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“The next shipment is due to arrive from Alaska next week.” This voice was deep and rumbling. “Delivery must be without delay if we are to maintain our onward schedule to the manufacturing plant in Hellisheiði.”
Hellisheiði. The name was familiar, but Griff couldn’t place it.
“That’s assuming all goes according to plan. That nothing will get in the way like snooping government officials or reporters?” A distinct voice, more nasal this time. Caustic.
“Of course.” The first man laughed as if it was a silly question, but even from his hiding place, the edge of stress was clear to Griff. “We’ll take care of everything. Officials and reporters.”
Footsteps crunched. They must be just outside the boat. Griff’s heart pushed his blood in a crazy dance through his body. A hand found his. Jo. She clutched him, her small fingers surprisingly strong, her nails branding his flesh. He circled his thumb across her skin, waiting for the voices to turn away from the boat.
Something crashed, and angry voices cursed.
“Fuck. Stupid bastards…” The first voice moved away and the golf cart roared into life. Griff waited till it was only a distant murmur. He closed his eyes with a sigh of relief.
“Griff?”
“They’re gone.” A tremble pulsed through her.
“Hey.” He lifted his head, cupped her face with his hands. “We’re good.”
“I was sure they’d find us.”
“They didn’t.”
Anxiety made her eyes luminescent. Her breath whispered against his hand. So vulnerable, and his to protect. Desire engulfed him from nowhere, and he pressed a kiss to her lips. A brief kiss, enough to soothe her, to distract her from the danger pressing down on them from all sides.
“Griff.” His name was a murmur of need on her lips.
He should know better. Fuck, he did know better.
He released her cheek, slid his hand to her shoulder and, ignoring the pain in his arm, pulled her closer.
26
Jo fell into the kiss, sliding her hand into the soft burr of hair on the back of his neck. She submitted fully. The scruff of his cheek scratched deliciously against the inside of her wrist. What that would feel like against the sensitive skin between her thighs?
God.
The rational part of her mind hollered. This was madness. Someone could discover them at any moment. This wasn’t the time to be getting cozy with the hottest security guard on the planet, despite what her libido was saying, which right now was ‘fuck you’ to rationality. When she wasn’t worrying about how they would survive the next few hours, she’d thought of little else but Griff Nyland since she first laid eyes on him. That had to mean something, didn’t it?
His kiss, the firm pressure of his lips, his tongue, they flooded her body with heat. Her breasts were mashed up against his chest, her pounding heart only millimeters from his. His mouth claimed hers with an escalating urgency and intensity of passion that threatened to carry her away in its perilous undertow, a man barely keeping his demons at bay.
People exchanged shouts somewhere far away. Someone had fucked up, maybe dropped something, but Griff’s kisses mainlined through her system, focussing all her senses to the rock-hard lines of his muscular body.
The kiss deepened, dragging her under, every inch of her skin tingling as he shifted above her, pressing her against the hard wooden deck. When he finally broke the kiss, allowing her to come up for air, she was shaking, her breathing erratic.
Reality hit her as she gathered her scattered thoughts, her lips smarting from the fierceness of what they had just shared. There was no longer doubt in her mind. She wanted Griff, all of him. No half measures.
He lifted his head, listening. Satisfied the danger had passed, he climbed off her body, and with his hand wrapped around her forearm, helped her to her feet. “We should go while there’s a distraction.”
He lifted her down from the boat, his hands effortlessly spanning her waist even in baggy coveralls, pausing before guiding her across the open space to the stairs hidden in the shadows.
At the base of the stairs, he hesitated. “You okay?” He cupped her face and smoothed tangled hair from her face. Tenderly, he planted a chaste kiss on her lips that still stung from the taste of him.
Jo soaked him in, clasping her hands over his, drawing strength from his touch for what they still had to do. God, she was in so deep and she didn’t even know when she’d hit the water.
27
Griff took the stairs two at a time. He kept one hand hooked on the guardrail, the other locked on Jo. He wasn’t letting go until she was safely back in the van and they were as far away from this place as they could get.
