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  LostFound_Azod

  Lost & Found

  by

  Shara Azod

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Lost & Found Copyright© 2011Shara Azod

  Cover Artist: Shara Azod

  Editor: Lacynda Hill

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews. This is a work of fiction. All references to real places, people, or events are coincidental, and if not coincidental, are used fictitiously. All trademarks, service marks, registered trademarks, and registered service marks are the property of their respective owners and are used herein for identification purposes only. eBooks are NOT transferable. Re-selling, sharing or giving eBooks is a copyright infringement.

  Lost

  It was all the monkeys’ fault. Honestly, Kara Olivier had never seen monkeys outside the zoo, and they seemed to be playing with her. That is, if one considered throwing fruit at her playing. She’d like to think they thought she looked hungry, because she was. So, she maybe shouldn’t have followed a smallish group a little farther into the rainforest and away from the group of grad students touring the Amazon. She could have sworn she wasn’t that far from the trail. But that was how long ago? An hour? More? She didn’t wear a watch because, well, who needed one when you had a clock on your cell and other varied electronic devices? Damn it, she hadn’t strayed very far, why couldn’t she find the trail?

  Dropping down onto a large rock, she cast a glare up at the wicked, child-like creatures that had started this mess.

  “Thanks a lot. How the hell am I supposed to find my way back to the boat before dark?” Kara didn’t want to even consider the ramifications of staying out here in the forest at night. She wasn’t too keen on being out here in the middle of the day.

  At least she thought it was the middle of the day. It had been maybe twenty minutes into the tour on the trail, which began at ten in the morning. She’d been wandering around trying to find her way back, which should’ve been a straight shot back from where she’d been. Man, she was so screwed. All she had on her was a protein bar and some water, and she figured she’d better save both for when she really needed them.

  “I’m not going to cry, I will not give up. The trail has to be here somewhere.” If only she could sell herself on that, she could get up off her butt and find it instead of sitting there feeling all defeated.

  “Do you talk to yourself a lot? And you are a very long way from any trail that I know of, linda.”

  Kara would’ve jumped from her rock, but she was too petrified to move. Her eyes fixated on rather large booted feet, slowly working upwards, and up, and up, and – Good Lord! She must’ve passed out from heat exhaustion or something. The man standing right there in front of her could not possibly be real. He was simply too beautiful. Not even runway or print model beautiful; but more of an all out archangel come to earth beautiful. He was far too large to be some effeminate human clothes hanger, too rugged, too toned. Yet, he was undeniably gorgeous. All light golden skin, long inky black hair falling in complete abandon in loose curls. And those eyes! They were as green as the flora and fauna surrounding them, but with a decidedly devilish glint.

  Before she knew what she was doing, she reached out and up to cup his jaw, just to see if he was real or a mirage. The skin was smooth beneath her fingertips, and warm. This was either one hell of a hallucination or he was very, very real. And with a delightful Brazilian Portuguese accent too.

  “Wow, you’re almost certainly real.” Maybe she was dead. Perhaps the monkeys led her into some kind of dangerous trap and she’d died before she felt a thing and he was coming to escort her to the hereafter. Nice escort. She couldn’t imagine not wanting to follow someone like him to the pearly gates.

  “Bela mas demente,” the archangel muttered before making an impatient hand gesture. “Come. I’ll not leave you out here. There’s a storm coming.”

  If she were anyplace else, there would be no way in hell Kara would follow some strange man anywhere. However, given her options, she’d take archangel over the many varied dangers of the Amazon any day. She was hot, sweaty, her arms had been a buffet for mosquitoes, and she was sure those damn monkeys were mocking her. At least they weren’t throwing fruit anymore. She cast one more glare in their direction. Little demons.

  “Did you eat anything they threw at you?” Archangel demanded.

  Geez, she was hot enough already. He just had to go get all forceful and manly like, making her “sweat” in an entirely different way. Kara had a serious weakness for manly men. Deeply immersed in the study of rainforest botany, there wasn’t a heck of a lot of manly types in her life. Being in grad school didn’t afford her the opportunity to socialize much—not at all, really.

  “No. I hadn’t considered it seeing as how I didn’t recognize the fruit, though I admit I was tempted. They smelled really good, but the monkeys’ hands and maybe even saliva had been all over those fruit, and they kept smashing down around me and I am so not eating anything off the-”

  “Enough. Come.”

  Now that was just rude. Sure, she had a tendency to ramble a bit when she got all excited but that was no excuse to be rude. Placing her hand in his much, much larger one, she allowed him to help her off the boulder, immediately massaging her backside as she stood. That rock was hard! She hadn’t even felt it until she was on her feet. The archangel grunted something in Portuguese, she supposed, and began to trudge off in the opposite direction from where she’d been heading, erroneously of course. She was pretty sure they weren’t headed back towards the river, and she would’ve said something, but she had to save all her breath to keep up with him. She was by no means a shrimp, but she wasn’t anywhere near as tall as he was. She had to practically gallop just to stay a few steps behind him.

  “That type of fruit can be poisonous to humans.” The archangel might have been talking to her, but he sort of threw the words over his shoulder in her general direction without looking at her. “You are not from this place; it may interact with your digestive system differently. This far from civilization you could die.”

  None of that should sound remotely sensual, but with that accent it sounded almost desirable. She was getting goose bumps even though her skin was hot enough to fry an egg.

  “Like I said, didn’t occur to me to eat any. I thought they were being…nice.”

  Archangel stopped, swinging around so fast she almost ran smack into his chest. He was looking at her all funny, like she said something wrong.

  “What?” She hadn’t said anything weird had she?

  “How do you feel?”

  What an odd question. She felt perfectly…oh shit, she was dizzy. While they’d been moving, she hadn’t realized it. And her head was pounding. What the heck was wrong with her? She started to open her mouth, but everything felt so damn heavy. The last thing she saw was archangel moving swiftly toward her before everything went black.

  Rescued

  Dr. Armando Ferro generally disdained hapless college groups that thought it was a good idea to go traipsing through the Amazon rainforest with mediocre guides at best; especially the ones from the so-called first world. Snobbish bundles of ignorance were what they usually were. Armando had watched this woman wander off from her group. Knowing nothing good would come of it, he followed her intending on herding her back to her party. Unfortunately, he found himself enchanted as she followed the monkeys cautiously, casting looks o
ver her shoulder as if to assure herself she knew the way back. She didn’t. She couldn’t have. The capuchin monkeys had lured her in very wide semicircles farther and farther away from the river. He could’ve stopped that too, but she had been fascinating to watch. Although she had to be hungry, she hadn’t eaten one of the tempting fruits aimed at her by the tree rascals that seemed to want to intentionally lead her far from her group. Smart move, however she had allowed herself to become enraptured by the little pests.

  It was when she sat down on the huge rock that Armando had become concerned. Her dark skin looked flushed, and she was sweating a little too much, even for the humid rain forest. Her movements were a tad lethargic. It was time to intervene. He hadn’t needed to talk to her more than a few seconds to realize she had a fever. He needed to get her to one of his forest base-homes set up strategically around the area for when he was here doing research. There would be a tropic thunderstorm soon, and the woman was in obvious need of medication.

  As soon as she began to weave on her feet, Armando whisked her up in his arms. Without a pause, he began to make his way to the tree house type camp he had need of here. Her group had no doubt missed her by now, but they would cease looking as soon as the rain began. As if summoned by the very thought, the first fat drops of moisture began to fall. The woman was lighter than he’d expected, so he was able to trot to the large wooden structure built between an exceptionally large kapok and capirona tree. Maneuvering up the somewhat complicated hanging rope stairways wasn’t as difficult either. His grandmother, a full-blooded Kayapo used to tell him often that the woman who is supposed to be in your arms will feel right there. The memory of her words wafted gently on the breeze as he got the woman in his arms into the makeshift home away from home.

  That was ridiculous of course. She was just some random woman he’d found wandering in the forest. Only that wasn’t exactly true was it? Fine, she was some random woman he watched wander in the forest. One you could have led back to her group hours ago. But he hadn’t. Instead he’d followed her, made sure she was in no immediate danger, knowing all along the farther she got from her group, the greater likelihood he would have a great deal of time alone with her.

  Ah, well, so he’d wanted to talk to her, get to know her a little, perhaps share a stolen moment before inevitably returning her to civilization. He hadn’t meant to wait so long that she fell ill, and he really would feel sorry about it, once he had a chance to think about it a little more—maybe.

  Pushing aside the mosquito netting he laid her on the bed tucked away in the far corner of the room. Her clothes had gotten soaked during the trot. He really should take them off. Although the temperature hadn’t dropped, it wasn’t good to let her sleep in wet clothes. Armando tried to look anywhere but at the body he was disrobing slowly— tried and failed. She looked good in the khaki shorts and sensible short-sleeved linen shirt. She looked like temptation in the longish cotton cami and boy-cut lace panties underneath.

  He was going to hell. It had to be a sin to lust after a female you were supposed to be caring for. He was going to have to confess as soon as he got back to Sao Paulo. Oh, wait, he stopped attending mass years ago, stopped going to confession longer than that. Perhaps he should offer some sort of sacrifice to the gods of his grandmother’s people. The ones he’d always scoffed at and dismissed as fairy tales. Well, hell, he would find a way to make amends. And once he got the cami and panties off, he would cover her in the cool dry sheets and never look agai—

  Armando was screwed.

  Her skin looked like Nutella, his favorite. His mouth watered as he wondered if she would taste as good. Probably better with all those delicious curves, wonderfully rounded hips, and full high breasts. She was gorgeous. He should move away from the bed; cover her and run to the other side of the room. Only he couldn’t move. He was transfixed. He started uttering every prayer from every religion he’d ever known, hoping something, anything, would stick and grant him the strength.

  But the woman opened her eyes, looking up at him as if he too was something good to eat.

  “We get to have sex in heaven?”

  Oh, sweet merciful heaven and all the saints combined. She sounded like a siren come to lure him through the fiery gates personally, and have him follow with a smile. Her voice was slightly husky, a little smoky, and altogether like honeyed sin. She stretched her arms upward, snaking them around his neck and pulling him down. There was no pressure, he could have resisted, should have, but didn’t.

  “Ummm, I think I’m going to like being dead, even if I did die a stupid, lonely death in the jungle.”

  He had to stop her. Her lips were getting closer and closer, soft and full, slightly parted in invitation. This was wrong—she had a fever, she didn’t know what she was doing. He was the responsible party here.

  “There’s no such thing as a jungle. It’s a tropical rain forest.” Not what he meant to say and certainly not how he meant to say it. He decided to try again. “And you’re not dead. You have a fever. You probably need to rest, sleep.”

  Still, he didn’t move away. The temptress on his bed simply smiled, so close now he could feel her breath against his lips.

  “Then this is one hell of a hallucination. I’m going to enjoy every second.”

  Seduced

  In real life, Kara had never been so bold. She figured because this was a fever induced dream, or she really was dead, she could afford a little boldness. After all, she’d spent years working toward a doctorate in Biology. Her entire life had been school, school, and more school. She deserved a hot fling with an angel’s helper. No way was hottie an angel, he was way too earthy, too sensual. Those lips were made to be kissed, so she was going to kiss them. At first, his mouth simply lay against hers, unmoving. He must’ve forgotten how to do it. Maybe he had been dead for so long it escaped him how to go about things. So, Kara did what any newly dead and totally turned on woman would do; she showed him. After a few seconds, his lips began to move against hers, hesitantly at first, until finally he took control of the kiss. She moaned softly allowing herself to be swept away in the sudden mastery of lips that moved against her own, a tongue that snaked its way into her mouth, tangling with her own until she was writhing on the soft mattress beneath her.

  Mattress? Wasn’t she in the jungle—rain forest—still? That was where she last remembered being. But, of course, the angel’s helper must have transported her to heaven or a heaven-like waiting room, or maybe a waiting hotel? Whatever, it hardly mattered now that she was dead. Besides, the angel’s helper was really getting into it now. Good Lord, he could kiss. His hand had somehow gotten into her hair, even though she was lying on her back, pulling her into him. The linen of his shirt scratched against her bare chest. Funny she didn’t remember taking off her clothes. Maybe now that she was dead all she had to do was wish something and it would be so.

  “I wish you were as naked as I seem to be.” She hadn’t meant to say it out loud, but surely it didn’t matter.

  “I shouldn’t do this. We have to stop; you’re not well, namorada.”

  Of course she wasn’t well; she was deceased, dead, recently departed. Maybe heaven had rules about these kinds of things. But then, he wouldn’t have working parts would he? And the part pressed up against the apex of her thighs was most definitely working. It felt so good, hard and full. Kara shifted, rubbing her bare pussy against the covered hard log. Hadn’t she just wished him naked? Why was he still wearing clothes? Ah, well, she was not above taking them off herself. She gathered the lightweight shirt in her hands and she wrenched the closure apart not caring about the rain of buttons that flew everywhere. She did, however, care very much about the low, animal-like groan that escaped from the heavenly being above her. Oh, yes, that’s what she wanted. Eyes every shade of brown under the sun narrowed into almond-shaped slits, his mouth turning from soft and inviting to damn near cruelly sensual, quirking up on one side.

  “Estou uma pessoa nem um pouco são.�
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  No clue what the hell that meant. Didn’t matter; he was ripping off the rest of his clothes to unveil the body she knew was under there. Oh, yes, heavenly indeed. Long and lean, the man looked like a human weapon. She really hoped she’d get to stay here a while. She wanted to explore every inch of him. But right now, she was going to need some instant relief.

  “Yes, yes, give it to me.” Wow, that almost sounded porn-ish. Kara was quite proud of herself. She had never managed to sound even remotely like something out of a porn movie before. Never seemed appropriate.

  “Oh, no, pouco beleza. There is no chance I am not tasting all of you.”

  Ummm, that didn’t sound so much like a porn movie as it did pure devilish delight. That was okay, she could go for some devilishness wrapped in such a divine package, complete with the sexiest deep accent to boot! The afterlife was turning out to be far, far better than real life could ever be. It was a shame she’d never actually get to study in the mysterious place she’d died in, which had been her goal since high school; but at least her body would possibly fuel some beautiful exotic plant-life or something, or maybe poison a few of those impish monkeys that lead her to her doom. At least she got to experience some red hot reward-for-a-life-kinda-decently-lived lovin’.

  However, she would really like to know what the hell her sexy lover was saying. “What does that—Oh!”

  Without her noticing, her lover had managed to move down her body and was now encasing a nipple in his hot, demanding mouth. Oh, sweet Saint Valentine, he was sending lightning bolts through her system, just the steady pulling sucks on one, then the other, and then good lord both nipples. The man was making love to her breasts with his mouth, making her poor pussy scream and pout, demanding its share of attention. Instead of satisfying her need, he angled his hips to drag that oh so broad penis against her without penetrating. That was just freaking wrong.