Chapter 6
Raul sipped his second cup of coffee, watching the sunrise paint the sky in orange and yellow.
He wanted to share the beauty with Erica, but she had been avoiding him since they had all emerged from their tents.
Now she stood beside Pascal, her mug cradled in her hands, throwing Raul the occasional wary glance.
Did she expect him to order her thrown off the mountain because she had fallen asleep on his shoulder? The reality was that he hoped she would do it again tonight.
He needed to relieve whatever anxiety she was experiencing. He swallowed the last of the coffee and rinsed his mug in the water bucket. “Will you give me a hand with my tent?’ he asked her.
“Sure.” Her voice was neutral, but her jaw was tense.
As they walked the few strides to his tent, Erica kept two yards between them, proving his theory that she was nervous. He stopped at one corner. “Will you take this pole, and I’ll get the other one?”
She nodded and closed the space between them, coming nearer than he had expected.
He caught the hint of citrus from her hair and remembered how soft and warm her body had felt against his.
And how she had felt naked underneath him in the sweaty, rum-induced dreams that had left him with an erection when he woke up.
His imagination had spread her hair over her bare breasts and lit them with firelight as he bent to suck on first one and then the other.
His cock began to stir again, and he yanked his mind away from his erotic thoughts.
She leaned in even more to say in a low voice, “I want you to know that I will never reveal what you told me last night to anyone. I promise.”
Now she was close enough that he could see golden flecks in her beautiful hazel eyes.
What had she said?
Oh, yes. His idiocy in baring his soul about the kidnapping. He winced inwardly. She must think him a coward now. “I wouldn’t have told you if I didn’t trust you.” Although he might be confusing his trust in her not to let him fall off a cliff with a trust that she would keep his secrets.
“It may have had less to do with trust and more to do with pitorro rum. It got to me too,” she said, her tone wry. “That’s why I, er, fell asleep on your shoulder. I apologize.”
Her cheeks were flushed an embarrassed pink.
“It’s not a crime to be human around me,” he said.
“You pointed out that not many people touch you,” she reminded him. “I figured that I compounded my error by conking out when I was in contact with your royal, um, person.”
He cracked out a laugh. “My royal person? Not even my father talks like that about himself.”
The corners of her mouth quirked upward, showing a faint dimple in one cheek.
“So we’ll keep each other’s secrets,” he said, wondering what her lips would feel like against his. “And I don’t actually need help with my tent.”
“Yeah, I figured that.” She stood undecided before shrugging. “I can still offer. Unless that would offend you.”
“Why would I be offended—oh, my lecture about pulling my own weight. Sorry, I was being a jerk because I was forced to come on this trip.” It felt good to be able to say that to her. No editing necessary. “Please.” He gestured to the tent.
She began unclipping the tent from the poles, her movements efficient and graceful.
When she bent, the neckline of her shirt gapped enough to reveal a curve of smooth, creamy skin that tempted him to touch.
Instead, he yanked up the last stake with more force than necessary.
By then, she already had the fabric neatly rolled up to his corner.
“That would have taken me three times as long,” he said as she stuffed the tent into its sack.
“I’ve had practice. Remember, I’m a certified adventure guide.” She threw him a saucy glance and started toward her backpack with his tent poles in her hand.
“Wait!” It came out as more of a command than he intended, but he was annoyed that she was still carrying part of his equipment. “I’ll take those.”
“They don’t fit in your pack,” she said.
“I can tie them to the top.” He thrust his hand out, palm up, and realized that he was imitating his father’s authoritative gesture. If it worked, maybe that was all right.
She looked at the pole sack in her grip, those soft-looking lips pursed in thought, before she laid it across his hand. “If you insist.”
“Gracias,” he said before he stuck the sack through the bungee cords on top of his pack. He straightened to see that she had started taking down her own tent. He should help her, but his bladder suddenly had a different idea. “Dario, I have to get rid of all that hydration I’ve been doing.”
A snort of laughter from Erica greeted his announcement, and he grinned.
“Got it, jefe ,” Dario said as Raul headed into the trees in the area his bodyguards had designated as safe for private activities.
He pushed into a thicket of laurel bushes, their dark leaves and gnarled branches creating a wall of privacy as he relieved himself.
Now that the pressure was gone, he noticed a shaft of sunlight breaking through the forest a few yards away from him.
Since there was no rush to leave the campsite this morning, he strolled through the trees to find himself in a small meadow where purple and white wildflowers dotted the long wild grass.
He shoved his hands in his pockets and lifted his face to the sun, letting the warmth infuse his skin.
It seemed to work its way deeper, loosening his muscles.
He couldn’t resist lowering himself to sprawl on the grass like he had as a kid, staring up at the clouds that still held a few tinges of orange.
It annoyed him that his father had been right. Raul had needed a break from work.
And he had needed Erica. He frowned. As they’d sat together last evening, the low sun had set her skin and hair aglow and gleamed golden in those big hazel eyes of hers. He had wished for his phone to snap a photo of her in that moment.
Instead, he had dumped his crap about the kidnapping on her.
He couldn’t blame it on the rum, although that had contributed.
No, he had felt like she already knew him because she had been in his head all day long on the cliff.
He hadn’t been revealing a secret; he’d been talking out a problem with her.
Gabriel had once repeated something his therapist had told him: Words help you define what keeps you awake at night, and then you can work on controlling the fear. When he asked Gabri if that method was helping him, his cousin had shaken his head and said, “Not so far.”
But maybe it had helped Raul. The memory of that terrible night still felt like a hot poker in his gut, but the guilt he carried might be a little less knife-edged.
Then Erica had wanted to comfort him…or had it been pity?
He scowled at the clouds scudding across the sky. Did it matter? She had squeezed his arm with one of her strong, capable hands, and he had wanted more of that, more of her.
He couldn’t believe he had asked for her touch in such a clumsy way, but it had gotten her body pressed against his side, so the result was good. When was the last time he’d had a warm woman in his arms?
Long enough that he had dreamed of having sex with Erica all night. Excellent dreams. If just a few of them came true, he would be a happy man.
As arousal heated his groin, he shoved to his feet.
Erica worked for Gabriel. Even worse, during this trip, she worked for Raul.
His father had warned him against entanglements with employees of the crown.
The power dynamic was too far off-balance to be certain there wasn’t some subtle pressure at work.
It wasn’t the first time Raul had been forced to stifle his desire, and it wouldn’t be the last. He exhaled a long breath of frustration.
He could enjoy his and Erica’s connection on the cliff face, but that would be the limit of their relationship.
Sometimes being the prince sucked.
He’d started back to camp, brushing through the tall grass, when he saw a flutter of black-and-white wings to his right. Pivoting, he saw an orange-bodied bird skimming over the top of the grass before it alit on a tree branch at the edge of the meadow.
Once again, his fingers itched for his phone, because this was a rarely spotted upupa.
The bird was famous for its bold coloration, long bill, and spectacular crest. He shaded his eyes with his hand and walked toward the bird’s perch, the orange standing out against the tree’s dark foliage.
The bird let out its distinctive call of oop-oop-oop , and another upupa flapped out of the forest to perch near the first one.
Two of them. A thrill of excitement at this rare sight rippled through him. He picked up his pace to see if they would display their crests.
Suddenly, his left foot met nothing but air, pitching him forward so he wrenched his ankle as he landed, a streak of searing pain lancing up his leg before his hands hit the dirt on the other side of a wide hole.
He let out a string of curse words at high volume as he rolled onto his side.
“Senor!” Dario raced into the meadow. “What is it?”
Pascal appeared from a different direction. “What happened?”
“I stepped in a hole,” Raul said, humiliation burning through him at his stupidity.
He got his right foot under himself and tried to push up, but the moment he put weight on the left, agony shot through his ankle. He bit off another curse.
“Allow me to help you,” Pascal said, offering his hand.
There was no choice but to let the bodyguard pull him to his feet. “I twisted my ankle. I’m going to need some help walking back to camp,” Raul admitted. He hoped like hell it wasn’t broken.
Pascal looped Raul’s left arm over his shoulders and wrapped his arm around Raul’s waist. “Whenever you feel ready, Monseigneur. ”
Raul tried again to put weight on his foot, hissing at the pain and weakness.
Erica bolted into view, looking frantic. “What’s going on?”