Mercenary’s Promise Read online

  And that simple fact was what made the future too painful to contemplate. When he found out what she’d done. The lies she had told. The money she didn’t have.

  He’d see the real Bethany, and he’d hate her. She’d never have him again. Never have that feeling again.

  The thought made her heart hurt. She curled into a ball.

  She had no choice. Not if she wanted to free Samantha. She pressed a hand against her sternum, pushing the pain down.

  “You okay?” Xavier asked. He squeezed her shoulder.

  She looked up. “You’re awake.”

  He kissed her forehead in a way that was now familiar and decidedly Xavier. “I am.”

  “We should go,” she said. “Veron will be looking for us as soon as the sun is up.” If they didn’t leave, she’d find herself on her back again. While her body wanted him, she wasn’t sure her heart could take it.

  Xavier curled a strand of her hair around his finger and pulled her to him. “In a minute.”

  Her gaze traced his hand, worked its way up his arm to his eyes.

  “Do you know what I want?” he queried.

  She did, and there was no time. Still, she found herself inhaling his scent and unable to pull away. “What do you want?”

  Rolling onto his back, he pulled her with him until she was astride his hips, his erection between her legs. “This.”

  He skimmed her sides with his palms then drew patterns with his fingertips. Her insides melted and she wanted him, guilty conscience be damned.

  She’d deal with that later.

  Leaning forward, she flattened her hand over his heart. They stared into each other’s eyes until she blinked, unable to stand the intensity of his gaze.

  She was a fool.

  “Bethany.” He pulled her forward, taking her nipple in his mouth and biting it just enough to make her breath catch.

  He bit harder, one hand weaving through her hair to keep her from pulling away, making her jump.

  “Xavier.” Tossing her hair from her face, she grabbed for his pack. “Where the hell are those water holders?”

  Beneath her, he laughed. “Front pocket. In a hurry?”

  “Me?” One-handed, she unzipped the pocket and felt inside.

  “You.” He smiled up at her.

  She touched a familiar plastic square. Pulling out a condom, she sat up.

  Xavier grinned up at her. “You’re on top. I guess that makes you in charge.”

  “I guess it does.” Bethany bit her lip and placed a hand on each side of Xavier’s thighs, leaning back. “Touch me.”

  He traced a path from her knee to her thigh then stroked her wetness, sending a ripple through her muscles.

  “Oh, God,” Bethany groaned. This was a bad idea. She wasn’t in control, and they both knew it.

  He stroked her again and again and the ripples grew and expanded until her muscles shook.

  Then Xavier shifted beneath her, and before she could protest, she found herself on her back again. “You never said what I had to use to touch you,” Xavier whispered in her ear and kissed his way down her torso.

  “Oh, hell,” she muttered watching as he parted her thighs.

  He glanced up at her, grinning. His eyes fixed on hers, he stroked her with his tongue.

  The climax that tore through her was immediate and hard.

  She bit her hand to keep from crying out and tried to twist away. It was too much. But Xavier held her hips, forcing her to remain still while her orgasm washed over her in what felt like never-ending waves.

  Just when the ecstasy became painful to bear, he let her go and slid up her body. The familiar sound of a condom opening made her hold her breath in anticipation, and seconds later, he was inside her, his hands touching her everywhere. She closed her eyes and reveled in the weight of him and the shifting of muscles beneath his skin. The way he held her tight, keeping them as close as possible. The whispered words of Spanish that needed no translation.

  He slowed, his muscles contracting as Bethany’s hips tilted higher. His hands fisted in her hair, and he groaned against her neck as his body spasmed. Finally, he relaxed, keeping his weight on his forearms while he looked down at her, smiling.

  Bethany skimmed his back with her nails, tickling the skin. Some days, she loved being a woman. “Good morning.”

  Chuckling, Xavier raised his head and kissed her. “Good morning.” Still inside her, he stared down at her. His eyes were dark and deep and reached all the way into her heart.

  Oh, yeah, he was going to hate her soon. There was no doubt about that. She wrapped her legs around him, keeping him close and wanting the morning to last forever.

  Chapter 9

  “Hold.” Xavier held up his hand.

  Bethany stopped midstep. The day was more than half over, but she felt as if they’d made little progress through the thick jungle. Crossing the large stream had been difficult with its moss-covered rocks and fast-moving waters, and while there wasn’t brush under the canopy to slow them, there were fallen branches, dead trees and more moss.

  Moss covered everything. A part of her was convinced that if they stopped, it would take root on her.

  “What’s going on?”

  He held his hand up again. “Shh.”

  Was it the damn, tenacious jaguar? FARC?

  Xavier unhooked his pack, and let it slide down his arms to the ground with a small thud. He cupped his ear, amplifying whatever it was that caught his attention.

  Bethany unhooked her pack, setting it next to his. Whatever he heard, it didn’t seem to bode well.

  “Stay here,” he whispered. Dropping to the ground, he wormed his way through the foliage.

  Stay? After being with her for the past few days, did he really think she was the kind of woman who would wait while he went off and acted the alpha male?

  The pitfalls of sex, she realized. Now that he’d made love to her, he wanted to protect her even more. Since they’d left the tent, he’d taken point. Moved slower than they did before. He’d even offered her a hand over the fallen trees.

  Crap. He’d turned her into a girl and not in a good way.

  But she’d never been the helpless damsel, and she wasn’t about to start acting like one. He wanted to be the alpha male? She wasn’t going to let him forget that for every alpha male, there was the alpha female counterpart.

  And that was her. Besides, the thought of him going alone made her shiver. What if something happened to him?

  Bethany sunk to the ground. Keeping back and being careful of her hand, she followed Xavier as he wormed his way over dead leaves and moss-covered rocks.

  He stopped, glanced over his shoulder, frowned and shooed her back.

  She shook her head.

  Go back, he mouthed. Wait.

  No. She held her ground. At least he couldn’t yell at her. Not unless he planned to announce their presence to whatever it was that caught his attention.

  He shook his head in what she was sure was irritation then continued to crawl forward.

  Being careful not to move the foliage around her, she paralleled Xavier. A scarlet and blue beetle scuttled over her hand, and she watched it run away.

  He stopped and she crawled beside him. “Oh, my God,” she whispered. A foot in front of them, the jungle came to an abrupt end and the earth opened up in a crack that ran out of sight.

  As wide as a football field was long, the chasm cut through the mountain. The red rock that colored the sides gave it the appearance of a large wound. Trees and foliage hung from the sides. She spotted the flash of scarlet wings of a macaw in one of the trees on the other side.

  Herida roja? Her heart thumped hard inside her chest with fear and excitement. If she was correct and this was herida roja, then FARC was somewhere on the other side. The question was, how close? Were they a single kilometer away, five or ten? Either way, it was close enough.

  I’m coming, Samantha.

  She followed the edge of the gorge with her eye
s, stopping when she reached a wooden bridge spanning the gorge. Whoever built the structure had done so with the least amount of effort and skill to make it walkable.

  She didn’t care. It could be made of toothpicks held together with yarn and she’d cross it to get to Samantha. She rose to her knees for a better view and found herself jerked back hard enough to taste dirt.

  She yanked her arm from Xavier’s grasp. “What is your problem?”

  As if in answer to her question, two men stepped into view on the other side of the gorge. Dressed in brown pants, tan shirts and carrying what looked like UZIs, they walked the edge of the crevasse, talking and watching.

  FARC sentries.

  Now she noticed the faint sounds of clinking and a murmur that might be more people talking. She looked upward. A smudge of smoke curled a path into the sky.

  They weren’t just close to the FARC camp. They were across from it. She couldn’t have planned it better with a compass.

  Her heart pounded harder, so loud in her ears she was sure the men across the river heard it, as well. They’d found the camp where her sister was being held. For a moment, she forgot to breathe.

  Xavier tapped her shoulder, motioning her to leave. In tandem, they pushed themselves backward until they were again with their packs and could stand with little chance of being discovered.

  “What the hell was that about?” Xavier demanded. “Are you trying to get us caught?”

  Bethany’s cheeks burned with embarrassment. She should have been more observant. Xavier counted on her to be as smart and savvy as she claimed to be. Instead, she’d allowed herself to become lost in her thoughts of Samantha. “It won’t happen again.”

  “Damn straight, it won’t.”

  Bethany crossed her arms over her chest. She knew that tone and that look, and she was not having this conversation for what felt like the hundredth time. “You just can’t let it go, can you?”

  He opened his mouth to answer, and she held up her hand. “Don’t bother,” she said, trying to head off the argument before it even began.

  “I want you to wait. We both know it’s for the best.”

  “You’re not leaving me here. I am not waiting while you rescue Samantha. None of that is going to happen. So don’t even try to push it.”

  “Okay,” he agreed.

  That was too easy.

  He continued, “At least you wait here while I find a way across. I don’t want any more screwups. Not this close to their camp.”

  While he looked for a way across? The bridge was out of the question, what with FARC guarding the rim of the gorge.

  Which meant he’d have to hike until he found a place to cross. She knew that if she let him leave, the next time she would see him, he’d be on the other side.

  Did he really think she was that gullible?

  She bit her tongue, forcing herself to remain calm. “I’m going with you.”

  “No. You’re not.”

  She cared for Xavier, and her feelings grew deeper the more she learned. She wasn’t going to deny that, not even to herself. But Samantha was her sister, and it would take more than a budding romance and one night and morning of lovemaking to keep her from participating in the rescue. Besides, she’d come too far and sacrificed too much to wait on the sidelines.

  She’d waited long enough.

  “Unless you tie me up, yes I am.”

  For a moment, Xavier looked tempted. He took a step toward her.

  Bethany flattened a palm against his chest and looked up at him, daring him to try. “Leave me and I’ll try to cross the bridge,” she dared. “I swear it. My sister is on the other side of that gorge and I’m not going to wait here like a good little girl while she needs me.”

  “You’ll slow us down.”

  “Us?” She flicked her gaze from side to side to make her point. “I don’t see anyone here but you and me.”

  “Sebastian and Tomas will be here. Today or tomorrow.”

  “Whatever.” She didn’t care if the entire Colombian army marched behind him, she was going, and no one, not even Xavier, was taking this from her. “She won’t go with you,” Bethany claimed. “Not without me.”

  “She will.”

  “Are you willing to take that chance? Can you take that chance? She might raise a fuss and then you’d be caught.”

  “I would not be caught.”

  “What if you are?” Bethany asked. “You wouldn’t be held hostage. I think you’d be made into an example.”

  Xavier didn’t respond, and she realized his own sense of safety was the wrong way to go if she wanted to convince him to take her—again. He wasn’t a man who worried about himself. He worried about others. He was a good man. The best man she knew. But what made him strong also made him vulnerable and gave her ammunition.

  “You might not care if you live or die, but I go with you or no cash. No Eva. That was the deal.”

  Bitch.

  He didn’t call her a bitch, but the way he looked at her—jaw clenched and eyes hard as stone—said it for him.

  “This is as good a place as any to cross.” Xavier dropped his pack from his back. They’d hiked along the gorge for three hours, but there wasn’t another bridge to be found and they were losing time that they didn’t have.

  He hadn’t said anything to Bethany, but with the Colombian army so close, FARC would be moving the hostages soon. In fact, he was surprised they hadn’t done so already.

  Give the terrorists another day and it would be all over. Samantha would be gone and he’d lose Eva, as well.

  “How do we manage that? Fly?” Bethany asked. She walked toward the edge of the gorge, stopping a few feet away. A few hundred feet down, the white water echoed up the sides and a strong wind tossed her dark hair around her shoulders. Gathering the mass, she plaited it into a quick braid.

  It was a simple, unconscious movement but it was those graceful, innate gestures that drew him to Bethany. Opened up pieces of him that he’d never bothered with before. Not that he hadn’t wanted to, but there was never time. The little things she did made him want to make the time. The way she rolled her eyes when she thought he was wrong. The way her nose wrinkled when she glared at him, which was often.

  Now this. Long hair, flying like water, and her strong hands, taming the strands.

  Dammit, he wanted to stay angry with her. So far, that seemed to be impossible, when she was trying so damn hard.

  During the hike, she’d teased him. Cajoled. Talked. Tried everything to jolly him. A part of him admired her tenacity and cheered it with an enthusiasm he couldn’t show.

  God help him, he was falling in love with the pain-in-the-ass and there was no way he could stay angry. Not knowing that.

  She turned to him, hair in a messy braid, sun on her skin, and as much as she didn’t like the jungle, looking like she was in her element. Unzipping his pack, he pulled out his longest length of rope and its thrower.

  “What’s that?” she asked, walking over.

  “Line thrower.”

  “That’s the name?”

  He cocked his head and looked at her. He might not be angry any longer but it didn’t have to mean he’d let her off the hook that easily. “That’s what it does. Throws a line.”

  She shrugged. “It’s kind of dull.”

  “What do you suggest?”

  “The Zippy 3000?”

  “Nope. Just line thrower.” He untied his rifle and clipped the thrower to the top. “Besides, if we changed it we’d have to rename everything,” he teased with a smile.

  She hesitated then smiled back. “We could call the rifle the Bullet Bringer,” Bethany suggested.

  He liked the idea but there was no way he was going to admit it. “Let’s not.” Xavier tied the end of the rope to the ring on the end of the spearhead.

  “What are we doing?” Bethany prompted.

  He didn’t miss her emphasize on the “we” and let it go. “This goes into a tree on the other side, takin
g the line with it. When it’s embedded, I yank the rope, the edges of the spear head slide out, locking it in.”

  She licked her lips, eyes dilated so wide that the green was all but lost. “And then we go across?”

  He nodded. Was she scared? Excited? “Yes.”

  “Climbing?”

  Climbing hand over hand was a helluva lot harder than it looked. It was even worse on a rope at three hundred feet. “There are rollers in the bag,” he said. “We zip-line across.”

  “That’s a long way across and a long way down,” she noted, looking past him.

  When she turned back, her skin was as pale as paper, giving him his answer.

  “Are you sure you can do this?” Xavier asked. If she panicked during the crossing, they were both screwed and taking her across in tandem with him wasn’t an option. The line wouldn’t hold their combined weight. “Once you start, you can’t stop.”

  “I’m going,” she snapped back, her jaw tight.

  “I didn’t ask you not to,” Xavier commented, his voice flat.

  She raised her stubborn chin at him. “I’ll be fine.”

  Stubborn pain-in-the-ass. He returned to prepping the gear. He didn’t argue because there wasn’t a point. Hell, she was worse than Eva, and he hadn’t thought that was possible.

  Eva. He clenched his hands into fists. He hated being helpless when it came to his sister. Wished he didn’t have to take Bethany’s money.

  Others took money for rescue and mocked him for taking just enough to cover expenses. Now, he’d taken more and even though it was for Eva, it didn’t feel good.

  Inside, he felt as if he’d become the mercenary that people thought he was.

  “Let’s do this.” Xavier handed Bethany the free end of the rope. “Tie this off.”

  She tied the rope to a sturdy tree and then tugged with her full weight to make sure it would hold.

  He nodded in approval then faced the gorge. This was going to be tough. The width of the gorge was at the edge of the range of the line thrower. If he didn’t get a solid hit on a tree, they’d have to go back and use the bridge, which wasn’t an option at all.