Page 1 of Teach Me Your Ways

1

GRADY

Halfway up the east face of a Mayan pyramid in a Guatemalan jungle, the machete slipped out of my hand and clattered against the stone. Sweat poured off me. The humidity hugged me like a wet blanket. I could barely see the sky through the canopy of strangler figs and ceiba trees, but I knew it was already turning that unforgiving shade of blue that meant we were in for a scorcher.

Again.

“This one’s a beast,” I muttered, crouching to retrieve the blade. My knees cracked. At thirty-seven, I didn’t feel old, but I knew the students on this latest archeological discovery were basically kids. All eager and nimble in their early twenties.

“She’s magnificent,” came a voice just behind me, sultry and smooth like warm honey poured over whiskey.

Dr. Yelena Rios.

She stood two steps below me. Her black braid was coiled neatly at the nape of her neck, not a strand out of place despite the jungle being in full-on war mode against anyone with hair. The gorgeous woman didn’t sweat. She glistened.

“Her?” I echoed. “I didn’t know we were gendering the pyramid now.”

“Everything beautiful is a woman,” Yelena said, arching one brow. “Don’t you agree?”

“Hmm, I can’t argue with that.”

I loved women in all shapes and sizes. Variety was what made them magic. There were few women I didn’t want to bend over and have my way with. But Yelena? She was fucking mesmerizing.

But she was my coworker and hooking up with coworkers was a bad idea, even if we lived in different countries. I generally avoided it. I also had a strict rule against dating students. And considering how much time I spent working on digs or teaching at Zebulon University in South Carolina, it meant a lot of amazing women were off limits to me.

Despite that, I never had a shortage of women to take to bed. So while Dr. Rios was tempting enough to make most men beg, I could control myself. It was best to focus on the important work we were doing out here in the jungle.

I started chopping again. Carefully. The vines had been covering the pyramid for hundreds of years. Nature tried to reclaim the majesty of the ancient site. Some of the vines were as thick as my forearm.

If we weren’t precise, we could damage the stones beneath. Every scratch we made was a story lost forever, and I wasn’t about to be the jackass archaeologist who turned history into mulch because I couldn’t show a little patience. Control was everything, and I knew how to stay in control.

We’d only known about this particular pyramid for six months. The scanner had lit up the Petén Basin like a fucking Christmas tree, and I had thought the damn computer was broken. But after an exploratory journey into the Guatemalan jungle, no one could deny it. There had been three thousand new structures, give or take a hundred.

Entire cities that had been lost beneath the green sea for centuries. The step pyramid we were currently trying to free was the tallest so far. It peeked above the treetops, demanding to be remembered.

We were slowly returning the structure to its old glory. It was going to take a long time, but anything worth having took time. I had dreams of what it would look like once the overgrowth was removed. Leaves and soil had created their own mini ecosystem around the foundation. We’d need to excavate at least ten feet down to see the full scope of what we were dealing with.

“Professor Stone,” came another voice from below. This one belonged to Madison, one of my graduate students. Twenty, blonde, and completely convinced that batting her eyelashes at me would get her in my sleeping bag. Sorry, kiddo.

“Yeah?” I asked.

“The new scan is showing some kind of chamber about thirty feet down from where you’re standing.” Her eyes were wide and shiny with excitement. She was holding the ground-penetrating radar unit proudly.

I had to give it to her; she also made jungle-chic look good. Whoever was staffing these trips needed to find less attractive people. If she wasn’t a student and if she was a little older, those batted lashes might have cracked my resolve. But I stayed strong.

“Define ‘some kind of chamber,’ Madison.”

“Well, it’s… a big empty space?” She giggled nervously. “To me it looks chamber-y. Maybe you should come look?”

Yelena snorted softly beside me. “Chamber-y. Very technical. Did you teach her that?”

“If you want pretty words, go be a literature professor,” I said to her quietly, not wanting Madison to hear. Although I had to admit Madison’s vocabulary left something to be desired.

I clambered down the pyramid, my boots finding purchase on stones that had been stepped on by priests and kings a thousand years ago. The thought never got old. Every dig was like shaking hands with ghosts.

Madison thrust the GPR unit at me like it might bite her. The screen showed a clear void about the size of a small room, maybe fifteen by twenty feet. The edges were too clean, too deliberate, to be natural. I’d seen similar chambers on other digs.

“I was doing the grid sweep like you taught us, and boom. There it is.” Madison lifted her chin and shot me a smile, digging for a compliment.