Heart of Fire by Linda Howard Page A

behind me."
    But she just stood there, trying to get herself under control, as he walked to the door. He stopped and lifted his eyebrows at her, then took a step back toward her. Jillian was recovered enough that she narrowed her eyes wamingly at him. He laughed and lifted his hand in a little salute, then left without saying anything, a forbearance she appreciated.
    After a minute she crossed to the door and obediently set the bolt and chain. Then she sat down in the chair he had just vacated and tried to bring order to her scattered thoughts. It was difficult to think, however, when all she wanted to do was feel , to revel in the wickedly delicious sensations he had aroused.
    Why couldn't he have been simply what he had appeared at first, a raffish, disreputable guide who was too fond of his whiskey? She could have easily resisted that man, but the one he had revealed to her tonight, the real one, was something else. Despite that sexual brashness he was charming, or maybe that was part of his charm. She had never met anyone before who was so totally at ease with his sexuality as Ben Lewis was. But even worse, he was intelligent and tough; he had seen immediately that Kates was up to no good. Unfortunately, he had also seen how easily he could slip past her guard, and he'd taken fiendish delight in doing so.
    She had to be a fool to willingly spend two months or longer in his company. She had supplied herself with birth control pills not because she was looking to have an affair but because it was common sense and basic self-protection. Anything could happen to a woman in a foreign country, in uncivilized circumstances. She would be alert, try to protect herself, but her relentless realism told her that the worst could happen. Protecting herself against Ben Lewis, however, would be more difficult, because she would have to resist herself, too. If he made love as well as he kissed, a woman could die of pleasure.
    She could also die of other means, if she insisted on continuing. Dutra's presence made the expedition even more dangerous than before. But she was committed; she refused to stop now. If this meant her life, she was willing to take the risk, because this was her one chance to vindicate the professor and resurrect her own career. It was for herself, and for her father, the one gift he would appreciate above all others.
    She was going to find the city of the Anzar. The others, Kates and Rick, were in it because of the lure of the Empress jewel, but she hoped it didn't really exist. It had been useful as the lodestone that had drawn so many people to search for the Anzar, searches she hadn't told Ben about, but if the Empress really existed it put them in grave danger from Kates and his henchman. If she was lucky, she would find only the city.
    She was very much afraid, though, that the Empress was real. The professor had thought so. He had written that he suspected it was a huge red diamond, as colored diamonds were mined in Brazil. It would still be there, indestructible and undisturbed, possibly the world's largest specimen of the rarest diamond of all, the red diamond.
    Red diamonds were of poor quality, because of the imperfections that made them red, but their rare color made them extremely valuable. The professor had been interested not in the Empress itself but rather in what it would prove. There would be no riches in it for him, only vindication, since archaeological sites belonged to the country they were found in rather than to the person who found them. The government of Brazil would be extremely pleased if the Empress was found.
    She hadn't told Ben of all the references to the Empress, for if he realized how likely it was that the thing existed he might refuse to put them in such danger. As it was, he thought they would explore the jungle for a couple of months and find nothing. No Empress, no danger.
    But the professor had found another map, far more detailed than the seventeenth-century one. That was