'You're trembling, Natalie.' His hands still moulded her slender shoulders, carefully, as if he thought she might break. 'What are you afraid of? You think I'd be brutal?'
'I'm going back inside.' She couldn't control her voice and it trembled too.
'Because you're afraid? It's really only fear of the unknown.'
He pulled her completely into his arms, folding her against him, looking down at her, the lights from the house catching his fair hair, and she stiffened immediately, much too aware of the hard body close to hers. He hadn't behaved like this before and suddenly he was dangerous, as if a restraint had been lifted. Maybe because she had been ill he had never...
'I won't have an affair with you!' She spoke wildly, shaking too much to pull away, terribly aware of being in a foreign land, of being close to a hard handsome stranger.
'Why, Natalie,' he mocked. 'Wait until you're asked.' His hand cupped her head, threading through her long black hair. 'Be still. I've never held such a delicate girl.'
'Please, Kip!' It was the first time she had ever actually used his name and the sound of it shocked her as if she was inviting some great intimacy.
Before she could put up any sort of fight his glittering head bent and his lips caught hers, taking her by surprise. She didn't even have time to think. It was nothing she had expected, so sweet, so possessive that she was powerless to move, a very forbidden delight swelling up inside. He trailed his lips across hers, his tongue stroking the corner of her mouth, holding her in a sort of spell for a second. Vaguely her mind compared it with Neil's kisses and fright hit her badly. Neil had been careful, gentle, asking nothing. The lips over her own were sensuous, probing and questioning, arousing a riotous sexuality inside her for all their care. He ran his hand down her spine and she almost collapsed against him before self-preservation surfaced.
She pulled clear and just ran, her heart pounding like a drum. She fled across the grass, giving a little cry of panic as he caught her and swept her off her feet into his arms.
'Put me down!' Her small fists pummelled him but he walked calmly to the path, letting her feet touch the ground at once.
'Don't panic. Honestly, I'm busy. For any affair, you'll just have to wait.' He grasped her head, taking her long hair and winding it around his hand, pulling her face up to his, and she was terrified he would kiss her again. The thought of that, the fear and the shamefully exciting hope were silenced as he suddenly smiled sardonically. 'Don't go on the grass at night in sandals,' he ordered quietly, letting her go. 'There are snakes.'
She almost jumped back into his arms but he didn't laugh, he meant it, and she turned her head to look with great suspicion at the lawn, trembling as he led her towards the house.
'Stop shivering. Nothing bit you, not even me.' His voice was dark with mocking amusement and she flushed with shame.
'I'll go to the hotel tomorrow,' she muttered, her head down to escape those dark eyes.
'Agreed.' His voice was both matter-of-fact and commanding. 'Not that you're not welcome here, but it's safer all round if you move now you're well. I might just get attached to you.'
Not in a million years! His opinion of women was obvious without any chauvinistic comments. In fact he was above making comments like that, the sort of things she'd heard all her adult life. His amused eyes and his taunting looks said more than any snide remarks.
She went to her room without facing him again, his final words ringing in her mind.
'I'll drive you up to the hotel after lunch tomorrow.'
Well, it couldn't come soon enough. Men like that worried her. Neil was so very different: quiet, thoughtful, loving. Tears came flooding into her eyes. What was she thinking? Neil didn't belong to her any more; he never had done. Her father had said they would be 'mooning about. It seemed to her that she would be the one doing that if she didn't pull herself together.
Her treacherous mind slid back to Kip, defying her determination to forget all about him. She could feel his hands on her, his mouth over hers. He almost seemed to be there still and her tongue ran over her lips, searching sensuously for the taste of him, a low cry of shock coming from her throat when she realised just what she was doing. She seemed to have gone quite mad out here.
He had been laughing at her in his hateful way, laughing at her all the time.
The next morning she rang up about hiring a car. She was going to need one and if she could get one now she could drive herself up to the hotel. Of course there wasn't one until the evening but they promised to deliver it to the hotel. It had to satisfy her. She packed and then had nothing at all to do. She put on white jeans and a bright red shirt and went to wander around the garden, keeping a wary look-out for snakes and any other nasties.
She was interested because she did a fair amount of gardening at home. Some of the plants were familiar, though about twice as big as the ones in England's cold climate. She snapped off dead heads almost absent-mindedly, nodding pleasantly to the African gardener who was working further away and giving her odd looks.
If she didn't get away from here soon she would be getting some very odd looks indeed. She had been swept up into the house of a stranger and cared for like a child; even undressed, she remembered in embarrassment. He hadn't treated her like a child last night. It still clung to her.
She snapped off some dead twigs from one of the bushes and jumped with shock as the gardener started to shout at her and run towards her like a maniac. She wondered what was wrong with him until she saw the black ants that covered her arms. They were pouring out from the broken twigs with unbelievable speed and she was too stunned to drop the source of danger.