“Well, then I’ll have to spank you again,” he whispered. “But maybe next time it will be your pussy I spank.”
“Oh, god, no more dirty talk. I can’t take it.”
David finally lifted off of her. She groaned as he took his thumb from her ass and his cock slid out of her pussy.
He stripped off the glove then helped her stand, turning her to face him. He cupped her cheeks in his hands.
“Tessa?”
“Yes, Professor?”
“You’re going to take everything I give you.”
She would. She might take it forever.
Chapter Nine
“Baby, I need you to wake up now.”
Tessa yawned and realized someone had turned on the light. The clock beside her read five in the morning. She’d set a timer on her phone for five thirty. She started to tell him they still had thirty minutes, but then she realized they weren’t alone.
“Stay calm, Tessa,” David said.
Fuck. She was caught without her pants on. Without anything on.
“Get out of bed, David, and don’t move too fast. I don’t want to have to shoot the lovely lady,” a deep voice said.
Tessa went tense and made a real threat assessment. The question was how many she could take out before one of them got off a lucky shot. Or a professional shot. The trouble was they were in close quarters and she had zero idea who these people really were because she’d come in with no intel.
No real intel because no one thought the danger would be here on the island. All the intel they had had been about a potential kidnapping before they got to the island.
What if the goal of that kidnapping hadn’t been ransom? What if it had been to force David to do something? What if this had been the plan all along?
“What the hell is going on?” David had pulled on his pants, and despite the terrible circumstances, she still thought he looked hot. Even as he straightened his glasses, she couldn’t help but notice he hadn’t put on a shirt yet, and his chest looked good.
And that was why they were here. They were here because she’d lost her head and made the mistake of not leaving when she’d known damn well they should have. They could have taken shelter somewhere else and then gotten off the island in the morning after the storm had passed. But no. She’d wanted one more night with him. She’d wanted to play with him one last time before she gave him up.
If she’d followed her instincts instead of her pussy, they might be on the mainland now. At the very least they would be huddled up somewhere and she wouldn’t have a gun to her head and utter impotent rage in her belly.
Mateo held the pistol to her head, and she was aware that she was dressed in nothing but a sheet wrapped around her body. She hadn’t had time to grab the semi she’d put in the nightstand drawer.
She should have slept with the sucker in her hand, but then it would have been hard to cuddle with David.
When had she become this girl?
There were five of them in the room, who knew how many outside. She could drop the sheet, kick back and take down Mateo, grab her gun, and kill the guy to her right.
But it left a lot of time for someone to get a shot off David’s way. She was hesitating, and she never did that.
“I can explain.” Eddie was the only one who didn’t have a pistol in his hand. His palms were up as though to show the room he wasn’t a threat. He didn’t have to be. He had four other threats on his side.
“I’d like to hear it,” David said, his voice colder than she’d ever heard.
She had to make sure he survived this. He cared about her. He was the kind of man who would try to sacrifice himself for a woman he cared about. He needed to be reminded that he was the client and she was the one protecting him.
“I need for you to find the treasure.” Eddie’s hands were shaking, and his eyes went from David back to her and the gun held to her head. And back to David. “You can do it. You found the baseball card. You can find the treasure. You know my father better than anyone. You’ve read all of his work and know how he thinks. I’ll give you anything you need.”
David’s head shook. “Your men have a gun on my girlfriend. I’m not giving you anything until you let her go.”
She had to give it to him. David was steady. He was strong for a guy who’d probably never been in this kind of situation before, but he was reacting exactly like she’d thought he would. “David, I’m not your girlfriend. I’m your bodyguard, and you should fire me after this. I know for damn sure Big Tag will.”
David’s eyes widened. “I thought we weren’t going to mention that part.”
Even from here she could feel his hurt at the cold statement she’d made, but she couldn’t take it back. They needed to know they couldn’t manipulate David this way. They also needed to understand that even if they killed her, someone would come looking for David. “I’m not telling them, David. I suspect they already know I’m not who I said I was. I’m reminding you. I’m not your girlfriend. I had fun with you, but I was already planning on how to avoid you from now on. So you need to make decisions based on what’s best for you, not to try to save a woman who was planning on leaving you anyway.”
God, it hurt to say the words because now she was pretty sure they weren’t true. She was fairly certain that had she played this properly, she would have gotten him off the island and back home, and then the bargaining would have started. She would have told herself that her time with him had been cut short and they should have had at least five more days together, so it was okay to go on a date and spend the night at his place. She would have convinced herself that it was perfectly fine to go to The Club with him because she should have had those nights of play with him. Once those nights were done, she would have given herself one or two more.
And then she simply would have accepted the fact that she was his and he was hers, and it was right this time. She needed David to soften her hard edges, and he needed her to pull him back into the real world from time to time.
If she hadn’t screwed everything up and gotten them in this terrible situation.
“Hey, it’s okay, baby. You wanted to leave and I convinced you to spend one more night.” David completely ignored the men with the guns. His eyes were on her. “I know you’re feeling guilty, and you might even be feeling stupid, but you’re not. You’re the smart one, and you can yell at me when you get us out of this, but don’t try to convince me you don’t care.”
“I don’t.” He had to be harder than this or he wouldn’t survive because she didn’t see why they kept her alive.
His face fell, but his eyes stayed on her. “It doesn’t matter how you feel about me. What matters is how I feel about you, and they know that. Honestly, it wouldn’t matter if I hated you. I would still do what they want. The fact that I’m in love with you only makes it more urgent.”
Did he understand nothing? “For a man with as many degrees as you have, you’re not very smart.”
“She’s right.” There was obviously a reason Luis didn’t have a gun to his head. The “grad student” was watching David with steely eyes. “You’re not as impressive as you seem on paper. You spend all your time with a bunch of mewling kids who drag you down.”