Uncivilized (Uncivilized 1)

Prologue

Moira

Present Day

I'm dizzy with lust.

Head spinning, heart racing, muscles clenching in all the right places.

I'm so far out of control, and all of my instincts yell at me to give in... to submit.

Surrender.

"Get on your knees," Zach commands me in a low voice, which rumbles along my skin and causes blood to rage through my veins.

"No," I whisper, even though I want to scream, "Yes."

I know it's coming.

In fact, I think my crazy denial of his order was done only to provoke him to force my submission. Because that's more exciting to my senses than just surrendering to his words alone.

Zach grips the back of my neck firmly and squeezes... just hard enough to really get my attention. He had told me once that this is what the male jaguar does to his mate to earn her respect just before he impales her, and I believe it. I fully subscribe to his cultural upbringing in the Amazon wild and actually cherish the way that Zach's character was formed by the many years he spent away from the modern world.

His breath is hot on my neck as he leans in toward me. "Don't ever say 'no' to me again."

That's all he says before he pushes downward, and my knees bend without any hesitation. No sooner do they hit the carpet then he's bending me forward... down, down, down... until my cheek touches the cream, wool shag, and my ass is tipped in the air to him. I give a small, yielding sigh of contentment and briefly close my eyes as I remember the first time I saw Zach do this to another woman, and how much I yearned for him to do it to me.

It was a distinct moment in my life where all my notions of cultured civility seemed to fade away, only to be replaced by an intense hunger to learn something new from this man.

Odd... because I was his teacher, and yet, here he is... teaching me.

Zacharias Easton is teaching me about a craving I could have never imagined before I met him.

Sad, little boy.

Savage man from the jungle.

Loner, warrior... dangerous at his core.

Curious man who doesn't belong here or there.

"You remember the first time you saw me?" Zach asks as he squeezes my neck again.

"Yes."

"It turned you on, didn't it?"

"Yes."

"You wanted me to fuck you that way, didn't you?"

"Yes."

"You want it now?"

"God yes," I moan.

"Tell me then," he urges, and I can hear amusement in his voice.

"Tell you what?" I ask with confusion.

"Tell me all about the first time you saw me. Tell me a story, sweet Moira, and then I'll decide whether to give you what you want."

My breath comes out in a whispering gust across my lips, and I close my eyes again. I think back to my expedition to the Amazon just a month ago to collect Zach... the poor, little lost boy who had lived the last eighteen years with the primitive Caraican Indian tribe.

Yes, it was the day my life irrevocably changed forever.

We pushed our way through the jungle, our guide, Ramon, first, then me, and then Father Gaul. After landing at a small airstrip that bordered the southern side of the Amazon River just west of the Columbia-Brazil border, we made our way to the Jutai River where Father Gaul purchased an old, dugout canoe from a river merchant. We took it south, having to port several times to walk it around impassable rapids, traveling another two days until Ramon proclaimed it was time to go ashore.

My backpack was filled with all the necessities I would need until we made it to the Caraican village. Since this was my third trip into the Amazon, I packed light. I had just the most important things I'd need... chlorine tablets for my water canteen, a knife, a lightweight, portable hammock, one change of clothes for me, a set of clothes that I purchased for Zach using Father Gaul's help in estimating his size, and some military-styled dehydrated rations I picked up in Brasilia before we caught our Cessna flight north.

Ramon, a native missionary that was traveling with Father Gaul, led our tiny expedition, hacking away at the vegetation that seemed to grow right back in place. The jungle was filled with dark shadows, so dense was the tree cover above.

Pointing ahead, Ramon spoke in Portuguese, and Father Gaul translated for me. "See the light ahead... that's the Caraican village."

Peering around Ramon, it did seem that the jungle was lighter ahead. As we pressed forward, I saw that we were emerging out of the forest into a large dirt clearing ab

out three acres in size. Several longhouses were built out of slender pillars of bamboo to act as the main supports, with crossbeams above to hold the slanted, palm-frond roofs. As typical of most tribal dwellings, there were no walls, and the floors were nothing more than the dirt ground that we walked upon.

On the western side of the clearing, I saw about an acre of crops planted. I had studied the Caraica tribe via a colleague who had a friend, who had a friend, who spent some time with them a few years ago. I learned that they grew a variety of staples to compliment the meat gathered by the men when they hunted that included bananas, manioc, mangos, sugar cane, corn, and sweet potatoes. I noticed one woman walking from the fields toward the housing with a large basket filled with corn on her back, supported by a palm-frond strap that went around her forehead.

Father Gaul took the lead as we walked into the village. I saw several women throughout the various longhouses, cooking manioc bread on hot clay plates over fires, some nursing babies, and others lounging in hammocks. They watched us with curiosity, but they made no move to greet our group. All the women were naked, but I expected that. While this tribe had some minor trade relations with missionaries and other tribes, they had yet to progress to clothing, and they even shunned things as basic as loincloths over the men.

I followed Father Gaul to a longhouse, which oddly had a smaller hut about a quarter of the size next to it. He stepped inside, calling out a greeting to an old Caraican man that was lying in his hammock. An old woman, presumably his wife, tended a fire, where she was spreading the manioc flour over a clay plate.

Father Gaul spoke in quiet Portuguese to the man, while patting him on his shoulder. The man gave a semi-toothless smile amidst a heavily wrinkled face, and it was clear that they were exchanging greetings. Father Gaul then pointed at me and fired off a flurry of words I didn't understand, but clearly, I was being introduced.

The old man beckoned me forward with his hand, and I stepped nearer to him.

"Moira... this is Paraila... Zach's adoptive father."

Father Gaul then turned to Paraila and spoke more Portuguese. It was the language many tribes adopted in the last century, born of a necessity to communicate with the world creeping in on the Amazon wild. Paraila looked at me and gave me a tender, welcoming smile as his hand reached out. I took it, and he spoke to me. When he was finished, he squeezed my hand and Father Gaul said, "He bids you welcome and is happy to have you in his village. He hopes you will rest for a while. When the hunting party comes back, there will be a big feast to welcome us. He also says that he hopes you will take good care of his adopted son, but by looking at you, he can sense you are a good and strong woman, and will have no problem handling Zach."

I smiled wide at Paraila and said, "Father Gaul... tell him thank you, I'm honored to be here, and that I will take very good care of Zach when we leave."

Paraila smiled at me one more time, and then he and Father Gaul talked again while I turned to check out the village some more. There were a few skinny dogs running around and oddly, in the next longhouse over, I saw a tiny, black monkey with a leash around its neck made of palm rope, which was tied to a log on the ground. One of the children was feeding it plantains and apparently, it was some type of pet, which was very interesting, because I knew one of their meat staples was, in fact, monkey.

Resting a hand on my shoulder, Father Gaul said, "Come. Let's set up your hammock, and I'll show you where the water is so you can freshen up. Then you can get a nap. The feast won't be for a few hours, and it will go late into the night."

I nodded and followed Father Gaul out of Paraila's home, eager to get my first glance at Zach when he came back to the village.

The feast was underway, and Zach had not returned. Father Gaul had told me when I woke from my nap that Paraila was concerned about him. He was not taking the news of our arrival well and had been adamantly opposed to leaving with us. Apparently, he and Paraila fought for days over the issue, and it still wasn't clear whether Zach had agreed to return to the States with me.

A large fire had been started in an open area just a few yards from the huts, and varieties of meats were roasted. The hunting party had come back about an hour ago--by my count twenty-two men strong. But Zach was not among them. When I asked Paraila, through Father Gaul translating, he said, "Zacharias is tracking a tapir and stayed behind. He'll be back soon with more meat."

I picked at the food I'd been handed, which was cradled in an oversized banana leaf. The hunting party was successful in killing a caiman and several spider monkeys, and they were greeted with cheers from the women as they came back into the village with their spoils.

The men were just as naked as the women were except for a tulip-shaped sheath over their penises made of woven palm. It nestled their uncircumcised penises in a thick nest of black hair, with their testicles hanging heavy beneath. Again, I had expected this, and it wasn't shocking at all. As an anthropologist, I found those societal differences between our culture and theirs to be beyond fascinating.

The men made short work of cleaning their kills at the edge of the jungle, and then the meat was roasted over the open coals of the fire. When it was done, the food was pulled off by the women, who served the men first. Only after every man had started eating did the women take for themselves, which included me. There was also boiled sweet potatoes, cassava bread, and sliced papaya.

Father Gaul regaled me with stories of his time among the Caraicans, comparing them to some of the other tribes he ministered to. He'd been coming to this particular village for eleven years now, forsaking the modern world to live in the jungle with the Indians and teach them the word of Christ. It was a fortuitous turn of events when, five months ago, Father Gaul broke his leg and landed in a hospital in Sao Paolo. While there, another missionary priest came to visit him, who brought word of a wealthy businessman in the United States looking for his missionary friends, Jacob and Kristen Easton. They had mysteriously disappeared in the Amazon eighteen years ago, along with their son, Zacharias.

By the time the missionary had described these people, including a little boy of seven years old, Father Gaul knew without a doubt that the wealthy American was indeed looking for Zacharias of the Caraican Tribe. He immediately made contact with Randall Cannon, Zach's godfather, and the wheels were set in motion to bring him home. As an anthropologist who studied native Amazonian Indians who chose to move into the modern world, Mr. Cannon had hired me to bring Zach--which was the nickname he went by as a child--home and also to help him to acclimate to a new life there.

I sat at the edge of the fire, listening to the priest and watching as some of the women sang and danced. I was told it was a song of thanks for the bounty provided, but I was betting the men wouldn't sing and dance in tribute to the women who did their cooking for them. Women were still treated very much as second class in these tribal societies.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw movement as someone walked into the glow of the light cast by the roaring fire. I immediately noticed his form was much taller than the Caraicans, who looked to average out at a height of five-eight or so. But this man was tall and, as his shadowy form got clearer the closer he came to the fire, I realized I was getting my first look at Zacharias Easton.

I didn't know what I expected, but I wasn't prepared for my first look at him. He easily topped out at maybe six-foot-three or so, completely dwarfing the small Caraicans. He was lean but well muscled in his chest, shoulders, arms, and legs. Numerous scars crossed over his body. His brown hair was long, down to his shoulders, and yet he was clean-shaven. While the native Caraica did not grow body hair other than what was between their legs, Zach was a white man living in a brown man's world. He would definitely have had to shave to get that smooth face. I wondered how he accomplished that. Maybe a sharp knife? Or perhaps a razor blade given by a missionary?

And what a face... it was almost so perfect that I wanted to weep. I should have figured he'd be a beautiful man, because I'd seen pictur

es of his parents, who were very attractive people. His pale blue eyes shimmered in the light of the fire, throwing shadows over the high cheekbones, straight nose, and rock-hard jaw that seemed to be clenched in anger at that very moment.

My eyes involuntarily strayed to his pelvis, because he was as naked as the other people of the tribe were. And oh my... there was another difference as well. The tiny men of the Caraica couldn't hold a candle to the magnificence that was hanging between Zach's legs. He didn't wear the protective sheath that the other men did on their penises, and even though he was completely flaccid, his circumcised shaft hung down thickly, a good three inches in soft length. He had to be massive when he was fully erect and, for the first time since laying eyes on the man I traveled to the jungle to collect for his godfather, I was mortified to feel a throb between my own legs in response to his male form. I quickly averted my eyes upward, since I was sitting next to a Catholic priest, and focused back on Zach's face.

I couldn't have imagined the animal magnetism he projected. He walked with confidence and swagger, and it probably had something to do with the huge haunch of tapir meat that was resting over his shoulder. He strode up to the fire and threw the entire leg onto the coals, the other men in the tribe cheering for the addition he just made.

Zach immediately went to Paraila and squeezed his shoulder affectionately. Paraila said something to Zach as he pointed to Father Gaul and me, sitting on the other side of the fire. The priest stood and stepped over to Zach, where he clapped him on the back and he made the same motion in return, giving him a warm smile of welcome. He didn't even spare me a glance, just said a few more quiet words to Father Gaul and then knelt on the ground next to Paraila to talk some more.

When Father Gaul sat back down next to me, he leaned over and whispered, "I'll talk to him later. He's not taking this well."

"I gathered," I said, understanding. I knew it had to be hard for Zach to leave the only home he probably remembered.

I took another bite of alligator and chewed it thoughtfully while I watched Zach and Paraila talk. Whatever the old man was saying to his adopted son was being met with resistant ears because I watched Zach shake his head back and forth with dismay on his face, which then took on a hardened look. He said something more to Paraila, and then turned to point at me with a scathing look, clearly not happy with my presence. Finally, he surged to his feet as he said something more to Paraila, who just shook his head sadly at Zach.