Jungle Stakes (SHORTLIST Open Novella Contest II)

Chapter 9

Minutes later she pushed back the flap to the medical tent. "Javier?" she called.

"Hola, Helena." She'd always loved how her name sounded in his accent. His eyes were droopy and slightly glassy with the effects of the painkillers.

Pulling up a chair beside his bed, she asked, "How are you feeling?"

A ghost of fear went through his eyes. "In pain. But I'll live."

"Do you remember-"

He shook his head. "Later. Please."

She nodded and propped her elbows on the bed to rest her head in her hands.

Javier reached up with his good hand and caught the end of Helena's ponytail that had swung forward. He curled it around a finger. "So long I have wanted to touch your hair."

She smiled and gently pulled back. He watched the silky strands disappearing from between his fingers. "Javier, I'm with Jake."

"You are with Jake, yes. But he does not have your heart."

Guilt soured her stomach. But she laughed and said, "Javier, you're taking some pretty powerful painkillers."

"Tell me I lie, Helena." He reached up to stroke a finger down her cheek.

She pressed her lips together and averted her eyes.

He reached over and took her hand. "You save it for someone who worships you. As I would worship you. If you will allow it. I have loved you since I first saw you on the pier."

She knew the moment he was talking about. She'd been pushing her attraction to him to the back of her mind for three years. "Jake is a good man."

Javier nodded. "Yes, but he is a selfish man. He thinks of himself first, and alone. He does not think of you. Is my thinking a mistake?"

Helena watched Javier's thumb rhythmically stroke the back of her hand. There was no denying Javier's analysis. Since the beginning of their relationship, she'd brushed aside Jake's lack of attention as just his personality. But she knew it was what Javier had described, selfishness. And in the deep of the night when the dark would hide her deception from herself, his insensitivity had always bothered her. She swallowed against the lump in her throat. Staying with Jake meant stability, though.

She leaned her cheek slightly into the finger he stroked again down her cheek. "You have my heart. I will keep yours safe. You know that." She looked up into his dark brown eyes. Always quick with a smile, she'd never seen him so serious. Or more beautiful. "Please think about what I say, Helena."

His eyes heated as they continued to stare at each other. He looked at her mouth, and licked his lips. When she felt an answering heat in the heart of her, she pulled her hand from his and stood.

"I better go, uh, do something."

"Helena," he called as she turned away. He waited until she looked back. "I protect you. Always." His words soaked into her, a balm to her highly strung nerves, but muddling to her heart. She nodded and slipped out into the late afternoon.

Her tent was muggy, but the open window flaps sent through a tiny breeze.

Jake was still laying curled on his side. She coaxed him to sitting and held a fresh cup of water to his lips. "You have to drink, Jake. Just a sip. Now another." Half a cup later, she snatched up the bucket when he retched, but thankfully the water stayed down. "Sleep now."

As he lay, dead to the world, she stroked the hair back from his forehead.

Javier's words were swirling through her head, weighing down her heart and dredging up the knowledge she'd had for a long time now that she'd choose Javier in a heartbeat. If she was single. Which she wasn't.

After seven years, Jake still excited her and made her laugh. In his own way, he loved her.

It was the little things that irked her. Like how he had never offered to get her coffee when he got his own. Jake didn't even know how she took her coffee. Fitzy did. Javier did.

But she made things easy for Jake by not complaining. Not expecting. Just accepting.

For three years Javier had been with them on almost every trip. He'd become a good friend. He wasn't her partner, but he knew all of her favourites, and never failed to save her a plate of food if she wasn't around at mealtime. Heck, Javier was always ready to help her, now that she thought about it. But not the man who shared her bed.

She grinned, if only he could have the mad sex skills her dream lover had. But could any man measure up to a figment of her imagination?

Helena stretched out beside Jake and flung an arm across her eyes to block out the minimal amount of afternoon light.

She opened her eyes to darkness and a now familiar pair of hands on her. Her dream lover lifted her easily and wrapped her legs around his waist. As his hungry hands roamed over her, he quickly stripped her of her clothing.

Within minutes she was gasping and ready. He lined up with her entrance and easily held her hips to prevent her from assuaging the aching need for him.

"Helena," he purred in her ear, his accent rolling her name exotically.

"Take me, please," she gasped, struggling to seat herself on him.

"Tell me you are mine. Only mine. Tell me!" he commanded.

"I'm yours, all yours," she moaned, desperate for him.

As soon as the words were out of her mouth he drove into her, again and again. The pleasure radiating through her was so intense she was barely aware that he continued speaking. "You are mine. I claim you. Any who touch you will suffer my wrath. None may have you. You are my mate. Mine for all eternity."

He captured her mouth and swallowed the screams of her release. With one more thrust he had his own.

She sagged against his muscular neck, revelling in the raw strength of him as he held her up without any difficulty.

With more tenderness than she'd ever experienced, he dressed her, kissed her gently, and lay her on the bed.

With a gasp, Helena sat up and looked around but couldn't see anything in the complete darkness. She put a hand out and found Jake beside her. She was in their tent, in their bed. She sat for a minute feeling the steady, but shallow, rise and fall of his chest.

Heat flooded her face as the dream came back to her. She'd never had a repeat dream like that, but she definitely wouldn't mind having them every night of her life.