Chapter 14
Ashley
FOR A MOMENT, I HADN’T known what was going on. All I’d heard through the black hole of sleep was a gasp, and someone moving beside me. I wasn’t sure I’d ever rocketed awake so fast, my mind going to terrible things in an instant, like the men in black storming the beach. They’d already stormed my research station, and my dreams and body truly believed they had found us here, too.
It was still night, and the moon had dipped further towards the horizon, but it was light enough within the grove I could see. My gaze swept the area wildly, looking for the threat, my heartbeat hammering in my chest. But I found nothing, just trees.
The man was sitting up beside me, his face partly in shadow. It didn’t look like he was on alert—wouldn’t he have jumped up if there was a threat?—but he was breathing hard.
“What’s wrong? What happened? Are they here?” My voice sounded high and panicked to my ears as I strained to hear or see any sign of attack.
“They’re not here. It’s okay.” The man’s voice was calm and even.
But I couldn’t seem to calm myself down—my anxiety was up, and it seemed determined to stay there. My mind, still too wired from yesterday’s threats and the fact that we were trapped on a deserted island, couldn’t seem to believe it.
“No one’s here,” he repeated, and this time, he put a hand over mine and squeezed it. His tone reached a register of calm I wouldn’t have thought possible from the gruff soldier. He didn’t seem worried at all.
My heartbeat began to slow, the adrenaline pumping through my system draining away, leaving me feeling weary. It even took me a moment to realize where we were.
Right. We’d fallen asleep in the Hyoi pear grove. Now that the imagined danger had passed, I realized I was still half-asleep, and dragged my mind into the present. I couldn’t even remember why we’d fallen asleep here for moment before the memories of the past hours snapped back into my mind, bringing far more awareness in an instant than I’d managed in the minute I’d been awake.
We’d had sex. Wild sex. Sex unlike anything I’d ever had before, so ferocious and desperate I’d nearly blacked out for a moment when my orgasm had exploded within me. I was sore, too, and sticky, the pear juice and the taste of him on my tongue.
“I just realized who those men in the surprise attack were.” The man’s words penetrated my foggy brain, and when they finally registered, my gaze was instantly on his face, my eyes wide with surprise.
“You do? Who were they?”
It looked like the soldier wasn’t going to tell me for a moment, and I felt my annoyance rising. After everything we’d been through the past, what, not even twenty-four hours? Was he going to remain stonily silent, dangling that information in front of me and then refusing to part with it?
I’d been through hell and back because of his secret, and I didn’t know how much more I would have to endure before we made it home. If we made it home. I knew the reality of being stranded on an island in the middle of nowhere—no one had to sugar coat it for me. And like I’d said the day before, I deserved to know what had put me into the middle of all this so unwittingly.
My eyes narrowed, and I took a breath to tell him just that.
“They’re a terrorist organization.”
The anger deflating slightly, I let the air out in a huff. “That much was pretty clear. They weren’t Russian or Japanese. At least, they weren’t speaking either language.”
“No, you’re right. They’re not.” Then his words stopped, and he shut his mouth like he had finished speaking.
Was that it? Was that all he was going to say? Confirm what had been abundantly clear from the get-go? A kindergartner could have figured that one out.
Then his eyes narrowed, his mouth squeezing into a line that echoed the severe expression on his face that made him look intimidating. More than intimidating. I had to steel myself to keep from shrinking away.
“If I tell you this, you can’t tell a soul. This is top secret information, information I’m not really at liberty to divulge. But we’re stuck on this island together, and you’re involved whether we like it or not. And if only one of us makes it off, then the other one has to make sure the information gets to the correct authorities. Do I make myself clear?”
I still forced myself not to shrink away from the ferocious look in his eyes, but I did swallow. I’d never met someone quite so intimidating, who could make me quake with alarm with just a few words and an expression.
Had he learned to do that in the Navy or somewhere else?
“I swear I won’t tell a soul.”
The man watched me for a moment more, then sighed, his shoulders deflating like keeping the information from me had kept him upright.
“It’s a terror cell. One that we don’t know a lot about. They seem to be an international organization, though, not tied to any one country or dictator. They’re shadowy, more ghosts than an actual entity, and no one has been able to figure out who runs it all. If there is one person.”
I had been leaning propped up on my arm, but I pushed myself up, pulling my knees into my chest. Laying down like that, I felt too exposed and open to the information I knew would come at me. I knew, without a doubt, this was going to be difficult and frighting for me to hear, but I also knew it was necessary.
“They’ve popped up worldwide, creating fortifications in remote places that are difficult to reach. Multiple intelligence agencies have tried to find out more and even take them down, but they’ve lost too many agents.”