Island Heat (A Sexy Time Travel Romance With a Twist) (12 page)

It was like a splash of cold water in my face. I jerked away from him, pushing his hands off me. “Stop it!”

He groaned again, and when I turned to face him, he had a grim smile on his face. “You try my patience, Diana.”

“Yeah, well, you try
mine
too, buddy. I’m not your slave-girl, and you can’t take me out into the woods for a quick tumble in the bushes.” I bent down to pick up the fallen fruit and brushed it off with my fingers. “I don’t know where you’re from, but where I come from, we do things differently,” I said, bluffing. I desperately wanted to fling myself back into his arms, wrap my legs around that lean, tanned waist, and beg him to toss me down in the dirt and make my head spin, but I wouldn’t do it. Wounded pride was a wonderful bolster to my courage.

To my surprise, he seemed to take this to heart. “How is it that your people claim a woman, then?”

I snorted, straightening my blouse. “We don’t ‘claim’ anyone. It’s a mutual sort of choosing.”

He shook his head. “It is different here. I came from civilization once, but you learn to adapt. Here on the island, if you want something, you take it.” Salvador moved forward to embrace me again.

I sidestepped him, barely managing to avoid his arms. “But you forget, I’ve only been here a few days,” I said, making my voice as sweet as possible. “I’m not yet used to being on this island. I’m only familiar with what I know.”

“Then how would a man claim a woman, if he wished to have her as his mate?” There was an edge of polite annoyance in his voice and it made me smile, realizing he was humoring me.

I thought for a moment as I reached into the bushes and plucked another one of the small green fruits. “Well, I suppose that a man would move slow, first of all. He wouldn’t put his hands all over her...breasts...every time he was alone with her.”

He chuckled low, a liquid sound that went straight to my loins. “But you have such lovely breasts,
belleza
.”

Great, now I was thinking about him putting his hands all over my breasts. My already-weak resolve trembled as desire pulsed through my body. Knees wobbly, I forced myself to concentrate on the fruit.
Fruit, fruit, fruit. Pick the fruit
, I told myself. Don’t think about the studly Spaniard behind me. “Girls like to take things slow,” I said, struggling for a way to prolong the conversation. “They like to be told they’re pretty, and have long conversations with a boy—”

“But I am a man,” he said, and I wanted to laugh and fling myself at him all at the same time.

“-man. I meant man,” I amended, babbling. “They like to be brought nice things, and go on special trips just the two of them, and they like to get to know each other before they, you know...” Lord, I was getting flustered.

“Before they make love for hours?” He asked helpfully, his sultry voice working my already-frayed nerves. “Before the man mounts the woman and gives her the greatest pleasure of her life?” I felt his hand on my waist again, but he only leaned past me and reached for one of the fruits that my arms weren’t long enough to get. “Before he makes her skin moist with sweat, and makes her cry out his name in ecstasy?” He held the small green fruit up near my lips.

I snatched it from his hand, piling it into the fold of my skirt, where I was putting the others. “Boy,” I muttered, “You sure do know some good phrases in English for a darn Spanish guy.”

He chuckled. “In my country, when we wanted something, we conquered it. But, if you wish to be courted, Diana, you shall be courted.”

“It’s not that I want to be courted,” I protested, feeling a bit silly and flustered all at once. I actually wanted him to go back to talking about making my skin moist, in that low, rumbling accent of his.

“Hush,” he said, placing a finger over my lips. “It shall be as you want it,
belleza
.” And with that, he gave me a chaste kiss on the lips and began to head down the path once more. “Come. We have enough fruit.”

Who was even thinking about fruit anymore?

*** *** ***

Dinner that evening was a quiet one. Olivia was in no mood to talk, Harold was naturally quiet, and I was jittery from the interlude in the woods. Eustace was still gone. Salvador was the only one that seemed to be completely at ease in his own skin, and he was quiet by nature. We ate in silence.

After dinner, I offered to help Olivia clean the dishes, but she would have none of it, and so we all sat around and stared at each other uncomfortably, me most uncomfortably of all.

Salvador seemed amused by this. “Diana, would you like to go and look at the stars with me?”

“The stars?” I frowned at him. That seemed like an obvious ploy to me.

“Yes,” he said, and left it at that.

I glanced over at Olivia, but she remained by the water-buckets, tight lipped and unhappy as she rinsed the dishes. I felt guilty. “I bet Olivia would like to go with us.”

I don’t know who shot me the dirtier look then – Salvador or Olivia.

“I’m rather tired,” Olivia said. “After I clean the supper dishes, I’ll just head to bed, I believe.” She offered us a small smile. “It’s been a long day.”

Boy, had it ever been a long day. It still felt early too. “All right then, I guess I’ll go look at the stars with you.” I moved to Salvador’s side.

He chuckled. “You make it sound as if it is a terrible chore to be stuck with my company.”

I shrugged, not wanting to point out that it seemed to be an obvious ploy to get me to Make-Out Point. “So where are we going star-gazing?”

He gestured at the ledge. “Right here, of course.”

We walked away from the fire and out to the far-edge of the ledge, the exact same spot that the ladder dangled from in the daytime. It was pulled up now, in a neat pile at the edge of the rock. Salvador sat on the edge himself, letting his legs dangle over the side, and I did the same, using him as an anchor in case I slipped and fell. His arm slid easily around my waist, and I let it stay there.

“Won’t Eustace need the rope to get back up?” I pointed out.

Salvador shook his head. “Eustace will not be coming back tonight.”

“He won’t?” I felt another twinge of guilt. Poor Olivia. I’d scared her brother off.

He shook his head. “It is not safe to travel about at night. The big cats like the night-time.”

“Big cats?” I didn’t like the sound of that, and liked it even less when he made a gesture with his fingers, demonstrating super-long canine teeth. “Saber-tooth tigers?”

He shrugged. “Whatever your people call them.” He pointed up at the stars. “We came out here to watch the stars, not speak of cats.”

I glanced up at the sky and sucked in a breath at the splendor above me. The stars out here in the wild were breathtaking, the entire night sky glittering with lights and covered in endless constellations.

“Wow,” I said, poetic words failing me. “That’s amazing.”

He seemed amused by my assessment. “In the village where my parents come from, we would sit outside and look at the stars every time we could. My mother used to tell me that if one wanted something badly enough, one could wish upon a star and if God decided, he would grant that wish.”

I felt like such a cynic sitting next to the man, because I snorted. “You’ve been watching too many Disney movies.” I shifted in my seat, staring down at the jungle below, thinking of the wild dinosaurs that roamed the island. “I think God’s forgotten all about this land.”

“You’re wrong,” he said with quiet conviction next to me.

“How are you so certain, then?”

He turned his handsome, lean profile up to the stars. “Nights ago, I looked at the stars and prayed to God to end my loneliness. I asked for him to give me a sign.”

“And did he?”

Salvador smiled slowly, a flash of white teeth cutting across his tanned face. “I saw a sign, yes. You may not believe me, but no sooner had I wished it than I saw a bright red streak in the sky. It lifted from the trees and burst like an explosion in the sky. From there.” He pointed at the trees to the south. “The south beaches, where I found you.”

He’d seen the flare gun I’d fired. I remembered my odd fever dreams of the beautiful man, and then Salvador had showed up later. Back then I’d thought it was all a dream. “So you found me, and then you left me for the cavemen to grab?” That seemed like an odd plan.

Salvador shook his head. “I could not carry you and cover our trail at the same time. I was sweeping my tracks clean before coming back to get you, since the terrible lizard with the short arms has a very keen sense of smell. Once your scent is in his nostrils, he follows it.”

“That makes sense, I guess,” I said, grudgingly agreeing. “But about that star...”

He turned to look at me, the small smile playing on his lips, his face guile-less. “God has sent you to me. What else is there to know?”

A chill covered my arms, and I rubbed them briskly. I wanted to tell him that it was my flare he’d seen that night, and it was nothing more than me trying to scare away an angry Tyrannosaur. Of course, who was I to shake a lonely man’s faith in God?

And what if he was right?

I stared up at the stars and made a wish of my own.
God, if you’re up there, please get me – get all of us – out of here.

I included the others in my prayers, because the thought of leaving Salvador behind made my heart twinge painfully.

*** *** ***

That night, I slept alone in Salvador’s room. Since I had no place of my own, he’d graciously given me his for the time being. I suspected that he was anticipating moving back in shortly, so it was no loss to him. But he behaved himself and I woke up to find him curled up near the fire in a set of blankets that Olivia had given him.

The next few days fell into an easy pattern. Salvador would go hunting for small game, and I would help Olivia around the cave since I was too scared to go out in the jungle on my own. There were a million small things to be done, even with two sets of hands and I was glad to hang back.

Olivia was starting to warm up to me. Her instincts told her that I was the enemy because I’d driven off her brother, but remained polite. I sensed that she was starved for female company, and within days we had formed an easy friendship. I’d braid her hair while she sewed, and she’d tell me stories about island life, and how to (ugh) skin an animal and things like that.

When the days got slow and the afternoon grew hot and Harold crept back to his small room to sleep, Olivia and I would sit on the edge of the ledge and watch the jungle, waiting for Salvador or Eustace to return. I’d braid reeds for a rug – about the only skill I’d mastered so far – and she would scrape one of the small hides from the animals Salvador brought back.

“So, are you in love with Salvador?” Olivia ventured one day.

I glanced over at her in surprise. “No, why?”

Olivia gave me a sweet smile, tinged with sadness. “He’s in love with you. I can tell. Even when you aren’t paying attention, he watches everything you do.”

I blushed. Salvador had taken courting to heart. At first he would be extra courteous to me, but it was turning into something else. The other day, he’d brought home a small fruit shaped like a heart and insisted on giving it to me. Last night, as we’d sat around the fire, talking, he’d moved toward me and dumped an armful of fragrant pink flowers in my lap and gave me a hot look that made my panties go damp.

Olivia sighed wistfully, clearly thinking of those flowers.

I sighed too, thinking of that hot look. “How do you feel about him?”

Her face fell and she shrugged her shoulders, scraping the hide with small, angry jerks. “It doesn’t matter. I’m too young for him. He thinks of me like I’m his sister.”

I unraveled the small braid I’d messed up and started over again. “I wouldn’t worry about it, Olivia. In a few years you’ll be grown up, and then you’ll be beating the boys off with a stick. Wait and see.”

To my surprise, she burst into tears. Olivia got to her feet and ran inside the cave, stumbling to her room and ripping the curtain shut behind her.

I scrambled to my feet. “Olivia! I’m sorry! I know it’s hard to wait, but trust me! I’m sure we’ll get rescued in no time at all.”

She only cried harder, and wouldn’t let me open the curtain to sit with her. Guilty, I backed off and left her alone.

Salvador arrived a few hours later, and by that time my nerves were frayed enough that I met him at the base of the ladder rather than waiting for him to come up. “Olivia’s really upset,” I said, rushing out to him. “We were just talking, and then she started crying and now she won’t stop. I don’t know what I said.”

Salvador touched my cheek gently. “Do not worry.” He took my hand in his and kissed it gently, then gestured at the ladder. “Let me go up and see her. Would you like to go bathe today?”

“Would I,” I breathed, nodding my happiness. Olivia and I had to wait for one of the men to take us to the bathing pool, and since Eustace had run off, Salvador was our only hope, and we hadn’t gone for three days. I was feeling excessively grimy right about now.

“I shall return, then,” he said, and brushed a quick kiss on my forehead that made me blush. Slinging his catch for the day – two lizards and something that looked like an overgrown rat – and tossing them over his shoulder, he climbed up the ladder.

I heard him call something out to Olivia in Spanish, and she screamed back at him in Spanish, still obviously upset. He returned down the rope ladder a few moments later, his face grim.

Anxious, I watched him, trying not to wring my hands in worry. “Is she okay?”

His mouth drew into a thin line. “She will be fine in a few hours. Come, we will go to the bathing lake and talk.”

It was a good twenty-minute walk back to the pool where Salvador and I had first made out and I blushed every time it came into view. To his credit, though, Salvador left me alone as I quickly stripped down and bathed, plucking a few roots from the edge of the water and pounding them against rocks like Olivia had shown me. They foamed up and made a rough, woodsy sort of soap, and I cleaned my hair and body as quickly as I could, since Salvador was waiting on me.