Course of Action: The Rescue: Jaguar NightAmazon Gold

by Lindsay McKenna - Course of Action: The Rescue: Jaguar NightAmazon Gold

  Josh safed his rifle and placed it beside him on the deck. He knelt on one knee and leaned forward, holding Aly in his arms the best he could. It was awkward and a Riverine crewman was watching. He patted Aly’s back, really wanting to hold her tight in his arms, which is what she really needed, but he couldn’t do that here. Gently, he loosened her hair from the mussed ponytail and caressed her head, murmuring soft words of comfort to her. It was the first time she’d cried since being kidnapped. She had one hell of a steel spine. Her father had been right.

  Embarrassed, seeing some of the Riverines staring at her, Aly fought the tears, swallowing them as she always did, and tried to wipe her face dry. The woman with red hair walked up to her. She leaned down, smiling at her, and handed her some tissues.

  “Welcome aboard, Ms. Landon. I’m Captain Dawson. Is there anything we can do for you while we’re heading for Manaus?”

  Gratefully, Aly took the tissues from the captain. The woman was slender, almost a boyish figure in her Navy camouflage. Her auburn hair matched the gleam in her brown eyes. This was a woman who oozed confidence and command.

  “N-no, thank you, Captain. Just thanks for being there for us.”

  The captain nodded and straightened. “You’re in good hands with Sergeant Patterson. We’ll be in Manaus in about three hours. Let him take care of you until then.” She turned and walked toward the center of the boat where the helmsman was steering the craft, getting on a radio.

  Aly wiped her eyes, blew her nose several times and then jammed the tissue into her soggy pocket. She saw a faint smile on Josh’s face as he unlaced her boots.

  “Why are you smiling?” she asked, leaning back against the bulkhead.

  “I’m happy you’re alive.”

  When he started to pull on the boot, she winced. “I fell,” she admitted. “I think I twisted it.”

  Josh gently removed the boot and peeled off the soaked sock. “Yeah, you did it up right,” he murmured. He ran his hand over the swelling ankle. “This was the leg you broke when you were twelve. Right?”

  “How could you know that?” His hand felt warm and good to her. She watched as Josh moved his hand above the swelling, as if looking for something.

  “Your file,” he said. “You broke your leg here?” He moved his fingers halfway up her lower leg.

  “Yes. It was broken in two places. There and my ankle I just twisted.”

  Josh removed his ruck, opening it up, grabbing his medical kit. “We’re lucky throughout our run that you didn’t twist it before this. I was worried about that.”

  “So was I,” Aly admitted wearily. She leaned her head back, feeling the vibration of the engines. “I feel so tired, Josh.”

  He quickly placed an ACE bandage around her ankle to give it support. “Hang on, Angel. We’ll be in Manaus soon. I just got off the sat phone with a Navy liaison that will be waiting for us at the dock.”

  She looked up. “And then what?”

  Josh flashed her a wicked look meant only for her.

  “I’ve been authorized to keep you two days at a five-star hotel in Manaus so you can rest up.”

  Aly frowned. “But...what about you? Do you have to leave?” Her voice grew strained.

  His mouth curved more deeply as he tended to the blisters on her foot.

  “My orders are to be with you at all times. I guess the boys at Langley are afraid Duarte’s reach might extend to Manaus. I’m to keep you under guard. From there, I’ll escort you to a commercial airline where we’ll fly to Rio de Janeiro and then on to Lindbergh International Airport in San Diego. Your father will meet you there.”

  Her heart bounded with unparalleled joy. “We’ll be together?”

  “You can count on that, Angel,” he told her in a gruff voice, smiling at her.

  Aly closed her eyes, resting against the boat, overwhelmed with so many emotions. Josh pulled a clean sock onto her foot. He was so tender with her. Aly wanted to cry, but she swallowed the tears.

  In three hours they would be out of complete danger. They would be in one another’s arms. And she’d never wanted anything as much as Josh Patterson in her bed, loving him, thanking him for saving her life and risking his own. A powerful swell of love overtook Aly and she could barely breathe, nearly a week of trauma mingling with joy.

  * * *

  Aly felt as if she were in some Cinderella dream, only she was wet, muddy, smelled horrible, her hair matted as Josh accompanied her to the desk of Hotel Black Orchid, the finest five-star in Manaus.

  Josh kept his hand in the small of her back, kept her close because he could feel Aly beginning to shut down. She’d run nearly a hundred miles in three days and then been shot at. He could see her struggling to hold it together.

  Although the Navy liaison officer, an ensign, had given him a voucher for the stay, there was no way Josh was using it. Instead he pulled out his own credit card, asked for two rooms with a door between them. This was none of the Navy or Marine Corp’s business what happened now, one way or another. And he wasn’t going to put Aly under the Department of Defense’s microscope with some bean counter demanding to know every detail of her stay since they paid for it. Not this time.

  People stared at them. It was clear to the high-end patrons that these were military people. And they looked dirty and rugged. Josh gave the young woman clerk behind the desk credit. She didn’t have a disgusted look on her face. He got the keys, thanked her, hauled his ruck over his shoulder and guided Aly toward the brass-doored elevators. She was stumbling, toes hitting the rich green carpet. Wrapping his fingers around her upper arm to steady her, she leaned into him and that’s when he knew she’d hit the proverbial wall of exhaustion.

  At her room, he guided her inside, opened the door between their rooms and then took her to the bathroom where she could shower. Her mind was sluggish and he could see it in her eyes. Josh brought out the thick, fleecy white robe off the hook, put the towels nearby and gave her one of his washcloths—Brazilians didn’t use washcloths. There was French milled soap that smelled like lilacs and he placed it on top of his Marine-green washcloth.

  “You’ll be okay now?” he asked, meeting her eyes, moving her damp hair away from her face.

  “Fine. I’ll be fine, Josh.... I just need a minute....”

  Nodding, he said, “Okay. I’m right next door. I have to call your father on the sat phone to tell him you’re all right. And then I’m taking a long, hot shower. I’ll come back and check on you after that. Maybe order something to eat?” He saw her eyes glisten, as if she were going to cry. Moving his hand gently across her hair, smoothing it, he saw that steel in her again as she forced a slight smile.

  “That sounds good. Tell my father hello for me? That I’m okay?”

  Josh leaned over, pressing a kiss to her pale cheek. “I’ll tell him,” he rasped.

  The call to General Landon went as planned. Josh made a point of calling him out of earshot of Aly in case she wandered into his suite. He’d stood near the opened French doors, the large balcony overlooking the old rubber city at noontime. A lot of the buildings were eighteenth-century, a time when there was a boom and the town attracted thousands of workers to bring the rubber from the trees into the city to be processed. After the call he’d dropped his filthy, smelly clothes on the tiled floor of the gilded bathroom, eyeing the huge two-person shower. Longing to get the sweat and smell off his body, he turned on the water as hot as he could stand it. His stomach growled. God, an American hamburger sounded good. He wondered as he lathered up if Aly was hungry. Somehow, his gut told him no.

  Running his fingers through his damp hair, Josh pulled a white bath towel around his waist and walked barefoot through the open door into Aly’s suite a half hour later. He didn’t see her on the elegant eighteenth-century couch and she wasn’t in the huge poster bed. Turning, he went to the bathroom. The door was closed. Leaning close, he thought he heard someone crying.

  Damn. His mouth tightened and he knocked lightly on the
door before opening it, not wanting to startle Aly. He found her with damp hair, wearing the fleecy robe, sitting on a cushioned stool, sobbing into her arms that rested on the bathroom counter. Her shoulders shook and her weeping tore at him. Josh moved over to her, sliding his arm around her shoulders.

  “Hey,” he whispered, a catch in his voice, “you don’t have to cry alone anymore, Aly. Come here....” He lifted her easily into his arms, carrying her out of the bathroom and to the bed. She couldn’t quit crying and Josh didn’t want her to. He laid her on the bed, straightened the robe over her long, beautiful legs and then lay down beside her. Sliding his arm beneath her neck, he brought her alongside him, her head resting on his shoulder.

  Without a word, he threaded his fingers through her damp, clean hair, kissed her wrinkled brow and grazed her spine with his fingers, holding her. Aly burrowed in, her wet face against his chest, her hand over her eyes, shaking with sobs. She felt so good against him, smelled of lilacs.

  Closing his eyes, Josh couldn’t imagine the hell she had survived. What was good was right now: she had the courage to let it go, to let the tears wash away all the horror she’d held inside her for so long. He held her gently, continuing to touch her here and there, comforting gestures, nothing sexual. Josh cared deeply for her.

  He stared up at the ceiling, remembering the cold, unemotional call with General Landon. It had been brief. Chilling. He hadn’t cracked one bit of emotion over the phone with him, only wanting a physical report on his daughter. Landon didn’t know the first thing about how to love his daughter. But Josh sure as hell did.

  * * *

  Aly lay quietly in Josh’s arms. She must have fallen asleep, but didn’t know when. The sunlight lancing through the room had moved. She felt warm and safe. The scent of Josh entered her nostrils and she slowly dragged it in.

  “How are you doing?” he asked her quietly, easing her over onto her back as he propped himself up on his elbow.

  Aly met his hooded eyes, saw care burning in them for her. “Awful. Better. Just... I don’t know.... Reeling, I guess...”

  She moved her hand to her stomach, feeling uneasy. He nodded, his mouth curving a little as he nudged several strands of hair away from her swollen, bruised cheek. In five days it was losing the blue and purple coloration, going to yellow and green. Thankfully, most of the swelling was gone and he lightly caressed her there, remembering that someone had struck her hard. He hoped that one of his bullets had found that bastard this morning, but he’d never really know.

  “Do you want to talk it out?” he asked, cupping her jaw, holding her fragile-looking blue gaze. “Sometimes it helps just to talk through it.” He wondered if anyone had ever given Aly that option in the past. Had anyone sat and listened to her little-girl fears and grief after the accident? Josh didn’t think so because he saw confusion in Aly’s expression for a minute. And then she utterly relaxed, her fingers curving around his forearm. She began to tell him what had happened. She teared up again when she spoke about Juan, who had been like a warm, loving uncle to her. Josh held her and allowed her to cry for the kind Indian.

  And as she shakily wiped the tears from her eyes, her voice hoarse, cracking sometimes, she told him about the rest of her captivity. By the time she was done, she’d sat up, crossed her legs with the huge, generous white robe covering her, and faced Josh. He listened without interrupting. Sometimes he felt angry for her. Other times he could feel tears in his eyes. Her story shook him to his core. When she finished, she gave a weary shrug. “And that’s it.”

  Josh reached out, entangling his fingers with hers. “It’s enough to last a lifetime,” he said, watching her carefully. “You’re the bravest woman civilian I know, Aly. You weren’t in any kind of physical shape for the demands of the run. You’d already been traumatized, physically beaten and nearly choked to death. This is going to take you a while to process. You know that, don’t you?”

  She sighed and closed her eyes, clinging to his warm, callused hand. “I know....” And she opened her eyes, sniffling, tears rolling down her cheeks again. “God, how can I cry again? I cried buckets. Doesn’t it ever stop?” she mumbled, upset. Shamed that she was weak.

  Josh released her fingers and sat up, his back against the carved wooden headboard. He gently pulled Aly up and across him. She came without a fight. “Listen,” he said, “just close your eyes, rest against me and go to sleep. I’ll hold you, Aly. You won’t have any bad dreams, no memories that scare you. Okay? I’m here. I’ll keep you safe, Angel....”

  * * *

  The next time Aly woke, the sun was setting. She felt warm and happy. Josh’s arms were around her, holding her against the flesh of his chest, the sprinkling of dark hair across his broad chest tickling her nose. Her hand was resting, curved, against his shoulder.

  She felt him shift a little and, finally, she opened her eyes. As she moved her hand across his shoulder, the muscles beneath his warm, taut skin leaped and responded. Now, her lower body glowed with a life of its own. Exploring his shoulder and chest was a gift to her. She could feel him tense; felt his erection pressing against her hip. It was as if he wanted her to continue her slow, sensual exploration. But it wouldn’t be fair to him and Aly knew it.

  She leaned over, placing a kiss above his nipple, hearing his swift intake of breath. His one arm went around her shoulders. His other hand moved slowly down her robed leg. Making a small sound of appreciation in her throat, she stretched fitfully, lifting her head, opening her eyes and meeting his narrowed gold gaze.

  Josh deserved her courage, not her cowardice. He’d put his life on the line to save hers at every turn. He was a man of honor. And she wanted to love him right now for all of that. Aly didn’t know if this would last one night or more. She wasn’t willing to walk away from Josh because there was no answer.

  She leaned up, the robe opening, revealing the swell of her breasts against his chest. “I’ve never wanted to love a man more than you,” she whispered, searching his eyes, her heart swelling with a fierce emotion that threatened to overwhelm her. “You’ve taught me courage, Josh. You’ve taught me so much, opened me up to myself...asked questions... I just...” She lowered her lashes, trying to talk, a lump in her throat. She felt him shift, felt his hand cup her cheek and guide her mouth to his. The warm strength of him against her made her tremble; made her vulnerable to him in ways she’d never been with a man.

  She found herself being lavished with his mouth, seeking the inner heat of her, sharing his own with her. With her breaths uneven, his fingers caressed her beneath the robe, then pulled it open, exposing her breast. Her world plunged into a scalding heat as he left her mouth, capturing her nipple, suckling her, and she cried out, the pleasure shafting directly to her lower body, clenching, wanting.

  In moments his mouth had lifted from her and she was gasping for air, opening her eyes, staring into his lion-gold eyes that seemed to absorb her directly into his being. She saw so much in Josh’s eyes; saw desire, kindness and something else she couldn’t interpret.

  He moved her on the bed so that she lay on her back, the robe open, revealing her nakedness. But she didn’t feel embarrassed beneath his hungry inspection.

  “Aly,” he rasped, placing small kisses along her slender neck, “are you protected?”

  She shook her head. “No...” And then she half laughed. “What? In the middle of the Amazon jungle?”

  His male mouth curved. “Okay,” he murmured. “It’s better to know.” He retrieved a condom, rolled it on and then moved to her side, his hand sliding across her belly. He ran his palm down her hip and thigh. “How long has it been?” he asked, searching her eyes.

  “I’m not a virgin,” she said drily. “Just...a long, long time.... Maybe two years.” She watched him nod, saw him thinking. But he said nothing, simply grazed her curved thigh, and all she wanted to do was to open for him, to feel those long roughened fingers sliding inward, toward her core that was so wet she could feel it on the insides of h
er legs.

  “Then,” he teased, moving his mouth lightly against her lips, “no adventurous sex. At least, not the first time. Angel...I want to please you, to hear you scream, to have you melt into my soul....”

  Chapter 7

  It was so easy to meet him halfway, her arm curving across his shoulder, her mouth taking his mouth as if he were sweet candy, making her whole body quiver as his hand grazed the side of her full breast. And as Josh’s tongue moved slowly into her mouth, seeking, finding hers, she sank into his arms and aligned her hips suggestively against his thick erection. All the exhaustion, the emotional emptiness, dissolved and was replaced with a vibrant, fierce heat that swept through her as he plundered her mouth.

  His fingers curving around her breast grazed her nipple deliberately, bringing a swift reaction out of her. A moan, deep, filled with satisfaction, caught in Aly’s throat as his mouth drifted from her swollen lips across the curve of her neck. Each time his tongue touched her skin, fire sparked and shimmered down through her, tightening her breasts, making her body flex with the thought of how this man could love her and bring her fulfillment.

  His warm breath across her nipple triggered a contraction in her body and she whispered his name, her fingers moving to the nape of his neck, pulling him down until his hips settled against her. And then she gave a softened sigh, twisting restlessly against his harder, angled one.

  There was nothing soft about Josh. Not anywhere. She ran her hand across his shoulder, feeling scar tissue. As she ranged down across his flat, hard stomach, he tensed. A growl filled him and she absorbed the male vibration, knowing she was also teasing him. It was a two-way street and even though Aly knew most people thought of her as shy, she was not passive in certain areas of her life. When it came to loving, she insisted upon being a full partner. For her, it reminded her of ballet when she was a child, the graceful rhythm that was established between two lovers, how their hands, legs, breath all moved in a mysterious but ancient and beautiful movement known in their primal mind and heart.