12. Diego

Twelve - Diego

It'd been three full days of boating non-stop. We were only a few hours away from Anchorage—and it was a good thing, too, because Roni was becoming extremely irritable from being trapped down below. The past two days had done nothing to lessen my suspicions of the captain. The closer we got to Alaska, the more jumpy and suspicious he became. It was very subtle. I had no doubts he probably thought he was doing a great job at keeping things together—but there were flaws in his performance.

It seemed pretty obvious that he figured out who Roni was. The question became: was he jumpy because he thought he was helping me kidnap her? Or was it because he'd been in contact with someone from the Geneva Project? I really hoped it was the former. If he was helping the Geneva Project, we were in a whole lot of trouble. Right now, there was no way to tell what was going on in the captain's head or who he contacted.

I spent a lot of time on the deck under the ruse of helping the captain. I feigned an interest in boats and that I wanted to help him out. It kept Roni and me out of each other's hair and allowed me to keep a close eye on the captain. We were in open waters, and I was on high alert for any vessels in sight.

It felt like I was staring at a chessboard, and no matter which way I moved, my piece would be up against a bigger opponent, and we were still just getting started. I had to hope that once we got settled in the cabin I purchased that things would be easier.

My feet made thudding noises as I descended the stairs, hopefully giving Roni enough warning that I was coming—in case she was indecent. I knocked and then opened the door to find her head hanging out the porthole window.

"Not a single fucking word…" she moaned as she pulled her head back inside and stared daggers at me. Her waterlogged hair hung in wet, tangled waves around her face.

I put my hands up in surrender.

"You won't let me go topside, and I needed to breathe in something besides mold and dust. Even if it means I have to swallow some nasty seawater." She sounded just as salty as the water the boat was cutting through.

"It's really not a good idea." I hadn't told her about my suspicions; I didn't want to freak her out any worse than she had been the other day. If I could give her a few days of rest without excessive worry, then maybe she'd come to appreciate it later.

She groaned in annoyance.

Or not.

I returned her groan, because I only had so much patience. Every interaction we'd had for the past three days seemed to end up in a heated exchange of words. She was dancing on my last nerve. "Fine, if you must know. The captain is acting weird, and I don't trust him. Keeping you out of sight is for the best right now."

She'd stuck her head back out the window. At my words, she quickly pulled her head back in and stared me down. "Weird how?"

"He's jumpy and mumbles to himself. Refuses to make eye contact with me most of the time. I think he knows who you are."

"So he's jumpy because he's transporting the president's daughter?" she questioned with a raised eyebrow.

"No, I think he's jumpy because either way he thinks he's doing something illegal. He might think I'm kidnapping you—which is almost laughable. If he knew you, or read the tabloids, he'd know you don't do anything or go anywhere you don't want to."

She snorted at my assessment and cut me off. "And what about this? I don't want to be here."

I gave her a raised eyebrow of my own and crossed my arms. I even dramatically threw my weight to one foot and leaned against the wall. I was going to go for the metaphoric jugular. Her attitude for the past few days left me wanting to knock her down a peg. "Roni, let's face facts, you want to be here. Under that tough-girl facade of yours, you're just like everyone else would be in this situation, scared. It's okay to own that, but don't lie." I paused for a moment. Roni looked like she was about to chew me out, but it was my turn to cut her off. I wasn't done messing with her yet. "You want to be here, because at least in the wilderness trapped with me, you won't have to worry about the intentions of anyone else around you." Her eyes narrowed in quiet fury—likely annoyed I pinned the tail on the ass. "I get what that's like. I dealt with the same shit during my time in the army on missions. Every civilian who got near me caused me to wonder if they were there with good intentions or there to send me to meet my maker. I get it, it's fucking awful, and I'm not judging you for it. Just do yourself a favor: own what you feel and stop the act. You'll see how much easier it will make our time together if you focus that energy on learning to help yourself—that way it's no longer a fa?ade. It becomes real."

I watched as her face flashed with different emotions. Annoyance, pity, anger, and then back to annoyance. At the end of her spin on the wheel of emotions, her shoulders relaxed and she stuck her head back out the window to ignore me.

She surprised me by breaking the awkward silence that had formed. "And the other option?" That's right, we were talking about the captain.

"He could be in contact with the Geneva Project."

She let out a harsh sigh. Her piercing eyes met mine after she once again pulled her head back inside. "Is it going to be like this the whole time? Trusting no one?" Her mood quickly changed from a quiet indifference to one of defeat.

"For the time being, at least." I wished I had more words of encouragement, but I didn't think she'd want them anyways. Not with the tough-girl act she had going.

"And you're sure you don't want me dead?" she asked.

I chuckled at the half-question half-jab. "No, despite how crazy you used to drive me, I don't want anything bad to happen to you. You're actually an okay person when you aren't talking." I broke out into a smile. "And when you're sleeping."

She pulled the pillow off the little bench she sat on and chucked it at me. "You're such an asshole."

I laughed again. "I may be, but I'm going to keep you alive. You're going to get the chance to do everything you've planned to do in your post–White House life. I'll make sure of it."

The air shifted in the room.

"Do you think I'm stupid?" she asked. The question completely caught me off guard, something I wasn't used to. She was predictable, but her words certainly weren't.

"For?"

"Hating everything. People like to comment about my life on social media. ‘Oh, she's so lucky! Look at all the designers eager to dress her.'Or my favorite, ‘I bet men just throw themselves at her feet for a chance to get in her pants and her family connections.' Do you think I'm stupid for hating everything about my life and wanting something different?" She still sat next to the window, but in a moment of vulnerability she brought her knees up to her chest, as if she were protecting herself from a verbal blow I might deliver. The lower ends of her hair had been sucked out the open window and flapped in the breeze. The sun was setting, and it casted a golden glow from behind her, lighting up the left side of her face.

She looked breathtaking. And very far from stupid.

I took a few steps closer to her and sat on the side of the bed. My knees were only a foot from where her feet were propped up on the edge of the bench.

"I think you are a lot of things, but stupid is certainly not one of them. It's completely normal to resent anyone or anything that makes you feel trapped, that takes away from your sense of choice. Why do you think people believe so deeply in the idea of democracy and the American dream? They believe so deeply they'd sacrifice their lives for it. You are a product and reminder of that dream. Others look to you as a reminder that one day they could be living the dream life, and they're jealous you're living that life now—not them. You are under no obligation to enjoy life in the White House or to entertain the insults or invasion of privacy from others. You just need to figure out what it is that's going to make you happy and then focus on that."

I didn't know why I did it, but I reached out and took her hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. "The simple answer. No, you aren't stupid. You're human, Roni—and I think that you have every right to feel trapped by a life you didn't choose. Try looking at this fucked-up situation as a fresh start."

Her eyes were locked on mine, as if the eye contact was a magnet-like pull that neither of us could ignore. I wanted nothing more than to let instinct take over, tangle my fingers in her soaked hair, and pull her mouth to mine. I wanted her to feel my words, not just hear them.

I was about to do just that, despite the voice in my head screaming at me not to. My instincts were never wrong, even when I wanted them to be. So I followed the phantom itch in my fingers that would only be scratched by the touch of Roni's hair. She gravitated toward me slowly, and when my fingers grasped what they sought, it was as if everything snapped into place.

I knotted my fingers deep into the strands at her scalp and pulled her toward me with a jerk. She came willingly, practically launching herself at me. I fell backward on the bed, and she straddled me. Her weight rested right on my cock, and I desperately grinded it into her as our lips crashed together.

She tasted like the sea and honey. Salty and sweet. She was a delicious contradiction.

Her hands snaked under the edge of my shirt, and she groaned as her fingers touched the hard ridges she found. I growled as she raked her nails gently over the skin. I grabbed the bottom edge of her shirt and pulled it over her head. The semi-wet fabric hit the ground, and it was like that simple action kicked things up a notch.

"What are we doing?" she asked breathlessly as she grabbed my belt and gave it a yank.

"Something we shouldn't," I countered as I reached behind her to remove her bra. I swiftly undid the buckle, and the fabric slid down her arms. I yanked it, and it joined her shirt on the ground.

"Perfect," I mumbled before I pulled the left breast into my mouth. The soft skin immediately pebbled, and she let out a little desperate whine. She ground her pelvis into mine, causing a building friction. The energy between us already had us on edge; very little foreplay would be needed between us—I could just tell. We had years of getting under each other's skin, and that itself was all that either of us seemed to need.

She picked up the speed of her grinding as her fingers wound themselves in my hair, pulling roughly. I liked it. Her reach brought her breasts closer to my face, making it easier to devour them both.

I was about to tug on her yoga pants and bring them down when the hairs on my arms stood on edge, and I listened past the sounds of our heavy breathing. The engine had stopped running, making the background noise softer. Over the sound of the sloshing waves, I heard another engine in the distance, and it sounded like it was working overtime.

Adrenaline flooded my system as I shoved Roni off of me.

"Fuck!" I shouted as I quickly bent over and picked up her shirt and bra and threw them at her. I went to the window and looked out. In the distance, I could see another boat, and it was quickly gaining ground. We had minutes before they were boarding ours.

"What the fuck?" Roni asked as I slammed the window shut.

"The engine is off and that boat in the distance is hightailing it here like a pig to the feed trough. Get dressed, dress warm, and don't come upstairs no matter what," I ordered.

"But Diego—"

"No but Diego. Do what I said. Fucking hide. And for some reason if the boat goes down, swim east toward the sunrise. That's the direction you'll find land." I tossed her one of the inflatable life vests I'd stuffed in my bag and a sheathed KA-BAR straight-edge knife I picked up between the airport and the dock. I yanked open the other bag and tossed a plastic bag with a few MREs and bottles of water her way. "Hold onto that. You might end up needing that if this boat goes down." Her hands would be full, but she could kick her way to shore if it meant she had a knife to defend herself from predators and food and water to keep her energy up.

I grabbed my own knives and the ghost gun I'd also secured from a guy I knew not far from the dock. It paid to have connections all over the country when you lived the kind of life my friends and I did. I didn't want anything that could be traced back to me or the president.

"Good luck." Roni's words were almost completely drowned out by my warning. "Stay safe and barricade this door. I'll barricade another to throw them off first."

Then I slammed the door behind me, hoping that wasn't the last time I'd see her.