AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘Fine, Mister,’ she challenged. ‘Any time you like.’
‘Ten-second start?’
This time a look was enough to tell him what she thought of that. Launching herself into the race, Sophie pulled out all the stops and arrived on the opposite bank only a few seconds after Xavier.
Helping her to climb out, he reached for their towels and tossed one over to her.
Predictably, Anna was sunbathing in the nude.
‘I’ll go back in to swim again if you want company,’ Sophie offered, towelling her hair vigorously.
‘And get blue with cold? No thank you,’ Anna drawled without opening her eyes. ‘I’ll just improve my tan,’ she said, turning over to reveal a back view almost as impressive as the front.
Xavier seemed gratifyingly unimpressed, Sophie noticed as he moved into the shadows to dress.
But the fact that he seemed neither to notice nor to care what Anna was doing was not lost on the beautiful Dane. The look she lavished on Sophie was hard, and lasted a beat too long.
A challenge? Sophie wondered, feeling a prescient chill run through her.
Thankfully, on their return to the clinic the tension between everyone smoothed out. In fact, Anna dogged Sophie’s footsteps, as if suddenly she was the most desirable company in the world. And, just when Sophie was beginning to wonder if the swimming trip had been just that—a swimming trip, Xavier came to find her.
‘I thought I should warn you—’
‘Warn me?’ Sophie tensed, acutely aware of Anna standing right next to her.
‘I know it’s short notice,’ he said, ‘but you’ll have to come with me tomorrow.’
‘I will?’ Sophie said, swallowing back her euphoria and attempting nonchalance.
‘I could take the time off,’ Anna offered, moving in front of Sophie to claim all Xavier’s attention. ‘There are plenty here who could cover for me.’
‘That’s good of you, Anna,’ he said, ‘but I need to make sure I leave a good spread of specialisms here to cover both the clinic and the hospital. Sophie will—’
‘What?’ Anna demanded, affronted. ‘What will Sophie do for you that I can’t?’
‘I was about to say that Sophie will go where she is needed most, as you will, Anna,’ Xavier said, in a voice that didn’t invite contradiction.
‘Of course,’ she said, her face reddening as she backed down.
In that moment, Sophie had some sympathy for her fellow doctor. Who knew better than she how Xavier could invade your thoughts to the exclusion of everything else? And, in spite of everything, Anna was an excellent physician with a highly developed sense of responsibility towards her patients.
‘Don’t look so shocked,’ Xavier murmured in Sophie’s ear as he steered her in front of him and out through the door. ‘You signed up to do anything that’s required of you, remember?’
‘So what’s required of me?’ she challenged, turning to confront him at the top of the steps.
‘This,’ he said, slamming the door shut with his foot and leaning back on it so it couldn’t be opened from the inside.
As he dragged Sophie against him and dipped his head to kiss her, it was so unexpected she let out a soft cry before melting against him. His kiss was everything she had hoped for—hungry, tender, deep and long. He kissed her as if he had waited all his life for it, and he only let her go when it became obvious that someone—Anna, almost certainly, was trying to open the door from the other side.
‘I don’t like waiting,’ Xavier growled fiercely against Sophie’s lips, ‘and I certainly didn’t expect to wait so long for that.’
Before she could reply he had hold of her hand and was tugging her down the steps after him.
The sensation that she was a naughty child running away from the schoolmistress swept over Sophie as they ran to the truck. She didn’t need to look behind her to know that Anna was standing beside the open door watching them.
‘Where are we going?’ Sophie said, catching her breath as Xavier hammered the engine on his way out of the compound.
‘Where would you like to go?’
‘Away from here?’ she said lightly, searching his face for answers. ‘So, Xavier, which is it, work or pleasure?’
‘We’ll save the work for tomorrow.’
‘And today?’ Sophie demanded softly. ‘Where are we going, Xavier?’
‘Somewhere where we can be alone—unless you’ve got any better ideas?’
‘None,’ Sophie said quickly. His voice was enough to seduce her without the need for anything else, she realised, basking in the persuasive heat toying with her senses.
‘But I hope it’s not too far away.’ She received just the look she wanted from him—short, fierce, and knowing.
‘My thoughts exactly,’ Xavier agreed, increasing speed.
He drove up as far as the narrow track allowed, but then they had to get out and walk deeper into the closely packed trees until they came out again on to a ledge overlooking the valley. The silence was infinite, seclusion guaranteed, and from their incredible vantage point the plain below them seemed to stretch for ever in a patchwork of umber and sienna and soft, sunlit gold. Wherever rainwater had pooled, mosses and lichens flourished, providing acid green highlights. In the far distance the formidable Andes mountains rose in jagged crests, the menacing shade at their base offset by the timeless majesty of ice-blue fingers pointing towards infinity in a cloudless sapphire sky.
Sophie sank to the ground when Xavier drew her down with him, but when she expected him to kiss her again he only whispered, ‘Stay very still.’
‘What?’ she murmured, searching his face.
‘Over there…towards that peak,’ he said, turning away from her to stare out intently across the plain, ‘Do you see it?’
Following his gaze, Sophie sucked in a fast, surprised breath. Even at this distance she could tell the bird they were looking at was huge—no, massive. ‘Is it a condor?’ she demanded incredulously.
‘Yes, it’s a condor,’ Xavier confirmed, whispering against her face. ‘They come here to hunt in the late afternoon—and here comes his mate.’ As he spoke he settled her on the comfortable mossy bed so that she was lying quite flat, and all the while his hand was steadily undoing her shirt. When his lips moved unerringly to the most sensitive part of her neck Sophie writhed sensuously beneath him, trying not to lose focus on the two colossal birds wheeling over their heads, performing a slow and graceful pas de deux for her alone—or so it seemed—wingtips touching, almost as if they were flirting. ‘Xavier—’
‘Yes?’
Sophie couldn’t speak. He had the buttons undone and was moving down to lavish kisses on the soft swell of her breasts.
‘What?’ he whispered, tracing the outline of first one erect nipple and then the other beneath the fine lace of her bra with just the tantalisingly light touch of one thumbnail.
‘You said it would be a long time before you—’ Her voice faded into a sigh.
‘Are you asking me to stop, Sophie?’ Xavier murmured, his voice thick with desire as he watched her nipples firm still more beneath his touch.
‘No, no, don’t stop,’ Sophie insisted breathlessly, meshing her fingers through his hair to bring him closer.
