She raised a perfectly manicured eyebrow at him, as though daring him to give her a job.
Lake’s lips twitched. “You’re liaison with local law enforcement. Keep them off our back. We can’t trust them, and I don’t want them anywhere near this search.”
“Consider it done.” She inclined her head as though she were a queen deigning to listen to a commoner.
“Any questions?” Lake looked at each of them, but there was silence. “Good. Gather your gear. Make sure each team has a satphone and plenty of water on them. We meet in an hour.”
The team dispersed, hurrying to get ready for a long day searching the Amazon forest.
“I have a couple of questions,” Ryan said to Elle, who was busy overlaying an aerial map of the search area with a grid outlining its coordinates. “Did Grunt tell Joe about the kidnapping?”
“Yeah,” Elle said. “Joe decided to keep the news from Julia for a while longer.”
“At least it was his call and not one of the bosses’.” Although Ryan wouldn’t like being in Joe’s shoes if the final news he had to give his new wife was bad.
“What’s the other question?” Elle said.
“I don’t suppose anyone asked for me while I was in the hospital?”
She cast him a sideways glance. “You mean like the million people here who all love and worry about you?”
“Apart from them.” He waved a hand. “Never mind.” He pushed back his chair. “I’m going to my cabin. I need to get changed and get my weapons out of the safe.”
“Mm-mm,” Elle said with a knowing smile. “Make sure all you get while you’re in there is your weapons. We’ve no time for you to get anything else.”
With a smile, Ryan hurried out of the ballroom and straight for his cabin, where he hoped Esperanza had made herself at home and was, somehow, miraculously, still waiting for him. Or had at least left a note telling him how to get in contact. Because he very much wanted contact with her. Full body contact.
Chapter 16
“I’m starving.” Belinda placed a hand on her rumbling stomach. “How long can people go without food, anyway?”
Beast strode through the jungle in front of Belinda, keeping his eyes open for anything that looked like it might jump out at him. He wasn’t proud of losing it when the spider landed on him. But, in his defence, it had been big enough to eat his head.
“Forty days. That’s how long you can go without food. You ate at the reception dinner. You aren’t starving.”
“It feels like I’m starving. I’ve been hungry before. Usually before a premiere or a red carpet event. But I’ve never felt like I might die if we don’t eat within the next five minutes.”
“That still isn’t starvation. When you’ve gone a week with nothing in your stomach, talk to me then.”
She muttered something, but he couldn’t catch it over the noise of the insects swarming around them, and the monkeys in the trees overhead. He had a suspicion that they were being followed by a troop of monkeys. Obviously, Belinda’s constant chatter wasn’t a deterrent to the animals. But then, the monkeys never shut up either.
“I think it’s too dangerous to eat the fruit,” Belinda said. “I don’t recognise half of this stuff, and I don’t know what’s poisonous and what isn’t.”
“Didn’t they cover that in the many books you read when you weren’t making movies?” And yeah, he sounded sarcastic.
“Yes, they did, but I was more interested in the stories about animals and how to make shelter. Which, might I remind you, we don’t have because your oversized body broke the hammock.”
He wasn’t going into it again. They were hot, tired and running on adrenalin. It was natural to want to relieve pressure by arguing. Or by having sex. Nope. He wasn’t going to think about that either. He reached down to adjust the confining crotch of his pants.
“Can’t you catch us some fish and cook it over an open fire?” Belinda said.
Beast stopped and turned to face her. Her focus was on the ground, not on him, and she ran straight into him. Wide blue eyes looked up at him.
“What?”
“Catch some fish? Cook it? Hollywood, didn’t you hear me when I told you about my childhood? I didn’t spend my formative years camping out with the Boy Scouts. If you want to know how to dumpster-dive, I’m your man. Catching and cooking food ain’t in my bag of tricks.”
Her face softened and she placed a hand on his shoulder. He felt her touch burn through his body, raising his temperature in an environment where it was already perilously high. For the first time in his life, he almost understood why his mother had lost herself to crack cocaine, because the woman in front of him could easily become his addiction. As soon as he was within reaching distance of her, he wanted to forget all about their circumstances and the danger they were in, and spend his time with her beneath him. When he was around her, he became someone else. Someone who could only think of Belinda Collins and his need for her. It was a disturbing realisation.
“I’m sorry you know that stuff,” she said. “No kid should know how to go through bins for food.”
He shrugged the comment off. He knew a whole lot worse than that. Dumpster-diving was the least of his down-and-dirty skills. The year he’d spent on the streets as a teen taught him all sorts of things that would freak the life out of a Hollywood princess.
She took a deep breath and her hand dropped to her side, making him itch to snatch it back up and return it to his shoulder. “I think fish is the way to go. You can’t really get poisoned from eating well-cooked fish, and I hear piranha is tasty.”
His eyebrows shot up. “You want me to catch fish that eat people? You want to eat them?”
She rolled her eyes, like he was somehow being overly dramatic. “Piranha don’t eat people. That’s been blown all out of proportion. They’re attracted to blood. There are lots of them in the river. Just don’t bleed and it will be fine.”
She said it like she was telling him to walk to the grocery store and pick up some milk.
“Okay, assuming we even find a river, which”—he made a pointed show of looking around—“doesn’t look like it’s gonna happen soon, what do we do when we catch this man-eating fish?”
“You cook it, John.” Her voice softened on his name, and she licked her lips as though waiting for him to lose it again.
The funny thing was that he had no desire to tell her not to call him John. On her lips, in that sexy English accent of hers, it sounded like nothing he’d ever heard before. It was as though she made it new, somehow. The memories he associated with his name were gone. But only for her. Only from her lips.
Damn, he was losing his mind when it came to this woman.
“Hollywood, I don’t know how to cook.”
“You’ve never barbecued? You’ve never slapped some steaks on a grill?”
“No. I eat out.”
“I thought grilling was genetic. I thought men were born knowing how to set fire to food.”
“Why don’t you cook this mythical fish?”
Her eyelashes lowered. “I can’t cook either. I have a chef.”
And there it was. The ever-present proof that they lived in completely different worlds. “Of course you have a chef. You probably only drink water out of gold-plated goblets as well.”
Her eyes narrowed. “I save the gold-plated goblets for wine. And here I was, thinking I was talking to the man, but I’m right back talking to that chip on your shoulder. Yes, I was born wealthy. Yes, I make a lot of money and I’m wealthy in my own right now. Yes, I employ people. I’m a business.” She waved a hand down her body. “The brand is Belinda Collins. I have employees. Don’t tell me you wouldn’t employ household staff if you had money. There isn’t a sane person in the world who wants to do their own cleaning.”
“Listen to yourself.” Beast felt his ire rise. “Who says stuff like ‘household staff’?”
“Normal people who can afford to employ them.” She glared up at him.
“You really need to deal with that chip, John, or you’re going to end up a sad and lonely old man.”
“Just the way I want it, baby.” He turned and stalked away.
The parting shot would have been more effective if a piece of mystery fruit hadn’t flown out of the canopy and hit him square in the back. He stilled as the monkeys overhead hollered. Beast just knew they were laughing at him.
He glared back at Belinda, who was looking suspiciously innocent. “I’m sure they didn’t mean to do that.”
He grumbled and turned back to the direction they were heading. And another piece of fruit hit his head. The monkeys went wild, and he could hear Belinda smother a laugh. Beast hated the damn jungle. There was no end to his humiliation. Insects, spiders, monkeys—they were all out to get him. He squared his shoulders, gritted his teeth and charged forward. The sooner he got out of the Amazon, the better.
He hoped to hell the monkeys would get fed up and leave him alone. He didn’t need to deal with any more wildlife. He already had his hands full with Belinda. Nobody on the planet made him madder, with her superior, entitled, privileged world-view. She didn’t have a clue how the other half lived. None. Household staff! He smacked a large palm leaf out of the way and strode past it.
And the world disappeared from under him.
One second John was stomping along in front of her grumbling to himself, shrugging off monkey fruit attacks and nurturing the black mood he’d been in ever since he’d fallen through the hammock. The next, he was gone. With a startled yelp, Belinda rushed forward to see what’d happened—and screeched to a halt at the edge of a ravine.
She stared down the steep incline in utter shock as John slid on his back, over plants and bushes. He bounced off trees, like a pinball in a machine, all the way down to the edge of the lake beneath them. Belinda covered her mouth and winced every time he hit something hard. That had to hurt.
At last, he slid to a halt at the bottom of the ravine, with his feet in the water in front of him. And then things got infinitely worse. Because the heads of several giant otters bobbed out of the water to watch him.
Belinda’s eyes shot to John. He hadn’t seen them yet. He was focused on sitting up, ready to stand.
“Don’t move!” Belinda called, hoping it was loud enough for him to hear, but not so loud that it freaked the otters out further.
John stilled. Belinda let out a breath as the otters started calling to each other. John’s head came up and he stared at the animals, who stared back at him.
“Back off slowly. Really slowly. If you can get up a tree, that would be best.”
At six feet in length, the giant river otters of South America, with their powerful limbs, sharp claws and razor-sharp teeth, could easily take on a caiman. If they saw John as a threat, he didn’t stand a chance.
“I’ll distract them.” Belinda kept her voice low and even. “You move slowly. There’s a tree behind you to your right. Get up it.”
He crab-walked back towards the tree, moving as slowly as possible.
The noise level from the otters increased and the adults headed towards the shore. They were moving straight at him. Belinda didn’t know if they were curious, or if they saw John as a threat to their babies, and she didn’t want to wait to find out.
“Over here!” she shouted, in the hope of getting their attention off John. “Hey you! Over here! Look at me!”
The animals’ heads rose, and Belinda inched her way down from the lip of the ravine, holding on to tree trunks for stability, moving at an angle to force their gaze from John.
“Everybody watch me,” she shouted. “John, get to that tree. Don’t make any sudden moves. Don’t stand up. Keep your appearance small and non-threatening.”
With only their heads visible as they bobbed in the water, they looked more like seals than the otters she’d seen in a zoo. A twig snapped under John, and their heads shot back around.
“No! Over here!” She waved her arms again, but they were watching the two of them now. She needed a bigger distraction. She looked around for one and her very shiny dress caught her attention. She whipped it over her head and started waving it around. Then, to add to the spectacle, she started singing Adele songs at the top of her voice. Singing them badly. Although, she didn’t think the otters cared if she was in tune or not.
Slowly, drawing as much attention as possible, Belinda made it halfway down the incline, glancing at John frequently to gauge his progress. Relief swamped her when she saw him step behind the large tree and start climbing. She kept singing and swinging her sparkly dress until he was high in the tree, sitting on one of the wide branches.
His attention was on her now, and she suddenly became aware that she was prancing around in her bra. For once, Belinda was more worried about her exposed skin attracting insect bites than the critical eye of a man. Now that John was safe, she turned her dress inside out, to minimise the glare from the sequins, and shrugged back into it. Then she silently sat down on a grassy ridge behind her to wait for the otters to lose interest in them.
She wrapped her arms around her knees and kept her eyes on the otters. Now that the danger had passed, and they were both far enough away from them to be safe, it was amazing to watch the animals. They gave up watching Belinda and John after a few minutes and went back to frolicking and playing in the water.
She wasn’t sure how long she sat there, but eventually the otters became bored with playing, climbed out of the lake on the far shore and disappeared into the forest. Belinda waited a few minutes to make sure they were gone, before she carefully made her way to the tree where John sat high in the branches.
“Wasn’t that amazing?” She grinned up at him.
“Hollywood, I nearly got eaten.” He shook his head as though she were a mystery to him.
“They wouldn’t have eaten you.” She wasn’t so sure, but the topic of otters eating humans hadn’t been covered in any of the books she’d read. “They eat fish. And”—she practically bounced with glee—“they only gad about in fresh water. That means the lake is clean and safe and we can have a bath. Isn’t that cool?”
His lips twitched as though he was fighting the urge to smile.
“Go on, John, you can do it. I know you can. Give me a smile.”
He shook his head, as the smile broke free. It was dazzling. The man was born to smile. It took her breath away and made her shiver with warmth.
“You’re nuts, you know that?” he said as he started to climb down the tree.
“A nut who’s going to have a bath!” Nothing could take away that joy. She felt like she’d been dirty for a year. “While we’re having a bath and washing our clothes,” Belinda said, mesmerised by the sight of his firm, round backside making its way down the tree, “maybe we can use the mosquito net to catch some fish.”
John landed with a thump at her feet. His shirt was ripped across the arm and down the back, and there was a piece missing from the bottom of his trouser leg.
“You okay?” Belinda said. “That looked rough.”
“Let’s just say what was left of my ego after the spider attack took a beating on the slide from hell.”
She winced. “Yeah, you aren’t doing very well on this trip, are you?”
“Hollywood,” he said with a sigh. “This isn’t a trip. It’s an escape.”
“Oh, yeah.” She knew that. Of course she did. It wasn’t her fault that there were parts of her escape she found exciting. Like seeing the white-lipped peccaries, the macaws, and the otters. She glanced up at John out of the corner of her eye. Yeah, there was a lot about this escape she found thrilling.
“Come on, crazy woman, let’s get cleaned up.”
“And catch fish,” she said hopefully as she followed him to the water’s edge.
“And catch fish.” He sounded so defeated that she almost laughed.
Chapter 17
They took turns washing in the lake, while the other kept a lookout. Because Beast was worried that som
ething would bite off his dick while he was in the water, he convinced Belinda they should keep their underwear on. It’d been partly true and partly out of desperation. He knew seeing her naked wasn’t going to do anything for his self-control, and he was already on edge when it came to the woman. One false move and he would fall.
They dried off on the edge of the lake, using the two parts of the ripped sheet.
“I can’t stand it,” Belinda said from behind Beast. “I need to wash my underwear too.”
He stilled. “You’re getting naked?”
“Yes. If it bothers you, don’t look, but I’m washing everything,” she declared. “I don’t know how well it will dry in this humidity, but I can’t stand the dirt anymore. We can camp here for the night, can’t we? I don’t think the otters will be back, but if we camp away from the lake, we should be fine. I don’t know what we’re going to sleep on, though. Do you think this water is safe to drink? It should be, shouldn’t it?”
He was becoming used to her incessant chatter when she was nervous. Sometimes, it even amused him, but right now, he was still focused on the naked part of their conversation.
“Are you sure about getting naked? Something might eat you.” Yeah, he really shouldn’t have put that thought in his head.
She laughed. “Don’t be daft. Now, do you think we can drink the water?”
Beast tried valiantly to drag his thoughts away from her stripping off the last of her clothes. He could do this. He could keep his eyes off her. It wasn’t hard.
“Not sure I want to drink water that had six huge, furry otters swimming in it,” he said. Good, he sounded calm. In control. He broke out in a sweat, as he realised it wouldn’t last.
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