TWO
IT TOOK THE guard over an hour to replace the microphone and during that time Lara sat silent on the cot, every muscle stiff with tension. Lord, it was hot. The white stucco walls seemed to hold and breathe heat into the room like a giant oven. She could feel the perspiration beading the nape of her neck beneath the heavy length of her hair. How had Ricardo stood it all those months?
She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. The heat didn’t appear to be bothering him. He wasn’t even sweating. He sat motionless on the floor beneath the window a few feet away from the cot, his hands looped loosely around his knees as he watched the short, black-mustached guard splicing the cord back into the socket of the microphone. Ricardo seemed totally absorbed by the procedure.
Lara’s gaze shifted restlessly around the cell. There was little enough to see. The cell’s interior was as stark and barren today as it must have been when occupied by the monks. The cot on which she was sitting contained only a meager pillow and a thin, lumpy mattress covered by a raw cotton sheet. The washstand across the room was occupied only by a cracked and stained blue washbowl. The sunlight streamed through the bars at the window, painting blocks of light on the flagstones of the floor before Ricardo and touching the curls falling over his forehead. She could see no trunk for personal possessions, no books, nothing to distract the mind from the deprivation to which Jurado had condemned his prisoner. Ricardo had said he wasn’t even allowed pencil and paper, she remembered.
“How do you stand it here?” she asked abruptly.
Ricardo’s glance shifted from the guard to her face. “This is the luxury suite compared to where they put me when I first came here. Jurado thinks he’s pampering me at the moment. Every evening they take me down the hall to the bathroom and let me take a shower. I get to wash my clothes twice a week. They feed me once a day. What more could a man ask?”
“There’s nothing to do.”
He smiled. “They can’t keep me from thinking. I plan campaigns, do memory exercises. I even compose poems.”
“The poet-warrior,” she murmured.
He made a face. “Media hype.”
“The media certainly loves you,” she agreed.
“Publicity helps the revolution. I have friends and backers in America and Europe who see that everyone knows what’s going on here.” His lips thinned. “You’d be surprised how few countries are willing to supply arms to the junta now that the spotlight of public opinion has been focused on places like the Abbey. Two years ago every cell here was filled. Now Jurado only chances holding a favored few for his entertainment.”
“So you let your backers exploit you.”
“It’s a small price to pay.” He was silent a moment. “When I was a student at the university, I wanted to be a poet. I could see myself doing nothing for the rest of my life but writing beautiful words that would shake the world.”
“Some people would say that your book did shake the world.”
“Some people. Not you.”
“I’ve never read your book. Not my cup of tea.”
“What is your cup of tea, Lara?”
“I’ve never wanted to shake the world. I just want something of my own to hold on to. Someday I’m going to live in a small town and have a home by a lake and lots of dogs and a few close friends.” She looked down at the floor. “I’m not the type of person who would ever start a revolution.”
“I think you’re wrong.”
Her gaze lifted swiftly to see the faintest smile indenting the corners of Ricardo’s lips as he said, “It’s not the rabble-rousers who form the foundation of a revolution; it’s the silent majority. If wood is ready to burn, it takes only a spark.”
“And you think I’d take only a spark?”
He gazed at her thoughtfully. “I think a woman who would rush headlong into a situation like this has enough fire to set an entire country ablaze.”
She swallowed and looked quickly across the room at the guard, who had completed the splicing and was plugging the cord into the socket. “He’s almost done. We’ll have to be careful what we say from now on.”
“We haven’t said anything that Jurado couldn’t hear.”
She realized with astonishment that what he said was true. Their conversation had been casual, almost impersonal, and yet she felt as if every word had been charged with meaning and intimacy.
“What do we do now?”
“Wait.”
She slowly leaned back against the stucco wall. “I’m not very good at composing mental poems and I have a terrible memory. Can we talk?”
His gaze had shifted back to the guard. “If I don’t have to look at you. Where the hell did you get that gown?”
Scorching heat flowed over her again. “They gave it to me at the infirmary after they … examined me.”
“Oh, yes, the examination.” Ricardo’s clasped fingers tightened until the knuckles turned white.
“Did they hurt you?”
“No, but they weren’t exactly clinical.” She laughed shakily. “They scared me.”
The guard replaced the microphone on the shelf and switched it on. Without looking at either of them, he turned on his heel and strode from the cell.
Lara gazed in fascination at the small black box. She felt suddenly stripped, humiliated in a deeply personal way.
“Don’t let it bother you,” Ricardo said. “It doesn’t really make you less than you are to have your privacy invaded.” His dark eyes were suddenly twinkling. “On the contrary, you have to reach a certain stature before you have the dubious honor of having clods like Jurado try to make you feel this helpless.”
It was the second time he had effortlessly guessed what she was thinking, but this time she felt no wariness, only gratitude. His light comment had banished the sense of defilement and made Jurado’s listening presence seem pitiful and unimportant.
“You’re the one with the stature.” She wrinkled her nose. “I’m just along for the ride.”
“Ride?” His eyes gleamed with reckless humor. “That’s certainly what Jurado has in mind, but I had no idea you were in agreement.”
The color flew to her cheeks as she caught the double entendre. Dammit, she seemed to be doing nothing but blushing since she had come into this cell. “You know I didn’t—”
“I know,” Ricardo interrupted, his smile vanishing. “Sorry, my mother was part Irish and sometimes the wild Celt gets the upper hand.” His gaze went to the microphone. “I’m well aware you don’t want to be here any more than I want you here.”
He was trying to protect her, to banish any hint of intimacy Jurado might seize as a weapon. She knew what he was doing and yet the words still hurt her in some strange fashion. “I’m glad we understand each other.”
“Yes.” He wearily leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes. “There’s no question we understand each other.”
At twilight two guards came to take them to the bathroom and shower at the end of the corridor. One of the guards was the small, mustached soldier who had replaced the microphone and the other was taller, uglier, with broad cheekbones and a hooked nose.
Ricardo spoke urgently as they reached the bathroom. “It will be all right. Ignore them. They have orders not to touch you.”
“What do—” She didn’t finish the sentence as the taller guard opened the door and pushed her into the bathroom. Ricardo didn’t follow, but the guard did, and she understood what he had been trying to tell her.
When she had finished using the bathroom, the grinning guard opened the door across the room and motioned for her to precede him. As she passed, he gave her a surreptitious, obscene caress, and she bolted into the shower room. She wished she had a blackjack to smash his sneering face. She wished she could make him feel as helpless and embarrassed as he had made her feel. She wished she could—
The shower cubicle across the room was obviously meant for one person and that person was already occupying it.
Lara moistened her lips with her tongue as she saw Ricardo standing naked beneath the spray. His skin was golden brown all over, his muscles corded and sinewy with power in spite of his leanness. A triangle of black hair thatched his chest, narrowing to a pencil-slim line at his waist before surrounding his manhood. She pulled her gaze quickly back to his face. “I didn’t expect … this.”
He smiled grimly. “Why not? Jurado said we were to do everything together.”
The guard shouted an order as he pushed Lara toward the cubicle.
“He told you to undress and get in the shower. Don’t fight him.” Ricardo turned away from her and lifted his face toward the spray. “It will be over soon.”
She had thought nothing could be as humiliating as what had happened in the bathroom, but it appeared she had been mistaken. Lara drew a deep breath, jerked the gauze gown over her head, and dropped it on the floor. She ran toward the shower stall, avoiding the guards’ clutching hands, if not their stares and lewd remarks. She ducked beneath the cold spray and turned her back to the guards, staring desperately up at Ricardo’s face. “I hate this. I hate them.” She could feel the tears running down her cheeks and she didn’t know if they were tears of anger, embarrassment, or fear. “I’d like to—”
“Shh, I know.” He kept his gaze on the gray Formica wall over her head as he reached for the soap. “Just think of something else.”
Her gaze dropped to his chest and she inhaled sharply. Now that she was closer she could see his abdomen was crisscrossed with tiny scars. “What—”
“An ice pick. One of Jurado’s less subtle methods.” He began to massage the soap into her hair. “He prefers an electric cattle prod.”
Lara felt sick. “I’m so sorry.”
“Why? It’s over.”
The torture was over perhaps, but she doubted if the memory could ever leave someone who had suffered the treatment Ricardo had undergone. “I feel ashamed. I’m weeping like an idiot over having them stare at me when you—”
“Hush.” His tone was as gentle as his hands massaging the soap into her hair. “It’s the little humiliations that hurt the most.” He made a face. “Though I’m afraid I didn’t ascribe to that doctrine when Jurado was wielding the cattle prod.” He tilted her head back and let the cold spray wash the soap from her hair and then turned her around so that she stood with her back to him. “You said you wanted dogs. What kind of dogs do you like?”
“Mutts. Big furry mutts. They seem to have more character.” She could hear the guards laughing and she kept her gaze fixed on the wall. “I can’t stand this. When can we get out of here?”
“They’ll get bored soon.” He added half under his breath, “Or so hot, they’ll go looking for one of the putas who serve the prison.” He pushed her forward so that he stood in the full stream of the spray. “I had a Labrador when I was a boy. He went with me everywhere.”
“I’ve never had a pet. I meant to get one when Brett and I left our foster home, but then we were both in college and it didn’t seem fair.”
“What did you study in college?”
“Pre-law. I want to be a lawyer. I’ve always—Are they still looking at me?”
“Yes.” His voice was thick. “And at me.” He took a step back. “Jurado’s going to be very pleased with their report.”
Lara stiffened as she realized what he meant. He was aroused. “I thought cold showers were supposed to—”
“Not after five months. I feel as if I’m turning it to steam as it hits me. Lord, your skin seems to shimmer. Do you know how much I want to touch you?”
She moistened her lips with her tongue. “What was your dog’s name?”
“I don’t remember.” His laugh held a note of desperation. “I can’t remember anything.”
The water didn’t feel cold to her any longer either and she was barely conscious of the gaze of the guards, she realized with amazement. Ricardo was no longer touching her, but she could sense him only inches away, and she had a mental picture of him as she had seen him just a moment ago standing beneath the spray, his long dark hair as lustrous and thick as seal fur, his lean body as tan and tough as well-oiled leather. What had they been talking about, she wondered hazily. Dogs. What a crazy thing to discuss at a time like this. “It’s not good to raise big dogs in the city,” she said breathlessly. “They need to run.”
“We didn’t live in the city. My family had a rancho at the tip of the island. You have a mole just in the hollow of your spine.”
“Do I? I didn’t know that.”
“It’s very tiny.” Ricardo’s voice was so soft, she could barely hear it. “Right at the exact place where your bottom starts to swell so sweetly.” He was silent for an instant. “The water is polishing you, making you gleam like burnished gold.”
She could feel her breasts swell as they lifted and fell with the swift acceleration of her breathing. The muscles of her stomach clenched helplessly.
Lara heard a sudden shout of laughter and then a swift barrage of Spanish from the guards. “What are they saying?”
He was silent a moment before he said hoarsely, “That you’re ready for me, that I should cover you as a stallion does a mare, that I should make you spread your legs and sink deep into you. That I’m a fool to wait any longer.”
Dear God, she was ready for him. How could such a savage, primitive response happen under circumstances like these? Her voice was muffled, strangled. “This isn’t me. I don’t want this. We have to get out of here.”
She could hear the harsh sound of his breathing behind her. “You’re damn right we do. I’ll leave first and throw on my clothes. You stay here until I call you. They’ll be too busy taunting me to bother you.”
She could feel a shift of air, a withdrawal of warmth, and he was gone. She closed her eyes and reached out blindly to press her palms on the wet Formica-covered wall of the shower cubicle.
She tried to shut her ears to the guards’ laughter, block out everything but the sound of the spray hitting the tiles.
“Lara.”
She lifted her head and braced herself.
“Now, Lara.”
She turned and bolted from the shower. Ricardo was standing only a few feet away, her gown in his hands. She ignored the guards by the door, her gaze clinging desperately to Ricardo’s face.
He smiled at her, a smile so tender and comforting that she caught her breath. Then the gown was enveloping her, being pulled over her head and then quickly down, covering her. Not that it covered very much, she thought gloomily; her wet body caused the wet cotton gauze to cling wherever it touched.
“See, it’s all right. You did fine. You were very brave, querida.” He gently smoothed the wet hair away from her face before gathering it over her left shoulder to wring the water from its thick length. Lara felt an odd quiver of pride ripple through her at his words. She felt as if he had given her a medal. He continued softly, “It’s all over now.”
Was it over? Perhaps the humiliation was finished, but she felt as if something else had just begun. She had been joined, if not physically, then certainly emotionally, with Ricardo during those minutes in the shower. The experience of shared desire, shared humiliation, shared isolation, had made her dependent on him as she had never been dependent on anyone else in her life. The bond still existed. She couldn’t seem to look away from him. “You shouldn’t touch me, should you?” she whispered.
“No. Not like this.” His hands dropped away from her hair. “Lust is all right. Tenderness …” He turned away abruptly. “No, I shouldn’t have touched you.” He held out his hand. “Come with me. Stay close and hurry.” His lips tightened to a hard line. “We need to get back to the cell double quick. I don’t think I could stand having them put their hands on you right now.”
She slipped her hand in his, and his clasp quickly tightened around it.
Strength.
Safety.
Bonding.
The door of the cell closed behind them, shutting out the snickering remarks of the guards. The cell was dark, its only illumination the moonlight streaming through the window bars to pattern the floor as the sunlight had previously done.
She could discern Ricardo only as a shadowy silhouette as he strode across the cell to stand with his back to her at the window. He reached out with a curiously violent gesture and gripped a bar with one hand as if he wanted to rip it from the window.
“Thank you,” she said quietly.
“For what?” he asked. “Not raping you in front of those guards? They haven’t turned me into that kind of an animal yet.”
“You were kind to me. You helped me.”
“It wasn’t personal. I don’t care anything about you. I can’t care anything about you.”
She stood gazing at the rigid line of his spine from across the cell. As she watched, he lowered his head to rest it against the arm upraised to grip the bar. That gesture held a world of weariness and somehow touched her, hurt her. “I realize it wasn’t personal, but you made that ghastly situation easier for me and—”
“Go to bed.” His words were muffled against his arm.
She hesitated, uncertain what to do. She didn’t want to go to bed. She wanted to go across the room and comfort him. He seemed terribly alone in this moment.
“Go on,” he said.
“Where will you sleep?”
“On the floor. I’m used to it. I can sleep anywhere.”
She moved slowly to the cot across the room. “You take the pillow.”
He released his grip on the bar and turned to face her. “I don’t want—”
“You take the pillow,” she repeated stubbornly, and tossed it to him. “After the day I’ve had, I think I could sleep in a cactus bed.”
“Don’t say that too loud. Jurado will probably get rid of the cot and have one set up tomorrow.”
Lara stretched out on the cot and closed her eyes. The oppressive heat of the day had vanished and the cool wind blowing into the cell sent a shiver through her. “There aren’t any cactus plants on Saint Pierre, are there?”
“Jurado would have them flown in.” He paused. “Why are you shivering?”
“How did you—” she stopped. The man was positively uncanny. He couldn’t possibly see anything but a pale blur in the darkness, but he had detected that almost imperceptible movement. “My gown’s wet. If you remember, I didn’t wait to dry off.”
He was silent a moment. “I remember.” He was suddenly moving in the darkness. “Take it off.”
“What?”
“You can’t afford to get sick in this hellhole. My shirt is dry; you can wear it to sleep in tonight.”
“But won’t you be chilled?”
“I can close it out.” He tossed her the shirt. “Wear it.”
She hesitated and then sat up and slowly pulled the gown over her head. He was right; it was stupid to take a chance on becoming ill when they had so many more threats facing them. She slipped on the shirt and buttoned it to the chin. The material still held the heat of his body and smelled of soap and perspiration.
“How do you close it out?”
“There are ways. I just have to concentrate.”
She laid the cotton gown on the floor and stretched out again on the cot. “Like yoga?”
“A little. Yoga, self-hypnosis. I use my own mixed bag of techniques.”
So that was how he survived the torture. “Can you shut out everything?”
Another silence. “No, not everything.”
The stillness of the cell was suddenly charged again. She felt the same hot, dizzy excitement she had experienced in the shower knowing he stood behind her, wanting her. Crazy. Feeling like this about Ricardo Lázaro was insane. He represented every insecurity she feared in life.
“For the Lord’s sake, go to sleep.”
She could hear the slight increase in the tempo of his breathing, caught the chord of tension in his voice, stretched taut, ready to break. She closed her eyes, but that was worse. Robbing herself of vision made her other senses all the more acute. It was the scent of his shirt, not the man himself, she inhaled with every breath, she told herself. He was five feet away and she couldn’t possibly feel the warmth his body was exuding. “That’s an excellent idea. Good night, Ricardo.”
He sank to the floor beneath the window, linking his hands loosely together over his knees in the same position he had assumed earlier in the day. “Buenas noches, Lara.”
The soft way he said her name was like dark, sensuous music. She curled up on the cot, trying to shut the thought of him out of her mind. Exquisite sensitivity and quiet, hard-edged strength. Poet-warrior.
She must not let him affect her like this, she told herself desperately. She was here for only one reason and that was to make sure he escaped from the Abbey and gave her a promise to keep Brett out of his damn war. She must not let him capture her imagination and emotions as he had her brother’s. It was only being so closely confined with him, sharing this enforced intimacy, that was causing her to react in a manner so unlike her usual sensible self. She had counted on walking away from this encounter with no emotional baggage. She had not thought a bond could be forged in the short time they would have together, but she couldn’t deny that something had happened between them.
She forced herself to relax her muscles and breathe deeply, steadily. All would be well. She just had to get through the next two days and she would be on her way back to the world she knew and understood.
She only had to get through the next two days.
——————
Ricardo could almost feel the waves of tension Lara emitted across the short distance separating them, and his linked hands slowly clenched together until the knuckles whitened.
She had come to help him and he was not an animal.
But, dear heaven, he wanted her.
She was little more than a child, a brave child blundering into an ugliness of which she could have no conception.
The graceful line of her spine flowing into the swelling womanliness of wet, gleaming buttocks …
A woman should have the right to choose her lover, and Lara had been given no choice.
She wouldn’t refuse him. She might protest at first, but he was skilled enough to wake her to the realization that she wanted him as much as he wanted her.
Seduction? And where was his fine philosophy now? Seduction deprived one of free choice as surely as force.
He hurt. He wanted to touch her, to move between her thighs and hear her cry out in a frenzy.
And Jurado would win. The bastard would have them.
Paco would attack day after tomorrow and Jurado wouldn’t be sure enough of Lara’s hold on him to move before the attack.
Lord, was he so depraved, he’d be willing to risk what would happen to Lara if he were wrong?
No!
His teeth bit into his lower lip until he tasted the coppery taste of blood on his tongue.
He had only to get through the next two days.
“Your lip is cut.” Lara’s concerned gaze lingered on Ricardo’s lower lip. “I didn’t notice that before.”
“It’s nothing.” He popped the last bite of melon on his plate into his mouth. “Finish what’s on your plate. You won’t get anything else for the rest of the day.”
“I’m not hungry.” The heat in the cell was suffocating, the air as hard to breathe as it had been yesterday. Lara pushed the plate of fruit away. “Not exactly high in protein.”
“It’s cheaper for them to gather fruit from the rain forest. I usually get meat once a week.” Ricardo took her plate and his own and set them beside the door. “It’s enough.”
“How do we get through today?”
“The same way I do every day.” He dropped to the floor and began to do push-ups. “Exercise first.”
She watched him from the cot. She still wore his shirt and she could see the flex and pull of the muscles of his arms and abdomen as he went on exercising for an incredibly long time.
“You do this every day?”
“Several times a day. Exercise pumps oxygen to the brain and makes me more alert. Lassitude is a danger in a situation like this.” His tan torso gleamed with perspiration, but he was breathing only slightly heavier than when he had started. When he finally stopped, Ricardo leaned back against the wall and grinned at her. “Your turn.”
“No, thank you. My idea of exercise is a swim at the YWCA every few days.”
“I should have guessed you were a swimmer. Swimming muscles are smoother.” His gaze focused on her calves and then traveled up to her naked thighs. “Sleeker.”
The last word was thicker, huskier, than the ones that had gone before and she resisted the temptation to pull down the shirt. Instead, she jumped up and reached for the gauze gown she had laid on the floor last night. “This must be dry now. If you’ll close your eyes for a minute, I’ll give you back your shirt.”
He obediently closed his eyes, tilting his head back against the wall. “You didn’t sleep well last night.”
“No.” She unbuttoned the shirt and let it slide down her arms. “How did you know?”
“I didn’t sleep well either.”
She pulled the gown over her head and settled it over her hips. “You said it wouldn’t bother you to sleep on the floor.”
“It seems I was wrong.”
His lids flicked open and he smiled at her. “I think I like you in my shirt better.”
She avoided his eyes as she picked up the shirt and tossed it to him. “Neither of us has a large wardrobe here. You can’t afford to give me your clothes.” She sat down on the cot and raised her arms and began to run her fingers through her hair, trying to comb out the tangles. “I don’t suppose you have a brush?”
He shook his head.
“I didn’t think so.” She made a face. “It’s funny how we take things like brushes for granted and never realize how—” She broke off as she looked up to see him watching her. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Like what?” He pulled his gaze away and shifted it to the floor. “I was just looking.”
She glanced down at herself and suddenly realized her raised arms had pulled the bodice of the gown taut, revealing the shadowy outline of her nipples pressed against the gauze. She hurriedly lowered her arms and searched desperately for something to break the silence. “Aren’t you going to put on your shirt?”
“Not yet.” He slowly raised his gaze to meet her own. “It still has your scent.”
A wave of heat tingled through her, and the breath left her body.
He glanced away again, one hand clenching the material of the shirt. “Why don’t we play word games?”
What else had they been playing? she wondered wildly. “Word games?”
He sat up straighter. “It will give us something to do. Take our minds off …” His brow furrowed in a frown. “Twenty Questions. We’ll play Twenty Questions. I’m thinking of something. Try to guess what it is.”
She hoped it wasn’t what she was thinking about.
His frown vanished and his sudden smile held a hint of mischief. He pursed his lips reprovingly and silently shook his head.
Drat the man, it was clear he had guessed exactly what her thoughts had been. Still, the amusement had lightened the atmosphere between them and that change was certainly welcome.
She sat down on the cot and smiled back at him. “Is what you’re thinking about animal, vegetable, or mineral?”