To Love Honour and Disobey(7)

But at dinner he sat beside her and made her converse-asked her about  other highlights of the Africa trip, about what she'd seen and done.  Safe topics. And yet not safe-because it was so easy to smile, to laugh,  to relax. And as darkness swooped the conversation lengthened, deepened  until she lost track of time.

She didn't sleep much through the night-conscious of him lying only  yards away outside. She woke early, hot and bothered, and sat inside the  tent to control her hormones and fast-beating heart. It wasn't just his  physical proximity, it was the talking-with-him thing too. It made him  all the more attractive. What she needed was some confidence. Some  'don't think you can mess with me' attitude. She delved deep into the  bottom of her pack and resolutely strapped on the ridiculous shoes she'd  lugged round for weeks. She couldn't believe she'd brought them with  her, nor that she was actually going to wear them now. But it was a  desperate situation. Something about Seb made her want to have the guts  to wear them and get away with it. He thought she wasn't too tall? She'd  show him.

He noticed them right away. 'Oh, they're so appropriate, aren't they? High heels on safari.'                       
       
           



       

'Yes, they are.' She took up the challenge. 'You don't like how tall they make me?'

He shrugged, arrogantly uncaring. 'I'm still taller than you.'

Her eyes narrowed. 'One day I'll find a pair that'll make me taller than you.'

'Try the circus-they have stilts there.'

'You're not afraid of looking up to me?'

'Your height doesn't intimidate me.' He grinned. 'It's actually quite  interesting.' He leaned and dropped his voice to seduction volume. 'A  good fit where it counts. No need for me to be a contortionist.'

Oh, now there was a thought. It was too easy to go over the line with  him. And she went one further, provocatively leaning closer, a mere  millimetre from contact, registering with pleasure the widening of his  eyes. 'Want to know the best thing about these shoes?'

His mouth opened but no sound emerged.

She smiled. 'The heels are really good for treading on toes when someone  gets too close.' She pulled back and flicked a cool look at him.

His eyes narrowed. 'I consider myself warned.'

'Great.' She turned and positively strutted away, hiding the grin of victory.

They climbed back into the Jeeps and drove down the rocky road into the  crater-one of the world's natural heritage sites. It was a trip she'd  been looking forward to for ages and despite only a few hours' broken  sleep she was determined to make the most of it-damned if she was going  to let her chaotic hormones ruin it.

They drove onto the floor of the crater, stood up in the roofless Jeep  to get a better view of the abundance of animals. In the magnificence  she forgot her fight with him-and herself.

'What's your inner beast, Seb? Lion? Oh, no, I know.' She smiled sweetly. 'Cheetah.'

He shot her a look. 'No. Elephant.'

'What,' she asked innocently, 'because of your big trunk?'

'Thanks for the compliment, sweetheart, but no. My memory. I might not  have known much about you, Ana, but what I did learn I've never  forgotten.' He leaned and whispered into her ear. 'I remember what you  like. I remember how you like it-how fast, how deep, how often.'

Desire gushed into her belly at his boldness. Knew it was payback for her heeled-shoes moment.

'You know what kind of animal you are?' He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

'Don't you dare say giraffe.' She reminded herself to breathe.

'Wouldn't dream of it.' His eyes gleamed. 'I was thinking more along the lines of a gazelle.'

And she was in trouble again when he looked at her like that. 'You've  got to be kidding.' She was a giraffe-all tall angles and gangly. Not  remotely like one of those nimble, petite, pretty things.

'No, I mean it. Jumpy.' He seemed to be closer still. 'Skittish. Takes fright.'

'I don't take fright.' She inched back further against the hard railing of the Jeep.

'Yes, you do,' he said softly. 'That's OK. I'm patient enough to stalk my prey.'

She refused to be his prey. 'Elephants are vegetarians.'

'Well, then, I guess I must really be a lion.'

Ana lifted her chin. 'Actually more often it's the lioness who hunts.'

'Really? Go on, then,' he murmured. 'Show me your claws.'

She pulled the last millimetre she could away.

'See. I was right first time.' Somehow he took up even more of the cramped space. 'A little, jumpy gazelle.'

She sucked her tummy in and spun on the spot, turned her back to him to  lean forward over the rail, determinedly focused on the view. No more  verbal sparring-he always seemed to win.

She breathed in the sights: the flamingos in the distance on the lake,  the hippos hanging out in the water, the hyenas creepily stalking  around. And he seemed to let it lie. Pointed out shots for her, took  pictures of her. Grinned with her when they found the lion, stretched in  the shade, who didn't seem to care about the humans standing up in the  open-topped Jeep with their cameras clicking like crazed paparazzi. She  couldn't believe she was so close to it, and her heart stopped  completely when a cub came into view with its mother.

'Look, Seb!' she whispered, turning to make sure he'd seen.

He wasn't looking at the animals. He was looking at her with the fierce  stillness and concentration of a hunter. But it wasn't the animals in  danger.

'Are you taking anti-malaria pills?' she asked curtly. 'I'm thinking you  might be running a fever or something. You have this glazed look.'                       
       
           



       

He reached out and put the back of his hand against her brow. 'But you're the one looking hot.'

She ducked back out of the way. 'There's no cure for you, is there?'

He grimaced. 'Apparently not.'

Seb sat squashed up to her for all the horrendous drive past the  campsite of the previous night, and all the way back to the snake park  where the truck was waiting. Hours of driving and having his length  pressed to her. The frustration was going to be the death of him. Hard  up against his body he could feel each ragged inhalation as she tried to  regulate her breathing. She strained back from him. Looking down, he  could see the outline of her nipples pointing up at him through the thin  stretchy bikini top. He could see every little indentation of what he  knew were deliciously large areolae, and the tight hard nubs that he  ached to nibble on.

Desire surged through him, it had been so damn long. And he knew she  felt it too-they were dancing around it, moving ever closer with words  and looks.

But they weren't suited. He'd never forget the hurt in her face when  she'd asked him if he'd only married her to get his partnership. What  had she thought? That it was true love? OK, yeah, she had thought that.  But while they'd been having a wild and fabulous fling, that was all it  was. He'd been blinded by lust-both for her and for his promotion-and  the marriage had just been an opportunity to secure them-for a while at  least. But as if he really believed in it? He spent his life finalising  the end for so many marriages she couldn't have thought he'd meant it-it  had been for his work. And his own parents had taught him time and time  again how easily such vows were broken and forgotten. But she hadn't  known about that, had she? He hadn't told her a thing about himself.

And the one thing he couldn't forget now was the feel of her. He tumbled  out of the Jeep and walked to the truck to get a drink. Cool himself  down from the inside out before he tried to burn more of the bloody  frustration with some football. But there was no way in hell football  could burn off the energy in his body.

Ana assembled the tent in record time, desperate to build herself a  hidey-hole even if for only a few minutes. Quickly she crawled inside  and then zipped up the flap. She breathed hard, sweating. A day jammed  up hard next to Sebastian without actually having him was enough to  exhaust any woman. Her insides were all shook up and it wasn't from the  bumpy road. She stared at the faded green tent fabric. Despite the  tiredness, sleep felt miles away. Memories and words, both said and  unsaid, spun round and round in her brain like a mad merry-go-round.

She ached to shut it down; even more she ached to be able to switch off  the 'on' button that Seb's mere presence had fired. As if Africa weren't  hot enough? Why did he have to come along and up the mercury another  thirty degrees or so with his soft touches and all-seeing eyes? Every  tiny touch made her skin spark and now she ached.

Sweat that had gathered at the base of her hairline trickled in an  irritatingly slow way down her neck, eventually pooling between her  breasts-breasts that felt big and heavy and tender. She longed for a  shower- for cool water endlessly gushing from a gleaming chrome head.  The fantasy was almost as good as the other one playing in the back of  her mind-the one where she wasn't getting cooler but hotter and the  source of the spike wasn't a shower or a spa but one potent man.