Just as it always did when she was with him.
How did he do that?
She didn’t know, just held on, bringing his mouth back to hers, letting him and everything he was work its magic.
The approach to Cabo was smooth enough, but Noah found himself white knuckling the armrests regardless. The location was the stuff of his nightmares, made all the worse for being the passenger, with absolutely no control.
So much for being over himself.
He needed to work on that.
The pilot banked the aircraft, and Noah caught a good up-front view of the landscape, specifically where he’d fallen out of the sky and hit the desertlike hills.
“Noah?” Bailey was looking at him with concern and regret lining those gorgeous baby blues. “You okay?”
“Perfect.” He felt a drop of sweat run down his temple. “Is it hot in here? I think it’s hot in here.”
Bailey didn’t say a word, just entwined her fingers with his and held on tight.
He found himself pathetically grateful, and for the first time since…well, ever, he wanted to set his head on someone’s shoulders and let go.
Bailey’s shoulders.
Wasn’t that a kick. He wanted to reach out to the woman who was causing him all this grief.
The pilot banked to the other side, just to give everyone a view of the ocean, and Noah’s stomach flipped over and revolted. He’d had that view as well, thank you very much, up close and personal. He didn’t need to see it again.
Jesus.
Landing anywhere close to this place was never going to be smooth enough for him.
“Excuse me, sir. Are you all right?” This from the female passenger on the other side of his aisle.
“Yes,” he said as lightly as he could through his clenched teeth. Bailey was holding his hand, stroking his arm, and still, still goddamnit, he was sweating. “I’m fine,” he said. “Fine.”
Bailey just kept touching him, and he tried his damnedest to suck it up because he was making her feel even worse about getting him down here, but he just needed a damn moment.
Or two.
When they finally touched down, he resisted the urge to kiss the ground. They made it to the terminal without him further humiliating himself and without any other incident, but Noah had no doubt that that streak of luck and fortune would not be lasting long.
Not when Bailey was around.
She was sharp as hell, she made him smile, hell, she made him want to walk around singing for crissakes, and she was gorgeous to boot.
No doubt, he had a major thing going for her, but there was no question-she had a knack for bringing the trouble.
He’d been momentarily sidetracked while helping her to join the ranks of the Mile High Club in the airplane bathroom, but now that he was thinking with his head, at least his big one, some of the euphoria from the great sex began to fade.
That they hadn’t been able to put their hands on the so-called hidden money was a bad sign.
Her brother showing up at LAX was a bad sign.
Bad signs all over the place, and it made him feel edgy. He was missing something, something big.
That much he knew.
What he didn’t know for certain was if Bailey was missing it, too, or if she just hadn’t shared it yet.
He hated that thought.
They got through the airport and car rental without seeing any action and were on the road in a beat-up old Blazer, old being the operative word, driving down the main drag, surrounded by the dry salty heat of Cabo, when his cell phone began vibrating. “Fisher,” he answered.
“You’re not skiing, you’re not boinking a ski bunny, and you’re not piloting Trouble-Walking to Cabo. Where the hell are you?” Shayne demanded.
“Do you really want to know?”
“You’re already in Cabo.”
“Bingo.”
“You flew commercial.”
This wasn’t a question, but a statement of disbelief. Noah glanced over at Bailey, who was watching him. She had her window down. The wind was playing havoc with her hair, which she was trying unsuccessfully to hold back. With her arms lifted, attempting to corral her hair into submission, her neck was exposed.
She had a little bite mark right beneath her ear.
His.
And just beneath the bite was a patch of red skin, from his two-day-old beard.
He’d marked her.
The thought should have disgusted him, but apparently he was just Neanderthal enough for the opposite reaction.
He wanted to pull the falling-off-its-own-axis Blazer over to the side of the road and haul her into his lap and start all over again. He wanted to put his hands back on her, and while he was doing that, he wanted to be buried deep inside her body, his mouth on hers, swallowing those sexy little panting cries she made as she came-
“Noah?” Shayne said.
“Yeah.” He tore his eyes off Bailey and her body. “I flew commercial.”
“Oh, Christ. You’re in deep.” This was also said with disbelief. “You’ve fallen and can’t get up.”
“Shayne-”
“Maddie said you were in love with her, but-”
“Maddie needs to mind her own damn business.”
“We are her business,” Shayne said.
Noah pinched the bridge of his nose. “Is there a point to this?”
“Sure.”
“Are you planning to get to it anytime soon?”
“Look, man. I know she means something to you. That’s new.”
Noah didn’t say anything to that. Yeah, she meant something to him.
Everything.
And yeah, it was new. Not to mention a little unsettling.
“You’re going to see if you can find the money and get those guys off her butt.”
“Yes.”
A sigh sounded through the phone. “Maddie’s going to give you a whole ration of shit.”
“No, she won’t. She thinks it’s romantic. Stupid, but romantic.”
He got another long-suffering sigh. “You’re making the rest of us look bad, dude.”
“Got to go.”
“Fine, but given the situation, you’re going to get yourself in more hot water, right?”
Yeah. Of that much, at least, he was quite certain.
“Give me your location. I’ll fly down there and provide the getaway.”
“You don’t have to-”
“No shit, Sherlock. Location.”
Noah knew it wasn’t just the getaway. Both he and Shayne knew that being here was a problem for him. And then there was the commercial airline factor. If he could get out of the return flight…“Meet us back at the Baja airport in a few hours.”
“Done.”
Still debating with himself over whether having Shayne come was a good idea or a bad one, Noah shut his phone.
Bailey directed him along the main drag. It was only early afternoon, but the heat beat down on them as they drove, the Pacific Ocean tumbling the shores on the right, the hotels and resorts lining the beach.
“It’s up ahead,” Bailey told him. “Turn right here.”
Instead, he drove right by the construction site.
“Noah?”
“Hang on.” He turned into the next property, which was, surprise surprise, yet another hotel. He drove along the far side of the parking lot until he found a vacant space, and pulled in.
They had a perfect view of Alan’s resort. The Fun and Sun’s lot was still unpaved, and opened to the hotel itself, which competed for attention with the two hotels it was sandwiched by.
The site was far messier and more disorganized than either Mammoth or Catalina, with equipment and huge piles of materials like brick and mortar lying everywhere.
But there was no doubt, the place had that same deserted feel as the others.
“I don’t see anything,” Bailey said. “No cars, no movement.”
“Which, as we’ve discovered the hard way, means nothing.”
Yeah, Noah was quite certain of two things as he sat there in the Blazer next to Bailey and surveyed the situation. One, the money hadn’t yet been found.