the tent was his. If he got lucky, she’d pop back from the turtles for something. Otherwise, he’d see her in the morning at the changeover. Before she could disappear on him.
He peeled off his shirt and laid it over the tent top to dry overnight. His saturated board shorts followed. His naked skin dried almost immediately in the warm night air.
He crawled into Honor’s vacant tent, unzipped her single sleeping bag into a blanket and climbed under it. It was soft and silky and smelled just like her. He lay back in the darkened tent, soaking up her smell and feeling pretty chuffed with himself. His digital watch beeped the hour.
In bed by nine o’clock.
Bloody hell.
* * *
Honor stood at the edge of camp in the dying hours of the night and flashed her torch warily at her humble tent. There was a large male T-shirt draped where her sunflower should be. And a pair of shorts. Her stomach flipped over and her logbook fumbled from her fingers. She retrieved it from the sand.
What the heck was he doing in her tent? Excitement warred with common sense. She should have rescinded her offer. He should have realised it was void! Either he was extremely obtuse or extremely thick-skinned. She knew he wasn’t dumb—far from it, daily proof of his sharp mind had made her regret her assessment of him as an empty, pretty vessel.
So being in the tent wasn’t accidental. She’d wondered vaguely where he had been sleeping before tonight. Not on his boat since that first night, and who could blame him with water slowly trickling into the hull? Hanging out in there when you were conscious was one thing... She had a sneaking suspicion he’d been dossing down on a beach somewhere, which wasn’t ideal either. While there were no creepy-crawlies on Pulu Keeling—having risen out of the ocean, its only native life was marine or bird—the beach would still harbour a million things a man might not want sneaking up on him in the dark, like football-sized robber crabs. They usually preferred the leaves and fronds that littered the island’s floor but if a perfectly tasty, perfectly unconscious snack presented itself on a beach...
It made sense he’d prefer to use her tent. And since she wasn’t in it...
She sank onto one hip. She could wait him out. He couldn’t stay in there for ever, although he was just about stubborn enough. She packed away a few of her work things and poured a drink of fresh water from her stash. Ate the last of her muesli bars. If he wasn’t here, she would probably hang around in camp until the sun was well and truly up and then slide in with her complimentary airline eye-mask on until she fell asleep. But, since his arrival, she’d taken to crawling into bed almost as soon as she’d finished her shift. Just to minimise the chances of running into him. Not because she didn’t like him...
On the contrary...
She moved to the tent’s entrance, stepping quietly in the fine sand of the clearing. His shirt blew pennant-like in the pre-dawn breeze. Not accidental. Deep down, she knew that was his way of pre-warning her, of giving her an escape clause.
Her heart lurched. It didn’t help her resolve when he did kind things like that. Maybe he’d come to camp last night to talk. Maybe that was why she’d hit the turtle nests so early yesterday evening. Knowing he was braver than her.
Honor gently peeled back the flap of the tent’s entrance and peeked inside. Rob lay sprawled out on his front, her sleeping bag askew but still covering the bits that counted. One arm stretched out in front of him—where she would have lain, had she been with him, a sneaky voice pointed out—the other tucked under him. She ran her eyes from his fingertips, along his sculpted bicep, over a bulging, tanned shoulder, to his well defined back. Visions of Michelangelo’s David came to mind even in his relaxed, sleeping form.
Her heart thumped as she remembered how it felt to run her hands over those muscles. She’d never, in her life, put her hands on firmer, healthier—manlier—flesh.
Guilt tore at her. Get a grip, Brier. Just hours ago, she’d called a halt to any further physical interaction with him and here she was, already contemplating what it might be like to call a halt to the halt!
There would be no more kissing.
She let the flysheet drop with an angry hiss.
Where