I wanted a drink,’ he said, ‘champagne wouldn’t be my first choice. But, as a sundowner, a glass or two would help relax the muscles.’
‘That sounds like a plan,’ she said, well aware that he was simply amusing himself at her expense. Using her desperation to be rid of him to get what he wanted. It was the coffee, the chilli all over again but, even if she had been foolish enough to fall for it, she had far too much to do. And three fewer hours in which to do it. ‘I’ll smuggle a bottle past the guards for you.’
‘I can’t tempt you?’
Oh, she was tempted—no question about that—but a splash of water on her face and a reviving pot of tea was as good as it was going to get this evening.
‘I’ll take a rain check,’ she said, forcing herself to her feet. ‘The guests will start arriving tomorrow, including a bride and groom who’ll be expecting this suite to be waiting for them.’
‘Ah…’
‘Ah?’ She didn’t like the sound of that ‘ah’.
‘I knew there was something I had to tell you.’
‘Please let it be that you’re leaving.’
‘Sorry…’ His regretful shrug was so elegantly done that she found herself wondering what he would be like on his feet. How he would move. Imagined the graceful ripple of those thigh muscles…
‘No, Gideon,’ she snapped, dragging herself back from the edge of drool. She’d tried the placatory approach, been Miss Sugar and Spice. Now she was going to have to get tough. ‘You’re not in the least bit sorry so don’t pretend you are.’
‘I am sorry that my presence is causing you difficulties. Why don’t you email Celebrity and tell them that someone has to stay at home? Couldn’t the bride manage with one less attendant? Or maybe just do her own make-up?’
‘Was that it?’ she enquired. ‘What you had to tell me? It’s a great idea, but far too late. Most of the guests are already on their way so, if that’s it, I’ve got things to do.’
‘No, there’s something else. You’d better sit down,’ he advised.
‘I’m liking this less and less,’ she said, but she was still feeling a bit light-headed. Maybe she needed another minute or two to fully wake up and she sank back down. ‘You’d better tell me.’
‘Tal Newman arrived in Gabarone today. He’s got dinner with the Botswana national team tonight and tomorrow he’s giving some youngsters a football master class before taking part in a parade giving him the freedom of Gabarone.’
‘Yes. I’ve got the programme. It’s just an average day in the life of the world’s most famous football player,’ she said. ‘So?’
‘It seems that no one thought to organise something to keep Cryssie occupied so she decided that, rather than hang around in the hotel all day, she’d fly on here and have a quiet day recuperating from the journey and hanging out with you instead.’
‘Fly on here? Fly. On. Here.’ She repeated the three words slowly, while her brain attempted to translate them into something meaningful. ‘You’re telling me that Crystal…’and when did he get so familiar with Crystal Blaize that he was calling her Cryssie? ‘…is on her way here? Right now?’ Then, with dawning horror, ‘You knew that and you just let me lie there and sleep!’
‘No–’
Josie almost collapsed with relief.
‘—she arrived just after lunch. She came looking for you, but when she saw how exhausted you were she wouldn’t let me wake you.’
‘What?’ Then, leaping to her feet, ‘Ohmigod! Where is she?’
Gideon was too busy making a wild grab for her as the blood rushed from her head to offer a suggestion. Or maybe too short of breath.
It had rushed from her in a little ‘Oooph’ as his hands circled her ribs.
Rushed from him in a deeper ‘Umph’ as she made a grab for his shoulders, sank against him.
For a moment she was too winded to move. And even when she managed to suck in some air she couldn’t quite manage to lift her cheek from the warm skin of Gideon’s neck, her breasts from where they were cosied against his ribs. Disentangle her legs. And the two of them remained that way for a moment, locked together in immovability.
‘Are you okay?’
His voice wasn’t just sound, it was vibration that rumbled through her, became part of her.
‘No.’ In the stillness, as they caught at their breath, everything became pure sensation and she was a lot more than all right.
His pulse was pounding in her ear, she could almost taste the scent of his sun-baked skin and, beneath her hands, his strength seemed to pour into her through the hard-packed muscle of his shoulders.
‘You?’
‘No.’
She lifted her head, afraid that she might have done some irreparable damage to his back, but the visual impact of his stubbled chin, parted lips up so close was like falling a second time.
His ‘no’ had been the same as hers and the heat that came off him had nothing to do with the temperature but from some fire raging within him, a fire that sparked an answering inferno deep within her. A raw, painful need that burned deep within her belly, sparking at the tips of her breasts, burning her skin.
They had been verbally fencing with one another since he’d teased a cup of coffee out of her. Holding one another off with words while their eyes, their bodies, had been communicating in another language. One that did not need words.
Now there was nothing between them, only the ragged snatch of her breath.
Not a creature moved. Even the cicadas seemed to pause their endless stridulating so that the air was thick with the silence, as if the world was holding its breath. Waiting.
She was so close to him now that all she could see were a scatter of tiny scars high on his forehead, glints of molten silver glowing in the depths of his slate-grey eyes.
His breath was hers, her lips were his but which of them had closed the infinitesimal gap between them was unknowable.
In the still, quiet world that existed only for them, his kiss was slow, thorough, tormenting her with the promise of his power to quench the fire.
His hands softened as he drew her down to him, intensified his kiss and her body moulded naturally to his. But even that was not enough. She wanted to be closer, wanted to be naked, wanted him in the way that a woman yearned for a man, drawn by the atavistic need to surrender to the illusion of safety within his arms.
Wanted to be held, touched…
As if he could read her mind, his hands abandoned her shoulders and began to move tantalisingly, tormentingly slowly down her body, lingering agonisingly at her waist before descending to her thighs while his tongue plundered her mouth so that in
