Yveline Tebeau flattened herself against the ground, not because she feared being spotted at the moment, but because every muscle in her body was protesting the awkward position she'd been holding for what seemed like hours. The moment she did, she was certain she could feel crawling things inching under her clothing.

She had not realized just how much she detested the woods until she'd decided to pursue the story that had just seemed to drop into her lap like manna from heaven. She had tried everything else she knew to try to land a job as a real journalist, but one look at her seemed to be all it took to convince people she wasn't serious.

She didn't know what the hell it was about her looks that made them think that, but she was sure when she presented them with the gritty story she was in pursuit of that all that would change.

The cabin she'd been staking out for almost a week was reputedly a rendezvous point for a sex slave ring. That was news, real news, hard and gritty and shocking. It was going to be a serious wakeup call once she broke the story.

If she got the story.

Resisting the urge to check her clothes, again, for ticks or any other crawling thing, she picked up her binoculars once more and focused them on the cabin after a brief search for the image in the lens that made her dizzy.

There wasn't a sign of the man she'd seen there the past two days.

No sign of a car for that matter, but she was no idiot. He could have left the car in a hiding spot and hoofed it to the cabin.

She'd been there a while herself, though, and she hadn't seen the 'sex god' coming or going--that was the mental tag she'd given him because the guy was be-u-ti-ful to behold, all kinds of nice, rock hard muscle and swarthy skin, black, black hair. He was sooo dangerous looking he made her kegels flutter every time she caught a glimpse of his black brows and narrowed, predatory eyes. Made her think of a pirate or something.

Hours had passed since she'd crawled to her vantage point for a look. One anyway, and there'd been no movement at all in the cabin.

He wouldn't be asleep at this time of the morning.

A thrill of both excitement and fear surged through her the moment her mind suggested that this might be the opportunity she'd been hoping for.

Actually, she'd hoped the gang would show up with a group of captives so she could get pictures. But that hadn't happened and she was getting tired of playing guerilla, crawling along the ground on her hands and knees, or her belly, peering through binoculars, ducking for cover whenever she heard any sound at all that she couldn't identify.

Which had been pretty much everything when she'd first arrived, because she wasn't used to being in the woods and nothing was familiar.

Sighing, certain she did feel something wiggling up her belly, Yveline dropped the binoculars and pushed herself up to her hands and knees and then sat back on her heels to examine the crawling sensation.

It was a millipede. She had to resist the urge to scream the moment she saw the thing. Flicking at it with her fingers, she shuddered all over when she'd managed to dislodge it.

That cinched it. She wasn't going to lie in the woods while wildlife fed off her if she didn't have to. There was a good chance she would find something in that cabin to substantiate the rumor she'd heard. Now was the time to check, while nobody was around.

She was too uneasy to just march right up to the front door, she discovered. She'd darted behind three different saplings before it dawned on her that she probably wasn't hidden if anyone was watching. She was no stick. She preferred to think of herself as pleasantly plump, or voluptuous, but she knew in this day and time when beauty was measured in ounces, most people just thought she was fat--or volumptuous.

She had a trim waist, she thought defensively, but wide hips and big boobs translated to fat when the clothes never touched her waist.

Pushing her insecurity to the back of her mind, even though it was her volume that had prompted the thoughts to begin with because she wasn't actually built for speed, she looked around for a little bit broader tree trunk before she made the next daring dash.