“I can stay and help.”
Rafe shook his head. “I can handle the rest on my own, and quicker if I’m not worried about you, too. Go north.” He prayed she wouldn’t argue. “I swear: I. Will. Find. You.”
In an abrupt move he didn’t anticipate, she captured his face between her soft hands and planted a kiss on him that rocked him straight to his core. He savored what she gave him and took a bit for himself. The sweetness of her lips made it too damn easy to get lost, which would’ve been what happened if she hadn’t pulled away first.
Breathless, she murmured, “If you don’t, I’m going to kick your ass.”
“Sounds kinky.” Rafe’s mouth kicked up in a mischievous smirk that Penny’s frustrated growl quickly evaporated. He dropped his forehead to hers and breathed in her flowery scent. “I need you to trust me right now, Red. Believe me when I say that nothing is going to keep me from finding you.”
Heavy footfalls broke the tense moment. She pulled away, anxiety etched on her face in the form of a frown. “I do.”
Rafe reeled her in for another quick kiss and whispered against her lips, “Then go.”
She hesitated and then took off in the direction he pointed to. Once he was certain she was safely gone, he cracked his neck and turned around as a second set of camo-covered vultures skulked out from behind a set of trees. “Let’s finish this, gentlemen. I’ve got places to be and bigger heads to knock together.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Penny ran as if her life depended on it. And it did. Her chest ached with the effort of pulling fresh oxygen into her lungs, and her eyes, unaccustomed to the darkness of the surrounding jungle, missed uprooted trees and hidden rocks. She stumbled. Fell. Then she picked herself up and kept running although she had no idea to where. Putting distance between herself, the armed men, and the compound became her only goal.
After another near face-plant to the jungle floor, the tears threatened. Each step and stumble not only increased the distance between her and Fuentes’s thugs, but Rafe, too. Lethal didn’t even begin to describe the man, especially when he was pissed. He’d single-handedly taken down at least six of Diego’s henchmen without breaking a sweat. But how the hell would he find her?
Every inch of the jungle looked like the next, each tree like the one before. If it weren’t for quick sneak peeks of the moon, she wouldn’t even know if she’d gone in a straight line or in circles.
Self-doubt hijacked what remained of her concentration and, with the aid of a tree root, literally brought her down to her hands and knees. This time getting up wasn’t as easy.
A lightning bolt pierced through her upper thigh. Jesus, it hurt like hell.
Penny pushed herself to her feet with a strangled cry before feeling around for the source of the white-hot pain. Her fingers bumped against a two-inch-long branch impaled into the fleshy part of her outer thigh.
“This is so not the time to summon your inner klutz, Kline,” Penny muttered. Closing her eyes and taking a deep breath, she wrapped her fingers around the offending twig. “You can do this. Easy-peasy.”
Not giving herself any more time to anticipate the pain, she gave it a yank and only half swallowed a whimper. “Holy hell. Okay. It’s all good. No more stick. No more pain.”
She deep breathed for ten long seconds to try and convince herself of the latter, when the sound of faraway shouts echoed through the trees. Time up. Ten seconds would have to do. Sucking in a keening wail, she started running again. One hundred yards in, her lungs seized.
There was a reason why she relegated herself to the cheering section during all of Rachel’s marathons, and it wasn’t because she got to wave her little pom-poms. Hand braced on a tree, she focused on easing the tightness in her chest. A wet warmth slid down the outside of her leg. She probed the area where the tree branch had been and winced at the metallic-scented stickiness it left behind on her fingers. It was too dark to see the damage, and when Rafe burst through the foliage like a tornado with legs, there wasn’t time to either.
He grabbed her hand without missing a beat and dragged her along for another sprint. “Gotta keep moving, sweetheart.”
“Do I even want to know why?” She nearly stumbled again before getting her feet back under her.
“No.”
They ran, faster than she’d ever run in her life, throbbing leg be damned. Bark flew, becoming flying missiles as bullets whizzed past their heads. Rafe pulled her along as if he knew exactly where they headed. A leap and dodge later, he screeched to a sudden stop, her body bouncing off his back.
“Why did we…?” Penny followed the direction of Rafe’s gaze.