Kincade's Rose (Megalodon Team) (10 page)

Tyson knew she’d omitted some things from
her story, but he respected her privacy enough to let it go.  For now.  He was
furious over the treatment her family gave her—not to mention this man, George.
If he ever saw him, Tyson believed he would actually do the guy bodily harm,
just for scaring Jayde.  She was deserving of so much more than what they’d led
her to believe.  “What about your mother?”

“My mother?  Well, she believes Father
knows best and would never
dare
go against his word.  It is law, after
all.”  She inhaled deeply.  “She is the perfect trophy wife: beautiful, fit,
and entirely doting on Father.  She looks awesome on his arm at any of the
functions they go to.  But she was…is…a lousy mother,” Jayde scoffed.

“I can’t remember her cooking for us,
baking with us, or anything like that.  It might ruin her figure.  But I
suppose it just wasn’t for her.  The only reason she had kids was because
Father thought it would make him look better to the partners of the firm he was
at then.  I was an accident and she never lets me forget it.  I wasn’t wanted
then and I’m not wanted now,” Jayde’s voice dropped to a low whisper full of
agony.

Tyson didn’t know what he could say to
offer comfort.  Although his family didn’t always see eye to eye, they hadn’t
been that spiteful to one another.  Instead, he gave Jayde silent reassurance
and support, his arm settling familiarly around her shoulders and tucking her
close to his body.

“Tyson, will you do something for me?” her
exhausted tone reached him.

“Yes, little rose?  What do you want?”  He
would find a way to move mountains if she wanted him to.

“Keep me safe.”

“Always.” And he meant it.  The only way he
would allow her to be hurt was if he were dead.  And he didn’t plan on dying
any time soon. He had a lifetime to look forward to with her beside him.

“From the spiders,” her voice faded as she
slumped against him, her body still tense.

Tyson kissed her head.  “I’ll protect you
from them.  Don’t worry.”  Never had he met someone so terrified of spiders; he
knew people that didn’t care for them, but Jayde was way beyond that.  However,
a sense of masculine pride filled him as he felt her body relax against his. 
She trusted him; even though she didn’t say so aloud, her actions did.  She
trusted he would protect her from the creatures that roamed the night.

“

“I hurt like hell,” Jayde complained as she
moved her stiff body.  Correction, her stiff
and
stank body.  She was
the sole occupant of the den; there was no sign of Tyson.  The protective
leaves were off the opening and light filtered through the thick foliage.

The pack sat propped up along the spot
Tyson had occupied throughout the night.  She had both blankets covering her
and a poncho bunched up as a pillow.  Moving slowly, she crawled out of the
hole and stood.  Jayde stretched and touched her hair with a grimace.  It felt
brittle and dirty; of course slogging through mud and rain, and sleeping in
dirt probably didn’t help.

With a disgusted motion, she reassembled
her ponytail.  “I don’t even want to know what my feet smell like,” she mumbled
to the air.

“Probably the same as mine.”  Tyson’s deep
timbre was like a sexual jolt to her system.  His large body materialized
before her.  “Morning, Jayde,” he said with a grin.  “Got something for you,
come on.”

Tyson swiftly stored their gear and
shouldered the pack as she took care of her morning toiletries.  “Let’s go,” he
said as he moved them back into the jungle.

“Morning to you too,” she mumbled before
she followed him.  “Should’ve stayed in the damn cave and slept until this
nightmare was over.”

Tyson didn’t respond. They walked for
almost a mile and just when Jayde was ready to protest about everything, he
stopped and held back a branch for her.  “Go on,” he coaxed.

She stepped through and stopped dead in her
tracks.  It had to be a vision.  Jayde blinked a few times to make sure it
wasn’t.  A small clearing dominated by a crystal pool of water sat in front of
her.  At one end was a cascading waterfall that sent rainbows into the morning
air.

“I found it this morning while looking for
some food,” Tyson said as he moved to stand next to her.

“Oh, my God!  Look at this place!  It is
like something out of a travel brochure!  It’s beautiful!” she gushed. The lush
green grass waved gently in the sweet breezes that blew around them.  Jayde
moved slowly into the center of the clearing.

She turned quickly and looked at him.  “Can
I swim in it?”

“Of course, I figured you would want to
clean up a bit.  It may be our last time before we get out of here.”

Even though it was still relatively early
in the morning, the sun had warmed the area.  Jayde picked out a big rock near
the waterfall that she knew would work for drying clothes.  Propelled forward,
she moved away from Tyson and around the water to her destination.

Undaunted by the fact that there was no
soap, no shampoo, or even a towel, Jayde sat on the rock and unlaced her
boots.  She peeled off her putrid socks and piled them next to her, wrinkling
her nose at the smell.  Oblivious to Tyson standing across the clearing, she
stood and unfastened her pants, sliding them down her legs.  The gun she set
next to her boots and the knife.

She pulled her shirt off over her head and
dropped into the pile of dirty clothes.  Jayde took down her ponytail, allowing
her dirty hair to fall free.  Standing on the rock in her bra and underwear,
she did a swan dive into the pool only to rise out of the water like an ebony
water nymph.  She slicked back her black hair as she exhaled deeply.

“God, this feels wonderful,” Jayde
breathed.  Her brown body glistened with the water and sun.  She gave herself
over to the feeling of the water flowing over her body, scrubbing it the best
she could and washing out her clothes before laying them on the rock to dry.

When she noticed her skin had begun to
prune, she emerged from the water.  A glance around told her she was alone, so
she walked unashamed to the pack he had left to pull a blanket out and use it
as a towel.

Tyson had watched a true Aphrodite emerging
from the water when Jayde had dived in and had prayed low in his throat.  He
hadn’t imagined it would be this difficult to keep away from her.  He’d dropped
the backpack by the edge of the water and with only one more glance at her
before disappeared into the trees.  He’d needed a moment to collect himself, or
else he would have tackled her in the pool and tried to recreate Adam and Eve
in Eden.

In the interim he sourced some food.  When
he thought he was okay, Tyson returned, stood just out of sight, and watched
her.  He was unable to move as he spied upon her near-naked body.  She
frolicked in the water like a little kid, pausing to scrub her body and hair
and clean her clothes, and then went back to playing.  She swam down and then
shot up as fast as she could, as if trying to see how far out of the water she
could get.

Her happiness mesmerized him.  She looked
at ease swimming.  He almost collapsed from desire when he saw her throw her
bra and underwear upon the rock as well.  Knowing she was totally nude in that
water set the blood in his veins on fire.  It only intensified as she maneuvered
her wet, naked body out of the pool and toward the pack.

She was walking toward him but did not
notice his stare.  Tyson’s whole body was on alert as he watched her full
breasts move with each step she took.  His greedy gaze moved down her body to
the thatch of black hair between her legs and he groaned out loud.

Jayde was wringing the excess water out of
her hair as she walked and the second she covered herself with the blanket
Tyson realized he’d smashed one of the fruits he’d collected for breakfast in
his hand.  Its juice ran off his fingers and onto the ground.

He dropped the damaged food and took a
series of deep breaths.  A minute or so after she covered herself, he emerged
from the tree line with the fruit in his hand.  “I got some fruit for
breakfast,” he announced as she turned to glance at him.

“Wonderful,” she said.  “I’m starving.”

“Me too.”  He sat the food, mostly guava,
down next to her and placed himself on the other side of it.

“What’s that all over your hand?” Jayde
asked.

“Fruit.”  He wiped his hand off in the
thick grass they sat upon.

“What happened?”

“I gripped it too tightly,” Tyson muttered
evasively. He wasn’t about to tell her he did it while drooling over her naked
body like a love-struck schoolboy.

“Oh,” she responded.  She sighed in
pleasure as she bit into the succulent flesh.  “This is wonderful,” Jayde
responded around a mouthful of food.

Tyson ate silently.  She had tucked the
blanket under her arms like a towel, and he wanted to remove it and take them
both to a plane where their troubles didn’t exist.  But until he got them back
to safety, all he could do was fantasize.  So he did.

He dreamed about her legs around his waist,
about him plunging deep into her warm, willing body.  Every possible thing he
could do to Jayde sexually came to his mind as he looked at her.  But it was
the second he pictured her growing big with his child that he shook himself. 
At that precise second, sitting close to the top of a mountain deep within
Central America with drug lords on their tail, Tyson realized he’d fallen in
love.  He had fallen in love with the woman he sat next to as they ate fruit. 
Through everything they’ve been through, her beauty, her strength, and her
unshakeable determination to survive had latched onto his heart with an
indomitable grip.  Tyson loved her.

The fact he hadn’t known her for more than
a few days didn’t matter.  There was something about her, and he learned more
and more every moment he spent with her.  Jayde Rose Porter Kincade was a very
special woman.  A woman he had fallen for, head over heels.  It scared the hell
out of him.

Tyson jumped up, causing Jayde to look at
him in surprise and a healthy bit of fear.  “What’s wrong?  Did you hear
something?”

Immediately ashamed for scaring her, he
answered, “No.  I just need to go take a look around.  I won’t be far.”  And
for the first time in his life, Tyson ran from a woman.

Jayde finished eating and walked over to the
waterfall.  Sticking her hands under the cool clear liquid, she washed the
remains of the sticky juice off her skin before she splashed more on her face
to clean off her mouth.  Glancing around the clearing, she noticed Tyson was
still gone; with a heavy sigh, she walked back over to the rock that had her
clothes laying out on it.

They weren’t completely dry, but it was
enough.  Jayde slipped on her clothes with remarkable speed, not feeling at all
comfortable being alone and naked now that she wasn’t swimming.  As she was
sitting on the rock strapping on the knife, she saw Tyson emerge from the
jungle.

He was carrying more fruit in his shirt,
which he’d removed, showing off his hardened chest muscles and corded arms. 
Under the pretense of tying on the sheath, she watched him walk towards her. 
The man was just gorgeous, tanned all over to perfection; he was eye candy and
she was a candyholic.

He moved like a predator and she could see
the potential for danger flowing off him.  This man was completely different
from the stranger she met on the boardwalk.  His whole body was alert for
prospective trouble, but there was no fear on his face, just a calm acceptance.

She stared at him through the hair that
loosely covered her eyes.  The closer he got the more intense the burning
hunger grew inside her.  He was her absolute definition of sex. He didn’t
strut. It wasn’t his way.  There wasn’t even an arrogant swagger in his walk;
it was just he and his fluid movement.  Tyson screamed confidence, and she knew
if she managed to meet another with a walk like his, she would think of
him—Tyson Randolph Kincade, her assumed husband.

Tyson could feel her eyes on him as he
approached.  While he was glad she’d put on her clothes, it did nothing to
quell his desire for her.  Regardless, he tried ignoring it.  He stopped at the
bag next to her and knelt down to pack it, putting the fruit inside with the
rest of their things.  He kept his gaze down as her shadow fell over him.

“I can do that,” she offered.

Tyson looked up and saw she’d refolded the
blanket she’d been wearing.  He breathed in her scent as she knelt down beside
him.  “I got it,” he said a little brusquely.

“No, you got the food; at least let me do
this.”  Jayde flashed him a slow smile as if she understood what his problem
was.  “Consider it me doing a wifely duty.”  She winked.

You are my wife and I will not let you
go.
  Tyson gave in and handed her the pack.  “Maybe I will just clean up a
bit then.”  He took the blanket she’d used and brought it to his bared chest. 
“I’ll use this one.”

Tyson smiled as he saw her flush.  He stood
and walked off towards the water, chuckling at her obvious positioning her back
to where he would be.

He stripped down to his boxers and dove in
the water.  “God, this
does
feel good!” he shouted to her rigid back as
he surfaced.  “You were right!”

“Glad to hear it!” she yelled back without
turning around, pouring extra concentration into packing the bag than
necessary.

Tyson just laughed and scrubbed his head. 
While swimming, he popped up and drawled, “Can you bring me my shirt?  I want
to wash it out.” He chuckled as he noticed her less than subtle shiver.

“Sure,” Jayde responded.  She picked it up
and Tyson would have sworn she sniffed it.  “Here you are.”  She tossed it in
his general direction.

“Thanks.”  When she started to turn away,
he stopped her with a word.  “Stay.”

Tyson moved easily through the water as he
watched her pause briefly then climb on the rock and sit cross-legged upon the
sun-warmed surface.  Every one of her motions was elegant.  She tipped her dark
face up to the sun and allowed its warm rays to grace her skin.  A willpower he
didn’t know he possessed reared its head, preventing him from taking her
against the rock like a couple of primitive animals.

Jayde swallowed hard; watching him wash his
hard body was not going to be good for her waning sanity.  She trembled from
the tips of her hair to the end of her toes.  This man had way too much raw
sexuality.  But the silent challenge in his eyes had made the decision for her
since she wasn’t a quitter.

She allowed herself a brief moment of
insane dreaming as she felt the sun on her face.  This would be the perfect
setup if they weren’t alone on a mountain with murderous people after them. 
She knew without a doubt if Tyson made a move towards her, she wouldn’t be able
to resist him. His pull on her grew by the minute.

“When do we have to move on?” Jayde asked,
not entirely sure she wanted to know.

Her gaze began to swelter as she watched
his muscles effortlessly pull himself out the water and up onto the rock next
to her.  Rivulets ran down his body and over his defined muscles, making her
mouth as dry as cotton. 
Dear Jesus, look at the muscles on this man!

His hair was slicked back from his head and
his tan seemed even darker as the sun shone on it.  His boxers were plastered
tight to his pelvic area, and it was with great difficulty that Jayde looked
away.

“Just as soon as I get dressed.”  He moved
in close. “Care to help me?”

Her brown eyes flew open to see his smiling
face looking at her as he finished drying himself with the blanket she’d used
earlier.  Jayde was eyelevel with his crotch and saw him twitch in his
boxwers.  Then she blushed and he smiled all over again.  “I think I will make
sure the bag is packed,” She mumbled, scrambling off the rock and back over to
the pack.

He shrugged nonchalantly. “If you’re
sure….”

Jayde made a big production of organizing
it.  “Damn him for making me want him so much,” she muttered.  “I have more
important things to focus on, like getting the hell out of this damn jungle alive,
not
fantasizing about how good Tyson Kincade looks in nothing but a pair
of wet boxers!  Or how flippin’ fine he looks fully dressed!  Not to mention
how he is in bed!”

“If it’s any consolation, little rose, I
feel the same way about you,” his deep voice sounded right in her ear, making
her jump and squeal.  Tyson’s strong grip steadied her so she wouldn’t fall.

Jayde felt the blush race up her cheeks. 
“You heard me?”  She hadn’t heard a thing that would indicate he had been
coming close to her.

“Oh, yeah,” he purred in her ear.  His
breath teased the back of her neck.  “Every word that came out of your luscious
mouth.  And as much as I would love to thank you proper like, we do need to get
moving.”

She began trembling at the image.  Jayde
turned in his arms and slid her brown arms around his neck, pressing her body
up against his still-damp one.  Unsure of where this boldness came from she
just went with it.  “And I would love you to do so.”  Her eyes were dark with
passion as she put her lips upon his.

Tyson groaned as she sucked his lower lip
into her full mouth.  Jayde kissed him until she felt him hardening against her
belly.

She pulled away, her chest rising and
falling with every breath she inhaled.  There was unrestrained lust in her eyes
and she let Tyson see it.  “Let’s get going, then,” she said.

Tyson shook his head.  He was glad one of
them could focus.  “Right.”  He shouldered the pack and adjusted the straps
while she checked her gun and returned it into the back of her waistband.  “We
are going to stay up here and go in this direction.” He pointed off into the
distance.

“How will you know if we are still
following the river or not?” she asked while into the thick foliage.

“I will be guessing.  I want to remain on
higher ground; it will give us the advantage. And since this is their terrain,
we need every one we can get,” Tyson responded and checked his own gun.

“But the goal is still to find a town?”
Jayde watched him carefully.

“Yes, if we can find one, I will go and see
if anyone has some form of modern communication. If people do, then I will send
a message off and we will just have to wait for them to get us.  The problem
with sending a message is that whoever is after us will be monitoring the
airwaves and could pinpoint where the call came from.”

“Meaning?”

“They will also send someone, and since
they are closer, we will have to play cat and mouse until our ride gets here,”
he told her.

“Okay.”

“Okay?” Tyson asked.  “That’s it?  Nothing
else to say?”

“What good would it do me to get angry?  It
won’t change the situation any.  Besides, I know you wouldn’t put me through
this unless absolutely necessary,” Jayde said with a small shrug of her
shoulders.

And the surprises kept on coming.  Tyson
grunted his approval as they maneuvered through the jungle.  She fell behind
him, walking where he did and staying silent.  He held the gun close and
listened to each noise the jungle shared with him…and listened for the ones it
didn’t.

Jayde was in good shape and so they made
decent time even with the rugged terrain they crossed.  It was when they
approached an area with canopy-to-ground spider webs that Jayde froze.

Tyson easily picked upon Jayde’s sharp
intake of breath. He stopped and looked back at her.  Her dark skin seemed
unnaturally pale and sweat ran down her face.  Her eyes ensnared them; there
was stark and abundant terror in them.  Her head moved from side to side as she
began to back away from the direction they were going, heading instead back the
way they had come.

“Come on, Jayde,” he tried.

“No.”  She barely managed to get that one
word out, she was shaking so badly.

“We have to keep moving,” he demanded.

“I can’t.”  Her chin began to tremble.

“We have to go.” Tyson’s tone turned more
forceful.

“No, Tyson. I can’t go in there!” Jayde
insisted.

Tyson reached out to touch her, the gun
sliding down to rest on his side.  Her skin was clammy and he realized just how
deep her fear went. This wasn’t a ploy. It was real.  But the fact remained he
had to get them through there.

He looked at the intricate webbing and back
to Jayde.  “We have to go.  I don’t know how long it stretches, so we can’t
take the time to try and find a way around.  We have to go through

“I can’t!” Her voice was barely
discernable.

Tyson faced her and gripped her chin with
gentle force.  “Look at me, Jayde.  Do you trust me?”

Her eyes poured tears of fear down her pale
cheeks.  “Yes,” she managed to mutter.

“Then trust me to get you through this,”
his words coaxed.

“I can’t go in there!  Don’t you
understand?  They are out to get me!  Spiders attack me; they chase me!  They
want to hurt me!”  Her breathing became shorter and shorter, more labored. “I
just can’t!”

“Trust me,” he said.  “I won’t let them
hurt you.  I promise.  But you have to trust me.”

Jayde’s legs gave out and she crumpled to
the ground, gagging and wheezing. She waved off his hand.  “Leave me here; I
can’t go in there!”

Tyson lifted her bodily back onto her
unsteady feet.  He gripped her chin between his fingers again and held her
immobile as he spoke.  “I’m so sorry you are scared.  I will not let them hurt
you, but you
are
going in there.  There is no discussion about this, not
anymore.  We are going.”  His voice was oddly tender considering how
uncompromising it was.

Before his words had time to sink in, Tyson
grabbed her hand and dragged her into the spider-infested section of jungle. 
He moved them forward slowly but at a continuous pace.

He brushed away cobwebs and made sure none
of the large, hairy spiders got close to her.  Tyson looked over his shoulder and
saw she was genuinely and totally panicked.  Tears streamed down her face; she
bit her lip to keep from screaming out loud; and her eyes were shut so tightly
he believed it would take the jaws-of-life to get them open again.  Some webbing
had fallen into her hair and clothes and he knew she could feel it on her.

As he maneuvered them though the patch, he
did notice how the spiders seemed to run at her instead of him.  They were
large, tarantula sized, and hairy.  The hand he held began to shake more and
more and Tyson increased his speed, knowing full well she was close to breaking
down.  It was harder and harder to hold onto the wet palm, it felt like her
hand was made entirely of water.

Soon, although for Jayde he was sure it was
an eternity, they exited the other side of the spiders’ area.  Tyson kept
moving until they were well away from the web-filled trees before he stopped.

Jayde stood there and shook as Tyson made
sure there were no spiders on her body and removed all the silk from her hair
and clothes.  “You’re fine.  There are none on you,” he said, just as he saw a
scurrying motion on the ground headed straight for her.

At the moment Tyson killed the two spiders
heading directly for her, she lost it.  As the second one died with a sickening
crunch beneath his boot, Jayde fell to the ground and lost the contents of her
stomach.

She continued to puke well after it turned
to dry heaves.  Her nauseated body jerked away from his as he tried to offer
her comfort.  “Don’t!” she screeched.  Crawling on her hands and knees further
from him she began heaving again.

Tyson ran his hands over his face; he felt
like such a bastard for doing that to her.  He had to get her farther away from
the spiders.  “Let’s go,” he commanded, sure he was being an ass but she seemed
to respond to the ordering.

Standing slowly, Jayde wiped her mouth and
followed without a word.  When Tyson brushed against her to take point, her
body recoiled as if struck, a reaction that sent him to a darker corner of his
own private hell for putting her through hers.