She slapped his hands and jerked her skirt down as far as it would reach, which wasn’t far considering how short it was. “What are you doing? I’m practically naked under there.”
Taylor sucked in a sharp breath. “Yeah, I saw that and practically doesn’t apply.” He swallowed hard. Lord almighty. He’d caught a delicious glimpse of the tiny, dark blue thong barely hiding the forbidden fruit under there. He didn’t think he’d ever seen anything that looked as yummy as Dianna’s crotch hidden behind a thin patch of blue silk. His dick stirred and rose. Oh. Crap. That was all he needed, a woody tenting his jeans. “I need to see what’s poking…er, what’s in your leg.”
“I’ll do it.” Dianna gingerly pushed the hem of her skirt up past the injury. “See it?”
“Yeah.” Taylor rubbed a hand down his face. Another inch and he’d see it all right. “Shit. Sweetheart?”
Dianna lifted her gaze. “Bad, huh?”
“It’s going to hurt like hell when I pull it out.”
“Do you think you could kiss me while you remove it?”
“No.” He shook his head and very slowly lowered his mouth to hers. “Uh-uh.”
* * * *
Dianna sighed against his mouth and parted her lips. His lips felt as soft as butterfly wings against hers. If he kissed her this tenderly, she knew she was in serious trouble.
She felt his hand stroke her leg, glide up her thigh. Oh, God. If only he was touching her to seduce her. Moisture pooled between her thighs, dampening the scanty thong. His fingers splayed on top of her thigh, mere inches from her hoo-ha. Dianna tightened her fingers in his hair and took control of the kiss.
His fingers closed around the piece of iron.
She concentrated on his kiss, let him own her mouth. Gingerly, she traced the tip of her tongue along the edge of his bottom lip, then slid between just as he yanked the piece of metal from her thigh. She cried out and tore free of his mouth. Her body shook. Nausea curdled through her belly.
“Oh, God. I’m going to be sick.” She looked at the blood flowing over her skin and onto the ground in a small puddle. Tears wet her cheeks. “Damn, that hurt!”
“I know, baby.” Taylor flung the piece of iron aside.
Dianna rested her head against his shoulder. Her body trembled uncontrollably.
He smoothed her hair with unsteady hands. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. Come on. Sit up straight. Why don’t you give me the rest of your shirt so I can wrap it around your leg?”
Dianna ripped what was left of her shirt and folded a piece of it into a thick pad. She pressed it tightly over the wound while Taylor tied a strip around it to secure it in place.
“You need to stay off it as much as possible. You don’t need to lose more blood. I’ll find something for it in a minute, for your forehead, too.” Taylor busied himself untying the string on the sleeping roll and spread the bag under a nearby tree. He came back to her, leaned down, and lifted her into his arms.
“What are you doing? Put me down! Your legs.”
He slanted his hot gaze at her. “If I can kiss you, I can damn sure carry you a short distance.” Gently, he placed her on the sleeping bag. “Sooner or later, we’re going to finish what’s between us, Dianna.”
She squirmed on the sleeping bag. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Yeah. You know. I’m going to fuck you, maybe more than once.”
Dianna flinched. “Well, guess that leaves little doubt what you meant in the plane when you said Fuck you.”
“I didn’t realize you weren’t clear on my meaning. In case there’s any more doubt. I’m going to fuck you…soon.”
“No you aren’t. It takes two. And I’m not willing to be the other half of your tango party.”
“Sure you are. You know how I know?”
She shook her head.
“Because you had your tongue rammed down my throat like you were searching for my tonsils. A woman kisses a man like that when she wants him like crazy.”
“You flatter yourself.”
He grinned. “Lie back. I want to look at that cut on your head.”
She swayed toward him. He ended up grabbing her by the arm to steady her. “Careful. Ouch. Don’t touch the blisters!”
“Sorry. You need to put a shirt on. The flies will drive you crazy if you don’t.”
“I will in a minute. Now lie back.”
“I don’t want to lie down,” she said fussily. “I’ll get blood all over it. We have to sleep on it.”
* * * *
Taylor froze.
Sleep on it?
As in, sleep on it together?
Side by side?
Oh, yeah, he’d screw her all right, so fast she wouldn’t know what happened.
He glanced around, feeling that much more desperate. There was no way he’d be able to sleep beside her and not touch her. Nope, wasn’t happening. He–he’d—well, it wouldn’t work. He lurched to his feet, cleared his throat, and grabbed her bag from where he’d slung it earlier.
“What are you doing?”
Taylor looked up from pawing through her oversized purse. “I’m looking to see if you have a small sewing kit or maybe a tube of ointment of some kind.”
“Back outside flap,” she said sweetly and grabbed the bag from his hands. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t prowl through my things.”
“Fine. You wanna stitch up yourself?”
She snorted and pressed the tiny sewing kit into his hands. “No. I’ll get my turn doing you.”
He choked.
Doing me? Damn, did she have to make it sound so sexual?
Why did this one female have the power to reduce him to a pile of useless ashes? Wanting her left a sour taste in his mouth. He resented the fact she managed to burrow under his skin, that she aroused him without trying.
Dianna dug out a travel pack of moistened wipes and handed them to him.
“Okay, let’s get you cleaned up.” Taylor squatted down in front of her and carefully wiped away the caked blood and black smudges of smoke on her face. “You’re a mess.”
Dianna’s gaze flickered over his face. He wondered if the goose egg over his left eye was as big as it felt. She touched it gently. “Do you have a headache as bad as mine?”
Taylor glanced up. “I don’t know how bad your headache is, but yes, my skull feels like it’s going to explode any second.”
“You shouldn’t be taking care of me. You’re hurt, too. You look awful.”
Crimson ribbons slid down his arm. “You don’t look so hot yourself.”
“How are your legs? You shouldn’t have carried me.”
He snorted and dabbed at the edges of the cut on her forehead. “Like you give a shit how my legs are? I’m fine. You don’t weigh as much as a mouse. Be still! You’ll cause me to hurt you, jerking like that.”
“You did hurt me. Ouch! I said that hurts.”
Annoyance flickered in his eyes. “You think you can stand for me to stitch you up, or are you going to be a sissy about this? If you don’t let me sew that gash, you’re gonna have one big ugly-ass scar. You’ll look like Frankenstein’s bride.”
She drew a deep breath. “Help me up and hand me back my bag.”
Taylor helped her to her feet. “Why do you want your bag?”
“I have painkillers.”
“No.”
“What?”
“No painkillers.”
“Bastard.”
“Probably so, but I don’t want you to fall into a drug-induced sleep. I’ll have to wake you every hour or so once you go to sleep naturally anyway. No painkillers.”
He snatched the bottle from her hands, read the prescription label. “Hydrocodone/Apap, five/five-hundred. Hmm, I’m certainly familiar with that one.” He twisted open the lid and swallowed one dry.
“What are you doing? You said no painkillers.”
“None for you. Do you know what drugs can do to you? What are you doing with this shit anyway? ”
“Oh. I’m not familiar with that kind of pain.”
“Hah-hah. You can have something for pain, but I can’t?”
“Uh-huh.” He threaded a needle and frowned. “Be still. This is going to hurt like hell.”
“So do menstrual cramps.”
He arched a brow. “You got ‘em now?”
“What?”
“You know? The M thing?”
“No. Not for a few days.”
He coughed and looked totally embarrassed discussing her womanly functions. What would he look like if he discovered the tampons in her bag? Maybe she’d put it to the test. “You know, if you need some cotton balls, I have tampons you can rip apart, make some nice little pads.”
He looked at her as if she’d suddenly grown two heads and a forked tongue. “I’m not tearing up tampons. You might need them to…er, plug a leak or something. ”
She shifted from one foot to the other. “Why do you rate a pain pill, and I don’t?”
“Excuse me?”
“You know, a pain pill, why do you rate one, and I don’t?”
“I don’t have a concussion.”
“You have a big lump over your eye.”
“I do? Huh.”
“You might be concussed.”
“Hmm.” He shrugged. “Too late now, done took it.”
“Ow!”
“Told you it was gonna hurt. Keep still. Jeez, you’re antsy.”
“Let me stab you over the eye with a needle and see how antsy you are!”
He grinned. “You’ll get your turn.”
“What?”
“Yep. I’m gonna need you to take a look at my shoulder and back.”
“When?”
“Later. I want to get you taken care of first and settled, then I’ll take a look at the supplies, see what we have on hand.”
“Then what?”
“Then I’m gonna pray we get rescued soon. You said you think you know where we are?”
“Yes.”
She lowered her gaze, stared at her hands, and flinched every time he took a stitch.
“Well, where the fuck are we?”
She lifted her head. “Australia? You don’t have to shout at me.”
“Don’t move! Damn, woman, I know we’re in Australia. Where in the name of God are we precisely in the land of wonder Down Under?”
“The Kimberly. Yeah, we’re somewhere in the Kimberly, but I don’t think we’re where we should be.”
“No shit.”
“I’m not kidding. We’re in a rainforest. I think maybe we should be in more of a desert region.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Because we were supposed to be flying west, and the rainforest is north. We had to be way off course to be here.”
“So we’re not in the Kimberly?”
“Oh, we’re in it, just…just not in the right part of it. I think.”
“You know a lot about the Kimberly?”
“Sure.”
He locked his eyes with hers. “Jesus, am I gonna have to drag every single bit of information out of you?”
“I’m thinking. It’s sparsely populated and harsh…the last frontier.”
“Great. We’re freakin’ pioneers.”
“It’s big. I read somewhere vacationers need to plan well, some don’t, and they pay the ultimate price.”
“Uh-huh. We’re not on a fuckin’ safari.”
“It’s big.”
“You said that.”
“Vast.”
“Same thing as big.”
“It’s big. You have no concept of the size it is.”
“How fuckin’ big can it be?”
“Over four hundred thousand square kilometers.”
“How much in miles? I don’t know one damn thing about kilometers.”
“Hmm. Something like a hundred sixty-four thousand square miles, not an exact figure, but close. I told you, it’s big.”
“So is my dick! Jeez! Can you stop saying it’s big for one damn minute, and tell me something I don’t know?”
“You know the wolf you said I didn’t see?”
“Yeah?”
“You were right. It isn’t a wolf.”
“I knew that. So?”
“It’s a dingo.” She winced as he stabbed the needle into her flesh again.
“Dingo?”
“Your hands aren’t very steady.”
He flashed a look, then jabbed the needle in her flesh and drew the edges of the torn flesh together. “Dingo?” he repeated, ignoring her comment about his unsteady hands.
“Yeah. You know, wild dog…or, yeah, wild dog is a pretty good description. Uh, you aren’t taking great big stitches, are you?”
“Nah. You have a nice, neat row of tiny black stitches. Maybe there won’t be such a bad scar, after all.”
“Good, I’d really hate to look like Frankenstein’s bride. I wouldn’t look good with those lightning streaks of white in my hair.”
“You’re rambling. How do you know what you think you saw is a dingo?”
“Well, uh…it has very large sharp teeth…it’s big and it’s…right behind you.”
Chapter Five
You will never win if you never begin.
~Helen Rowland
North Western Australia
The Kimberly
February 7, Saturday.
“You aren’t funny, Dianna. I’m not falling for a trick that old. I’m not looking behind me only to find nothing there.”
Dianna blinked. “Why do you never take me seriously? I’m telling you, there’s a vicious dingo behind you with large ears, sort of yellowish-tan fur and a long, bushy tail. It’s wild. You know how I can tell its wild?”
“How?” Taylor was totally absorbed in putting the last few stitches in the gash over her eye and barely listening to her ramblings.
“It looks hungry.”
“Oh, Grandma, what sharp teeth you have!”
“This is no time to find your sense of humor, Taylor Spencer! It has those too, large, sharp canines, I told you that already.”
“Huh. You wouldn’t know a dingo from a dingbat, which I’m beginning to think you are.”
“You’re such a horse turd.”
“Horse turd?” He snickered.
“Yeah. You’re just a big pile of brain-dead horse shit.”
He paused with the needle in mid-air. “Brain-dead horse shit? What is it with you and your fixation with manure?”
“I don’t have a fixation with shit. You know what?”
“I’m sure I don’t wanna know.” He sighed and applied the needle. She bit her lip. She acted tough, but he knew damn well he was hurting her with each jab of the needle.
“I hope the dingo bites you on the ass and gives you lockjaw!”
“That’s called tetanus, sweetheart, and you’re out of luck. I’ve had my shots.”
“Bully for you! You should trust me. I’m all you have out here in this…” She waved her hand. “Little green forest.”
“I trusted you to fly the plane, look where that got me, stuck here in this little green forest with you.”
“Are we back to that?”
“Maybe I don’t believe you because you have that monthly thing that gives you cramps. It obviously impairs your judgment.”
“Taylor?”
“Hmm?” He stabbed her flesh with the needle, looped the thread and made a tiny knot.
“It’s coming closer. It looks kind of sick. Its mouth is all wet and drooling.”
“Sick, huh?”
“Well, yeah. It’s curling its upper lip and slobbering like mad. Maybe it’s rabid.”
“Jesus, Dianna. I’m almost finished sewing the wound. If you don’t shut up, I’m going to stitch your lips together, too.”
Dianna tore away from him, snatched up her bag, and rummaged through the contents like a wild woman.
“Don’t jerk away like that,�
� Taylor shouted, visibly shaken that he might have injured her in some way. “I could have rammed the needle in your eye or in your face. What the fuck are you doing?” He watched her prowl through her purse.
“I’m looking for my gun.”
“Your gun? Sweetheart, you don’t have a gun.”
He froze when she whipped around with a Glock, a nice hefty one gripped between her hands and leveled at him like a freakin’ professional.
“Whoa!” He backed up a step and threw up his hands in surrender. “Okay. If you didn’t want me to stitch your wounds, you should have said something.”
“You’re an idiot, Taylor Spencer. See, I have a gun.”
“I was wrong. Yes, you do have a gun. Shit! Put the thing down before you hurt somebody. Me.”
“Move.” She motioned for him to step to one side. “And make it fast.”
He wasn’t fool enough not to. He obeyed her and took a step to his left, moving out of her line of fire. She lowered the gun a notch and squeezed the trigger. Taylor felt the heat of the bullet whiz past his right cheek like a streak of lightning, heard a dull thud, and flinched at the sound of a sharp yelp.
He jumped. His jaw gaped. Taylor clenched his fists at his sides. “Shit! Fuck! Shit! Are you crazy? What the hell are you doing?” He spun around and stared at the animal twitching on the ground a few feet behind him. It looked like a dog, not all that big, medium-sized, but she was right, it had large, sharp teeth and foam around its mouth. “Whau!”
Dianna flopped onto her ass and sighed. “It was going for an attack. The thing had already crouched to leap. I didn’t have time to argue with you.” She blinked. “I’m glad I hit the right one, ‘cause I was seeing two of them.”
“Fuck me!” Taylor gaped at her. “You’re completely insane. You nearly killed me! I felt the bullet zip by my face. You could have shot me, you gun totin’ harpy! I swear you have it in for me, just because I kissed you and said your tits are small as acorns!”
“I didn’t come anywhere close to hitting you. I don’t remember any of your kisses. They must not have been very impressive. You’ve never said my breasts were the size of acorns, but if you do, I’m warning you, I know how to shoot rather well. If I’d wanted to hit you, believe me, I could.”
Too Close To The Fire/Too Hot To Handle (Montana Men 3) Page 5
