by Olivia Gates
From a long way away the answer resurfaced. She’d been fixed. That was how. All he talked about was her beauty…
All thought shut down again as he slid down her body, stripping the rest of her clothes, tormenting his way down to her toes. When he started the journey up again she was gasping in fevered snatches. “Come inside me—please—darling.”
He only raised her legs over his shoulders, leaned her back against the railing, opening her core to his eyes and touch. She thrashed her protest when he probed her and blew a gust of acute sensation over her hypersensitive flesh.
“Let me feast, meu amor.” His ragged plea transfixed her. “I need to taste you, taste your pleasure mixed with nature.” And that made her surrender everything to him. And he took it all, lapped every drop of her pleasure dry.
She tumbled from the explosive peak, lost, drained, sated, yet emptier than before, hungrier for his completion.
Her hands flailed over his lush hair, her voice no steadier when she gasped, “Now will you deliver on all those promises?”
He rubbed against her inner thighs, cupping her, desensitizing her. “I was waiting for your demands, for encores.”
He let her melt down his shoulders and into a luxurious embrace. Then everything turned upside down as he dragged a thick mat to the deck, rolled her on it and himself on top of her in one fluid move.
He loomed over her, pressed between her eagerly spreading thighs, letting her feel his dominance for a fraught moment. Then, holding her eyes, he plunged inside her in one long thrust.
Her body jerked in profound sensual shock. At seeing the pleasure of possessing her seizing his face. At the power of the hot, vital glide of his thick, rigid shaft in her core, the reason it existed.
Her legs clamped him high over his back, giving him fuller surrender, and he ground deeper into her, until his whole length was buried inside her, filling her beyond capacity. Sensation sharpened, shredding her. She cried out, not caring who heard.
He started moving inside her, letting go of her eyes only to run fevered appreciation over her, watching as he’d said he wanted to, her every quake and grimace of pleasure. “There shouldn’t be wanting like this—pleasure like this.”
She keened and he devoured the explicit sound, his tongue invading her mouth, mimicking his body’s movements inside her.
It was he who drove her crazy. The things he said, his reality, the friction and fullness of his flesh in hers, the fusion, knowing it was all she had of him, that it would end…
She cried out her desolation and his plunges grew longer, as did her cries until they merged, until she clawed at him, begged. Only then did he ride her harder, building to the jarring rhythm that would finish her, his eyes burning obsidian, his face taut with savage need, sublime in beauty in the blazing moonlight. She fought back ecstasy, greedy for the moment his seized him.
He realized, growled, “Come for me, Jóia, let me see what I do for you.”
She thrashed her head. “Come with me…”
He roared something scalding and thrust deeper, destroyed her restraint. Release buffeted her with the force of a bursting dam, razed her body in convulsions. Those peaked to agony when he succumbed to her demand, gave her what she craved. Him, at the mercy of the ecstasy she gave him, pleasure racking him, his seed filling her in hard jets. She saw it all, felt it all, and shattered.
Time and space vanished as he melted into her, grounded the magic into reality, eased her back into her body.
Everything came back into jarring focus when he tried to move off her. She caught him back. His weight should have been crushing, but was only anchoring.
This was what he was. Essential to her survival.
He rose on outstretched arms, his silhouette thudding in her heart, his eyes gleaming satisfaction over her ravished sight. He trailed a gently abrasive hand over her, drawled, harsh and sexy, “And tomorrow, Jóia, we make love under the sun.”
The images pierced her as he drowned her in abandon again. Lost, she dragged him right back into delirium.
She was too weak. She couldn’t end it. But she had to retrieve enough of herself to survive when it was over.
If there was anything left to retrieve…
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“THIS looks bad.”
Roque heard Madeline’s mumbled assessment after she announced the woman’s vitals. His heart sank. He had to agree.
As soon as they’d arrived at Aldeia Marúbo and explained who they were to the villagers, they’d been dragged to this woman’s hut. He couldn’t believe their timing. Another hour and Matcha would have died. She could still very well die.
His troubled gaze moved to her four children huddled in a corner of the hut. He clamped his jaw. They could lose their mother.
Inferno—no. Not on his watch. And they shouldn’t be watching their mother writhing in agony either.
“Inácio,” he rasped. “Get the kids out. And tell everyone to stay out.”
Inácio did so, came back in a minute as Jewel initiated resuscitation measures with Madeline. Roque held back, knowing they had first claim on the patient. Matcha was in deep shock. Treating her severe hypotension was the most important thing to tackle if she was to stabilize enough to withstand their diagnostic and treatment measures.
They finished resuscitation then Jewel started her exam.
“What’s your opinion?” Inácio asked tense minutes later.
Jewel continued palpating the woman’s abdomen and pelvis. “From Montoya’s translations of witness reports, she had sudden lower abdominal pain, vomited, lost consciousness. When she came to she couldn’t move because of pain. She’s now almost unconscious with depletion and shock. Other signs are tense abdomen, guarding, rebound…”
“That’s all ruptured appendix signs!” Madeline exclaimed.
Jewel didn’t answer, put on gloves and performed a vaginal exam, then a bimanual pelvic one. Then she sat back on her heels and announced her diagnosis. “She has placental abruption.”
Roque’s eyes snapped wide at her steady verdict. “Without vaginal bleeding?And we weren’t even told she was pregnant.”
Jewel’s eyes swung to him. “Twenty percent of placental separation cases occur with concealed hemorrhage behind the placenta. And with her size, a twenty-something-week pregnancy could go unnoticed. And she might not have told anyone she was pregnant. I doubt they make much of pregnancies here.”
What was that bleak shadow that flitted in her eyes? Was she remembering her own pregnancy? That she hadn’t made much of it either? Was she regretting that now? Stop it. Focus.
He did, heard Madeline suggesting alternatives. “Couldn’t it be other stuff causing acute abdomen? Intestinal obstruction, ovarian torsion, severe endometriosis—even ectopic pregnancy?”
Jewel’s elegant eyebrows puckered in consideration. Then she shook her head. “No. None of these cause such severe hypotension, which can only indicate severe internal bleeding. Anyway, an ultrasound scan will tell for sure.”
Jewel looked at Roque and he moved forward, trying to pin that expression in her eyes, to understand it, and why it scared him so much. She snatched it out of his reach when she turned her eyes away. He had to, too, to get on with his job.
He forced himself to block her out, moved his ultrasound probe over the woman’s abdomen, watching the images with Jewel. In a minute they both let out heavy exhalations.
“So what’s the diagnosis?” said Inácio.
“Ultrasound just confirmed Jewel’s clinical diagnosis—a fetus, a girl, distressed but alive, around twenty-two weeks and about three pounds. And there’s massive hemorrhage beneath the placenta.” He turned to Jewel. “I was praying you might be wrong just this once. I was hoping this was something I had more experience with. She’ll need an immediate Cesarean section.”
“What about the baby?” Madeline asked.
Roque exhaled again. “We can only hope she’s viable, but the mother is our priority now.”
Inácio looked around the hut, clearly calculating the possible catastrophic consequences of performing major abdominal surgery here. “Can’t we at least move her to the boat?”
Roque again answered him. “I doubt she’d last the two-hour trip. We have to operate, now or never.”
Jewel bit her lip. “I only ever helped in a couple of Cesarean sections during my Ob-Gyn rotation.”
Roque gave a grim nod. “Ob-Gyn almost slipped the net of my experience, too. But I bet we can manage it together.”
Her eyes flared, then darkened. His nerves jangled.
What was that? That immense something he saw before this weird bleakness extinguished her eyes again? Was that something love? If so, why the bleakness?
Jewel tore her eyes away and turned to Inácio and Madeline, rushed to prepare their patient for the emergency C-section.
Roque had to force air into his lungs, had to will his heart to beat.
Was what he’d just seen even real? Or just his feverish hopes superimposed on her expressions? He’d been clinging to his resolution to never rush her again, but he knew he’d never survive losing her again. Not knowing if she might consider making their relationship real, permanent this time, was fraying his stamina. So much so he was beginning to consider ending it. If she couldn’t love him, he should walk away before uncertainty destroyed his mind, drove him to unpredictable behavior.
But he hadn’t imagined that look in her eyes! Or any other ever since they’d become lovers again. Yet how could it be what he hoped, when it was followed by such despondency? Didn’t she want to love him? Did she still think him beneath her? Was that why she didn’t want to admit it, to him, to herself?
Stop it. Drive yourself crazy later. See to your patient.
He turned to Madeline as she and Inácio swooped on him and Jewel, scrubbing and gowning them, then draping Matcha, leaving only the surgical field exposed. Then he and Jewel worked together, initiating general anesthesia.
He took his position by the patient’s right side and Jewel immediately took his assistant’s position, handing him a scalpel. He met her eyes above her mask. They were impassive now. He crushed down the spurt of anxiety, turned his eyes to the surgical field and made a low transverse incision.
He explained his decision. “A midline incision provides quicker access to the uterus but a transverse one carries less risks post-operatively and will provide us with better pelvic visualization.”
She only nodded, helped him extend the incision and deepen it. Once they entered the peritoneal cavity she placed retractors, grasped the loose peritoneum with forceps for him to incise, was ready with a bladder blade to both protect the bladder and provide exposure of the lower uterus.
Their eyes met again for a bolstering moment before he opened the uterus, extending the incision with his index finger, holding his breath at the unaccustomed procedure, until the fetal membranes were revealed. He cut through them and heard Jewel’s sharp gasp. He snapped a look up, found her trembling, her gaze transfixed on the tiny legs he’d exposed.
His heart battered his ribs, at her distress, at the scary sight of the fragile life, at the enormous responsibility. He gritted his teeth, hating to ask this of Jewel. But there was no other way. “Jewel, I need you to take care of the baby once I deliver it. I must devote all I have to the mother.”
Jewel jerked her head in a vigorous nod. He couldn’t spare her another second as he delivered the terrifyingly small girl, handed her to Jewel, double-clamped the umbilical cord and cut it. Then he forgot all about Jewel and the rest as he fought to stem the catastrophic hemorrhage once the placenta released the accumulated blood behind it.
Then he found Jewel fighting beside him again, cauterizing bleeding vessels, suctioning blood, while Inácio and Madeline struggled to keep up with their demands. But nothing was enough. Then the woman flatlined. They dragged her from death’s clutches and fought on. But Roque knew there was only one solution.
“I have to do a hysterectomy.” Jewel’s eyes slammed into him. He rushed to justify his decision, to try to wipe away her stricken look. “It’s the only way to stem the hemorrhage, and she already has four—five children, if this baby lives.”
She lowered her reddened eyes, nodded. Then without another word or look they proceeded with the surgery of removing the enlarged, pulped uterus.
It felt like he’d run a hundred miles as he inserted the last stitch, closing the woman’s skin. Then he raised his gritfilled eyes. They met Jewel’s. They looked as abused as his felt. She turned away, rose and went to the baby where she’d left her.
“Inácio?” He snapped his head around, asking for a report on the patient’s general condition as he followed her.
“BP 80 on 50 but holding,” Inácio said.
“Get her as much blood as you can.” Roque knelt beside Jewel by the tiny baby as she started checking her.
“I only suctioned her throats” she whispered, her voice wobbling. “Checked she was breathing before I rejoined you.”
He was afraid to touch the baby, his hands feeling huge and dangerous next to her spindly limbs. He didn’t need to. Jewel was taking care of her. Her hands looked perfect, magical as she handled the flimsy little life, poured care and healing over her.
She raised cloudy eyes to him, a tremulous smile wavering on bloodless lips. “I believe she’ll live. She wants to live.” She lowered her gaze to the diminutive girl, gave her match-like fingers an ultra-gentle tickle. “Don’t you, little one?”
His throat tightened, images, fantasies, cravings crowding his heart and imagination to bursting. Jewel—his incomparable Jewel, indulgent, proud, crooning to her baby. His baby…
She hadn’t wanted his baby before. But she’d changed. Could this have changed, too? Could she want his baby nows?
He almost scoffed out loud. Sim. Thinking of babies before he knew if she wanted any sort of commitment at all.
But this was what a baby meant to himnow. Her commitment.
Before, he’d wanted to have the family he’d never had, with her. Now he only wanted her. Babies would only be more bonds to entwine her life with his.
Madeline’s hushed yet animated tones broke through his heavy-hearted musings. “She’s scary—and unbelievably adorable! The horrible circumstances of her birth aside, doesn’t she make you wish to have tiny living miracles like her of your own?”
Roque’s whole being surged. What would Jewel say to that?
She didn’t say anything, kept on working as if Madeline’s question had been rhetorical.
Did she think it had been? Or was it just she didn’t have an answer either way? Because she’d never thought about it, never considered it something to think about? Would he ever know how she felt about this? Would he ever work up the nerve to ask? And if he did, what would she tell him?
“Would you mind telling me where we’re going?” Jewel giggled as she ran after Roque in the forest, jumping over the hurdles of heavy leaves and gnarled roots.
Roque looked back at her, his heart in a state of constant expansion. “Which part of ‘it’s a surprise’ didn’t you get?”
She stuck her tongue out at him and he laughed and stopped suddenly, breaking her momentum in an electrifying collision with his body. Momentarily startled then immediately mischievous eyes scorched him and he scooped her up in his arms, swung her round and round. He wanted to shout with delight. So he did.
“Put me down, Tarzan! You’ll break your back!” she squealed, laughing harder, kicking her heels in the air.
“It would take two of you to start to be any real strain.” He raised her higher until her arms were fully stretched on his shoulders. He loved the feel of her, the weight of her, the life and passion and beauty of her. He loved her.
And he was really beginning to think she loved him, too.
She laughed again, wriggled up there, looking down on him in laughing challenge. “I’ll have you know I weigh 165 pounds.”
“
And every pound an indispensable building block in a work of divine art, amor.” He smiled his joy up at her. Then devilry mixed with the sublime feelings. “And if you could see what I see from here, you’d know why I may keep you up there all day.”
“As if you could!” she teased.
“Let’s see, shall we?” He hauled her up higher.
She yelped in delight then a hundred imps somersaulted in her incredible eyes. “Is this a challenge? All right, you’re on. I say you won’t be able to hold me up two more minutes!”
“And I say I’ll hold you up ten. What does the winner get?”
“I suggest the loser gets a penalty.”
He winked at her. “Whatever. It’s a win-win situation for me. I win, I get you. I lose, you penalize me and I love it.”
She crinkled her eyes at him. “You won’t love the penalty. Not at first. I will, though, every delicious step of the way.”
“Sounds exactly like the penalty I have in mind for you. Decadent enjoyment for me, torment for you. It will make putting you out of your misery all the more memorable.”
“Ha. Prepare to lose, buddy!” She threw herself into their impromptu game, making hilarious faces at him until he burst out laughing and let her down within the two minutes she’d predicted.
“Saboteur!” He laughed as she melted down his body, reveling in the slide of her slick flesh on his, in the way she made the most of the erotic glide. Then she came to settle where she belonged, filling his arms.
He enfolded her with cherishing pressure, his insides quivering as her arms enfolded him back, as he caught tender, hungry lips all over his face before he sank his in them, over and over, drowning in their deepening connection.
She had to love him. He wouldn’t feel so cherished, so welcome and appreciated, so warm and invincible when she looked at him, took him into her arms, if she didn’t. She wouldn’t be so responsive, so eager for everything with him, the camaraderie, the laughter, the hardships, if she didn’t. She counted on him, gave him every appreciation and respect, every care and courtesy. This was way beyond passion, beyond anything he’d ever hoped for or imagined.
