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

off of a natural shelf in the stone. She flipped it in her hands and brought it to the fire, swaddling the base of it in ragged fabric. “It will be hot, so be careful that you do not burn yourself.”
    When the odd bowl was filled, she handed it to me and produced another, smaller wooden spoon for me to eat with. I poked at the soup cautiously for a moment, examining it. Bits of pale meat floated in the thin broth, some greens mixed in. The bowl was hot even through the fabric, and I was careful not to let the wide metal lip touch my bare legs.
    The first bite was pure heaven. I took another larger bite, nearly burning the roof off my mouth in the process, but I felt like I couldn’t get enough into my stomach fast enough. “It’s wonderful,” I said to her between bites.
    She beamed with pleasure, then got herself a bowl and sat across from me on another stool, eating.
    As we ate, I counted the stools – four in all. So there were only four castaways here in the cave, five if you counted me. But all of the men were missing, and it was just myself and Olivia at the fire. I finished my food, scraped the bowl with my spoon, and wondered at the odd seam that went down the middle of the metal bowl, cutting across the diameter. It seemed an odd place to put a seam, and I unwrapped it and examined it.
    A helmet. A conquistador helmet. I blinked in surprise. “Where did you get this?”
    She shrugged. “Salvador.”
    “Speaking of, where are all the men this morning?” I tried to make my question sound as innocent as possible.
    Her small face closed up on me again at that. “Harold is sleeping late, because he is old and unwell. Salvador went hunting. Eustace...he left.”
    I couldn’t ignore the sourness in her voice. “Left?”
    She gave a watery sniff and bent her head over her soup-bowl-helmet. “He’s gone.” Olivia rubbed a hand across her face in a childlike motion. “He said he’d be back later when he’s had time to...think about things. He’s never left me alone here before.”
    “I’m sorry.” What did I say to the kid after she’d just been abandoned by her brother and left stuck with me? “I, uh, really didn’t want them to fight over me.”
    “Well, what did you expect?” She said tearfully. “They’ve been stranded here for so long with no women, and then here you come sauntering in with no clothing on your body, and talking filthy, and you’re so pretty, of course they’re going to fight over you.”
    My back stiffened and I frowned at her. This was going a little far. “No clothes? Talking filthy?” Well, I did call Salvador a bastard a few times, but jeez. Olivia was really damn sheltered if she thought I was a potty mouth. Of course, she was only twelve or so, and she’d been stranded on this island for some time. Still, I stuck with my guns. “I’m wearing a bikini.”
    “A what?”
    Now I was starting to get annoyed with her. My bikini was actually pretty modest as far as swim-wear went. It was a two-piece sport bikini, nothing sleazy, so I was starting to get offended by the fact that she thought I was some huge skank. “You’ll have to forgive me if I lost the rest of my clothing when the dinosaurs tried to eat me.”
    She gave a watery sniff. “The terrible lizards? They attacked you?”
    “Yeah, the T-Rex nearly ate me at one point. I had to hide in the plane for a long time. That’s how Salvador found me. He saved me from the cavemen.”
    Olivia shuddered. “They’re rather vile, aren’t they? I’ve only seen them a few times – both Salvador and Eustace try to keep me sheltered here in the cave.”
    I could guess why. If the cavemen were hot to trot for a big amazon like me, I had no doubt that Bgha and his crew would find Olivia’s petite – although young – form a nice treat. “It’s nice of them to take care of you,” I ventured.
    Her face hardened. “They treat me like I’m a child.” She stood and extended one hand for my empty bowl. “We’ll