perfectly matched for each other?
“So are you goin’ to pull those pistols or whistle Dixie?” Maddy’s voice reached out to him, jerking him from his thoughts.
“What?” He groaned when she scooted back and broke their delicate connection. He mourned the loss of it like he’d mourn the loss of a piece of himself.
“Play the game, Bran,” she teased. “So you can tell me which body part you want kissed next. With no condom…” She let the sentence dangle. Instead of finishing it, she repeated the line, “You goin’ to pull those pistols or whistle Dixie?”
“Too easy,” he told her, his hips swinging forward when she used her nails to graze the supersensitive skin of his shaft. “The Outlaw Josie Wales.”
“Right,” she said and he could hear the sateen side of the sleeping bag whisper against the rough wood floorboards as she changed positions.
Then her hot breath feathered over his swollen crown and he nearly died on the spot. He thought maybe he did die, the little death as the French called it, when her silky tongue darted out to taste him.
“Maddy, s-stop,” he gritted, catching her sweet face between his hands and forcing her maddening mouth away from him.
“Why?” Her voice was so low he had to strain to hear it above the gentle whir of the lighthouse motor spinning overhead.
“I wanna be inside you the next time I come,” he said. He’d gotten a look at heaven, at what it could be like to join himself to the woman he loved, and now nothing else would do.
“But we don’t have a con—”
“Get dressed,” he told her, pushing to his feet. “We’re switching places with Mason and Alex. There are condoms on the sailboat. And bonus: There’s light on the sailboat. ’Cause, Maddy, when I make you come with my cock, I wanna see you.”
In typical Maddy form, she made his heart swell and a smile pull at his lips when she said, “Well, when you put it that way…”
* * *
11:21 p.m.…
“We have a problem.”
Tony squeezed the satellite phone so hard the casing made an ominous crackling sound. “For fuck’s sake, Rory!” he bellowed, his breath strangling in his lungs. “Again?”
“Hey!” Rory yelled back so loud that Tony had to hold the receiver away from his ear. “You’re the one who screwed the pooch on this deal and didn’t know there would be some sort of security contingent traveling with Miss Powers. I’m just trying to clean up the mess your poor Intel has gotten us into.”
Tony didn’t point out that there was no way he could have known Maddy had hired bodyguards and that four of Rory’s guys had been bested by two no-names. Playing the blame game wasn’t going to do either of them any good. So he blew out a deep breath and asked as calmly as he could, “What’s happened now?”
Little white lights were blinking in his field of vision. Either he was ten seconds away from having a stroke, or that was his future…his fortune slipping away in front of his eyes.
“I had my men in the water ready to climb the outer seawall of the fort when I picked up a radio transmission from the Coast Guard on the open channel. They arrived earlier than expected.”
“Shit.”
“My guys hung around for a bit, waiting to see if they might get an opening. But the Coast Guard didn’t waste any time loading everyone on the island onto the cutter—and that includes the two bodies.”
“Shit, shit, shit!” This time Tony didn’t squelch the urge to hurl his highball glass against the bulkhead. To his fury, it didn’t shatter. Simply made a thumping sound before hitting the deck and rolling under the teakwood coffee table.
Will nothing go my way tonight?
“Cool your jets,” Rory said, and if Tony wasn’t mistaken, there was a note of smugness in his tone. “I’ve got a plan. We can still make this thing work, but it’ll be messy.”
And by messy, Tony knew that Rory meant bloody.
“It’s already messy,” he snarled. “I’m listening.”
“It requires you to pull anchor and bust ass my way.”
“You mean toward the Coast Guard cutter?” Tony asked incredulously.
“Sort of,” Tony said, then proceeded to lay out his scheme.
Tony walked over to the little side bar on shaky legs and poured himself a stiff drink with trembling hands. Straight scotch. No soda. He needed some pure, high-octane liquid courage if he was going to help Rory implement this last-ditch effort.
* * *
11:31 p.m.…
“This might seem like a crazy question,” Alex