Morgan's Rescue (21 page)

     
Culver wanted more.
Much more.
Tilting her head, he dove his tongue deeply into her mouth, where it tangled with hers in a sliding, molten heat, spiraling crazily toward that door deep within him that he'd kept carefully barred and locked ever since that day Pilar had left him so abruptly. Her moan was like a jaguar's purr, and his pleasure at the sound thrummed through him as if he were a drum being played by her honest need. Her fingers explored his craggy features, outlining his thick eyebrows, caressing his eyelids as softly as butterflies,
then
moving tenderly down his cheekbones to stroke the hard granite of his jaw.

     
How much he'd missed all of this. As he dragged Pilar into his arms, Culver pressed her tightly against him, one large hand cradling her back, holding her as close as he could without actually entering her. Volcanic heat exploded through him as her small hand moved downward, sliding beneath his shirt and over his collarbone. As their hurried breathing mingled, Culver's heart thudded without relief. He tunneled his fingers urgently through her bound hair, rewarded by the feel of it loosening beneath his insistence. The ribbon holding the thick, luxurious mass eased, and the strands came cascading down over his hand and arm. The orchids' fragrance combined with her natural, earthy scent. Culver had never felt more alive than when she was in his arms, making exquisite love to her. He'd never felt the devastating, numbing—death of the soul as he had when she'd left him.

     
In some dim corner of his now barely functioning mind, he began to understand on a new level the concept of the worlds a shaman traverses in his or her inner journeys. Pilar was his life and death. As her mouth crushed against his and they clung wildly to each other, he felt reborn, as if all his dying grief had been transformed in that instant when she had surrendered willingly to him once again. He cared about nothing at this point except Pilar, and the dreaded possibility that she might be torn from him again—this time, by one of Ramirez's bullets.

     
The jungle's heat, the slickness of their caressing hands reminded him of the giving of life. Pilar had been right—the jungle was the womb of Mother Earth. And Pilar was
his
life.
His destiny.
Culver realized he had known it on some inner level all along, but had been too bitterly afraid to admit it even to himself. Now she was here in his arms, exchanging intimacies he had only dreamed of.

     
Thunder rumbled warningly overhead. Vaguely, Culver acknowledged it and knew that pouring rain soon would strike the jungle canopy with fury. Tearing his mouth from Pilar's, he stared down into her golden eyes. His fingers trembled as they tunneled into her hair on either side of her precious face. The words,
I love you,
nearly burst from him, but Culver stopped himself. He knew the folly of opening the depths of his emotions to Pilar. Last time, she'd abandoned him at his darkest hour of need.

     
Wrestling to contain the feelings rumbling through him like the approaching thunderstorm, Culver gripped Pilar's shoulders and rested his brow against hers. He felt her hands flatten against his chest, felt their burning warmth seem to sear through the damp cotton of his shirt. Though aching as never before to love her fully, completely, he forced himself to release her—and saw a matching desire for him in her eyes.

     
Pilar's long-ago rejection had left him believing she would never want him again. The discovery that she did was bittersweet. Nothing could come of him giving her his heart again. He simply wasn't willing to risk it. The pain was too great for him to endure a second time. It would kill him.

     
"It's going to rain," Culver muttered thickly, pushing himself to his feet. Stumbling like a drunken man toward his pack, he absorbed all of his reeling emotions. He felt as if he'd consumed the fury of the coming storm: an incredible tension raged between the longing to lose his soul to Pilar again and the need to prevent that very tragedy. Thunder rumbled again. The storm was within three miles, the rain less than fifteen minutes away.

     
As they resettled their packs on their shoulders and headed more deeply into the jungle, Pilar struggled with the gamut of emotions Culver had released with his powerful, unexpected kisses. Though sunlight overhead was dispersed by the canopy of trees, occasionally an actual beam of light would find its way to the damp, leaf-strewn jungle floor. Most of the time, the light was dappled and in constant motion, like the patterns of light reflected off a mirrored ball hanging above a dance floor. Clouds were moving in, though, and Pilar watched as shadows began to encroach on the sun-speckled jungle. The storm was approaching, but it was nothing to match the storm she was experiencing within her. Her lower body ached with a burning memory she couldn't seem to banish, of Culver, deep inside her, moving with her, showering life into her just as the rain sated the thirsty jungle.

     
Pilar walked silently at his shoulder, and a rush of relief flowed through her. Thank God Culver had broken their kiss. He had more sense than her errant body did. She knew all too well the supreme danger of giving herself to him. At this point, without an exploration of the full truth of what had happened, it could only cause him pain.

     
No, Pilar told herself, shaken by the thought, she wasn't willing to risk the possible consequences of opening herself up to him and telling him everything. She just couldn't. She had too much to lose.

     
"It's funny," Culver muttered eventually, the sound of his voice instantly deadened by the thick vegetation around them, "I thought I knew what dying was all about when you left me. I grieved as if you were dead. Now you tell me you might die, and I'm feeling it all over again, only worse."

     
Pilar didn't dare look at Culver. She heard the uncertainty in his roughened tone, and without thinking, she reached out and blindly wrapped her fingers around his big, thickly callused hand. It was a hand that had loved her to oblivion, to a special world of love and light she had never experienced before—or since. He halted abruptly at her touch, and she tightened her grip on his hand as she turned to face him. The expression on his face was heartrending. Instantly, Pilar released his hand, afraid of invoking more pain by her presence.

     
"I owe you an apology, Culver," she began, her voice unsteady. "I—I…my world was pulled out from under me when you were wounded. You were so close to death. I didn't think I'd reach help in time to save you. I know it happened eight years ago, but at times, it seems like yesterday." Pilar touched her damp, white cotton blouse. The thunder sounded another warning, much closer this time, the jungle vibrating with the booming rumbles. She looked up at the canopy and then back at him. "I can still feel how I felt then.
The terror.
The grief."

     
Culver looked at her strangely. Why was she telling him this? "But you didn't have to leave me, Pilar. Why did you run? I remember you at the hospital, holding my hand, crying and praying out loud for me. But when I regained consciousness, you were gone. The doctors didn't know where you were. The nurses didn't know—" His voice cracked. "I wanted to die when you didn't return. I couldn't understand why you left me. You saved my life,
then
just disappeared. Why?"

     
Biting down on her lower lip, Pilar looked away. "
Dios,
Culver, I—I wish I could tell you, but I cannot." Abruptly, she remembered hearing him say casually, not long after they met, "Oh, sure, I love kids." They had stopped to help a small girl crying outside a village, she recalled. "But I'm a long way from being ready to settle down with children of my own."

     
"Hector said you were pulled undercover again," he was saying now, his mouth flattened.
"A Q-clearance mission.
I knew from CIA experience that if someone goes Q-clearance, I might as well ask a brick wall for information. Hector refused to tell me anything more. Two weeks in that hospital, and I was transferred by plane back to the States. I tried," he said, frustration ringing in his voice, "through Hector to reach you. But he gave me nothing."

     
Wincing, Pilar nodded and closed her eyes, unable to stand the anguish in Culver's gaze.
"Mi querido,"
she whispered faintly, "I didn't want to leave you, but something…came up. Something only I was able to handle." She opened her eyes, Culver's rugged features blurring before her. "I'm so sorry, Culver. I didn't mean to wound you that way. I had no intention…" She opened her hands helplessly. "I wish I could heal your pain. I see you still carry the injury in your heart, the grief and anger toward me." Her voice
broke,
she was so close to tears. "Can you ever forgive me, Culver? If I am going to die, I need to know you will forgive me for abandoning you at the moment of your greatest need. Can you?"

     
Culver's throat constricted. Reaching out, he cupped her cheek. How soft and firm her skin was beneath his fingertips as he grazed that velvety slope. She'd called him "my darling." The sweetness of the words soothed him like a healing salve, easing the ache in his heart. He saw tears swimming in Pilar's
eyes,
saw her valiant attempt to force them back. The girl he remembered from so long ago would have burst easily into uncontrollable tears, and he would have pulled her into his arms, rocking her as she cried, soothing her tiny kisses and caresses.

     
How badly Culver wanted to do just that. For the first time, he began to understand the depth of Pilar's own anguish over abandoning him. He had thought she didn't care, but he'd been wrong. So very, stupidly wrong. Now he continued to stroke her cheek with his thumb, seeing the magic of his touch as her large, cat's eyes changed to glorious gold. Joy coursed through him, sharp and breathtaking, avalanching his old grief, which at long last began to dissolve.

     
All he had to do was take one step forward, drop his arms around her small form and pull her against him. He saw the unmistakable need in Pilar's eyes. Yet, as she held herself rigidly, he knew just as surely that she didn't want his embrace. Before, a simple kiss, a loving touch would have eased her pain. But back then, life had been simple between them.
Joyous.
Bitterly, Culver dropped his hand from her cheek and sighed.

     
"I forgive you, Pilar. I guess I had already forgiven you a long time ago, if you want the truth." He felt an immediate lightening in his chest, as if merely speaking those words freed him of so much of the ugliness he'd carried. Anxiously, he watched Pilar's face, to see if his words would have an equally healing effect on her. Never had he wanted anything more for her.

     
Pilar took in a deep, cleansing breath. "
Dios,
thank you…thank you. . . ." She stepped away from Culver, feeling suddenly dizzy—and at the same
time
an uncontrollable need of more contact with him. But she didn't dare give in to it. He'd wanted to kiss her again—she'd seen it so clearly in his eyes. And she'd wanted him to. Breathing raggedly, Pilar turned and began walking as fast as she could down the trail.
Culver forgave her.
She'd seen the sincerity in his darkened eyes.
Heard it in the grave tone of his unsteady voice.
So much of her guilt and shame was miraculously dissolving around her as she moved swiftly through the jungle.

     
Raindrops heralding the approaching storm began to plunk loudly against the highest canopy of leaves more than a hundred feet above them. The three levels of trees in the jungle's distinctive canopy would absorb most of the storm's fury, Pilar knew. Still, the gentler droplets cascading off the leaves of the lowest trees would soak them thoroughly soon enough. Where was Culver? Pilar slowed and partially turned, to see him walking a good hundred feet behind her, his features alert, his gaze constantly shifting like personal all-terrain radar, on the lookout for trouble.

     
The many shadows had lengthened as the sunlight was doused by dark gray clouds, which were illuminated occasionally by brilliant bolts of lightning. By dusk, the combination of darkness and fog would make this storm-ridden scene seem bright. They had about four more hours of daylight, Pilar figured. She turned and resumed walking, this time at a more reasonable pace. Rain continued to explode against the upper canopy, and lightning zigzagged above them, creating sudden, eerie shadows. As she'd known it would, water began to drip steadily, quickly soaking her hair, face and clothing. Eventually, as the trail twisted and turned, Culver was again at her side, and Pilar gathered the courage to steal a quick glance at him. His mouth was no longer pursed, as if to stop a wave of pain, and the look in his eyes, though sharpened, no longer had the frozen quality that had so dismayed her.