and I am never a sure thing. So, you keep your libido in check and stop sniffing around my skirts. Because it’s not going to happen.”
He folded his arms over his chest and stared at me. The firelight warmed the dark gold of his hair, reddening it as the shadows passed over his face and back again. Any other man would have apologised and smoothed the moment over, patting his dignity into place with soft hands and softer words. Not Ryder. He smiled slowly, and there was a flash of cruelty there, a flash he was happy to show me before he sat it down in the corner and made it behave.
“You understand that we’re alone out here, don’t you, Delilah? There’s not a soul within screaming distance, nobody to hear you, nobody to help you. I could violate you sixty different ways and throw you out for the hyenas to have their way with before anybody ever even noticed you were gone.”
The words were dangerous, but the voice was low and soft and coaxing, mixing me up until I wasn’t sure whether to believe his lips or his eyes. My pulse was coming hard and fast as he put out a hand and wrapped a lock of my hair around one finger. He pulled slowly until my head came forward. He didn’t lay a hand on me aside from that one finger, just that one finger, pulling me closer and closer until my mouth opened. I had had men use their whole bodies to seduce me, and their minds and fortunes, too, but never just one finger, coaxing me closer until that one finger was all I could think about. I felt his breath pass over my lips, felt the warmth of his mouth as he almost but not quite touched me, holding himself just out of reach. I leaned forward, thinking how much I’d like to pin his ears back with my knees.
“Have it your way, princess,” he said, whispering the words across my skin, raising gooseflesh as they passed. “We’ll see who caves first.”
With that he unwound his finger and stepped away. My legs were shaking as he went into the rondavel for his rifle.
I nearly choked on the words, but I managed to say brightly, “Thank you for your hospitality. Dinner was delicious.”
He didn’t respond. He merely led the way home, pausing only once when we heard a loud rasping noise, like someone sawing wood.
“Leopard,” he murmured, his lips annoyingly close to my ear. His chest was pressed to my back. There was a slow, deep rhythm beating behind it, and I stood still, feeling his heart drumming evenly. He wasn’t scared, and because he was there, neither was I. We stood very still until he felt it was safe to continue, and in a remarkably short time we were back at Fairlight. He left me in the garden.
I hesitated, one foot on the veranda. “Ryder,” I started, and only later was I glad he interrupted me. I never did figure out what I might have said to him.
“For Christ’s sake, woman. Don’t stand there mooning about. This is Africa. Go inside before something eats you.”
I went.
12
I slept poorly that night. The moon was small and lopsided, like a child’s balloon being slowly inflated. But still it poured its silky light into my room, and I lay awake watching it move the shadows across the bed. I heard the nightjars singing in the garden and the crickets serenading one another, and under it all the occasional low rasp of the leopard. When I did sleep, my dreams came fast and sharp, like a moving picture running at too high a speed, jerking from one scene to another. I could not remember them in the morning, but when I woke my pillow was wet.
That afternoon my cows arrived. Gideon collected them from the Kikuyu and walked them to Fairlight. He brought with him a boy who walked with a limp, leaning on a crutch. He might have been ten or twelve, with a slender build and a solemn face. He stared at me as Gideon made the introductions.
“This is my brother, Bibi. He is called Moses.”
“Hello, Moses.”
“My brother Moses does not speak, Bibi, but he hears perfectly, and he is very good with cattle. It is a great responsibility to care for your cattle, and Moses will do an excellent job.”
“I’m sure he will. Thank you, Moses,” I said, turning to the boy.
He looked startled at that.