by Julie Leto
Leaning her head back, she allowed the water to rush over her hair. She worked out the leaves and twigs that had tangled there before stepping completely underneath the flow so the water sluiced sensually over her every curve. Hard and cold, the pounding flow aroused her even as it cleansed her, a sensation that increased when she opened her eyes and saw that, despite his inability to swim, Rafe had somehow managed to cross the chasm and was now standing just out of range, the whitecapped swirls of water rotating around his waist.
Intermittent glimpses of his erect penis made her mouth water. She held her hand out to him, and wordlessly he took it.
After he stepped beneath the showering water, Mariah washed away the remnants of their jungle trek. She relearned how his shoulders were wide and muscled. How his stomach tapered to hard thighs and buttocks. How the small of his back drew her like a hunter to treasure. She kissed a path down his spine and spotted a birthmark in the shape of a half-moon not unlike the one that gleamed above them.
The water was loud, so speaking was impossible. Mariah was glad. She wasn’t sure what needed to be said. They circled each other, touching, kissing, arousing, bathing in the water and their mutual desire. Rafe grabbed her hips and moved her beneath the falls again so that, with his hand possessively holding her steady, she arched her back and the water splashed across her breasts. Coupled with his mouth and tongue and teeth, the conglomeration of sensation left her gasping for breath.
She hooked a leg around his waist. Twirling out of the rush of the water, they slammed against the wall of rock hidden by the falls and kissed until they couldn’t breathe. He pressed against her, but the water made her tight. Skillfully, he used his fingers to coax a sweet rush of moisture from within, and she cried out as her body responded. Lifting her bottom, Rafe filled her. She felt sure he murmured her name when he could press no deeper, but the rush of water muffled any sound.
The wall she leaned against was slippery, yet Rafe never stumbled and she never slid. He drove into her wildly, freeing her with every thrust, pushing her closer and closer to the orgasmic edge she so desperately wanted.
Their kisses were wild and flavored by the water, which was cold and sweet and fresh—a perfect contrast to the sultry night. She wrapped her arms around his neck, pushing herself higher, shifting so that he struck her precisely in the spot that caused her climax. She clung to him, allowing her entire body to rejoice in the explosion of sensation. Seconds later, she felt the hot injection of his sperm and suddenly, she wanted nothing more than to make love with him again.
“Don’t stop,” she begged directly into his ear.
He kissed her long and hard, and she mewled with disappointment when his sex softened. He set her down, took her hand and then guided her beneath the falls, where they rinsed simultaneously beneath the rushing water, caressing and cuddling and speaking with only their eyes.
The feel of the water dripping down into her sex only reinvigorated her. One time in such a perfect setting could not be enough. At the cabin, they’d made love out of necessity. Tonight, they’d surrendered to desire that hadn’t been spawned by evil magic—and this need was harder to sate.
She led him to the calmer side of the pool. He pushed himself up onto a rock, his lax penis cradled on his lap, the water covering him from the knees down. He moved to pull her up beside him, but instead, she slid between his legs, kissed his nipples and chest and toyed with the smattering of hair that lent another touch of darkness to his swarthy, irresistible body.
“Mariah,” he breathed.
“I’m not done,” she said, blazing a path with her lips across his pecs, lapping at the water that dripped from his skin.
“Were you not satisfied?”
“Do you mean did I come?” she asked. “Yes, yes, I did. But once isn’t enough. Not tonight. Not out here. Under the stars and the moon, in this perfect slice of heaven. I don’t want to waste a single minute of this. Not. A. Single. Minute,” she said, emphasizing each word with a nip of teeth or a soothing kiss.
“I am spent,” he declared, though he managed to run his fingers sensually through her hair.
She smoothed a hand up his thigh, then across his penis, which quivered in response. “Not for long, you’re not.”
Again her mouth watered for a taste of him, and this time she indulged. She dipped down into the water and tugged him forward, not caring if she scraped his delicious backside against the rocks. After a long lick that spanned the entire length of him, she took the head of his penis into her mouth.
In seconds, his sex hardened. She stroked him rhythmically, patiently, laving him with her tongue until the flesh and muscle thickened and stretched to the length she now knew was the perfect fit for her body. Underneath his silky skin, hot blood pulsed. The sounds of his amazed pleasure spurred her to be bolder. She ringed her thumb and forefinger at the base of his cock; then she suckled him completely until he needed release nearly as much as she needed him inside her.
“Mariah,” he gasped.
When a salty taste met her tongue, she released him, dropped below the surface, swished her mouth with water and then emerged. Her lips and tongue now cooled, she gave him one last, long lick before easing up his body, kissing him from his abs to his chin along the way; then she straddled him and pressed her now-throbbing sex against him.
“Ready for me again?” she asked.
“You know I am,” he said simply. “But you…I must.”
She knew what he wanted by the way he licked his lips and gazed down into the water. And boy, oh, boy, did she want the same. They switched places and, seconds later, she was leaning back on her elbows and slipping into delirium from the feel of his tongue inside her. He parted her with his fingers, exploring her, pleasuring her, chuckling into her flesh when she cried out for mercy. Seconds from climax, he drew her legs around his waist and pulled her forward until they were once again joined.
The heat of desperate need abated, they made love slowly this time, twirling around in the water as they mated. Mariah closed her eyes tightly and concentrated solely on the feel of his body, so slick, so hard, joined with hers. When he spilled them onto the riverbank and brought her to orgasm with long, slow strokes milked from the deepest part of her body, she could not help but cry out his name in sheer ecstasy.
He grabbed her hands and drew them high above her head. She tucked her knees against his chest and shifted. The new position created the last sensation he needed to press deeper and longer until he came again, wonder on his face and her name on his lips.
Rafe rolled beside her and drew her tight against him.
Mariah suspected she could have fallen instantly asleep, but she struggled to remain awake, if for no other reason than to get dressed. By morning, Rafe would be gone. She didn’t want to be shocked awake by some ecotourist who’d taken a wrong turn.
Rafe, who’d laid his hand across her belly, drew his touch away as if burned.
“What?” she asked, barely energetic enough to manage that simple syllable.
“We just made love,” he said.
Though his words bordered on matter-of-fact, she heard the distinct sound of incredulity in them.
“I’m well aware of that,” she said, attempting to snuggle back against him. “Is there some Gypsy afterglow ritual I’m missing?”
He stared at her, his eyes narrowed and his jaw set in an expression that bordered on angry.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
His scowl caused a flutter in her belly. He was furious, but she had no idea why.
“Nothing I should not have been prepared for,” he replied. He glanced up at the sky, then around at the bags. He retrieved the clothing she’d purchased for him and donned the undergarment and jeans without a word.
She was too frozen by his icy demeanor to move. When he finally spoke, she was almost afraid of what she might hear.
“Get some sleep, Mariah,” he said. “My decision is made. In the morning, I will use Rogan’s mag
ic to find your coins.”
Fourteen
“Really?”
The excitement in her voice was unmistakable, particularly when paired with the wave of enthusiasm that rolled off her skin with the force of a rock slide. He’d given her a great gift in agreeing to her plan—but at what cost to him?
He’d already paid so much. He’d lost Sarina. He’d lost Irika. He’d lost his son, Stefan, long before he’d had a chance to know whether his child shared his mother’s gentle nature or his father’s spiritual gifts.
Rafe suddenly hated what he could do. A person’s emotions should be private. The intimacy of sex with Mariah had made him foolish, made him believe, if only for a blissful moment, that she cared as deeply for him as he did for her. But he’d sensed her laissez-faire feelings. He couldn’t deny that her inability to match his emotions cut with more precision than the machete she’d used on the jungle vines.
In her unguarded moments, he’d experienced her intense passion, her kindness and her irrepressible sense of fun. She lived to take chances. She loved to defy convention. She deeply desired him and wanted to introduce him to pleasures he’d never known with any other woman. But the moment her needs had ebbed and she had control of her thoughts again, her vulnerabilities vanished.
Her emotions snapped shut like the heavy lid of an iron chest, locking out anyone who might steal what she’d hidden inside.
“I see no reason to delay the inevitable. I will use whatever means necessary, as long as you pledge that once your debt is paid to Hector Velez, all of your resources and time will focus on breaking my bond to Rogan’s curse.”
She tilted her head to the side, her amber eyes questioning. “Of course,” she said softly. “I’d help you even if you didn’t help me, Rafe. You need to know that.”
He swallowed thickly. He stood at least five long paces from her, yet he knew she was sincere. And confused. Had he really thought she was the type to abandon him? Had she possessed true mercenary tendencies, would he have come this far?
He did not know the answer. She was, after all, the only person he’d had contact with in over two centuries. As much as Rafe wanted to believe his ideals would keep him from falling into bed with a woman unworthy of his emotional loyalty, he was still a man. Rogan’s curse had fired his lust the first night in the cabin, and since then, the blaze had not truly been extinguished. The embers even now, after their quenching swim, smoldered. While he was still tied to the marker, he could not distinguish between true attraction and magical hunger. And until he knew, he would keep his heart at a distance from this woman. His body—while she possessed the stone—he had little control over.
“At daylight, we begin,” he said.
“But you’re not solid in the light,” she argued.
“This will work to our advantage.” He struggled to remain as cool and forthright as he guessed Mariah would if their roles were reversed. “When I am in the phantom state, I can expand my senses further than I can when I am corporeal. I will rely only upon my own gifts of the earth.”
“Don’t you need to rest?”
“There is time enough. I will be fine.”
“You feel stronger in this jungle, don’t you?”
He nodded. He’d known from his first step into the wild environment that he was home—or at least as close to home as he could be while thousands of miles away. This place was not Valoren. The topography, the climate and the rhythm were as different from his homeland as night was to day. But as in the Gypsy enclave, the spirits of the earth roamed freely here. They had not been shunted aside by civilization and the creations of man. The native people—the Mayans and their progeny—borrowed the land and treated it with awe. Like the Romani, he sensed that the people of this region had not claimed the land to conquer it, but to live on it for as long as the spirits allowed.
“This land calls to me,” he admitted. “The magic is strong. We will find your coins.”
“But you told me that your…ability…is about feelings,” she countered. “Last time I checked, coins don’t have emotions.”
“Do you?” he snapped. “Or perhaps you only choose to deny them.”
Cruelly, he’d cut straight to the heart of her most vulnerable weakness, and he could feel the battle brewing within her. The war between indignation and denial raged like cannon fire.
As he buttoned his shirt, she cleared her throat and stood, her emotions suddenly as naked and raw to him as her luscious body. She was hurt. Deeply hurt. And he’d caused her pain.
“I don’t deny anything,” she said. “I’m about the most honest woman you’ll ever meet.”
“Honest with me?” he asked. “To the extent that you can be, yes, you are very forthright. But until you learn to be completely honest with yourself, you’ll never share your heart with anyone.”
She lifted her chin defiantly. “Maybe I don’t need to share my heart with some man in order to be happy.”
“Maybe if you stopped considering me as simply ‘some man,’ your life would bring you more joy.”
Rafe grabbed a few dead branches from nearby, fed them to the fire, and then unrolled the bag she’d explained earlier would be used for sleeping. Though flimsy and light, the cushioned fabric might add comfort to the mossy jungle floor, so he tossed it flat on the ground beside the fire, stretched out and folded his arm over his head to block out the orange glow from the flames.
He breathed in and concentrated, evoking the old tricks he’d learned from his mother and from the Chovihano to prevent the emotions of others from overwhelming him. He’d never experienced the full upheaval and conflict of someone he wasn’t touching, but he supposed his increased intimacy with Mariah, the magic that connected him to the stone and the enchantments in the jungle all around them had amplified his abilities. Slowly, brick by brick, he constructed a barrier that restored the silence inside his head.
Mariah stood still as the night for a long time before he heard the rustle of her movements. He peeked one eye open and watched her slip into fresh lingerie, soft slacks and a snug, long-sleeved shirt. She retrieved a sleeping bag, but did not settle down. Instead, she stood just outside the glimmer of the fire, as if she couldn’t decide whether to stretch out near him or retreat to the other side.
With a sigh, he patted the grassy ground beside him.
She frowned.
He shrugged, put his arm back over his eyes, crossed his feet at the ankles and tried, yet again, to sleep. Yes, his muscles and joints protested against the long tramp through the jungle—not to mention the vigorous exercise of making love—but his mind whirled with the realization that while Mariah might have saved him from an eternity buried beneath Valoren soil, she would never be part of his future.
If he had a future. At the moment, he had nothing—no homeland, no family. Nothing to compel him to find a way out of Rogan’s curse except the curse itself.
Exhaustion finally began to overtake him by the time he heard the snap of Mariah unrolling her sleeping bag. She found a spot as close to him as possible, but without intruding on his space. The scent of her fresh, clean skin taunted him, made him regret invading her emotions and causing the rift between them that left her so confused. Mariah wasn’t uncaring, but just as he was unaccustomed to the technology and changes in the twenty-first century, so was she unfamiliar with the act of opening her heart.
Of course, for him to teach her fully about the pleasures of sharing a spirit with another, he’d have to first become human again. And to do that, he’d have to use Rogan’s black magic to find the coins.
He’d simply have to deal with the repercussions as best he knew how.
***
“Summon the coins again,” he said.
Mariah pressed the activation code into the global positioning system yet again. Standing under a break in the jungle canopy so that a single beam of sunlight seared the back of her neck, she wiped the sweat pooling above her lips while the mechanism searched for its companion.
Didn’t much matter if she lost her stuff. She expected that the plane had already been confiscated by the villagers or the federales. Besides, if she didn’t find the coins, a couple of bottles of water, a few changes of clothes and dehydrated food weren’t going to make any difference. Velez would have her killed.
In his increasingly silent way, Rafe had assured her they were safe, protected by the spirits of the jungle. During their tedious journey, he told her about the other entities haunting the jungle—dark eyed and dark skinned like him, yet native to land in the way he was foreign. They greeted him with gentle nods and pointed the way. She couldn’t believe that ghosts of the ancient Mayans would help her recover coins that had once been theirs, but she couldn’t worry about supernatural ownership rights right now. She’d been awakened this morning by the sound of a helicopter buzzing not too far from where they’d slept beside the billabong. Someone either knew she was here—or would soon.
Thing was, it made no sense for Velez to come after her. He’d hired her to find the coins. She was in the jungle to recover his treasure—on her own dime. Why would he put out more capital to retrieve what she was pursuing on his behalf? In her entire career, Mariah had never cheated a single client out of what they’d paid her to retrieve.
She wondered about Ben and Cat, but she’d made very quiet inquiries before she’d left the States, and her intel placed her ex and his lover at the university where Ben worked. He’d have no way of tracking her here.
