by Cindy Dees
“When you get home from this expedition, promise me you’ll talk to a counselor. A good one. That you’ll stick with it until you work this thing out.”
His entire being went still. He was looking at her, but she got the sense he was looking through her, not really seeing her. “The only thing I can promise you is that when I get back home, I’m going to finish what you interrupted the day you walked into the store.”
“And what was that?”
“I was in the middle of hanging myself.”
She reeled back, stunned. Her arms ached to wrap around him, to pull him close and comfort him like a child. But she sensed that he’d implode if she so much as laid a finger on him right now.
She finally whispered, “Oh, John. I’m so sorry.”
“You’re sorry? What the hell for?”
“I’m sorry you’re in so much pain.” And she wasn’t talking about his back. She was talking about his heart. But then, she expected he knew that. He stared off into space for a long time, lost in his own private hell. And she sat beside him and ached for him with all her heart.
Eventually, he shook himself and took a deep breath. “This has turned into the damnedest op.” After a moment he added resolutely, “C’mon. Let’s go.”
His strength of will was staggering. How he bore this burden and still managed to put one foot in front of the next, she had no idea. They walked for what felt like forever, until the air was cold enough for her to see her breath in the gathering dusk. It was about the only thing she could see. How John was picking his way through the dense forest undergrowth in this gloom, she hadn’t the faintest idea. But his broad back moved steadily in front of her, clearing a way past all obstacles and opening a path of sorts for her.
Twice she thought she felt a faint presence behind her. Both times she considered telling John about it but then decided it was just paranoia kicking in. Both times the sensation went away after a few minutes.
Given the cacophony of unidentified night noises out here, they were far from alone in these mountainous climes. Animals and insects kept up a steady chorus of chirps and squawks and buzzes around them as they marched on through the night. That was undoubtedly what she was hearing. After all, who could possibly manage to follow them through these impossible conditions?
Her watch said it was after 4:00 a.m. when they finally stopped to make camp. While John pitched the tarp, she dug out freeze-dried meals and added salt water to activate a self-heating reaction in the pouches. The combination of calories and something hot in her belly refreshed her, and when they stretched out in their usual position pressed together with her head on his shoulder, sleep eluded her.
After a few minutes, John spoke out of the darkness. “What’s on your mind that’s keeping you awake?”
“You.”
He sighed. “Do we have to get into that again?”
“No. I was just answering your question.”
Silence fell between them.
She was surprised when he actually broke the lull. “So what were you thinking about me?”
She allowed her palm to slide across his T-shirt and savored the powerful bulge of muscles beneath the soft cotton. “I was thinking about what a remarkable man you are, and how little I know about you.”
He replied dryly, “That must be why you still think I’m remarkable.”
She smiled against his neck. “You’re too modest. If you don’t mind my asking, is there anyone waiting for you back on Timbalo Island?”
He started beneath her. “Hell no! I wouldn’t fool around with you if there were anyone else!”
“I’m the one who came on to you. I wouldn’t blame you if you had a wife or a girlfriend back home. After all, I plied you with liquor and then stripped down to my thong in front of you.”
He lurched beneath her, dumping her on her back and looming over her, propped up on his elbow to stare down at her in the dark. “I realize I’ve given you very little reason to have a decent opinion of me, but I have my standards. I don’t cheat on women-ever. If I’m in a relationship, then I’m loyal to it. End of discussion.”
She reached up to stroke his stubble-roughened cheek. “You’re a good man, John Hollister.”
He closed his eyes and she thought he leaned into her touch for a moment.
She continued, “Why aren’t you married, or at least involved with someone? You must have women chasing you all over the place.”
He chuckled quietly. “Funny, but I’ve thought the same thing about you. Why hasn’t some guy snapped you up long before now?”
She shrugged. “They see a hot chick that’ll look good on their arm and hopefully be wild in the sack. They don’t ever see me. What’s your excuse?”
He nodded sympathetically and replied deadpan, “I know exactly what you mean. Guys pick me up left and right and try to treat me like a trophy girlfriend. I get sick of men just wanting me for my looks.”
She burst out laughing and swatted his arm. He continued more soberly, “Seriously, my job forces me to travel so much that I can’t see asking any woman to wait for me through it all.”
“Do you plan to do this courier work forever?” she asked.
“Nah. I’m getting too old for the wear and tear of it all.”
“Do you hope to settle down and have a family when you retire?” She asked the question lightly, smoothly, hoping to slip it past him, disguised in the flow of their banter. But, of course, he was far too smart for that.
“You misunderstand me, Melina. I have no plans for a future past the next few days. Once we’ve got this mess with your family sorted out, I’m hanging it up for good.”
She flinched. Apparently, he meant that literally. The idea of him hanging himself caused her tangible pain. Desperation coursed through her. It wasn’t like she could take him by the shoulders and shake some sense into him-he was twice as big and ten times as strong as she was. But there was something she could do to figuratively smack him upside the head.
She looped her arms around his neck. “Then why are you wasting all this time talking when you could be making love with me?”
“That, my dear, is a hell of a good question.”
Their mouths merged until the kiss stole her breath away. Their shelter was slightly roomier than the back of the Land Rover, and they were able to stretch out at full length, hence, it was a much easier affair to strip each other of their clothes. The air was cold on her skin, a biting chill that made her tingle even before John’s mouth and hands closed upon her.
The air smelled wet and organic, mixing with the musk of their bodies. Normally, she’d be appalled at smelling like she’d just come out of the gym, but it seemed appropriate out here. John rolled onto his back and pulled her on top of him, no doubt cushioning her body from the hard, cold ground. She captured his erection between her thighs, rubbing herself up and down the smooth shaft. He reached up, grasping both of her breasts in his big hands, rolling the nipples beneath his thumbs suggestively.
“Harder,” she gasped, squeezing his male flesh between the apex of her thighs.
“Ahh. The lady wants it wild tonight, does she?”
She lifted herself up, poising the tip of him at her feminine opening. “Any complaints?”
His hands skimmed down her belly to grasp her hips firmly. He jerked down, hard, impaling her on him in a single forceful movement. She cried out, just on the verge of pain from the fullness of him deep, deep inside her, pressing tightly against her cervix. He lifted her up and pulled her down again, and she leaned back as much as she could under the low roof, driving herself even further down onto him.
His big hands curled around her buttocks, his fingertips opening the crevice between her cheeks and driving her down and forward onto him. Holding her in place with effortless strength, this time he surged up to meet her. Only by relaxing her internal muscles completely was she able to absorb all of his size without pain. He completely filled her, massive and throbbing deep within her very core.<
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Thus completely opened to him, he drove up into her relentlessly, pounding into her until she thought he would split her in two. But what a glorious, stretching fullness, on a shaft of velvet-covered steel, burning her up from the inside out. A liquid, languorous shower of pleasure drenched her as her body responded to him. She felt swollen, growing tighter and tighter around him. Or maybe that was her muscles clenching as he steadily drove her out of her mind. A tingling started low, building and building, spreading outward from the point of his penetration. Her breath caught and she gasped for air as the building orgasm climbed her throat, her entire body clenching in anticipation of the moment of release.
And then it broke over her in an electric explosion that zinged all the way to her fingertips and toenails and teeth. She gasped as her entire body spasmed around his, shivering as wave after wave of sensation ripped through her.
He gave her just a moment to catch her breath, and then he was moving again, demanding more from her, sliding already wildly stimulated nerve endings against his slick heat. All of a sudden, another orgasm clawed its way through her, bursting upon her without warning, making her cry aloud with the power of it.
He slapped a hand over her mouth and rolled over abruptly, without breaking his rhythm. Her flesh throbbed around him, milking him of more and yet more pleasure. He matched her rhythm, meeting each of her hip thrusts with one of his own, a collision of desire that rode them both mercilessly.
Gripped by instincts far beyond either of them to fight, let alone control, they mated wildly in the forest with the animals of the night for a serenade, and the earth for a bed, the smell of crushed moss rising around them to mix with the scent of their sex.
Just when she thought she couldn’t bear any more, the rhythm of their lovemaking accelerated, and one more orgasm exploded behind her eyes. John’s hoarse, muffled shout matched hers and for an instant, she spun out of herself, into the blackness of the night. It wasn’t quite a faint, but it was close.
Panting, John collapsed on her, and they struggled together to catch their breath. After a minute, he pressed up onto his elbows with a muttered apology for crushing her. By way of reply, she wrapped a leg around his hips to keep him from going anywhere.
When she could finally speak, she murmured, “There now. Wasn’t that a more productive use of your remaining time than talking?”
His forehead dropped to touch hers and he laughed under his breath. “Madam, I concede the point.”
Her palms slid across his back, kneading and massaging randomly. He felt utterly relaxed beneath her fingertips, a lion at indolent rest. But then, she was feeling pretty boneless herself at the moment.
He murmured, “Think you can sleep now?”
She smiled up at him. “I could sleep a week with you inside me like this.”
He made to draw out of her, but she tightened her leg across his buttocks.
“Honey, if I don’t move soon, I’m gonna deprive you of even more sleep tonight.”
“And that would be the point, Einstein.”
He laughed. “You’re going to kill me.”
It was as if a bucket of ice water fell over both of them. Finally she replied, “It’s a better way to go then what you have planned for yourself.”
His rueful chuckle curled around her heart, breaking it a little. “It is at that. Making love to the death it is. Last one breathing wins.”
She whispered, “If you play this game right, we both win, John.”
“Ahh, sweet Melina. You’re everything a woman should be. I could love you so easily.”
“Show me how you’d love me.”
And somehow she thought he knew she wasn’t talking about sex.
Chapter 11
When John opened his eyes the next morning, he was immediately aware that something had changed. He took stock quickly. Tarp intact overhead. Trip wires at the entrance to their shelter intact. No sounds out of place in the morning chorus of creatures busily going about their day. Melina peacefully asleep against his shoulder.
Melina.
That woman did things to him that no other woman had ever begun to do to him. And he wasn’t talking about the sex. Although she was clearly in a league of her own on that score. He was by no means a Casanova, but he’d bedded his share of women over the years, and not one of them completely blew him away like Mel. She got inside his head. Hell, inside his heart. She made him feel things when they made love, provoked a host of unfamiliar emotions he had no idea how to begin cataloging.
No doubt about it. She was an extraordinary woman. He’d ask her to marry him in a minute if he had any intention of staying alive for more than the next few days. But as it was, he didn’t harbor any illusions on that score.
A guy named Huayar was the crime boss in this region, and he was infamous for never letting anyone live who’d seen his face. The guy was heavily guarded, smart and vicious. And his men were well equipped, well trained and as casually cruel as their boss. Even if there wasn’t already a noose with his name on it, going up against Huayar and his men solo like this-he didn’t stand a chance of getting out alive. The trick was going to be to give Melina and her family enough of a head start so the guys from H.O.T. Watch could rescue them before Huayar’s men caught them.
Jennifer Blackfoot and company might be very good at what they did, but there was no way she was convincing the Peruvian government to let her insert a full-blown Spec Ops team into the Andes. But, a search-and-rescue team…he could see her pulling off that one. After all, the team would, indeed, have to find and extract the Montez family.
The big problem would be the equipment the H.O.T. Watch team would be allowed to bring with them. In the unlikely event that they were given a green light for a full-scale military operation, they’d roll in with gun ships and choppers, predator drones and missiles, and Huayar and his men would be blasted back to the last ice age. But if the H.O.T. Watch guys had to come in as an S &R team, they’d only be allowed the weapons and ammunition they could carry on their backs. Taking on Huayar and his men in a straight-up fight would be a much dicier proposition.
And by himself, with four civilians dragging him down, the only real weapons he had were his brains…and his life. Huayar wouldn’t expect him to be willing to die, and that was his lone ace in the hole. Huayar was no stranger to American soldiers. He would assume that John had a healthy desire to live and would predict John’s actions based on that assumption. He’d get one chance to surprise Huayar. He only hoped it would be enough.
Melina shifted against him, murmuring in her sleep. What was she dreaming about? The two of them and the love they’d made last night, maybe? She smiled against his shoulder and then settled back into slumber.
Unfortunately, it was time for them to get going. They still had a long march today to reach the rendezvous point by sunset. Despite his big words about getting there whenever they got there, he wanted to get to Huayar’s camp as quickly as possible so he had time to scope out the area, and do a little surveillance before he and Melina made contact with the bandit.
He leaned down to kiss her smooth brow. “Morning, sweetheart.”
“Mmm.” She protested sleepily and snuggled closer against his shoulder. He knew the feeling. He’d love to lie here with her for a week or so, just resting and absorbing her into him. But the clock was ticking.
Always his enemy, but even more so now, time was slipping away from him. For the past eight months, each moment had been a dragging eternity. But now that the end was approaching, it was flying through his fingers like windblown sand. A moment’s regret for what he must do stabbed him. If only things could be different-
He cut off the thought sharply, before it could take root inside his brain. His path was set, dammit. Now his job was simply to walk it. No use questioning it at this late juncture.
Melina sat up beside him, stretching lazily, nude and beautiful. Her skin was a delicious golden-caramel color he couldn’t get enough of. She leaned forward
, peeking out the end of the tent. “Looks like we’re in for a warm day.”
“It’ll be sticky, too. Dress lightly, but keep out a jacket. It’ll cool off once we head back up into the mountains.”
She groaned in anticipation of an uphill trek.
He commented, “At least we’re burning through our supplies and lightening the load.”
Her gaze clouded at the reminder that they were nearing the end of their journey.
“The green dot on the map is where we left the Land Rover. There’s enough food in my pack for you and your family to walk out to the car. You’ll need to collect water after the first day or so and use the water purification tablets on it. Oh, and remind me to show you how my satellite phone works. If you get in trouble, you can use it to call in help.”
She glanced over her shoulder at him, frowning. “Why won’t you use it to call in help for us?”
“Odds are good I won’t make it out of this, Mel. It’ll be up to you and your family to get yourselves out of here.”
She burst out, “Don’t say that! God, it makes me crazy when you talk like that!”
He pressed his lips together. It was the truth whether she liked it or not.
Wordlessly, he disabled the trip wires. They crawled outside, dressed, and ate in strained silence. He’d like to comfort her, to tell her it would be all right. He appreciated her concern, he really did. But she knew as well as he did that planning for anything other than his death on this op would be a lie.
She picked up her pack and slung it over her shoulders, still giving him the silent treatment. He didn’t bug her. After all, he’d earned it. He shouldered his own pack and headed out. The remainder of the morning was an easy walk. But then they turned east and started the long trek up and out of the valley. The going was indeed rough, with both steep slopes and heavy undergrowth to contend with. The altitude was starting to get to him, and it surely had to be getting to Melina. But she never uttered a word of complaint. He had to give her credit. She was one tough lady. Not many civilians, male or female, could endure the hardships of an expedition like this, let alone maintain a decent attitude about it. Of course, in comparison to what awaited her if she handed herself over to Huayar, the discomfort of a hike through the woods was small potatoes. And Melina seemed to know that.