Drowning (10 page)

“I’ve always been artistic,” I admitted. “I’m a creative person. Ask me to do math and I couldn’t to save my life. But ask me to describe this sunset—to capture it with my camera and try to produce an image which holds the essence of these colors… these pinks and ochers and mauves and reds, how perfectly they blend, the wildness of them, this incredible quality of clearness to the air—well, I could be here all day talking to you.”

“I can relate to that.” Nicholas’s voice was soft.

“I grew up in Florida—my mother still lives there. I had a little brother, but he died when I was a teenager.” I let out a long breath and turned my face away.

“I’m so sorry to hear that,” Nicholas said gently.

“I studied photography. Then I traveled all over the States, working wherever I went. Sometimes in my profession, other times doing whatever came along.”

“Interesting,” he observed. “Where did you go?”

“I’ve lived in—let me think, now—Port Saint Lucie, Charlotte, Detroit, Kansas City, Dayton, a few places in California, a couple of places in New Jersey, and most recently New York City. Usually for a few months before moving on. Never more than a year or so in any one place.”

“Why is that?”

“It’s not something I talk about,” I shot back.

The car crested a hill and on the steep downhill on the other side, the bush thinned out, with trees becoming taller and interspersed with green-gold grassland. Ahead of us ran the silvery stretch of the fence line. This fence would have done justice to a high-security prison. It was about ten feet high, and made not only of fine wire but also of thick steel cabling strung tightly between tall and sturdy metal posts which were embedded in a solid-looking concrete base.

“The fine wires are usually electrified,” Nicholas said, “either by mains or generator. It’s only in the past two days this fence had been without power.”

But now, looking more carefully, I noticed a stretch of wires near the base of the fence hung loosely. There was definitely damage, and I found my stomach tensing at the likelihood that criminals had tampered with the fence.

“Have you had poachers gain access before?” I asked him.

He nodded grimly. “Once. Last year.”

“And what happened?”

His lips tightened. “They shot two of my rhino. Killed one, injured the other, dehorned both of them. We tracked them through the park and the police arrested them before they managed to escape with the horns.”

“Oh, no, that is terrible.”

“Since then, the fence has been kept electrified. Even if they try to breach it, the alarm should sound, but there’s always the danger they know how to bypass it.”

We climbed out of the car and walked slowly toward the boundary. Birds were twittering all around me and the trill of the cicadas rang in my ears. The day was already warm and from somewhere
nearby I could hear the rippling of water. Looking more closely, I saw a small stream flowed through the fence, and that the grasses and bush surrounding it looked flattened as if they had been swept by floodwater. An area in front of the concrete had been severely eroded by the water, although it looked as if the concrete base itself, which must be more than a yard deep, had not been damaged.

“That’s what caused the break,” Nicholas observed, pointing.

A little further on, a fallen tree had been swept into the fence. Its tough, gnarled branches had caught and pulled the finer wires, the force causing them to snap. The cables had held it, though, and now it lay, pinned against the fence, its branches tangled in the wires.

“The tree broke the fence. But there have been people around here since then. Look.”

I shivered as I saw the evidence in the muddy soil. These were not animal tracks, they were human footprints, and to my untrained eye it looked like more than one person had climbed through the gap.

“They might have gone back again,” Nicholas muttered, bending to examine the prints closely. “If they’re on this side, they won’t be showing themselves now; they’ll be hiding out somewhere safe until dark. Either way, we need to fix this damage. How are your woodworking skills, Erin? We’ll have to cut this up to get it out, and while I’m here, I want to fill in that eroded area as well.”

“I’m handy with a saw,” I told him. “And a shovel. When I was living in Detroit in winter, I shared a house with three other girls, and I was always the designated snow shoveler.”

“You can start with that, then.”

Returning to the car, he opened the boot, and took out a shiny yellow steel shovel, which he handed to me along with a brand new pair of gardening gloves. He then removed an axe and a saw.

“Oh, for battery-operated power tools,” I quipped.

“I have plenty, but they’re all in use down at the river,” Nicholas told me with a grin.

Two hard-working hours later, the job was done. The tree had been chopped up and its branches removed by Nicholas, who’d then repaired the wires. Finally, he’d grabbed another spade and helped me with the job of filling in the last of the eroded section.

The sun was higher in the sky now. My throat felt parched and I was streaming with sweat. My dark hair was sodden and I wished I hadn’t worn a white top, because it was so wet that my breasts were clearly visible. My muscles were burning. This had been hard physical work and I knew I would sleep well tonight.

“Well done.” Nicholas wiped sweat from his own forehead. His gaze roamed over me, taking in my nearly-transparent T-shirt, before he bent to pick up the tools and take them back to the car.

The water he’d brought with him was still cold. I drank gratefully from the bottle and then Nicholas handed me the cup from the thermos flask, which I was delighted to discover was brimming with more of the icy, sweet lemonade we’d had last night.

“I need a shower,” I told him when we’d both drunk our fill.

“I can help you there,” he said. “Come this way.”

He leaned into the back of the car, picked up his rifle, and removed two towels before heading in the direction of the steep hill we’d driven down when we arrived. Curious, I followed him. He walked round the side of the hill towards a high rocky outcrop which formed a cliff. The sound of the water was even louder here, and as we rounded the corner, I saw that the stream flowed over the cliff itself, creating a miniature waterfall, before disappearing into the grasses below.

The rock where I was standing was smooth and cool. I kicked off my shoes and stepped under the falling stream. The water was crystal clear and surprisingly chilly, as if it came from deep underground—the coldness took my breath away for a moment before it became exhilarating. The water drummed down on my head and shoulders, soaked my hair, sluiced through the light clothing I wore. I turned my face up to it, spread my arms and let it splash over my aching muscles, cooling and soothing them.

Another minute and the cold became too much to bear. I stepped away, shivering, as Nicholas took my place. He’d propped his rifle against the base of the cliff and laid the towels out on a flat ledge of rock in the sun, which right then didn’t feel very warm at all. My clothing was streaming with water and for a moment I considered taking it off and squeezing it out—but then prudence won over.

Even so, as I sat down on the towel, shivering, with my arms wrapped around me, I was filled with a sudden sense of unreality. Here I was, alive and well, but trapped in an alternate existence. It was as if the accident had pulled me out of my old life, and plunged me into a new one.

“And whose fault had the accident been?
” a tiny voice whispered inside me.

Of course, nobody could have known that the floods would destroy the bridge. But it was Vince who’d decreed that the two of us should travel apart. Riding high himself in the terrain-appropriate Land Rover, he’d ordered me to climb inside a far less suitable car, to drive in terrible weather conditions and with a driver whom we barely knew, who’d taken the job only the day before.

And all because of what? His own delusional and illogical jealousy. It was strange how when I was with Vince, I’d gone to such lengths to try and defuse this. Insisting I loved him, managing my own behavior, trying to avoid situations where this might occur. I’d been so stubbornly focused on keeping things from going wrong that I’d never allowed myself to feel the anger I was starting to feel now.

How could he object to me being friendly with a happily married homosexual man, but then order me to get in a car with a young and unknown stranger? Or was that something that, at some stage in the future, he would have used against me, too?

And then, when the accident occurred, he’d been driving too far ahead of us to realize the fact. Angry at the wrong road he’d taken, his ego bruised by our pointless journey through the rainy bushveld, he’d crossed the bridge at least twenty minutes ahead of us… and although it had been starting to flood at that stage, Vince hadn’t stopped.

He hadn’t waited.

At that crucial time, he had not cared.

One thing was for sure—although fate had played a role, the fact that I’d ended up here had been in no way my own fault. And, with a sudden hardening of my resolve, I decided I was going to refuse to feel guilty about anything that I did while I was here.

These few days were the beginning of the rest of my life—a life that I would not have been living now if Nicholas had not rescued me. They could be regarded as a blessing—a magical time that I would never, ever enjoy again.

And, right then, I decided I was going to spend them in whatever way made me happy.

A splashy thud startled
me from my reverie. It was Nicholas’s shirt, soaking wet from the waterfall, which he’d tossed onto the warm rock nearby. I couldn’t help but stare at the sight of him, clad only in his khaki shorts, the water cascading down over his broad shoulders and those muscular, defined arms.

God, he was beautiful, and I felt a pang of jealousy as I thought of Angela the Australian journalist, and of all the other women with whom he’d consorted over the years.

He stepped out from under the waterfall and came to sit beside me.

“It’s refreshing, isn’t it?”

“It’s freezing,” I laughed. His proximity to me was doing it again. I was aware of every inch of my body, and of his. The droplets of water trickled down his tanned skin, sparkling in the sun. His arm was so close to mine that we almost brushed. I remembered how he’d touched me, pleasured me, so intimately the previous day. Now the intensity of my desire for him made me feel ill.

My own angry thoughts earlier had made me rebellious, and the hard physical work had tired me, broken down the barriers I’d been working so hard to keep in place. Now all that was left was honesty—the raw truth of my own shameful longing.

The heat had already ratcheted up again. The sun was beating down onto my shirt, now warmer but still damp. It was reflecting off every brilliant drop from the waterfall. I half turned to him as I spoke.
Then I did what I had been longing to do. I lifted my arm and stroked my fingers over his shoulder, feeling the skin, smooth and still cool, and the ripped definition beneath. I ran my fingertips down his back, over the ridges of muscle on either side of his spine.

His eyes widened at the touch. His pale blue gaze burned mine, his face just inches away from my own. In his expression I saw the same helpless lust that had me in its grip.

“I’ve reconsidered your offer,” I whispered.

His kiss stopped my words.

His lips parted to taste my own as he let out an audible groan. My lips softened, yielding to his. Warm and slick, his tongue found mine, sliding against my own in a way that had my pulse suddenly racing. His hands roamed over my back, trailing lower to slip under the waistband of my pants and caress my buttocks.

In that moment I was lost in eternity. God, I could have kissed him forever; it was the purest, most erotic sensory bliss—but it was triggering a need that was driving me wild—and him, too.

With hungry fingers he tugged at my pants, pulling them down, easing them off, his touch warm against my own flesh. And I helped him, kicking my discarded clothing to one side even as he yanked his own shorts down to free his substantial erection.

He grasped me around my waist, pulled me onto his thighs so that we were sitting, my legs straddling his. His breathing was rapid, matching my own. With a groan he cupped his hands around my buttocks, pulling me closer so that our bodies were tight against each other. He kissed me again, slowly and lusciously, and I kissed him back, my body welded to his.

I could feel his cock, thick and hard, pressing against the lips of my naked sex. This was all too raw, too sudden, far too dangerous… but I had no more chance of stopping than I did of flying.

As if he’d read my mind, he broke the kiss.

“You are far too sexy.” His hands stroked my hair, his fingers smoothing over the dampened strands. “You’re driving me crazy. I’ve been feeling as if I’m sixteen again, carrying this damned condom
round with me day and night. Never believing I’d have the chance to use it.”

“I touched myself last night thinking of you,” I whispered, and saw his eyes widen in amazement at my words.

“God, Erin,” he choked out. “That’s such a turn-on. You have no idea what you’re doing to me…”

Swiftly, he fumbled for his discarded shorts and pulled a foil wrapper from the back pocket. He tore the wrapper open, rolled it on.

This was my last opportunity to say no… the final chance to stop this. Instead I was kneeling over him, clutching his broad shoulders, just about panting with desire as his fingers moved between my legs and traced circles of pleasure over my swollen lips before slipping inside.

“You’re so ready, so wet. You’re so needy to be fucked.” His voice was husky.

“So do it,” I whispered. His words were making me feel reckless and dizzy with lust. His fingering had turned me molten, liquid. I wanted to melt into him.

I reached down and grasped his thick shaft, feeling his heat, his hardness under the slick, stretched latex. His breathing quickened as I guided him to the place where his fingers had so recently pleasured. I was so hungry for him; there was a throbbing need deep inside me that I was desperate for him to fill.

His cock gently touched the delicate flesh at my entrance, a sensual, inviting caress that had me moaning in anticipation of what was to follow. I moved my hips and his head eased inside me, pushing my swollen lips apart. I let out an involuntary gasp at the exquisite stretching sensation, as the nerve endings at my entrance pulsed with pleasure.

Nicholas was breathing fast, staring into my eyes, his handsome face rigid with desire. His gaze was consuming me and at that moment, I knew he was as much of a slave to his body’s needs as I was to mine.

I pushed down, taking him deeper inside me, catching my breath at the unexpected size of him. He was big… big everywhere, from his height and the width of his shoulders to his broad, square hands
and the thick hardness of his cock. It felt so sexy to be stretched and opened by him. This was more than erotic… it was possession.

I felt myself tauten with delight and from the breathy groan he uttered, I knew he had felt me, too. His hands closed over my thighs, easing me all the way down onto him as he arched his hips to meet me.

I let out a small moan as he buried himself to the hilt inside me. The sense of fullness was incredible, causing my breath to come in shallow gasps. My brain was whirling at the enormity of what I was doing with this man, this philanderer who’d made his disreputable intentions clear at the first opportunity. There was no going back now, no denying what we were doing. He was having his way with me, using me just like every other one of the slutty women he’d smooth talked into bed… this wasn’t lovemaking. It was fucking. His cock was all the way in me… oh God, but why did it feel so good? I was quivering, throbbing with the intensity of my desire.

“It’s okay, Erin” he murmured, as if sensing my thoughts. “It’s all right to let yourself feel pleasure.” His face was open with lust, his features slack, and staring at him made me think of a fallen saint.

His hips rocked rhythmically under me, opening me fully to him with his deep, strong thrusts. Then, grasping my buttocks, he angled himself into me, rubbing over a sweet spot so responsive that it sent liquid fire coursing through me. I started jerking involuntarily toward him in reaction to this, my body a puppet on his strings, and he groaned.

“That’s good,” he murmured. His fingers stroked my breasts, feeling my nipples erect and defined through the fine, damp fabric of my blouse. He squeezed them between his fingers and thumbs, then rubbed his fingertips over them, pinching them gently, and my mouth opened at the intense sensual gratification this offered.

“You like it?” he whispered. “You want more?”

His skin was hot, slick, beaded with the same perspiration that was trickling down my body, out here, thanks to the furnace of the morning and the extremes of our lust.

He squeezed my nipples again, in rhythm with the thrusts of his cock, then as he pushed harder inside me, began rubbing his fingers over them rapidly. The liquid delight of his touch coursed deeply and powerfully through me, igniting every cell of my body. The friction of his thick cock inside me caused me to shudder … a sensation which became too sweet to bear. I could feel myself coiling and tightening around him. My heart was banging as I gasped for air.

“I’m… oh, yes, I’m…”

With a hot rush of delight, I came, crying out in amazement at the intensity of the release. I dug my fingers into his solid biceps, squeezing him hard, shuddering as the waves of my orgasm causing me to jerk and writhe.

He grasped my buttocks, his hands digging into my flesh as he thrust, hard and rapidly, before letting out an explosive cry and pulling me down toward him.

“Ah, God, Erin.”

Plastered against his body, clamped to him by his urgent hands, my rough breathing matched his own. I felt his hips powerfully convulse, and the deep, strong pulses of his release inside me.

I lay on top of Nicholas, his grip holding me close. I could still feel him inside me, could feel the pounding of his heart and the rapid rise and fall of his chest. As reality filtered in once more, I became aware of the sounds around us. The splashing of water, the trill of the cicadas, the occasional bird call from the nearby trees.

The boiling heat of the sun, now higher in the sky.

After a while, his grasp relaxed and I sat up, then climbed carefully off him and stood on legs that felt surprisingly weak. My shorts, still damp but now warm, were lying discarded near the cliff. Feeling suddenly self-conscious about being outside in the open, even though I knew we were in the middle of nowhere on Nicholas’s private land, I pulled them on.

Nicholas walked to the car—to dispose of the condom, I assumed. I watched him as he returned, picked his clothes up and got dressed.

I didn’t know what to say. I knew I should feel cheap and guilty—and I did—but it did not alter the truth of my attraction to him. The physical tug was so strong it made me want to hold him now. To push his tousled hair back from his face and smooth the creases out of his rumpled shirt. To bury my face in his neck and inhale his musky, masculine scent.

Be strong, I told myself, turning away to survey the bushveld. Don’t cross the line between fucking and intimacy. You can’t let yourself become entangled with him. What you’re enjoying now is pure physical indulgence. You’re using him just as he’s using you. This is fucking. It’s your weakness, revenge, celebration of survival, however you want to try and justify it. Whatever, it’s certainly nothing to be proud of.

And yet, my body had never felt more blissfully satiated in my life. Not with any other lover… not even with Vince.

Nicholas walked toward me and I braced myself to resist his touch in the unlikely event that he offered it.

And then I caught my breath as, only a few yards away, the tiniest and most perfectly formed antelope I had ever seen, standing just a little over two feet high, picked its way delicately through the long grass before leaping onto a low shelf of rock.

His hand grasped mine and, forgetting my promise to myself, I held it tightly. We both stood still as we watched and a smile of pure wonderment spread over my face.

“It’s so beautiful,” I breathed, and even at that sound the animal’s large ears flicked. “Is it a baby?”

“No,” he whispered back. “Fully grown.”

We watched as, with another trotting jump, it soundlessly crossed the rock and vanished once again into the long grass.

“It’s a steenbok,” Nicholas told me, still speaking in a low voice. “One of the very smallest antelope. I didn’t even know there were any in this part of the estate. There were none listed in the inventory.” Glancing at him I saw my own delight reflected in his eyes.

“I guess you got a small buck bonus,” I joked, and he laughed, smoothing my hair—which was now in a state somewhere between tangled and dreadlocked—back from my face.

“I guess I did.”

Five minutes later we were in the car and heading back to the lodge, with the air conditioning on full blast and slowly starting to cool down and banish the oppressive heat.

“So you don’t know exactly what animals are in this section of your park,” I observed.

“Well, I thought I did. They were listed in detail, but there are supposed to be two red hartebeest in here that I’ve never managed to spot, and there are more eland than were listed, as well as that little steenbok.”

“What made you buy this place? Did you live in the area previously?”

“No. I like space and solitude, though, and this offered both at a time I needed it. I’ve lived…” He tightened his lips as if aware he was telling me too much, but unwilling to stop. “I’ve lived in Johannesburg, Cape Town, London, and Zurich, mostly. Those are the cities where I grew up. Then I’ve worked in a lot of other, less civilized places in my capacity as a paramedic. Ivory Coast. Sri Lanka. Afghanistan. Sometimes for weeks, sometimes for months.”

He stopped speaking but didn’t look at me, instead staring ahead as the grass-lined track unrolled in front of us.

“And your family? Where are they now?”

Nicholas shrugged, the gesture at once defensive and angry. “Erin, it doesn’t matter. And it doesn’t concern you.”

“Well, all right, then,” I shot back, unreasonably hurt by this dismissal. “Like you said, I’m here for a week, then I’m gone. Now I’ve fucked you, which I’ll probably regret, but I’ll do it again if and when I feel like it. Apart from that, you’re right. I shouldn’t give a shit about you.”

I stared angrily out of the passenger window. Not even the sight of three energetically cantering zebra could bring a smile to my face.

“I’m sorry,” Nicholas said after a while. I glanced at him. Was it my imagination, or did he look rather hurt by my callous words?

“Whatever.” I was still smoldering, unwilling to accept his apology.

“I’m not used to being asked that kind of question.” The car’s tires rolled onto smooth paving as we drove up the driveway.

Now I swung round to face him. “Nicholas, that kind of question is perfectly normal. In fact, I was just trying to make polite conversation when you went all weird on me. Jeez, what the hell’s a safe topic around you apart from wildlife?”

“Almost anything. Books, art, music, current events. You name it. As long as the topic isn’t Nicholas de Lanoy, I’m happy.”

“I’ll certainly bear that in mind in the future.” He parked in the garage and I opened the door, planted my feet on the ground, and then on impulse, leaned back in. “And I would like you to know that you don’t have a monopoly on fucked-up family life. You’re not the only one. So, for your information, Erin Mitchell is also off-limits as a conversation topic from now on.”