His mouth came down hard on hers. Her lips parted. His tongue made one sweet, piercing stab into her mouth. The suddenness of it, the masculine claim it symbolized, made her weak. Her hands clutched the front of his tank top and her head fell back. His whiskers scraped her face, but she didn’t mind. His tongue, as smooth as velvet and as nimble as a candle’s flame, mated with hers and provocatively stroked the inside of her mouth.
An emptiness deep inside Kerry yawned wide, wider, yearning to be filled. Her breasts felt full, as with milk. The nipples tingled with a desperate need to be touched, kissed, sucked. Her womanhood ached deliciously. Reflexively, her hungry body arched against him. Her arms folded around his neck.
Her response drove him a little mad; he deepened the kiss. His broad hand opened wide over her back and pressed her as close to him as possible. The fervency mounted until he made a strangled cry and lifted his head. He stared down into her bewildered eyes. He gazed at her mouth, now full and red and moist from their kiss.
“Godamighty, Kerry,” he rasped.
Involuntarily, she ran her tongue over her throbbing lips.
He groaned. “Oh, God, you’re sweet.” He kissed her again, his tongue thrusting deeply. “And I swear to you that if we had the time—” he kissed her again “—I’d see you, all of you. And touch you. Your breasts, God, your breasts.” He passed his hand over them fleetingly. It was a sizzling sensation and she moaned. “And I’d kiss you. Get inside you. Even if it meant being denied heaven.”
She wanted him. Yes. But...she loved him. She loved him! And, God forbid, should anything happen to him, he would die thinking—
“Linc, there’s something—”
His head popped up. “Shh!”
“But I have to tell you—”
“Not now. Be quiet.” He pushed her away and stood up, craning his head to see above the trees. He motioned her to silence. Seconds later, her ears picked up the drone of an airplane’s engine.
“We’ve got a lot to talk about, sweetheart, but now’s not the time. Get the children ready.” He was spurred into action, every muscle of his body tense, but executing movements with amazing calm and agility. “Joe, get into place.”
“I’m ready,” Joe said, taking cover behind a tree.
The airplane didn’t circle the area in reconnaissance. It made one approach. The children were restless with anticipation. Their dreams were coming true. While they all kept their eyes trained on the landing airplane, Linc’s were busily scanning the area for any sign of troop movement.
The pilot made a faultless landing and the airplane taxied to a stop directly in front of the old watchtower, in perfect accordance with the plan.
“Go.” Linc gave Kerry a gentle push.
Tightly clasping Lisa against her chest, she took several hesitant steps into the clearing.
“Go!” This time Linc roared his command.
Kerry broke into a dead run, yelling for the children to do the same. She could hear the heavy thud of Linc’s boots close behind them. They had closed almost half the distance between them and the airplane when the first shots were fired. Kerry froze; the children screamed.
“Go on, don’t stop,” Linc shouted.
He spun around and sprayed the air with machine gun bullets, aiming in the general direction of their as yet unseen attackers. He saw answering gunfire. The trees seemed to spit flames no larger than those of a cigarette lighter, but he could hear bullets peppering the ground all around him. He rattled off another round and turned to chase after Kerry and the children, who had almost reached the plane. Miraculously none of them had been hit, though some of them were screaming in terror.
The door of the plane was already open. Linc turned again. The wall of the jungle now seemed to be alive with troops firing weapons. Apparently Juan hadn’t been successful in diverting them. Linc only hoped that the boy hadn’t been found out.
From the corner of his eye he saw Joe leave his cover and fire his machine gun. He shredded jungle plants and sent a few soldiers scampering for cover, before he jumped back behind his tree.
“Good boy,” Linc muttered. He glanced over his shoulder and saw that the children were being pulled into the plane. Running backward and firing from the hip, he went to assist them on board.
It was when he glanced behind him again, that he saw jeeps loaded with troops moving out of the line of trees on the other side of the border. Monterico’s neighboring nation
was impartial, but they were coming out to investigate. An officer in the first jeep, holding a bullhorn to his mouth, shouted an order at him. Linc didn’t understand it, but he got the general meaning when the soldiers began firing warning shots.
“Shit!”
Now they had armies shooting at them from both sides.
One of the children stumbled and went down. Linc raced over to him, scooped him up, and ran at a crouch toward the door of the plane.
“Was Mike shot?” Kerry shouted over the whine of the plane’s engine and the persistent gunfire.