The devils own, p.9
The Devil's Own, page 9
No, he wouldn’t do that. But he might. He had told her once that he looked out for himself above anybody.
Thankfully, the soldier didn’t smoke for long. He must have pinched out the cigarette because the sickly sweet fragrance faded away. They heard the rustling of his clothes as he repocketed the joint, then the soft, rhythmic clank of his water canteen bouncing against his hip as he moved away.
Linc waited a full five minutes from the time they last heard his shuffling tread before the pressure of his arm around Kerry relaxed and he lifted his head. For several moments neither did anything but breathe deeply, gratefully refilling their deprived lungs with air.
“What was he saying?” Linc whispered when he felt it was safe to do so.
“He was complaining that his sergeant sent him out on that scouting mission.”
“Anything about us?”
“No.”
“Good. I guess they don’t know we’re here. Are you all right?”
She was scared half to death, but she answered, “Fine. The children?”
“They’re safe. I think.”
She craned her head around to look at him. “What do you mean you think?”
“Shh. Relax. They were safely hidden when I came looking for you.” Over her shoulder she studied his shadowed face. “I swear it,” he said, offended by her suspicion.
Kerry was ashamed of her momentary lack of trust. Linc O’Neal was a scoundrel, but he wouldn’t sacrifice children to save his own hide. Even he wasn’t that unscrupulous. “What happened?”
Speaking in whispers that were barely louder than a deep breath, Linc related what had happened. “I heard their trucks approaching while I was taking that last look around. I figured that if we had thought the deserted house would serve as a good camp, then soldiers would, too. I ran back, found you gone, and hustled the children into the root cellar beneath the kitchen.”
“I didn’t know there was one.”
“I hope the soldiers don’t either,” he said grimly. “I put Joe in charge and threatened him with castration-by-machete if he left the cellar before I came to get them. He argued with me, of course, and wanted to go searching for you.”
“I shouldn’t have left.”
“A little late to be thinking of that, Miss Bishop.” His low volume didn’t soften the stern reprimand.
She thought of several biting comebacks, but saved them. Her primary concern was for the children. “Were the children afraid?”
“Yeah, but I calmed them down, tried to make a game out of hiding. They have water. I promised them a treat if they didn’t make a sound. I told them to go to sleep and said that when they woke up, you’d be there.”
“Do you think they understood?”
“I hope to God they did. When he wasn’t arguing, Joe was translating for me.” Worriedly he added, “I’d hate to have to explain nine hidden children to this bunch of cutthroats.”
The memory of the commander and his rough, insulting touch still made Kerry feel slightly sick to her stomach. “Are they the same ones we encountered today?” she asked with dread.
“I don’t know. But they probably aren’t any better, whatever side of the conflict they’re on. I thought it best just to stay out of their way.”
“I agree. What about the truck?”
“Luckily, I hid it under brush after we unloaded it.”
She lay still for a moment, trying not to think about the way Linc’s legs were pressed against hers. As precisely as her wet shirt was plastered to her torso, his legs were molded to every contour of hers.
“I told you to stay in the house,” he said abruptly. “You agreed to do everything I told you to.”
“I needed some air,” she snapped.
Knowing that he was right stung her pride. It had been reckless of her to leave the house, especially at night. Now, if any harm came to the orphans, she would have to take the blame upon herself. It would be entirely her fault.
“Well, you could have gotten a lot of air...through the bullet holes in your body.” He unleashed his frustration. “You almost got yourself killed, along with the rest of us. I hope you enjoyed your bath.”
“I did. Brief as it was.” Suddenly she drew herself up more tensely. “Linc, I left my clothes—”
“I stuffed them behind a banana tree. Let’s hope they’re not discovered.”
“Why didn’t you just bring them with you?”
“Look, lady,” he said snidely, “I’ve only got two hands. I couldn’t collect your clothes and haul you out of your bath and keep you quiet all at the same time. So I stashed the clothes. Okay? If the soldiers had found you before I did, they would have stripped you naked anyway, and believe me, base as you may think I am, I have more respect for your modesty than they would have.”
Kerry wished he hadn’t made even that veiled reference to her nakedness. Now that they were out of immediate danger, she could turn her thinking to her scanty attire and her forced proximity to Linc.
How long would they have to stay hidden, lying close together, unable to move or speak above a whisper? They couldn’t relax their guard for a single moment. Since they weren’t hidden beneath the house as the children were, the density of the jungle at night was the only place they could hide. To go in search of another hiding place would be risky. She was just coming to realize how uncomfortable the next several hours would be.
And not only in terms of being cramped and cold. Linc’s nearness was playing havoc with her senses. She gravitated toward the security his virile frame promised. Her chilled body sought the warmth of his.
“Whatever they’re cooking smells good,” she remarked to take her mind off him.
“Don’t think about it.” His own stomach rumbled hungrily. She angled her head back a fraction and glanced over her shoulder at him. “It’s probably iguana...or worse,” he said in an attempt to banish both their hunger pangs.
“Don’t say that,” she murmured, shifting her legs slightly. “I keep imagining creepy-crawly critters moving over me.”
“Be still.” He clenched his teeth. The slightest movements she made caused her hips to press against the curve of his lap. She was already fitted securely into that notch, and the merest shifting motion of her legs caused her bottom to rub against him.
“I’m trying,” she said, “but my muscles keep cramping.”
“Are you cold?”
“A little,” she admitted.
The jungle was like a sauna in daylight hours, steamy and airless. But they were lying on the damp ground. Sunlight had never penetrated this dense foliage and, as a result, it was abnormally cool beneath the vine. She was so clammy that her teeth had begun to chatter.
“You’d better take off that wet shirt.”
Ponderous seconds ticked by. They lay as tense and motionless as they had while the soldier was nearby. Kerry wanted to negate his idea outright. But before she could even form the words, she shivered uncontrollably. Under the circumstances, any maidenly protests would sound ridiculous.
But to lie in Linc O’Neal’s arms wearing nothing but panties...?
“I’m all right,” she said stiffly.
He sighed with exasperation. “I’ll take my shirt off. You can wrap yourself in that.”
She reconsidered, knowing that catching cold would certainly be untimely. “All right,” she said reluctantly. “How...how do we do it?”
“Let me go first.”
Moving as little as possible, he wedged his hand between her back and his chest and unbuttoned the few buttons on his bush shirt. With excruciating care not to move a single leaf, he eased himself into a half-sitting position and shrugged the shirt off his shoulders and down his arms. The effort made him short-winded. He was panting by the time he worked his arms free of the sleeves.
“There,” he sighed. “Now you.”
Kerry was grateful for the darkness which hid them. At the same time, it lent intimacy to their awkward situation. She rolled her lips inward around her teeth and squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, trying to muster her slipping courage before reaching for the buttons of her own shirt. That was the easy part. The difficulty came when she tried to peel the clinging, damp fabric away from her skin.
“Sit up as far as you can,” Linc suggested.
She detected the hoarseness in his voice and passed it off as caution against discovery. She didn’t dare entertain the notion that there might be another reason behind it.
Moving carefully, she raised herself until she could prop her weight on one elbow. Then, lifting and lowering her opposite shoulder repeatedly, she tried to work the wet shirt free.
“Here, let me help.”
She felt the warm pressure of Linc’s hand on her shoulder. It moved down her arm, taking the shirt with it, inch by slow inch.
At her elbow, he had to give it an extra tug. His knuckles bumped into the side of her breast.
They froze.
“Sorry,” he said at last.
Kerry said nothing. The lump of embarrassment lodged in her throat wouldn’t have allowed a word to get past. He slipped the sleeve down until she pulled her hand from it. The position she had to maintain, compounded by tension, had strained all her muscles to the aching point. Tiredly she lay back down and released a grateful breath. The air cooled her back as Linc moved the wet cloth aside.
“Can you manage the rest?” he asked.
“Yes, I think so.”
She rolled backward, actually bringing herself closer against him, while she pulled the other sleeve from the arm she’d been lying on. As soon as the shirt was off, she rolled forward again, hoping that in those brief few moments her breasts hadn’t been as vulnerable as they had felt. It was so dark that she doubted he could actually see her. But they both knew that she was completely uncovered.
It was a disturbing thought.
So much so that, when he draped his shirt over her, she clutched at it, pulling it against her chilled skin. It was both a relief and a hazard. It provided warmth and covering, but it also smelled like him. Linc’s scent filled her head and had an intoxicating effect. Holding his garment against her was like being wrapped in his arms.
“Better?”
She nodded her head. Her hair was heavy and wet. She gathered it in her fist and shifted it above her head. But that left her neck and shoulders bare. Now she could feel each breath he took. She knew without looking that he was wearing only the army-green tank top, and that above the deeply scooped neckline grew an impressive pelt of chest hair.
“You’re still shivering.” He laid his arm over her and drew her back against him.
Closing her eyes tightly didn’t help to dispel her memory of his arms, leanly bunched with muscles, ribboned with healthy veins. She had seen him shirtless that morning while he washed. As he sluiced water over his head and chest, she had noticed his sleek musculature.
Now she wished she hadn’t paid such close attention. The muscles she had admired that morning were pressed against her back. She felt them twitch, contract and relax, as though they were as jumpy as her nerves.
That morning, the sun had streaked his hair with russet highlights and made his body hair glow a reddish-gold. She could feel its crinkly patterns now against her bare skin. And she knew that his shoulders were sprinkled with freckles, as his cheekbones were.
“Are your legs cold?” Not trusting her to give him an honest answer, Linc ran his hand down the outside of her thighs and felt the goose bumps. “I’m going to put my legs over yours. Don’t be alarmed.”
She could almost laugh. Don’t be alarmed. A ludicrous statement. Like, “Don’t turn around, but there goes Cher—and she’s shaved her head!” Or like the dentist saying as he lifts his drill, “You might feel a slight tingle but don’t let it bother you.”
It was impossible not to be alarmed. When he laid his thigh across hers, it brought the full solidity of his maleness directly up against her bottom. The rough cloth of his fatigue pants pleasantly abraded her sensitive skin.
“Aren’t you cold, too?” she asked in a high, thin voice.
“No. I’ve got on pants and you’re wearing nothing but—”
Right. Stop right there, O’Neal. Don’t say it. It was better left unsaid. Neither of them needed to be reminded that all she was wearing was a pair of panties, and that they were sheer and skimpy and damp. Better that they direct the conversation toward anything—books, movies, politics, the weather—than to even make mention of her attire, or lack thereof.
“I still have my canteen. Do you want some water?”
“No,” she replied breathlessly. She didn’t want him to move. Every time he moved, she felt him. Vividly. And her mind kept reverting to when she was trying to get the pistol out of his waistband and how his body had looked. What she had only guessed at then, she could feel pressing against her hips now.
How long would this night last? Hours. And what if the soldiers didn’t break camp and pull out at daybreak, as she and Linc had tacitly assumed they would? She didn’t think her pounding heart could stand the strain. Something had to be done, said, to relieve the tension.
“Tell me about yourself, Linc.”
God, she didn’t want to know about him. If she were smart, she didn’t want to know that he sensed her with every nerve fiber in his body. They were alive and kicking, feeling her, smelling her, tasting her. She didn’t want to know how his blood vessels were pumping with desire for her.
He had raced back to the house, the convoy of military trucks only minutes behind him. He had bounded into the large living room, already issuing orders for her to get the children and their pallets up and into the kitchen. He had been dumbfounded when Joe told him that Kerry wasn’t there, that she’d left the house.
Cursing her even while he spoke soothing words that the children couldn’t even understand, he herded them into the dark, dank cellar. It was spooky, but it provided a perfect hiding place. As he sealed the door and moved a cabinet over the floorboards, he cursed the headstrong woman who was loose in a jungle crawling with guerrilla fighters when she could be safely hidden.
Only fear for her safety had contained his fury as he had dashed through the darkness looking for her. He remembered seeing the creek when he had previously scouted around the deserted estate. The refreshing water had tempted him into taking a quick dip. Acting purely on a hunch, he had followed the vine-choked path toward it.
He had felt both murderous and profoundly relieved when he discovered Kerry splashing in the shallow water. Taking time only to hide her pile of clothing in the brush, he’d lifted her out. Snatches of erotic pictures were emblazoned on his brain.
He knew that her breasts were full, and that her nipples were so pointed and pink that a man would go through hell for a chance to touch them with his tongue. He thought about her breasts now, lying soft and unrestrained beneath his shirt and he ached to touch and reshape them in his hands. And a while ago, when she had rolled onto her back, he had known that all he had to do was lower his head and... God, it had been agony not to.
He knew that her derriere was taut and rounded, cute and saucy and sexy as hell. And now that sweet little butt was cuddling his sex. It took every ounce of self-discipline he possessed not to groan out loud with the thought.
He tried not to think of the way her hair had looked with the moonlight shining on it, or the way that silvery light had turned her eyes as deeply mysterious as sapphires. Her lips were strictly off-limits. Yet the memory of their taste lingered in his mind. He couldn’t allow himself to think about the most vulnerable, most alluring part of her neck being only inches from his lips.
For someone already denied heaven, one more wicked thought didn’t matter. But he would die and see the gates of hell before the night was out if he continued torturing himself this way.
They needed diversion. Anything. To get their minds off what must surely be as discomfiting for her as it was for him, though for different reasons.
“What do you want to know?” His voice was little more than a growl.
“Where did you grow up?”
“St. Louis.”
“Tough neighborhood?” she asked instinctively.
He scoffed. “Lady, you can’t even begin to imagine.”
“Your parents?”
“Both dead now. My old man raised me. My mother died when I was just a kid.”
“No brothers or sisters?”
“No, thank God.”
“Why ‘thank God’?”
“Because things were rough enough as it was. My dad worked all the time in the brewery. I was on my own after school until late every night. You see, he resented being stuck with me when my mom died. He was a foul-mouthed, mule-headed, hard-drinking man. His ambition extended only to having enough money to pay the rent and buy whiskey. The last thing he wanted was to take care of a kid. I left home as soon as I got old enough. I only saw him twice after that before he died.”
“What happened to him?”
“He was bowling one night with a bunch of his cronies and just dropped dead of a heart attack. They buried him beside my mother. I was in Asia. They sent me the details of it in a letter.”
Kerry didn’t know what to say. She’d never known anybody who had come from that kind of environment. “When did you get into photography?”
“High school. I was flunking something...I don’t remember what now...so they stuck me in the journalism class that put together the school newspaper. They gave me a camera and appointed me photographer as a punishment.” He chuckled softly. “It backfired. By the end of the year, I was hooked.”
“Where did you go to college?”
“College?” He barked a scornful laugh. “Cambodia, Vietnam, Africa, the Middle East. I got my formal education on the Golan Heights, and in Beirut and Belfast, and in refugee camps in Biafra and Ethiopia.”
“I see.”
“I seriously doubt that,” he said bitterly.
