He immediately set out to show her what he meant. Within minutes Diana was writhing beneath him, lifting her hips instinctively, allowing him to divest both of them of the remainder of their clothing.
They were only getting in the way, anyway.
Ross had once asked himself if Diana was cold only on the outside and all hot and sweet on the inside. Was she an ice princess or a woman of passion? He had wanted to know what she would taste like, feel like, be like to make love to. He’d even had a vision of her long, shapely legs wrapped around his body, her beautiful full breasts pressed to him, her nipples rubbing up against his chest, sending chills down his spine, creating goose bumps wherever she touched him.
He had imagined her blond hair, long and loose, all cool and silky, draped across his hot flesh, her lips swollen from his kisses, her body arched toward his as she sought that indescribable release only he could give her.
It was turning out to be a dream come true.
Diana was everything he had imagined, hoped for, dreamed of, even prayed for on several occasions. She was turning out to be the best damn thing that had ever happened to him. It was ironic.
Then he reached for the small box in his pants pocket and took care of the necessities while he still had half a mind to do so.
He brushed his lips along her bare shoulder and felt the involuntary shiver that rippled through her body. He fastened his mouth to hers, slid his hands under her hips and settled her on his lap. He could not bring himself to subject her lovely skin to the hard floor, with or without the buri palm mat.
“Ross—” she mumbled with mild surprise.
“We’ll take it slow and easy, sweetheart. There’s no need to rush. We have all the time in the world.”
He reached between them and found that special spot, that sensitive nub of woman’s flesh, that velvet button that gently swelled as he nuzzled it with his fingertip, as he flicked it back and forth until her body began to throb with an even greater need. He slid his finger inside her again. She was hot and wet and ready. He didn’t think he could wait another second before burying himself in her. He was in pain, but it was such sweet pain.
“Diana, I need to love you now,” he fiercely breathed against her mouth.
“Ross—please, love me! Yes, love me now!” she cried out as if the madness he was creating in her was more than she could bear.
Probing gently at first, then more insistently, then with barely leashed control, he thrust up into her, and little by little, inch by inch, completed the union of their bodies. It was a tight fit.
Diana was panting. “I didn’t realize… I had no idea… I never once imagined…”
He was still for a long moment, knowing her body was stretching to accommodate his unaccustomed size.
“Each time it will only get better and better,” Ross promised as he began to move, slowly at first and then with increasing frenzy as they were both caught up in a sensual storm of their own creation.
He took them to the edge again and again until they were both mindless with the sensations they created in each other. This was passionate sex at its best: mutual, magical, lovely and moist.
Then Ross felt Diana cling to him, dig her nails into him, as her body convulsed violently around him. She gave one last great shudder and shouted his name, “Ross!”
“Diana!” His hoarse cry of ecstasy rang out only a moment later as he followed her.
Eventually he eased his body from hers, and they stretched out side by side on the bare mats, a shirt half under them, a pair of jeans strewn haphazardly across the floor of the hut, a blouse in a crumpled heap at their feet.
They didn’t care.
The night breeze cooled their feverish flesh, dried the sweat from their bodies and left only the wonderful musky essence of their lovemaking.
The roof of the hut was open to the sky above. Diana curled up in his arms and murmured to him, “I can see the stars through the leaves. They seem so close. Like we could almost reach up and touch the heavens.”
“Touch the heavens,” echoed Ross with a contentment he didn’t think he had ever known before.
“Have you ever made love outside?” she asked shyly.
“Honey, it’s been so long for me that I can’t even remember the last time I made love anywhere.”
Her eyes shimmered in the moonlight. “Then it was the first time for both of us.”
He liked that idea. “Yup, the first time for both of us.” He turned onto his side and ran his hands over her smooth skin. “There has never been another woman like you, Diana.”
“There has never been another man like you, Ross.”
Her hand slid down the passion-slick skin of his chest to settle momentarily on his waist. Her nails scraped the smooth abdomen, the line of his hip, the sinewy muscle of his thigh in a tantalizing gesture. He heard her take in a deep breath before she daringly moved her hand lower. His body responded instantly. She seemed pleased with herself. More than that, she seemed thrilled with herself.
She stroked him lovingly. “I never dreamed it could be like this.”
“This is no dream,” he vowed in a husky tone as it began all over again.
If it was a dream, Ross thought to himself as he covered her mouth with his, then he hoped he would never wake up….
Eleven
“What the—?” came a surprised and angry masculine shout. “Bolo! Where in the hell are you? Bolo! Help me!”
It was several minutes before a muffled reply came from some distance away. “I can’t.”
“What do you mean you can’t? Where in the hell are you? On second thought, I don’t care where you are. Just get your butt over here and cut me down.”
The hired gorilla who went by the nickname of Bolo sounded as if he was yelling from the bottom of a deep well. “I can’t help you. I can’t even help myself. I’m stuck in some kind of pit.”
“Some kind of pit?”
“You know, a hole in the ground.”
The first thug suggested sarcastically, “Then climb out.”
“There is no way out. This hole’s got to be fifteen, maybe even twenty feet deep. The sides are perfectly straight, like sheer rock. I’m stuck.”
“So am I,” growled the captive aboveground.
Bolo called out to the other strong-arm man, “What happened to you?”
With a disgruntled admission, the answer came back. “I was walking along and my foot got caught in a trap.”
“A trap, did you say?”
“Yes, a trap. Now I’m hanging upside down from a tree like some kind of trussed chicken.”
“Why not take your semiautomatic and shoot yourself down?” was Bolo’s suggestion.
“I would, but my weapon fell out of my hands when I went flying up in the air. Now it’s on the ground five feet from me. I can’t reach it.”
His reply was discouraged, “Crap.”
“Yeah. Crap.”
“What’ll we do?” asked Bolo.
“Wait,” answered his companion. “Just wait.”
Morning came to the forest. Monkeys began to chatter and swing excitedly from tree to limb to tree limb. Birds took to the wing, calling to each other, warning one another. The jungle had been disturbed by intruders.
The racket awakened Ross and Diana as they lay sleeping high above in the treetops.
Diana pushed herself up on one elbow and rubbed her eyes. “What’s all the noise about?”
Ross was stretched out comfortably beside her on the buri palm mats. He reached over, pulled her back into the crook of his arm and said sleepily, “I must have caught a couple of big rats in my rattraps.”
“Big rats?” she murmured against his bare shoulder.
“Maybe I snared the goons who were in your room the other night.”
Her eyes popped open, and she sat straight up. “You’re kidding.”
It didn’t appear he was going to get any more sleep. “No. I’m not kidding.”
“Ross St.
Clair, what have you done?”
“Don’t worry, honey. I just used a few basically harmless tricks I picked up from the natives on the last island where I lived.” He gave a casual shrug. “Plus a technique or two I learned in engineering school.”
She looked at him with genuine skepticism. “Are you sure it wasn’t in soldier-of-fortune school?”
That made him laugh. He had never thought of MIT being a training ground for soldiers of fortune.
She chewed on her bottom lip and inquired, “Do you think they’re hurt?”
“Who?”
“The big rats caught in your traps.”
“I doubt it,” he said, unconcerned. “I figure they deserve whatever happens to them. Those two goons aren’t exactly model citizens, don’t forget. They were planning to kidnap you and do God knows what else.”
Her mouth thinned for a moment. “I haven’t forgotten.”
Ross sat up and raised his arms high above his head. “I can’t remember the last time I slept so well.”
Diana gave him a warm smile. “Me, either.”
He dropped a lingering kiss on her mouth. “Pretty amazing, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is,” she whispered.
“But a man’s work is never done,” Ross announced with a melodramatic sigh. “I guess I’d better get dressed and go down to see what I’ve caught in my rattraps.”
Diana moistened her bottom lip. “If it is the two goons from the Hotel Paraiso, does this mean we’ll head back to Port Manya today?”
“Yup. That’s what it means. But you keep out of sight until I give the all clear. I want to make sure both of the hired gunmen are out of commission before you come down.”
“And we wouldn’t want to give them any idea of where the hideout is located.”
“That’s for sure.”
She stood up, seemingly unconcerned with her nudity. “I think I’ll take a quick shower. Then I’ll see what’s for breakfast.”
Ross watched her lovely lithe form as she moved about the thatched-roof hut. “Probably the same gourmet fare we had for lunch and dinner yesterday,” he said with a grimace.
She gave him one those knowing feminine looks. “Silly man. We didn’t have any dinner yesterday.”
He rubbed his bare belly with his hand. “Maybe that explains why I’m so hungry.”
She arched an eyebrow in his direction. “Maybe.”
Ross quickly dressed in his standard wrinkled khakis and well-scuffed military boots. He slipped a lethal-looking knife into his belt, grabbed an extra spear and several lengths of sturdy rope.
“What are you going to do?” Diana asked, standing there, clutching Lola’s blouse to her bare breasts.
“If I have caught those two thugs, I want to make sure they aren’t going anywhere until we get back to Port Manya and inform Sergeant Bok. He’ll want to take them into custody.”
“And then?”
“And then it’s up to the authorities.” He threw the ladder over the side. “I’m going to circle around and come in from the opposite direction.”
“Another trick you learned in your engineering days,” she said, tongue in cheek.
Ross dropped a hard kiss on her mouth. “I’ll be back.”
Ross nimbly climbed down the hemp ladder and dropped onto the jungle floor.
It was amazing what a little food, a good night’s rest and the greatest sex of his life could do for a man’s disposition. His feeling of well-being had never been better.
He moved silently through the forest, circling around in a wide arc until he reached the pathway they had followed the day before.
Yup, his traps had been sprung. There they were. Curly and Moe, two of the three stooges he’d seen on the beach that evening as Carlos and his partner had discussed Ms. Diana Winsted and the “merchandise.”
Ross casually swung the small razor-sharp machete, blade up, over his shoulder and strolled along the jungle path, whistling under his breath as if he didn’t have a care in the world.
“Hey! Hey, mister!” shouted the first gorilla as soon as he spotted Ross.
The man was hanging upside down from a rope, his legs snared by the trap, his face scarlet from anger and all the unaccustomed blood rushing to his head. His shirttails had come loose from his trousers, and his soft, bare belly was sticking out.
It wasn’t a pretty sight.
Ross nodded and kept walking.
“Hey, mister, stop! I need your help.”
Ross paused, picked up the nasty-looking semiautomatic that had fallen to the jungle floor, twirled it around on his finger, made sure the safety was on and then casually sauntered over to the nearest tree. He leaned back against the trunk, took a toothpick from his shirt pocket, stuck it into the side of his mouth and squinted at the hired hood. “You got a problem?” he inquired laconically.
The brute swore viciously under his breath. “What in the hell does it look like to you?”
Ross took his own good time responding. “Looks to me like you’ve got a problem.”
“I’m not the only one. My buddy is over there in some kind of hole in the ground.”
“Booby trap left over from the last world war.”
The thug was starting to sweat profusely; it dripped down his face and formed drops of moisture on the tip of his nose. “No kidding,” he said.
“No kidding.” Ross pushed his khaki hat back off his forehead. “There are booby traps all over this forest. You’ve got to be real careful where you step.”
“I wished I’d known that earlier.”
“I’ll bet you do,” he said in a softly lethal voice.
The thug was starting to panic. “Look, fella, are you going to help me and my buddy, or not?”
“Oh, I’m going to help you all right.”
That brought a grin from the trussed chicken. “Great. Then would you mind cutting me down? I’ve been like this for at least a half hour. I feel like I could puke.”
“Sure, I’ll cut you down, but first…”
The man’s dead-fish eyes—yeah, that’s what Simon Ha had called them, dead-fish eyes—narrowed suspiciously. “But first what?”
“I have a couple of simple questions to ask you.”
At random Ross picked up a sizeable limb that had fallen to the forest floor. He took the razor-sharp machete and whacked the piece of wood in two. His knife was very sharp, and he was obviously very skilled with it.
The man swallowed. “A couple of simple questions?”
Ross went down on his haunches and looked the goon straight in the eye. “Who is Carlos?”
The man was quick. Quicker than Ross anticipated. He played dumb real well. “Carlos? I don’t know any Carlos.”
“You dead certain?”
“Yeah, I’m certain.”
Ross straightened and let the knife fly. The blade whizzed past the thug’s head—missing his ear by only inches—and was partially buried in the bark of a tree.
“You’re pretty good with that thing,” came the half-grudging admiration.
They both knew he was good. Damn good.
Ross preferred to be modest. “I’m not bad. A little out of practice.”
“Even if I knew who Carlos was, I couldn’t tell you,” said the henchman. “I’d be a dead man within a week, anyway.”
Ross decided it was time to try a different tact. “Where is the merchandise?”
That brought a mirthless laugh. “What merchandise?”
“I know about the merchandise. I heard Carlos talking on the beach that night.”
“Well, goody for you, cowboy. I don’t know anything about any merchandise.”
Ross’s voice hardened to solid rock. “You plug-ugly son of a gun! You were in the lady’s hotel room the other night looking for it.”
He spit. “You’ve got no proof.”
“Maybe the lady can identify you.”
“It was too dark.”
“So you admit that you were in her room.”
“I admit nothing.”
“Maybe you rifled through her belongings in Manila, too, huh?”
The man’s features turned rabid. “You’re bluffing, cowboy. You haven’t got a shred of evidence.”
“Maybe not,” said Ross as he casually stretched out his long legs. “Maybe I don’t need any evidence. On some of these islands there is no law.” He gave a well-done laugh. “Hell, on some of these islands there aren’t even any people. Maybe I’ll take you and your buddy for a ride in my boat. Maybe I’ll dump you on a deserted island and let the two of you spend eternity in hell together.”
Ross left the first man to think over the prospect of living out his life on a deserted island in the Pacific and sauntered over to the pit. He glanced down at the not-so-tough thug sitting in the bottom of the deep hole. “Have you got anything to say for yourself?”
The trussed chicken bellowed, “Keep your damn mouth shut, Bolo, or I’ll shut it for you permanently.”
Bolo raised his arm and made an obscene gesture at Ross. “I got nothing to say to you.”
“Look, mister, we can’t tell you anything. Now, are you going to cut me down or not?”
“I might.”
“You might?”
Ross shook his head from side to side. “The thing is, you two made me real mad.”
“How’d we do that? We don’t even know you.”
Ross played mumblety-peg with his machete. “You tried to mess with my woman.”
“Your woman? You mean the classy-looking blonde. Hell, we didn’t know she was your woman.”
He said in a voice as hard as nails, “You know now. If either of you ever go within a continent of her again, I’ll cut out your lily-livered hearts and feed them piece by piece to the swamp rats.”
The thug hanging from the tree began to nervously look around. “Swamp rats?”
“Nasty things, swamp rats. I saw a swarm of them go crazy once on the frontier in Cotabato.” He shuddered. “Never saw a man eaten alive like that before,” he said dramatically. “Don’t care if I ever do again.”
“Hey, mister, you have my solemn word. We won’t go anywhere near the woman again. I swear it on my beloved mother’s head,” vowed the man in the pit.
Ross took care of the thug hanging upside-down first. He wasn’t taking any chances with these two snakes, however. He tied the man’s hands securely behind his back before he cut him down and marched him to the hole where his partner was imprisoned.
Not His Wedding! (Silhouette Reissued) Page 10
