Silence Is Golden (Storm and Silence 3)

‘Oh yes, indeed, Sir! Now shut up and kiss me!’

We were camping next to a big tree that bore some kind of big, reddish fruit. It smelled invitingly tasty, but Karim had strongly advised against trying it. That wouldn’t have stopped me - I wasn’t big on following men’s advice - but I had my very own forbidden fruit lying right here on the ground beside me, and it was a lot tastier.

‘Mr Ambrose, Sir?’ Running my nose along the line of his jaw, I breathed in his scent of man, money and power, and felt his hard body quiver beneath me.

‘Yes, Mr Linton?’

‘Why don’t you relax a bit? It’s hot here in the jungle. Why don’t you take off a few of those stuffy clothes?’

He met my gaze with a cool one of his own. ‘Because I’m English.’

‘I’m English, too,’ I pointed out.

Slowly and lingeringly, Mr Ambrose let his gaze rake over me, from my messy hair down over my torn, threadbare chemise and bare legs to my feet, encased in massive boots. ‘Yes, and I’m sure that Nelson and Wellington are turning over in their graves at the fact.’

‘What is that supposed to mean?’

Grabbing my face with masterful hands, Mr Ambrose pulled me towards him and claimed my mouth with his.

‘Try to guess, you wicked little wench!’

I captured his lower lip between my teeth and bit, gently. ‘So, I’m your wicked little wench now?’

‘You are my little Ifrit!’

Warmth flooded my chest, stoking a fire in my heart. Blimey! This seemed to happen more and more often lately. How was it possible that no matter how coldly that man stared at me, it made me heat up inside like a bloody furnace? And every time he used that word, that damn word starting with ‘I’ that should have been an insult, I felt as if I could fly on fiery wings!

‘So?’ I whispered, teasing the corner of his mouth with little kisses. ‘Are you going to take off that tailcoat, or will I have to burn through it with my fire?’

He groaned beneath me. ‘Damn you! A part of me actual

ly believes you could!’

‘Out of that tailcoat, Mr Ambrose, Sir! Now!’

‘No.’

Growling with frustration, I reared up above him. ‘What the hell is the matter? Why won’t you…’

My voice trailed off. It wasn’t very easy to see anything in the deep shadows of the trees, and it was a task for a clairvoyant with a bloody great telescope to find any expression on the face of Mr Rikkard Ambrose at the best of times, but…

I narrowed my eyes as I knelt there, staring down at him. Then, slowly, very slowly, a smile spread across my face.

‘Do you want to know what I think?’

‘No. Definitely not.’

‘Well, I’m going to tell you anyway.’ My smile widened. ‘I think you’re shy.’

The look he sent back up at me could have introduced a new ice age.

‘Shy?’

The word was a whisper as sweet as snake’s venom.

‘Don’t get me wrong,’ I hurriedly assured him, patting his cheek. ‘I think it’s very sweet, in a way. I mean, you told me I am your first. But I guess I didn’t realize what that meant before. It mustn’t be easy for a young, innocent virgin like yourself to trust yourself so completely to someone else for the first time, to put aside all the secret fears about your inadequacies that you’ve harboured for years and to-’

I didn’t get any further than that because I was tossed through the air, rolled around like a rollicking roulade and suddenly found myself pressed against the forest floor with one hundred and seventy pounds of man-muscle pressing into me.