Chapter One
Isla
Four Weeks Ago.
Port of Santa Cruz de Tenerife.
Canary Islands, Spain.
Watching from my window as the giant boat gently floated toward the docks as if it were drifting instead of being expertly navigated, I fumed.
Kidnapped and locked in a cabin of a luxury yacht simply because I’d been squatting on the outside terraces of a place in C?te d’Azur.
Cap d’Antibes to be exact.
Except it wasn’t simply a place. The five-terraced estate sat perched above the Mediterranean, had fantastic views, and belonged to an infuriating, blond-haired, green-eyed, lethally handsome, former Navy SEAL.
The same SEAL who owned this stupid boat.
Except I didn’t know either of those pertinent facts when I’d swum to the property from an ill-fated sailing trip on a catamaran.
The estate, including the multi-story mansion perched on the top terrace, had been unoccupied.
For almost two months, I’d helped myself to the fruitful garden and pristine pool cabanas.
I’d fished in the sea from the SEAL’s dock, cooked in his outdoor kitchen, slept under the stars on his plush loungers on the pool terrace, and I’d successfully avoided the myriad of security cameras that were all over the estate.
The latter was what the SEAL had a problem with.
Which was how I ended up here. Twenty-four hours and hundreds of miles later, pulling in to a port far from France while locked in an opulent guest cabin on a sixty-five-meter mega yacht.
That and the small issue of a sniper who’d also shown up on the SEAL’s estate right after said SEAL found me picking his lemons.
Neither the sniper nor the ensuing shoot-out had been my fault.
All right, the sniper’s presence was my fault. But he’d only aimed at the SEAL because the SEAL had aimed at me. Bygones. I prided myself on not living in the past, and today wasn’t going to be any different.
Especially not after what a SEAL had done to my body last night.
The memory made me shiver, and traitorous need pulsed between my legs.
Silently reprimanding myself, remembering my anger and the fact that I needed to get out of here—if for nothing else than the sake of my pride—I shouldered my backpack that held everything I owned.
Then, using the paperclips I’d fashioned into a makeshift lockpick and the skills from being raised by a survivalist, I broke out of my cabin.
Less than a minute later, I was a deck below, breaking into the owner’s suite.
Phoenix Erikson.
Or so he’d said.
The lock gave, and I pushed the door open.
Immediately assaulted by his masculine scent, my head swam, and the memory of last night surfaced again. Except this time, it was in torturous detail. Hard biceps, long, strong fingers, heady musk, cruel dominance, and dark commands.
I stupidly sucked in a breath.
Vetiver, citrus, and raw masculine power filled my senses with intoxicatingly addictive danger. The kind of danger I fed off because nothing about me was normal.
I didn’t have a job.
I didn’t have an address.
I didn’t have any money in my wallet.
I had a tactical backpack, a journal, and the skills to live off the land.
And that’s what I did.
I traveled, I explored, I lived.
Life. On my own terms.
Which was why I needed to ignore the scent of a SEAL and how it reminded me of his perfect Cap d’Antibes villa that he didn’t even stay at.
Quickly scanning the huge suite that stretched the entire width of the boat, every inch a lavish expression of wealth, I bypassed the suite’s private balcony that would’ve given me an unobstructed view of the port.
Walking through the bedroom, refusing to look at the bed, I went for the office area and tried the drawers on his desk.
Locked.
Using my makeshift lockpick again, I wondered why a man like him, with all the sophisticated security measures he had on this boat, would have such a simple lock on his desk.
Then the plug turned in the pin tumbler, and the top drawer opened.
Bingo.
The passport and cell he’d taken from me.
I pocketed my passport, then grabbed my cell. Quickly powering it up, I glanced over my shoulder to look out the windows as the boat inched closer to the docks. “Come on, stupid phone.” I was out of time.
The cell came to life, and I typed in a number I knew by heart because it was the only number I’d ever used.
Then I sent a text. Two words.
While I waited a couple seconds, hoping to give the message enough time to go through, I scanned the suite one more time.
Then I deleted the text, wiped the cell’s memory, and dumped it back where I’d found it.
Not bothering to lock his desk drawer, I headed out the way I came, but before I made it to the door, something on the counter in the en suite caught my eye.
I couldn’t stop myself.
Stepping into the bathroom, I grabbed the small glass bottle and shoved it into a side pocket on my backpack.
Then I was out of the cabin, rushing down an interior corridor, past the yacht’s central spiral staircase. Hustling from one end of the main level to the other as quietly as I could, I exited through a slider at the rear of the grand saloon right as the thrust of the engines reversed, then quieted.
The boat went eerily still, but the chorus of men shouting got noisier.
The two other men on board besides the owner, the loud asshole and the quiet asshole, threw thick ropes. Men on the dock caught them. More bumpers were dropped over the sides of the ship, and everyone moved like they were in a coordinated musical production, yelling their lines.
Daring to peek out past the covered side decks, I glanced up at the bridge.
Standing sentry just outside the wheelhouse on the helm deck, his gaze fixed toward the bow and the men tying down his giant beast of a ship, the Navy SEAL didn’t see me.
I slipped back into the shadows.
Then, with one last glance behind me, I took the outside stairs down to the lower deck that would’ve led to the beach club if it was open. It wasn’t, but the small edge surrounding the outside of it was all I needed.
The dock lines were pulled taut, the mega yacht inched closer to the pilings, and I jumped.
Someone whistled, but I was already hauling ass.
Flipping my backpack to my front, ducking my head, rushing but not running, I wove in and around workers on the docks. My heart pounded, and I gave it a fifty-fifty shot that the SEAL would follow me.
A minute passed.
Then two.
Another ninety seconds, and I was assuming seventy-thirty odds in my favor, which was enough of a margin to stop aiming for distance between me and a SEAL and start looking for cover.
Two terminals over, I spied fishing boats.
Perfect.
Risking a quick glance at the docks behind me, I took in everyone I could see, but no one resembled a Navy SEAL or the two SOF operators who’d been his crew.
Exhaling, I focused ahead and turned toward the other docks.
Twenty minutes later, I was hiding behind an older fishing vessel as I watched the mega yacht in the distance. No SEAL in sight, no one standing on the decks scanning the docks, and as far as I knew, no one coming after me.
Good.
Now I had a decision to make.
Taking my focus off the sleek yacht in the distance, I watched an MSC containership that was being towed into port by an emergency response vessel. As it got handed over to port tugs, a rusted old voice spoke in Spanish behind me.
“That is a big backpack for a little girl. What are you doing here?”
Sparing a glance over my shoulder, I took in the weathered fisherman who looked eighty but was probably decades younger. Not bothering with Spanish, I dismissed him as a threat and gave a half truth. “Vacation.” My whole life was a vacation—of sorts.
The fisherman switched to broken English. “What kind vacation is spying on port?”
“I’m not spying.” I was decision shopping. Or I had been. The MSC containership would be perfect. “I’m watching.”
A million little wrinkles, like lines on a nautical map, creased the skin around his eyes as he frowned. “Watching for what?”
“A ride.”
He followed my gaze and scoffed. “On broken cargo ship?”
I smiled. “A cheap ride.”
“I give you cheap ride.” Shocking even me, the old man made two fists and jerked his arms back and forth as he thrust his hips.
I gave him the finger.
He threw his head back and belly laughed as his protruding stomach escaped the bottom of his dirty, worn shirt.
When he recovered, complete with pulling his shirt back down, he winked at me.
“You have cojones.” Then his expression sobered, and he nodded at the MSC containership.
“You no want cheap ride on that. I hear on radio last night. Is broken fuel pump.” He tsked as he shook his head.
“Be in port days. Week maybe. Big ship, big headache. Parts no come soon.”
Even better. “Perfect,” I murmured, glancing around the port just in a case a SEAL had escaped my vigilance.
“Is no perfecto.” The old fisherman shook his head again, then jabbed a thumb toward the distant cruise ship terminal. “That is perfecto ride. Good for little girl with big pack.” He took a step and beckoned. “Come. I take you. I have car.”
Cruise ships weren’t good for my wallet or my taught religion of staying away from security cameras, and this conversation had gone on too long.
Smiling, I hefted my pack higher on my shoulders. “Thanks, but no thanks. Like you said, I have cojones.”
This time he didn’t laugh. “Port is no safe.”
It was safer than dozens of places I’d been. Hell, it was safer than my childhood. But it wasn’t safer than a giant yacht with a black hull, bulletproof glass, and more electronics and security cameras than a presidential residence.
I gave the old fisherman his wink back. “Adios, viejo.”
Not waiting for him to reply, I stepped around him and glanced toward the sixty-five-meter beast that was still refueling.
Unable to stop myself, my gaze went to the wheelhouse deck to the tinted, reflective windows on the bridge.
A shiver shot up my spine, my core pulsed, and I quickly looked away.
Then I headed toward a broken containership.