by Olivia Gates
Had he vapor-locked, like an overheated engine? All the symptoms were there. Nothing was working and everything inside him was boiling over. Forming words, producing sound was agony now. “We’ll see!”
“As in, drop the subject until it’s forgotten? As in, get it through your head, I’m not inviting you to my home?”
There was mockery in her voice but it was the tinge of hurt that had him dragging burning eyes to hers and got his voice working. “I didn’t mean that…”
“Then invite me, Javier.”
What the hell! Invite her and let her see your life as it is and as you’ve chosen to live it. It isn’t as if she’d think of sharing it anyway. Just give her your invitation—your surrender, like that first night…
“Dr. Sandoval? They need you to sign the…the death certificate.”
Caridad. For the second time pulling him back from the precipice.
This time he didn’t want to step back. He craved the overpowering sweetness, the liberation of jumping to his doom.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“IT WASN’T all doom and gloom, y’know!”
Savannah heard herself giggling the words.
Oh, lord! She was having a breakdown! Could she sound more giddy and silly and frivolous?
Not that her audience thought so. The eyes locked on her flashed “pretentious”, “thoughtless”, “irritating” in ten-foot-high neon letters. And that was for starters.
Stop talking. Breathe. You don’t have to win anyone’s approval. You’re doing a rotten job of it anyway.
Oh, why was she here? Why had she insisted Javier take her to visit his family? Why couldn’t she stop talking? Why had she ever learned Spanish?
“Do you know how many operations we did?” she heard herself informing her clearly numbed listeners. “In twenty-eight days we totaled two thousand eight hundred fifty-six cases, over a hundred cases a day. And all of them followed up, too. I’d say that’s some achievement, even if Javier likes to look on the dark side—the patients we couldn’t help, I mean!”
Help! Somebody stop her. Oh, why wasn’t anyone saying anything?
They hadn’t said anything at all since they’d introduced themselves to her outside Javier’s tiny family hacienda. Afterwards, they’d just followed her and Javier inside to the small reception area and now sat, a grossly over-packed, silent audience, witnessing her make a fool of herself.
She just hadn’t thought there’d be so many of them!
Javier had said he had seven brothers and sisters. It turned out that was not counting Bibiana. And then there were his parents, his grandparents, on both sides, the in-laws, his aunts and uncles, his cousins, not to mention the children! All in all there were over a hundred of them. She’d stopped registering names after the first three dozen, had forgotten the ones she had registered.
His younger brother—Tadeo, or was he Severo?—had said they were gathered in full force like that for occasions only, birthdays, fiestas, funerals. Javier’s return after over a year away warranted the assembly. Just her luck!
Tadeo—or Severo—mercifully put an end to her prattling. “That is a great achievement. And we all know Javier is one of the world’s leading perfectionist-idealist-pessimists.”
Javier bowed his head nonchalantly, without taking his eyes off her. Was it any wonder she was on the edge of hysterical laughter? It was Javier’s focus, not the group’s, that was shorting out her restraint circuits. Not that the latter was helping. “My gloomy outlook aside, I’ve been telling Savannah we had to stop the mission to rest and get some real meals. Any to be had around here, madre?”
Javier’s teasing seemed to snap the invisible muffler that had been keeping the crowd, even the children and babies, silent. What followed was mayhem. An avalanche of chatting, laughter, questions, shrieks, yells erupted, then escalated, and was sustained all through the seemingly endless preparations of the banquet-like lunch-cum-dinner.
Savannah tried to offer her help and was only shoved around by the sheer pressure of the masses, until she gave up. Five hours later, every level surface in the house had dozens of service dishes filled with the same food. Everyone spread everywhere, the cacophony intensifying as eating started. She was swept with the flow of people going to sit down in the dining room, where the twelve-seater table now had makeshift extensions, seating forty-something people, almost on each other’s laps.
Her first real look at Colombian cuisine was a revelation. And more than a slight shock.
“That’s sancocho, one of our national dishes.” Javier’s mother put her lips to Savannah’s ear to counteract the clamor, her harsh voice extra loud in compensation, making Savannah jump. “It’s stewed rooster.”
“Feet and all, huh?” Savannah almost tasted her own foot. And the woman had finally addressed her, though very stiltedly and only because of Javier’s repeated subtle prodding. She only hoped her foot would keep her mouth shut until Javier got her out of there.
To Señora Alejandra’s credit, she didn’t bat an eyelid at Savannah’s crack. “Don’t try them if you’re wary. They won’t go to waste with all the mouths around here.”
Savannah’s words stumbled over each other in her haste to make amends. “Oh, I’m not wary and everything smells mouthwatering. I was just wondering at all that colorful stuff served with it!”
Señora Alejandra was the feminine equivalent of her son, and the slashed features and dominant bones didn’t flatter her. Not to mention that her hard life was detailed in every embittered, grieving line of her weathered face. Her attempted smile didn’t come off well. “That’s avocado salad, steamed saffron rice and the small baked dough cakes are called arepa.”
“And what’s that there?” Savannah had her suspicions, but just couldn’t credit them. Surely it couldn’t be…
“Ants.” One of Javier’s sisters, the willowy one—Alba?—answered her, her gleaming brown eyes roving from Savannah’s eyes to her hair to her creamy exposed arms. “That’s another thing you can avoid.”
Don’t you dare gag! Savannah forced a too bright smile as she reached for one. “I love trying new food!”
Tadeo—definitely Tadeo—guffawed as she put one in her mouth. “Stop! You only eat the crunchy abdomen!”
Now he tells her. And did he have to say abdomen? Savannah’s stomach heaved. She carefully got the ant out of her mouth, and another of Javier’s sisters, the earth-mother one—Carmela?—enlightened her. “These are specially raised Hormigas Culonas which have enlarged abdomens. They’re cleaned then roasted or fried and served with cheese or honey. Just dip the abdomen in honey and bite it off. They’re sort of like partially popped kernels of corn.”
And they were. After she’d gotten her stomach under control Savannah threw herself into the experience, and enjoyed it. A lot.
“Hey, this could be as addictive as popcorn!” Savannah licked her fingers clean of honey, eagerly reaching for yet another ant—and met Javier’s eyes. His devouring eyes. His lids lowered, raising his gaze’s temperature and hers, melting down to her lips, following her tongue’s movements, his own sweeping his upper lip, dragging out memories of it on her, in her. Then his teeth sank into his lower lip. She jerked, feeling them sinking into her, right down to her soul.
Ever since they’d been at San Carlos school, then all the way to Neiva, back beside him in his Jeep, blind to the magnificent tropical scenery on the way, going crazy wanting her hands and lips all over him, she’d still had doubts. His intensity could have been some other form of passion, a residue of their wrenching crisis.
No doubt any more. Luis had been right. Javier still wanted her.
So why was he still holding back? His early worries no longer existed. Work wouldn’t be affected. Neither would their effectiveness as team leaders. He should know that by now. Maybe he was confused over her on-off behavior?
That was easy to fix. Just give her a couple of hours alone with him, a locked room, a bed, and she’d put him straight.
> But…if confusion wasn’t the reason, one explanation was left. He didn’t want to start something empty and temporary again. And was that what she had to be in his opinion—even now he seemed to think the world of her? Empty and temporary had been all she’d been good for then. This was now.
And are you sure “now” is so different?
Yes, she was. Positive. She now knew who she was. And so should he. Why was his mind unchanged?
Put that way, only one answer was available. No matter how much had changed, his feelings for her remained empty and temporary. Did his honor and their new friendship dictate against getting sexually involved with her again, knowing that? It seemed so.
So one thing hadn’t changed about her: her ability to inspire love.
Fine. That wasn’t stopping her this time. He wanted her now, for now, and that had to be enough. The alternative of being without him was no alternative at all.
“Are you all right?” That was Tadeo, reaching out to push the ant plate out of her reach. “You went crimson all of a sudden. Maybe you shouldn’t eat so many ants your first time. Maybe your tongue and stomach agree but your mind doesn’t.”
“Oh, I’m fine.” She didn’t object to the dish’s removal, though, could barely drag her eyes away from Javier.
“This will be something more to your liking, I hope.” Señora Alejandra tapped her hand, alerting her to the arrival of fruit.
At any other time Savannah would have drooled at the sight of papayas the size of watermelons, mangoes that had to weigh two pounds each and coconuts that looked like they contained three glasses of coconut milk. Right now, as she looked at Javier, she only wanted to eat him.
A booming voice right in her ear and the tantalizing, powerful aroma of coffee dampened her arousal from a cramping agony to a pervasive ache.
“Would you like some tinto?”
She snapped her head around, found Javier’s father standing behind her chair. “Huh?”
“That’s strong black Colombian coffee, considered the richest in the world. It will wake anyone from their deepest slumber with a smile.”
She knew what would wake her up with a smile. Javier’s hands on her, sparking her circuits, his breath on her frying them, his weight all over her grounding her before she burned out. For now she took the coffee.
In a couple more hours it was midnight and the mood of the gathering heightened, giving her a heart-melting view of Javier, outgoing, totally at ease, bantering and guffawing with her and with his family. The hilarity of the crowd grew to hysterical proportions when the male cousins started ribbing each other with embarrassing revelations. Javier had the most damaging information on everyone, and to his contemporaries’ chagrin, they had nothing of similar relevance on him.
“Javier the infallible.” One of his cousins, the one even bigger than Esteban, smirked. “Wonder why we put up with you all these years!”
Javier smirked right back, macho feathers preened. “Maybe because you needed someone to pull you out of jams in one piece?”
“Watch it, hermano pequeño!” His older brother, Severo, pushed his face into Javier’s. “No little brother of mine ever pulled me out of anything.”
“Sí? How about that time when I had to rush all the way to Cali to save you from—shall we say, an amorous mishap? I got to that house just in—”
Severo choked, everyone burst out laughing at his wife’s thunderous expression and Javier stopped and amended, “You were twenty-five then, long before you met Hermana.”
Tadeo gave him a considering look. “You know, Javier, we can truss you up to shut you up. We’ve done it before.”
“You can try. I was out of your amateur restraints in minutes.”
Another cousin warned, “I’m into shipping crates now, Jav. My knots won’t be so amateurish now.”
Javier tossed him a taunting look. “I seem to remember a very interesting time, Domingo, when you were trying to fix your car…”
Domingo jumped up. “That’s it. Get him, guys!”
For the next few minutes there was chaos—shouts and guffaws as a dozen big men jumped Javier, held him down and tied him up. Savannah watched, openmouthed and burning with envy. What she wouldn’t give to have the same freedom with him! Then they carried him off to his house a few blocks away, howling with laughter. They’d see how long it would take him to get out of his restraints this time.
Suddenly, a white-hot idea zapped through her.
Javier, alone, in his house, on his bed, unable to get up, and there for as long as she needed to get their situation sorted out.
That was an opportunity to kill for!
“You do know I’ll kill you all, don’t you?”
Raucous, receding laughter answered Javier’s shouted threat. Those man-sized rats knew he had to get out of his bonds first to carry it out. Which, it seemed, he wouldn’t. Domingo hadn’t been bragging about the improvement in his knot-tying know-how.
Slow down. Think. They’ll come back. Then again, probably not for a few hours. Maybe not tonight.
OK. So he’d pushed it. He’d been out of control, elated, intoxicated—insanely frustrated, sitting there, watching Savannah being tossed about by the waves of his family’s irrepressible momentum, but still chattering, joining in—eating ants, por Dios! He’d wanted to drag her over the table and take her right on top of it, there and then…
Come down. Focus. He had to get out of those ropes, to get back to her, to take her back to her hotel. Those idiots hadn’t thought of that, had they?
He struggled with his restraints once more, his aggravation mounting.
Stop it. Pulling on the knots would only tighten them. Slowly but surely…surely—Someone was in the house!
Coming back to untie him? Who would it be? And how much would he have to grovel before they did?
His small bedroom felt suddenly smaller in the pitch dark. There hadn’t been a sound again, or a scent yet, but he knew. Savannah. It was her out there!
A light flicked on outside, an uneven two-inch beam under the shoddy door. The next second, the imperfect mechanism of the door handle cracked open, the sound as loud as a bullet in the silence. Her figure flowed forward, framed in the wedge of light, a white-fire-rimmed silhouette.
His breath wouldn’t come, his heart wouldn’t beat. Silent steps brought her into the room. Her scent hit him then, followed by her siren call.
“Javier…”
His heart beat now, choking him with erratic thumps.
Don’t you dare pass out! Say something.
“So my father—gave you—the key, too?” Dios! Could he sound more worked up?
“No, I worked on Tadeo…” He couldn’t see her face, but her voice was hot honey pouring onto his overextended senses. “He got me here, let me in.”
That figured. By now, Tadeo would probably only ask how high if she said jump. He’d been bowled over, as every other man in the house had been. The women had been envious, though they hadn’t disgraced him. But everyone had dropped a word here or there. The same curiosity, same incredulity. What was this vision doing here? In Colombia? With the MSU? With him?
He’d had no answers, since everything he believed was only conjecture. And she wasn’t with him.
But now she was.
She came closer, and he sensed it, scented it—her hunger. His every muscle clenched, vibrated with tension, like that first night, when she’d reached for him and he’d tried to resist, to be noble, to be sane.
“OK, I give up.” Someone else’s voice, disjointed and disturbed, issued from him. “I can’t undo my restraints…” Not in his disintegrating state. “Help me?”
“Uh, I don’t think so.” The mischievous smile in her voice lit up the room, and his heart. “I kinda like you like that.”
“Savannah…”
“Yes, say my name like that. I’ve missed that so much. Oh, God—so much!” Her voice sank lower, and so did she beside him on the bed.
He found him
self obeying her, gasping her name again, then again.
One hand went to his chest, rested on his booming heart. He would have jerked off the bed if he hadn’t been spread-eagled and tethered.
He couldn’t survive this. “Savannah, por favor—just undo my right hand. I’ll take care of the rest…”
Her answer was to bend across him. To reach his right hand? Dios, no—to rest her cheek on his chest. She just lay there for a moment, breathing deeply, each shuddering breath shaking him apart. Then she turned her lips to him, and started undoing his buttons with her teeth, teeth that sank into his muscles, over his heart, in the most delicate devouring. Had he thought it too much moments ago? Was she out to kill him?
Her shudders grew as she pressed her whole face against his chest. The heart she’d already sucked dry bashed itself against his ribs, the barrier between it and a direct taste of her kiss.
It was over. He’d never fight again. He’d been hers from that first night. She was just renewing her claim, her ownership.
She slithered up his body, her breasts flattening against him, the sweep of her thigh against his engorged flesh causing an arousal that left him grunting for breath. Her journey up his body ended with her face nuzzling his. He gasped for her lips. They just skimmed his, his nose, his febrile eyes and knotted brow, ending where it had all started—at his forehead.
His head snapped back from the brand she’d burnt into his skin. He arched back, like a drowning man resurfacing. She followed, her teeth at his pulse point, drawing the life out of him. “Javier, darling, don’t hold back any more, don’t think of what next. Don’t think at all.”
Don’t think of what next. Why? Because there’d be no what next?
Just take now! “Savannah—por Dios, misericordia. Have mercy—let me up…”
“So you can walk away from me again? Do you realize how many times you’ve done that, Javier?”
Not once. That hadn’t been walking out or walking away. That had been running for his life. He could no longer run. Even without the fetters, she had him wherever and however and as long as she wanted him. He closed his eyes tight and waited for her to take him into whatever dimension she pleased.