Making a fishing spear was astonishingly easy. In essence, it was nothing but a stick split at one end into four prongs that were held apart by twine and pieces of liana. Actually catching a fish with one – that was an entirely different matter.
'Blast, blast, blast! Stay where you are, you bloody slippery little beast!'
'Silence, Mr Linton! I am concentrating.'
Vengefully, I stared over at Mr Ambrose who already had a pile of three nice, fat fish resting beside him. The spot on the bank next to me was still empty. A little farther down the stream, the fish I had been trying to catch sprang out of the water, waggled its tailfin at me in a triumphant manner and disappeared downstream.
'I'll be back for you, you fin-flapping fiend!' I shouted after him. 'You won't escape me!'
Mr Ambrose gave me a look.
'What?' I demanded. 'It's frustrating, not catching anything! And it's so unfair! It's not my fault if you have more luck than I do! It's that stare of yours. It freezes the fish in place, so you can pick them off at your leisure.'
'I highly doubt that the temperature of my vision has anything to do with the matter, Mr Linton.'
'Oh yes? Then why don't I manage to–? Damn! Missed again!'
'It's simply a matter of practice.' The splash of two long strides through the river was all the warning I got before Mr Ambrose's strong arms encircled me. One gripped the spear I was holding, the other went around my waist, pulling me back against him. My breath caught in my throat.
'Come here,' I heard his voice, only inches away from my ear. 'I'll show you how to do it.'
Oh, yes, please! Show me! Show me everything!
Suddenly, my mind wasn't on fish anymore. Not at all.
I could feel the hard muscles of his chest against my back, could feel the tiny movements as he breathed in and out, in and out, in and out. His hand around my waist was holding me firmly against him, leaving me no room to wriggle.
As if I would have wished to move! Ha! Right then, there was no place I would rather be.
'Right, Mr Linton. Now, spread your legs...'
What? Already?
'...to get the better stance. You have to stand firm on your feet to make a catch.'
Oh. Right. Fishing.
Licking my lips, I spread my legs as advised. He was right – it was a firmer stance. But with as little as I was wearing right now, it also left me feeling unexpectedly vulnerable. His hand moved against my belly, and I felt a tingle of temptation race down my spine.
'I suppose you've always made the catch you want,' I asked, my voice breathier than usual for a fishing trip.
His voice in return was hard and implacable. 'Always.'
I swallowed. 'So...how do you do this?'
I would suggest tearing off each other's clothes, falling into the river and engaging in a mad, passionate orgy right there in the hot water.
'I stay still and silent.' He shifted, and through the thin cloth of my chemise, I felt every one of his muscles flex against my derrière. Every. Single. One. 'When a fish comes, I wait until the prey is directly beneath me – then stab!'
Stabbing sounds good. Now, please!
'And what...do I...do?'
God! Why did my voice have to sound like that? Why?
'You? For now, you just follow my lead. I'll show you, and with a bit of practice, you'll be able to do it alone just as well.'
Somehow, I highly doubt that.
'All right.' I dragged in a ragged breath. 'Let's fish.'
When I returned to the camp about an hour later, I had caught three fish – two with Mr Ambrose's help, one on my own. I had also torn up, incinerated and discarded my firm resolution to stay away from Mr Ambrose. All right, so I couldn't let myself go all the way with him. Who cared? I had never been planning to go that far in the first place, right? It was just some fun. The church might frown on it as sin, and members of polite society would faint at the very idea, but in my opinion, polite society could stick its judgements where the sun didn't shine. I was an educated, independent girl! If I wanted to do something, I would not let any stuffy old social norms that I had had no say in keep me from doing it!
And I wanted Mr Ambrose. Badly.
So...what to do?
Sliding the first of my roasted fish from the stake, I bit down, smiling. Well...it had been really hot, recently. Maybe it was time to lose another little piece of clothing.
*~*~**~*~*
I made my first move after half a day of marching. Really, I was a bit surprised I hadn't had the idea earlier. You would think, having to hike miles through the jungle, this abominable thing would be the first thing to remove. But I had been so used to it that I never thought of it until now. We had just set out again after our noon meal, when I stretched, and announced to the jungle at large: 'You know...I'm feeling quite hot today.'
In front of me, Karim stopped abruptly in his tracks. 'Oh no. No, no, nononono!'
'Besides,' I continued, 'this thing is really uncomfortable. I think I'll loosen it a bit.'
'No!' With a cry of anguish, Karim darted off into the forest. It was really amazing how seriously he took his scouting duty.
Reaching behind me, I lazily brushed a few raindrops off my sweaty skin, and in the process, just happened to loosen one of the laces of my corset. With a soft noise, it slid open.
From behind me, out of Mr Ambrose's throat, came another noise – one that definitely wasn't soft.
'Ah.' I sighed. 'Much better.'
Then I walked on without looking back.
It wasn't until half an hour later that I reached back and, with tentative fingers, loosened another lace. This time, the growl from behind me seemed to shake the trees all around.
Golly, this is fun! Maybe I should do this at home, in the office, too.
Or maybe not – if I valued my life. But out here he couldn't strangle me. I was the one who had the manuscript. I was the only one who knew where the treasure was.
So, with that cheerful thought in mind, I reached back again and loosened another lace.
'Mr Linton?'
The voice from behind me was as cold as ice and as hard as tempered steel.
'Yes, Sir?'
'Cease this immediately!'
My lips curved up into a smile. 'Cease what, Sir?'
Come on! Say it out loud!
There was a pause. 'These...these things you are doing.'
My oh my...Was Mr Rikkard Ambrose shy?
I opened another lace, just to find out. The noise he made didn't sound shy at all. It did, however, sound rather strangled.
'Is something wrong, Sir?' I asked solicitously. He was my employer, after all, and if there was something wrong with his health, I should look after him, shouldn't I?
'Yes!'
'Is there something I can do to help?' I asked, casually undoing another lace. Blimey, this thing had a lot of laces!
'If I were you, Mr Linton,' his dark voice drifted over to me, 'I would not ask that question again.'
When we stopped that evening Karim had already set up camp. He must have seen the glint in my eyes when I walked into camp, because he grabbed his hammock and fled into the jungle, in a desperate attempt to protect the innocence of his eyes.
That was fine. He was more than welcome to keep it. Mr Ambrose, however – now, that was another matter entirely.
He was right behind me still. I could sense him there, could feel his gaze on me the same way a gazelle could sense a hunting lion. Only that gazelles didn't usually do what I did then.
Reaching back, I opened the last lace on my corset. The whole thing, which had been precariously perched on my hips for the last few hours, fell to the ground with a soft thud. Turning, I stepped out of it, towards Mr Rikkard Ambrose.
The look on Mr Ambrose's face was like nothing words could describe. It was like an iceberg spewing fire, like a volcano frozen in mid-explosion, and yet something entirely other and far, far more. It was completely hard and empty, and yet underneath that...
No. I really couldn't describe it.
It was Mr Ambrose. Pure and simple, and yet incredibly complicated.
I moved towards him, until I was just a foot or two away. With every step, I was incredibly conscious of the fact that now there was nothing between my skin and the outside world but a thin, flowing chemise. Air brushed against parts of me that hadn't been exposed since I was four and my mother had dunked me in the bathtub. And all in all, that had been a very different sort of experience.
Mr Ambrose's coldly burning eyes watched my every step as I approached. When I reached up to touch his face, his hand shot up with incredible speed, trapping my fingers in a vice-tight grip, keeping me from getting any farther. The growl that ripped from his throat was the rumble of a cracking mountain.
'Are you trying to drive me mad?'
I lifted an eyebrow. 'You're still fully clothed in this heat. You are already mad, Sir. I'm just trying to make it a bit more fun.'
Tentatively, I tried to move my hand. His grip tightened, so I simply stepped towards him, into him, and leaned against his chest.
'Hmmm...'
His whole body stiffened – and that's saying something! For Mr Ambrose, it was perfectly normal to walk around as if he had an iron rod up his arse. Now, though, it was as if he himself were the iron rod, or a statue carved from bedrock.
All the better! If he didn't move, he was all mine to play with.
Standing up on my tiptoes, I leaned in and pressed a soft kiss to the corner of his perfectly sculpted mouth. No matter that he was standing as stiff as a board – the skin there felt soft, and incredibly inviting. I bestowed another kiss, a little closer to the centre, nipping at his lip.
'Mr Linton...!'
His voice was strangled. The movement of his lips against mine was a delicious appetiser.
'You know,' I whispered, 'if I didn't know you, the fact that you want me to dress up in men's clothes and keep calling me ‟Mister" when I kiss you might give me strange ideas.'
A choked sound of outrage came from the back of his throat, and hurriedly I raised my free hand, placing one finger on his lips.
'Psht. Don't worry. I know better. And if I didn't know your tastes before–' Mashing myself up against him, I pressed myself into his hard body. Hard everywhere. '–I know now.'
His eyes flashed like icebergs in a thunderstorm and, for a moment, I was tempted to reach down and drive home my point. But no. Not yet, anyway. I had decided that if I couldn't go all the way, I was going to take my time, and enjoy every single minute of the journey.
'Would you be so kind as to let go of my hand?' I asked, in what was in my opinion a very sweet voice, considering he was almost crushing my poor fingers.
'That depends,' he growled, 'on what you plan to do with it.'
'Why, to play a little game. Nothing more.'
'In that case,' he told me, his grip tightening even more, 'I think I'd rather keep hold of it!'
Spoilsport! He apparently hadn't had the same epiphany as yours truly yet. He apparently didn't plan to have a little bit of fun. Too bad. I would just have to change his mind for him.
'You won't let go?'
'No.'
'Not under any circumstances?'
'None.'
'A shame. Well...' I sighed. 'Then I'll simply have to use my other hand.'
Before he could do a thing, I had slid my free hand around the back of his neck and pulled myself up until my lips were on a level with his. The kiss was swift, soft, and incredibly exhilarating. It was the first time that I had taken control, the first time I had really kissed him, not the other way around.
And he kissed me back. The rest of his body stayed hard as iron, but his lips melted underneath mine, allowing me entry into his secret world for just one moment. When that moment ended, we were both left breathless, staring at each other with searing intensity.
'Why?' he rasped.
'Because I want you!'
His eyes grew even more intense.
'Why?' he repeated.
'Hell if I know! Do you know why you want me?'
He thought about that for a moment. 'No. Definitely not.'
I tightened my hold on his neck. 'So maybe we should just try it and find out.'
His arms ensnared me, pulling me closer. 'Maybe.'
Our lips brushed tentatively, testing the waters. Oh, and what sweet waters they were. It felt like tasting the fountain of youth, with water from the fountain of unbridled lust mixed in. Our arms and hands were tightly around each other, refusing to let go, but even they didn't hold on as tightly as our eyes.
'You,' he informed me, a storm raging in those sea-coloured orbs of his, 'are a lecherous, wilful, undisciplined little wench with the mouth of a tavern girl!'
'And you,' I told him, 'are a miserly, chauvinistic bastard with a rock for a heart and a stone for a brain!'
There was a moment of silence – then our mouths clashed in a kiss so hard, so fast, that it would have caused a deadly accident on any road. It might still, here, in the middle of the jungle: with his arms tightly around me, I felt about ready to die and go to heaven. When we broke apart, we were both panting.
'There!' I smirked up at him. 'Does that feel like the mouth of a tavern girl?'
'I wouldn't know. When we get back to London, should I do some comparative research?'
'Don't you dare, you...you...!'
His mouth silenced me. And mine did the same to his. I had never before realised how wonderful silence could be. I had always felt the need to speak out, to make myself heard, but right then and there, in Mr Ambrose's arms, I wanted nothing but to silently sink into him. My shy fingers, exploring his chest, his back, the hard muscles of his arms, did all the talking that was needed without having to say a word.
One of my shy fingers, suddenly not so shy anymore, slipped into his tailcoat, traveling up the hard ridges of his abdomen, with only a thin shirt between us, and...
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My dear Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen,
What do you think, are my cliffhanger-skills still good? ;)
Next week we shall find out how far things go when Karim doesn't interrupt! Or you can fight out right now via the Radish Fiction App for a few cents per extra chapter! :)
By the way, I have GREAT NEWS: after the marvelous success of the first one, I've started planning a second volume of "WARNING! Fairy Tales". In the not-too-distant future, you can look forward to more crazy adventures in fairyland! There are still spots open in the book, so go to the last chapter of "WARNING! Fairy Tales" to suggest tales which you would like me to rewrite in my very own way! :)
Yours Truly
Sir Rob