So far he’d gotten exactly nowhere in trying to divorce himself from the strong feelings she continually raised in him. He didn’t get it. He’d never been an emotional man. How could this particular woman so quickly and so effortlessly keep filling him with incomprehensible aching needs whenever she came near?
He was never able to stop thinking about her. Not when he was with her, ostensibly absorbed in something else entirely. Not when they were apart and that uncomfortable itch to get back to her took over.
So much about her had become precious to him. The way a few delicate blond strands fell down over the sensitive curve of her neck. The way the azure of her eyes darkened to indigo when he took her in his arms. The way her lips quivered the other night when she thought he was about to kiss her.
He was quite proud of himself for being able to limp off down the street without looking back at her.
Cara had just ordered a refill on the coffee when a woman selling handmade ruanas stopped by her table to show her wares. Maybe the natives were used to Bogota’s evening chill, but she wasn’t. A beautiful woolen wrap with blue and gold stripes caught her eye. She paid the woman, and draped the ruana over her shoulders.
For almost an hour her cool lack of response kept unwanted visitors at bay, until a paunchy American, who obviously had downed one drink too many, swayed over to her and began to make suggestive remarks. Her quick tongue-lashing didn’t discourage him. He groped for her breast. She slapped his hand away.
Two young Colombian men sitting at the next table came to her rescue. They grabbed the obnoxious gringo by the arms and shoved him into the street. Hurling back a string of curses at the two, the American stumbled off.
Cara knew enough Spanish to thank the men for their help. The tiny monkey belonging to one of them had sat on their table angrily yelping and chattering during the commotion. Now that things had settled down, the cute little animal scampered over and leapt onto its master’s shoulder.
Her rescuers’ English wasn’t too good, but they were polite and charming as they assured themselves that she was all right. They asked to buy her a drink. She pointed to her full cup of coffee and smiled her refusal.
She hadn’t exactly invited them to join her at her table, but after what they’d done for her, she could hardly refuse their company. Besides, having this pleasant pair sitting with her might ward off any others with the same ideas as the drunk. With a lot of laughter and descriptive waving of hands, the three of them managed a conversation of sorts.
The monkey skittered into her lap and started playing with the fringe on her ruana. Working around the pet, she fished her photo of Tommy out of her handbag and showed it to the two men, who were jokingly struck with disappointment to find she had such a good-looking boyfriend. With comically doleful expressions, they shook their heads.
A series of yawns came upon her from out of the blue. She had no luck suppressing them. Hopefully, David would be back soon. She glanced at her watch to check the time. The physician’s timepiece held a large face and easily read numerals. Even squinting, she couldn’t quite make them out.
She tried to blink away the strange blurring that had come over her eyes. It didn’t work. The men with her now looked a little fuzzy around the edges, too. And the dizziness that had taken hold of her was getting worse. One of her newfound friends held her cup of coffee to her lips. Hoping the strong brew would help clear her head, she took a sip.
Vaguely she realized that the monkey man had pulled his chair uncomfortably close and was fumbling for her hand. The hand bearing Tommy’s ring. Alarm speared through the cotton batting in her mind. She tried to push the man away. Her hand flopped ineffectually against him. She tried to get up from her chair. Her body wouldn’t obey.
She heard shouts. A long, brown stick cracked down on the table in front of her. She tried to make sense of the apparition that came out of nowhere. Through the fog in front of her eyes, she saw the monkey man running away.
A man’s arms slid under her own from behind and started to lift her from her chair. What she intended as a scream came out as a squeak. The man pulled her up and held her close to him. A scent, familiar and comforting, pierced the haze in her mind:
David. David was with her. She could barely make out his grim face frowning down at her. She turned and sagged against him. His arm clamped around her waist.
David struggled to get a good one-armed grip on Cara, while bracing himself with the cane. Trying to hold her up was like trying to stand a rag doll on its feet. She looked up at him with unfocused eyes. The only word he could make out from her mumbling was his name.
This was all his fault. He knew the dangers lurking in the streets of Bogota. He should have overruled her objections and left her back at the hotel. If he hadn’t returned when he did ... He hated to think about what might have happened to her. With some women, thieves wanted more than just their jewelry and money. A woman as beautiful as Cara would surely have been one of them.
He glanced down at her coffee cup. Almost full. And she was drowsy, not unconscious. He prayed she hadn’t swallowed too much of the burundanga.
He slipped over her head the strap of the handbag he’d grabbed back from the man with the monkey. Cara swayed dangerously against his arm and almost broke his hold. He cursed his bad leg. If only he could pick her up and carry her out to the waiting cab.
It wasn’t easy maneuvering her into the taxi. As he heaved himself onto the seat next to her, he happened to glance through the rear window. The pimp with the straw-colored streak in his hair, who earlier had tried to line him up as a customer, was standing in the shadows of the café wall, watching them.
That observation flew from his mind, quashed by a new, strongly agitating one.
The hot velvet of Cara’s lips grazed his ear. He swallowed. Hard. She had no idea how tough it had been to tear himself away from her their first night here when she’d offered him her lips. And perhaps more. No idea how difficult it was to hold his flaring reactions under tight rein every arousing moment he spent with her.
With a little giggle, she pulled back the collar of his shirt and nibbled downward along his suddenly sensitive skin. He blew out a long, shaky breath.
“Ah ... Cara ... don’t do that, honey... please don’t do — uh—”
She slipped her fingers between the buttons of his shirt and pressed them directly against his chest.
His gasp had the driver peering wide-eyed into the rearview mirror. If she kept this up, the distracted man was liable to run them right off the road.
She did keep it up. It was a miracle his mind was still functioning by the time they reached the hotel. Another miracle that they made it in one piece.
The driver accepted the tip, but his appreciative grin indicated he’d already received one.
It wasn’t hard to guess what the people in the lobby were thinking as he half dragged, half carried Cara, who was softly chuckling at some private joke, to the elevators.
At the door to her room he propped her against the wall and held her there with his body while he rummaged frantically for her key in the purse dangling from her neck. Tantalizing female softness teased him from shoulder to knees. Desperately he willed himself to ignore it.
She looked up at him, her forehead creased in puzzlement, and made a questioning sound.
“Forget it, Doctor. You’re in no shape to figure things out.”
He pushed the door shut behind them with his cane and hauled her over to the bed. Unceremoniously he let her drop. She bounced on the mattress and bubbled a trill of laughter.
He pulled off her shoes. She splayed her arms above her head and smiled giddily up at him as if she didn’t have a care in the world.
Unfortunately he had enough for both of them.
Chapter 6
Cara lay precariously half on, half off the bed. He couldn’t leave her this way, in danger of slipping to the floor. Setting his hands at her waist he tried to shove her farther onto the bed. A dead weight, she scarcely
moved.
Awkwardly he scrambled onto the bed and straddled her, with one knee bent at her hip and his bad leg drawn up alongside her. He yanked his arrested gaze away from the sweet sight of her lying so incitingly beneath him and succeeded in pulling her more firmly onto the bed. Her legs dangled over the edge only from the knees down. Enough to keep her from falling off during the night.
Before he could back off the bed, she threw her arms around his neck. They flopped off. She tried again, and succeeded in draping them loosely around him.
He couldn’t make out all her mumbling, but one word leapt out at him with mind-focusing clarity. “Kiss...”
He tried to brace himself above her on his hands. She wasn’t having any. Her hard tug on his neck flattened him on top of her. Searing fire leapt into the already smoldering part of him pressed into the soft warmth at the top of her thighs.
How was any man expected to resist this? A flood of sensations, dammed up for what felt like a lifetime, raged through him. The sheer wonder of feeling her sweet, yielding body brought a choking ache to his chest.
God help him, he was ready to take her.
He could take her.
The realization of the miracle of his arousal flooded through him. Already he was as rigid as he’d ever been. As he’d never been for almost two years. What a way to learn that every throbbing part of him, except his leg, was now fully, painfully, operational.
The burundanga wasn’t making her do anything she didn’t already want to do. The quickness and heat of her previous responses to him made him certain of that. The apparently small dose of scopoline had simply removed her inhibitions. The knowledge did nothing to lessen his predicament.
“P-please, D-David...I want...I want...” In case he hadn’t heard her whispered pleading, she repeated it. Several agonizing times. Pure torture to keep himself from giving in to her entreaty.
She braced her feet against the edge of the mattress and lifted her pelvis hard against him. His instinctive convulsive thrust against her came so quickly he couldn’t prevent it.
“Yes,” she gasped. “Oh, David ... yes.”
She fumbled with his jacket, trying to push it off his shoulders. Her short, fast breaths puffed hotly against his neck. He groaned. He couldn’t take much more of this.
“No, Cara. Quit it.”
Feeling foolish at being forced to demonstrate the indignation of a maiden aunt, he pulled the protective blazer back into place. While he was busy with that, Cara took the opportunity to jerk his shirt from his pants. Her hands and forearms slid under the shirt and ranged over the burning skin of his sides and back.
The sweet assault taunted him almost beyond endurance. Never had a woman’s touch, a woman’s softness robbed him so quickly of so much of his mind.
She found his hand and planted it over her breast, even softer and warmer than he’d imagined it to be. Without his express orders, his thumb brushed over its already beaded tip. She moaned in pleasure. Her eyes were dilated. An effect of the scopoline. She trembled with need.
So did he. His protective instincts warred with his raging desire for her. It had been achingly long since he’d been with a woman. Would it be so wrong to give her what they both ardently desired?
It would, the part of his mind still functioning insisted. Bastard he might be. Some had called him so. But he wasn’t bastard enough to take advantage of a woman who wasn’t in full possession of her senses.
He couldn’t pretend that no more than the honor of an officer and a gentleman held him back from doing what he so wanted. to do. He’d coped with a lot, but he knew he could never handle the contempt she’d surely show him if she learned that he’d taken her while she was helpless.
Soft kisses rained over his face and every inch of bare skin on his neck and upper chest her lips could reach.
Hell’s fire, he wasn’t made of stone. On a moan of defeat, he turned his head and captured her mouth.
Immediately she opened to him. Wild horses couldn’t have prevented him from plunging his tongue into the intimate wet secret of her mouth. The honeyed taste of her broke a flood of want, white-hot and urgent, through him.
Cursing himself for taking any advantage whatever of a woman at a time when she was so piercingly vulnerable she wasn’t able to defend herself against her own physical needs, he pulled his mouth away from hers.
Her hand slipped beneath his belt and trailed an arrow of flame down his stomach. Every fiber of his being lusted for more of the fiery caress.
If she reached his throbbing arousal, he knew damn well that his command of himself would be over.
In one of the most difficult actions of his life, he took hold of her hand and withdrew its inflaming contact. He shifted his weight and rolled to the bed beside her.
Frantic, she grasped his jacket and curved back into him. It was impossible to hold his mouth from hers when it felt so much at home there. She drew a knee up over his thigh and pressed herself against him.
How could he possibly abandon her in this condition?
Heartless to refuse to bring her the release she needed. His own need wasn’t important. Hers was.
He gathered her close and slid his hand down between them to cup the soft joining of her thighs. Only the sheer nylon of her panty hose barriered her hot damp center from his direct touch. She gasped and moved against his hand.
He gritted his teeth and forced himself to ride on top of the pleasure threatening to claim every last shred of his control. Fortunately for his sanity, it didn’t take long until she gave a sighing shudder and went still.
Drenched in sweat he sank back and hauled in a deep breath.
When he finally recovered enough strength to do it, he carefully worked his arm out from under her head, and struggled to a sitting position. Given a little more room in which to move, she heaved a contented sigh and curled up into a ball like a kitten. She looked as if she’d sleep for a week.
He hunched himself off the bed and pondered whether or not to undress her and slip her nightgown over her head. No way, he decided. If she awoke and launched herself at him again, he’d be a goner. Safer just to flip the bedspread over her.
At the door, he looked back at the most heart-tugging scene he’d enjoyed in ages.
He deserved another medal, he thought grimly, for having the strength to drag himself out of her room and back to his own.
Cara tiptoed across the lobby as carefully as if she were walking on eggs. She’d never been intoxicated in her life—as far as she knew—but right now she had a strong understanding of how a hangover must feel.
Sprawled in a chair beneath a potted palm, David waited for her. He didn’t look all that good himself, she noted. They must have had one heck of a night, although she couldn’t remember any of it. He saw her and rose.
“It’s almost noon, David. You should have called earlier to awaken me.”
“I figured you needed your sleep.”
“Sleeping in didn’t help. For some reason I woke up with a dull headache and a bit of an upset stomach.” She laid her hand cautiously on top of her head, to make sure it was still there. “Funny, I can’t seem to remember a whole lot about last night. I don’t usually have too much to drink. Did I go overboard while we were out?”
David cleared his throat. “Not when I was with you.”
“I don’t even remember us coming back to the hotel.” She started to shake her head in puzzlement and was forcefully reminded that moving her head even a fraction wasn’t a real good thing to do right now.
“You did seem to be a little ... um, out of it when we got here.”
“I must have been really tired. I just tumbled on top of the bed and fell asleep without getting undressed.”
A vague recollection of an incredibly erotic dream involving David shimmered into her mind. Thank God he didn’t know what her subconscious kept coming up with when she was asleep.
“Not surprising you’re exhausted,” he said. “You’re a strong woman
, but you’ve been going nonstop since we got here. And from what you’ve told me, for months if not years before this. You’ve graduated from med school, completed your residency, started your practice and had to deal with the emotional shock of having the man you love fall into drug use and disappear. It’s a wonder you’ve kept going this long.”
She rubbed her forehead. “You could be right. I woke up feeling totally wrung out.”
David gave another little cough. She wondered if he might be coming down with a cold.
“We could both use a break,” he said. “We’re supposed to be tourists. Today we’ll take in the colonial mansions and churches of La Candelaria. You’ll enjoy seeing the beautiful old cathedral on the Plaza de Bolivar. And the fresh air might help you feel better.”
His prescription worked, David was glad to see. Their stroll in the comfortable coolness of the afternoon brightened Cara’s mood. Her cheeks regained their color and she quickly became interested in the cathedral.
As she took the time to inspect the intricately carved altar heavily ornamented with gold, he walked back to sit down and rest his leg. As he turned into the pew, his glance snagged on the movements of a young man lingering at the back of the church. A mestizo. With a shock of yellow hair.
He snapped back a second look just before the man disappeared into a side chapel. Had the mestizo ducked out of sight to avoid his attention?
David shrugged. Ridiculous to think so. Just his ingrained sense of caution working overtime. The man posed no threat.
Nevertheless, when they left the cathedral habit prodded him to look back. As expected, he saw no sign of the mestizo.
Cara strolled a little ahead of him into the small garden next to the church.
The shining crown of her hair blazed gold in a shaft of bright sunlight that broke through another of Bogota’s usual gray days. She balanced herself on parted legs and swayed slightly on the balls of her feet as she gazed at the small grotto holding a rose-ringed statue of the Virgin of Guadalupe.
He was sure Cara didn’t realize that the gauzy cotton of her skirt threw up little defense to the sun’s penetrating rays, giving him an entrancing view of long, elegantly shaped legs. He knew he was courting danger when he allowed his slow gaze to follow their narrowing V up to its intimate merging.
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