by Cindy Dees
She curled up into a little ball, hugging her knees to her chest. She’d thought she knew what fear was before this jungle adventure. But she’d been wrong. This gut-wrenching, deadly serious, life-on-the-line stuff brought her concept of fear to a whole new level.
Had her father been this afraid in Vietnam? Had he ultimately cracked under the pressure of living up to people’s expectations after the magazine spreads raving about what a brave guy he was? Was that why he’d burst into his unreasoning rages for all those years after the war, screaming in some Asian language and attacking anything and anyone who happened to be near him?
Lord knew, she was having a hard time living up to Tex’s expectations of her, and all he wanted her to do was follow along behind him and eat some bugs. How could Tex do a job like this day after day, putting his life on the line for total strangers like her? Why did he court fear like this?
He could’ve jumped out of that truck alone and gotten away easily on his own. Why hadn’t he taken the easy way out? Was he right? Did heroes really exist? Was he one of them?
She jumped violently when a hand touched her arm.
“Easy, darlin’,” Tex murmured. “There’s a patrol of four guys ahead and to our right. And there are three guys paralleling our course on the left. I want to turn around and go back the way we came for a little while and see if there’s anyone behind us.”
She frowned. Something he’d said the night before tickled her memory. Something about a net closing in…“Have they surrounded us?” she gasped, her heart in her throat.
“Maybe. That’s what I want to find out.”
She looked wildly all around her.
He held her shoulders in his big, steady hands. “Don’t panic on me, Princess. I know what to do in a situation like this, okay? Nothing that’s happening here is beyond the scope of my training. You’ve got to trust me.”
Like she had any choice in the matter. She nodded her understanding. She stood up when he did, and walked nervously behind him as they eased back toward the south.
Funny, but she actually did trust him. They might not make it out of this alive; but if anyone could pull it off, that person was Tex. Now if only she could soak up some of his confidence. They hiked until the light began to fail and the lush green palate of the jungle had faded to gray.
Tex stopped abruptly and veered off to one side, motioning her to stay put. She saw him squat down. He appeared to dig at something at ground level with his knife. He came back in a few seconds and they continued on. What was that all about?
Her speculations were cut short by another sharp signal from Tex to get down. She dived to the ground, her heart pounding.
He belly-crawled into a thicket, gesturing over his shoulder for her to do the same. She pushed with her feet and dug in with her elbows. She moved a couple inches.
Ugh. How was Tex slithering along so effortlessly in front of her? New respect for his strength washed over her. She scrambled forward by inches, breaking several fingernails in the process of sliming along behind him. She breathed a sigh of relief when he stopped under a heavy stand of plants.
Something moved on the ground in front of her. She lurched in surprise. It moved again. It was the biggest ant she’d ever seen, dragging an entire leaf across the ground. She shuddered. At least it wasn’t a snake. She hated them with a passion. Oh, she knew snakes were good for the environment and rodent control and all that, but gut-level, hard-wired terror threatened her whenever she saw one, even on television.
“Stay here,” Tex murmured.
He disappeared again. He was gone longer this time and night had fallen by the time he came back. She didn’t hear him this time, either, but she sensed his presence a second before he touched her arm.
He moved up beside her on the ground. His body was warm and reassuring against hers. She rolled into his strength, glad when his arms gathered her close. His hands roamed up and down her back, rubbing soothingly.
“Miss me?” he murmured.
More than he knew. And certainly more than she was willing to admit to him.
He breathed into her ear, “As I thought. We’re pretty much surrounded on three sides. For some reason, the patrols are herding us to the north.”
“Herding us?” she murmured in dismay. That didn’t sound good at all.
“Yeah. They don’t know exactly where we are, but they know the general vicinity. They’ve established a tight line of troops in a U-shape and are moving steadily to the north. We either keep moving in that direction or they’ll catch us.”
“Why do they want us to go that way?”
“Don’t know. Maybe they have a camp up north, or maybe your kidnappers are waiting in that direction.”
Panic clutched at her. “We’re trapped?”
“Not by a long shot, darlin’.”
“What are we going to do?”
“For now, we get some rest. The patrols I saw have camped for the night and they won’t be closing in on us anytime soon. You’re dead on your feet, so we’re going to take a break.”
He sat up and reached into his shirt. “Speaking of which, I found these for you.” He held out several gnarled sticks the thickness of her wrist.
She sat up beside him and took the dirt-encrusted objects. “Uh, thank you?” she said questioningly.
He grinned, a flash of white in the dark. “They’re edible roots.” He took one from her and peeled it with the knife, exposing pale flesh.
“The plant this comes from is related to ginger. Tastes pretty good. It doesn’t have a lot of nutritional value, but it’ll fill your stomach.”
Right now, that was just fine with her. Her stomach felt about ready to gnaw its way through her spine. She took the hunk he sliced off for her and put it in her mouth. It did taste faintly of ginger. It was the texture of a raw potato and hard to chew, but she felt worlds better when she’d finally eaten her fill of it.
“Come here,” he said, holding out an arm to her.
She sank gratefully into his embrace. His chest was a warm, reassuring wall and his heart thumped slow and steady underneath her ear.
His arm settled comfortably around her shoulders. “Get some sleep if you can. We’re going to move out hard in a few hours.”
She groaned into his shirt. He reached up to massage her neck and shoulders. His strong hands used just the right amount of gentle pressure to melt away the kinks in her muscles.
“Don’t think about it now,” he murmured. “It’ll be time to go soon enough. Just concentrate on relaxing and staying in the moment.”
The moment frankly wasn’t that bad. Tex was warm and strong and relaxed. Her last thought before she drifted off to sleep was that, for a trained killer, he wasn’t such a bad guy.
It seemed like only minutes later when he gently shook her awake with a murmured, “Time to go.”
She groaned under her breath. Her back, legs and shoulders ached as if she’d been lifting rocks.
“How long was I asleep?” she mumbled.
“Four hours. It’s midnight. Time to rock and roll.”
The tension in his voice sounded almost like enjoyment. Nah. Nobody could get a rush out of running for their lives in a pitch-black jungle in the middle of the night.
Tex sprang to his feet energetically.
Darned if he didn’t look hyped up about the trek to come. “You’re not actually enjoying this, are you?” she asked in amazement.
He blinked down at her. “This is what it’s all about. I don’t enjoy being in danger, but…” He searched for words. “This is the moment when I show those bastards out there why I’m the best and they’re not.”
Thank goodness he was on her side in this game of cat-and-mouse.
“Put this camo shirt on. Otherwise you’re going to get scratched all to hell. Grab on to my shirt and don’t let go,” he instructed. “We’re going to move fast tonight. I’ll try to describe what’s coming by way of terrain if nobody’s close. But if I hear anything an
d go silent, just try to feel through my movements what’s coming in front of you.”
Fast didn’t do justice to the way they tore through the jungle. It was like riding a roller coaster with her eyes closed.
She had to hustle to keep up with him, and more than once found herself hanging on to his shirt and practically letting him drag her along. The big sniper rifle banged into her wrist until she shifted her grasp to Tex’s belt. That worked well and they settled into a rhythm together. She did, in fact, learn rapidly how to gauge what obstacle came next by how the muscles in his back contracted or stretched.
She felt like an extension of his body and they moved practically as one. They settled into an almost sexual rhythm of Tex leading the way and her mimicking his every movement down to the smallest nuance.
Kimberly reached out with her mind, trying to “see” the movement of Tex’s body. She felt his every breath, his every tensing at a new sound, his total awareness of everything around them. His essence flowed over her and through her until she felt him in her blood, in her bones. It was incredibly intimate.
He stopped now and then for brief rest breaks. But even then, the deep connection between them didn’t cease. She felt it each time he lifted his head to listen, each time he used his intuition to test the jungle around them for the presence of others.
The hunter in him permeated her. The way he embraced the velvety-black darkness, became a part of the night, she sensed it all. It was completely unlike anything she’d ever experienced before. It was primitive and wild, a heady thing. No wonder Tex relished this.
He didn’t have to tell her when he was ready to head out again. She just knew. She stood up with a quick stretch of her tired back muscles.
Big, hard hands settled on her waist and slid around to her back. His knuckles dug deeply into the muscles there, wringing a groan of delight from her. His arms tightened, pulling her close. He picked her up easily and held her against him for several seconds, her feet dangling just above the ground. Her spine creaked and stretched deliciously. It felt wonderful to be surrounded by so much male power.
“Better?” he murmured.
She blinked. Better? Most definitely. “I could use some more of that,” she mumbled.
“When we stop for the night, remind me to pick you up again. It helps align the spine.”
Her spine… Right. Her spine. She frowned at his shadowed form.
A brief flash of his teeth. “That was what you were talking about, wasn’t it?” he murmured.
“Of course,” she muttered.
“Mmm, hmm,” he replied with laughter in his voice. “Come on, Princess. Let’s shock the hell out of these goons and really put some distance between us and them.”
Tingling from head to foot, she grabbed on to his belt once more and resumed the trek. The link between them now held a distinctly sexual edge. Every time her hand rubbed along his spine, every brush of his leg against hers, every abrupt halt that brought her chest into contact with his back took on new sizzle.
The chemistry between them grew until its carnal energy buffeted them both in its grasp.
Finally, Tex stopped again. “Time for a rest break.” He listened for a long moment and Kimberly felt the release of tension as he heard nothing untoward.
“Come here,” he growled low under his breath.
She stepped forward, unable and unwilling to deny the power of what had been building between them for the last several hours.
“This is insane,” he mumbled as his arms swept around her, “but damned if I can hold out any longer.”
She exhaled on a breath of laughter. “If we’re going to die, we may as well snatch what pleasure we can from the jaws of death.”
He apparently bought that logic because his mouth closed on hers voraciously, devouring her with raging hunger.
She flung herself into the kiss with abandon. Everything else had been stripped away from her in the past couple days and only two things remained. Life and Death. Within that elegantly simple framework, their relationship became equally simple. He was Man and she was Woman.
She reveled in the way her body cushioned his, how her soft curves molded to his hard angles. Their mouths and bodies melded together like two molten bars of steel, flowing into one another until they became a single burning pillar of desire.
He carried her down to the cool ground, but it did nothing to slake the fire or temper the steel of their lust. They burned on, tongues and lips mating wildly, their arms and legs in a tangle, their bodies fitting to one another with seething, liquid perfection.
He pushed her hands up over her head, pinning her in place while his mouth slid down her throat, branding her his. His free hand slid under her shirt and sweater, pushing aside the soft knit and plunging into her bra to cup her flesh.
She arched up into him, frantic for more of his skin against hers. She felt the hard ridge of his desire and clasped her upper thighs around his heat, desperate to pull him into her, to make him part of her and her part of him.
His mouth closed on her breast and she bucked against the fiery heat of his mouth on her skin. His hips moved against hers and she matched the movement, their bodies completely synchronized over the last several hours.
She ached to cradle him even closer, to grasp his hardness with her secret muscles, to wrench groans of pleasure from his throat that would mingle with the ones he was tearing from hers.
She yanked her hands free and ran them up under his fatigue shirt, relishing the smooth glide of flesh on muscle. She memorized the feel of him under her hands. Her palms slid to the small of his back, urging him nearer, pressing him closer to the aching, liquid core of her.
She wriggled beneath him and reached for his belt buckle. The clothes had to go. She wanted to feel all of him against her naked skin.
His hands closed over hers, his palms swallowing her fingers easily. “I’d give just about anything to finish this, sweetheart,” he gritted out, “but I’m not willing to give your life. We’ve got to stop.”
She closed her eyes in anguish. For a little while, a couple blessed minutes, she’d forgotten. It all came crashing back. The return of reality was almost more than she could bear after its momentary absence.
“I’m sorry, Kimberly,” he said raggedly. He didn’t sound like he was in much better shape than she was.
She peered up at his shadowed face, inches above hers. “Please tell me that meant something to you. You don’t have to admit that it blew you away. Just don’t let that have been a random moment with the nearest convenient female because you think you’re going to die.”
“Kimberly. You are not a groupie chick.”
“A…huh?” she asked, confused.
“Never mind. Believe me,” he breathed, his voice laced with laughter. “You’re most definitely not a convenient female.”
She punched his arm lightly. “Jerk,” she grumbled.
He dropped a light kiss on her forehead and pushed up to his feet abruptly. He reached down and pulled her up beside him. “We both needed that. Consider it a reminder to us of why we want to live.”
Kimberly stared at his back as he turned and offered her his belt once more. Was it also a promise of things to come if they got out of this mess alive?
A relationship with Tex Monroe? Her? Abruptly the thought didn’t seem so far-fetched at all.
CHAPTER SEVEN
That was truly insane. Tex plowed forward through the jungle, completely stunned by what he’d just done. They were running for their lives from kidnappers who were right on their heels! Every second, every step, counted, but he’d taken time to stop and roll around on the ground with the woman whose life he was responsible for.
He realized he was all but jogging through the underbrush. He slowed his steps to a more reasonable pace. No sense running Kimberly into the ground. It wasn’t her fault he couldn’t keep his hands off her.
Sexual tension had been building between them for hours. He’d finally reached
the breaking point where he couldn’t take another minute of the sensual promise of her fingers against his back, her knees bumping into the backs of his, her breasts pressing against him every time he stopped abruptly. It had gotten so bad he’d made excuses to stop fast just so he could feel those mounds of sweet flesh collide with him.
The precious minutes lost had bloody well been worth it, though. He’d never experienced a kiss like that before. It incinerated him from the inside out. God Almighty, that woman drove him out of his mind. Kissing her didn’t just blow him away, it blew him completely out of the water. Completely out of the solar system!
Stopping her from ripping his clothes off had been one of the hardest things he’d ever had to do in his entire life. Now, that had been an act of heroism. He ought to get a damned medal for that act of self-discipline.
Tree branches were whipping past his face again and Kimberly was breathing hard behind him. He slowed down for a second time.
Suicide.
The word came to him unbidden. But as soon as it popped into his mind, he knew it to be true. Messing around with Kimberly Stanton here and now was pure suicide.
He’d been a damned fool to give in to his lust. And he was going to get them both killed if he didn’t pull himself together and get his mind back on business. The kidnappers had a general idea of where they were and were using their superior numbers to surround a large area and close the net, just as he’d described to Kimberly.
Tonight’s trek might buy them a day or so, but no more. She’d held up well so far and was in good physical condition for a civilian female. But there was no way she could move as fast as they would have to for them to outrun the net behind them.
If she were a trained commando, they could double back and slip through the net of rebel soldiers. But that also wasn’t an option for him with a complete amateur in tow.
Their only choice was to go along with this herding maneuver, realizing that they were headed for some kind of a trap. Their survival was going to hinge on his seeing the trap soon enough and finding a way out of it before the rebels sprung it on them.