Rogue climbed on behind her, his legs and chest pressing against her.
Though his body was warm, a shiver of awareness rippled through her. “You'd better hold on,” she said.
When he wrapped an arm around her waist, she sucked in a sharp breath. She hadn’t had a man’s arm around her for...a long time. It was muscular and solid and stirred something inside her she thought she’d never feel again.
Heat. Desire. Longing.
Before she lost her grip on reality, she revved the engine and shot forward.
The man behind her slid backward a smidge, and the arm around her waist tightened.
For the next forty minutes, she drove, her thoughts more on the man behind her than the danger they had to avoid to uncover the truth behind Senator Morales’s murder.
Keira headed for the hill country, driving through winding roads, deep into the hills. Houses were fewer and further between, and the roads diminished from pavement to crumbling pavement and finally to unkempt gravel roads where trees and brush encroached.
Afraid she’d miss the turn-off, she slowed as she neared a particular curve in the gravel road. She pulled onto a narrow, rutted path only a motorcycle or four-wheel-drive could navigate. By the looks of it, the path wasn’t navigated often. At least that’s how she’d wanted it to appear.
She’d used money she’d acquired on one of her missions to eliminate a drug runner. She’d caught him after he’d made a particularly large sale of meth. He’d killed his own partner to keep all the money for himself. Keira had been there, watching from the shadows when he’d shot his partner in the back. When she’d confronted him, he’d tried to shoot her as well. She’d gotten the drop on him before he could raise his weapon and killed him with a single throw of her knife.
She’d taken the bag of money. When Viktor had asked about the money, she’d responded with an arched eyebrow, feigning ignorance. She’d reminded Viktor that her mission was to kill the drug runners, not retrieve anything else.
Viktor’s eyes had narrowed, but he hadn’t said anything. Apparently, she’d mastered the poker face, or he’d let her slide. Either way, she’d landed a stash of cash she couldn’t just run out and spend. Instead, she’d acquired fake identification from a contact outside the Onyx network and purchased a property from a prepper who’d moved to Idaho to be with a community of people determined to live off the grid.
Keira had improved what the prepper had started and added her own brand of security to keep random people from squatting or stealing what was hers.
She stopped the motorcycle in a stand of trees. The path appeared to end at that point. They had to go the rest of the way on foot. Not only had she allowed the brush and trees to grow up around the cabin, but she’d encouraged it. She’d also strung a camouflage net over the cabin to make it virtually invisible from above. Drones, aircraft and satellite imaging would be hard-pressed to find it. Anyone who managed to find this path would think it ended there. The random person wouldn’t see the cabin through the brush.
As soon as Keira stopped and cut the engine, Rogue slid off the back and dropped the bags on the ground.
Light from the star-lit night managed to find a way through the leaves and branches of the scrubby live oak trees.
“Are we camping here?” Rogue asked.
Keira dismounted and planted her fists on her hips. “Would you have a problem with that?”
He shook his head. “Not at all. But you did say the place you had in mind runs off solar power and is well-stocked.”
She nodded. “I did.”
“Yet, you’re hesitating.”
“I am.” She glanced away. “No one knows about this place but me and the man from whom I purchased it.”
Rogue raised his hands. “Your secret is safe with me.”
She snorted. “How do I know that? You’re a stranger. Most men I’ve come into contact with have always taken advantage of me. Why should you be any different?”
“Because I’m not most men.” He stepped closer and took one of her hands. “If it makes you feel better, we can camp here. You don’t have to take me to your secret safe house.”
She stared down at his hand holding hers, her blood thrumming through her veins. She’d come this far. Had trusted him up to this point. All he had to do was walk through the brush, and he’d find the cabin. Hesitating was just delaying the inevitable. She squared her shoulders and met his gaze in the starlight. “Follow me,” she said softly.
Rogue collected their bags and fell in behind her as she pushed her way through the vegetation.
Moments later, she cleared the brush and stood in front of the small cabin, starlight now finding its way through the canopy of camouflage netting.
Built against the side of a hill, the limestone-and-cedar construction sported a front porch with darkened windows shuttered with hurricane-proof metal. The steel door had several heavy-duty locks that made it practically impenetrable. The doorknob was more of a disguise than a functional element. She gripped it, flicked it open and displayed a combination tumbler.
Keira pulled a pen light out of a niche in the cedar doorframe, switched it on and balanced it between her teeth as she twisted the lock left four times, right three, left two and stopped on the final number. The locking mechanism clicked. She turned the knob, and the door opened inward. She stepped inside.
