Mists of the Serengeti(55)

I knew what he was asking. He wanted to be sure I could handle it. This night, maybe a few more before I left. Nothing less, nothing more.

“I want you, Jack.” My body rose instinctively to meet his. The thick, hard length of him on my thigh was both electrifying and intimidating. “But you should know . . . I . . . I haven’t done this before. You’re my first.”

He stilled and sucked in a long, ragged breath. “This . . .” He took in another soul-deep breath. “You haven’t—”

“It’s okay,” I whispered. “Look at me. Look at me, Jack. I want you to be my first.”

And my last. And all the times in between. But I can’t have that. So I’ll take this. What we have right here. Right now.

But Jack wasn’t listening. “I’m too far gone, Rodel,” he growled, taking my hand and guiding it to him. His head fell back as my fingers closed around him, and he let out a soft gasp.

Against the flickering light of the fire outside, he was the glowing image of passion and raging desire. It was only when he started thrusting into my hand, his rhythm urgent and frenzied that I realized what he meant. He was too far gone to deny his release, but he was still in control of how it happened. I felt a stab of sadness, but it didn’t stand a chance against the heady eroticism of the man before me, the way he was watching me, making love to every curve, every inch of my body with his eyes, as my fist moved up and down his throbbing shaft.

“Fuck, Rodel.” His voice had a raw, brittle edge, like he was about to snap. His lips clamped down on mine as his body convulsed with sharp waves of pleasure.

He leaned his forehead against mine, catching his breath. When he rolled on his back, taking me with him, I thought how incredibly warm his arms were, how perfectly they wrapped around me.

“Rodel? Why are you crying?”

“Because.” I snuggled deeper into him. “It feels good.”

“This feels good . . .” He squeezed me tighter. “Or the crying?”

“Both.” I sniffed.

He propped himself up on his elbow and looked at me. “These tears—” his thumb swiped my cheek “—they have nothing to do with you thinking that I rejected you, do they?” A shadow passed across his face when I didn’t answer. “God, Rodel.” He swore. “Your first time. The possibility didn’t even register on my radar. Just the fact that you’ve waited this long—that has to mean something. It has to be special. Not in a tent, on a flimsy air mattress, in the middle of nowhere. And not with me, not with a man who can’t offer you all the things that should go with it. I did the only responsible thing I could, and let me tell you, it still feels like hell.”

“Good. Because I don’t want responsible, Jack. I’ve done responsible things my whole responsible life. I want reckless. I want mindless, ruthless, heedless. I want to be swept up in madness. I want your passion. I want your pain. I want you to tell me that you can’t bear the thought of me leaving, that it feels like you can’t breathe, that you want me, that you’ll miss me.”

His gaze traveled over my face for a long, still beat before falling on my neck. “I can’t bear the thought of you leaving,” he said to the mark his teeth had left there. “I stop breathing every time I think about it.” He found another one, closer to my collarbone, and pressed his lips to it. “I want you in ways you can’t even begin to imagine.” His voice was muffled, vibrating against my flesh with deep, soft resonance. “Will I miss you?” He lifted his head and looked at me. “Like a dream that starves and curls up beneath my bones.”

I thought his touch was the only cure for my crazy, heated senses, but I found myself being pulled beyond the circle of his arms, to a place where souls go to kiss—lipless and formless and free. I knew that whenever I thought of love, it would have a face, a name, a voice. And I would hear its heart beating from inside a tent in the wilds of Africa.





I WOKE UP with my nose lodged in the dip between Jack’s collarbones. Steel arms were wrapped around me, one crooked under my neck, the other around my waist. I shifted, and he loosened his hold the tiniest bit. That was when I realized Jack was awake and probably had been for a while. We untangled ourselves slowly, with little prickles of awareness—me lifting my hair so he could slide his arm out, him untwisting his legs from around mine.

Every time his gaze met mine over breakfast, my heart turned over. I couldn’t help but think of where his hands had been, what his eyes had seen. As we got ready to leave for Magesa, I caught him watching me, as if he were taking little snapshots and storing them away.

“You think we need that?” I asked, when he got the rifle out of the car.

“I hope not, but I’m not leaving it behind.” He slid it into a discreet carry bag and rolled the sleeping pad around it.

It was amazing how many things Jack managed to fit into his backpack. He folded the tent fabric inside, squeezed in the rest of the supplies, and secured the poles outside.

When everything was packed and loaded, he tightened the straps and locked the car. “It will take us a couple of hours to get to Magesa. You good to go?”

I nodded and then looked away. His eyes were so impossibly blue, it was like he had the whole sky inside of him.

We hiked through a small patch of forest with trees so dense they blocked out the sky. Vines wrapped their tendrils around gray, scaly bark and moss grew like a carpet under our feet. I had to squint when we emerged from the dark canopy, even though a blanket of cotton wool clouds obscured the sun. The dirt track we were on veered and merged with a wider road up ahead.