Island Heat (A Sexy Time Travel Romance With a Twist) (6 page)

Salvador picked a few twigs out of my hair and brushed the dirt and tears from my cheeks. His mouth curled on one side in a rueful smile.

“Sorry,” I said, giving my face an angry swipe. I felt like an idiot. He’d saved my life and I’d done nothing but bawl and whine. “I’m usually not chased by man-eating dinosaurs on a daily basis, so you’ll have to forgive me if I’m not reacting well.”

He brushed my lips with his thumb, and said nothing.

After that, the rest of the day fell into a pattern of resting and wading down the stream to lose our scent. At least, I assumed it was to lose our scent – Salvador didn’t tell me. Heading up the stream against the current was just as exhausting as running, and it wore me out. By the time the stars were high in the evening sky, my teeth were chattering from the chill of the water, and I was numb with exhaustion. The only thing in my body that continued to have strength was my hand – I clenched his hand in my own so tightly that my palm was sweating against his.

To his credit, he didn’t release my hand. I guess he sensed that I needed some comfort.

We’d grabbed a few pieces of fruit from the riverbanks as we’d journeyed, but I was still starving. The lack of protein was making me shaky and hungry, but I wouldn’t let Salvador leave me. Every time he got up, I automatically got to my feet as well, and reached for his hand.

He seemed to understand my fright and need for companionship. I left his side at one point to relieve my bladder, and when I returned, I saw he’d thoughtfully made me a small bed amongst the palm leaves. He gestured for me to come lay down.

I did so, reaching for his hand automatically. He didn’t give it to me, but instead leaned back against the tree and let me cradle my head against his leg. I blushed at first, wondering if this was going to become sexual again, but I was too tired to care, and huddling up next to him seemed like a good idea.

He played with his knife and stroked my bare shoulder as I rested my cheek on his warm, sinewy thigh and stared at the sky that peeked through the heavy canopy of the forest. I could barely make out a few of the stars.

They looked like the same stars at home, and the sight surprised me as well as saddened me. “I wonder what happened to Mr. Wingarde,” I said softly against his leg. “And the stewardess. I didn’t see them on the beach anywhere, just the pilot. And he got eaten.” I shuddered at the memory.

He pulled me closer to him and rubbed his hand on my shoulder, trying to generate warmth.

It was a thoughtful gesture, but the chill inside me had nothing to do with the night. I was numb from the inside out. “I wonder if I’ll ever get home?” I stared up at the stars overhead, feeling melancholy. “I don’t want to be here.” I glanced over at Salvador’s impassive face and felt guilty, even though he couldn’t understand me. “No offense.”

He was silent, the soft, steady stroking of my arm uninterrupted by my speech. Not that it mattered if I spoke it aloud or not, but it felt good to be having some sort of conversation, even if it was one-sided. “I even miss Mr. Wingarde and my lousy ex-boyfriend who couldn’t keep a job.” I laughed at that, the sound tired and bitter. “To think, I broke up with him because he wasn’t ambitious enough for me. I wanted to sell enough real estate to retire early, maybe start a business of my own.” My amused chuckle grew strained. “Everyone warned me not to go on this trip, but all I could see was the big fat commission. Anything for the job, you know? And here I am, stuck on dinosaur island with a hot guy that doesn’t speak English, and I’m hungry, and tired, and cold, and wet, and all I can think about is the fact that I’d give this all up for the worst night at home.”

More hot tears dropped from my face and onto his leg. “I hate it here. I want to go home.” A sob caught in my throat. “Please let me wake up and this all be a bad dream.”

Ever silent, Salvador pulled me into his arms and rocked me until I fell asleep, listening to the soft sigh of his breath and hiccupping from my tears.

When I woke up the next morning, Salvador was already staring down at me. It was a disconcerting feeling, to have a gorgeous, unshaven man looming over me when I woke up, and then to realize that this wasn’t a hotel room and a cheap one night stand, but a deserted island.

Not that either option was prime, of course.

Salvador nodded acknowledgement when I sat up, then gestured for me to be silent again. I froze in place. Were the dinosaurs back?

Apparently they were not, because he smiled in the next moment, and patted my leg. I was momentarily dazzled by his masculine beauty. At least, I was dazzled until he handed me another banana and gave me a suggestive look that caused me to flush bright red.

Okay, so the banana eating from yesterday hadn’t gone unnoticed by him.

We ate as we walked, and I was still feeling weak and tired. As we walked, I dreamed about burgers and pizza, and my mouth watered, and I continued to feel sorry for myself. “Do you eat anything but bananas?” I said to him at one point, feeling irritated. “Not that I’m ungrateful, mind you, but I’d like a nice juicy steak as much as the next girl. I don’t suppose you ever eat the dinosaurs around here, instead of just the other way around? No?”

He ignored me as I spoke, scanning the trail, and I sighed. “I suppose not.”

We crossed another stream about midmorning, our pace a slow, easy walk through the underbrush. I’d notice a small trail every once in a while, but Salvador kept away from those. At first, I wondered why he’d do that, when the small dirt paths seemed like easier walking than the ferny under-growth that we were cutting across, but he paused at one and looked back at me.

“Bgha,” he said, gesturing with his hand to show the reduced height of the cavemen. Oh – those were the cavemen’s trails that we were avoiding. I suddenly didn’t mind traipsing cross-country. I didn’t want to run into that little bastard again.

I knew we kept the pace at a slow walk because of me – I’d seen glimpses of intense quickness from Salvador – but my feet were bare and I wasn’t nearly as fast or sure on the terrain as he was. Every stick or rock I stepped on made me wince.

My latest stumble was the worst one yet, and I stopped to glance down at the soles of my feet and noticed they were scraped open from where I’d stepped on a rock. “Damn it,” I said, tugging on Salvador’s hand and making him stop. “I’m bleeding.” I gestured at my foot.

His reaction of concern surprised me. Before I realized what was going on, I was down on my back on the forest floor, and Salvador loomed over me, my foot in his hand.

“Uh,” I said, squirming at the intense scrutiny he was giving my dirty foot. “I’m sure it’s not that bad. Really.”

He said something in Spanish under his breath, then glanced around, scanning the forest. I jerked my leg, trying to get it out of his grasp. To my surprise, he let me go and walked away a few feet to examine a nearby bush.

Irritated, I sat up and glared at his back. “Geez. You sure do blow hot and cold. One moment you want to give me a foot massage, the next you’re treating me like a leper. Make up your mind, already.”

He returned a few moments later with a few long, spiky leaves and began breaking them in his hand, and indicated I should give him my foot again. I lay back and presented my foot once more, skeptical.

Warm fingers encircled my ankle, trapping it in his hand, and I barely had time to think about that before he smeared something cold and stinging on my foot.

I tried to jerk it away. “Ow!”

He wouldn’t let me escape him, and I had to sit there, cheeks burning with embarrassment as he scraped the mud and grime off my foot, applied more of the stinging plant, and then eventually wrapped the wounded appendage in soft leaves. His hands were soft as they kneaded the bruised flesh of my foot, and it got my mind thinking about other things he might tenderly stroke, and I began to get all flushed and bothered at the very thought.

I jerked my foot away once he was done and examined it myself. It wasn’t sparkling clean, of course – I doubted you could get anything sparkly clean in this muddy hole of an island, but it was reasonably clean and the gash was well-wrapped. As I watched, he cut a long piece of fabric from his teeny tiny breech-cloth and made it even tinier, and then offered the string of fabric to me, indicating that I should wrap it around my leaf-covered foot to keep the makeshift bandage in place.

I took it from him and gave him my thanks, adding, “Just so you know, I’m not going to be able to walk very fast in this.” I gestured at the oversized, leaf-covered end of my foot and got to my feet, hopping on one leg like a flamingo.

He grinned at my actions and pointed at the nearest tree, no more than ten feet away.

I followed his pointing finger and frowned. “It’s a tree, yes?” I didn’t understand what he meant. “Tree?”

“Tree,” he agreed, chuckling, as if amused by me. His voice was deliciously husky. “Tree,” he said again, pointing at the base and then gesturing upward.

It took me a few moments to comprehend what he meant. “You want me to go up the tree?” I made a climbing gesture.

My gesturing hands seemed to amuse him mightily, because he grinned even as he nodded at me. “Diana, tree,” he said.

“Why would I want to get in the tree?” I protested, but my words fell on deaf ears. Despite my protests, I was shuffled over to the tree and hoisted unceremoniously onto the lowest hanging branch. “There, I’m in the tree,” I said, clinging to the trunk and glaring down at him. “Happy now?”

“Tree,” he repeated, then gestured that I should go higher.

“You are getting on my last nerve, Salvador,” I grumbled, but continued to climb.

When I was about twenty or thirty feet off the ground and my legs began to throb due to my favoring of one foot, I looked down at him again. “Tree?” I yelled down. “Is this high enough? Tree?”

He nodded at me, looking pleased. “Tree.”

I made myself comfortable on the branch and straddled it, ignoring the way the rough bark chafed my inner thighs. There was no way I was sitting sidesaddle on this enormous thing. The branch that I was on was fully twice as big around as Salvador’s body, and it was one of the smaller ones. “Damn tree,” I muttered.

Just then, Salvador disappeared down below.

I panicked. He was leaving me? Here alone in the damn tree? “Salvador!” I yelled at the top of my lungs, lying flat on my belly and getting ready to shimmy back down after him. Screw this. “Salvador! Come back!”

He reappeared down below, shaking his head at me in anger. “Diana,” he called up, his voice low. “Diana tree. Diana
tree
.” He put his finger to his lips, indicating silence. Diana tree silence.

Yeah, I got the picture.

“Diana tree,” I agreed, a little disgruntled. If he wanted me to stay up here, I’d stay up here. “Salvador tree?”

He shook his head and made some motion I didn’t understand. “Salvador,” he said, gesturing. It looked like sweeping. Diana tree silence, Salvador sweeping?

I frowned down at him. “You’ll come back, won’t you? Salvador comes back for Diana? Yes?”

Salvador tilted his head up at me and gave me a blatant, sexy smile. “Salvador and Diana, yes.” His look was suggestive, as if he meant a lot more by just linking our names.

Oooh. That hadn’t been what I meant, but I understood it all the same. Blushing, I sat back on the tree again.

Down below, I caught a glimpse of dark golden skin and muscles, and leaned over my branch to watch the show. From up here, I could admire the man’s body without worrying about him seeing my scrutiny.

And my, was he beautiful. His shoulders were broad and thick, tapering to a trim waist and just a hint of buttock that was barely covered by his scraps of loincloth. As he bent over, the muscles in his back rippled, and I felt my stomach flutter in response. I was attracted to the man like nobody’s business.

It was only after I stared at his gleaming, muscular form for long minutes that I started to realize what he was doing. At first, I thought he was preparing more medicinal gunk for my foot, because he went back to the spiky plant and cut a few more strands off, then crushed them in his hand, the digits of his finger gleaming with creamy moisture that oozed from the crushed leaves. Then, he took the oversized leaf and began to drag it along the ground in a right-to-left sweeping motion.

Puzzled, I watched him work for several minutes. What on earth was he doing? He circled the base of my tree and went over the nearby surroundings, swiping the ground with that long, greasy leaf.

It was only when he began to backtrack the trail we’d taken to get here that I began to get a glimmer of understanding. He was going back and sweeping our trail with the strong scent of the plant, in order to throw any predators off of our smell. I thought of my bloody foot, and the alarm he’d shown when he realized I’d been bleeding for some time, and I felt chagrined. I hadn’t even realized it would be an issue, but I guess I’d made a lot more work for my poor Tarzan.

I leaned over the branch and watched him work until he was well out of sight, and I wondered how far he’d backtrack. Probably to the last stream we’d crossed, I thought. Now that I’d stopped moving, I felt drowsy, and I rested my cheek on the knobby bark of the thick tree branch. It’d be a while before he returned if he was going that far back. The last stream I remembered crossing was well over a few hours back.

I fell asleep for a time. I wasn’t sure how long I was out, but the next thing I knew, I was drooling on the tree branch, my legs and arms were locked tight around the tree-limb itself and smarting from remaining in one uncomfortable position, and there was the world’s biggest caterpillar crawling up my arm.

Like an idiot, I screamed and shook my arm violently. The caterpillar took a few good shakes to dislodge. It landed back on the branch a few feet away from me and started inching forward again.

Oh,
hell
no. I was not dealing with mutant-sized bugs in addition to everything else. I glanced over at the nearest branch over me, but it was too far out of reach. Glancing once more at the deadly caterpillar, I decided to shimmy down a level and see where that took me.