Even if she’d thought it out, Whitney would have considered the teddy adequate cover. She wore a fraction of that on a public beach. Her only thought was of getting horizontal, of closing her eyes, and of oblivion.
If she hadn’t been so tired, she might have enjoyed the discomfort she was causing in the region of Doug’s loins. It might have given her some pleasure to know his muscles had tensed as he watched the subtle flicker of firelight play over her skin as she bent to unzip her bag. She’d have gotten pure feminine satisfaction knowing he sucked in his breath as the thin material rose up at her thighs and pulled over her bottom with her movements.
Without giving it a thought, she climbed into the sleeping bag and pulled up the zipper. Nothing was visible but a cloud of pale hair untangled from the braid. With a sigh, she pillowed her head on her hands. “Good night, Douglas.”
“Yeah.” He pulled off his shirt, then gripped the edge of adhesive and held his breath. Ruthlessly he ripped and the fire snaked across his chest. Whitney never budged as his curse bounced off the cave walls. She was already asleep. Cursing her, cursing the pain, he snapped the envelope into his knapsack before he climbed into his own bag. In sleep, she sighed, low and quiet.
Doug stared at the ceiling of the cave, wide awake and aching from more than bruises.
C H A P T E R
6
Something tickled the back of her hand. Fighting to cling to sleep, Whitney flicked her wrist in a lazy, back-and-forth action and yawned.
She had always kept her own hours. If she wanted to sleep until noon, she slept until noon. If she wanted to get up at dawn, she did. When the mood struck her, she could work for an eighteen-hour stretch. With a similar enthusiasm, she could sleep for the same length of time.
At the moment, she wasn’t interested in anything but the vague, rather pretty dream she was having. When she felt the feathery brush on her hand again, she sighed, only slightly annoyed, and opened her eyes.
In all probability, it was the biggest, fattest spider she’d ever seen. Big, black, and hairy, it probed and skiddled with its bowed legs. Her hand only inches from her face, Whitney watched as it loomed full in her vision, moving lazily across her knuckles in a direct line to her nose. For a moment, dazed with sleep, she just stared at it in the dim light.
Her knuckles. Her nose.
Realization came loud and clear. Muffling a yelp, she knocked the spider off and several feet into the air. It landed with an audible plop on the cave floor, then meandered drunkenly away.
The spider hadn’t frightened her. She never considered the possibility that it might have been poisonous. It was simply ugly and Whitney had a basic disrespect for the ugly.
Sighing in disgust, she sat up and combed her fingers through her tangled hair. Well, she supposed when one slept in a cave, one could expect a visit from ugly neighbors. But why hadn’t it visited Doug instead? Deciding there was no reason why he should sleep when she’d been so rudely awakened, Whitney turned with the full intention of giving him a hard shove.
He was gone, and so was his sleeping bag.
Uneasy, but not yet alarmed, she looked around. The cave was empty, with the rock formations Doug had spoken of giving it the look of an abandoned and slightly dilapidated castle. The cook fire was only a pile of glowing embers. The air smelled ripe. Some of the fruit was already turning. Doug’s pack, like his sleeping bag, was gone.
The bastard. The rotten bastard. He had taken himself off, with the papers, and left her stuck in a damn cave with a couple of pieces of fruit, a sack of rice, and a spider as big as a dinner plate.
Too furious to think twice, she dashed across the cave and began to crawl through the tunnel. When her breath clogged up, she pushed on. The hell with phobias, she told herself. No one was going to double-cross her and get away with it. To catch him, she had to get out. And when she caught him…
She saw the opening and concentrated on it, and revenge. Panting, shuddering, she pulled herself into the sunshine. Scrambling up, she drew in all of her breath and let it out on a shout.