Chapter Four

      Reese sat beside Diesel in the nest of boughs and stared through the gaps in the camouflage he’d applied to the netting. Every time the man moved, he brushed up against her, making her heart race and her body light up. What was wrong with her? Even if she wanted, she couldn’t begin to sleep with her thoughts running wild over her rescuer.

      When Diesel had flashed his smile and winked at Reese, butterflies had erupted and swarmed in her belly, and heat had spread from her center outward. Not only was the man as hard as a bodybuilder, he was charming and sexy, too. A triple threat to her libido. She shook her head. She was in a tree, in a jungle with a man she’d met only a few hours ago. How could she be having lascivious thoughts about him when they were both covered in sweat and dirt?

      She could hear the steady breathing of the man beside her. Darkness kept her from studying him. Time passed slowly with nothing but her thoughts to keep her company. Every sound made her tense up until her back ached. In the wee hours of the morning, her head dipped, and sleep threatened to overtake her.

      She didn’t want to wake Diesel. He was the one who was wounded. His body needed time to recover.

      Guilt made a knot in her gut. She’d already botched her first assignment. Ferrence’s father would fire her as soon as she got back to civilization. She wouldn’t have a job, and word-of-mouth about her failure would see to it she never had another bodyguard client. The least she could do was watch over the navy SEAL.

      But she was so darned sleepy.

      The man lying beside her moved. A second later, a hand touched her shoulder, and Diesel pressed the drinking tube against her fingers. “Drink and then sleep.”

      She didn’t argue. Too tired to do anything but what he commanded, she sipped from the tube, the liquid soothing her dry throat. Then she lay on the bows and closed her eyes.

      Reese must have fallen asleep right away. When she opened her eyes, she could make out all the shapes and shadows within the nest Diesel had created.

      One thing she couldn’t see was the man himself.

      Reese bolted upright and listened for the reassuring sound of him moving around outside the mosquito netting.

      She heard sounds, but they weren’t the sounds she expected. Something was moving down below—a lot of somethings. And there were several grunts and other sounds she couldn’t quite place. She leaned forward and pressed her face to the netting. In the clearing below, dark shapes moved about. Some big, some smaller, but none of them human.

      Her heart leaped into her throat, and she fought back a gasp.

      A troop of gorillas had moved into the clearing and appeared to be setting up camp. Even from her perch high above them, Reese could tell they were big. Mothers sat preening their babies. Adolescent gorillas romped in the clearing, wrestling and tumbling.

      Reese looked for the alpha male but didn’t see him. He had to be there. All troops had an alpha male, and the alpha could be extremely fierce.

      Where was Diesel?

      “Shh,” came a soft whisper close to her ear.

      The sound was so quiet, she almost didn’t hear it. Reese turned toward Diesel on the other side of the mosquito net.

      He pointed down and mouthed the words alpha male.

      Reese gulped. She worried that, if the alpha male caught their scent, he could climb the tree and rip them apart. Holy hell. And she thought being caught by Congolese rebels was bad. At least they hadn’t been capable of ripping her apart with their bare hands. There would be no reasoning with a male gorilla.

      Reese remained still, afraid to move and disturb the branches of the nest Diesel had built. Thankfully, they were at least twenty-five feet from the floor of the jungle. More importantly, they were twenty-five feet from the male gorilla. At the very least, they had a head start at climbing higher.