Each Time We Love (22 page)

Almost accusingly, her eyes swept up to meet his sardonic
gaze. "It's not," he said coolly, "something that I have a lot of
control over. And if you don't want to find out exactly how
little
control I have at the moment, you'll hand me the soap and keep a safe
distance away."

Instantly the soap was proffered and when his fingers closed
around it, Savanna immediately put several yards between them. Adam
smiled. "It's too bad that you're not always so obedient."

For once, Savanna wasn't going to taunt him. Instinct told her
that the situation was far too volatile at the moment and so she
contented herself with coldly ignoring him and paddling aimlessly in
the water. But though she tried not to think about him, the sounds of
his exuberant pleasure as he bathed were hard to ignore, and as the
memory of that naked, very masculine form flashed across her mind, she
experienced a tingling sensation that had nothing to do with the
coolness of the water!

Angry with herself, she wrenched her wayward thoughts away
from Adam and began to concentrate determinedly on escaping from him.
Speculatively she eyed the distance from Adam to the shore and it
dawned on her that for all his seemingly careless enjoyment of the
water, he always kept himself between her and the shore, where their
garments and supplies were situated. She grimaced. Trust him to leave
nothing to chance.

Adam had tried not to leave anything to chance. His clothes,
rifle and knife were hidden nearby, just in case someone tried to
surprise them; the last thing he wanted was to be caught naked and
unarmed by someone like Micajah Yates! Now, if Savanna wanted to attack
him… He grinned, remembering the expression on her face when she had
caught sight of him—and his condition. Lord, but it had been hard not
to burst out laughing—that, or do precisely what his body had been
prompting him to do practically since he had first laid eyes on
her—make exquisitely satisfying love to her!

The sound of something large moving swiftly through the brush
sent thoughts of Savanna flying and he plunged to the shore, reaching
his rifle just as a large bear ambled out of the forest not six feet in
front of him. Whether Adam or the bear was the more surprised would
have been hard to say, but the bear took one look at the human and with
a startled grunt disappeared back into the brush.

Adam glanced around at Savanna, who was staring in the
direction the bear had disappeared with a look of astonishment on her
lovely face, and shaking his head in amusement, he put down the rifle
and decided that he had dallied long enough. Actually, he hadn't
dallied at all—while Savanna had been busy with her own bath, he had
draped her wet garments over a bush to dry and had washed his own
clothes before he had joined her in the water. Since he had hidden his
clothes instead of laying them in the sun, when he reached for his
breeches, his mouth twisted wryly. They were far from dry, but ignoring
the clammy feel of damp cloth on his wet body, he dragged them on. The
shirt he left open, and after pulling up his boots, knife in the
waistband, rifle in hand, he picked up the scrap of soap that he had
dropped at the shore in his haste to reach the rifle and walked toward
the horses.

Adam kept an unobtrusive eye on Savanna as he found the razor
and, approaching the pond again, worked up enough lather to shave off
the beard that shadowed his cheeks. Afterward, glancing at the sun, he
figured it was only about noon, and while the majority of the daylight
hours was still ahead of them, Adam wasn't inclined to spend the next
several hours in the saddle. Recently they had camped for too many
nights without a water source and he wasn't in the mood to do so again.
He was looking forward to putting on those beans and pork and enjoying
a halfway decent meal. Methodically he began to set up camp.

Since Savanna seemed singularly disinclined to leave the
water, Adam quietly continued with his tasks. He gathered wood and
started a fire and put the beans and a bit of salt in a pot with some
water from the waterfall to start them cooking. Shaking out the
bedroll, he eyed it with distaste, and walking to the shore, he threw
it to Savanna. "Use the rocks on that—it should dry by tonight, if
we're lucky."

Sending him a resentful glance, Savanna nonetheless did as
ordered, and shortly the bedroll, looking considerably more appealing
even wet, was laid over a tree branch to dry in the sun. She had
lingered as long as she could, and she concluded uneasily that it was
time for her to leave the water, too.

Savanna
had swum nearer to shore and was standing in water breast-deep, unaware
that the clarity of the water left little to Adam's already
far-too-active imagination. She was, he decided reluctantly, absolutely
the most glorious creature he had ever seen in his life as she stood
there, her flame-colored hair drying in curly tendrils about her face
and her delicate white shoulders rising from the turquoise depths of
the pool. The clear waters gave him an utterly entrancing view of her
lush breasts, narrow waist and shapely hips and he moved uncomfortably
beneath the oak tree, his breeches suddenly unbearably tight. Damn her!

Angry at his increasingly familiar reaction to her, he rose to
his feet. Telling himself that the sooner she was clothed, the less of
a temptation she would be to him, he grabbed up the breeches and shirt
he had acquired yesterday and stalked to the edge of the pond. Throwing
the garments down a few feet from the water, he snapped, "Put these on
when you're ready to get out of there."

Savanna's teeth ground together at his tone. "I'm not coming
out and pandering to your perverted tastes by letting you watch me
dress. And I'm
not
wearing those clothes! My own
things should be dry enough by now."

Adam smiled unpleasantly. "Whether your clothes are dry or not
isn't the point, sweetheart! The only things that you're going to wear
are these and if you don't want to wear them, then you can damn well go
naked!"

The expression on his face and his cold tone of voice told her
that there was no budging him, and while she could see the wisdom of
the breeches and shirt, sheer stubbornness made her reluctant to follow
his orders. And she certainly wasn't going to put on her clothes under
the lascivious gaze of those hard blue eyes! But she also didn't have a
lot of choice in the matter.

"If you'll allow me the privacy to get dressed, I'll wear the
damn breeches and shirt," she offered stiffly, hoping to salvage a
little of her pride.

Looking at a point over her shoulder, Adam suddenly said
urgently, "Savanna, get out of the water
now!"

Startled at his tone, she glanced backward and a chill went
through her as she caught sight of a pair of ugly, thick-bodied
serpents rapidly swimming toward her. Born and raised along the rivers
and bayous that they frequently inhabited, she had no trouble
recognizing the snakes—they were cotton-mouth water moccasins! The
cottonmouth moccasin was a deadly and aggressive snake, not taking
kindly to being disturbed, and it was obvious that this pair was no
different!

The overpowering appeal of the pond had momentarily made
Savanna forget about the two dangers that normally lurked wherever
there was water in the semitropical warmth of the southern United
States—water moccasins and alligators, to be specific— and as she began
to swim frantically to shore, she wondered hysterically if a huge
alligator wasn't going to suddenly appear, too!

The need to save her pride and the arguments with Adam
forgotten, Savanna swam desperately toward him, but she knew in her
heart that there was every possibility that any second she would feel
the sting of one of the snakes biting her—or both! Anger at herself for
not paying attention to her surroundings, as much as fear, helped
propel her swiftly through the water, and upon reaching the shallows,
she surged to her feet, oblivious of her nakedness, and began to run in
the knee-deep water.

To Savanna's astonishment a pair of strong arms suddenly swung
her upward out of danger as Adam met her halfway. With her naked body
secured in his arms, he plunged to the shore, heedless of the nearing
snakes, his only thought to remove Savanna from harm.

The first snake was right behind him as he reached the dry
ground, and it was only his quick reaction as he brought his booted
heel down on the flat, triangular head of the moccasin that saved him
from being bitten. Ignoring the squirming of the dying reptile near his
feet, swinging Savanna safely behind him, Adam reached for his knife,
and as the second snake gained the shore, with unerring aim he quickly
dispatched it.

Shivering with shock, only halfway aware of her nakedness,
Savanna stared with horror-filled eyes at the bodies of the two snakes,
realizing how close she had come to possibly suffering an ugly death.
Her teeth began to chatter and she hugged herself as if she could
lessen the chill that was permeating her entire body.

Having made certain that the moccasins no longer represented
any danger, Adam turned around to look at Savanna, and seeing her
condition, he swore under his breath. Pulling her next to him, he ran
his hands soothingly over her body. Her head was pressed into his
shoulder and, his mouth bare inches from her ear, he murmured, "It's
over, Savanna. It's over. You're safe now."

His body was warm against hers, and as the minutes passed and
his hands continued their gentle caressing, his voice rumbling
reassuring phrases against her ear, Savanna was gradually aware of a
lessening of her fear… a lessening of at least
one
kind of fear. Unfortunately, her fear of the snakes was rapidly being
replaced by the growing fear of Adam's touch. Not his touch, precisely,
but what his touch was doing to her.

Adam's only intention had been to comfort Savanna when he had
first put his arms around her trembling form, but as the moments passed
and her trembling ceased, he became painfully aware of the demands of
his own body. He had been in a constant state of half arousal from the
moment he had first looked into those lovely aquamarine eyes, and
having her soft and naked in his embrace was far more than he could
withstand. Damning himself for being a calculating bastard, but unable
to stop himself, he lifted her chin with one hand and brought his mouth
down on hers.

He kissed her with all the pent-up hunger inside him, his lips
warm and hard as they moved demandingly on hers. For Adam there was no
slow slide into passion. The moment his mouth touched hers, he was
consumed with the driving urge to touch her everywhere, to explore with
his hands and mouth every curve, every sleek inch of her lovely body,
to join their bodies together and lose himself in the silken ecstasy he
knew he would find.

Adam's body was solid and warm against hers and Savanna
instinctively clung to him, her mouth soft and vulnerable beneath the
urgent assault of his, her lips parting helplessly to allow the hungry
penetration of his tongue. As the kiss deepened, his arms tightened
around her, crushing her naked form even closer to him, his hands
cupping her buttocks to force her against him, and she was instantly,
dizzyingly, aware of his great arousal, of how very badly he wanted
her… and of how very easy it would be to let him have his way…