by JoAnn Ross
“It’s all yours,” he managed to gasp as she kissed her way across his stomach, sharp stinging little kisses that felt like hot darts.
“I know.” This time her smile was not Salome’s, but Eve’s, her gleaming blue eyes offering Alec all the gifts of Paradise.
As she undressed him, his muscles quivered under her hands and his flesh grew hot and moist beneath her lips. She moved like quicksilver over his body, drawing rumbling moans that echoed like thunder from deep inside him.
His breath burned like fire in his throat, his lungs. His blood pounded in his veins, his loins. And just when he was certain she was going to drive him mad, she rose over him, her hair curling like flames over her ivory shoulders.
“I’ve dreamed of us like this.” Her lips curved in a faint, womanly smile. “Hot, wicked, wonderful dreams.” With agonizing slowness she lowered herself onto him, taking him in, inch by throbbing inch.
The feel of her, warm and wet around him, aroused Alec mercilessly. “Join the club, sweetheart.” When she began to rock against him in a slow, seductive rhythm designed to torment them both, his hunger turned voracious. His need brutal.
She arched her back, offering him her breasts, which he took into his mouth, lashing the hot silken flesh with teeth and tongue. She was moving faster now, the muscles of her thighs clamping tighter around his hips as she rode him, racing toward the peak.
His vision blurred, shimmering bloodred at the edges. Caught in the clutches of an unmanageable greed, he dug his fingers into her waist and arched off the hammock, surging upward into her, plunging, hammering against her as he drove them both blindly over the precipice.
“Oh,” she gasped as she collapsed on top of him, spent and slick with sweat. “That was definitely better than the dreams.”
“Absolutely.” He tangled his fist in her damp hair, lifting her head so their eyes met. “Anyone ever tell you, Mrs. Mackenzie, that you are definitely one hot piece of—”
“Never.” Her mouth, as she touched it to his, was curved in a smile. But her gaze was solemn. “There was never a reason. Until you.”
“Until us,” he corrected, shifting so they were lying face-to-face, chest-to-chest, thigh-to-thigh. “Together.”
Since she knew she’d never be able to deny it, K.J. didn’t even try. Instead, she just wrapped her arms around him and nuzzled close, enjoying the sound of the rain—which had begun again sometime during their lovemaking—on the tin roof, the rise and fall of his hard chest beneath her cheek and the touch of his hand as it roamed idly, contentedly, up and down her bare back.
“OH, MY GOD,” K.J. moaned the next morning as the hot Amazonian sun shot flaming arrows into her already burning eyes. “I think I’m going to die.”
“I told you to go easy on that stuff,” Alec reminded her. “It was just a hangover waiting to happen.”
She lifted her head to glare up at him, then wished she hadn’t as more arrows pierced her skull. “I never get hangovers,” she muttered.
“Well then, consider this another first,” he said in a cheerful tone that made her want to smack him. But he was safe, because she didn’t think she’d ever be able to move again. “Here.”
She opened one bleary eye and tried to focus on the earthenware cup he was holding out toward her, “What’s that?”
“A native remedy guaranteed to have you feeling like a new woman in no time at all.”
“I’ve tried that new-woman stuff with you twice now, Alec. And both times it’s turned out miserably.”
Knowing exactly how badly her head was pounding, he decided not to take affront at the insult. “That’s not what you were saying when you woke up in the middle of the night and attacked me again.”
“Me, attack you?” She reluctantly pushed herself into a sitting position. “I seem to recall it being the other way around.”
“That was the third time. After you’d already had your wicked way with me.”
Heat surged into her cheeks as she remembered exactly how wicked they’d been. “I don’t remember you complaining.”
“Hey, I’m no fool.” He shoved the cup toward hei again. “Here. This really will make you feel better.”
She reluctantly accepted it, took one whiff and drew in a sharp breath as her stomach roiled. “What’s in it?”
“A secret blend of herbs.”
“It looks like mud.”
“Tastes like it, too,” he assured her with a grin that had her stomach flipping for an entirely different reason. “But it works like magic.”
She gave the contents one last suspicious look, then closed her eyes, lifted the cup to her lips and swallowed what was, without a doubt, the most vile thing she’d ever tasted.
“Promise me one thing,” she groaned as she flopped back onto the hammock.
“Anything,” he said without hesitation.
“If I die, you’ll still go to New York and do the auction.”
“You’re not going to die. But I am curious why you’d want me to do that, since it’s a little difficult to get a posthumous promotion.”
“It’s a matter of honor.”
“Ah.” Alec nodded. Honor was something he both understood and approved of. “You’ve got yourself a deal.” He bent down, brushed her hair off her forehead and dropped a light kiss on her clammy skin. “I’m going to go take a shower. Then I’ll come back and we’ll have a little breakfast—”
She flung her arm over her closed eyes and shuddered. “I really will die if I put anything in my stomach after that Amazonian mud.”
“Actually, food is exactly what you need.” He skimmed his knuckles in a slow sweep down the side of her face. “You have to trust me, Kate.”
“I do, Alec. Really. And now that we’ve got that settled, I’d be forever grateful if you’d please just leave me alone to die in peace.”
She might not be going to die, Alec thought as he walked to the shower hut. But she was damn well going to feel that way. He looked up at the sky, which was a benevolent blue this morning. But he knew all too well that this lush land was like a beautiful, fickle woman, full of lies and false promises. He should have been on the river two hours ago, but waking up in the hammock with his wife in his arms had felt too good, too right.
“It’s only one day,” he told himself as he soaped down, washing away the redolent scent of their lovemaking that still clung to his skin. “The gold has been under all that mud this long. It can stay buried a little while longer.”
As he toweled off, Alec wondered if the concoction Rafael had first made for him after a night of pubcrawling back at Oxford had kicked in yet. If he was going to lose a day of treasure hunting, he might as well spend it in other pleasurable pursuits. And he knew just where to start.
15
K.J. WAS AMAZED and extremely relieved that the horrid concoction Alec had forced upon her had actually cleared her head and settled her stomach by the time he returned from the shower.
“Now I understand why the drug companies are searching for cures down here,” she said after her own shower. “If that drink was any example of the potential, Rafael’s tribe is going to end up very, very rich. Although,” she added, “I do think they’ll have to work a bit on taste and color.”
“Good point,” he agreed.
She was surprised when she felt no morning-after nervousness with Alec. In fact, as they shared a late breakfast of fruit, tortillas, delicious rich dark coffee and the ubiquitous manioc, K.J. felt almost as if they’d been beginning their day this way for the past year of their marriage. It seemed so comfortable. So right.
After breakfast, lying together in the hammock while the rain tapped a brisk staccato on the roof overhead, Alec told her all about the expedition, going into detail about the log, the old parchment map, the rumors of buried treasure that had circulated throughout this region for five centuries. K.J. could not have been more enthralled if he’d been reading to her from one of his novels.
“That’s fascinating
.”
“It’s pretty much the same thing I told you that night.”
“Really?” She cuddled closer. He was wearing another of the soft, faded chambray shirts, but had left it open, allowing her to press a light kiss against his hard, dark chest. “I think, in the interest of full disclosure, it’s time I admit that I didn’t hear much of anything you said that night.” Except that he’d wanted her. She’d certainly had no trouble hearing that!
Without the controlling factors of a hair dryer and stiff brush, her hair had dried into a riotous mass of curls. He tugged a long strand of silky red hair past her shoulders, then released it, watching as it sprung back into a loose spiral.
“I don’t understand. You certainly seemed to be listening. In fact, I seem to remember thinking you were fixated on the story.”
“Actually, I was fixated on making love with you.”
His fingers, which had been playing in her hair, stilled momentarily. “Well, I suppose there could be worse reasons for you not catching the details.” She could feel his deep, rumbling chuckle against the cheek that was resting on his bare chest. “So, now that you’re all up-to-date on the particulars, do you have any suggestions on how to spend the rest of the day?”
Her scold tried to remind her that they really needed to work on the plans for their divorce. Not wanting to think of that right now, when she was right where she wanted to be, in Alec’s arms, K.J. ruthlessly shut it off and refused to listen.
“I suppose I could come up with one or two.” She smiled up at him as her hand inched down his torso. “Since it’s raining too hard to risk going out on the river.”
“And to think, before you arrived in Santa Clara, I was beginning to hate this monsoon weather.” He grinned down at her as he rolled over and pressed himself against her.
K.J. combed her fingers through his dark hair as she lifted her lips to his.
For a long blissful time, the only sound in the hut was the tap tap tap of the rain on the roof and the music of loving words and soft sighs.
Since they couldn’t make love all of the time, in the afternoon Alec returned to his desk, where he began charting out the next day’s search course while K.J. lost herself in Rafael’s book again. She was nearly at the end when something struck her.
“Alec!”
“Mmm?” He didn’t look up from his map.
“It says here that the old tribes once performed sacrifices to their ancient gods.”
“Sure.” He shrugged and calculated variables. “Some still do, which explains some of the fetishes you see tied to the stakes outside various huts.”
“Sometimes the sacrifices were human.”
“Again, that’s not so surprising. Lots of ancient cultures had human sacrifice as part of their religious doctrine. Including the Celts,” he said, reminding her of the violent history of their ancestors’ native Scotland.
“There’s a story in here about a multiple sacrifice. To appease a god referred to as the sleeping giant. Apparently, whenever he sensed that the people weren’t being respectful enough, or feared him, he’d wake up. It says his temper was so horrible that when he roared the earth would shake and fire would fall from the sky.”
“We’re in the Ring of Fire here, Kate. I’d imagine there are hundreds of myths dealing with volcanoes and earthquakes.”
“I’d imagine so,” she agreed. “But how many of those do you think have to do with the giant’s revenge against murderous monsters created from silver and their treasure trove of stolen gold?”
She’d finally captured his full attention. Alec put down his pencil and came back over to the hammock. “Monsters created from silver?”
“That’s what it says.” She handed him the book and watched silently as he read the brief vengeance myth.
“The silver could be Spanish armor,” he mused.
“That’s exactly what I was thinking. And, of course, they would have murdered the Incas to have gotten the gold in the first place, which fits the description.”
“And the mudslide could have come from a volcano’s eruption. But you’d think the captain would have mentioned that little detail.”
“He wasn’t writing a novel, Alec. He was just putting the information, as he knew it, into his log. And I would imagine that he would have been in a bit of a hurry to get out of port if a volcano was erupting. Which would tend to make his journal entry a little sketchy.”
Alec rubbed his jaw. “That’s possible, I suppose. And it’s also more than possible that this refers to our barge. But it’s just another confirmation of the original story of the lost gold.”
If K.J. had been surprised at how right it felt to be with Alec this way, she was amazed at the little thrill that skimmed through her when he referred to the missing treasure as “our barge.” As if they’d become a team.
“It’s more than just a confirmation.” She was also more than a little pleased that she might have uncovered an important clue.
“How’s that?” She looked almost as pleased with herself as she looked after lovemaking, Alec thought. Her eyes were gleaming and bright scarlet flags of emotion waved high on her cheekbones.
“It’s the giant. I saw him yesterday.”
“Before or after you overindulged in that pupunha? ”
She lifted her chin in that challenging way that made him want to kiss her. “Before. When we came out of that slot canyon into the marshy lake.”
“So now we’re talking about the monster from the black lagoon?”
“I wish you’d be serious,” she huffed. “I’ll also expect an apology after I’ve led you to your treasure.”
Alec was about to tell her that he’d already found his treasure, that she meant more to him than a king’s ransom of gold, when her words sunk in.
“You think you know where it is? After being here two days?”
“If you want to get technical, I’ve been here three days. And yes, I think I know. It’s on the other side of that lake, Alec. Right below the mountain. The one that looks like a sleeping giant.”
Alec stared at her for a long suspended time. Then cursed. Then reached down and pulled her up to him. “I love you, you gorgeous, sexy, intelligent woman!”
As he kissed her breathless, K.J. reminded herself that he was only using the L word in its general sense. He probably would have said the same thing to anyone who may have solved his puzzle for him. Rafael, perhaps. Or Raul, the boatman. Or even that toothless old woman who’d danced next to her for a time at the festival last night.
“You really think this is it?” she asked when they finally surfaced for air.
“I really think it is,” he confirmed with that bold buccaneer’s grin that could always send her heart tumbling. He shot a quick, impatient look up at the ceiling. “Too bad it’s pouring.”
“I suppose it would be too dangerous to go out on the river now.”
“Dangerous, stupid and downright deadly,” he agreed. “However, since the gold hasn’t gone anywhere in five centuries, it’ll still be there tomorrow. In the meantime—” he gathered her tighter as they both fell back down onto the hammock “—we might as well kill a little time while I give you a finder’s reward.”
“Again?” She arched her neck as his lips skimmed a path of electricity down her throat. “So soon?”
“Hey—” his fingers flicked open the buttons on the khaki-colored camp shirt she’d bought at Banana Republic “—we’ve got a lot of lost time to make up for.”
Refusing to dwell on the past, and unwilling to contemplate a future without this man, K.J. laughed and surrendered to the moment. To her husband.
WANTING TO GET an early start in the morning, they woke at dawn. Not that they’d gotten all that much sleep. K.J. discovered Alec hadn’t been kidding about making up for lost time. Not that she’d had any objection. On the contrary, she’d proven every bit as sexually hungry, which, as she stretched out the kinks from the rigorous exercise she wasn’t accustomed to, still cont
inued to surprise her.
She would have thought that once they’d made love—once they’d gotten all those months of dreaming and fantasizing out of their minds—the need would have lessened. But instead, it seemed that each time they made love only had K.J. wanting Alec even more.
She pondered over that all the way back up the river, through the slot canyon, and then finally across the lake to the base of the mountain. As she looked a long, long way up at it and imagined how it must have looked raining fire and ash and molten lava down on the invading conquistadores, K.J. could only hope that all Alec’s guidebooks were right about the volcano now being dormant.
This time they hadn’t come alone. Following in dugout canoes outfitted with motors, identical to the one she’d taken to the village, were several men who had strong backs for digging through layers of mud, and an apparent unwavering loyalty to Alec. Which wasn’t at all surprising, K.J. thought, watching how he treated them with the same respect he would an Oxford don.
They hadn’t talked much during the trip; Alec had been occupied steering the boat and studying his maps and charts, while K.J. had busied herself taking more photographs. The scenery was as exotic and dazzling as her previous trip, but this time she took just as many shots of this man who’d complicated her life. The same man, her scold reminded her, that she’d promised to bring back to New York with her. As a bachelor.
Still uneasy about alligators, snakes and piranhas, K.J. was more than willing to wait on deck while Alec and the other men waded through the marshy water at the base of the sleeping giant. Several, Alec included, wielded metal detectors.
After a time, he stopped and compared the markings on the parchment to the modern maps, then looked up at the mountaintop again.
“Okay,” he finally said. His voice was calm, but K.J., who’d come to know her husband a great deal better over the past few days, could hear the repressed excitement in it. “Let’s try here.”
She watched as one of the men set small charges designed to move the top layers of mud. Watched with her heart in her throat as the men brought out the metal detectors again. Then felt her own shoulders sag as they failed to turn up any sign of the barge. Or the gold.