Okay, so a woman gets a proposal from a gorgeous man and she expects to be made love to. You know, champagne and oysters on the half shell, candlelight, that sort of thing.
But what Fiona was receiving was none of that. Instead, she was being pulled through slimy water that was kneedeep (which meant it would be over cute little Lisa’s head, she thought, with a smirk), and Ace (the man she loved) was frequently warning her about snakes. And alligators. And other things that she didn’t want to inspect too closely.
Needless to say, Fiona’s mood wasn’t the best. And there was no one to take her bad temper out on but the man slicing through the thick water ahead of her.
“I don’t see why you couldn’t have figured this out before this,” she said petulantly. “If only you’d realized that you knew where the lions were a long time ago, like, say, maybe right after the ol’ teddy bear was killed, maybe we could have—”
She paused because Ace had stepped back to allow a snake to slither past them. If Fiona thought she could have closed her eyes and remained living, she would have done so. But she had to keep her eyes open and see everything: dark, murky water, overhanging trees, huge birds flashing by and seeming to laugh at them.
“I only knew what it was that I’d seen when I saw the map my nieces sent. Remember that I grew up on this land. I know it well.”
“What a charming childhood playground,” she said sarcastically as she hit at an overhanging bit of Spanish moss.
“Beats those concrete-and-steel places they give kids nowadays. Here, watch that, it’s a hole.”
Turning sideways, Fiona made her way past what looked to be a cavern beneath the water. “How deep is that thing?” she whispered.
“Bottomless, as far as I know.” He tugged on her hand, but when she didn’t move, Ace grabbed her and picked her up to swing her over some rotting vegetation, then deposited her onto dry land. Sort of dry land. It squished under her feet.
“I will never be clean again,” she said, looking down at the wet slime that covered the bottom half of her.
Ace climbed up beside her, then bent his head to kiss her. “Yes you will be,” he said softly against her lips, then straightened, turned away, and started walking again. “So where do we want to spend our honeymoon?”
“The Sahara Desert,” she said quickly, making Ace laugh.
It was a good thing that Fiona was tall, because otherwise she would never have been able to keep up with his long stride. It was obvious that he knew where he was going, and he meant to get there quickly. She was glad of that because what light there was, was fading quickly.
“Is it too much to hope that at the end of this little walk there’s a hotel waiting?”
Ace snorted at that, as though she’d just made a very funny joke.
As the light faded, Fiona moved nearer Ace, not that there was room to slip a dime between them as it was, but she tried to get closer.
As she was looking about her, hearing ominous sounds from every shadow and seeing shadows where there shouldn’t be any, Ace said, “We’re almost there,” and his voice made her jump.
“It’s all right,” he said softly, “you’re with me.”
“Yeah right,” she said, “like all the snakes and ’gators know you by name.”
“Mostly,” he said, amusement in his voice. “Wanta hear how I found the lions?”
She was sure that something huge and hairy had just moved behind that tree. But then, maybe the tree was moving. She was holding on to Ace’s hand with both of hers now, and her whole body was plastered against his side. Silently, she nodded.
“I think I was about ten, and I was out walking one day—”
That made her halt. “Ten? And walking in this?”
“Come on,” he said, tugging on her hands. “You sound like my mother. I was in more danger near traffic than here. Anyway, I was walking and I saw a TV disappear behind some vines. Because of what happened later I don’t remember much except that suddenly there they were, staring at me. I think they have emeralds for eyes.”
Fiona waited for him to finish the story, but he just kept moving through the swampy land and said nothing else.
“Okay, I’ll bite,” she said after a while. “You were out slogging through swamp, fighting off snakes, mosquitoes, and man-eating crocs, and you were following a walking television when you came across a couple of golden lions—with emerald eyes, no less—and then what? Years later you didn’t remember it? Was your childhood so exciting that you found pirate treasure and anthropomorphic machines every day, so you couldn’t remember all of it?”
Ace laughed. “A ‘TV’ is a turkey vulture, and there was a little more to it than that.”
“So?” she said impatiently.
“Eager, aren’t you?”
She narrowed her eyes at him in threat.
“I had a bit of an accident that day.”
She was not going to encourage him to go on with his story. She wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of begging him to finish what he was telling her.
“If you use this story with that doll of yours, do I get a cut?”
“You get tourists and me. What else do you want?”
At that Ace turned and pulled her into his arms and kissed her more thoroughly than he ever had before. “ Nothing,” he said, his lips against her ear. “Just you.”
After a moment, he pulled away, and holding her hand securely, he started walking again.
“So what happened that day?” she asked, breaking her vow not to ask. But his kisses seemed to make her forget things.
“Broke my leg, then had to walk back because I knew no one was going to find me where I was, and I ended up with a fever. Later I thought I’d made up the lions, something I’d seen in delirium.”
She thought about what he was saying and tried to imagine a little ten-year-old boy hobbling through the swamp with a broken leg. “How long were you in the hospital?” she asked softly.
He squeezed her hand in acknowledgment of her perception. “A couple of weeks.”
Just when it got so dark that Fiona could see nothing, Ace pulled her into what seemed to be impenetrable jungle, but he was able to part the curtain of vines and enter into a space of such blackness that the void frightened her. And when Ace released her hand, it was all she could do to keep from crying out in fear.
But she held herself in check and stood silent and motionless as she heard him fumbling about with his backpack; then, after what seemed forever, he turned on a flashlight.
And that made things worse. All around them was dark, creepy-looking vegetation. The silence of the place made her skin crawl.
“Let’s get the lions and get out of here,” she whispered. “I don’t like this place.”
“That will be a bit difficult to do,” Ace said, amusement in his voice. “We’ll have to ‘get them’ as you say, in the morning.”
It took her a moment to understand what he was saying. “Morning?” Her voice was rising in hysteria. “Morning? You want us to spend the night here?”
When Ace put his hand on her ankle, she did give a squeal of fear. But his hand moved up her calf, and she looked down at him. While she had been looking about the place in terror, he had unfurled a sort of sleeping-bag tent, a place that one could crawl into and zip the front and be safe from the darkness that was outside.
But, more important, the look in Ace’s eyes was unmistakable. She looked into those eyes and she forgot about lions and murders and police trying to find them. Her knees gave way under her, and she sank down slowly to his open arms.
Deftly, easily, Ace pulled her into the little tent and zipped the door shut behind her; then he turned the flashlight off. For one small breath, Fiona seemed to be alone; then, suddenly, Ace was on her, pulling her to him, holding her, caressing her.
She hadn’t realized how much pent-up emotion and longing was inside her until she touched him. In an instant, they were tearing at clothes, pulling them over their head; shorts went down over knees and ankles.
And everywhere hands and lips and skin touched. When Ace’s mouth found her breast, Fiona moved her head backward, giving him access to the most sensitive spots on her throat.
His hands moved downward, over her hips, over the roundness of her buttocks.
And she explored his body. She touched the shoulders and back that had made her mouth dry with lust many times. She didn’t know how long she had wanted him, but at that moment it seemed to be forever.
When he entered her, she cried out in surprise and delight, and Ace’s mouth covered hers.
She didn’t know what she had expected him to be as a lover, but the fire in him was not what she’d expected. But she had known he was a passionate man, passionate about his birds, passionate about his swamp, so when the fire that was within him came to the surface, she was the willing recipient.
They moved about within the little tent, their long arms and legs pressed against the sides of it, and they pushed and pulled and tried to reach more of each other, tried to get closer than they were.
Fiona wrapped her legs about Ace’s strong waist and held on as he drove into her with force. And her body arched to meet each thrust as it hit her inner being, completing her, filling her, unleashing some deep secret within her.
And when he at last came, she was with him; feeling the explosions that rocked her body made every part of her quicken.
“I love you,” he said as he collapsed against her sweaty, nude body.
She kept her legs wrapped about him, holding him tightly to her as she caressed his hair. She wanted to know every part of him, know his body as well as her own.
And she wanted to know what was inside of him. She wanted to share herself with him in a way that she had never shared with anyone else.
Maybe it was good that they had come to know each other under such adverse circumstances, because she knew that in the future she’d never have to pretend with him. She and her women friends had joked that there was a “dating” personality that a woman kept with a man. “Until she lands him,” Ashley said. “Then she can be herself.”
Fiona had never been past that “dating personality” with a man, not even Jeremy. Not until she’d been accused of murder, that is.
But because of the way she’d met Ace, she had been her worst with him. He’d seen her tired and grumpy. He knew her sarcastic side and her spiteful side. He knew that she could be smart and she could be dumb. He even knew that she could sometimes be calculating and mercenary.
But he still loved her.
“A penny,” Ace whispered into her ear as he moved to lie beside her, her head on his shoulder.
She smiled into the darkness. “I …”
“Out with it,” he said gently. “Whatever it is, I’ve heard worse.”
“When my father visited me, I tried to be the best little girl in the world,” she said quietly, then said no more.
Ace took a moment to consider what she’d said. “In the hopes that he’d like you so much that he’d take you away with him instead of leaving you in boarding school.”
“Right,” she said, and there was a lump in her throat. “Those newspapers that talked about my lonely childhood weren’t too far wrong.” Turning, she put her mouth near on his neck. “But you …”
Again Ace hesitated. “But I love you even though I know that you are one bad-tempered lady.”
“I am not!” Fiona protested. “At least not unless I’m being hunted for murder.”
“And you find yourself with a man you dislike thoroughly.”
“Well, you weren’t very nice to me,” she said in protest. “And, Ace Montgomery, if you tell me again that I broke that damned alligator of yours, I’ll … I’ll …”
“What?” he said, laughter bubbling in his throat, and his hand was beginning to move over her hip. “You’ll set fire to my ticket booth?”
“I thought I just did set fire to your ticket booth,” she said throatily, then nibbled on his ear.
“Oh? I don’t remember. Why don’t you show me again?”
“Okay,” Fiona said as she moved her leg over his. “I think I will.”