Island Heat (A Sexy Time Travel Romance With a Twist) (5 page)

Was I the only woman on the island? How long had Salvador been here?

Alone?

Salvador returned a short while later, calling my name from the bottom of the cliff. “Diana!”

“First you don’t want me to get to the edge, next you do,” I muttered to myself, peering over the ledge.

Down below, Salvador grinned up at me, a flash of white teeth in a golden face. In his hands he held a few coconuts and what had to be the biggest damn banana I’d ever seen. He made a swinging gesture with his hand, and said my name again, and I realized he wanted me to catch the fruit as he threw it up to me.

It seemed a lot easier in concept than in reality. I lay flat on my stomach on the cave floor, and stretched my arms over the lip of the cave mouth, trying to catch the fruit. Ten minutes later, one of the coconuts had busted because I’d accidentally slapped it at a bad angle, and it careened against the cliff face. I’d caught the banana – and bruised it – and was trying to catch the remaining coconut. To Salvador’s credit, he didn’t laugh at my pitiful attempts, though I caught hint of a smile tugging his lips.

Two more attempts, and I finally wrapped my fingers around that damn coconut and disappeared back over the ledge. Salvador climbed the wall easily and was back at my side within moments.

I offered the coconut to him to cover the fact that I didn’t know how to open it without spilling it everywhere. “Here. You caught it, you serve it.”

He crouched next to me, his body alarmingly close to mine.

“You’re either trying to make me nervous,” I said, scooting a half step away, “or you’re one of those no-boundary type people.” I forced myself to concentrate on the coconut – which was the size of a basketball, and wondered if everything out here was bigger. My eyes caught sight of his loincloth and I blushed a bright red under my sunburn.

No comment.

As I watched, he pulled a small knife sheath out of the back of his loincloth, and I blinked in surprise. “When did that get there?”

He glanced over at me as I spoke, and winked as he cut a hole in the coconut and offered me the first drink.

I lifted it to my mouth, suddenly thirsty. The first few drops of coconut juice touched my lips, and the taste was pure heaven. I drank heavily, and a few drops dribbled down the sides of my mouth and chin, and I offered him the coconut back so I could wipe my face.

Instead of taking the fruit from me, Salvador reached out to touch my chin, wiping away the drops that slid down my skin with intense concentration. His green eyes met mine, and he sucked the juice off his thumb as he watched me.

Oh my. My entire body tingled at the sight of that. “You’re trying to seduce me on sight alone, aren’t you, jungle boy?” Feeling suddenly shy, I averted my eyes and thrust the coconut against his chest.

His chuckle of amusement just embarrassed me more, and I concentrated on peeling the banana while he drank, trying not to think about his loincloth and the obvious parallel between the oversized fruit in my hands and the well-equipped man in the loincloth next to me.

My cheeks burning, I concentrated on eating my half of the banana. I took a big bite, then began to blush. Because, really, there's no way to eat a banana and make it look non-sexual without looking like a total slob. I opted for slob, of course, chewing with mouth open and making a lot of noise. He watched me eat quietly and without expression, and I got the vague feeling that he knew what I was doing...and he found it a little bit amusing, which only flustered me more.

I stared outside of the cave -- not at him -- as we ate. Being awake and without something to focus on other than the utterly masculine and devastatingly handsome man next to me was unnerving. Not to mention he'd seen me naked. I couldn’t stop thinking about that either.

Once I'd finished eating, he got to his feet. Green eyes looked expectantly down at me, and he gestured at the entrance to the cave. We were leaving.

I wiped my sticky fingers on my bikini bottom and tried not to frown. "Now? We have to leave now?"

He ignored my question and glanced over the edge, then moved over to my side, grabbing me by the waist and slinging me over his shoulder before I had time to protest. I smacked against his hard shoulder, stunned out of breath. Where exactly was he taking me?

The answer was obvious when he got to the edge of the tiny cave and reached for the vines that wandered the cave wall. We were going down.

I freaked out.

"What are you doing?" I yelled into his ear, hammering my fists on his back and kicking my legs like a child in a temper tantrum. "Put me down! Now, dammit!"

He backed away from the ledge with a muffled curse of surprise, and spent the next few minutes trying to calm my kicking legs before I got him in the tenders. "Diana," he growled under his breath, exasperated with me.

I didn't care. I wasn't going down that ledge over his shoulder -- it was too unsteady, too loose. I continued to smack him until he put me down.

We glared at each other for a long moment, and then he began to climb down himself, without waiting for me.

"Fine! Be that way!" I called after him. "Just leave me up here! I'll get down on my own!"

Somehow.

I crossed my arms and waited. He'd treated me like a prized possession just yesterday, so I was confident he wasn't going to leave me now. Not after letting me eat half his food. I peered over the edge and sure enough, he’d already gotten to the bottom and was staring up at me with an amused look. He gestured at the vines casually, then grinned as if to say
I dare you.

“A challenge, eh?” I never backed down from a challenge, especially not when it came from smug, muscular island guys. I put my hands on my hips and stared down over the side of the cliff wall, trying to figure out the best possible approach, then getting nervous when I realized there probably wasn’t one. “Just suck it up and go,” I told myself.

When I could procrastinate no longer, I knelt at the lip of the cave and grasped the vines, carefully swinging my legs over and holding my breath.
A prayer would be good right about now,
I thought, and began one as I rocked over the edge.
Oh Lord, if I slip and fall, please let me die instantly. That’s all I ask. Love, Diana.

But I didn’t die instantly. The vines held, and I cradled against the rock for a long, tense minute. Salvador called something up in Spanish, and I resisted the irritated urge to flip him the bird – I didn’t want to free a hand.

I could do this, I told myself as I eased my feet flat against the cliff wall and tried to brace my body against it. I’d never been rock climbing, but the nature specials always made it look easy, so I tried to emulate them.

It even worked, too. For about twenty feet. Then, when I was only halfway between the cave and the ground, my hands began to shake with the strain of holding up my body, and I suddenly knew that I wasn’t going to make it to the bottom. “Salvador,” I screamed, just before my fingers seized up and I lost my grip. I tumbled toward the ground.

Strong arms caught me.

Unfortunately for both of us, my weight and momentum was strong enough to force us both to the ground, and I landed on top of him in a heap.

I lay there for a moment, my head spinning, before I realized that the warm, hard ground beneath me wasn’t ground but Salvador’s chest, and he wasn’t moving. I sat up and flipped around, straddling his chest and leaning over his face, anxious to catch a glimpse of him breathing.

His eyes were closed, his mouth slightly parted. “Salvador? Are you okay?” I tapped his cheek, trying not to cry. Oh, no. I’d gone and killed my jungle boy. “Salvador?”

Salvador’s eyes flew open; he’d been faking. His hands flew around my hips, pinning me against his body as he stared up at me.

I felt his hips surge against mine, felt the hard length of him that I straddled, and blushed as I realized that I’d gone and put myself into a very compromising situation.

And I made no move to get up.

He stared up at me, green gaze capturing mine, and he raised one hand from my hip to caress my cheek gently, as if amazed by me. “
Belleza
,” he said softly. His fingers slid downward, brushed my mouth with infinite gentleness.

Heat flushed through my body, my nipples hardening under my thin bikini top. His body underneath mine was something out of a temple – all golden muscles and rippling male beauty. I ran a fingertip down his chest, brushing along the line of his rock-hard abdomen, down to his belly-button, where I dipped my finger in.

His hips surged against mine in response.

Oh, I liked that – liked the reaction I elicited out of him. I leaned forward, pressing my body against his long, lean one, my lips seeking his. He tasted of the wilderness, his lips soft as they parted underneath mine. Hesitant, at first, as if he were afraid of scaring me off, gently tasting and exploring, content to let me lead.

I dragged my tongue across the seam of his mouth, giving him wordless permission.

It was like unleashing a tiger. Salvador gave a low growl in his throat, and rolled to the side, and I suddenly found myself pinned beneath him, his delicious weight bearing down on me. His tongue thrust into my mouth, his kiss as intense and ravaging as a starving man’s, and with each stroke of his tongue into my mouth, his hips pumped against my own.

My legs tightened and I rubbed my calves against his, arching against him. Oh god, that felt really, really good. The hard length of his body on my own was maddening, his cock rubbing up against the sensitive spot where my legs parted and my sex was covered by a strip of blue bikini.

I moaned into his mouth as he rotated his hips, spreading my legs a little wider until my body cradled his, and I wrapped my legs around his waist fully. Oh, I liked this. My hands pulled at his hard shoulders as his mouth devoured mine, my hands roaming over his shoulders. I needed to touch this beautiful body everywhere. I’d been admiring it from afar, and underneath my questing fingers it was hot, hard, and muscled everywhere.

He felt so good. I felt alive at that moment, in the middle of the jungle, a hot, almost-naked man pressed up against me and making me feel like the most beautiful woman in the world, instead of a scraggly, unkempt castaway.

He moved his face lower, pressing kisses along my jawline and licking at my throat, and I arched my back, wallowing in the sensation. “Diana,” he said, his voice husky against my collarbone. I felt him loosen the strings at the top of my bikini.

My hands slid lower on his back, clenching and pulling at his waist and buttocks, and I rotated my hips against his. “You’re the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen,” I whispered against his hair. “Make me feel alive.”

Salvador stilled against me, and for a brief moment, I wondered if he’d understood the desperate words I’d whispered into his ear, the obvious pleadings of a girl with post-traumatic stress disorder stranded on an island with the hottest man she’d ever seen.

His head rose. He crouched over me protectively, scanning the forest.

I stared up at him, wondering if I’d done something wrong, and began to feel embarrassed. Here I was, making out on a forest floor with a man I didn’t even know. “You should probably let me up.”

He put a hand over my mouth and shook his head, and that’s when I realized his attention was elsewhere. I squirmed underneath him, but he mistook my movements and gave me a quick glance and a scolding shake of his head, then went back to listening to the forest.

I glared up at him, resisting the urge to lick his palm, just to get his hand off my face. Of course, he might take that as another come on.

Thump thump… thump thump.

Salvador’s body tensed over mine.

I whimpered in fear.

Salvador looked down at me, my eyes wide with fright. He nodded, then removed his hand from my mouth and put a finger to his lips, indicating silence.

I nodded.

Salvador rose to his feet and helped me up. I noticed that somehow between the time we were grinding and the time we were standing, he’d managed to grab his knife once more, and I stared down at the small blade. It was no longer than his hand.

“That’s not going to save us from the T-Rex,” I whispered at him. “We have to go back up.” I pointed at the top of the cliff, where our tiny nook of a cave waited. “Up to safety.”

Instead of listening to me, however, he grabbed my hand and began to run. I had no choice but to follow behind him, his grip on my wrist so tight it stung. I wanted to protest that he was hurting me, that we should go back, but then the tell-tale
thump thump
sounded even louder nearby, and the T-Rex gave an angry roar.

Suddenly, I didn’t mind his hurrying.

We dove under the cover of an oversized fern just as a heavy tail swung past, and Salvador covered me with his heavy body, pressing me into the dirt. Something hard and prickly bit into my cheek, but I didn’t dare move. His hand pressed down on the small of my back, his thumb stroking my bare skin, and it was only that small gesture that stopped me from screaming.

I could see the creature’s legs out from under the underside of one fern frond, and as I watched, the heavy clawed feet paused, and then turned slightly. The creature snorted, and sniffed the air again.

He turned back towards us and took a heavy, thumping step, tail swishing like a cat, and I thought I’d wet myself in fear. My body trembled all over. Salvador pressed a gentle kiss to my temple, and I took a small measure of comfort in the fact that he didn’t seem to be frightened like I was, even though he held onto me with an iron grip.

The dinosaur took another step towards us, sniffing the air, and I felt Salvador tense next to me. Just then, behind it, a herd of another kind of dinosaur thundered across the distant trees, and the T-Rex turned and charged through the trees after them.

No sooner was he out of sight than Salvador grabbed my hand and dragged me out from under the bushes. We began to run again.

We didn’t stop running for a good thirty minutes. By the time we stopped to pause at the base of a stream, my body was covered in sweat, my limbs trembled with fatigue, and I’d been crying silently the entire time, never losing my death grip on Salvador’s hand.