Janna heard every word but only cared about Ty's admission that he was woman hungry. It gave her the weapon she needed. It appeared that her efforts at proving she was a woman had been having some effect.
She smiled rather bitterly and decided that she would make him eat every one of his cutting words about her lack of womanly allure. From that moment on she would redouble her efforts to remind him that she was a woman and he was a hungry man. She would bring him to his knees with desire… and then she would laugh in his face and walk away, leaving him as miserable and unhappy as she was now.
"Now that we understand each other," Janna said tightly, "could we possibly get going so that Joe Troon doesn't kill Lucifer before we can stop him?"
Ty told himself that the hurt and anger he saw in Janna's eyes were better than the bigger hurt that would come if he couldn't keep his hands off her. From what he had heard, at best she had been roughly treated by men; at worst she had been brutalized. If he took advantage of her, he would be no better than Joe Troon.
Ty told himself that, but he wasn't sure he believed it. He would be gentle with Janna even if it killed him…wouldn't he? Surely he would. He wasn't an animal to take what a woman wouldn't freely give him.
Oh, sure. I'm a real Southern gentleman. That's why I was grinding Janna beneath me into the dirt as though I'd never had a woman and never would unless I had her right there. I can't trust myself with her any farther than I can throw myself uphill.
Ty looked at Janna's gray eyes watching him with too many shadows, waiting for his answer.
"Hell of an idea," Ty said curtly. "Wait here while I get my pack."
Janna watched him get up and leave without a backward look. She didn't move. She knew that he was testing her, finding out if he could trust her. If she were going to run off at the first opportunity, better that he discover her untrustworthiness now than when it came time for her turn at night guard while he slept. Approving his pragmatism almost as much as she approved his lithe, muscular stride, Janna watched until Ty disappeared. She waited for his return without moving one inch from her cross-legged position on the ground.
When Ty returned and saw Janna precisely where he had left her, he understood her silent message: he could trust her. He nodded approvingly and held out his hand to help Janna to her feet.
It was the opportunity she had been waiting for. She allowed herself to be pulled upright, then stumbled and fell against Ty's body, letting him take her full weight. His arms closed around her automatically, supporting her.
The impact of Janna's weight was negligible to a man of Ty's size, but the warmth of her body wasn't. When his arms tightened around her to keep her upright, he knew a lightning stroke of pleasure at how perfectly she fit against him. Supple, slender, smelling of pinon, she was like an armful of sunlight.
"Janna? What's wrong?"
For a moment longer she savored the delicious warmth and strength of Ty's body before she slowly began to take her own weight again. Even then, she held on to his muscular arms, bracing herself against his strength.
"Sorry," Janna said, eyes downcast as she flexed her fingers into the swell of Ty's biceps and very slowly released him. "I guess I'm a little… hungry."
Ty was glad Janna wasn't looking at him when she confessed her hunger, because she would have seen the naked statement of his own need in the tension of his face. In the next instant he understood that Janna wasn't talking about the elemental hunger of sex but the equally basic hunger of the stomach. Hers was growling audibly as she rested her cheek against his chest, leaning as though she were too tired to stand entirely by herself. He smiled despite the desire snaking through his loins. He tapped the bridge of Janna's nose gently with his index finger.
"Poor little baby bird," Ty said sympathetically. "Come on. As soon as we get in better cover, I'll feed you."
His voice was a deep rumble beneath Janna's cheek, but the indulgence in his tone was unmistakable. Baby bird. Her mouth drew down unhappily. Her attempt to arouse desire in him had resulted in a brotherly pat. The temptation to bite the hard, warm chest that lay beneath her cheek almost overwhelmed her. She sensed that would have been a serious mistake in her campaign of "accidental" seduction, so she contented herself with pushing away from the shelter offered by Ty's arms.
"Thank you," Janna said politely. "I'm fine now."
She turned away and began walking quickly toward the rugged wall of black lava and red sandstone that formed the east face of Black Plateau. Ty stood and watched the almost concealed sway of Janna's hips beneath the men's clothing and prayed that she would find Lucifer and find him very soon; the more he looked at Janna, the harder it became to ignore her unconscious, utterly feminine allure.
Yet he had to ignore it. He had to forget how good it had felt to rock his hips hard against the softness beneath her clothes.
He had to… but he couldn't.
Chapter Eighteen
Anger helped Janna to hold to a good pace despite her growling stomach. Without looking back to see how Ty was doing with his heavy pack, she attacked the steep, winding trail that led to the top of Black Plateau. As she climbed, she looked for signs of anyone else using the trail.
She found no traces of man and very little of beast. There were no signs that anything had used the trail recently other than herself. There were no hoofprints in the rare patches of dirt, nor scars where hooves had slipped or scraped across stone. She had never seen signs of any hoofed animal on the trail except occasional deer-and once, just once, tracks that indicated that Lucifer had skidded down over the precipitous path in order to shake off mustangers who had gotten too close.
The idea of any horse taking the trail down the plateau's east face made Janna's heart stop. She herself used the route only when she was afoot and wanted to go to Sweetwater by the shortest possible route. There were other, safer routes up onto the plateau. One route was on the north side, one on the south, and there were several on the western side. All of them were far easier than the eastern trail.
Climbing at a rapid rate, Janna worked her way up the trail until it dipped into one of the many runoff ravines that channeled the plateau's east face. Safe from observation from any angle but directly overhead, Janna sat on a stone seat and awaited Ty's arrival. She didn't wait long. He had walked only far enough behind her to avoid the shower of pebbles disturbed by her passage.
Ty grunted and shucked off the heavy pack, using it as a seat while his breathing returned to normal.
"Hell of a path," he said after a bit. "I didn't see any sign of Zebra coming up, but she sure headed straight here like she had something in mind."
"She did-avoiding a river of black rock about a quarter mile south of here," Janna explained. "It's too rough to climb over. To avoid it, you have to go several miles away from the plateau until the rock sinks into the dirt, or you have to climb partway up the east face of the plateau to go around the head of the rock river. That's what Zebra usually does. Then she goes up onto the top by the southern route, which is easy."
For several minutes there was silence while Ty looked out over the land from his new perspective, checking his memories against Janna's words.
"Does the lava flow-the river of black rock-begin there?" he asked, pointing to what looked like a dusty black creek running out from the base of the plateau.
Janna leaned out to look, taking the opportunity to brush against Ty's outstretched arm.
"Yes."
Ty grunted. "I can see why Zebra goes around it. A lot of jagged rock and nothing much else."
He looked for a time longer, waiting for Janna to withdraw the tantalizing brush of her body. She didn't. He shifted slightly, ending the intimacy, for his blood was still running hotly. Even worse, he suspected that it was going to be a permanent condition around the ragged, too-feminine waif.