Forbidden River (The Legionnaires #2.5)(18)

Hold up—there was no noise behind him. “Tia? You good?” No answer. “Tia?”

Nothing. He turned. She was sitting shivering like a wet Chihuahua, tugging at her jacket zipper. Still in jeans and sneakers. In another minute she’d be snap-frozen. He clambered to her and took the zipper. “I got it, Cowgirl.”

Her face was gray, her lips purple. She tried weakly to fight him. Under her legs, the pink water was turning red and thick. He yanked the zipper and shoved the jacket off her shoulders. Bare skin. Breasts. Nipples.

“Putain!” He stumbled backward, raising a palm to his eyes, and spun. “Fuck! I’m sorry, I didn’t...”

“’S okay,” she said. “Towel. Pass me...”

He patted the stones behind him and chucked it blindly in her direction.

“You were naked under that.”

“Yeah,” she said, her voice shuddering. “I didn’t start the day like this.”

“Oh fuck. Did he...?”

“No. My leg,” she said. “I used my T-shirt...”

“...as a bandage.” He slumped to his knees, still facing downriver. Of course.

“The look on your face was pretty funny.”

He choked out a laugh. “They did kinda...jump out at me.” Another thing to appreciate in hindsight.

She snorted and began giggling. Laughter exploded in his chest. He let it come, let it out until his abs ached.

“I don’t know why I’m laughing,” she said. “I’m freezing my...tits off.” She cackled. Shit, she was probably delirious. “It’s safe now, Cowboy. Nothing jumping out.”

She was squeezing her hair with the tiny towel. The pink top finished halfway down her forearms and several inches above her waist, stretched so thinly over her chest he didn’t need to rely on memory to picture what lay underneath. Not that he was looking, but man, it was hard not to.

“I think this top was intended for a normal woman.” She pulled her knees up, as if trying to hide those magnifique curves.

“No kidding,” he said, staring so intently at her face that his eyes stung. “I mean... I didn’t mean... It’s not that you’re not... It’s more that you’re...”

“Shut. Up.”

Man, he was head-to-toe idiot and she was head-to-toe goddess. And he should not be thinking about that stunning body. Still, she was warming him up right when he needed it. As much as he wanted to be a gentleman, nothing could wipe the sexy image burned on his brain.

“Let me find you a spray jacket,” he said, walking to the kayaks.

“Maybe the guy’s jacket, if there is one.”

“There is. I’ll get his shorts, too. Sorry, I just saw the pink and...”

“It really is time to shut up.”

Yep. He pulled out a fluoro lime jacket, strolled over and laid it across her shoulders.

“And don’t worry about offending me,” she said, pushing an arm into it. “I used to hate the way I look, but there are advantages to being man-sized. And hey, a guy who wants a petite princess to protect isn’t a guy I’m going to get along with.”

So what kind of guy did she want? And did that mean she was single? He cleared his throat. “What happened with the dog?”

She zipped the jacket, bent forward, wincing, and began untying her shoelaces. “Let me catch you up. It’s pretty crazy.”

By the time she reached the part where she limped to the kayaks, chased by the dog, Cody was a goner. The image of her swinging that bra... He knew some kickass women—most notably his legion buddies’ girlfriends, unfortunately for him—but Tia was...was...

“Cody?”

She’d stopped talking. Damn. Focus, Caporal. “Sorry. Did you say something?”

“Do you have a knife?” She smoothed long fingers down long thighs. “I might cut off my jeans at the knee and leave the bit around my calf—it’s probably holding the whole lot together. I don’t know which bits are me and which are denim.”

“Knife. Sure.” He wandered to his kayak and dug around. “Want me to check it out? I could clean and dress it, tape up the worst cuts.”

“It can wait. We should get some distance behind us before dark. He’ll be backtracking awhile, and bush-bashing, but—”

“You’re sure he’s on foot? No boat, no vehicle?”

“When he asked me for a ride, it was only him and the dogs. Even a trail bike wouldn’t get through this terrain. The river’s only navigable by kayak and you can’t kayak with three do—” She frowned suddenly. “I told you not to wait for me.”

“I told you I wasn’t leaving you.” He walked over and handed her his beast of a pocketknife. “I note you weren’t looking around for me when you pushed off in that kayak.”

“Because I was trusting you to look after yourself, like you should have been trusting me.” She grabbed a handful of denim and attacked it. “You should go on ahead. You’ll be faster without me. Get through the Auripo Falls tonight and you’ll be safely out of his scope. Below them the forest is so thick and steep it’ll take him an hour to cover two hundred meters.”

“Still not leaving you. Tu n’abandonnes jamais ni tes blessés.”