Death is Forever

sound. He turned and looked at her with eyes that glittered like ice in the reflected light of the dashboard. “Sorry to break the news, honey. The station isn’t safer—it’s the hunting ground of the diamond tiger.”

24
Near Abe’s station
    Cole came awake before the first stars began fading from the crowded southern sky. The air was humid, fragrant, filled with the subtle rush of awakening life. Erin stirred sleepily and snuggled closer to him, sharing the heat of his body in the cool of pre-dawn. He shifted until he could put both arms around her.
    The headache that had plagued him last night didn’t return with his movement. Nor did it return with the sudden quickening of his body when he felt the softness of the woman pressed against him. He was tempted to awaken her as he had yesterday morning, bringing her from sleep to abandoned sensuality, bypassing inhibition and fear, touching the intense passion that had been buried for years within her.
    Even as he told himself all the reasons why he shouldn’t, his hands were moving over her, pushing away the frail barrier of clothes, seeking the sleek center of her, finding it. He caressed her slowly, felt her body’s sultry response, and wondered what her dreams were like.
    Her breath broke and her eyes opened, gleaming mysteriously in the star-filled night.
    “This is becoming a habit,” she murmured, smiling and stretching languidly against him.
    “I’ll stop.”
    “Really?” Her hands slid down his body, finding and caressing the hard male flesh that rose eagerly to meet her. “When?”
    “Whenever you want.”
    She looked up into the pale blaze of his eyes and knew that he meant it. He would stop right now if that was what she wanted. But she didn’t. Barely awake, operating at the level of deepest instinct, she wanted him.
    His hand moved and heat burst in the pit of her stomach, shaking her. His touch slid deeply inside her until the heel of his palm grazed the exquisitely sensitive nub concealed between hot folds of skin. Her lashes half lowered and her breath unraveled. Splinters of pleasure shivered through her, melting her in his hand. She looked into his eyes and knew only the truth of her love for this man.
    He made a thick sound of pleasure as she urged him over on top of her and he joined their bodies as completely as he could, moving in slow counterpoint to her until pleasure overwhelmed both of them. At the last instant he covered her mouth with his own, drinking her wild cries even as he poured himself into her. Then he held her until their breathing evened out, their heartbeats slowed, and he felt the boneless relaxation of her body as she drifted into sleep once more.
    “No, you don’t,” he said. “It’s time to get up.”
    She murmured and separated herself from him with a slow reluctance that sent currents of passion surging through him once more. Ignoring the delicate talons of desire, he dressed quickly, rolled sleeping bags and tarp, and stuffed them in the Rover. Then he scrambled up a steep slope and stood in the moon shadow of a hilltop outcropping.
    The track leading to Abe’s station was below and to the right. The vague road was barely visible in moonlight. In some places, it vanished in the thin bush cover. Only someone who was familiar with the track would have been able to follow it—or someone like Cole, whose memory was remarkable.
    The dusty, rutted track was deserted. The pre-dawn darkness was silent.
    “I guess the bastard finally had enough,” Cole said as Erin climbed up and stood beside him.
    “Thank God.”
    His smile flashed whitely. “God had nothing to do with that one.”
    “How’s your head?”
    “Still there.”
    “Hold still.”
    He stood motionless while her fingertips searched lightly through his hair just above his right temple. His scalp prickled in elemental response as his whole body tightened.
    “The bump is almost gone,” she said after a moment.
    His fingertip traced her cheekbone. “Come on. Back to the Rover before I do something foolish again.” His voice had an unmistakable roughness to it as he added under his breath, “Woman, you have the damnedest effect on my self-control.”
    She followed him, picking her way carefully in the tricky light. The first few steps down the slope were steep and crumbly. She slid, caught herself, then slid again until her walking shoes found better purchase. All around her spinifex gleamed in lines of silver that shifted and rippled