The Tiger's Lady (41 page)

A thousand turnings. A thousand valleys. Each one could hide a whole army of hired thugs. No, not thugs, he thought grimly. Those cold-blooded assassins, at least, were long gone from the jungle. But James Ruxley’s mercenaries might be just as bad.

As he rolled up the precious map, Pagan glanced toward his tent, where a slim shadow moved back and forth against the canvas walls.

She was brushing her long, glorious hair.

A queer lightness attacked Pagan’s blood as he watched her hand rise and fall in slow rhythmic strokes. He could almost see the silken strands float out, fiery gold in the lantern light.

Her shoulders were carved in glass, slim and sharp. Her breasts were high and full, their peaks clearly outlined by the shadow.

Instantly all the old fires swept to life, white-hot.

He watched in deadly fascination, struggling with a dark compulsion to stalk inside that tent and throw her down beneath him, filling her, tasting her,
claiming
her until they both were speechless and spent.

It was the hardest battle he had ever fought, but he won it. Moments later, with a low curse, he grabbed up his rifle and stalked toward the jungle.

There, at least, his enemies were faceless and infinitely less seductive.

Her hair finally combed free, Barrett put down her brush and curled up on the cot, trying to keep her eyes from the emptiness across the tent.

A flush swept her ivory cheeks as she thought of the things he had done, the passion she had felt on the beach.

Keep your head, fool! The man is nowhere about. In fact, right now he’s probably downing more of that disgusting palm liquor with one of his bearers and making plans to visit Mita’s tent during the night.

At that possibility a tiny sliver of jealousy worked through Barrett’s heart, but she fought it down angrily. It was no business of
hers
where Pagan spent his nights. She should be glad that it wasn’t with her.

But that thought, as she slipped into dreams, brought her
no
comfort at all.

Night gripped the jungle.

Wisps of memory trailed through Barrett’s sleeping mind, fragments of remembered scent and sound. Like a distant song moving closer, like a steam train catching speed, the fragments resolved, gaining clarity and strength.

Her breath caught. She raised her hands, trying to hold the fragments away.

On they came, closer, ever closer, until the hot breath of memory trembled, only a heartbeat away.

And with the remembering would come the greatest horror of all, she realized.

Fingers splayed, pulse ragged, she jerked upright, fighting back the night. But most of all she fought the terror hidden deep within her own mind.

“No!
No more—please!”

The raw plea burst from the darkened tent at the edge of the jungle. In the quiet night it traveled all the way to the far trail near the water hole.

Even against the shrill cicada song Pagan heard it, and the sound was a knife in his heart.

He was running through the darkness before he knew it, before her second cry had even begun.

Bamboo slapped his face. Thorns ripped his hands, but still he did not stop.

His jaw fierce, he stripped away the canvas flap and plunged into the steamy darkness of the tent, rifle leveled before him.

“Cinnamon?”

No answer. No movement of any sort.

Blind in the heavy shadows, Pagan strained to see. “Barrett, what is it?”

He heard a soft cry, the faint whisper of canvas on twill. The faint, spicy scent of some jungle herb lingered in the air.

And then the sharp, sweet smell of woman.

He flinched as his manhood hardened, his body flooded by desire. Damn, he didn’t even have to
see
her to feel it!

“Tell me, damn it! What is it?” As his eyes gradually grew accustomed to the solid darkness of the tent, Pagan made out a dim outline, pale hands raised against shadows.

Suddenly the figure jerked upright, fingers fisted, hands flailing. “Never—you won’t have them, do you hear? They are
my
secrets!”

He covered the tent’s five feet in two strides, sliding his rifle to the ground and catching her slim wrists within his own hard hands. “Stop fighting, Barrett, it’s just a dream. There’s no one here but us.”

As he held her, Pagan gave a sigh of relief. It was simply the dreams again. Just the dreams.

Except the woman in his arms did not know that. She was far beyond him, too far to be comforted. “N-no. Too close that time. Must reach the King’s Arms. Don’t let him find me!” Her eyes wide with terror, she fought against Pagan’s grip.

He stiffened, realizing she was reliving some old memory. “Hush, Cinnamon.” He ducked as one hand burst free and nearly plowed into his cheek, which already bore the mark of her nails. “Enough!” he roared.

Her breath came fast and jerky, her breasts thrusting wildly against his bare chest, and each movement inflamed Pagan beyond bearing.

His eyes burned. His jaw hardened to an implacable line.

So be it. If nothing else got through to her, then perhaps
this
would.

He caught her beneath him as if she were no more than a doll. In his strong grip he held her tight, one hard thigh pinning her restless body. And as she felt the heat of him, the weight of him, her eyes went wider still.

Hoarse, alien words broke over her in dim, incomprehensible waves, dark words, strange words, a guttural tide of sound.

But the force was real and clear, and the urgency sent her own pulse hammering.

“I want you,
Angrezi,”
Pagan whispered, his lips mere inches from hers. “And I swear I’ll have you.
I
, not some phantom, not some dim memory!”

“N-never,” she breathed, twisting, shivering. Seeing only a skull that glittered, grinning at her evilly.

“First I’ll have your heat. Then I’ll have your heart. And last, by heaven, last I’ll have your soul.”

He was the devil. He was death.

And somehow Barrett knew he would do all those things.

Her face bled white as the skull drew closer. Her lips trembled. She shoved wildly at the shimmering image. “P-Pagan!” she screamed. “Help me!”

The man above her went completely rigid. He watched her face, a study of terror, her pulse fairly leaping beneath her skin. Fury ripped through him as he tried to imagine what it was she saw there, what terror it was that stalked her restless dreams.

Was the thing so terrible that she denied the memory, even to herself?

“P-Pagan!
Where are y-you, d-damn it?” Her throat tightened in a jerky sob.

The sound was like a fist driving into Pagan’s belly. Dear heaven, she wanted him—she
needed
him! Most of all, she trusted him.

The knowledge was like a blast of clear ocean air after long days of musty jungle heat.

“Here. Right beside you. Sleep now. I’ll keep away the nightmares.”

Her slim body quivered. He heard her breath catch sharply.

“Pagan? What—” Abruptly she went completely still in his arms. “W-what are you doing here?” she demanded stiffly.

“You cried out. For
me, Angrezi.
And I came.”

Still half buried in the fog of dreams, Barrett started to protest.

But she knew it was true. “I—I must have been dreaming again. Did—did I—” She couldn’t finish.

“Did you what, Cinnamon?” Pagan’s eyes hardened. He wasn’t going to make it any easier for her, not when he was in greater torment than she, nerve and muscle aflame.

“Did I say anything—do anything—damn it, you know what I mean!”

Pagan smiled thinly in the darkness. “I’m afraid I don’t know,
Angrezi.
Why don’t you tell me?”

At his silky challenge, she shoved her palms against his chest and tried to break free.

But he held her easily, effortlessly. And that superior strength only fueled her fury. “L-let me go, damn you!”

“Now what sort of gentleman would that make me if I did? Don’t forget it was
you
who called me to your bed, Cinnamon, and half the camp heard you cry out my name. Had I been with you at the time, they would have sworn it was the raw moan of a woman cresting in passion. Shall I call in Nihal to prove it? Mita, perhaps?”

“No, damn you! It—it was only because I was having a nightmare. Purely by reflex.”

Pagan’s eyes glittered in the darkness. “Was it, Cinnamon?” he asked, in a velvet voice that spelled surest danger.

“Of course,” Barrett snapped. “Yours was the first name I could think of. Probably it was the
only
name I could think of,” she added bitterly.

With a growl, Pagan twisted, driving her down beneath him onto the cot until every granite ridge of bone and muscle dug into her struggling body. “I don’t believe that for a second, Cinnamon. What’s more, neither do you,” he added fiercely.

His breath came hard and heavy with the need to press her back, to feel her softness spread and filled by his man’s heat.

His jaw clenched as he tasted the raw hunger, knowing she was
his
now, that she would not fight him in this nether state between sleep and waking.

In seconds she would be twisting and hungry, her sleek velvet bared to his fingers, her urgent cries rising wanton around them.

Suddenly the jungle sounds, the din of birdsong and insect melted away until the only sound he heard was the thunder of his own heart.

And of hers in wild, staccato answer.

How I want you,
Angrezi.
With nothing but hot skin between us, while you drown in need. With your hands buried in my hair, wild and endlessly hungry. With my name trembling on your lips when I push you over the edge to paradise.

With a start, Pagan caught himself, realizing how very close he had come to uttering those dangerous words, words which would give her endless power over him.

With a low curse he jerked to his feet and pounded across the tent to his cot. Damn the temptress anyway! Bedding her would prove nothing, except perhaps that he had become no better than the jackals that howled in the night, the monkeys that rutted and shrieked in the temple ruins.

And Deveril Pagan had come too far to throw everything away for a few hours of furtive pleasure with a silk-skinned siren trained by a blackguard named James Ruxley.

Whether she
remembered
those lessons or not.

“You’ve had your fun,
Angrezi.
Now go to sleep.” After positioning the rifle within close reach, Pagan flung his broad body down on the cot and eased his arms beneath his head.

The twill strained and protested beneath his weight. Wood creaked; metal hinges clicked and rasped.

White-faced, Barrett heard each movement, each separate sound. And all she could think of was how good it had felt to pillow that great body, to feel each corded, straining muscle anchor her to her cot.

Dear heaven, what was happening to her?
Could she possibly be
regretting
that he had gone to his own bed?

She frowned into the darkness, her thoughts in turmoil. There were so many things about this man that were not as they appeared, she realized now. He hounded her mercilessly one minute, then saved her from the results of her own rashness the next.