“He’s probably just coming off a hunt,” she whispered. “Most people think they’re nocturnal, but they’re not. They’re crepuscular.”
She sounded like one of those programs on National Geographic.
“Crepuscular,” he repeated.
“Uh-huh. It means—”
“I know what it means. They hunt at dawn and dusk. I’m just surprised you know it.”
That stopped her.
“Why wouldn’t I?” Her tone bordered on the incredulous. Or maybe on mockery, which was even worse. “I’ve been studying jaguars for months. I spent days hiking the Cockscomb Basin Jaguar Sanctuary in Belize. I met with the director of the Belize Zoo. She knows more about jaguars than anybody. I went inside an enclosure with her and one of her cats, but I’ve never actually encountered one in the—”
“You went into a jaguar enclosure?”
“Well, into an enclosure within the enclosure. It’s hard to explain, but—”
“Damn right, it’s hard to explain. You did all that, and you want to turn them into coats?”
Tanner had never actually seen a person’s mouth drop open before.
“I want to do what?”
“Jesus! Never mind. It’s none of my—”
“Who told you that?”
“What’s the difference?”
“Was it my father?” She slapped her hands on her hips. “He always was an ass.”
“Look, this is a pointless discussion. My job is to get you home, not judge you.”
“Liar!”
He had turned away, ostensibly to lean the rifle against the tree again, but really to end a conversation that would get them nowhere. The sound of that word, liar, made him face her.
“Watch what you say to me, babe.”
“Do not ‘babe’ me, Lieutenant. And do not try to claim you haven’t been judging me. You have. All along.” Those big blue eyes narrowed. “You think I came to San Escobal to kill cats?”
“I just told you, I’m not—”
She covered the few feet between them and slapped her hands against his chest. Hard. He had seven, eight inches on her and at least seventy pounds, but she caught him off guard and he stumbled backwards.
His leg didn’t take the misstep well and he tried not to wince.
“Hey. Take it easy.”
“I work with The FURever Fund!”
“So?”
“Do you know anything about them? Anything at all?”
She gave him another shove, but this time he was ready for it and he grabbed her elbows and steadied her.
“Who you work with has nothing to do with me.”
“How about Defenders of Wildlife? The World Wildlife Fund? The Wildlife Conservation Society?” She glared at him, her eyes full of fire. “Ever hear of any of them, Lieutenant?”
Uh-oh. A slow-dawning reality was beginning to penetrate his brain.
“Maybe.”
“Maybe? Maybe?”
“Okay. I’ve heard of them. So what?”
“They protect animals.”
“And?”
“And,” she said, the words dripping scorn, “The FURever Fund does the same thing. It’s new. It’s relatively small. Its focus is on the preservation of big cats.” Her eyes narrowed. “Jaguars.”
“Jaguars,” he repeated stupidly.
“Do I really look like a woman who’d want to kill a creature for its fur?”
What she looked like was the most beautiful woman imaginable.
He owed her an apology. An explanation.
To hell with that, Tanner thought, and he gathered her into his arms, bent his head to hers, and claimed her mouth.
CHAPTER SEVEN
What in hell did Superman think he was doing? Did he figure he could get out of this by kissing her into silence?
Ridiculous.
The arrogant idiot.
He owed her an apology. Okay. Maybe not. Why would she give a damn what he believed about her? The point was, she was not into machismo and she was certainly not into hot, sweaty sex with a stranger, and if that was where he thought this was—where he thought this was—where he thought…
Dio!
Who cared what he thought?
Alessandra’s brain blanked out everything but the kiss.
The hot demand of Tanner’s mouth.
The strength of his embrace.
The beat of his heart against hers.
And, oh, the hard thrust of his erection against her belly.
She moaned.
He drew her closer.
Her hands slid up his chest, to his shoulders; she wound her arms around his neck, dug her fingers into his dark hair, and the world tilted.
He groaned with satisfaction, cupped her ass, lifted her into him, changed the angle of the kiss, took it deeper, darker, hotter.
She sucked on the tip of his tongue and he groaned again. The sound was one of raw, pagan want. Her body responded with a rush of molten heat between her thighs and she fisted her hands in his cotton T and leaned into him.
He said something low and harsh as he thrust his leg between hers.
Oh. Oh yes. Yes…
She rubbed against his leg.
He slid his hands under her shirt.
His hands were big. Warm. Rough from work.
He stroked one hand down her back. Lower. Lower. Slid it inside the waistband of her scrubs. His fingers on her naked flesh.
She shuddered. Shoved up his shirt. He made a little sound in the back of his throat as she explored him. The tautly muscled shoulders and pecs. The swift beat of his heart. The toned, exciting washboard abs…
He pushed her hands away.
She whimpered in protest until he tore his shirt over his head and yanked her into his arms again. She caught her breath at the feel of him. Hot skin. Hard muscles.
He caught her wrists.
“Wait,” he said in a low growl. He grasped the hem of her T-shirt. “Raise your arms.”
A second later, her naked breasts were against his bare chest.
He pushed her hair aside and kissed her neck. Nipped her throat. Soothed the tiny wound with a lick of his tongue.
She heard herself sobbing. Pleading. She wanted more. This wasn’t enough. It wasn’t…
His hands cupped her breasts.
His thumbs flickered across her nipples.
Her legs buckled and he swept her into his arms, carried her into their tiny shelter and lay her down on the bed of soft palm fronds.
He stood above her, silhouetted by the light of the fire. He was beautiful, a magnificent male animal, and she had never wanted a man, never wanted anything as she wanted him.
He toed off his boots. Undid his belt. Unzipped his camos. Shoved them down. His penis, swollen and proud, tented his jockeys.
“Tanner,” she whispered.
It was the first time she’d used his name.
She said it softly, but it swept through him, gave meaning to his need, his urgency, his desire…
And just as suddenly dragged him back to cold reality.
Had he lost his fucking mind?
She was his responsibility.
Jesus, why mince words?
This wasn’t a date. Not of any kind. They hadn’t met in a bar or at a party or even online. They’d met, if you could call it that, because she’d been a captive and he was the soldier whose mission was to rescue her. And, as a solider, especially as a STUD operative, he was sworn to a code that put honor before everything else.
There wasn’t a damned thing honorable in seducing the woman he’d been sent to protect, a vulnerable woman, and if Alessandra Bellini was not a vulnerable woman he didn’t understand the meaning of the word.
“Tanner?”
He looked down at her, and his heart twisted. A nice image, spoiled by the fact that his dick was still doing its own thing, and that thing had nothing to do with his heart.
How in hell had he lost focus? How had he gone from taking care of
her to taking advantage of her?
She was so beautiful. Those dark blue eyes. Hair like a spill of sunlight over her creamy shoulders. She raised her arms to him and her breasts, small and perfect, lifted as if they were an offering.
He wanted to reach for her, roll her under him, take possession of her body and maybe even her soul, lose himself and everything that had haunted him all these past months…
Shit!
Tanner tore his gaze from Alessandra, scrambled for his camos and pulled them on.
“The fire,” he said roughly. “ I have to—I have to—”
She was looking at him as if he’d lost his mind. The truth was, he’d just found it, but there was no way to tell her that.
Instead, he swung around, stepped into the night and hoped to God he could forget the last glimpse he had of her, the expression on her face that went from desire to bewilderment, the way she quickly folded her arms over her breasts in an age-old gesture of female shame.
It would have been better if she’d flung something at his head and called him a son of a bitch, because he deserved at least that—and more.
* * *
When the pewter haze of dawn chased away the blackness of night, Tanner finally fell into restless sleep.
He dreamed of Alessandra as he had last seen her, half-naked and altogether beautiful. In one dream, he went to her and took her in his arms. In another, she slapped his face when he tried it.
The cries of a troupe of howler monkeys shot him bolt upright. His hand closed around the SIG-SAUER—he’d slept with it next to him—and he was instantly alert, thanks to years of training.
He was also in a lot of pain, thanks to his fucking leg, but there was no time for pain and he got to his feet, holstered the pistol and worked on stretching the leg as best he could.
The good news was that the fire was still going and when he checked, there was enough water left to pour into the pot and put up to boil.
The better news was that Alessandra was still asleep.
He could see her inside the shelter, sprawled on her belly, wearing his shirt and the scrubs. They’d have to get moving soon, but he’d wait a little while before he woke her. And if that marked him as a coward, what the hell. He was a lot of other things. Why not a coward, too?
Carefully, he retrieved his boots, got a clean pair of socks from his pack, put them on, then put on the boots and stepped into the trees to relieve himself. A couple of minutes walk brought him to the stream. He went down the steep bank carefully, wincing as he balanced his weight on his bad leg. Twisting it again would be a really bad move. Quickly, he splashed his face with the cool swift-running water, then dunked his head and drove his fingers through his wet hair. His face was bristly, the way it always was in the field, but it wasn’t yet at the itchy stage that could drive a man nuts. He had a disposable toothbrush in his pack. Two, actually. When he got back to camp, he’d use one, give one to Alessandra…
“Okay,” he said into the morning quiet, “that’s it, dude. What are you, the King of Procrastination? Get back there and deal with whatever’s waiting for you.”
Rage. Coldness. Sarcasm. Accusations. Whatever she could dish out, he could take.
Tanner plodded back to camp, dreading the moment that was coming, waking her up and…
Damn.
She was already up, standing outside the shelter. Her hair was pulled back from her face, tied at the nape of her neck with what looked like a strip of cloth. One of the plastic cups from his backpack was cradled in her hands, its contents steaming into the already humid air.
“I hope you don’t mind,” she said, “but I checked your pack and found some freeze-dried coffee.”
Her tone was calm. Nonchalant. As if nothing unusual had happened last night. He felt like breathing a sigh of relief. Maybe they could handle this like two adults after all.
“No,” he said. “That’s fine.”
“And you have two toothbrushes. I hope it’s okay that I used one.”
“No,” he said again, “that’s fine, too.”
She nodded. “I noticed a couple of coconuts on the ground. Do you want to open one? I’d have used the pistol to shoot it in half, but I didn’t want to run the risk of damaging it beyond use.” Her teeth flashed in a big smile. “The very last thing I want to do is make problems for you, Lieutenant.”
“No,” he started to say, “that’s…”
She knew the instant he got the message.
Not only did he choke back another “that’s fine,” but that hard, handsome face, no longer striped with camo paint, became striped instead with crimson.
Superman was embarrassed.
It was a joy to see.
Last night, after he’d walked out, she’d wanted to curl up in a corner and die of humiliation. Or, even better, fly out of the shelter and slam her fist into his square, stubbled jaw.
Of course, she hadn’t done either. And after a minute or—okay—more like an hour of wasting time feeling sorry for herself, despising herself for what had almost happened with a man who’d obviously had second thoughts about it happening, she’d calmed down.
It hadn’t been difficult to come up with an explanation of how they’d ended up climbing all over each other.
She wasn’t into hookups, but this wasn’t Manhattan, which was kind of ironic, because New Yorkers referred to the single scene there as a jungle. This was a real jungle, okay, a rainforest, if you wanted to be technical about it. Whatever you called it, this was a dangerous place.
And sex was a life-affirming act.
That certainly explained her side of it.
His? Well, hell, he was male. Sex was on their minds from the minute they opened their eyes in the morning to the minute they closed them at night.
So, back to the obvious question. Why had he walked away?
Sudden impotence? Alessandra almost laughed into her coffee cup. Not with the enormous bulge she’d seen behind the fly of his Jockeys.
A change of heart?
His heart had not been involved.
Then again, neither had hers.
Last night had been about lust, plain and simple.
And, really, what did it matter why he’d walked away? He’d walked. End of story. And it was a damn good thing he had or she’d surely have ended up hating herself this morning.
When it came to doing something that was hell on your self-image, the only thing worse than a one-night stand would be the morning after. And she wasn’t going to take the easy way out, either, because that was probably what he’d expected. An angry scene. Tears and accusations.
What for?
What had happened last night was finished. Finito. Now, all she had to deal with were a few more hours of trekking through the rain forest and she’d never have to see Lieutenant Tanner Akecheta again.
That would be something to celebrate!
He’d turned away. She watched as reached for the machete and sliced open two coconuts.
The weather was, as always in this part of the world, hot and humid, and he was sweating. His cotton T-shirt clung to him, defining the play of muscles in his shoulders and biceps.
Such a waste that a man so spectacularly beautiful should be such an arrogant bastard.
He stood up and swung towards her. She looked away as quickly as she could, but not quickly enough. Their eyes met, and then his slid over her.
Dammit.
She was sweating, too, and though the shirt she wore—one of his—was several sizes too big, she suspected it would not hide the sudden peaking of her nipples under his cool gaze.
Except, his gaze wasn’t cool.
It was hot and dark when it finally met hers again, and it stole away her breath.
What would last night have been like if he hadn’t walked away?
Her heart thudded so loudly that she was afraid he could hear it.
“That coconut looks good,” she said, just for the sake of hearing something other than the pulsing of
her own blood.
A muscle danced in his cheek.
“Yes.” His voice was low. “It looks incredible.” Their gazes met again and he held out his hand. “Take what you want.”
She hesitated. What kind of game was he playing? She wouldn’t be taken in. Not again.
She took a piece of coconut and said “thank you” the way she’d have said it to a server who’d offered her a menu.
When they’d finished eating, he made two cups of instant coffee and handed one to her along with an antibiotic capsule. He turned his back and swallowed something, too. It wasn’t one of the antibiotics. In fact, it looked a lot like something her mother had once been prescribed for pain.
Was the lieutenant in pain?
He had admitted to twisting his ankle after she’d noticed him favoring it. Was he hurting? Should she ask? A better question was, should she care?
No. Not really.
If he was in pain, it was his problem, not hers. There wasn’t anything she could do about it even if she wanted to.
The morning was heating up, and storm clouds were riding high overhead.
Alessandra finished her coffee. He reached for her cup.
“Time to get moving,” he said.
She nodded and started for the tree line.
“Alessandra.”
She kept walking.
“Alessandra!”
“I’m going to pee.”
“Yeah. Fine. But before you do… I owe you an explanation.”
Tanner hadn’t intended anything even close to that, but looking at her a few minutes ago, knowing he still hungered for her and that she hungered for him, he’d decided he had to say something.
Now, going by the look on her face as she swung towards him, he wasn’t so sure.
“You don’t owe me anything.”
“Yeah. I do.”
She folded her arms. “Are you always so sure of yourself, Lieutenant?”
The way she’d gone back to using his title made him wince.
“The only thing I’m sure of is that we’re in an unusual situation.”
She made a show of looking around.
“You think?”
“We’re in the middle of nowhere,” he said, ignoring the touch of sarcasm. “We’re facing some dangerous stuff. And, see, I’ve studied these things…” Shit. Did she have to look at him as if he was crazy? “The bottom line is that I understand that rescuing you might make you see me, uh, might make you see me…”
Power: Special Tactical Units Division (In Wilde Country Book 3) Page 12
