Primitive Nights (14 page)

So much uncertainty surrounded him already. The last thing she needed was to stay and face that future with him. She knew better than anyone how fragile his people’s existence could be. And yet she had given him her body. Brought him peace. She might not think she was an omen. But he believed, now more than ever, that she was. An omen of peace to come.

He pushed his hand through her hair, inhaling deep. There was no way to know what would happen to them from here, but the connection they had forged tonight could never happen again. She must leave. For her own safety.

She must leave, and he never could.

He settled close and pulled her tight against him. Soon. She would have to leave soon. But first they would talk to the elders.

Until then, she could be his.

Myla’s spirits continued to sink. Oh, she managed a happy face and tried several times to bring Damon into conversation, but she was beginning to think even primitive, Tarzan-type jungle men knew about the one-night-stand morning-after brush-off. What else could it be?

He’d woken her earlier that morning with a cursory kiss as her only return of affection. She cringed at the memory. Her hungry kisses and touch had gained her nothing more than that little kiss, so she wouldn’t be trying again. Stepping over a huge root, she pushed thoughts of the morning aside and swiped at the sweat beading on her forehead.

The pace Damon set was brutal. His leg had to be killing him. Not that he showed even the slightest discomfort. He forged on, not slowing his steps through the thickest brush and highest climbs. She struggled to keep up, and her legs were bordering Jell-O-like. If he didn’t stop soon, or at the very least slow down, she’d seriously have to begin thinking about turning back the way they’d come.

“Damon?” His back stiffened, but he didn’t turn. “Do you think we could slow down a bit?”

Nothing but the sounds of the jungle replied. She waited as he picked through a huge patch of thorny but very fragrant flowers before trying again. “I can’t keep up this pace for much longer.”

Again, silence from the rock-head attached to that magnificent body before her. His broad shoulders glistened in the light that broke through the canopy in small beams. The muscles down his back tightened and rippled each time he moved, and she followed the movements down to his hips.

His cloth brushed against the hard backs of his thighs, where larger muscles bulged in his legs. As he stepped up a sharp embankment, she caught a glimpse of his butt. Warmth that had nothing to do with the heat around them burgeoned in the pit of her stomach.

There wasn’t a moment of last night she could regret. The sex was—well—indescribable. Beyond anything she’d ever experienced. Maybe she shouldn’t have slept with him, but hell, she’d never really done anything crazy or impulsive. Well, that wasn’t entirely true, but college didn’t count in the grand scheme of things. Even her plan to join John in Peru had been carefully planned and executed.

“It doesn’t matter anyway.” She talked out loud, hoping something she said would draw him out of the miserable silence. “It’s not like it’s ever going to happen again. After all, there has to be two people interested in sex before it can happen. Well, most times. There’s always the forced sex, but last night was anything but forced.”

An odd sound came from Damon’s direction. It might have been a cough, but she couldn’t be certain. It wasn’t speech, so she continued her monologue. “Maybe in the jungle there’s a rule against speaking with the woman you did the horizontal mambo with the night before. Maybe having sex closes off the vocal cords of the natives. Wow, what an amazing discovery. Sex creates a mute partner. Oh, the men in America who would pay top dollar for that.”

Another strangled sound drifted back, and it almost sounded like a laugh. “Of course the women would pay more. I know my mother would have given her left arm to shut my father up on occasion. Perhaps it’s a ritual, some strange godly observance for succumbing to the sins of the flesh. Or instead of abstaining, you must—”

Damon stopped in his tracks and turned back, his eyes crinkled at the edges from laughter. The throaty sound rumbled through the jungle. “Enough, Myla. I understand that you want to talk. You can stop now.”

Finally.
She closed the distance between them and put her hand on his chest. “All I’m asking for is something besides silence.” He stared at her hand and all traces of humor disappeared. She pulled her hand back. Was he now repulsed by her touch? “If you regret last night, I understand, but we can still be friends. I won’t ask for you to make love to me again.”

“Regret last—” He ran a hand through his hair and dropped down to sit on a large boulder before shaking his head. “I do not regret our mating, Myla. But it should not have happened. I was lost. Last night, I thought you could be mine while you had to be here. Today, I see the error of that thought.”

Okay, maybe talking wasn’t such a good idea, but she’d asked for it. “I’m not going to argue about whether or not we should—mate, but just so I understand, why do you think we shouldn’t?”

“I thought about this long into the night.” He looked up at the trees, then around at their surroundings. “I belong here. You do not.”

“You don’t think I know that?” She knew it to her toes. With a frustrated sigh, she knelt before him.

“You may know it, but the longer you remain, the more you will think you do. The more I will think you do.” His eyes were sad as he traced a finger across her lips. The warmth of his touch inviting even in the path of his denial. “And then, in the end you will be unhappy. You will regret that you chose to stay.”

She didn’t quite know what to make of his statement. “Damon, I loved what happened between us, it was wonderful. But I have no intention of staying here with you.”

His eyes darkened and the stiffness returned to his shoulders. Mating meant much more to men in the jungle, or so it would seem. “You still plan to leave?”

“Yes, of course. You said it yourself. I don’t belong here.” Her chest tightened. Why did saying it hurt? There was something about the jungle, about him, that tugged at her heart.

“Then you mated with me with the intention of leaving?”

He was angry? But that made no sense. “As you did, knowing you would ask me to leave. What is the difference?”

“There is none.”

“Then why are you angry?”

He stood abruptly and looked away. “We should keep moving.”

Myla shook her head. What the hell had happened? Had she convinced him to talk so he could tell her to leave, and when she agreed that she would, for him to get angry because she was leaving?

Grabbing her head, she rubbed at the ache forming behind her eyes. Whoever said women were difficult to understand had never met her Tarzan-man. They’d have to tackle this subject again—later. For now, she wanted peace. “Lead on, boss. Lead on.”

“I enjoyed last night as well.”

It wasn’t an apology, but at least it was a form of civility. She could live with that.

“And what is this ‘horizontal mambo’?”

“It’s sex, Damon. Mating.” She couldn’t hold back a laugh. “Because we were in a horizontal position… Never mind.”

Chapter Ten

Damon pressed on. He knew Myla tired. She looked ready to collapse as she dragged one foot in front of the other. They had traveled farther throughout the day than he expected, but they still had a long way to go. A long, dangerous way.

Hountas concerned him less than the white men. InterCorp men had learned his jungle well. They moved among them nearly as silently as his own people. The ever-increasing number of invaders made it impossible to feel safe anywhere. But being outside the boundaries of his own land made it that much worse. The white men moved freely here, without care, and any reason to kill seemed to be a good one to them.

Tinjtol and his band of warriors had not helped the situation.

Being so near the InterCorp men weighed on his mind. He wanted distance. The closer he and Myla came to his tribe’s land, the safer he would feel. If that meant pushing on far longer and harder than planned, then they would do so. The time to rest would come when they were safe.

Thoughts of Myla drove him on. He could have stopped. His head ached. His thigh ached. The want to lie down and sleep for hours was almost too much to resist. But when he considered stopping, his thoughts turned to her touch. The images of her soft body beneath him kept taking over, and he decided to keep going. If only to keep her safe—from himself.

He could not keep his thoughts from their night of passion. It had killed him to act unaffected that morning when she had pressed close, her fingers running over his skin, her lips warm on his neck.

Already he wanted to keep her, to make her his. Mating with her again, another night wrapped in her heated arms, with her singular scent attached to his body when he woke, with her taste on his lips—would fuse her to his soul.

Shaking his head, he kept his eyes trained on the dangerous jungle around them. He needed to concentrate on the present. His senses had piqued awhile back. There was something wrong. He had to stay alert. Myla’s safety depended upon him.

He reached the top of the hill and stopped. Closing his eyes, he focused on the world around him, creating it all in his mind as he concentrated on what he could not see. Myla’s soft steps behind him, rustling over the ground. The
banjii
flower, pungent in the thick air, but shadowed by something else, foreign.

The soft moss under his feet spoke to him. Normal but for a distant tremor, almost imperceptible. The birds were silent for a great distance, and the other animals that should hang from the trees or scuttle over the foliage were absent. Nothing felt right.

The land was disturbed here. It could only mean strangers. Hountas and other tribes moved through the trees without disturbance. The jungle stayed alive in their presence.

Only outside influence would scare away the animals. Only the stench of machines and filth could mask the natural scents around him and make the ground shudder.

He held his hand up as Myla approached.

“What’s wrong? Everything is so silent.” Her whispered words were so soft he could barely hear her.

He grabbed her hand and pulled her close. It was difficult, but he suppressed the excitement her growing knowledge created inside him. She was learning. “We need to hide. Strangers are near.”

Her eyes darted around, and tremors coursed through her body. She followed when he pulled her along, slipping through the dense areas until he found a decent shelter in the waning light. He tugged on her hand to bring her down next to him. When she would have spoken, he covered her mouth.

“No. Listen.”

Silence closed in around them. He closed his eyes again and focused. There, off to the east, a woman’s voice, panic-stricken. She cried out for help, her voice raised in fearful pleading.

“Did you hear that?” Myla whispered.

Frustration warred with the need to reassure her. “How am I supposed to hear anything when you are talking?”

“You don’t have to be rude.” She tipped her head, her eyes crinkled with her concentration. “There, again. Did you—”

“Yes. I heard it.” The woman’s voice had become louder, followed by the laughter and shouts of several men. When the woman yelled again, her desperation nearly palpable, Myla shifted away. He grabbed her shoulders to pull her back. “What are you doing? Any movement might alert them that we are here. Caution is our only defense.”

Her eyes rounded and she fisted her hands against her knees. “Well, what are we going to do? We can’t sit here while someone is being mistreated.” She looked over her shoulder, and he did not miss the determination in her eyes. “I’m going to see what’s going on. That woman is scared, and you may be able to sit here and listen to it, but I can‘t.”

Her lack of faith stung. The woman would have his help. He had only hoped to shield Myla from what she would learn of her people. He knew what she would see. The InterCorp scouts did atrocious things to the women they found alone in the jungle. It was for that reason he had restricted the women of his tribe from venturing out alone. A warrior went with them whenever they foraged for food.

Damon grabbed her wrist. It was less than the control he would have liked to have over her, but it was something should she decide to bolt. “Myla, you will not like what you find.”

She pushed back hard and moved farther away, ripping her wrist from his grasp. “They’re going to hurt her? Rape her?”

He hated the knowledge she would gain this night, to witness the ugliness of the humanity she cared so much about. “Yes. It happens more than you or your friends realize.”

“We have to do something, Damon.” Tears pooled in her eyes. “I can’t sit back and let this happen.”

Frustrated, he settled back and draped his forearms across his knees. “I know. To keep you safe as well, you must obey me.” He pinned her with a hard stare. “I will be boss. Do you understand?”

She nodded, her eyes wide as the woman’s scream pierced the silence. “Fine. I’ll
obey
. You’re the boss. Do something. Quickly.”

He looked around for anything to use as a weapon, then he remembered the
banjii
bushes. He pressed a finger to her lips before motioning her to follow. They moved silently through the dark until he found the flowering bushes. Breaking several branches free, he snapped the large thorns off the bottoms and passed the thornless ends to Myla. He placed her hands on the base, showing her how to hold them to keep her fingers safe. “The thorns are sharp and the stinging poison burns, lasting for days.”