Refuge - ISBN #1-84360-938-X
Freedom from responsibility, from self-control even.
The thought pounds through Magara Force as the high-powered executive runs through the night-dark Florida rainforest refuge. In her mind she becomes she-animal, a wild creature at home in the ripe and savage land, Tarzan’s equal.
Then he joins her. Male and large, his shoes slapping the gravel make her think of heartbeats. She hears his quick breathing, feels the sweat rolling off him, his heat on her skin. The heat travels through her veins, flows into her skull, fingertips, belly, between her legs.
Destroy civilized-woman and let she-animal roar.
Lon Storms, a man just stripped of the control and power that has been his way of life, has his own needs-needs this woman will satisfy.
He’ll take her hard and wild. She’ll give as good as she gets, meeting him muscle for muscle and nerve for nerve, screaming out her climax so the night creatures fall silent. In his mind and body, his running partner becomes an earth creature. Unburdened by modern constraints, they’ll mate-pure and simple.
Neither can comprehend the consequences.
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Excerpt
Opening the door to her rental car, Megara Force cringed. Breathing deep and slow did nothing to lessen the humidity’s punch. A sane woman would return to her air-conditioned motel room and spend the rest of the evening at the motel bar. But she’d spent the day in endless meetings highlighted by the inevitable rubber chicken lunch. If she didn’t run, didn’t lose herself in rhythm and straining muscles, she’d never sleep.
And she’d do whatever it took to silence her restless mind.
Shut the fuck up. You know you don’t want to go there.
Ordering herself not to think seldom worked so she checked to make sure her designer athletic shoes were tied, then faced the entrance to the night-darkened wilderness refuge.
Although her career with Force Convention Centers International took her all over the world, she’d never been to Orlando, Florida. When she’d asked at the hotel gym about a nearby place to go for a run, the tight-bodied young woman with silicone breasts had explained how the public parts of the local refuge were reasonably well-lit.
When she’d learned that the Fish and Wildlife-maintained sanctuary included several miles of graveled pathways that skirted the mangrove swamp forest, Megara had made up her mind. Not only did she crave nature, but the promise of solitude become a hunger.
Hunger? If she could have anything she wanted in life, what would it be, she pondered as she finished stretching and took off down the narrow, paved road at an easy jog. The answer didn’t come immediately because she’d conditioned herself not to hope for what she couldn’t have, what she could barely name.
Freedom. The answer floated on the hot breeze, stroked over her already sweaty throat and bare arms. Freedom from responsibility, from self-control even.
The thought of turning her back on control lapped at her. Insane as it was, she half-believed she was now sharing her vivid imagination with the wild land. Veering onto a graveled path, she closed herself around the fantasy as the lush vegetation swallowed her-as she became part of it.
The moon was going to be full but hadn’t yet made an appearance. If not for the muted but closely spaced ground lights, she wouldn’t have been able to stay on the path. Being on unfamiliar turf at nearly 10 p.m. wasn’t the most intelligent or responsible thing she’d ever done, but in her mind, her long, lean legs, slender arms, and substantial hips no longer belonged to her.
Tonight, alone with chirping insects and whispering birds, she became muscle and bone. The primitive creature who’d taken over her mind existed on an elemental level. This she-animal had never touched a computer, knew nothing of profit and loss, frequent flier miles, multi-million dollar budgets, stress that gnawed at the stomach lining and gave a 32-year-old woman high blood pressure.
She-animal breathed, ran, sweated. She-animal belonged here and knew what creatures lived in the ripe and savage land and could sustain herself off what she harvested or killed. She-animal was Tarzan’s equal. And when hot need bit at her cunt, she-animal fucked.
Images of a naked, physical, female creature sniffing around men like a bitch in heat flamed her imagination and dampened her red nylon shorts. Someone might cage the wild animal or fasten a chain around her neck, but the bitch she’d become in her mind would growl and pace, presenting her ass to any male who came within sight. If freed, she’d attack any and all members of the opposite sex, biting, scratching, whining until some stud mounted her and drove her to the ground.
Yeah, right!
Why not? Shit, why not?
Before the civilized being she hadn’t silenced after all could mount an attack, Megara sensed another presence. She stopped and rose onto her toes, looking left and right, testing the air for a new smell, but the rank odor of things rotting blocked everything else. Any other time, she would have reached for her container of mace, but she-animal still commanded her mind, her muscles. If anyone attacked, she’d attack back.
Footsteps resembling the sounds of beating drums became more distinct, and Megara clicked through her options. Someone was coming up behind her, running fast, also wearing athletic shoes. The stranger’s footfalls were heavier than hers, a man.
A man for a bitch in heat.