Proud Hearts (Wild Hearts Romance Book 2) (16 page)

While Caesar ate his dinner, Chris and I ate ours, lighting the camp stove so we could see our phones and devices before the batteries ran down and the darkness closed in.

“A wrinkle,” Chris said, checking text messages. “Gary’s step-father had a heart attack. A pretty massive one by the sound of it. He’s going back to the States with Reena and moved her flight out a day to accommodate—from tomorrow afternoon to …oh, it’ll leave at 6 a.m. How about I ask him to book us a room for tomorrow night wherever he’s staying and still leave for town early in the morning like we’d planned? That way we can sight-see, pick up a few supplies, have a nice dinner and take a hot shower. Maybe even get in two hot showers before coming back. I’m guessing our stuffed lions won’t be going anywhere. Any objections?”

She shook her head. “Sounds like a good plan. If you meant asking Gary to book us
each
a room. Or, I’m sure he wouldn’t mind sharing with you.”

Chris laughed. “Probably not.” He grew quiet then and frowned.

“Were he and his step-dad close?”

“Not really, but he and his mom are. It’s a long flight back. I’m sure he and Reena will be glad for each other’s company.”

“That puts you flying out solo in a few days.”

For a moment he seemed extra pensive. Then, “I can always watch a few of my old movies. I’m easy to entertain.”

“Yeah?”

“Sure. Bet you didn’t know I was a cheap date.”

“How cheap?”

“Only what you can afford.”

We laughed a bit at that before he returned to texting his reply to Gary. I stared at my journal screen, trying to parse out that last remark. Did he really mean it as nothing more than a cute, throw-away line? Was
you
generic, or did
you
mean
me
specifically? And what currency did he mean when he said
afford
? Sex?

Under normal circumstances, whatever he meant wouldn’t have mattered. But tonight wasn’t shaping up to be normal. Trusting the lions while we were awake and alert was one thing. Trusting them while we were sleeping in canvas tents…that wasn’t going to happen. Which meant we’d be sleeping in the Range Rover.

Alone.

Together.

It was nearly 11 o’clock when I powered up the generator, only to be met with an angry growl and a reluctant rasp. I frowned sternly at it before it settled into its normal, reliable hum. That stern frown was about the extent of my mechanical skills. Operating electronics and machinery didn’t daunt me in the least, but confront me with their inner workings and they were as a much a mystery as trying to read someone’s future in knucklebones or tea leaves or the circling stars.

Still, my layman’s frown worked as well as any professional’s this night, and I plugged cameras, phone and laptop into the power strip. Taking my cue, Chris powered down his own phone and tablet, plugging them in by the satellite receiver.

It was comforting, this little piece of civilization here in the bush, two short miles from where Nature had burned clean all trace of the light footprints humans had made in these thousands upon thousands of hectares of wild veldt. Unlike our ancestors, mine or anyone else’s, I was not only ill-equipped to handle Nature without electronic crutches and firearms, I had no desire to. I had no ego to bruise or machismo reputation to uphold.

Besides, I had scratched the ears of wild lions.

What else in the world held a candle to that?

I clung to the euphoria of those moments while I spread a blanket over the opened sleeping bags in the back of the Rover. Punch-fluffing my pillow into the far corner, I crawled in, waiting in awkward silence for Chris to join me.

A few minutes later, he turned off the light from the camp stove, and the SUV rocked as he climbed in beside me.

Great. He was wearing only a pair of loose basketball shorts.

My eyes adjusted quickly in the light of the nearly full moon that bathed the savanna, the camp, and found its way through the Rover’s windows. That naked breadth of chest gave lie to the Jaguar company’s claim of a roomy cargo bay. He was stifling close, sucking all the oxygen from this too-cramped space.

“I-I should sleep in the back seat, give you more room.” I started to pull the blanket up to drag along with me, but his hand on mine made me forget what I was doing.

“There’s plenty of room for two,” he whispered, his voice deep and husky and calculatingly seductive.

In that moment I had a decision to make. If I stayed, it was a tacit
yes
. Not just to lying next to one another on a single blanket, but to anything and everything that might come after. It wasn’t in me to tease—or be teased—and not follow through. Clear boundaries, clear go signals. If I didn’t have enough respect for someone to give them that, I had no business being in a position with them that demanded that kind of respect.

But this was Chris Corsair, seducer of who knew how many women past. Knowing that history, there was one boundary I refused to cross no matter how uncomfortable it might be to voice. No matter the promise implicit in the question, even more so than the simple act of my staying.

Because I
was
staying.

Not because of the pounding of my heart and the heat that burned through me at the nearness of his perfect body. Certainly not because of the Mr. Hollywood blue of his idol eyes.

I was staying because he had saved the life of a lion.

I was staying because when I’d told him
no
he had stood down.

I was staying because underneath all the plastic charm of Chris Corsair, Christopher Darnelle was a true hero.

Still holding a corner of the blanket, I asked the question that would make or break this night. “What about protection?”

With a subtle flex of his hips, he slid closer. “You have the rifle don’t you?”

Scowling, I tugged at the blanket again.

His hand disappeared into a pocket before reappearing to scatter a half-dozen packets before me like alms before a supplicant. “I hope it’s enough.”

That forced a laugh from me. “You think a lot of yourself, don’t you?”

He shook his head. “I think a lot of
you
.”

Damn but he was smooth.

Damn but I was ready to be smoothed.

His lips, full and tender, found mine, but tender was for next time. As our tongues sparred, my hands roamed eagerly across his shoulders and down his rock-hard biceps. His hands cupped the nape of my neck, his fingers lost in the mane of my chestnut hair.

But nice as arms and hair were, they weren’t our ultimate goals. And as romantic as slowly exploring one another sounded, that would have to wait till next time too. Kiss and touch alone had ignited a flame of desire that only grew more demanding, overwhelming in its intensity, pushing out thought of anything else. Deep between my legs a passionate pulsing began to beat.

Our lips broke apart and my palms sought the waxed planes of his chest, the smooth skin taut over the ripple of tight muscle. When I tweaked a nipple between my fingers, it and he both responded—it by twitching erect, he with a satisfying groan. When I bowed my head and replaced my fingers with my teeth, his groan deepened.

Leaving the hardened nub, I ran my tongue to his centerline, licking my way down those magnificent abs to the exposed belly button—an inny—that begged a dip and swirl.

Below, past the elastic waistband riding low on his hips and beneath the thin nylon that outlined every bit of him it draped, it was clear he was far from indifferent to my tongue in his navel or the run of my fingers over the lower abs of his 6-pack.

Breath shuddered in my chest as the pulsating beat deep within me quickened, growing more and more insistent. There was only one mystery left to resolve—was that shadowed length of Chris, hidden beneath the tease of his shorts, just as magnificent as the rest of him? Determined to find out, I slid my fingers under the waistband.

“Not yet,” he whispered.

Clasping his hands over mine, he guided them back up to his waist. Then his fingers were at my shirt’s hem, unbuttoning from the bottom up. “Let me see you first.” He tweaked the top button open, and the cotton shirt fell away from my breasts.

In sudden shame, I thought to pull the shirt together again. I wasn’t flat, but I also didn’t have the deep cleavage cameras loved to peep at on movie stars. But Chris’ hands were already there, cupping them, lifting them, creating cleavage as he admired them, running his thumbs over their peaks and watching them respond in moonlight.

“You’re so beautiful, so natural,” he murmured, right before placing his mouth over the tip of the right mound and laving the nipple with his tongue. When he began to suck, I felt a bolt of electricity leap through to my toes.

His right hand worked its way down, trailing fire to the top button of my khaki shorts. Without protest I let him unbutton me and ease the zipper down over the cotton of my boy-cut undies.

Mouth still on my breast, his left hand snaked around to the lever that lowered the seatback I was pressed against, his weight against me reclining me in the now-extended bay. Shifting above me, he tugged at my shorts, and I lifted my hips to help ease them off.

When he laid a hand on my bared stomach just above the panty line, I practically jumped with desire as I labored to breathe.

His eyes met mine. “May I?” Was there anything sexier than a man asking permission to rip your panties off? If I hadn’t felt the tremble in his hand that signaled desire as strong as mine or seen the outline of his passion in his shorts, I might have wondered how much of a disappointment I was to him. But for him to pause in the state he was in…

“If you don’t, I will,” I threatened.

Oh god, his mouth twerked into that leg-melting sexy grin as I felt my panties being whisked away.

And another wave of shame hit. Out in the wild for eight months, I hadn’t even thought about taming that unruly thatch of dark hair. Only when I was exposed did I consider how I must compare to models and actresses with barely-there wardrobes to wax for.

I looked for revulsion in his eyes or the set of his face, found nothing but delight and raw desire. Either his acting was Oscar-caliber or else he truly found my less-than-perfect body as desirable as I found his perfect one.

At least perfect in what of him I’d seen.

Raising up on my left elbow, I reached my right hand out to his waistband. “Time for you to put up or shut up,” I teased.

Kneeling in the bay, head bowed under the low roof, Chris waggled his eyebrows at me. I pulled one side of his shorts off his hips and he pulled down the other. What sprang out between was beyond expectation, beyond promise.

And it was all for me.

“Is there somewhere specific you want me to put it up?” he challenged, flashing that unbearable grin of his as he rose higher and harder under my stare.

Even his cock was an attention hound.

“Shut up,” I growled back, “and strip.”

“Should have known you’d want it both ways.”

It was cramped in the bay for a man his size, so he shifted out the back hatch to comply. That way, too, I got to watch as, backwashed by moonlight, he turned away from me with feigned modesty and bent slowly over to slide his shorts to his ankles where he could step out of them. Just as he’d come prepared with condoms, he’d also come commando, and I filled my eyes as I peeped over the lip of the hatch with the sight of that well-muscled butt mooning me as he gloved himself.

Irritatingly, he knew just how beautiful and supple that body of his was. Without a hint of shame, he turned his profile to me. The long, lean line of his body echoed the long, lean length of his shaft as it worshipped the moon riding high above.

Desire slammed into me.

My head and heart could covet Christopher Darnelle all they wanted. My body craved that arrogant prick, Chris Corsair—figuratively, too, but most literally right now as muscles deep within pulsed in anticipation.

I wanted the best of everything about him—physically and emotionally.

Surely there was nothing wrong with that.

Not if I gave him the best of me in return.

When he made the quarter turn toward me, I surprised him by levering myself to the lip of the hatchway, putting my lips in perfect alignment with his hips.

Jesus, that miracle of him was even more impressive close up. I braced my hands to either side on corded thighs that trembled with his own desire.

Hands on the edge of the roof, he looked down between his arms, watching the slow advance of my outstretched tongue. Millimeters from him I stopped, delighting in the quiver of his anticipation. Gently, I blew on him, just above the roll of the condom, a cool breeze over his heated flesh.

Every muscle in his hips and thighs contracted as above me he gasped with desire.

I teased him with that agony only a moment because my own body couldn’t bear it any longer. As with our kiss, tenderness here would have to wait. When my tongue crossed those last millimeters, the shock of the touch jolted through me from mouth to womb. Running my tongue up the length of him, I captured the smooth tip, circling my hands to the backs of his thighs to draw him closer. The subtle hint of vanilla from the latex tickled my tongue and drifted into my nose, chasing away the persistent smell of smoke that permeated everything around.

Swallowing the first few inches of him, I closed my eyes and sucked, my rhythm automatically matching his when reflex kicked in and he began to move. But him making love to my mouth wasn’t what I wanted—needed—right now.

Nor was it what Chris had in mind either.

With effort, he pushed away, his disappointed flesh clearly protesting. “Please, let me come inside you.”

Still the gentleman. And still sexy as hell.

I lay back as he climbed over me, strong arms to either side, the length of him hard and solid over me. Even while I trembled on the brink of union, I felt protected by him. Like he was my own personal shark cage that no danger could get by. Not the monkey troop screeching in the far trees or the jackals yapping on the veldt.

For me, that was a new dimension to sex. Not that I felt I needed his protection, just knowing it was there heightened the electricity that charged between us. Made me more in tune with him, with the night, with my own body as I opened my legs to him.

He eased in, his eyes intent on mine as I stared back into the echo of blue in their moon-shadowed depths. He was gauging my reactions, adjusting himself to my needs, holding himself back to allow my body to adjust to him.

Only then did I realize just how much of him my body would have to adjust to. As muscles long dormant parted at his advance, I had reason to appreciate his care. Gratitude, however, extended only so far. A part of me scowled at the arrogant assumption his size might present any problem.

That snark was fleeting, though, as the pleasure of his filling me pushed it aside. And when he started his tentative thrusting, he pushed that thought out completely. No, he pushed out all thought, leaving only instinct and reflex and a building passion.

Long, slow thrusts quickened as that passion climbed toward ecstasy. My arms circled shoulders wide as starlight, my ankles wrapped legs hard as moonrock as the universe expanded around us. My ears rang with the songs of suns, peaking then falling, till those songs became the contented
whuffs
of lions in the darkling night.