Her words, or maybe her tears, were the final blow his control needed before he snapped, then he was thrusting into her over and over again, pinching and tugging on her bud until she spiraled upward into the Milky Way, then came plummeting back to earth as pleasure exploded inside her.
It stole her breath.
It stole her ability to think, to speak, to do anything but sob as it tore through her with a ferocity that was everything she’d hoped for and more.
“Thank you,” she murmured before pressing her lips to his.
A sudden bright light flooded the sunken blue pool, and both of their heads snapped up to find a ring of men standing at the top looking down at them.
August 21st
1:47 A.M.
If he survived this, his heart was going to have permanent damage from all the times it felt like it had stopped beating over the last week.
Bright light shone down on them, and Mateo didn't even have to look up to know that it wasn't Trigger and his team. If it were them, and they’d returned because they’d seen something concerning, they wouldn't be bringing out the spotlights and alerting anyone who could be nearby.
Which meant there was only one person it could be.
“Do exactly as I tell you,” he whispered in Ally’s ear, then quickly pulled out of her and rearranged both their clothes. Then he crushed her tighter to his chest and looked up, quickly counting the number of men surrounding them.
From what he could see, there were eight. Not great odds, but not terrible either. Too bad he’d left his pack and his weapon up there when he jumped. This was exactly why going on a mission with a woman you were madly in love with and wanted to give the entire world to was a terrible idea. You got sloppy, made mistakes. They shouldn’t have stopped to play in the water, he should have insisted they keep going with the others. If Ally wanted to swim in a beautiful, remote, blue water hole, then he’d bring her back to the tropics some other time.
“That you, Rolland?” he yelled up.
Silence met him, but he saw a couple of the men turn to look over their shoulders and assumed they were looking to their boss to see how he wanted them to respond. In his mind, there hadn't really been any chance that these people were random villagers, but this confirmed it anyway.
“You stole something from me, and I want it back,” Koa Rolland said, the short, round little man appearing beside one of the others.
“Actually,” Mateo drawled, “youtook something frommethat wasn't yours to take.”
“I bought her,” Rolland insisted.
“She wasn't supposed to be for sale.” Mateo had no idea how he was going to play this, but he’d better come up with something quick. Azure knew that Ally had been his beforehand, so he may as well stick with that. There was likely nothing he could do to talk his way out of this, but he was going to have to try, because his comms unit was in his pack up the top. Without it, he couldn’t call in his backup, which couldn’t be more than a mile or two away.
“Get up here, now,” Rolland yelled, with all the authority of a man who was used to getting his own way.
Well, the man had better get used to losing, because there was no way Mateo was handing over Ally without a fight.
“Don’t follow orders from you, Rolland,” he called back, but he swam himself and Ally over toward the rocks that made a slippery path up through the vegetation. “Remember what you're supposed to do. Eyes down, don’t speak unless told to, do anything I ask of you without complaint. I won't let him take you away from me.”
“I'd rather die, Mateo, than be trapped here with him again,” she whispered, and he heard the certainty in those words. She wasn't making a wild statement out of fear, she was stating a fact.
“Won't come to that. If nothing else, Trigger and the guys will know something’s wrong when we don’t show up, and they’ll go back to the mansion looking for us when they don’t find us here. You do whatever you need to do to survive until they get you out, no matter what.”
“Don’t say things like that, because it makes it sound like you don’t intend to survive.”
“You over me, every single time, little mouse.”
Grabbing her hand, he kept her slightly behind him as he helped her climb up the rocks to the top of the small incline. When he got them there, he didn't cower, didn't back down, didn't act like there were half a dozen weapons aimed at him. Undercover, the only thing that kept you alive was embracing the possibility of death. Ally’s death was unacceptable, but from the way Rolland was looking at her, there was no way he was going to order his men to shoot.
Worst-case scenario, he was shot and left to bleed out on the jungle floor, and Ally was taken back to the mansion, whereshe’d remain for a few hours until the Delta Force team got her out again.
So long as she went home alive, he’d consider that a win.
“Azure never should have taken her,” he said, keeping his focus on Koa Rolland and not his minions. They had no power here, they’d simply follow whatever orders their boss gave them.
“How do you know about Azure?” Rolland demanded, suddenly uncertain if the way his eyebrows knit together was anything to go by.