by Julie Miller
He caught her hard against him, pulling her up onto her toes, burying his fingers in her hair. He swept his tongue around her lips, swirled it into her mouth, staking his possession with a swift, hungry surge. She clutched at his dark hair, stretching herself along the length of his body. She reveled in the claim of his lips and the urgency of his hands.
She felt beautiful. Desirable. Perfect.
In Hawk's hands, she felt perfect.
Those same hands pressed near the neckline of her gown. "May I?" He lifted his mouth for only an instant, trapping her yes in her throat.
She nodded, and with far more skilled hands than hers had been, he unbuttoned the gown and let it pool at her feet. The cooling breeze from the ceiling fan raised goose bumps along her spine. But in seconds Hawk was there. His long fingers nearly spanned her back, warming her, branding her, pulling her closer.
Her aching breasts flattened against his hard chest. Standing skin to skin like this, she felt the blood in her veins boiling. He slid his hands downward and cupped her bottom through her cotton panties. He reclaimed her mouth and asked for her body as he pulled her up to him. She felt the tight brush of his jeans between her thighs, and a startling rush of heat flooded her feminine core and weakened her knees.
"Tell me you want me this way, Sarah." His plea was little more than a ragged breath against her mouth. "Tell me you want me, or tell me to stop."
"Don't…" She squeezed his shoulders and snatched at the midnight fall of hair between her fingers. "Don't stop."
Like a warrior's cry of freedom, Sarah's hungry request sang through Hawk's veins and freed his spirit to soar far beyond the realm of his earthly existence. His body thrummed with the need to become one with this woman, to bind their bodies and spirits in one perfect union.
He scooped her up into his arms and carried her to the bed. She nipped at the base of his chin again and he nearly stumbled, his normally sure-footed steps thwarted by the fertile earth-woman's call of her innocent seduction. With her bewitching hands and tempting lips and hungry eyes, she had quickly transformed him from a patient tutor into a primitive beast, intent on claiming his mate and bonding with her for life.
However short that life might be.
Squeezing his eyes shut, he forced the unwelcome future from his thoughts and concentrated on the insatiable curiosity of her fingers. Her every touch was a healing caress, a passionate promise, an undeniable request.
He set her beside the bed, humbled by her disappointed gasp when he moved away from her. He leaned down and laid claim to her swollen mouth, knowing he would regret the reddened marks of his passion the next morning, but unable to resist when she wound her fingers into his hair and demanded more from his kiss.
He spread his hands on her hips, fighting the urge to pull her closer. "It's okay," he reassured her, twisting his fingers around the elastic at her waist and kneeling to pull her panties off her.
The thatch of toffee brown curls at eye level proved a tempting sight, but this was all so new to Sarah, he wouldn't risk frightening her by introducing her to every pleasure he wanted to teach her. Willing his passions back down to a controllable level, he closed his eyes and breathed deeply.
Without looking at her again, he stood and turned and shed the remainder of his clothes and his sicun. He reached to shut off the light, sensing that the cover of darkness would alleviate some of an inexperienced woman's natural fears.
A soft hand on his back startled him. "Don't. I want to see you."
When Hawk straightened and faced her, she stood with one arm across her breasts and the other crossing down low over her abdomen. Hawk's heart flip-flopped with a swell of compassion and the overpowering need to protect and nurture this beautiful woman whose shy ways bespoke her fragile pride and giving heart.
"Do I frighten you?" he asked.
"A little." He would always treasure her honesty, her ability to reveal her true courage no matter what the personal cost. "But I want to see you."
He watched her gaze flutter from his eyes down to the unmistakable proof of his desire. The stain of color on her cheeks heightened the darkening green flecks of need in her golden eyes.
Feeling potent, feeling humble, feeling loved, Hawk stepped closer, locked his gaze with hers and reached for her hand. He pulled it down to her side, revealing her breasts to his hungry gaze. The soft glow of the lamp warmed the creamy perfection of the small globes, and highlighted the peachy areolas that begged for his attention.
He reached for her other hand and exposed all of her to his gaze. "You're as beautiful as the good earth herself," he whispered, the praise filling his heart and spilling over into his embittered soul. "I'll always remember you this way, my brave, beautiful Sarah."
Then he leaned down and kissed her reverently, reigniting her passion, worshiping her with his love. She opened beneath him, the sweet welcome of her tender mouth making a mockery of his restraint.
He folded her into his arms and sank onto the bed. He lay back, carrying her on top of him. Her legs parted naturally and he felt the damp heat of her against his thigh. He pulled her farther, until a peachy, sweet breast hovered above his lips, ripe for plucking. He lowered her to his mouth, moistening the tip, and then suckling the pebbling bud until her breathy moans vibrated through him. He treated himself to the other breast, showering it with his attention, falling desperately close to the edge of his control when she tugged at his hair and clutched him to her.
"Hawk." She breathed his name. Her legs clenched involuntarily about his hips and he knew she hovered as close to the brink as he.
"Easy, schoolmarm." The name rolled off his lips as intimate and tender as an endearment.
He rolled over, tucking her beneath him. He cradled her head on the pillows and stretched her arms above her, capturing her hands in one of his. Then he reached down lower, skimming the feminine flare of her hip and finding her delicate center. They both held their breath as he touched her there and found her ready.
Hawk breathed a silent question, waiting for some word, dreading that she would push him away again. Her tawny gaze held his as she raised her lips to kiss him. "I want this. I want you."
With a shiny golden aura framing her face like a halo, he guided himself to her. He sank into her with one slow, deep stroke. Her hot welcome stretched to adjust to this new intimacy, sheathing him tightly inside. He gritted his teeth and waited until he felt her relax. Her lips softened with a smile and then, helpless to deny himself any longer, he moved within her. He settled on top of her, letting her hips take his weight. He stretched his hand up and held hers, matching the length and spread of her fingers. Briefly, he noted the erotic contrasts in size and color and sex between them, until she blanked out all conscious thought by winding her long, elegant fingers around his knuckles and pulling against him in counterpoint to the growing power of his thrusts.
He buried his face against her neck, questioning the hot tears that brushed his cheek, wondering if they were Sarah's or his own. She hugged her legs around his hips, squeezed his hand in hers, breathed raggedly into his ear. Their bodies fell into a pagan rhythm as old and as everlasting as time itself. Hawk gave himself over to the strength of her spirit guide, and let the great bear carry them both beyond their conscious selves, trusting his own sharp-eyed hawk to guide them back home.
She cried out his name as he surged into her, and when she shattered beneath him with a keening cry, he thanked the spirits for showing him heaven.
Chapter Thirteen
"Where are you going?"
Hawk froze with the laces of his black boot in his hands. He exhaled a slow funnel of air and finished tying off the boot beneath his jungle fatigues before responding to the drowsy, husky pitch of Sarah's query.
"Good morning."
"It isn't morning yet, is it?" He heard a rustle from the bed and then the lamp came on. "The sun isn't even up."
Hawk's forced smile grew genuine. Sarah made an adorably rumpled figure early in the morning. He caught
a glimpse of one firm breast before she pulled the wrinkled white sheet up to her neck and held it there with her fist. With the other hand she pushed that untamed mass of caramel-colored hair away from her face. The fluid, sensual ease of her movements belied the unfocused haze in her golden eyes.
The memory of those silky tresses tumbling through his fingers teased his palms, and his body sparked with awareness as he recalled how she'd curled that lithe, lovely body into his chest and fallen asleep after the second time they'd made love.
"What time is it?" she asked, nonplussed by his lack of a response. He drank in the sight of her, imprinting this memory alongside every waking moment of the night before, knowing these final hours with Sarah had become the finest moments of his life.
Half of him had wanted to be gone before she woke. Before he had to face the heart-rending task of telling her good-bye.
But the better half of him knew she needed this time with him. As brave and fearless as his she-bear could be, he knew all her doubts couldn't be erased in one night of glorious loving. As much as he had wanted her, he had tried to give her a gift the previous night. The gift of self-assurance. The knowledge that the Walter Kensits of this world had no grasp of real beauty, but that he, at least, could see her for the rare treasure she was, and honor her. He hoped that in some small way he had helped her to believe in herself. He wouldn't take that newly seeded belief away from her by abandoning her without an explanation.
In that, at least, he would not fail Sarah.
He knelt on the bed and tucked a wayward curl behind her ear. He cupped her jaw, memorizing the soft scrunch of her hair beneath his fingertips, stroking the velvety smoothness of her cheek with his thumb. With her eyes half-open and filled with longing, he gave in to his own need and kissed her.
Gently at first, he simply touched his lips to hers. But then her sweet mouth parted and he pushed inside, taking his fill of her, begging her forgiveness, bidding farewell to his most cherished dream.
She responded eagerly, generously, just as she had the night before. But when he pulled away to snatch a ragged breath, he read the confusion in her now wide-awake eyes.
"How are you feeling?" he asked, deliberately ignoring her unspoken questions.
She had braced her hand on his chest and he felt the subtle pressure of her fingertips. She'd done that from her first kiss, shyly hanging on to him, wanting to hold him close. Whether done consciously or not, that tiny little gesture made him feel welcome, wanted. Her eloquent fingers reached deep into his soul and pulled him closer to her heart.
But, as if acknowledging that the way her touch transformed him meant he should be denied that gift, she pulled away. With deceiving interest in the task, she straightened the twisted cord of his necklace.
"I'm fine."
Fine. So cool. So detached. Sarah normally spoke from the heart. He wondered what she'd really wanted to say. Amazing. Perfect. Those were words he would have chosen to describe their night together. But then, with what he was about to do, he couldn't really expect her to say the same.
So he pretended her answer was sufficient. "That's good."
She slipped her hand down to hold the spirit sicun that hung in the middle of his chest. The oblong obsidian stone fit snugly inside her palm. "How are you feeling?"
"I'm… fine, too," he answered. The lie caught in his throat and he felt ashamed.
But Hawk wrapped both his hands around hers, absorbing the strength of her spirit. He closed his eyes and felt the power of the lifestone creeping through her into him.
A good portent, to his way of thinking. One person could not own another person's spirit, but when the power of two became one, the harmony between them grew into a force more powerful than any on earth. If only he could cling to that harmony. If only he had the right to make her his forever.
He had shared barely a week with Sarah—a lifetime too short, in his opinion. But the strength he had gained from this gentle woman would sustain him this day. As in his vision so many months before, he knew her spirit would sustain him throughout eternity.
"You're leaving me, aren't you?"
He opened his eyes and saw the telltale frown marring the beauty of her mouth. He didn't bother trying to deny her instincts. She'd proven more than once to have some sort of mystical connection to him.
Hawk stood and picked up the olive green T-shirt off the dressing-table chair. He shoved his arms and head into it, and tucked it into his waistband with spare, deliberate movements. "I have some unfinished business."
"Returning the artifacts?" she asked. "Won't the authorities handle that?"
"Not the artifacts, Sarah."
He unfolded the bloodstained, shredded remains of his survival vest and methodically transferred items from it into a new camouflage flak vest Rafe had brought up to the room. Waterproof matches. A snakebite kit. A packet of herbs and powders to burn as a sacrifice. His knife.
"What's so important you have to leave before sunup?" He ignored the cautious accusation in her voice. "Is it what you three were talking about last night?"
"Partly. I was making arrangements for you and the girls."
"Arrangements?"
Hawk tore through the pockets of the old vest, searching for the strands of hair he'd taken from Sarah's braid.
"Damn." He must have lost them on the trail after he'd been shot. He had hoped to keep them as a reminder of his time with her.
The touch of her fingers on his arm scorched him with guilt. He jerked away, half-mad with sorrow that he alone could fulfill this duty.
"Why do you have to leave us?"
She stood before him like a goddess. The sheet was draped carelessly over her breasts and hips, where she clutched it, but he could tell her delectable backside was bared to the predawn jungle coming awake outside their window.
Hawk breathed in deeply, tamping down, but not erasing, the desperation growing inside him. "Because he's coming."
"Who's coming?"
He didn't answer. He didn't move until he saw the light dawn in her eyes.
"That thing that killed Luis and the others?"
Hawk crossed to the mirror at the dresser and tied a black cotton headband up on his forehead against his hairline. "That thing is the spirit of King Meczaquatl. When Salazar and the others opened the tomb, they woke him. His treasure's been stolen, his peace and honor have been violated. He's a vengeful energy who can no longer find his rest."
Sarah materialized beside him in the mirror. "So he killed them because they invaded his tomb?"
"Sounds crazy, doesn't it?" he taunted her, half wishing she'd agree, half hoping she'd say something cruel so he could justify having to leave her.
"No," she whispered, her focus turned somewhere inside. "Not after what I've seen."
Her fingers drifted to the fading bruises at her throat. "He was using you to get rid of me that night, in the tomb."
Then she lifted her gaze to his, her eyes bright with the same knowledge that dulled his. "You're going to lure him back. Call him to you. You said you could channel to the other side—"
"He can't be trusted, Sarah. He has no idea who his enemies are now. Who knows where he'd see a threat? An innocent villager? One of your students? You? I can't allow anyone else to get hurt."
"You can'…?" She wrapped her fingers around his forearm again. "Won't he try to kill you, too?"
"I'm a soldier." He covered her hand and willed her to understand what he must do. "I know the risks. It has to be done."
"Get someone else." Her voice rose a pitch.
"I'm the only one who can do this. I'm the only one that demon answers to."
"But you can't." She tugged at his arm, her protest a cherished benediction to his doomed soul. "At the tomb you weren't the one in control. And when you touched Prini's crown, you weren't yourself anymore. You said you needed my help to pull free."
"Damn, the crown." He wiped a hand across his eyes. "I'll have to stop and get that, too. Restore everyt
hing the way it was."
"You can't!"
"Sarah. Schoolmarm." He turned to face the real woman. He should have left an hour ago. He shouldn't have subjected her to this pointless argument as her final memory of him. "I have to do this."
"Then I'm going with you."
"Absolutely not."
"You need my help."
"No, I don't."
"What happens if you can't pull yourself from the king's spell once you've got him back in the tomb? If he possesses you, how do you know you'll be able to pull free? What if he decides to use you to hurt more people? You can be just as dangerous."
"It won't happen, Sarah."
"How do you know?"
"I'm not coming home from this mission."
The dead silence of her shock filled the room and hollowed out his soul.
Hawk finished preparing his gear, unable to bear the wounded look of betrayal in Sarah's eyes. He could try to explain how the only way to guarantee that Meczaquatl would return to his rest for all eternity was for Hawk to bury himself in that tomb with him. He would become one with that demon and carry him over to the other side. He'd try to show him that his peace lay in the spirit world and not in the vengeance he sought on this earthly plane.
But if Meczaquatl chose not to stay…
He paused when he was packed, tried to meet Sarah's gaze, but she refused. Bereft of even that tiny contact, Hawk slowly straightened. "I think I finally understand what may have happened to Jonathan Ramsey."
"Your friend that disappeared here?"
At least she would still listen. Hawk breathed a bit easier. "There are powerful, inexplicable forces at work on this island. The extra sensitivity I've experienced here leads me to think this is some sort of pathway to the spirit world. If Meczaquatl is so willing to channel through me, maybe I can take advantage of his, um… connections… and find out something about Jonathan."
"Your colonel must have been a very special man."
Hawk didn't know if he could put into words the unique friendship he shared with the men of his recon/rescue unit. "The best."