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“Now we have water.” Her voice was low and husky, giving her thoughts away. She cleared her throat, but it didn’t help. “Try not to pop the condoms.”
“I’ll try.” He smirked at her, making her think he could read her mind. Belinda felt her cheeks burn and looked away.
“Let’s get going,” she said.
“How did you know to do that trick with the bamboo?”
She wiped the back of her mouth with their hand. “Maybe, just maybe, I’m not as dumb as I look.”
“I never said you were dumb. I said you were dramatic. An actress. Everything is an act. It’s hard to tell what’s real.”
“The water feels pretty darn real to me.”
“Seriously, what movie did you see that in?”
“Of course, because I only know movies. Come on, we need to get going,” she said as she walked past him and headed into the jungle.
She left him staring after her, his tiny mind trying to figure out how she could know something that wasn’t movie trivia. Infuriating man. She should have kept the water to herself.
Chapter 12
John—Beast, ah to hell with it, she could think of him as John if she wanted to. He’d never know. All she had to do was make certain she didn’t call him it to his face. Not unless she wanted a repeat of their earlier kiss—and Belinda wasn’t exactly sure that was a deterrent. Anyway, she had more important things than their explosive chemistry to think about—like where they were going to sleep.
John had called a welcome halt to their trek into the jungle, saying they had a couple of hours before the sun set. They had enough water to last the night, but finding more would be their first priority in the morning.
Belinda’s feet ached, and she was sure there were at least a couple of blisters from where her borrowed shoes rubbed. She was still grateful. They were a whole lot better than trying to walk in her heels. Her skin was dry from the caked mud covering it, she itched all over from mosquito bites and she was sure there were ants in her hair. To say she would have killed for a shower would be to put it mildly.
She watched as John kicked the rocks from the tiny clearing he’d found, trying to make the ground smoother for them to lie on.
“Don’t bother,” Belinda said. “We can’t sleep on the ground. Every insect and creature that comes out at night will be all over us.”
He stopped and put his hands on his hips. “What are we supposed to do, then? Climb a tree?” He cocked an eyebrow at her, which implied he would be able to climb the tree but she wouldn’t have a hope in hell. Or maybe she was inventing conversations again. It had become a habit over the last few hours because John rarely answered her when she spoke to him.
She shook out the stained sheet she’d taken from their hut. “We make a hammock. It will be cosy, but it’s our safest option.”
“Okay. Timeout. Who do you think you are? Bear Grylls?”
“Oooh, I love that guy. He is so cute. I did a UK chat show with him and he was adorable. But he has a weird obsession with drinking urine. I mean, he filters it through his socks first, but it’s still all kinds of wrong.” She shuddered.
John pinched the bridge of his nose. “Seriously? What are you doing? Where is this all coming from? The bamboo water, the hammock, the white-faced pig things, the flies who lay eggs under your skin? Every time I turn around, you have another piece of information to throw at me. Tell me the truth, right now—where’s this all coming from?”
“Does it matter?” She pointed to one of the many rope-like lianas hanging from a nearby tree. “Cut some of those and test them for strength, will you?”
With an irritated grunt, he did as he was told. Meanwhile, Belinda shook out the sheet, inspected it to ensure it was hole free and folded it in half, lengthwise. By the time she was done, John was back, holding out the jungle ropes. She scrunched the end of the sheet together, wrapped the rope around it, then folded the end of the sheet over the rope coils and wrapped it again to make a tight loop. The last thing they needed was for the sheet to slip free during the night and for them to land on the forest floor.
“Tie this tight.” She handed it to him. “You’re stronger than I am.”
Without a word, he did as she instructed while she repeated the process with the other end of the folded sheet. The resulting hammock wasn’t wide, but it would work. Belinda tried not to think about just how familiar she was about to become with John’s body. She already salivated just looking at the man. How she was supposed to sleep plastered against him, she didn’t know.
Together, they strung the makeshift hammock up between two trees, making sure it was well off the ground but not so high that they couldn’t get into it. The light was fading fast, and Belinda worked faster.
“Cut more ropes, will you?” She pointed to the length of the hammock. “We need one to tie above the hammock, for us to drape the mosquito net over.”
They tied a rope between the trees a couple of feet above their bed, and Belinda threw the tatty mosquito net over it to make a tent. The net was big, covering the hammock with enough spare material for her to tie knots over the tears.
She stepped back to look at her efforts. Ugly, smelly and probably full of germs. But it was practical.
“What about these?” John handed her the last of the lianas.
