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where it touched her and the prickling of the hairs on his chest against her arm…
    "Nada, señora, gracias! No problema!" he called back, lifting the hand that was not holding the gun in a careless wave.
    Lora tried frantically to signal with her eyes that something was wrong—she didn't dare do anything else with the gun and the man pressing ever closer—but the woman apparently saw nothing out of the ordinary.
    "Adios!" She waved once, the children grabbed hold, and the truck was underway again. Lora watched forlornly as it rattled down the road and out of sight.
    "Smart girl," he approved then, removing his arm and the gun simultaneously.
    Lora shivered as he stood. She cast a quick, resentful glare up at her captor as he stood over her, his shirt in one hand and the gun in the other.
    He left her, returning to the car and to work. Lora watched as his head and shoulders disappeared under the hood with a piece of hose. She was struck suddenly by how well-proportioned his body was. When he had first crowded into the VW beside her, she had thought that he was almost as stocky as he was tall. Now she saw that that was not true at all. His shoulders were wide and heavily muscled, but his torso was lean and sculpted. Sweat gleamed on the bronzed skin of his shoulder-blades, then trickled down his spine to disappear into a spreading patch of wetness at the waistband of his jeans. Her arm still tingled from contact with the wedge of curling black hair that covered the muscular planes of his chest. He was leaning into the engine, so most of his chest was out of her sight. But his backside was not… His hips were narrow, his legs long and straight. As her eyes ran back up over them she could not help but notice that his rear was small and tight in the faded jeans that fit him like the advertisements promised they could. All at once he straightened, turning to look directly at her. Lora realized with a stab of acute discomfort that she had been staring—and where. Dear God, had he seen? Would he take it for encouragement?
    "I think I managed to fix it." He was coming toward her, still moving with that slight limp, wiping his hands on a rag as he spoke. She was relieved to see him put on his shirt, carelessly doing up the buttons with one hand. He would not put on his shirt if he was intent on rape…
    "Goody." Her response was distinctly unenthusiastic. He grinned then, a real, human, honest-to-God grin, and Lora stared. Amazing what a swathe of white teeth and a crinkling of black eyes could do for a face! He looked almost—handsome. No, not handsome, with that too aggressive face and villainous mustache, to say nothing of the remaining smears of blood from the wounds she and the jungle between them had inflicted. But attractive, which was not the right word, either. Lora was a stickler for the right word; as an English teacher, she demanded it of her students in their compositions and she would not now accept less of herself. And that word was, she reluctantly realized, sexy. The man was sexy as hell. She shuddered away from the thought. Under the circumstances, how could she possibly find him sexy? Was she crazy? Masochistic, maybe? If so, she had never recognized signs of it in herself before now.
    He was behind her, his hands on her wrists as he untied the thong. She flinched from even that impersonal touch. His fingers seemed unbearably hot against her soft skin…
    "Come on, let's go." He caught her upper arm to help her to her feet. Lora jerked away from him reflexively, and he let her go. She could feel his eyes boring into her back as she walked ahead of him to the car. She was suddenly, frighteningly aware of his blatant masculinity, and in self-defense tried to suppress the natural feminine sway of her hips, with what success she couldn't guess. He stood watching until she was installed in the driver's seat, then got in himself before handing her the keys. Taking them, she was careful not to touch his fingers. His