She dropped to the ground from her perch in the tree she’d taken watch duty in. Gently, she touched his shoulder. “Triumph.”
He claimed he didn’t sleep much, but he definitely slept deep and woke hard. His eyes were wide open before she finished his name. After a few steps off to take care of business, he was back by her side and ready to be on the move.
They were just about to step onto the left path when their decision changed. A small group of travelers appeared about a quarter of a mile down from them. Backing into the jungle out of sight, they waited. While they weren’t Guillermo’s soldiers,out of caution, they let the group go, where they chose the left path. The guides would have some form of radio, she was sure, and would report two Americans on the trail as fast as he could turn the device on. So they waited sixty minutes for the group to pass, and when they saw no one behind them, they continued on, taking the right path into who knew what.
He took the lead, giving her a chance to marvel at the man who quickly became a lifeline. She was beginning to think he wasn’t human. He moved through the jungle as if they were out for a Sunday hike. He didn’t complain once. Didn’t sigh with frustration. Didn’t grumble about the heat, or that his muscles ached, or that his feet hurt. Nothing! Maybe she should check for a belly button while he slept, just to make sure he wasn’t an alien. Or a robot.
Wow. Okay. The jungle heat was getting to her because that was just crazy thinking. Maybe she had an infection after all, and this was the fever setting in?
As they walked, she continued musing on her rescuer. If she had the capacity to appreciate kindness—and she must, or she wouldn’t have helped that woman at the camp—she recognized that he had the heart of a caring soul that was covered by his bossiness. Since her phone call, he had moved heaven and earth to help her, a woman he’d known only briefly through their jobs, going far beyond what anyone should do. He purchased clothing and food for boys he didn’t know, and he gave up his own possessions to make a little girl smile. Over hair braiding, for fuck’s sake! If the bracelet meant something sentimental, he didn’t show it. Hopefully, it hadn’t.
Now she had to know.
“Triumph?”
He didn’t stop moving. “Yeah?”
“That bracelet you gave up the other day. It looked”—she searched for the right word—“personal.”
All he said was “Nothing I can’t live without.”
She pushed to catch up from her few steps behind and grabbed his now-bare wrist to stop him.
He looked down from his slightly elevated position on the hill. Something in her look must have told him not to shrug it off. “Relax, Glennon. I can get a new one when I get home. It’s the band that links to my accounts at Shadowlands and designates my rank as a Dominant, plus signals my limits. That’s all. I promise.”
“Sorry.”
Frowning, he repositioned their hands so they clasped together, and he continued up the hill. “Have you been stressing about that for two days?”
“Kind of,” she mumbled.
They hit the crest of the incline, where he stopped. “Drink,” he ordered. He watched to make sure she followed through before taking his own water jug off its clip to drink. “What’s really the problem? It’s not the cuff.”
A cuff. Right. It had been a wider band. Made sense. Dominants wouldn’t wear bracelets.
She couldn’t meet his eyes. “I just worried it was something sentimental, that’s all.”
“Uh-huh.” His eyes remained on hers as he took another drink of water. “Wanna try that again?”
With a huff, she attached her water bottle back into the sling she’d fashioned out of a T-shirt. “You’re giving up a lot to help me, and I can’t figure out why. Flying here without asking too many questions. The cuff. Five figures in cash. Possibly your life. People don’t do that shit. Not for me.”
“Glennon.” He called her name softly. “Look at me.”
She continued to stare into the distance.
“Glennon.” He said it with more force this time. She wondered if this was what they called “the Dom voice.” Something about it certainly pulled at her to respond.
“Little spy.” The threat was light, but it was there nonetheless.
“I know,” she whispered. She felt the sting of tears. She couldn’t cry in front of him. “I know what you told me. But belief doesn’t happen overnight, Triumph.”
And she did know. He said no compensation, now or in the future, was expected by him or any of his friends, but she just couldn’t wrap her head around it. She’d lived her whole life in a paradigm where people expected things from her. She didn’t know anything else.
Without warning, he was completely in her space, his fingers around the nape of her neck, firm but guiding her to look him in the eye. “I don’t expect you to believe overnight. Hell, you may never believe one hundred percent, and I get that. As many times as you need to hear it, I’ll say it. It doesn’t help that we’ve skipped quite a few steps in the whole relationship sequence, but doing so suggests you trust me, at least a little bit.”
“I do trust you,” she promised. “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t. I wouldn’t have called you if, somehow, I didn’t innately trust you. It’s just so fucking difficult?—”
She couldn’t say any more. Instead, she closed her eyes, took a deep breath, then slowly exhaled.
