Hotter Than Hell(56)

Not sure where to begin, and for the first time in her life feeling shaky, she glanced at the semi-circle of tents. Pointing toward one at random, she sucked in a deep breath, set her shoulders, and forged ahead. She didn’t care that the barbarian found this amusing. His customs were clearly very different from hers.



Closing her eyes briefly, she peeked in a tent, and then dipped her head out before the large warrior beside her could enter. She stopped him with both hands against his chest.



“Don’t,” she said, her voice a raw whisper. “I…I don’t know what has become of my followers.” She covered her mouth and then turned away.



“Allow me to inspect my men,” Vincent insisted, hoping that nothing crazy like a butchering would meet his eyes. If they all went out like Donovan, fine. But crazy people had a way of turning fun and games into something deadly.



Still on guard, he pulled back the flap a bit and peered in.



After a long pause, he let the flap fall very slowly and straightened himself, rolling his shoulders. He needed to walk away for a minute to get his mind together and to shake off the hot shard of desire that had filled his shaft. The image of what he’d witnessed replayed itself a few times like a CD with a skip in it before he could get the visual out of his mind.



“Horrible, wasn’t it?” Artemis said quietly, touching his shoulders. “Virgins since longer than I can remember and now it has come to this.” She looked up and swallowed hard. “I wish they would have never called me back here.”



For a moment, he just stared at her. Virgins? They were all virgins? What kinda insane environmental cult was this?



“Can I check on my remaining soldiers?” he asked, forcing his voice to be rough, forcing his mind to remain focused on the very real dangers these women presented…trying to get the hard-on to die down.



Artemis nodded but didn’t move. He could tell that she was giving him permission to go look, but that she didn’t want to see any more for herself. In a way he couldn’t blame her and was glad that she’d simply be staring at his back as he took a glimpse inside each tent.



“It is bad, is it not?” Artemis asked as he slowly returned to her side.



He nodded, mouth dry, and kept his gaze on the horizon. “Yeah.” That was all he could say before turning so that she couldn’t see his arousal. “I have one more man to check.”



Artemis graciously nodded as he strode away, peeped into the tent that held Jesse captive and winced. He quickly dropped the tent flap, inhaled a deep breath through his nose and tried to do math in his head to regain focus on the mission.



“The offense is grave,” Artemis murmured when Vince returned to stand before her.



“Yeah,” he said quietly. “So, how do we resolve this?”



“My nymphs are in the wrong, therefore, by rights, as has always been; you may decide the punishment…even though I am a goddess. There are still laws.”



“All I want,” he said quietly, “is for the hostages to be returned unharmed, and for me and my men to be able to walk out of here alive.”



She frowned. “That you would doubt my word when I said they would be unharmed is troubling.” She turned away and headed toward her tent.



“You also said they would be unmolested, and they have been.” There was amusement in his tone as she stiffened and dipped inside her tent.



He put the safety back on his gun and watched her pour water from an urn into a basin to splash her face. “Mind if I do the same?” he said calmly, watching her from across the expanse.



“Yes, I mean no—you are more than welcome to wash the stain of humiliation from your face.”



“I am not embarrassed,” he said in a low rumble. “It’s spring.”



She dabbed her damp cheeks with a thick towel and then wound her hair up into a knot atop her head, applying the wet side of the towel against the nape of her neck. A deep rosy hue stained her cheeks and small beads of perspiration kissed her cleavage. He couldn’t help allowing his eyes to travel down her breasts and over her erect peaks, knowing that if she felt anything near what he was feeling, she was also wet.



Against his better judgment, he neared her and gently removed the towel from her hands, dipping it in the cool basin water and then dabbing her collarbone with it.



“What was the vow?” he murmured, staring at her.



“That I would remain a virgin always until the end of time…as would my nymphs.”



Her breathing had become shallow from his attention, and it had the effect of stilting his too.