by JoAnn Ross
As if reading her unruly mind, Alec reached down, caught her chin in his fingers and treated her to a hard quick kiss that, even as brief as it was, would have knocked her off her feet if she hadn’t already been sitting down.
Even after he’d lifted his head, he didn’t release her. He continued to tower over her, his serious expression causing her breath to dog in her lungs.
Just when she thought he was going to say something, he took his hands away and jammed them deep into his front pockets, drawing her gaze to where the denim was pulling tight against the unmistakable bulge that, heaven help her, seemed to be growing bigger as she watched.
“See anything you like?” he asked.
“What?” K.J. guiltily dragged her eyes back up to his face.
“You were staring, Mrs. Mackenzie.” His deep voice rumbled like distant thunder.
“I was not.”
“Were too.” He murmured the childhood playground taunt, although they both knew that the game they were playing was definitely rated Adults Only. ”As I said, this is a matriarchal society, Kate. So anytime you want your husband to scratch that itch that’s obviously bedeviling the hell out of you, sweetheart, just whistle.”
He flashed her his wickedest, most seductive grin yet, then walked out with a loose-hipped male stride that could only be described as a swagger.
As he closed the door, which was fashioned-from tree limbs behind him, K.J.’s breath finally escaped her lungs with a huge whoosh.
She lowered her forehead to the table and closed her eyes, squeezing off the hot tears that threatened once again.
“What in the world am I going to do?” she moaned.
For once, her pessimistic scold, always so quick to offer advice, remained absolutely silent.
10
AS EXHAUSTED AS SHE WAS, K.J, found sleep an impossible target. She would have expected the night to be far less noisy than back in the city. After all, the jungle was less populated; there wouldn’t be the unceasing drone of traffic outside her window, punctuated by angry blasts of car horns, loud drunken arguments and the scream of sirens coming from the fire station across the street. But she hadn’t counted on the fact that the jungle had its own inhabitants, and while she might have gotten used to the trumpeting of horns from the parade of trucks carrying the early edition of the New York Times to newsstands all over the city, the cacophony of Amazonian night sounds was both constant and a little frightening.
First there were the whistles, whoops and cackles of birds settling down in the tops of the towering trees. These eventually, for the most part, drifted off, only to be replaced by the deep croak of frogs, the occasional plaintive cries of a baby from somewhere in the village, the snorts and grunts of some nearby animal, the screeches of monkeys that sounded much like a person being tortured.
Although it was not K.J.’s first night in the jungle, it was her first alone after encountering the one man she feared was even more dangerous than any wild animal. Adrenaline was coursing through her veins, and whenever she tried to take her mind off the eerie sounds, it would jump immediately to Alec, reliving every moment of the day, every word of conversation, every lingering kiss, every caressing touch, every hot look, like an unending videotape in her head.
K.J. was accustomed to living alone. But never, except for those first few nights after she’d left Las Vegas, had she ever felt so lonely. She tossed and turned, causing the hammock to sway like a paper boat caught in a riptide.
Although the sun had gone down hours ago, the air hadn’t cooled. And that afternoon rain, as always, had only made things worse. The cotton nightshirt she’d changed into after Alec had left was already damp and clung uncomfortably to her hot clammy skin. She thought about stripping it off, but the idea of being naked in this dark and foreign place made her feel too vulnerable. So she continued to suffer in silence.
Unfortunately, her scold wasn’t so stoic. This is what you get, it complained, bringing us down to this godforsaken place. And for what? An outside chance of dragging your husband back to the city?
“He’s already agreed to a divorce.” It was what she wanted. One of the two things she’d come all this way for. So why did his rapid capitulation have her feeling so depressed?
He agreed to have his friend look into a divorce. That’s not exactly the same thing. How do you know he isn’t pretending to go along with your request in order to keep you here with him as long as he can?
“Alec would never do that.” Although she might be confused about a great many things, including her tempestuous, mercurial feelings, of this K.J. was absolutely certain. “He’s unrelentingly honest. And outspoken.”
He’d looked deep into her eyes that moment he’d taken hold of her hand in the Round Table Banquet Hall and told her, in a husky voice that vibrated through her bones: “You’re the most beautiful woman in this room, and I want you.” How much more outspoken could he be?
“He’d never lie to met,” K.J. said firmly. “And he’s not that sneaky.”
A man will do whatever it takes to get a woman into his bed. If that means resorting to lies and trickery, he won’t hesitate.
“Have I ever mentioned that you could use a serious attitude adjustment?” K.J. grunted between clenched teeth.
One of us has to remain sensible. Since your brain seems to turn to mush whenever you’re anywhere near that man.
K.J. sighed. She didn’t argue this salient point. There was, after all, no need. Since it was regrettably true.
Sometime much, much later, she finally dozed off into a restless sleep plagued by dreams that would definitely have been slapped with an X rating by any media-ratings review board back home. But eventually, she gradually became aware that the heavy pressure in her lower regions was not due solely to raging hormones, but another call of nature every bit as strong.
She turned on the propane lantern beside the bed and looked down at her watch. “Aw, damn!” It was only two in the morning. There was no way she was going to make it to daybreak, which meant that she was going to have to make that short walk through the dark by herself.
Surrendering to the inevitable, she pushed the mosquito netting aside and dragged her weary bones out of the hammock. She pulled on her hiking boots—after first shaking them out to make certain that no insects or snakes had decided to use them for a motel for the night. Since she wasn’t going all that far, she didn’t bother to tie the laces. Then, picking up the lantern and grabbing a handful of tissues, she took a deep breath, as if the amount of bravery she possessed was in direct proportion to the oxygen in her lungs, then opened the door.
The jungle night was as black as pitch, filled with shifting shadows K.J. assured herself were only leaves and palm fronds swaying in the breeze. For the sake of sanity, she ignored the fact that the thick, moist night air was as still as a tomb. Something skittered through the decaying leaves at her feet.
Jumping backward, she put one hand up to her mouth to stifle her scream, using the other to hold up the lantern. The spreading yellow glow revealed a small colorful snake slithering away into the shadows.
Your cockeyed plan is going to get us killed! The panic in the scold’s voice echoed K.J.’s own and was barely discernible over the pounding of the blood in her ears.
“He was probably as frightened by me as I was him,” K.J. replied, trying to reassure them both. In her case, she failed miserably. “After all, he was a lot smaller.”
So’s a vampire bat.
K.J. merely shook her head, watching where she walked even more carefully as she continued on to the outhouse. She hurried as fast as she could, and was on her way back to the hut when a low sound somewhere between a distant roll of thunder and a cat’s purr had her stopping dead in her tracks.
Don’t stop! Run!
“Shut up, dammit,” she hissed as she gingerly lifted the lantern higher, above her head, and looked in the direction of the faint sound. It was, unfortunately, between where she was standing and the hut.
>
She heard it again. At the same time she viewed a pair of eyes gleaming like yellow diamonds in the ebony night.
That’s it. We’re goners. I certainly hope you’re satisfied now, girl.
There had to be a way out of this, K.J. thought, her head spinning wildly. Unfortunately, it was the only thing working, since her booted feet seemed to be stuck in quicksand and her body, like Job’s wife, had turned to a block of salt.
This time the throaty sound was unmistakably more growl than purr. As the jaguar moved out of the shadows toward her, K.J.’s feet suddenly obeyed her command to take off running. Unfortunately, her head forgot that it would be safer to run toward the village, rather than deeper into the dense black jungle.
When she stubbed her left foot on the exposed root of a tree, she began to fall. If her boots had been tied, she might have managed to keep running, but the laces tangled, sending her sprawling. Her scream echoed through the night, causing a noisy exodus of birds from the tops of the trees.
As if having a wild killer cat stalking you wasn’t bad enough, when she felt strong hands plucking her from the ground, she opened her mouth to call out for help, but her cry was smothered by the hard wall of the chest she was suddenly being smashed against.
“It’s okay. Don’t worry, sweetheart. He’s gone. You’re safe.”
Through her wildly whirling senses, K.J. recognized the wonderfully familiar voice. “Oh, Alec!” Despite the fact that he was holding her tight enough to practically squeeze the last bit of air from her lungs, she managed to fling her arms around his neck and cling. “I . . . was . . .” she gulped for breath “...so f-f-frightened.”
“I know,” he soothed. Those same hands that had matched her from the clutches of sure death were stroking her back, the caresses meant to calm rather than seduce. “But you don’t have to worry.” His cheek was pressed against the top of her head, his breath a warm, but oh, so welcome, breeze against her pounding temple. “I’d never let anything happen to you.”
And because it was Alec saying it, K.J. believed him absolutely.
She lifted a hand to his face. At the same time, a dark cloud drifted across the night sky, revealing a crescent of moon. The silvery stream of light illuminated his face, allowing her to see the way his eyes had darkened again to that thrilling, terrifying, stormy-sea hue. A muscle along his sharply chiseled cheekbone jerked beneath her tingling fingertips.
She didn’t beg. As she looked up at Alec and he looked down at her, they both knew there was no need.
He let out a pent-up breath, then, in one violent motion, yanked her against him. Feeling his rock-hard arousal, knowing that she’d caused that dramatic response, fanned the flames of her own desire even higher, and this time her soft cry was one of wonder. Of need.
As his mouth closed over hers, not gently, Alec was consumed with urgency. He forgot gentleness, surrendered control to the wild warrior within as he plundered, taking what he wanted and demanding more.
He’d gone from merely tasting to devouring in a single rapid-fire heartbeat. His hands were everywhere, cruising over her face, tangling in her hair, diving below the thigh-length cotton nightshirt to race over her body with an incendiary touch that turned her blood to thick rivers of flame and scorched away any thought of resistance.
She was burning up. Heat was radiating from her pores. Her flesh, wherever Alec’s wonderfully wicked hands touched, burned. With her mind engulfed in billowing smoke that clouded all reason, with every ounce of restraint seared away, K.J. pressed herself against him, rotating her hips with blatant female hunger.
For a man who’d always prided himself on his control, Alec was discovering yet again that restraint was absolutely impossible whenever he was with this woman. The ragged, desperately needy sounds that were torn from her smooth white throat sent desire ripping through him like a buzz saw. The feel of her yielding body against his throbbing one, the need to reclaim every curve and hollow were enough to make him mad with lust.
Memories flooded his head, his blood, his loins. He had no doubt that he could take her now, hard and fast in a whirlwind of passion that would temporarily ease all the pent-up desire that had been arcing between them from the first.
But then what? Alec was forced to wonder as a clap of thunder directly overhead literally shook the ground. A flash of sulfurous lightning followed, and although this afternoon’s storm had passed, the sky suddenly opened up, drenching them with warm, stinging needles of rain.
Needing to back away from the edge of the dangerous cliffs before he went tumbling headfirst into oblivion, Alec dragged his mouth from her sweet, eager lips and pressed it against the top of her head.
“Lord, I’m glad you’re finally here.” He didn’t bother to censure his words when his body, his hunger, had already given her insight to feelings he usually kept guarded. Unable to give up touching her quite yet, he moved his hands up and down her torso beneath the now-soaked nightshirt, caressing her in a way that teased and stimulated them both. “There were times when I thought I’d go stark raving mad waiting for you to show up.”
“I felt the same way,” she gasped as his clever, knowing fingers tugged on a turgid nipple. The rain was pouring down her upturned face, dripping from his dark wet hair, but neither of them paid it any heed.
“Yet you insisted on staying away.”
“You could have come to me,” she reminded him. And herself. All right, she may have been the one to run away, but she wasn’t the only one who’d turned her back on their marriage.
“I told you, dammit, that I had planned this expedition for months. Years.”
She pulled a little away from him. “I also remember you saying that it was more important than a quickie unplanned marriage.”
His curse was rich, ripe and too harsh to ever be allowed on the pages of any Heart romance novel. “Dammit, we’ve come full circle.” He swiped his hand furiously through his hair, shaking water from his head like a dog after a bath. “We’re back to the question of which means more to me—my work or you.”
“I’d say that question’s already been answered. It’s more than obvious which you care more about.”
“That’s a pretty quick assumption for a woman who’s already admitted she doesn’t know me all that well.”
He was towering over her in a way meant to intimidate, but K.J. held her ground. “I might not be acquainted with the little details of your life before we met, Alec. But I certainly know where I stand in your personal hierarchy.”
He glared down at her, his eyes so hot K.J. was vaguely surprised that he hadn’t turned the rain streaming down both their faces to steam. He’d taken his hands from beneath her nightshirt and had curled them into fists at his sides.
Now you’ve done it. He’s going to hit us.
“You’d never hit me,” she assured them all—herself, her scold and, just in the possible event he might be wavering, Alec.
“Want to bet?”
“I may not know you all that well. But I do know you’re not the type of man ever to strike a woman.”
“Perhaps I’ve never met one who could make me so damn mad so fast.” His fists loosened, but only so his fingers could curl around her shoulders, digging hard into her skin beneath the wet cotton, as if he were considering shaking some sense into her.
He stared at her for another long moment, in a way that made him appear as if he could slash and burn the entire jungle with his eyes.
Then, as abruptly as he’d pulled her into his arms, he released her and picked up the lantern she’d dropped. “You don’t know squat, sweetheart.”
From the acidic contempt in his gravel-rough voice, K.J. knew he hadn’t meant that “sweetheart” as an endearment.
He bent his head until their faces were only inches apart. “Now, let’s get that tight little butt back into the hut before I turn it over my knee.”
An intriguing blend of fear and heat flickered through her. “And here I thought you weren’t into k
inky sex.”
His eyes blazed even hotter, but standing this close to him, K.J. thought she saw his lips twitch. “Don’t tempt me.”
Taking hold of her arm, he dragged her back to the hut and shoved her inside, then turned to leave again.
“Where are you going?” she asked, unable to keep the renewed panic from her voice.
The kiss and the argument had somehow managed to drive the thought of that deadly killer jaguar from her mind. But now it was back with a vengeance, and the truth was that she didn’t want to spend the rest of the time until daylight alone.
He looked on the verge of saying something sarcastic, then his expression softened. “All the beer I had today’s backing up on me.”
“Oh.” That explained what he was doing outside when she’d needed to be rescued. Timing, K.J. thought, was indeed everything.
“I’ll be right back.” His gaze moved over her as it had earlier in the evening, making her all too aware of the way the sodden material was clinging to her breasts and thighs. “And, if you don’t want to find out just how kinky I can be,” he said gruffly, “I suggest you change into some dry clothes.”
With that he was gone, leaving her alone again. But this time, instead of wanting to weep, K.J. wrapped her arms around herself and smiled.
She would not have been smiling if she could have seen the meeting between the two best friends a few yards from the hut.
“Thanks,” Alec said.
“Then it worked?” Rafael asked.
“Like a charm.” What had, admittedly, been a long shot, had definitely been worth waiting up for.
When the animal beside him growled, Alec reached down and patted the spotted head. The jaguar’s low growl turned to purrs, and if animals could smile, this one was pulling it off. Though, due to the complete absence of teeth, the grin was lacking in intensity.
“Good girl,” Alec told Rafael’s pet jaguar, who began purring all the louder.
“If she finds out you tricked her, your wife will not be a happy woman.”