Ransom (Benson Security 4)

All around them, screeching birds flapped, taking to the air en masse, jarred into flight by the noise Belinda and Beast had made. Slowly, Belinda looked down at the man beneath her. Sh

e was still straddling him, only her knees had hit the earth. John had taken the brunt of the fall.

He lay there, his eyes closed, not moving an inch. Belinda scrambled off him.

“John?” She pulled up her bra and fought to hook it behind her back as she leaned over him. “Beast? Are you okay? Did you break anything? Please, don’t let it be your back!”

His eyes cracked open. “I should have cleared the damn ground last night.”

Her gaze shot to the clearing, which, on reflection, wasn’t that clear. There were a few branches scattered beneath them, some rocks and lots of twigs. That had to have hurt.

“Have you broken your back?” She needed an answer to that question before she dealt with anything else. She was panicking. How was she supposed to transport him out of the jungle if he was injured? The guy was a massive block of solid muscle. He had to weigh as much as a small car.

“No, but I’m probably bruised to hell.” He frowned at her. “What did you say? Don’t bother clearing the area. It won’t affect us.”

“Are you blaming me for this?” She couldn’t believe her ears. She glared down at him.

“Hollywood, your exact words were ‘let’s make it swing.’”

She frowned as she racked her brain. Nope. Nothing. “I didn’t say that.”

“Yeah, you did. It came right before ‘Please, John, please.’”

Her face burned, and not in a good way this time. “You’re making this up, because I don’t remember telling you to make the hammock swing. I do remember telling you to be careful. That the sheet might rip.”

“You didn’t tell me that I’d end up on my ass on the ground.”

“That part was a given!”

“One sheet for a hammock,” he grumbled. “I shouldn’t have listened to you. There was no way that thing was going to hold both of us.”

“That thing?” Now she wanted to stomp on his stomach. How could one man make her desperate to caress him one minute and desperate to hurt him the next? “That thing kept us safe all night long. If we hadn’t been in that thing, then you would have been trampled by a tapir in the middle of the night. And who knows what else would have crawled all over you. You should be grateful I thought of making a hammock. And you should have respected the damn thing. Now look at it. Where are we going to sleep tonight?”

“Yeah, because this is my fault. You jumped me. I was being a gentleman. I kept my hands to myself. But you just had to crawl all over me.”

“Crawl all over you?” She wanted to kick him now. Sure, he was sore and grumpy, but did he have to be an arsehole about it? “It takes two to tango, mister.”

“But I didn’t tango, did I? Only you tangoed. I got dropped on top of a tree trunk.”

She put her hands on her hips and glared at him. “Is that what this tantrum is all about? You’re upset because you didn’t get off?”

“No, Hollywood, I’m upset because I fell through your brilliant idea and landed on my back in the middle of the jungle.”

He looked from side to side, proving that at least his neck wasn’t broken. “Looks fine down here. Might even have been comfortable, if I’d been allowed to clear it. And guess what? There would have been no falling if we’d been asleep on the ground.”

Belinda had opened her mouth to tell him what she thought of his comment, when something big and black caught her eye. She froze in awe. A Goliath birdeater—the biggest spider on the planet. It was the size of a small cat and it was making its way across the log beside them—straight for John’s head.

“Uh, John?” Belinda pointed to the spider.

“I don’t want to hear any more excuses, Hollywood. We both know you were happy to risk the hammock while you were having fun. Now you’re done, you’re looking for somewhere to put the blame.”

Belinda watched the spider stomp its eight huge, hairy legs towards John. It seemed mad. The kind of mad you get when your neighbour is still partying at two a.m. and you have work at six.

“John, there’s—”

“What?” John snapped.

It was too late to warn him. The spider launched itself straight off the log and right into the middle of his chest. He let out a roar that shook the trees. A split second later, he was on his feet. He moved so fast that Belinda wasn’t even sure how he went from lying flat to standing. She watched in stunned horror as he danced around the clearing, as though the ground were a bed of hot coals. The spider clung to his chest hair, holding on for far longer than Belinda would have thought possible. Maybe it was disorientated with the way Beast was spinning and jumping. Maybe it was scared of the lunatic man who was slapping at it. Maybe the way he squealed like a baby pig was confusing for the creature. Eventually, it fell to the ground and scurried for the underside of the log.