by Penny Jordan
‘Quietly,’ he cautioned her as he urged her out into the corridor. ‘Now, just follow me, understood?’
He must have a photographic memory, she decided, as he led her unerringly into the main cavern, which to her relief was empty. Tamara had no idea by which route they had reached the cavern on their initial journey, but Zach seemed to be in no doubts at all.
They were within three yards of it, having carefully skirted the perimeter of the huge cavern when Tamara’s heart practically stopped still to see the figure emerging into the cave.
Zach moved so fast he was little more than a blur. The man didn’t even see him to anticipate the blow that felled him to the ground, his body lying so awkwardly that Tamara knew instinctively that he was dead.
‘There’s no point in leaving him alive to come after us,’ Zach told her as they reached the tunnel. ‘With any luck the others won’t be back for at least a day—possibly two, and by that time we should have gone far enough for them not to be able to pick up our trail. I daren’t risk the path they used to bring us up here—there’s too many of them for that.’
‘But how will we find our way back?’ Tamara protested. ‘We’ve no maps, no compass. The guerrilla leader said that the forest paths are known only to a handful of men.’
‘True, but there are other ways. There’s the sun; and the stars. Finding our way back is the least of our problems. The most important is preventing them from finding us.’
When they finally emerged into the daylight Tamara was almost blinded by it, and she stood blinking, delighting in the warmth of the sun against her skin, weak tears of relief suddenly filling her eyes. Every step of the way out of the cave she had expected to be confronted by their gaolers, and that, added to her terror of the enclosed space, had robbed her of the last of her self-control. Tears poured unchecked down her cheeks as she stood, trembling, unable to move.
‘Tamara!’ She heard the impatience in Zach’s voice and looked mutely at him, hearing his muttered curse, but not aware of anything until she felt the warmth of his arms round her, his breath grazing her temple, the muscles of his thighs taut as a bowstring as he let her lie against him.
She lifted her head, wanting to tell him that she was all right, but looking into the jade depths of his eyes was like drowning in icy green seas. Motivated by a force she could barely understand, she raised trembling fingers, impelled to touch the hard bones of his face, surprised to find how warm his flesh felt to her touch, her breathing oddly constricted, strange sensations coursing through her body, her heart beating almost suffocatingly fast. Bemused and dazed, her lips parted in involuntary invitation, her eyes watching the downward descent of his head, the hard gleam in his eyes, as ruthless as any hunter intent upon its prey.
The touch of his lips against hers was shatteringly cataclysmic, reaction exploding inside her as his mouth moved questingly over hers, destroying everything but the feeling beating up inside her. And then suddenly Zach’s face disappeared and in its place was the face of the guerrilla, and pleasure turned to nausea, the blood draining out of her face as she shuddered in revulsion.
‘What the …’
‘That man. The way he touched me … the way he looked at me …’ The whispered words held the echo of her horror, her eyes darkening at the remembered degradation.
‘It’s over,’ Zach told her crisply. ‘Forget it.’
‘How can I?’ Tamara demanded wildly, almost on the point of hysteria. ‘Every time a man takes me in his arms I’m going to remember … to be revolted …’
‘That’s enough! You’re behaving like a girl who’s never experienced any physical intimacies before. You’re an engaged woman …’
‘And because of that I’m not allowed to have any feelings, any …’
‘We’ll talk about it later,’ Zach told her, grasping her arm and hurrying her away from the small clearing. ‘Right now I want to put as much distance between the caves and us as I possibly can. What are you worrying about? That your fiancé might disapprove? I’m sure when you tell him it was either that or losing your life, he’ll understand, and nothing happened, after all.’
Perhaps it hadn’t in the sense that he meant, but apart from his kisses it had been her first sexual experience and it had left her feeling defiled in a way that no amount of logic could wipe away.
If Tamara had thought she had been driven to the limits of her endurance on the long trek up to the caves, it was nothing to the gruelling pace set by Zach once they had escaped from their guards.
A machete he had taken from the cave helped him to force a path for them through the dense undergrowth of the forest, and Tamara, following in his wake, could only marvel at the decisiveness with which he seemed to know instinctively which path to take when several converged, although it wasn’t until late in the afternoon that she learned how he had known and what he had been looking for.
Every muscle in her body throbbed in protest at the strain being placed upon it, but she daren’t ask for a respite in case her body stiffened up so much that she couldn’t get going again. The path had grown steadily muddier, but plodding doggedly in Zach’s footsteps it was several minutes before she realised that the dull, muted roar she could hear was running water.
‘That’s what I’ve been looking for!’ Zach exclaimed in triumph when they eventually came in sight of the spate of water cascading over rocks to bubble frenetically down miniature rapids.
‘We can follow it—with luck, all the way down to the coast,’ he explained to Tamara. ‘I knew there must be streams running through the forest.’
‘But how did you know how to find one?’ Tamara asked breathlessly, trying not to wince as her aching legs protested mutely.
‘The state of the ground; animal tracks heading to what I hoped would be water. Simple knowledge known to any Boy Scout.’
But although he minimised his skill Tamara could not. Without his training they would never have escaped, never found this stream, and yet even while she acknowledged these facts she felt a faint frisson of fear prickling across her skin. There was something about Zach, something alien and untamed, something so overwhelmingly male that at times she wanted to run from him and keep on running.
‘Tamara?’
She hadn’t realised he was watching her.
‘I’m all right,’ she lied listlessly. Her period of captivity had not prepared her for what almost amounted to a forced march through rough jungle terrain.
‘We’ll stop soon,’ Zach promised her. ‘Fortunately the stream isn’t very deep here, although it’s flowing too fast for us to take any chances. We’ll walk through it as far as we can. If they do track us as far as the stream it might help to put them off the scent.’
Following Zach’s example Tamara removed her trainers, knotting the laces and slinging them round her shoulders.
‘You might as well take off your jeans as well,’ Zach told her laconically. ‘It will save them getting soaked.’
With shaking fingers she did as he suggested, telling herself that the embarrassment she felt was stupid in view of the intimacy they had shared while they were captive. But then it had been different, she argued mentally, something alien quivering to life within her as Zach studied the vulnerable length of her legs in the tiny briefs which were no more revealing than the bottom half of a bikini, and yet somehow … Was it her imagination, or had the jade eyes darkened slightly as he looked at her?
Although she didn’t realise it, something of her feelings was mirrored in her eyes, causing Zach to say dryly,
‘Relax—I might be a crude, uncouth soldier, but I promise you I don’t share my fellow professionals’ lust for your body. The degenerative effect of civilisation! Disappointed?’
‘I’m engaged to another man, remember?’ Tamara retorted, her chin firming and lifting. ‘And besides,’ she let her mouth curl fastidiously, ‘men who indulge in physical violence have never appealed to me.’
‘Meaning that my scars revolt you? Try
remembering that they were gained trying to free innocent but important civilians. I’m no mercenary, Tamara; no would-be hero trying to prove something to the world. As far as I’m concerned it’s simply a career.’
‘Killing people!’ Tamara lashed out stormily. ‘Don’t you realise that if it weren’t for men like you, there wouldn’t be these terrorists?’
His eyebrows rose as he turned in mid-stream to stare at her. ‘You think not? It’s the age-old story. Tamara, which came first, the chicken or the egg. You can’t use sweet reason on men controlling guns like these and trained to use them.’
‘Aren’t you ever afraid?’ Tamara whispered, shivering suddenly despite the steamy heat of the forest, chilled by some unknown, primitive fear that was purely feminine.
‘Afraid?’ At first she thought he was deriding her, and then she saw the expression in his eyes. ‘Of course I’m bloody well afraid,’ he told her. ‘Every time I go out on a mission; and every time I come back. When you go out you’ve got the adrenalin working for you, but coming back.’ He turned away, his face withdrawn, Tamara forgotten as he said slowly, ‘Coming back is going through hell. You’ve made it—this time, but you’ve always left someone behind; someone so close to you that they’re a piece of your own body, each time you die a little, and this time … You asked me if I’m ever afraid.’ His lips twisted with self-derision. ‘I was shot as we were escaping. If it hadn’t been for two of my men I’d be lying dead in the African jungle with the others. They tell me that while I was in hospital I pleaded with them never to send me back to the jungle. That’s how unafraid I was.’
Tamara couldn’t speak for the lump in her throat, overwhelmed by an urge to go to him and comfort him as though he were a small child, which was ridiculous when she looked at the lean open masculinity of him.
‘That’s one of the reasons I came out here,’ he told her. ‘I wanted to prove to myself that I could face the jungle—and win.’
‘And you have,’ Tamara said quietly.
‘We’re not out yet,’ he advised her. ‘Are you worried now that you know the truth?’
‘No,’ she said honestly. In her own mind there was no doubt that the circumstances Zach had told her about so unemotionally had resulted from the death of his men rather than any fear for his own safety. She was also a little surprised that he had chosen to confide in her—surprised and, more worrying, flattered.
It was dusk before Zach decided that they could stop. They had travelled several miles downstream, forced out of the water when the currents grew too swift for Tamara.
‘We’ll sleep here,’ Zach told her, indicating a spot farther away from the stream than she had anticipated.
‘So that the sound of the water doesn’t drown out the sound of anyone’s approach,’ he explained patiently to her. ‘We can’t risk lighting a fire, but we won’t need one. How do you feel about avocados and bananas for dinner?’ he asked her, nodding towards trees bearing both fruits, adding, ‘At least that’s one thing we don’t have to worry about!’
Tamara enjoyed the fruit, but longed for a drink of water. Zach, however, refused to let her touch any. ‘I know it looks clean, but that doesn’t mean it is. You have no immunity to whatever might be in it, and I can’t afford the added handicap of having you ill.’
Forced to acknowledge the logic of this, she asked Zach if she could at least wash in the stream before going to sleep. Water to wash in had been scarce in the cave, and because of Zach’s proximity and her own inherent modesty she had made do with sketchy ablutions during their incarceration. Now, however, after the sticky heat of their march she longed to feel coolly cleansing water against her skin. They were camped not far away from a deep natural basin which had filled with water to form an oval pool, and ever since she had set eyes on it Tamara had been imagining the luxury of immersing every inch of her body in it. But Zach soon dashed these plans.
‘Go ahead,’ he told her easily. ‘I’ll come with you.’ He didn’t seem to share any of Tamara’s selfconsciousness, simply stripping off his shirt, his back to her, revealing the solidly packed muscle, sheathed in raw silk flesh whose only imperfections were the scars still puckering it where they had yet to heal.
His hands were on his belt buckle when he turned, a subtle sensuality in the look he turned on Tamara.
‘What’s the matter?’ he taunted throatily. ‘Never seen a man undress before?’
The faintly derisive curl of his mouth told her that he thought he knew the answer, and a deep shudder racked her as she forced herself to turn away, knowing that the scarlet colour burning in her cheeks was a sure-fire giveaway. Not until she heard the clean splash of his body hitting the water did she turn, reluctantly abandoning her earlier intention of bathing nude in the still clear water and settling instead for paddling about cagily in the shallows in her bra and briefs, reluctant to risk the deeper water—and Zach.
Without waiting for him to emerge from the water she clambered over the stones worn smooth by the constant action of the pounding water and hurried back to the small clearing where they had left their belongings. She was struggling to ease her still damp body into her sleeping bag when Zach returned, grim-faced, his shirt knotted round his waist, his lips clamped tightly together.
‘Just what the hell do you think you’re playing at?’ he demanded without preamble. ‘This isn’t some children’s outing we’re on. From now on we stick together, do you understand that?’
‘All I did was come straight back here,’ Tamara flashed back. ‘I’m not one of your men, you know. I don’t have to obey your orders!’
‘That’s right,’ he agreed with a pleasantness which immediately alerted her to the very unpleasant gleam in his eyes. ‘You don’t have to, but if you want to stay alive you’d be much wiser if you did. What would you have done, for instance, if you’d got back here and found our friends waiting for you?’
Her face gave her away, even though she struggled to suppress her memories of the morning.
‘Exactly so,’ Zach drawled, letting her know that he knew exactly what was going through her mind. ‘So from now on, you don’t make a move without me knowing about it, understood?’
She hated him, Tamara thought resentfully as she tried to make herself comfortable in the narrow sleeping bag. The earth felt hard beneath her, Zach was breathing easily beside her. Before he climbed into his own sleeping bag Tamara had watched him moving quietly about the clearing. Setting up early warning alarm systems, he had told her grimly, adding that if they were to make steady progress every day they would need to sleep properly at night and the precautions he was taking meant that if anyone approached their camp, the sound of their approach would wake him in time to be ready for their arrival.
‘Simple survival tactics,’ he told her when she marvelled.
Contrary to her expectations she fell asleep almost immediately, worn out by the physical exertion of the day, but it wasn’t a restful sleep, being punctuated by tormenting images dominated by the lascivious grin on the face of the guerrilla as he reached for her body.
‘No!’ The word was wrenched from her lips, bringing her sharply awake to find herself pinioned by steel fingers, the heavy weight of a man’s body pinning her to the ground. Reason was obliterated by primeval panic; the weight of the man above her that of the guerrilla, the scream bubbling in her throat cut off sharply by the hand clamped across her mouth.
‘Tamara!’
The crisp sound brought back reality, and the tension drained out of her body as swiftly as it had seized it.
She shuddered convulsively, her voice husky with emotion. ‘I’m sorry—I was having a nightmare. That man …’ She shuddered again, taken off guard when Zach sat up abruptly, taking her with him so that her head was pillowed against his shoulder, moonlight revealing her expression to him.
‘It bothered you as much as that?’
Her face told him the answer, the way she cringed away from him as he lifted his hand to push the heavy sw
athe of hair out of her eyes causing him to stop and look at her, and then very slowly and deliberately raise his hand to her face, drawing his knuckles gently across her skin before stroking lightly downwards along her throat, and over her shoulder.
Her breath seemed to be trapped in her throat. Her whole body had gone tense, her eyes those of a hunted animal crouched to flee. His fingers touched her breast and she arched away from him, her whole body jerking as though she were a puppet, the colour draining out of her face, leaving it white and anguished before she started trembling with a sickness that stemmed from her memories of the morning; the guerrilla reaching for her, touching her, Zach stabbing him and then the blood … She moaned deep in her throat, the trapped, hunted cry of someone in mortal terror.
‘Tamara, it will be all right. You’ll forget … when you’re back home with your fiancé.’
‘No!’ Her shudder of revulsion was unmistakable. She couldn’t bear Malcolm to touch her. She couldn’t bear anyone to touch her.
‘Strange …’ Zach was almost talking to himself, ‘I could understand your reaction if you were in-experienced, unaware sexually, but you’re not. You’re a very desirable young woman in her twenties, and presumably your fiancé hasn’t been your only lover, unless you’ve been engaged since you left school. As I’ve learned recently, it’s best to face our devils and exorcise them before they grow too powerful.’
His fingers captured her jaw, tilting her head upwards, his eyes almost hypnotising her as he bent his head, his tongue exploring the soft shape of her mouth, the hard grip of his fingers preventing her from escaping.
Her initial feeling of terror and revulsion filled her with a panic that swept away her normal self-control, her head moving frantically from side to side as she tried desperately to escape the delicate probing of the warm male lips bent on teaching her pleasure instead of fear.
Zach’s fingers tangling in her hair forced her head backwards his body following hers down on to the sleeping bag as she toppled over, her gasp of surprise giving Zach an unfair advantage as his mouth closed swiftly over hers, probing the soft inner sweetness, sending emotions spiralling through her that made her feel faint with bewilderment and shock.