“You’re an idiot, that’s what you are,” she spat back, although his words took most of her fury. She hated that, hated that he could defuse her justified anger with a few charming words, his brilliant eyes, so intensely hungry when he looked at her, and his blazingly sinful, wicked mouth. “Damn you, Rio.”
She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him.
Lightning streaked in his veins, sizzled through his bloodstream. He was alive again, his heart beating and his lungs working. He lifted his head, his green gaze burning over her face. “Damn you back, Rachael. You left me. You made me feel and then you just left me. You didn’t even have the guts to talk it over with me first. Damn you to hell for that.” He caught her head, held her still and devoured her.
Kiss after kiss.
She tasted his anger. It was hot and spicy and ferocious. She tasted his love. Tender and hungry and consuming. And she wanted him. Forever. For all time. As short a time or as long a time as she could have him.
Rachael lay in the pine needles staring up at his beloved face. “I’m sorr y, Rio. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I should have had the courage to talk it over with you. I thought I could live here in the forest, in my other form. I thought they wouldn’t find me if I was a leopard. At least I could still be close to you.”
He shook his head. “If you’re one of us, then so is your brother. The sniper, the one they called Duncan, he had to be the one who put the cobra in your room before you went on the river. And he had to be the one who tr ied to kill you a couple of nights ago. He shifted into the for m of a leopard. Only a few of us around the world can do that. He had to have known you’re capable. They would bring in hunters. Eventually they would kill you. We can’t run scared. If I’ve ever learned anything in this life, it’s that we have to think something all the way through.”
The needles poked into her bare skin. She stood up gingerly. It was far easier maneuvering through the forest in leopard form than human. “I don’t want you hurt.”
“And you think your brother will try to hurt me?” He took her hand, tugging until she walked with him toward the house. He pulled twigs and leaves from her hair and tossed them aside.
She flashed a small smile. “I feel a bit like Adam and Eve.”
His hand tightened on hers. “You have to talk to me about him. I don’t want to harm the man, but you have to give me something to work with, Rachael. You either trust me or you don’t.”
She stood at the bottom of the large tree, staring up into the canopy where his house was hidden. “Do you think it’s a matter of trust?”
He rested his palm on her bare bottom, helping her up to the lower branches. She pulled herself up using the creepers hanging like streamers. Rio stood back watching her body, the flexing muscles, the curves and hollows. She had a beautiful butt. He grinned as he leapt up to the lower branch easily, caught the creeper, his hands above hers, his body caging hers between his and the tree trunk. He pressed against her, much in the way of a dominant cat, his teeth nipping her shoulder, his breath teasing her nape. “I know it’s a matter of trust.”
Instead of pulling away or stiffening as he expected, she leaned back against him, rubbing her alluring derrière against his thickening groin. “I do trust you. I trust you completely with my life. I’m here with you. I’ve chosen you. I’ve always chosen you.”
And she had. She knew it. She had always chosen him. Would always choose him. “Don’t you feel it, Rio? We’ve always been together. I know we have. Somewhere else, somewhere good.”
He shook his head, urging her up to the house. “It wasn’t somewhere different, Rachael. There’s always been blood and bullets and things to fear. But we managed them together. That’s what we do.
We live our life the best that we can, together, facing whatever comes our way.”
She pulled herself up to the verandah. Her clothes were lying in a heap where she’d stripped. She picked up the shir t, held it to her. “I love him, Rio. I know he’s done things, horrible, hideous things.
People think he’s a monster and they think I should help destroy him. But I can’t. I won’t. I understand how he came to be what he is.” Very slowly she pulled on the shirt. Rio’s shirt. It seemed everything came back to Rio. “Do you really think we were together in another time?”
His brilliant green gaze drifted over her. “Don’t you?”
She leaned against the chair and smiled at him. “I think you’re beautiful, Rio. I thought it then too, wherever we were. I remember that much.”
He stepped very close to her, his body crowding hers. Tall, muscular, broad shoulders and incredible strength. He caught her chin firmly and tilted her face up to his. There was no laughter in his eyes.
“Don’t ever do that again. Don’t leave me. I think you tore the heart out of my chest with your bare hands.” He felt like an idiot saying it. He didn’t write poetry and he didn’t know the first thing about romance, but he had to find a way to make her understand the enormity of what she’d done.
She lif ted her hand to map his face, her fingertips very gentle. “I won’t, Rio. If you’re willing to take the chance, I’ll make my stand, here, with you.” She stepped back when he reached for her. “I want you to know about me before you make up your mind.”
“Rachael.” He said her name softly, lovingly. “I have made up my mind. I would want you in my life no matter what the circumstances. I lay beside you the other night and thought about whether I would want you if we could no longer have sex. I have to tell you, sex with you is amazing. I look forward to it and I think about it a lot.”
“That’s a surprise.” She managed a small grin.
“The point is, I would want you in my life, in my bed. I want your laughter and your temper. It’s you, not your past, not even your body, amazing as that is.” His hand skimmed over the swell of her breast.
“Not that I want that to change.”
“My brother and I inherited a drug empire.”
Her gaze was fastened to his face. He felt the hit somewhere in the region of his gut, but he didn’t flinch. Didn’t change expressions. She was waiting for that. Waiting for rejection. For betrayal. He didn’t even blink.