'He was not from our area. I'm guessing South America. He was definitely one of our species. Have you ever been to South America, Rachael?'
'You're not very good at sounding casual when you really want to know something, Rio,' she reprimanded. 'I was born in South America. I spent the first four years of my life there. We immigrated to the United States. My father, well, he's really not my birth father but to me he was my father, was born in South America and lived there most of his life, just as my mother had, but he had a lot of family in the United States.'
'You have a stepfather?'
'Had. He's dead. He and my mother were murdered. And he was my father as far as I'm concerned. I loved him very much and he treated me as if I were his own flesh and blood. My brother too. He couldn't have been better to us.'
There was defiance in her voice. She stirred as if she wanted to get away from him. Rio began to repack the boxes carefully, trying not to look at her so it would be easier when he asked her questions. 'Rachael, is it possible you did something to anger the elders of your people? Maybe inadvertently committed a crime against your people that might earn you banishment or the death penalty?'
She looked up sharply, eyes flashing fire, but Rio only glanced at her and then away, deliberately not engaging in a staring match. 'I don't have people. I'm not a different species.'
'How do you explain your ability to see in the dark? The fact that mosquitoes avoid you? Your heightened sexual awareness and the different emotions you've been experiencing?' he asked gently as he snapped the lid on the box and replaced it in the cage of roots.
'There are perfectly acceptable explanations. My good eating habits could account for great eyesight and lack of mosquito bites. And you're responsible for my heightened sexual awareness and my moods. You parade around naked half the time, what do you expect?'
He grinned at her. 'Getting a little moody on me now, aren't you?' He held out his hand. 'Let's get out of here.'
'Where are we going?'
'Home. We're going home. I'm going to teach you how to live here, Rachael, and whatever happens, we'll just deal with it.'
She took his hand, weaving her fingers through his. 'You do realize I haven't got a stitch on.'
He leaned forward to press his lips against her breast, his tongue teasing her nipple. 'I did notice, yes. I've got clothes in a waterproof bag so we can get out of the river and be dry.'
'Isn't it daylight? Someone might see us.'
'Most people along the river aren't going to care whether we have clothes on or not.' He drew her breast into the warmth of his mouth, his hands moving over her body with possession, with desire. He pressed a kiss against her throat, her chin, the corner of her mouth. 'Let's get you home. I have a bathtub.' He turned off the lamp, plunging the cave into darkness.
'No, you don't. I looked for a bathtub.' She found his hand. 'You're trying to bribe me and it isn't going to work.'
'You didn't look in the right places. I have a tub I fill with hot water when I want to soak an injury. Most of the time I use the cold shower, but I've got a tub.'
The water swirled around her ankles, rose to her calf. 'My brother did things, bad things, Rio.' There in the blackness, underground where no one could overhear them, she confessed. 'I can't go to the police because they'd arrest him. I'd never do that to him. I love him. So I had no choice but to leave.'
He recognized the enormity of her confidence in him. He slipped his arm around her waist 'What kinds of bad things, Rachael?'
She shook her head, the silken curls brushing against his bare skin. 'Don't ask me anything more about him. If it wasn't for him, I would have been dead a long time ago. I owe him so much. You have no idea what we went through. I'm not going to betray him. I can't.' She took a breath. 'I'm not lying about the elders, Rio. I don't have any elders that I know of, alive or dead, to issue a death sentence for an imaginary indiscretion. I would tell you if there were.'
'I believe you, sestrilla.' He touched her to let her know they had to go under the water and swim through the narrow tube. He went first, trying to figure out what she could have done to make her brother want her dead. Especially when she obviously loved him. He heard it in her voice. The smoldering anger of his kind, always so dangerous and unpredictable, swirled in his belly as he swam. It didn't make sense that the man didn't love her back. Who wouldn't love Rachael?
They broke the surface together, just under the falls, hoping the water would screen them from sight should anyone be close by. Rio went back under to secure the heavy mesh over the tube. Rachael waited, staring at the opposite bank through the pouring water of the falls, subconsciously counting to herself until Rio emerged beside her. She put her arms around his neck and pressed her body close to his. 'I should never have told you.'
'You can tell me anything. I told you about my mother.'
She kissed his throat, trailed little kisses up his jaw. 'And I still think your elders stink. They didn't recognize how courageous you were in going to them and admitting what you'd done.'
'It wasn't courage. It was what she taught me. I chose to do something and I had to take the consequences. It was her rule and one I respected.' The joy burst through him like a rainbow of colors. Rachael had a way of making him feel worthwhile. Feel like someone special and amazing. He tied the rope around her waist and waded out into the fast-moving current. 'We have to swim to shore. The current will take us a bit downstream but we have to angle for the other side of the river.'
She nodded to show him she understood. This time when she put her foot down in the water, she could rest her weight briefly on it. It was a good sign that she was finally healing. She had taken a close look at it in the cave and there would definitely be scarring, but at least she had the leg.
They were swept downriver even as they swam strongly toward shore. Rio reeled her in close to him and fought his way to the shore, dragging her along. He managed to catch a low-hanging branch and easily pulled himself up onto it, lifting her out of the water with his incredible strength.
Rachael clung to the tree branch, her feet still dangling in the water. The bark was rough on her bare skin and for some reason she was suddenly self-conscious of her nakedness. She looked around and saw only monkeys staring at her.
'If I get a leech on me, even one, I'm going to be upset,' she promised. 'And make those monkeys stop staring. They're making me feel naked.'
'You are naked.' He laughed as he pulled her completely from the water, holding her close to his body, her breasts mashed against his chest. 'And you're ruining the romantic ambience.'
Her eyebrow nearly reached her hairline. 'Romantic ambience? What are you going on about?'
'I hardly think leeches should enter into a romantic walk through the forest, especially when your body is incredible sexy and bare at the moment.' He cradled her in his arms and leapt to the ground, landing softly.
She circled his neck with her arms and looked up into the trees. It seemed as if a thousand eyes were staring at them. 'Rio. The monkeys really are staring.'
On the riverbank they were much more exposed. She had spent the last two weeks in a small house in the forest, beneath a heavy canopy. Her only relief had been an underground cavern. The rain began, a soft steady drizzle that washed the river water from their skin as he carried her through the bogs and swamp to the edge of the forest. The wind touched their faces, flitted playfully through the leaves in the trees. All the while the gibbons, macaques, an orangutan and various species of birds watched them.
'I'm not making it up. They're staring.'
'They should be staring. I'm about to show them how good certain things in life are.' There, was wicked amusement in his voice. And something else-a note that rasped over her skin and sent heat spiraling through her body.
'I don't think so, you pervert. We are not putting on a show for those voyeurs.' Just his voice could melt her body. The look in his eyes was her undoing. His eyes burned with desire, hunger, even as she could see the teasing challenge in his expression.
'Next you're going to be telling me some strange story about how you go into heat and need a female.'
He shifted her, sliding her legs around his waist so that her wet channel was positioned over the head of his penis. 'Not any female, Rachael, you.'
