by Cindy Dees
She couldn't believe she'd just said that. But once the words were out of her mouth, she realized they were absolutely true. She'd rather spend an extra couple weeks out in the jungle than see any harm come to him.
His hand began to move across her back soothingly. He dropped a kiss into her hair. "It'll be okay," he murmured.
Abrupt tingles shot across her skin. She was far from okay. She needed more of that, and she needed it right now. She should hold out against her desire. Should take advantage of his full stomach and relaxed mood to argue one more time with him. But it wasn't like he'd change his mind in this lifetime. Reluctantly, she admired his conviction and let it be.
She ran her palms over the bulging muscles of his chest, her fingers acutely sensitive to the fine ripple of response that raced across his skin.
She really ought to let him get some rest…His hands plucked at her collar, peeling the fatigue shirt off her shoulders, baring her breasts to the cool air and pinning her arms at her sides…. The thought spun away.
His fingers speared into her hair, pulling her face to his, holding her gently in place while he plundered her mouth.
Mint still lingered on his breath and she savored the taste of him. Then his mouth slid away from hers, down her throat and toward the cleft between her breasts.
Anticipation shot through her. The remembered feel of his mouth on her flesh, of the magic he wove with his tongue, tightened her nipples in response before he even got there.
His mouth closed upon a rosy peak and she was lost.
Chapter 13
How Tex managed to move around briskly, putting out the fire and packing up the smoked fish after what they'd just spent the past hour doing, she had no idea.
When he helped her to her feet, her legs felt virtually boneless. Heavy languor weighed down her limbs, and it was an effort to follow him back into the jungle.
Her brain felt drugged. All she could think about was the way his mouth and hands had moved on her skin, the way his flesh had filled her, hot and hard and pulsing. Even now, the thought of it made her go weak at the knees.
Fortunately the pace he set wasn't too awful. Wearing her pants from the first guard and the newly washed and semi-dried shirt from the second soldier, she found the going much easier. She was free to climb and scramble over and around obstacles without worrying about catching or tearing her clothes.
They picked up the trail of the rebel force where they'd left it off. Instead of just running through the brush this afternoon, though, Tex stopped now and then. He'd point out a footprint in the mud, or the way the twigs were broken to indicate which direction the rebels were moving.
He even stopped once to pick a gorgeous white orchid for her. Its deep throat was scarlet edged with yellow, its feathery petals a pure, brilliant white. After inhaling its sweet, exotic scent, she tucked it behind her ear.
They hiked until nightfall. Tex picked out a camping spot, then hacked the lower limbs off several trees and dragged the pile of boughs over to where she sat. In the settling darkness she made out his hands, weaving the boughs in some intricate pattern. He laid the resulting frame on the ground and then tore off a dozen giant banana leaves to lay over it.
When she stretched out on the makeshift mattress, its springy support held her a good six inches off the ground. It wasn't quite her own bed, but it wasn't bad. It was a heck of a lot more comfortable than the damp, cold ground they'd been sleeping on.
The boughs gave as Tex's weight eased down beside her.
She snuggled against him, enjoying their newfound intimacy. For the first time she didn't lie in the dark listening fearfully for the sounds of men hunting them. She noticed the jungle's nighttime symphony and was amazed by its variety and richness.
A deep popping noise sounded nearby.
"What's that?" she asked, startled.
"A frog," Tex murmured easily. "About the size of a bullfrog. Lives in the trees and eats bugs. I don't know its name."
She subsided, relieved. A few moments later a sibilant hiss startled her. "What's that?"
"A coatamundi. Looks sort of like a raccoon. Good eating if you can catch them, but they're fast little suckers."
She subsided yet again. And then a terrible screech rent the night air. She lurched against Tex. "My God, what's that?"
"A big bad jaguar that's going to come eat you if you don't quit asking what all the noises are."
"Really?" she asked breathlessly.
He chuckled and ruffled her hair. "Jaguars don't eat people. They're too small to attack humans, and they're terrified of us, anyway. I think that was a monkey."
A couple more strange noises erupted and she jumped, but she didn't ask about them.
Tex's smooth, deep voice caressed her out of the darkness. "Do you need some distracting from all the noises, darlin'?"
"That would be wonderful," she answered, relieved.
"Any preferences on how we go about it?" he asked.
She smiled against his chest. "It's my turn to taste you all over, this time."
His whole body clenched beneath her. He cleared his throat. "That sounds, uh, fine."
She smiled at the way his breath caught when her mouth slid across the rippled washboard of his stomach. And when her mouth slid even lower, she loved the way his groans rose to join the other untamed sounds of the night.
* * *
The muffled alarm of his stolen watch beeped and he fished around in the cloth he'd wrapped it in to mute its noise. He turned it off and swam slowly toward consciousness. Something warm and sleek and female pressed against his side. A smile curved his lips. She'd about killed him with pleasure last night. But what a way to go.
Reluctantly he disentangled himself from Kimberly and sat up. The jungle was quiet. The night creatures had retired for the evening, but the first hint of dawn hadn't arrived yet to wake the chorus of daytime creatures.
He leaned over and kissed her smooth shoulder. She groaned and rolled over onto her stomach. He eased the space blanket down her back, kissing the curve of her spine as he went. She stretched with the lazy contentment of a cat.
She mumbled, "It's still nighttime. I thought we were going to take it easy from here on out."
"This is taking it easy. I let us sleep a whole extra hour."
"What time is it?" she asked sleepily.
"Four-thirty. Time to rise and shine."
She groaned and rolled over. Her breasts gleamed, pale in the darkness, and his hands started to reach forward. God, he couldn't get enough of her.
He fisted his hands until his nails bit into his flesh. They were never going to catch the rebels if he spent every waking moment making love to her.
He sighed and pressed to his feet. He pulled on his clothes and helped Kimberly into hers. He packed up their gear, kicked apart their bed and moved out.
The rebels were making no effort whatsoever to conceal their movement and it was a no-brainer to track them through the dense jungle. Thank God. Without a machete to slash a way through the underbrush, this stretch of jungle would have been nearly impassable. They'd have ended up crawling forward on their hands and knees most of the time.
He'd done that before, the last time he'd been in Gavarone with Charlie Squad. They'd been watching the rebel army prepare for war. An army shockingly well-equipped and trained for a bunch of locals in a rinky-dink South American country. He and the team were pretty sure a guy named Eduardo Ferrare was backing them, although they didn't have any solid proof.
Charlie Squad had run a surveillance op on Ferrare a few years back and heard enough of a meeting between Ferrare and a bunch of Gavronese terrorists to conclude they'd asked him for money. With a lot of zeros in the sum. Enough to fund an army.
As Tex followed the rebel trail, he turned over the question of why some rich crime lord would buy himself an entire army? What purpose would it serve Ferrare to take over a tiny chunk of South America? Free money laundering? An ego rush? Something more sinister?
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He frowned, pulling his mind back to the business at hand. He'd leave the analysis to politicians like Kimberly's father. His job right now was to make sure the Gavronese rebels didn't add the RITA rifle to their arsenal.
Around midmorning, his stomach began to rumble. "Hungry?" he asked Kimberly over her shoulder.
"Starving. With all this fresh air and exercise, I'm working up a big appetite." She laughed.
He sat down on a high root and pulled out the smoked fish from the day before. It didn't taste half-bad prepared that way. They ate their fill and he passed her the canteen.
He watched her slender throat work, recalling memories of pleasure so intense last night that he thought he might pass out from it.
Before yesterday, he only had to touch her to be so turned on he was ready to explode. Now, just looking at her did it. How in the hell was he supposed to get through the next few days in such a state? For her sake, he had to find a way.
He cast about for a topic of conversation that would take his mind off of throwing her down and making love to her until she screamed. "Tell me, Kimberly. What is it you have against your father?"
She stopped drinking abruptly. "Why do you ask?"
"Well, you accused me of being like him, and you obviously hate his guts. I'm trying to avoid making the same mistake with you that he did."
She stared off into the jungle. Her answer was a long time in coming. "Vietnam changed him."
He snorted. "It changed everyone. Hell, any war changes a guy."
"No, I mean really changed him. He was seriously messed up when he came home."
"Physically or mentally?"
"Both. He got shot in the back and barely missed being paralyzed. That's what got him sent home for good. It got him his fourth Purple Heart, too."
Tex whistled. Not bad. "What did he do in Nam?"
"He's never said a word about it."
Tex frowned. Most vets eventually got the war out of their system and were able to at least talk about it. "He's never talked about it because he can't or because he doesn't want to?"
Kimberly shrugged. "I don't know. I do know he worked in some sort of special expeditionary force. I think he went to some weird places."
Tex was intrigued. "Why do you say that?"
Kimberly seemed to withdraw into herself. He put a casual hand on her leg to let her know he was here for her. Eventually she continued.
"When he came home, my father had developed a bad temper. A really bad one. We never knew what was going to set him off. The silliest little things could completely freak him out. When he blew up, he used to yell in some Asian language. My mom taped it once and found out he was speaking Laotian.
Laotian? Damn. Most of the Americans who operated in Laos during Vietnam were Special Forces types doing very, very dirty work. No wonder the guy was messed up. Tex's hand tightened on her leg. "Did he hit you or your mom?"
She shook her head in the negative. "He put his fist through a wall a couple times, and he used to throw stuff like chairs and books. When he got that wild, Mom and I would leave and go shopping or get an ice-cream cone or something. He probably would have gotten physical with us if we'd have stuck around."
"How long did he stay mad?"
"A half hour, maybe. He was usually calmed down by the time we got home."
Tex frowned. "I don't mean to ask a strange question, but did he remember his episodes?"
Kimberly's gaze snapped to his. "How did you know that? He rarely remembered getting mad."
Tex shook his head. "Poor bastard was having flash-backs, wasn't he?"
Kimberly shrugged. "We weren't allowed to call them that."
"Why not? Did he get help? Some decent counseling at least?"
Kimberly laughed shortly, without humor. "Are you kidding? He was a junior congressman in a tightly contested district. He didn't dare go see a psychiatrist. It would've ruined his career."
"So he ruined his family instead?" Tex demanded.
"It got better over time. By the time I was twelve or so, he'd pretty much stopped having his episodes."
Tex ran a hand over his face. "It's called post-traumatic stress disorder."
Kimberly replied bitterly, "It was nice of Uncle Sam to give it a name twenty years too late. Meanwhile the government sent thousands of young kids like my father off to war and destroyed them."
He stared at her in dawning understanding. "And that's why you're an antimilitary lobbyist on Capitol Hill, isn't it?"
She shrugged. "I don't believe any government has the right to put people in situations that will wreck their minds and souls."
"What if someone volunteers to serve? Is it okay then?" he asked.
She shook her head in the negative. "It's still wrong."
He frowned, considering her. He flatly disagreed with her point of view. But given the emotional cost to her life already, he doubted he'd change her mind. "That's why you're so bent out of shape over me going after the RITA rifle. You're worried I'll crack up under the stress."
"Something like that." She frowned. "You're an intelligent guy. How can you buy into the whole military brainwashing thing?"
"What brainwashing?" he asked, surprised.
"This business of being a hero for your country. Mom and apple pie and Fourth of July."
"What's wrong with that?" he challenged.
"It's a lie. You don't come home all proud and happy from war. You come home totally screwed up in the head."
"Am I screwed up in the head?" he asked.
She glared at him. "Not yet. That's why I want you to get out now, while you still can."
"Kimberly," he said quietly. "I've been on over thirty combat missions every bit as harrowing as this one, if not more so. And I'm okay. You said so yourself."
"Oh, yeah? If you're so fine, why do you keep going back out? What makes you go on the next mission? And the next? And the next? You're chasing after some elusive dream that your own government has fed you of being a hero and saving the world."
He jumped up and paced a few steps, then turned around to face her. "What I do is important. I make a difference. I do make the world a better place."
She threw up her hands. "See? They've got you just where they want you. Believing your own press releases."
He scowled and stuffed the canteen back in the web belt. She was wrong. He and the men he worked with were heroes. It was real. And it was necessary.
He wasn't about to let her plant any insidious doubts in his mind. Doubt led to weakness and weakness led to hesitation. And hesitation led to death.
"Let's go," he said shortly.
They walked for most of the afternoon in silence. It was a little after 5:00 p.m. when he stopped abruptly, cursing.
Kimberly came up beside him, peering over his shoulder. "What's wrong?" she murmured.
He pointed down at the ground in front of them. "The trail forks."
"And the significance of that is…what?" she asked.
"Ten, maybe twelve, of the rebels split off from the main party and headed to our left, while the other thirty or forty guys continued on that way." He pointed straight ahead.
"Oh." She stared down the two convergent trails on the ground. "Which one are we going to follow, since neither one is the path not taken?"
He snorted. "Robert Frost ain't gonna help us now, darlin'. We're gonna follow whichever one has the rifle."
"And how do you know which group that is?" she asked, her voice already impressed at his ability to read that from the tracks.
"I don't."
"You don't?" she echoed. "Then which way should we go?"
He shrugged. "The main road's still off to our left by a mile or two if I don't miss my guess. The smaller group has no doubt peeled off to head for it. There's probably a camp of some kind straight ahead of us, and that's where most of the rebels are headed."
Kimberly's next question followed his thought process exactly. "Where would they take the rifle?"
; "I can make an argument for either group. The smaller group takes its prize to the road where it can be picked up and whisked off to some overseas producer to be copied. Or, the main group keeps its find and takes it to the rebel bosses at their jungle headquarters to show it off."
Kimberly frowned. "Either logic makes sense."
"Agreed." He looked at both sets of tracks and neither gave him any clue which way they should go. He looked up at Kimberly. "So. Which set of tracks would you follow?"
She looked down both trails. "If I had to choose, I'd head for the road. If we don't find the rifle, then at least we can hitch a ride to a city and get out of here."
He chuckled, genuinely amused. He had to give her credit for her persistence. "Problem is, if we don't catch the rebels before they get to the road and get picked up themselves, we'll completely lose their trail and we'll have no way of following them. Then we'll have to backtrack and pick up the trail of the guys who headed deeper into the jungle."
"How much of a head start do the guys going for the road have on us?" she asked.
"Good question." He walked several yards down their trail and knelt, examining the ground closely.
"They're about an hour ahead of us," he announced.
Kimberly lurched. "I had no idea we were so close to them after that long break we took!" she exclaimed quietly.
He stood up and rejoined her at the fork in the paths. "An hour is too big a gap for us to overcome before they get to the road. We'll never catch them. And by the time we come all the way back here, the trail deeper into the jungle will be cold. We're better off following the larger group of soldiers toward wherever they're going and hoping they've got the rifle."
Kimberly sighed. "Somehow, I knew you were going to say that."
He grinned at her dismay.
And then a sobering thought struck him.
The smaller, splinter group of rebels had hacked a clear trail through the jungle that Kimberly would have no trouble following all the way to the main road. If she wanted to leave him now and head for home, she'd probably be able to do it by herself. Somebody was bound to stop and pick her up. Lord knew, she could charm a dead man into taking her wherever she wanted to go. Odds were she'd be fine. Even if there was a risk she could be assaulted or raped…
