More Than Paradise (17 page)

“Look, it’s not my problem if you people overdid the equipment.

I told that boneheaded associate of yours earlier that I don’t want any

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special favors, but he wasn’t listening. Apparently he doesn’t play well with others.”

“Nitro is about getting results.” Ash hovered at the tent ß ap.

“What’s it going to be— down among whatever crawls into the tent, or the smart choice?”

Charlotte hesitated, but being a few inches off the ground in a place teeming with insect life had its charm. Grudgingly, she said,

“Okay. I’ll take it.” She moved her backpack aside as Ash unfolded the camp bed.

“Where we’re headed, there’s not a lot of even ground, so this might not even be an option after tomorrow,” Ash pointed out.

Charlotte instantly pictured the two of them lying side by side in the narrow conÞ nes of this tent for the next week, and unease washed through her. Could this situation be any more awkward? Ash had been ignoring her all evening and while Charlotte wanted them to maintain a professional distance, they were now tiptoeing around each other like they had a crime to hide. In such a conÞ ned group, people were going to notice.

Also, irrationally, Charlotte found she resented Ash’s impassive acceptance of the new rules. Her attitude seemed insulting somehow after the experiences they had shared. Yet what had Charlotte expected?

Ash was a woman who had casual threesomes involving “dumb blondes.” People who did that kind of thing were shallow. Just thinking about that episode cut loose a riot of emotions that crowded her mind, making her so agitated she was virtually hyperventilating.

She still couldn’t credit that she’d stood in that bedroom, throwing Dani Bush out of Tamsin’s house, and Ash had been a few feet away the whole time. It was one of those impossible coincidences no one would believe. Certain deluded individuals also attributed absurd signiÞ cance to such strokes of fate, like they were messages from God. As far as Charlotte was concerned, the message was
Warning! Warning!

She sat down on the camp bed and immediately felt foolish about her poor grace in accepting it. To her surprise the mattress was quite comfortable, certainly a step up from sleeping on a pad. Now that she thought about it, she realized she’d overreacted when Ash brought it into the tent. Having spent her entire life proving she could do anything her older brothers did, she was sensitive about being treated like a wuss just because she was a woman. The feeling was even more pronounced

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here, surrounded by males who all thought they were God’s gift to the biological sciences.

Since her college days she’d been on numerous Þ eld trips, but never an expedition like this in such a challenging environment. If she were honest with herself, she had to admit she felt stressed. What if she failed to deliver the results Sealy-Weiss was counting on? What if she couldn’t cope as well as the men, or made mistakes that people would attribute to her gender? Charlotte suspected she was probably being neurotic but opportunities like this one seldom went to women and having been given the chance, she wanted to prove herself worthy.

In her Þ eld women earned more PhD’s than men, but there were still very few tenured female professors. Highly qualiÞ ed women were routinely overlooked for the most coveted teaching posts. Originally, Charlotte had imagined herself teaching, but statistical reality discouraged her. In most of the best schools women only made up twenty percent of faculty, or less, a Þ gure grossly disproportionate to their participation as students.

Things were somewhat better in the private sector. Talent was more likely to be rewarded and women who could embrace the commercial realities usually did pretty well, which was why Charlotte had ended up at Sealy-Weiss instead of taking the crappy option of tutoring mediocre males who would then be paid more than her. The last thing she wanted on this prestigious assignment was to have Miles and the rest of the expedition members reporting that she was a liability.

She thought through the evening’s conversation, trying to Þ gure out how she was perceived by the team. Most of her colleagues had been embarrassingly deferential to her. Charlotte pondered that fact.

It certainly could be sexism, but she hadn’t felt patronized and no one had made any stupid jokes about hair and beauty or scary insects. In fact, there were quite a few comments made about the quality of her research papers and her enviable new position at Sealy-Weiss. The men had talked about Belton Pharmaceuticals’ Þ nancial commitment to the expedition, and how fortunate they were to have this giant commercial company dealing with the Indonesian bureaucracy and generally paving the way. They all seemed impressed that Charlotte’s assignment was at Belton’s behest, and everyone, Miles included, had been eager to offer her any assistance she needed.

In a ß ash of comprehension, Charlotte wondered if she was receiving special attention not because she was a woman, but because

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of her link to their major sponsor. She let that idea sink in. It made complete sense. Naturally she would be seen as a valuable commodity.

Her presence contributed directly to the Þ nancial viability of the expedition. All the men she was working with were beneÞ ting because Belton wanted their interests represented and she was the one chosen to bring home the bacon, so to speak.

She allowed herself a small smile of satisfaction. If she was as important as it seemed, perhaps she could apply some leverage.

Why shouldn’t she have her own private tent, whatever that “Nitro”

individual said? He wasn’t in charge. He was being paid to keep them safe. She almost laughed at herself for believing his deadpan threats to escort her back to Pom or throw her out of the helicopter. The guy had bullied her into submission and she had folded, believing this place was just lawless enough that a man like him could get away with anything.

She should have been more assertive. From now on, she would be.

She glanced across at Ash, who seemed fully occupied with night-time preparations and had barely looked at her after setting up the camp bed.

“How many tents did we actually bring?” she asked and was irritated when her companion did not have the courtesy to look up.

“Enough for the whole party.”

“No spares?”

“If we have a mishap, we can have replacements brought in with the supply drops.”

Charlotte wondered if Ash had caught the dinner discussion about the aims for the expedition. If so, she had to know Charlotte wasn’t just any member of the team, she was a key player. Ash had seemed detached while everyone was talking, making a show of cleaning her guns. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t paying attention. Charlotte had a feeling very little escaped her.

“I was thinking maybe a one-person tent could be brought in for me,” she said, testing the waters. “I’m a private person and I’ll have a lot of work to do, recording observations and writing up notes. I really need my own space.”

“I’m sure all your pals on the team feel exactly the same way.”

Ash removed her holster and set it down next to her sleeping bag. “The bad news is we’ll be in terrain that doesn’t lend itself to a sprawl. Tent numbers have to stay at the minimum.”

It made sense, but Charlotte couldn’t shake the feeling that

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JENNIFER FULTON

Ash found her predicament amusing. Most people would have been mortiÞ ed over what she now knew about the Dani Bush episode, but Ash seemed completely blasé about it. Maybe such conduct was just par for the course for her. Charlotte didn’t think she’d ever seen anyone whose sensuality was such an out-in-the-open secret. In every way, from her animal physicality and self-awareness to her guarded but knowing stare, she oozed the kind of sexual conÞ dence no one came by if they lived like a nun.

Charlotte allowed herself to watch covertly as she prepared for sleep. She had a lethal, unconscious grace that made it hard to look away. Every movement was automatic, as though she’d done the same thing hundreds of times. After checking the mosquito nets were secure, she sprayed some insecticide around the entrance to the tent, then removed various items from her pockets and arranged them neatly next to her sleeping pad. She then unfastened her ammunition belt, an action that made Charlotte’s breath catch, and she stared, strangely riveted, as Ash rolled her sleeves down and buttoned the cuffs, then unbuttoned her shirt all the way, letting it hang loosely over a tank that advertised her lean muscularity.

Charlotte wanted to look anywhere but at the nipples that jabbed the thin cotton. They were hard. Was Ash turned on or just one of those women whose nipples never slept? She quickly lowered her gaze. Bad idea. She didn’t want to look at the ß y buttons of Ash’s khakis and the Þ t of her pants around her crotch, but the thought that she could just reach out and unfasten the heavy cotton ß y made her light-headed.

Ash seemed oblivious to her scrutiny, for which she was thankful but also strangely bothered. Part of her wanted to be seen, to hold Ash’s attention the same way she had that evening at the Pongo Tavern, when they’d danced closer and closer until Charlotte had yearned for the mating embrace that never came.

How could this be happening to her? It was lust. Plain and simple.

Normally, it never occurred and she was thankful for that. Lust was irrational and could complicate any situation. In one like this, it was a liability she could not afford. Charlotte hoped if she just ignored it, it would pass soon. Perhaps she was frustrated. It had been a while, after all.

She cast her mind back to the last time she’d had sex. Three months?

No, six. The actual details of the encounter were now a little foggy.

She’d been dating Dr. Hazel Robson and postponing the inevitable.

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Finally their schedules coincided and they could take a weekend away.

Charlotte wanted to go because it was healthy to have regular sexual activity and they’d already discussed whether they would be compatible in bed. It seemed they would and looking back now, she thought they’d had a nice time.

Hazel was attractive and Þ t, and a considerate lover with a competent oral sex technique. She was gentle and didn’t seem worried that Charlotte took a long time to reach an orgasm, if she had one at all.

They’d persevered and Þ nally she had a very satisfying climax on their second night together. Hazel said she wasn’t all about orgasm, anyway.

She wasn’t twenty anymore and found cuddling equally rewarding.

That was something they had in common. In fact, after the weekend, they’d agreed that if they had to choose between a good massage and sex, the massage was more tempting.

They’d gone out a few more times after that, but the only nights they slept together, there was no lovemaking. They kept agreeing it would happen next time and there was no hurry, but in the end they hadn’t got around to it again. Hazel met someone else, who shared her fondness for indoor bowling, and Charlotte was applying for the Sealy-Weiss job. So she wasn’t even going to be in the same city anymore if she was offered the position. They’d parted as friends, without any acrimony, and since then Charlotte had been too busy to consider dating anyone else. It stood to reason that she was noticing her physical needs by now. She was a normal woman.

She watched Ash place the menacing-looking pistol close to her pillow, unzip her sleeping bag, and climb into it fully clothed.

Modesty? Or did Ash think she was so irresistible, stripped down, that any woman in her proximity would be putty? Butches like her appeared to have a diagnosable need to ß aunt themselves. They were only interested in one thing and mistakenly assumed it was the same for everyone else. Well, Charlotte had news for her.

Acidly, she said, “I won’t look if you want to get undressed.”

Ash lifted her head and surveyed her for the Þ rst time in at least ten minutes. Her eyes shone like onyx in the poor light. “I sleep in my clothes. I’m paid to be prepared if the need arises.”

“Whatever.” Charlotte still thought the whole idea of a security detail was absurd, and now that they’d reached Kwerba the precautions truly seemed like overkill. They were in the middle of nowhere, deep in a jungle no one ever tried to penetrate, not even the tribes who lived

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here. From all accounts there were no large predatory animals and no militias. Who or what exactly were they being protected from?

Ash asked, “Need anything from your pack before I kill the lamp?”

“No. Thank you.”

Charlotte knew her tone was ungracious, even sarcastic, and she was surprised at herself. Why was she letting this woman get under her skin? It wasn’t like Ash was actually doing anything untoward.

In fact, ever since their awkward conversation earlier that day, she’d treated Charlotte like a stranger. Given Charlotte’s unwelcome physical response to her, wasn’t that a good thing?

As Ash extinguished the lamp, Charlotte surrendered herself to the unfamiliar noises of the jungle. She could hear faint stirring sounds as Ash got settled in her sleeping bag just inches away, then the soft rush of a sigh and the din of her own heart pumping hot blood to places that distracted her. Outside, trees rustled and distant, eerie screeches cut through the night. The darkness was intense and heavy, the air in the tent stickily warm. Charlotte tried to get to sleep but after a few minutes she realized it was never going to happen.

She was agitated and tense, and it didn’t help that she could not block out the sound of Ash’s breathing, and the sense of her just feet away yet painfully distant. Squirming, she touched a Þ ngertip to one of her bothersome nipples and found it stone hard and unbearably sensitive. So, too, her skin. Everywhere she touched, goose bumps danced a wild, clamoring response. She let her hand rest on her belly, trying to soothe herself by thinking of cool, clean water dripping from a fresh, crisp triple-washed salad.