Drowning (7 page)

His voice caressed the last word. The stroking exploration of his fingers had reached the inside of my thigh. I was absolutely paralyzed. My carefully built defenses had crumbled at his touch. The overpowering sense of shame that filled me at what I was allowing him to do—the fact that I could not tell him to stop—did not in any way lessen the deep, hot lust that pooled in the pit of my belly.

“Eland on your left,” he said gently, as his touch moved up and I felt his fingertips brush, briefly and deliciously, over the crotch of my shorts, the action sending a pulse of liquid pleasure through me. I caught my breath, my brain processing his words far too slowly, and turned my head to see that yes, there was some sort of large antelope standing a few feet from the road and observing the leisurely progress of the Land Cruiser.

I gripped the sides of the leather seat as his fingers returned to their exploration, stroking over the place where the soft fabric covered the rounded lips of my sex, each small movement of his hand creating a flood of sensation that washed through me. My heartbeat was rapid, my nipples felt tight and aching, but the rest of my body was melting, languorous, utterly incapable of resistance.

He stroked his hand gently upwards, massaging the softness of my pubic area, before moving it to the waistband of my shorts. Deftly, he undid the belt and eased the zipper down. Neither of us spoke. The only sound was the soft swishing and scrunching of the tires over the mud and the stones, and the rumble of thunder overhead. The air felt heavy and close, as if the clouds were pressing in to cover us, concealing our actions from the outside world.

With every heart-pounding second that passed, I had the opportunity to consider what my consent meant—both now, and in the long term—but the frantic guilt that was drumming in my brain was smothered and silenced by the boiling desire that the moment offered.

The waistband of my shorts gaped open now and his fingers slipped inside. His touch felt warm and sure. He caressed the skin of my lower belly and the pulse deep in my groin intensified to a painful throbbing.

“Almost completely shaved,” he whispered, running his fingers over the narrow strip of hair above my cleft, and then over the hairless skin surrounding it. “You feel so silken smooth. So soft.” His hand pressed gently on my pubic bone, his fingers massaging the tender flesh.

Crazy thoughts spun in my mind. I should pull myself out of the moment, make a witty comment about the thoughtfulness of him having provided a razor in my bathroom, I should tell him to stop. Each and every one of these thoughts was overridden, as his hand moved lower, by the compelling need of my body.

Instead, I let out a moan as his finger parted my lips and slid between them; a moan that was echoed by Nicholas as he felt the wetness there.

“God, Erin, you’re so ready.”

Ready to accept his most intimate sexual advances? Oh, this was bad.
I
was bad. As he stirred the tip of his finger lusciously inside the cleft of my moistened slit, I arched my hips towards him, turning to him, my eyes wide, my lips apart.

“Yes,” Nicholas whispered. Rain splattered onto the windscreen, the storm closing in on us with violence, the flicking of the wipers unable to keep up with its assault. It drummed on the roof and poured over the leaves and grasses around us. The car had become a capsule in a deafening tunnel of grayness. How was he managing to keep it on the road as well as do this to me? Jesus, I had no idea, but right then, I’d have chosen pleasure over safety all the way.

He slid a finger inside me, teasing, pulling it out when he heard my small cry of delight before slipping it in again, this time deeper. I was pressed back in my seat, my back arched, my hips pushed toward him, proving to him I was open, available, wanting. Silently begging for him.

He slid two fingers inside me, pushing them deep, circling them in a slow, luscious motion so that they grazed over erogenous zones I hadn’t known existed, causing muscles inside me to spasm with desire.

“Fuck,” Nicholas whispered. He yanked the wheel to the left so that we juddered off the road and splashed through puddles. He stamped on the brake, causing water to shoot from under the heavy tires, before cutting the engine. “Jesus, Erin. You’re so turned on, I can feel you clenching around me. Do you know how hot that is?”

He twisted around, moving to face me, thrusting one of his legs over the passenger seat and across mine so he was sprawled over me. In the confined space of the car I could feel the body heat radiating from him. I was drowning in his eyes. The rain was hissing around us, cutting off all visibility outside. This was a hurricane… a monsoon.

I gasped as Nicholas’s fingers angled inside me to caress again and again over a pulsatingly sensitive nerve center. His thumb was circling my clitoris in a slow spiral of delight. I tensed my stomach muscles, desperately trying to hold myself back from the pleasure, trying to stop the inevitable, but he was onto me.

“I want to see you orgasm,” he whispered. “And you’re going to, Erin. You can try to resist it if you like. The longer you fight your body, the harder you’ll come in the end. Or else…” his thumb stroked me in a silken rhythm, in time with the soft pumping of his fingers. The thundering of my own heartbeat had made me forget the storm outside. “Or else you could just let it happen.”

My lips had fallen open. I gasped in shuddery breaths. Abruptly, the car’s temperature seemed to ratchet up to double what it had been. I thrust myself onto his fingers, feeling the pleasure inside me escalate to boiling point and then, with a cry, I gave myself up to my climax, staring helplessly into his eyes, bucking my hips hard against his hand as the peaks of pleasure shocked through me.

He slowly withdrew his fingers, lifted them to his mouth and sucked them. Gently, his fingertips traced the outline of my face. Then he leaned forward and kissed me deeply and hard, with the same raw urgency I’d seen in his expression. I could taste myself on his lips. I wanted to keep kissing him… I wanted more from him, and could feel how badly he wanted me.

But, far too late, I found myself able to break the kiss and whisper, “Enough.”

Thunder crashed around us.

Nicholas let out a deep breath. He nodded, then shifted back into the driver’s seat, started the car, and eased it back onto the slippery road.

I zipped my shorts up again. We drove on in silence. As the pleasure of my orgasm ebbed, in its place came sharp, shameful regret. As the heavy vehicle splashed through the deep puddles outside the main gates of the lodge, I found my eyes blurring with tears. I sniffed, blinking them away, and Nicholas glanced at me.

“You okay?” he asked softly.

“I’m fine,” I muttered, but my voice was wobbly and he must have known my words were a lie. What did he care, in any case, I told myself. He’d made it clear upfront that he was only after one thing. Now he had another cheap thrill to add to the notches on his belt—and I had a burden of guilt which I could not deny or ignore.

Chief in my mind: what the hell should I tell Vince?

I didn’t know. I needed to think about this, and urgently. Needed to sort out my head. My husband would be trying to call me again, growing more anxious and angrier with every minute that passed as he found my phone was still turned off.

When we parked in the garage, Nicholas turned to me and said, in a worried voice, “Erin, I…”

I didn’t wait to hear what he had to say. I climbed out of the car, slammed the door, and, ducking my head against the blowing rain, jogged along the walkway before entering the house. I ran along the wide, tiled corridor to my bedroom and slammed the door behind me.

I’d thought I’d end up crying but now, surprisingly, the tears would not come. I lay there for a while, trapped in my tangled thoughts, before sitting bolt upright.

The helicopter.

Damn it all.

I needed to call Vince back and I had forgotten to ask about the fucking helicopter.

I called Vince anyway.
It was the lesser of the two evils; the other being to go and look for Nicholas to ask him about the helicopter, and right then I could not face him.

I turned on the phone and quickly, before he could phone me again, dialed my husband.

The number rang and rang, my nerves cranking up tighter with each second that passed, until the call went through to voicemail.

Vince
always
answered his phone. What was wrong?

“Hi, babes,” I said. “I saw you’ve been calling. Sorry I didn’t have my phone on. I got a ride down to the river to get some photos of where the bridge was. I’ll send them to you now. I hope you’re doing fine. I love you. I miss you.”

I disconnected. Now the tears were prickling. I forwarded the photos to his phone and watched while the messages went through. Then I listened to the messages he’d left, which were all a terse variation on the words, “Call me as soon as you can.”

I didn’t know what to make of what I had done with Nicholas, other than that it had been unforgivable. Panic churned inside me, intensified by the fact that, despite leaving multiple messages for me, Vince hadn’t answered my call when I had phoned back. For now, I could not even try to make things right between us, but would have to stew in my emotions until he decided to contact me.

I wanted some support on this. God, I needed somebody to talk to, to help me sort my head out and give me some perspective. But who was there? Who could I tell?

My best friend, Samantha, would be the only person I’d confide in about something like this, but Samantha and I hadn’t really spoken for a while. In fact, apart from when she’d attended our engagement party, we’d pretty much fallen out of contact in recent times. She was married, living in New Jersey, and had a baby girl. I thought perhaps little Jessica was keeping her too busy for her to stay in touch with friends. Or maybe it was my fault—that I’d been too focused on my husband and had neglected my other relationships. Either way, now was a good time to send her an email. I trusted Samantha’s opinion. She would be able to offer me some good advice.

It took me a long time to compose the message and a lot of false starts, but eventually it was ready to go.

Hey Sam… how are you doing? Just wanted to catch up with you because we haven’t spoken for ages. I’m stuck on a game farm in South Africa, if you can believe that! I mean really stuck—as in, on the wrong side of a washed away bridge. Things aren’t going great at this moment between me and Vince, and this separation is not helping. And now I’ve got other complications, because the owner of the game farm is trying to get me into bed.

I stopped typing for a minute, overwhelmed by the shameful memory of how Nicholas had watched me orgasm, his eyes devouring me as I gave myself over to abandon. How he’d kissed me as the aftershocks of that incredible climax were still rippling through me. Better not to say any of that to Samantha, I decided.

Does this all sound like a soap opera? That’s pretty much how I’m feeling now. There’s so much I want to talk with you about—or write you about. Hope to hear from you soon!

I sent the mail. Then I tested the water in the shower. It was there, and it was hot. Quickly, I stepped under it.

I was out and dressed in fresh clothes when there was a tap on my bedroom door.

“Who is it?”

I felt my cheeks grow hot when I heard Nicholas’s voice.

“I’m going to fix an early dinner in the kitchen. Come and eat.”

“I’m not hungry, thanks,” I called.

“Fine. I’ll bring you something, then.”

I let out an impatient sigh. It seemed that food was on the agenda, whether I wanted it or not.

“I’ll be there in five,” I told him.

Nicholas was on his own in the kitchen, mixing ingredients in a bowl near the west window, through which I could see the setting sun blazing from under a mass of roiling clouds.

“Most of the staff here have Saturdays and Sundays off,” he said. “So I do the cooking. Not gourmet style, I’m afraid. This evening, French toast is on the menu.”

I hadn’t even realized it was Saturday today.

I watched while Nicholas took the first of a pile of sourdough slices and dunked it in a mixture of egg and milk. On the gas stove, a heavy-bottomed frying pan was heating up.

“Please could you tell me if there’s a helicopter available anywhere?” I said. “I really need to get across this river. I need to get back to my life.”

“My helicopter is not available, I’m afraid,” Nicholas said. “I’ve loaned it to the local police. One of my staff flew out with it early yesterday morning, before you had woken up.”

“Oh,” I said, deflated. “Do you know when it will be…?”

“No. It may be a few more days before I get it back.” Turning his attention away from his cooking, he explained grimly, “Downriver from here, a community of two hundred people was washed away when the flooding started. Twenty of them are still missing. The others are stranded, and desperate for supplies. All they have are the clothes they were wearing. Whenever the weather allows, the police are flying food, fuel, and water to them, as well as running search and rescue and Medevac operations.”

“Oh,” I said, feeling ashamed to have asked a selfish question and for a moment, illogically angry at Vince for having pressured me into asking. I should have known—in some way, I had known—that if there had been transport available, I would already have been offered out of here.

“Guess we’re stuck with each other for a while longer, then,” I said, offering a wry smile.

“I guess we are.”

Nicholas was wearing a faded green T-shirt that emphasized the deep tan of his arms. Vince, who was very wardrobe-conscious, wouldn’t have been seen dead in a garment that showed so much wear, but Nicholas made the shirt look sexy. And I knew what was underneath it. I had seen his hard-muscled torso, had felt the breadth of his shoulders as I dug my fingers into them…

Oh, God, I urgently needed to do something to distract myself from him.

“Are we having any salad with that toast?” I asked.

“I wasn’t planning to make any—I usually fry a couple of tomatoes—but salad’s a good idea. Want some?”

“I’ll make us some.” Relieved to be able to focus on something other than the mouthwatering sight of Nicholas de Lanoy at work in his kitchen, I turned away and opened the fridge door.

After a quick hunt through, I removed a small head of lettuce, two tomatoes, a green pepper, a large, perfectly ripe avocado, and a tub of feta cheese, which from its handwritten label looked to have come from a local dairy. Nicholas passed me a chopping board and a knife. Our fingers brushed as I took the board. The touch was electric, and in my efforts to move my hand away fast, I dropped the knife, which clattered to the floor.

Unfazed by my clumsy attempt at avoiding contact with him, he picked the knife up, handed me another, and then showed me the cupboard which housed a selection of pottery and glass bowls. I chose an attractive glazed pottery bowl with a swirled pattern of earthen brown and cream.

“Can I please talk to you frankly?” I said as I began washing the lettuce.

“Go ahead.” He placed the first two dripping slices of bread into the sizzling pan.

“Nicholas, I’m really sorry about what happened between us earlier today.”

“Are you?” There was a flash of wicked humor in his smile as he turned to me. “I’m not.” Focusing once again on his cooking, he slid another two slices of bread into the pan before adjusting the heat.

“Well, I am. I am regretting it deeply.” I took a fast breath. “I am married.”

“Like I told you, that’s not an issue for me.”

“It is for me. Look, I take my vows seriously.”

“Why do you and your husband travel in separate cars, then?” Nicholas’s voice was innocent.

My knife sank into a round of creamy feta, which I transferred from the tub to the board.

“We’d had a falling out. A fight.”

“And does he always throw you out of the vehicle when that happens? Seems rather extreme to me.”

“He didn’t throw me out! He just…” I let out an impatient breath. “Look, any couple can fight, right?”

“You say so, Erin. Maybe you believe that. I personally don’t agree. I don’t think it is necessary. There are far more constructive and pleasant ways to spend time together than by fighting.”

“Well, what would you know?” I hacked at the soft cheese with what felt like way too much force. “You told me yourself that you’ve mainly had short, no-strings affairs. A week of fun and then you or your partner moves on. If that’s the case, then you’ve never had to see a relationship through difficult times.”

Silence descended on the kitchen for a while, broken only by the blistering of the toast in the pan.

“Good point,” Nicholas said eventually. “So you were going through a bad patch with your husband, but you love him, and you feel guilty about what you’ve done?”

“Yes.” I cupped the avocado in my hand and sliced gently through its skin. “That’s exactly how I feel. If I stay here—which I obviously don’t have a choice about—there can be no more of this. I will not be the one to wreck my marriage.”

“The way you say that implies it’s heading for wreckage in any case. Are you going to wait and hope he does it first?”

“No,” I snapped, annoyed. “That’s not what I meant. Nobody is going to wreck this marriage. Not me, not you, and not my husband. I’m telling you how things are. And I’d appreciate your cooperation.”

“Well, I can give you my personal guarantee that you’re not going to get it,” Nicholas said, and I stared at him, wide-eyed with shock at his words. He didn’t meet my gaze. He was busy flipping the toast.

“How—what do you mean?”

Abandoning his cooking, he swung round to face me.

“You are an incredibly sexy woman,” he said in a low voice. “There’s… I think there’s a powerful connection between us, Erin. I don’t know what the hell it is or why it’s there. You have been driving me just about crazy with desire to get you into bed. Right now, I’m pretty much incapable of thinking straight, and I’m certainly unwilling to make any effort to go along with what you’re asking.”

I was briefly silenced by the effect of his words, and the realization that I’d been driving him as crazy with lust as he was driving me. Seriously? I’d done that to him? His confession was a powerful turn-on, so much so that I forgot to be angry about his brazen defiance of my wishes.

Turning back to the stove, Nicholas slid the spatula under the bread and transferred the crisp, browned slices to a plate.

“If you want to stay away from me, that’s your choice,” he continued. “But you’re the one who’s been sending me mixed messages. I don’t know if you’re going to change that from now on—but if the message is yes, I’m not going to say no. No way.”

He flipped the final slice of toast onto the plate and then, to my surprise, sprinkled them with sea salt and a grind of black pepper. He picked up the plate, placed it on a tray with two others, knives, and forks, and walked to the arched doorway leading to the lounge.
“When that salad’s ready, do you want to bring it outside? And there’s a jug in the fridge with some freshly made lemonade.”

For a moment, I stood, torn between following him through the lounge to the outside veranda or marching back to my room in a huff. Eventually, hunger and common-sense won the battle. He was right. The decisions I would make now were up to me. There was no reason to ask for his help in this. It was sufficient for me to know that, for as long as I was able to resist him, he would not make the first advance.

Or so I hoped.

Five minutes later, our simple but delectable-looking meal was arranged on the oval wooden table under the covered balcony from where I could see the last deep scarlet rays of the setting sun. I added olive oil and balsamic to the salad before tossing it, and Nicholas forked two generously sized pieces of toast onto each plate.

“This is delicious,” I said, cutting off another large chunk and transferring it to my mouth as soon as I’d swallowed the first.

I was a naturally fast eater. In fact, Vince was constantly telling me to behave more like a lady when I ate so as not to humiliate him in front of other people, and to take more time over my meals. And so, to please him, for the past few months I had picked delicately at food I would previously have devoured with gusto. Now, I realized that there was no need to do this here—in fact, the opposite was indicated, since I wanted to steer away from anything that might make me look more feminine or appealing in Nicholas’s eyes.

“The salad’s great, Erin. Very tasty. I didn’t know you were a cook.”

Perhaps he was just trying to flatter me, but even so I felt a glow of pride at his words. It felt good to have my cooking complimented, even if it had only consisted of chopping things up. I’d given up trying to cook for Vince—I could never prepare food the way he liked it, so we usually ordered takeout from one of the nearby restaurants.

“Thank you,” I said. “It’s easy with such wonderful ingredients. How many of them come from the garden?”

“Most of them. The cheese is from down the road and the olive oil and balsamic are brought in from an organic estate in the Cape that I have an investment in. The bowl itself is made by the women from a small community near here.”