Quick & Dangerous, page 16
“That’s not healthy,” she said, planting a soft peck on his chest, she reached for his dog tags, running her fingers over the raised letters that said his name Cahill, Roberto L.
“I know. But I was too fucked up myself to see the signs. To see that he was struggling too. I should have known him coming to see me, wanting to talk was a cry for help. Instead I was so focused on my own issues, too deep inside my own head and the nightmares to see that my best friend was struggling so much he was thinking about taking his own life.” A sob caught in his throat, and he paused, swallowing past the lump and clenching his back teeth until an ache sprinted up his jaw and wrapped around the back of his neck. The pain was a pleasant distraction from the pain in his heart. He welcomed it.
“He told me that we can’t save them all, and we’ll only kill ourselves if we try.”
“He wasn’t wrong,” she whispered. “A lot of people are alive today because of you. Because of Brendan. Because of how selfless, brave and incredible you both were … are. You can’t save them all.”
Rob shook his head. “How could I not have seen it? He was my best friend, and he was hurting. Brendan hadn’t pushed a damn thing down. And if he had, he’d only compacted it so hard, so tight, it’d finally gotten the better of him and combusted.”
“It’s like what Aaron said: You can’t fix people when you yourself are broken. Brendan knew that if he really needed you, you’d be there. But he wasn’t going to ask for help when he knew you needed help too. He wasn’t going to siphon from your empty well. That’s not what friends do.”
“I should have asked more questions. Should have held that baby, even if it killed me. Held her for Brendan.”
“And you still can. She still lives. And he lives on through her. Are you okay with older children?”
“I have nieces that are four and six. Maren loves to play with my dog tags. Bigger kids don’t trigger me the way babies do.”
“Then when you go home, visit Sasha and Molly. Be present for them now. I bet Brendan would love to know you’re still looking out for them.”
He finally opened his eyes and gazed down at her. “I’d protect them both with my life.”
She blinked up at him, her eyes full of an emotion he wasn’t sure he wanted to define, because truth be told, it scared the daylights out of him. “Was that the mission that ended it?” she asked, her fingers dancing delicate circles around his nipple until it puckered.
He nodded. “It was that mission that ended me.”
She shook her head and cupped his cheek, encouraging him to look her in the eye. “You’re a good man, Roberto Cahill. An incredible man. A hero. But you’re also human.”
It’d be so easy to love her. To fall head over heels for her, let her into his heart, his life, his soul.
Too bad he didn’t have a soul anymore. That, along with his faith in the human race, had died that day in the Peruvian brothel. It’d changed him. And he wasn’t sure he could ever change back.
She was everything he’d ever wanted in a woman, back in the day. And she’d definitely make some man very happy. Her positivity and zest for life was inspiring, but Rob was already too far gone. There was no sense in either of them getting attached.
He had no soul.
He was a killer.
He killed the bad guys, but he was still a killer.
And she was a job.
Even if he still had a heart that worked, he couldn’t let it muddle the task at hand. He couldn’t let his feelings compromise the mission. He’d done that before, and it didn’t end well. People got hurt when he let his emotions take the wheel.
The woman was like a drug though. He was getting addicted to something he shouldn’t because once this was over, once the threat had been neutralized and she was safe with her family, he was going to have to let her go.
And she would be an impossible habit to break.
“You can’t save everyone,” she whispered, the pain and sadness in her eyes gutting him.
With an ache in the place his heart had once resided, he ran the pad of his thumb over the plump, cushiony softness of her bottom lip. “I can save you.”
Chapter 16
Skyler
They fell asleep in a tangle of limbs and crisp white Egyptian cotton. After Rob had let down his walls and invited Skyler in, they hadn’t said much.
They didn’t need to.
They’d taken turns in the bathroom, brushing teeth and getting ready for bed, then, when he’d grabbed a few pillows and motioned to carry them over the chaise lounge, she’d reached for him.
Tears pricked her eyes as she grabbed his arm and pleaded with him not to go. This was their final night together, and she wanted it to last. She wanted him for the whole night.
He’d resisted at first, worried about having another dream, especially since he’d just talked about the demons that possessed him once he closed his eyes, but she wouldn’t back down. She had demons too, dreams that plagued her, that haunted her. Who better to understand than someone who went through the same thing? Who knew what it was like to wake up in a cold sweat, your throat raw and voice hoarse from screaming so hard in your sleep while the world around you didn’t feel quite as real as the one in your mind?
She’d pulled him on top of her, spread her legs and wrapped them around his waist. His head fell to her breast, and she stroked his hair until his breathing evened out. He was a heavy force on top of her, but it felt good.
Eventually, she rolled him off her, and she expected him to pull away and roll over to his own side, but he didn’t. He cuddled up right against her, his big, muscular arm draped across her midriff, his head on her shoulder and his leg draped across her hers.
And the man could snore.
Holy hell, could the man snore.
It’d taken Skyler a while to fall asleep. Partially because she enjoyed the quiet moment when she could admire Rob without him being aware, run her fingers down his back and through his hair, around the shell of his ear and across the nape of his neck. But also because a million thoughts paraded through her mind.
Thoughts about Nico, her mother, Pierre Rubio, the Petralia family, her new family, her father and, of course, Rob. With him so close, and his snoring so loud, it was hard not to think about him.
Their time together had been so short, yet so intense. A concentrated version of a normal relationship. If you could call it that.
He certainly wasn’t calling it that.
But it was something.
Something special. At least to her.
She hadn’t opened up to a man—to a person—in such a long time, and yet Rob had been so easy to trust. He made her feel safe, cared for and, for the first time in forever, normal. They’d jumped into bed together, faced death and were now on the run for their lives, and they hadn’t even known each other a week. And yet, she felt like she knew him better than she’d known Nico.
Nico never would have let her in the way Rob had. Torn down his walls, revealed his truth and allowed himself to be vulnerable. But Rob did.
Rob had shown her that trust went both ways. She trusted him with her life, and he trusted her with his past, his fears, and the things that haunted him.
That had to count for something. That had to mean that she meant more to him than just a no-strings fling. He didn’t strike her as the type who just opened up to anybody.
Could they have a future together? Was their brief time together enough to forge something deeper than the damsel in distress and her valiant knight in shiny yellow board shorts? She certainly felt more for him than just gratitude for saving her. She felt a connection, a pull.
She didn’t want to try to fix him or change him. But she did want to show him that despite all the evil in the world—because, let’s face it, they’d both seen their fair share—there was still a lot of good. And Rob was proof of that. He was a good man. He might not think he had a soul anymore, but she knew differently. He also had a heart, and he was proving to her with each passing day, each passing moment that they spent together, that his heart was as big as they came.
His arm shifted where it was draped across her middle, and his large, capable hand came to rest on her belly.
A flutter of something akin to hope made ribbons of warmth swirl through her abdomen. She bet Rob would make an incredible father. Protective and patient, fun and hands-on. She’d never really spent any time around children, never really thought about having her own. She figured she would one day, because that was what most people did, but she’d never daydreamed about a baby in her arms or a child’s hand wrapped around her finger.
Until now.
For a brief moment, in the dark, with nothing but Rob’s deep breathing and roaring snore, she imagined what it would be like to have a belly swollen with Rob’s child inside. Would he lay next to her with his hand just like it was now and talk to the babe? Would he wait for the little one to kick?
Did Rob want children?
After everything he witnessed, everything he’d been through, she couldn’t blame him if he didn’t want to bring more life into this world. He’d seen the darkest depths of hell on earth. She couldn’t even imagine the thoughts and memories that plagued him daily.
A whimper came from the man strewn across her, and his face contorted into one of discomfort, one could even say agony.
Was he about to have another nightmare?
She braced herself for what could come next. Her hand fell to the top of his head, and she stroked. Down the back to his neck and around his ears. His face softened, his mouth relaxed and his brows unfurrowed.
He even smiled.
His hand rubbed her belly, and he smiled again, nestling in closer to her.
Skyler let out a sigh of relief, shut her eyes and finally fell asleep.
They were both still asleep when Rob’s phone rang on the nightstand.
Merde. She needed more sleep. Sex with the sexy SEAL behind her was exhausting. She stretched like a sleepy feline, parts of her body tingling and aching from Rob’s endless attention last night.
Sex with the SEAL was exhausting, but oh so satisfying. A grin crept on to her face as the memories of how Rob had taken her again and again and again flooded in.
He groaned and shifted against her. That’s when she felt the smooth, hard length of his morning wood jerk against her thigh.
“Your phone or mine?” he murmured, not bothering to move, but instead grinding his pelvis against her thigh.
“Yours.” She chuckled. “Nobody has my number. Could be Tate.”
“Right,” he drawled, rolling away from her and grabbing his phone. She let her lashes flutter open and could see his erection pitching a pretty impressive tent in the sheets as he punched the call button and put the phone to his ear. “Yeah?”
A moment later, Tate’s voice filled the room. “Am I on speaker?”
“Yeah,” Rob grunted, sitting up and knuckling sleep from his eyes.
“Hi, Tate,” Skyler said.
“Hey.”
“The plane on its way to the airport in Mataram?” Rob’s hand drifted beneath the sheet and he scratched himself. Skyler gave him a look, but he simply grinned and shrugged.
Oh, he was comfortable with her all right.
“Not quite,” Tate said, frustration in his tone. “Seems we’ve run into a bit of a problem. Wind conditions won’t allow the plane to land in Mataram. Runway has debris on it, and they don’t expect to have it cleared in time. The plane had to land in Denpasar.”
“The plane’s in Bali?” Skyler asked, sitting up to join Rob at the headboard.
“Yeah. It’s waiting for you guys. I’ve procured one of the fast boats for you. It’ll pick you up from the dock in two hours, take you to Bali, and then you need to grab a cab to the Denpasar airport.”
Skyler grabbed her phone off her own nightstand to check the time. It said it was eight o’clock. The boat was grabbing them in two hours. It was a three-hour fast boat trip to Bali; they’d be there by roughly one o’clock, hopefully in the air by three. Her heart rate picked up at the thought of meeting her brothers, at the thought of being truly safe, once and for all.
But then her eyes fell to Rob, and the long, strong length of his naked body beneath the sheet, and not only did her heart rate continue to quicken, but her chest ached. They’d be saying goodbye as soon as she landed on Moorea. His job would be over; so would their time together.
Suddenly she wasn’t so sure she wanted to take the fast boat. She wasn’t so sure she wanted their time together to end.
“We also figured out how Rubio found out where you are,” Tate said over the phone. “Social media.”
“Same way I found her,” Rob said.
“Those tourists on the snorkel boat, as well as the captain and his crew member, posted to Instagram and Facebook all about the naked, shipwrecked Bules, as they called you.”
“That means common white person in Bahasa,” Skyler said with a groan. She should have known. How could she have been so stupid? Were any of them truly naked pictures? Surely Tate would say something if they were.
“Yeah, well, you’re all over social media. A couple of properly searched hashtags, and up you popped with date, time and location.”
“Fuck,” Rob grumbled. “I should have known.”
“We both messed up,” Skyler said, resting her hand on his thigh.
“Just get to Bali,” Tate said, ignoring their self-chastising. “The plane is waiting for you.”
“Okay.” She was grateful that she had people in her life who cared for her so much. People she’d never even met. She’d have to figure out a way to repay them.
Skyler grabbed her phone and began searching for images of her and Rob on social media.
Please, don’t let there be any naked pictures. Please, please, please.
“Let us know when you get to Kuta, and then we can go from there,” Tate said.
“Skyler’s passport was taken,” Rob said. “All of them.”
She almost forgot. She had no way to flee the country even if she wanted to. Whoever had ransacked her place had taken all of her fake identities.
“We’ll get it sorted,” Tate said. “Listen, I gotta go. Let me know when you’re in Kuta.”
“Will do,” Rob said.
“’Kay, bye.”
Rob hung up before Skyler could thank her brother. She glared at Rob, but he ignored her narrowed brows and instead scooped her up into his arms and carried her off toward the bathroom.
“Where are we going?” she asked, a giggle bubbling up in her chest as she looped her arms around his neck.
“The shower. You’re a dirty girl, and we need to get you clean.”
Her smile hurt her face.
It was an uneventful but choppy boat ride across the small span of water between the sister islands of Bali and Lombok. Three hours spent cuddled up under a blanket, because the air-conditioning on the boat had been hiked up to eleven, while episodes of The Simpsons played on a big flat screen near the bow.
Turned out Tate had paid for the entire boat. There was seating for roughly fifty passengers, but her brother wanted them to get to Bali ASAP and without any detour or hassle, so he’d worked his billions and hired an entire boat just for Skyler and Rob.
They arrived on Bali just after one o’clock, and the moment their feet hit the wooden dock, Rob had been a ball of nerves. The intensity and strength of his grasp on her hand shot an ache up Skyler’s arm. He wasn’t letting her go for anything.
“I’m starving,” she said, taking in the boardwalk littered with restaurants, tourist shops and kayak and paddleboard rentals.
Was he grinding his teeth?
“Can we stop for a second?”
A grunt was all she got.
“Please?”
“No. We need to get a move on.” His eyes darted around the area. “I don’t like this. Whoever broke into your cabin could be following us. They took your passports, took your computer. They’re on to you. Who knows who they’ve paid off for information? Who knows if they’ve hidden a tracker in your bag? You are not safe until you are on that plane and it’s in the air.”
Skyler’s stomach rumbled. He was right, of course, but that didn’t mean she still wasn’t frustrated … or hangry.
His fingers tightened around hers, and he pulled her along the boardwalk. “We need to find a cab to take us to the airport.”
“I think there are a bunch lined up over there near the end of the kiosks.”
He grunted and hauled her even faster toward the blue row of taxis.
The day was overcast and the wind warm but mighty. No wonder the plane was having issues taking off. If the headwinds were anything like what was happening down on the beach, she didn’t expect their plane to be taking off anytime soon.
She hadn’t spent any time in Bali. She’d flown to Mataram on Lombok from Bangkok and then took the boat with Ibrahim over to Gili Air. She was a bit bummed that she wasn’t going to get to spend any time on Bali. From what she’d heard, read and could see with her own two eyes, the island was paradise.
She already knew it smelled amazing. Like lotus incense and plumeria.
They made it to the end of the boardwalk where it met the road. She stopped to admire a hat in a kiosk, still attached at the hand to Rob as he answered his ringing phone.
“It’s your brother,” he said, zero enthusiasm in his tone.
“I can haggle us a cab,” she said, attempting to untangle her fingers from his. At first, he refused to let go, but when she rolled her eyes at him and huffed, he reluctantly released her.
“Stay where I can see you,” he ordered.
She nodded, taking a step out into the narrow, dilapidated road toward the row of taxis. She was less than twenty feet from Rob. But it was enough. A black SUV with tinted windows and shiny rims pulled up, blocking her view of him.
“Skye!” she heard him call out.
“Rob!” She made to run around it and had almost been successful, getting around to the other side where she could see Rob, but she wasn’t fast enough. Neither was he. His phone was on the ground and he was lunging for her, but the men who had opened the doors of the car were too fast. Two of them grabbed her around the waist and hauled her into the back seat. She kicked and screamed, punched air, made contact with what she was pretty sure was a nose. The car started to move even though she wasn’t fully inside yet and the door was still open. Rob was yelling her name. She called out for him. Screamed and thrashed her body, trying to barrel-roll her way out of her captor’s grasp. A goon swung a gun toward her face. She blocked it.
