by Becky Wicks
The ibuprofen Ryan had given her had taken some of her aches away, and a soothing gel had stopped her bites from itching. She’d eaten what she could of a plate of white rice and vegetables, but thoughts of what might have happened to her out there kept careening through her mind like a crazy carousel, making her feel sick.
She put her fork down, pushed through the thin mesh door and walked outside to the fire, now blazing.
Maria held an arm out to her, beckoning her to sit next to her on the log. ‘Did you eat?’ she asked.
‘I did, thank you.’
‘How are you feeling now?’
‘Stupid,’ she answered honestly, staring at the flames.
Maria rested her head on her shoulder for a second, then smiled. ‘Honey, we all make mistakes. We’re just glad you’re all right. It’s a good thing Ryan sent the search party out when he did. It’s just so crazy busy here that things can sometimes get overlooked...’
‘It was his call to get everyone out looking for me?’ she asked. She’d had no clue.
‘He was the first to realise no one had seen you in a while.’
When Madeline turned towards Maria she noticed something in the older woman’s tired eyes that she hadn’t seen before. A slight twinkle.
‘You’re good for him,’ Maria whispered, conspiratorially. ‘Whatever it is you’re doing, keep doing it.’
Madeline flushed, shook her head, but she didn’t have time to respond before she felt a firm hand on her shoulder from behind. The next second Ryan was stepping over the log, crouching down in front of her, his handsome face in shadow, blocking the fire.
‘Hey, how’s your head now?’
He reached for the bandage over her wound to check it, and instinctively she brought her own up to cover his hand.
‘I’ll live,’ she said, moving his hand down to her lap as he smiled in what looked like relief. Gratitude overwhelmed her. ‘I can’t thank you enough for coming to find me, Ryan—for sending everyone out to find me. Don’t think I’ll ever forget that.’
She reached out a hand to Maria, too, and as she looked between them she was flooded with warmth and the purest of appreciation for everything she had. Everything that the poor woman who’d lost her life out there would never have.
‘I’m going to go back to nursing when I get home,’ she announced. ‘I want to finish what I started. For Toby.’
Maria squeezed her hand. Ryan raised his eyebrows as he sat on his haunches and tossed a stick into the fire. ‘Good to hear it,’ he said.
‘You have no idea how inspiring you all are.’
‘Well, thank you, honey,’ Maria said, sounding pleased and a little embarrassed. ‘Who’s Toby?’
Madeline ran a hand through her tangled hair. It was weird, but she didn’t feel as uncomfortable talking about him any more.
‘Toby is the reason I’m here.’
As the words left her mouth she realised it was true. That little boy’s death had forced her to run away from her duties...possibly even from her destiny.
She loved writing—she’d stumbled into it and had been blessed to have had adventures all around the world because of it—but it was still a means of escape. And in escaping she’d wound up here.
How strange.
She tilted her head up to the sky, to the stars. Had Toby planned this out? Anything was possible, she supposed. The longer she spent in the jungle, away from technology and crowds and confusing messages coming at her from every which way, the more she felt connected to the universe. The more she resonated with the truths she couldn’t see.
The only things that were real, she decided, were the things she could hold in her heart.
Ryan was looking at her when she opened her eyes. He got to his feet, helping her to stand. ‘You should rest,’ he told her, his grey eyes full of concern.
‘Goodnight—sleep tight,’ Maria said, after giving her a hug, and Madeline didn’t miss the surreptitious little wink she threw her in the firelight as Ryan led her away.
‘I need a bath,’ she said, halfway across the grass, pulling on his hand in the direction of the lake.
He looked back to camp—for the cameras, she assumed. Luckily there were none in sight.
‘Come with me? I can’t sleep like this.’
‘I probably shouldn’t,’ he said, looking around them again warily.
But she was already guiding him down the path, through the trees and onto the deck. The moon was clear now the rain had gone, sending bright white beams across the black expanse of water so there was no need for a flashlight. The trees rustled overhead and the bats were swooping, catching flies. So peaceful.
She peeled off her shorts, then her muddied tank top, dropping them at her feet. Ryan was standing in front of her, watching her in what looked like wonder while taking off his boots. She smiled at him with newfound confidence, then stepped closer, reached for his shirt and motioned for him to lift his arms. With ease she pulled it over his head, shuddering as his hands landed on her waist and his lips grazed the top of her head.
‘You’re amazing—do you know that?’ he whispered into her hair.
‘So are you.’
‘Infuriating...’
She grinned. ‘So are you.’
‘I kind of think I need you, though.’
His bare skin so close to hers sent shockwaves pulsing through Madeline’s body. She pressed her hands to his chest, tilted her head up for his kiss, let her fingers trail down towards his khaki trousers and undid them quickly. He slid them off his legs, followed by his boxers. Then, when he’d swiftly undone her bra and tossed it to the side, he got to his knees, naked in front of her, dropped butterfly kisses around her belly button and slid her underwear down past her knees, over her feet and to the floor.
She gasped as he kissed his way back up, lingering on her inner thigh, running his hands up her legs as he did so.
‘Let’s get in,’ he said, reaching for her hand.
They slid off the deck and into the water. Madeline was careful not to dunk her head, and to keep her bandage dry.
The water was a cool, blissful blanket, wrapping around her hot skin as Ryan reached for the bar of soap someone had left on the lakeside. He guided her out a little further, then pulled her back to his chest, kissing her neck from behind as he ran the soap over her chest. She held her arms out and he did the same to them.
The insect bites all over her skin were extra-sensitive, but strangely she found his gentle touch turned the irritation into something almost sensual. Madeline turned in his arms, returning his passionate kisses, and wrapped her legs around his middle. He held her up with ease, kissing her hungrily, and for a moment she wondered what they must look like from afar, chest to chest in the middle of a lake under the moon.
Take the drug runners and the dead body and the fact that she herself might have died today out of the equation and she couldn’t help thinking that this was the greatest day of her whole life.
She grinned against his lips in spite of herself.
‘What are you thinking?’ he asked curiously, trailing the soap up and down her back.
‘How life is pure magic,’ she said.
He smiled into her eyes. ‘That, right there, Madeline, is why I...like you.’
Madeline pressed her lips to his again, drawing him into another deep kiss, running her hands through his wet hair. He’d left a gap before saying ‘like’. Had he been going to say something else?
Her heart thudded against his. It was trying its hardest to jump out of her skin. Of course he hadn’t, she scolded herself.
She thought about the way she felt about him, the giddy smile he left on her face. She thought about the way he’d held her and helped her today, the way he’d all but forced her to face her fears about performing any kind of medical duty. Ryan had changed her life al
ready...maybe even saved her life. And now they were kissing madly like teenagers in a lake, and there was nowhere else on earth she’d rather be...
They gathered up their clothes, and Ryan gave her his shirt to wear. Clutching the rest, they sneaked back the way they’d come, making absolutely certain not to be seen. There wasn’t any discussion about where they’d be sleeping. Ryan simply looked around one more time outside his tent, unzipped the canvas door and motioned for her to crawl inside.
He crawled in after her, zipped up the door again behind them, and in a second it was just the two of them in the tiny enclosed space. Madeline’s heart was doing back-flips.
He flattened out the sheets on his mattress accommodatingly, so she could lie down, then leaned over her on one arm and inspected her head. Just his palm against her cheek, then against the back of her head, had her breathing more heavily again in a second.
‘We should change the dressing on that,’ he said, reaching behind him for his bag.
She sat up and he pulled her legs around him so she was straddling him, and in the light of his flashlight he carefully reapplied the bandage over her cut with the skill she’d seen a hundred times on all those online videos.
Starstruck, she thought, and at the mercy of his nimble fingers. She was starstruck, but it was more than that now. He was a different person from the man she’d literally fallen into back in London. To her he was anyway.
When he was done he turned the light off, plunging them into darkness once again. Madeline reached her hands to his stubbled jaw, stroked his face and dropped kisses onto the edges of his mouth.
‘Thank you,’ she whispered.
Her legs wrapped more tightly around him of their own accord. In less than twenty seconds he somehow removed his shirt from her damp body, and everything from himself. Carefully he lowered her onto her back on the sheets, traced his fingers around her collarbone and down her stomach with a touch so light it left her skin a mass of tingles.
‘How are you feeling now?’ he asked, replacing his fingers with his lips and trailing kisses along her skin, back up to her mouth.
Madeline wrapped her arms around him from beneath, pulling him closer. ‘Better, Doctor,’ she breathed. ‘A little bit better every second, actually.’
He continued his kissing trail, teasing her, driving her crazy. By the time he reached her inner thighs she was practically about to explode, but he stopped every now and then, found her lips again, and then let her flip him onto his back and sit astride him.
Madeline knew she had him in the palm of her hands...literally.
He groaned.
‘Shh,’ she teased, pulling away and flattening her hands against his chest, tracing his muscles, relishing every sinewy stretch of his amazing body. She was conscious suddenly that the wall separating their antics from the outside world was a millimetre thick and not exactly soundproof.
‘It’s pretty hard to be quiet when you’re doing that,’ he growled, and she pressed her lips to his again, silencing him.
The tent was hot, and already their bodies were melding together as one with perspiration. The bugs were still singing in the night outside. The wind whipped about the canvas every now and then like a jealous lover trying to get in. Her head was starting to hurt again, where she’d fallen, but when Ryan reached for his bag again and unwrapped a condom Madeline was beyond caring about anything.
‘You carry these?’ she asked in surprise, taking it from him and rolling it on.
He put his hands to her waist, lifted her with ease and flipped her onto her back again.
‘Not for me,’ he said in a low voice, resting on his hands either side of her and sucking on her lower lip for a second.
She moaned quietly as desire rocketed through her.
‘Sometimes the crew need them. Sometimes we give them to the teenagers.’
‘How generous,’ she said, kissing him deeply as her legs encircled him from beneath once more.
She lost herself in their kiss again, in their twirling tongues and clashing teeth and soft moans and groans, until she gasped, biting on her own hand.
‘Does it hurt?’ he said softly, pausing, stroking her hair against the thin pillow.
‘No, don’t be silly. I just don’t want to scream.’
‘They’ll just think you’ve seen a spider.’
‘Very funny.’
‘Seriously, Madeline, you feel incredible.’
Tears sprang to her eyes from out of nowhere and she wished it wasn’t quite so dark. She was beyond exhausted and yet she was making love to Ryan Tobias—slowly, gently, beautifully in their own little bubble. There was so much admiration in his words and in his tone she felt it settle into her skin, deep into her bones.
He took his time, being careful not to hurt her any further after her ordeal, she was sure, but the result of his concern was something so passionate, so sensual she had literally never made love quite like it. Whatever he wasn’t saying he was showing as he stroked and caressed her, kissed her everywhere he could reach over and over and over.
She reciprocated, of course, limited only by the space in the tent, and when Madeline woke up the next morning with his arms wrapped tightly around her she couldn’t even remember when they’d finally stopped—or how, or why, or in which position. All she knew was that she’d never felt so worshipped in her whole life.
She also knew she was probably in deep trouble.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
RYAN WAS STANDING outside the medical station watching Madeline strumming the guitar under a tree. Her made-up songs were proving a hit. He couldn’t be sure but he thought that right now she was singing something about cars on motorways, in Spanish. At any rate, the kids were squealing and singing along as if they’d never heard anything so fantastic.
He smiled, quashing the urge to walk over and join in. Of course hiding their relationship...or whatever it was that had blossomed between them since their first amazing night together in his tent...had not been easy.
Luckily they spent enough time together professionally to warrant her hanging out with him in the lake, and in his hammock, and in the boat on the river without too much need for explanation.
The boat had become a favourite of theirs. They liked to take a couple of blankets out with them, fish for piranhas and talk under the stars. Then they’d spend long hours making love to the sounds of the jungle, with the sighs of each other’s pleasure mingling with the wind.
He pushed his hand into his pocket, remembering that first morning he’d woken up with his chest glued to her back with sweat. Instead of feeling panicked, he’d felt remarkably calm. Maddy had entered his life like a hurricane, but somehow settled like a soft blanket of snow, silencing everything, instilling peace amongst the chaos of his busy mind.
The short weeks since they’d been strangers were blurred in his head now; all he knew was the curve of her smile, the feel of her soft tongue dancing circles with his, the sound of her laugher.
‘She adores them,’ Maria said, appearing next to him from the tent and nudging his shoulder. ‘She’s going to find it hard to leave them, I’ll bet.’
He straightened, sipped from his water bottle, suddenly aware that he’d been staring at Madeline—probably with a sappy look on his face.
‘I’m sure she will,’ he said, clearing his throat and screwing the bottle cap back on. ‘She’ll miss them a lot.’
‘They’re not the only ones, it seems,’ she added, nudging him again, and then slipping back into the medical station with a new patient before he could respond.
He frowned to himself.
No one had asked any questions—although admittedly he hadn’t missed the looks and the little comments thrown his way by Maria, Mark and Evan.
Aside from their affair, though, Ryan was rather enjoying watching a transformation occur in Madeline. S
he was more determined than ever to return to her position at St David’s Hospital once she got home, so was spending even more time with the kids, helping them read in English and assisting in as many medical duties concerning them as possible. She was soaking it all up like a sponge.
And at night they soaked each other up, wherever and whenever they could, for as long as humanly possible, until they fell asleep exhausted.
Last night had been no exception. She’d found him in the hammock after dinner in the twilight.
‘Are you really reading my book?’ she’d asked, taking the e-reader from his hands.
Her hair had been damp from a previous swim—a swim he’d had to let her take alone, thanks to a visit from the wife of the man who’d been attacked by a caiman—she’d bought him a thank-you box of fruit. More bananas...
‘Of course I’m reading it. I like it,’ he’d told her truthfully. ‘You have quite a way with words.’
‘Well, I should hope so. I’m a writer,’ she’d said, taking the Kindle from him and climbing into the hammock alongside him.
It had stretched almost to the floor with their weight, and she had smiled contentedly with her head against his chest.
‘Lucky this is the king of all hammocks,’ she’d said.
He’d laughed, peeling the strap of her tank top away from her shoulder and kissing her soft, warm flesh. When darkness had fallen they’d made love right there in the hammock—a feat he hadn’t even known was entirely possible.
Ryan had never been so turned on in his life than he had been by the sight of Madeline, sliding her underwear off beneath her sundress, raising her arms above him to clutch at the mesh, and she’d relished every moan he’d let slip from his mouth as she worked him up and then slowed her pace again, then sped up, driving him crazy.
He’d almost forgotten to keep an eye on the treeline for the crew, and for Jake with his damn camera, but they’d grown good at multi-tasking by now—and besides, he was in too deep to care.
He watched her now, putting the guitar down on the grass between the kids, strolling over towards him. His heart leapt and he rolled his eyes at himself.