by Nancy Morse
The sun climbed higher in the sky as they trekked onward. Wakula disappeared on ahead and circled back, and he and Jonathan spoke in soft Swahili undertones before he disappeared again.
“Where did Wakula go?” Julia asked when the Swahili man didn’t come back.
Jonathan shrugged. “He didn’t say, and I didn’t ask.”
The afternoon heated up like a furnace, with heatwaves shimmering from the ground, distorting the land all around them. By the time the sun was directly overhead Julia’s legs were aching. Unable to take another step, she sank to the ground. When Jonathan appeared at her side, scowling, she groaned, “Please, I have to rest.”
He stared down into her pleading eyes. Ordinarily, he wasn’t comfortable stopping so close to an elephant trail, but he recognized the faint smell of an elephant carcass, three, maybe four days old, carried on the wind, so it wasn’t likely elephants would be walking this trail any time soon. Besides, was there anything she asked that he could deny her? “All right. But just for a while.”
She nodded toward his canteen. “Can I have some water?”
“There isn’t any. We drank the last of it about an hour ago.”
Her throat burning, she said, “What are we going to do?”
Jonathan was strong enough to go without water until they reached a waterhole, but one look at her pale face told him she was already dehydrated. All the water was underground, but he knew from experience that it wasn’t too deep. Looking around, he spotted a depression in the ground, and said, “Wait here.”
With the heat bearing down on her, she watched him break a stick off a low-hanging branch and, using it, begin to dig, forming a little hole that grew wider and deeper. Sweat dripped from his brow, turning his sandy brown hair darker and dotting the shoulders of his safari shirt as he dug with a vengeance, stabbing at the hardened earth with the digging stick. It seemed like forever, but after about ten minutes of strenuous digging, water began to seep into the hole.
Submerging the canteen into the hole, he filled it and carried it to Julia. “Drink all you want. There’s more where that came from.”
She drank her fill, then proceeded to spill water over her head, wetting her hair, face and neck. She was unaware of the water that soaked the front of her shirt, drenching the cotton as she handed the canteen back to him.
Jonathan groaned inwardly at the outline of her breasts, nipples pressing against the wet fabric, and fought the urge to lay her back against the leaf-strewn ground, cover her body with his, and make love to her. Trying hard to ignore the hardening within his pants, and swearing under his breath, he drank and then carried the canteen back to the hole and submerged it again. Then he filled the hole, scattering leaves and rocks over it so that no one would know they had passed this way, wishing there was a way to cover up the hole in his heart.
Chapter Seventeen
They approached Arusha, the bush capital of the northern province of Tanganyika, along a wide road marked off in kilometers. Unlike Nairobi’s flat-as-a-pancake landscape, the town was set at the base of Mount Meru amid rolling foothills parched by the drought. The snow-capped peak of Kilimanjaro rose in the distance. On the outskirts of the town they passed the beehive-shaped houses of the Masai arrayed around a central cattle kraal and surrounded by groves of banana trees and fields of maize and beans looking worn and withered from lack of rain. The streets of the town were well laid out and surprisingly clean. There was a church, a makeshift post office, a one-story hospital, bungalows, and Indian, Greek, Arab and Swahili shops selling cloth, soap, enameled plates, and trinkets.
“What’s that?” Julia asked, pointing to a one-story building of stone and mortar with a huge tower at its center glistening in the sunlight. Set on a rise overlooking the town, it dominated the surrounding landscape.
“It’s the boma,” Jonathan replied. “When the Germans established a permanent presence here a little more than twenty years ago, they built it as a military fort and garrisoned their soldiers there.” As he spoke, he watched her carefully, hoping to detect the tiniest sign of recognition in her eyes, but there was none. He went on stoically. “With the British capture of the town, the boma is now useless.” As useless as his prayer for a miracle, he thought, frowning.
Feeling exhausted and dusty, Julia struggled to assign a memory to the sights and sounds around her. In a weary and disillusioned voice she said, “I was found wandering around not far from this place, but…” She expelled a ragged sigh. “I have no memory of it.”
Jonathan had a memory of Arusha, but it was a bad one, for this was where Julia had disappeared. He didn’t know what happened to her, and perhaps he never would, but he could not stop blaming himself. If only he’d been awake that morning when she slipped out of bed and out of his life. If only he hadn’t agreed to take her on the perilous journey to photograph the ivory cache. If only…if only…
At the New Arusha Hotel, as the desk clerk swiveled the guest register around for Jonathan to sign, he said, “It is good to have you back again. I see you found her.”
Jonathan’s heart tripped. What bloody luck that the desk clerk was the same one from their previous stay and that the man would recognize them. He flashed a look at Julia whose expression registered confusion. Placing a hand at her elbow, he led her away. “I hope you don’t mind sharing a room.”
“Jonathan, what did that man mean by that?”
He didn’t want to lie to her, yet with the mission doctor’s warning still fresh in his mind, neither did he want to tell her the truth she wasn’t ready to hear.
“He must have us confused with other travelers,” he said as he unlocked the door to their room and led the way inside. “People come here from as far as the Cape and Cairo and all corners of East Africa.” He tossed his pack onto the bed. “We’re not the only ones journeying into the outback.”
“You’ve been here before?” she asked.
“Yes,” he answered, hoping she would not question him further.
Julia gave the bed a trepid glance. In the three days since the porters packed up their camp and left, she had slept on the ground with Jonathan’s strong, warm body next to hers. She’d found herself longing for the safety and comfort of his arms, but he’d made no move to hold her. She didn’t blame him for being angry and hurt by her rejection, but how could she explain to him something she herself did not understand? And then there was the dream. Sleeping on the hard, cold ground with him beside her, she’d had the strangest dream. Like the dream that had been haunting her slumber for two years, she was in the arms of a powerful lover, but in this dream she could see his face, and this lover had eyes of blue.
“I’ll sleep in the chair,” he said. “You look tired. Why don’t you take a bath and then get some rest?”
At the sound of his deep, British-accented voice, she drew a breath to calm her disquieting thoughts. For a moment she didn’t answer as she stared pensively at the bed. Then, lifting her gaze, she looked around the room. It was serene and simple. Something about it seemed almost familiar. She sighed. “A bath. Yes.”
The dust and grime of days in the bush washed away as Julia reclined in the old claw foot bathtub, one arm draped lazily over the worn porcelain edge. The vapory water teased her senses. The bar of soap she ran over her body, with its soft scent of palm and olive oil, made her think of Jonathan and how the fragrance mingled with the manly ambrosia of his skin. She could hear him moving about in the next room. Feelings she hadn’t expected leapt to the surface. She needed him. When everything around her was shifting, he was something solid and dependable to hold onto. But more than that, she wanted him. Oh, how she wanted him—his mouth on hers, his hands on her body, his hard, driving possession. But after what happened between them in the tent when she refused his advances, how could she give in to her desire now?
She emerged from the bath only when the water had grown tepid. Stepping out of the tub, she reached for a towel when there came a soft kno
ck upon the door.
“Julia, I’m going to get us something to eat. I thought—” His words ground to a halt when the door opened.
She was standing there with a towel wrapped around her torso. Her hair hung in loose, damp curls to her shoulders. Droplets of water clung to her skin, sparkling like tiny diamonds in the sunlight that slanted into the room through the batten shades.
His throat went dry. “Are you hungry?”
“Yes,” she murmured. “But not for food.”
Reading the look in her soft brown eyes, he felt a flutter that was both excitement and caution and started to back away. “Oh, no, you don’t.”
She felt guilty for sending him mixed messages, and hated herself for needing him as much as she did and wanting him more than she had ever wanted any man. She reached for his hand. “Don’t go.”
He made a wordless sound in his throat, and his breathing quickened as his eyes devoured her near nakedness. Beneath the thin towel she was all warm flesh and soft curves. “If I stay, you know what’s going to happen,” he said bluntly.
She gazed into his bright and eager eyes, and nodded.
“But you said—”
“I know what I said.”
“I asked you the first time if you were sure. I’m asking again.”
Her fingers tightened around his. “Sometimes I feel like I can’t tell the difference between what’s real and what’s not. But whatever is happening between us, that’s real. And yes, I’m sure.”
The flutter in his stomach turned into a throb between his legs, yet despite wanting her with a desperation that made everything else seem trivial, he held back. “I won’t be played with, Julia. I’m able to admit how much I want you, but I need to know how you feel. I need to hear you say it.”
She stroked his fingers. Lifting his hand, she kissed it. “I don’t know what’s happening to me,” she whispered into the curve of his fingers. She laid her cheek against his palm, feeling the rasp of calluses across her skin. “These feelings are new, and yet not new. All I know is that I want you, Jonathan.”
With a groan, his mouth came down over hers. She moved into his arms, pressing herself against him.
His hold tightened around her. He breathed in the scent of her damp hair and the wonderfully erotic fragrance of her that was uniquely her own. His hands slipped down to caress the curve of her hips. Grasping the thin terrycloth, he gathered it in his fingers and pulled the towel from her.
Her breasts were soft and provocative against his chest for a bare instant before she drew back. All the various ways he imagined making love to her screeched to a halt and one agonizing thought tore through his mind. She was denying him again!
She bent her head, and with a smile touching her lips that were wet from his kiss, she began to unbutton his shirt. The first horn buttons slipped from their slots, but her movements hastened until she was able to push the shirt from his shoulders and run her hands over his smoothly muscled chest.
Jonathan’s breathing quickened. If there was any doubt in his mind about her intentions, there was none now. Excitement surged through him when she reached next for the buckle of his belt. When it was undone, she pulled the leather belt through the loops on his khaki pants and dropped it to the floor alongside his shirt and her towel.
His arms fell to his sides and he stood back as she unzipped his pants. Bending forward, she pushed them down past his corded thighs. He brushed his face against the back of her head, breathing in the fragrance of her hair as she helped him step out of his pants and boots.
“What’s this?” she teased of the cotton buttoned undershorts he was wearing.
“They were issued to men during the war for summer wear,” he said. “It’s a habit I kept when I returned home.”
At the erection straining at the cotton fabric, she purred, “And what do we have here? I think this requires further investigation.” She closed her fingers around him through his undershorts. “Hmm,” she murmured. “Hard.”
“What are you doing to me?” he said raggedly.
“I’m doing my due diligence. I have to know what I’m getting into. Or, more precisely…” She aimed an insinuating glance up at him. “…what’s going to get into me.” Dropping her glance back down, she said, “Now, let’s see,” and plunged her hand into the waistband of his undershorts. He gasped when she moved her hand up and down the
shaft. “Hard, yes. But also soft to the touch. And I do believe I detect a slight curve to the right.”
His breath came hard and fast.
“Oh,” she exclaimed, feigning surprise. “Does this bother you? Would you like me to stop?”
“You bloody little tease.”
She laughed, a husky sound from deep in her throat. “So, the big strong coffee farmer can’t take it, huh?”
“I’ll show you just what I can take. You. Where I want and how I want.”
With that, he swept her up into his arms and carried her to the bed. He plunked her down on the feather mattress, tore off his undershorts and climbed on top of her.
They were all hands now, seeking, exploring, stroking, caressing in a mad rush. Julia had never felt this kind of need before or passion this powerful. When his kisses were punishing, she returned them with equal aggression. Not even the need to uncover her past was greater than that which pounded in her blood. Her fingers gripped his shoulders. His muscles flexed beneath her touch as she pulled him closer. For the first time in a long time she felt a part of something, as if she belonged to someone…to him…and she didn’t want to lose that feeling. There was nothing she would not have given him, no part of herself she would have denied.
He tore his mouth from hers and began to slide down the length of her body. She drew in a sharp breath when his tongue found the source of her heat. Waves of unbridled sensation ripped through her. She arched her back, pressing her head deep into the feather mattress.
“Jonathan, please.” Her voice spilled from her lips as a ragged groan, as if she could not bear what he was doing to her, and yet her fingers curled in his hair, locking him to her.
He answered her breathless plea by sliding his hands upwards, cupping her buttocks, and pulling her harder against his mouth. She writhed under the exquisite torture, fighting to keep her cries of pleasure locked in her throat so that they would not be heard by anyone passing by in broad daylight.
This was what she wanted—mindless, irrational passion. But not with just any man. Somehow, she knew that no other man could match him in strength and vitality, at least not for her. She realized instinctively that she had lost herself to him the very first moment she had gazed into his blue eyes, when he had rescued her from the lions, long before they had ever made love.
She writhed beneath him, close, so close to exploding, but he gave her no chance to lose all control. In a zigzag motion he began to move slowly back up her body, raining open-mouth kisses over her belly, along her ribs, to the valley between her breasts. She arched her back as his hungry mouth closed over her breast, teeth nipping at the nipple that was hard with need, catching her other nipple between his thumb and forefinger.
Not even the searing African heat could rival his scorching kisses that turned her skin molten. She heard her name rip from his lips and words that made no sense muffled against her. Her hands found his shoulders, fingers digging into the browned flesh to pull him upwards, and lifting her hands to the sides of his face, she drew his mouth to hers. With her tongue she traced the outline of his lips, then probed inside to taste his flavor mingled with hers.
His arousal brushed the inside of her thigh, pressing against her with hard, masculine intent. Her fingers reached eagerly between them, enfolding him and guiding him toward her entry as she brought her legs around him and felt his shuddering response. With a desperate groan, he pushed into her.
She flexed into his thrusts, her urgency matching his, pulling him in deeper and thrilling to the feel of him inside of her,
the fullness, the completeness, the potency.
There was nothing gentle about the way they came together. His kisses were possessive. Hers were demanding. He took her beyond anything she remembered, to a place where she could give herself up completely, where logic had no meaning, restraint was non-existent, and abandon knew no bounds.
Afterwards, she lay spent in his arms, her bottom nestled against his lean hip. He pressed a kiss against her hair and looked down at her. Whatever lost memories lay between them, they satisfied their mutual need for each other. But was it enough? Could he live with his importance to her centered around her physical desire when he longed for so much more? He wanted to awaken the drowsing woman in his arms and say “Look at me. Not just my body and what it can do to you, but me.” Holding her naked body next to his, burying himself in her velvet heat, was more than he could have hoped for under the circumstances. Yet he clung to the burning desire of seeing himself reflected in her eyes and hearing her tell him that she loved him.
Chapter Eighteen
Jonathan awoke with a start. The place beside him in bed was empty, just as it had been two years ago. Oh God, was it happening again? A sharp, searing fear gripped him, and a hard knot lodged in his chest. He turned his face to the room and felt like the beaten shore as wave after wave of relief washed over him to see Julia standing at the window.
Rolling onto his side, he propped himself up on his elbow and studied her. Her profile was etched against the golden sunlight, thick lashes moving up and down as her gaze traversed the street outside. She held a sheet to herself to hide her nakedness, but he could see the points of her breasts pressing against the thin linen, and the back was completely open, exposing the curve of her bottom, and the backs of her legs with their delightful dimples.
“If you don’t come here right now, I’m coming over there to get you.”