Just a Kiss Away Read Online Free PDF Page A

her with a lethal gaze. He hooked the parasol to his belt, a preventive action. He’d had enough close calls with it and didn’t want to chance that she would try to use it as a weapon. He moved his left leg toward the huge baskets that lined the back of the wagon. With his foot he managed to shove one aside enough to crawl through.
    “Very slowly we’re going to get up and crawl out that space. Got it?”
    She glanced at the opening and then turned her frightened eyes back on his face. She swallowed hard, then nodded.
    He slowly lifted his body off hers, sure to keep his knees on either side of her thighs so she couldn’t roll out the opposite side. “Turn over.”
    Her shoulders jerked at his command.
    “Turn over!” he gritted again, pressing on the knife to intimidate her before lifting it enough so she could turn without slitting her own throat.
    She rolled onto her stomach.
    He kept the knife at the back of her neck and sat on his haunches. His calf throbbed from the pressure. “Get on your knees.”
    She didn’t budge.
    “I said get . . . on . . . your . . . knees. Now!”
    “The knife . . .” she whispered, indicating the reason she couldn’t move.
    In one slick movement his arm was under her ribs, and he jerked her up against his chest, repositioning the knife against her white, pulsing throat. Her head pressed back against his shoulder, her back against his ribs, her bottom against his groin.
    For a long, hot moment he held her that way. He could smell her scent—gardenias, musk, and female fear. His breath grew shallow. He looked down at her. Her skin was pale; she was too frightened to be flushed. She didn’t flinch at his look. She just stared. It was then that he noticed her eyes. They were an odd crystal blue, the color of alpine ice. Her breath, as shallow as his own, whispered past her full, dry lips. His gaze roved over her small chin, down her white neck, strained with her thin blue veins exposed from the position of her head. He watched her pulse beat rapidly in her neck. His own pulse increased, pounding as it had in the jungle.
    Two pairs of soldiers’ boots thudded by. Sam jerked his gaze away, and after a moment he nodded at the opening. “Move.”
    They edged out the opening. Sam kept one arm around her, and with his other hand he held the knife in its threatening position. Daylight glared in his eye, momentarily blinding him. He pulled her against him to make sure she couldn’t get away. He felt one of the oversize baskets against his own back, and so while his vision adjusted he got ready. Vision cleared, he looked around, seeing only the crowd.
    “Now!” he said, jerking her up with him and taking off in a stooped run for the alley.
    Suddenly the woman was like a lead weight.
    “Run!” he ordered, watching, stunned, as she dug in those cursed heels and just stood there, shaking her head. Her eyes had a glazed look of pure fear. Sam had seen that look before, on dying men.
    He dragged her a few more feet before she pulled back on his arm, bringing them both to a dead stop.
    He had to jerk the knife away to keep from cutting her fool throat. The close call stunned him. At that same instant two guerrillas came at him, one from the left and one from his back. Sam fought like the devil himself, punching, kicking, and head-butting.
    An arm locked around his neck, jerking him backward while the soldier’s arm tightened on his windpipe. He reached behind him and gripped the man’s head. His lucky day, no helmet. He bent his head forward, then slammed it back as hard as he could, cracking his opponent in the forehead. He shook his own head to clear it and spun around, fists raised, ready. The soldier staggered back, dazed. Sam punched him out with an upper cut that would have done John L. Sullivan proud.
    The other one got up, came at him again. Sam’s fist slammed into the neck of the soldier, and he fell to the dirt right next to his sprawled friend. Wiping the blood