Matthew kept walking, his hand tightening on hers…
Heart pounding, Mia shot up in bed. Sunlight streamed in the window, dappling the pink petals of the perfect wild orchid lying on the pillow next to hers.
The last vestiges of the bad dream slipped away. Smiling, she took the orchid and brought it to her lips.
Last night was the only reality that mattered. Her smile tilted. Unless it, too, was only a dream…
But it wasn’t. She knew that as soon as she showered and dressed, followed the rich aroma of fresh coffee to the kitchen, and saw Matthew.
He stood with his back to her in the open deck door, his hands tucked into the back pockets of his denim shorts, his shoulders stretching the confines of his cotton T-shirt.
Mia’s heart turned over. This beautiful man, this strong and incredible man, was her lover.
Matthew turned and looked at her. His eyes were unreadable, his jaw was tight. For an instant, the uncertainty came back. She’d slept with him, explored his body as he’d explored hers, and she still didn’t know anything about him, or why Douglas had chosen him to hunt her down…
“Good morning,” he said softly, and everything changed, his eyes, his expression, and when he opened his arms, she stopped thinking and flew into his embrace.
“I’m sorry I slept so late,” she said, smiling up at him.
“Mmm.” His arms tightened around her. “You should be. Thanks to you, I’m starving.”
“You should have had breakfast without me.”
His smile was slow and sexy. “I’m not talking about breakfast,” he said softly, and gave her an unhurried, coffee-flavored kiss.
He led her onto the deck. She’d only glimpsed it yesterday. Now, she saw that it ran the length of the house. Low stone walls bordered its perimeter. The air was redolent with the scent of flowers that overflowed terra cotta planters scattered everywhere.
“This is wonderful,” Mia said softly.
Matthew brought her hand to his lips. “I thought we’d have breakfast out here.”
“Yes. That would be perfect.”
They ate at a glass table, shielded from the sun by a huge blue umbrella. Evalina had gone to the local native market but she’d left their meal ready for them: covered dishes of scrambled eggs, bacon and tortillas.
“What is this place?” Mia asked. “Where are we?”
“We’re in the Andes. A mountain range called the Corillera Oriental.”
“It’s like being on top of the world.”
He smiled. “The locals call it Cachalú. Land of the Sky.”
“And all of it’s yours?”
His smile became a grin. “Not quite all, but a big piece of it, yeah.”
“But you’re North American.”
His smile faded. “I spent some time here, long ago.”
“Here? At this house, you mean?”
He shook his head. “I was in the country, and I spent a couple of days here, on business. Someone else owned it then.”
“A friend?”
“Just someone I knew. Not really what I’d call a friend.” He paused. “A guy I, ah, I met through work.”
“I thought you said you were a soldier.”
“I was.” The last remnant of his smile disappeared. “It’s ancient history.”
Chastened, Mia sat back. “Matthew, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.”
He reached for her hand and wound her fingers through his. “No, baby, I’m the one who’s sorry. It’s just that the time I spent here wasn’t… I’m not much for reliving the past, you know?” He smiled again, though she could tell that it was forced. “Besides, why should we talk about me when we can talk about you?”
They couldn’t talk about her. He’d ask questions and she couldn’t give him answers. Not without being absolutely certain of the real reason he’d been looking for her.
And if her heart was right, if Matthew didn’t know the truth about Douglas, telling him too much would put him in danger, too.
“There’s not much to talk about,” she said with a quick smile.
Matthew brought her hand to his mouth. “I’ll bet there is. What’s your favorite ice cream flavor? Who’s gonna win the pennant this year? Do you like to watch football? Can you understand a word Bob Dylan says? How do you feel about Mahler?”
“Mahler?” she said, lifting her eyebrows.
“Yeah. Too much—or not enough?”
Mia laughed. “Chocolate,” she said, “the Red Sox. Yes, no, too much.”
Matthew grinned. “A woman who knows her own mind. I like that.”
“What about you?”
“Strawberry. The Yankees. Yes, no—”
“I meant, why did Douglas hire you to come after me?”
She hadn’t meant to say it, the words just tumbled out. She blinked and saw Matthew’s smile disappear.
“Matthew. I didn’t mean—”
“That’s okay. Straight to the nitty-gritty. Hell, why not?” The muscle in his jaw knotted. “For instance, what made you come to Colombia?”
She stared at him. The truth leaped to the tip of her tongue. She longed to tell it to him. To explain that one day she’d been a secretary and the next, a nameless agency had turned her into a spy.
“It’s a simple question, baby. How about answering it?”
Matthew was still smiling, but his eyes had narrowed in that way she’d come to know meant he was analyzing every word. Okay. She’d tell him the truth—as much as she could.
“It was—I guess you’d call it a fluke. I was a secretary in Washington. And then my boss told me there was an opening in Cartagena. He asked if I’d be interested.”
“And you said sure, just like that.”
“Yes. Just like—”
“Had you applied for a transfer?”
“Well, no.”
“Are you fluent in Spanish?”
“Not fluent, but—”
“But, wham, just like that, your boss decided to send you to Cartagena. Is that right?”
Her fingers were still linked with Matthew’s. She wanted to pull them free. It felt wrong to have his hand on hers when his voice, and his eyes, had turned into those of a stranger.
“Don’t take that tone with me,” she said softly.
“I’m just trying to figure things out. I mean, hell, it’s like you were Dorothy, caught up in that tornado, you know? The old, ‘I guess this isn’t Kansas anymore, Toto,’ thing. D.C. one day. Cartagena the next. As Hamilton’s personal assistant.” His tone hardened. “Living in his big, expensive mausoleum in the hills.”
“I’d worked for Douglas before, when he was on assignment in Washington.”
“So, it wasn’t a fluke. Hamilton put in a special request. He asked Washington to give you to him.”
“Nobody ‘gave’ me to Douglas.”
“Let’s not dance around it, okay? Hamilton requested you.”
Mia pulled her hand free. “What is this all about?”
“It’s not anything but friendly conversation. I’m just trying to figure out how a woman stationed in D.C. ended up on a plum detail in Latin America.”
“A plum detail?” She gave a sharp laugh. “Remember what you said about Colombia? It’s beautiful, but it’s terribly dangerous.”
“Cartagena’s a city on a coast where the main problem of the day is which club to visit at night.”
Mia pushed back her chair and got to her feet. Matthew shot to his.
“Where are you going?”
His voice was cold. So was hers.
“I told you, I don’t like your tone.”
“And I don’t like people thinking they can walk out on me.”
She swung away and started toward the house. He went after her, caught her by the shoulder and spun her to face him.
“Is there something between you and Hamilton?”
“I answered that before.”
“He thinks there is.”
“I can’t help
what he thinks.”
“You didn’t sleep with him?”
Mia’s chin lifted. “If I did, it wouldn’t be any of your business.”
His hand tightened on her shoulder. “It damned well would.”
“No, it wouldn’t. You and I spent a night together. That doesn’t entitle you to ask me questions about who I’ve slept with.”
Matthew stared at her. Her eyes flashed with rebellion; her chin was sharply angled. She was ticked off and she had every right to be.
She was right. Her past was her affair…but it killed him to think she’d been with a man like the colonel.
“You’re right,” he said roughly, gathering her tightly against him. “Your past isn’t my business. But from now on, you so much as look at another man…”
His mouth came down on hers. She held back for a second and then she went up on her toes and wound her arms around his neck.
He thought of what he’d just told her, of the insanity of staking a claim on a woman he didn’t even know.
And then he stopped thinking of anything but carrying her to a chaise longue in a secluded corner of the terrace, stripping them both of their clothes and burying himself inside her.
In the blistering heat of midday, they headed down a narrow trail that wove through a stand of white oaks, Matthew with a pack slung over his shoulder, Mia with a bottle of water dangling from a strap.
He wouldn’t tell her where they were going, except to say that it was a special place and that it was beautiful. Still, when they stepped from the trees into a small, lush green clearing, she gasped with surprise.
“Oh,” she whispered. “Oh, Matthew… You were right. It’s wonderful.”
“Yeah.” He cleared his throat. “I figured you’d like it.”
She stared around her, at the ring of trees that stood watch over the silken grass, at the frothy waterfall tumbling down the face of a cliff into a natural pool of deepest sapphire.
“It’s like—it’s like the Garden of Eden.”
“It’s peaceful,” he said softly, “and untouched. The kind of place where you can feel safe from the world.”
She looked at him, knowing instinctively that he’d given her a glimpse of himself he kept hidden from everyone else. He seemed to realize it because he flashed a quick, embarrassed smile, dropped the pack under a tree and yanked off his T-shirt.
“Okay,” he said briskly, “last one in gets stuck with tonight’s dinner dishes.”
“You’re going to swim in that water?”
Her look of disbelief made him laugh. “Sure.”
“But—but what about snakes?”
Matthew kicked off his sandals. “What about ’em?”
“Matthew—”
“I haven’t seen an anaconda yet.”
Mia paled. “An anaconda?”
“Yeah. You know. Maybe twenty feet long, two feet around… Baby, I’m teasing you. No anacondas, no crocs, no gators. We’re in the mountains. The Amazon’s a long way from here.”
“I haven’t got a swimsuit.”
He laughed, unzipped his denim shorts and stepped out of them. “It’s called skinny-dipping.”
Mia’s gaze skimmed over her lover. What he was called, was spectacular. He was gorgeous. A hunk of pure masculinity. Those shoulders. That chest. That long, amazing body…
“Not fair.”
Her eyes flew to his. “What?”
“You’re looking me over.” His voice was husky; his laughter had stopped. “But you’re not giving me the same opportunity.”
“Of course I— Oh.”
“Exactly. I’m wearing skin. You’re wearing clothes.” Matthew closed the distance between them. “Let me help you undress, baby.”
“I can do it.”
“I can do it better.”
He was right. Oh, yes, he could do it so much better.
The feel of his hands on her arms as he drew her cotton tank top over her head. The brush of his knuckles against her belly as he unzipped her shorts. The whisper of his mouth on her throat as he bent his head, reached behind her and undid the clasp of her bra.
“You’re so beautiful.” She looked up at him and he cupped her face in his hands. “So beautiful,” he said, taking her mouth with his.
She kissed him back, her fingers curling into the thick, silky hair at the base of his neck, her naked breasts soft against his muscled chest.
He’d made love to her over and over and yet, she was ready for him again, her nipples beading, aching for his touch, the secret place between her thighs turning wet and hot.
And he was ready for her. The power of his erection against her belly was as much proof as the way his hands were moving over her.
Slowly she lifted herself to him. Moved her hips against his, glorying in the way he caught his breath. He cupped her face again and kissed her hungrily.
“Witch,” he said in a husky whisper.
Knowing he wanted her so badly was electrifying. She was inexperienced, but not foolish. She knew Matthew could have any woman he wanted…and he wanted her.
She laughed softly against his mouth. “Is that what I am?”
“You know you are.”
She looped her arms around his neck. Lifted one leg and wrapped it around his. He groaned with need, and it made her feel incredibly powerful.
“Keep at this,” he said, “I’m going to back you against a tree and take you right here.”
His words, the roughness in his tone, thrilled her. “Do it,” she said, her voice hoarse with excitement.
Everything about him changed. His eyes darkened, his mouth thinned. The underpinning of bone in his face stood out in stark relief. For one wild moment, Mia feared the man who had become her lover… The man she thought had come to kill her.
“Matthew?” she said unsteadily.
His hands clasped her shoulders. He lifted her to her toes and kissed her, his tongue plundering her mouth as he pushed her back against an enormous oak at the edge of the clearing.
“Matthew,” she said again, “wait…”
Too late.
Her cry was lost in the sound of the waterfall as he drove into her. His first thrust lifted her to her toes; his second brought her to a stunning climax. But he was still moving, pumping deep into her womb, and she wound her arms tightly around him, wrapped her legs around him as he cupped her bottom and took her soaring into the heavens with him, so hard, so fast she could only sob with pleasure as she came again and again and again.
His face contorted; a hoarse cry was wrung from his throat, and he exploded inside her.
They clung to each other for long seconds, bodies slippery with sweat, lungs straining for air. Then Matthew shuddered and gathered Mia tightly against him.
“Baby,” he said softly, “sweetheart, I’m sorry.”
She shook her head. “No. Oh, no. Don’t be.”
“Did I hurt you? God knows I didn’t mean to. I just—”
“You didn’t hurt me. That was—it was—”
“Wonderful.”
“Yes.”
He clasped her face in his hands, looked into her eyes and kissed her. She kissed him back and then she lay her head against his chest.
“I never—I never knew—”
“No,” he said simply, “neither did I.”
He held her close until he felt her heart, and his, stop racing. Then he drew back again and looked down at her. Her hair was tangled; bits of leaf clung to her skin. Her face was shiny, her mouth bruised from his kisses…
The feathery wings began beating in his chest again.
“Mia,” he said, “Mia, I—I—”
“What?” she said, and waited. The forest seemed to wait with her, all the creatures that lived in it poised to hear words neither she nor he could possibly be crazy enough to feel or say.
“I’m glad I found you.”
She lifted her eyes to his. “I’m glad you found me, too,” she said softly.
He felt his hea
rt swell. He kissed her, kissed her again and then, maybe because there was more to say and he wasn’t ready to say it, he scooped her into his arms and flashed a wicked grin.
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