Vain (22 page)

His shoulders sagged and he turned around and smirked. “How?”

I wasn’t about to rat Karina out. “It’s shockingly free of creepy crawlies every day, Ian?”

“I suppose that seems a bit lucky.”

“Thank you,” I told him quietly.

“At first I did it because I didn’t want to hear you complain.”

I approached him and blocked him into the stall.
“And now?”

He swallowed but looked me dead in the eye.
“Because I want to.” The intimacy of his stare shocked me silent, my mouth gaped. “I’ll be right back,” he told me.

I stepped aside, against the edge of the wood stall, to make room for him but his massive body still slowly grazed mine, stealing my breath away. I locked myself in and undressed, tossing my clothing over the side and setting my bucket on the stone beneath my feet.

I turned on the water and immediately began rinsing off my face. The water was cool but not cold. I welcomed it as I could feel the dirt leaving my body. It trailed down my legs and pooled near the drain in an orange haze. I closed my eyes and let the water rinse away the night. I turned my face from the stream and began to wet my hair. When I opened my eyes, Ian was in the stall across from mine astonishing me yet again for the umpteenth time that evening.

He was staring at me, the water slicing down his head and down his shoulders. The stalls were too high to expose anything more. He could only see my face and top
of my head but just knowing we were both naked and within ten feet of one another was enough to make me flush from head to toe. He was breathtaking. Breathtakingly sexy. Breathtakingly beautiful. Breathtakingly real. Just breathtaking.

“Hi,” I choked out.

“Hi,” he said, flirtatiously smiling.

I couldn’t look at him anymore
, so I bent to grab my shampoo. After pouring a handful, I stood and purposely avoided his eyes, though the heat of his gaze was enough to make the water boil. I worked the soap through my hair from root to tip twice before almost losing it or worse, giggling uncontrollably. I ducked under the running water to rinse and caught his stare again.

I smiled the largest smile I owned because I just couldn’t help it anymore.

“I’d give anything to wash your hair for you,” he said suddenly, rocking me to my core and wiping that silly grin right off my face.

“I’d give anything for you to do just that,” I told him candidly. This time he smiled and grabbed his own shampoo bottle.

He shampooed his hair and I bit my bottom lip to keep from saying something stupid like, “Let me help you” or “Let’s conserve some of this water we’re wasting.” I blushed once more and he noticed.

“What?” he asked.

“Nothing,” I said, turning to my bucket and grabbing my face soap.

I scrubbed my face much more thoroughly than I suppose was necessary
, but I just couldn’t look at him anymore. He was torturing me just by existing. I rinsed the soap from my face and grabbed my conditioner, applying a generous amount and letting it set in my hair while I used the loofah on the rest of my body. My smile just kept getting bigger and bigger and embarrassingly bigger. I tried to avoid looking at him but his laughing did nothing to help matters much.

Finally, when I’d rinsed every last drop of soap from my body, I stood underneath the shower and began to rinse the conditioner. I looked his direction and it was obvious he was done but he was sticking around for the free show.

“Still here?” I asked.

“If the situation were reversed?” he countered.

I closed my eyes. “I’d still be here,” I told him, smiling again.

When I opened my eyes again, he’d rested his forearms on the top of the edge of the stall, the water still cascading down his incredible skin. We kept up eye contact until the conditioner was long gone, no trace of it whatsoever anymore
, but I continued longer than I should because it was Ian Aberdeen and his royal hotness was just as enthralled with me as I was with him. Eventually, I turned the water off and he followed my lead. I began to towel dry my hair and he wrapped his around his waist. I slipped on my robe and flip-flops.

We both stood there waiting for the other to get out.
Neither of us wanting the incredibly frustrating but totally exhilarating past few minutes to end. Finally, Ian made a move, unlocking his stall door. I followed his lead and met him in the center of the stone walkway between our stalls.

“Hi,” he said, peering down at me.

“We’ve done that.”

“We have?” he asked, distracted.

“Yes,” I said, my eyes riveted by his lips.

He breathed heavily out his nose. “I’ll walk you to your side of the hut now.”

“’Kay.”

“I’m going to escort you.” He paused, staring at my face.
“Any second now.” Another pregnant pause as his eyes guided down my neck. “Just as soon as I can uproot my feet from this stone, I’m going to walk with you.” He smiled taking in my face again.

I fought a smile of my own when he grabbed the lantern hanging on the hook above us, his broad chest expanding right in front of my face. We stood still for a minute.

“Come on,” I told him, walking away first.

He quickly caught up with me and held the lantern ahead of us. We didn’t say a word on the short hike to our hut. We didn’t even
glance each other’s direction. I walked right to my side and went inside, turning to say goodnight but he’d already gone into his side, leaving me disappointed and just a teeny bit pissed.

I lit the small candle on my washstand and dressed in yoga pants with a long
-sleeve fitted tee. I draped my wet towel at the foot of my bed and tossed my robe on its hook. I kept my flip-flops on because it was Uganda and you never took your shoes off ever. I’d just finished brushing my teeth and hair when I heard a faint knock on my door.

My heart leapt into my throat. “Yes?” I barely choked out.

“It’s me,” Ian said quietly. “Can I come in?”

I glanced around my room a little bit frantic. I backed up a bit and stood beside my bed. “Come in.”

Ian tore through the door, the rush of wind snuffing out the candle, and stood looming over me in my small side of the hut. The door swung behind him and shut with a crack, startling me.

And just like that, Ian Aberdeen rushed me.

He grabbed my face and neck with his rough hands and brought me to him, practically lifting me to his lips. He devoured my mouth with his and I moaned into his mouth, spurring him on. His tongue found mine and it was warm and tasted of cinnamon.

A rush of adrenaline spiked through my body and pooled in my belly. I wrapped my arms around his neck and he brought me closer to him, threading his fingers through my hair, rooting his fists at the back of my head, pulling lightly as if it was taking all his control not to throw me down on the bed. This made my eyes roll into the back of my head and I tightened my already closed lids.

He tore his lips from mine and we stood panting, the stars barely shining through the cracks in the door but enough to light up his face. I recognized his painfully strained expression. He didn’t know if what he’d done was okay with me
, and I found myself so attracted to him for being so considerate. To reassure him, I ran my hands across his forehead to smooth out the lines.

“Ian,” I whispered before he attacked me again, hushing me on the
“n.”

I gripped his shoulders as he
harshly kissed my lips then followed my jaw line down my neck, making my head fell back. “Sophie,” he sighed between each kiss, making my toes tingle. His mouth found mine again and I kissed him back hard, breathing him in as best I could. My hands found his hair and I pushed them through the length until they met his neck then climbed back up, entangling my fingers in the damp mass. It felt like I couldn’t get close enough to him. I wrapped one leg around his calf and he groaned into my tongue, vibrating the back of my throat. I shivered.

“Oh, God,” I breathed into his mouth.

He smiled against my teeth and it was the sexiest thing I’d ever felt. “You taste like cherries,” he told me. His voice shivered against my skin, making me smile back.

He rested his forehead against mine. “You taste like cinnamon,” I countered.

He pulled himself away and immediately I hated it. “Goodnight, Sophie Price.”

He backed away from me slowly, never breaking his stare or his smile. He opened the door and let it fall shut again. “Sleep well,” I heard through the cracks.
I brought my fingers to my smiling lips and ran them across the swollen skin. “You too,” I answered so softly I barely heard it myself.
 

I’d been kissed before, many times, but
never
like that.
 

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
 

I woke up in the middle of the night and felt like I’d fallen asleep next to a blasting heater. In a
sleep-induced haze, I figured it was just the warming temperatures outside. As strange as it seemed for Uganda’s summer to be during America’s winter, I was expecting it but I realized with a start that the unusual warmth was just a bit too hot.
I lazily opened my eyes and they were met with a dull pair of brown ones. I shot up.

“
Mandisa!” She wasn’t responding to me and my heart leapt in my throat. “Mandisa, baby.” I pushed her growing hair out of her eyes and tried to get her to look at me, but it did no good. I jumped to my feet and pushed my door open. It was still dark out. “Ian!” I yelled, panicked.

Immediately, a disheveled Ian appeared next to m
e. “What’s happened?” he asked.

Tears began to spill. “It’s
Mandisa,” I explained, pointing to my bed.
He ran to her side and felt her head and neck. “She’s burning up.”

“The kitchen!”
I said, thinking of the nearest running water source.
Ian scooped tiny Mandisa in his arms and he practically swallowed her small frame.
We ran around the baobab tree to the kitchen and I started running the cool water, plugging the drain. The stainless steel tub was large enough to submerge her.

I tossed a bunch of kitchen towels in the sink to cushion her and Ian rested her in the water. The cool water was shocking enough she should have protested but not a peep came from her tiny lips and I found myself taking my panic to the next level.

We frantically doused her to get her temperature down.

“Sweetheart?”
I asked her after a few minutes but she didn’t respond. “God, Ian,” I breathed out.

“I’ll get Karina,” he said and ran off toward hers and Charles’ cabin.

I continuously covered her in the cool running water and prayed like I’d never prayed before. I begged her under my breath to respond to me, but she just stared blankly ahead and my heart sank into my stomach.
“Where is she?” a sleepy Karina said.
“In here,” I heard Ian explain.
Karina came to my side quickly and brushed the hair from my shoulder with her hand, assuring me the way a mother would. “Ian,” she said, looking down on Mandisa. “Grab my kit, please?”
Ian ran from the room and returned with Karina’s big bag of remedies she kept handy at all times.

She pulled out a needle and looked over at me. “It’s just an acetaminophen injection because she won’t chew medicine.”

I nodded as if my approval was even needed, but Karina gave me that respect anyway. She filled the needle and Ian helped me lift her shoulders. Karina dried and swabbed the little fleshy part of Mandisa’s arm with alcohol then injected the medicine. I felt an almost immediate sense of relief knowing we were tending to the outside and Karina was tending to the inside.

Karina felt the water in the basin and asked Ian to drain it as
Mandisa’s body temperature was making it warm. He did as she asked then plugged the drain once more. “Keep pouring that water over her head, Sophie.”

Ian and I worked methodically, pouring and draining, draining and pouring. Twenty minutes passed and
Mandisa was noticeably cooler but still unresponsive.

“Why isn’t she getting better?” I asked.