by Anne Stuart
It was almost over. By tonight, or tomorrow morning at the latest, they’d be back on American soil. Sister Mary Charles would be on her way back to the safety of her convent, the baby would be on his way to D.C., and he could put all this behind him. Just four days of tropical madness. Four days of falling for the one person he couldn’t have.
She’d been tempted, though. She might not know the signs, but he certainly did. The way her bones seem to soften when he touched her, and her eyes glazed over with thoughts and feelings that were foreign to her. He was an old hand at all this - he knew refectory well that she wanted him almost as much as he wanted her. Damn it.
Of course, he was about to take care of that. Once she found out where they were actually headed she wasn’t going to feel the slightest bit lustful. She was more likely to be downright murderous.
It wasn’t his fault that he’d chosen to land the plane where he did. Just simple bad luck. There wasn’t much clear space in the sparsely populated mountains of San Pablo, and the only logical place to land a small plane was the burned-out remains of an old village. One that had seen a massacre just nine years before.
She wasn’t going to like returning to Puente del Norte. For the past two days, ever since she’d told him the truth, he’d been racking his brains for another way out. No matter how pissed he was, she shouldn’t ever have to see that place again.
There was nothing he could do about it. She was going to have to return to the village where she’d watched her parents being hacked to pieces. She wasn’t going to like it. And she wasn’t going to like him for taking her there.
Problem solved. She’d hate him, and he’d get on with his life. So why didn’t he feel just a little bit more cheerful about the prospect?
* * *
Carlie was surprisingly comfortable in the back of the pickup truck, sitting on the bed of blankets. The canvas covering flapped in the wind, cooling her as they rumbled along, the baby slept and she didn’t have to look at Reilly.
That was definitely a mixed blessing. She liked looking at Reilly—liked it too much. It was just her luck that after being shut away from the majority of the opposite sex, she got thrown together with what was undoubtedly a prime specimen. It didn’t require a great deal of experience to know a handsome man when she saw one, and Reilly was most definitely a handsome man, in his own, unbending way.
She was going to have to get used to not looking at him, she reminded herself. Today was simply good practice, chance to turn her attention back to more spiritual matters. But every time she closed her eyes all she could see was Reilly’s strong back, his chiseled torso, his dark eyes and implacable mouth that could kiss her senseless.
The road was narrow, rutted, climbing through the jungle, higher and higher through the sultry, green-canopied forest. The smells were different here—different, and yet oddly familiar. Carlie glanced out past the flapping canvas, but all she could see were the endless, dark depths of the forest as they climbed higher.
It started with nothing more than a simple gnawing in the pit of her stomach. She knew it wasn’t hunger, or sickness. She’d eaten enough of the simple food Simeon had packed for them, and she should have been content to doze on the pile of blankets, next to the baby.
But something was wrong. Something was terribly wrong. It began to spread through her body, a miasma, a sense of disaster, of a horror so great, a terror so deep she would never climb out of that bottomless hole.
She knew where they were going.
She knew it from the grim expression on Reilly’s face when they’d stopped earlier, and the way he’d refused to meet her gaze. She knew it from the pounding of her heart, the cold sweat that covered her, the trembling that started slowly and then grew more and more overwhelming.
She lost track of time. Hours, days, years passed as the truck rattled up the steep incline, an incline she knew too well. She knew when it would level off, and it did, and her heart was hammering so loud she thought she might wake the baby..
She shook her head, telling herself she had to be wrong. Why would fate, and Reilly, have brought her all the way back to this hideous place of death? She tried to lift her hand, to move the canvas away to reassure herself that she’d been mistaken, but it just lay motionless in her lap, paralyzed.
Timothy began to whimper. Just quiet little sounds as he stirred from his sleep, and Carlie looked at him. She wanted to murmur something soothing, but her voice was trapped behind her mouth. She heard the whimper turn into a cry of protest, and she knew he needed her. Needed to be changed, needed a bottle, needed her arms around him.
She couldn’t move. She couldn’t go to him, comfort him, see to him. She sat, huddled against the side of the truck as it bounced along, frozen, listening as the cries turned to angry wails as he lay there, trapped, abandoned, and she couldn’t help him, all she could do was curl up in a little ball, shaking, terrified, panting so loudly they might hear her, they might find her, they might do to her what they’d done to her mother and the girls of the village, while their screams echoed in her ears as she hid, she hid, and the blood was everywhere, and it was death, and pain, and she couldn’t help him, couldn’t go to him, couldn’t go to them, couldn’t...
“Carlie!”
She heard him calling her, but she wasn’t sure whose voice it was. Her father, calling for help, calling her to run away and hide. Or Reilly.
She curled up tighter, her hands over her ears, trying to shut out their cries, the baby, her parents, the people of the village, the laughter and shouts of the soldiers, the gunfire, the gunfire...
* * *
Reilly worked fast, efficiently, despite the uncharacteristic panic that filled him. The moment he heard the baby’s wails a chill had washed over him, and he ditched the truck in a copse just outside the village.
He just had time to see Carlie, curled up in a fetal ball, before he dealt with Timothy, stripping the sodden diaper off him, propping the hastily made bottle of formula in his hungry mouth before he could turn to Carlie and pull her into his arms.
She probably had no idea who he was, but it didn’t matter. She needed someone to hold her, to murmur soothing words, to hold her so tightly the monsters in her memory abandoned he, and he sank down on the pile of blankets and pulled her against him. She was icy cold, sweating in the thick heat of the jungle, her breathing rapid and shallow and her eyes unseeing. If this lasted much longer she’d go into shock, and he knew just how dangerous that could be. He cursed himself inwardly, all the while keeping up a soothing litany of comforting nonsense, not even aware of what he was saying. He should have found some other way out of the country, despite the risk. For now, all he could do was cradle her rigid body in his arms and try to warm her.
“The baby...” she managed to gasp through deep, shuddering breaths, her fingers digging into his arms as she tried to drag herself back.
Reilly glanced over at him. “He’s fine. I gave him a bottle, and he’s asleep again.”
“I couldn’t…help him....” The words were coming in hiccups as she shivered helplessly. “I couldn’t save him.”
“He’s fine,” Reilly said again. “Just take deep breaths, Carlie. It’s over. It’s in the past. No matter how bad it was, it’s gone.”
“They’re screaming...” she gasped.
“No. It was all over a long time ago. No one’s hurting anymore. Everyone’s at peace now. Everything but you.”
It jarred her. She jerked her head up to look at him out of bleak, desperate eyes. “Make it go away, Reilly,” she whispered.
He knew what she wanted, needed. Oblivion, life. She wanted the one thing from him he’d been determined not to give her, and he could feel his ruthless determination shredding.
“No,” he said as gently as he could, ignoring the need that swept through his own body. He couldn’t do it to her. She was lost, broken, hurting. She needed comfort, not a further betrayal.
“Please,” she said, begging, her hands gripping
his shirt. “Please.”
He knew then he was going to take her. He was going to deflower a nun in the back of a pickup truck, with a sleeping infant beside them. And nothing, either in heaven or hell, could stop him, no matter what the consequences.
Putting his mouth against hers broke the last of the spell. She kissed him back, desperately, as she pulled his shirt away from him.
Stilling her restless hands with one of his, he slowed the kiss, using his tongue, kissing her with a leisurely thoroughness that stole her terrified breath. He could feel the warmth begin to seep back into her flesh, feel the restless stirring in her body as she pressed against him.
“Please,” she said one more time when he lifted his head to look down at her, knowing he should walk away, leave her alone with her panic and misery. She’d thank him for it, eventually. And he knew he wasn’t going anywhere.
“All right,” he said, cursing himself. “But we’ll do it my way. Slowly. So there won’t be any mistakes. So you know what you’re doing, and we won’t do anything you don’t want. I can stop any time - all you have to do is tell me.” At least he hoped his control was still as powerful. With Carlie he wasn’t sure of anything.
She wasn’t listening to him. She wasn’t interested in noble motives, she wanted oblivion. So did he..
He skimmed her T-shirt over her head, baring her breasts, half hoping to shock her into a latent sense of self-preservation. She made no effort to cover herself, and he realized he was the one who needed saving. He was drowning in her, and if someone threw him a rope he’d shoot him.
Carlie simply stared up at him, mute, pleading, and with a muffled curse he gave up his last claim at decency.
He’d tried. God only knew, he’d tried to resist her. But now it was too late, and things had escalated beyond his control. He needed her, and the sweet death her body and soul could provide him, even more than she needed him. And he couldn’t make himself stop.
* * *
Carlie lay back on the rough wool blankets, lost. His hard, deft hands pulled her shorts off, tossing them away, and she was naked, vulnerable, as he leaned over her, darkness and longing in his eyes.
She was beyond rational thought of sin or redemption, past or future. All that mattered was now. All that mattered was that he touch her, kiss her, take her. Now.
His hands covered her breasts, gentle, rough-skinned, and she closed her eyes, arching against his touch. His mouth followed, catching the tiny nub and suckling like a baby, his long hair flowing down around her.
She reached up to touch him, to pull him closer, and felt the frustrating barrier of his khaki shirt. She pushed at it, and it was gone, and his skin was smooth and warm against hers.
For the first time in years she felt no fear. Questions of right and wrong, sins or sanctity no longer mattered. She couldn’t, wouldn’t think any more. All she could do was feel, and this felt right, overwhelmingly so. His hands, his mouth were everywhere, seducing her when she had no need to be seduced, filling her with a sense of power and a kind of dark, nameless pleasure.
He kissed her breasts, her stomach, her hips. He put his mouth between her legs, as he’d promised and warned her, and after her initial shock she threaded her hands through his hair and held him, until she cried out, her body convulsing, waves of darkness prickling against her eyes, her skin, her soul.
Before she could regain her breath moved up, lying between her legs, cradled against her hips, and she could feel the rough denim of his jeans.
“We’ll stop now,” he whispered in a tight voice. “You can ...”
“No!” She caught his narrow hips with desperate, angry hands, clawing at the denim. She bucked against him, stray tremors still flashing through her body, as she tried to edge closer, to crawl inside his skin, to take him, to make him take her.
“Carlie.” His voice sounded almost angry now, but she was beyond rational thought. “I can’t do this to you.”
“You can’t stop,” she said, reaching between them for the zipper of his jeans.
It was tight over his erection, and her hands were awkward, hasty. He stopped her desperate fumbling, unfastened his jeans and shoved them out of the way.
He was hot and hard and heavy against her, but she wasn’t going to let him stop. “Now,” she whispered. “Please.”
He shut his eyes for a moment, and then he nodded. His face was hard in the darkness, his eyes opaque and unreadable. He cupped her face with his hands, looking down at her, and she could feel him, hard and heavy against the strange wetness between her legs, from his mouth, from her.. His face was taut with tension as he began to press into her, and he was big, huge.. She knew a moment’s panic, that it wasn’t going to work, that he was going to pull away and leave her like this.
“Relax,” he whispered against her mouth. He started to withdraw, and she clutched at him, desperate.
“No,” she cried in a broken voice. “Don’t stop.”
“I can’t,” he said, his voice rough.. “Take a deep breath.”
She did so automatically, but before she could release it he’d slid all the way into her, breaking through the frail barrier of her innocence, filling her.
She screamed, more in shock than actual pain, but his hand was already against her mouth, muffling the sound.
She closed her eyes. She could feel the dampness of tears seeping down her cheeks. “That’s enough,” she said in a strangled voice. “I’m satisfied.”
“No,” he said shortly. “You’re not.” And he began to move, pushing into her, his hands cupping her hips and pulling her up to meet his strong, steady thrusts.
She struggled, for one brief moment, shocked and frozen. And then she put her arms around him, pulling him closer, and it took her only a heartbeat to catch his rhythm.
It all began to fall away—the jungle, the stillness around them. Her body was sick with sweat, and his was, too. He put his mouth against hers, kissing her hard, and she kissed him back, her legs coming up to wrap around his hips, her breath sobbing in her lungs, as she reached for the darkness once more, the endless oblivion she craved.
It hit her, fast and furious, but it was no oblivion. He was with her all the way, his body rigid in her arms as he pushed in deep and filled her with the pulsing heat of life deep, deep inside her, and she cried out again, knowing she was lost and welcoming it.
She wept then, clinging to him, pulling him tightly against her as the spasms racked her. She could hear his breath rasping in her ear, the shudders rippling through his big, slick body. He collapsed on top of her, his heart banging against hers, and she trembled, holding tightly, as errant waves of reaction scattered through her.
It seemed as if everything she knew, everything she believed had been shattered by his hands, his mouth, his body. She felt adrift, helpless, floating on a dangerous sea with no land in sight, nothing to cling to but the strong, tough body covering hers.
But he would disappear as well. At any moment she’d be alone again, as she had been for so very long.
His breathing slowed, and she wondered whether he’d fall asleep. The women who came to the mission, bringing their children for Carlie to teach, would joke about their husbands when they thought Sister Mary Charles wouldn’t hear.
What would they think if they saw her now?
She waited for the shame and misery to wash over her. They didn’t come. Despite everything, there was a tiny burst of joy bubbling inside of her. And she knew that no matter what happened, she could never regret what she’d done. What she’d shared. Who she loved.
Reilly, it seemed, was a different matter. He began to curse, low in his throat, a tapestry of foul language that would have made her blush a few short days ago.
He pulled away from her abruptly, and she let him go, knowing that she couldn’t hold him.
He yanked his jeans up, still swearing, then bounded off the back of the truck without looking at her.
So much for romance, she thought wearily, lying back. She w
as wet between her legs, and blood stained her thighs. She’d have to wash, but for now it took all her energy to pull the big T-shirt over her head and wrap it around her body.
Timothy slept. The bottle had fallen to one side, drained, and she squashed the vision of guilt that danced through her mind. He would survive. They all would.
She leaned her head against the truck, weariness fighting with her odd exhilaration. She couldn’t hear any trace of Reilly, and for a moment she wondered if he’d abandoned them.
She quickly discarded that notion. He wouldn’t have brought them so far, only to leave them.
He’d return, sooner or later. In the meantime, all she could do was wait.
And remember the feel of his body against hers.
* * *
Chapter Fifteen
* * *
This day, thought Reilly, frozen in the setting sun, had definitely gone from bad to worse. He’d just deflowered a nun in the back of a pickup truck, then abandoned her, cursing a blue streak. By the time he’d walked to the edge of the burned-out village street and realized she might need...something, it was too late. He’d come face-to-face once more with none other than former general Endor Cordoba Morales. Better known as the Butcher of LaMensa.
Morales was alone this time, which was a small blessing. He was also armed to the teeth and pointing a particularly nasty Luger directly at Reilly’s gut. “I thought you might turn up sooner or later,” Morales said pleasantly in Spanish. “Though I must admit I thought you’d be a little better prepared. Didn’t you realize we’d catch up with you?”
