‘I don’t know, Sir… Underclothes are quite expensive. Will I get a raise?’
‘Don’t stretch my patience, Mr Linton!’
‘Oh well, I’ll stretch something else, then.’ And, leaning against a tree, I stretched my aching limbs. It felt good! Especially when, from behind me, I heard an indistinct noise coming from Mr Ambrose.
It went on like this for exquisite hour upon exquisite hour. With something to keep my mind - and certain parts of my body - occupied, hiking through the Amazonian jungle didn’t feel nearly as difficult as I had feared it would. Not even the stings of mosquitoes could bother me much. After all, to a certain extent I could perfectly well understand how much fun it was to nettle somebody. And my approach seemed to be getting to Mr Ambrose a lot more than the pitiful attempts of the mosquitos.
It was just after we had set out again after stopping for a short lunch that I decided to make my next move. The sun was shining through a small open patch in the roof of leaves above us, highlighting my figure, I was sure, to anyone who walked behind me. The perfect scene! Now all that was missing was action. Slowly, I raised my hands to the buttons of my vest.
‘Mr Linton!’
Ignoring the call from behind me, I undid the first button.
‘Mr Linton, what are you doing?’
‘I’m adjusting my attire. Don’t you remember?’ Slowing down, I half-turned to glance at him. ‘I said this morning that I thought it had gotten even warmer.’
‘It hasn’t!’
‘Really?’ I undid another button, revealing the wet, clinging linen of my shirt. ‘I feel positively hot.’
‘Mr Linton, cease that immediately!’
‘What?’ Reaching for another button, I teased it with my forefinger. ‘This?’
‘Yes.’
‘But why?’ The button popped open. Oh, how wonderful I had purchased a vest with this many sparkly little buttons…‘They’re just buttons.’
‘It’s not the buttons I’m concerned about,’ he bit out. ‘It’s-’
‘Yes?’
‘Nothing!’
‘Oh, well, if that’s the case…’
I let the last button pop open. This time, I didn’t slow down, let alone stop. Oh no, I took care to continue walking, accentuating the sway of my hips with every step in a way that back home in England, would have caused shocked gasps, even had I been fully dressed.
But I wasn’t.
Not at all.
The vest dropped with a soft, silky noise. Catching it on one finger, I slung it over one shoulder, where it dangled like a hook, waiting for the big fish to bite. But what was much, much more important was behind the hook: the bait. Sweet little me.
I had no illusions about my physical appearance. I was utter perfection, thank you very much. My figure was perfectly slender and elegant and not at all overly padded (despite solid chocolate being my favourite food), my cleavage was enough to rob any man of his senses (probably because he would faint in the senseless effort to find it), and my smile was the most brilliant smile in the city of London (that was reminiscent of a tiger waiting for dinner).
All right, maybe I did have a few little illusions! But I was aware of them, so pretending I didn’t know that I was no great beauty was perfectly all right. I had always been content with being beautiful to myself, and never cared much for the opinions of society at large, let alone its male representatives. So it didn’t bother me at all if I heard a man murmur that I was fat, or sunburnt or a shrew that should be locked up for public safety. But Mr Rikkard Ambrose…
He was different.
He had never said anything about my looks. He never said anything about anything. But he had done things. Quite a few things, to be exact.
Hard hands holding me captive, lips catching mine with demanding force…dark eyes flashing in the shadows, boring their way into my very soul…
Even in the jungle heat, the memory from Egypt sent a shiver down my back. Oh yes, Rikkard Ambrose had done things to me, with me, and on top of me. Things that showed me exactly how he felt about my body. Even if it weren’t for the burning cold gaze I could feel drilling into me from behind at this very moment, I knew that to him, my behind wasn’t too generous, my smile not too feisty, and I suspected that with thorough research, he’d even be able to find my non-e
xistent cleavage.