He pointed toward the hillside, whispering. “Go! Fast as you can.”
Fast as she could was pretty damned fast if there were bad guys on their tail.
Fueled by adrenaline, she attacked the hillside with quick strides, ignoring the burn in her thighs and the ache in her lungs, watching for rocks, branches, snakes. Which is why she happened to see the rattlesnake coiled up a few feet ahead of her.
She froze.
“This way.” Strong hands grabbed the back of her pack and jerked her to the right just as the telltale rattle started.
Moving as fast as her feet could carry her, she continued in the direction Zach had steered her. She was wondering how she was going to get around the stand of mesquite in their path, when he halted her.
“Down.”
Grabbing the rifle off her pack, she crawled beneath the mesquite, her breath coming hard. Zach raised his goggles, then lifted his AK, sighting on the valley below, his finger shifting the weapon into full-auto mode. She did the same, just as he’d showed her back at the hotel in Altar. Through the rifle’s night scope, the desert glowed green again.
Some thirty feet away, the rattlesnake had fallen silent. Or maybe her heart was beating too loudly for her to hear it.
And then off to the south, she saw them—a line of about fifteen men carrying strange burlap backpacks. Judging from the way the men walked, stooping forward, the packs were extremely heavy.
Zach pressed his lips against her ear. “Drug runners.”
Three of them had what looked like AK-47s. Moving slowly, they scanned the hillside, weapons raised. They must have heard her and Zach talking—or heard their gear rattling during their hasty uphill escape.
“Don’t fire. Don’t move.” Zach’s voice was barely a whisper. None of the men below were wearing night vision goggles, which gave Natalie some hope. One hissed something to another in Spanish. That one hissed back. It sounded to her like they were arguing, though she couldn’t make out the words.
Slowly, so slowly, they passed by, Natalie watching through the night scope until they disappeared in the distance.
She let out the breath she’d been holding and leaned her cheek against the cold steel of the rifle, her heart still racing, her body starting to tremble.
“You are without a doubt the most amazing woman I’ve ever known.”
Adrenaline still hot in her veins, she looked over to find Zach watching her, his teeth white in the darkness as he smiled down at her. Without even thinking, she let go of the rifle, planted her palms on either side of his face—and kissed him.
He made a little groan in his throat, leaned into the kiss, his tongue meeting hers halfway, his hands removing first his backpack, then hers. Then his arms were around her, crushing her against him, the kiss now a brutal clash of lips and teeth and tongues.
She reached down, unbuttoned the top button of his pants, slid her hand beneath his T-shirt, feeling the ridges of his muscles before unzipping his fly and freeing his erection. She took him in hand, working the length of him, as his hand fought with her zipper, slid inside her panties, and stroked her.
Then all at once she was on her hands and knees, Zach jerking her pants down with such force that he dragged her backward. He nudged his knee between her legs, parting her thighs as wide as they could go, then pushed into her—hard.
Again and again he drove himself into her, stretching her, filling her, the slippery friction igniting a fire deep in her belly. She arched her back, his thrusts so wonderfully hard that they rocked her, his testicles slapping against her. Then he reached around, his fingers delving between her thighs, finding her clitoris, stroking her inside and out.
It felt so good, so good . . . Thrust after thrust . . . Deeper, harder . . .Zach!Piercing her, penetrating her . . .Oh, Zach!She needed him, ached for him . . . Her gloved fingers dug into the sand . . . Digging in, holding on, as the heat inside her drew into a tense, shimmering knot—and exploded.
She bit her lip, held back a cry as pleasure blazed through her, a firestorm of sensation, Zach’s deep thrusts prolonging her climax until the flames had burned themselves out, her body nothing but ashes floating on the night wind.
Then she heard him suck in a breath, felt him pull out, his fingers digging into her hips as he came on her bare derriere, ejaculate hitting her in hot, wet spurts, his bare thighs pressed against her. Then for a moment he collapsed over her, breathing hard, pressing kisses to her shoulder, his hand resting beside hers in the sand.
“You are the most amazing woman . . . Don’t move.” One big hand rubbed circles onto the skin of her lower back, while the other rummaged around in his pack. Then something cold and wet touched the skin of her behind as he wiped her clean. “If I told you your bare ass looks fantastic in the moonlight, would you hold that against me?”
ZACH HELPED NATALIE to her feet, fighting the urge to hold her. “You okay?”
“I’m fine.” She fastened her hip belt. “I’m not that fragile, for goodness’ sake.”
“Let’s go. We’ve got some catching up to do.” He slipped into the night vision goggles, then led her down the hillside, regret taking some of the glow out of his postorgasmic high.
He didn’t regret having sex with her. What red-blooded, heterosexual man would? True, shagging in the middle of the desert in the middle of the night in the middle of what was essentially a war zone was not an act of tactical genius. In fact, it had been flat-out irresponsible. Still, he couldn’t bring himself to regret it. But he was sorry for the way he’d handled it.
She deserves tenderness, McBride. You just shoved her onto her hands and knees and fucked her.