Gideon

by Cherry Adair

  His chest vibrated with a growl. “Uh-uh.” Not waiting for a verbal response, he went back to devouring her mouth until Riva’s head spun and her heart raced.

  With clumsy fingers, she fumbled with the button at her waist, slipping it from the hole as Gideon raked his teeth over her upper lip, then sucked it into his mouth. She forgot what she was doing, and dug her nails into his chest, too aroused to move. Pinching her nipple through several-frustrating-layers of fabric, he parted their lips by a heated breath to rasp, “Zipper.“

  The fabric was uncooperatively wet, the zipper recalcitrant, her hands clumsy, but Riva finally managed to jerk the small tab down as far as it would go. Chilly, damp air hit the relatively warm skin of her belly.

  Still kissing her, Gideon slid his hand, cupping her ass over the bare skin of her hip, and into the open V of her cargo pants. She’d gone commando, and the shock of his hand on the naked skin of her belly caused her to suck in a shuddering breath.

  Heated liquid lightning shot through her veins, and her breathing came fast and ragged as his finger combed through her pubic hair to find the damp, swollen folds of her labia. Arching her back, she pushed her mound against his palm.

  Riva moaned, thighs unlocking with a shudder of surrender. Moremoremore.

  When he opened her slickness with two fingers, she was unable to drag in a breath, aroused beyond caring of who or what might be watching or listening. She shuddered as he pushed two fingers slowly inside until she moved urgently against his hand, desperate for more.

  Curling his fingers, he pressed the hook to the precise bundle of nerve endings, making her entire body clench. Internal muscles clamped down harder as his clever fingers circled and pushed deeper. He added a third finger, stretching her wider.

  She wrenched her mouth from his to bury her hot face against his chest, gasping for air as her internal muscles contracted around his hand. When his thumb found the hard bud of her clitoris, the sensation was too powerful. She had to muffle her cry by biting his chest right over his heart, as her internal muscles clenched tighter and tighter, torqueing until she was panting, and moving against him. His hand was everything.

  She climaxed, an endless shimmering cascade of pleasure shooting her from one peak to the next and the next as the rain sluiced over them.

  He’d fucking lost his mind. Worse, he didn’t give a shit.

  “All right?” Gideon murmured, lips pressed to the manic pulse at her throat. In response Riva’s internal muscles, clamped, juicy and fever-hot around his fingers still plunged deep inside her. She surged forward, a clutching glide around his fingers that made his dick leap and try to lunge, independent of his will.

  His thundering, erratic heartbeat thudded in his groin as her hips bucked. Cool rain dripped from his hair, down his neck. He shuddered, not from the drop in temperature, but from the hard clamp of her small hand now gripped around the bulge in his pants. Painfully hard, relief inches away, he let the hot wetness of her encompass his fingers and imagined his dick plunged deep inside her pulsing heat instead of his fingers.

  Head tilted to grant him easier access to her throat, she whispered hoarsely, “Don’t…” as he started to withdraw his hand from her clutching internal muscles.

  The wet suck and pull made him reckless. And reckless in the jungle was foolhardy. Here one either ate or got eaten, and the diners were out there somewhere, hot on their asses. Foolish? He didn’t give a fuck.

  Her next climax almost dislodged his hand, but she rode it to the end, shuddering and coming apart in his arms. He held her tightly against his chest as ripples worked through her body. He savored every jolt, every quiver of release as she pressed her face to his chest. Gideon sucked in her scent as his body braced hers as she came.

  Minutes later, she lifted her head. Cheeks hot, skin dewy with sweat and rain, breath ragged, she managed to whisper, “Dear God, have we gone completely insane?”

  “I’m guessing that’s rhetorical.” He eased his hard-on as best he could behind the now uncomfortable tightness of his pants. Her internal muscles still milked his fingers, making him hard as a pike, and just as fucking unfulfilled.

  “As much as I’d like to keep going, preferably when we’re horizontal and dry, we have to keep moving.” The pounding rain had morphed back into a light drizzling mist, doing nothing to cool his heated skin. His heart beat uncomfortably fast in anticipation of a good hard fuck. Wasn’t gonna happen. Not now.

  Riva pulled his head down, then kissed him deeply, her tongue avid and aggressive. Her pussy clenched around his hand. Her response shot his heartbeat even higher. He craved bare skin, needed to taste her all over. His fingers pushed deeper, and she moaned into his mouth, body arching into his hand.

  Finally she tore her mouth free, took a step back and zipped up her pants, the sound harsh in the close confines of the trees. “Next time, finish it,” she said. “But let’s not do it with men who want to kill us hot on our trail.”

  Christ she recovered fast. He was a stroke away from coming right there, and she was as nonchalant as if they were strangers introduced at a cocktail party. “It’s a date.”

  They both knew it for the lie it was.

  There’d be no opportunity in the foreseeable future for that to happen, and later… She’d go back to what she did, and he’d… He’d resume the search for his past.

  Standing a yard away, Riva adjusted her glasses over her eyes. Unlike the bulk of his, her NVGs were sleek, high-tech. Gideon pulled his into position as well. After retrieving their weapons and packs from where they’d been irresponsibly tossed in a fit of insanity, they resumed walking. The rain mimicked them, suddenly going from the powerful downpour to almost nothing at all.

  He waited in vain for her to say something about being unexpectedly fingered. But she didn’t seem fazed by it at all. Riva Rimaldi was a cool customer. The fact that she could go from hot to cold in an instant shouldn’t piss him off. So why the hell did it?

  He adjusted his NVGs and was hit by the musky scent of her juices on his hand. Gideon wasn’t sure he appreciated a woman who treated sex as a man did. Which was ridiculous. Why shouldn’t a woman have the same on/off switch as a man did? Especially this woman, considering her line of work. She was complex, and he wanted to know her. All of her. Wanted to know what made her tick. What she was thinking when her beautiful face went blank. Next time they made love, he wanted to see her eyes, the windows to her soul.

  For a few minutes as they walked, he fantasized about making love with her in full daylight, the sun gilding her skin and tangling in her loose hair. Yeah, he’d definitely make love to her in the daylight next time.

  If there ever was a next time. Gideon knew the fantasy of making love to her somewhere clean, safe, and deadline-free was just that—a fantasy, a luxury he’d never attain. The clock in his head clicked away the seconds. In a few days, if they lived through this dangerous mission of hers, they’d go their separate ways. He doubted Riva would give him a second thought when they parted.

  He shoved aside a branch, heavy with moisture, then used his upper arm to wipe the droplets off his face, almost dislodging the NVGs. He shoved them on top of his head, able to see shapes and tones of color now. He took a moment for his eyes to adjust, then twisted his backpack around so he could unzip it and toss the NVGs inside. While his pack was open, he withdrew his canteen and drank deeply.

  Daylight came slowly to the jungle. Pale yellow filtered almost imperceptibly between the thick dark leaves and branches overhead to spotlight, with delicate, dusty spears of white gold light, lower branches and small, scurrying animals.

  “Water?” He offered the canteen to Riva as they resumed walking.

  “I have my ow— Sure.” She took it and drank, then capped the flask and handed it back to him. For a half a heartbeat, a pinpoint beam of sunlight caught the tips of her eyelashes like gold dust, entrancing Gideon before she moved through it. His heart skipped several beats as he took a mental snapshot. Mental
snapshots? Heart skipping beats? Jesus. He was going fucking insane.

  Going? For all he knew he’d always been insane. How did he know how he was with women in general? Perhaps he was the love them and leave them type. Shit. Maybe he had a wife and kids in America who thought him dead all this time. Maybe…

  Useless to speculate until he had solid facts.

  One thing he knew for sure—he wasn’t going to dick around with Riva. Tough as she was, she had a soft, fragile inner core that she protected at all costs. He wasn’t going to be the man to shatter that.

  “It would be a hell of a lot quicker if we started hacking at this,” she pointed out, oblivious to his observation. “Your little friends are miles behind us, and apparently in no hurry.”

  His little friends? A group of violent killers and drug dealers? “How do you know?”

  “I’m psychic, remember? Seven of them. Andrés is with them. They went to some whorehouse last night and they’re sleeping off hangovers.”

  “Christ. I’m gone one damned day and they can’t keep their dicks in their pants. The good news is, if that’s the case, they can’t want to find us too badly.”

  “They will in about five hours.” Riva shot him a sidelong glance as she pulled the saturated weight of her braid over her shoulder and used one hand to squeeze out the water. Much the same way she’d pumped his dick earlier. “You’re complaining because they’re undisciplined? It’s a good thing they are, today, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah.” He had a cockstand again just watching the rhythmic movement of her fingers. “Of course. But I thought I’d whipped them into better shape than this. Getting drunk before a sortie will get them killed.”

  “Good for us, then,” Riva said unsympathetically.

  Gideon swept his hair out of his face. He didn’t have a tie, and it hung wet to his shoulders. He suddenly wanted to be shaved and clean, appropriately dressed— What the hell? Who was the suave, urbane man he’d just imaged? And whoever he was, was he the kind of man Riva dated? He doubted it.

  “What kind of men do you date?”

  She almost face-planted into a tree trunk, her head whipped around so fast. “Who has time to date between flying off to Cosio or doing a halo drop into Uzbekistan?” She frowned. “Why? Want to go steady?”

  “I’m not ready to go steady yet, Rimaldi,” he teased. “But we could see how the prom goes and take it from there.”

  “The chances of making it out of the prom alive are becoming slimmer and slimmer.” She hesitated, then said, without a glimmer of humor in her voice, “In the interest of full disclosure… I’m not particularly lovable, so I wouldn’t hold my breath on any hope of future…romance.”

  Not particularly lovable? What a fucked up thing to say. “Who fed you that bullshit?”

  “Sometimes it’s best to take a declaration at face value, Stark. This is one of those timα” Her face lost all expression as she stopped mid-step. Eyes glazed, she stared off into the middle distance.

  The hair on Gideon’s arms rose as if touched by an electrical current. He put a hand on her upper arm, then dropped it when she remained stiff in his hold. The same woman who’d melted over him earlier?

  It was over in a matter of seconds, then she resumed walking as if nothing had happened. An intense scrutiny of her profile told him that whatever that was, was now gone. “What did you just see?” The need to touch her was astronomical. He reached out again, this time to tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear. His fingers lingered on her cheek. Her skin felt soft and supple and seemed to warm to his touch. She didn’t pull away, but he sensed that she wanted to.

  “Are things going even more sideways? More important, is something going to happen to you?”

  “I rarely predict my own future and if I do get a glimpse, it’s usually only pertaining to the people around me. Not necessarily a prediction about myself.”

  They stood close enough for Gideon to see a glint of something he couldn’t name in her dark eyes before she blinked it away. Now her gaze was cool and steady. Unemotional. Had the brief look been fear? Longing? He had no idea. She was the one trained to read microexpressions. He suspected she was trained to hide her own from everyone else, too.

  He wanted to explore her depths. Peel her carefully and deftly apart, layer by layer, until he uncovered what was really at her core. And while his thoughts were certainly carnal, in this instance he was more interested in knowing more about her. The thought of unraveling the mystery of who Riva Rimaldi was under her prickly, über-efficient persona fascinated him.

  Gideon resented whatever the fuck fates had brought him to Cosio. Whatever, whomever, had derailed his life—whatever the fuck that had been—that brought him to this. Standing in the middle of a danger-filled jungle with a beautiful woman he’d never come to know, taking away any chance of ever knowing.

  Fate had handed him a fucked-up buffet filled with people like Mama and Maza, when his gut now told him they—and the goddamn jungle they frequented—were a side-trip on the road to his real destiny. The how, the why, and the when were open questions at this point, but he was going to change his fate. That much was certain.

  Riva? At the very least, she was a passing breath of fresh air. Maybe she was more. He didn’t need one of her visions for the answer. His gut told him he’d find out. Soon.

  “Do you have something for that headache?” she asked quietly.

  Yeah, she was terrific at reading his expressions. His book wasn’t closed because he didn’t want her to read him, it was closed because he had no goddamned idea what any of this was about. Big fucking difference. “My head’s fine. Tell me what you predict for us the next few days.”

  “I see changes. Big changes. That could mean death, or the end of something, and the beginning of something else.” Taking his wrist, she removed his hand from her face and resumed walking, shoving branches and vines out of her way with thinly-veiled impatience. She kicked at a coiled snake sleeping in her path, as big around as her arm. The fat ribbon of black went airborne for several seconds before it fell over a nearby branch and slithered away.

  “Even people who claim to want to know their future don’t want to hear the truth. I don’t sugarcoat.”

  No, no she didn’t. He found that trait both annoying and endearing. He watched her for a moment. Mission notwithstanding, he could at least enjoy the sway of her tight ass as she forged ahead of him. “How long before Andrés and the others reach us?”

  “About five hours.”

  “So a little skirmish to whet our appetites. We should near the location Maza told you he’d be just before dawn.”

  “If Angélica doesn’t join them,” Riva said, as if he hadn’t spoken. “If that happens, they’re going to be on our asses as if jet-propelled. She hates you like the fiery jaws of hell. She won’t stop until she kills you. Or you kill her.” Riva paused to look back at him. “This doesn’t come as a surprise to you, right? She’ll kill anyone who gets between the two of you, just so she can have the satisfaction of doing the job herself.”

  He shot her a cocky grin. “Comforting to know my impression of Mama was dead on target. She’s a sadistic, vile bitch.”

  “Don’t smile, it’s not funny.”

  “Knowing I’m not related to that woman is funny as hell, I assure you. I’m willing to bet this is one of the biggest reliefs I’ve ever experienced in my life. Past and present.”

  “Let’s get the lead out. Hand me that machete.” She held out her hand. Gideon slid the large, razor-sharp knife from the leg holster and handed it over, hilt first. It looked ridiculously oversized in her slender hand. For a moment he considered offering to exchange it for the smaller blade he carried, then imagined her response to that, and kept his mouth shut.

  “They’ll.” Slash. Slash. Slash. “Find us whatever we do.” Slash. Chop. Slash. “Might as well get ahead faster.”

  Soon, Riva built up a rhythm, while he admired the flex and twist of her biceps. He knew how
heavy the blade would become, and he was used to it. Without saying a word, he took out the smaller machete and went to work beside her.

  They walked for twenty minutes, slashing and hacking their way through thick ferns, air roots, and dense vines until he saw the quiver of her arm. She wasn’t used to the weight and the resistance when the blade hit a tree limb. “Let me know when you want me to take a break,” he offered, just to see what she’d say. They’d had this conversation a dozen times along the way. Both determined to take the lead.

  “Sure.”

  He laughed. “And hell will freeze over before you ask for my help.”

  She stopped in her tracks, and he almost walked into her back. “Nope.” She handed over the machete, which he slid back into its sheath, then shook out her hands and arms. “Hack away. I’ll conserve my strength for later.” She stepped into a nearby shrub to allow him to take the lead.

  As he came abreast of her, Gideon reached over to cup her chin. “Jesus, you’re a piece of work.” Holding on to her chin, he lowered his head and kissed her, hard, until they were both panting. Lifting his head, Gideon, wiped moisture off her lower lip with the edge of his thumb. He loved the slightly dazed look in her eyes.

  Voice husky, he murmured, “Later…”

  He took a few steps past her to take the lead, swinging the machete as if it weighed as little as a steak knife. A swoop of red and blue flew directly over her head as a parrot flew low. It landed on a branch, tilted, and gobbled up a skinny jade-green lizard that had been sunning itself on a spindly branch.

  Lizard-tail hanging out of its mouth, the parrot opened its wings, looking like the flick of a can-can dancer’s skirts, and took off. Talk about fast food.

  Her stomach growled. The scant meal of protein bars in the dark hours seemed a long time ago. “Any more protein bars?” Riva knew she sounded surly, and didn’t give a damn.

  “Help yourself.” He pointed over his shoulder.