To Love, Honour and Disobey. Natalie Anderson

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 already.

      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. СКАЧАТЬ