Heart of a Hero (35 page)

Hunter stared at her hand, pale and smooth against his sun-darkened skin. His throat tightened. Emotion began to burn in his chest. When had he last felt a touch like that? When had anyone
cared
about him?

He lifted his eyes slowly and his gaze meshed with hers. The warmth, the tacit permission, the invitation he saw in her eyes engulfed him in a dizzying wave.

She got to her knees, leaned forward, her lips slightly parted, her lids low and sultry over her eyes. And Hunter’s heart clean stopped. Thunder crashed. His heart kicked back at twice the pace. She placed her hand against his face and brought her mouth closer to his.

She was going to kiss him.

His mind raced, scrambling again for all the reasons he shouldn’t do this. Then her lips touched his, brushed over them, soft as butterfly wings. His stomach swooped and his mind went blank. He closed his eyes, tried to hold himself still, but his muscles began to tremble.

She brushed her mouth over his again and then he felt the tip of her tongue, wet, soft as velvet, run over his lips. Hunter groaned as he grew hard and his groin started pulsing with each beat of his heart. He could think of nothing beyond losing himself deep inside this woman.

But just as he reached up to cup her head, to pull her mouth down harder on his, she drew away.

His eyes flared open.

She sat back on her heels and was watching his face. Arousal flushed her features, and he could see that her nipples were pressed hard against the soft fabric of her thin camisole. Another wave of delirious heat swooped through his belly. But he didn’t dare make a move. Not this time. This had to be her decision and hers alone. She had to be sure.

Lightning cracked again and thunder followed almost immediately. The storm was right over them now. The rain hammered and the piece of tin banged louder, faster.

She moved her hands to the hem of her camisole, and with her eyes holding his, drew it slowly up over her belly, then her breasts, then lifted it over her head.

Hunter’s mouth went bone-dry.

She sat in front of him, naked from the waist up, breasts aroused, her burnished tangle of curls brushing her shoulders.

He shook his head mentally, thinking for a fleeting moment he was dreaming. But he wasn’t.

She stood up, wriggled her skirt down over her hips, taking her panties with it. She stood absolutely naked in front of him, the firelight flickering gold over her creamy pale skin.

She wanted him, all right. He tried to swallow, couldn’t. He stared at the dark delta between her thighs, and the hot, pulsing ache in his groin screamed for release. He lifted his eyes slowly, trailing them up from the insides of her thighs to her belly button, up slowly to her breasts. She was beautiful and there was nothing shy about her. Those facts sparked something dark and savage in him. He clenched his teeth. He wanted to haul her to the ground, plunge himself into her…but he didn’t want to make it happen too fast. He wanted her to take him where
she
wanted. He had a sense she needed it that way. She needed to be in control. And a part of him found intense delirious pleasure in the notion.

She knelt down slowly, bringing her mouth close to his ear as she reached for his belt. Her hair fell across his chest as she whispered, “I want to see you naked, Hunter McBride.”

His mind swooned. He moved his head around to kiss her, but she pressed her fingers to his mouth, holding him back. “Naked first,” she murmured.

Hunter closed his eyes as she undid his belt buckle. This woman just didn’t stop surprising him. How could a man have ever let her go? How could
he
let her go? He felt himself swell into her soft hands as she freed him from his zipper. He groaned with pleasure as she clasped her hand around him and began to caress him. He watched her face as she stroked him to an unbearable pitch. She smiled, her lids heavy, and began to tug his pants down over his hips. He lifted his body to help her.

Thunder crashed again and sheet lightning illuminated the sky. The world flickered like old movie. She sat back on her heels and ran her eyes brazenly over his body.

He leaned forward to grab her, to pull her down onto him. But she restrained him with the palm of her hand against his chest, slowly straddling his legs. The idea of her thighs parting over him nearly drove him wild. His heart began to palpitate and his vision swam. He placed his hands on her hips, ran them up along the contours of her waist to the swell of her breasts. He cupped them, squeezed, grazed his thumbs over her nipples. They grew even tighter. She lifted her chin, tilting her head back, and moaned softly. Her motion had the effect of opening her legs wider, slanting her pelvis toward him.

He slid his hands back down along her waist, down the outside of her thighs and then slipped one hand around her buttocks and moved the other to the inside. The skin here was unbelievably smooth and soft. With the hand on her behind, he tilted her pelvis even more, and cupped his other palm over her hair, his fingers seeking the soft folds within. He found them, slipped his fingers up inside her. She was wet, slick, hot. She moaned again, sinking some of her weight down onto him, and her eyelids fluttered in pleasure.

For a second Hunter couldn’t breathe. And in the next second he couldn’t hold on any longer. In a swift movement born of
years of hand-to-hand combat, he had her flat on her back and was kneeling over her. With one hand he pinned her wrists to the floor up over her head, with the other he traced the line of her breasts. Shock—and desire—flared in her eyes. He grinned. “My turn, Sarah.”

T
he savage look in his eyes shot a thrill through her. He had her hands trapped above her head, her body exposed, at his mercy. He knelt over her, phenomenal in his nakedness, pure male power and potent arousal. The wind gusted, blowing a fine mist of moisture over her hot skin. Sarah shivered.

He leaned down, caught the lobe of her ear between his teeth and whispered words in French she couldn’t understand—and didn’t need to. The seduction was rich enough in the way he said them. Waves of scarlet pleasure wheeled through her brain. He traced his mouth down the column of her neck, over her breast and down her stomach, tasting, teasing, flicking with his tongue as he moved along the length of her body. He reached her thighs and she felt his hands part her, then she felt his tongue. Hot. Wet. Her world narrowed to just the sensation. His tongue flickered, traced the part of her that throbbed with each pulse of blood through her body, then suddenly thrust hard
and deep. She cried out in delicious shock. His tongue moved inside her and she arched her back, aching for release. But just as she thought she was going to explode, he withdrew.

She gave a crazy sob of relief, desperately eager to hang on to the painful pleasure of her need, not ready to let go yet.

He knelt between her thighs and used his knees to push her legs open wide, impossibly wide. He leaned over her, covering her body with his, and she felt the hot, smooth, rounded tip of him enter her. He watched her face as he slowly, rhythmically, dipped just the tip of himself into her, not once breaking visual contact. Sarah tilted her pelvis up in desperation, opening wider to him, aching for all of him. He smiled, dark and feral, and then plunged deep into her with a hard, guttural groan.

She gasped. He was incredibly hot. He moved inside her fast, hard, faster, the slippery heat of his friction against swollen nerve ends almost unbearable. Her eyelids fluttered. Crimson waves spiraled through her brain. She could control nothing that was happening in her body. He rocked his pelvis hard against hers, thrusting deeper each time. Her nerves screamed for release, and suddenly her muscles exploded around him. She dug her nails into his back and swallowed a cry as contractions shook her.

Her release pushed him to the edge. He took her jaw, made her look at him, and with a final hard thrust, he shuddered into her.

Sarah lay naked, enfolded in his arms, the tropical air soft on her skin. Rain still fell in a curtain around the veranda and clattered on the tin roof. The fire crackled as it died down to embers.

She could not have imagined anything like this in her life. She’d left a cold and dreary Seattle with a dead heart, and she’d come to the Congo to liberate herself. And she had, in just a few weeks—but she’d also stumbled into an adventure and met a man beyond her wildest dreams.

She closed her eyes, sighed softly. Whatever happened now didn’t really matter, she told herself. She’d finally lived. She’d be okay. But she knew she was lying. She just didn’t want to entertain the thought of never seeing him again.

She tried to force it from her mind. She told herself it wasn’t worth worrying about a future when they might never make it to Cameroon alive. This might be all there was going to be for her, and at least she’d have found herself and found pleasure on the night before she died. She curled against him and drifted into a deep, contented sleep.

Hunter lay awake, holding her, feeling the softness of her bare skin against his, listening to the steady drum of rain on the tin roof, drinking in the musky scent of her sex. He felt himself stir again with a soft, pulsing need. He could have her all over again right now. Just the thought made him harder.

She shifted against him, her head nuzzling into the crook of his armpit, her messy curls tickling his face. He tangled his fingers through them, playing with the light spring in them as they curved around his hand. She began to make soft little snores and he smiled into the dark. Who would have thought a sound like that could make him feel so complete? Who’d have thought that lying naked with an American nurse in the ruins of a colonial French mansion, on an abandoned rubber plantation in the heart of equatorial Africa—with a lethal bioweapon at their side—could feel so absolutely right, so natural, so normal? A soft laugh escaped him. It sure beat a regular date.

A gust of wind swished the banana leaves against the building. The rain was dying down, the scent of wet soil was rich and the air felt cool. He reached for his shirt, pulled it over Sarah’s shoulders, careful not to wake her. She needed her sleep. Tomorrow was going to be rough. The militia would be watching, waiting for them to try and make a run for the border.
He closed his eyes and said a silent prayer that he’d manage to get her through alive—and shock speared through him.

His eyes flashed open and he stared up at the rusted roof. Wow. A prayer? Hunter McBride hadn’t treaded there in fifteen years.

The rain stopped shortly before dawn, and the whole jungle rustled with the sound of fat drops on thick leaves. As light seeped into the sky, he watched rainwater leak down through a rusty hole in the tin. He hadn’t been able to sleep all night. This place, he thought as he stared at the roof, was like a symbol of the husk that was himself. Once solid, once full of love and the promise of life, but now in a cursed no-man’s land, abandoned, empty, getting a little older, crustier, meaner each day, crumbling one piece at a time while the world passed him by.

Sarah stirred in his arms, her breast a soft warm weight against his chest. He stroked her hair. She filled this space. With her candles and beauty and nurturing warmth, she’d managed to create a sense of home in the middle of nowhere. She filled
him,
made him feel alive. She made him want to live. Really live. She made him want more than what he had right now.

He closed his eyes. Right now he was free. He had nothing to lose. And that’s the way he’d wanted it since the day he’d lost everything. That’s why he’d joined the French Foreign Legion. Falling for Sarah meant losing that freedom. It meant he once again
had
something to lose. And a man with something to lose had fear. It was not something he needed in his line of work. Part of his success as a warrior lay in his complete lack of fear, his willingness to take risks daily that could cost him his life.

She stirred again and her eyelids fluttered open. “Hey.”

He stroked her cheek. “Hey to you, too.”

A sleepy smile crept over her lips.

No. He was wrong. He wasn’t free right now. That was forty-eight hours ago. He’d already crossed the line. He already
had everything to lose. He just didn’t know what in hell to do about it now.

Sarah propped herself up on her elbow, her breasts brushing against him, her hair wild and lustrous over her bare shoulders, her eyes sexy with sleep.

She traced his lips with her fingers. “Why are you smiling?” Her warm brown eyes were full of soft light. What would it be like to wake up to that beautiful face every morning? To lose himself in her each night, to make babies, to give her the children he knew she’d love? Could he make it happen? Did he want to?

Hesitation flickered through those eyes. “Hunter? Come on, tell me what you’re thinking. What’s making you smile like that?”

He filled his lungs. What the hell, why not just say what was on his mind this very second? It wouldn’t kill him, would it?
Push yourself, you jackass. What have you got to lose? Nothing you haven’t lost before.

“I was thinking about you. And I was thinking about this house, about what it must have been like, full of life, laughter and…you know, children. I was thinking about how much you love kids.” He rolled over, dragged his knuckle softly across her cheek. “I was thinking what a wonderful mother you’d make.”

Her smiled faded. Hunter wavered. He had a sudden sinking feeling he was heading down a one-way street about to meet an oncoming bus he couldn’t see.

“And?” she asked.

He noted in some part of his brain that his pulse rate had just increased. “And…and I was thinking what fun we could have making those babies.” There, he’d hung his heart right out for the first time in fifteen years.

Her body tensed and something shuttered instantly in her eyes. She sat up, stared down at him, didn’t say a word.

A pang of uneasiness speared through him. The wind stirred,
leaves clattered against each other. A cry echoed in the jungle. He knew it; he should never have spoken his mind. He didn’t know how to do this stuff anymore. He should have stuck to what he knew best. “Sarah, what’s the matter?”