Rachael's fingers curled in the bedcover. Was it possible? Was it her fevered imagination or was Rio able to shift into the form of a leopard? She looked at him crouched down beside the cat, streaks of blood on his back and sides, down the columns of his thighs, and a tear up near his neck. She didn't care what he was. It didn't matter to her, not when he was petting the injured cat and murmuring soft nonsense to it.
Rachael swallowed the tight knot of fear blocking her throat. "You're bleeding, Rio. Come here to me. How badly are you hurt?"
Rio stood up and turned around to look at her. There was genuine concern in her voice, in the dark depths of her eyes. Her compassion touched him somewhere deep inside, somewhere he wanted to forget existed. She shook his control, and that was more dangerous than she could possibly understand. Rio shrugged his shoulders. "It's no big deal, a few scratches."
Rachael studied him as he padded across the floor on bare feet. There was a slight stiffness to his normal graceful, sinuous walk. The scratches looked deep and ugly and she thought there was more than one puncture wound. "You always take care of everything and everybody before you take care of yourself. You fought that leopard, didn't you? You didn't have a gun with you. I doubt you had a knife. What did you do? Fight it with your bare hands?"
Rio dragged out the medical kit and began dousing the angry looking wounds with burning liquid. Rachael sighed softly, feeling helpless. He looked tired and out of sorts and she knew the gashes had to hurt. He didn't respond to her comments, but she was certain she was right. He had to have been involved in a vicious fight with a cat of some kind without a weapon. And it couldn't have been a small cat. She bit down on her lip to keep her mouth closed, determined not to aggravate him with questions.
He bent to duck his head over the tub he used as a sink and poured water over his hair. He was breathtaking, there in the dark with just the sliver of moonlight falling across him. His hair gleamed liked silken webs. Shadows from the heavy foliage stirred by the wind threw the broad outline of his back and buttocks into sharp relief and then just as quickly covered him from her sight as he washed himself. As he straightened and half turned toward her, his eyes caught the reflection of light from the moon and glowed an eerie red. The eyes of a predator. The eyes of a leopard.
Rachael held her breath and made every effort to keep the wild pounding of her heart under control. It wasn't just his strange eyes that could frighten her; he always carried a dangerous, untamed look about him. She was certain she was right about his eyes being different, more like a cat's. He took a step toward the bed and she could see him more clearly, see the weariness and pain etched into his face. Immediately fear was swept aside in her concern for him.
"Rio, come to bed."
He studied her expression. Soft. Inviting. Temptation. Her mouth was sinful. He had more than his share of fantasies about her mouth. Her lush body, so soft and warm and perfect for his, was an invitation he couldn't ignore much longer. The longer she stayed in his home, the more she belonged there. "Damn it, Rachael, I'm not a saint." His voice was harsh, deliberately challenging. He was so edgy and moody he wanted a fight with her. He wanted to go back into the jungle and sulk far away from her. If his obsession with her continued to grow, he didn't know what he was going to do.
Rachael did the unexpected like she always did. She burst out laughing, the sound carefree, not in the least bit frightened. "You have no worries, Rio, I am not about to mistake you for one."
"Well why the hell are you looking at me like that then? Don't you have any idea how vulnerable you are right now?"
"I think you're the one who's vulnerable, Rio, not me. Come to bed and stop acting so macho. You can put on your he-man face in the morning and I'll do my best to act afraid if that's what you need, but right now, you need sleep. Not sex, sleep."
"You think I need sleep," he groused, but obediently slid into the bed beside her. She was warm and soft and everything he knew she'd be. Rio wrapped his arms around her, fit his body around hers, snuggling his heavy erection tightly against the cradle of her hips, his head against the soft swell of her breast.
"I know you need sleep. Just lay it down for a while. If you're worried about someone sneaking up on you, I'll watch over you." She could feel the silk of his hair, damp from washing, teasing her nipple. Rachael wrapped her arms around his head, cradled him to her, her fingers woven in the thick mass of hair.
"I should check your leg after that idiot cat jumped on it."
His breath was warm against her breast. She felt desire pierce her like a sword. "Go to sleep, Rio, we can check it in the morning." For the rest of the night, she would pretend he belonged to her. Her own gentle warrior, fresh from battle, a mixture of danger and tenderness she found impossible to resist.
6
RIO woke before dawn. It was his favorite time of day. He loved to bury his face against Rachael's warm breasts and just listen to the soft cries of the early morning birds and the continual symphony of the forest while he held her to him. He felt more alive, more complete in those moments just before dawn, before the household stirred to life and the day's demands were on him. Rachael breathed so softly, in and out, warm and welcoming, her flesh a lush invitation to paradise. He knew every line, every hollow. Her body was etched deeply into his memory. He knew her form better than she knew it, and he knew every way to please her.
Rio smiled and buried his face in the valley between her breasts just to inhale her scent. She always seemed to smell of flowers. He was certain it was the soaps and shampoo she made from the petals and herbs in the forest. His tongue swirled over her nipple, a lazy, leisurely movement. Life was perfect at dawn. He breathed her in. His Rachael. His world. There in their secret world with the light filtering in through the high canopy, Rio found strength and passion and everything he would ever need to exist and live.
He nuzzled her breast, swirled his tongue over her tempting nipple a second time and drew soft flesh into his mouth, suckling gently. Rachael stirred, shifted to bring her body more aligned with his, to arch her back a little more to offer her breasts while her arms crept around his head to cradle him close. He loved her reaction, that first drowsy offering of her body to him. He knew when he plunged his finger deep inside her to test her readiness, she would already be hot and wet and welcoming.
Making love to Rachael was always an adventure. They would be so tender together it would bring tears to his eyes, or they would be rough and wild and totally uninhibited. Rachael would rake his back, dig her nails into his flesh or ride him with wild abandon. Sometimes he spent an hour just loving on her, feasting on her. Her body was so familiar to him, yet he was full and hard and bursting to be inside her, so eager his body was painful. Like the first time. Like each and every time he touched her.
His hands moved over her body, warm, soft flesh, tantalizing, tempting, a delight he could hardly believe was his. He lifted his face to hers, fastened his mouth on hers, a hard, possessive kiss that took their breath so that they had to exchange air while the world rocked around them. Her mouth was hot and sweet and achingly familiar.
For just a moment, there in the dawn when it didn't matter, when he didn't have to have a veneer of civilization, he always allowed his wild nature to rise. Possession, jealousy, a dark predatory need to claim Rachael for his own rose up as it always did. The beast, always so close to the surface, rose with him, untamed and roaring for her, wanting her with every fiber of his being. His skin itched as he tasted her acceptance of him, ropes of muscles contracting as he dragged her closer, his thigh moving over hers to pin her beneath him. It never bothered her when the beast was so close to the surface, even if she felt the brush of fur on her sensitized skin. She always accepted him, always wanted him, always welcomed him.
She laughed softly into his mouth as he devoured her, fed on her, kissing her over and over without restraint. He wanted her so much, wanted to be buried deep inside her where he belonged, where the world was always right. He wrapped h
is arms around her while her hands explored the muscles over his chest. There was possession in her touch as she skimmed his belly and found the hard length of his erection. She closed her fist over him tightly and he gasped with the pleasure and the pain of it.
"I want to taste you this morning," he whispered. "I can't wait to feel you squirming the way you do, your fist yanking at my hair, telling me to hurry, hurry, hurry." He kissed her chin, her throat, the soft swell of her breast.
"Oh really." Her voice was a teasing lilt. "And here I thought I was going to drive you out of your mind this morning. Can't you just imagine being in my mouth? I think it's my turn, we were rudely interrupted last time."
Her fingers danced over him, the way only Rachael could do, teasing and stroking, small caresses designed to drive him mad. If she took him in her mouth he was going to explode, a heady, wild eruption that would make her laugh and demand satisfaction. He knew her so well, yet not at all. Rachael--his lady, his reason for existing.
He shifted his weight and dragged her body beneath his, his knee sliding between her legs with expert precision, opening her beckoning heat to him. He settled over her, into her, pressing against her tight opening, already anticipating the pleasure he would give her. He moved away from the temptation, sliding down, his tongue swirling in her sexy belly button, his teeth nipping at her flat stomach. His thigh pressed against hers in demand, shifting her leg to the side.
Rachael screamed, a cry of terrible unrelenting pain, curling up in the fetal position, curling away from him. Her cry set the monkeys in the trees chattering and the birds scolding. She choked off the sound quickly, breathing deeply to regain control.
Rio's perfect world shattered. "What the hell am I doing? Damn it, just damn it." Groaning, he rolled off her onto his back, both hands covering his face. "I'm sorry, Rachael, damn it, I'm really sorry. I don't know what happened. I swear, for a minute, I was someone else. Or you were someone else, or we were the same but different. Hell! I don't know what I'm saying." He pulled his hands from his face and looked at her, his expression grim. "Are you all right?"
To his shock, Rachael turned back, gingerly, carefully, and tunneled her fingers in his hair. "I don't break, Rio. I could have said no to you. For a moment there, I was someone else too. I knew you intimately, belonged with you and had for a long time. I was so comfortable, so complete. I think I would have been very happy to be that other person, but my leg changed my mind for me. I'm the one who's sorry."
"I frightened you."
She tugged at his hair and the gesture was strangely familiar. "Did I seem frightened to you? I thought I was very cooperative. My leg hurts when I move, otherwise, I would have been all over you."
He rolled onto his side, propping his head up with his hand. "Why, Rachael? Are you afraid to say no to me?" He couldn't quite get his breathing under control and his body was hard and painful and aching. More than anything he wanted to kiss her again, wanted her body to belong to him. Wanted her to belong to him. "I know you must feel vulnerable alone with me like this, especially injured, but I swear, I don't force myself on women."
"Rio, you're being silly. We're physically attracted to each other. I've been staring at your body for days now. How could I not be attracted? If you tried to force yourself on me and I wasn't in the least receptive, I would have hit you over the head with something." She grinned at him. "And you already know I'm perfectly capable of it. At the moment my leg is injured and you can't tell, but I have had a bit of self-defense training. You were very vulnerable there for a time in your...er...aroused state. Bad leg or no, I could have managed to injure you."
"When I'm with you..." Rio struggled to find the right words. "It's as if I've always been with you, as if I've always known you, as if I've always made love to you. I swear sometimes it's difficult for me to tell the difference between what's real and my imagination. It's crazy."
He leaned into her, close, so that the tips of her breasts pushed against his chest. Immediately the feeling was familiar, perfect--a coming home. He sighed. "I'm not used to being around people for any length of time, it makes me uncomfortable, but with you, I can't imagine you not being with me." His hands framed her face. "I want you so bad I can taste you in my mouth. I know exactly what you're going to feel like when I'm inside you." His fingertips slipped down her neck, over her shoulders to trace the swell of her breasts. "I know your shape, every curve, as if I have a map in my mind."
Rachael knew she was no thinking person when his hands were on her body, shaping her breasts, his thumbs sliding over her taut nipples sending bolts of lightning through her bloodstream. She wasn't an ordinary woman with a chance at love. She could have a brief affair, but she would have to move on, leave him behind. Every moment she was with him endangered him.
Her lashes hid the expression in her eyes from him, careful not to let him see the heat and fire his touch awakened in her. "I feel different. I have since I first came to the rain forest. I feel fully alive, as if something inside of me is trying to break free." And she felt highly sexual. Ever since she had come to this house, this place, was near this man, in spite of the fever or maybe because of the fever, she was in a continual state of arousal. She burned for him, thought of him night and day, dreamed of him.
"Rachael, you know the birthmark low on your hip? I knew it was there before I ever saw it. I know exactly how you like to be touched." He sat up, pushed his hand through his hair in agitation, leaving it tousled and wild, as untamed as he. "How can I know those things?"
She knew his likes and dislikes intimately too. Sometimes her fingers itched to stroke his chest, to run her fingertips down his flat belly. Teasing and caressing, her tongue swirling in the wake of her fingers until he cried out for mercy. She knew the exact note that would be in his voice, the husky ache in his tone. Just thinking of the need and hunger in his voice sent ripples of fire racing through her body.
Rio sighed. "Let me take a look at your leg. Between the cat jumping on it and me hurting you, it probably needs a repair or two." He looked at her, dark curly hair spilling around her face, lips slightly parted, almost in invitation. Her long lashes lifted and he was staring into her eyes, seeing her need. Seeing the same smoldering heat in her that burned so hotly in him. He swore under his breath and reached beneath the cover for her ankle, guiding her leg into the open.
Rachael felt his fingers on her skin. There was a proprietary feeling to his grip. The pad of his thumb swept back and forth over her ankle in a small caress, each stroke sending flames dancing up her leg to the junction of her thighs. His hand slipped lower, over her foot, began a slow, heart-stopping massage.
"It looks far better this morning, Rachael. No red streaks at all. It's still very swollen and the two puncture sites are draining again. I'm going to take the dressing off and leave them open to drain."
She made a face. "How lovely. The sheet is going to be a mess."
"I have a couple of towels I can put under it." His fingers tightened around her foot. "Rachael, I think we're out of the woods and we've saved the leg, but it's going to scar. I tried to repair the damage, but..." He trailed off, the pressure of his grip hard enough to reveal his distress at his inadequacy without actual words.
Rachael shrugged. "I wasn't worried about scars, Rio. Thank you for what you did. It doesn't matter to me."
"Not right now, but when you're back in your world, dancing in a slinky dress, it may make a difference." He forced himself to say it, to think it. At once the beast rose up, fighting for control, fur threatening to burst through his skin. Wickedly sharp teeth pushing at his jaw to make room. Even his fingers curved, the stiletto-sharp claws threatening to burst out the ends.
"I can't ever go back, Rio," Rachael said firmly. "I don't want to go back. There's nothing but death there for me. I was never happy in that world. I'd like to try here, where I feel alive, where I feel close to my mother again. It was her stories that made me come to this place. When she spoke of the rain forest
, she made me feel as if I were in it, sensing its sounds and smells and beauty. I felt as if I'd walked in it, long before I ever came here."
"This isn't a lark for some rich woman's fantasy," he said, abruptly standing. With the same casual immodesty he pulled on a pair of jeans. "There aren't stores here, Rachael. There are cobras and wild animals that will hunt and eat you."
"Someone managed to put a cobra in my locked room before we traveled on the river," she said. It was hard not to stare at him, not to see the play of his muscles beneath his skin. She could see the scars covering his body. Many of them were obviously from large cats. But there were scars from knives and bullets and other weapons she couldn't hope to identify.
His head snapped around, his hands stilled on the buttons of his jeans. "Are you certain the thing didn't get into your room on its own, Rachael?"
She shook her head. "No, the room was locked up tight. I made sure of it. I really prepared for this trip, Rio. I knew about the snakes and other unpleasant and poisonous crawly things. I took precautions."
Rio reached for her. "Let me help you to the bathroom."
"I think I can make it on my own," Rachael said.
He paid no attention to her protest, simply reached down and scooped her into his arms, striding into the tiny closet-sized room used for privacy. It was a primitive method, but at least Rachael had privacy. He left her alone while he went about heating water for coffee.
Rachael leaned against the wall, holding on to keep from falling on her face. She was surprised how weak she was. The infection left her shaky. She wasn't certain she could hop her way across the floor back to the bed, let alone make it outside to the verandah as she had planned. She needed a respite from Rio's untamed masculine allure. She had no way to combat his magnetic sorcery when she was so close to him. She couldn't stop staring at him, the fluid way he walked, the way his roped muscles rippled so obviously, the temptation of his mouth, the brilliance of his vivid gaze, so often hot with hunger and need when it rested on her.