Chapter 13 #3
“There’s a black mamba in the tree behind you.” She opened her mouth, but before she could ask the question, he added, “It’s a snake. A poisonous one.”
She paled. A poisonous snake? Behind her? “H-How close?”
“Close enough.” His face was expressionless, as if he didn’t wish to scare her. That in itself terrified her. Moving in infinitesimal increments, he lifted his left hand toward her. “Take my hand.” When she started to move her hand toward his, he ground out, “Slowly, Sara, slowly.”
She inched her hand up. The wind rustled the leaves of the trees overhead, and she froze, her heart leaping into her throat.
“You’re doing fine,” Gideon said reassuringly. “Right now, he doesn’t seem too interested in us. Let’s keep it that way.”
He drew out his saber with his right hand, using the same measured movements she was .
Her body trembled. “Wh-what are you going to do?”
“Chop his head off.”
Sweat dripped down her face. “What if you miss?”
“You damned well better pray I don’t.”
Praying was easy; a thousand prayers already sprang to her lips. Please, God, don’t let Gideon miss. Please, God, don’t let the snake get me. Oh, please, dear God, don’t let me die on this wretched island without ever seeing home.
Suddenly Gideon’s hand met hers, and he clasped it in a tight grip.
After that, everything happened at once.
With his left hand, Gideon jerked her to him, while with the right, he swung his saber in a wide arc toward the tree.
As she landed against him, she caught a glimpse of an inky raised head seeming to come right out of the tree.
There was a swish of blade against air, a flash of steel, and a horrible hiss.
Next thing she knew, the blade of the saber had severed the snake’s head cleanly from its body, and both had dropped to the ground.
With a cry, she buried her face in Gideon’s hairy chest, but not before she saw the snake’s body writhing wildly on the ground only a foot away.
“Oh, my God,” she cried as she clutched Gideon.
She felt rather than saw him stab his saber into the ground.
Then both of his arms enveloped her in a hug so tight she could barely breathe.
“It’s all right, sweetheart,” Gideon said over and over as he cradled her in his arms. “The snake’s dead. It can’t hurt you now.”
“B-but it could have,” she stammered. “It was so close … it was just there!” It wasn’t like her to panic, but she’d never even seen a poisonous snake, much less been menaced by one. Coming on top of everything else, it was just too much. “If it … if it had bitten me—”
“But it didn’t.” Cupping her face firmly, he lifted it until she was staring at him. “It’s fine, I promise. I wouldn’t have let it hurt you.”
She couldn’t seem to get enough breath. She sucked in air in great gasps, and still the panic closed her throat. “What … if you hadn’t … been here,” she choked out. “What if—”
“But I was here.” Her panic now seemed mirrored in his eyes. He clutched her close, stroking her back with soothing hands. “I’ll always be here. I’ll never let anything hurt you. I promise.”
“Are you sure it’s dead?” It was a stupid question, yet she had to ask.
“It’s dead.” He moved aside and gestured to the ground. “See? It’s not moving.”
She peered over his shoulder to where the scaly black rope lay limp across a blanket of leaves. A shudder rocked her body. “Is it very poisonous?”
“It doesn’t matter now.”
“Curse you, Gideon, tell me the truth! Could it have killed me?”
A muscle flexed in his jaw. “Let’s just say I’ve never heard of anybody surviving the bite of a black mamba.”
The irony of it hit her all at once. “I should have known there’d be snakes here,” she said woefully as she clung to him. “What would the Garden of Eden be without the serpent?”
He ventured a smile. “I don’t know. Boring?”
Boring? She stared at him incredulously. Had he just said— After what had nearly happened— But then, this was Gideon.
She beat her fists against his chest, taking him by surprise.
“This is all a game to you, isn’t it? You don’t even care you’ve dragged us from our homes to this wretched place where there are deadly snakes and God knows what other monstrous beasts!
You wanted something, so you took it, and you don’t care what it does to us! ”
She collapsed into sobs, her brush with death still too fresh. Everything that had happened over the past few days hit her with a sudden fierceness. Since he’d taken the ship, she’d scarcely had time to mourn the fact that she’d never see England or Jordan again.
But now reality struck her with a vengeance as she stood in the strange clearing with its unfamiliar plants and its dead snake. Suddenly, the tears wouldn’t stop. They bubbled out of her like an overflowing soup pot. She couldn’t contain them, and at the moment didn’t even want to try.
Looking worried, Gideon held her close. At first she fought him, her anger warring with the need to be comforted, but he wouldn’t release her. He just kept muttering, “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I’m so sorry.”
Finally she went limp in his embrace, letting the tears come out of her in great gasping sobs.
After the first storm passed, she even leaned into him, craving his strength.
There was no one else to give her comfort.
Although he was her adversary, he was also strong, and she needed his strength just now. She needed it very badly.
She didn’t know exactly when his comforting became something else. Perhaps it was after her sobs had died off into the occasional hiccup. Or perhaps it was when she saw how shaken he looked, “I-I’m all right now, truly I am,” she said as she brushed tears from her eyes.
Suddenly his mouth was on hers, gentle, soft, as if begging forgiveness. To her shame, she kissed him back, seeking the reassurance only he could provide. Their kisses were tender, full of mutual comfort.
He shifted her closer, his hand curving into the small of her back to flatten her against his lean, hard body as he showered repentant kisses over her lips and cheeks, her closed eyelids, her tangled hair.
“I should’ve left you on the Chastity,” he whispered against her mouth. “Atlantis is all right for the others, but not for you.”
“That’s not true. It’s not right—” For any of us, she would have said if his mouth hadn’t covered hers again.
Only this time his kiss offered more than comfort. It offered pure, hot passion, a hungry desire that quickly swept her up until she found herself responding with an eagerness that matched his own.
She couldn’t help it. Despite everything, she needed him to get her through this, to make her forget the snake.
As if he understood exactly what she wanted, he shifted her in his embrace so he could touch her, caress her, stroke her.
His hand covered her breast, kneading it with a restless energy that sparked fires in her loins.
Her breast ached for his touch, had ached for it ever since yesterday. And that fact sparked fresh tears.
He kissed them away with slow tenderness, his breath hot on her cheeks.
“Don’t cry anymore, Sara, my Sara. Please don’t cry.
I don’t want to hurt you.” He backed her to a nearby tree, then pressed her against it, leaving his hands free to roam her waist and her hips.
The next thing she knew, he was inching her skirt up her legs.
“I only want to give you pleasure. That’s all. ”
Try as she might, she couldn’t deny him.
She didn’t want to. It felt right to have his hands touch her, his fingers bare her thighs, questing upward to find the part of her that craved him so intensely it frightened her.
The forest itself seemed to hold its breath as he kissed her again and again with fierce need, thrusting his tongue more deeply into her mouth with each stroke.
His fingers found the aching place between her legs, and his thumb rubbed the little nub nestled in her silky folds of skin, making her respond instinctively by arching against his hand with a little mew of pleasure.
“That’s it, sweetheart,” he whispered against her mouth. “Let me give you pleasure. Only pleasure.”
Some part of her sensed this was his way of making up for the snake, of making amends for all he’d done. Though her rational mind wanted to scream it wasn’t what she wanted, her body said otherwise.
It craved this sweet losing of herself to him. It craved his touch, his body against hers. To her shame, the more he stroked between her legs, the more wantonly she yearned for it … yearned for him.
“Yes, sweetheart,” he breathed against her cheek, “take it. It’s there for you. Let yourself take it.”
She didn’t have to wonder what he meant. An unfamiliar tension built inside her, like the eager anticipation she’d felt as the Chastity had left the Thames and slid into open sea. Ahead was danger and excitement. She could feel it just beyond her grasp, beckoning, drawing her.
Every whisper of the leaves, every sliver of light dusting Gideon’s hair, every luscious tropical scent conspired to draw her on.
He no longer kissed her, too intent on caressing her.
His face grew strained, his eyes burned with an unholy light, yet he kept stroking and fondling her, building the tension until with unexpected quickness, it exploded and rocked her with a wild burst of pleasure.
A hoarse cry escaped her lips as she clutched Gideon close, quivering and shaking against him.
Oh, sweet God. Sweet, sweet God. Was this what it was like between a man and a woman?
This piercing excitement, this shattering closeness?
She’d never dreamed, never imagined…. No one had ever told her such things could happen.
Now that she knew it could, she understood why Gideon had offered it as an appeasement, why he thought he could tempt her into his bed.
And that understanding brought the bitter tears rolling forth once more.