Night Hunter (7 page)

“—a diet. I don’t know how you keep it off. You weigh the same—”

“What?”

“I was paying you a compliment. Aren’t you listening?”

She was trying to find the breeze Sandy had mentioned. If only the air would stir a little, she wouldn’t feel as if she had a fever.

“You aren’t, are you?”

“What?”

“Listening to me,” Sandy insisted. “Oh my—it’s happening, isn’t it? He’s getting to you.”

Laird wiped his blood-stained hands on a leaf. Killing the wild piglet had been easier than he’d imagined. He hadn’t known he could move that fast or sense where to bury the knife so death came instantly. However, without fire, he’d have to eat the carcass raw and he wasn’t—yet—enough of a savage for that.

What would Mala think if she saw what he’d done?

Had he gotten through to her?

“Do you like to be on top? Maybe you want sex hard and fast. I think so, but I also think you haven’t had it like that very much. That man you almost married, with him sex was civilized and circumspect. Probably you didn’t scream when you came, if you came. You held back with him and tried to be a lady. I don’t want a lady. I want a woman. Lusty and adventurous. I’ll never sit on the sidelines or be civilized and controlled because I’m not that kind of man. When we have sex—and we will—you’ll know how I like it.

“And I’ll know what you need. I’ll give it to you. I promise.”

About to continue the discussion, Laird felt a sudden urgency that sent him down the footpath at a hard trot. He still gripped the pig carcass. After a few minutes, sweat ran off him. He wasn’t out of breath, just reacting to the humid heat. His thoughts tunneled down to what his legs were doing, and he felt proud of their strength.

Nothing less than instinct told him when he reached his destination. Slowing, he walked around the last turn, angled around the last bush.

The small village was set in the middle of a large clearing. He couldn’t tell whether the clearing had occurred naturally or whether the Seminole who’d made this their home were responsible.

He heard children laugh and spotted a trio of girls sitting in a circle. They stopped what they were doing and stared at him when he approached, but didn’t appear either surprised or frightened.

“What are you doing?” he asked. At first the words coming from sounded like gibberish. Then he realized he’d spoken in Seminole. How he knew that he couldn’t say. At least he could communicate. Without that
gift,
he’d be even more isolated.

“Playing rock-rock,” the oldest girl answered. She pointed at the dead piglet. “You have been hunting.”

“Yes. Are you hungry?”

The girls nodded in unison. “I am always hungry,” the youngest said. “It is not a very big pig.”

“No,” Laird admitted. Ignoring his grumbling belly, he handed the carcass to the girls. He thought they might demur, but they jumped to their feet and ran off toward a thatched hut that was little more than a leaf roof supported by logs.

Looking around, he counted thirteen such huts. They’d been placed so close together that there was little privacy but probably the proximity of neighbors made the various families feel more secure. There was a single, large firepit in the middle of the village. Despite the day’s heat, several pieces of wood smoldered. An elderly woman stirred something in a large, hollowed-out rock she’d placed at the edge of the fire. His stomach growled.

Another sound caught his attention. He cocked his head in that direction, then recognized it as a drum being beaten. He approached the sound, his legs moving in time with the rhythm. Five men sat in a semicircle around another who was responsible for the drumbeat. The drum itself appeared to be made of animal hide tightly stretched over a circular frame.

The men all looked up at the same time. Their faces were lined, their nearly naked bodies giving away their advanced age.

“You have come,” one said to Laird.

Chapter Six

Damn him.

Today was as clear as the day she’d met Laird had been stormy, not that Mala gave a darn. It wasn’t as if she didn’t have enough to do—namely decide how she was going to deal with Ralph and the dreaded photography session. But her own agenda obviously didn’t matter to Laird since he’d sent her a message with only one interpretation—namely that he needed to talk to her.

Not that talk was the right word, she amended as she approached the spot along Alligator Alley where he’d had his accident. Conversation might enter the mix somewhere along the line, but she wasn’t in any mood for that until he’d taken care of other matters for her—matters that in all honesty hadn’t been all-consuming until now. In fact, during the three years she’d first dated and then been engaged to Jeff Brooks, sex hadn’t been a particularly important part of their relationship. Sure, she’d enjoyed slipping under the sheets with him, but she couldn’t once remember being wild to jump his bones or have him do the same to her.

Today, her hot cheeks had nothing to do with the outside temperature. Neither did an undeniable heat centered in her crotch. Some people called, wrote, or sent email. Not Laird. Not that she minded all that much. After what passed for a sex life with Jeff, this torture constituted a real wake-up call. Not that she was there yet, but she had a better idea why some people became sex addicts.

“I’m here,” she said as she got out of her car and walked to the edge of the wilderness. In deference to the relentless sun, she’d changed into shorts as soon as she could, following her meeting with Ralph.

Suddenly she felt a familiar hand run up the outside of her thigh. If it hadn’t been for her shorts’ tight fit, who knew where that particular invasion would have ended.

“Hello,” she said, trying to keep her voice on an even keel. “You really know how to welcome a gal.”

The bushes to her right rustled, but when Laird didn’t materialize, she concluded that the breeze was responsible.

“What is it? Are you all right?” So much for her intention to keep things casual and not let him know how concerned she was for his safety. “I’ve had—it’s been an amazing day.”

She heard a car stop and turned to see a silver sedan with two young males in front.

“Car trouble, lady?” the passenger asked through his open window. “If you need help, my buddy and I’d be happy to accommodate you. If you get my drift.”

“Laird,” she muttered. “Now would be a good time to get out here.”

Nothing, just that hand print on her thigh.

The passenger opened his door. Beyond him, she could see that the driver was giving her the once over. Great!

“Sexy lady like you shouldn’t be out here all by your lonesome,” the passenger informed her. “What you need is a couple of bodyguards.”

“What I need is to be left alone.”

“Ah, don’t be like that.” He exited the vehicle. There was no doubt of his message in the way he’d clamped his hand over his crotch. “I’ve got something in here you’d like.”

“In your dreams. Do your mothers know you’re out?”

His smile faded. “We’re old enough. The question is, are you woman enough for us?”

This so-called conversation had gone on long enough. No matter what she said, they’d take it how they wanted.

“Go away,” she ordered. “I’m not interested.”

“But we are.” He turned and said something she couldn’t hear to the driver. Mala had felt some comfort because the driver hadn’t killed the engine, but he did so now. When he opened his door, she nearly panicked. Darn but he was tall! And stronger-looking than she felt comfortable with.

Dismissing her unlocked car and purse, she practically dove for the brush. Something scratched the side of her neck, and she nearly lost her footing when she caught her shoe on an exposed root. Because she’d already been back here, she knew the brush wall became less all-encompassing a few feet beyond the side of the road. Hopefully the two jerks didn’t and wouldn’t be in a hurry to come after her.

“Did you see that?” she demanded of Laird. By turning her shoulders, she managed to worm her way between a couple of twenty-foot-high bushes. “For two cents, I’d punch their lights out.”

Sudden realization of how the confrontation could have turned out sent a chill through her.

“They were so crude. Do they really think that approach turns women on?” She couldn’t help but laugh. “On the other hand, there’s your approach. You didn’t ask permission. We weren’t even properly introduced before you started manhandling me. Or is it womanhandling? Who cares. You know what I mean. Ah, I kind of told my best friend what we’ve been up to. Most people would think I need locking up, but she envies me.” Mala took a deep breath, then rushed on. “Hell, I envy me. Now that I’ve had a taste of the wild side—”

“You are all right?”

“Yes.” All of a sudden, putting more distance between herself and the two men no longer mattered. Did Laird have any idea how sexy his voice was or how much she’d wanted to hear it? “I’m all right. Where are you?”

“They’re here.”

“Who?” she demanded. “Those men? Make them—”

“Not them. My people.”

His people? What was he talking about? Grabbing hold of a tree branch for support, she peered at her surroundings. As far as she could tell, there was no sign of him.

“I’ve been trying to reach your family,” she told him. “The number in the Naples phone book, that’s a relative?”

“No.”

“Oh. But the name Jaeger isn’t that common. What about the boat business? That’s yours, isn’t it?”

“They need me.”

“Who needs you?” she asked, although she suspected he wouldn’t answer. “Where are you? Why can’t I see you?”

He didn’t answer, but she felt his presence. It reminded her of waking up at night as a child and knowing one of her parents was in the room making sure she was all right. She didn’t see Laird in the same light, and yet there was no way she could shake the conviction that he was watching everything she did. Caring about her. Protecting her if need be.

“I was going to come back,” she told him. “Surely you knew that. You told me to keep my appointment. I did. But after that I was—you didn’t have to do what you did, you know.” She rubbed her hand over her thigh to make her point. “I don’t appreciate your proprietary approach.”

“Yes, you do.”

She wasn’t going to touch that with a ten-foot pole. “What happened? Did something—damn it, I feel like a fool talking to myself.”

Another of his silences had her on the verge of screaming, but she reminded herself that she couldn’t comprehend what he’d been through, or what its impact on him must be. She didn’t want to think of him as being incapable of dealing emotionally with the experience, but that was a possibility.

“You’re a strong man,” she told him. “Brave. You’ll get through this. Whatever it takes, I’ll bring you back to where you belong.”

Although he didn’t respond to the promise she wasn’t sure she could keep, she felt his approach in the earth’s slight vibration. When she fully distinguished him from the patterns of sunlight and shadows, she was shocked by the change in him. It wasn’t just that he looked as if he’d gone several days without shaving and was naked except for the loose and nearly inadequate fabric covering his genitals. Even with that barrier, she could tell that he was well-hung. His hair was tangled, and he had scratch marks and mosquito bites on his bronzed chest, but the transformation went beyond even that.

He now carried himself, she concluded, like a creature of the wilderness. His posture was straighter, his stride firmer. His eyes were full of wisdom about his surroundings, and she had no doubt that all his senses were on the alert. She tried not to stare at the knife fastened to the cord that held his loincloth—she couldn’t think of anything else to call it—in place. There was a dark stain on his wrist that might be dried blood. She didn’t think it came from him.

“You’ve changed,” was all she could say.

“I know.”

At least he was still capable of speaking English. Despite that reassurance, she couldn’t ignore the accent that hadn’t been there before. An alarm went off inside her. Looking at him was like looking at a jungle cat, a man-eater, a wild animal. But she couldn’t run. The fierce and wild woman in her wouldn’t allow that.

“Tell me about it, please.”

“Not tell. Show.”

Don’t talk like that. It sounds—primitive.
“How?”

“You will come with me.”

It was an order. She’d been about to erase the distance separating them, but now it felt like walking into a lion’s den. Would he attack? And if he did, would she run or meet him fang for fang?

“Why?” Her voice lacked strength. Trying to run from him would be futile, but she couldn’t stop thinking about it.

“They have been waiting for me. Men, women, children, even babies.”

He wasn’t looking at her, not really. Instead, his attention seemed to be focused on his world. She wondered if she’d ever think of their surroundings like that.

“Who are they, Laird?”

“The Seminole.”

Too much. Way too much.
Her heart thundered, and her legs felt on the brink of giving out. Sanity and maybe survival itself depended on her getting back in her car, rolling up the windows, locking the doors and not stopping driving until she reached California, three thousand miles away.

Instead, she walked toward him, stopped inches from his hard, sun-heated body, reached out and placed her hand over his breast. His heart beat in there. She had to hear it pound as he fucked her. She pressed her palm against his small nipple and took some of his heat for herself. She hadn’t expected him to be so hard and muscular. Most of the men she’d known had been lean white-collar types, but nothing about him felt soft. He was as wild as their surroundings, a primitive man who took what he wanted. And he wanted her as much as she did him. Forget convention and seduction. To hell with courtship! This was about sex, plain and simple.

Down and dirty and wonderful fucking.

He still wasn’t looking at her. Maybe he wasn’t aware of her after all…of himself as a man.

Feeling as if she was being propelled by an unknown force, she slowly and possessively ran her hands over his chest, ribs, throat, shoulder blades. Just doing that kicked her libido up a notch. She was already having trouble controlling her breathing, and as for not conjuring up images of having him locked inside her, well, forget it! He continued to stand unmoving. The memory of his control of her made her question how much he was responsible for what she was doing. It didn’t matter.