Moonflower (23 page)

Reuben
was sure she had no idea how tightly strung he was. He stepped away
from her and grabbed her hand. ‘Come,’ he said, heading for her
vehicle.

They
raced along dirt roads until they came to the hikers’ cottage. They
jumped out and, still holding hands, ran for the door. There was no
ritual or delay as they pulled, tugged and threw off their clothes.
And then they stood in front of each other, not touching, and
Reuben felt overwhelmed by her beauty, her vulnerability, the way
she stood before him, unashamed, untamed.

He
reached for her and she came to him, her movements unhurried. Just
close enough for her nipples to tickle and tease the hair on his
chest. Her belly brushing his hardness, moving away, brushing
again.

He lifted
her in his arms. She looped long legs around his waist, her arms
around his neck, head tipped back. Hungrily, he sucked one hard
nipple into his mouth, then the other. She moaned and he felt a
spurt of heat and wetness against his belly and thought he would
climax against her right then and there. But, sensing his urgency,
she moved away from him, going to lie on the bed, her legs open to
him, arms held out.

Reuben
entered her deeply, and buried his face in her hair.

‘
My moonflower,’ Sophie moaned as he quickened the movement of
his hips.

He would like to have said it, but he could only think
and, you, my wild creature
as he exploded at the urging of her hips.

When they
eventually lay entwined in each other’s arms, utterly spent, Reuben
ventured, ‘You haven’t answered my question yet.’

‘
What question was that?’ Sophie asked, dreamily.

‘
The marriage one.’

‘
I thought I just did,’ Sophie said, playfully kissing his
chest. ‘And what an answer it was.’

She ran a
finger across his lips, replaced the finger with her tongue,
flicking it provocatively over their fullness.

‘
Sophie
.’

‘
What?’

‘
You need to say it.’

‘
Oh, I don’t know,’ she said, rubbing her thigh against his
hip. ‘I think I should get you back for not having phoned while you
were away. Making me stew out here. I think that calls for some
retribution.’

She
followed the line of soft, brown hair that ran down his belly,
moving lower to nibble the inside of a thigh. Reuben drew in a
sharp breath, the sight of his growing member tangled in her copper
hair almost driving him out of his mind.

He
reached down to explore this new sensation when she sat up
suddenly, a serious look on her face. ‘Before I answer, Reuben, I
need to be sure that Reuben Manning, a man who has spent his entire
adult life clawing his way to the top of the corporate pile, would
be happy to settle down on a farm at the tip of Africa.’

Reuben
made to speak, but Sophie quietened him with a finger to his lips.
‘I know you love me, Reuben. I know that. But will you still be
happy out here with me in a few years? Will you be able to cope
with the quietness, the lack of pace and stimulation you’re used to
in London? I need to be sure, Reuben, because if you change your
mind in a couple of years, I don’t think I’d survive
it.’

He sat up
and put his arms around the woman who filled his mind, his every
sense. ‘There’s nothing sudden about my decision, Sophie. In fact,
I don’t think it was entirely unexpected. The corporate world was
never my first choice. My mother was right. I did want to be a vet.
But I showed an unusual aptitude for economics and strategy, and
things seemed to move too quickly to call a halt and change
direction, but it never gave me any deep satisfaction.

‘
I might not have been able to admit it to myself at the time,
but buying this farm was perhaps the beginning of my escape from it
all.’

Sophie
touched Reuben’s cheek.

‘
I’ve found that satisfaction, that fulfilment here, with you.
Mark and my parents were right. I haven’t felt this sort of
contentment since I was a boy running around the moors. The
satisfaction I’ve felt every day after spending a morning out in
the bush, surrounded by all this beauty and the animals… I could
never have imagined all this as a boy.’

A wide
smile spread over Sophie’s face at the obvious joy in his
voice.

‘
And then it just struck me the other day. I was sitting in
another board meeting to do with the merger, and thought:
You own a game farm, Reuben. With zebras and
wildebeest and Sophie wants to reintroduce the endangered Cape
Mountain Leopard. And it’s one of only a few places that still
boasts renosterveld
…’

Sophie
beamed at him.

‘
And before you get carried away,’ he told her. ‘Don’t think
this place is going to be quiet any time soon. We still have
bontebok
and jackal to
settle in. There’s a four-year ground-breaking research project
ahead, and my plan includes several noisy, rambunctious kids
running around this farm. And a few dogs.’

Sophie
began to laugh. It was a light, bubbly sound, like water rippling
over river stones.

‘
Yes,’ she said, suddenly. Then, ‘yes’ again. ‘Yes, yes, yes.
My answer’s, yes, Reuben Manning. I’m going to marry you and I’m
going to love every minute of it.’

Reuben’s
eyes glistened as he cupped her cheek against his palm. ‘And to
make sure you do just that, Sophie Kyle, I will dedicate the rest
of my life to furthering that mission.’

Epilogue

Reuben
and Sophie were married two months later, and the farm wore its
best colours for a week of celebrations.

Just as
Sophie had expected, the Kyles and Mannings were as happy as a
tribe of elephants at a watering hole. Mark and her brothers were
in each other’s company almost constantly, and Ruby and Sophie’s
mum hit it off immediately. On the surface, Reuben’s father was
very different to her own more gregarious sire, but the men had
more important things in common: like their deep love of family and
their all-consuming care of their wives and offspring.

Mr
Solomon put Sophie’s bouquet together, of course.

Roses the
colour of apricots, and just as sweet. ‘Once you fall in love with
this place, you’ll never leave,’ he’d told her the morning she and
Reuben had left for Brits to find the right animals to bring the
farm back to life.

Deep red
roses like the dying embers of an African sunset; taken from the
same bush from which he’d picked a rose and stepped into her path
one day. 'You're going to have to stop doing that, Mr Solomon. My
heart might give out!' she’d admonished. And the old man had said:
'There's nothing wrong with your heart. Trust it, you hear
me?’

Delicate
pink like the rose she’d pressed and still had from the day he’d
told her that the rose had, ‘never asked the sun why it shone, or
demanded to know why the rain came in its own time. She only found
her feet in fertile soil and bloomed because it was her nature to
do so.'

Yellow
roses from the plant he’d saved and nursed into the magnificent
bush it was today. ‘They said it was dead. Near the back porch.
Wanted it pulled out. “Throw it away,” they said. But I wouldn’t do
it. It wasn’t dead. I knew that. Could see it straight away. It had
been tested with bad soil and poor light and still it survived. So
I moved it here.’ And it had thrived.

South
African jasmine. ‘Our version of the sacred flower of Kama, Hindu
god of love,’ he’d told her.

But the
centrepiece of the bouquet, and the most spectacular by far, was
the large, intoxicating face of the moonflower.

ABOUT
LEIGH ARCHER

Leigh,
who writes romance novels set in her native South Africa, has
always had a great love affair with Africa’s wild, open spaces, the
intensity of its people and sunsets. Her love of storytelling began
as a child when she spent every spare moment of her childhood
playing barefoot in golden grass, watching meerkats, tracking Eland
spoor and dreaming up heroes and heroines exciting enough to stand
out in the all the beauty and drama of the African
landscape.”

* *
*

Get in
touch with Leigh:

Website -
http://leigharcher.yolasite.com

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-
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Leigh-Archer/299910886869499

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https://twitter.com/LeighArcherBook

Tirgearr
Publishing -
http://www.tirgearrpublishing.com/authors/Archer_Leigh

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