“You’re my beloved too.”
She felt the breath he took. Ragged. Harsh. Deep. He rested his forehead against hers, his long lashes veiling his expression, but she could see the deep lines etched into his face. There was so much regret, so much sorrow, as if a great weight was on his shoulders, as if he’d already lost everything that mattered to him.
“You don’t understand, Isabeau,” he said gently.
She felt his voice inside of her, wrapping around her heart, sliding deep into her veins where heat rushed and her own heart pulsed to the tune of that smoky, hypnotic drawl.
“What don’t I understand, Conner?” she asked, her voice soft—loving.
He groaned and pushed into her forehead with his. “Don’t. Don’t, honey. I can’t live with losing you all over again. Let me just believe it was too late for us all along. It was over and there was no chance for us.”
“I brought you here under false pretenses, Conner. I’m not so innocent in all this. I needed to see you. I didn’t know Adan would know you from a drawing, but once I realized he could find a way to reach you, every single fiber of my being wanted to see you again. I made it happen. And deep down where I couldn’t look, I knew how you would feel about seducing another woman. I wanted to . . .”
“Don’t.” He put his finger over her lips. “Don’t say it. You don’t have to say it.”
She pressed her lips to his fingers. Stroked a caress with her tongue. “Yes I do. I wanted to punish you. I wanted to hurt you. I’m ashamed of that.”
“Damn it, Isabeau, do you think this makes it any easier?”
“It would if you’d let me have my say,” she nearly growled. Her cat actually jumped beneath her skin and she heard her vibrating in her throat.
She caught Conner’s faint grin. It didn’t quite reach his eyes, but he’d always liked her little flare of temper. She narrowed her eyes. “I mean it. I have something important to say and you could listen before you argue.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He kissed her.
She should have been prepared for it. His hand had shifted to anchor in her hair as he bunched silky strands in his fist. His mouth captured hers in one heart-stopping moment. He tasted wild. Masculine.
Hers
. She moved closer to him, refusing to let his kiss end, taking over, her tongue sliding along the seam of his lips, teasing and enticing. Tempting. She rubbed her body over his. Seducing.
For a brief moment she felt his resistance running like a steel wire vibrating through his muscles and then, abruptly, he capitulated completely, his arms tightening around her, his mouth becoming commanding, feeding on her, his tongue sweeping inside, melting her with his heat. Fire flared instantly, tongues of flames rushing over her until she burned for him—until he burned for her.
Satisfaction gave her more confidence. She bit at his lower lip, her hands sliding beneath his shirt to find bare skin. One leg curled around his thigh as she pressed closer, offering him everything. Determined to have everything. She wasn’t letting him go—certainly not to guilt. Her hands moved over his bare skin, feeling the texture of him while her mouth absorbed his unique taste.
“Come on, you two, you’re killing us,” Rio said. “We’ve got an escape route to map out and we need you for that.”
Conner lifted his head reluctantly. “Be right there,” he called over his shoulder, his eyes blazing heat into hers. “You know what I have to do,” he said in a low voice. “How do you ever expect me to look you in the eye again?”
“Because I’m the one asking you to do it,” she whispered. She put her fingers over his mouth before he could shape a protest. “Because your mother was my friend and her son is your brother. Because your family is my family and I will do whatever it takes to keep them safe and get them back. I know little Mateo. Marisa brought him to my camp all the time. I didn’t even realize she wasn’t his natural mother any more than I knew she was your mother, but I saw their bond, Conner. We’re in this together, Conner. Don’t make me less than you, or make your sacrifice less than mine. You’re worth everything to me. However—we do whatever we have to do.”
He shook his head. “You’re an amazing and courageous woman, Isabeau, and I don’t deserve you, but you can’t possibly know just how repulsive you’ll find the situation when you see me with her. And you’ll have doubts. Justifiable doubts. Worse, your cat will lose her mind over this. She’ll be dangerous and you’ll spend every moment trying to control her.”
“How bad will it be for you, Conner?” she asked. “While you’re worried about me, I’ll be worried about you. You’re the one who has to push your cat down and force yourself to look into another woman’s eyes. Maybe for some men, it would be easy, but I think I’ve learned enough about you to know it will be abhorrent to you.”
“Are you sure, Isabeau, because if you stay tonight with me, I won’t be able to keep my hands off of you.”
A slow smile welled up from her heart. “Well, that’s a good thing.” She forced herself to look away from the heat in his eyes toward the forest. “So how do we plan out our escape routes?”
He dipped his head to trail kisses down her face to the corner of her mouth. “We get to work, map them out, drop the supplies and make certain they’re cached where animals won’t dig them up. And then we think of every conceivable thing that can go wrong and put plans in place to cover those contingencies.”
“Oh. Easy stuff. I was expecting it to be difficult.” She flashed another grin at him.
Conner let her go reluctantly and stepped back, an answering smile beginning to form on his face. There was wariness in his eyes as if he was afraid to hope, but he linked his fingers with hers when she held out her hand and began to walk with her toward the others. “I’ll send Jeremiah up in the trees. We’ll see how fast he can climb. He’ll need to pick up his speed. The more practice he gets, the better. He has to get faster or it’s too dangerous for him.”
“You’re really worried about him.”
“He took his beating like a man. He owns up to his mistakes. He’s got courage. He’s cocky, but then weren’t we all at that age?”
She found herself smiling again. She loved the way he could be so intimidating, so dangerous looking and yet beneath that untamed exterior he had a heart. He’d probably hate that she thought that, but she knew just by his voice that he was going to make certain Jeremiah had the best chance possible to survive joining their team.
“Stop looking at me with stars in your eyes, Isabeau.”
His voice had gone husky. Gruff. His eyes had gone all cat. Her womb clenched. Spasmed. Spilled liquid heat. She cleared her throat. “How long before my cat emerges all the way?” Isabeau asked. “Will we have enough time? I don’t want to go through it without you.”
“Not long. You’re close,” he said, his gaze drifting over her in a possessive, hungry way that took her breath and sent her temperature rising fast. “Too close.”
There was still that hint of shadow in his eyes, as if he knew something she didn’t—and she conceded he probably did. She didn’t expect it to be easy to watch him with Imelda Cortez, the thought frankly sickened her, but she wasn’t going to lose him. Not again. There had to be a way for them to get through this intact and still get the children out. She glanced up to see they were getting close to the others. A few more feet. She caught his arm.
“Whatever it takes, Conner. I would hope you wouldn’t even have to kiss her, but I’m not going to put limitations on what I’ll accept. You can’t go into a life-threatening situation with that on your mind. If we do this, we both commit. Together. Agreed?”
He groaned softly and pulled her close again. She could hear his heart. “I know you believe you’re that strong, Isabeau, and I love you for it, but your cat is going to have her say and it isn’t going to be easy. Cats are jealous and temperamental and we can’t always control them. You saw me with Jeremiah—and I like the kid. If you despise a woman, how do you think your cat is going to react knowing I’m flirting with her—or worse?”
“If your cat can handle it, then mine will have to, won’t she?” She lifted her chin. “I want the children back—all of them—but especially Mateo because he’s ours. And he was Marisa’s. I want this woman stopped. If anyone comes up with another way into her stronghold, we’ll take it, but if all we’re left with is securing an invite through you, then we’ll have to take it.” She suddenly caught her breath. “Elijah! Conner, Elijah could do it.”
He shook his head, dashing her hopes. “Three reasons. One, Mateo is my brother, and pretending to want to sleep with this woman will be a crap job I won’t push off on someone else. Two, Elijah, as good as he is, and he is good, very cool under fire, is relatively inexperienced. And three, Imelda won’t go for someone she would conceive of as being equal to her. She wants a dominant male, but not one her equal. I’ve studied her, and Elijah would pose a threat. He might want to take over her position of power. A bodyguard wouldn’t do that.”
She let her breath out and forced a smile. “Then we go with our plan.”
They returned, hand in hand, to the cabin where the others waited. Conner mapped out several escape routes through the rain forest, showing them the safest areas where they might shelter the children and keep them moving as well as the best campsites for them. They’d have to go in and mark the drop sites.
“I’ll go and take Jeremiah with me,” Conner concluded. “We’ll go as leopards. It will be faster and safer. It will give Jeremiah the experience he needs in climbing fast and leaving no trace. Rio always flies the helicopter. Elijah is our supply man.”
Felipe grinned at Jeremiah and showed off his muscles. “Leonardo and I are the big guns—the brawn.”
“You mean not the brains.” Jeremiah smirked.
That earned him a light cuff from Rio, but Jeremiah only laughed, not in the least deterred. Isabeau could see they were already developing a camaraderie of sorts with the newest member of their team. He might be on probation and in training, but they already treated him with growing affection.
“So we go in, Conner and Felipe will be personal protectors for Marcos,” Rio got back to business, “and Leonardo and I will be the same for Elijah.”
“Don’t worry about our uncle,” Felipe hastened to assure. “He might be in his sixties, but he’s fast and cunning when needed. I wouldn’t want to go up against him. And with Elijah, we’ve got six of us, all leopards.”
“What about me?” Jeremiah demanded.
Rio shrugged. “You know Suma is going to be there and he’s tried to recruit you. He can’t see you. How are your shooting skills?”
Jeremiah looked happy all over again. “I’m a crack shot.”
“Don’t say it if it isn’t true,” Conner cautioned.
“High wind. Over a mile.”
The men looked at one another. “We’ll give you a chance to prove what you can do,” Rio said. “If you aren’t exaggerating, you’ll be watching our backs for us.”
“And me?” Isabeau ventured. “I could go in as Elijah’s girlfriend. None of them has ever seen me. Elijah could be here to see me and knew his old friend Marcos was coming.”
“No way.” Conner stated it as a fact.
“She has to be protected,” Elijah pointed out. “We can’t just leave her out and you know it, Conner. She could prove to be a valuable asset. They have two rogue leopards. Those leopards won’t be thinking of anything but Isabeau.”
“That’s really going to make me agree, now isn’t it?” Conner said, sarcasm dripping in his voice.
“Not his girlfriend,” Rio said. “Something closer. A sister or cousin. A relative. That makes it war if they touch her. A girlfriend might be considered disposable and the rogues are going to know she’s leopard. They’ll buy it. He came out to see her and bring her some news from home. In the meantime, they’ll suspect that Marcos and Elijah are having a secret meeting. Cortez won’t be able to risk the bait. The pot’s too sweet. Elijah and Marcos, allies who could open doors for her, and you, Conner. Not to mention all the leopards.”
Conner rubbed his temples and looked down at Isabeau’s upturned face. She looked so innocent. She had no idea of the monsters they were dealing with. She’d seen their work, but she didn’t have the capacity to understand the depths of their depravity and greed.
“If we tell you to get out, Isabeau . . .”
“I actually am extremely intelligent, Conner. I’ll take orders from those with the experience.”
There was no point in protesting. There wasn’t another answer. And she did have a sharp mind. She might be an asset. “Let’s get the escape runs done and then we’ll think of every single thing that could go wrong and make plans to cover that as well.”
10
THE escape routes were difficult to set up. Isabeau, riding in the helicopter with both Rio and Elijah, found herself using binoculars and straining her eyes to spot the small balloon tied to a tree. It was Jeremiah’s job to climb the tree and mark the spot with a balloon, signaling to the helicopter where they were to drop the supplies along the escape route. Conner would then cache the supplies and mark the spot so any member of the team would know where to recover the food, water and arms. Even with the bright balloon, the canopy was nearly impenetrable, a world high in the air that cut off everything beneath it from the sky, making it very difficult to spot the target.
The rain forest looked different from the air. The mist seemed to hang like lacy veils throughout the canopy. The trees derived a great deal of moisture from the clouds they were shrouded in. Isabeau felt almost as if she could reach out and touch the drapes of film clinging to the branches and leaves. She even forgot to be scared, although the helicopter continually bucked as the wind came in gusts. Rio kept it just above the tops of the trees once they’d spotted Jeremiah’s balloon.
She admired the efficiency with which they worked and realized they had definitely perfected the smooth way the team ran. She wanted to be a part of it, or at the very least, feel as though she contributed in some way. She tried to learn by watching them and even envied Jeremiah a little that he was able to actively participate.