He swallowed a groan. If only he could make his mind as blank as hers about what happened between them on her bed. What right did she have to bounce along in blissful ignorance, he grumbled silently, when tormenting memories of last night were driving him crazy?
He hoped the fervent prayer he sent up that she wouldn’t touch him too much would be heard and answered in this holy place. Heavenly intervention might be the only way he could resist taking her in his arms.
She gracefully lowered herself to the small wooden bench near the grotto. He folded himself down beside her, being careful to leave a good six inches between her bare arm and his. She turned her head and smiled at him. The beauty of her eyes bathed his brain in a blue fog that turned off all logic and urged him to close the frustrating gap between them.
A terrible yearning came over him to someday see her look at him clear-eyed and fully aware that he was kissing her. To have her know—as during last night’s intimacy she didn’t know—that the man embracing her was David Reid. Not anyone else. Not Tommy.
Tommy. He dragged up the aggravating name. Stupid, worthless Tommy. That was why he was here with Cara, instead of back in Virginia swimming interminable, punishing laps in the frigid mountain lake.
And he’d better stop forgetting that. Or worse, trying to convince himself that dumb old Tommy really didn’t matter, when Grant’s disappearance was the only reason he’d ever met Cara Merrill in the first place.
“I have some good news for you,” he said. “I didn’t tell you earlier, because I wanted you to have a few hours free of worrying about Tommy and his problems. Last night I found someone who recognized the photograph I showed her. The girl told me that a couple of months ago she’d met a man who looked a lot like Dr. Grant. She remembered him because she thought him so good-looking.”
Cara’s hand darted to his arm. He tensed.
“Who, David? What girl? Not one of the putas, I hope.”
“No. A—a waitress I spoke to in a cantina.” That the girl made a living by giving paying customers — Grant among them—a sexual massage was a hurtful fact Cara didn’t need to know.
“That’s good news.”
To his surprise, she didn’t leap up and shout for joy at this first nibble of intelligence about Tommy since they’d arrived. She wasn’t even smiling.
He hiked up an eyebrow. “Somehow I thought you’d be more excited when you heard it.”
“I am. I guess that after all this time it’s hard to get excited about something experience tells me might not pan out. But I am glad we’ve been able to establish that Tommy has been seen in Bogota. I was starting to lose hope of finding any trace of him.”
Every time she spoke, he could hear again the enticing sound of her fevered pleading for him to make love to her.
“There’s always the chance that the woman told me only what she thought I wanted to hear,” he said. “However, I’m ready to accept that it confirms Baker’s information. Nothing more. She only saw Tommy that one time and had no idea where he was staying. She never even knew his name.”
Cara sighed. “So we’ll just have to keep on looking.”
“At least now we know we’re looking in the right city. This complex is a tourist attraction. We’re as likely to run into Tommy here as anywhere.”
“I doubt it, David. Museums and churches aren’t exactly his thing.”
She retrieved her hand from his arm, allowing him to pole himself to his feet with his cane.
Cara wasn’t sure how she felt about the possibility of finally coming face-to-face with Tommy. Aside from trying to convince him to come back with her and go into treatment, what on earth would she say to him? The thought of plunging back into any kind of relationship whatever with him was troubling.
She and David didn’t speak as they rambled the secluded courtyard hemmed in by a looming row of trees. As she strolled by his side, his hand brushed against hers—by accident, she was sure. Instead of moving away, his fingers danced around hers. Their two hands linked together.
Just a friendly gesture, she told herself. Whatever it was doing for David—probably not much—being connected to him even in a way that might seem insignificant to anyone else, gave her a feeling of intense satisfaction.
David came to an abrupt halt. Since their hands were joined, she did, too. His hand tightened around hers.
She was constantly aware of him, even when they were apart, but now his vital nearness swallowed up her senses. His chest rose and fell on a deep inhalation. She could hear the whisper of his breathing. A great pot of pink blossoms nearby threw an exotic perfume into the still, thin air, the fragrance underlaid with the light tang of David’s unique scent.
Her mouth went dry.
His cane clattered to the ground.
With a muttered curse, he snaked out an arm and pulled her to him.
The heat of his body radiated over her breasts and thighs. She couldn’t have escaped the sensual bliss of his hold on her even if she wanted to. She didn’t want to.
“Tommy’s a fool to have let you go,” David growled.
The intensity of his words sent a nebulous yearning shuddering through her. He wore no jacket, only a royal blue shirt that clung so closely to his skin she could make out the faint outline of his tiny male nipples. Before her mind could prevent the thoughtless and provoking action, her fingers flew to one of the intriguing nubs.
He hissed in a rapid breath. His heart suddenly jumped beneath her hand. Her own heart lurched into a quick stuttering drumbeat that pounded in her ears. A soft, swelling spasm rippled through her womanhood. Emotions layered through her. Confusion. Guilt. Anxiety.
Above them all, utter, eager delight.
A remarkably distinct remembrance of last night’s dream flashed into her mind: David—the whole hard length of him—stretched out on top of her. Not only could she see him looking down at her, but she also felt as if she knew exactly how her softness fitted into the weight of his hard body. She flushed at the alarming pleasure recalling the dream brought her.
He broke the tight link of their hands and drew a finger over the arch of her eyebrow. Her legs threatened to buckle under her.
“You’re so beautiful,” he murmured. “I should have told you that long before this.” The low, harsh rasp of his voice sent a delicious shiver down her back.
He stroked down her cheek and along the ridge of her jaw. Every nerve in her body was suddenly attuned to the inciting warmth and stimulating pressure of the male fingers ranging slowly over her skin.
She couldn’t still the quivering of her mouth.
David’s hand skimmed lingeringly down the front of her throat and spread wide across her collarbone exposed in the dipping neckline of her dress. A languorous, enveloping heat suffused her muscles and deepened her breathing. In the afternoon’s coolness, a bead of perspiration trickled down between her breasts.
The gray of his eyes turned a deep silver, sharp and wanting. His face looked carved from stone. He gave a low, strangled groan and bent his head. His lips met hers.
She could work up not the slightest scrap of resistance.
Her eagerness tempted him to draw the tip of his tongue over the outline of her lips. Even that sensitive, explorative touch made oatmeal of her mind. Thick, hot, sugary oatmeal.
This is not smart, her brain babbled faintly from some deep recess in her head. You’ll be sorry. But it was unthinkable to try to halt the warm shower of pleasure drenching her. A warmth that softened and parted her lips beneath his.
The firm, moist fullness of his mouth closed hotly over hers. His tongue demanded entrance. She gave it to him. The enticing taste of him seemed dizzyingly familiar.
Desire rolled through her in hot sluggish waves commanding that she fit herself closer into the solid wall of his body. His hand drifted down to mold her breast within a crescent of warmth. A heat and a gentle pressure that seemed to belong there.
She hardly noticed when her fingers tangled themselves in
to his hair to hold his mouth deliciously fastened to hers. But she felt every inflaming inch when he stroked down over her back and curved his hand over her bottom to lock her to his hard, hot center.
She reeled under a barrage of tantalizing sensations.
Sensations that teased familiarly at her mind.
She skimmed her hand over the muscles of his back, mapping warm, hard shapes her palms seemed to recognize. A sudden conviction came over her that she knew precisely where David’s skin bore a thick, raised scar. Wondering why she was having such crazy reactions to their embrace, she slowly inched her hand over his shirt to his side and down to his waist.
Her fingers fell on the smooth hard ridge of the scar angling into the waistband of his slacks.
Weird. How could she possibly have known that scar was there? How could she have known precisely how it would feel? Another arousing picture of her lying on her bed with David flared into her mind. A picture of her flattening her hand against the bare skin of his stomach and stroking downward to his—
This didn’t make sense. Not possible that they’d made love. Fourteen bottles of champagne couldn’t have eradicated that exciting incident from her mind. The shape of his fingers would have left their searing imprint on her breast. The feel of his mouth would have been burned onto heis—exactly as her lips felt now. How could she possibly have forgotten anything so wonderful?
Much too wonderful to halt right now and try to figure out answers to the questions tumbling through her mind.
He could spend the rest of his life, David thought hazily, doing nothing but holding this woman in his arms. Doing nothing more than holding his lips bonded to the lush, giving mouth burning beneath his.
The captivating taste of her made him drunk, and wanting, craving, more.
He came to with a start. What the hell had he been thinking of?
He shouldn’t be doing this. He couldn’t be doing this. He had no right even to hold her. No right to practically wallow in the stunning pleasure she gave him.
She’d made him a man again. He owed her big-time for that. But falling in love with anyone wasn’t an option. Allowing himself to fall in love with any woman would be downright irrational. With his ugly, ravaged body he shouldn’t even dream of making love to her for real. Cara Merrill wasn’t for him. A woman as marvelous as she deserved a whole man. She surely deserved a lot better than Tommy the user.
And much more than a cripple like himself.
He dragged his mouth from hers.
Even without his humbling impairment, only a fool would let himself become involved with a woman so fiercely loyal to another man she was willing to do whatever it took to find him.
That enraging thought gave him the strength to drop his arms and step away from her.
“Let’s find a restaurant and take a break.” The gruffness of self-directed anger colored his voice.
Cara blinked up at him, looking dazed at the suddenness of his turnoff. He couldn’t blame her. She must think him the fool he already knew himself to be.
She was still trembling and looking painfully baffled when he bent to scoop up his cane. Leaning heavily on it he turned to head them back toward the plaza.
Her breath in shreds, Cara needed a few seconds to gather her thoughts. One minute David was kissing her as if his life depended on it. The next he was walking away from her.
Just as well he’d called a halt to their lovemaking she decided, as more of her mind settled back into place. It didn’t make sense that his arms, his kiss should feel so blazingly right when she knew dam well he was with her only because he saw Roger Elliott’s request to help her as an order.
His kisses so addled her senses, she couldn’t think straight, but why did these foolish, all-too-realistic pictures of them in bed together keep popping up?
“Wait, David.” Her call halted him, but he didn’t turn to face her. “Why can’t I recall last night more clearly? This isn’t normal. Tell me the truth. Did I drink too much and make a fool of myself?”
She detected a curious wariness in the glance he shot back over his shoulder.
“You weren’t drunk. That’s the truth.”
“I can remember us leaving the hotel together, what happened after that?”
“We went to a few rumbeaderos to ask about Tommy.”
“Rumbeaderos.” She closed her eyes and tried to dredge up memory. “Yes. I seem to recall a place with lots of noise. People dancing. What else? When did you speak to the woman who saw Tommy? Was I with you?”
He turned and waited for her to catch up with him.
“No. I left you waiting for me at an outdoor café.”
“I don’t understand, David. Why can I remember only bits and pieces of last night?” How did a woman tell a man that she couldn’t remember if he made love to her?
He sighed. “All right. Here’s what happened. You were the victim of the local version of a Mickey Finn. While you were alone at the café, someone gave you a dose of what they call burundanga. Scopoline.”
Her mouth dropped open. “Scopoline? That’s not a street drug.”
“No. It was supposed to knock you out.”
“It can certainly do that, especially if given intravenously. It’s a derivative of scopolamine, twilight sleep, an anesthetic sometimes used during childbirth.” She shuddered. “An overdose can kill.”
“Thank God you didn’t get much of it. You never completely lost consciousness, but you were out of it. Burundanga is the weapon of choice among the thieves here, who use it to rob their victims of resistance while they relieve them of their valuables. They can easily make the substance from trees found all over this country. It’s a major problem both for foreign tourists and native Colombians.”
She rubbed her forehead. “Was there something about a monkey?”
David nodded. “There were two men with you when I returned to the café. They probably used the pet monkey to distract you while they slipped the powder into your coffee.”
“Scopoline. That explains why I can’t remember much about last night. Scopoline can cause loss of memory that can last from a few hours to several days.”
Hot astonishment suddenly hit her. What she’d thought was merely an erotic dream was real. Specific, face-warming memories were flooding back. She’d thrown herself at David like a wanton. Begged him to make love to her. Touched him intimately. Or tried to. He’d touched her, too. Very intimately. Her breath caught at the remembrance of that searing touch.
No way she could deny that she’d loved it all.
Not everything came back, though. She still couldn’t remember the final outcome of their lovemaking. How far did she push him last night?
“David. I need to know. Did we...?” She lifted her chin and met his gaze. Making love with David Reid was nothing to regret, although practically attacking him the way she did was embarrassing, even if she couldn’t be held entirely responsible for her actions. “Were we intimate last night?”
“No. There’s nothing to worry about. I tucked you into bed and left.”
He’d tucked her into bed and left? Senseless disappointment rushed over her. She should thank him for having had the strength to keep his head when hers had floated off in a scopoline haze. But gratitude wasn’t the emotion taking hold of her.
She’d begged David to make love to her. He hadn’t wanted her. That was the bottom line. He didn’t want her. Sure he’d kissed her in a thoughtless male way when given the opportunity. But the embrace that meant so much to her, to him was close to meaningless.
The scopoline had given her a headache. Knowing how little she meant to David made it worse.
David had no trouble reading the dismay written all over Cara’s lovely face. From the look of her, she now remembered too much of what happened on her bed. As he’d feared, she was none too pleased to know that her helplessness hadn’t kept him from plundering her mouth, caressing her with the intimacy a woman like her would grant only to a lover.
“What happened wasn’t your fault, Cara. As I said, you were a hapless victim of Bogotano thieves. If you need to blame someone, blame me for not taking better care of you.”
“Taking care of me is not your job, David.”
In her books maybe it wasn’t. In his, it certainly was. He cared nothing about Tommy and his problems. He saw his mission mainly as protecting Cara Merrill from her own misplaced loyalty to the man.
As they walked back across the wide plaza he didn’t venture to take her hand again. She’d only pull it away.
On one side of the square, street vendors hawking postcards and souvenirs jostled for position among potential customers. Since Cara showed no interest in them, he intended to avoid them all. Before they could escape, a woman jangling a handful of colorful Indian bead necklaces fixed herself persistently in their path.
Cara indifferently examined the jewelry. He didn’t bother.
Out of the corner of his eye he caught a small flash of yellow. He quickly ran his gaze over the area. It wasn’t hard to spot the punk blond streak at the back of a group of black-haired Japanese tourists gathered around their lecturing tour guide.
Twice in under an hour, David noted. Last night in the cab made a fourth time he’d seen the man who’d approached him on the street earlier. And it sure looked like the mestizo was trying to keep from being seen.
Why should a pimp be tailing them? Or him? There were plenty of other foreign men around. Surely he wasn’t such a prize catch that a Bogotano procurer would dog his heels in hopes of snagging him as a customer.
He didn’t believe in this level of coincidence. He needed to have a talk with their stalker. He could find out soon enough whether there was anything to the peculiar blond’s repeated appearances in their vicinity.
“Cara, I — ”
Before he could tell her to wait while he sprinted as best he could over to the man, his quarry scurried away into one of the waiting line of busetas. He abandoned the idea of trying for a chase. He might have made it to the vehicle moving slowly in heavy traffic. But after last night’s incident, he was loath to let Cara out of his sight even for a few minutes.
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