by Claire King
She could feel him begin to fill her, and she took a sharp breath as he pulled back. Her need rose, and she wrapped her arms around him, urging him to give her more.
But he would not be rushed. He took every kiss, every inch into her, as though it would be his last. In near desperation, she ran her hands down the muscles of his back to his tight buttocks. She pressed her body into him, forcing him to surge forward, to push deeper into her as their legs locked in a tangle. Holding himself back, he could feel her clutch him deep inside, as he began a slow rhythm that she met with her own hips. They kissed each other’s ears, necks, shoulders—rocking faster, harder, whispering words that no one understood. When she was on the edge of hysteria, he cried out with a final plunge and felt her contractions.
As the hours passed, Olivia slept in Rafe’s arms. He carefully pulled her bra and panties back in place, rebuttoned her blouse, smoothed down her skirt and pulled his own clothes back on as best he could. Off and on he dozed, wary that the search for them continued, but smiling at the thought that he could not wait to inform the princess she snored.
Olivia shifted slightly, moving her shoulders. Ow! Was she sleeping on rocks? And why couldn’t she move her legs?
She reached out blindly and felt dirt under her hand. Well, for crying out loud, her tent wasn’t made out of…
She sat suddenly upright, banging her head on the hard-packed ceiling of the cave and getting a mouthful of sand. And dislodging the man who had been resting against her.
“Ow,” he muttered.
Her memory instantly cleared. Suddenly, she felt wary at the sight of this bandit who had overwhelmed her so easily.
“What are you doing?” she yelled. She spat sand out of her mouth. Oh, very ladylike, spitting, she thought. Look what I’m reduced to. “What are you doing?” she repeated when she received no answer.
Rafe lay blinking up at the ceiling, which was steadily sifting sand into his face. He ran his tongue around his teeth. They felt furry, like the roof of his mouth.
What was he doing?
He’d been dreaming of her. One of those woozy, heart-pounding erotic dreams he hadn’t had since he was a teenager. His face had been buried between her thighs, and she’d been moaning. He felt a little like moaning himself, he was so aroused.
“Were you asleep?” Olivia asked suspiciously.
“Was I asleep?” Rafe repeated dully.
“How could you fall asleep?” She shifted and tried to sit up.
“How could I fall—?”
Olivia peered out the opening of the cave and gave a little shriek of panic. “Oh, my God! It’s almost dark. What time is it?”
Rafe, still flat on his back, raised his wrist to his face and peered at the glowing dial of his watch. Did he know how to read a watch? He couldn’t remem—oh, there it was. His brain kicked sluggishly into first gear as some of the blood seeped uphill from his groin to his cranium.
“Six-forty-eight,” he answered.
“Six-forty-eight?” Olivia shrieked again. “How long have you been asleep?”
He was going to remind her that she’d been the first to fall asleep, but decided it took too much effort. He tried to lift his head to frown at her, at least, but decided halfway through that that was going to take too much effort, too. He closed his eyes again, instead. Maybe, if she’d stop that squalling for a minute, he could get back to the dream…
“Rafael!”
“What?” he snarled.
“I’ve got to get out of this hole!”
For the first time since he’d dragged her out of Cervantes’s party last night, Rafe heard an edge of panic in her voice. The passion that had brought her to a frenzy just hours before was now replaced with another kind of hysteria. Was it fear? he wondered, or a massive change of heart?
He reluctantly gave up the dream and rolled to his side—away from her, in case she could spot his rather embarrassing physical state in the dark of the cave—and peered out the opening.
“Wait here a minute,” he said, his voice husky.
“I can’t wait.” She was crowded up behind him, trying to shove him out the opening. “I have to get out.”
“Settle down,” he snapped. “I want to look around.”
“Well, you’d better do it quick.”
“Yes, princesa,” he said, and slid carefully out of the cave.
“You promised not to call me that,” Olivia said after him, wondering at her own exasperation.
Rafe stayed in a squat for a minute, then eased to a standing position, his cramped muscles screaming, his bruised ribs making it painful to breathe.
He listened to the desert for a minute. It was alive with the sound of dusk. A good sign. No growling Land Cruisers to disturb the nightly ritual of animals awakening from the heat of the day.
He leaned over and looked in the crevice.
“Okay,” he said, and Olivia shot out of the opening like a bullet from a gun.
“Oh man, oh man,” she was muttering. “Okay, this is the deal.” She was looking around rather wildly. Rafe stared at her, nonplussed. “I haven’t gone to the bathroom since last night, and I really have to go. I’m not particularly interested in you watching me, of course—”
The gracious, imperturbable Dr. Galpas was babbling; it was a fascinating thing to watch, Rafe thought. “—but then again, I don’t want to get bitten by scorpions tromping through the cactus, either. So I’m going to go right behind that clump of brush right there, and I want you to turn around and promise you won’t look.”
Rafe turned around obediently, smiling. “Okay, princesa.”
She hissed a well-seasoned swear word in English at him, making him chuckle. “You said you wouldn’t call me that anymore,” she said.
“That’s true. But it’s such a temptation.”
“Resist it.”
“I’ll try, but I haven’t been very good at resisting temptation with you.” He scratched thoughtfully at the beard on his face. “I may be reaching my limit again.”
“Ha!”
“You don’t believe that?”
“I don’t believe you’ve resisted temptation much where anything’s concerned. Smuggler.”
He chuckled evilly. “You don’t know what nasty things I’ve been tempted to do to you, Doctor. Since the moment I saw you come out of the little bathroom last night.”
Olivia stopped trying to smooth the wrinkles from her skirt and stared at his back. She didn’t want to think about the things he could do to her.
“I need to wash my hands,” she muttered crossly. “I need to wash my hair.”
Rafe turned around. “I imagine the facilities are not what you’re accustomed to.”
She put her hands on her hips. “You know, you are not required to make a snide comment every single time I open my mouth.”
“Probably not. But I enjoy it.”
She scowled at him. “And you’re just a naturally happy person.”
“That’s true,” he conceded.
She came out from behind the chaparral. “Uh-huh.” She looked around. “What are we going to do, now?”
“We’re going to wait for Bobby.”
“What time is it?”
Rafe glanced at his watch again. “Straight up seven.”
“Do you think—?”
“No. I don’t think. Look, now you turn around.”
Olivia glanced down at him. At least, he wasn’t sporting that enormous bulge anymore. She’d thought she was going to have a heart attack when she crawled out of that wretched little cave to have that staring her in the face.
She whipped around when she realized she was staring. To her mortification, she heard Rafe chuckle again.
“I wouldn’t be laughing if I were you,” she remarked over her shoulder. “I’ve seen a lot of movies about the conditions in Mexican prisons.”
“I’m not going to prison.”
“Drug running is a federal offense in Mexico,” she reminded him. “As is
kidnapping.”
“I didn’t kidnap you, Olivia,” he remarked reasonably. “You kidnapped you.”
“Whatever. Are you finished?”
“I’ll tell you when I’m finished. Unless you want to watch me?”
Olivia blushed. “No, thank you.” Finally, she heard a zip.
“Okay. You can turn around now.”
She turned, kept her eyes steadfastly on his. “Look, I hate to ruin what is probably the first jolly mood of your life, but you do see this is a pretty impossible situation you’ve gotten us into, here?”
“You got us into it. I would have been happy to finish the whole thing last night.”
“You would have wound up in a pool of your own blood on the floor of Ernesto’s bedroom, you idiot!”
Rafe smiled. “I didn’t say it was going to finish well. I just said finish.”
Olivia growled in frustration. “Okay—one, stop smiling. You’re making me nuts.”
“What does that mean, ‘making me nuts’?” he asked, just to watch her spark. His imprudent good mood was really starting to get out of control, he thought happily. He couldn’t logically think of a single reason he should feel this cheerful. Except that Olivia Galpas, who snored, was in his clutches.
“If I didn’t know better, I would think you knew,” she mumbled in English. She tossed up her hands. “Never mind what it means. Let’s try and concentrate on how we’re going to get out of this mess.”
“What mess?”
“What mess?” She gaped at him. “What mess? I’m starving, thirsty and filthy. I have missed my flight home. For all intents and purposes, I have been kidnapped from the home of a prominent local law enforcement officer. If my boss finds out…good heavens, if my family finds out, I’ll never be let out of the house again.” She pointed accusingly at Rafe. “And you say you’re stealing drugs from a man who, from what I witnessed last night, would like to kill you with his bare hands.”
Rafe rubbed at his front teeth with his finger. “That’s true,” he conceded amiably enough.
“We’re miles from the beach.”
“Yep.”
“And I’m assuming Ernesto controls that little airstrip outside town where I was supposed to catch a puddle-jumper to La Paz this afternoon.”
“Again, correct.”
She eyed him suspiciously. “Do you know what a puddle-jumper is?”
He rolled his eyes. “Do you imagine I’ve never watched television?”
“Okay. Whatever.” She chewed on her cheek for a minute. “Did I forget anything?”
“Your skirt is ripped, you have sand down your blouse and your feet hurt,” he pointed out helpfully.
“That’s right. And you should get your ribs looked at by a proper doctor.”
He grinned at her. “If you weren’t such a proper doctor, I could get that sand out for you.”
It was her turn to roll her eyes. “You could use a bath,” she said bluntly.
He nodded. “You, too.”
Her eyes narrowed on him. “And your feet are beginning to smell in those leather shoes.”
“Yours, too.”
“Because of your socks,” she huffed, insulted.
Rafe laughed. “Very nice. I save your pretty little feet from all kinds of bad, crawly, scratchy things by offering you my socks, and you disparage them right in front of me.”
“You wouldn’t have had to save my feet if you hadn’t dragged me halfway across Baja last night.”
“I wouldn’t have done that if you hadn’t tossed yourself into my arms in front of two hundred people.”
“Well, I wouldn’t have had to do that if you hadn’t jumped Ernesto.”
Rafe’s dark eyes blazed. “He was pinching your—”
“I know what he was doing,” she interrupted quickly.
“Yes!” He jabbed his index finger at her. “And I didn’t see you stopping him, even though your mouth was still wet from another man. What kind of woman are you?”
“I didn’t know you were still in the room!”
His mouth dropped open at that. “What difference does that make? You only would have stopped him if you’d known I was still there?”
“No! I never would have stopped him if I’d known you were still there!”
He threw his hands in the air, looked toward heaven. “She is trying to make me crazy,” he said.
“Now, listen, Rafael—”
His head dropped forward suddenly. “Quiet!”
Olivia’s mouth snapped closed.
Rafe cocked an ear, closed his eyes. “Back in the hole,” he whispered.
“Oh, no—”
In the blink of an eye, he was beside her. How did he move like that? she wondered briefly. He grasped the back of her neck with one strong hand, her wrist with the other.
“Now, wait a min—”
He didn’t wait for her to finish. He wrapped one foot around her ankle and pushed her. She went to her knees, and he dropped beside her. For the second time in just a few hours—and for only the second time in her entire life—Olivia was forcibly shoved in a direction she definitely did not want to go.
“I don’t think—”
“Shut up. Get in.”
When she continued to balk, he turned her face so she could see him. His black eyes were just one tick off deadly.
“Right. Now.”
Okay, well, there was just no arguing with a man who looked at you like that, Olivia thought, and scrambled obediently back into the cave.
Rafe scooted in after her, pulling the sage over the opening as before, although it was considerably darker now and Olivia found it hard to believe anyone would even see the low crevice, much less peek in. She certainly wouldn’t if she were passing by, and she considered herself unusually curious about these kinds of natural formations.
“Rafael,” she began, but his hand clamped over her mouth before she could finish. Smugglers were not only untrustworthy, she thought, furious with him. They were also unforgivably rude. He hadn’t let her finish any of the last six sentences she’d started.
She bit his palm. Hard. He didn’t release her, just leaned forward and took her earlobe between his teeth and clamped down. Hard.
She squealed against his hand.
“If you don’t be quiet, princesa,” he whispered into her sore ear. “You’re going to get us both killed. Now let go.”
Olivia opened her teeth.
“That’s better.” His hand hurt like hell. The little fiend had practically bitten through his skin. He leaned back slightly. “Are you going to be quiet?”
Olivia nodded, her eyes never leaving his. He could just see the glow of them in the waning light coming from the opening of the cave.
Rafe slowly removed his hand from her mouth. He dug the thumb of his other hand into the palm, pressing down on the bite mark. He shook his head, disgusted with himself. He could barely move, he was so turned on. Pathetic.
Olivia couldn’t see him very well, but she knew he was furious. It practically radiated off him.
The low rumble of a vehicle—a big one, Olivia thought, from the vibrations under her bottom, and close—finally reached her. So, it wasn’t Bobby, after all.
She felt a little sick.
If what Rafe had said about Ernesto was true, the bandit had most likely just saved her life. No matter that he did it for his own reasons—reasons she hadn’t quite figured out yet—it was still a very decent thing to do.
And for his trouble, she’d bitten through his hand.
She tapped him on his shoulder, found the muscle there as tense as a bowstring.
“Rafael,” she whispered.
“Shh.”
“I’m sorry I bit you.”
Rafe said nothing.
“Did you hear me?”
“Be quiet, Doctor.” And for God’s sake, stop blowing in my ear. He shifted uncomfortably.
“But I want to say—”
He turned as quickly as he could, given
the tight space, the sore ribs and the rushing of blood from his extremities to his groin.
“Olivia, shut the hell up.”
“Okay, I just wanted to say—”
Whatever it was she was about to say, she forgot in an instant as his mouth came over hers.
“Quiet,” he mumbled against her mouth. “Just be quiet.”
As his lips slid over hers, he thought to himself, Oh, yeah.
Chapter 6
Olivia was too surprised for a moment to react.
Not that Rafael appeared to care one way or the other. His mouth—oh dear, that mobile, magnificent mouth—simply worked away at hers just as though there were not a couple dozen men looking for them, at least two of whom were just outside.
Or, maybe, just as though there were.
What was that study she’d read in Senior Biology, about danger being an aphrodisiac?
Rafe slid his tongue along her bottom lip. “Open your mouth,” he ordered softly.
No, she couldn’t do that. She was supposed to be thinking about something. Something about why he was so excited. About why she, too—like a rocket had gone off in her toes and was surging up toward the top of her skull—was suddenly so excited.
He dragged his teeth across her lip. “Open,” he said roughly. “Kiss me back.”
And there was another reason she couldn’t open her mouth. What was it, what was it?
Dear God. This man was a dangerous criminal. It didn’t matter that he was less dangerous than some, that he did what he did for reasons he justified. He still did something illegal, something she abhorred in both practice and theory.
She pushed at him, but her limbs were pathetically weak. “Rafael,” she said. Rafe merely tightened his grip on her. “Rafael.”
She was saying something against his mouth, he knew. He just couldn’t for the life of him figure out what it was. He was desperate for her, felt as though he’d never been more desperate for a woman than he was now. In the dim distance he could hear the rumble of one of Cervantes’s tanks, but the sound only seemed to fuel the fire already burning out of control in his system.