Page 10

“Look what I found,” Miri said, waving a tube of Pringles and sitting next to Rafa, who had his back against the front of the captain’s cabin while Logan and Felix were on steering duty.

The moon had poked out above the tree line, casting an eerie glow on the river. Fortunately, the boat had lights, so they could keep going through the night. It wasn’t ideal, but they had no idea whether Hunter and Kevin scored another boat and were hot on their tail.

All sorts of worst-case scenarios cycled through Miri’s head—getting the boat stuck in the mud, giant boa constrictors dropping onto the deck from an overhanging branch, Hunter and Kevin catching up to them—but then her mind would drift back to that moment when Rafa had her pinned between the ship’s wheel and his large, hard, utterly delectable body, and…well, her imagination wiped everything else clean. They had been close— so close. He had been about to kiss her. Kiss her and make it all better. Because if anything could improve their current predicament, it had to be Rafa’s lips.

And hands.

And eyes.

And thirty-four pack.

And—

“Wow, they made it?” Rafa asked, closing his notebook and taking the tube Miri held before him in midair.

Food. Right.

With a quick shake of the head, Miri returned to the present, blinking a few times to get reality back into focus.

“Yeah. My satchel apparently made it.”

Though, unfortunately, none of the rest of her stuff did. Luckily Logan’s bag made it, so they could change into clean, dry clothes. Logan’s cargo shorts and men’s medium hiking shirt, however, weren’t doing anything for Miri’s figure.

Though Logan’s men’s medium Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles T-shirt was doing wonders for Rafa’s.

Had she known the Ninja Turtles could be sexy before this moment?

She did always have a bit of a crush on Michelangelo.

Rafa popped the top of the can and offered the first Pringle to her. They each took one, then tapped them together in a cheers before eating.

“Mmm. I needed this,” Rafa said, closing his eyes as he relished the snack.

Miri wet her lips, staring at him savoring that chip.

“God, I love Pringles,” he said, moaning to himself. “Thank you for sharing,” he said.

Miri wouldn’t mind sharing a few other things if he was interested.

“Of course. After a day like today, we needed a little home comfort,” she said, trying to take her mind off Rafa’s satisfied moans.

They took turns reaching into the can, nibbling in relative silence minus the calls from the birds and the hoots from the monkeys. It was almost better that they couldn’t see too far into the forest surrounding them. Miri didn’t want to know whether there were jaguars or panthers watching them. If this was going to be their demise, she’d rather not see it coming.

From where they sat, Miri couldn’t see Logan and Felix inside the cabin, but it sounded like they were laughing and telling jokes. Hopefully they weren’t too traumatized by what had happened. It had taken a while for all of them to settle down, but thankfully everyone seemed to be doing okay. This wasn’t what any of them had signed up for, and Miri certainly hadn’t made matters any better by taking unnecessary risks.

They’d called ahead to the rest of the group at the base camp, giving Anissa a warning about Hunter and Kevin. Something told Miri it wouldn’t be the last they saw of them, but at least they’d have greater numbers once they made it to Florestacasa. What they were going to do with the boat once they got there, however, was beyond her. Surely Vautour and his cronies would come looking for it. Looking for them . For now, they were safe. But Miri had no idea for how long.

“Do you know who this Vautour guy is that Hunter mentioned?” Rafa asked, breaking into the silence.

Miri’s shoulders dropped, stopping her snacking mid-chew.

She was starting to wonder if Dr. Quinn’s ramblings to Anissa weren’t quite as rambly as they’d thought. It didn’t seem possible that Dr. Quinn, a world-renowned archaeologist, would fraternize with the likes of a criminal like Pierre Vautour, but if what he’d said about losing his house was true, perhaps Dr. Quinn was in some financial trouble and Vautour was his ticket out of that mess. It wouldn’t be the first time Vautour had taken advantage of someone with money problems. Ford had apparently witnessed that firsthand.

But they were in it now. If Vautour was involved, the stakes had just gotten a lot higher.

And since they were in it together, she decided to tell Rafa what little she knew.

Mostly. She couldn’t spill all the beans simply because she got twitterpated in Rafa’s presence.

“He’s a notorious artifact thief,” she said. “Corrie and Ford encountered him in Mexico last year when he posed as the landowner of the site where they were searching for Aztec artifacts. And when Ford got suspicious and refused to keep up the dig, Vautour extorted him by threatening to release photos of him and…” Miri paused for a moment, her cheeks heating up at talking to Rafa about what Corrie and Ford were doing in those photos. “Photos of them being intimate.”

“Nude photos,” Rafa said, as if he’d already heard the story.

“Yep.”

“That was him?”

She nodded. “He was the brains behind the whole scheme. He has a penchant for getting others to find what it is he wants, and then he takes it from them.”

“Hence his name, I take it?”

“Huh?” Miri cocked her head.

“Vautour? It means ‘vulture’ in French. It can’t possibly be his real name. I mean, you’ve got to hand it to him. He’s bold if he’s going around convincing people to work for him with a name like that.”

Hmm. Maybe I should have paid more attention during French class.

“Well, I think he might be searching for the Moon City, too,” Miri continued. “And that maybe Dr. Quinn was working for him.”

Rafa cocked his head and gave Miri a quizzical look. “What makes you think that?” he asked.

“Just some things he said to Anissa at the hospital.”

“Such as…?” His brow rose as he waited for her to answer.

“He mentioned needing to call his boss or he’d lose his house. I’m thinking he made some sort of deal with Vautour. He’s got a knack for finding people in dire straits.”

“Did he say anything about working with anyone else?” Rafa almost seemed nervous, which was understandable. Miri was nervous, too. Who knew how many other people Vautour had working for him and where they might pop up next?

She shook her head. “Anissa didn’t say. Though maybe he was working with Hunter and Kevin? The timing of their arrival was too coincidental otherwise. They clearly knew we were out there.” Given Dr. Quinn’s present state, however, how they knew was a mystery.

“This doesn’t make any sense. What are the odds that not one, but two expeditions are out here searching for the Cidade da Lua at the exact same time? It’s been lost for centuries. So why now? And what makes this Vautour guy so sure he’s going to find it?”

“He’s using lidar.”

The words escaped her mouth without warning. Shoot. Miri hadn’t meant to say that.

Rafa’s forehead wrinkled and he cocked his head. “What do you mean he’s using lidar?” he asked, turning his body toward hers.

“I mean, lidar isn’t some guarantee or anything,” she said, like it was no big deal. “You still need to have a general sense of where to look. Corrie told me about it before we left. So long as we find the Moon City first, it shouldn’t matter.”

“Shouldn’t matter?” He laughed as if saying, You’ve got to be kidding me. “We’re racing against someone who’s using lidar to pinpoint the Moon City’s location. Someone who has a team of men with knives scouring the jungle, probably looking for us as we speak. A guy who has a reputation for being a notorious criminal, but you think we’ll be fine so long as we get there first?” Rafa peppered her with facts she couldn’t rebuke.

“They’re down one knife, at least,” Miri said with a smile.

“I’m serious, Pringles,” he said, his tone firm and solemn. “This is…this is dangerous. I don’t think we want to be messing with this guy. You need to call whoever it is that’s in charge of this expedition and tell them we need to call the whole thing off.”

“What?!” she said, shooting up. “No. We can’t!”

“This isn’t a game,” he responded, still from his seated position on the boat deck and staring at her. “We had a knife pointed at us earlier. I pointed a knife at someone. If we don’t call it now, someone could end up getting hurt. Or worse.”

“I doubt they would have actually hurt us. It was only a knife. And it wasn’t even that big.”

Even as the words came out of her mouth, she wasn’t sure she believed them. But give up? On day two? She doubted her boss’s ultimatum included a bad-guys-and-knife-fights exception. The archaeological world had plenty of crooks and criminals hoping to score their next priceless find. If all archaeologists quit at the first whiff of trouble, countless artifacts would have likely succumbed to illicit trading.

See Corrie, case in point. WWCMD? Well, she certainly wouldn’t back down because of a measly three inches of steel. In fact, she didn’t back off when placed in a similar situation.

Miri couldn’t be a wuss.

“And you know that how?” Rafa asked. “Look, this was a perilous job already with just the environmental factors, but sorry, I’m not going to risk my life out here running from bad guys and con men, too.”

“Rafa, no. We can’t let Vautour get there first.”

“Why not? Who cares?”

“I care! Do you know what he’ll do to it? He’ll loot it. Take what he wants. Discard—and destroy—anything and anyone in his way. And then he’ll sell those things on illegal markets, keeping a few special pieces for himself in his private collection. And no one will know who the Moon City people were.”

Rafa eyed her curiously. “And what about you? What would you do if you were to find it first? Protect it? Because it seems to me that the very act of finding the city will undermine any attempts to do so.”

“No, I want to preserve it. Study it. Find out what happened to the people who lived there. Find out why they left.”

“Why does it matter?”

“Because we can learn so much from the people who came before us. And we can do that by honoring them, not leaving them to fade away in history.”

His gaze fixed on her, studying her face. There was no telling what was going on in his head, but his attention was starting to make Miri uncomfortable. She wasn’t used to men looking at her for so long. Examining every feature. She bit the inside of her mouth, impatiently awaiting something—anything—from him. Any indication that he was on her side.

They couldn’t give up. Not now.

“Fine,” he finally said. “If you’re not going to call it off, then I’m going to call my boss at GloGeo and tell him what’s been going on. Maybe he can knock some sense into whoever is paying for this expedition.”

Rafa snatched the satellite phone that had been sticking out of the side pocket in Miri’s—or rather, Logan’s—cargo shorts, and started dialing, but Miri lunged to stop him, snagging the phone from his hands and quickly hitting the end button.

“Give that back,” Rafa demanded. He grabbed for her arms, which she had raised above her head.

“No,” Miri said. “I’m not going to have you telling your boss and then writing some article about the ridiculous Dr. Jacobs who fumbled her way through the Amazon.”

Rafa narrowed his eyes at her. “Don’t presume to know what I’m going to write.”

“Don’t presume to think I’m an idiot,” she said, glaring right back at him. “You leave now, you write a story about the Moon City fuck-up brigade.”

“So, what? You’re holding me hostage now?”

“If it stops you from going back to the States before we’ve found the Moon City, then yes!”

He let out a full-throated laugh. A teasing laugh that said, Try me.

They stared at each other for three solid beats before launching into a full-on wrestling match for the phone on the deck of the boat, their hands whirling around each other with frantic energy, twisting and turning until she was able to brace herself with one leg on either side of his body.

“Pringles, what are you—” he said, tussling with her to get the phone back when suddenly she lost her balance and fell forward, landing with her mouth pressed against his. The struggling stopped.

In fact, the entire universe stopped.

Their eyes both went wide, and she quickly pulled away, covering her mouth with her hands. Miri couldn’t tell who was more shocked.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—” she mumbled through her fingers, but he stopped her, taking her hands and lowering them from her lips.

“Miri?” he whispered.

“Yes?”

“Kiss me.”

Miri released the tension in her legs and settled into his lap, straddling his waist. Rafa stared up at her with his beautiful deep brown eyes, waiting for her kiss. Wanting her lips. With one hand holding hers, his other raised to the back of her neck, then gently pulled her closer. She closed her eyes in anticipation, and when they finally connected, she melted into his arms as their mouths melted into each other.

For someone with hands as firm as Rafa’s, his lips were impossibly soft. Like tender pillows Miri wanted to nestle into. He took his time exploring her mouth, planting slow, delicate kisses against her lips before opening his mouth, gliding his tongue against hers, and seeking an invitation to be let in. An invitation Miri readily accepted.

He tasted of Pringles. Maybe she’d have to start calling him that as well. But his tongue twirled around hers as if he enjoyed the taste of her as much as she enjoyed him.

She needed more. Wanted more. She pulled their bodies closer, grazing the apex of her thighs over his pelvis as a low moan escaped from his throat, rumbling into her mouth. A jolt of arousing electricity from the friction and his satisfied groans raced through her body and sent a pleasant shiver across her skin.

“Are you cold?” he asked with his mouth still pressed to hers.

“Uh-uh,” she said, smiling against his lips. “The opposite.”

Even with her eyes still closed, she could sense his smile before he dragged her bottom lip between his teeth, then returned to kissing her. A kiss that sent a fire burning straight between her legs. His length hardened beneath her as she rocked her core against him. Desperate to have all of him. He caressed her mouth, showing no signs of stopping, when the screeching howls from a monkey in the tree branch above them broke their kiss apart.

“I think someone’s jealous,” Rafa said, smiling at her and tucking a strand of her hair behind her ear.

“What makes you so sure?” Miri said.

“Because I’d be jealous if someone else was kissing you, too.”

Miri’s cheeks grew warm, and she tried hiding her bashful grin. But it was no use. Not with Rafa holding her in his arms—and with her body straddling his.

“Miri,” he said with concern in his voice, tearing her focus away from their kiss. She was afraid to look at him. Afraid to acknowledge the worry that was most certainly evident on his face. “Miri,” he repeated. “You know it’s not safe to be out here. Those guys? They’re going to come looking for us. We stole their boat.”

“Then we’ll ditch it.”

“They know where we’re heading. They’ll find us.”

“Right, and once we’re at Florestacasa, we’ll have a dozen other people to stop them. This sort of thing happens all the time,” Miri said, waving her hand like it was no big deal. “Looters looking for an easy payday, spying on expeditions so they can raid them as soon as they have a chance.”

“ All the time?” he asked, raising his brow.

“Okay, maybe not all the time. But sometimes.”

“That doesn’t mean this time needs to be one of them. Have you ever been on an expedition being tracked by thieves?”

Miri twisted her mouth. “No, but Corrie has.”

“Corrie’s not here.”

Thanks for the reminder .

But Corrie would never back down from a fight. And certainly not when Vautour was on the other side of it.

“Look, I know you think this is a bad idea, but Vautour will desecrate the city. Don’t you think their descendants deserve to know what became of them?”

He squinted at her. “What makes you think they don’t know already? You said it yourself yesterday. Os protetores serve to protect the city. Maybe they don’t want it to be found, by Vautour or us.”

“Maybe you’re right,” she said, relaxing her shoulders. “Maybe os protetores aren’t real. But until I have some evidence of that, I can’t just give up. That’s not how archaeologists work.”

“Quinn is an archaeologist—” he started, but Miri wasn’t having any of it, tensing up again.

“Do not compare me to Dr. Quinn,” she said, glaring at him. “I actually care about what I do and why I do it.”

“You don’t think Quinn cared before he got himself mixed up with the wrong people? What if you were in his position?”

“I wouldn’t ever be in his position.” She folded her arms.

“I’m sure Quinn never imagined he’d be in this situation, either, but things happen, Miri. People fall on hard times. Or…trust the wrong person,” he said, almost as if he had firsthand experience. “All I’m saying is that until you’ve found yourself in a bad spot, you never actually think those things could happen to you.” Rafa untwisted her arms and took her hands, gently rubbing his thumb over her knuckles.

“Fine. You’re right. I have no idea what I’d do if I were in Dr. Quinn’s shoes. But I’d like to think our character speaks for itself, and Dr. Quinn is an ass. And if that’s what you think of me then that’s on you for kissing me.”

Rafa half chuckled, then lowered his chin, shaking his head slightly. “You really are something,” he said.

“Given the present discussion, I’m not sure if I should take that as a good or bad thing.” She smiled at him, hoping it would ease the tension.

They stared into each other’s eyes, questioning everything. What more was there to say, though? Miri had laid her heart out there. She was done fighting. What Rafa chose to do with it was all up to him.

So she let him have the phone, but not without one last plea. “Please, Rafa. I need this.”

Rafa stared at the phone and then lifted his head to the sky, closing his eyes before letting out a long exhale. Miri sat silently atop his lap, biting her bottom lip as she debated what, if anything, to say. Rafa didn’t move, taking slow, measured breaths. Then, with a swift movement, he rolled her off his lap and hopped to his feet.

“Come on,” he said as he reached down for her hand.

“What are you…” Miri started as she put her hand in his and he pulled her up to his level.

“If we’re staying out here, then I’ve got two conditions: One, you need to tell the rest of the crew what happened so they can make their own decisions as to whether they want to stay.”

Miri nodded. “Fair enough. And what’s condition number two?”

“You’ve got to learn how to throw a decent punch that’s not going to leave you cofounding a broken-hand support group with Quinn,” he said, causing her to snicker.

“All right. Deal.”

“Great. Now come here,” he said, motioning for her to stand next to him. “First, you need to ball your fists. Curl your fingers and then tuck your thumb like this,” he said while demonstrating and tucking his thumb over his middle finger. “Do not put your thumb on the inside of your grip or you might break it.”

Miri mirrored his fists. “Like this?”

“Yes. Like that. Okay, next, you need to get in the right stance. You should turn your body to the side so that your dominant punching side is away from your opponent. You’re going to want to stand with most of your weight on the balls of your feet and a slight bend in your knees. Then bring your hands up to your cheeks so you can defend yourself like this. Now you try.”

Miri stood next to Rafa and tried mirroring his stance, but it looked twice as awkward when she did it. He walked around to the other side of her and twisted her hips.

“I’m sorry…” she said, putting her hands to her side and squaring to face him, clearly frustrated. “Are you really able to just move on and not say anything about it?”

He cocked his head to the side. “Say anything about what?”

Miri groaned. “About me kissing you. Look, I’m sorry if I made things awkward—”

“Hey,” he said, stopping her from going into another spiral. “You have absolutely nothing to apologize for.” Rafa looked over to the captain’s cabin, seeing Felix and Logan watching through the window, seemingly amused by this showing. Great. It wasn’t the time for this conversation. Though, thankfully, from Rafa and Miri’s earlier seated position, the guys likely hadn’t seen them kissing, and they couldn’t decipher their words over the boat’s motor.

“Now, get back into the fighting stance,” he continued as he helped reposition her hands, “and then you’re going to extend your dominant arm like this and rotate your palm, so it faces down as you aim for a vulnerable area on your opponent like the nose, eyes, or ears. Imagine that you’re punching through your target and use your hips to maximize power. Watch me.”

Rafa threw a few punches in slow motion before speeding up his motion for a full demonstration. Miri wasn’t one for watching fights, but there was something so sexy about the way he threw his weight.

“Okay, now you try.”

But she didn’t. Instead, she stood there in a slack fighting stance, staring at him and trying to read his mind. “Come on. Just throw a few punches,” he said.

Miri sighed and threw a few punches, but she didn’t need a mirror to know that unlike Rafa, her moves were lackluster, possessing little, if any, oomph.

“Your technique is good, but you really need to make sure you pack ”—he exaggerated as he demonstrated again—“the punch.”

“I feel silly punching the air.”

“Then, here,” he said, moving in front of her and putting up his hands. “Aim here.”

Miri let up her stance. “You want me to punch you?”

“My hands, yes.”

“Full force? What if I hurt you?”

“You’re not going to hurt me,” he said with a bit too much of a snicker for Miri’s liking.

She narrowed her eyes at him— Is that so? —then got back into fighting stance and threw a punch, connecting with his palm.

“Good. That’s better,” he said. “Just make sure you follow through. Don’t stop just because your fist connected with your target.”

Her mouth pulled in a tight line as she sent another throw his way. This one stung a bit more. Maybe she was getting the hang of it.

“Great. Now feel free to go a little harder. Don’t worry about hurting me,” he said.

Her eyes looked as if a fire had just been set behind them as she swung her arm again, growling, “I’ll show you, Ninja Turtle,” before her fist could connect with his.

But he grabbed her fist and brought their hands together between them, stopping her momentum like a needle scratching a record player.

“Hey, hey, what’s going on?” he asked.

“What’s going on? I can barely even look at you right now!”

Rafa raised his brow. “Because I’m wearing a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles shirt?”

Her mouth twisted, fighting to hold back the words on the tip of her tongue, before she blurted out, “Yes, actually. I mean, look at you, wearing that teeny tiny T-shirt, which leaves absolutely nothing to the imagination,” she said, casting her eyes down almost as if talking to herself. “It’s downright ridiculous, yet it’s the hottest thing I’ve ever seen, so it’s kind of hard having you stand in front of me right now, forcing me to stare at all the ways that shirt should be R-rated, especially after I kissed you and especially when you’ve so easily moved past it. So, yeah, what’s going on is that I feel silly. Silly while you’re so clearly indifferent about what happened. And so while you’re ready to move on like it never happened, I’m over here wishing I could rewind ten minutes and do everything differently.”

He smiled, brushing the pad of his thumb over her knuckles. “Pringles? I liked it.”

Her head ticked up. “Wait…what?”

“The kiss.”

“You did? Like it, I mean?” she asked.

Rafa smiled.

“Of course I liked it. I like just about everything about you.” She bit her bottom lip. The lip that she wanted nothing more than to be all over Rafa’s. “And when we’re alone,” he said, pulling her closer by a fraction of an inch, “I’m going to kiss you again. But for now, we have an audience.” Miri glanced over her shoulder as he motioned with his head toward Felix and Logan. “But at least this way, it looks like nothing more than me trying to teach you to fight.”

“So is this lesson just a ploy to touch me?”

His gaze homed in on her. “Maybe. And possibly also to distract myself so I’m not just thinking about kissing you for the next who knows how long.”

“And are you? Focused, I mean,” Miri asked as her eyes stayed on him.

His gaze went straight to her lips. Oh, he was focused, all right. But…he was right. Kissing would have to wait.

“Yes. And if you really want to be a kickass jungle warrior, then I need you to focus on learning these moves.”

He flashed her a smile and gave her arms a shake, changing the energy.

“Okay, but next I want you to teach me the proper way to kick a guy in the groin.” She shook her limbs and returned to fighting stance.

Rafa snickered. “Fine. But that one I’m not letting you practice on me.”