Tempestuous Eden

by Heather Graham

  “What do you think of him?” Kate asked enthusiastically.

  “Who, Brad?”

  “Who else?” Kate demanded with exasperation.

  “He seems nice,” Blair responded warily. “Kate—did you notice anything funny today?”

  “I haven’t noticed anything funny in a long time,” Kate replied dryly. “What do you mean?”

  “I could have sworn Brad recognized Craig and then both of them acted as if they had never met.”

  “Oh, Blair,” Kate wailed. “I thought you’d gotten over all of this!” Her eyes narrowed shrewdly. “I think you read too much.”

  “Kate!” Blair chastised with a chuckle.

  “Really, some women have no appreciation for the finer things in life,” she sighed. “Unlike myself of course,” she hastily added.

  Blair went pensively silent. She did have Craig Taylor and suddenly she wanted him desperately. Her suspicions began to melt from her mind as a warmth flooded through her. Tonight things would be back to normal. And she could be with him again. Tonight she wouldn’t leave; she would find out just how content she could be waking beside the man she could now admit she loved.

  She was so engrossed in anticipation that she gave no thought to the eerie feeling of being watched that so often plagued her.

  Craig had only brief moments away from prying ears to spend with Brad Shearer. Brad was from a different office, but still, his appearance, like his own, could only mean trouble.

  “What’s going on,” he demanded, a broad smile on his face as he and Brad apparently exchanged a casual conversation over the bottles of Budweiser Brad had brought.

  “I don’t know, Taylor, I don’t know a damned thing. I didn’t know I’d find you here. All I’m supposed to do is keep an eye on these people.” Brad’s face was plastered with the same negligent grin. Just two old back-home boys shooting the breeze. His voice lowered gravely, but his face remained passive. “That Morgan girl is Teile’s widow and Huntington’s daughter, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And she’s your assignment? Damn, man, I don’t envy you that one.” He sighed softly. “Hope I didn’t give you away; it would help a lot if they let us in on what we were doing.”

  “Yeah,” Craig agreed again, feeling his stomach tense. At the beginning he had been sure the old man was being overly protective. Now he felt a strange fear creeping along his spine. He was sure beyond a certainty that things were going badly, that he would indeed be racing the woman out of the jungle.

  The woman who was now coming toward him from her tent with Kate, smiling, laughing with that beautiful melodious sound that never failed to thrill him.

  The woman with whom he had made the severe and deadly mistake of falling in love.

  “The Rams looked good this year,” he said automatically to Brad as the women approached. “But I’d put my money on either the Jets or the Forty-niners.”

  “I don’t know,” Brad argued cordially. “The Jets have a quarterback out with a busted kneecap.”

  Craig moved to pull Blair against his chest and slip his arms around her waist, hugging her back to his body. “What do you think, Blair?” he asked, nuzzling the top of her head and inhaling the sweet fragrance of her freshly washed hair.

  Blair smiled, content in his casual hold that left no doubt as to the relationship forming between them. “Steelers,” she volunteered off-handedly, accepting a sip of Craig’s beer and returning the can. “It’s getting late,” she remarked then softly. “Can I interest you all in the dinner Brad brought? Steaks! Dolly is already by the fire getting things started.”

  The crew ate together, and Blair felt the anticipation and lulling sensation she had begun to experience earlier enveloping her. She was happy to be with Craig, enjoying the pleasant meal.

  But she was anxious for time to pass.

  And when it did, and when the crew dispersed, she took the initiative, following Craig to his tent with no pretense of going to her own.

  With the tent flap down, he pulled her instantly into his arms. Their embrace was long and sweet, and then Blair extracted herself from it. “Juan is gone?” she questioned with an arched brow.

  “Ummm …” Craig returned, standing back slightly with his arms crossed.

  “Well, then …” Blair shrugged with a secret smile, loving his return—a compressed smile in the shadows of darkness. He watched her with that smile, a brow raised.

  Nonchalantly she began to unbutton her shirt. His gaze darkened and narrowed, passion bringing golden brown highlights to his encompassing gaze. Hesitant suddenly, Blair felt herself begin to quiver again. But he had demanded that there be no holding back between them. Her movements still shaky, she kept going, slipping from shirt and jeans, then from bra and panties.

  Again Craig felt humbled by her. She was so very beautiful, so exquisite, coming to him freely, shedding her clothing with that strange innocence that was also intoxicatingly lithe and sensual. The pale glow of the fire outside the tent caressed her shape with warm amber shadows, displaying firm breasts and haunting angles with an uncanny loveliness.

  She stood before him, long lashes barely shimmering over eyes that were a combination of shyness and wanton boldness. He met that gaze, smiling encouragement as he cast his own clothing aside, unaware of the perfection of his own muscled physique in the ethereal glow. “Come to me, Blair,” he murmured, and she did so.

  He took her to the cot with reverence. His needs were strong. He had to have her instantly, but still he made love with tenderness, treating her with a tender fragility that belied the raging torrent of passion within him. They had some time tonight, he thought. He could make love to her over and over. He held her tightly, wincing. They had time, but not forever. A communication was due, and all hell could break loose.

  But still, he did have hours. Hours to exhaust her, hours to leave her heavy with sleep.

  Afterward, just when he was sure she had fallen asleep, she stirred in his arms. “Craig?”

  “Ummm?”

  “Do you remember the day you got here?”

  “Explicitly,” he breathed with many meanings.

  “Do you remember you told me you made a discovery at the stream?” she queried softly.

  “Yes?”

  “Well, what was it?”

  He laughed. “I wasn’t just giving you a line that day, beauty. You still have to see it for yourself. Maybe tomorrow. We’ll go for a swim before dinner.”

  “Why tomorrow, Craig?” she asked with a devilish glint in her eyes. “Why not now?”

  “Now?” he queried. His mind ticked away while he hoped he had kept the dismay out of his voice. “It’s late. We do need to sleep sometime.”

  “Oh, Craig,” Blair murmured, shifting over his chest. “At the moment I’m anything but sleepy!”

  There was time, he judged. As long as he left her sleeping … and the stream just might have that effect. Seventy-five minutes, he thought, glancing covertly at the luminous dial of his watch. He had a lot of “exhausting” to do in that time.

  He came to his feet lithely, the lion, the decision made. He laughed and pulled a startled Blair up with him, the impenetrable keen shade of fathomless gold in his eyes. “The stream it shall be.”

  Blair nuzzled against his chest. “Thank you, Craig,” she murmured, “for humoring me.”

  He grinned with a devilish recklessness. “To humor you, gorgeous, is sheer ecstasy for me.” He released himself from her entanglement briefly to rummage through his footlocker for towels, and then caught her hand. “Let’s go.”

  “Like this?” Blair demanded incredulously.

  He twisted his lips in a teasing smile. “Do you suggest we go swimming clothed?” Duty or no, he didn’t think he could bear to allow her to cover the beautiful sheen of her miraculously curved body at the moment.

  “Well, no, but—” Blair’s eyes sparkled as she left her word hanging.

  “I’m sure the complex is sound asleep,
” Craig assured her. “But just in case…” He made an elaborate gesture of carefully wrapping a towel around her, taking time to tuck the flap in between her breasts. He wrapped his own towel over his lower torso. “Decent enough?”

  “Not decent at all!” Blair chuckled. “But just fine.”

  Craig collected their scattered clothing and held out his hand. “We can come back dressed, just in case it’s close to daylight.”

  “Deal,” Blair murmured, momentarily overcome by shyness. She was a little shocked that this was herself, not actually seducing a man, but coming to him to be seduced, and then asking that their nights go on and on as if she were a honeymooner. But she didn’t feel a speck of shame; she felt wonderful. Until tonight she had only been able to tell herself she wasn’t an emotional cripple. Now she knew it for fact. She had learned from Craig that she was warm, sensual, and very much a woman. The new power was an intoxication in her mind that swept away caution and logic.

  Craig paused long enough to grab a huge flashlight, and they moved into the night, fingers entwined as they ran across the compound with lightfooted stealth, holding laughter until they reached the trail to the stream. It was not a silent night—the sounds of the crickets and other creatures of the dark rang in a cheerful harmony that filled the air with vibrant life.

  But then life itself had never been so vibrant to Blair.

  She gasped as Craig suddenly dropped all that he carried, jerked away her towel, and pelted the remaining steps into the water with her in his arms. Silver-droplets rained around them at impact, and their mutual laughter slashed joyously through the misty light of the crescent moon.

  “Damn! It’s freezing!” Blair chuckled, not minding at all the rush of the stream over her flesh.

  “How can you say that with my arms around you,” Craig teased, nibbling softly at her earlobe.

  “It is difficult,” Blair admitted as the warmth of his breath seared into her system, combatting the chill on her skin. Other words, hovered on her lips, words she couldn’t say. Did she really love him, or was he just a wildfire that came at night, illuminating darkness? A power that could never be captured or held.

  Golden eyes glared down into hers, full of tenderness, full of mischief. “Want to see the great ‘discovery?’”

  “Of course,” Blair murmured, suspicious of the devilish cast to his eyes.

  Her suspicion was well grounded. He released her suddenly and she sank into the stream, devoid of his warmth. Slicing cleanly back to the surface, she found him swimming for the waterfall. His bronze arm, caught in the glow of starlight, beckoned to her. “This way!”

  His “discovery” was a natural waterslide, sheared smooth upon the cliff by the countless years of nature sculpting her own play yards with water. Hesitant at first, Blair quickly discovered that the rock was as smooth as glass, and gentle to her skin.

  She also discovered Craig to be a whirlwind of tireless energy. They enjoyed the crystal haven of the stream, teased in it, loved in it, until she was breathless, scintillated, and almost exhausted—almost.

  She found new reserves of strength when he carried her back to the embankment, the bright teasing light in his eyes gone, replaced by something darkly hungry and primitive.

  He made love to her again, no longer treating her like fragile glass, but demanding all that she could give. Ever so slightly rough, he taught her another new world of wonders, taking her with a fierce need that neared a pagan barbarism, amazing her still further with the rapture of eliciting pleasure while receiving, and thus creating that unique, wildly burning magic. She came to know his glistened body as her own, tasting, touching, totally uninhibited in the swirling vortex that captured them both by the stream, lovers as innately a part of nature as the rushing water that cascaded around them, singing a primitive duet to match their passion.

  At long last they lay beautifully spent, cooling in the night air, a tangle of arms and legs and torsos in the soft carpet of grass. There were no words between them once the whispers of thirst and need had hushed with the coming of euphoria; they simply accepted the gift of ecstasy with a mutual peace in their souls. Blair vaguely knew that words had to come to lovers, that there would still be a reality of life. But not now; now was a time to hold, to cherish, to luxuriate in the male strength beside her, still radiating warmth and the masculine power that demanded capitulation even as it surrendered itself.

  She was exhausted as she had never been before, her spirit as satiated as her body. He had created a heaven she knew she could not replace, and yet she was aware that even such a unique physical relationship—based even on instinctive friendship and respect, as it was—did not equate to undying devotion.

  And yet what she had was enough. It could grow, nurtured by the very factors that brought them together. Yet if Craig were the unharnessable and untamable, mysterious cat of the night that she had first suspected, she could still never begrudge him this rare wonder of love.

  Her lashes grew heavier and heavier against her cheeks. The soft grass provided a comforting mattress; Craig’s body provided all the warmth she could ask. Within minutes she was sleeping deeply, freed forever from the haunting of her past.

  Blair wasn’t sure what awoke her, she had been so thoroughly, soundly asleep. She blinked, slightly disoriented, until she realized she was cold. She gained focus, knowing immediately where she was, but frowning as she stretched languorously for Craig, only to discover that she was alone.

  She scrambled to her feet and glanced around the embankment. The light was very dim, almost nonexistent, but she quickly saw that the bundle of his clothing was gone.

  He wouldn’t have left her sleeping naked alone on the embankment, would he? No, she was sure of that. He might leave by the light of dawn, but he was not the type of man to leave a woman vulnerable.

  Not that she was frightened. She wasn’t far from the compound, and she had learned her way around the wilderness in her time with the crew She was, however, perplexed, and suddenly very cold. It also seemed as if a million eyes might be on her. For the first time during the night, her naked state made her nervous.

  She moved quickly for the bundle of her own clothing and hastily began to dress herself, fumbling with hooks, snaps, and zippers. She was halfway through buttoning her blouse when she noticed the flashes of light coming through the foliage.

  Her fingers stopped all movement as she realized that some sort of message was being sent. The sporadic bursts of illumination were dots and dashes. Morse code. She wasn’t her father’s daughter for nothing. But neither was she great on deciphering the code.

  Her eyes riveted to the spot on the grass where the flashlight had haphazardly fallen earlier. It was gone! Her heart began to sink slowly, as if it truly dropped inch by painful inch to her feet.

  Craig.

  Her body stiffened; all thought of softness and love dissolved into a bitter gall that burned her stomach with the searing acid of betrayal. And just as quickly, she blocked out the agony of betrayal with a shaking rage and the firm determination to decode his message and call his charade.

  Messages. He was being answered from some far distant hill. But from where she was, in the valley of the stream, she could make out nothing clearly. She had to find where Craig was.

  Two years with the Hunger Crew had also taught her to move through the night with the agility of the natives, and with the light to guide her she stole almost silently through the brush. The trail led uphill to a clearing in the dense brush. Perched on his knee, shooting his flashes of light into the night sky, was Craig.

  Blair flattened herself to the ground, trusting in the shelter of a wild banana plant. The flashes began to make sense.

  … NECESSARY THIS WAY? STOP

  The night sky went dark again as his words were received. It stayed dark for several moments, as if it were being transferred on to another point.

  Then the answer came back, and Blair’s heart now seemed to catch in her throat.

&nbs
p; YES … TONIGHT IMPERATIVE … GET HER OUT … STOP

  The sky again went dark.

  She should have been frightened, but she wasn’t. She was furious and humiliated and hurt, as if her heart had literally been ripped from her body.

  God, what a fool! She had given him more of her soul than she had ever deemed possible, divulged secrets to him that she had thought to forever harbor. Given him herself.

  Suddenly she began to burn within, thinking of the way she had come to him, teased him, loved him, lain beside him in intimate abandon. Not even an hour ago. And all the while he had been planning this … this … whatever it was. Plot. She had meant nothing to him; she had been as completely deceived as a raving lunatic.

  Shocked into immobility, it began to seep through to her that she needed to get away from him. She was the center of some type of plot. GET HER OUT. She was a raving lunatic to be sitting so close, a sitting duck. Oh, Lord! Who the hell was he? Someone out for a ransom? Or worse? Someone who knew of her father’s importance?

  Quietly, barely daring to breathe, she inched to her knees, to her feet. She would go straight to Dr. Hardy and the others. Together they would confront Mr. Craig Taylor.

  A flash of light streaked through the night again straight into her face. She threw an arm instinctively above her eyes to shield them from the sudden flare. The light left her face and became softer, clearly illuminating the space between herself and the yellow-eyed stranger who now watched her.

  They stared at each other as countless seconds ticked by in what seemed to be an eternity. There was no tenderness in the leonine eyes now; they were rigidly unfathomable, denoting all those qualities she had once sensed. Power. Steely determination. A grim ruthlessness.

  He didn’t move. He didn’t try to invent an explanation. He sighed, and there was a shade of regret and sadness to his voice.

  “I’m sorry you had to see that.”

  She stood as still as he, her shoulders squared, her head high. She spoke in a grating, contemptuous rasp, aware more than ever of the striking intelligence and unwavering strength in his hawklike, angular features.