by Linda Turner
The world slipped away, forgotten in the night, and there was only the two of them and the storm overhead that charged the air with electricity and seemed to set his very blood humming. Murmuring her name again and again, he kissed her until she was breathless, until her tongue came shyly seeking his and her arms slipped around his neck to hold him close, until they were both hot and aching and straining for more.
Driven by a blind, raging need to touch her, to kiss every soft, delectable inch of her, he swept his hands over her in a rush and encountered the ruffles of her blouse and skirt. Searching for buttons, he encountered nothing but an elastic at the waist and neck. Frustrated, he never noticed when his hands turned rough. With a muttered oath, he yanked up the tail of her blouse to pull it over her head. Now. He had to have her now or he was going to go out of his head.
Something stopped him. A slight gasp, an infinitesimal stiffening of her shoulders, an instinctive move, quickly checked, to grab his hands—it could have been any of those things, but suddenly the fog of desire clouding his brain lifted and he looked up just as lightning once again flashed outside. In the grayish light, she watched him with wide, apprehensive eyes. And then it hit him just how close he had come to taking her like a man possessed. And not once had he thought of her virginity.
He swore, spitting curses in Spanish that weren’t fit for her ears. “Aw, damn, honey, I’m sorry!” he said, jerking his hands back from her blouse and rolling onto his back with a groan. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“You didn’t—”
“The hell I didn’t!” he growled, glancing at her sharply. “Look at you. You’re shaking!”
She didn’t try to deny it—how could she? But it wasn’t just with fear. Until he’d almost ripped her blouse from her, she’d been as caught up in the moment as he had. Her pulse still hammering in her throat, her body aching with need, she turned on her side toward him and lightly laid her fingers against the hollow at the base of his throat. It pounded just like hers.
“It looks like I’m not the only one who’s still shaken,” she countered ruefully when he stiffened under her touch. “But somehow I don’t think you’re scared.”
“Hell, yes, I’m scared!” he grated through his teeth, trapping his hand against her throat. “Feel what you do to me, lady. I’m wound up tighter than a broke clock and it’s all because of you. I never came close to losing control with a woman before and it scares the hell out of me.”
That admission alone should have alarmed her, but nothing could have thrilled her more. This was all just as new to him as it was to her. Trailing her fingers up to his mouth, she dared to trace the sculptured line of his lips. “Then let’s be scared together,” she whispered, and leaned over to kiss the pulse that thundered in his throat.
“Maddy…sweetheart…”
He groaned in protest, but she noted with a smile that his arms locked around her faster than a sprung trap. Chuckling, she wandered lazily up his throat, dropping kisses under the granite-hard cut of his jaw, the lobe of his ear, the proud plane of his nose, as she slowly made her way to his mouth. “Undress me, Ace,” she murmured huskily. “Please.”
She asked so artlessly that there was no way on earth he could have denied her. Tangling his fingers in her hair, he held her close for a sizzling kiss, then sat up, taking her with him as he reached for the hem of her blouse and slowly pulled it over her head. It landed with a nearly silent whisper somewhere across the room. For several thumps of their hearts, neither of them moved. Then his hand slid around to her back in search of the hooks of her bra.
Tension crackled in the air, sparking like lightning between them with every brush of his fingers against her hot skin. She never remembered holding her breath, but suddenly her bra followed her blouse and he was touching her, taking her breast into his palm, and she let out her breath on a sigh that ended on a moan when he suddenly ducked his head to kiss the nipple he quickly brought to a pout with his thumb.
“Ace!”
“Easy, sweetheart,” he murmured, teasing her with his tongue. “I promise not to do anything you don’t want. How does that feel?”
Taking her into the warm, wet heat of his mouth before she could answer, he suckled her with a powerful draw of his cheeks, startling her, delighting her. She whimpered, her fingers curling into his hair as a drizzling warmth shot straight from her breast to her loins.
“God, you’re beautiful,” he rasped. “So beautiful. So soft.”
Chanting praise, he moved from one breast to the other, kissing her, caressing her, suckling her, until she was weak with desire and blind to everything but the need he stoked in her blood. Somehow she found herself on her back again, only this time, her clothes and his were gone. He leaned over her in the dark, the hard wall of his chest brushing over her wet, sensitized nipples, and she cried out in pleasure.
Easing down, he kissed her long and slow. “There’s more love, so much more.”
“Show me,” she gasped, kissing him back hungrily. “Teach me.”
On fire for her, Ace almost lost it then. Rock hard and close to bursting, he shook with the need to bury himself in her soft, welcoming heat, but he wouldn’t rush her. Not this time. He took his hands over her slowly, then followed the fire he’d lit with his mouth, nuzzling the underside of her breast, her slender waist, the gentle slope of her belly, gentling her to his hands, his mouth, his tongue. And with every sigh, every ragged moan he drew from her, he burned hotter.
But still he would have held back even longer if she hadn’t touched him. Suddenly she was the one stroking him with fingers that trembled, learning what made him gasp and buck under her hands, and it was all he could do not to explode right then and there. His hand snaking out to trap hers between their bodies, he glared fiercely down into her eyes. “Put your hand back on my shoulder, sweetheart. Now!”
A skittish virgin would have jumped to obey, but her virginity was just a technicality now, an encumbrance that stood in the way of loving him as she wanted to. He wouldn’t consciously hurt her if he could help it. If she needed any proof of that, she only had to look into his face and see what holding back was costing him. Her heart swelling with love, she moved her hand, but not back to his shoulder.
Sucking in a sharp breath, he growled, “Maddy, I’m warning you—”
Whatever threat he would have made next was lost in a strangled groan as her fingers closed around him. Before he could stop himself, his hand was closing around hers, teaching her how to please him. God, how long had he dreamed of having her hands on him? His jaw locked tight, his breathing harsh, he rested his forehead against hers and endured the pleasure as long as he could. “Enough!” he said through his teeth and pulled her hand safely back to his shoulder.
But the little minx had gotten a taste of what she could do to him with just a touch, and after that, there was no stopping her. Delightfully drunk on her own power, she touched and rubbed and kissed wherever the mood struck her and proceeded to quietly drive him out of his mind. He tried to tell her that this wasn’t smart—he was the one who was supposed to be seducing her, not the other way around—but she wouldn’t listen. She wanted him unstrung, out of control, as crazy for her as she was for him, and she could, he discovered to his delight, be damned insistent about it.
As need coiled tight in his belly, he wasn’t, however, completely lost to the care he needed to take with her. Murmuring hoarsely whispered words of encouragement and instructions in her ear, he stroked her with growing urgency, parting her legs to find her hot with arousal and weeping for him at the heart of her desire. She gasped at his touch and lifted her hips against his hand, and it was all he could do not to surge into her. With slow, languid movements that nearly killed him, he rhythmically stroked her inner warmth, stoking the fire higher and higher, until she was mindless to everything but his touch at the core of her. He felt her quicken, that first revealing shudder, and then with a keening cry, she was coming undone in his arms.
&n
bsp; Something broke in him then, something sweet and clean and free. Covering her mouth with his in a smoldering kiss, he surged into her with a single controlled stroke, cursing himself for having to hurt her. But she only stiffened for a moment, then her arms and legs were closing around him as if she would never let him go. Lifting his head, he found her staring up at him with heavy-lidded eyes that were dark with wonder. As he watched, a slow smile blossomed on her kissswollen lips and completely stole his heart.
Suddenly he wanted to laugh, to shout with joy. Grinning, he leaned down and kissed her again. “Maddy, girl, you never cease to surprise me. What am I going to do with you?”
“Love me,” she said against his mouth as her hips lifted to his. “Just love me.”
No more able to resist her than the tides could resist the pull of the moon, he did.
Chapter 12
Long after the thunderstorms rumbled off to the east, they were still in bed, still in each other’s arms. Sated, content to just hold Maddy close and savor the feel of her against him, Ace could have lain there all day and never felt the need to move. The world, however, had other ideas and intruded with a quiet knock at the door.
Half-asleep, Maddy jumped, startled. “It’s okay, sweetheart,” he said softly, pressing a quick kiss to her lips before reaching for his pants. “It’s probably just the old man coming to see if we’re still alive in here. Go back to sleep.”
Quickly zipping his jeans, he checked to make sure Maddy was decently covered in the bed before he crossed the hut on bare feet and eased open the door. As he’d guessed, the old man who had escorted them to the hut yesterday morning stood on the small porch, his weathered face lined with worry. His gaze narrowing, Ace stepped outside and shut the door behind him. “There a problem, señor?”
The old man nodded. “Men in Jeeps have arrived from the north. So far we have been able to keep them out of the village by claiming that we are suffering with the plague, but I doubt that will hold them for long. You must hurry. I have a car waiting.”
“To take us where?”
“Manaus,” he replied promptly. “The driver will take you cross-country through the forest. From there you can find an ocean-going ship that will take you out of the country. Barrera will be looking for you at the airport.”
Ace nodded. It was a good plan, one that he should have thought of himself. “We’ll be right with you, señor. Give us five minutes.”
Turning, he stepped back inside, wondering how the hell he was going to break the news to Maddy that Barrera had somehow managed to catch up with them, but she was already up and tugging on her clothes. “I heard,” she said in a muffled voice through her blouse as she pulled it over her head. Jerking it down into place, she looked up, her face pale. “Barrera’s found us.”
There was no point in denying it. “It looks like it, but he’s not going to catch us, sweetheart. Even if he brought the damn dogs with him, there’s no way he’s going to be able to track us once we drive out of here. The old man’ll make sure of that.”
After all that they had been through, Maddy wasn’t sure she wanted to put their safety in the hands of a total stranger. “Barrera’s bound to be offering a reward,” she said as she quickly stepped into her skirt. “How do you know the old man won’t turn us in?”
“If he was going to do that, he never would have warned us in the first place,” he replied confidently. Snatching up his shirt from the floor, he pulled it on and quickly stepped into his boots.
As together as she could be considering the rush they were in, Maddy glanced around to make sure nothing was left behind to show that they’d been there, only to have her gaze catch and linger on the bed. After the most wonderful night of her life, this wasn’t the way she had pictured the morning after. They should have had hours together yet, precious moments stolen out of time to explore each other in the soft morning light. Instead, they were forced to run for their lives again and they’d barely kissed each other goodmorning.
Reading her mind, Ace moved to her side and slipped his arm around her waist. “By tonight, Barrera will have bigger problems than us to worry about, and we’ll be on a ship heading out to sea,” he said quietly. “We’ll put out the Do Not Disturb sign on our stateroom door and just dare anyone to bother us. So don’t look so sad, baby. You’ve got clean sheets and champagne and me to look forward to. From what I’ve heard, you haven’t lived until you’ve made love on the ocean.”
She laughed—she couldn’t help it—and grinned sassily at him. “Wait till tonight and I’ll let you know.”
“I’m counting on it, sweetheart. I’m counting on it.” Twining his fingers with hers, he winked and led her to the door.
The driver the old man of the village entrusted them to was, Maddy decided, either a daredevil who thrived on taking chances or a sadist who got a cheap thrill out of watching them try to hang on. As soon as he had them captive in his pre-World War II vehicle that had once passed as a Jeep, he left the village behind and immediately struck out across the jungle at a speed that left them both gasping and grasping for handholds. Every hole and rock seemed to hold a special fascination for him, and with no seat belts to hold her in, Maddy was nearly bounced out of the back twice.
“A-a-a-ce!” she called in a wobbly voice as they hit a particularly rough spot. “Do-o-o somethi-i-i-ng!”
Through the rush of the wind in her ears, she heard him speak sharply to the man, who gave him a gape-toothed grin and the universal shrug that said he didn’t understand a word of what he was saying. Bobbing up and down on the shot springs of the passenger seat, Ace glanced over his shoulder at her and laughed, his blue eyes dancing with rueful amusement. “Sorry, h-hon-ey, but we seem to h-have a slight c-communi-ca-tion problem. I think he just s-said we’re in f-for a hell of a ri-i-ide!”
That turned out to be an understatement of gargantuan proportions. Their driver, who Maddy dubbed Fred, took them over every rough stretch of shallow river bottom and rocky hillside he could find in Brazil and laughed while he did it. They were jostled and shaken and jarred, but one thing they were not was followed. Looking back over her shoulder for what had to be the thousandth time, Maddy had to grin when she saw nothing but the undisturbed greenery of the forest behind them. If Barrera’s men were back there somewhere, they’d lost them miles ago.
Manaus, when they finally reached it hours later, appeared out of nowhere. One minute they were bouncing over a level, forested plain, and the next, the trees gave way to narrow, crowded streets teeming with people and vehicles of every make and description. The city was awash in color…and noise. After listening to nothing but the harmonious sounds of the jungle for days, the blare of horns and shouts of vendors sounded caustic to her ears, which amazed her since she’d grown up surrounded by similar sounds in New York.
Looking and feeling like something that had been blown in by the wind to some exotic port of call, she drank in the sites with wide eyes. She wouldn’t forget this, she told herself fiercely as they arrived at the docks on the Amazon and she saw one ocean-going ship after another lined up like soldiers along both banks. When she was old and gray and still shelving books at the library, she would look back on this and hug the memory to her breast with a smile.
Ace grinned as their driver pulled up with a flourish and stopped—actually set the brake—for the first time all day. “Looks like this is the end of the taxi service, sweetheart. It’s something to see, isn’t it? Come on, let’s go find us a slow boat to China.”
“A slow boat to…wait!” she cried, but it was too late. He bodily lifted her out of the Jeep, waved a cheerful goodbye to their driver and hauled her with him down the dock. “How are you going to get us on a boat? In case you’ve forgotten, we don’t have any money.”
Grinning, he arched a brow at her. “Have you ever known that to stop me before?”
“No, but-”
“No buts.” Amusement glinting in his eyes, he pulled her to a stop at the first phone booth th
ey came to. “Stand right there, honey, and watch a pro at work.”
Ignoring the activity on the dock around them, he turned to the phone and punched zero, then a long series of numbers. Moments later, he glanced over at her, winked, then said into the phone, “Philip! How the hell are you? Yeah, I’m alive! What’d you think? I’d let Barrera whack me? You ought to know me better than that.”
Amazed, Maddy listened to him chat with Philip, whoever he was, then give him detailed directions to Barrera’s stronghold and the small village where they had spent the night. “Pick him up,” he said flatly. “No, Lazear won’t be a problem. From what I understand, he’s in the freezer— literally. And I’ve got the ring right here in my pocket. I’m expressing it to you as soon as I get off the phone.”
Suddenly looking up, his eyes met Maddy’s and he reached for her, grinning. “Miss Lawrence is just fine, Philip, and still in one piece, so quit worrying. She would appreciate it, though, if you’d book a cabin for two on the next ship out of Manaus and pull some strings with customs here and at home. My passport got left behind in the jungle and there’s no way in hell we’re going back for it.”
He chuckled then at something the other man said, let him put him on hold for a while and spent the time kissing Maddy senseless before she could so much as open her mouth to ask him a single question. She should have been miffed with him, but with nothing more than a single kiss, he rekindled the magic of the night, and she was lost.
When he abruptly let her up for air when his friend came back on the line, she was breathless and his eyes were dark and slumberous with passion. “Yeah,” he said thickly, keeping an arm snug around her waist as she buried her face against his chest. “The Amazon Queen, cabin twelve. Cash has already been wired to the captain and passports will be waiting for us in New York. Thanks, buddy.”
After promising to check in as soon as he got home, he hung up and immediately turned and hurried Maddy down the dock. “C’mon, honey, our ship leaves in forty-five minutes. We’ve got to find a post office.”
