Anne Stuart's Out-of-Print Gems

by Anne Stuart

  She lost track of time. When he finally halted it was pitch-black, and when he slid her off his shoulder to stand in front of him she could feel her knees shaking, and she almost collapsed before his hands clamped around her arms, supporting her.

  “Are you going to let me go?” she demanded. At this point she couldn’t even be certain she wanted him to release her—they were in the middle of absolutely nowhere and the night was pitch-black around them. She thought she could hear wild animals rustling in the undergrowth, and she had no idea what sort of creature she might run up against if she tried to find her way back to the compound on her own. Chances were they’d be more deadly than the man towering over her. Though there were no guarantees.

  He pushed her down on the ground, quite gently, and then released her, stepping away. “God, I wish I could communicate with you!” she said, exasperated. “If I had even the faintest idea what goes on behind that blank expression of yours it would make my life a hell of a lot easier. Where are you going?”

  But he vanished into the darkness before he could answer. Not that he would, of course. He couldn’t speak. Or could he?

  And how long should she stay sitting here? There was a faint glow of moonlight through the canopy of trees, enough to enable her to make out the small clearing they’d stopped in. There was a stream nearby, and she realized suddenly that she was desperately thirsty, but she couldn’t decide whether she dared try to drink some or not.

  She couldn’t sit here forever. Just long enough to make certain John wasn’t coming back. Long enough for the moon to rise a little bit higher and help light her way back to the compound. She had no idea which part of the forest they’d come from, her usual sense of direction had vanished when she needed it most. She fully believed that John could disappear into this jungle and never be seen again, and she hoped he’d be able to do just that.

  Unfortunately she fully believed she, too, could get lost and never be seen again, making a tasty meal for whatever creatures roamed the jungle that surrounded them. It wasn’t a comforting thought.

  She didn’t even hear him return. He moved through the night as if he were a part of it, and when he loomed up beside her, his hands full of greenery, she let out a frightened little yelp.

  He dropped the stuff in her lap, then sat down cross-legged beside her and began to eat.

  The wide green leaves and oddly shaped fruit didn’t seem to be bothering him, and she was famished. She took a bite out of the gourdlike fruit, steeling herself for disaster. It wasn’t bad. Less sweet than she expected, but starchy and nourishing.

  “I’m never leaving fast food again,” she muttered underneath her breath as she finished one of the fruits and started in on another. “I’m not cut out for roughing it.”

  Of course he paid no attention, concentrating on the food. When he’d finished most of it he took a large, flat leaf over to the brook, filling it with water as if it were a cup. To her amazement he brought it back to her, holding it in front of her mouth as tiny droplets splashed on her legs.

  “All right,” she said. “You win. I’m thirsty.” She tried to reach for the leaf, but he refused to let her take it. He simply put it against her mouth, and she had no choice but to drink, deeply, of the fresh, clear water.

  There was something strangely disturbing about drinking from his hands, letting him kneel before her. She shook her head when she’d had enough, and the leaf crumbled in his hands, the remaining water splashing down between them.

  “Why did you bring me along?” she asked. “Why didn’t you leave me back there with the others? I don’t belong in the jungle—I’m a city girl, always have been, always will be. All this silence gives me the creeps. I detest camping, I hate the great outdoors, and I want to be back in Chicago in my own bed. I wish I’d never heard of Edward J. Hunnicutt and his billions of dollars.”

  He just stared at her, and she breathed a sigh of frustration. “You don’t understand a thing I say, do you? Why can’t I get that through my thick skull? I was convinced you’d spoken to me last night, that you asked me to help you. Probably just another example of the horrors of jet lag.”

  He moved a little away from her, sitting back down again. He was watching her intently, yet with no understanding in his dark eyes. “I’m really not into this you Tarzan, me Jane stuff,” she said, aiming for cool indifference and falling short. “It was nice of you to bring me something to eat, but I’m not your responsibility. As a matter of fact, I’m absolutely nothing to you. And I’d like to go back to the compound now. Don’t bother to get up—I can find the way myself.”

  She thought it was worth a try—that she might at least get a few feet away. He didn’t even give her a chance to stand up, he simply yanked her back down again. But he released her once she was sitting again, a small comfort. She found the strength in his rough-skinned, deft hands disturbing.

  “All right, maybe you think it’s dangerous for me,” she said. “I can accept that. We’re obviously stopping here for the night. In the morning you can head deeper into the wilderness and I’ll find my way back to the compound. It shouldn’t be that difficult, and I’ll probably run into a search party.”

  He didn’t react, and she sighed. “I never realized how frustrating it could be, not being able to talk to people. You’re absolutely gorgeous, but you’re driving me nuts. Don’t you even want to communicate?”

  The same, total blankness. “So why did you bring me here?” she demanded. “I still haven’t figured that out. I don’t think you’ve suddenly decided you need a mate. I’d hardly be a prime candidate—you need Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, not an over-civilized, overeducated woman like me. And I’m hardly your type. I know my faults, and I have yet to have a man become so enamored with me that he’d carry me off into the wild.”

  She eyed him warily. “Maybe I shouldn’t be quite so outspoken. I’m assuming you don’t speak English, but then, there’s last night, when I could have sworn you said ‘help me.’ But it doesn’t make sense that you don’t try to communicate. You just stare at me as if I’m a brick outhouse. And maybe I’d better continue this conversation in another language.”

  She switched abruptly. She’d always had a facility for languages, and she was almost as fluent in French as she was in English. “You don’t seem the slightest bit interested in the opposite sex,” she said in French, and his expression didn’t flicker. He knew as much French as he knew English, she thought, depressed. “Not your language, either, eh? I wish to God I knew some obscure Aboriginal languages—some of those might sound familiar. But right now it’s like talking to a wall.”

  John stretched out on the ground like a huge cat, still watching her out of dark, still eyes.

  “So you didn’t carry me off to mate with me, thank heavens,” she continued in French. “You may not even know about sex, if you’ve been as cut off as everyone suspects. You may not even realize the difference between men and women. You may see me as a slightly prettier version of Mick.”

  He closed his eyes, and she wondered whether he even heard the sound of her voice as she went on, still in French. “Which is just as well. I certainly wouldn’t want you getting ideas. If you know anything about sex at all it would come from watching animals, and I don’t feel like replaying Wild Kingdom with you. Not that you’re asking, of course,” she added. He lay very still, peaceful, and the moon went behind a cloud, so that it was too dark for her to see him anymore, even though he was only a few feet away.

  “Just as well they’re not going to get a chance to drag you off to civilization,” she said. “Underneath all that hair you’re far too gorgeous for most people to handle. I mean, it’s one thing with a scientist like me. I don’t react to physical beauty. To me you’re nothing more than an experiment. Barely human.

  “Yeah, right,” she said, disgusted with herself. “If you were barely human I wouldn’t have destroyed my career to free you. Years of study, years of hard work down the toilet because I took one look at
you and saw a lost little boy, not a missing link. Richard always told me I was too sentimental, and as always, Richard was right.”

  John had opened his eyes again, watching her without comprehending. “Actually, Richard was an idiot. He thought he should have been the one sent here. You can thank your lucky stars it was a vulnerable fool like me and not Richard. Chances are Richard would have dissected you and harvested your organs before you knew what was happening. He’s not troubled with an overburdened sense of humanity or ethics.

  “Thank God I didn’t marry him. Of course, he was the one who dumped me for that graduate student, but it’s just as well. I would have been under his thumb for the rest of my life, and I didn’t even like him that much. I just figured I was supposed to marry a scientist and Richard seemed to share my interests. Ha!”

  She glanced into the thick tangle of greenery beyond John. “Of course, he wanted the graduate student instead of me because she was built like a model and had a more pliable attitude in just about everything. He didn’t even realize she’s two years older than me.

  “But then, he didn’t like that whole child prodigy thing much. He hated the fact that I graduated from college when I was seventeen. He likes to be the high achiever in a relationship. And I let him get away with it, and then he dumped me. More than a year ago, actually, and I haven’t done anything but feel relieved and sorry for myself since.

  “And here I thought this assignment was going to put my career back on track after Richard derailed it. I was seeing visions of prizes and grants dancing in my head, all with Edward J. Hunnicutt as my patron. It would have worked out beautifully, if only I could have convinced myself that you were a subject, not a human being.”

  She sighed. “Guess I’m not cut out for that kind of career. Maybe I can find some small rural college that wants an anthropologist and linguistics expert. Or maybe I’ll get out of academia all together and find some new field of endeavor. The exciting world of fast food.” She shook her head at her own absurdity.

  He was still watching her. “You think I’m the crazy one, don’t you?” she said in French. “And I guess I am a little nuts right about now. Let’s just say it’s a lucky thing that either you don’t know anything about sex or you simply have the good taste not to be interested in me. Because I have a rotten feeling that if you’d been old and ugly I wouldn’t have been quite so eager to risk everything just to see you free. You’re too gorgeous for my peace of mind, John, and it would make my life a lot easier if you simply disappeared before I…”

  He moved so fast he was like a blur, his body coiling and striking like a huge mountain cat. But he wasn’t going after an enemy. He simply crossed the space between them, caught her face in his hand and tilted it up to his.

  There was no recognition in his dark, merciless eyes. No understanding or acknowledgement in his face. There was only his mouth, pressed against hers before she had even the faintest idea what he intended.

  She was too shocked to do anything but hold very still, while he kissed her mouth, silencing her spate of words that he couldn’t understand. He tasted like clean water and the fruit they’d shared, and his mouth was cool and wet against hers, and for a moment she let herself drift with the strange wonder of it, ready to open her mouth for him, ready for anything, when reality intruded with shocking suddenness, and she reached up, put her hands against the warm, bare chest that she realized she’d been wanting to touch for a lifetime, and she shoved him away from her.

  He fell back gracefully, as if he’d expected her to stop him, and his face was empty and still, as distant and removed as it had ever been.

  “Why did you do that?” she demanded in a hushed voice. “How did you even know how to do that? Who the hell are you?”

  He hadn’t moved away, and she was suddenly terrified that he wasn’t going to. That he was going to kiss her again, and she was going to let him. Going to open her mouth for him, going to let him put his strong, deft hands all over her body, touch her as she wanted him to touch her, and the thought horrified her. She wanted him. She hadn’t even realized that simple, basic lust had been lurking beneath her concern like an ugly parasite.

  And all he had to do was touch her again, kiss her again, and she’d probably rip off her own clothes, to lie with him in the jungle, to drink in the taste and the scent of him, to hide against the smooth, hot flesh of his strong body.

  She had to keep that from happening. His deep, fathomless eyes stared into hers, and in moments he’d touch her again, and she’d be lost. She had no defenses, nothing to keep him away, not even the meager defense of words, when suddenly she remembered the tranquilizer darts. She’d shoved a handful in one of the cargo pockets of her pants right before she left—she could grab one, flick off the cap and stab him with it if he came near her again. It would be simple enough, and the only way to save herself.

  Not from him. But from her own, shockingly base, wild instincts.

  He uncurled from his sitting position, and she was certain he was going to touch her again. She shoved her hand in her pocket, searching for the darts, when something sharp pricked against her finger.

  She jerked her hand out, to see one of the darts had come uncapped and buried itself in her hand.

  “Oh, sh—” But before she could finish the word she passed out cold, at the wild man’s narrow, bare feet.

  Chapter Eight

  John Bartholomew Hunter looked down at the woman at his feet. He didn’t need to see the barb sticking in her hand to know that she’d been knocked out by the tranquilizer darts. He’d felt the sting in his hide far too often, experienced the sickening loss of consciousness not to recognize the symptoms. She was out cold.

  He squatted down beside her, pushing her short cropped hair out of her face to get a better look at her. He generally liked women with long hair, with robust, curvy bodies, women tall like he was. He’d heard them say her name. Doctor Elizabeth Holden was much too short for him, too skinny, and her thick golden hair barely reached her ears.

  She had a gorgeous mouth, though. That was one of the first things he’d noticed about her, as he lay strapped to that goddamned gurney where they tied him every day. He’d been able to steal glances at her while he should have been completely out of it, and it was her mouth that had drawn him. Wide, generous, with a touch of vulnerability about it that started the most amazing erotic fantasies. After all, what else did he have to do while he was strapped there but fantasize? Fortunately he’d had enough self-control, despite the damned drugs, to wait until she’d left—she’d been poking and checking his body so carefully that his physical reaction to the thought of her mouth would have given her quite a start.

  He still didn’t trust her. Anyone working for the bastard who’d brought him to this place had to prove their trustworthiness. So she let him out of that prison. That didn’t mean she wouldn’t go screeching for help when the going got tough.

  He should have left her behind, but he knew exactly what would have happened. Alf was a nasty piece of goods, and he derived a lot of pleasure out of inflicting pain. Mick was harmless, but he couldn’t stand up to Alf. It wouldn’t take much to get the truth out of a little thing like Libby. And he couldn’t in good conscience leave her behind to face their wrath. He owed her that much.

  She wasn’t particularly grateful. She’d been fighting him since he’d hauled her out of the hellhole, and she’d probably run off the first chance she got. Which was why he had no intention of giving her a chance. She didn’t have an ounce of common sense as far as he could see, and she was just as likely to stumble off a cliff or eat some poisoned fruit as she was to get back safely.

  He sat down beside her, pulled her limp body up against his and put her head in his lap. He felt oddly tender. Probably a normal enough reaction after what had to be months of sophisticated torture, when he had no voice to stop them, no way to tell them they were making a mistake. After a while, when he thought he might be able to communicate, he’d thought bett
er of it. What would they do when it came out that they’d kidnapped and imprisoned him, all on the supposition that he was a wild forest creature, more animal than human? Somehow they thought they had the right. And he wouldn’t have put it past Alf to cover up untidy mistakes like kidnapping him in the simplest way possible. Bodies decomposed very quickly in this climate, and from what he’d been able to overhear, Hunnicutt had bought the entire island and shipped the few inhabitants off it.

  They hadn’t discovered his way off it, though, or they would have known who he was. So with any luck there was a still a way out of this place before Hunnicutt and his hired thugs found him. Them.

  He looked down at Libby, absently stroking her hair. And he tried his ruined voice. “You’re quite a brave one, aren’t you, love?” he said, his voice no more than a cracked whisper. It had been coming back for a while now, and he’d been practicing at night, when they let the dope wear off before they caught him again, hunted him like the wild animal they believed, or at least hoped, him to be.

  He wasn’t up to his full strength—they’d been bleeding him for too long. God only knows what use they thought his blood would be. It was chock full of the dope they used on him, the injections and the tranquilizer darts—hardly the liquid gold Alf was crowing about. Maybe Hunnicutt was a closet vampire and he wanted pure blood to keep him going. Except if he drank his blood he’d end up being as zonked as his captive was.

  No, there were no vampires around here. No missing links either. There was a perfectly reasonable explanation for his presence here, if over the years that he had come and gone anyone had bothered to ask. Though there was always the chance he wouldn’t have bothered to answer. He didn’t have a whole lot of patience with stupid questions, or people. He needed a certain amount of solitude to survive, and anyone who interfered with it was likely to discover that John Bartholomew Hunter could be very rude indeed.