Island Heat (A Sexy Time Travel Romance With a Twist) by Jill Myles Page A

than ten feet away.
    I followed his pointing finger and frowned. “It’s a tree, yes?” I didn’t understand what he meant. “Tree?”
    “Tree,” he agreed, chuckling, as if amused by me. His voice was deliciously husky. “Tree,” he said again, pointing at the base and then gesturing upward.
    It took me a few moments to comprehend what he meant. “You want me to go up the tree?” I made a climbing gesture.
    My gesturing hands seemed to amuse him mightily, because he grinned even as he nodded at me. “Diana, tree,” he said.
    “Why would I want to get in the tree?” I protested, but my words fell on deaf ears. Despite my protests, I was shuffled over to the tree and hoisted unceremoniously onto the lowest hanging branch. “There, I’m in the tree,” I said, clinging to the trunk and glaring down at him. “Happy now?”
    “Tree,” he repeated, then gestured that I should go higher.
    “You are getting on my last nerve, Salvador,” I grumbled, but continued to climb.
    When I was about twenty or thirty feet off the ground and my legs began to throb due to my favoring of one foot, I looked down at him again. “Tree?” I yelled down. “Is this high enough? Tree?”
    He nodded at me, looking pleased. “Tree.”
    I made myself comfortable on the branch and straddled it, ignoring the way the rough bark chafed my inner thighs. There was no way I was sitting sidesaddle on this enormous thing. The branch that I was on was fully twice as big around as Salvador’s body, and it was one of the smaller ones. “Damn tree,” I muttered.
    Just then, Salvador disappeared down below.
    I panicked. He was leaving me? Here alone in the damn tree? “Salvador!” I yelled at the top of my lungs, lying flat on my belly and getting ready to shimmy back down after him. Screw this. “Salvador! Come back!”
    He reappeared down below, shaking his head at me in anger. “Diana,” he called up, his voice low. “Diana tree. Diana tree .” He put his finger to his lips, indicating silence. Diana tree silence.
    Yeah, I got the picture.
    “Diana tree,” I agreed, a little disgruntled. If he wanted me to stay up here, I’d stay up here. “Salvador tree?”
    He shook his head and made some motion I didn’t understand. “Salvador,” he said, gesturing. It looked like sweeping. Diana tree silence, Salvador sweeping?
    I frowned down at him. “You’ll come back, won’t you? Salvador comes back for Diana? Yes?”
    Salvador tilted his head up at me and gave me a blatant, sexy smile. “Salvador and Diana, yes.” His look was suggestive, as if he meant a lot more by just linking our names.
    Oooh. That hadn’t been what I meant, but I understood it all the same. Blushing, I sat back on the tree again.
    Down below, I caught a glimpse of dark golden skin and muscles, and leaned over my branch to watch the show. From up here, I could admire the man’s body without worrying about him seeing my scrutiny.
    And my, was he beautiful. His shoulders were broad and thick, tapering to a trim waist and just a hint of buttock that was barely covered by his scraps of loincloth. As he bent over, the muscles in his back rippled, and I felt my stomach flutter in response. I was attracted to the man like nobody’s business.
    It was only after I stared at his gleaming, muscular form for long minutes that I started to realize what he was doing. At first, I thought he was preparing more medicinal gunk for my foot, because he went back to the spiky plant and cut a few more strands off, then crushed them in his hand, the digits of his finger gleaming with creamy moisture that oozed from the crushed leaves. Then, he took the oversized leaf and began to drag it along the ground in a right-to-left sweeping motion.
    Puzzled, I watched him work for several minutes. What on earth was he doing? He circled the base of my tree and went over the nearby surroundings, swiping the ground with that long, greasy leaf.
    It was only when he began to backtrack the