“Ready?”
I nodded swiftly.
“I won’t lie to you, the next couple days are going to be tough as hell, but I’m going to get you through this and back home safe and sound.”
Safe and sound was an excellent concept, but I didn’t think a place like that existed for me anymore. I wasn’t sure how much he knew about my dad’s business, so I kept my mouth shut and offered him a weak smile instead.
He turned away from me and placed my hand on his lower back, his body heat warming my hand once again. “Stay right behind me.”
“You’re not about to lose me. I’ll follow you anywhere you take me.”
3
BRECKEN
Blood pumped through my veins at her vow. My brain knew it was motivated by my rescue of her, but my cock didn’t give a damn why she’d said it. He wanted her to follow him straight to the nearest flat surface. I glanced at the ground and shook my head. Or vertical would work. A tree was something I could work with if I leaned back on it so the bark couldn’t damage her skin. I caught myself considering a tree about twenty feet ahead of us when I realized what I was doing.
Down boy!I needed to get my head out of her panties and back on the mission before she paid the price for my distraction. Once she was safe, I could think about making her mine. After I made sure she was comfortable—checked over every delectable inch of her body to make sure she hadn’t sustained any serious injuries, got some much-needed water into her and gave her as much food as she could handle. She was still a fucking knockout, but she’d lost enough weight since she’d been taken that it was clearly visible. Her cheekbones were more pronounced and her tits weren’t nearly as full as they’d been in the photo her dad had given me. The same picture I carried with me because I couldn’t bear to let go of it.
Shoving the raging desire I felt for Hadley down, I trekked forward. There was no sign they’d detected her disappearance from the camp yet, but I couldn’t bank on our luck holding much longer. We needed to put as much distance between us and them as possible. I felt like shit for doing it, but I set a grueling pace which I knew would be hard for Hadley even if she’d been one hundred percent. I heard her breathing quicken behind me, but she didn’t offer a word in protest and kept her hand wrapped tightly in my shirt.
We made it about a mile before I heard her muttering underneath her breath, reciting the periodic table. The check I’d done on her had revealed she was a chemistry major, biochemistry to be more specific. A little bit of extra digging had uncovered her intention to make her career in cancer research. If my reaction to her photo had been strange, the pride I felt about her life goals was even odder. Respect for her desire to help others would have made sense, but what I’d felt was deeper than that. It was similar to the reaction I was having to how she was handling our march through the jungle. My precious girl was one hell of a woman.
Another half mile later, Hadley stumbled. I stopped and turned to make sure she was okay. She managed to stay upright, but I could tell she wasn’t going to be able to make it much further. When she waved me on, letting me know she was fine, I marched forward once again but at a slower pace. I kept an eye out for a good place to rest and heaved a deep sigh of relief when I spotted a fallen tree trunk on the ground fifteen minutes later.
“We need to take a break,” I explained, leading her to the spot and helping her sit down.
“I know I do,” she sighed. “But I’m pretty sure you’re part robot and could keep walking forever.”
Her eyes were lit with humor and held a hint of female appreciation as she looked up at me. Her skin was shiny withsweat, her face bright red from the heat and exertion, bug bites were visible on her hands and neck and yet she sat there cracking jokes. My heart swelled with that unfamiliar feeling once again.Had there ever been a more perfect woman to walk this Earth than Hadley?It was hard for me to imagine there was.
I dropped my pack to the ground and dug through it for supplies. “There were many occasions when I was in the Army when being part robot would have been a big help.”
“You were in the Army?” She laughed lightly, looking surprised by my response.
“Yeah.” I kept my answer simple, not wanting to get into what I did during my time there. The training I’d received and the missions I’d gone on provided me with invaluable experience that I was putting to good use with my company, but I didn’t want the things I saw and did back then to touch Hadley in any way.
She took the canteen I held out with a shaky hand, drinking from it greedily. “Slow down,” I murmured, wrapping my fingers around the hand holding the canteen and moving it away from her plump lips. “If you drink too quickly, you’ll get sick.”
“Crap, sorry,” she muttered. “I know better, but it’s been too long since I’ve tasted anything so good. I promise I’ll slow down.”
Her free hand came up to gently pry my fingers away, and I wanted to complain at the lost contact. Her skin was chilled, and I wanted to strip her out of the clothes I’d brought her and warm her up the best way I knew how—with as much direct skin-to-skin contact as possible. With her naked body writhing against mine. When I handed her a protein bar from my pack, the look on her face made me feel like a monster for letting my little head do the thinking and delaying, even for a minute, getting some food into her stomach when she was starving. Literally starving,judging from the way her eyes lit as though I’d conjured up a lobster tail, which I knew was her favorite meal since I’d left no stone unturned when it came to finding out as much about her as I could. The protein bars I’d brought weren’t the best tasting, but her little moans as she slowly ate it told me how much she appreciated the meal, such as it was.
“I should have brought some MREs with me.” Hadley cocked her head and raised an eyebrow questioningly, still chewing on the last bite she’d taken. Perched on a tree trunk in the middle of the jungle, she still managed to have the manners of a princess. With each passing minute, I was more determined to get her out of this jungle and back home where I could treat her like one.
“Meals ready to eat,” I explained. “Not that they taste any better than the protein bars, they’re worse actually, but at least they’d give you the illusion of eating a meal.”
She swallowed the last bite and beamed up at me, patting her stomach. “As wonderful as you’ve made an MRE sound, I don’t think I could handle one since I’m completely full.”
She was so damn sweet, and it killed me to know the only reason she was full from a fucking protein bar was because they hadn’t fed her enough. Her stomach had to have shrunk a ton over the last two weeks. I didn’t know what else they’d put her through, but I was going to find out soon. First, I needed to know if she could handle a couple more miles. The sun was rising already, light shining through the trees above us and we needed to make more progress before the killer afternoon heat in a few hours.
Sinking to my knees in front of her, I slowly reached one hand out to her knee. She flinched, a reflexive action I tried not to take personally, and then held still. “How are the boots working for you? Not too small? No blisters?”
She jerked her head back and forth but kept her eyes locked on me.
“Do you think you can handle a few more miles?”
She gave me a quick nod in the affirmative, fear and shame still alive in her eyes. I gritted my teeth, holding back the howl of rage which crept up my throat. If I’d brought my sniper rifle with me on this mission, there would be no doubt the guys who’d taken her would have gotten what was coming to them after we’d made it to safety. I tried my best to not let my anger show outwardly, the last thing I wanted to do was scare Hadley any more than she already was.
