And now, of course, seeing that he was not only unharmed but had obviously been enjoying himself immensely while she’d been worried sick, fear and concern morphed instantaneously into anger. Already seething with resentment at being excluded from the business discussions solely on the basis of her gender, and now on top of that being forced to accept her new and terrifying-and uniquely feminine-vulnerability concerning McCall, she was tense and riled and, as Aunt Gwen would have said, spoiling for a fight.

“Well?” she snapped the instant he ducked under the overhanging thatch. Her arms were folded beligerently across her chest. Yes, and all she needed, she thought, were the rolling pin and the furiously tapping toe and she’d be the image of the classic shrewish wife. He couldn’t-mustn’t-know the folded arms and snappish tone were meant to hide trembling weakness and a wildly beating heart.

He straightened beside her, swaggering a little, and gave her a lazily superior look. “Well, what?”

Ellie sucked in air and took a step back, all at once overwhelmed by his nearness. “You stink,” she said accusingly, to cover it. “Of cigars and-” she sniffed delicately “-tequila.”

McCall lifted the cigar he was holding and smiled smugly at it. “Cuban, if I’m not mistaken.” He gave a cackle of half-inebriated laughter, and then, snaking an arm around her waist, caught her hard against him and kissed her-loudly and with gusto.

For several moments Ellie was too surprised to respond at all. Surprised? No…stunned would be more like it. She went rigid, forgot to breathe, absolutely could not move. The shock of his body against hers was like an instantaneous paralyzing drug…his mouth-sensitive lips tasting sharply of tobacco, prickle of beard stubble, warm breath laced with tequila-a straight shot of whiskey. Her world rocked; her head swam.

Over the thunderous pounding of her own pulse she could hear the guards laughing as they watched. Incensed, humiliated, she hauled in one burning, outraged breath…and as she held it, cocked and primed, she heard McCall’s urgent whisper.

“This is the only way I can talk to you. Play along…” His arms gentled around her. Tipsy laughter gusted past her ear.

Dazed and oxygen-high, Ellie felt him walking her clumsily toward the back of the lanai, as far from the listening guards as they could get. As he walked, interspersed with laughter and nuzzling kisses along the side of her neck, he was whispering, “Pretend you’re glad to see me, dammit…”

Shaking and jerky, she managed to lift her hands to his shoulders, then laced them together at the back of his neck. “Like this?” Her whisper was like sand in her throat.

“That’s better. Maybe you could laugh a little…”

Laugh? Dear God… She tried, but it was a high, nervous giggle, nothing at all like her own husky chortle.

“Our friend the smoker…” and his hands were moving on her back…touching her everywhere-her waist, the ticklish sides of her ribs, the flats of her shoulder blades, the nape of her neck.

“Yes?” It was an airless gasp; she dared not breathe. Her pulse fluttered like a frightened bird’s wings against the taut muscles of her belly.

“His name’s Israel, by the way. Israel Gavilan…” He seemed so short of breath…and was that his heart she felt, beating so fast and hard against her chest? “Okay-” and wasn’t his voice growing hoarser, too? “-pull away from me a little bit. Pretend you’re mad at me…”

No problemo. “I am mad at you.” But it was breathless, unconvincing.

“Not too much. Just a little. Tell me I’m drunk.”

“Aren’t you?”

“No. Dammit, it’s an act. Come on-”

She swayed back against his embrace, flattening her palms against his chest as she aimed her very best glare at his chin. “You’re drunk,” she said in a quavering voice.

And, oh, how her fingers wanted to rub against the warm, damp roughness of his shirt, to learn the hidden, forbidden textures of skin and hair and flesh that lay beneath. Tears sprang to her eyes; her fingers trembled. In desperation she snatched her hand away from his chest and would have slapped his cheek with it, except that he caught it in time and, laughing, carried it to his lips instead.

“Only a little, my dear…only a little,” he said with jovial overconfidence. And then, in a low growl that resonated through her body, bowing his head close to hers, “Good girl…”

She could only stare at him, utterly at a loss now; her head was spinning. His eyes burned back at her with a desperate urgency as he whispered across her curled-up fingers. “I have to talk fast. I’ll whisper in your ear. Act like I’m talking…” a corner of his mouth lifted “…you know, talking sexy to you.”

She gave a high, whimpering laugh and ducked her head, hiding her face from him as heat flooded into her cheeks. Then his lips brushed her ear and shivers showered her like a hard cold rain.

“Israel was not happy about the money…especially when I told him we’d left it behind as insurance.” She started violently, but he held her tightly…held her still. “It’s a good thing you did that. I have a feeling we’d both be dead right now…” His suggestive chuckle was incongruous…horrifying. Ellie just did remember to giggle and squirm seductively in his embrace. “As it is, they’ve got a call in to the head honcho. I guess they’re going to let him decide what to do with us.”

Ellie jerked back, forgetting her role for just an instant. “How-” But he struck like a hawk, swooping down to capture the rest of the question in his mouth.

Once again she was caught unprepared. His mouth was hard, urgent, angry…hers was soft, open…defenseless. She gave a single whimper…her eyes closed. She felt herself melting…going sweet and soft as chocolate Kisses left out in the sun. Deep in his mouth she felt the quiverings of his response, and knew a strange burgeoning joy. And then…

“Listen.” It was a grating, guttural sound, and so was the laughter that followed. At the same time he caught her arms with barely controlled violence and spun her around so that her back was against him, so that he was between her and the avidly watching, listening guards. He held her pinioned that way, with his arms crisscrossing her breasts and her buttocks pressed tightly, intimately against him, and his body arched over her, taut and tenuous as a drawn bow. She could feel him trembling. “And for God’s sake, laugh.”

She hardly knew whether she obeyed him or not. More than anything else in the world, what she wanted to do was cry. Once again his lips were at her ear, blowing gusts of terrifying sensation through her already oversensitized body.

“They’ve got a satellite hookup-up there, on top of the pyramid. This head honcho-I gather he’s somebody on the inside. Somebody high up in the Mexican government. They call him the general.”

Ellie felt herself go still. It was so strange…a moment ago her senses had been dangerously overloaded, maybe one caress away from complete meltdown…and now she felt nothing. Nothing at all. It was as if she existed in a vacuum, a little bubble of perfect calm. From somewhere outside the bubble she heard a voice asking, “General what? Did they happen to mention his name?”

And another voice, McCall’s voice, replied, “Yeah…I think it was Reyes. General…Reyes.”

Chapter 10

McCall felt her body go slack and heavy, as if her knees had buckled. For one terrible moment he thought she’d fainted.

He tightened his arms around her, and forgetting that he was supposed to be happily, drunkenly amorous, said in a voice gone hoarse with concern, “Ellie-what is it? What’s wrong? Do you know him?”

“Yes.” It was barely a whisper, airless and urgent. Her hands were gripping his forearms as if she were dangling over a precipice and they were all that was keeping her from falling. “McCall-I have to tell you some-”

He cut her off with a finger pressed against her lips. They stood silently together, frozen in that intimate embrace, listening to the whap-whap-whap of a helicopter’s rotors, rapidly growing louder. A moment later they braced against buffeting winds as it passed directly over their heads.

“That’s probably him now,” McCall said as he let go of her and they both turned to watch the chopper, painted drab military green, swoop by just above treetop level.

The guards muttered amongst themselves, then four of them went jogging off, following the chopper. The one left behind walked after them a few paces, then reluctantly halted and stood at parade rest with his rifle cradled in his arms like a baby and watched his compadres disappear into the jungle.

McCall caught Ellie’s arm and spun her around to face him. “Quick-before he comes back-what was it you wanted to tell me?”

She swallowed, and it made a tiny sticking sound. “Are you sure he doesn’t speak English?”

“One way to find out,” Making his voice loud enough for the guard to hear it, McCall sang out, “By the way, my brother, there is a great big poisonous snake right behind you, just about to crawl up your leg.”

Showing no signs of alarm, the guard turned to look inquiringly over his shoulder. McCall waved at him, showing all his teeth in a friendly smile. “I heard your mother is having an affair with a donkey.” The guard smiled back, shrugging his shoulders.

“Oops, sorry,” said McCall, returning to Spanish. “I was just asking what’s going on.”

“What, you mean who is in the chopper? Ah-that is the general.” The guard grinned and gestured meaningfully with his rifle. “He will tell us what to do with you two. So you’d better have your fun now, huh? While you still can.” Laughing at his own little joke, he went to lean against a Mayan carving of a fierce-looking animal with open mouth and big teeth, in the long, late-afternoon shadow cast by the section of ruined wall.