Free Surrender at Dawn by Laura Griffin Page A

far as the eye could see. She looked up at him again. “How’d you know I was staying at the Two Palms?”
    “Lucky guess.” He slung a leg over the nearest motorcycle and gave her a hard look. “Get on. I’ll take you.”
    She stared at him, all broad shoulders and Levis and bad attitude. He was a dangerous man; she knew that for a fact. It was crazy to trust him. But almost everything she’d done in the past forty-eight hours--starting with leaving her job in the middle of a workday and catching a flight to Thailand--was just as crazy.
    Charlotte looked at the motorcycle. She glanced at a nearby doorway, where a man she recognized from the bar now stood smoking a cigarette and watching her from the shadows.
    “Get on,” Jack repeated.
    She met his gaze. Then she threw her leg over the back of his bike and settled in.
    The engine growled, and they lunged into traffic. He sped through streets and alleys and black puffs of car exhaust. Charlotte’s hair whipped into her eyes, but she didn’t dare let go to push it aside. Instead, she tucked her forehead against his back and clutched his waist, trying not to cling too tightly as he dodged in and out of cars. She was close enough to smell him over all the exotic smells of the city--male heat and sweat and that vague, indefinable scent she hadn’t smelled in a long time.
    He took a corner, and her hands and thighs clutched tighter. She peeked up as they sped through a narrow alley, then turned onto another congested street. Moments later, they were on a two-lane highway flanked on either side by coconut trees. She closed her eyes as he leaned into the curves--left, then right again, then suddenly a sharp left. Her eyes popped open and they were on a familiar driveway lined with bougainvillea. He glided up to the beveled glass doors of her hotel and cut the motor.
    She unclenched her hands from his T-shirt and realized they were trembling. Her knees were trembling, too, and she didn’t know whether it was the place or the man or the thing she was about to do, but Charlotte felt rattled, right down to her bones.
    What now? Was she supposed to invite him up to her room and persuade him to take her to Ko Aroon? Just two days ago, such an idea would have been unthinkable.
    At this moment, she was thinking about it.
    Her throat went dry as she pictured herself taking her clothes off for this man. That’s what he’d insinuated… wasn’t it? That if she’d sleep with him, he’d take her where she wanted to go? It was, and yet… as she looked into his face now, she saw nothing but loathing.
    “Stay away from Aroon Island,” he said.
    “But--”
    “Yeah, it’s one of the best dive spots around. It’s also been taken over by dirtbags who would like nothing better than to get their hands on a blond American traveling alone. Get out your travel guide and find someplace else to play.”
    “But I need to--”
    “Stay away,” he said, and roared off.

    Charlotte awoke with the sun in her eyes and the unmistakable feeling that she wasn’t alone. She sat up and blinked across the ocean of her king-size bed.
    She jerked the sheet up. “How did you get in here?”
     Jack Brenner stared at her from across the room, arms folded over his chest. “You didn’t tell me you knew Mark Colter.”
    She pressed back against the headboard as he came to stand at the foot of the bed. “Would it have made a difference if I had?”
    “Mark and I went through BUD/S training together,” he said, as if that answered her question.
    “How…” She shook off the grogginess and glanced at the clock on the nightstand. Eight fifteen. It must be the jet lag. She’d never felt so out of it.
    Jack just stood there, watching her.
    “How did you find out about Mark?”
    “Simple background search,” he said. “You’re from Lazy Springs, Texas. It’s a small town. You two graduated high school a year apart.”
    She brushed her hair out of her eyes and looked at him. Something had