With a final pat for the rhino and okapi, I left them to their further explorations and hurried back to Mark and Gus. “How is he?”
“He’s got a couple of deep puncture wounds. Not too bloody, so no big vessels are involved. A lot of pain and bruising, though, I imagine.”
“And?” Mark’s deep look of concern didn’t match his prognosis.
“I’ve heard”—he dropped his gaze away from mine and lowered his voice—“I’ve heard rabies is fairly prevalent in this region.”
Extending my hand, I lifted his chin with gentle fingers till he couldn’t help but meet my eyes again. “Be direct with bad news,” I told him. “Authority first, compassion second. At least that’s what I want from a doctor.” I smiled at his look of bewildered surprise. “You think I don’t know about our rabies epidemic? Gus gets vaccinated yearly, as do our cows and the other dogs and the wild golden cat and the aardvark the children keep—kept—on the plantation. Does that surprise you?”
“Honestly? Yes. Being so remote, I don’t know what medicines and vaccines and supplies Ushindi has access to. And no, because I’m learning that nothing you do should surprise me. No matter how surprising it may be.”
“Do you mean like this?” Leaning over the top of Gus’s head, I planted my mouth firmly on Mark’s. His lips were firm and cold at first, not expecting the assault, but they warmed quickly, sliding against mine with building friction and more than a hint of desire.
When I broke the kiss off and pulled away, his lips followed mine, reluctant to let go.
“Yeah. Just like that,” he breathed.
His voice, low and husky, sent tremors down my spine.
My body wanted him, craved to know him, that much was sure. What I was feeling for him emotionally—that wasn’t as clear. I had to be careful. Gratitude, I knew, could manifest itself in the most unexpected ways, could make me feel like my body’s signals—the shortness of breath, the jolts of electricity, the tingle in my stomach and parts lower—were indications of things that weren’t really real.
I didn’t want to make a move I wasn’t genuinely ready for emotionally or that I would regret immediately. Just because he was available and receptive, and I was grateful for his quick actions, didn’t mean I was obligated to him in any way.
No matter how much my body might disagree with that assessment.
But even if I was prepared to relent, Gus had to be taken care of first.
Taking Mark by the hand—a gesture that seemed to come more and more naturally each time I reached out—I led him and Gus back to the kitchen, to safety, to the place where I felt most comfortable about making a decision that could affect me for a day, a week, or even a lifetime.
CHAPTER 15
MARK
It was curious how quickly I’d come to think of Kayla’s kitchen as Ushindi’s heart. I had to do nothing more than sit at the modest block of table in that large and welcoming room to feel as though I were sitting by every hearth, every fire that had provided a feeling of comfort and family stretching back through the millennia. A déjà vu of the species.
An immediate feeling of belonging.
What else belonged right now were my skills as a doctor. Which, it turned out, were little different today than the ones Kayla had displayed a couple of days before. While Kayla held the Rottweiler still, I cleaned his wounds and dribbled in some of Kayla’s stockpiled penicillin.
Then her warm and wonderfully competent hands were on me doing the same to my cleanly healing bullet wound before cutting a Percocet in half and sharing it between Gus and me.
Released from his bedroom, Jengo wrapped a worried arm around the big dog in fair imitation of the arm Kayla wrapped briefly—maybe even suggestively?—around me. She looked at me with secret eyes.
What signals was she sending me? Was she sending any at all? I knew what signals I wanted her to send, but I didn’t want to misread anything and layer my rising desire over what might have been nothing more than good Samaritanism on her part. At the same time, if it was something more Kayla might be feeling, I didn’t want to miss it. And most assuredly didn’t want to ignore it.
I remembered her earlier counsel to “be direct.” I knew any number of men who would be in my situation. Who would go after what they wanted whether permission had been granted or not. I half-envied their chutzpah, but I was also fairly sure not all women responded well to caveman tactics. I was equally sure by “direct” Kayla didn’t mean to be aggressive but to be honest, to give voice to the issue at hand without being coy. To relay my need to her distinctly and give her time to process it in her own way.
But by the time I’d worked through all that, she was withdrawing her arm and turning her eyes to other matters. The first of which landed on the table in front of me. Her phone.
“See if there are any updates on your flight situation,” she encouraged as she turned to the stove to heat milk for her orphans.
By the time I’d logged into my email account, she already had pans and bowls out for a repeat of breakfast from yesterday.
Had my hesitation cost whatever moment might have been?
The news from Doctors MD wasn’t good. At least, that was my first interpretation of it. “How far is Bujumbura?” I asked.
“In Burundi? About 600, maybe 650 kilometers. Why?”
So maybe 400 miles. “Just looking for alternatives. I can’t get a flight out of Ushindi before next Thursday, and even that’s looking iffy right now. Flights in and out of the Sudans are being canceled left and right because of the Subs fear and quarantine measures. I thought maybe something further south might be the answer.”
“Trying to get across the border into Rwanda or Burundi you’ll run across some strict emigration policies no matter how good an order your passport’s in. Red tape that’ll force you to remain a guest of the DRC for another two to five days or so, plus as much in bribes as they can get out of you. There’s also a major airport in Goma. Although I’m not sure how safe I’d feel driving there.”
I shook my head. “Subs is showing up there too, and they’re going into lockdown. Jeez, the United Nations is getting involved in all this. They’re not sending in personnel because of the Subs danger, but they’re making policy and preemptively sending relief dollars. Aid and supplies, too, but the Doctors MD report says the UN will be parachuting those in. At least until the airports can be sprayed. Even then, spray won’t touch any of the mosquito populations that are indoors. This is really turning out to be… massive.”
Kayla’s thin-lipped frown turned even more serious. “If I were a political faction trying to strong-arm my way into office, I would pick an opportunity for military action when the UN’s attention was turned elsewhere and when outside help was being cut off. What better time for the Ushindi Democrats to strike?”
I couldn’t disagree, no matter how much I wanted to wipe that disconcerting frown and Kayla’s escalating concern away. I had a choice—to be cold and analytical about this and risk alienating Kayla completely. To downplay the seriousness and not prepare her for the probable reality of what was coming. Or to come to some sort of compassionate compromise between truth and hope, and offer her my unswerving strength and support in the days ahead.
They were, I realized, the same choices I had as a doctor delivering unwelcome news to my patients. The analytical approach had always seemed easiest. But who was that easier on, me or them?
Kayla wasn’t stupid. Far from it. She knew the score here—probably better than I did. She didn’t need, or want, a cold analysis of what she was already quite aware of. Nor did she need, or want, sugarcoated assurances that promised rainbows and unicorns. She probably didn’t even need my acknowledgment and comfort. But who wouldn’t want that, especially in a time of stress?
Even more, it was what I wanted to share with her. I held to that feeling, maybe finally understanding all that the word compassion implied.
Taking her hand, I squeezed it gently in mine. “Let’s talk a
bout your options if it comes to that.”
She shook her head. “What options? Whatever happens in Hasa happens. I have no family there, other than the families who’ve left Zahur and who’ve gone into the city knowing the risks. So I stay here, waiting like everyone else to see what the next political play may be. There is nothing constructive I can do, so I’ll do nothing except watch and worry.”
Right now I was thinking of one thing she could be doing. Maybe it was time to try that ‘direct approach’ suggestion of hers. “How about something non-constructive?” I asked.
She blinked her non-comprehension at me.
I covered her held fingers with my other hand, sandwiching her warmth between.
“I’d very, very much like to go back to bed.”
“But there’s breakfast to cook and milk to—Oh. You mean go back to bed… together.”
I leaned in close, to where Kayla’s face filled my vision, ignoring Jengo’s jealous hoots. “I’m thinking my flight delay may not be such a bad thing after all.”
I waited for her decision, my lips no more than a breath space from hers. She could refuse the invitation, or…
“Are you trying to seduce me, Dr. LeSabre?” she whispered.
“A very wise puppet once said, ‘There is no try.’”
She smothered a laugh, not quite successfully.
I thought I’d killed another moment, but then her lips were on mine, just as soft and sure as I remembered them. They molded perfectly to mine over the corner of the table, an awkward distance away from the rest of her.
And it was the rest of her my body craved. Blood rushed down and the part of me where it gathered leapt suddenly, struggling in the confines of my shorts. My hands trembled, eager to touch, to stroke, to feel.
Eyes closed, I melded into the kiss as anticipation shivered through me, clasping her hand between mine, focusing on each finger ridge, each bluntly filed nail, each deep wrinkle in the hand that joined ours from above—
Opening my eyes, I found myself nearly nose to nose with Jengo, as his impressive set of baby teeth bared in a wide gorilla smile.
My half-erection faltered. “Uh—”
Kayla gathered the little gorilla into her lap. She laughed. “At least he likes you.”
“I was more hoping you’d be the one liking me right now.”
“Jealous?” She narrowed her eyes. “Ah, I can see both of you are. Well, little man”—it took a moment to realize she was referring to the gorilla and not me—“why don’t you see if you can find your own playmate for a bit.” She scooted him off her lap, led him to the blanket where Gus had curled up to nurse his wounds and wrapped Jengo’s arms around the dog. “Take care of Gus.” Dutifully, the gorilla plopped his butt next to the Rottweiler and hugged him tighter.
The sentiment in the soulful eyes Gus turned up to Kayla couldn’t have been more plain. It was the exact same expression my uncle had had whenever I crawled into his lap as a kid and demanded attention.
The expression in Kayla’s eyes when she turned back to me was just as clear. While Jengo was busy taking care of Gus, Kayla would be busy taking care of me.
CHAPTER 16
KAYLA
I could still say no, I thought, even as I led Mark down the hall between our rooms. With extra flair, my hips swayed seductively as we went. It was the walk of my ancestors, of generations of women before me, enticing their mates to follow. A wordless sign of availability. For all the sophistication of speech and modern pleas for communication between the sexes, body language still spoke the loudest.
The tremors in my stomach weren’t so easy to interpret. Anticipation, fear and exhilaration tied themselves in knots there. I wasn’t someone who could go from bed to bed or man to man with reckless and frequent abandon. I had turned him down before—why was this morning so different?
The adrenaline for one—I was still bathing in its after-glow, in that period where the heady pound of it had subsided and before my body fell into spiraling withdrawal. But it wasn’t only the adrenaline lending me strength and courage that had prompted my yes.
It was Mark himself—the totality of him. That sweet body alone or those liquid eyes weren’t enough in themselves to convince a yes from me. But the way he’d responded this morning by making the threat to those I loved his responsibility, too, without doubt or hesitation, just moving with the instinct to protect us all—that resonated to my core. That gave meaning and intimacy to an act that anyone—or anything from grasshoppers to mice to elephants—could participate in.
I turned into my bedroom and closed the door behind Mark. With an impish waggle of my eyebrows, I locked the door.
He stalked up behind me, and I felt the solid presence of him, looming and alien in my room, even before he laid a hand over mine on the knob.
“Afraid I might take off?” he whispered over my shoulder, his lips beside my ear. My hair ruffled in his breath.
Oh God. Out there the thought of him being in here had been a little wild, a little exciting. In here, where the air was heavy with anticipation and spreading passion, all my schoolgirl doubts and insecurities flooded over me. For a moment I was afraid I needed a locked door to keep me in.
Then he stepped in closer, the inner thigh of one leg against the outer thigh of mine, his right arm snaking under my breasts, lifting them slightly as he drew me into his chest. His left arm wrapped around my waist, pulling my hips to his. Instead of warding me away, the hard length of him anchored my resolve.
“Would you…take off?” I asked.
“Never.”
The conviction in his tone startled me. I could almost believe it carried a deeper, lasting meaning . Almost. But I wasn’t that naïve. It was bedroom talk, little of which meant anything beyond the desire to keep a partner saying yes for a few minutes more. Fleeting assurance. Fleeting promises.
“Believe me?”
I nodded, because it was the answer he needed to not interrupt this moment between us.
“Prove it.”
By unlocking the door he meant.
“Happy to. If you’ll be happy when we have a baby gorilla crawling into bed with us.”
“Oh,” The hand beneath my left breast turned up to cup it. Two fingers of the other slid under the waistband of my shorts. “I was thinking this first time we might be alone. I seem to perform better that way.” His hand stopped roving. “Not that I’ve ever done it with someone else there with us. Well, not a baby. At least not a baby gorilla.”
“So what else have you had in bed with you?”
“College. Frat parties. Who remembers?”
I stretched my neck around so I could see his face. His dark eyes were laughing. “Kidding,” he confessed. “I was in a House that was mainly geeky Greeks. A wild night for us was renting an action movie and ordering in pizza.”
I was pretty sure that wasn’t the truth either. No reason to press it, though. Not when he’d only be here another week. This was the very definition of a fling—no care for the past or the future, only for the now. The fact he was a doctor alleviated the only real worry for me to care about his past partners and history.
The laughter in his eyes dissolved into a smoked sultriness as he moved the hand at my breast to the top button of my waist-cropped camo shirt. He worked his way down each button, then slid a slow hand up the thin skin over my ribs until it was squeezing the mound of my breast. I tipped my shoulder into it, both for his pleasure and mine.
The hand at my waist crept up to my other breast. With twice-filled palms, he massaged them, running his thumbs over their peaks as I melted against him. It had been far too long since I’d been touched so intimately and never since I had been handled so expertly. He was neither mauling me roughly the way some men grabbed and pulled and abused a woman’s sensitive breasts, nor was he afraid of them the way some men were on their first confrontations with a woman’s naked chest.
My nipples responded, growing full and erect, and when his thumbs stopped
circling and began thrumming those hard nubs, bolts of lightning shot directly from them deep into the cusp between my thighs. I gasped and clenched.
Low behind me I felt him leap, hard and insistent. I swayed against him and he growled in my ear.
Trailing fire behind it, his right hand traced a line across my tender skin from breast to waist where my shorts snapped together. A quick yank and they parted, unzipping halfway on their own from the force. A quick pull and they unzipped completely. The hand working its way between the open zipper paused when it touched the close-cropped strip of hair there. I heard the sharp intake of Mark’s breath loud against my neck, surprised, I guessed, at finding no other feminine garment between his hand and me.
“I was in a hurry,” I whispered.
“No complaints here.” The husk in his voice tingled through me, adding another layer to the desire that flooded me, centering now on the destination of that broad hand that slid lower and lower, till my arch of bone cupped perfectly in its palm and its middle finger arrived triumphantly at my clit.
I squirmed, biting back my shriek at its touch. His finger lay still on top of me. Unmoving. How could he be so expert with my breasts, yet so clueless here? I bucked against him, a silent plea , moving rhythmically between the hard finger in front and the hard length of him behind.
When I heard his own strangled moan, I realized there was nothing clueless about him. He was baiting me, enjoying the fallout from my frustration.
I was panting now, that finger maddeningly close. I swung my right hand from where it had been gripping the back of his iron-hard thigh, catching the back of his hand desperately with my own, miming the movement I needed from him now.
Noble Hearts (Wild Hearts Romance Book 3) Page 9