Once I got her settled, I got dressed and did a quick survey of the surrounding area. There was still no sign of trouble, which meant I figured I could afford to give Hadley an extra hour of sleep. I spent that time finishing up the water in my canteen andrefilling it before eating a couple protein bars, staring at her the entire time. It was a sight I’d never grow tired of. Not in a million years. Hadley was my salvation, the prize I earned for the shit I had to do in the Army. And nobody was going to take her away from me. Unfortunately, that meant I needed to wake her up and get us back on the trail so we could get the hell out of this jungle.
I gently shook her shoulder, bending down to whisper in her ear. “Sorry, precious, but we gotta go.”
Her eyes popped open, and she blinked up at me a couple times before sitting up. The first thing she did was look down and laugh when she noticed she was dressed. “Holy crap, I really must have been zonked out.”
I’d said it before, and I’d say it again—she was too fucking adorable. “I told you that you needed the sleep.”
“Nobody likes a know-it-all,” she complained, getting to her feet and dusting the dirt off her lush ass.
I chuckled at her annoyance, earning myself a dirty look. “Not quite true since you like me.”
She tried to hold her glare, but her lip curled up on the sides and her eyes filled with humor. “Didn’t you say something about us needing to leave?”
My heart filled with pride again at her acceptance of the situation as I reached out for her hand and she placed it in mine. “Let’s go.”
We headed back into the jungle, hand-in-hand, with a long way to go before we were safe.
8
HADLEY
It felt like we’d walked to the ends of the Earth by the time we stopped to rest for more than five minutes. The sun had set. The moon had risen and sunk again. And the sun was high in the sky once again. Brecken had walked beside me the entire way. Until he stopped and gestured for me to get behind him as he hunkered down on the ground, deep in the foliage, knees bent while he dug through his pack. Not a single word was spoken as we drank from the canteen and each ate another protein bar. A quick peek inside his pack revealed his seemingly endless stash of them was almost entirely exhausted. Only two bars remained, and I was nervous about what this meant for our journey.
The idea of going hungry again after my experience with my captors scared me so much I almost couldn’t swallow the bar I was eating, but I forced myself to choke it down and trust in Brecken. He hadn’t steered me wrong yet, and I’d already displayed my faith by having sex with him under the waterfall. Thinking about how it felt to have him move inside me soothed my nerves, shifting my focus away from my fears while I relived one of the best moments of my life.
“Here’s the plan.” Brecken’s voice, as soft as it was, startled me out of my thoughts and made me jerk. “My team should be here in the next thirty minutes or so. They’ll arrive by chopper,”—he pointed towards an opening in front of us about fifty feet away—“landing right there.”
The point where he’d pointed didn’t seem big enough for a helicopter to land. “Are you sure it’ll fit?”
Brecken flashed me a quick grin. “As certain as I was that I’d fit inside your tight pussy.”
I slapped his arm, covering my mouth to stifle my laughter since I didn’t think I could laugh as quietly as we were talking.
“Sorry, I couldn’t resist.”
He didn’t sound the least bit sorry, but that was okay with me because his joke lightened the moment. “Uh-huh, sure you are. I’ll remember that the first time you open the door for athat’s what she saidjoke.”
“I’m looking forward to it.” The humor drained from his face, his expression turning serious again. “We need to stay hidden while we wait. I want you to rest, and I’ll keep watch. The ground won’t be very comfortable, but I can’t hold you on my lap out here because I need to be ready for anything.”
My head swiveled as my gaze darted around us. “Do you think we’re in danger here?”
“We’re a good distance away from the kidnappers, and I haven’t seen any signs of them tracking us here. But that doesn’t mean we’re in the clear and the chopper is going to attract attention from anyone nearby.”
“Okay, I’ll be ready too,” I whispered.
Brecken tilted my chin up with one long finger, staring me straight in the eyes. “I need you to rest, to gather your strength in case anything goes wrong when they get here. If this goes sideways, I need to know you’ll be able to make a run for the chopper while I cover your back.”
“No,” I gasped, shaking my head. “I’m not going to make a run for safety and leave you behind.”
This time his smile was blinding. “That’s my precious girl.” He dropped a kiss on my lips, pulling away to whisper against my mouth. “All the training in the world didn’t prepare me for you. If you’re in the line of fire, my concentration will be for shit. The best thing you can do for me is haul ass for the chopper and trust me to get us both out of here safely. Can you do that for me, Hadley?”
“Yes.” It was the only acceptable answer because it was what he needed to hear from me. But if the opportunity came for me to do more? Well, that was something we could argue about later.
We settled in for the wait, me with my back to a tree and Brecken directly in front of me. He was alert, his head turning to scan our surroundings every few minutes and one of his guns at the ready. It gave me too much time to think. As we sat in silence, my nerves found something else to focus on—what was going to happen next. Brecken had been hired by my dad, but I wasn’t sure I was ready to go back home. To face him and the role he played in what had happened to me. He’d let me rot in that hellhole for two weeks before sending Brecken in to save me. I was already pissed at him because of the whole arms dealing thing, and the situation took my anger to new heights. I didn’t know how we were going to move past this.
Then there was Brecken. I’d given him my virginity, but no promises were exchanged between us. It would be crazy for me to think he wanted a real relationship with me. This might not be anything more than a heat of the moment thing for him. I wanted to pretend it was only that for me, but it wasn’t. If it had been anyone other than Brecken who had rescued me, things would have gone differently. The circumstances behind us meeting might have lowered my inhibitions and made meact out of character, but only because the attraction was already there between us. I’d never felt the same pull towards another guy, and I didn’t think I ever would. Our relationship started under intense circumstances, but I wanted it to last. There was no way for me to know if Brecken wanted the same thing unless I asked him.
I gathered up my courage and lifted an arm to grip his arm. “Brecken,” I started, only for him to interrupt.
