Like he was meant to be hers.
She tipped her head to a steeper angle and opened, licking at the slight part of his lips, waiting for him to open to her, too.
Chapter 10
Vanessa closed her eyes. Open for me, Diego. Kiss me back....
But he didn’t. He pulled his face away, twisting his neck to sever the hold she had on his head.
“Why did you do that?” he asked from behind clenched teeth, his nostrils flaring. It was a fierce look that might’ve sent her scrambling, except that he continued to clutch her like his life depended on it, holding her so tightly against him she couldn’t draw a full breath.
Because I want you so badly my heart aches, and it’s not because you’re gorgeous and not because you’ve saved my life more than once, but because something inside you is calling to me.
None of that would do to say, of course. He was so skittish about intimacy, she didn’t want to scare him away any more than she already was. She stroked a finger along his tight jaw. “Because I wanted to kiss you, and I think you wanted it, too.”
He swallowed and dropped her legs to the ground. In a flash, he had her harness off, the rope untied from her waist. Gathering the rappelling gear in a haphazard bundle, he stuffed it into the backpack. “Don’t let it happen again.”
Without meeting her eyes, he sloshed through the knee-deep river to the other side. Vanessa scrambled to catch up.
Said in a harsher tone, the words would’ve stung, but Diego had said them like a plea. Like he was powerless to prevent them kissing again, so she’d have to be the strong one. Too bad for him because she couldn’t think of anything she wanted more than to coax a real kiss from him.
“Why not?” she asked when they’d reached the other side of the water.
He continued to march at full speed, so that one of his strides equaled two of hers.
Into the jungle they went, Diego in front, hacking at the undergrowth with his knife, Vanessa behind him, wondering if he’d answer her. The canopy provided nominal shelter from the rain, but it still seeped through the trees in a kind of half mist, half shower.
When she couldn’t stand it any longer and she thought her temper might explode if she held the question inside her for one more second, she repeated it. “Why shouldn’t I kiss you again? Give me one good reason why we shouldn’t do something we both want. And don’t you dare deny it.”
He whirled on her. The look on his face was dark, pained. “You need a reason?”
She raised her chin a notch. “Yes.”
Three steps and he was before her, his hands on her shoulders. His eyes squeezed closed, and he lowered his forehead to hers. She wasn’t sure if touching him would help or hinder his ability to get the words out, so she held herself still.
He brushed his thumb across her cheek. “Because one kiss with you wouldn’t be enough for me.”
“And that’s a problem?”
“Hell, yes, it’s a problem. Because...” He went silent.
“Tell me.”
“Because all the things you deserve, I can’t give you any of them. I can’t even tell you my real name.”
The loneliness pouring out of him made her want to wrap her arms around him and never, ever let go. She knew all about loneliness, about feeling like a ghost in the world. What it was like to have nothing to offer to keep the people you cared about from slipping away. She knew all too well that having a heart bursting with love wasn’t enough to hold on to somebody, no matter how badly you wished otherwise.
She swiped water from her eyes, wishing the rain would stop so she could hold Diego’s gaze without blinking a million times a minute. Risking his disapproval, she splayed her hands over his chest because it was impossible to say what she wanted to without touching him. “It seems to me it’s the other way around. You’re offering me everything I need right now—safety, the chance to do something that matters for the first time in my life, help for me to start over somewhere else afterward. But I don’t have anything to give you in return.”
Snorting, he rolled his forehead against hers. “That’s a load of B.S.”
She touched their noses together. “I don’t even have a P.O. box like you. Or guns or fists, for that matter. Nothing but this.”
She slid her hands higher, clutching the back of his neck, holding him near. Then she leaned in, pressing her lips to his. As before, his body tensed, resisting.
“I know our lives are incompatible—heck, I have no idea what my future holds anymore, so I certainly can’t make you any promises. But I’m not asking you for anything except a simple kiss,” she whispered. “Would that be so bad?”
His hands moved up her neck to cup her cheeks. She parted her lips, vibrating with anticipation as his lips hovered over hers. She’d only known him less than twenty-four hours, so why did this feel like it’d been a long time coming? Like she’d waited her whole life to be kissed here, by this man, at this exact moment in time.
After a ragged inhale, his body tensed and gathered up like a wave building before it crashed to shore.
Then he kissed her. Took her mouth with a force that was fierce, wholly carnal. Every demanding stroke of his tongue dug the slow burn of desire deeper and lower inside her.
Rocking onto her tiptoes, she opened herself to him. His groan in response rattled up from his throat like a growl that turned the burn inside her into a blaze of heat. She loved that he was as ravenous as she, loved the sweeping sensation that they were becoming untamed together, as wild as the jungle around them.
She touched him everywhere she could reach. The rounded hardness of his biceps and chest, the rippled contours of his back, his thick, damp hair, until touching with her hands wasn’t enough. She wrapped a leg around his thighs, arching her hips, desperate for more. He took the cue, supporting her leg under the knee and grinding his hard length against the seam of her pants.
The friction obliterated her thoughts and nearly sent her over the edge despite the fact that they were both still fully clothed. She whimpered at the feel of his confined arousal, hating that layers of fabric prevented him from satiating the hollowness inside her core.
His body pressed her until her back flattened against a tree trunk.
Something blunt tapped the top of her head. But both Diego’s hands were busy gripping her backside and holding her leg off the ground. The same something as before tapped her head again, then touched down across the yoke of her shoulders. She and Diego flinched at the same time, their lips wrenching apart.
His eyes widened. “Hold completely still,” he said in a quiet, even tone.
“What is it? Feels like an animal. Iguana?” Please let it be an iguana’s tail. Don’t let it be a snake, please, please, please.
“Pit viper.”
Oh, God.
“I’m going to let go of your leg to get my knife, but hold it steady.”
Seeing as how she was paralyzed with fear, that wasn’t going to be a problem.
“On the count of three, we’re going to get you away from this snake. Did those self-defense classes you took teach you about controlled rolls?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, good. You’re about the last person in the world other than my mother that I want to give a hard shove to, but we need to get you out of striking range fast. So I push and you tuck into a roll, and just keep rolling as far as you can. You copy?”
Getting shoved away from a deadly, poisonous snake sounded like a perfect plan to her, except it would leave Diego vulnerable for a strike. “I got it. But what about you?”
“Don’t worry about me. You do your job and I’ll do mine. On three. One...”
Tucking her chin, she unlocked her ankles and arms from around Diego’s torso. The snake was heavy on her shoulders, squeezing the back and sides of
her neck.
“Two...three!”
He pushed between her shoulder blades so hard the wind knocked clean out of her as she angled toward the ground. Gasping for breath, she tumbled three times and slammed into a tree trunk.
Behind her, Diego let out a string of curses that might’ve made her blush if she hadn’t grown up the daughter of a football coach.
She sprang to her feet. “Did it get you?”
“Yeah, damn it.” He pulled up the sleeve of his right arm to reveal two small puncture wounds. “This is freakin’ ridiculous. We don’t have time for this crap.”
To be bit by a venomous snake in the middle of the jungle without access to immediate medical attention was a death sentence. She supposed his grouchiness was a good sign because at least he was conscious, but that could change any moment. Lightheaded with fear, she rushed to his side. “What are we going to do? Will your cell phone work here?”
His legs folded and he sat where he’d stood. “Yes. It’s a satellite phone, but I don’t think we’ll need it for this. Get the backpack off me. There’s a first aid kit inside.”
She slid the straps off his shoulders. “Where’s the snake? Did you kill it?”
“Nah. Slithered off. I was ready with my knife in case it got aggressive, but I don’t need to add killing an innocent animal to the list of my crimes.”
“Biting you wasn’t aggressive enough? What if it comes back?”
“It’s not going to. Looked like it’d just fed. We just surprised it while it was digesting its meal, is all. There probably wasn’t much venom left in its bite. You find that kit yet?”
She pawed through the pack. “Got it. What do you need first?”
“See that elastic band? Get it around my arm. Stop the spread of the venom.”
With unsteady fingers, she pushed his shirtsleeve up over his shoulder and threaded the band around the top of his biceps.
“You know how you don’t think I feel pain? Well, forget about that because this hurts like a mother—” He grunted and rolled his eyes skyward as she tightened the tourniquet.
“I can’t let you die, but I don’t know how to get you to a hospital.”
“Vanessa, look at me.”
She tore her gaze from the pile of cotton squares she was digging through.
“Do you honestly think I’m going to let a little snakebite keep me from doing my job? What good would I be to you dead? There’s antivenom in the kit. Four vials of CroFab. You have to mix each one with water.”
She found the vials in one of the pockets. Grabbing a water bottle, she got to work rehydrating them according to the page of instructions folded in the kit.
“It’s been a lot of years since I’ve had a kiss like that.”
She shook a vial to mix the medicine with the water. “For me, too.”
“That’s B.S. I bet that happens to you all the time.”
She figured his strategy was to distract himself from the pain by talking, but her mind was spinning so fast it was hard to get the vials ready and think of anything to say. “No way. I’m a mathematician who yammers on about equations and calculations all the time. And I get nervous about people leaving me. Math and insecurity do not a good girlfriend make.”
And why did she just tell him that? Oh, my God, how embarrassing. Maybe his pain would make him forget. Heat crept over her face. She finished mixing the final vial and laid it alongside the rest.
“The vials are ready. What do I do next? Do you drink it?”
“Not quite. Get some gloves on and open that sterile needle pack. Screw one on to the CroFab vial. Then come here. I got all sorts of fat veins ready for you to inject it into.”
“You want me to give you a shot? I’ve never...”
“Well, you’d never flown in a helicopter or rappelled before, and you’d never been kidnapped before, so I’d say this is a week of firsts for you all the way around.”
Scooting the pack over with the vials sitting on top, she knelt next to him. His forehead was beaded with sweat and his skin had gone pale. The arm infected with the venom had swollen and turned a splotchy red.
“Betadine first, right on the inside of my elbow.” He draped his arm over her knees.
She scrubbed the area and took the prepared needle in hand.
“You see that vein running through the middle? Bring the needle up and I’ll help you with the angle.”
He guided her hand toward his arm but stopped an inch from his skin to rub the back of her hand, probably because it was shaking like mad.
“I like that you talk about math.”
Her gaze flew from his arm to his face, questioning.
His lips curved in a lopsided grin. “How about these stats—my heart is going to pump the antivenom through my system at a rate of seventy ccs per beat. Since my resting heart rate is about forty beats per minute and my system has five liters of blood in it, how many different calculations can you do with numbers like that? Do the problems out loud. I want to hear them.”
Crazy, to think about solving equations at a time like this, but the moment she saw the first numbers in her head, her nerves calmed. Maybe Diego was on to something with the math idea.
She rattled off figures as he guided her hand holding the needle to his vein. She kept pressing the tip of the needle forward, even after it dimpled his skin and her hand grew clammy. With a feeling like a pop, it broke through. Her stomach lurched.
“Nice work. Now depress the plunger, slow and steady.”
With his guidance, she repeated the process with the remaining three vials, then removed the needle and tourniquet and repacked the needle in the sterile pouch it’d come in.
Mentally spent, she unscrewed a fresh bottle of water for Diego and collapsed against the tree trunk on his left side. “You’re getting pretty beat-up for me. I’m so sorry.” He filled his lungs with air like he was about to speak, but she held up her hand. “And don’t tell me that’s your job.”
He draped his arm across her legs and hugged them. “How about I just tell you that you’re worth it?”
She dropped her head to his shoulder. She’d never been worth it. Not to anybody, not really.
He rubbed his lips and nose over her hair. “I do have one point I feel obligated to bring up.”
“I’m listening.”
“If that was your idea of a simple kiss, then I’m going to need a bigger first aid kit.”
Grinning, she curled her arm up and set her hand on his shoulder beneath her chin. “Consider yourself warned, then. I liked kissing you, and I’m going to do it again sometime soon.”
He snorted. “Is that a fact?”
“Mmm-hmm. I’m going to have to kiss you a lot to get through the rest of this operation with my sanity intact.”
He craned his neck to look at her, his expression bemused. “Kissing keeps you sane? Because for me it had the exact opposite effect.”
She opened her eyes wide with fake incredulity. “You didn’t find it calming?”
“Hell, no. That was the least calming thing I’ve ever done. Stealing you back from the Chiara brothers was more calming than that kiss.”
“Then you’d better knock off all that grumpiness, because when you get all surly and serious like you’re starting to right now, I only want to kiss you worse.”
He sent her a bewildered look. “What are you, from another planet? Who thinks like that?”
“I do.” Good God, she wanted to kiss him. She wanted to wipe that scowl off his face and seek the soft gooey center inside him that was so irresistible.
“You’re getting that look in your eyes like you might want to launch your lips at me—and I want you to, trust me—but we have a lot more ground to cover before we set up camp for the night. Kissing’s going to have to wai
t.”
That was the most ludicrous thing she’d ever heard. She pushed up to her knees and faced him. “You’ve got to be kidding. You were bitten by a poisonous snake. You need to rest. We’re not going any farther today.”
Exasperation crossed his face. “We’re rendezvousing with my crew in twenty-five hours. We don’t have time to sit around.”
“I think they’ll understand if it takes us a little longer than you originally planned. You’re not superhuman.”
His scowl intensified. “Yeah, I know I’m not. It’s what I’ve been trying to tell you this whole time. And here’s something else you ought to know about me. I don’t share control of my missions. Not with my crew, not with the federal stiffs who pay my salary, nobody. Especially not a civilian like you. What I say goes, understand? If I say I’m okay to hike on, then that’s the final ruling.”
The tyrannical assertion was appalling. Offensive. It made her want to point out that they’d already had disagreements, and every time he’d conceded to her wishes. Except that she registered the fear behind his words. For a man who defined himself by his ability to protect others, having that ability stripped from him by an injury was a disaster of epic proportions.
It reminded her of her dad’s football players, the ones who’d stayed in a game despite knee injuries or broken toes. Football players, soldiers, the more she thought about it, the more similar they were. Doing their job, playing the game—winning—trumped everything else: family, education and especially physical pain. The warrior mentality. Pain is just weakness leaving the body and all that macho B.S. she’d hear her dad say to his players at practice. It was a value system that defied logic, at least to Vanessa.
But because she was so familiar with men like him, she also knew there would be no changing his mind on this point. At least not through logic.
Tempted Into Danger Page 12