Teddy Bear Heir (17 page)

She punched his arm. "Just kill it!"

He came back out within minutes, mission accomplished. Manny's three sons had already retired for the night, so now they stood in the middle of the dark tropical jungle—alone.

"Get in that tent." The look in his eyes brooked no argument.

As she started to comply, she realized he was following her.

"Don't say it. I'm not spending the night out in that hammock so you can wake me up every time you hear a noise, see a bug or feel a snake."

"Ha ha, what a Freudian slip." But she didn't protest when he followed her into the tent or lay down on the sleeping bag next to hers.

They lay in silence for several minutes before she spoke.

"Cameron?"

"What?"

"Thanks for killing the spider."

"It’s okay. It was pretty big."

"Well, I wouldn't be afraid of any old spider. There are plenty of those in the garden at home and I just stay out of their way."

"No, this one was pretty impressive."

They both lay quietly for a while.

"Cameron?"

"What?"

"Thanks for taking me along. I really am having a good time in a perverse sort of way."

"Good. How are you feeling?"

"Good."

"Did you take your—"

"Yes. With breakfast."

"Any morning sickness?"

"I'm too exhausted to throw up."

"Try to get some sleep. We have another long day tomorrow."

Silence.

"Cameron?"

"What?"

"Did you hear that noise?"

"No."

''It sounded like... drums or something."

"There are no lost tribes on this island. No head hunters, no cannibals, no pygmies, no forms of alien life, no pod people, nothing."

"You're sure?"

"Positive. Come here, I'm going to distract you."

"Oh, no."

"A little closer."

"My legs feel like lead weights!"

"You won't need to move them."

What was dangerous inside the tent was infinitely preferable to anything outside. She didn't resist as he moved closer, taking her into the shelter of his arms and lowering his face toward hers. At that last instant, before he kissed her, she wondered how she'd been able to hold out this long.

He broke the kiss. "It’s dark, just like last time," he whispered.

She blushed at the memory of that darkened suite at the Four Seasons. At the memory of the king-sized bed. And the wild, passionate abandon they'd shared in it.

"You're taking advantage of me," she whispered.

"I know. I’m shameless." His hand skimmed over her cotton shirt and slowly pulled it out of her waistband. She felt the warmth of that hand come slowly up her bare back, then realized his hands were around her waist, dangerously close to her breasts.

"Cameron, I..."

"Kiss me again." She did.

"What were you thinking?" he whispered, his lips close to her ear. "What were you thinking that night, right before I started to make love to you?"

She couldn't speak, she was so unbearably excited. He'd eased her cotton top up past her breasts and she pulled it up over her head, shrugging out of it.

She'd packed some pretty spectacular underwear. It was her secret mission in life, to make Mr. Control lose control.

The black lace bra was exquisite. Even though there was hardly any light in the tent, he traced the design with his fingers, over and over her sensitive skin.

"Pretty," he murmured, then kissed her neck, beneath her ear. She shivered.

"Take it off for me," he whispered.

She was beyond caring, beyond thinking about consequences. She wanted to please him. She wanted the pleasure he was capable of giving her. Life had been tough for both of them and she wanted to forget, to stop thinking for a while. To feel.

She unsnapped the fastening of her bra, suddenly glad they were both concealed in darkness. The changes pregnancy had caused in her body made her feel self-conscious. She knew it would be easier, this first time with him since her pregnancy, in the dark.

She needn't have worried. His hands shaped her upper body, pleasuring her, pleasuring him, remembering. It was more erotic in the dark when she couldn't see his face. He shifted and she cried out softly as he began to kiss his way down her neck, to her shoulders, then down to her breasts.

They were agonizingly full and sensitive. And he was so gentle, just barely touching than, touching them just enough to send her into a maelstrom of shivering pleasure.

"Beautiful," he whispered, kissing them, softly testing their weight and feel. "So beautiful."

She trembled in his arms. They were lying side by side, his arms were around her, she couldn't have moved if a dozen spiders had suddenly invaded their tent. She could only feel his touch, hear his voice. Respond.

He moved over her, easing her onto her back, bracing his weight on his elbows. He took her breasts into his mouth, first one nipple, then the other, making them feel fuller and heavier, making her nipples harden unbearably. He brushed them softly with his fingers then caressed them with his tongue, his lips.

Vaguely, in the back of her mind, she realized he was lowering the zipper of her khaki trousers.

"I thought," she whispered, trying not to let her voice shake, "you said I wouldn't have to move my legs?"

"I'll carry you piggyback tomorrow," he muttered, pushing the material down, past her waist and around her lower legs. Before he even had her pants all the way off, his hand was between her legs, seeking.

She couldn't lie to him. Her body refused to comply with her mind's mischief. He found the hot wetness between her legs and she heard his satisfaction in the rough, masculine moan he gave as he slid his fingers inside her, then lowered his head toward the cradle of her thighs.

He pushed at one leg with his palm and she bent it at the knee, giving him greater access to what he sought even though her pants were still tangled around her ankles. He found her with his mouth, and the sensation was so exquisite she arched off the sleeping bag and cried out. Then she felt his hand over her mouth, muffling her cries as he made love to her. He built her pleasure slowly, using lips and tongue and hand, until she was writhing mindlessly, helplessly, against the ground.

Only when he felt those familiar feminine contractions did he let her go, sliding slowly down her body, unlacing her boots, slipping them off, then sliding her pants the rest of the way down.

She was totally naked and she didn't even care. Totally naked in a world of snakes and spiders, poisonous birds and plants, and all she could think about was getting him inside her.

It seemed to be all he could think about too, because she heard the rasp of his zipper in the dark stillness of the tent.

She reached for him, sliding her hand inside the opening, cupping him, stroking the hard, impatient masculine flesh. She smiled as she heard his groan, then helped him push his worn jeans down over his hips and down his thighs until he finally kicked both boots and pants off at the foot of their makeshift bed.

She lay back down on her side and he joined her.

"This is crazy," she whispered, kissing him, his mouth, his neck, his eyes.

"This," he whispered back, "is absolutely right."

She touched him, stroked him, kissed him until he rolled her on to her back and braced his weight on his elbows.

"Tell me if I hurt you," he whispered. Something in her heart melted at the thought of his exerting such control for her, thinking of protecting her at the moment he could have taken his greatest pleasure.

"You won't," she assured him.

"Tell me," he whispered as he found her, opened her, penetrated her with a careful, shallow stroke.

She pressed her hands into the small of his back and encouraged him on.

"More," she whispered.

He groaned, holding on to his control by the sheerest of threads.

She kissed him, then bit his lip. "More."

He gave her what she wanted.

Within a very short time he was embedded completely inside her, holding himself very still, kissing her as she kissed him back and wrapped her legs around his hips.

He moved, and the pleasure was so great she bit his shoulder so as not to cry out and wake the three people she knew for miles around. He made love to her and it was the same as that first night but now she loved him even more because she carried his child.

He rolled over onto the sleeping bags, taking her with him, letting her straddle his body and set their pace.

She knew it was his way of ensuring he wouldn't hurt her and was touched by his caring so very much. She sat astride him, her hair falling over her face, her hands braced against his chest. Then she lay down on him, pressing herself against him as she had that first night, so long ago.

She moved on him, taking him in, deeply, fully, then moved again, almost unsheathing his full erection. This time he was the one who groaned.

She knew the signs as his large body stiffened and his muscles tensed even more beneath her.

"I want you," she whispered.

He shuddered.

"I need you." She lowered her face to his and bit his earlobe, moving the entire time.

I love you,
  she thought, not wanting to say it as his knowing fingers moved to where they were joined and started her on her final climax. She cried out and her contractions started his. He seemed to burst inside her, so strongly, his hands gripping her buttocks with punishing force. She could faintly make him out in the confines of the dark tent, his head thrown back, his neck arched.

He cried out as be found his release, and she found it beautiful.

* * *

The following morning when her muscles protested and refused to work, she didn't find anything about the entire experience beautiful.

She'd known it was going to be a bad day when she'd woken up just before dawn, grabbed Cameron's khaki shirt, slipped it on, then raced out the front of the tent and thrown up.

Off to the side, of course. If it was possible for a woman to be imminently practical about vomiting, then she was that woman.

He was beside her in an instant, dressed in his unsnapped jeans, holding her head.

"I'm sorry," she muttered afterward as he handed her a paper towel. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be." He steered her back inside the tent and made her lie down. "I'll talk to Perry and see if we can start a little later—"

"No! I'll keep up, I don't want to slow things down because—"

Cameron put his hand underneath her chin and tilted her head up so she had to face him.

"As I believe I heard someone once say, it's my way or the highway."

She believed him.

They remained in camp that morning. He brought her some soup, which she refused. Instead she munched a few crackers and lay back down.

Cameron stayed by her side and finished the soup.

"How many days did Perry say it would take to reach Julian's house?"

"Two and a half. Maybe three."

"So maybe this could be our half day and we won't lose that much time."

"Don't worry," he said as he cleaned up the cracker wrappers she'd wadded up into a small ball. "We'll get there."

She willed herself to stop feeling queasy by lunchtime. After they'd all eaten a light meal and broken camp, they were on their way.

* * *

The island terrain had leveled out and Michaela actually found herself enjoying their journey for large stretches at a time.

Kate the Great, that's me.

Until they reached what Perry quaintly referred to as "The Gate to the Heavens."

"What does that mean?" she asked, hooking her fingers into the back of Cameron's belt as they walked along the jungle trail. She was careful to avoid his gun.

Perry grinned, his teeth startlingly white against his tanned face. It was clear he loved the outdoor life.

"It’s a bridge that spans a huge—how do you say?—gorge. We have to cross it in order to climb the second hill."

"Which Perry assures me is not nearly as steep as the first," Cameron added soothingly.

"Bridge? Gorge?" She felt her own rising sharply and reached for another package of crackers. "What kind of material is this bridge made out of?"

"It’s safe,
senora,
" Baretta assured her.

What did he know? He actually seemed to like all the poisonous reptiles and birds in this jungle, not to mention his fondness for snakes.

"That one, for instance," he'd said just that morning, pointing to a tiny green snake hanging from a tree branch off to the side of the trail. "If he bites you, you go into a fit and maybe die."

If she had to cross that bridge, going into a fit and dying sounded better and better. She hadn't bothered to tell Cameron about her total fear of heights because she'd thought they would simply be walking along jungle trails. She didn't know this little trip included a few scenes right out of
Ctiffhanger.

As much as she liked Sylvester Stallone, she'd watched the entire movie through her fingers. Her imagination ran riot as she thought of what lay ahead.

* * *

Her imagination hadn't even come close.

"You see,
senora?
  It is just a little rope bridge, but quite sturdy. You would have to shake it quite hard to get it to come down, and we will not do that, yes?"

"But it sort of...
sways
  when you walk on it."

"Si,"
said Barnaby. "But you don't stop, you don't fall off."

"I'll go first," said Baretta cheerfully.

Be my guest.

He loped across the narrow bridge as nimble as a mountain goat, as quick as one of those damn poisonous snakes.

"Now I go," said Barnaby.

Cameron nodded. He was watching her closely and she didn't like the look on his face. No wonder she'd chosen to make love to this man—
twice,
now—in the dark. Those eyes saw too much.

"Now you, Mr. Cameron?" asked Perry.

"Now Mike goes."

The moment of truth.
What would Kate do?