Wild About the Man (Mills & Boon Modern Tempted) (6 page)

She was still trying to work that out. But finding out who she was and not who anybody else expected her to be was … Clem searched for the word to describe the emotion she felt bubbling inside. Frightening? Yes. Exciting? Hell, yes. Liberating? So, so liberating.

Clem smiled at herself and rolled her head. She was stiff again. Tipping her head to stretch out her muscles, her eyes fell on a piece a paper on the table next to her thigh.

Although peppered with figures, Clem could see that it was originally a document stating the rates for the Lodge, private villa and tented camp. She whistled soundlessly. Even she, no stranger to whipping out her credit card and flinging it about, raised her eyebrows at the prices he charged.

Nicholas, Nicholas … What was she going to do about him? Since their hot and steamy encounter at the Lodge, they’d been even ruder to each
other than normal in an effort to pretend that kiss hadn’t happened.

But it had and it did and she couldn’t stop thinking about it. She’d tossed and turned every night since, reliving the feel of his lips, the texture of his skin under her fingertips, the heat and hardness of that spectacular body …

Checking her watch, she smiled, picked up the other—now lukewarm—cup of coffee and quietly walked down the short passage to his room. The door made no sound as it opened and she peeked inside. He slept on his stomach and his sheet was blinding white against his tanned lower back.

Clem stepped inside and looked around. Big black-framed, sepia-coloured and mesmerizing seascape photographs dominated the wall above his leather headboard. Three pillows had landed on the floor next to his boots and his black and white checked easy chair was draped with clothes.

Books and DVDs sat in wonky piles on the floor and his wallet, mobile, radio and keys were on his chest of drawers, along with a pair of pliers, a couple of electrical adapters, an iPod and a heart rate monitor.

He was still sound asleep. She fought the urge to slip out of her clothes and to climb into bed with him, to stroke her hands through that thick hair, down that long back, tracing the line of his spine. To wake him up with a hot kiss and insistent hands.

Concentrate, Clem, you’re here to annoy him,
not seduce him. So she banged the coffee cup down on his bedside table and whipped away to yank the curtains open.

‘Get your lazy ass out of bed, Sherwood. You’re going to be late!’ Clem snapped, raising her voice and clapping her hands. ‘You’ve got fifteen minutes or you go as you are.’

She bundled his mosquito net into a messy knot and bent down to yank his sheet away at the same time that Nick groaned and rolled over.

‘Come on! Up! Up! Up!’

It took Clem ten seconds to realize that, unlike her, Nick did not sleep in pyjamas.

She looked down at his chest, lightly covered in hair, moved onto his six-pack stomach, then lower and … oh, dear God.

She came to her senses and slapped her hands onto her face, knowing that her entire body was blushing. ‘Whaaaah!’

She heard the rustle of the sheet and Nick moving to, she presumed, sit up. ‘Clem? What’s the matter?’

She heard the amusement in his voice and blushed deeper. She looked for her tongue and managed to get it working. She turned her back to him, dropped her hands and stared at the floor. ‘I was trying to wake you up, like you do me, and I …’

‘You what?’

‘Got distracted,’ Clem muttered, utterly mortified. ‘You sleep naked,’ she whispered.

‘Clearly.’

Clem took a step towards the door. ‘I’ll leave now … give you some privacy.’

‘Bit late now, Red.’

Out of the corner of her eye she watched Nick stand up, stretch. He seemed utterly at ease in his skin. Clem caught a glimpse of those long thighs, a pale buttock as he walked into his en suite bathroom, and she seriously considered running after him and …

Oh dear. What the hell was she going to do?

Luella Dawson’s blog:

AT THE
airstrip, Nick parked by the hangar and looked across at Clem, who was looking anywhere but at him. Nick grinned; she hadn’t met his eyes since she’d left his bedroom that morning
and he found it hysterically funny. Who would’ve thought that the society princess would feel so embarrassed at seeing a naked man? A fully—and, to be fair, aroused—naked man, but she didn’t need to get her panties in a wad about it.

Nick rubbed his chin. As she stood up and hopped off the Landy, he wondered if she knew how close to the edge she’d pushed him this morning. He’d had to grip the sheets in an effort not to rear up and yank her down to the bed to join him.

He wanted her like he wanted to take his next breath.

‘You’re going to have to look at and talk to me some time.’

Clem stared at her feet, seemingly fascinated by her pretty pink toes. ‘Does never work for you?’

‘I’ve never seen anyone blush with their entire body before. Or turn that particular shade of pink,’ Nick said conversationally, picking up his set of keys from the dashboard. He slipped his mobile into the pocket of his cream and rust untucked button-down shirt and shoved his sunglasses onto the top of his head. His radio went into the back pocket of his brown cargo shorts.

‘Can we just not talk about it any more?’ Clem asked.

Nick jerked his head for her to follow him to the hangar. ‘I would like to say that, for the record, I think it’s deeply unfair that you’ve see me
in the buff but I’ve only seen you in your underwear.’

‘Yeah, well, that’s not going to change any time soon,’ Clem said.

Oh, if they weren’t very careful they both knew it could and would.

He’d had enough women to know that she liked the way he looked, that she wanted him as much as he wanted her. If she was just passing through, wasn’t his partner’s daughter, was fractionally less crazy he’d have had her already. But they had to work together, be together, have those cameras in their faces for the next two weeks.

All good and solid reasons for keeping his hands off her, but the most compelling reason he needed to keep his distance was due to the neon sign flashing behind his eyes.

Danger! Emotional curves and connections ahead. Proceed with extreme caution!

He’d navigated that corner before, lost control and tumbled down the cliff. He was not crazy, or stupid enough to repeat the experience. He wasn’t that good a driver.

Nick pushed open the hangar doors and walked inside the dark interior. On auto-pilot, he grabbed the aircraft tug, fitted it to the light aircraft and pulled it into the sunshine.

‘Close the hangar doors,’ he told Clem, who just stayed where she was, arms folded and looking at the sky. When he realized what she was waiting for, the corner of his mouth kicked up.

‘Close the hangar doors, Red. Please.’

‘Ah, so he does have a rudimentary concept of manners,’ Clem said before swaggering away. She tossed a naughty grin at him over her shoulder.

‘Pretty cocky for someone who was perving at me this morning,’ Nick called after her.

Clem threw a look at him over her shoulder. If he didn’t know better, he would’ve called it flirty. ‘I was not perving!’

Nick laughed and banged his head against the door of his plane. ‘Tell me again why you were in my room?’

Pushing the doors closed, Clem tapped her thigh with her finger and rocked on her heels. Embarrassment or lust? He couldn’t be sure. A bit of both?

‘I was trying to wake you up. Act like a jerk to show you what it feels like to be woken up by someone shouting at you.’

‘Sounds like an excuse to take a look.’ Nick watched as she leaned back against the plane and he moved so that he was standing in front of her, his hand on the frame behind her head. He looked at her mouth and remembered her taste. ‘You could’ve just asked, you know.’

She dropped her head back in a move that was as natural as it was seductive and her hair glinted in the early morning sunshine. Gold and blonde and red and orange … He could count a hundred different shades.

‘You have the most fantastic hair,’ Nick quietly
said, unable to stop his fingers from sliding into the curls, the tips of his fingers making circles on her scalp.

Clem licked her lips and Nick watched her eyes deepen and darken, felt her fingers reach up to encircle his wrist.

Nick stepped closer to her and rested his forehead against hers. ‘We can’t do this, Clementine.’

He felt her nod. ‘I know.’

‘I want to anyway,’ Nick admitted. ‘I want you but I don’t want to want you.’

‘Me too. You and I are exact opposites, from different worlds.’ Clem’s thumb brushed the inside of his wrist. ‘We don’t even like each other.’

‘The real problem is this heat between us.’

Clem lifted her head and their eyes caught and held.

There it went.

Just like every time. When she looked at him like that—as if he was the one man who could ever, had ever made her react like this—the world receded and all the air was sucked out of his lungs. After an intense minute just staring at each other, Nick stepped back and Clem shoved a hand into that fabulous hair and lifted slim shoulders in a small shrug.

‘Heat is not enough,’ Nick muttered. ‘Trust me, bitter experience has taught me this.’

‘I’m not arguing with you,’ Clem quietly replied but he could see the pulse in her neck hammering.
‘But I still want you to kiss me. Sorry, but I do.’

The last time he checked, he wasn’t a freaking saint … Oh, wait, he’d never been a saint or anything close to one so he gripped her wrist and pulled her towards him. He held her against him, on her toes, her body flat against his, his mouth a scant inch from hers. Nothing was important but this girl and her soft body and hot eyes.

Clem felt tension curl and swirl in her stomach, knew that she was about to lick her upper lip and couldn’t help it … Her hips moved closer to his. Couldn’t help that. His mouth opened and Clem waited in breathless anticipation. She knew what he wanted to say, to ask. Why did he even bother—surely he could see her answer in her eyes, on her face?

It’s crazy and wild and I’ll probably regret it but … yes, kiss me again, make me yours.

Like the last time they kissed, she expected him to swoop and devour, but his mouth was more gentle than she expected. He nibbled and explored and tempted. Clem’s hands found their way to his back, up and under his shirt, to feel that hard, warm, male flesh …

‘Nick, come in. Switch to channel thirteen.’

The radio in his back pocket squawked but Nick didn’t release his grip on her when he lifted his head, flipped channels with one hand, brought the radio to his mouth and hit the call button to talk. ‘Yeah, Jabu, what is it?’

‘Bad time,
mfo
?’

You have no idea, Clem silently grumbled, her hands flat on Nick’s muscled chest. She’d move but she wasn’t sure if her legs would hold her yet. And whilst her libido was screaming for some more action, her head and her heart were on bended knees yelling,
Thank God you stopped! We’re not ready!

‘What do you want, Jabu?’ Nick muttered, his fingers dipping into the small gap between the band of her shorts and her warm skin, skimming over the T of her panties. His mouth dropped and he touched her lips with his.

‘Nicholas!’ Jabu’s voice had Nick jerking back and scowling. ‘Can you stop doing whatever you’re doing for a minute and concentrate? This is important.’

Nick pulled his hand from her back and scratched his forehead. Clem, realizing that the moment was over, lifted her hands from his chest in a gesture of surrender and took a step back.

‘What is it, Jabu?’

‘Poachers dehorned a rhino cow on the reserve up north last night. One of ours.’

Nick’s eyes flattened with fury and she immediately stepped back. He swore viciously and dropped to his haunches, his finger and thumb gripping the bridge of his nose.

‘We’re getting the rest of those rhinos off that property this week.’ His voice was hard and Clem
doubted that anyone, anywhere, would have the guts to disagree with him at that moment.

‘That’s the plan.’ Jabu’s voice sounded weary.

Nick stood up and placed his fist on his hip. ‘Book the transport, the vet, the capture specialists.
Mfo
, we need to get those rhinos out of there.’

‘The money? They’ll all want some money upfront.’

‘Hold on, I’ll check.’

Nick looked at her and Clem nodded sombrely. ‘I’ll check with Jason, see that he’s done the transfer. Do you … do you need more?’

Nick shook his head. ‘The money won’t be a problem, Jabu. Just get the ball rolling.’

‘You got it,’ Jabu replied, signing off.

Clem watched as a shudder passed through his body, then another and saw the turbulent emotions in his eyes. He looked past her and she knew that his brain was running at warp speed, fury and sadness bubbling under the surface.

Nick heaved in a huge breath and rubbed his temple before glancing at his watch and grimacing. ‘The worst way to start the day. We’ve got to get going.’

He pulled open the front passenger door and gestured her to climb inside. ‘I’m going to do my pre-flight checks. I won’t be too long.’

Clem watched him walk around the plane and squirmed in her seat. He was such a fascinating mix of hard male strength and capability but, when it came to his land or his animals, he had
a kernel of vulnerability that touched her. And whenever he physically laid hands on her he made her blood sing.

This could become very complicated, she thought ruefully.

The sky was a beautiful concoction of blues and the sun a broad golden band on the horizon when Nick pulled into the air and cleared the trees at the end of the runway. Clem watched as he fiddled with the controls as the plane gained altitude and speed. When, she presumed, he was at the right altitude and on course for the airport at the regional capital of Mbombela, he leaned back in his seat and turned his head to look at her. ‘You OK?’ he asked.

His voice was warm and sexy in her ears, deep and dark through the headset. She felt as if he was speaking directly to her soul.

‘I’m fine.’ Clem turned in her seat and rested her head on the back of her seat. ‘We need to talk about the filming. Jason sent me an e-mail confirming that they are doing a run-and-gun shoot with us, partly because you said that there’s no space for a big crew.’

‘Two people, that’s it. What is a run-and-gun shoot?’

‘Basically, it’s them following the action. They won’t have a coverage plan, they just want interesting, fun stuff and it’s up to us to provide it for them.’

‘Define interesting or fun,’ Nick said.

Clem shrugged. ‘It could be lots of things. Conflict and fights provides a lot of entertainment. So does sex and intrigue. None of that will work for us, so I’ve been thinking about how to give them what they want so that they don’t have to splice and dice and make a story.’

‘Uh huh?’

‘As much as I hate to admit this, the audience will enjoy seeing me in situations that I feel uncomfortable in. The dirtier and yuckier the better.’

Nick’s white teeth flashed. ‘Back to recycling for you, Princess.’

‘Ha ha … no. Every morning you and I have to work out a bit of a schedule, what I’m going to do, how I’m going to do it. We’ve got to control what they see and hear so you’ve got to remember that we’re on camera so you can’t say anything stupid. They will not edit it out.’ Clem lifted a warning finger. ‘And no touching or kissing or anything like that. They’ll lap that up.’

‘Dang, here I thought we were going to get all hot and heavy on screen.’ Nick’s irreverent reply was accompanied by a wicked grin.

Clem thought he was taking this whole concept a lot better than she’d expected so she ploughed on. ‘And then we’ve got to remember that we’re trying to raise money for your foundation so we need to get footage of me working in the sanctuary, on game drives, on horseback …’

Clem dropped a hand into the cooler between
the seats to pull out a bottle of water. Nick’s hand brushed hers as he took the bottle from her grasp, cracked the top and handed it back to her. Clem sipped and lubricated her dry mouth and throat. She was so close to him she could feel the heat of his body, with every breath she inhaled his scent … Citrusy with something masculine and indefinable—primal—beneath.

Clem’s riotous thoughts were interrupted by Nick swearing. She leaned forward in her seat. ‘What’s wrong; why are you saying that?’

Nick pointed to a massive build-up of clouds in the distance. ‘Sorry, no need to panic. Nothing is wrong with the plane. I’m looking at those clouds. They are too far away from Two-B … We need the rain.’

Clem relaxed back into her seat as Nick spoke again. ‘At this rate, Jabu and I are going to have to do our rain dance.’

Clem lifted one eyebrow. ‘Your what?’

Nick grinned. ‘We used to do it when we were kids, thought that the Rain Goddess would listen if we pranced naked around a fire.’

‘I would pay good money to see that.’

‘Well, you got a preview this morning. And she blushes again! Your face, neck, shoulders …’ Nick turned, leaned forward and with one finger pulled her shirt away from her chest. ‘Yep, right down to your bra.’

Clem slapped his hand away, groaned and
dropped her head to her knees. ‘Am I ever going to live this down?’

‘Not in this lifetime.’

‘Red? You OK?’ Nick pushed open the door to Clem’s room, wondering if she was sleeping through this humdinger of a storm, dead to the world. The lights had gone out a while ago and lightning zzzed and jabbed all around them and thunder rolled and roared.