Noble Hearts (Wild Hearts Romance Book 3) (14 page)

Then she was gone again, out of reach. But a forefinger crooked, beckoning me up. I rose, although not without difficulty as other parts of me were trying to rise as well. I slipped the condom I’d surreptitiously opened into her hand, and waited for what Kayla would do next. She came in close and pressed the points of her breast into my chest as her hands dropped to the waistband of my shorts. While she worked the buttons loose, I dropped my hands to the top of her hips and toyed with her bikini.

I gasped when she unzipped me hard and fast. Then my shorts were falling and I was free, springing against her thigh, searching, rising, lengthening. She took me in the circle of her hands to tame my unbound cock, and I slid my thumbs under the elastic behind the frills and guided her bikini down over her hips before bending to the side so Kayla could hold me still while I pushed her bikini down the length of her thighs, over her knees and down her long calves till I could reach no further over the grip she still had on me. Then she stepped gracefully out of the lacy cloth, and we were both standing naked in the candlelight.

I brought my hands back up to her hips, my fingers gripping the firm globes and massaging them while she slowly worked the roll of ribbed latex over my erected flesh. My hands wandered further up till my palms were holding the weight of her breasts and my thumbs were caressing their dark peaks.

“Bed,” Kayla whispered in my ear, letting go of me
there
and pressing me backwards with her palms against my shoulders.

My hands fell to her waist as we maneuvered ourselves into the sheets, she being careful yet of my bandaged bullet wound. For a moment, I thought my spider was going to choose the top position, but with a sudden graceful roll she was beneath me and I was on my elbows over her, staring once again into those beguiling eyes of hers.

“Are you ready?” she asked.

“I’ve been ready my whole life for you. For this.” It could have been a come-on line, but we both knew it wasn’t. As my elbows sank into the bed, it claimed me. The room claimed me. I was no longer a stranger here. Not family—not yet—but a welcomed guest, here in the intimacy of the night.

Beneath me, Kayla spread her legs in a welcome of her own as I buried myself deep within her. In ecstasy, we claimed each not once, not twice, but three times before the candle guttered out and we fell asleep twined in each other’s arms and wrapped in lilac sheets.

It had been a long time since I’d woken up with a man in my bed. The last time had been during my university days after a night of celebratory partying after a week of mid-term exams. I hadn’t remembered much then about the night before, and I remembered even less now about the man involved.

Waking up with Mark, though, was different. As he spooned around me, one arm draped protectively around my waist and the other at my chest, one hand cupping my breast, I could daydream waking up with him again. It didn’t feel at all like something I would weary of any time soon.

It felt comfortable.

More so, likely, because of the rain that streamed against the windows and the low roll of thunder in the distance. A dry bed in the middle of a rainstorm always carried its own layer of comfort, especially when the pantry was full, the work that could be done was, and there was nothing more urgent then burrowing into the sheets—perhaps with a cup of coffee and a book—and listening to the rain come down.

A passing thought of coffee, it seemed, was enough to fill the room with its aroma. A passing glance at the clock, however, showed it was just a couple of minutes past 7 o’clock, the time I set the coffee maker for daily. Now if only the coffee maker would serve us breakfast in bed, life would be perfect. Unfortunately, one of us was going to have to get up, cook breakfast, pour the coffee, let the dog out then back in again, and feed the gorilla since iRobot hadn’t yet seen fit to make a Roomba that could do more than take care of the floors.

Nestled in the circle of Mark’s arm with the heat of his body warming me and his breath tickling my neck, I couldn’t see me being the one to get up. But if he got up instead, then my reason for remaining in bed would be gone. There was no way I was going to win here. Between us, I was the one who could get the chores done fastest.

With a sigh, I lifted his arm off my breasts. The arm around my waist, though, tightened as my small movements stirred him awake.

“No. Don’t go,” he murmured, still half-asleep.

The nudge at my hip added to his persuasive plea.

“Mmm,” I murmured back. “Let’s call it a 15-minute rain delay.”

In reality, it was more like 30 minutes. And to Mark’s credit, when I got up, so did he. “This way we get the chores done in half the time and will be back in bed twice as fast,” he reasoned.

In reality, it didn’t work out that way at all.

We pulled out the laptop and phone over our second cups of coffee, after breakfast and while waiting for a lull in the steady rain before carrying the bottles out to Tamu and Nyota. From experience, I expected to lose a signal bar in the rain as the satellite signal bounced from the main data tower at Hasa to the smaller towers and freestanding kiosks that supplied the tribes in the surrounding areas with communications.

What I didn’t expect was the NO SIGNAL message that flashed on the phone’s screen. As we waited for the laptop to boot up and connect, I stalked the house, trying to find a signal pocket somewhere.

When the laptop booted, the message from its modem was just as dire: NO SERVICE DETECTED.

I frowned. “The storm’s not that bad.”

“Is it old equipment?” Mark asked. “Maybe the wind blew down a tower.”

I shook my head. “There’s a tower at the top of our mountain rise, which is only about 4000 kilometers, and a kiosk between here and the city. If we can’t get a signal feed from one, we can always get it from the other. Maybe not a strong signal, but never none.”

Quite unexpectedly, Gus rose, stiff-legged and whining, staring toward the front door.

My feeling of foreboding skyrocketed at the sound of a sharp knock. I glanced at Mark who was as on guard as I suddenly was. We bolted for our rooms. “A whine means it’s someone Gus knows,” I assured Mark as he slid into his scrubs and I threw on a shapeless but brightly colored caftan before hurrying back to the door, with Mark beside me. Gus was already there, sniffing along the crevice of the jamb while Jengo raised his arms and hooted helpfully from the kitchen table.

Under shelter of the covered veranda stood the two male workers who had stayed behind accompanied by a third male I didn’t know. Gus growled softly at the stranger when I invited them inside.

“
Sawa-sawa
,” I told Gus, assuring him all was okay.

Keeping a wary eye on the stranger, the Rottweiler backed away, giving the men room to enter. Jengo, quiet now, peeped through the kitchen door at the visitors. That was, I thought, uncharacteristic of him to be so reserved, but there appeared to be other matters more important to think about if the grave expression on the men’s faces were any indicators.

“
Pole-sana
for disturbing you so early,
jumbe
,” Mshindi apologized. “This is Hamadi, my cousin’s husband of the Bantu tribe.”

I nodded at Hamadi. “
Shikamoo
.” He wasn’t that much older than the rest of us, but he accepted the implied honorific with the same grace with which it was intended. “
Nafurahi kukuona. Karibu,
” I welcomed him.

“I’m afraid,” he said, “my news won’t be as welcome as I.”

It was hard to be patient and observe the customary manners of the tribes. I had, it seemed, been living a more Western than African lifestyle, especially since university. “Will the news be better received over coffee or tea?”

He shook his head. “
Asante
, but there is nothing this news would go down well with.”

That frightened me. My hand must’ve flailed because it was suddenly being held in Mark’s strong grip.

“The Red army is on the march. They’re pulling down the data towers, and the kiosks are in flames. They’re communicating over short-wave and portable receivers. One of the tribe picked them up on his radio. They want no other communications in or out.”

“Why? What will that accomplish?”

Mshindi shrugged. “Fear. A demonstration of power. A show of what they themselves are willing to sacrifice.”

I remembered the pride of the Ushindi people when the data towers had gone up only a handful of years ago. A thoroughly modern accomplishment and a promise that First World prosperity would one day be in reach. “They’re fools.”

“They’re radicals ,” Mark said. “And history is full of them.”

The enormity of what was happening and its consequences slowly seeped in. We were cut off from news. Any cry for help we put out would go unanswered. I wouldn’t know when Lisha died, or if any of my other friends were infected. I wouldn’t know if full-scale civil war broke out or if one side or the other peacefully ceded power.

And even if the political conflict was resolved posthaste, rebuilding what they’d torn down would likely take weeks, if not months, assuming whoever was in power had the knowledge, the money, or even the desire to restore Ushindi’s ability to communicate.

“We don’t know what their plan is next,” Ikeno said. “This rain will turn the roads to mud, and many will be flooded. If we don’t leave Zahur now, we may not get a chance to later.”

Leave
? “Were safe here. If we can’t get out, they can’t get in. Besides, what use does the army have for our plantations?” A history class image from
Gone with the Wind
of Union soldiers burning their way across Confederate land branded my inner eye. “No, I know the answer to that. But we’re not talking armies tens of thousands of men strong, are we? There’s only so much Ushindi can do.”

“But it isn’t just Ushindi,” Mark reminded me. “Not if the DRC takes an interest. Not if the DRC wants Ushindi back.”

“No.” I shook my head in desperation, the thought of being under DRC rule again too overwhelming to comprehend.

“Ikeno and I are taking our wives down to the Lentu village before the rains cut us off—and before the Red army finds us here,” Mshindi said. “If we can beg the indulgence of your jeep… Hamadi came to us on a scooter. We have no other transportation.”

The jeep was rugged enough to get them through mud and minor flooding. That would leave the low-riding van for Mark and me. It had proven itself tougher than it looked on several occasions. And since I, stubbornly, still had no plans on leaving, I agreed.

I gave them the keys and a few francs— the same as I’d done for the other workers who’d left before them—and we said our goodbyes.

“
Jumbe,
” Ikeno insisted, “you should go too.”

“Where would I go? My mother’s tribe is Kamba, and any kin I have through her are many kilometers away. No. Zahur is my home. The animals here my family. I will not abandon them.”

The look on his face was one of sincere concern. “Then come with us to the Lentu village. Be a part of our family.”

I smiled, hoping I was conveying even a tenth of the gratitude I felt in my heart over his generosity. “You’ll have burdens enough of your own. Go.
Safari njema.
Be safe.”

They left then, heading off into the drumming rain to collect their wives, the jeep and whatever supplies would fit. If Zahur had seemed lonely after the first of the workers left, it would be desolate when the last of them were gone.

Desolate except for Mark, me, my strays and a handful of cattle.

“Looks like you’re going to learn how to milk a cow after all,” I told Mark. “Those ladies’ bags will be awfully painful otherwise.”

Thankfully, Mark still had a sense of humor. “Always happy to give a lady a helping hand—or two.”

He winked, and I let out the breath that had been tensing in my chest since I’d handed over the keys to the jeep. Mark had been remarkably quiet about a decision that affected him as much as me. I couldn’t be sure what he was thinking—until now.

Stepping behind me, he drew me close, nuzzling my ear, his hands creeping over my caftan till his palms were cupping my breasts and thumbs and forefingers were plucking their peaks. “I trust you’ll help me limber up?”

The urgent nudge from behind told me his hands weren’t the only things that needed limbering. “That pleasure, doctor, would be all mine.” I reached behind.

He groaned. “I assure you, Ms. Van den Berg, that wouldn’t be true at all.”