“Haven’t you enough men to do the job?” Janet asked. Her voice was strange. She was nauseated from the sight blessedly left behind her.
“We have enough to stop any group who doesn’t have inside knowledge of our every movement,” Craig said.
“Ask for more men, damn it!” She was getting hysterical. She fought to control. Nothing was accomplished by falling to pieces.
“We have all the men who can be spared,” Craig said. “There are problems like this other than at Great Zimbabwe, you know—quite aside from the fact that most of the military can’t be bothered. I don’t know how much you know about the political situation in Zimbabwe, Janet, or if you know what’s happening in the other emerging nations of Africa. It’s volatile, to say the very least. We had a revolution a few years ago, and we’re still picking up the pieces. For every two people who thank God for the end of the bloodshed, there’s another who thinks the killing stopped too soon. No one is sending troops to Great Zimbabwe that are needed to guarantee footholds of power. The death of seven elephants—or seven hundred—isn’t going to change that. Whatever our problem is here, it must be solved with the men we have. We’re not getting more. We’re not the highest priority.”
The plane landed at Great Zimbabwe without incident. Janet’s thoughts were still on those seven dead elephants. Their tusks might someday be padlocked in that room in Christopher’s basement, she reflected angrily. He should see this! Not even he could be unmoved by the brutal carnage.
Craig turned her over to Sergeant Timbuti, a neatly uniformed black man who was waiting when the plane taxied to a stop. “The sergeant will take you to the hotel,” Craig said. “You take a few minutes to get settled, and I’ll make arrangements to pick you up in—” he checked his watch “—about fifteen minutes.” Christopher had given her fifteen minutes to meet him in the hotel lobby in Johannesburg, and the echo was disturbing. “That is, unless you’ve decided you’ve seen enough,” Craig ventured, giving her an out.
“I want to go,” she replied quickly before she could have second thoughts.
Sergeant Timbuti said little, and Janet wasn’t up to initiating conversation. They drove directly to the Zimbabwe Ruins Hotel. There was no formal registration. The whole complex had been commandeered, staff and all, by those involved in Project Pachyderm. Dr. Nhari, the man she was to contact on the site, was out in the field and wouldn’t be back until late evening. There were no tourists, because the area was off limits to unauthorized personnel.
The accommodations were deluxe compared to what Janet had expected. In her room, there was a double bed, a sofa, three chairs, a coffee table, a desk and various end tables, even air conditioning and a telephone. There was even a bathroom with a shower-tub combination that would have sent her into fits of ecstasy if she hadn’t been so numb from the sight at the waterhole.
Splashing water on her face, she looked in the mirror over the sink. Despite the coolness of the water, her skin remained hot. Her pupils were dilated. “If you can’t stand the heat, you shouldn’t be in the kitchen,” she said, drying her face with a towel.
She went into the bedroom. Craig had said fifteen minutes, but he might be longer. Whoever he had left in charge would be briefing him now on what had happened while he was in Salisbury.
When she dialed the phone for an outside line, a male voice answered. There was a corporal on the switchboard. She asked him for the Monomatapa Hotel in Salisbury. The line crackled and someone answered, seemingly from a great distance away. It was a bad connection. She asked for Roger’s room three times before she was understood. She heard muted ringing but no answer. Someone knocked on her door. “Come on in, Craig!” she said, hanging up the telephone. “I’m ready.”
The door opened. “I’m not Craig, but I’ll come in anyway,” Christopher said, his too-bright smile illuminating his too-handsome face.
“You!” Janet accused, not knowing what she was feeling. Her mind was cluttered with conflicting emotions. She was glad to see him; she was furious that he’d refused them a clean break. She resented his intrusion on a spot untainted by childhood memories of him; she yearned for his arms around her, his lips against hers. Her mind simultaneously flashed visions of seven dead elephants around a bloody pool and bloody ivory stacked to the ceiling in a basement room at Lionspride. “What are you doing here?” she demanded.
“That must be obvious, Janet,” he said, arching his left eyebrow, as though her surprise was unwarranted. “I came running, as you knew I would.” She didn’t know any such thing. She had presumed he was out of her life forever. She had hoped he was anyway.
“I thought I’d seen the last of you,” she said.
“Then you underestimated my determination,” Christopher returned, shutting the door and leaning against it. “You certainly underestimated your charms.”
“Get out!” she commanded. She couldn’t think. Too many things were coming at her—first the miseries of meeting and leaving Christopher in Johannesburg, then the dead elephants with their throbbing shrouds of feasting vultures. Now this. Why couldn’t he leave her alone? She wanted to forget him, but that was impossible with him standing there. If there were still enough good times to outbalance the bad, there soon wouldn’t be. “Will you get out? Please.”
“Come on. Janet, don’t be so inhospitable,” he pleaded playfully. “I just got here, didn’t I?”
He started across the room toward her.
CHAPTER SIX
IT WAS THE LAST THING she wanted; it was what she wanted most in the world. He took her in his strong arms. She didn’t stop him. He smoothed her hair, brushing away a few unruly strands that clung to her right cheekbone. His fingertips were excitingly sensuous as they touched. “Tell me you’re glad to see me,” he said, both his hands sliding up the back of her neck and cupping her head, tilting her face upward. She looked into his startlingly golden eyes, drawn to them like a moth to a flame. He was so handsome, but so callous. Yet she was glad to see him. Dear heaven, she was glad!
“Only someone with your ego could think I’d be happy to see you after Johannesburg,” she said noncommittally. His power over her was great enough without giving him more. She knew the triumph he wanted. She wouldn’t give it to him. Not in Johannesburg—not now, not ever.
“Then tell me you’re not glad to see me,” he challenged. His right thumb gently traced the line of her jaw. She trembled.
“I’m not glad to see you,” she said. She should struggle. She should pound on his muscled chest with her fists—scream, shout. She didn’t.
“You’re not much of a liar,” he said, his smile dimpling both cheeks. She wanted to kiss those dimples, feel the sweetness of them beneath her lips.
He was back in her life—if he had ever left it. She was thrilled and disturbed. She was at Great Zimbabwe to forget him. She arrived with no childhood memories of this place. She had a job to keep her mind occupied. Craig Sylo might fill her emptiness, at least partially. Christopher would spoil it all. She couldn’t reason properly with him around. He distorted her common sense.
He kissed her.
Her arms went stiff at her sides. She waited impatiently for the kiss to end. When it did, it was replaced by another, this one more determined to melt her facade. That’s all it was, too—a facade. If she was cool on the outside, her blood boiled in its race through her veins.
Christopher’s kisses were lethal, even that first one, sixteen years before. If this kiss was different from the first one, it was no less deadly. It thrilled her as no other man’s kisses could. If that was unfair to Bob’s memory, it couldn’t be helped. If that was embarrassing for her, the kiss a result of his lust and not of his love, that couldn’t be helped, either.
Lust was what he felt, lust and a need to conquer a woman who offered him the challenge of resistance, a woman who had come to Africa to blacken the Van Hoon name. On the other hand, Janet felt love for whatever trace of the boy remained in the man. Understanding his hold on her d
idn’t make it easier to bear.
His large hands slid down her back, cupping her hips. He pulled her lower body in closer. The pressure of his lips opened her mouth wider. His tongue tantalized the breach, tasting sweet honey beyond. His hot breath fueled the flames inside her.
It was hard to remain passive. She wanted to wrap her arms around his neck and pull his head, his kisses closer. She wanted the muscled hardness of his chest pressing unyieldingly against the softness of her breasts. She wanted him to stop. That was the conflict raging inside her.
He lifted her in strong arms. She automatically locked her hands around his powerful neck, simultaneously shaking off his demanding lips. “Put me down!” she insisted.
“I have every intention of putting you down,” he said. He carried her to the bed and dropped her on it.
“I don’t want this.” she said. “Can’t you tell?
“I want it, though,” he countered. He began unbuttoning his shirt. “Can’t you tell?” His motivations were inadequate. They didn’t balance Janet’s needs. Whatever satisfaction awaited from a few minutes in bed, it wasn’t enough for Janet. Not with Christopher. Not with any man.
Yet here was the means to shatter the remaining fantasy, to put everything into perspective, to wipe the slate clean. By surrendering, she could force herself to face reality. The loving boy was gone. All that remained was a brutish lout driven by passion and resentment. He would use her body and arise proudly triumphant. She would triumph, too. She would no longer think of him as the hero of her childish fantasies. She would know better. He was the villain. If he mocked her when he was finished, and he would, that would hammer the valuable lesson home. If he left her afterward, and he would, she would pick up the pieces. She had picked up pieces before and survived—when her father died, when Bob died, when she left Lionspride and Christopher the first time. It was worth a few minutes of physical discomfort to prevent more years of mental torment. It was time to cast off childhood dreams and get on with living in the real world.
“It makes no difference to you what I want, does it?” she said. His shirt was open, giving her a glimpse of his muscled chest and scalloped abdomen. That hint of bare flesh excited her more than she would have thought possible.
“I’m not convinced you don’t want it,” he said. He sat on the edge of the bed. His weight dipped the mattress, shifting her closer. He leaned over, one hand on each side of her body. The front of his shirt opened wider. She saw the full excellence of his bare chest and stomach. His skin was golden velvet stretched over hard hot steel.
“But if I’m convinced of what I want?” Janet asked. Even though she had made her decision, something made her want to delay. Traces of his lime-based after-shave mingled with the natural aroma of his body. The combination was potently sexual.
“You don’t know what you want, Janet,” he said with conviction. He began unbuttoning her blouse. “Do you?”
Yes, she knew. She wanted an end to her heartache, an end to the illusion that life could be better. She wanted an exorcism of childhood dreams that had damned her marriage to Bob even before it was consummated. Had Bob lived, they would have separated. Dreams had been calling her back to Africa even then. She was tired of bedding a figment of her imagination. Bedding the real thing would confirm how distorted her dreams had become.
She shut her eyes. She couldn’t help her sadness.
He peeled back her cotton shirt to reveal creamy breasts. She wasn’t wearing a brassiere; it was too hot. Yet it was hotter with her nakedness exposed to his smoldering eyes. “Beautiful!” he sighed appreciatively, and bowed his head. His tongue was a brand against her flesh, a running fire that seared one nipple.
“Please, don’t!” she begged, forgetting she was committed. He paid no attention. The hardening of her nipple was all the invitation he needed to continue.
She ran her hands up his back, wishing his shirt were torn away. She wanted his hard muscle against her palms. She buried her fingers in his silky hair. She didn’t take hold. She didn’t pull him away. He licked her nipples to painful hardness. He flattened the nakedness of her breasts beneath the weight of his bare chest. He burrowed his face against the side of her neck. His exploratory kisses were maddening.
She was afraid. This wasn’t the horror on which she had counted. This was the stuff of which dreams were made. She couldn’t surrender herself to enjoyment without love. His seducing her to unexpected pleasure was a triumph she wouldn’t allow him.
He was going to reject her when he was through. He was going to throw her aside like all the other women who surrendered to him. She would be left with the pain of knowing the pleasure of a dream that existed in reality. What’s more, the dream existed without love, hers to experience only in the arms of a man who, once he’d gotten what he wanted, would want nothing more to do with her.
That was exchanging a dream for a nightmare! She wasn’t taking the risk. She gripped his shoulders, her fingers grasping his golden flesh. “The door, Christopher,” she said. “It’s unlocked.” He kissed her neck, and then attempted to cover her mouth with his.
She refused to be silenced. “I’m expecting someone,” she insisted.
“Forget the door,” he said. “Forget whoever you’re expecting.” His hands slid down her body, spreading fire wherever they went. If she didn’t get him away soon, there would be no turning back for either of them.
“Craig knows I’m in here, Christopher,” she said. Her voice was breathless. She didn’t have the strength to force him physically, so she used words. “He’ll worry if I don’t answer. He’ll try the door. He’ll come in.” She was close to panic. Her words tumbled out, hardly decipherable. “It’s Craig Sylo, Christopher. Captain Sylo,” she emphasized, enunciating distinctly. Christopher’s right hand crept up beneath her skirt, caressing with startling expertise. She must stop him. “Please, Christopher—the door. At least lock the door!”
“I’m not afraid of Captain Sylo,” he said, kissing her cheeks, her forehead, her chin. He tried for her mouth again, but she jerked her head from side to side to prevent him.
“Will you think of someone besides yourself for a change!” she cried, mustering as much disgust as she could. “What will Craig think, walking in to see us like this?” Janet would be mortified.
“He’ll be jealous,” Christopher said. “I would be, too, if I found you in bed with another man.”
That was a laugh! She didn’t say so. He was smooth talking her into submission, hinting at a shred of emotional involvement. It was bull! He wasn’t thinking about anyone but himself when he got to his feet. He didn’t want Craig walking in and interrupting a good thing.
“Thank you,” she said, missing the press of his weight against her.
“Don’t go away, will you?” he said. His blond hair was tousled. The pupils of his golden eyes were large. No one was more handsome. Her heart beat faster. A heat burned inside her that Christopher was able and willing to quench. She had been four years without a man, but it was a mistake letting things go this far. She had rationalized herself into an unforgivable spot. She would be more careful next time. Don’t let there be a next time, her mind screamed.
“I’ll be right back,” he said. He went to the door and locked it. Janet locked another door, after completing a record sprint to the bathroom. “Janet?” He was confused. She was supposed to lie there, waiting for him to take up where he had left off. He was wrong!
“I want you out of my room and out of my life!” she called out, bracing her body against the door. She wasn’t safe. The door was a flimsy barrier in the face of the strength in Christopher’s muscled body. She had felt the strength of his body against her own.
“I don’t understand, Janet,” he said. He was feigning ignorance. The man was unbelievable!
“I can’t make it plainer,” she said. “Get out and leave me alone. Craig will be here any minute,” she added in warning.
“You and Craig Sylo have something going?”
he asked. Typical. His mind was one-track. His interest was purely sexual, and he believed that to be true of any man. Where was Craig? He should be there. The fifteen minutes had passed. Maybe he’d gone to the waterhole without her. “Janet?” Christopher insisted.
An inch of weak wood kept her from him. She was tempted to open the door and surrender again to the crush of his body. “It’s none of your business what I feel for Craig!” she said. Let him think there was another man in her life. She needed all the insulation she could get—real or otherwise. “It is your business that you’re an unfeeling monster!”
“Janet,” he said and was so close to the door that the wood creaked with the pressure of his body against it, “it’s time we talked seriously.”
“You were talking a few minutes ago,” she reminded him, “and I didn’t like what you said.” All their talking would be done through closed doors from now on. She wouldn’t be taken in by craftiness, with no avenue of escape.
“I came to Great Zimbabwe to say something important,” he claimed. That was a laugh! She knew what was on his mind. It was the same thing that had been there since that day at Lionspride. How close she had come to giving him his victory. How close she still was to ultimate surrender. She was angry and disappointed in herself. “After you left Johannesburg, I got some things in perspective,” he said. He didn’t give up. The man’s conceit was monumental! “I made certain decisions.” He had certainly done that. He had decided to come to Great Zimbabwe and take up where he’d left off. “It’s important that you hear and understand them.”
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