Camouflage Heart (10 page)

“Complex,” she said. “On the one hand, you can kill a man without blinking an eye, which scares the crap out of me.” She hesitated. “On the other hand, you are thoughtful, and gentle, and protective, and I have never felt as safe as I do when I'm with you.”

His heart beat a slow thumping rhythm.

He saw himself differently. He was like the jun
gle—too overgrown, impossible to clear. His past was a tangle of vines that bound him.

She stretched up to put her lips against his.

Their soft comfort caught him by surprise. And he took them, because his throat suddenly tight, speech was beyond his ability. He felt as if in a fantasy, as if kissing a dream.

He brushed his lips across hers tentatively, knowing it would be better to leave things at that, but he couldn't. He covered her mouth with kisses from corner to corner, outlining the soft arches that drove him mad during the day. Then he kissed her face, wanting to drink her beauty until it replaced the darkness inside him. He pressed his lips against each eyelid in turn, grateful and humbled that she saw beyond appearances and somehow managed to glimpse the last vestiges of the man he had once been.

When he was done covering her with kisses, he returned to her mouth again. She parted her lips for him, and his heart melted. She tasted mildly spicy, like the roots they had eaten for dinner, intoxicating. He deepened the kiss, lost in the moment, lost in the sweetness of her.

“Audrey,” he whispered her name when they came up briefly for air.

She slid her hands under his shirt, and desire
washed through his body, the sensation so hot and hard it took his breath away all over again. A mudslide couldn't have buried him so completely.

He didn't dare move while she unbuttoned his shirt, fearing he would scare her away, still expecting her to change her mind, to stop. It would have been probably the sanest thing to do.

But she didn't, not even when her fingers glided over his scars.

He reached for the bottom of her shirt, hesitant, but she helped him, and with the T-shirt and tanktop as well. And then her bare skin was against his, a sensation so overwhelming that for a moment he didn't move, just held on to her, memorizing it. The gentle curve of her breasts pressed against him, and when she shifted and her nipples dragged across his skin, a groan rumbled up his throat.

He waited for the mad, animal-like need that he had feared he would not be able to control, but instead he found another emotion surge from deep inside, one that didn't have to do as much with the primal act of sex as with this one specific woman.

His body had needs, yes, and they'd gone long unsatisfied, but he didn't just want to take her body. He needed more than release. He wanted to make love to her. He lifted his lips from hers and buried his head in the crook of her neck for a long moment,
soaking up the exquisite sensation of their bodies touching.

His hands sought her soft skin, the curves he wanted to get lost in forever. He drank from her lips again, and unwrapped the rest of her as carefully as a child unwraps a most treasured present.

“You're beautiful,” he said, and heard her chuckle in response.

“That compliment loses some of its effectiveness in the pitch-dark night.”

“I have you memorized. And I don't need light to know the beauty in here.” He put his palm over her heart.

She pressed her lips to his in response. The kiss was slow but thorough. When she tugged on his pants, he turned to make it easier, but resisted to help, to rush. The feel of her hands on him, there, sent fire coursing through his veins.

They finally had nothing between them, and he gently turned her on her back and tasted her at his leisure, her lips, the hollow of her neck, her breasts. He skimmed his fingers over her flat belly, drawing circles around her belly button, playing games over the curve of her hip.

He wanted to discover every inch of her, taste every patch of skin, make it his if only for a night.

He moved lower and tangled his fingers in the
silky curls between her thighs, drew a fingertip over the parting line slowly, inch by inch, from one end to the other, then made the trail back up again.

“Oh,” she said, breathless, when he slipped into her. Her breasts pushed into his chest as she arched against him.

The way she responded to his touch was a wonder. She opened to him, gave herself to him freely and with abandon.

Nearly blind with need, he moved deeper inside, with one finger first, then two, and felt her respond, but then she reached for his wrist and pulled his hand away.

He obeyed, his ears ringing with the harshness of his breathing, willing his heated desire to calm, even as his body screamed for her. He wouldn't push her. If this was as far as she was willing to go, so be it. If it killed him, this was it.

But instead of pulling away, she pressed the palm of her other hand to his hardness and folded her fingers around him. “I want all of you.”

Her words seared across his skin, sending every drop of blood he had into the part she was holding.

He pushed against her, pumped his hip—he couldn't help it now. She brought her hands to the small of his back, parted her legs and lifted her knees. He ran his fingers across her inner thighs. When she
moaned with impatience, he moved over her, slipped one hand under her firm buttocks and lifted her for his entry.

“Are you sure?” He could barely croak the words out.

“Yes!” She leaned up and bit his shoulder, slipped her hands over his buttocks. “Trust me, I'm not going to get pregnant. And otherwise, I'm as healthy as a woman can get. I've been tested to oblivion during the fertility treatments.”

He had been, too, he wanted to reassure her. Regular checkups for the members of the SDDU were mandatory and exhausting. Then she did some wicked little movement with her hips, rendering him unable to speak, managing no more than a reassuring grunt.

Her opening was moist and tight, and for a moment he simply rested against it, trying to catch his breath—a futile effort. He outlined her perineum with his dewy tip. She responded by squeezing her long slim fingers into his buttocks.
Oh, man.

He pushed in a slow inch, then backed out, moved forward again. Her glorious body stretched to allow him in.

“Brian…” Like a prayer, she whispered his name.

Next time we make love I want to see your face,
the thought burned through his mind, rushing to his
lips. But since they both knew there wouldn't be a next time, he kept his mouth shut and lost himself in her.

The world fell away as he pumped in and out and, answering his rhythm, she moved beneath him. He dipped to taste her mouth, plundering her at the same time below and above, then moved to her breasts and ravaged them one after the other, his control slipping now.

He wanted to consume her, as she was consuming him, burning him up with need.

He wanted to race to heaven with her, and at the same time, he struggled desperately to hold back, to make it last forever.

He felt her body grip him even tighter, squeeze him with quick contractions, milking him wave after wave. There was no holding back then. He poured into her with so much force, it felt like he was pouring his soul out.

Bliss. Floating. Eternity.

Neither of them could move or talk for some time.

Then in some hazy recess of his mind a thought arose that he must be crushing her, so he flipped them over, sprawling her on top.

They stayed like that forever.

“That was hot,” she said next to his ear, still gasping for air.

He grinned weakly into the night. “If it wasn't raining, we would have started a forest fire.”

She giggled. An honest-to-goodness giggle. And it made something leap deep inside his heart.

He held her closer, tighter.

“What?”

“Nothing. I wish I could see you. I want to make sure you're real, not just a trick from some jungle spirit.”

She took his hand and put it over her madly beating heart. “It's real,” she said.

He kissed her, feeling her heart in the palm of his hand, and refused to think of that other reality that waited for them outside the jungle.

 

H
ER BONES
were made of rubber, and just the memory of last night was enough to set her body tingling. Audrey stirred, opened her eyes and found Brian still sleeping. The rise and fall of his chest was slow and even. She spread her fingers on the middle of his chest where her hand rested, skimming the hard muscles beneath her fingertips.

He had made love to her with such gentleness, such reverence. He had been right. It did feel unreal. If they weren't still naked, entangled in each other, she would have thought it a dream. She burrowed into him, emotion choking her all of a sudden.

Last night had been the most beautiful night of her
life. They'd had no champagne, no candles, no chocolate, not even a real bed—nothing normally associated with romance and seduction.

But none of it mattered, the magic had come from between them.

She let her gaze glide over the awakening forest, drinking in the peaceful beauty of it. Frogs were singing a serenade. The rain had stopped, she realized just as Brian's arm tightened around her. She glanced up at him. He was awake after all, but was keeping his eyes at a slit.

“Somebody's watching us,” he whispered, his lips barely moving.

Fear replaced her good mood in an instant, and she turned into him more to hide her nakedness. The guerillas had caught up with them. For a moment she panicked, then from somewhere deep welled up new-found strength and resolve.

Screw them. She was ready to fight. For herself and Brian, for what they had found last night. Nobody was going to take that away from her.

“Is your knife within reach?” He slid his hand off her, maneuvering closer to his own weapon.

“I lost it when I lost the boat.”

She heard something move in the bushes ahead to the left, lifted a little so if Brian had to jump up, he could get his arm from under her neck with ease.

But instead, he suddenly relaxed, letting his head fall back with a strangled laugh.

“What?”

“Look.” He nodded toward the forest, and a second later a large orangutan sashayed out into the open.

He stopped and looked them over with interest, his orange fur wet and matted. The open perusal on his face was nearly human. She felt embarrassed by her nakedness.

Oh dear.
She looked for her pants—out of reach.

Brian got up and pulled on his clothes. She stayed where she was, staring at the animal, too scared to move. It was pretty big, as tall as four feet, showing some nasty teeth as it curled its black lips.

“Is it dangerous?”

“Nah. Harmless things.”

The orangutan lumbered closer, fingered the platform she was lying on, poked her naked belly. She forced herself to stay still, not wanting to provoke it. She was a city girl. She didn't know how to deal with wild animals. Her only exposure to the animal kingdom had been a couple of goldfish back in grade school.

“Brian?” she squeaked.

He looked up from buttoning his shirt, stepped closer. “Hands off, buddy, the lady is mine.”

Her breath caught in her chest, and she recog
nized at that moment he realized what he had said, because he snatched his gaze from her and pretended to pay attention to his buttons again.

She worked up enough courage and grabbed her own semidry clothing, shrugged into it piece by piece, careful to keep a few feet between herself and the orangutan. “What does he want?”

“Who knows.” Brian reached his hand toward the animal. “He's just probably curious.”

The next second, without warning, the orangutan rushed up the nearest tree, startling her into a small scream. He disappeared from sight as quick as he had appeared.

“What was that about?” she asked, and heard gunfire in the distance just as the last word was out.

“We have to go.” Brian jumped to the canoe.

She made quick work of dressing and went to help him. It wasn't easy. She kept slipping in the mud. Dammit. She scraped the back of her hand, but ignored the burn.

The guns sounded closer and closer.

Then the canoe was free, and they carried it toward the river, making slow progress between the trees.

Brian dropped the front finally. “We'd be sitting ducks on the water,” he said, his face mirroring his frustration.

“Can we hide until they pass?” She set down the
back end and jumped when a succession of shots banged through the air somewhere nearby.

Whoever was shooting, she didn't think they were shooting at Brian and her. They were too far still. But they weren't poachers, either. She had shot a semi-automatic rifle when she'd gone after Brian to Hamid's camp, and that's what the shots sounded like now, coming fast together.

He looked at her, back at the canoe, hesitated for a moment, then grabbed her hand and lurched forward.

“Run!”

They scampered through the forest, careful to make as little noise as possible, ducking under vines, zigzagging around obstacles. Audrey was gasping the humid air when they stopped a few minutes later. But at least they had managed to put some distance between them and the gunfire that seemed to come from every direction.

“Sounds like a major offensive.” Brian scoured the woods.

A loud boom of some serious weapon punctuated his last word, coming from the east.

She jumped closer to him. “What was that?”

The tight set of his shoulders relaxed, and he flashed an unexpected grin at her. “The army.”

“How do you know?” She held her soaring hope in check. Could it be so simple? Could rescue be just around the corner?

“That was a rocket launcher, not your standard guerilla ammo. It's too cumbersome to carry around in the jungle and not much use with the limited visibility the trees impose. Let's go.”

“Do you think they came for the hostages?” She hurried to keep up with him as he moved forward, even passed him after a while, eager to spot their saviors. “We've done it, haven't we? They will protect us and send word of the KL attack.”

“With some luck. We have to be very careful, though.” And as if to punctuate his words, he grabbed her and pulled her back, shoved her behind him.

She gasped at his uncharacteristic roughness. “You don't have to—” Then she saw something move on the branch that a second ago had been inches from her face.

A snake.

“Don't move.” Brian stood perfectly still, as the snake stared at them and lifted its head, ready to strike.

Her blood thundered in her ear. How on earth had she missed that? It was at least five feet, although hard to tell exactly since its length was draped, and in some sections coiled, around the gnarly branch.

“Is it poisonous?” She barely breathed the words.

“Move back slowly.”

She couldn't. She was as paralyzed as if she'd
been bitten. All she could think of was Joey, her aunt's German shepherd that had gotten into a fight with a rattler during one of the summers she had spent with her aunt in Texas, and the painful death the poor dog had died, despite all intervention.

“Don't look at the snake. Look at your feet.” Brian's voice was full of patience.

It reached her on some level. She had to move. He was in front of her and couldn't pull back until she did. He had put himself into harm's way for her once again. She took a deep, shuddering breath and pushed one foot back, then the other.

“You're doing fine, keep going.”

The sound of gunfire filled the air again. They were so close. The army was here. They were as good as saved, and could tell them where the hostages were. Nicky could be back in Kuala Lumpur by tonight, and she with her, and Brian. She pushed away the panic that gripped her limbs and did as Brian had asked.

“I'm petrified of snakes,” she said after they had gotten far enough to move normally and resumed their trek. She was watching every branch now, every spot she set her feet, instead of blindly following Brian, getting lost in her thoughts as she had earlier.

“They didn't seem to bother you before.” He glanced back.

“Before?”

“When we passed them.” He turned his attention to the woods again, led the way around a patch of giant root buttresses.

The muscles in her legs went weak. She pulled her neck in, feeling all of a sudden that the trees above them were full of nasty things just waiting to drop on her shoulders. She tugged the new leaf-hat he'd made her earlier firmly into place. Snakes. She hadn't seen them before. She'd been too busy thinking about Nicky, and surviving to the next day. She had been focused on Brian.

“It might not have been poisonous,” he said over his shoulder. “I don't remember seeing that kind before. There must be a hundred species of snakes on Borneo, I doubt anyone but the local tribes know all of them.”

Great. That information made her feel so much better. There were things she simply didn't need to know. She shivered in the heat, her skin covered in goose bumps from thinking about a hundred different snakes.

The gunfight ebbed, then started up again. The closer they got, the slower they went.

“You better stay here,” Brian said after a couple of hundred feet. “This is going to be tricky.”

“No,” she said without thinking, as the panic she
had just conquered, slammed into her midsection again. “I don't want to stay alone.”

He looked at her for a long moment then drew her in for a tight hug. “I hate the thought of leaving you behind, but they might shoot at me. Hell, they probably will. Things could get dangerous.”

“What isn't?”

She lifted her face to him, and realized that more than she was scared of snakes and other jungle perils, more than she was scared of being left alone, she was scared for him. What if something happened to him and she wasn't there to help? “We're a team. I'm coming.”

He watched her for a long moment, brushed his lips against her forehead suddenly, then let her go. “Okay. But only because I don't think it's safe to leave you tied to a tree. Stay behind me at all times.”

She smiled at him and filled her lungs.

They crept from cover to cover, bush to bush. Then the vegetation thickened as they came to the edge of a swollen creek. The army was on the other side. She couldn't see them, but the gunfire was close enough for her to want to stay flattened to the ground.

Then after a while, the guns fell silent.

“I'm going to try to make contact,” he said, and
led her to a large rock boulder. “You wait for me. I'm not going far.”

She began to protest, but he silenced her with a look. “This part is not negotiable.”

“Don't take any chances.”

He looked at her with humor in his startling blue eyes. “I think it's a little too late for that.”

He dropped to his stomach and crawled to the trees on the side of the creek. From her vantage point she could see both him and the other side. Then the leaves began to move over there. The army was coming. She could see the first soldier hack through the jumble of vines.

More came, scanning the jungle, their guns in front of them, ready.

Brian stripped off his shirt, stuck it out on a stick, a makeshift “white flag” that was dirty brown. “Americans,” he yelled the single word at the same time, but it was no use.

They started shooting as soon as the first syllable was out. And they did a thorough job of it. She didn't have to be told to run. Brian pointed south, scrambling toward her, and she sprinted, pushed by a strong sense of self-preservation.

“Not too trigger-happy, are they?” she said when they were far enough so they could stop to catch their breath.

“They're in the middle of a fight. They're gonna shoot at everything that moves. Can't say I blame them. Still, I had to give it a try.”

She was drowning in disappointment. It didn't work. Their best hope for survival was a bust.

“What are we going to do?” Without the canoe their mission was doomed, and they definitely couldn't go back that way to retrieve it. “Maybe if I went to them. They wouldn't shoot at a woman, would they?”

“Don't even think about it. We'll wait until nightfall, then I'll sneak into their camp and disarm a guard. I'll explain what's going on, so he can call off the rest. Then they can radio in what we have on KL and call in help to pick up your sister and the others.”

It sounded feasible, not that she felt comfortable with it, but it had been a while since she had felt comfortable with anything. Brian had proven to her over and over again that he was capable, that he knew what he was doing. She had to trust him. And she did. “Sounds like a plan. What do we do in the meanwhile?”

“Find food and shelter. But if they move on, we're going to have to follow them.” He took off his belt and jumped to the ground, ripped off his shirtsleeve, rolled it up.

“What are you doing?” Then she saw the dark patch on his pants. “You're shot!”

She dropped to her knees next to him, pressed the rolled-up cloth to the wound while he tied the belt in place to keep the pressure on.

“It's your good leg.” Her gaze flew to his. God, it was so unfair.

“Just a flesh wound. Nothing serious.” He smiled at her. “If all goes well, tomorrow morning they'll be airlifting us out.”

She had to believe that. Because no way could Brian make it out of the jungle like this. And neither would she without him.

“Come on.” He grabbed her hand and stood with her. “We have a lunch date with some grubs.”

She wiped his blood on her pants and went with him, food being the last thing on her mind for once. He was injured. Reality was still sinking in. His injury changed everything. They no longer had the option of walking away from the army and trying to make it out of the jungle on their own. He needed help, and he needed it fast.

He grabbed a fallen branch to help him support his weight as he walked, and she watched his more pronounced limp. “Do you think this is going to work?”

“We'll make it work.”

“What if the army…” She couldn't bring herself to finish the sentence, but her doubts echoed in her head. What if they couldn't make contact? What if the army attacked them thinking they were the enemy?

“If they get me before I can talk to them, I want you to find the river and follow it out of the jungle. Once you get down far enough there'll be some villages. Somebody will have a cell phone or a radio.” His voice was thick. He didn't turn around to look at her.

“It's not going to happen,” she rushed to say, wishing she had kept her fears to herself.

“I hope not, but it could. If there's one group trained as well in jungle warfare as mine, it's the Royal Malaysian Army. It's not gonna be easy to sneak up on them.”

“But if I went to them? I'm a woman. I look foreign.” She wished he would consider that as an option.

“They'd be shooting at you long before they saw you. They're at high alert, in the middle of an offensive. I shouldn't have tried to approach them at the creek. It was a mistake. If you end up on your own and meet up with soldiers, don't move toward them unless you have a large enough open area where you can come at them from far away. Walk with your hands high in the air, or down on your knees with your hands linked behind your head. Whatever you do, don't surprise them.”

He stopped by a fallen log and lifted it, holding it with both hands.

She was trying to form an argument, but the foot-
long centipede he'd uncovered stopped her thoughts. A long moment passed before she realized he was probably waiting for her to pick it up. “I'll chew off my own arm before I'm eating that.”

But his attention wasn't on what was under the log.

He shook his head, nodded toward the woods, then slowly lowered the chunk of deadwood. What? She listened and heard the soft noise. A small deer, no bigger than a hare, stumbled from the bushes. It stared at them, drummed on the ground with its feet that were literally the length and thickness of a pencil, then darted to the right.

Brian lunged and threw himself at the animal, but he'd been too far, his legs not having enough power for the move. He missed by a foot, and the deer took off into the woods with dazzling speed.

“Damn.” He groaned as he got up.

“Are you hurt?” She was at his side the next second, supporting him. Stupid question. Of course he was hurt. Fresh blood seeped through his pants. “Don't do that again.”

He pulled away, as if he was embarrassed, and shrugged. “We need to eat.”

“Was it a fawn? It was tiny. I can't believe how fast it ran.” Although its head, legs and coloring were that of a deer, its body was rounder, strangely formed.

He found his stick and leaned on it. “A mouse deer,” he said. “That's as big as they get. It would have made a fine dinner.”

She'd only had venison once before and didn't particularly take to it, but the idea of real food, meat, made saliva gather in her mouth. Her stomach growled. She kicked up some leaf mold and found a half-dozen beetle-like bugs, with alternating brilliant red and blue stripes. “How about these?”

“Probably not a good bet. Bright color is usually a warning sign that they're poisonous.”

She watched the bugs burrow into the dirt as she stood. She wasn't all that disappointed. “Maybe we'll come across some fruit.”

But they didn't. It took another half an hour before they found a handful of grubs that were good to eat. And since the skies opened again by then, they washed down their lunch with some rainwater. When they were done, Brian helped her up a tree and wove some leaves together over them—not a terribly effective shelter, but the best they could do under the circumstances.

He sat in the V where the branch met the trunk, with his arms around her. Her back soaked up his heat, and she let her head fall onto his shoulder. His leg was elevated on a cross branch.

“How is it?”

“I'm glad this happened now and not before. We're almost out of here.”

He took off the belt and checked his injury. It was no longer bleeding. His blood had clotted, the makeshift bandage stuck in the wound. He tore off his other sleeve and ripped it into a long strip, tied it around what was already there. “This should keep the dirt out.”

She put her hands over his, wanting to hold on to him.

“Tonight I'll make contact. We'll be out of here in the morning,” he said, as if sensing the despair that fought to take her over.

He was injured, dangerously so—even a minor wound could get infected enough to become a life threatening problem in the jungle. And yet he thought not of himself, but how to set her at ease. His strength had a way of strengthening her, as if they shared some invisible link.