Off-Roading
Triumph
The pain caused Glennon to hold herself with extreme tension. Just before she went completely lax, all color drained from her face. Concerned, he watched her shallow breathing.
He reached into a cargo pocket and pulled out a bandana. After shaking it out, he poured some water on it from a water bottle on the nightstand and used it to gently wipe the clammy perspiration from her face and neck.
“She’s out,” he said needlessly.
With a grunt, Demon secured the bullet in a small container, then cleaned up the wound again so he could begin stitching her up. “Probably better for this next part anyway.”
By the time Glennon had been closed and bandaged, Steel had returned without the bag, but he carried an armful of bedding. “How’s she doing?”
The medic repacked his backpack. “Passed out right after I removed the bullet. I gave her a little bit of extra sedative so we can move her without causing her too much pain. As long as infection doesn’t set in, she’ll be good.
That wound was open for quite a while, so we’ll just have to cross our fingers. ”
Steel grabbed the backpack he’d left behind earlier in the room.
He threw them each a couple of white cloths.
“I’m gonna start cleanup. Triumph, gather her belongings.
Check everywhere. We can’t leave a single piece of her behind.
After that, you and Demon need to wipe down everything, and I do mean everything.
When we’re ready to move her, you two will get her to the truck, and I’ll take care of the bed.
We’ll take the current stuff with us and find a place to burn it on the way. ”
“Find her phone and snap the SIM card, but don’t throw it out. Put it in the bag with all of her stuff. Everything gets destroyed,” Demon added. “You got the gun?”
“It’s in my bag already.”
“Good.” Steel checked his watch. “Time’s ticking. We’ve got thirty minutes. Make every second count.”
Twenty-eight minutes later, Demon and Triumph were taking Glennon out to the truck. Luckily, they didn’t run into anyone since the hour was so late. Steel had ripped the old linens off the bed, and they made a sort of pallet for her in the bed of the cab. At least it was enclosed from the elements.
“Sorry,” Demon apologized. “Not going to be the most comfortable ride to the airport.”
When he’d gotten on the military-grade plane earlier, he’d been surprised. It was larger from the outside than he anticipated, but inside, space was at a premium. A small, open cockpit with a female pilot he only saw from the back. A row of four seats, two on each side of a narrow aisle.
The surprise was strapped down behind those seats—a beat-up, black pickup with a hard-top bed. On any South American road, from dirt to paved, the outside was deceptively unobtrusive.
But when he got inside the truck upon landing?
While it still appeared to match its outside in many ways, the interior features all actually served dual purposes and hid a lot of technology from the naked eye.
It took a great deal of willpower to turn off his avid, tech-curious brain as Demon shared what he was pretty certain was only the surface of what it could do.
Steel joined them five minutes later, throwing his bag into the back of the truck and hopping into the driver’s seat. He slid the window open between him and the enclosed cab. “Make sure to keep low.”
With that, Steel started up the truck and took off back the way they came.
Triumph lay down on his side next to Glennon, gently sliding an arm underneath her head to create a better pillow for her.
The other hand reached over to smooth her beautiful, dark-brown hair back so the natural waves spilled across his arm.
He especially loved where it shifted to a golden blonde about three inches from the ends.
As he stroked his fingers through the waves of her hair, he found himself wishing he’d met her under different circumstances.
While his friend group was diverse, and he got along with just about everyone, he knew his physical needs were too important to ignore in a relationship.
If he ever did manage to connect with someone he wanted to spend serious time with, she would have to have the same interests, the same needs.
He needed to remember, too, that the odds of Glennon being a woman who wanted the same things he did had to be less than being struck by lightning more than once.
Her years with Guillermo likely included trauma far beyond what he could imagine.
After his lack of success with helping Tilly navigate through her quagmire of issues, much as he wanted to help Glennon, he needed to stay out of something that wasn’t his to deal with.
Not only that, but she’d given a huge chunk of her life to doing what other people wanted.
She deserved to live a life of her own choosing, not to shackle herself, literally or figuratively, to a man who would want to determine every moment of their time together.
Well, not every moment. But definitely control all physical activity.
The swaying of the truck lulled him to sleep, where he disjointedly dreamed of the woman in the red sheath at Shadowlands, only instead of golden-blonde hair and porcelain skin, the woman at his feet wore her long locks, shaded dark to light, atop sun-kissed, tan skin.
This dream woman stared up at him, unglossed lips shiny from licking them in anticipation of taking his cock into her mouth. When his hands slid into her hair, fisting at the roots, she hissed at the sting, but her dilated, hazy eyes told him she welcomed the burn. Wanted to taste him. Desperately.
The dream shifted, and she was stretched out across a flat, hardwood surface, the dark sheen contrasting with her golden glow.
Her back arched as he positioned her ankles on his shoulders, and his hands cupped the cheeks of her ass as he lifted her to a better angle to scrape against all those delightful nerve endings inside her tight walls.
But best of all, when his hand collared her throat and the other smacked her ass cheek, he didn’t hear the breathy sighs and girlish squeals of Poppy.
Instead, she moaned low from the depths of her soul, and she begged for more, harder, please, with a raspy voice that caused gooseflesh across his skin.
She also faced him so he could watch her eyes go hazy with pleasure as he filled her over and over again, driving her to her peak repeatedly until she passed out in his arms.
The dream was incredibly vivid, and when he woke several hours later, he was temporarily disoriented by the rumbling sound of the vehicle in the closed-in space.
It wasn’t until he looked down at the woman whose head he was still cushioning that he realized where he was.
He also had a very uncomfortable erection he now had to try to quell.
No, that wasn’t awkward at all. Good lord.
Had he suddenly reverted to the reactions of a fourteen-year-old?
As his senses came back to him, he also realized what woke him.
Voices. He tilted his head back to see that the window between the cab and the bed was open.
Steel was speaking to Demon, tension clear in the man’s voice, but he couldn’t make out what he was saying other than the occasional swear word in Spanish.
However, he could feel the vehicle was moving faster than it had been before, and it was taking turns a little more wildly.
Something was wrong.
Gently, he dislodged himself from Glennon, careful not to let her head drop too fast from his arm, and careful to not pinch anything vital and do irreparable damage to his dick.
Demon’s voice came through the connecting window between the cab and the bed of the pickup. “Stay down. We’ve picked up a tail. Steel’s going to try to lose them, but this road doesn’t have many options, so it’s going to get bumpy.”
A tail? As in, they were being followed? He felt the first twinge of nerves but refused to let it show in his voice. “Got it.”
“How’s she doing?”
Triumph took another look at the sleeping agent. “Seems fine. I nodded off, and she didn’t thrash around enough to wake me up.”
“That’s good. You still have that gun from earlier?”
“Yes.”
“Know how to use it?”
“Yes. You think that’s likely?”
“I always prepare for the worst. Ever shot anyone before?”
Triumph snorted. “Wasn’t exactly something that happened where I worked. While there were any number of assholes at the NSA I wanted to shoot on a daily basis, I never succumbed to that. However, I’m fully qualified to shoot a gun, and I’m decent at close range.”
Yeah, actually shooting someone? Wasn’t high on his to-do list, but if necessary, he’d defend himself and Glennon, then deal with the psychological fallout afterward.
Steel yelled over his shoulder, “Three miles to the airstrip. Might want to hold her in your lap and then hang on. Gonna take a shortcut in about thirty seconds. Demon, engage the NVG.”
Well, that didn’t sound good.
He’d never been one of those guys who exuded toxicity about men displaying emotions. But like most of his species, he did have a tendency to pack his own shit down deep, then pray that mental suitcase never burst open under pressure. Like now, for instance.
Headlights appeared behind them, and they were gaining fast. His pulse ratcheted up to match the pace of the vehicles.
He loved going fast on his motorcycle, but that was usually on straightaways and curves he could see coming from some distance away.
Not in the dark on a dirt road in the mountains with a sheer cliff face on their left that spelled certain death. Definitely never while being chased.
It looked like he was about to get a full demonstration of the pickup’s capabilities.