Read Online Aztec Gold by Caridad Piñeiro - Free Book Online

hand on his bare chest. As she did so, a small tingle greeted her, and at that, Rafe dropped his hands and opened his eyes, breaking the electric connection.
    “What was that?” she asked and rubbed her hand against the warmth of his skin.
    “His nahual power, now mine. It’s the reason I didn’t come back to you. I needed to learn to control it. To use it to free my brother and the last team member.”
    “You think your brother—”
    “David is alive. Eztli Etalpalli has been leaving her victims for us to find. Drained of blood. Half-eaten. David hasn’t been one of them yet.”
    “So you think they’re still alive? That she has them in the temple?” she asked, rubbing her hand back and forth against his chest, trying to comfort him with her touch. Trying to understand what he was now and how that changed whatever they had been or could be in the future.
    “I’m hoping David and my other team member are still alive.”
    And including Rafe, only three men had survived out of a team of half a dozen, she thought.
    “Why are you insisting we leave? We can help you—”
    “The demon will sense your presence and once She does, She may try to take you also. I can’t risk that,” he said and cupped the side of her face again. His palm was rough as she remembered it. The hand of a man of action. But as rough as his skin was, the caress was tender and filled with restraint.
    He might say he wanted her to leave, but his touch said otherwise.
    She slipped her hand over his, imprisoning it as she leaned in to his touch. Rubbed the side of her face against his palm. “ I can’t leave you now. We won’t let you fight this battle alone.”
    “Alone,” he repeated, and with a deep, body-shaking sigh, he enveloped her in his arms. Softly he whispered, “You can’t even begin to guess how alone I feel.”
    She held him to her tightly, her hands pressing against the broad width of his back to meld his bigger body to hers. Rising on tiptoe, she nuzzled his face with her nose before lightly skimming her lips over his. However different he was, he was still Rafe, wasn’t he? And no matter the ultimatum she had issued about being first in his life or else, she still cared for him. Enough to not abandon him when he needed her.
    As for where their relationship would go later….
    “You’re not alone anymore. We’re here now. I’m here now and I’m not going anywhere.”
    Eyes narrowed, Rafe considered her for far too many heartbeats. Pulling away from him, she shot him a quizzical look. This time he answered her unspoken question almost immediately.
    “That’s a very different attitude from the Cyn who tossed me out the door in New York.”
    To deny it would be a lie, so she didn’t. “I did a lot of thinking in the months you were gone. In the days since Cordero’s map—”
    “Cordero?”
    Realizing that Rafe was unaware of the reason for their presence at this village, she explained. “I was asked to authenticate a journal and map found in a Missouri cornfield. The items had supposedly belonged to a conquistador by the name of Juan Domingo Cordero and it turned out the documents were authentic.”
    “And that’s what ripped you out of your safe little shell and brought you here?” he said, and there was no denying the anger and disappointment in his voice.
    Cynthia stepped closer to him once more, reached up and tunneled her fingers through his thick hair before moving her hand downward to cradle his jaw. “ You brought me here, Rafe. I told myself it was because I had to know what happened to you, but in my heart…I hoped you were still alive. That we could be together again.”
    He groaned as if in pain and whispered, “I’ve missed you so. I was a fool to leave.”
    She slipped her thumb across his lips and pushed up on the balls of her feet until the warmth of his breath played against her mouth. “And I was a fool to force you to go.”
    With a shaky breath, he covered her mouth with his, seeking