Something in the Water... (19 page)

He could barely breathe. The air was heavy with mist, so much so he almost felt he’d stepped into a dream. It was thick with heat, too, heavy with scents of flowers. As he inhaled, he thought of Ariel again and wished he hadn’t.

He glanced behind him, half expecting his Jeep to be gone. Definitely, there was something surreal about this place. It was almost spooky. And it reminded him of
Bliss, too, which was something he could do without.

Why, he wasn’t quite sure. Maybe it was just the lush ness of the vegetation. Or the silence. Absolutely no one was around, but then people from the nearest village were working.

“The hell with it,” he suddenly said, unsnapping his cargo shorts, trying not to think of how it had felt to swim with Ariel in Spice Spring in Bliss. It was too hot not to swim before he headed to base camp in the village. His hand settled on the pull to the zipper, and then he imagined for a moment it was her hand, not his. It was she, not he, who was dragging it down….

The pang to his groin came swiftly. Heat surged.

Trying to deny the pulsing need, he pushed thoughts of her from his mind and jerked down the zipper, then kicked off his shorts. He’d worn briefs, a real no-no most of the time, and especially in this weather. Glancing down, he felt his heart stutter, missing a beat.

He really was getting hard. Drawing a breath through clenched teeth, he couldn’t help but cup a hand over the beginning erection. He shut his eyes, sighing at the con tact, the warmth of his hand teasing the stiffening ridge through cotton, but it was her long, slender fingers…

They circled the head, a thumb teasing the underside, brushing over where a drop of moisture beaded. A trapped sound stirred in his throat as she curled her fingers around his length…then glided them all the way down until she’d cupped his balls. She tested the weight, slowly jiggling them in her palm, then she squeezed in a way that threatened to take him to a point of no re
turn, engendering heat so intense that he knew he’d better stop. Otherwise, he really would be out here, stark naked by a waterfall in the back of the beyond, jerking off to memories.

“You’re really losing it, Rex,” he muttered, opening his eyes. He wasn’t going to kid himself. The relation ship was over. She’d been grinning like the Cheshire cat on the news. She’d come into Bliss to do her piece. It was her past she’d wanted to put to bed, not just him.

And his main agenda had been, just as now, to collect samples for the CDC.

The rest…well, everything else was just the kind of lies people uttered in the heat of the moment. Hearts and flowers. Undying love. Promises for tomorrow. Not that they’d said all that, not in words. But every touch had carried a message. Still, if he’d been infected by a mutated version of the bug, he figured it would have worn off by now….

He shook his head to clear it of confusion. The heat, isolation and silence was getting to him. None of the villagers even spoke English. It had been days since he’d felt connected to anything, except fantasies of her.

Hooking thumbs under the waistband, he eased the briefs down, then pushed them aside with his foot.

A soft chuckle sounded. What was that old line from the Tom Waits song? he wondered, willing it back to memory. “Oh right,” he muttered. “Harder than Chinese algebra.” That pretty much described his state. Taking a deep breath, he pushed off, doing a surface dive into
the shallow water, his nerve endings singing with relief when he hit the water. Relatively speaking, it was cool.

Then he gasped as he surfaced, moving his feet.

Something in the water had stirred….

Hands circled his calves. Slowly, feeling as feathery as palm fronds, they rose, molding each inch of him.

Higher and higher…until they reached his thighs and he could see the top of her head beneath the water. “Ariel?” he murmured as she surfaced.

She’d come straight up from the depths, approaching like some fantastic, beautiful lagoon creature. Her hair fell straight, the water turning the blond strands darker, so they looked the color of sand against her china, rose-tinged cheeks. She’d gotten some sun. But how long had she been here? Why had she come?

The questions died on his lips. She was as naked as he, and judging by the reddened tips of her nipples, she was at least as aroused. Just looking at her made his mind blank, and his heart started telling him everything he needed to know. He roped his arms around her, pulling her flush against him. She cushioned against his chest, her belly pressuring his, bringing relief to where he ached.

“Wouldn’t want you to be left playing with yourself alone,” she murmured huskily.

So she’d been watching him. “Ariel,” he murmured again as her arms wrapped around him. “Ariel…

Ariel…” His lips were in her hair, kissing the damp strands, then sprinkling her cheeks until their mouths meshed, hovered, locked and held. He’d caught her bot
tom lip between his, and now he clung, nibbling with passionate hunger.

“Why’d you come?” he whispered against her ear.

Her voice was a slow, sensual purr that was asking for more. “I called your boss,” she said. “Actually, I had to do a little background checking while I was editing my piece—”

“It was great—”

“Thanks. But…” Her eyes met his. There was a lump in her throat; he could see her work hard, trying to swallow. “I missed seeing you in it, Rex. You should have been there.”

“It killed me to see you on TV,” he admitted hoarsely, his lips skating over hers, the warmth coursing through him undeniable now. She was so close…so naked…so hot. His mouth suddenly covered hers in a kiss burning with their desire. “You looked so good,” he whispered, his voice catching. “I wanted to make love to you while I was watching it.”

She blew out a shuddering breath. “You did?”

Nodding, he glided his splayed hands down her sides, which were slick with water. “Wanted to touch you,” he said thickly, as if his tongue were suddenly too big for his mouth. “Here…” Lifting a hand, he gently plucked a nipple, rolling it slowly between a thumb and forefinger before squeezing her breast. “And here…” Flattening his hand, he trailed it slowly down her tummy until it teased her curls. “And here…” His hand curled to the lower contours, cupping her and flexing his fingers, his
mouth falling to hers once more when he felt how her juices were flowing for him.

“I…wound up telling your boss everything.”

His eyes found hers. “Jessica?”

“Sorry. Everything just kind of spilled out.”

He understood that. “It’s okay, but…”

“She told me where you’d gone.”

His breath was in his throat. “We never talked,” he said simply.

She shook her head, her hands cupping his shoulders to brace herself. “But we said a lot.”

“I missed you,” he whispered.

Words didn’t seem to matter. The heat they shared said it all. Slowly, he watched as she lifted a hand from his shoulder, brought it before his eyes, and with a flick of her wrist…a small foil packet appeared between her fingers.

He couldn’t believe it. He shifted his gaze to hers.

She was smiling back. “Now where’d that come from?” he asked.

She shrugged in a way that lifted her breasts higher, as if for his eyes. “Magic,” she returned, her voice a scarcely heard rasp. “Trick of the family trade.” She chuckled. “Just in case I’d like to love a man to death, then bury him up on the mountain. You know,” she teased, “like all my other lovers.”

“Believe me,” he promised. “I’d die with a smile on my face and know I’d already been to heaven.”

Her hand found his and she began leading him toward the bank, out of the cool water and into heat as steamy as their bodies. “I brought a picnic lunch,” she said.

And she had. Behind a copse of trees, a blanket lay open on the ground. He saw grapes, fruit, bananas and bread, and in an ice bucket, a bottle of champagne chilled, with two long-stemmed glasses beside it. It amazed him to realize that he’d been so lost in fantasies about her that he hadn’t even heard her approach.

“But first,” she said, lowering herself to her knees.

Reaching into a basket, she withdrew a slender silver Thermos and gingerly began pouring the contents into two Dixie cups. Whatever it was looked brown, murky and unappealing. He frowned as she handed him a cup.

“As it turns out,” she explained, her hungry eyes drifting over him, “Great-gran bottled some water during the outbreak of seventy-seven. This is Matilda’s home-brewed love tea made with the springwater.”

It was the last thing he’d expected her to say. And she was definitely the last person he’d expected to see here.

His shoulders shook with laughter. “You’re not joking.”

She shook her head, sobering. “I mean…we didn’t know whether what we’ve shared is real or not, right?”

He shook his head, wanting to say that it hardly mattered now. She was so beautiful, like a wood nymph surrounded by abundant green vegetation, naked and on her knees, with her wet hair falling wildly around her shoulders.

“If we drink this,” she assured. “Then we’ll know we’re infected.”

He laughed. “It’ll be nice not to have that question hanging over our heads.” As he studied her, his heart
felt like it was stretching to breaking. Suddenly, he said, “You forgive me?”

She nodded slowly, then said, “But you can’t do it again. I won’t have lies between us.”

“I didn’t know how to handle the situation,” he admitted.

“You should have talked to me.”

“I know that now.”

She paused, struggling for the words. “It was you saying that you didn’t want to intervene in my family that hurt the most. I…” Color came into her cheeks and he could see the risk in her eyes, a sheen of what was either emotion or tears. “I…felt you were my family, Rex. Being with you, I felt like I’d really come home. And that the past just didn’t matter, because you were the future, but…”

He hadn’t seemed to share the feelings. “Oh, Ariel,” he said, moving to set down the cup. “It’s not like that. I…”

A finger on his lips silenced him, and he could only wish it was her mouth. “The tea,” she whispered. “Let’s just drink it. Okay? We don’t have antibodies. You checked, so…”

Offering a quick nod, he lifted his cup in tandem with hers, and like her, kicked it back, downing the con tents. It was even worse than it had looked, as brackish and sour-tasting as a dirty river. They both came up sputtering.

“Now we know we’re infected,” she managed to say on a hiccup.

“What a guy won’t do for love,” he muttered.

Suddenly, they were both laughing. The sound bubbled in the silence just as the nearby water. And then they were rolling, too…into each other’s arms, onto the blanket, readying themselves for the dive over the waterfall, into the heady, dark abyss. He found the condom, put it on, then he was on top of her.

Catching her hands, he drew them over her head, his heart missing beats when he saw how open she was to him. Her blue eyes were bright; her breasts were bare and exposed. Shakily, he lowered a hand and pushed apart her thighs, feeling her flesh leap in his hands. Instinctively, he knew there would be tomorrows, and that they’d talk about all the intricacies of their relationship, catch up on pleasantries and decide where they’d meet in the future. But now…

Angling his body inward, he edged closer. Suddenly, he arched, thrusting up…in…As slippery fire enveloped him, he watched her well-kissed lips slacken and those gorgeous eyes roll back. Fingers dug into his shoulders, urging him deeper, and only after he thrust fully into her and she’d cried out, did he pull slowly out…all the way out…then thrust again harder, deeper, faster.

“I love you,” she whispered as she shattered.

“Yes, love me, Ariel,” he whispered back, arching for all she had to give. “Promise you’ll love me.”

She did then, in earnest, answering in ways words could never say, with her hips and lips and hands. It was a way of talking he understood and all he would ever need to hear. Love had entered his bloodstream, just as it had hers, and as he captured her mouth in a kiss, he
felt it running as he knew it always would, like the spring in Bliss from its mysterious, eternal source, hot, wild and free.