Afternoon was well on its way when long, blunt fingers began to twitch. Another fifteen minutes passed as Meg ticked her fingers along the dirt. She organized leaves into piles and dug tiny trenches with nearby sticks, before heavily lashed eyelids did something like fluttering, only a whole lot more masculine. Eyes opened to slits, green-gold irises peering through, pupils dilating and contracting rapidly.
She bent to meet his gaze. “Hi.”
The man jerked, yanking at his bound arms and legs as if preparing to run. His face paled. Blood soaked through the white bandage.
“Oh, hell.” She scrambled for the first aid kit. The contents spilled across the ground when she snapped it open, and she pawed through things without putting them back. Gathering more gauze, medical tape, and the tube of antibiotic ointment, she turned back. The god-cat-man was eyeing her, still pinned on his side, fingers working at the knots of rope around his ankles.
For a moment, she nearly bent down and untied him herself. Then she saw the forest in his eyes, and remembered the rage of the jaguar—a jaguar with rather large teeth, and even larger claws. And she didn’t mean that euphemistically.
“Just—stay still.” She inched closer.
He pulled away, but couldn’t get far with his arms and legs restrained. Meg, wary of white canines bared by full lips, reached across his shoulder and peeled away the soiled bandage. When he didn’t move, she grew a little more confident, pulling off old gauze and tossing it aside. He began to settle, and she uncapped the tube of goo, squeezed some out, then dabbed it over the bullet wound, marveling at golden skin stretched across planes of hard muscle. He was lean, angular, all bronzed. When the cream had stopped the bleeding, she put another gauze pad on top of the wound and taped it carefully, smoothing her fingers over his shoulder blade and down across the indent of his spine.
He didn’t seem to object. Tentatively, unable to believe he was actually a real person—what with him having been a real jaguar and all just recently—Meg trailed her fingers down his torso, pausing at long scars. Four in a row, and it struck her that they were claw marks arcing over human flesh. With gentle strokes, she began to trace them. He twitched his shoulders, rolling to bring her back in sight, moving so fast that believing he was some strange were-cat wasn’t such a stretch of the imagination.
Gold eyes bored into her, as if willing her to understand something.
“I suppose it’s too much that you might speak English?” she sighed.
A heavy black brow rose sardonically, as if—while he might not understand the words—he got the gist of it.
“Habla español?” She couldn’t think of a single reason why the Aztec-Olmec-were-cat-god-man might speak the local tongue. She really hoped he didn’t speak Aztec. That could get problematic.
He hesitated, then in Spanish returned, “Where am I?”
She resisted the urge to call “Hallelujah,” but couldn’t quite stop the grin that spread across her face. “Our camp,” she answered, in her own badly accented version of the language. “You were hurt.”
His next words were sharp, green-gold eyes turning gold and black, hard as agate. Meg hadn’t been able to catch the entire sentence, but the tone was accusation.
“Not me, my friend,” she said in English, smiling and shaking her head. She couldn’t seem to stop the smile. Hell, after finding a minor deity trussed up in her camp, she didn’t think she should have to. Come to South America, the brochures should read, Capture your own sun god!
His suspicious look didn’t dissipate.
“I’m sorry.” She switched back to Spanish. “I didn’t—” Uncertain of the word for shoot, she paused. “Blaze at you.”
Agate eyes softened with complete and total confusion.
“Point at you?” she tried.
He stared at her.
“Throw metal at you?”
He blinked twice, cat-like, then sighed and laid down on the soft ground. She had the sudden urge to rub his belly.
“Friends?” It seemed silly to keep him tied up, but she found herself intimidated of the jaguar he had been.
Jaguar he had been? She was losing her ever lovin’ mind. Too much South American research. Next she’d be dreaming of finding the legendary city of gold. Wait, no, even that would make more sense.
He slanted a look at her, thick lashes giving an eye-tilted, feline impression. “Friends,” he agreed tentatively.
Meg nodded once, then proceeded to untie the knots. She chuckled when she saw them. He’d just about managed to free himself.
Loose, he stretched and rose, one foot braced on the forest loam, the other crossed. It gave him a tiny semblance of modesty.
Pity.
Pulling her mind out of the gutter she stood, trying to drag her focus away from the wounded man. She strode to her tent, shaking free a light blanket and carrying it back. “Here.” She handed it to him selflessly. How many other sex-starved women would help a minor deity cover up? Not many, she’d bet.
He reached out right-handed, then flinched and dropped his arm when his shoulder pulled. Face pale, he reached out with his left hand and let the blanket pool in his lap, his expression tight with pain. “Thank you.” The words were soft, a purr deep in a well-muscled chest.
Her mouth went dry. “Ohhhh, boy,” she murmured, rubbing her stomach. Something needed to be touching her. “Ohhhh, boy, oh boy, oh boy.”
He stared at her, eyes slowly going darker, turning the more common brown that was seen so often in this region.
“Oh boy,” Meg said one more time, feeling heat pool in her muscles and spread out, tingling to her fingertips. “Too sexual,” her last boyfriend had told her, explaining that he was rising in the world and her blatant need for sex would hamper him. She was too much of a wild child, cavorting around and spouting nonsense theories on hidden ruins and treasure hunting. It hadn’t been the first time she’d been accused of such things, but—helllllll. How could you not be sexual when confronted with El Gato, the perfect image of an Aztec god?
He was inspecting her again, a slow, knowing smile spreading over full lips. The expression reached clear up to now-black eyes. Ebony hair hung just past his shoulders, straight and silky and begging to be petted. She realized she was reaching toward him about the same time he tipped his head and kissed the palm of her hand, tongue flicking out to brush against skin.
She jumped back, feeling as though she might have been burned. “Ahh—holy crap, you’re a crazy god-man who turns into a freakin’ cat!” she nearly yelled, resisting the urge to hug herself just for the touch. “I’m losing my mind!”
His gaze remained on her, lust washed away by bemusement.
“Oh, God, I don’t know what I’m going to do with you!” Meg spoke English and didn’t care, babbling away in her own personal freak-out. She figured that after being abandoned in the jungle with a mythical creature, she deserved it. In fact, it was probably long overdue.
“I know what I’m going to do,” she announced, scratching fingernails through her short hair as she tromped to her tent. “I’m going to go find that little bathing pool and take a damn bath. Not a cold bath, mind you,” she babbled, “because nothing in this damn country is cold, but it’ll at least be lukewarm instead of this hot.” Because what she felt could only be classified as hot, really. She grabbed a dirty shirt—well, dirtier than the others—to use as a towel and whipped around, looking at the cat-man. “Don’t move,” she ordered, switching back to Spanish.
He inclined his head, letting hair spill over his shoulders in a wave of shadow. “Of course,” he answered in kind.
Meg stared at him for a moment longer, then pounded off into the jungle.
He sat motionless, listening to the bizarre woman crash off through the brush and doing his damnedest not to jostle the healing wound. The thought of turning jaguar and leaving, now, before she came back, was tempting. The thought of the pain of transformation while the injury stretched and tore was not.
He to
ok a deep, careful breath.
She was very, very strange. Prone to fits of—well, fits. Yet, very attractive. He smiled, pulling up the memory of her appearance as easily as he could bring to mind her scent. Small, probably only reaching his shoulder, and delightfully curvy. Most of that was hidden under baggy clothes at the moment, appropriate for smashing through foliage, but every so often he could see the line of hip and breast pressing against cloth. Short hair, barely more than chin-length, riotously curly and pale, the color of sunshine on the water. Blue eyes, the hue of a cool summer sky. Fair skin that sported a dusting of freckles across an upturned nose, edging toward pink despite the overhead canopy.
She didn’t seem inclined to hurt him. He’d scared the men off the night before—a partial change told him their scent was nearly twelve hours old. He doubted they would be back. Even if people talked about the jaguar-man, any hunt would be for nothing, and the furor would die down shortly.
He took another careful breath, closing eyes that seemed to be light-sensitive, swallowing against a headache. The skin around the gunshot wound felt tight, hot. Infected. In this jungle, it wasn’t a surprise. Things would be fine. She’d come back, and he’d suggest they take the Jeep and go home. Things would be just fine.
Meg pulled her curly hair back into a nubby ponytail, only to have tendrils escape almost immediately and spiral around her face. The water from the pool hadn’t been much cooler than the surrounding air, and now that she was on the way back to camp it seemed to have made the humidity that much worse. Her shirt clung to her, camouflage cargo pants—bought used at the Army-Navy store back in L.A.—almost indecent. Boots laced halfway up her calves protected her against any nasties, but made her toes feel damp. There seemed to be no way to properly dry in this soup.
She paused before entering the clearing. It had occurred to her that the man might be gone, that he could have fled as soon as she’d left, and then how would she prove to herself she hadn’t dreamed the whole thing?
Her guides missing might be a clue, she supposed. Rope near the fallen tree could be another.
Meg took a deep breath, flushed when her breasts pressed against her damp shirt, and exhaled. Great. She took a bath to cool off and just ended up horny all over again. Damn it!
Steeling herself, she marched forward. The tent had collapsed in one corner. The ashes of the dead fire feathered out from the center of the clearing, surrounded by logs. The ground was mud, stirred up from many men living there for days, though most of the evidence of them—the packs, the tents, the food—was gone.
Just one man was still there, sitting against a tree. He opened his dark eyes when she walked up, black orbs surrounded by black lashes. He smiled. “I think,” he said slowly in Spanish, “it may be infected.”
“It? What? Oh, let me see.” She leaned close to inspect the wound, bending over his shoulder. The heat of his breath whispered against her neck. Her skin prickled, nerves tingling up and down her spine. She ignored it as much as possible, peering at the injury.
It was pink, now, and inflamed.
“All right,” she said firmly, settling back on her heels. “The nearest village is several days drive. Think you can make that?” She stared hard at him, watched his gaze rise from the neckline of her shirt slowly up her throat, as solid as a caress. “Stop that,” Meg said, but it lacked power.
He smiled slowly. “No doctors. My camp.” His gaze still burned, and it wasn’t the infection.
“I said stop that,” she insisted.
His smile was slow, heady. “I can’t help it,” he nearly purred. “You smell nice.”
Her skin beat in time to her heart, faster than it should have, warming with every moment he looked at her. “You’re a—” she didn’t know the word for flirt, “—charmer,” she accused. Cats weren’t supposed to flirt!
He laughed, a deep rumble that set her bones to humming. “Thank you.” He looked pleased. “Now, about my camp?”
“Right,” she muttered, dragging her mind back to the task at hand. An uncertain glance around the clearing revealed shadows pooling in the corners. “Thing is, it’s almost dark. Think you’ll live if we wait until morning?”
He smiled, as lazy as every housecat she’d ever seen. “I think I’ll live.”
She had never been great at cooking. Give her a rifle, she could hit a blob of spit at five hundred yards, but cooking? Well. There were other womanly pursuits. Like treasure hunting. Cooking was just one of the reasons she hired guides, after all.
She peered at the fire and the frying pan, certain there should be some brilliant way of hanging the frying pan so the contents—a can of beans—would heat. Nothing brilliant became apparent.
Then she felt warmth tingle up along her skin, awareness like that of a storm brewing. Turning her head, she was unsurprised to see that the deity had moved closer. He lounged alongside the fire, blanket wrapped haphazardly around his waist.
“Hi.” Meg kicked herself for being dumb.
He smiled, slow and warm. “Hi. Can I try?”
It took her a moment to back off the lecherous, “Try whatever you like, gorgeous” response and think about what he was actually asking. Then her gaze turned to the beans. “Oh. Right.” Happily, she handed him the pan.
It took some finagling as he worked around his injured shoulder, but a moment later he’d braced the pan in the smoldering coals, the handle wedged between two rocks. “Now,” he said, gesturing with one graceful arm, “you can just stir.”
“I can just stir?” Her Spanish accent vanished with indignation. “Why don’t you stir?” Then she realized his face had gone white with pain, and she flushed. “Oh. Right. Well, that makes sense.” Picking up a metal spoon, she gave the beans a single turn around. “Should you even be up and around? With that wound?” She eyed him critically.
He stared into the flames, pupils reflecting the light and glowing gold. “Probably not.” An expression flitted across his face so quickly that Meg didn’t quite catch it. His bare feet flexed, toes spreading and relaxing again. He looked at her sidelong, eyes turning black as the firelight left them. Liquid flame still slid over ebony hair, licking across strands like trapped gold. “Better than starving.”
The expression had been mischief, she realized, and just resisted giving him a teasing hit. “Very funny.”
His eyebrows lifted and dropped, a smile lurking playfully around the edges of his full mouth. “I excel at funny. Also…” he paused, eyes twinkling further, “…charming.”
“I didn’t mean you were charming,” she pronounced, though she could feel amusement brewing. “I meant you were—” She couldn’t think of a Spanish term. “Never mind.”
He chuckled, the sound drawing Meg’s gaze around as if pulled. His laugh was warm, unfettered, absorbed into the jungle as easily as the bird calls. He looked at her, still grinning, face transformed from wild beauty to comfortable lover.
No! Not lover! Freaky cat-man!
She wilted. Who was she kidding? He didn’t look like a cat. Sure, occasionally he lounged like a cat, but mostly he was just too sexy for her good. “Tarzan might know the way to the ruins,” she mumbled to herself in English, staring back into the fire.
“Hm?”
“Nothing,” she answered quickly. “I’m Meg.”
“Santiago.” It rolled off his tongue the way Quetzalcoatl rolled off the natives’ tongues, beautiful and exotic. She was vaguely relieved his name wasn’t Tarzan.
“Nice,” she said under her breath, then repeated the compliment in Spanish, still staring at the fire.
The jungle got dark rapidly when the sun fell below the mountain range. No leftover light edged down to them—it wasn’t strong enough to defeat the layers upon layers of greenery. Animals went to bed while others woke, sound levels altering and changing, but never disappearing.
She heard movement, skin sliding over ground, and felt fingers brush her chin. Meg’s breath caught. Her flesh warmed, the touch careful and
delicate. He tugged, pulling her face around, and for a moment she had this crazy idea that she might tell him to back off, buddy, she wasn’t that kind of girl.
Then she remembered smooth flesh over hard planes of muscle, and realized she really was that kind of girl.
She turned to face him, firelight sweeping across the angles of his face. Gazing deeply into her eyes, Santiago said, “If you stare at the fire you’ll go night blind.” Then he let her chin go and looked away.
Meg blinked. Waited, expecting a seduction at any moment. None was forthcoming.
That bastard.
She glared at him.
After a moment, he glanced over. “What?” He sounded confused and slightly annoyed.
She thought about reading him the riot act for not seducing her, but realized at the last minute that she might sound a little idiotic. Okay, a lot idiotic. “Nothing,” she groused, and glared out at the blackened jungle. She could feel his eyes on her. She ignored him.
***
Breaking down the camp didn’t take much. Unlike camping in the northern hemisphere, there weren’t heavy tents or bear-proofing gear that needed to be dismantled. Nothing to keep them warm, not a whole lot of clothing to pack. Meg tossed things haphazardly into the Jeep, thankful that her guides had left it. When everything was as stored as it was going to get—she had no idea how to lash it all down, but it looked to her like it’d stay put—she went back for Santiago.
“Ready?” she called, wondering if he’d need help up or—
He rolled silently to his feet, holding the blanket around his hips with his good hand. Apparently, he didn’t need help.
He moved with the same sleek grace that the predator he’d been two nights before had possessed. Once he’d passed she turned to follow him, trying not to notice the way his broad back slimmed down to his hips, or the dimples along his spine that peeked just above the blanket.
“Can you turn back into a jaguar?” She didn’t even try to be as quiet as he was while they tromped through the brush. “Like a rhino in Africa” sprang to mind.
Treasure Hunting Page 2
