The sexual tension which she’d found so difficult to set aside while still on the boat, dissipated while they were underwater, sharing the pleasure of what they found and watched. It also helped that she had plenty to chat about after the dive, recalling what they’d seen, comparing it to experiences in other places.
They lunched at the beach lodge, sitting on a balcony overlooking the turquoise waters of the bay, hungrily demolishing servings of superb grilled fish, several different tasty salads and a platter of freshly sliced fruit. Emily was thinking that now was the perfect time for a siesta when Zageo spoke, shattering any sense of safety her guest role had given her.
‘We could retire to one of the bungalows.’
‘What?’ Her whole body jerked in shock at the suggestion which immediately conjured up images of sex in the afternoon.
‘You looked sleepy,’ he observed, watching her through his own lazily lowered lashes.
‘Just feeling replete after such a lovely meal,’ she quickly trotted out. ‘Are we going to dive again this afternoon?’
‘Do you want to?’
‘I guess the question is…are you satisfied?’
He cocked one eyebrow as though considering which area of satisfaction she was referring to, and the sensual little curl of his lips was very suggestive of much more satisfaction being desired on many levels.
Emily’s heart skipped a beat then rushed into beating so fast she suffered a dizzying rush of blood to the head. Words spilled into erratic speech. ‘I meant your test. About me being a professional diver. You wanted to know if it was true. That’s why we came here, wasn’t it? For me to prove I wasn’t lying?’
‘It was one of the reasons.’ The glimmer in his eyes suggested others were of more interest to him. ‘I no longer have any doubt that you are comfortable with being underwater. But as to satisfaction…’
He was talking sex. She could hear it in the sensual purr of his voice, feel it in the prickling wash of it over her skin. Her stomach contracted with anxiety. It was difficult to fight her own ambivalent feelings. With Zageo feeding the tempting desire to simply give in and tangle intimately with him, she could barely remember why it would be stupid to do it.
Hannah…
Real life…
Shedding complications and getting directly to where she should be…
‘Stone Town,’ she said emphatically, cutting off whatever else Zageo might have put to her because all her instincts were quivering with the very real possibility of her becoming enmeshed in something she might never escape from. She pasted a brightly appealing smile on her face. ‘Could we go to Stone Town now?’
He viewed her quizzically. ‘You sister is not there, Emily.’
‘You just spoke of satisfaction, Zageo,’ she picked up pointedly. ‘I’ve been aiming to get to Stone Town ever since I stepped foot on Jacques Arnault’s yacht. That trip carried a load of unexpected stress and last night’s swim and trek through the mangrove swamp wasn’t a picnic, either. Now here I am, close to where I started out to be, and feeling really frustrated that you’re holding me back from it.’
She heaved a feeling sigh and poured what she hoped was an eloquent plea into her eyes. ‘If I could just have the satisfaction of going to The Salamander Inn myself…’
His mouth quirked into a sardonic smile. ‘You don’t believe me, Emily?’
‘No more than you believe me, Zageo,’ she shot back at him.
He shrugged, his dark eyes dancing with amusement. ‘What reason would I have to lie?’
‘I think you find me a novelty and since you have the power to play with me, that’s what you’re doing,’ she stated unequivocally.
‘A novelty…’ He mused over the word, nodding as he spoke his thoughts. ‘Something new…or is it something as old as time? Certainly you are not like other women I’ve known. Which I find intriguing. But playing with you…’
His eyes narrowed to glittering slits as though harnessing their penetrating power into intensely probing beams. Emily felt as though she was pinned inside his mental force-field and her heart was under attack. She couldn’t think, couldn’t move. She had to wait for him to release her from this eerily hypnotic connection.
‘This is not a game, Emily,’ he said quietly. ‘It is a journey where the signposts are not clear, where the turnings are yet to be decided, where the destination is still obscure, yet…I will take it. And you will take it with me.’
Emily was swamped with a sense of inevitability. Her mind thumped with the certainty that whatever he willed was going to happen. She fought to assert her own individuality, to gain at least one foothold on the life she’d had before meeting him.
‘Well, one signpost is very clear to me and that’s Stone Town,’ she insisted wildly. ‘So why don’t we go there right now before our journey takes us somewhere else?’
He laughed, tipping his head back in sheer uninhibited joy in the moment, making her pulse dance in a weird mixture of relief in the normality of laughter and a bubbling happiness at his pleasure in her.
‘Are you sure you would not prefer to idle some time away in one of these bungalows first?’ he teased, his eyes flirting with the promise of more physical pleasures. ‘Indulge ourselves with some rest and relaxation under the cooling whirl of a fan…’
‘With the air-conditioning in the saloon, we’ll be cooler on the boat,’ she quickly argued.
One black eyebrow arched wickedly. ‘You do not wish to enjoy some heat?’
‘It will still be hot in Zanzibar when we return there.’
‘Why choose one satisfaction over another when you could have both?’
‘It’s as you said, Zageo. I don’t have a clear signpost on anything but Stone Town.’
‘Then we shall get Stone Town out of the way so we can progress beyond it.’
He rose purposefully to his feet and rounded the table to hold back her chair as she stood up, ready to leave. The zing of triumph at having won this concession from him was short-lived. He took firm possession of her hand for the walk through the beach lodge to the wharf which led back to the boat, and when she wriggled her fingers in a bid for freedom, his interlocked with hers, strengthening the hold.
Still a captive to his will, Emily thought, though he had ceded to her wishes on the destination issue. It was probably an indulgence he could well afford, letting her see the meeting place nominated by her sister. An unimportant sidetrack. The journey he wanted them to take revolved around physical contact and the insidiously distracting heat his hand generated was already beginning to erode her sense of purpose.