“What if I said I need you to be serious for once?”
“What, you don’t think detention is serious? Then what would be serious enough for you?”
“This.” She blew breath into my mouth.
I closed my eyes, absorbing her into me.
Then, trusting to the lions outside to keep us safe, we came together in a slow and sensual dance. I filled my palms with the flesh of her, my senses with her essence. My tongue worshiped her and my lips caught her cries. I came inside her, fountaining her with promises.
All I wanted from her was a simple yes.
I fell asleep to a chorus of yeses ringing in my ears, but whether they came from her lips or they were all from my dreams I couldn’t know. Not that night.
But I slept in hope of what morning would bring.
CHAPTER 37
Chris
We slept in the next day. Or rather, lay in. I still woke before sunrise, even before Dee opened her eyes. Spooned around her, I enjoyed the slight weight of her breasts in my hand and the silk of her legs twined in mine. Nuzzling her neck, I felt myself responding to her nearness, her availability.
Only…
Worrisomely, I stopped well-short of a full hard-on.
“Mmmm.” Dee wriggled closer into me, matching her curves to my hollows. The resulting fit, even though I wasn’t fitted in her, was pleasant perfection.
It was a new sensation for me, not to be driving toward sex but to be satisfying each other by the mere act of holding one another. Her arm snaked around mine, her hand covering my hand that covered her breasts. Not asking for anything more. When I allowed myself to stop worrying, I realized it wasn’t that I couldn’t get it up, it was that I didn’t need to. That this moment was enough.
I settled into enjoying it, listening to her soft breathing, the crickets chirping and the final yaps of hunting hyenas fading before the morning light. One moment turned into ten turned into twenty before another natural urge kicked in, resolving quickly from a suggestion to a demand.
Carefully, reluctantly, I untwined myself from her.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I assured the disappointment in her tone. “I just have to pee.”
The mosquitoes were out in force, though they’d be seeking shade and shelter soon enough once the sun rose. Something else, though, demanded my attention; I just wasn’t sure what. Busying myself on the edge of the camp, I scanned around, hoping to catch a clue for my unease.
That clue turned out to be Mr. Obvious with a hint by the stream.
The lions were gone.
“Dee! Get out here!”
She was barely past the tent flap when her gaze snapped along mine to where the lions weren’t.
“Dammit!”
Before I’d even shaken myself dry, she’d disappeared back into the tent to claim her clothes. I followed after, but she was already crawling out of the narrow tent, shirt unbuttoned, shorts unzipped, socks and boots in one hand, and draping the handheld around her neck with the other.
“Even Caesar’s gone,” she called to me as I shucked into shorts and shirt and boots. She ducked back in again to claim her holster and the .38. “Why can’t they hunt at night like respectable cats?”
The irritation didn’t fool me, try though it might to mask her deeper worry.
A worry far from unfounded as a distant thwocking stabbed a chill through me as sharp and cold as an icepick.
“That way.” Dee pointed the direction of the helicopter. “Over the dambo.”
Over the lions’ new hunting ground.
The chill in me deepened as the helicopter went silent.
“They’ve found our lions.” Dee was ghost white, the fear in her voice, in her eyes palpable. Not for one second did I believe her fear was for anything other than the lions—not for me, not for her.
“So they’ll be hunting the lions who are on their hunt.” I was finally catching up.
Face grim, Dee slipped on her safari boots. “And we’ll be hunting them.”
I admired her courage, but I also admired reason. “Let me just remind you again you have a .38. They have at least one high-powered rifle capable of accurately hitting its target at 500 yards or more. At that distance, you won’t even come close to spitting at them.”
“Yeah, but we have surprise. Who would be stupid enough to do what we’re doing?”
Who indeed?
Was her life really worth the safety of the pride?
Would I allow her foolish determination to go that far?
She struck off at a jog. What could I do but grab the air rifle and dart case and follow.
The tall veldt grass was, in patches, high enough to hide hunting lions. Hunting humans, on the other hand, were easily spotted targets. Of that, I was acutely aware as we jogged a mile to the pond.
“I hope you can handle that thing.” Dee nodded in the direction of my hip. In other, less desperate times I would have pretended to confuse what ‘thing’ she was referring to. “Those darts have no real distance.” I let the obvious joke there pass as well.
What I didn’t let pass was the rush of adrenaline. I didn’t have to fake my fear, but maybe because I’d faked courage so often in the past, I knew how to shape that fear into the same grim determination Dee had.
“Don’t worry, I can handle it.” And even as I said it, I believed it. But whether I could handle it was a far different question than whether I would. What the hell was I doing? Why would someone in my success bracket even contemplate the risk we were taking now? This was no controlled environment where the risks, though very real, were also well-mitigated. Truth was, I trusted the finned and four-legged sharks a great deal more than the two-legged kind we hunted now.
How easy would it be to just let them have Brutus? He was old, and there was already a half-grown cub on the way to take his place. Wasn’t that Brutus’ job—to sacrifice himself for his family, to protect his pride?
And my job was what? To throw Brutus under the bus—or in front of a bullet? Was I really going to let him be more of a man than me?
Or let Dee be?
They were all my family now. My pride.
In the end, though, it was more than the obligation of responsibility that forced me forward. It was the acceptance that, for Dee, I would do anything.
Even this.
CHAPTER 38
Chris
It was Caesar we caught up to first, slow and stiff, but doggedly making a play to keep up with the rest of the pride. But for current circumstances, I would have thought, Good on him, and thrown him thoughts of silent support. Encouraging him and the others toward the hunters, though, wasn’t in any of our best interests, even if no respectable hunter would target a gravely injured youngster. These were men, however, who thought nothing of stranding Dee and me in the bush 50 miles from anywhere.
Portia paced the distance back and forth between her cub and the rest of the pride anxiously. I admired her loyalty and selflessness. Not only did I understand those qualities in my head, for the first time I felt them in my heart. It wasn’t about any one of us alone. Despite popular opinion, a pride wasn’t only as strong as its weakest member. Without the bonds of loyalty, love and trust, a pride was nothing more than a group of arrogant opportunists banded together only for personal safety and personal gain.
Without those deep interpersonal bonds, a pride lacked the heart of its success. It wasn’t a family.
I gripped the rifle tighter and set my teeth together. I had found my family. No one was going to mess with it now.
Dee nudged me and nodded toward a distant glint. The first rays of the rising sun haloed the helicopter settled like a great prehistoric beast on the veldt maybe half a mile away.
“Where’s Brutus?”
She gave a worried shake of her head. We both scanned the near shore where a herd of zebra gathered, stocking up on water before heading out for their morning graze. Beyond them was a small family of impala and beyond
them a handful of straggling wildebeests catching a drink.
A sudden splashing drew my eye. A brace of impala leapt from the pond, a disappointed crocodile lunging impotently from the water after them. Dee’s words echoed in my head: You choose a side—either predator or prey. Because out here there was always a winner, always a loser.
By default, I had chosen predator. By design, I sure as hell knew I wasn’t going to be prey.
Then I saw the top of Brutus’ mane moving between the scrawny patches of tufted grass that ringed the circle of bare shore around the pond.
“Damn.”
The same frustration Dee voiced slammed into me. Brutus would choose today to do some active hunting on his own rather than hang back in the shadows letting the lionesses do the work. And if it was this easy for us to spot him…
Dee struck off, moving quickly from one brush thicket to the next along a drunken arc that spanned the distance between Brutus and the helicopter. Somewhere along that path she expected to find the hunters. I followed close behind, scanning the hectares of veldt that could hide two men as easily as it hid us.
As usual, Dee’s instincts were dead on.
I signaled her with a sharp slap to the back of her shoulder. Immediately she halted and dropped into a crouch beside me. A hundred yards to our right, our quarry was setting up his shot. Only one rifle was aimed at Brutus, more evidence he was a paying customer and the man standing next to him was his bush pilot and tracker.
Not that it mattered who pulled the trigger.
Dee pointed to a thicket angled just behind the men that was half again as close to them as we were now. We’d have to get that much closer for our weapons to have any hope of real threat.
Crouched low behind a fringe of brush, we ran.
Not just ears but every pore open for the sound of rifle shot, I prayed we’d be in position before Brutus charged his prey across the bare strip of shore between the sparse bit of sheltering grass he hid in now and the pond. That was the shot the hunter was setting up for, anticipating where Brutus would break free of the grass and he could get a clean kill.
At this distance, he’d have only one chance.
Like me.
Dropping to a knee, I took aim.
I couldn’t actually see his trigger finger, but I did see his body posture settle—resolved, ready. I felt him start to squeeze the trigger as Brutus lunged toward a zebra foal.
Dee jumped up, waving her arms and shouting. Distracting the hunters but more, I thought, hoping to distract Brutus.
I had no idea about the lion, but the hunter on the rifle hesitated just the split second I needed.
I fired, aiming high, knowing the dart would drop as it flew. It struck him in the side just below his ribs, burying deep. Nice and clean. At the same moment, not an eye blink in between, his rifle exploded, recoil and tranquilizer knocking the hunter to the ground.
I risked a glance Brutus’ way, saw him power down his targeted zebra, unfazed by Dee’s crazed-woman impression and unaware of the bullet’s aim that had just been spoiled.
The lionesses, however…
I blinked.
Sheba and Portia and Nana bounded our way, rushing our position, Cleo tailing behind.
The pilot raised his rifle, but Dee was already on him, her .38 aimed squarely at his chest.
I scrambled to load another dart.
Dee whuffed at the lions. They pulled up short, but their reluctance at that was plain. Nana snarled and Sheba’s low growl chilled even me. These were the same lions who had tracked down a leopard, dispatching it with extreme prejudice.
“If you want your client alive enough to pay you, you’d better get him out of here now.” The unveiled threat in Dee’s voice was nearly as chilling as Sheba’s.
The lionesses crowded around Dee and me, anxious, protective. The pilot’s rifle wavered, but he didn’t drop it, more frightened of the lions than Dee’s pistol.
By then I had another dart loaded. “Wonder what it would feel like to wake up half-eaten,” I mused.
The pilot eyed the tranq gun. “You wouldn’t.”
If he understood English, I was pretty sure he understood I would.
I shrugged. “Don’t much care if I have to shoot you or the lions with it.” I gestured and, eyes still locked on the lions milling at our feet, he lowered his rifle.
Dee moved in, Sheba at her side, step for step, and took the rifle from the pilot’s numb fingers. “I do care. And I can promise you I’m not shooting my lions.” Holstering her .38, she picked the unconscious hunter’s rifle up off the ground. “Listen carefully. If you think I have any sort of control over these lions, that could be the last mistaken thought you’ll ever have. Because honestly, I have no idea what they’ll do next.”
Nor did I, which is why I wasn’t letting down my guard even though the hunters’ weapons were secured. The pilot hesitated, still eying Sheba, not five feet away. “Like the lady suggested, get your friend out of here. Now. And if you’re thinking of coming back, I guarantee this place will be swarming with police and media—because we’re That. Big. A. Deal.”
I could have helped the pilot pack the unconscious man the half mile to the chopper, but I wasn’t feeling in a generous mood. In fact, I rather hoped one of the lionesses would follow them. They stayed with us, though, as we watched until the helicopter lifted off and sped away. This time, through the air rifle’s binocular sight, I memorized the numbers on its side.
“Dammit!”
I raised my eyebrows Dee’s way.
“I bet they had a radio.”
I grinned. “That would have brought a rescue team out here today instead of some time next week after I don’t get on my flight back to the States. I think I can stand a few more days out here marooned with you.”
“Yeah? I don’t know how long our batteries will last.” She looked pointedly at the handheld tethered to her chest. Only then did I realize our heroics had been caught on video. Shaky, frantic Blair Witch-style vidoegraphy no doubt, but caught. Could I love Dee any more than at that moment?
“You better not need batteries for what I have planned.” I winked, shut the camera off, then leaned down and kissed her.
CHAPTER 39
Dee
Kissing Chris was intoxicating. He tasted like Africa—strong, hot and exotic—and felt like…family.
At the touch of his arms around me, I began to shake, an uncontrollable trembling that was part Chris, part lions, part delayed reaction to the stress of contemplating shooting another human being. I would have done it, too, had he given me cause. No matter how much more that might have made me shake afterward.
Safe in the shelter and security of Chris’ arms, I allowed myself to be weak. Allowed him to play my White Knight, my Prince Charming. For two full minutes I surrendered to the screen image of Chris Corsair. It felt good—amazingly and phenomenally good, in fact.
More so, even, when Chris lavished praise on me. “You were stunning,” he breathed as we parted from our kiss, my trembling soothed by his heat and strength and the close comfort of his arms.
“You were pretty awesome out there yourself,” I said.
“Well, it takes a real man to stay pretty in the face of danger.”
Always with the snarky comebacks. Though, as I thought about it, most of them were either innuendo or self-effacing. Innuendo I put down simply to learned play between the sexes. The self-effacing ones—they pointed to a more interesting and more complex personality. The arrogant Chris Corsair would never demean himself. The more affable Christopher Darnelle, however, had no reservations about making fun of his screen self. A true meta experience.
The first step, I thought, in changing a pride and arrogance issue was self-awareness, admitting that it was a problem. The second step was playing to it. The third step, making fun of it. The fourth step…
The fourth step was making others proud of you by becoming a person worthy of the merit you assumed you deserved. All this
week, Chris had been doing just that—living up to an incredibly idealistic image, proving to me the level of extreme substance behind that self-confidence.
All he had left now was to embrace step five: humility.
It was going to be hard to show that humility, walking as he now did in the company of lions.
The pride gorged themselves on the feast Brutus had provided. Caesar was steadier now as he took a place beside them, the corner to his recovery turned.
“He’s looking strong again,” Chris said. “They all are. Safe and happy and content.”
I nodded.
“Then why are you looking so sad?”
“Because I can’t stay. Because wild hearts should never be tamed.”
“Is that your choice to make for them?”
It was almost too hard to do, but I nodded. “Because that’s what love is—the ability to make the hardest choice for the welfare of those you care about.”
“Is love always so hard?”
“Maybe not in the movies, but what I’ve known of it in real life, yes.”
“If it hurts so much, maybe you aren’t doing it right.”
I glared at him. “What do you know about love?”
“Only what I’m learning as I go along.” He smiled at me—not that sinfully sexy grin that always seemed a little predatory and a lot agenda-driven, but a real smile that came from the heart.
I looked away, not trusting that smile, but he took my hand to hold in the comfort of his own. “So what will you do?”
I shrugged, not because it was a trivial question, but because it was too overwhelming. “Leave when you do, whenever they come out to find us.” I had no idea who they might be, but I had faith someone would come for Chris.
“And go where?”
“Mozambique, maybe. Or Madagascar. I haven’t really had time to decide.”
“How about California—Los Angeles, Hollywood?”
I sucked in breath. What exactly was he asking?
Proud Hearts (Wild Hearts Romance Book 2) Page 19