“Keep an eye out for snakes,” Ben called.
“Thanks for the warning,” she muttered. “I will.”
“The fer-de-lance likes to lie on the ground among fallen leaves and wait for its food to come tripping along.”
Damn him. She stopped and gave the ground an extra-sharp perusal, then went back to hacking. She knew about snakes and had automatically looked before she began, but he had made her uneasy enough to look again. Not that that was a bad thing, she was forced to admit. She would rather suffer a little uneasiness than a snakebite. Though they carried antivenin, a bite from a fer-de-lance could mean a painful death, and the bushmaster was even deadlier.
When they had made a sufficient clearing, they quickly set up the camp with the tents in a circle around the campfire. Rick and Kates unfolded their lightweight chairs and sat down, their faces and posture telling of their utter exhaustion. Ben didn’t prod them to help, as they were clearly beyond it.
Pepe began the meal, and everyone gathered around. Conversation was sketchy, as they were all tired from the exertion of the first day. As soon as they had eaten, Jillian once more retired to her tent. She had shown Ben on a map the location of the next landmark, and he had said it would take at least three days to reach it. Until then, she had no other calculations to make or recheck. All she had to do was rest, and that was exactly what she intended to do.
After securing the zipper with tape, she undressed and used moist disposable towels to clean up as best she could, paying special attention to her feet. A blister or fungal infection could make life miserable. She dusted her feet and boots with antifungal powder each morning, but every little irritation had to be treated immediately, before it became a major problem. Clean socks were as necessary as food. Thank God her boots were old and well broken in.
Feeling better, she pulled on clean underwear and, with a deep sigh, stretched out on the sleep pad.
“Jillian.”
It was Ben. She sighed again, but this time not in relief. “What?”
“You need a rubdown.” She heard him tugging at the zipper. “The damn zipper is stuck.”
“No, it isn’t. I have it jammed from in here.”
“Well, unjam it.”
“I’m okay. Forget about the rubdown.”
“Open the zipper.” His voice was quiet, but again there was that unmistakable tone of command.
She scowled in his direction, even though she knew he couldn’t see her. “I’d rather be sore tomorrow than deal with your so-called rubdown,” she said bluntly. “I’d have to be an idiot to let you in here.”
Ben sighed. “No funny business, I promise. No wandering hands.”
“Why should I believe you?”
“Because I gave you my word.”
That wasn’t much reason, but she found herself hesitating. A rubdown would be heaven; she was so sore now that every movement hurt. Tomorrow would be torture if she didn’t do something about the muscle strain. Why should she endure pain when she didn’t have to? Common sense was sometimes uncomfortable. If she denied herself the rubdown she could feel virtuous and long-suffering, but “suffering” was the key word. Being entirely practical, however, she couldn’t find any sense in refusing.
“Well, all right,” she muttered. “But if you make even one wrong move, I’ll brain you with something.” Wincing as she moved, she sat up and peeled the tape back, then slid the zipper down.
“You mean you brought your purse?” Ben crawled into the tent, making it suddenly seem child-size. He brought one of the lanterns and a bottle of liniment with him. One eyebrow climbed as he studied the strip of tape, and he grinned.
“It works,” she pointed out.
“So it does. Okay, down on your stomach.”
She obeyed, though stiffly. “I’m all right, really. I expected to be sore.”
“No point in having pain when I can relieve at least part of it. By the way, I like the outfit.”
She hadn’t blushed in years, but suddenly she felt her face heating up. More was covered than would have been if she’d been wearing a bathing suit, but the fact that her panties and shirt were underwear made the moment far more intimate. Trust Ben to mention that. Trust him to be incapable of refraining from making suggestive remarks. She pressed her hot face into the pad, thinking that if she could have moved fast enough she would have belted him one just on general principle.
The pungent scent of liniment burned her nose when he opened the bottle. He poured a liberal amount into his palm and began massaging it into her legs. He started at her ankles and worked upward, rolling and prodding the tight muscles. She moaned with delight when he kneaded her calf muscles, then caught her breath on a sharp inhalation of pain when he moved up to her thighs.
“Easy,” he murmured soothingly. “Relax and let me work the soreness out.”
His touch was slow and lingering, for all the power in his fingers. She had been wary, expecting his hands to wander where they shouldn’t have, but they didn’t, and after a while the pleasure of the massage was so great that she couldn’t resist its drugging spell any longer. Slowly the tension drained out of her with each long stroke of his hands. She heard herself making little sounds in her throat, and tried to stop, because it sounded lewd.
“Roll over,” he said, and she did.
He massaged the fronts of her thighs, rubbing in the liniment, easing the soreness. “I knew you’d be in good shape,” he commented. “Nice, strong legs. I was beginning to think your brother and his cohort weren’t going to make it, though. They crawled into their tents right after you did. They wouldn’t even have taken off their boots if I hadn’t made them.”
“They don’t know anything about what they’re doing,” she said drowsily.
“That’s an understatement. Okay, on your stomach again so I can do your back. Pull your shirt off.”
She was sleepy, but not that sleepy. She opened her eyes and glared at him.
“I can’t rub in the liniment if you don’t,” he pointed out. “Look, I’m not going to jump your bones tonight. I like my women a bit more lively than you are right now. Your shoulders and back are sore, and if I don’t rub them down tonight they’ll feel even worse tomorrow. You know it, so don’t argue.”
She didn’t trust him an inch, but he had behaved so far, and the massage felt like heaven. After giving him a warning look she turned onto her stomach again, then wriggled her tank top off.
She heard him chuckle, but he kept any comments to himself. He poured a small amount of liniment on her back, then settled himself into position astride her buttocks. She closed her eyes, berating herself. She should have known.
But all he did was lean forward and begin a strong massage that almost brought her off the pad, especially when his fingers dug into her sore shoulders. She groaned aloud at the exquisite pain.
He worked on each muscle, forcing them into relaxation. She felt herself going limp and was helpless to stop it. Along with the soreness he rubbed out every bit of strength. He prodded until he found every sore spot, then lingered until the last vestige of tension was gone. He was good at this. Oh, was he good. He didn’t hesitate to use the strength necessary to do a thorough job.
She would almost have believed sympathy and a desire to help were his only motives, if it hadn’t been for the swelling hardness she could feel against her buttocks. Every time he leaned forward, his erection pressed against her. But he didn’t do anything else that she could object to, and he had done such a good job of relaxing her that she was incapable of responding, either in welcome or in rejection. All she could do was lie there, drifting in and out of a doze, and wishing those powerful hands could stay on the job for another hour or so. It was pure heaven. . . .
Ben looked down at her, and his lips moved into a strained, rueful smile. She was asleep. He was astride her firm, deliciously rounded, barely covered ass; he had been rubbing his penis against that ass for half an hour, he was so hard that he was shaking with the ne
ed to have sex, and she was asleep. Blissfully, peacefully asleep.
He would be lucky if he slept at all that night. He’d caught a glimpse of her breasts when she pulled off her shirt, and the image was torturing him. Lush, heavy breasts had always been his favorite, and hers were on the small side, firmly erect without the voluptuous sway that had always turned him on, so he was perplexed by this almost painful fascination with hers. He wanted to see her nipples, roll them between his fingertips, maybe even suck at them a little. He had always loved the feel of a woman’s nipple in his mouth. She was lying there almost naked and sound asleep. All he had to do was gently roll her over and look his fill. He wouldn’t even touch her.
He began muttering curses from between his clenched teeth as he moved from astride her and capped the liniment bottle with barely restrained violence. He’d given her his word. Something had to be wrong with him. He couldn’t believe he’d actually promised her he wouldn’t touch her; that in itself was proof of something serious going haywire in his brain. What was even more ridiculous was that he had her at his mercy and wasn’t even going to roll her over for a sneak preview of her breasts.
He looked down at her, at the thick swath of shiny brown hair spread across her bare shoulders, at the way her dark lashes rested on her cheeks, at the relaxed softness of her mouth. The sounds she had made while he was massaging her sore muscles had sounded so much like intense sex that he couldn’t stop thinking of a time when he would be deep inside her, finally, and those low, husky moans would be sounding right in his ear. This firm, sleekly muscled, deceptively strong body would be vibrant with arousal beneath him, her hips rolling and lifting into his thrusts. She would be clamped so tightly around him that it would be all he could do to move in and out of her, and when she came . . . God Almighty, when she came . . .
He shuddered and forced the fantasy from his mind. He was only torturing himself, and damned if he knew why. He’d never been this obsessed with a woman before. Obsessed. He didn’t like the word, or the meaning behind it. It was stupid to be obsessed about any one woman when there were hundreds of millions of them in the world and he deeply appreciated a great many of them. To be obsessed with one would mean that others had lost their appeal for him, and he couldn’t see that ever happening. Hell, what man in his right mind would want it to happen?
Maybe that was the problem. He wasn’t in his right mind. If he had been, he never would have made that stupid promise.
But he was oddly content just to sit in that cramped space and watch her while she slept, to enjoy the maddening nearness of her almost naked body.
Damn her. What did she think he was, a damn gelding? How could she have gone to sleep like that, as if she weren’t wearing only her panties and he hadn’t been astride her firm little ass with a throbbing hard-on? She should have been awake, on guard against the possibility that he would toss her onto her back and make a serious effort at convincing her to slip out of those panties, too. Did she discount his masculinity to the point that she wasn’t even worried about being seduced?
He should show her how wrong she was in that kind of thinking. He could have her almost ready to climax before she was even awake; she would be twisting in his arms, begging him to enter her and finish the delightful torture. He could spend the night here rather than in his own tent.
Except for that damn promise.
Sighing, he picked up that flimsy little undershirt she’d been wearing and draped it across her back, so he couldn’t see the swell of her breast beneath her arm. No point in making this any harder on himself than it had to be, both literally and figuratively. Then he put his hand on her shoulder, pausing a moment to feel the smooth, silky curve, before he shook her slightly.
“Wake up, sweetcakes.” His voice sounded strange even to himself, with an oddly husky tone. He cleared his throat.
“Hmmm?” she murmured.
“I’m leaving now. Wake up so you can put the tape back across the zipper.”
Heavy lids drifted open and sleepy green eyes looked up at him. For a moment the expression in them was soft and welcoming; then they sharpened and narrowed. Immediately she reached for her shirt, and momentary confusion crossed her face when she found it already draped across her. Not that it was much of a shield, being both too small and too flimsy, but it was comforting for all that.
“Don’t worry,” he drawled. “Nothing happened. When I get around to fucking you, sweetcakes, you can bet you won’t be able to sleep through it.”
She fumbled at the shirt and finally got it positioned, holding it across her breasts as she sat up. Her cheeks turned pink at his crude remark, but she contented herself with merely glaring at him.
“Thanks for the rubdown,” she said stiffly. “It helped a lot.”
He lifted his eyebrows. “It was my pleasure.”
“Probably, but thank you anyway.”
“My services are available for tomorrow night, if you’d like to make an appointment in advance.”
She started to tell him that she’d be just fine, thank you, but prudence made her pause. She hoped most of the soreness would be worked out by then, but if it wasn’t, a rubdown would be more than welcome.
“I’ll wait until tomorrow night to see,” she said smoothly. “If you’re already booked up I’ll just have to wait.”
He winked. “Just remember that my services are much in demand.”
“I’m sure they are.”
He leaned forward and kissed her. “Look, Ma, no hands,” he murmured against her lips, and despite herself she chuckled. Ruthlessly he took advantage of it, deepening the pressure and pushing his tongue past the relaxed barriers of lips and teeth.
It was as wonderful as before, damn it. She shivered and helplessly returned the kiss, luxuriating in the feel and taste of him. Her breasts tightened in instinctive preparation, ready to receive their share of attention from him. What would it feel like if he moved his mouth down to her nipples? If he did that as skillfully as he kissed, she wouldn’t be able to bear it. If he made love with the same slow sensuality, she would go mad from the pleasure.
She should never have let him kiss her, because her worst enemy was temptation, and oh, was she tempted. She was a woman, not a statue, and Ben Lewis was all man. She wanted him.
So she kissed him too, her mouth sweet and warm with wanting, her tongue joining his. She felt him shudder and was intensely satisfied that she could make him writhe under the same lash of desire.
Then he pulled away, his eyes glittering, his face hard. His mouth was wet and sensual, as if it still molded hers to his passion.
“Goddammit,” he said violently, and snatched up the lantern and the bottle of liniment. He jerked the zipper down and started to crawl out, then turned and glared at her. “I’ll never make such a goddamn stupid promise again,” he barked. “And put the tape back over this son of a bitch.”
“I will,” she said faintly as he exited the tent. She fumbled in the darkness for the strip of tape still attached to one side of the flap, and smoothed it in place over the zipper. Then she stretched out on the pad and tried to sleep, but her heart was pounding way too hard. Her breasts ached; her nipples were tight and throbbing. She found the twisted undershirt and finally managed to pull it on, hoping that the light covering would ease the ache.
No matter how sore she was, she couldn’t allow him to give her another rubdown. She knew exactly what would happen. She was too physically aware of him to resist that kind of closeness, and he wouldn’t try to resist at all. Instead he would use every opportunity to undermine her defenses—not that they were all that strong. Right now they were definitely tottering.
10
On the third day the terrain began getting rougher as the flat basin started to give way to mountains. Jillian moved up so she was right behind Ben, her eyes anxiously searching ahead.
“What are you looking for now?” he grumbled. He knew what he was looking for: danger. It could be lying in wait overhead or on
the ground right in front of him. It could come charging at them from the underbrush. It could arrive in the shape of an arrow, for the more isolated tribes could get distinctly irritated when anyone trespassed on their territories, or the danger could be as simple as swarming bees. It was his job to note every detail, to be prepared for everything. Earlier he had caught the strong acrid scent of huangana, and swung on a wide detour to avoid the ill-tempered and dangerous animals. Pigs from hell, that’s what they were. The detour had made Jillian nervous, even though he assured her they had returned to their original course.
“I’m looking for a flat-topped mountain,” she replied.
“How close are we supposed to be to it?”
“I don’t know. It doesn’t matter, anyway, since we won’t actually go to it. It’s just a means of lining up our position. It’s supposed to be visible within one day’s walk of the time when the terrain begins rising.”
“Gosh,” he said sarcastically, “I didn’t realize the instructions were that precise.”
She narrowed her eyes at his broad back, thinking how she would like to hit him with a rock, right in the middle of that sweat-stained expanse, though the rock would probably bounce off, considering how hard the man was. He had become aggravated with his shirt-sleeves the day before, because they restricted his motion as he swung the machete at obstructing vines, so he had simply torn the sleeves out. His bare arms were roped with muscles—muscles that rippled and bulged with each movement, muscles that made her abdomen tighten in reaction.
“I suppose,” he continued, “if you don’t see this flat-topped mountain within one day’s walk, we’ll turn around and march back and forth until you do find it.”