Читать книгу Christmas Secrets Collection - Laura Iding - Страница 44

It was almost fully dark by then. In the trees, it was hard to see your hand in front of your face, so it took Dax a few seconds to make out what was happening.

Zoe let out a blood-curdling shriek and then one word, “Snake!”

He made out the thick, twisting form, the white belly gleaming, coiling itself around her as she sent the firewood flying. Dax dropped the stick with the fish on it, tossed his cane and pole to the trail and whipped out his hunting knife.

By then, she had managed to turn and face him. The snake started hissing, a loud, ugly sound. “Here,” she said, her voice straining as she tried to control the powerful coils. He realized she had a hold of the neck, right below the extremely large head, in both hands. “Cut here …”

He stepped up, grabbed the snake a foot below her clutching fists and sliced that sucker’s head clean off. Blood spurted and the thunderous hissing stopped. He felt the spray on his face. The snake’s powerful tail whipped at him, strongly at first and then more slowly.

Zoe held on to the detached head, whimpering, muttering to herself, “Eeuuu, icky, sticky. Yuck!” as he dropped the long, thick scaly body and it gradually went limp.

It shocked the hell out of him, to watch her lose it. Up till then, she’d been a model of determined cool and unbreakable self-control. “Zoe …”

“Oh, God. God help us. Oh, ick. Oh, help….”

He gaped at her, disbelieving. And then he shook himself. She needed talking down and she needed it now. And he was the only one there to do it. He spoke softly, slowly, “It’s okay, Zoe. It’s okay. It’s dead.”

She went on whimpering, muttering nonsense words, clutching the severed head of the reptile, as though she feared if she let it go, it would snap back to life and attack her all over again.

“Zoe. Zoe, come on. Let go.” He caught her wrists in his hands. “It’s dead. It can’t hurt you anymore. You can let go.”

With a wordless cry, she threw the snake’s head down and hurled herself at his chest.

He tottered a little on his bad ankle but recovered, steadied himself and wrapped his arms around her. Gathering her good and close, he stroked her hair, whispering, “Okay, it’s okay.”

She buried her face against his shoulder, and huddled against him, trembling. “I was so scared. So damn scared.”

He kissed the top of her head without even stopping to think that maybe he was crossing the line. Right then, there was no line. Only her need to be held—and his, to hold her. “I know, I know. But it’s over now.”

“You’re right. Over. It’s over, it’s okay …” Slowly, she quieted. The shaking stopped. She lifted her head and looked up at him. He saw the gleam of her eyes through the gloom.

He wondered if she’d been bitten. The snake was a boa, he was reasonably sure. Their bites weren’t deadly, but they could hurt like hell. He asked, carefully, “Were you bitten?”

She shook her head. “No. Uh-uh. It just, it was so strong, slithering around me, tightening….”

He felt her shudder and hurried to remind her, “But it’s dead now.” He spoke firmly, “Dead.”

“Dead. Yes.” She nodded, a frantic bobbing of her head. And then she blinked. “Do you know how many times I walked this path while you were so sick?”

He captured her sweet face between his hands, held her gaze and didn’t let his waver. “Don’t. No what-ifs, remember?”

“But I—”

He tipped her chin higher, made her keep looking at him. “No. Don’t go there. You’re safe and we won’t go to the river, or even into the trees, except together from now on. If one of us is in danger, the other will be there, to help deal with it.”

“Oh, Dax …”

He didn’t think, didn’t stop to consider that he wasn’t supposed to put any moves on her, that she had great value to him and they had certain agreements, the main one being hands off.

It just seemed the most natural thing to do. The right thing.

The only thing.

He lowered his head and she lifted hers.

They met in the middle. He tasted her mouth, so soft, still trembling, so warm and needful—needing him. She sighed and her breath was his breath.

He wrapped her closer, slanted his head the other way, deepened the amazing, impossible kiss.

Our first kiss …

A miracle. Of heat and tender, yearning flesh, of wonder.

He pressed her to open. She did and he tasted her, his tongue in her mouth, against her teeth, and her tongue in his, gliding on top, touching the roof of his mouth, as if to taste all of him, to know him, all of him.

In every way.

Our first kiss …

It went on and on. Delicious. Hungry. Beautiful. They stood there, wrapped tight together, in the dark jungle, the big snake limp around their feet, and they kissed and kissed some more.

Finally, with a last, reluctant sigh, she pulled away and lifted her eyes to him. She looked strangely dazed and her lips were shiny, slightly swollen. “We should … the river. Go back. I need to wash away the blood.” They were both breathing hard, as if they’d just run a long race.

He nodded down at her. “Yeah. All right. Of course.”

They stared at each other, shared a look as hungry, as seeking and endless as the kiss had been. And then she stepped back. He let his arms drop away, releasing her.

By some radar between them, some tacit agreement, neither of them mentioned the line they had just crossed, the forbidden terrain they had let themselves stumble into.

She waited for him to turn, to lead the way back to the water.

He said, “We can leave the wood here. But nothing else.” Any meat could be gone before they returned, carried off by scavengers. “Take the fish.”

She bent down and picked up the stick with the two fish dangling from it. He got his knife from where he’d dropped it, wiped it on his pant leg and returned it to its sheath. He felt around among the twisting roots that crisscrossed the trail until he found the pole and his walking stick.

And then he picked up the snake and wrapped it around his neck.

She gasped. “Wh—what are you doing?”

“It’s meat, Zoe. It’s protein.” He found the severed head, tossed it into the trees.

“Ugh.”

He arched a brow, suggested hopefully, “Tastes like chicken.”

“Ugh,” she said again. But she didn’t argue. “Can we go?”

“After you.” He wobbled upright and moved aside, settling the dead reptile more comfortably around his neck. The damn thing had to be eight feet long.

She slipped around him soundlessly, giving him as wide a berth as possible on the narrow trail, and headed back the way they’d come.

He caught her arm when they reached the pool. “Don’t go in.”

She turned and looked at him, a watchful look, and then carefully freed herself from his grip. “Because?”

“There could be piranhas.”

She made a scoffing sound. It reassured him, to see her confident, take-charge nature reasserting itself. “If there were, don’t you think we would know by now?”

“They attack when there’s blood in the water.”

The nearly full moon shone down on them now. He could see her pretty face clearly. The snake’s blood on her cheek looked black in the moonlight. “Ah.” And she nodded. “Okay.”

So she set the fish aside and crouched on the rock to scoop water into her palms and scrub at her cheeks, her arms and neck. He washed, too, awkwardly, with only one good ankle to support his crouching weight, the other leg stretched out and aching a little, growing tired from all the activity that day.

They rose without speaking. She took up the fish. He hung the snake around his neck again, grabbed his pole and his walking stick. They headed, once more, into the trees.

The fish was good.

The snake meat was better.

They ate their fill. He felt stronger almost instantly, his body grateful for the much-needed protein.

After the meal, she changed the bandage on his forehead. Then, with his bad leg propped and resting, he cut the rest of the snake meat into strips. Since they both agreed he should try and stay off his weak ankle, he had Zoe dig a pit close to the plane and then shovel in hot coals from the campfire. At his instruction, she got a canvas poncho from his suitcase and the spare campfire rack from the bottom of the box in the baggage area.

She slanted him a look when she brought out the rack. “I can’t believe you thought to store these racks in there.”

He shrugged. “If you cook over a campfire, you need something to put the meat on.”

She did the rest, following his instructions, laying out the meat so the smoke would cure it, keeping the fire low. The poncho went on top, positioned with just enough ventilation to make it nice and smoky inside.

He had her find another piece of wing to lean against the fuselage, thus protecting the pit from the afternoon rains. They would have to check the fire in there regularly, keep it going, but not too high.

“How long will it take?” she asked.

“A couple of days. The dried meat will be good for about a week. When the snake is cured, we can smoke fish, too—though with the river nearby, I don’t really think we need to.”

She dropped into the chair beside him. “You’re very convenient to have around.”

“Back at ya, and then some.” They shared one of those looks that said everything they couldn’t quite say aloud.

It was getting late by then. The moon rode high over the clearing and the fire kept the bugs at bay. For a while, neither of them spoke. He was avoiding climbing back into the plane and trying to sleep in the backseat that had been his sickbed. Would she sleep in the tent? He didn’t remember where she’d slept those first few nights, but last night she’d left him and taken the tent.

She was looking at him again.

He met her watchful gaze. “What?”

“We might never get back to SA, you know.”

“We will.” As he said the words, he realized he believed them. “And didn’t we agree not to play the what-if game?”

She waved a hand. “That was when you were blaming yourself. This is … well, you know, just getting real.”

“We’ll get back. That’s real.”

“And you know this, how?”

“We might have both been born of money, grown up having it easy, but that doesn’t make us any less tough and smart. We’re survivors. We have tools, the right clothing, decent footwear. And in terms of abundant food sources, getting stranded in the jungle is not a bad choice. If nobody comes to find us, when my ankle is healed enough, we’re going to walk out of here. Our chances are good. Better than good.”

She studied his face. He wondered what she was seeking. “If—when we get back, I want my job, Dax.”

He swore low. “Come on. I may be fatheaded and overbearing, but I know quality help when I have it. Did I say something to make you think I wasn’t aware of your value to me and to Great Escapes?”

“You kissed me.”

So that was it. “A lapse. I apologize.”

“Why apologize? I kissed you back.” She licked her lips, as if the taste of him lingered. “And I liked it when you kissed me. I liked it a lot.”

So much frankness made his breath catch and heat pool in his groin. He said, rough and low, “We have an understanding. I’ve been trying to abide by it. You’re not helping me to keep it, when you talk like this, when you look at me that way.”

She refused to look away. “It’s so simple now, here. I see everything through a lens of that simplicity, of the need to survive. I see that there are a thousand ways to die here. I see that we’re something else to each other, here. Something important. We are each other’s survival, each other’s lifeline. And if you’re wrong and I do die here, I don’t want to die regretting the fact that I never made love with you.”

He clutched the aluminum arms of the chair to keep from reaching for her and he said, with careful coolness, “I feel the same. But it’s okay. You’re not going to die. I thought I just explained that.”

She smiled. How could a smile be that sad and at the same time that full of primal knowledge? And then she broke the searing gaze they shared and stared into the fire. After a minute, in a voice barely above a whisper, she spoke again, “I used to think you were trying purposely to tempt me.”

“Yeah, well. You thought right. And you never gave in, were never anything but beautiful and charming, quick with the comebacks—and strictly professional.”

“We could make another agreement … for now, while we’re here in this wild place and it’s just you and me, surviving, taking what joy we can any way we can find it.”

His mouth was dry. He gripped the chair arms all the harder. “What agreement?”

“We change the rules, for now, just for as long as we’re here, in the jungle. And when we get home, I get my job back and we become strictly professional with each other again.”

Yes. The affirmative was there, on the tip of his tongue. It was an urgent need in him to say whatever she wanted him to say, so that he could have her and have her now. He managed, somehow, not to let that yes out. “You really think that’s possible, to go back? In my experience, it never works.”

“I intend to make it work. I will make it work.”

He found that he believed her, as he believed they would get back to San Antonio. She was an extraordinary woman and if she said she could do a thing, who was he, a mere man, to doubt her? “I’m not going to be able to keep arguing about this, Zoe. I don’t want to argue. I want to get in that tent with you and kiss every inch of you.”

Her mouth trembled. And her eyes were dark right then, dark and as full of secrets as the night itself. “So don’t argue.”

“I have one more question.”

“Ask.”

“Johnny?”

She laughed, then, a low, throaty, knowing sound. “There is no Johnny.”

“I knew it.”

“I knew you knew. And now I have a question.”

“Name it.”

“Did you bring condoms with you?”

“I always have condoms with me.”

She almost smiled at that—but not quite. “Well, all right, then.” She swept upward, out of the chair, and stood above him, holding down her hand.

He looked up at her and knew he would never forget the sight of her at that moment, of her red hair haloed in firelight, her blue eyes shadowed, full of hot promises that he fully intended to make her keep.

Still, he couldn’t stop himself from asking one more time, “You’re sure?”

“Take my hand, Dax. Let’s go to bed.”