Under the Wire (30 page)

And the sadness both brought to her heart.

"So," she said after a long moment, "we both made wrong conclusions."

He said nothing. Did nothing. Not for a very long time.

Her heart beat with anticipation when he reached for her hand, brought it to his mouth, and lingeringly kissed her palm.

"We are a pair, eh, Liliana?"

She smiled, slow and sad. "Yes. We are a pair."

He lowered her hand to his chest. She felt his heart beat steady and hard, felt his body tense as, with his hand still covering hers, he guided it slowly down his body. Over his ribs, across the rock-hard muscles of his abdomen, and lower to his penis, erect and hot and pulsing with need.

"We must go soon," he whispered, arching his hips against her hand as she boldly caressed him.

"Soon," she agreed with barely a sound, and rose above him. Watching his eyes over her shoulder, she swung her leg over his hips until her knees were planted on either side of his ribs, her bare toes tucked under his armpits.

He groaned and caressed her buttocks as she lowered her weight to her forearms and took him into her mouth.

All of him. The pulsing and hot length of him. The hard and yearning core of him. Lily closed her eyes, wanting to give. Needing to give. Aching to give. Yearning to connect, to mend, to bridge chasms and erase years of loss.

His labored breaths told her she was taking him deep into sensation, desperately into desire. And right now, it was enough. Giving him this, after all he'd lost, was everything she needed—until he gripped her hips and lowered her to his mouth.

She gasped and arched into his hot, wet seduction. Her breath caught, her heart shattered, as he held her firm against his tongue, laving and stroking and drinking her in like he lived for the taste and the swollen lushness of her body.

Her orgasm ripped through her. A rich, wild rush of white-hot pleasure. A head-spinning rocket of a ride that destroyed her. The sensations were so intense and strong they possessed her. Lasted so long they consumed her.

"Manny," she wept his name, and collapsed on top of him, pressing his jutting erection between her cheek and his abdomen. "Manny," she murmured again, and rode the current of pleasure and delicious pain that hurt... so good.

He held her at the peak forever... and not nearly long enough. She half-laughed, half-cried, when he kissed her there, one last time, then urged her to turn around.

"Inside you,
querida
."
His whisper was as coarse as her breathing when he positioned her above him, then drove deep. "I need to be inside you."

And then sensation began again as she braced her palms on his chest and he took her for another wild, reckless ride.

"Liliana," he sighed her name, and, clutching her hips in his hands, pumped one last time. "Lili-ana."

He came with a high arch of his hips and a groan that could have been anguish or ecstasy. His chest rose and fell with his erratic breath as he dragged her down against him, wrapped her so tightly in his arms it felt like he wanted to absorb her into his body.

Panting, deliriously wasted, she liquefied against him, damp with sweat, limp with languor.

"Mina," he whispered, and, knotting a hand in her hair, tipped her head back and kissed her fiercely. "Sleep now," he said against her mouth. "You need to sleep."

She should argue. But she couldn't. She was physically exhausted, emotionally drained. During the past few days she'd run the gauntlet from the height of anxiety to the depth of despair. Making love with Manny had been inevitable. She accepted that. The desire that had been building between them was the only emotion with a viable outlet.

As she drifted off, she had no choice but to face the truth. She was still in love with him. And though he desired her, though he would protect her with his life, the one thing he could not give her was his trust. And without trust, love would never be enough.

"Lily. Wake up,
querida.
We need to go now."

Manny had rewound the flashlight and propped it on a rock shelf built into the wall. It cast a blue-white glow over the temple room.

He watched from a distance as Lily slowly roused herself. She stretched like a sleek cat waking. And it was all he could do not to go to her, to reach out and pet her. To run his hands over her beautiful breasts, slide between her slim thighs, and awaken her with the glide of his fingers in her slick, wet heat.

From the moment he'd seen her that fateful night in Nicaragua, she'd been an obsession. Nothing had changed. He'd loved her. Hated her. Craved her. But he'd never forgotten her.

He never would. And he didn't honestly know where that left them.

"You're dressed," she said, and he realized she'd opened her eyes and was watching him.

"Time to go," he repeated.

She yawned, sat up, and stretched, and he had to tear his gaze away from the sensual picture she made, naked and abandoned, her hair streaming down her back.

"How long did I sleep?"

"Not long. You need more rest, but we must go."

She dragged her hands over her face, pulled the hair back out of her eyes, and blinked up at him. He saw the moment the guilt hit her. Knew exactly what she was thinking.

"Do not second-guess, Lily. What we did here, it was meant to happen."

"We made love while ... while Adam—"

"No," he cut her off. "Don't even think it. We needed rest. We needed release. We couldn't leave before now anyway. Not with the rebels out in force. We haven't placed him at more risk, Lily. I wouldn't let that happen. I would never let that happen."

She lowered her head, not looking at all convinced.

"Only an hour has passed. It was an hour we needed. Even now, it will be a risk to leave here. They have to know we are hiding somewhere near."

She reached for her backpack, drew out dry panties and a white T-shirt. "You think they're still searching for us?"

"They have to be," he said, hating that he had to break the news. "They can't let us report to anyone about the gun."

Face grim, she stood, shimmied into her panties, and looked around for her bra. He picked it up from the floor beside him, handed it to her. Then watched with hungry eyes while she put it on, then stepped into her pants.

"I'm ready," she said after slipping into her damp shoes.

"Eat first," he said. "Rehydrate." He handed her a Power-Bar and a bottle of water.

"What about you?"

"I already ate."

"And your head?"

"Fine." It hurt like hell, but he'd deal with it. He'd deal with it and the rebel soldiers.

As soon as they left the temple and cleared the ravine, he'd try to reach Ethan on the SAT phone again. He needed to fill Ethan in about the company of soldiers. The howitzer. None of which added up.

Something was way off here. And Manny had a sick feeling in his gut that there was much more going on than met the eye.

"Ready?" he said after checking outside and grabbing his rifle and his ALICE pack.

Lily had hurriedly worked a brush through her hair, plaited it into another thick braid that hung down the center of her back. She nodded, shouldered her backpack. "Ready."

Yeah. She was ready, he thought. He only hoped she was ready to deal with what they might encounter when they finally found Adam.

"Head down. Follow me. Quiet as a mouse,
querida.
I suspect there are many big cats still lurking in the jungle."

They'd made it a quarter of a mile through undergrowth as thick as sludge and had cleared another ridge before Manny had felt it was safe enough to call Ethan. His sat phone rang before he got the chance.

Lily startled at the sound that cut through yet another eerie silence that had set them both on edge with concern that the Tiger soldiers were still in the area and would hear it.

As was the norm this time of year in the Sri Lankan rain forest, the storm that had deluged them had long since moved out. Sun filtered down through the canopy trees, casting long, flickering fingers of hazy, laser-type beams through the thick vegetation as Manny dug into his ALICE pack.

"Ortega." He picked up on the second ring, silencing it.

"Where the hell have you been, man?"

It was Ethan. And he was as agitated as Manny had ever heard him.

"Out of range. Long story. What's happening?"

In concise sentences Ethan filled him in on the video and the midnight deadline that was now less than nine hours away.

Manny glanced at Lily. Her lips were swollen from his kisses, her cheeks red from his beard. A surge of lust punched him gut deep just looking at her. Dread quickly replaced it. He hated the thought of telling her about the deadline as he fought with his own reaction to the news. Nine hours. Nine fucking hours and they still didn't have a clue where Adam was.

"Here's the thing," Ethan added as Manny handed Lily a bottle of water and motioned for her to drink. "Dallas made it to the Tiger headquarters. General Ramanathan's adamant that he knows nothing about the abduction."

"Dallas buys it?"

"Yeah. He does. Ramanathan's big goddamn issue right now is finding a misplaced howitzer."

"Howitzer?" Manny glanced at Lily. "What's it worth to him if I can tell him where it is?"

Dead silence. Then a disbelieving, "You're fuckin' shittin' me."

"Wish I was, but my ears are still ringing from the blast. I can lead you to the gun and a full company of Tiger soldiers."

"Holy .. . wait. Wait, wait, wait. This doesn't add up."

Manny could visualize the frown darkening his friend's face. "A lot of that going around," he agreed.

"Ramanathan is royally pissed because someone stole his cannon, so it can't be Tigers who fired at you. And another thing. The Tiger leader says he pulled all of his troops out of the area a week ago."

Manny thought back to the rebel camp. "Something ... I can't put my finger on it, but something's been bugging me since we spotted the gun and the shooters.

"Fuck," he swore when it came to him. "I should have picked up on it sooner. The soldiers—they spoke Hindi.
Hindi
,"
he repeated for emphasis. "Not Tamil."

Manny didn't know much Tamil, but he'd picked up some Hindi when he'd been deployed briefly in India several years ago—and it just occurred to him that he'd understood some of what they'd been saying when he and Lily had been hiding at the opening to the temple.

"You're saying they were Indian?"

"So it seems. Damn. What would a group of Indian soldiers be doing in the thick of the Sri Lankan jungle with a Tamil rebel gun? And wearing Tamil uniforms?"

"Thicker and thicker," Ethan said, and Manny could almost see him dragging his hand across his jaw. "Where did you spot the gun?"

Manny gave him the coordinates.

"Exactly where Darcy's covert contact said the Tamil camp would be," Ethan said.

"So if Ramanathan's being straight with Dallas," Manny speculated aloud, "that means the new boys are squatting on the old Tiger campsite with Ramanathan's big gun and we're back to square one with Adam."