Dateline: Kydd and Rios (11 page)

“Then we’re even,” he said. “You’ve scared me plenty in the last couple of hours, and I don’t take that from anybody.”

The sheer arrogance of his remark sparked her anger back to life. “Let go of me, Josh.” She squirmed again. “Ask whatever you want, but let go of me.”

“Lady,” he whispered between his teeth, “I’m not even close to letting go of you.”

Before she could protest, he bent his head and took her mouth in a bruising kiss. She gasped and struggled, her awkward position leaving her helpless to break free. He devoured her from the outside in, taking advantage of her parted lips to thrust his tongue inside.

She fought the intrusion, her hands pushing against his chest. Then suddenly he stopped, his mouth still on hers, and with a soft moan he traced her lips, soothing the tender skin with his tongue. The gentle touch and aching sound went through her like heated honey, melting every ounce of sense she had.

“Kiss me, Nikki.” he murmured between brushes of his mouth, his breath coming hard. “Kiss me.” His arms slid around her in an embrace of pure power, dragging her to her knees and across his chest.

“Don’t.” She choked out the weak command. “Don’t do this to—”

He silenced her with the kiss she didn’t want, with the kiss she couldn’t stop, teasing her mouth and unraveling her resistance. He caught her lower lip between his teeth, tugged gently, and sent a tumultuous wave of longing through her body.

Coerced by the insistence of his passion and her own weak will, she drew his tongue back into her mouth and died just a little inside. Inevitably, she lost herself in the sensual pleasures he offered—the taste of him, the slow explosions of electricity he created with each touch, the glory of his hard body beneath her, and the safety of his arms around her.

She’d missed him for so long. She’d fought the loneliness and regrets until she’d convinced herself she could live without him, that there would be another man someday.

Lies, all lies
. . . the truth whispered. Reality faded into a swirling vortex of long-ago emotion and growing excitement. Her hands slipped around his neck as her body slid down his. Josh Rios had been her first man, her only man. He’d been her friend, and one night, one unforgettable summer night, he’d been her lover.

A sweet ache grew between them, needing only a movement here, a touch there, to drown them both. Josh drew her farther on top of him, holding her tighter and closer, his hands cupping her hips, and still he couldn’t get enough. He tilted his head and opened his mouth wider over hers, capturing her soft moans and feeling them run like wildfire to his loins. Nikki Kydd still belonged to him, and if she belonged to him, she didn’t belong to some guy named Carlos, no matter what she’d said.

Slowly sliding his hands up to her face, he lifted his mouth from hers and looked into her languid, passion-smudged eyes. His thumbs caressed the delicate angle of her jaw. “You’ve got a lot to learn, Nikki,” he said huskily. “And the first lesson is don’t lie to me. Who is Carlos?”

She stared at him in confusion, her chest hurting with the effort to breathe, her arms heavy with the need to hold him again.

The longer she looked at him, at his dark angel face and the faint sheen of dampness on his skin, the more aware she became of where she was, of what she’d done. A heated blush stole up her cheeks. She was all over him, straddling his hips, her hands on his shoulders, her fingers tangled in his hair—and she’d kissed him with passion, exposing herself in the most vulnerable way possible.

“Damn you,” she whispered, trying not to die of shame and embarrassment. She quickly scrambled back to her side of the seat, and this time he let her go.

“You’ve already done a good job of that, Nikki.” His voice carried across the darkness without a trace of the tenderness he’d just shown. “Now answer my question.”

“No,” she said, shaking inside. “Do what you have to, Josh. But I’m not playing your game tonight, any of your games.” It was a calculated risk, an emotionally calculated one, but he was manipulating her too easily for her to engage in a battle of wits, let alone a battle of kisses and memories. Exhaustion and stress had lengthened the odds against her. She wasn’t thinking fast enough to win, and win she must, at any cost.

Two days, she prayed, wrapping her arms around her waist and shivering despite the thick, heavy heat pressing all around her. Just let her have two days without making any more mistakes. Two days to set everyone up. Two days before he realized what she’d done.

Two days without making a complete fool of herself, she added with a stifled groan, slipping farther down in the seat and closing her eyes. Even at a hundred percent, she wouldn’t be a match for his mind-weakening style of sensual persuasion.

Josh watched her shut herself away from him, and he knew he’d blown it, in spades. He hadn’t meant to kiss her. He hadn’t meant to get side-tracked on her personal life, which he admitted hadn’t gotten him very far, But then, she’d never been easy to push around.

Some things never changed, he thought, tightening his hands around the steering wheel and dropping his head back in frustration. Not her stubbornness, not her exasperating ability to pull him in over his head, and not his reaction to her touch. His body still pulsed with arousal, a deep throbbing he had only himself to blame for. She hadn’t teased him; he’d plunged in with his heart and soul bared.

Once, they’d gotten love right, so perfect that every other woman he’d had left him feeling empty—but not nearly as empty as he felt now.

With a resigned sound from deep in his throat, he sat up and eased the car forward, taking care not to hit the tree branch lying across the dirt track.

* * *

Nikki woke to a pale, hazy dawn filled with soft shadows and light, and the chattering of birds. Mist drifted down from the canopy of trees. The leaves of the lower plants glistened with a misleading dewy freshness. Nothing was fresh in this tropical forest sauna.

She rolled to a sitting position in the seat, unconsciously reaching up and kneading the sore muscles in her neck and shoulders. A hundred yards ahead, the road opened up and the forest thinned out, giving way to savanna. She noted the fact, then glanced in the backseat.

He was crammed into the small space, one knee bent, the other leg stretched under the front seat. His chest rose and fell softly. His hair was damp and slicked back from his face, heavy with the humidity and sweat that also moistened his face and his clothes. A night’s growth of beard stubbled his jaw.

As she watched him, he shifted uncomfortably, rearranging his shoulders and hips. He grimaced at the futile effort and fell back into his original position. Compassion told her to wake him, to put him out of his misery. Common sense told her he needed all the rest he could get, no matter how uncomfortable. She certainly felt better after her sleep, more in control, less susceptible to the previous night’s volatile mix of tension, fear, and spontaneous combustion.

Combustion. There was no other word for what had happened to her when he’d kissed her. She’d lost all reason under the pliant assault of his mouth, under each caress of his hands. She sighed and dragged her fingers through her hair, her gaze drifting beyond the windshield. Forget it, Nikki, she told herself. Forget it and save yourself a whole lot of heartache.

Behind her, Josh opened his eyes, and the first thing he saw was the woman who had run him ragged in his dreams. He felt like hell, and she looked gorgeous, a recently acquired talent, he guessed. She never used to look that good first thing in the morning. He remembered a gawky girl with a cap of tousled hair, her eyes bloodshot from too many beers the night before, her mood grumpy for the same reason. He hadn’t made much of a guardian.

When he’d finally become aware of her miraculously transforming body and his own reaction to the change, he’d made damn sure he didn’t see her first thing in the morning anymore. The overnight camp-outs had come to a halt, and so had the shared hotel rooms. The cost of an extra room had been a small price to pay for his sanity.

He’d lost it anyway, and what had it gotten him? Months of desperation, years of trying to forget, and all so he could end up in the middle of nowhere in the backseat of a Chevy, alone. The gods must be laughing.

“Good morning,” he lied.

“Good morning.” Her eyes met his briefly before she turned away. “Where are we?”

“We’re where the gas ran out.” She did look beautiful. Her hair was tousled, but it didn’t used to tousle into a golden mane. Her eyes weren’t bloodshot. They were clear, and still the palest summery green he’d ever seen. Her mood was a mystery, but not for long.

“I told you not to take this road.”

Damn, he thought. The lady had a diagram of all of his buttons, and she was determined to keep pushing the one marked “mad.”

“You told me a lot of things last night,” he said, “and I didn’t believe any of them.” He pushed himself up and reached for his satchel, trying not to notice how the silky T-shirt clung to her breasts and fell off one shoulder, or how the skinny black strap of her slip looked against her creamy skin.

She had great shoulders. No amount of satchel-rummaging could distract him from that particular fact. Finally he found what he wanted.

Nikki watched him unscrew the lid of a metal flask and raise the container to his mouth.

“What have you got?” she asked.

In answer, he handed her the flask and continued swishing the liquid around in his mouth. She took a small sip, and her eyes widened.

“Whiskey,” he rasped.

“
Cheap
whiskey,” she corrected him. She inhaled deeply and felt her sinuses clear all the way to the tips of her toes. Immediately her stomach told her it didn’t appreciate the crude addition.

She popped two of the antacid tablets into her mouth, for the first time wondering if maybe she was working on an ulcer.

“Sorry. I forgot,” he said.

“Don’t worry about it. Do you want something to eat?”

He leaned forward and looked out the windshield, both eyebrows lifted. “Do you see something I don’t? Like a restaurant? Or a bunch of bananas?”

“No. I’ve still got my Sulaco provisions in the trunk. Nothing fancy, but it’ll keep us from starving until we figure out what we’re going to do.”

“Walk,” he said.

“What?”

“We’re going to walk. There’s a ranch about a mile up the road.”

She tilted her head and gave him a quizzical look. “How do you know that?” She lived in San Simeon, and she hadn’t known where this branch of the river road led to.

“A year ago I was in and out of here quite a bit.”

Try as she might, she couldn’t keep the disappointment and the hurt off her face. He’d been in San Simeon a number of times and he hadn’t contacted her. Any illusions she’d had about their friendship died with the knowledge.

“I stopped looking for you a long time ago, Nikki,” he said softly, hating himself for putting the bleakness in her eyes, and hating her for allowing him the power to hurt her. What he knew but didn’t say was that it had taken everything he had not to go looking for her again. Every time his plane had touched down in San Simeon, he’d fought the same useless battle.

She nodded and hurried out of the car before she did something stupid, like cry.

Josh lowered his head and shook it from side to side, swearing under his breath. What had she expected him to do? She was the one who had left him, left him to wake up alone. If anyone ever asked him what was the worst day of his life, he would have a few to choose from, but only one true contender.

Even before he’d fully awakened that morning, he’d been dreaming about making love to her again, his Nikki, his woman. He knew there had been a smile on his face, kind of a crazy smile, full of amazement and a deep, overwhelming satisfaction. He’d wanted to reexplore the wonders of sex with someone he loved. He’d wanted to look into her eyes and discover with her the new meaning they had for each other. An hour later he’d stormed out of the Casa del Flores, leaving a busted-up hotel room and his last dollar behind him.

He’d hoped never to be that angry again, that full of rage and confusion. She’d pushed him damn close the night before—and yet he still felt guilty for hurting her.

Nikki made a whole theatrical arrangement out of ignoring him when he came to stand beside her in front of the open trunk.

“Looks good,” he said.

She shrugged and closed her pocket knife against her thigh. “Will two be enough?” she asked, gesturing to the makeshift tortilla and cheese sandwiches rolled up on the cooler.

“Plenty. Do you have anything to wash them down with?”

“Apple juice and beer.”

“Juice. For you too.”

She slanted him a wry glance. He returned it in full measure.

“I don’t want to have to carry you all the way to the ranch,” he explained, and took a big bite out of one of the sandwiches. “How much money do you have?”

“Five hundred colons and fifty American.”

“And I’ve got about two hundred American. Looks like financially we’re in pretty good shape.”

She wanted to ask “for what?” but she didn’t dare rock the boat. So far, he was still heading forward, toward Sulaco, and she didn’t want to do or say anything that might make him question his actions.