Wickedly sharp teeth pushing at his jaw to make room. Even his fingers curved, the stiletto-sharp claws threatening to burst out the ends.

"I can't ever go back, Rio," Rachael said firmly. "I don't want to go back.

There's nothing but death there for me. I was never happy in that world. I'd like to try here, where I feel alive, where I feel close to my mother again. It was her stories that made me come to this place. When she spoke of the rain forest, she made me feel as if I were in it, sensing its sounds and smells and beauty. I felt as if I'd walked in it, long before I ever came here."

"This isn't a lark for some rich woman's fantasy," he said, abruptly standing.

With the same casual immodesty he pulled on a pair of jeans. "There aren't stores here, Rachael. There are cobras and wild animals that will hunt and eat you."

"Someone managed to put a cobra in my locked room before we traveled on the river," she said. It was hard not to stare at him, not to see the play of his muscles beneath his skin. She could see the scars covering his body. Many of them were obviously from large cats. But there were scars from knives and bullets and other weapons she couldn't hope to identify.

His head snapped around, his hands stilled on the b.u.t.tons of his jeans. "Are you certain the thing didn't get into your room on its own, Rachael?"

.She shook her head. "No, the room was locked up tight. I made sure of it. I really prepared for this trip, Rio. I knew about the snakes and other unpleasant and poisonous crawly things. I took precautions."

101.

Rio reached for her. "Let me help you to the bathroom."

"I think I can make it on my own," Rachael said.

He paid no attention to her protest, simply reached. down and scooped her into his arms, striding into the tiny closet-sized room used for privacy. It was a primitive method, but at least Rachael had privacy. He left her alone while he went about heating water for coffee.

Rachael leaned against the wall, holding on to keep from falling on her face.

She was surprised how weak she was. The infection left her shaky. She wasn't certain she could hop her way across the floor back to the bed, let alone make it outside to the verandah as she had planned. She needed a respite from Rio's untamed masculine allure. She had no way to combat his magnetic sorcery when she was so close to him. She couldn't stop staring at him, the fluid way he walked, the way his roped muscles rippled so obviously, the temptation of his mouth, the brilliance of his vivid gaze, so often hot with hunger and need when it rested on her.

She sighed as she drew aside the curtain and found him waiting. She should have known he would be right there when she needed him. No matter what he was doing he always heard everything, saw everything, was aware of everything.

When he leaned down to lift her into his arms, his face brushed against her mop of unruly curls. She felt the warmth of his breath, the heat of his skin, the faintest touch of his lips skimming her temple. Rachael closed her eyes against the rush of desire. "You can't do that, Rio. I'm not that strong."

"I can't help myself, Rachael." He cradled her against his bare chest, rubbing his chin on the top of her head. "When I'm this close to you, my body and my heart tell me you're mine. I think my brain just shuts down."

She circled his neck with her arms, thinking her brain might be shutting down too. "I guess that's a good enough excuse. I'm willing to use it if you are."

She lifted her 102.

mouth to his, the aggressor this time, biting down on his lower lip, tugging until he opened his mouth to her. Her tongue tangled with his, danced and teased, stroked and caressed. A perfect match.

The world dropped away until there was only the silken heat of his mouth, the strength of his arms, the feel of his bare chest pressed against her. She buried her hands in his hair, held the back of his head tightly to prevent him from pulling away. They fed off each other, kiss after kiss, so hungry for one another they couldn't stop.

Franz yowled. Just once, but it was enough. Rio stiffened, lifted his head, listening to the sounds of the forest. He swore softly and pressed his forehead against hers, breathing deeply to regain control.

Rachael's fingers twisted deeper into his hair. "What is it? What do you hear?"

She didn't care about her breathing. She didn't want to stop kissing him, not now, not ever. Her body was already in meltdown and she wanted relief.

"Listen. Do you hear them talking? The birds? The monkeys? Even the insects are warning us."

Rachael tried to still her pounding heart, tried to control her wild breathing to listen. It took a few minutes to separate the sounds. Strangely, she could hear individual notes, could tell there was a whisper of information. "What does it mean?"

"Someone is headed our way."

"The leopard?" Her mouth went dry. Rio was serious. She listened again, much more closely this time. To her astonishment, she could hear the difference in the notes the birds sang, in the way the insects carried on-more hurried in their melodies. And the monkeys shrieked to one another. It took her a moment or two to realize the monkeys were also shrieking to Rio. "They're deliberately warning you."

He set her in the overstuffed chair away from the door. "I do them favors, they do me favors. It's not a leopard, someone human. Someone they're familiar with, they've

103.

seen before." His hands lingered on her shoulders, the nape of her neck, ma.s.saging the tension out of her rather absently.

Rachael pulled the edges of the shut she was wearing together, noticing for the first time that the b.u.t.tons were completely undone. She was becoming as bad as Rio at being immodest. She allowed her head to fall back against the chair, arching her back like a lazy cat, shifting a little to ease the steady pressure building in the core of her body. Exposed in the early morning air, her skin itched. She looked down and thought, for just one second, something ran beneath the surface, raising her skin slightly, just enough to be noticeable. Then it was gone, leaving her wondering if she were so in need of a man that she was having hallucinations.

"Rachael, how did your mother come to hear of the leopard people and this place?" Reluctantly Rio allowed his hand to drop away from her neck as he went to the window and pushed aside the blanket to peer out.

"I don't know. To me her stories were just that, stories. I don't even know if I have the stories right, Rio. I probably filled in the blanks with my own versions. Does it matter? Do you really think there's truth in the stories? In the light of day it seems a little silly to think a man could be a leopard as well as a man. Or a mixture of both. What, the head and torso of a man and the body of a leopard?" She couldn't look at him without having the impression of a dangerous cat. Without thinking of the way his face had changed from a human warrior to that of a dangerous animal.

"Does it? Here in the forest, it seems anything is possible. You have to have an open mind if you're going to make your home here." He stood with his back to her and wondered how he was going to let her go.

A soft one-two note, much like a songbird, reached his ears. He turned back to her. "Rachael, Kim Pang is approaching the house."

"That's not possible, he was on the other side of the 104.

river. It was already raging, and with the storms and so much rain, it can't have gone down this fast." Just like that her world was shattered, gone, and the running started again. The lies. She turned her face away from him, not wanting him to see the sheen of tears burning in her eyes. She knew the day would come eventually. It made her angry that she never wanted to accept it, that she pretended she would find a home.

"Kim is capable of getting across the river in the same manner I use." He searched for the right words to make her understand. "He's the closest thing I have to a friend outside my unit."

Rachael shrugged. "It doesn't matter. Give me time to get dressed and get out of here. Go meet him before he gets here."

Something dangerous shifted inside him. "I don't think so, Rachael. You can't even walk on that leg. If you try running around the forest with those puncture wounds, believe me, you'll pick up another infection fast. Just sit there and let me work this out."

Rio's eyes had narrowed into that gla.s.sy, focused stare she a.s.sociated with predatory hunting. There was a soft underlying growl to his voice that sent a chill down her spine and the hair on the back of her neck rising. Rachael turned her face away from him, biting down hard to keep from lashing out at him. She was good at keeping her expression serene, even in the worst of times, but she still had trouble controlling her runaway tongue. She didn't need nor want him to work her problems out. People stepping into her life tended to die way too young. She didn't want to carry the guilt of another death around, thank you very much. Rachael smoldered with a mixture of anger and fear, feeling vulnerable and helpless with the injury to her leg.

She was surprised at the intensity of her emotions. Her fingers even curled as if she wanted to rake and claw and scratch something. Or someone. The need burned in her, a startling discovery she wasn't very proud of. What was

105.

happening to her? Sometimes when she lay in bed with her leg throbbing, there was something stirring inside of her, a heat and need she put down to her admiration of Rio's anatomy.

Rachael swept a hand through her hair. She had a normal, healthy s.e.x drive, but ever since she'd arrived, in spite of the terrible injury she suffered, need crawled through her body, an ever-present unrelenting ache that refused to go away. In the middle of pain and a life or death struggle, it seemed demeaning to her that she couldn't control such an urge. Worse than that was the edgy, violent mood swings, going from wanting to lash out at Rio to wanting to tear his clothes off.

"Rachael? Where did you go?"

"Obviously nowhere."

"I'm going to call Kim in."

"What does that mean?"

"He's a tribesman, Rachael. He knows I'm on the bandits' hit list. He signaled to me who he was and he's waiting for an all-clear signal before he comes on in."

"Do you have to give it to him?"

"He'll come in fighting if I don't, I told you, he's a friend."

"In case you haven't noticed, I need clothes. I don't want to sit around in your shirt and nothing else in front of your friends." She was hastily b.u.t.toning up the front of the shirt, hiding her generous b.r.e.a.s.t.s from his view.

Rio didn't comment on the quarrelsome note in her voice. He simply pulled the blanket from the bed and tucked it around her. "Kim's father is a medicine man, very good with herbs. He taught me quite a bit, but Kim knows far more than I.

Hopefully he can help both you and Fritz."

When she didn't look up, Rio hunkered down beside her. "Rachael, look at me."

When she didn't respond he caught her chin and forced her head up. The last thing he expected to see was heat and fire glittering in her dark 106.

eyes. Raw hunger stared back at him with an intensity that made him groan, push his brow into hers. "Don't. I mean it, Rachael. You can't look at me like that and expect me to function properly."

She had the craziest desire, no need, to squirm and rub herself all over him, much like a feline. It was a heat wave rolling through her that shook her confidence. "If I could help it, do you think I'd be making such a fool out of myself?" Scratching his eyes out seemed a better alternative than rubbing her body against his at that moment. She let him see that too.

His face was inches from hers. He was catching fire from touching her skin, feeling the crackle of electricity arcing between them. Her eyes held a challenge he couldn't resist. Rio caught the nape of her neck, cupped the back of her head and dragged her mouth to his. There was no resistance at all. She fused with him instantly. Hot. Electric. Wild for him. Climbing into his skin, wrapping herself around his heart so tightly he felt it like a vise. Devouring him just as eagerly as he was devouring her.

It was only because they had to come up for air mat he found the strength to lift his head. Rachael buried her face against his throat. "This time it was my fault." Her lips moved against his neck. Rio closed his eyes against the shimmering fire the brushing of her soft mouth sent through his body in strong waves. He had to find a way just to breathe. He doubted if air was going to get his brain functioning again.

The soft one-two note was closer this time. "You just drove Kim right out of my head, Rachael." He rubbed his face in the ma.s.s of thick curly hair.

"It's shocking how well you know how to kiss."