Complicate (Deliver 9)

He had a penchant for anal—the strangling tightness, the forbidden nature of it, and the punishing fear it evoked. Just thinking about it made him hard as a rock.

Lydia squeezed his length, acknowledging his body’s reaction. Good for her. If she had any intentions of using sex to manipulate him, she had the wrong guy.

Getting off wasn’t high on his personal agenda. His only priority was protecting the people he cared about, and to do that, he needed to arrive at the destination without crashing.

So he shut down the fantasy, shut out the feel of her hand, and concentrated on navigating the sandy land.

She steered him through the darkness, pointing this way and that. No one could find their way out of this desert without a map or GPS. Except Tomas. But she didn’t falter in her directions.

Given the high-tech bugs in Rylee’s house and the armed drone tracking Matias’ aircraft, he assumed Lydia’s helmet was equipped with the necessary communication equipment to guide her back to civilization.

At last, he reached the main road, the pavement giving him license to open the gas and fly. She tightened her arms around his waist, hugging his back with her entire body as he bent into the wind.

If a cop clocked him for speeding, he would just have to ride faster and outrace the patrolman. He wasn’t stopping for anyone or anything.

His pulse revved with the roar of the engine, the bike vibrating between his legs. For the next hour or so, he didn’t pass another motorist. Vacant fueling stations and diners blurred by. No cop cars in sight.

The dark nothingness pushed his thoughts into dangerous introspection. He had one goal—arrive before twenty-three hundred. Beyond that, he was terrified of what was going to happen.

Torture was barbaric and uncivilized, but it was effective. Whatever these people wanted, he most likely wouldn’t be able to surrender it.

They were going to make him hurt.

Would it be more than he could bear? Probably. Would he survive it? Maybe not. But he’d been trained for this. Trained to put labels on his thoughts and compartmentalize his feelings, all in an effort to gain a sense of control in a situation where he had no control over the process or the pain.

Lydia directed him off the main highway. From there, he took narrow back roads through a desolate wasteland. The few buildings he passed were closed-up and crumbling. The skeletal remains of a ghost town.

He wasn’t familiar with this part of Texas. While it seemed they’d been traveling southward most of the journey, there had been a number of turns, and he didn’t know how much time had passed.

As the clock ticked toward twenty-three hundred, did he have thirty minutes left? Five? None?

The uncertainty pushed him faster, his pulse racing with urgency.

She touched his forearm and motioned to veer right just as a turnoff came into view. It was an entrance to something, the property encircled by a tall, unkempt chain-link fence. The enclosure served more as a boundary marker than a security measure.

Moving closer, he spotted a large industrial building in the distance. No lights or signs of life. Weird.

He sped through an unmanned gate and passed several empty parking lots. The property appeared to be vacant. Until he circled the side.

At least a dozen vehicles sat along an old loading dock. She indicated for him to park there, and the moment he turned off the engine, he yanked off the helmet.

“What time is it?” He twisted, hauling her off the motorcycle with him, hurrying her along. “Call off the strike.”

She reached around him and grabbed the key from the ignition, pocketing it.

His palms slicked with sweat as she removed her helmet. His mouth dried as she shook out her hair, taking her sweet-ass time. His blood pressure climbed as she pulled the tablet from her pack.

“Look at that.” She smiled at the screen, her accent thickening. “Two minutes to spare.”

“We’re here. Call it off.”

Her incisive gaze traveled down his body. “Remove your clothes.”

Lydia held the smile on her face, but inside she felt cold. Merciless. There was no room for anything else. Cole Hartman was a doorway, and she would cut her way through him to reach the other side.

His nostrils flared, and his neck corded, muscles and veins straining against his skin. He planted his boots wide apart, seething, damn near shaking with fury and fear.

Yes, fear. He was a battle-honed tough guy, but he had a weakness. An aircraft full of weaknesses. In his line of work, he knew better than to get attached to people. That was his own fucking fault.

“We had a deal.” He stepped into her space, his rock-hard chest in her face.

Christ, he smelled good. Wild and earthy, like the dusty wind on a dark road. Dangerous and sexy, like the brawn flexing beneath his shirt.