Mason: The Lost Billionaires, Book 1

by Allison LaFleur

  “No, Mason. Let me,” I put a hand on his chest. “I’m lighter. We have no idea how deep it is or how far it goes. If I get stuck or something happens you’ll have to pull me out. You’re bigger and too heavy for me to pull out.”

  Backing up, he nodded, reluctantly conceding my point. “I still don’t like the idea. You could get hurt.” Hacking off a long a long, sturdy branch he handed it to me. “Use this to probe ahead of you.”

  Tapping the ground in front of me, I felt it get soggy and then turn to squishy mud. I stepped cautiously into the mud and squealed as I felt it squish between my toes. It was only ankle-deep at first, but as I approached the center, I sank to my knees. Pushing on, I was able to wade out the other side.

  “Be careful,” I told Mason. “I didn’t feel any holes, but the mud is pretty thick, and it tries to suck you down.” I grabbed some banana leaves and tried to wipe some of the sticky mess off my pant legs and shoes. “The stick helps with balance. You might want to cut one too.”

  Bushwhacking through the jungle meant we progressed very slowly. Parachute material is super lightweight, so we’d brought quite a bit of it with us. When it started to get dark, we began scanning the area for something we could turn into a safe place to sleep.

  “I don’t think I can walk anymore today, Mason, and it’s going to be dark soon. I think we need to find a place to stay for the night.”

  “What will make you comfortable?” he asked. “There are no hotels around here.”

  “Well, I brought some stuff to make hammocks with. I really don’t want to sleep on the ground. I don’t like bugs, and I especially don’t like snakes. I have a feeling this jungled is crawling with both.”

  “Let’s see what we come across. Nothing around here looks like a good place to call home for the night.” Mason surveyed the thick jungle around us. “It’s just more thickets, bushes, and scrub. Not even any sturdy trees.”

  We walked for another hour before Mason spotted a contender. “What about that?”

  He’d found a giant chilamate tree. Its long roots provided lots of places to string our makeshift hammocks. It was really just a rectangle of parachute material gathered and tied at each end with a length of parachute cord. The hammock would get us up off the ground, and a square of mesh tossed over the parachute cord ridgeline would, if we were lucky, keep most of the mosquitos away.

  “Mason? What is that?” I asked, pointing to something moving in the bushes. A scaly triangular head could be seen at the front of a slithering length weaving through the leaves.

  “Oh shit,” Mason huffed out, stepping in front of me and putting out an arm to keep me back.

  “Let me see, Mason. What is it?” I tried to elbow my way forward enough to see. I hate snakes, but I hated it more knowing there was one about but not where it was.

  “Stay back, Kinsey. It’s a giant snake.” Mason was a rock, immovable. I wasn’t going to get around him enough to see.

  “I can see that. Is it leaving?” Craning my neck, I tried to see past him.

  “No!” His voice boomed as he tried to push me further back so he could slowly back away. Then all hell broke loose.

  Striking everywhere and in all directions, arcs of venom glittered through the air as the massive snake sprayed at everything that moved. The pale yellow liquid flew more than six feet all around it.

  “Holy shit!” I gasped, eagerly tucking myself behind Mason as he hefted the crash axe in one hand.

  “That’s a fer-de-lance,” he said, still backing away from the furious, writhing snake.

  “A what?” My voice was shaking, and my limbs trembled.

  “A pit viper. It’s killed more humans than any other snake in the world. I’ve read about them but never seen one.”

  Suddenly lunging forward and swinging the axe at the approaching viper, Mason cut the head clean off. Rolling to the side, the severed head kept snapping and spitting venom.

  “Mason, I don’t want to stay here.” I said, even though it was a perfect spot to hang our hammock. I couldn’t even look in the direction of the twitching, dead snake.

  Mason

  I could tell Kinsey really didn’t want to walk anymore, but she kept moving forward, glancing back over her shoulder as though we were being pursued. The snake encounter had really rattled her. I was just glad neither of use was hurt.

  The fer-de-lance had been vicious, and we were lucky neither of us had been struck by the flying venom. The pale yellow liquid would have made our skin bubble had it struck us. That was an enormous snake, its body as thick around as my arm. If I’d missed with the ax, neither one of us would still be walking.

  We started going downhill. The terrain was steeper, and the heat and humidity was sucking all the fluid from our bodies. We quickly blew through several bottles of water. Our supply was dwindling, and there were no fresh water sources in sight.

  The muck pulled harder on my sneakers, making it more difficult to walk, and slowing us down. Kinsey didn’t say a word. She followed in silence behind me.

  As the day grew hotter, the mosquitos began attacking, getting their fill of blood from both of us.

  “Come here.” I stopping and pulling Kinsey toward me.

  “Mmmph,” she said, so tired she could barely speak.

  Turning her around, I opened her pack and pulled out a short length of netting, draping it over her head and tucking it into the collar of her shirt. “Here. This will help.”

  Nodding slightly, she resumed plodding down the trail. Trying to keep the thickets of thorns from slicing into her arms, she twisted and bent her body around the thick bush. Finally, she stopped before a series of fallen trees. There was no way to cross them. We were forced to crawl on all fours, to weave under and through them before we resumed our trek up the next ankle busting ridge.

  The hours passed as we dipped and climbed higher into the jungle, the miles blurring into one unending trail of heat, humidity, muck and misery. Near the top of one ridge, we came to a small clearing. It offered no massive chilamate trees or anything big enough to try our makeshift hammocks to, so we had to improvise. We piled banana leaves six inches high to make a mattress, and covered ourselves with the net.

  “Mason, are you asleep?” Kinsey’s voice flowed over me, pulling me from my reverie. I was lying there, picturing my Jacuzzi bathtub filled to the brim with hot, steamy water, and an ice bucket holding a chilled bottle of champagne. In my mind, I could see condensation dripping from the bottle and forming cold puddles on the edge of the tub.

  “No,” I ground out. Our banana leaf bed was not nearly as comfortable as the hot tub I had been imagining.

  “What are we going to do?” She said in a small voice, rolling over toward me in a wasted attempt to get more comfortable.

  Stars twinkled through the canopy above us and played peek-a-boo as the winds shifted the tops of the tallest trees. “We are going to keep going.” Pausing, I thought about it. We had barely covered five miles. The terrain was so rough, the undergrowth so thick, we couldn’t make any steady progress.

  “We’re almost out of water, Mason. We walked all day and are only a few miles from the plane. Even in the little bit we covered, we saw no signs of other humans anywhere.” Flipping over on her back, she pulled the netting a little further over herself. The whine of mosquitos and the chirps of tree frogs served as haunting background music to the occasional mournful cry of a jaguar echoing through the night from a near distance.

  “I don’t know how, but we will make it out of here,” I promised. “I refuse to die forgotten in some godforsaken jungle.” I squeezed my eyes shut. “Tomorrow we’ll get up and do it again. And we will do it every day until will figure out how to get out of here.”

  Chapter 18

  Kinsey

  The clearing was just starting to lighten when I crawled out from under the net, shook out my shoes, and stumbled a short distance into the scrub to relieve myself.

  Dropping my pants and squatting, I pee
d quickly. The mosquitos found my tender flesh and began feasting on my rear the instant it was exposed. You never realize how much you count on toilet paper and fresh water until you have to ration both. Two squares, that’s all I allowed myself, and there was no fresh water to spare.

  Standing and adjusting my clothes, I tucked my shirt into my pants and my pants into my socks. The fewer openings for things to crawl in, the better, I reasoned. Then I staggered back to our makeshift bed.

  “Can we go?” I asked Mason, prodding him with a toe to rouse him.

  “Yeah, we can go.” He squinted into the dawn light. “Just as soon as I figure out how to make my body work again. Right now it’s really mad at me and doesn’t want to move.”

  “Hah! You’re funny. Get moving, hot stuff.” I yanked the net off of him and folded it up to store in my bag. Packing away everything except a bottle of water and two granola bars, our morning food ration, I was ready and waiting to go while he was still rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

  “Oh, shit!” Mason suddenly jumped to his feet and stumbled backward.

  “What? What happened?” I exclaimed rushing to his side and running my hands up and down his limbs. “What hurts? Are you hurt?”

  “Kins, I’m okay. I’m okay. I’m sorry. He just startled me.”

  “He? He who? Who’s here?” I looked around, still not understanding.

  “The black scorpion in my shoe,” Mason said, capturing my hands in his and pulling me down to sit with him. “I shook my shoes out before putting them on and a big scorpion fell out. I really wasn’t expecting it, but I’m okay.”

  Crying, I crumpled into him. The stress and strain of the crash and the uncertainty of our future washed over me. Wrapping his arms around me, he just let me sob until I was cried out. Rubbing my back and making soothing noises, he rocked me as the fruit bats banked and dived above us, filling their bellies full of tasty mosquitos.

  “I want to go home.” Sniffling, I raised red-rimmed, tear-filled eyes to look at him.

  “Me too. Kins. Me too.” He wiped a knuckle across my cheek, catching a tear.

  Sitting up and wiping my wet cheeks, I was suddenly done crying. A wave of determination washed over me. “Let’s go. I want to get out of this godforsaken jungle as fast as we can.”

  “Alrighty then,” Mason said, startled by the sudden change in my demeanor. Leaning my way, he used a thumb to rub something on my cheek. “You missed a spot. I think the rest of the dirt is on my shirt.”

  “Oh no!” I looked at his shirt and the smudgy wet mess I’d left on the front of it. He was right; I had smeared dirt all over him.

  Chuckling, he winked. “Now that’s better. You have some color in your cheeks again.” He shook out his shoes one last time before he slipped them on and stood. He helped me to my feet, and placing a quick kiss on my forehead first, he handed me my pack. “Let’s go home.”

  Mason

  That day was no easier. After an hour of walking, near-biblical rains began to fall, pounding through the trees and down onto us with unrelenting ferocity. It ran down my face, dripped off my nose, and soaked my clothes and shoes. What started as a shitty day became even shittier.

  “Kinsey,” I shouted over the roaring rain, “come over here.” I gestured toward a banana tree with big leaves. It would provide some shelter until the storm passed. Huddling together, we crouched under the leaves and watched the rain fall.

  “Mason!” Kinsey suddenly straightened, her eyes lighting up. “It’s raining!”

  “Yes, babe, it is raining.”

  “No, Mason, I mean it’s raining! Fresh water!” She twisted and dug into her pack, pulling out several empty plastic water bottles. Wriggling out of the space we had tucked ourselves into, she held a bottle under the tip of a banana leaf, funneling precious fresh water into her bottle until it overflowed.

  “You’re a genius, Kinsey!” I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of it. In an instant she had solved one of our deadliest problems—our lack of water. We both filled every empty bottle we had, downing several and refilling them. We drank until we were satisfied and then drank some more.

  After a few hours of staring into the rain, Kinsey announced, “I’m taking a shower.” She proceeded to strip naked and step out into the monsoon, lifting her face to the sky and standing perfectly still like a marble goddess. She let the water course over every curve and dip of her body, running in rivulets down her skin and washing away the horrors of the last few days.

  I couldn’t stand it. She was too beautiful, and the events of the last few days had thrown us together. The more time I spent with her, learning about her, the more attractive she became. Her mind and heart were just as beautiful as her drop-dead gorgeous packaging.

  Shedding my clothes, I draped both hers and mine over nearby bushes to let nature rinse them clean. Then I stepped out into the rain with her. Placing my hands on either side of her face I leaned in, touched my lips to hers, and delighted in the warmth I found there. She opened her eyes and looked into mine. Then she leaned into the kiss, bringing her hands up to my shoulders.

  After a moment, I pulled back and ran my hands from her face down to her shoulders and then down to her breasts. I tweaked the pebbling tips of her nipples, and they puckered tight in the cold rain. Wrapping my big hands around her rib cage right beneath her heaving breasts, I kissed her again. I laid a trail of kisses down her jaw, across her shoulders, and along her collarbone.

  Her head fell back, and she gave in to the feeling, reveling in the heat of my mouth on her skin as my kisses trailed lower and lower to the short blonde curls at the apex of her thighs. Parting her nether lips I licked between them, searching for her pearl. I found it with my tongue and lapped at it, making her writhe in pleasure as the tension fell away. She was overcome with pleasure.

  Easing her down to the wet earth, I hooked both her thighs over my shoulders. Little mewling noises escaped her, and she ran her finger through my hair as I licked and sucked at her bud. Her legs trembled and locked around me.

  “Oh my God, Mason. Oh my God!” Her voice rose with ecstasy as she cried my name. “I can’t, I just…”

  “Just let go, Kinsey,” I said as I gently rubbed her bead with one finger. “Let yourself feel.” I whispered gently as I found her opening with my other hand. “Relax. Let it come.”

  Sliding first one finger, and then another into her slick opening, I began to ease them in and out, watching her lovely face as I resumed my oral adoration of her clitoris. I could feel swelling beneath my lips, throbbing at the tip of my tongue.

  She grabbed my hair with both hand, forcing me deeper as her hips rocked to my rhythm. Her back arched and blond cascaded down off her shoulders. “I’m gonna come, Mason!” It was a warning and a cry for permission all at once.

  “Let it happen,” I said, drinking in the sight of her. “Come for me, Kinsey.” I increasing the pressure on her button and plunged my fingers in and out of her even faster.

  Suddenly, she was bucking against my mouth. Her inner muscles clenched around my fingers like a vice. She quivered as her orgasm flooded out of her, soaking my fingers and unshaven chin.

  “Oooooh!” She threw her head back and moaned her release into the rain.

  When she was done, she lay limp beneath me, delectable, wet and ready. I rolled her over onto her hands and knees and pulled her back toward me. Her ass was round and perfect in my hands. She folded her arms and rested her head on them, her back arching perfectly.

  I took a moment to drink in the arousing sight before plunging into her from behind, my engorged cock spearing her, splitting her wet folds. I threw my head back and groaned at the feel of her velvet channel. Slamming in and out of her, my hips pumped from pure animal instinct. I couldn’t think or control my body. My cock swelled thicker, harder than I’d thought possible. I was a slave to my lust for her.

  Kinsey came alive under me. She pushed back, her hips meeting my every thrust. I could feel her channel begi
n to clench and spasm around my shaft as second orgasm began to rise. A hot wave flooded out from her as she moaned loud, unrestrained into pounding rain. Our primal dance went on, our bodies moving perfectly in time with each other, our release coming nearer. She threw her head back, and I grabbed a handful of her flaxen hair.

  We came as one.

  Chapter 19

  Kinsey

  The new day dawned and we seemed no closer to the coast than the day before. I stretched, enjoying the weighty presence of Mason next to me. His bulk reminded me I was not alone. My body was still humming from the night before. My nipples tightened at the thought of his touch.

  The jungle was coming to life around us and the air filled with exotic and frightening sounds. Sitting up, I realized I needed to relieve myself, and I wanted a shower badly. The beautiful memory of our encounter quickly faded

  Trudging east again, day after day, I was losing hope we would ever get out of the jungle. Mason and I didn’t have enough food to hike forever. Even rationing, which we had done from the beginning, we were running low. We’d been hiking for a week and my energy was as limited as our supplies.

  The sun directly beat down on us, and I stopped for a moment to pull out Ricardo’s pilot hat. Setting it on top of my ratty hair, I enjoyed the shade it offered, but only for a moment. Immediately, the gnats flocked to the cool shadows it cast on my face.

  “Stupid gnats.” I waved my hands around, but it did little to discourage the bugs. Diving into my pack again, I pulled out the square of mesh fabric I’d been using as a bug net. I tossed it over my head and tucked the edges into the collar of my shirt as Mason had on the first day to block the bugs’ assault on me and keep them out of my nose and mouth.

  He had forged a few yards ahead of me, leaving me behind to admire the ridges of his muscular back beneath his sweat-soaked shirt. I was lost in hungry thoughts when he suddenly turned and ran back toward me, slipping and sliding on the wet leaves in a panic.