"It's me," Jackson breathed in Charlie's ear. "Don't worry, it's me."
Almost immediately, he felt her body relax in his arms. But though she seemed to realize she wasn't in any immediate danger, her chest still heaved against his arm and her pulse still fluttered like mad where he gripped her at one wrist. She was terrified, and no wonder.
Still, tangled as they were and with his face partially buried in her hair, his body was half convinced they were in a very different sort of situation. Her lips were soft as butter beneath his calloused fingers, and her hair smelled just as he remembered - like strawberries and cream. He was hard as a rock before he even realized he'd nestled closer to those silky strands. The last time he'd had his face in her hair, he'd been buried deep inside of her. This was always his favorite position - being curled around her from behind with her neck within easy reach of his mouth and her breasts within reach of his hand. There was nothing to muffle the sweet little cries that would come from her lips, and nothing to stop him from teasing that tender nub between her legs when he could tell she was about to come.
This isn't the time for this, you moron, he thought. What the hell are you thinking? He released her abruptly. Nash's men were still out there looking for them. He needed to get her somewhere safe. And fast.
"Do you still have the atlas?" he asked her under his breath as she rolled over to face him.
She nodded, her gray eyes wide with confusion and fear beneath the light of the moon. As he lifted his head to glance around them, she let out a little gasp - and he found her staring at the side of his face. He raised a hand to his cheek, and his fingers came away sticky with blood. Shit. He must have hit something during his scuffle back at the house. Fortunately, further investigation suggested that it was only a mild cut, though he'd need to make sure the blood didn't get in his eyes. He'd knocked out the guy who'd come bursting through the back door, but there appeared to be at least two others still out there looking for them. He glanced back down at Charlie.
Don't worry, Goose, he thought, tucking a honey-colored tendril of hair behind her ear. I'll keep you safe, I promise. He hoped she could read the message in his eyes - it was too dangerous to speak more than absolutely necessary.
He couldn't believe Nash's guys had caught up with him so fast. That could only mean one thing: what Roth had feared was true. They'd been betrayed - most likely by one of their own. He'd need to update his leader as soon as possible.
It was several moments before he dared to reach out and touch Charlie's arm again, and the contact still sent a jolt of need through him.
Control yourself, you horndog. This wasn't the time to think about how much he wanted her, but fuck, was it hard to focus on anything else. He'd had nine months to forget her. Instead, he'd somehow built up nine months of fantasies that his body was aching to reenact.
But he had no idea when Nash's men might circle back around. Right now, they needed to get out of here.
"Come on," he whispered, helping her to her feet. "Follow me." He grabbed her hand and pulled her around the side of the building. Her fingers gripped his, strong and sure, even though he knew she must be terrified. He wanted those fingers around his cock. Or digging into his back as she screamed out his name. But first he needed to get her somewhere safe.
He'd parked his rental car around the corner from her house, at the end of a cul-de-sac. When they reached it - via a path around various hedges and across at least one backyard - the street was otherwise empty. Nash's guys had parked in front of Charlie's house, and most likely they were back there now, waiting for one or both of them to return.
He pulled Charlie behind a large hydrangea bush while he scoped out the street. After convincing himself that the coast was clear, he glanced over at her. Her tender mouth was set in a hard line, and she had the atlas clutched to her chest. He saw her purse dangling from her other arm, and he let out a breath of relief. That would save him a trip back to her house, at least.
"That's my car," he whispered, pointing. "When I give the signal, make a run for it, okay?"
She gave a single nod.
He gave the street one more good look before squeezing her fingers and tugging her out into the open.
They ran. He was much faster than Charlie, but she kept pace well, and he only released her hand when they reached the car and they had to bolt to their respective sides of the vehicle. Within seconds, he had the key in the ignition.
Unfortunately, a single car engine roaring to life in the middle of the night was hard to miss in a quiet neighborhood like this, even from a street or two away. Which meant they didn't have much of a head start.
But Nash's men weren't his only problem right now. As soon as he slammed his foot down on the gas, Charlie pulled her cell phone out of her purse.
"What are you doing?" he asked her as he squealed down the street.
Her thumb tapped against the screen. "Calling the police."
"Don't," he said. "That'll only make this worse."
His eyes were locked on the road, but he could feel the disbelief rolling off of her.
"What's going on?" she asked him. "Who were those guys and why are they after you? Why are they after me?"
"They're after the atlas." He shot a look in the rearview mirror. No sign of them yet.
"But why?" Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her glance down at the book in her hands. "People don't break into houses and chase people down for an atlas."
"It's a little more complicated than that," he admitted.
"How?" When he didn't answer immediately, impatience crept into her voice. "How, Jackson? What the hell are you involved in?"
"Charlie, I don't think - "
"I have the right to know."
She had a point. As much as he wanted to keep her out of this, it was too late for that now. She was involved, whether he liked it or not.
And as if to drive that point home, a car suddenly appeared behind them, going way too fast to be anyone but Nash's men.
He cursed and tore around the next turn, sending Charlie sprawling halfway across his lap. He had to lose them. Charlie sat back up and quickly clicked on her seatbelt, and he heard her breath hitch slightly when she glanced back and realized what was going on. He wanted to reach out and calm her, but that was impossible right now. The least he could do was fill her in on what he could.
"I never told you much about what I do for a living," he said, his voice calm in spite of the fact that his grip was like steel on the steering wheel.
She looked at him. "You told me you worked in imports and acquisitions."
In spite of himself, he smiled at the description. "And that's correct, in a general sense. The truth is that I work for a team that travels around the world finding and acquiring items of a certain value." He'd reached the neighborhood's entrance, and he took a quick right onto the main road. But the other car wasn't far behind. The headlights lit up his rear-view mirror.
Charlie was twisted around, watching the road behind them. "I still don't understand."
And he still wasn't quite sure how to say this. "We're a very specialized team. That means we have the skill to find and retrieve things that most people would consider impossible - or at least not worth the extreme effort and risk it would take to get to them in the first place. Artifacts, long-lost works of art, sunken cargo - "
"Like a pirate." The doubt was clear in her voice.
"Not like a pirate at all," he said, though he felt a grin creep on at the image of himself with a parrot on his shoulder. "Most of us prefer the term 'treasure hunter,' but I think even that is - "
"Jackson, this isn't the time to joke."
The fear in her voice smacked the grin right off his face. He glanced in the rear-view mirror again. He couldn't be sure, but it looked like his last two sharp turns might have gained them some ground against their pursuers. He risked a glance over at Charlie.
"I'm not joking," he said softly. "I'm dead serious about this, Charlie."
Her huge gray eyes turned his way, but she said nothing.
"I know it sounds ridiculous," he rushed on, "but it's the truth. The team I'm on hunts down items of value. Sometimes we're hired to do so by museums or local governments or wealthy collectors. Other times we catch wind of something and conduct our own investigations." He tore through a traffic light just as it turned red, then whipped around the next corner.
Charlie seemed to be absorbing this latest bit of information. "And this atlas is somehow involved in that? Who are these guys chasing us?"
"Unfortunately, my team isn't the only one out there. And if we're right about this latest hunt, that atlas might help us find the biggest haul of our lives."
"How big?"
"Big enough that a lot of people would kill to get it." His gaze flicked to the rear-view mirror once more. There was no sign of the other car behind them, but that didn't mean they were in the clear.
For a few minutes, they rode in silence. Charlie seemed to be processing everything she'd just heard, and he was focused on getting them as far away from their pursuers as possible.
"There's one thing I don't understand," she said finally. "Why did you give me this atlas in the first place if it was this important? And why is all of this happening now? It's been almost a year."
"That's the thing," he said. "I had no idea." He remembered the night he'd given her the atlas - the way her eyes had lit up like he was giving her the world. He saw the way that, even now, her fingers curled protectively around the book's edges, and it made his chest ache with an emotion he didn't want to analyze.
"That atlas belonged to a man named Vincent Rinaldi," he continued. "I bought it at his estate auction."
"Was he someone famous? I don't think I've ever heard of him."
"Not famous, no - at least not outside the treasure hunting world. But he was rich. Incredibly rich. He was also what you might call an eccentric."
She let out a short, incredulous laugh. "Are you sure you aren't making any of this up?"
"It sounds like a joke, I know," he said. "And trust me - it gets even more ridiculous. Vincent Rinaldi was...well, he was a little touched in the head. There are a lot of different kinds of treasure hunters out there, Goose. Some will slit your throat as soon as look at you," - he caught her throwing a glance behind them - "and others just want to play at being adventurers. Rinaldi was one of the latter. He was, for many years, the laughing stock of the treasure hunting community. He'd follow all sorts of rumors and stories and pour hundreds of thousands of dollars into dives for sunken ships or digs for Inca gold. I've even met a fellow who once swindled him into paying ten thousand for a plain old map of Australia."
"And this atlas was his?" she asked. There was something almost tender in her voice as she looked down at the book in her lap.
"Yeah," he said, suddenly feeling like a jackass again. Why'd she have to love that damn atlas so much?
"As I said, I bought it at an auction," he continued. "Rinaldi died last year. Left everything to Alyssa Berry, his fiancée. According to reports, there was very little cash left, so she mostly just got a bunch of treasure-hunting equipment. State-of-the-art stuff, but not exactly anything a young bride-to-be wants or needs when her intended dies. She turned around and auctioned most of it off immediately. My teammates and I made a few purchases. Mostly tools and stuff, but some of us picked up a few of his personal things - his old journals and notes and that sort of thing - just for fun. Rinaldi was a loony, but he was one of us, you know? He was a legend, in his own way."
"And the atlas?"
"I thought of you the moment I saw it. I knew you'd love it." And now I'm going to take it away again like a heartless bastard. He tried to assuage his guilt by reminding himself that it was safer this way, that as long as she had the atlas, she was in danger - but it didn't make him feel like any less of a shithead.
"Why now?" she asked softly. "What's changed?"
His eyes flicked to the rear-view mirror. For a split second, he thought he'd seen the headlights again, but it was a false alarm. Pull it together, man.
"Alexei - that's one of my teammates - he was looking through some of Rinaldi's old travel journals," he said, still keeping an eye on the road behind them. "I'll give Rinaldi one thing - the man kept great records. Wrote down everything he encountered, every detail of his expeditions. Of course, most of his instincts were wrong, but he had an adventurous spirit. And there was something interesting about the last journal he kept before his death." Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her lean a little closer to him, her eyes bright with interest. "In most of the notebooks, he was clearly just writing for himself - making notes of things for future voyages and all that. But in the last one, he kept addressing his fiancée. He was writing to her."
He cast another glance behind them, but he was beginning to think he might have lost their pursuers after all.
"It took us a while to figure out what was going on," he continued. "We're still unraveling bits and pieces. But it was clear that Rinaldi knew his health was suffering. And the details he provided were odd - he was no longer giving thorough accounts of his expeditions, though it was obvious from what he did write that he was still traveling regularly. Sometimes he seemed to be writing in riddles, almost as if his mind was going - even though it was his heart that was supposedly killing him. And then one day, Roth - that's our team's captain - figured it out. Rinaldi wasn't going on expeditions during that last year. He was creating one. Making his own treasure hunt, and leaving the clues for his fiancée. She rarely went with him on his expeditions, and she must have thought that he'd wasted his entire fortune on his hobby. In fact, it appears that he just decided to leave it to her in the most spectacular way possible."
Charlie leaned back in her seat. After a moment, she said, "This sounds like a bad TV movie."
"I haven't even gotten to the best part. Our first clue about his fortune was a riddle he wrote toward the end of his journal." He hated himself for knowing it by heart - because honestly, it might have been the worst bit of poetry ever written in the history of the world - but the entire team had studied it so many times, from so many angles, that it was hard not to have it memorized. He cleared his throat.
"It said,
'The greatest treasure God ever gave me
Was that first look upon your face.
The greatest treasure I can leave you
Might be hunted from that place.' "
Naturally, Charlie laughed - a real laugh this time, and his cock was suddenly reminded of the last time he heard that bright, sweet sound from those lips. He'd been on top of her, and his tongue had discovered a spot behind her ear where she -
Headlights flashed in the mirror.
Focus, you idiot! he yelled internally at himself. He pressed down on the gas, but the car behind him turned onto a side street. False alarm.
"Obviously, Rinaldi wasn't much of a poet," he said, trying to bring his attention back to the subject at hand. "You can see why we thought this was a joke for so long. But the more we looked into it, the more we realized that we might be onto something. There was a lot of speculation about where all of Rinaldi's money went. His fiancée was supposedly furious she received so little."
"Sounds like true love."
"She recovered pretty quickly - I think she married some French billionaire about two months after Rinaldi's funeral. Which is why we don't feel the need to rush to her with our suspicions about what he did with all that money. I'm not sure she ever even opened his journals."
Charlie slid her hand over the cover of the book in her lap. "Where does the atlas come in?"
"That riddle seems to suggest that we need to find the place where he first met Alyssa. One of his earlier journals hints that he met her when he was sailing off the coast of Croatia, but that's still a lot of area to search. And even if we narrowed it down to an island or a port, how do we know where to go from there? Fortunately, he left a clue for us - for her. At the very end of his last journal, on the inside of the back cover, he scribbled, 'If you have trouble, my love, remember - trusted maps will always steer you true.'"
"And he trusted this atlas."
Strangely, she didn't pose it as a question, but he answered it anyway. "We spent days studying his other maps - the ones we had, anyway - including a couple of the Mediterranean and the Adriatic. But he mentioned that atlas several times in his journals. He loved it. Took it with him all over the world."
"I knew it." Her voice was full of wonder.
"Knew what?" He glanced over at her, and he could have sworn he saw her blush - though that might have been a trick of the passing street lamps.
"I knew he loved this atlas," she admitted, and there was something so sweet, so innocent in her voice that he felt his body stir again. "He left that love on every page. I didn't know him - didn't even know his name - and I always imagined he was some grand adventurer, traveling around the world and facing everything with wonder." She shook her head. "I know that sounds stupid and cheesy, but - "
"No," he said quickly, gently. "No, I understand."
She smiled, but she was no longer looking at him, and he knew her well enough to sense her embarrassment. He'd known when he came here that it would be difficult seeing her, but he'd expected that challenge to come in the form of the burning hunger for her that had never quite left his system - a hunger that even now throbbed through his veins, just being close to her again. He'd always been drawn to her, and he'd known he'd have one hell of a time not grabbing her and pushing her up against the wall at first sight, but he hadn't fully anticipated the depth of the tenderness he'd still feel. She didn't belong in the middle of this mess.
"What about the men chasing us?" she asked. "If you - or your team - just figured this out, then how do these men know?"
"That's what I'd like to find out," he muttered. But in his gut, he knew the truth. They'd been betrayed by one of their own - and there was only one person who could have done it. They were lucky that nothing else had been compromised - and that no one had been seriously injured - in the incident in Prague. The appearance of Nash's guys here meant their enemies weren't planning on letting this one go.
Just get Charlie away from everything as soon as you can, he told himself.
"If I'd known any of this about the atlas, I never would have given it to you," he said. "I'm going to make sure you get somewhere safe. Do you have family or friends you can stay with? Your mom, maybe?"
Her silence made him realize his mistake immediately.
How the fuck had he forgotten? "She's not... Fuck, Goose. She isn't...?"
"In December," she said, her voice suddenly cold. Distant.
Fuck. He'd known when he left that Charlie's mom was sick, but he hadn't thought about the inevitable outcome of that.
He wanted to pull the car to the side of the road. Wanted to take her in his arms and hold her and let her spill everything to him, the way she once did. Wanted to kiss away her tears and draw out her sadness with his touch until she'd forgotten all of the pain, forgotten everything but the comfort of his body.
But before he could do it, she said, "Where are you going?"
He forced his mind back to the issue at hand. "Wherever you need me to take you."
"No, I mean where are you going with the atlas? Where's your team?"
"Most of them are already in Croatia, waiting for me." He adjusted his grip on the steering wheel. "We didn't anticipate that I'd run into trouble over here, or there'd be others here with me. But don't worry - those guys only want the atlas. Once I'm away with it, they'll have no reason to bother you." And if they did, he'd personally hunt them down and exact his own brand of justice.
Charlie was silent for a long moment, and then, "I want to come with you."
He was so surprised he nearly slammed his foot down on the brake pedal. "No. Absolutely out of the question."
"Why not?"
"It's too dangerous."
"It's dangerous here! Men just broke into my house!"
She had a point, but he wasn't about to have this discussion. "It's still safer than where I'll be going. Besides, you need your passport to get to Croatia, and there's no way in hell I'm taking you back to that house tonight."
"As a matter of fact, I have my passport right here," she said, pulling it out of her purse. "I had to get my driver's license renewed this week and needed an extra form of ID."
Shit. He'd walked right into that one. "It's still out of the question."
"Why?" she said.
"Because I say it is." There was no way in hell he was getting her more tangled up in this. "Look, Goose, I - "
"Don't call me that!" she said. "You don't get to call me that anymore."
He wanted to argue, but fuck him, she was right. But that didn't change his decision.
They were both quiet for far too long before she said, "Maybe you should pull over. I'll find my own way from here."
He wasn't about to drop her off in the middle of Atlanta, but he didn't trust himself to continue this conversation while driving. He pulled into an empty parking lot and killed the engine.
"Look, Charlie," he said, turning toward her. "I know I had no right to come back here, but you've seen how dangerous this is." And one look at her made him more determined than ever to protect her. This was his sweet, gentle Charlie - she belonged somewhere safe. Somewhere far, far away from this life.
Still, a small part of him couldn't help but imagine what it might be like to take Charlie along with him - to have her by his side during his days of exploring and have her in his arms again at night. He'd only just been reunited with her, and his cock had wanted one thing and one thing only since she'd opened her door and he'd realized she was even more beautiful than he remembered. The idea of walking away from her now seemed insane.
Stop being a selfish bonehead, he told himself. She can't come with you. Stop pretending otherwise.
But before he could tell her so, the corners of her mouth curled up.
"Your opinion on the matter is all well and good," she said, "but you've forgotten one thing." She took the atlas from her lap and tucked it halfway behind her. "I still have the atlas, and I have no intention of letting it go."
