by Kylie Brant
She just lay quiet and still, so still he might have thought she was asleep, if he hadn't been so close to her. Her breathing wasn't slow and even. Her muscles weren't relaxed.
"In case it slipped your attention, I'm afraid of heights." Her attempt at an offhand tone failed miserably. He could still hear the panic that was merely layered beneath the surface. "Acrophobia. Who thinks up those names, anyway?"
"How long have you had it?"
His quiet question seemed to take her by surprise. He surprised himself by how much her answer meant to him. He was unused to letting things matter, especially things that were out of his control. But he wanted this, from her, now. Wanted her to trust him to some small degree.
"Since I was three."
The night sounds faded in significance compared to the words he could feel trembling inside her. Waiting to be freed.
"Two weeks after my third birthday I was kidnapped." He jerked against her, he couldn't help it. Her blunt announcement couldn't have been further from what he was expecting.
"What in hell happened?"
She seemed to go limp then, as if the tenseness that had been holding her muscles rigid streamed out of her like air from a deflated balloon. Without a thought his arm went to her waist, exerting the slightest pressure to urge her to lean against him. When she did, the primitive rage welling inside him was eased, just a fraction.
"Like you guessed, my daddy was rich. Someone wanted a piece of that, I guess. Wanted it badly enough to snatch me out of my bed one night, when the house was asleep. I don't remember much about the whole thing, really. Most of it I learned much later. There was a ransom demand." Her voice turned pensive. He wondered if she was even aware that her hand had gone to the arm he had clasped around her waist, stroking it lightly. "I guess they had to wait for the money to be paid. In the meantime I was kept in a wire kennel. Like a dog cage. Lowered over the side of this ravine that drops down to the Atchafalaya River. They had some kind of pulley on a chain rigged up. And when the wind blew the chain would creak, and the kennel would sway…"
His arm tightened. She didn't have to say more. Didn't have to describe the sight of the river, tiny in the distance below, the desolation of the area, the way the wind would carry away any screams for help a terrified little girl might have made. He could imagine it for himself. All of it.
His throat thick he asked, "Did they catch them?"
He felt her shake her head in the darkness. "No. Some boy ditching school happened across me. There was no way anyone on the ground could have seen me. The brush from the cliff face blocked their view. But he was a daredevil, I guess. Walking across a dilapidated railroad trestle to prove something to his friends. It was just at the right height to spot me."
"God." He was surprised to discover that he was the one shaking now. Shaking with a kind of helpless fury over an event long ago. One he couldn't put right. A sense of helplessness nearly choked him.
"A month later my parents were killed in a car accident." Her voice had tapered off to a whisper. The backdrop of night noises seemed to recede. His senses were totally attuned to her. "And the worst thing is … I don't remember them. Not at all. I have pictures, you know? And stories that my brothers told me, but that's all they are … someone else's memories. That seems such a cheat, somehow. That the fear has been with me all this time, but I don't have one lousy memory of them to call my own."
He wasn't a man used to offering comfort. Had even less need of it himself. But he reached deep inside for some to offer to her now. "The fear … that's in your mind, right? And your parents … you keep them in your heart. That's closer."
"I guess." The words sounded wistful.
"Besides, you control the fear, it doesn't control you. You proved that tonight."
Her laugh was sardonic. "Yeah, I was pretty heroic up there tonight, Jones. I was practically comatose by the time you got me down."
He lowered his face until her hair brushed his lips. "That's what courage is. Doing something in spite of the fear."
"Does that take into consideration that slight shove you gave me?"
Incredibly, he wanted to smile. She was starting to sound a bit like her old self. "Yeah, I guess so."
"In that case…" She gave a yawn and wiggled against him to get more comfortable. "Anything you're afraid of? Anything I can help you out with? Pitch you headfirst into a pile of slug-infested carcasses? Give you a tiny push into a pool of piranhas? I'm at your disposal."
His lips curved against her hair. "I'll let you know. Right now you need to sleep."
Miraculously she seemed about to do just that. Her body went totally boneless in his arms, and her voice sounded drugged the next time she spoke. "You, too. Big day ahead." Another yawn overtook her. "Another fun-filled day of dodging bad guys and danger. But not to worry." Her words were slurring slightly as she lost the struggle with sleep. "Danger's … my … middle … name."
He brushed his lips lightly over her ear, nuzzled the baby-soft skin there. "Mine's Augustus. If you tell anyone, I'll have to throw you off another cliff."
* * *
The first thing Ana noted when she opened her eyes was that Jones was no longer at her side, despite the fact that dawn was just lightening the forest. The second was the enormous spotted snake that was slithering through the ferns next to her, its breakfast still visibly moving down its long scaly length.
"Jones!"
He must have been nearby, because he appeared in time to see the snake disappearing in the grass. "Don't worry. It's not poisonous."
"Tell that to whatever it just swallowed," she muttered, struggling with the zipper on the tent. He approached and released it from the outside, taking her hand and helping her out. "Here." He thrust a fresh pair of socks into her hand. "I washed your other pair. Put these on and check your boots before slipping your feet in them."
She braced one hand against him as she obeyed. "You're pretty domestic for a he-man type."
He cocked a brow. "He-man?"
"You know." She switched feet. "The kind of guy who can go into the wilderness with a box of toothpicks and build a shelter and a watertight raft."
"Are you by any chance the type of woman who can rustle up breakfast in the middle of a jungle?"
"Unless you're referring to the urban jungle with a 7-11 on every corner … no. I can, however, whistle Dixie through a blade of grass and do the YMCA with my legs." She shrugged as her second confession earned her a long stare. "We all have our talents."
"Before you offer to demonstrate yours, I've got a surprise for you."
Following him, she noted he had his Beretta again tucked in his waistband. She knew he'd had it close at hand while they slept. But that wasn't what had provided her with the feeling of safety that had enveloped her as she'd nestled close to him. That feeling had come from being tucked close to his side, his arm holding her tight and secure through the night.
Blowing out a breath, she trailed behind him as he led her along the streambed for several hundred yards and then around a pile of boulders. She stopped in her tracks, delight holding her transfixed. "A waterfall!"
It was closer to a heavy drizzle than to Niagara Falls, but Ana didn't think she'd ever seen such a welcome sight. The rising sun sent rainbows dancing across the cascading water, cast a brilliant sheen across the frothing bubbles.
"River runoff. It feeds the stream down here. I've already checked it out. Nothing more dangerous in the water than some goldfish. You can put your clothes here." He helped her down to the flat rocks that acted as natural stepping stones into the water.
His appearance made sense then. He was bare-chested, drops still clinging to the curling brown patch of hair adorning his torso in a perfect vee. His hair was wet, and he hadn't pulled it back yet. It looked like he'd finger-combed it off his face, leaving it to curl damply behind his ears. Wearing only a two-day growth of beard and the black jeans and boots, he could have stepped out of history two hundred years past, a pirate r
oaming the tropical seas.
Her pulse stuttered. The rest of the world had never seemed so far away. Dawn was barely tingeing the sky. The only sounds were the gurgling water, and the ever-present backdrop of chittering insects. Farther in the distance the constant noises of the forest could be heard as the night animals found their beds and the birds and monkeys woke. The sounds of nature. Basic and elemental.
It was easy to feel at one with that primitive setting. The blood in her veins had turned molten, pounding out a pagan primal beat.
She didn't look away from him; she couldn't. She watched, transfixed, as awareness flooded his face, followed by evidence of a response that he didn't try to hide. The muscles in his jaw clenched, and his eyes went the color of smoke.
Swaying toward him, she laid her hand gently on his arm, rigid beneath her touch, and kicked out of her unlaced boots. Without releasing his heated gaze, she bent, dragged the socks off her feet. He'd made no effort to move, nor to look away. His face could have been chiseled from the harshest granite, but his eyes … the look there gave her courage.
Wild. Fervent. With a hint of savage hunger that made her shiver as she reached for the bottom of her tunic top. Dragging it up her torso, she let it drop to the rock beneath her feet. His gaze painted her with liquid fire, lingering on the black lacy bra that fastened between her breasts. Her breathing grew ragged.
She wasn't certain who this woman was. She'd never, in her life, stripped for a man. Never felt this burning in the pit of her stomach that promised a fiery, painful ache if he didn't touch her soon. If he didn't return the passion burning a comet's path through her system.
Her hands were shaking when she released the tie on her drawstring pants. Without any urging, they slid down her legs leaving her clad in nothing but the tiny black panties and matching bra.
The dawn air was warm, comfortable. So it couldn't account for the sheen of moisture on Jones's chest, the streak of dampness above his lip. He hadn't spoken a word. Hadn't moved a muscle. If not for the avid, intent look in his eyes, she'd have melted in a pool of embarrassment at his feet. How many times had he told her already that he didn't want her?
Just as an all-too-familiar uncertainty jittered through her, his hand lifted, as if detached from the rest of him. His fingers traced the line of her bra where it bordered her skin, drawing a path down to the shallow cleavage. His touch trailed fire in its wake, and Ana had difficulty drawing a breath. For a sudden panicky moment she wondered what she'd been thinking, to try and unleash the hunger she'd sensed in Jones. The hunger she'd sampled for herself on more than one occasion. Her meager experience hadn't prepared her for a man like him. The realization was both frightening and tantalizing.
His fingers went to the clasp between her breasts and released it with one deft motion that rivaled her own for ease. He spread his palm on her skin below the clasp, seeming fascinated as the material trembled, then slowly fell away to bare her breasts.
Her breath strangled in her lungs. The flame of heat in his eyes was scorching, the one in her belly equally so. She had the sudden, dizzying thought that once he took her into his arms they'd likely combust from the scalding intensity. If he took her into his arms. Right now he looked like a man on the edge of an agonizing decision.
In an effort to tip the scales a bit, she swayed forward, her breasts grazing his fingertips where they were still placed on her skin. She reached out a hand, explored the defined ridges of bone and sinew that bisected his chest. The rest of him would be just that hard, she thought, flexing her fingers testingly. Just that sleekly muscled.
Those muscles jerked now beneath her touch, an involuntary reaction that spoke more clearly than words of his response. The skin on his chest was roughened with hair, but his sides were taut, smooth. She stroked the expanse of skin there as she raised her gaze to his, half shy, half daring.
His eyes were heavy-lidded, full of promise, as he hooked his index fingers in the straps of her bra and nudged them down her arms. She let her arms go loose, allowed the garment to join the puddle of clothes at their feet.
Jones's face was flushed, the dull red of arousal stamping his cheekbones, his nostrils flared as if the only responses he'd give her were the involuntary ones. But his voice when it came was raspy with checked desire. "Be sure, Annie. Be very sure."
He said nothing else. He didn't need to. She knew what he was saying and knew what she was promising when she answered. "I'm sure." And then watched the storm she'd unleashed.
His eyes flickered for a moment, the only warning she had before he reached for her, with a swiftness that would have shocked if it wasn't so welcome. She went willingly into his arms, reveling in the press of flesh against flesh.
It was a dizzying, exultant pleasure of the senses. His mouth crushing hers with a pent-up longing only hinted at by his iron-clad control. The clash of teeth, as their lips twisted together, the play of muscles beneath the biceps she clutched, the hard band of his arms around her back.
Somewhere in the distance a large jungle cat roared for its mate, and seconds later an answering howl was returned. Ana could feel that answer beating in her blood, pulsing in her body. The call of the wild reached below surface civility and beckoned to the most primitive response known. The desire to mate with this man owed as much to the emotional as to the sensual, but it was the sensual that ruled now. Basic, elemental and primal.
He reached behind him, pulled the gun from his waistband. Ana's hands were trembling on his zipper, especially when she worked the tab over the hard straining length beneath. She would have liked to go slow, but Jones was setting the pace. Backing a few steps away from her, he swiftly divested himself of his clothes, setting them with the revolver on the rock within easy reach. She wasn't offended at the cool logic of the move. His survival instincts were just as keen as the promise in his touch.
He straightened and she drew a sharp breath. His arousal jutted huge and hard from a patch of dense hair between his thighs. He put his thumbs in the sides of her panties and dragged them down her legs.
"Step out of them."
She obeyed his ragged command a moment before she was swept up in his arms, his eyes glinting down at her. Slowly, deliberately, he stepped down the rocks and into the water. It was deeper than she'd expected. Jones kept moving until he stood directly in front of the cascade, the water lapping at his waist. Dipping his head, he nuzzled a tender, swollen nipple, his beard rasping her skin, before taking the nipple into his mouth and suckling hard.
A kaleidoscope of color burst behind her eyelids. With each strong flex of his mouth he drew another spiral of pleasure from deep in her womb, until she was squirming against him in unspoken demand. He didn't release her, continuing in a deliberate way, almost lazy, his tongue and teeth providing a dual torture that scraped her senses raw.
His hand reached between her legs, and with very little urging parted them enough to allow his fingers to explore her sensitive folds.
Ana raked both hands through his damp hair in an unspoken plea. Unlike the endless, sensual minutes that had spun out between them on the shore, now it was as if they'd been caught in a vortex of passion, spinning her more and more quickly closer to the edge. And she didn't want to topple off that edge alone.
She lowered her hand, reached for him, at the same moment that he entered her with one long smooth stroke of his finger. A broken sob escaped her lips, and he shifted her to allow him more freedom.
Her fingers closed around him in the water, his heavy heat a shocking contrast to the cooler water surrounding him. His hips lunged in her grasp, urging her to explore the length of him, from the blunt velvety tip to the root of his arousal.
He lifted his head, pressed a hard kiss to her mouth. "You're rushing things."
Ana smiled, slow and secretive. "Yes." She stroked him again, before his hand went to hers, forcing it away. He shifted her in his arms so that she was facing him, and she clasped his hips with her knees. Then he took a step backward
until the water poured over them both.
She gasped, pressing against him, and he took immediate advantage. Grasping her ankles, he drew them around his waist in a position that left her intensely vulnerable. His mouth went to her neck, slicking along the rivulets that poured down her throat, and his hands smoothed her wet hair back from her face.
The sky was painted with the beginnings of a glorious sunrise, but the beauty was wasted on Ana. She was a mass of crashing, unidentifiable sensations, each one with its own keen edge of pleasure. There was the scrape of Jones's whiskered jaw as he rubbed it against the dampness of hers; the flood of desire as he rolled one of her nipples between his forefinger and thumb; the exquisitely sexy slide of their wet skin as they slipped and rubbed against each other; the feel of his shaft pressed against her softness; a promise for the end of this torment.
She rose above him, dragging her torso up his chest and down again in a rhythmic movement that had him groaning. He reached down, positioned himself at the entrance of her opening, and his hands went to clutch her bottom. He gave a violent lunge upward as her hips came down to meet him, and this time it was she who cried out, a hoarse primal sound that seemed torn from her very depths. He was seated deeply inside her, the length and breadth of him stretching her to a point that bordered on the most delicious kind of pain.
"Jones," she half moaned, half sobbed. He was motionless inside her for a moment, as if giving her time to adjust to his penetration.
Then his forehead dropped to hers, his voice coming just as desperate. "Annie. More."
Even as she wondered at her ability to respond to his sensual demand, her hands were climbing to his shoulders, searching for purchase. She felt his fingers flex tightly on her hips, lifting her slightly to bring her back hard, to meet the slam of his hips.
