Show No Fear - By Marliss Melton Page 0,54

Cubby by cubby, the rebels searched the bungalow, startling the other team members.

Beside him, Lucy lurched awake. He covered her mouth to stifle her voice. They couldn’t stay here. They needed to flee. “Let’s go!” he rasped. Using Buitre’s knife, the one he kept hidden between the floor and the leafy wall, he slashed a hole for them to escape through unseen. “Go!” he urged, pushing her through it.

With his every sense cranked to high, he intuited his mistake before he saw it with his own eyes.

Slipping through the ragged edges of the sliced wall, he found Lucy struggling in Buitre’s embrace, her eyes wide with terror above the hand that covered her mouth.

“Do you take me for a fool,norteamericano?”

“Let her go,” Gus pleaded, taking a step closer. He froze as Buitre raised his pistol to Lucy’s head, flicking off the safety. “I told her to take the map,” Gus insisted. “I am the spy. She is innocent!”

“Out here, no one is innocent,” Buitre contradicted him, causing goose bumps to spike on Gus’s forearms. “That’s why both of you must die. But you first.”

Without warning, he swung the pistol at Gus and fired.

Bam! The explosive impact rocketed Gus to an upright position. He was relieved to feel his heart galloping in his chest.

Next to him, Lucy placed a steadying hand on his back. “Hey.”

He swallowed against a parched mouth, blinking rapidly to clear his head. Was he okay? He felt like he’d taken a bullet to the chest. It was just a dream, but…What if it was a warning to grab Lucy and flee into the jungle with her?

He lay back down, stiff with lingering horror and uncertainty.

“Bad dream?” she asked him, stroking a comforting hand along his beard-roughened cheek.

He grunted his acknowledgment, but his uneasiness remained. Last night he’d promised Lucy he’d protect her with his life. What if Buitre killed him first?

He couldn’t save her if he was dead.

He wished he hadn’t told Lucy she could stick around. He’d rather err on the side of caution than watch his premonitions become manifest.

Ultimately, the decision would be Whiteside’s. Lucy couldn’t blame him if the station chief made the call to pull her out. Of course, this late in the game, pulling her out could disrupt the negotiation progress. Damn, but the situation was getting sticky, and Gus had a sinking feeling it was about to get even stickier.

CHAPTER 12

Fournier leaned into Gus and Lucy’s cubby the following morning, startling them. “Wake up, sleepyheads. We’re leaving camp in twenty minutes!”

Jarred from a deep sleep, Lucy raised her head to blink at him in confusion.

“Heading where?” Gus rasped, the first to recover.

“Down the mountain,” Fournier called back cheerfully. They listened to him push through the rear flap, stepping out into rain that fell in such a steady downpour it was a marvel their leafy roof didn’t leak.

With a moan of reluctance, Lucy snuggled more deeply in the cocoon of Gus’s arms. It felt too dry and warm under the blankets for her to want to dress in damp clothing and hike down the mountain in the pouring rain. Her aching hip didn’t look forward to the trek, either. She’d rather just stay in bed, in Gus’s embrace, and never leave.

The feel of his hand sliding between her breasts roused her several degrees. At the same time, he pressed his hips to the curve of her bottom, introducing her to his predicament, the result of sleeping naked. Better yet, she’d rather stay in bed and have sex than venture out into a wet monsoon.

Turning her head to glance invitingly back at him, she found his gaze both turbulent and intense. Anxiety bloomed immediately within her.

“Did you sleep okay?” she asked, remembering how he’d lurched from his sleep around midnight.

“Not really,” he admitted. “You?”

“I was until Fournier woke us up.”

The stiff column against her backside couldn’t be ignored. The desire to join with him one more time had Lucy reaching back, stroking his velvet turgidity, then guiding him to her warmth. He entered her with the same serious intensity that was in his eyes. Together they writhed and rocked, milking deep, honest pleasure from their intimacy.

It might be the last time.

The realization pressured Lucy’s chest as she melted around him, savoring each deep thrust until he echoed her bliss, gripping her fiercely to him.

As their breathing slowed and their hearts beat more regularly, he held her tightly in his arms, gazing thoughtfully down at her, his gaze still troubled.

This was the most vulnerable