by Cherry Adair
He consulted the GPS on his watch, thought about the one she’d given his brother, and had to admit she’d pulled her weight, plus some, on this little adventure. He headed in the general direction of the river and decided to wait until the last minute to make camp.
Darkness was for feeding, and they were food.
Acadia’s footsteps crunched behind him, and he thought about Gideon out there in the wet forest alone. Stupid bastard called him careless and irresponsible? Zak snorted. As far as he was concerned, Gideon was way out of line. The extreme sports they enjoyed so much made them both crazy thrill-seekers.
That was the way it had always been. It was the way they’d lived for most of their adult lives. Nothing had changed since Jennifer had … since Jennifer. She’d come along, as crazy for it as they were with her constant forays into war-ravaged countries, pushing her nose into dangerous shit for the story—or at least she had said it was for the story. But he knew.
He recognized a kindred soul. Jennifer had lived for the rush.
And died by it.
It changed nothing, he told himself silently. The brothers had always tackled the highest mountain, the steepest ice waterfall, the fastest track. Slash, slice, hack. And it sure as hell wasn’t any different now as he chopped a path through the understory, his burning muscles fueled by hot anger. The machete was sharp, and Zak used it to good effect, hacking through the vegetation as fast as he could, leaving debris in his wake. He knew he might as well paint a fluorescent arrow behind them, but at this point, speed was more valuable than stealth. The bastards would catch up, he suspected sooner than later with a nice clear path to follow.
They knew the jungle; he didn’t. But he was a hell of a lot more determined to stay alive than they were to kill him. He hoped.
Acadia’s breathing was a little irregular, but she was holding her own and keeping up. He slashed through a tangle of vines as thick as his wrist, and a shower of small red spiders rained down on them. She cut herself off mid-cry, staying right on his heels as she brushed them off herself, then swept the little suckers off his shoulders and back while they walked. She was like a mother monkey picking fleas off its baby.
But Zak didn’t tell her to stop, even after the spiders were long gone. He liked the feel of her hands on him, even if it wasn’t sexual. Which was weird. And entirely unwelcome. But he didn’t say anything as she took advantage of every opportunity and space to walk beside him.
Even though he was using his right arm to wield the machete, his left shoulder burned as if someone were holding a red-hot poker to it. Zak ignored the pain. Eventually the site would go numb; until then he’d ignore it.
She didn’t shriek when they encountered a Colombian giant tarantula eight inches across, bobbing and wiggling its pink spiny legs inches from her face, or later, when they almost tripped over a python as thick as her own thigh hanging lazily from a low limb.
A dog-size tapir shot across their path, squealing as it ran through the heavy undergrowth. That was good news. Meant they were getting closer to water. At least they were heading in the right direction.
“We’re cutting a map for anyone to follow us, aren’t we?” Acadia suddenly asked, and he didn’t have to see her face to know it was a rhetorical question. They hadn’t spoken for half an hour; Zak suspected it was a record for his loquacious fellow escapee.
“No way to avoid it.” And better him than his injured brother. Damned idiot. “If we’re lucky, we’re several hours ahead of anyone following us.” He doubted the guerrillas would wait that long. Sick or not, they’d be on their trail before Piñero returned from making her ransom demands. Zak bet those guys would rather die puking and shitting in the jungle than face their boss when she come back to find the prisoners gone. As if reading his mind, a flock of tiny yellow-and-black troupials catapulted out of the trees and swooped overhead.
Birds flew away from danger.
Shit. Hadn’t heard a damned thing. They’d shown up a hell of a lot faster than he’d anticipated.
Zak wrapped his arm about Acadia’s waist and pulled her tight against his hip. Her eyes went wide. She didn’t have to be told that the other shoe had just dropped.
SEVEN
Arm lassoed around Acadia’s waist, Zak took her down behind a thick, spiky shrub covered in orange flowers. Not flowers, butterflies, which swooped up like tiny scattered autumn leaves at their movement.
They fell hard on the moist, spongy earth in a tangle of arms and legs, facing each other, hidden beneath the butterfly bush. Zak flung a protective arm over her head, holding her down and still, while the other tightened on her waist in warning.
This close she could see the small lines beside his eyes, and the dark bruise mottling the swollen skin surrounding the gash on his temple, distorting the old scar.
Obviously a man who liked to live dangerously, Zak had plenty of scars. And she realized with every passing second that she was a woman who didn’t. With sudden, intense longing, Acadia missed her house just outside the army base, where she’d lived most of her adult life. She missed her local library, and her friends—normal friends—and she missed …
Her life. Her everyday, unexciting, fabulously uneventful life. This jungle adventure was an odd and too-dramatic segue between her normal life and going off to college at age thirty. And whining right now wasn’t going to help. Her dad wouldn’t ever let her sit around and complain. She was a smart woman. She had a strong man at her side—even if he didn’t want to be there, she reminded herself—and now wasn’t the time to be thinking about anything but getting to safety.
All right, so Acadia Gray, manager of Jim’s Sporting Goods, should not be lying under a freaking shrub with a surly, scarred guy carrying a death wish and a machete. But she was. So she’d have to make the best of it.
The Swiss Army Knife dug into her hip, a branch poked her cheek, and Zak’s leg was sandwiched between hers. His heavy arm slung across her waist brought back memories of the last time they’d been so close. And naked. Okay, so a surly, hot guy.
The voices came nearer. Well, voice. No mistaking the rotgut-whiskey tones of Loida Piñero. Over the bitching and complaining from their leader, Acadia heard the thud, crack, and rustle of the soldiers’ footfalls heading straight for them.
Her pulse leaped. God, they were coming closer and closer, easily following the trail Zak had made for them. Moving just her eyes she was able to see the leaves and grasses near their hiding place vibrate with the passage of heavy boots. She held her breath, expecting at any moment to feel a gun barrel slam into the back of her skull.
One. Two. Three—
Pressure settled into the small of her back. Her whole body flinched, but it was just Zak’s hand, flat and firm and holding her in place. A silent order to remain still. She blinked to let him know she got his unnecessary message loud and freaking clear.
And then froze as her cheek tickled. Her skin itched, prickled, as something crawled s-l-o-w-l-y across her face. She gritted her teeth, not daring to move, not wanting to look. A deadly insect bite wasn’t at the top of her I’m-peeing-my-pants fear list; that distinction belonged to the seven pairs of boots passing a few feet away from her nose. The guerrillas made no attempt at being stealthy or quiet.
When Loida Piñero had returned with her men to camp, she hadn’t been happy. She was still pissed off.
Acadia didn’t understand half of what she was yelling; all she knew was the woman was furious and that cabezas rodarán. A quick check through her limited Spanish filled in the translation: Heads would roll.
As the last pair of boots passed, one of the men assured Piñero that eventually the Americans would be caught and taken back to camp. Acadia’s mouth dried as Loida Piñero vented her fury, and she had no problem understanding the gist when the woman said coldly, “We will hunt them until we find them. Understand? Kill one man on sight. I don’t care which. Bring the other back to camp. The woman? You can have her, she is of no importance.”
> Acadia wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or insulted. She opted for terrified.
Piñero’s strident, gravelly voice eventually petered out as the group moved through the trees, shouting for their missing comrades. They’d passed the bodies hidden under the brush back on the path and not seen them.
Acadia strained to hear them as their voices faded.
The jungle was eerily quiet, as if holding its breath. No birdsong. No susurrus of insects. Her own erratic, overly loud heartbeat was the only musical score to the drama surrounding her. Hers, and … She shifted her eyes to the side as she realized the echoing thud near her ear was Zak’s heartbeat, as rapid as hers despite his utter stillness.
A few minutes later the miniature butterflies flocked back in a riot of orange, lighting soundlessly on the glossy dark green leaves overhead.
She must’ve moved slightly, because Zak gave a slight shake of his head. While she waited for whatever was creeping across her face to creep back off, she tried to order her chaotic, panicked thoughts into some form of rational process that wasn’t motivated by bone-deep fear. Being afraid all the time was just exhausting. Hard to sustain. She couldn’t imagine what Zak and his brother did all day, chasing their thrills for hours.
When she opened her eyes again—because she couldn’t not know what was happening—Zak’s face was just inches from hers. His white teeth flashed in a grin.
She stared.
My God, the crazy man was enjoying this. It was the first time, the only time, she’d seen a genuine smile from him all freaking day. It was so … inappropriate, so insane, she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. She shook her head, a tiny involuntary movement of incredulity.
His face was filthy. Chocolate-frosting-colored mud streaked his stubbled cheek; his hazel eyes looked more green than brown as they reflected the verdant vegetation surrounding them, and the gleam in them was impossible to misinterpret.
He was having fun. Fun!
Despite being kidnapped. Despite almost being killed. God help them, despite being in the middle of a damned jungle without a map or transportation, the maniac was having a blast.
It was so much the opposite of what she was feeling that Acadia couldn’t wrap her head around it; she felt disoriented. Which was probably why she was charmed as she lay there squished against him, a twig poking into her cheek and a thing strolling across it.
He slid his hand up the small of her back in an insidious caress, and she felt just how damp her clothes were against her skin, and just how warm his fingers were through the fabric. She gave him a fierce scowl.
The ground was wet, and things moved all around her. Big things and little creepy-crawly things. She shivered. “I’d like to get up,” she whispered firmly. “They’re way far away now.” Indeed, the birds and other chirpy, squeaky, trilling denizens of the forest were back in full voice. And her entire right side was saturated with … she’d go with dirt.
The good news was that the bug had flown off her cheek, but she still had the urge to touch her face to make sure. Changing her depth perception brought Zak into focus. She could see each individual eyelash, and the darker green band surrounding his irises. His sensual smile deepened the groove in his cheek, and the devil danced in his eyes, tearing away all thoughts of bugs and sanitizers and … This was a ridiculously insane time to show her he could be anything other than serious, or to show off a hidden dimple.
The flutter in her tummy became a gallop as the silence between them thickened, punctuated by water dripping off a nearby leaf, the croak of a small tree frog, the rustle of leaves as things moved around them.
The jungle came to life, and he didn’t move or say a word as his gaze dropped to her mouth.
His brother was right. Zak Stark was certifiably insane, and he did have a death wish. Neither of which made her not want him in every way there was.
Again.
The naked hunger in his eyes shocked her. But more alarming was her own instant response, swift and needy in a way she wouldn’t have expected from herself. So who was the crazy one?
“Give them another couple of minutes.” His quiet voice sounded rough, his breathing uneven; his pupils dilated, and he lightly curved his big hand around her nape, making Acadia shiver. And in spite of the fear skittering inside the rational fringes of her mind, she shuddered in response to his touch. He cupped her damp neck and, with a little pressure exerted by his thumb at the base of her head, tilted her face up.
His long, lean-muscled body touched hers from her shoulder to toes, his mouth an inch away. Dirt, she told herself frantically. Guerrillas, jungle. Bugs!
Then he closed the gap.
Acadia’s eyes fluttered shut as his mouth took hers in a hot, hungry, devouring kiss that catapulted her back into that seedy hotel room where this had all started. She hadn’t thought then, and she couldn’t think now.
The kiss wasn’t slow or tentative. It was a kiss between partners who’d already kissed every part of each other’s body in a tumultuous, all-night sexathon. It was the touch of a man who knew exactly how she melted like warm honey when he kissed the shell of her ear, and who knew exactly how to dip his tongue into the sensitive hollow behind it for maximum effect.
Drunk on his hunger, goaded by it, Acadia matched it with a voracious need that blindsided her, giving no quarter and not expecting him to give her any. She’d never felt such intense attraction before in her life, and she had a feeling she never would again. Everything about Zak turned her on. He smelled so good: clean sweat, the soap he’d used in the shower they’d shared so many hours ago, wintergreen mint, even jungle earth. Zak had his own smell, and she knew she’d recognize it anywhere.
She reached up to touch his scratchy, unshaven jaw as his tongue avidly dueled with hers. His mouth was bold, take-no-prisoners, a pirate plundering and taking without asking.
His fingers slid up her hot scalp to tangle in her hair. She heard the tiny snap of the breaking rubber band as he fisted his fingers in the damp strands. She shifted to wrap an arm around his neck and press her other hand against the steady thump of his heart. He slid his knee up tighter into the junction of her legs, and she tightened her muscles hard against the pressure.
He breathed a muffled curse against her throat as she squirmed against the damp ground, trying to get more contact as his lips once more covered hers. Her body remembered every decadent, deliciously devilish thing that had happened between them, and wanted more. Wanted so much that she arched, pressed her breasts to his chest; wanted so badly that her blood sang as his fingers tightened in her hair.
Suddenly he broke away. She stayed where she was, realizing that at some point he’d pillowed her head on his arm. Her body hummed with awareness. And sudden rationality, mixed with a healthy dose of frustration.
He was a labyrinth of contradictions. An attentive lover one minute and a total nut-job the next. His brother claimed he had a death wish, yet Zak held her so gently, it made emotions she couldn’t define swell into a lump in her throat. Of course he could do all that and be crazy as a loon as well, she reminded herself.
He was complicated and dangerous, and she was used to simple and safe. A man like Zakary Stark would be a lot of work. The woman interested in him would have to know she’d never be the love of his life. Would never fill the hole where his heart used to be.
A woman would have to keep her eyes open wide, and her heart protected, at all costs.
She wasn’t that kind of woman.
“They’re not going to give up,” he told her, keeping his voice low. Acadia was gratified to see that he wasn’t as unaffected as he sounded. Sweat beaded his forehead, and his eyes held a glassy sheen.
Good. She didn’t want to be the only one who’d forgotten where they were for those few minutes.
“We’ll keep well back and turn the tables on them. Use their trail to make headway. Turn off closer to the river. Are you ready for a little cat-and-mouse?”
“What if I say no?”
/>
Zak got to his feet and held out his hand. “I’ll bribe you with half of that steak and a cold shower.”
Acadia didn’t think they had a snowball’s hope in hell of finding the river at this rate. Not with a horde of determined guerrillas hunting for them. One leaf looked exactly the same as another to her. As far as she was concerned, Caracas might as well be on the moon, and they were just as likely to have dinner there.
But they couldn’t stay put, either. “Make that my own steak,” she said wearily. She reached up to take his hand, and noticed a dark stain on her fingers. More mud, more sticky sap, more … Her eyes flicked from her hand to his shirtfront.
The blue cotton on his left shoulder was stained red. She actually felt the blood drain from her head, knew she had gone pale. “M-my God. You’ve been shot!”
“I noticed.” Zak’s voice was dry. “You don’t faint at the sight of blood, do you?”
Sick to her stomach, she shook her head.
“Good.” He hauled her to her feet beside him. “Look. I won’t lie to you, this isn’t optimal right now. But it isn’t as bad as it looks. Just one more scar to talk about when I get home.”
It was probably worse than it looked. And not optimal? A gunshot wound? Talk about a freaking understatement. “To scar,” she said brusquely, “one has to heal. We’re in a jungle, Zakary! The worst possible place to have an open wound—Sorry. That wasn’t very diplomatic, was it? Let me take a look.”
He gave her hand a tug to get her moving. “I’ll check it when we stop for the night. With any luck we’ll hit one of those villages.”
“It must hurt like hell. We have to clean it. You know how dangerous it is to have an open wound in this environment.” She was already patting her pockets. This new development had wiped her brain clean and she couldn’t remember where she’d so carefully and methodically placed each item in which pocket. “I know I brought—”
