After the darkness, she opened her eyes, every movement torture, and she saw Derek, covered in mud, hovering over her, begging her to breathe. It was only then she noticed it was getting harder and harder to do so.
“Brazilian Wandering spider venom,” she managed to croak, “Jonty murdered me.”
Derek was crying. “No, no, I’ll run get help, please Riley, try, fight…”
She was fading fast now. “Double back to last night’s place and head north. Find Lazlo, he’ll help you. Tell him I’m sorry, that he was the closest thing to love I ever knew. Run, Derek…”
And then there was a sharp, unrelenting pain and she lost all of her senses as she began to spasm. This is the end.
This is the end.
Lazlo stepped his team before they had even gone for two hours. Something was wrong, he felt it in his bones. Jonty’s disappearance last night…he hated the fact they didn’t know where he was. Derek, Riley’s only trusted companion had spoken to him in confidence, told him about the fight between Jonty and Riley, and Lazlo was nervous. She was a fighter, yes, but so tiny, so fragile. If anything happened to her…
He went to speak to his team leader. “Coleen, I want to go back, find the Cambridge team. Something is wrong, I know it.”
Coleen, an animal breeding expert from Australia, studied him. “It’ll cost the expedition thousands of dollars.”
He met her gaze steadily, and when he spoke, his voice was gruff with emotion. “Her life is worth more to me than any amount of money.”
Coleen saw he was close to breaking and nodded. “Okay, boss, no worries. We’ll send out a scout ahead of us.”
“No,” Lazlo said, stronger now, “I’ll go ahead. If there’s anything…well, you know.”
Coleen didn’t look happy, but she had known Lazlo for years and had never seen him so crazy about one of his women. But then Dr. Riley Monckton wasn’t just one of the models or socialites that Lazlo usually dated for a half hour before he got bored. She had gotten under her boss’s skin. “Take a weapon,” she urged, going to the cabinet and taking out a rifle. “At least do that for me.”
Lazlo nodded, taking the rifle and grabbing his backpack, heading out of the trailer. He stopped and looked back at Coleen. “Just in case, if I don’t come back, and Riley is in Rio, tell her…I was already…”
Coleen smiled at him. “I will, boss, I promise.”
“Thanks.” Lazlo was moved. “And, get the medical tent ready. Again, just in case.”
“I will. Good luck, boss.”
Derek staggered through the undergrowth, ignoring the various bugs and spider webs he encountered. Riley was dying, and he was the only one who could save her. If only he’d had enough guts to tell her what he really thought of Jonty all those days before. That he’d overheard a suspicious phone call back in Rio; that he’d seen Jonty with that god damned spider, seemingly harvesting the venom. Why hadn’t he guessed what the other man had been planning?
Fuck. It was his fault Riley was dying now. After Jonty, and Paul and Charlie had attacked his boss, he’d tried but all it took was one punch from Jonty, and he’d been in the river. He was dazed, and by the time he’d struggled to shore and double-backed, it was too late.
Derek started to cry as the light in the jungle was getting too dense to see the trail. He was still only nineteen, a scholarship kid from a broken home and he’d never thought he would get the chance to do this. Now he was fighting for not just his own life, but the life of the only person whom he looked up to.
He heard something crashing through the jungle ahead of him and froze. He closed his eyes. Just kill me quickly, whatever you are.
Then he heard breathing – a human breathing. “Hello?”
“Derek?”
Lazlo Patron flicked on his torch and Derek could have sobbed, he was so happy to see him, but he had a far more important job to do now.
“Please, Mr. Patron, you have to come. They tried to kill her. I think she’s dying.”
There were voices, and for a time, they made no sense. The black tunnel she was in didn’t get lighter or darker or, crucially, less agonizingly painful.
But soon there was a voice that sent warmth through her seared veins. Riley tried to concentrate on the voice, the voice of love, that deep, sensual musical accent telling her to live, begging her to live so he could love her.
Lazlo…
How was it possible that he could love her after so short a time? But right now, hovering on the edge of death, she’d take it. She began to feel sensation in her limbs again. His lips against the back of her hand, against her sore, swollen mouth.
“Come back to me. Come back to me, my beautiful love, please.”
I’m trying, my sweet love, I’m trying.
“Riley Monckton, I’m not losing you now. Breathe. Fight.”
She opened her eyes. “Lazlo…” But her throat was too dry to make any sound. She blinked a couple of times and stared up at what was definitely not a tent or a trailer. The hum of medical equipment, the quiet chatter of voices way down a hallway. She was in the hospital, and by the looks of the room she was in, a private one.
Riley felt discombobulated. She felt pain still, even though she could see she had a morphine pump, but it wasn’t the racking pain of the poison in her veins. More that her body had been battered and every vein and artery in her body stripped by acid. She breathed in a great lungful of air from the mask covering her face and was relieved that she no longer had that excruciatingly tight band around her chest that had threatened to asphyxiate her back in the jungle.
She looked over as the door opened and there he was. His smile at seeing her awake made her heart pound. Lazlo was at her side in a second.
“Mio Dio, mio Dio, you are awake…oh, my love, my love…”
She pulled the face mask off as he bent his face to her and kissed her. She stroked his dark curls, feeling dampness from the tears on his cheeks.
After the longest kiss she’d ever known, he sat down next to her and took her hand in his, holding against his cheek. She could see the dark violet circles under his green eyes, the inch-long growth on his dark beard. Her head still whirled – probably the morphine – and she smiled at him.
“You’re the only man who could make exhaustion look sexy, Patron, “ she croaked.
He laughed a little. “That’s the morphine talking but thank you. God, Riley, when I found you, I thought you were dead.”
“I thought I was dead too. I never expected to wake up again and it broke my heart because the thought of never seeing you again…” She got choked then, and her tinder-dry throat made her cough.
Lazlo helped her sip some water, and relieved, she lay back, gazing at him. “You saved me.”
Lazlo’s shoulders slumped. “We tried, in the camp. We gave you all the anti-venom we had but you didn’t respond. We got the emergency team out and they flew you and I back to Rio. Which is where we are now. God, Riley, they didn’t think they could save you but you’re a fighter, you beautiful, strong, amazing woman.”
“This isn’t the public hospital though, is it?” She grinned at him, already knowing the answer. He kissed the back of her fingers.
“There was never any question that I would want the best for the woman I love,” he said seriously, and Riley felt warmth flood through her.
“You love me?”
“Completely. Fuck society’s rules about how long it should take to say you’re in love. I love you, Riley Monckton.”
“I love you too,” she whispered, tears spilling out of her eyes, her smile wide. “I love you so much, you crazy lunatic.”
Lazlo laughed and stroked her face. “Cara mia, when you are better, we will go back to the jungle and work together to save that jaguar. Your mission will not have been in vain.”
Riley grinned. “You are the sweetest man; you know exactly what I was thinking. Oh, hey, how’s Derek? I know he must have been the one to tell you what happened. Is he okay?”
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Lazlo smiled. “He is absolutely fine now he knows you’re going to be well again. That boy hero-worships you. Or heroine-worships. He’s fine, they checked him out here, and he’s at my hotel, enjoying being pampered. That boy…what he did for you and me, Riley, I can never repay.”
“No, me either,” she said. “I feel a little ashamed. Although I liked and trusted him, I kind of wrote him off as weak. Nothing could have been further from the truth.”
“Agreed. I have already told him that his future is secure. I’ll fund the rest of his Doctorate in whatever institution he wants, cover his rent, his expenses. And when he’s ready, if he wants to, there is a job waiting for him in my organization – and not a grunt level job either.”
“That is so sweet, Lazlo, so generous. I can’t hope to give him that much.”
“It’s only money, Riley. I can’t begin to repay the debt I owe him.” He leaned forward and kissed her again, lingering, his lips soft against hers.
Riley leaned into his touch, her smile fading a little.
“Lazlo?”
He sighed. “We’re searching for them. We found Paul’s body on the first day; his throat had been cut. We’ll find them. When we do…” He breathed a deep lungful of air in to quell his anger. “They will be subjected to justice.”
Riley nodded. “Laz…you mean the police, right?”
He hesitated then nodded. “As you wish.”
She touched his face. “We don’t need to sink to his level. Besides, if he’s already been paid by whoever sent him in…and he hasn’t come up with the goods as far as we know then we won’t have to chose anyway.”
“Well, quite.” Lazlo sighed, and Riley pulled him closer.
“Come lay down beside me.” She shifted over in the bed, and Lazlo kicked off his sneakers and lay down beside her, cradling her in his arms.
“How long do you think I’ll be in here? How long until I’m fully fit?” She said, gazing up at him, and then grinning when she saw the twinkle in his eyes. “I mean, health-wise, you horn dog.”
Lazlo laughed. “Probably a week, ten days they said, depending on when you woke and how you felt. Are you still in pain?”
She nodded. “But nothing like I was, and being in your arms is the best medicine.”
Lazlo locked eyes with her and smiled. “Riley…you are going to marry me, aren’t you?”
Riley laughed. “Ask me again when I’m not hopped up on morphine. I promise I’ll say yes.”
Ten days later…
Rome.
Riley stretched her body out as she awoke in Lazlo’s penthouse. Lazlo had brought her home from the hospital yesterday in his private jet, and he’d insisted she get some rest before he showed her around the city of his birth.
“And I want you completely rested because I’m going to exhaust you over and over again, il mia amore.”
She’d laughed at his wicked grin. “Well, you’d better.”
And she had needed the rest; she’d tried to stay awake during the drive back from the airport to see Rome at night, and then to appreciate the opulence of Lazlo’s home, but she had fallen asleep in his arms and woken up in his vast bed.
The bed was empty beside her, and she got up, snagging his robe from behind the door. She buried her face in the fabric, smelling his scent of fresh air and expensive cologne.
Lazlo was in his study, and as she knocked gently at the door, he looked up and grinned. “What are you knocking for? Come in, beautiful.”
He stood and took her in his arms. “Good morning, my love. How did you sleep?”
“Wonderfully, thank you. You were right, I needed it.”
Lazlo kissed her. “And how are you feeling now?”
“Much, much more…energetic,” she chuckled as he pulled open the robe and pulled it from her shoulders.
“Energetic, is that right?”
She slid her hand down and cupped his growing hard-on. “Oh, yes…so much energy…”
In a flash, he had laid her down on his desk and was unzipping his fly. She loved that she was naked, while he was mostly dressed…she loved being vulnerable in this man’s presence and oh! He launched his rock-hard cock into her, and she gasped, wrapping her legs around his waist as they fucked, hard and fast, as their animal instincts took over.
Afterward, she straddled him as they made love on the carpet, then in the shower, Riley dropping to her knees to take him in her mouth and bring him to a shuddering climax as he shot creamy thick come onto her tongue. He repaid the favor in bed, his tongue lashing around her clit then driving deep into her cunt as she writhed in ecstasy.
They stayed in bed most of the day, making love and talking, finding out about each other. Lazlo, for all his swagger, she discovered was just as much of a nerd as she was – she found the evidence of such on his overstuffed bookcases.
He took her out for dinner at a little trattoria down a secluded back street. They lingered over dinner, drinking wine and talking late into the night. They walked back to his building, the city still alive in the early hours of the morning.
Lazlo looked down at her and smiled. “You like my city?”
“It’s beautiful,” Riley sighed, her hand in his. “So alive, so magnetic. It’s you, in city form.”
He laughed. “I’m glad you think so. Maybe you could see yourself living here?”
Riley thought back to her cramped little studio flat in cold, wet Cambridge without much enthusiasm. “Very much. I would have to find a job here.”
Lazlo rolled his eyes but nodded. “Every university, every research facility here will know your name, and they’ll be kicking down your door.”
Riley chuckled. “You have so much faith in me. But that does sound exciting.”
Back at their penthouse – Lazlo’s word ‘their’ – Lazlo excused himself for a moment. “I have a message to call my team leader down in Brazil – this could be something important.”
“Of course, baby.”
Riley went to the bedroom and took off her dress, remembering the first time they’d met and Lazlo ripping that particular dress to shreds. She was still smiling as she went to take a shower, rubbing moisturizer into her skin, already feeling horny.
She waited for Lazlo, laying naked on the bed, but when he hadn’t reappeared after a while, she grabbed his robe and went to his study. He was still talking on the phone but waved her in anyway. In a moment, he put his phone down and came to sit with her.
“Darling, that was my team leader. They found Jonty and Charlie. Charlie’s singing like a bird - he’s terrified.”
“Good.”
“Quite. And Jonty…he’s been arrested and charged with a whole fleet of crimes, the most important being, he’s been charged with your attempted murder. He’ll be in prison for a long, long time, and Brazilian prisons? He won’t have a good time. Not at all.”
Riley let out a long deep breath. “God. Thank you, Laz, for everything.”
He stroked her hair. “And some more good news? Because of what Charlie has been saying to the police, we caught the ringleader of the poachers who hired Jonty. The police sent a team into the jungle. There’s a lot more work to do, but for now, the jaguar – however many of them are in there, are safe.”
Hearing that made tears spring into Riley’s eyes. “Oh, god, Lazlo, that’s wonderful. Just wonderful.”
He kissed her then and once again, she lost her robe as he pulled her onto the couch and covered her body with his. “Ti amo, Riley, ti amo.”
She smiled through her tears. “Ti amo, Lazlo Patron…”
Three months later…
In the heat of the Amazon rainforest, in a luxuriously outfitted trailer, Lazlo Patron looked up into the face of the woman he loved, the magnificent woman who was straddling him, his cock buried deep in her cunt as they made love, her breasts in his hands.
“Riley, my beautiful Principessa…there’s a question I’ve been meaning to ask you for a while now.”
Riley, br
eathless from riding him hard, grinned, knowing exactly what he was going to say. “Your timing is exquisite.”
He laughed as he saw the familiar flush of pre-climax creep over her skin. “Dr. Riley Monckton…would you do me the great honor of becoming my wife?”
He was great with timing, Riley thought, as she came, shivering and gasping and crying. “Yes…yes…yes…”
The End.
A Dangerous Woman A Rockstar Untamed Story
Billy Cyprian swayed slightly as he stepped out of Chris’s car and waved goodbye. Chris’s car turned in a swift arc around him, spraying gravel and dirt and sped off. Billy chuckled to himself and started to walk toward the house. Somewhere in his alcohol-fogged brain, he registered that the house was in total darkness. Not even the lamp above the front door was on.
He stopped, frowning, swaying on the spot as he digested this. Unusual. Was Lukia still home? He’d left her there earlier, on the couch, in the sitting room of their huge farmhouse an hour outside Portland. The house, the house they had grown up with their late parents, was on their private land and very secluded.
From the corner of his eye, he caught sight of something. The barn’s lamp was on its bright glow a starburst in the inky night. They never went in that barn; he’d planned to convert it into a recording studio but had never got around it, and Lukia hated it, telling him she felt creeped out by the dark building. So, was she in there now? Why the hell would she go into the barn after dark? Confused, he lopped toward it and pulled open the door.
In the gloomy barn, Lukia was sitting on the steps to the hayloft. She didn’t look up.
“Why are you sitting out here all alone?” Billy gripped a beam to steady himself and looked at his sister.
Lukia ignored his question, staring down at her hands.
“Where have you been?” He was taken aback at her tone. Cold. Angry.
Rockstar Untamed: A Single Dad Virgin Romance Page 132
