by Sy Walker
“In the morning, we’ll get up and hike back to the shed where we got the jeep. I know what’s wrong with it, but I don’t have what I need to fix it tonight. Then, we’ll get you back down to where you need to be to take photographs before we get back on the boat to head downstream toward the sanctuary you wanted to see.”
Tabitha got out of the jeep, closing the door quietly, not wanting to attract the attention of any animals. “If I don’t get eaten by tigers.”
“Precisely,” he laughed, pulling the tent from the back of the jeep. He had it erected in a matter of moments.
Tossing their packs and bedding inside, he motioned for her to get in. Tabitha slipped into the tiny bit of space between the front of the tent and the jeep and ducked inside, gathering up a blanket and resting her head on her backpack as a pillow. It wasn’t exactly the kind of camping she was used to, but she supposed it would suffice.
To her surprise, he opened an e-book reader and began to read beside her. She wondered why it hadn’t occurred to her to bring something to read. She didn’t even have so much as a paperback book in her bag, having opted to come without one to forego the extra weight. Though several had traveled with her to India, they were sitting with the other bags he had said she wouldn’t be using in her hotel room. Tossing and turning a bit, she tried not to get too anxious about things.
“Quit squirming,” he told her, reaching over to put his hand on her arm quietly.
“I can’t. I’m wide awake,” she admitted.
“Would you like me to read to you?”
“What are you reading?”
“Does it matter?”
“I guess not. Sure, read to me.”
To her surprise, he began reading an older James Herbert book called “The Others.” She listened intently, enthralled as much by the sound of his voice as she was with the book itself. It was incredibly calming and she realized that no one had read to her since she was a very small girl. His voice lulled her somehow, making her feel safe and warm. After a while, he stopped, closing the kindle cover and laying it aside.
“Looks like that’s it for tonight. The battery is dying,” he told her.
“Well, it was nice while it lasted. Thank you.”
“How about I tell you a story instead? Or better yet, you tell me one. How does a city girl like you end up getting assigned to do a story on tigers in India?”
“Honestly, I just needed a break from the regular world I guess and jumped at it when my editor offered me this gig.” She hesitated before admitting, “I was supposed to get married this month and it didn’t work out.”
“That’s too bad. He broke it off before the wedding?” His voice was soft with something that sounded like kindness and she found herself warming to him.
“More like just didn’t show up for it.”
“Now it’s you that’s kidding me. He left someone as beautiful as you are standing there waiting for him to show up? What a cowardly way to back out of things.”
“It was horrible and humiliating, but I think that maybe he did me a favor.”
“A favor? I hardly see how anyone could see it that way.”
“Like you said, he was a coward. It’s better that I found out his true nature before I married him and now that it’s all in the rear view mirror, I realize that there were signs that I ignored.”
“What sort of signs?”
Tabitha was surprised that he seemed to be taking such an interest in her and her sad sob story, but she kept going. It felt good to talk about it. “I’m not sure it’s anything I can really put my finger on and make sense of to someone else. It’s like, you know, when you do lots of little things for someone just because you want them to be happy or their life to be a little easier. You notice that they don’t take the same care of you, but you chalk it up to a difference in personalities rather than not caring as much as you do.”
Matt nodded, obviously understanding. “So, you made excuses for him not giving you what you needed, what you deserved and that just made it okay for him to do it in his mind.”
“Yeah. I guess I never thought of it that way, but it’s true.”
“Love does that to you.”
“That’s just it. I don’t think I was in love with him.” She took a deep breath, looking at the ceiling of the tent in the darkness, feeling Matt’s warm body next to hers. She hadn’t admitted that to anyone before, hell she’d barely admitted it to herself. “He certainly wasn’t in love with me. I think that we had both just invested so much time in the relationship, we were just blindly going along with what we thought was the next step in our lives. It’s better that it fell apart before we lumped one more mistake on top of another.”
“I suppose that happens.”
There was a long moment of comfortable silence before Tabitha spoke again. “How about you? What’s your story? How does a Liverpudlian end up in the wilds of India tracking tigers for tourists?”
“I don’t know. I’ve been all over the world. I was in the military for a good while and then came here as a tourist myself. I fell in love with the place and decided to stay. The wild suits me.”
“Yeah, I can see how it would. You seem an awful lot like a bit of a wild creature yourself,” she said, not meaning for it to sound nearly as provocative as it came out. Or did she?
“I can be,” he said, leaning up on one arm to look at her, and the sudden change in his tone of voice made her heart thump hard in her chest.
She looked up at him, not sure how to respond. Only a short time ago she had loathed him on sight and now she was finding some odd chemistry between them. She was drawn to his dark eyes, which weren’t quite blue and weren’t quite green, but seemed to shift from one to the other depending on his mood. The light cleft in his chin granted him a chiseled, refined look that was in stark contrast to his outdoor attire. She could imagine that in a more domestic setting, he wore a tux just as well as his khakis.
“I want to kiss you,” he said suddenly.
“What?” she replied, caught off guard by his comment, but excited by it, nonetheless.
His gaze fell to her mouth. “I’ll be damned if I haven’t wanted to kiss you since I first lay eyes on you.”
“Odd, considering how little you seem to think of me.”
“Just a bit of bollocking is all it is. I like to catch people off guard, to see what they are really made of,” he replied with a grin that melted her.
“Well, I guess you should just kiss me and get it out of your system then,” she said.
“I guess I should,” he told her.
He shifted, moving closer to her and leaning down, covering her mouth with his own. His hands were rough as they trailed down her arms, but his lips were incredibly soft on hers. His tongue explored her mouth heatedly, drinking her in deeply. She found herself drawn in, unable to resist how he felt against her with his muscular chest pressing against her own, his growing excitement readily apparent as it pressed against her thigh.
“I’m sorry,” he said, suddenly pulling away. “I’m being inappropriate. You’re a client and I should mind myself.”
“I wasn’t complaining,” she replied, pulling him back down to her and greedily resuming the kiss.
Things heated up quickly after that, their kiss taking on a life of its own as they lost themselves in one another. Tabitha forgot where she was, about any danger that might be present in the arms of such a gorgeous, capable man as Matt. He was older, her guess was late thirties judging from the slight hint of gray beginning to creep into his dark hair near his temples. It only made her crave his experience even more. This was just what she needed, a meaningless fling in an exotic place, far from the pain that had almost crippled her not so long ago.
“Your skin is so soft,” he mumbled against her neck as his hands slipped beneath her white t-shirt and caressed her back. “It’s been a very long time since I held anyone.”
Tabitha pulled away for a moment and studied his face before speaking.
She smiled gently and brought her hand up to his cheek as he looked down from where he leaned over her.
“You don’t have to lie to me, Matt. I’m a grown up. I can handle just being wanted in the moment and that being the end of it. I don’t want this to turn into some awkward thing between us for the rest of the trip.”
He smiled at her. “I’m not lying. I’ve just not been interested in anyone for quite a while. There’s something about you that is different. Even though I’ve been giving you a hard time, it was just my way of keeping you at a distance, I suppose.
“I assumed that your disappearances when I first arrived, your other plans, involved a woman or women.”
“No. That was…other business. I keep busy so that I don’t think about being lonely. Isn’t that what we all do?”
“Yes. That’s a bit how I ended up so far out of my element here in India with you. You were right. I am a city girl. I mostly report on local social causes or charitable events. My editor sent me here as a favor, to take my mind off of what happened or rather didn’t happen.”
“Has it made you feel better?” he asked, playing with the collar of her shirt, which was extremely distracting.
“In some ways, yes.”
“And in others, not so much?”
“Like I said, I’m just not in my usual setting and that unnerves me a bit.”
“Yes, I can see that you’re anxious much of the time. It’s only made me want to hold you, but I told myself that it was crossing a line, being unprofessional. I suppose that is still true, but I don’t think I care anymore. I’ll give you a refund,” he said with a laugh.
“I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that I’ve been attracted to you too, despite your poor behavior and lack of professionalism.” She tweaked his nose playfully.
“Well, if you think that was poor behavior, just wait and see what I do next,” he told her, pulling her back to him and kissing her eagerly once again.
Words fell away as an animal passion began taking them over, every bit as primal as that of the creatures that roamed about them in the dark. She felt completely safe and wanted in his capable arms as they explored one another with wild abandon.
“You’re beautiful,” he breathed against her skin, pulling her tighter to him.
Tabitha closed her eyes, drinking him in with her senses. His smell, his taste, the way he felt touching her. It was like no one she had ever felt before. She had never felt anything like it with her ex-fiancé, not even close. How could it be that she could be so in tune with a virtual stranger when she had not experienced anything near this level of intimacy with a man she had been about to marry? It occurred to her again that being left at the altar might have been the best thing that could have ever happened to her.
Then, all thoughts of the past drifted from her head and she was lost in the present, moaning quietly as Matt began to peel away her clothes. His hands were gentle, despite their surface roughness, as he pulled her t-shirt above her head. His mouth fell upon the top of her breasts as he began to unfasten her bra, pulling it off her arms, releasing her breasts to be cupped by his hands, his mouth finding its way to her nipples.
“Your breasts are utter perfection,” he said quietly, teasing one of her delicate pink nubs with his tongue and teeth. Her back arched toward him as he sucked and bit at her nipple even as his hands drifted down to unbutton her pants and slip them away from her hips and down her legs. His kisses drifted downward toward her panties, planting soft kisses along the elastic band.
“I love your hands,” she mumbled, completely lost in him.
“They are more than happy to roam freely,” he told her, slipping his hand into the soft material of her underwear and slowly sliding a single finger up and down across her clit.
“Yes. Right there,” she told him, arching upward toward him as he increased the friction.
Tabitha let out a cry of delight as his hand slipped further down, his fingers sliding inside of her, growing increasingly adventurous in his exploration. She could feel his erection pressing against her leg and she wanted him inside her more and more each moment. Her body convulsed as his manipulations brought her to the first in a series of orgasms that seemed to only spiral exponentially with each thrust of his fingers.
“Smashing,” he muttered, moving upward to kiss her again as he slipped out of his pants. As he entered her for the first time, he groaned into her mouth, a sound of pleasure that created a perfect symphony with her own. Her hand drifted upward to touch his chest, trailing small circles of delight in the shape of infinity back and forth as she moaned beneath him.
“I could spend a lifetime inside of you,” he whispered in her ear and she felt herself melt even more against his powerful body, lost in how he felt inside of her. Her cries of ecstasy echoed against the tent walls as he buried himself into her repeatedly.
“You feel amazing. Don’t stop,” she panted.
Matt’s hips rose and fell in a horizontal dance that met her own with a grinding motion. It felt like he was impaling her, taking everything from her and she gave it to him freely. Their bodies were a whirlwind of ecstasy as everything fell away but how their bodies felt combined.
“I think your body was made for mine,” he moaned, his hands on her breasts, cupping them, massaging them as he fucked her with increasing rapaciousness. She loved how he took what he wanted, but somehow made sure she was getting what she needed, as well. His groans coupled with her loud cries of ecstasy, oblivious to what they might draw attention from outside the tent.
Digging her fingers into the bedding beneath her, she drove her hips up hard to meet his. Her body was on the edge of an explosion that felt like it had built up to atomic mass and was about to blow up the universe around her. A long guttural moan came from somewhere deep within as she shattered violently against him and almost collapsed from the weakness it left behind.
“That was incredible to watch. I want to taste it,” he told her, pulling free of her and lowering his head so that he was between her legs. She twitched a bit as his lips met her now incredibly sensitive clit, lapping at her juices that flooded down her thighs. He took his time, seeming to enjoy the way she tensed and jerked each time he came into contact with her delicate folds. She felt her body giving in to him, shattering with yet another orgasm that he lapped up feverishly before bringing his lips back to hers, kissing her with the taste of their lovemaking on his tongue.
He pushed himself into her once more and Tabitha dug her fingernails into his back, dragging them downward, scratching him as he pounded into her like a wild animal. It felt like she was being fucked by more of a demon than a man and she found that she adored the rough way that he used her body, enjoyed taking her for his own. He seemed to last forever, fucking her deeply beneath the full moon that shone brightly above them. Finally, clasping at her naked flesh, he came inside of her, flooding her with his seed.
Matt rolled over, collapsing beside her for a moment wordlessly as they both lay there staring up into the darkness of the tent, breathing heavily. After a moment, he rolled back toward her, gliding his fingers along her skin in tiny circular patterns similar to what she had made earlier on his chest.
“That felt amazing,” he told her, kissing her lips and looking down at her from the shadows.
“It truly was. I think we should do it again,” she said boldly.
He grinned. “I wholeheartedly agree.” He pulled her to him, kissing her with such intensity that she felt like she was on fire.
The second time was much slower, softer. Matt was, hands down, the most incredible lover she had ever known. It was sad to think this might be only a brief fling in her life, as someone like him was definitely someone she could see herself getting used to having every day. He was nothing short of phenomenal in bed, or, in this case, in tent.
They fell asleep entangled in one another’s arms. She was aware of the wetness between her thighs, a mixture of their climaxes left behind as witness to their pleasure. Or
dinarily, she would go to the nearest sink and wash herself, but with him it felt so natural and she found that she enjoyed the way his scent remained on her skin.
Lying there in the dark of the tent, listening to him breathe contently by her side, she fell asleep peacefully for the first time in weeks. Prior to the wedding, it had been jitters. Afterward, she had been too discontent to drift off, her mind going over everything that had been said or done between the two of them prior to his failure to appear at the church. Had there been signs that she had missed? Had she done something to make him feel like he couldn’t go through with a life with her?
Tonight, though, there was none of that past a cursory consideration of how at ease she felt with the man lying by her side. It was if it was all washed away simply by his touch, the way he kissed her, the way he felt inside her. Her thoughts quickly drifted away as she fell asleep, grateful for whatever respite this was that had been granted to her from her own thoughts.
Chapter Five
Tabitha was startled awake in the early morning hours by Matt’s hand planting firmly over her mouth. She attempted to struggle, but he held her down, bringing his opposite hand to his lips. Still foggy with sleep, she couldn’t quite comprehend what was going on and she was terrified. Last night was intense, had he crossed over into something much more sinister? She struggled against him until he leaned very close, his voice barely audible.
“Tigers outside,” was all he said.
Her eyes flew wide open as she began to understand what was happening. She nodded and he took his hand from her mouth, sitting up.
“Don’t say a word. I’ll be right back,” he told her quietly.
Tabitha wanted to protest, but she knew she should keep quiet as instructed. Instead she shot him a look that told him he shouldn’t go out, but he just smiled at her and climbed from the tent, carefully closing it behind him. She could hear him speaking to them outside the tent and it drew her curiosity but she didn’t dare look out.
“Hello, guys. What’s going on here? This isn’t a place for you. Understand?” he was saying