s why what he had to say next didn’t come easily. “When we get back to the U.S., you and I will go our separate ways. That’s just how it is. My life—it’s not the kind of life a man shares with a woman. I don’t want to mislead you, and I don’t want to hurt you, so—”
“Relax. It was just sex.” Natalie stood, turned her back to him, and carried her paper plate and burrito wrapper to the trash. “It’s not like I could get serious with a man who lives the way you do.”
“Right.” That was exactly Zach’s point.
Good. She understood.
So why did he suddenly feel like shit?
THEY LEFT ALTAR after supper—and after Zach had given Natalie some basic firearms instruction for both the Glock and the AK. Her hair still damp from one last shower, she sat in the passenger seat, wearing brown camo fatigues, a tan T-shirt, and a brown camo jacket. A fully loaded semi-auto Glock 17 sat in her lap, an AK-47 leaning against her thigh, her gaze drawn to every license plate in search of the dreaded Z as Zach drove the car north along the rutted dirt road to a place he called El Sasabe.
“Don’t forget to breathe.” Looking every bit the military man, he wore camo fatigues, too, his eyes concealed behind new sunglasses, two semi-autos hidden beneath his jacket in a shoulder holster. “Do as I say, and we’ll get through this.”
She drew in a deep breath, her stomach swarming with butterflies. It was bad enough to think that they were going to spend the next four days walking through this inhospitable landscape. But knowing that the Zetas were on this road and looking for them made things much worse.