‘I can manage.’ Didn’t he realise she’d been doing just that for months now?
‘I’m sure you can,’ he said. ‘But I haven’t been sitting under the sun for days on that truck. Go and have a minute in the shade.’
She was perfectly capable of pitching the tent. But she wasn’t stupid. He wanted to pitch the tent for her? Fabulous. She might as well get some kind of positive out of this. ‘Thanks.’
She was hot. And breathless. She took the sarong she used as a towel and headed to the bathroom. Cold showers were all there were at campsites like this. And they were wonderful.
Afterwards she wandered off to where the animals were housed. Stared for an age at the big crocodile basking in the sun, lying so still he looked as if he were carved from stone.
‘Do you think he’s actually alive?’ Seb asked.
‘Don’t be fooled,’ she answered, not turning to face him, not surprised that he’d found her. ‘He can move faster than you can blink.’
The snakes didn’t appeal to her, looking at her with their cold and dangerous eyes, but she was fascinated by the chameleon. She stood watching his eyes swivel in all directions at once, amazed by the speckles of bright colour on his skin.
‘He can’t decide what his camouflage should be.’ Seb chuckled.
She could relate to the poor thing, didn’t know which way to defend herself against her own weakness. But as she watched the lizard she couldn’t stop curiosity from biting.
‘So what about you, Seb? Why are you travelling alone? Is there no one to warm your sleeping bag?’
‘You can if you want.’ He laughed outright at her look. ‘Well, you asked.’ He rubbed his knuckle against the stubble of his jaw and a hint of rue flickered in his eye. ‘Actually it’s been a long time since I even kissed someone.’
She turned from the chameleon. ‘You expect me to believe that?’
‘Well, yes.’
She rolled her eyes. ‘Sebastian, I’ve been with you. I know what you’re like.’ She knew exactly his potency—his ability to move far faster than that crocodile ever could.
‘I haven’t been with anyone since you. What happened between us wasn’t normal, Ana.’
‘No.’ She managed a smile. It certainly wasn’t for her.
‘I don’t usually ask women to marry me.’
She laughed. ‘Has the experience put you off all women for good, Seb?’ Wouldn’t that just have served him right?
Coolly he held her gaze. ‘Perhaps.’
Wow—there wasn’t a hint of jest in his tone.
‘Have you met anyone else?’ he asked.
‘Not that many men like a woman who towers above them.’
‘You don’t tower. I’m taller than you.’
‘You’re not most men.’
His gaze dropped, she felt his focus skim over her as if it were his hand. ‘Most men love long legs.’
She shook her head—he was so wrong. ‘Most men run a mile.’ He still looked so disbelieving she got cross. ‘It’s OK for you. You’re a man. It’s an asset. For a woman to be as tall as I am? It’s freak status. I see them, Seb, staring, laughing, coming up to stand behind me at the bar, measuring themselves against the giant woman.’
His brows contracted. ‘It really bothers you? But they only stare because you’re beautiful.’
Yeah, right.
He stepped closer. ‘There’s really been no one else?’
Was that all he cared about? ‘No,’ she answered, unable to lie or to stop her own huskiness. ‘But that’s irrelevant, Seb.’
He glanced back to the chameleon. ‘Maybe.’
She wasn’t going to let him confuse her. She wasn’t going to allow the past to rear up and toss her off course again—not now she was finally on top of it.
She turned to walk back to the safety of the others. But Seb moved, standing in front of her, not touching her, yet not letting her pass by. She looked up at him, trying to make her lack of interest plain. A little difficult, though, given that her body was determined to be interested.
He almost smiled. But his eyes were too sharp and his body too tense.
‘Dinner will be ready.’ She broke the taut silence with a voice almost too husky to be heard. ‘I’m starving.’
She ate quietly, listened to Seb chatting to the others. He offered no reason for his appearance, didn’t explain their relationship and thankfully everyone was too polite to ask. But she could see them warming to him just as everyone who came in contact with him did. She had—so had Phil—when they’d been out on the town that night. It was impossible not to be charmed by the smile, the attentiveness, the goddamn brilliant social skills. They were out in play tonight. She could see the boys thinking he was a good guy and the girls giving her sideways looks as if they were wondering how the hell she got so lucky.
If only they knew. The kind of warm attentiveness he showed here was nothing on the focus he showed in bed. Her cheeks burned with fast-flying provocative memories. It was as if he dedicated every bit of himself to the art of pleasure—time and time again. She’d thought it would be endless.
She shifted. Went and did the dishes even though it wasn’t her turn on the roster. She just couldn’t sit still, couldn’t be near him.
The darkness was swift and complete. And even though there were millions of stars they were miles away and threw no light on the ground. She wouldn’t sleep in the open air here—there were too many scary things about like snakes and scorpions and, heaven forbid, lions. But Seb was big and strong and would just have to handle it. In the tent she curled up in her tee shirt and tried not to feel guilty.
Hours later, still awake, she heard the splotch, splotch, splotch. Recognised it immediately and registered the quickening tempo. It hadn’t rained often on her trip, but when it rained, it really rained. It only took three of the super-sized drops and you were saturated. She shut her eyes and cursed the weather gods. But not even she could leave him out there to drown in warm mud.
She flicked on her torch and unzipped the canvas. ‘Seb. Get in here.’
He was only a few yards away and already sitting up, muttering beneath his breath.
‘Come on, hurry up.’
He was in sooner than she would ever be ready for. His big frame took up the bulk of the space and he stuffed his sleeping sheet in too.
‘Damn.’ With one swift movement he whipped his shirt up over his head.
‘What are you doing?’
He tossed the tee into the corner. ‘What does it look like?’
‘You’re…’ Oh, my. He was amazing. She remembered the muscles—back then she’d been amazed too, had wondered how a man who spent so much of his life in a suit got muscles like those. But now he was even leaner, his body even more defined. The six-pack was rock-hard and her fingertips begged to trace the shape of the muscles in his arms.
‘Taking off my wet clothes, yes.’
He was undoing his shorts, his big hands working smoothly. She remembered the feel of them on her. How close he’d pulled her to him. The heat of the night and the beat of the music. The madness that had swept over her, making her sigh yes, yes, yes.
‘You know there are scorpions around—you might get bitten,’ she snapped.
He looked amused, took his time about peeling off his shorts and revealing the brief boxers beneath. ‘I might get bitten by something a lot bigger than one of those.’
She flicked the torch off.
‘Hey.’ He reached across and flicked it back on. ‘I want to find my sleeping bag, you know.’ He chuckled. ‘You wouldn’t want me making a mistake and getting into the wrong one, would you?’
She looked at the way his eyes were dancing; the old Seb shone out at her—the joker, the tease. He made it too easy, so much fun. Oh, yeah, she and every other woman on the planet could do nothing but say yes to that smiling good humour.
She curled her legs up under her big sloppy tee and dived into the silk liner of her sleeping bag. Boiling a
lready.
As she stared up at the roof of the tent, her legs drawn up, the silence was agony. She could hear every rustle. Her own breathing was too loud, too fractured. How the hell was she going to sleep when her whole body was wired? It was as if he was this great source of power that made her hum when he got within ten feet. Now within one foot she was just about floating off the ground hoodoo-voodoo style.
She closed her eyes and counted as she breathed, trying to think of something—anything—but him. But as the rain pelted down the futility of it got to her and she started to laugh. Once she started, she couldn’t stop.
And he laughed too. Deep and rich and loud. That wonderful warm sound sliced through her tension, freeing her to feel a weird kind of relief. She loved the sound of his laughter.
And then suddenly she was filled with tension again. That stupid yearning as she remembered hours of rolling and laughing with him in what she’d thought had been the affair of a lifetime.
She sobered completely. ‘Did you have to come all the way to Africa, Seb?’
‘Yeah,’ he sighed, sounding as if he regretted it as much as she. ‘I did.’
CHAPTER THREE
WHEN Ana opened her eyes Seb was sprawled next to her, taking up far too much of the tent to be fair. She was cramped up between him and the top of her pack. And from the sound of his regular breathing, he was still asleep. Carefully she rolled towards him, leaned a fraction closer to study his face in a way she wouldn’t dare when he was conscious and could catch her. But stealing a look now could do no harm.
Wrong, because there was his scent, curling around her—the suddenly familiar heady scent of Seb. How could she have forgotten that? Her heart thumped in her chest. Tension mixed with something else as she remembered sensations she’d forced from her memory months ago. He had stubble on his jaw—she remembered the feel of that beneath her fingers, tickling her stomach, gently abrading her upper thighs…
She breathed out. Don’t go there—
But his lips were full and she remembered how they’d felt, how they’d drawn everything from her. She looked down from them. His chest was free of the silk sleeping liner, his shoulders broad and bared and so incredibly muscular. Every cell in her tightened at the sight. He was still the most handsome man she’d ever known.
‘Ana.’ It was the tiniest whisper but the husky note plucked deep within her.
Slowly she turned her attention from his torso to his eyes. A hint of drowsiness lingered, but something else glinted in their depths. A seriousness. He knew she’d been looking—all too hungrily.
For an instant neither moved.
‘I’m on breakfast duty.’ She was too close. Her fault. She yanked on her shorts and grabbed her bikini top. She’d slip it on under the sloppy tee behind a tree or something. Just as he sat up she escaped, ignoring him when he called her name again.
But she trembled as those senses she had thought had been dulled roared back into life: sight, smell, sound, touch.
Taste. She ached to taste.
How could she still want to? How could she when she knew getting close like that before had meant nothing to him and everything to her? When she’d been through something so terrible because of her affair with him? How was it possible?
But her body wasn’t listening to her brain, wasn’t interested in those memories. No, the muscles were remembering something else. The weight, the sensation, the pleasure that his body had pulled from hers haunted her now. Her body yearned for it again. Uncaring of what the consequences had been before.
She walked to the heart of the campsite where Bundy already had the fire going and the billy boiling. She poured a cup of tea and drank it hot and black, wincing at the burn on her lips and the roof of her mouth. The superficial pain was a good reminder—that she didn’t need any more of the real kind.
Breakfast was over in a rush. She didn’t look at Seb. Her muttered ‘thanks’ barely audible when she saw he’d packed up the tent and had her pack ready alongside his.
The Jeeps arrived to take them to the rim of the Ngorohgoro Crater. She jumped up from the grass and walked towards them, but Seb was beside her before she’d taken two paces. His eyes danced as he tossed everything of theirs into the back.
Ana fidgeted, longing to fall back on her old defence—to run. But here there was no escape—not when he held the door and then climbed in right beside her.
The road was the most appalling surface she’d ever been on. Craters instead of tracks, cavernous potholes, mud dried harder than concrete all combined to jerk the Jeep from side to side and had them all suspended in the air above their seats several times. Seb simply reached up above and held onto the frame of the Jeep, and put his other arm around Ana, pulling her into his side, steadying her. But she’d have been better off bumping against the steel frame, because he felt harder, more solid than any metal framing.
Finally they got to the campsite near the top of the crater rim. The Jeep pulled up and they spilled out. Tomorrow they’d go in and see the wildlife. Ana could hardly wait—she had some live lion feed to toss over the side.
Seb stretched the cramps out and watched Ana walk a distance towards the lounge facility. He couldn’t stop walking after her as he saw her take off her tee shirt. Wearing just a bikini top, with low-slung cotton shorts, her incredible body was open to view. How could she possibly think those legs were too long?
He lengthened his strides, took them faster, reached for her arm and turned her. Her cheeks were lightly flushed. The blue of her eyes shone bright and deep and she watched him as slowly, deliberately, he looked down her length.
‘What is that?’ He cleared his throat. Hadn’t realised he was hoarse.
‘What?’
He pointed a finger at her belly button. ‘That.’
‘Oh.’
He watched with masculine pleasure as the colour deepened under the skin of her cheeks. ‘A navel piercing.’
Yeah, he knew that, but it felt damn good to see her react to him like that—knowing she still felt something too. Because his body was going out of control. ‘When?’
‘A few months ago.’
‘Why?’
She looked about to roll her eyes like some sulky teen caught out using peroxide for the first time. ‘It was a suggestion in a self-help book. Do something out of character—like get a tattoo or a piercing. I went for the non-permanent option.’
‘You did it because a book said to?’ He wanted to laugh but he was too busy staring. ‘What sort of a book is that?’
‘Quite a good one, actually.’
‘So you’re empowered now?’
‘Assertive.’
He did laugh then, for just a second. Ana was assertive? As if. Then he sobered and couldn’t resist touching. He pressed his hand flat to her belly, the navel ring centred between his thumb and forefinger. He felt her muscles quiver, felt the warmth of her skin. Felt the need for her bite harder. ‘Did it hurt?’
He lifted his gaze for her reply.
‘No.’ The challenge was back in her voice. ‘I’ve been through worse.’
The blue of her eyes was incredibly deep—ultramarine—and way too easy to drown in. And he was so close to kissing her.
If she was assertive, as she reckoned, he’d probably get a slap for it. And he deserved it, didn’t he? Because she’d taken their marriage seriously when he’d intended it to be a fun fling, never a forever kind of deal. He’d thought it was obvious, a holiday romance on steroids, but looking back he knew they’d been too busy sleeping together instead of talking about what they actually wanted. And still he wanted to sleep with her. The fire still burned—even now, months after she’d walked out.
‘Uh.’ He scrambled for words, any kind of coherent thought so he wouldn’t make a fool of himself. ‘What did your mum say?’
She blinked, obviously surprised. ‘About the navel ring? Seb,’ she laughed—a humourless choke. ‘My mum’s dead.’
It was Seb’s turn to blin
k. Was that a recent thing? He’d had no idea. ‘Hell, Ana, I’m sorry.’
‘It’s OK. It was a long time ago.’
‘Oh.’ He matched her small smile and aimed to lighten. ‘So what did your dad say?’
Her smile faded. He should have known better—total foot-in-mouth syndrome.
‘They died together in an accident, Seb. I was six.’
Seb sucked in a breath. ‘Ana, that’s terrible.’
She stepped back, was going to walk away. But he didn’t want her to walk away. He wanted to know now—ask all the questions he hadn’t bothered with before. Maybe then he could understand her more. And his hand was cold now it wasn’t touching her. ‘Who did you go to, then?’
‘My mother’s brother and his wife.’
Seb walked slowly beside her, wary about asking the obvious but unable to resist. ‘Are they nice?’
She stopped walking. ‘You really want to know, Seb?’
He nodded.
She shook her head. ‘I was the stereotypical lonely orphan. They already had two children of their own—perfect little blonde things. I just didn’t fit in. Could never make the grade. And I was grieving. I guess I made it difficult for them right from the start. I closed up. I was hard work.’
She was smiling, a touch of sarcasm acting as cover-up, but Seb got the glimpse of a pain that just had to run deep. ‘You were six. You had a right to grieve. You were lost. They should have found you.’
She should have been brought safely home. And Seb understood what it was not to be wanted—hadn’t he had that vibe from a step-parent or two? ‘Did it get better? Did you get on with your cousins?’
‘Not really.’
It had got worse, huh?
‘I left home as soon as I could.’
Definitely worse.
‘What about you? You have brothers and sisters?’
Seb hesitated. Where to begin on any of that nightmare? Yeah, he knew how hard it was to try to get along with other kids you had nothing in common with but that you had to live with because of the adults in your life. In his case it was because of the marriages—and remarriages—of his parents. But that was too big a can of worms and he went for the easy option. ‘No.’ He looked at her, waited for her to look at him. ‘Jeez, we really didn’t know each other at all, did we?’
British Bachelors & Conveniently Bedded Bundle Page 31
