Alison Roberts - At His Service - Her Boss the Hero - One Night With Her Boss / Her Very Special Boss / The Surgeon's Marriage Proposal

They worked their way carefully down a slope with patches of icy snow between clumps of tussock. They chose a safe crossing place for the baby river and Mikki crossed her arms and held hands with Tama to give them greater weight and stability as they negotiated the shallow but fast-moving water.

They pushed their way into the bush and Mikki learned about which plants were edible and which were poisonous. They discussed the effects of Giardia parasites and how to treat water to make it safe to drink.

As promised, Tama showed her how to make a fishing hook and line when they came across the larger river they would follow downstream, but they didn’t try their luck fishing for long.

‘We’ve got enough food for tonight and there’s a fair way to walk yet. You tired?’

‘A bit,’ Mikki admitted. ‘It’ll be nice to stop.’ She was tired of walking with wet and squelchy boots and she was tired of trying to interpret every glance or touch from Tama to gauge what he might be thinking. Whether what had happened between them last night was on his mind as much as it was on hers.

But even when they stopped walking, she couldn’t find a way of steering the conversation to anything really personal. It was far easier to stick with the teaching session and learn how to gather brushwood and join it together to make a shelter. How to find small twigs for kindling and then to light the fire by using a magnesium fire-starter.

‘Shave pieces off one side with your pocket knife,’ Tama instructed. ‘And then you make a spark using that piece of flint embedded in the other side.’

Hot food, as daylight faded, was again very welcome. The warmth from the fire was wonderful but Mikki eyed the narrow space beneath the shelter she had constructed dubiously.

‘It’s still going to be cold tonight, isn’t it?’

‘Yep. Usually is, outside like this.’

Too cold to take their clothes off, then. Mikki’s nod was resigned but her heart rate picked up. If she was going to say anything, this was her chance. She swallowed. Then she cleared her throat. ‘It would be silly to risk hypothermia.’

‘It would.’ But Tama was smiling. He was reading the direction of her thoughts easily and his smile was enough to give her a lot more courage.

‘Shame,’ she murmured.

They sat in silence for a minute.

‘There is a hut,’ Tama said.

‘What?’

‘I told you this route was carefully chosen. There’s a hut about half a mile away. We needed one available as a precaution, in case someone got injured on a training exercise or the weather turned nasty. It’s got a clearing beside it which is where the chopper’s going to pick us up first thing in the morning.’

‘So why are we out here instead of in a nice, warm hut?’

‘Because it’s part of the training. You needed to learn to make a shelter.’

‘I’ve done that.’

Tama glanced over his shoulder. ‘So you have.’

‘If we happened to be near the clearing a little earlier than expected, no one would need to know why, would they?’

‘No.’

‘But …’ Mikki felt embarrassed now. ‘It still wouldn’t be a good idea to … you know …’

‘Have sex?’ Tama supplied helpfully. ‘Mmm.’

‘Why not? We wouldn’t be risking discovery. Or hypothermia.’

‘We might be risking something else.’

‘We’ve agreed on the ground rules. It’s not going to interfere with your training and it’s not going to get messed up by one of us being stupid enough to think it’s real.’

‘That’s not what I meant. I’m talking about …’ Mikki closed her eyes. This was horribly clinical. ‘You know. Safe sex.’

‘Oh-h. Not a problem.’

Mikki’s eyes snapped open. ‘You’re telling me you carry condoms on a survival training exercise?’

Tama’s grin was unrepentant. ‘I’m a good Boy Scout. Always prepared. But, no, I don’t always carry them. This time I did.’

Mikki opened her mouth, ready to express outrage at the implied expectation, but then she shut it again. She thought back to that moment in Josh’s room. That silent acknowledgement that had passed between them of the attraction and the opportunity that being alone together would provide.

She stood up. ‘Seeing as you’re such a good Boy Scout,’ she said, with a very womanly smile. ‘You’ll know what to do to make this fire safe to leave, won’t you?’

They held hands as they stumbled along a rough track that led to a primitive but sturdy wooden hut. There was a pot-belly stove opposite the door that made the interior deliciously warm in a very short period of time. They both took off their outer, waterproof garments and their balaclavas and gloves and boots.

Leaving the door of the stove open provided a warm, glowing light. Enough to illuminate the narrow bunk beds built into both sides of the hut. Mikki looked at the width of the beds. She looked at the size of Tama and then she looked at the door.

‘There’s no chance anyone else will want to use this hut tonight, is there?’

‘If they did, they would have been here before nightfall, and that was quite a while ago now.’

‘Good.’

Mikki pulled a mattress off a bunk and put it on the floor in front of where Tama was stoking up the stove. She added a second mattress beside it and the whole floor area was virtually covered.

It was such an obvious move that Mikki felt embarrassed having completed it. She couldn’t look at Tama because the courage she’d found to let him know what she wanted had deserted her. Setting up bedding like this made her feel suddenly and horribly … cheap.

It took only a small step for Tama to be close enough to touch her. He put his forefinger under her chin and used just enough pressure to make her lift her face and look up at him.

She saw understanding in his gaze. Reassurance. And then he smiled that gorgeous crooked smile and bent his head to claim her lips with his own.

They shouldn’t be doing this.

Tama knew that, despite the arguments to the contrary he’d presented to Mikki last night.

He also knew he couldn’t have continued resisting the temptation without repercussions. He’d been honest when he’d said that sexual frustration could interfere with their professional relationship more than any aftermath was likely to.

Mikki held her arms up like a child as he helped her undress by pulling the tight thermal top from her body, but there was nothing childlike about the way she dropped her arms around his neck and then stood on tiptoe to offer him her mouth.

Tama let his lips savour hers while his hands un-clipped her bra and then slid slowly forward to trace her ribs and find …

Oh, God ! He might have denied it so well he’d believed it but he’d been wanting to touch these small, perfect breasts since he’d first clapped eyes on them by the diving pool that day. He’d known how they would fit his hands. How firm and round they would feel. He hadn’t imagined what it would do to him to feel the tiny, hard nub of an aroused nipple on them, though. With a groan he had to abandon the sweetness of Mikki’s mouth and bend lower to explore with his tongue the place he’d just sensitised with his fingers.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.