Chapter Four #3
Swiftly he moved slightly behind the half-open door because he was only in boxers himself and, hell, he had an erection! Rock hard, utterly inexplicable and highly embarrassing. ‘Erin…’
‘There’s something in the cabin!’
‘Wait…“something in the cabin”?’
‘Raffaele, I’m sorry… I know it’s…it’s…’
‘After three in the morning?’
‘I…’
She was close to tears. His perfect, coolly controlled, unflappable secretary was close to tears!
Another punch of raw arousal hit him, making him wonder what sort of dinosaur he was if he could be actively turned on by a damsel in distress. Although, in fairness, not just any old damsel in distress.
‘Okay. Come in. I’ll grab some trousers and don’t worry… I’ll sort it out.’
He spun around on his heels and disappeared quickly into the adjoining bedroom before his body could betray him even more than it already had.
Erin stepped into his cabin and it was only when he had vanished that two things struck her, temporarily banishing the fear and panic that had gripped her as she’d flown to his cabin.
The first was that Raffaele had answered the door in just his boxers.
For the first time her fantasies had crashed slap bang into reality and the body she had idly and guiltily daydreamed about had been there right before her eyes.
No amount of daydreaming could come close to the magnificence of the real thing.
Broad, muscled shoulders, sexy dark hair on his chest and a flat belly that tapered to narrow hips.
She’d felt the air leave her body in a whoosh when he’d answered the door and then, before she could really absorb what she was looking at, he’d somehow manoeuvred himself behind the door, probably in an act of kindness to spare her blushes.
She knew he thought she was all those things a brilliant secretary should be—smart, efficient, professional—along with all those things a woman should never be as far as femininity went, smart, efficient, professional, equalled drab, unexciting, uptight…
The second thing that struck her, hard on the heels of her semi-naked boss and his glorious body, was the fact that she had scrambled over to his cabin without bothering to shove on anything over her pyjamas.
The sensible dressing gown she had brought with her was still hanging pointlessly on a hook on the bathroom door.
And here she was…
Appalled, she folded her arms, covering as much of her breasts as she could, and waited for him to emerge from the bedroom.
With a sinking feeling, it was dawning on her that whatever had been flapping around in the cabin would have been easier to deal with than this.
‘Ready to face the monster in the room?’
Raffaele appeared decently clad in some grey jogging bottoms and a loose T-shirt and flip-flops.
Their eyes met and he smiled reassuringly.
‘I shouldn’t have rushed over here at this ungodly hour,’ Erin said jerkily.
‘Why not? Something obviously petrified you and naturally I’m here to help. I can’t have you cowering under the blankets until you get rescued by room service in the morning. I’m being serious here, Erin. Want me to carry you back to your cabin? Because I will.’
‘Just get rid of whatever’s flying around inside the room.’ She cleared her throat, eyes darting between his cabin and hers in expectation of just about anything that might lunge out at them. There was a myriad of noises coming from the trees and the bushes all around them. ‘Please.’
‘Your wish…my command.’
She led the way to her cabin. It was literally seconds away from his. She could feel the blades of grass on the ground brush against her flip-flops and fronds from the ferns tickle her legs. They both heard the sound of furious flapping the second she pushed open the door.
Raffaele didn’t give her time to protest. He swept her off her feet, kicked the door shut behind him and carried her straight through to the bedroom.
‘Stay here.’
‘What are you going to do? What is it making that racket?’
‘I’ll find out soon enough.’
‘Are you scared? Should we call the manager?’
‘At this hour in the morning?’ Raffaele laughed. ‘No and no. By which I mean no manager, and no, I’m not scared.’
He headed out of the room, shutting the door quietly behind him, and Erin curled herself into a ball in the chair by the window and tried her best to block out the muffled sounds outside.
It had been a mistake coming here. She should have made up some excuse and dug her heels in and stayed put in the safety of her office in London.
If she had, she wouldn’t be here now, trembling at the thought of whatever was out there, not to mention all the other whatevers that might be lurking in the bushes and the trees and the rivers, waiting for some unsuspecting English girl with zero experience of the tropics to wander along.
And if she had dug her heels in her boss wouldn’t be playing knight in shining armour at her request, and wasn’t that the bigger problem?
How had the dynamic between them changed so suddenly? How had one stray confidence turned into…into this?
She was only aware of Raffaele’s return to the room when he was standing in front of her, casting a long shadow.
She looked up at him with a sigh of resignation, resentful that she was now the damsel in distress.
‘What was it?’
He squatted down on his haunches so that they were on eye level.
‘It was a fruit bat. Harmless and more scared of you than you were of it. One of the windows was open behind the curtains and it must have got in either accidentally or because it was attracted to the fruit in the bowl on the table. You were really scared, weren’t you?’
‘I overreacted. I’m sorry. I should never have run over to your cabin and banged on your door.’
‘Why not? You were scared and I could help.’
‘Raffaele…this isn’t me.’
‘It is now,’ he returned with a crooked smile. ‘I like this new Erin Fisher. I like the fact that you can drop the mask now and again. It’s definitely an improvement.’
Erin met his eyes. She felt the thrill of her illicit attraction fighting against the need for her to return to the person she had been, safe and controlled and in charge of her emotions.
She just couldn’t allow a childish crush to overwhelm common sense. She would never make another mistake with a man again. Finding love didn’t lie down that road. She’d made one mistake. She was wiser now.
But Raffaele was so close to her. She could smell him, breathe him in, reach out and touch him.
She balled her hands into fists. ‘I was temporarily thrown off balance. Like I said, I have no experience of what it’s like in this part of the world. Tomorrow, once I begin to find my feet, believe me, I won’t be a shaking wreck at the sound of a silly bat flapping around in the living room.’
Brave words. In reality, she honestly wouldn’t care whether the bat was popping over to make friends with a cup of tea and some scones; just thinking about it appearing again made her shiver.
‘For the record, despite the fact that the hotel is set in a forest, there are remarkably few venomous creatures.’ He stood up, flexed his muscles and dragged the chair by the dressing table over to where she was sitting.
Erin watched him warily. If anything, his presence felt more suffocating now, with him leaning into her, forearms resting on his thighs, knees practically touching hers.
‘Is that right?’ she asked faintly.
‘There are snakes but most are harmless. They’ll slither away in fear if they hear you coming.’
‘What about the less harmless varieties?’
‘Don’t worry. You won’t come across them. We won’t be doing any deep-jungle exploring and actually, even if we chose to, I don’t think there have been any tales of deadly snake bites on this island in living memory. Anyway,’ he said and grinned, ‘I’m here.’
‘And you have a lot of experience in dealing with venomous snakes?’
‘None, but as you can see, I’m good at dealing with the unexpected. The fruit bat won’t be bothering you again.’
‘No, it won’t.’ Erin clung to politeness but her heart was thumping as she looked at him, remembering way too clearly how he had looked in his boxers and nothing else, ‘because I’ll make sure all the windows are shut when I go to bed.’
‘Wise precaution.’ He stood up, headed to the bedroom door but then he turned to look back at her over his shoulder. ‘Now, before you protest, I’m going to settle down in the chair outside and make sure you’re okay before I head back to my cabin.’
‘Raffaele!’
‘Tut, tut, what did I say?’ He reached out and before she could pull back, his finger was on her lips in a silencing motion. She felt the blood rush to her face. ‘No protests or you might find that I stay for the rest of the morning. Understood?’
Erin didn’t protest. She physically couldn’t. Her vocal cords had tightened up because all she could imagine was this big, powerful, sexy guy in the room outside keeping watch over her while she slept.
She nodded silently. Even after he’d let himself out of the bedroom, she could still feel where his finger had briefly been on her lips.
But, weirdly, within ten minutes she was fast asleep.