‘Your hands-’
Was it my imagination or did his voice sound a little bit rougher than usual?
‘What about my hands?’ I squeezed again. Hm…nice. One thing was for sure: Mr Rikkard Ambrose didn’t eat solid chocolate. Not one ounce. I should have despised him for being such a philistine, but at that moment, my hands were loving it.
Still…there was the problem of that annoying bit of cloth between me and my fun. Time to travel on, to the wide open spaces. Squeezing one last time, my hands started to move up the broad expanse of his back, claiming, exploring, pressing him even tighter against me (and leaving a few claw marks in the process). All the barriers were gone for once. I could feel his muscles flexing, could feel his blood pulsing under my fingertips. All the barriers were gone.
Or were they?
True, his skin was heated, his breath was hot, his lips burning on mine - but his eyes? They still were cold and calculating, filled with the same barrier of ice and stone that he build up between himself and everything else.
And part of you loves that, don’t you? You want to climb that wall, and stand on top of it, shouting your victory to the world!
On top of it?
Scratch that! On top of him!
Grabbing his shoulders, I pushed him back, trying to get him down to the ground. I might as well have pushed at the foundations of a mountain. Only - a mountain wouldn’t have pushed back. With the ease of infinite power, he captured my arms and pulled me down, bestowing another earth-shattering kiss on me. My knees buckled, as much from his kiss as his powerful hands. Slowly, I slid down to the soft ground, and he loomed above me, a granite monument to masculinity.
His hands still gripping my arms, he lowered himself until he hovered over me, his arms and legs caging me in as effectively as iron fetters. I watched, mesmerised, as he slowly, inexorably, sank down towards me. The moment his body touched mine, a jolt of heat surged through me, so intense I thought I’d be incinerated.
How the hell could this be? How could Rikkard Ambrose, coldest block of ice in all of Britain, make me feel like this? Like I was burning? Like I was ready to explode?
I didn’t know. I didn’t care. I simply grabbed him, and pulled him down on top of me. Leaves rustled. Skin slid against bare skin. And a little time later, the world did indeed explode. And when the shards came back together again, it didn’t look the same as before. Not in the slightest.
*~*~**~*~*
Question: a man makes you feel two different ways. When he is fully dressed, he makes you climb up walls and evokes a strong desire for manslaughter. When he is undressed, he makes you want to climb up on top of him and evokes desires that are much more desirous than homicide. What do you do?
The simple answer would be: see to it that he never has clothes on. But this, I thought gloomily while watching the erect figure of Mr Rikkard Ambrose marching along before me in his tight black tailcoat, was something he wasn’t likely to go along with. Right now, maybe he would. But right now wasn’t the problem. Here in the wilderness, far away from the watchful eyes and wagging tongues of London society, everything was easy. March. Eat. Drink. Enjoy wicked delicious moments in the depths of the jungle. The big question was: what would I do once we returned to England? What would we do?
I had never been a procrastinator. If something needed doing, I did it. No questions asked. But this? I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t even know if something could be done.
So I procrastinated. Every time thoughts of England crept into my head, I told myself: It’s far too soon! We’ll be stuck in the jungle for ages. After all, we’ve still got an incredibly long way to go!
But the days drifted by, and the incredibly long way became a long way. The long way became a longish sort of way. The longish short of way became a rather short way. And the rather short way…
Well, you get the idea.
Snow-covered peaks appeared out of the jungle in front of us. I was terrified of what that would mean, and after I saw Chandresh and Mr Ambrose exchange a significant look, I knew for certain. In no time at all, we were ascending into the mountains that, according to the ancient manuscript, held the great treasure we were seeking.
Not fair! So totally not fair! Treasure hunts should be more difficult than this. We should have at least a few more hundred miles of jungle to cross before we find the gold. Before we have to go back to Eng-
But I couldn’t even think it. England meant a world in which Mr Rikkard Ambrose couldn’t pull me into his arms and plunder my mouth whenever he wanted to. England meant a world with rules and regulations, and hundreds of other people watching our every move.
We would have to end it! Whatever ‘it’ was, exactly, we would have to stop. That was the only way. If we didn’t, if someone caught us at ‘it’, we would have to…
At this point, my already exhausted imagination wheezed its last breath and collapsed in a crumpled heap. It was simply too much! Too much to contemplate, and most certainly too much to do. If only something, anything were to happen, to distract me from this torture!
Did you ever hear the saying ‘Be careful what you wish for, you might just get it?’
I perfectly understood the wisdom of this saying one second later. We had just turned into a path leading high up into the mountains, when, from behind us, a commanding voice called out in Portuguese:
‘Halt! In the name of His Majesty the Emperor.’
I whirled - but already before I looked, I knew what I would see. And my fears were not disappointed. There, only a few dozen yards below us, stood Colonel Alberto Silveira, his soldiers behind him, weapons raised and aimed straight at us.
The Ambrosian Knot