The abject terror in her eyes made him wonder… Had she been not only confined by the Tierra Caliente cartel but violated?

  “You have nothing to fear from me.” He held up a hand to reassure her. “I won’t touch you.”

  Laila huffed. “Your assurances mean nothing.”

  “I’m here to protect you. Give me time to earn your trust.”

  She didn’t reply, just crossed her arms over her chest and turned away. Trees tried to stop noticing her plumped-up cleavage.

  Words might never convince her of his sincerity. His actions would have to prove he meant what he said. Ogling her and sporting a hard-on definitely wouldn’t put her at ease. He might be nearly thirty-five, but damn it, when he looked at her, his cock seemed to think he was a perpetually horny seventeen.

  It would help if you stopped thinking about her naked.

  Trees focused on the road and the vehicles around them. An uncomfortable silence fell. He wished he could think of something to set her at ease, but nothing came to mind.

  Fifteen minutes later, they rolled up to a big-box store on the northern outskirts of Orlando. He parked between a big rig and a travel trailer, then killed the engine. “We need supplies, so this is how it’s going to go. You’ll come with me. You won’t make eye contact with anyone. In fact”—he stooped his way back to his duffel and pulled out a ball cap—“you’ll wear this. And you’ll hold my hand every moment we’re in public.”

  He’d give her a shirt to cover up with, too, if it wouldn’t be so comically big it would attract even more attention.

  Laila shook her head. “I will wait here.”

  “By yourself? Handcuffed to the door? Where you’ll be vulnerable and unable to fight back if Victor and his right-hand thug find you?”

  “Then uncuff me, and I will stay.”

  “No chance in hell. You’ll be long gone when I come back. So you can either remain here—handcuffed—or come with me. Your choice.”

  “Stop backing me into a corner.”

  “I’m trying to keep you alive,” he argued.

  “Are you always this bossy?”

  “Yep.” You have no idea…

  “I do not like you,” she huffed.

  “You don’t know me. Are you staying here or coming with me?”

  She heaved a frustrated sigh. “I will go.”

  “Good.”

  He let himself out the driver’s side and scanned the parking lot for anyone or anything out of place. All he saw were singletons coming out in their work attire while juggling groceries, young parents with their kids carrying the makings of a school art project, and a few sad sacks clutching frozen dinners. Sure, he also caught a glimpse of the occasional tourist taking advantage of Florida’s warmth and wearing shorts, despite the breezy January evening, but mostly they stood out—just like Laila would. But he couldn’t let that stop them. They had to get in, get out, and get on the road before anyone found her.

  Trees rounded the oversized vehicle and slowly opened the passenger door. Since she was cuffed to it, the move displaced her off the seat. When he caught her in his arms, she froze. Their gazes connected. She didn’t breathe, didn’t blink. He couldn’t stop himself from noticing again how goddamn gorgeous she was. There was something so vulnerable about her that made him want to protect her, yet the strength—in her posture, her eyes, and her will—all told him not to let her size fool him.

  “Put me down,” she demanded in a breathy voice.

  When she squirmed against him, he automatically caught her by grabbing palmfuls of her lush backside. The move crushed her breasts against his chest. As she slid down his unflagging dick, he found her pussy with the accuracy of a heat-seeking missile. Laila writhed against him, fighting for freedom.

  She only aroused him more.

  Fuck, he needed to set her down or he’d be tempted to take her up against the RV—without giving a shit how much attention they drew.

  Letting out a rough breath, he dropped her to her feet. Yanking the ball cap from his back pocket, he gathered her curls in hand, their soft silk spilling over his fingers. Touching her this way felt impossibly intimate until he settled the hat on her head. Then he dug the cuff key from his pocket, careful to avoid any appearance he was playing pocket pool, and uncuffed her wrist, leaving the other end attached to the door.

  “We’re going in.” He enveloped her small hand in his. “Don’t let go of me and don’t leave my side.”

  “Or?” Her voice was surprisingly unsteady.

  Was there any chance she felt the pull between them, too?

  Dream on, dude.

  “I’ll hunt you down and it won’t be pleasant. But I don’t want it to come to that. We’re on the same side.”

  She rolled her eyes. “In a game where it is everyone for themselves?”

  He gave up on her trusting him—for now—and shut the passenger door, locking the RV with the press of a button before pocketing the keys.

  Wary and watchful, he made a mental note of supplies they needed for the next handful of days on the road as they headed for the automatic double doors.

  “What are you looking for?”

  “Trouble,” he muttered as he snatched a cart. “Grab here.” He pointed to the handle. When she complied with a frown, he gripped the far side, still clutching her other hand between them. “Follow my lead.”

  Laila was mercifully quiet as he grabbed the food and supplies necessary for the next few days, including her new burner phone and a purchase or two from the hardware section.

  When he took her to the racks of women’s clothing, she refused to even look. “No.”

  “You’ll get cold.”

  “I will not freeze. It is Florida.”

  “We’re leaving the state, remember?”

  She pressed her lips together mulishly.

  “Don’t you want clothes that cover more?” He gestured toward her tits and the enticing poke of her hard nipples at the front of her nearly transparent tank.

  Laila shook her head. “If I do not care what is covered, why should you? You promised that you will not touch me…”

  But fuck, he wanted to.

  And if she was afraid of being touched, why wouldn’t she want clothes that covered her assets?

  There was something going on with her…

  For now, he tamped down his frustration. “Laila, if Victor sees you in these clothes, he’ll know you on sight.”

  “I put an extra pair of shorts and a shirt in Jorge’s diaper bag he has not seen. I will wear those instead.”

  “But that’s one change. Are you going to wear that every day?”

  She nodded resolutely.

  Seriously? “What if we’re on the road for a week? Or two? Maybe more?”

  After all, Kane was taking Valeria straight into hiding. The bosses hadn’t told him how long to keep Laila on the road and out of view, but given the fact they were wrapped up in Kimber’s rescue, he didn’t see his marching orders changing anytime soon.

  “I will be fine.”

  End of conversation—as far as Laila was concerned. Whatever. They didn’t have time to argue. Besides, this was Florida. Even in January, the store didn’t sell sweats and parkas. He’d wait until they found more practical clothes. Right now, they needed to get on the road and put as much distance between her and Victor Ramos as possible.

  Trees led her to the front of the store. The checkout lines were clogged, and he picked the shortest one, behind a sixty-something woman with a pair of teenage grandkids dressed in theme-park shirts, seemingly more interested in their phones than their surroundings, and braced himself for a wait. He scanned the nearby faces. The older woman sent them a kind smile.

  Laila frowned, so Trees tried to act normal and smile in return. After all, she was seemingly someone’s grandma. She’d done nothing wrong.

  “Are you on your honeymoon?” the silver-haired woman asked.

  Trees didn’t sweat the question. Someone older and more likely to chitchat with strangers was nothing new in a state known for its snowbirds.

  At his side, Laila slid him a distressed stare. Because she wasn’t used to small talk? Or nice people in general? It couldn’t be because the woman looked like a threat.

  “It’s so sweet to see lovebirds holding hands,” she added. “So I assumed…”

  “No,” he finally answered. “It’s not our honeymoon.”

  “Vacation? Romantic getaway? Babymoon?”

  Thankfully, her questions gave him an idea. “We’re seeing some of the country before our first baby comes.”

  “So your wife is pregnant?” The nosy stranger sounded excited.

  “Not yet, but we’re…trying.” When Laila stiffened, Trees shuffled her behind him.

  She dug her nails into his back.

  “Best of luck to you both.” The woman’s smile widened. “Enjoy your trip.”

  “We will,” he assured.

  No one else seemed to care as the woman paid for her purchases, guided her phone-obsessed grandkids toward the door, and left with a wave.

  Then the cashier started slinging his items across the scanner, and a teenage boy schlepped them into bags. Because Trees was a cautious bastard, he paid cash for everything, managing to wedge Laila between him and the counter for the brief moments he needed both hands.

  Once their bags were in the cart, Trees gripped Laila’s hand again and dragged her through the exit, into the brightly lit parking lot.

  When they reached the RV, he cuffed her to the passenger door once more, carried the bags inside, then hopped down to return the cart to the corral.

  Suddenly, Laila gasped, the sound so rife with terror he whirled to face the potential threat. The same black Mercedes from the alley—he remembered the plates—rolled slowly through the parking lot. They were looking for someone.

  He’d bet that someone was Laila.

  “Fuck.” Trees shoved the cart into another aisle, ducked into the lumbering vehicle, and started the engine.

  Fear cascaded through Laila in a paralyzing drizzle as the sedan rolled past, two aisles in front of them. The car wasn’t parking. No one emerged to shop. Like last time, the occupants seemed to be on the hunt.

  If that was Victor, how had he found her again? Why couldn’t she be free of men trying to control her life?

  Without flipping on the RV’s headlights, Trees pulled out of the parking spot before the sedan made its turn onto the nearest aisle. He hugged the shadowy edge of the parking lot before disappearing behind the big-box store. Laila kept watching out the windows until the sedan, still cruising at a careful pace, dropped from sight.

  “Are you wearing anything they could be tracking?” Trees demanded as he steered the vehicle out of the parking lot and engaged the headlights.

  “What do you mean?” She frowned as she watched him merge into traffic.

  “Did he ever give you jewelry or clothing or—”

  “Yes.” Laila couldn’t look at him. She hated to think about having once accepted Victor’s and Hector’s “kindness” so naively. “But I no longer have those things. I left Emilo’s compound in nothing but a bath towel.”

  He frowned. “I heard that.”

  Laila didn’t believe the concern or empathy or whatever that note in his voice was. “You were not part of the extraction team. Why?”

  “I was sick.” He grimaced, glancing in the rearview mirror. “I ate sushi from a truck stop and ended up in the hospital.”

  It seemed difficult to believe anyone sane would do something so foolish. “Neither was Kane Preston.”

  As Trees rolled through a yellow light and continued north, he checked behind him again, then seemed to relax. “This is his first day on the job. Are you wondering if we actually work for EM Security? Is that the problem? Call Walker now. He’ll tell you.”

  “No. Señor Walker already made your association clear. Why is he not here?”

  Pierce Walker had proven honorable, even in the worst of circumstances. He had never touched her beyond the ruse necessary for them both to escape. He hadn’t even been erect when she had showered with him to make her “seduction” look believable for Emilo.

  Trees? He had been visibly hard while looking at her fully clothed. In her experience, that was a terrifying sign of things to come.

  Her supposed protector sent her a sour glare. “Other assignments. But we work for the same firm. We have the same priority to keep you safe. You need to trust me.”

  He sounded miffed that she didn’t. Foolish man. If she had her way, she wouldn’t be with him long enough to try.

  “Hmm. Where are you planning to take me?”

  “We need gas for this guzzler before we leave civilization, so I’ll have to stop. Before I do, I’ll put as much distance as possible between us and that Mercedes.”

  She would make her escape then. “All right.”

  “If Victor is in that car and you’re not wearing anything he could track, how the hell does he keep finding you?”

  Laila slid him a suspicious glance. “Perhaps they are tracking you somehow. With this enormous vehicle maybe? It sticks out.”

  “I’m thinking through that possibility, trying to come up with contingencies. But after we left the alley, they didn’t follow us. I looked—more than once. Yet somehow they reached the store by the time we left.”

  “Is this not your area of expertise?”

  “Yeah, but things aren’t adding up. If they had an exact bead on you, why didn’t they attack us in the alley?”

  A valid question. “Because the area was too public? Because they did not want to confront you?”

  Trees shook his head. “No one else was around, and they would have been happy to double-tap me in the head if it led to you. Drug runners aren’t shy about murder.”

  Or any other crime. Laila knew that firsthand. “True.”

  “And if they had your exact location, how were we able to slip from the parking lot of the store just now without them realizing?”

  Laila shrugged. Certainly, she’d been doing her best to avoid Emilo’s men since her escape from the compound last September. She couldn’t think of anything she’d done to compromise that.

  Worry wrinkled Trees’s brow, but she didn’t make the mistake of thinking he cared. More than likely, he hated to be outsmarted. Most men did.

  After another twenty minutes of silence, he pulled onto a side street, then rolled up to an older gas station. “I’m going to fill this up. It will take a bit. I won’t be far.”

  Now was her chance. “I need to use the bathroom.”

  “There’s one in the RV.”

  She glanced behind her. One of the closed doors hid a toilet? She had never seen a vehicle that also served as a small house. If she had time, she would explore it simply to assuage her curiosity. But his reply ripped away her excuse to disappear into the attached mini-mart and sneak out the back.

  Time for another plan.

  Laila held up her wrist, jingling the cuff against the rubbery door handle. “I cannot reach that far. You will have to uncuff me.”

  “Yeah.” He reached into his pocket, then narrowed a glare at her. “No running. No tricks. No BS.”

  Or she would be sorry. The words hung unspoken. He was big and forbidding and strong as hell.

  Though her sister seemed convinced he was one of the “good guys,” he lived a life of violence. And he seemed to see straight through her.

  “I can hardly run away when I am using the toilet.” She glanced down at the sacks they had acquired at the store. “Maybe you could give me my new phone so I could call my sister? It would occupy me. I would use the one I took from Victor’s thug, but—”

  “You still have it?” He growled, lunging for her.

  Laila resisted the urge to shrink back. Would he hit her now? Do something even worse? “Yes.”

  “You didn’t ditch it last night?”

  “No.” Why would he think that? “I kept trying to reach my sister and—”

  “Fuck.” He banged his fist into the side of the vehicle. “Is it still on?”

  “Yes. The battery is low, but—”

  “Goddamn it. Give it to me.”

  And cut off her only source of communication? Her only way of calling for help?

  “Now!” he snarled. “That’s how they’re tracking us. They’re pinging the cell towers. Motherfuck.”

  “They can do that?”

  “If they know the right people and drop enough cash, you bet.”

  Dios mío. If Trees was right, he was blameless—at least in this. She had foolishly given Victor the means to follow them.

  Frantically, she tugged at the cuff. “Release me.”

  “Tell me where to find the phone.”

  “The diaper bag.”

  In a long-legged stride, he hurdled their purchases and swiped the toy-train covered tote from the floor, slamming it on the eat-in table and ripping into it. Moments later, he came up with the device. “What’s the passcode?”

  “What will you do?” Take it? Trash it? Punish her horribly for having it?

  “Start by turning it to airplane mode so they can’t track the fucking device anymore.”

  With an unsteady voice, she rattled off the four-digit code. Trees punched it in, and the screen brightened. His thumbs flew across the flat panel as he whizzed through the menus, then breathed an audible sigh of relief.

  “Victor can no longer track the phone?”

  “Every way he could digitally locate this device is off. But I’m going to trash it to be safe.” Then he darkened the mobile and looked up. “You still need the bathroom?”

  She didn’t, but the urge to flee—before Victor showed up again—rode her even harder. Even if he couldn’t trace his henchman’s cell anymore, Trees was abnormally big and incredibly easy to spot. So was the RV he drove. She could blend in better on her own. Thankfully, the area was busy, and she’d seen more than one conceivable place to hide until she could devise a better plan. “Please.”

  He reached into his pocket and extracted a key that looked comically small between his large fingers, then came at her with a warning glare. “Don’t make me chase you again.”