Island Heat (A Sexy Time Travel Romance With a Twist) (8 page)

It was difficult to stay down – the water wasn’t deeper than waist level, so I glanced around to see where Salvador was. His broad, golden back was in the distance, and I watched him as he circled the camp, checking things. He seemed occupied, though, so I decided to be a little less shy with my body, and stood up in the water, approaching the waterfall.

The water was crisp and cold, my skin peppering with goosebumps and my nipples hardening. I ran my fingers under the water teasingly, and gave a sigh of pure relief. It was just about as close as I was going to get to my shower at home, and I slid under the cold spray without further thought, wanting to get clean.

It was the best feeling in the world, I decided. Getting clean was better than all the Godiva chocolates in the universe. I scrubbed at my filthy hair with my fingers, letting the water loosen the chunks of mud and encrusted dirt out of my hair and detangling my hair with my fingers until it felt normal again. I stood under the heavenly spray of the waterfall for endless minutes, entranced by the feel of the water sluicing over my body. Eyes closed, hair clean, I let the water wash over me, taking away all the horrors of the past few days. I ran my hands over my body, feeling the grime give way to the spray of the waterfall, and heard a soft splash that was not quite drowned out by the roar of the waterfall itself. I leaned out of the spray and wrung my hair out with my hands, opening my eyes.

Salvador was wading through the water towards me, the waves caressing his hips so low that I knew he didn’t have his breechcloth on. The look on his face was intense; like a starving man that had just had a banquet presented before his eyes.

The banquet was my naked form, sleek with water. As I stared into his hungry eyes, a surge of lust shot through my own body.

His gaze moved over me, ravening and hungry. His steps were slow and sure as he waded through the water towards me.

I placed my hands over my breasts and ducked my head, feeling suddenly shy at his intense gaze. It was one thing to wear a bikini around him, and another to be totally exposed.

Salvador came to my side, close enough to feel the heat from his body, but not touching. His lips parted as he looked over my newly-scrubbed skin.

No words were spoken between us; his body was saying plenty enough for me to hear. He wanted me. It was in the way his breath panted out through his lips, the intensity of his gaze. His entire being was focused utterly on me. My body tingled with awareness as I waited for him to make a move.

He lifted his hand out of the water and reached for my hands. I still cupped my breasts protectively, so his fingers brushed against my skin.

It was an unstated question – how far would I let him go?

But I wanted him to touch me – more than anything. My hands slid away from my breasts and I let them fall to my sides, the waves lapping against my skin. I waited, breast and body exposed, for him to make the first move. He’d been marooned here on this hideous island for quite some time. When he touched me, would he be rough and fast with need? The thought excited me and made me tremble all at once.

He didn’t move for a long, long minute, his eyes on my body, not saying a word. I began to get nervous, and I squirmed slightly under his scrutiny, my arms flexing involuntarily and I raised one, intending to cover myself once more.

Then, Salvador reached for me. He brushed the backs of his fingers on my puckered, bare nipple.

I shuddered at that gentle stroke and made a soft noise in my throat, leaning into him. My hand moved to his hip. I needed him to touch me.

Reverent, he grazed my breast again, teasing the nipple, his fingers playing along my flesh and then caressing the soft, heavy underside. He brushed my other hand away from my other breast, exposing it to his gaze as well, and swept his fingers across the second peak, lavishing it with the same feather-light touches that he’d given the first.

I gave a soft whimper of frustration when his hands gently cupped my breasts. He remained in place, motionless except the occasional flick of his thumbs across the taut peaks of my nipples, and the junction of my legs throbbed in anticipation. He seemed lost in thought.

I raised my hands to his nape, toying with the shaggy blonde hair that curled against the back of his neck. “Salvador,” I said, my voice a husky whisper. “Don’t you want me?” He’d been hinting at it for two days, and now that I was here and naked and in his arms, he was stopping?

His thumbs flicked across my nipples again, and I gave a low moan, leaning forward and pressing my forehead against his. Our heated skin met, mine damp with water, and our mouths hovered near each other, not kissing, but sharing space. I could smell his breath, faint and spicy.

I made the first move, then, slanting my mouth toward his, giving his lips the same, feather-light touch he’d expressed on my breasts. Gently, I pulled at his lips with mine, sucking on his, running my tongue along his mouth. He gave a groan of assent as I did so, and his fingers flicked across my nipples again, even as I pressed into his hands.
Go on
, I wanted to say, and knew he wouldn’t understand.
Touch me.

He did, then, his mouth seeking mine with fierce abandon, his tongue plunging into my mouth in a hard, deep caress that made me dizzy. My brain glazed as his hands slid down to my buttocks and cupped them, dragging my hips to rest against his. The hard length of his erection nestled against my stomach. Oh, he was turned on, all right. My skin nearly scorched with the heat from his body.

I rocked my hips against his, the water swishing around us, and pulled on the back of his neck, dragging his mouth closer to mine, as if I could devour the man whole if I tried hard enough.

Damn, but he was a good kisser for a man on a deserted island.

He jerked his hips against mine, his hardness straining against the junction of my thighs, and I quivered from head to toe, lost in that minute sensation, my pulse throbbing in time between my legs. My hands slid along his back, feeling the hard cords of muscle along his skin, marveling as his mouth made love to mine.

His lips slid away from mine, pressing kisses along my collarbone and causing gooseflesh to erupt across my body. I tilted my head back in pleasure, my fingers curling against his shoulders to show him that I liked it, even as soft, ridiculous noises of pleasure erupted from my throat.

Then, his mouth dropped to my breasts and my body exploded. Salvador’s lips latched onto the peak of one breast, and I was unable to resist the shuddering moan that escaped me. His tongue flicked hard against my sensitive nipple, then he sucked, lapping at my skin. When his hand slid to my other breast and began to imitate the actions of his mouth, my low moans became throbbing pants.

His mouth lavished attention on my nipples, then slid lower, until his mouth hovered near the waterline, all too near my belly-button. Salvador’s hands slid down to my hips, kneading them as if that small action could part them with a thought, and pressed his forehead against my belly.

“Diana,” he said against my flesh, licking at my navel, his voice the raspy, low accent that caused new shivers to course up and down my skin. He murmured something else, low and soft in Spanish.

I didn’t know what he said, but lord, it sounded sexy. I wrapped my fingers in his wet hair as he hovered near my hips. Just a few inches lower, and paradise. I wondered how long he could hold his breath, then blushed at the thought.

Salvador’s body tensed against mine, as if sensing my thoughts, and he stood.

Change of plans? Oh, well, that was okay, as long as he continued to kiss me. I wrapped my arms around his neck and pressed my breasts against his chest, leaning in for another intoxicating kiss. Instead, his mouth thinned into a hard line and he pulled away from me, detangling himself from my arms and heading towards the bank of the small pool.

Stunned, I froze in place. What exactly had just happened? As a modern girl, I expected sex to be interrupted for a condom-search, of course, so I waited in the water for a moment longer before panicking. Not that they had condoms on this island, but surely he wasn’t turning me down…was he?

At the shore’s edge, his bronze body moved out of the water and Salvador began to dress, not bothering to glance back at me.

Ouch. He
was
turning me down.

Humiliation washed over me. My face ached with the embarrassed smile I pasted to my lips, and I drew my wet hair forward, trying vainly to cover my breasts. When that didn’t work, I slid lower into the water and headed for the concealing shore, looking for my bikini. How embarrassing. Had I misinterpreted all those signals that Salvador had been tossing my way?

I snuck a quick glance at him as I dressed, peeping out of the corner of my lashes. He’d dressed as well, and while the bulge in his loincloth was still apparent (and rather breathtaking, I might add), he was ignoring me.

I didn’t understand it.

It stung. A lot. I finished dressing and wrung my hair out, then sat on the grass nearby, examining my feet and trying to look unconcerned with the fact that he’d just slapped me in the face.

So to speak.

My feet were pretty torn up. I winced just at looking at them. The undersides were bruised, every inch was scratched and what wasn’t callused was pretty much tenderized. No wonder it hurt to walk. The cut on the bottom of my foot was upraised and reddened, and probably needed another cleaning. I winced at it and laid my foot back down in the grass. It hadn’t hurt until I looked at it, and now that I had, it throbbed. Figured.

I fought back a watery sniff and tried not to feel sorry for myself. Not only did my feet look like meatloaf, but the sexiest guy on the island wasn’t even going to have sex with me, the sexiest girl on the island.

Only
girl on the island. That kind of hurt.

I glanced over at Salvador, intending to give him a hateful glare and show him that he’d hurt my feelings, but when I looked over, he wasn’t there.

I was alone.

I sat up, alarm coursing through me. “Er, Salvador?”

To my relief, he appeared a moment later, standing about fifty feet away between some of the underbrush. He made the motion for quiet, then gestured that I should come to him. I did so, getting to my feet and wincing when my cut flesh smacked against the rough tangle of the jungle floor.

That’s what I get for looking at my wounds
, I thought wryly, and hobbled the few steps toward him, trying to look dignified and failing miserably.

He frowned at my tiny, mincing steps, and within moments, he was at my side.

“It’s just a scratch,” I protested as he bent over, presumably to yank my foot up and examine it. Instead, however, he picked up a handful of the mud at our feet and stood again, brushing the wet hair off my forehead.

I slapped his hand away, but he would not be deterred, and after a few moments of this slapping, he gave me an irritated glare and commanded something in Spanish that I didn’t understand. The meaning was clear enough:
Stop it
. I did, and within moments, he’d drawn three long, muddy lines across my forehead, and I frowned at him, raising a hand to wipe them away. “I just got clean, you idiot.”

For some reason, his touch to my forehead made me think of the fever dreams I’d had when stranded in the airplane, just before the cavemen had found me. I’d dreamed about Salvador – dreamed of him brushing mud on my forehead. What did it mean?

He pushed my hand aside and shook his head, pointing at his own forehead, where I saw three long, white scars that carved through his skin. Most of the time those scars were covered by his longish hair, but when he pointed it out to me, I realized that my mud-markings were supposed to resemble his. “I don’t understand,” I said. “What’s this for?”

Of course, my words had no response forthcoming. Tarzan grabbed me by the hips and swung me back over his shoulder again like your typical captive girl and began to head off through the forest before I had time to even blink.

This time, I protested only slightly, and gave his back no more than a half-hearted thump. I couldn’t walk, and we both knew it. I gave his shoulder-blade a rough, irritated pinch anyhow. He ignored my efforts, resting a possessive hand on the soft flesh of my upper thigh that distracted me into silence.

And we were off back into the woods again, as if the interlude at the falls had never happened.

But I couldn’t stop playing the scene back in my mind, over and over again, wondering what had gone wrong.

*** *** ***

I must have drowsed off at some point. I awoke sharply when a voice called out loud and clear from nearby. Salvador gave my sky-facing rump a playful slap to wake me up. “Diana,” he said.

I jerked against him, my drowsy stupor disappearing and replaced by a wary jangling of nerves. “What’s going on?” I demanded. “Put me down.”

To my surprise, he did, sliding me off his shoulder.

I rocked back on my feet, wincing at the sensation as I adjusted to my surroundings. The scent of water no longer filled the air, which meant that we’d left the waterfall behind some time ago. The plants here were tall and looming like the rest of the jungle, but at the base of the cliff wall, I noticed they grew smaller and in some sort of order. As I wrinkled my brow and looked at Salvador in curiosity, wondering where he’d taken me, something long and pale snaked across the cliff-surface to my side.

A snake! I instinctively jumped at the sight, my arms flinging around Salvador in fright without realizing what I was doing.

His easy chuckle of laughter and the way his hands slid possessively around my waist made me realize that I’d over-reacted. I opened my eyes – when had I squeezed them shut? – and realized that the ‘snake’ was in all actuality a ladder.

A rope ladder.

My eyes went up the cliff, my gaze following the rope ladder. It rose about twenty feet, and it started at the lip of a ledge dug into the rock itself through weather and time. Above the lip of the rock, I could see crude mud brickwork, and a thick layer of crosshatched palm leaves that made some sort of rain covering that angled over the cave itself.