Rio filled a bowl with cool water and caught up a cloth. When he turned around she was staring at him again. He sighed.

"You swear a lot, don't you?"

"You have a way of making me feel like I need to," he said and dragged a chair to the side of the bed. "I have to get your fever down."

Rachael laughed softly. "You'd better put on clothes then. I don't think anything else is going to help." "Do you even know what you're saying?" She frowned at the tone of his voice. "I don't know. Should I lie to you?"

"Do you always tell the truth?" It was a challenge. Her eyes met his. "When I can. I prefer the truth. I'm sorry I made you uncomfortable. You just seemed so at home without clothes. I didn't think you could be real. I thought I made you up." Her gaze drifted over his chest, dropped lower to inspect his flat stomach, the dark brush of hair and his thick shaft, moved over the strong columns of his thighs. "I'm not actually certain where I am or how I got here. Isn't that strange?"

She sounded lost. Vulnerable. His belly did that strange somersault he was beginning to a.s.sociate with her. "Never mind." Rio wiped her face with the cool damp cloth. "You're safe with me and that's all that matters. I don't care if you want to stare at me. I suppose it's flattering to have a woman like you admiring me." "What kind of woman am I?"

"A sick one." He peeled back the cover, wishing he hadn't fed the fire in the fireplace, not even for hot water needed to cleanse her wounds. For both their sakes he needed to cool the room down. "I'm going to open the door for a few minutes. The wind should help. Don't move."42.

"I wasn't planning on it. I feel odd, sort of heavy, like I can't move."

Rio ignored her comment, opening the door to allow the wind to clear the room of the smell of blood and infection. Of flowers. Of me scent of a woman. The cool air rushed through the room, whipped at the blankets covering the windows, tugged at Rachael's hair. In the soft glow of the lantern, he could see that her face was flushed, her body too hot.

"Rachael," Rio said her name softly, hoping to bring her partially back so she understood what was happening to her. "I'm going to open your shirt. I'm not making a pa.s.s at you, I'm just trying to cool your body down."

"You look so worried."

"I am worried. You're very sick. I don't have a lot of medicine with me. I have a small knowledge of herbs, but I'm not nearly as good as the local medicine man from the tribe." He sat in the chair and leaned over her, his fingers brushing soft skin as he slipped the b.u.t.tons from the holes to open her shirt. Her full b.r.e.a.s.t.s beckoned to him, the call much stronger than he had antic.i.p.ated.

Touching her felt familiar and right. Rio dipped the cloth in the water and bathed her skin, trying to be impersonal when nothing about touching her seemed impersonal.

"My leg hurts." Rachael tried to reach down to feel the wound, but Rio caught her hand.

"That won't help, try to think of something else." He needed to think of something else. The cold water turned her nipples into hard, inviting peaks.

"Tell me what you're doing here."

Her eyes widened. "Don't I live here?" She looked around her, her gaze moving over the room and back to him. "Didn't we move here? I thought you wanted to live someplace where we could be alone and stay naked all day long together."

Her words struck a chord deep in his memory. A vision of another time and place.

Rain falling softly against the roof. A breeze ruffling the curtains at an open window. Rachael turning over in an ornately carved bed, her dark,

.43.chocolate eyes filled with love. With that same honest admiration. Soft laughter played like a movie in his head. Her voice. Soft and sultry and sinfully tempting.

Emotion choked him. He didn't know what he felt, only that it was all- encompa.s.sing. "Did I say that?" The cloth moved over the swell of her breast, lingered in the valley and slipped along the soft underside. "I surprise myself sometimes. It sounds like a very good idea."

"When I look at you, there's a light surrounding you." Her expression was mischievous, teasing. "I'd say a halo, but certain parts of your anatomy seem to be keeping you from sainthood."

"Or elevating me to that status." He had no idea where the words came from, or that teasing, familiar tone. He was always gruff and surly with strangers, yet Rachael didn't feel like a stranger to him. He dipped the cloth in the bowl Of water and allowed it to trace the soft swell of her breast. Even that felt familiar to him. He knew her body intimately. He knew there would be a small birthmark right above her b.u.t.tocks on the left side if he turned her over. He knew the feel of dipping his tongue into her enticing belly b.u.t.ton and making a slow foray lower. He knew exactly what she would taste like. It was in his mouth, a honeyed spicy tang that always left him craving more.

"Do you know me, Rachael?" He leaned close, his gaze capturing hers. "When you look at me, do you know me?" She flung out her hand so that her fingertips rested ultimately on his bare thigh. "Why do you ask me that? Of course I know you. I love just lying in bed with you, your arms around me, listening to the rain. Listening to the sound of your voice and the stories you tell" Her smile was far away, dreamy. "It's always been my favorite thing to do."

She was burning up with fever. Her body was so hot to his touch he was afraid the cloth was going to burst into flames. He bathed her wrists and the back of her neck, beginning to feel desperate. The wind cooled the room but her body was flushed a bright red. Her leg was a mess,44.

swollen and infected, blood oozing from the wound. His stomach lurched.

"Rachael." He said her name in despair. Her palm was burning a hole through his skin where it rested.

"You're afraid for me."

"Yes," he answered honestly. Because he was. For both of them. He was as confused as she was. Abruptly he rose and prowled across the room to stand in the open door. The wind was dying down, a lull before the next wave hit. He was moody and restless and uncomfortable in his own home. The forest beckoned, the treetops swaying, leaves nearly silver as they rustled all around him with their own strange melody. He found the sound soothing in the midst of his uncertainty.

Rio knew Rachael intimately, yet he'd never laid eyes on her. Certain things were familiar, more than familiar, nearly a part of him, like breathing. He pushed a hand through his hair, needing the peace of the jungle.

Rachael's gaze followed him wherever he went. "Look." He didn't turn around, didn't want to meet the blatant appreciation in her gaze when she looked at him.

He didn't like the fact that the heat between them was a tangible thing when she was so obviously ill.

"I am looking." She sounded amused and for some rea-. son, his stomach did that idiotic flipping thing he knew to a.s.sociate with her.

"Go to sleep, Rachael," he ordered sternly. " I'm going to try the radio again, see if I can get you some help. I may be able to pack you out of here to an open area where we can bring in a chopper to take you to the hospital."

Rachael frowned, shook her head in obvious alarm. "No, don't do that. I'll stay here with you."

"You don't understand. You could lose your leg. I don't have the proper medicine or the skill you need. As it is, you're going to have a ma.s.s of scars-and that's if I manage to save it."

She continued to shake her head, her bright eyes pleading

.45.with him silently. His gut tightened. Abruptly, he stepped outside into the night, dragging air into his lungs. She was tying him up in knots. He didn't know why. Didn't understand it. Didn't like it or want it. He didn't know who she was or where she came from. He didn't need the complication or the danger.

"d.a.m.n woman," he muttered as he stretched his arms up to the driving rain. The drops fell on his hot skin, cool and tantalizing. His veins sizzled with life, thrummed with need. Even away from her, he felt her presence.

He was not wholly human, nor was he leopard. He was a separate species with characteristics of both. And he was dangerous; capable of killing, capable of great jealousy and outbursts of temper. The animal in him often dominated his thinking, a cunning, intelligent creature, but very flawed. He needed to be alone, a secretive solitary being by choice. Few things touched him in his carefully guarded world. There was something about Rachael that made him restless. Moody. Fear shimmered in him, blurred the edges of his control. "d.a.m.n woman," he repeated.

He stretched again, wanting the freedom of the change. Wanting to go out into the night and simply disappear. The wildness rose in him like a gift, spreading so that his skin itched and his claws lengthened. He felt the muscles running like steel through his body. He smelled the feral scent of the cat, reached for it, embraced it. An extraordinary means of leaving behind Rio Santana and all that he was, all that he had done. Fur rippled over his body. His muscles contorted; bones cracked as his spine became supple, flexible, as his body took the form of the leopard.

The leopard raised its head and scented the night. Inhaled the smell of the woman. It should have repulsed him, yet it drew him, just as strongly as in his human form. The cat switched the tip of its tail, padded around the verandah beneath the windows, and then leapt to a neighboring tree branch. In spite of the pouring rain, the leopard ran easily along the network of branches, a highway above46.

the forest floor. The wind ruffled his fur and blew in his face but it couldn't rid him of the woman's enticing scent. Every step he took away from her brought uneasiness.

The leopard gave a soft grunting cough of protest, followed it with a sawing roar of temper. She would not leave him alone. Everywhere he went, she went with him. In his mind. In his churning belly. In his groin. He raked claws along a tree trunk, ripping the bark in a fit of foul temper, shredding it into long strips. She clung to him, would not let him go. The rain should have cooled his hot blood, but it did not nothing but fan the embers smoldering inside of him.

Rio should have been able to shed his human concerns and escape into the mind of the animal, but he could taste her. Feel her. She was everywhere he went, everything he did, the very air around him. There was no logic to it or explanation for it. She was a total stranger, without a real name or a past, yet she somehow had consumed him. It was alarming to him. He didn't trust her, and worse, he didn't trust himself.

He made his way back to the house in silence, padding slowly along the forest floor to give himself tune to think. It shouldn't matter so much that he thought about her. It was natural. He hadn't had a woman in a very long time-now one was lying in his bed. Rio told himself that had to be what it was. A simple case of l.u.s.t. What the h.e.l.l else could it be when he didn't even know her? Satisfied that he'd worked it all out, he leapt into the trees and returned to his house using the safer and much faster route.

RACHAEL floated somewhere between sleep and consciousness. She couldn't understand where she was. Everything looked strange, not at all like her home.

Sometimes she thought she heard voices yelling at her, shouting at her, demanding things she couldn't tell them. Other times she thought she was lost hi a jungle with wild animals stalking

.47.her. She tried to move, tried to drag herself out of the strange, hazy world she seemed to be locked inside of.

"Like a bubble," she said aloud. "I live in a gla.s.s house and if someone throws a rock, I'll shatter right along with the walls." She looked around, frowning, trying desperately to remember how she got to such a strange place. Her voice sounded different, far away and not at all like her.

And the pain was ripping through her with every move she made. Had she been injured? Tortured? Someone was trying to kill her. Why hadn't they just finished the job instead of leaving her half alive? She had always known it was going to happen sooner or later.

Something moved outside the window. The woven blanket covered the gla.s.s, but she knew something heavy pa.s.sed by. Straining to hear, she looked wildly around for a weapon. Had they finally come for her? Her heart began to pound with alarming force and her mouth felt like cotton wool. A lethargic apathy had seized her body. She could hear the crackling of the fire, the steady rhythm of the rain.

Thirst was overpowering, making it necessary to get up, but it was difficult, as though wading through quicksand. Attempting to sit up sent jagged pains racing up her leg. She found herself on the floor, her leg buckling beneath her.

Surprised, Rachael looked around the room, trying to remember where she was and how she got there, trying to bring the room into focus. What was wrong with her?

No matter how hard she tried, her mind refused to function properly. The lamp was burning brightly. She didn't remember lighting it. Her gaze shifted to the door. The bar was no longer across it.

Rachael swallowed, the tight knot of fear blocking her throat, and reluctantly looked down to inspect her useless leg. Her calf and ankle were unrecognizable, swollen almost to the point of bursting. Bright red blood seeped and oozed, making her stomach lurch. She'd been attacked by a wild animal. She clearly remembered the eyes. The cunning intelligence, the piercing danger. Terror welled48.

up, nearly paralyzing her. It was only then, as she looked around the room, that she saw the two leopards curled up near the fireplace. One was watching her with a steady stare. The other appeared to be asleep.

She began to drag herself across the floor. It was purely instinctive, driven by fear. Rachael couldn't focus her mind enough to know what was happening. It terrified her to remember the hot breath in her face. The feel of needle-sharp teeth tearing into her leg. The eyes staring at her with deadly intent.

She clawed her way up the wall, gritting her teeth against the sobs bursting from her throat, sweat blurring her vision. Tugging the gun from the leather, she leaned against the wall, the only thing holding her up. Her arms felt leaden and it was nearly impossible to aim the gun at the leopard, she could barely see it.

The door swung open as Rio stepped inside, arms filled with wood, his eyes immediately riveting to hers. His hair hung in wet strands, his naked body covered in droplets. Unhurriedly he closed the door with his foot and crossed the room to put the wood down carefully, almost directly in front of the leopards. "Put the gun down, Rachael." His voice was very low, but it carried a hard authority. "It has a hair trigger. You breathe and it could go off."

"They're right behind you," Rachael answered, clutching the wall for support.

"Don't you see them? You're in terrible danger." She tried to remember who he was, someone very familiar to her. Her beautiful naked man. She remembered the feel of his skin beneath her fingertips. "Hurry, get away from them before they attack you." She inspected his body, saw the b.l.o.o.d.y streaks on his belly, his hip. The gash on his temple. "You're hurt."

"I'm fine, Rachael." He kept his voice calm, soothing. "Give me the gun."

"It's hot in here." All at once she sounded like a forlorn child. "Isn't it hot?" She wiped the sweat from her face with the back of her hand to clear her vision.