Free White Lies by Sara Wood

to the noises in the jungle outside, like—
    'Tree frogs,' supplied a soft male voice.
    Mandy screamed in shock. She dived for the top sheet, which lay tangled in a heap at her feet, while simultaneously darting nervous glances through her heavily tumbled hair at the shadowy figure in a chair by the bed.
    'Who—who are you?' she husked nervously. 'What... are you doing here?'
    'Waiting.'
    Waiting! She trembled. All she could make out was a pair of gleaming eyes, flashing white teeth and a white dinner jacket. But the strongly accented voice had been Pascal's. The shoulders were his. The sheer nerve was his.
    And she was naked. It was dark, she told herself, tugging at the stubbornly muddled sheet. He couldn't see her properly. But already her eyes were getting accustomed to the murk and she could see every one of her toenails with alarming clarity.
    She gulped, getting redder and redder as she fought the stubborn tangle of material and tried to keep strategic parts of herself adequately covered at the same time.
    'Oh, drat the wretched thing!' she fumed in panic.
    'Shall I help?' he offered politely.
    'No!' she yelled as he half rose from the chair. 'Stay away! Don't come near me! How the devil did you get in?' she demanded angrily. An end. She'd found the end! Now where...?
    'The door. I left the key in it,' he admitted absently, as though his mind was on something else.
    It was: the spilling flesh of her breasts, billowing from her totally inadequate hand and arm. She doubled over and shot him a filthy look which he missed entirely be-cause his gaze was raking over her slender back and the long curve of her hip and thigh, and she groaned because heat was skimming the surface of her skin where his eyes lingered. It was like being licked by fire.
    'Wretched sheet!' she muttered, taking her temper out on it.
    'I suggest a technique similar to the fan dance,' he said, watching her struggle for dignity with open amusement. 'The skill lies in releasing one fan while covering yourself with—'
    'Turn away!' she demanded furiously, trying the method. If she folded herself forwards, she could ease the sheet up without revealing anything vital...
    'Not much point,' said Pascal in a low, liquid drawl. And she could feel the interest in his voice as she clumsily completed the manoeuvre, every bone in her spine tingling from his fascinated gaze. 'I've been here for hours.'
    Mandy choked and jerked her head around in horror. 'You... you sat there and... watched?'
    'Not much else to do. I couldn't read,' he said reasonably. 'It was dark.'
    'You—you voyeur!' she spat.
    'Oh, no,' he assured her disarmingly. 'Not my style at all. I prefer to take an active part.'
    'Active!' she breathed, hastily hauling yards of linen around her as a defence against 'active'.
    'Uh-huh.'
    She felt the breath clog up in her tubes. The tree frogs whirred on, oblivious to her dilemma; the perfumes of the night drifted in, filling her senses. If she hadn't been wrapped up like an Egyptian mummy—with a carefully tucked-in mosquito net to contend with too—she would have legged it.
    Mandy licked her lips nervously. The darkness was too intimate, the setting too romantic. She'd felt like a fairy-tale princess when she'd gone to sleep, a sensual woman when she'd woken, but now was a vulnerable innocent on the point of disenchantment.
    'Put the light on!' she ordered sharply.
    He rose from the chair, stretching his legs with a quick frown at their stiffness, and went over to the light switch, giving it a cursory flick. Nothing happened. 'Storm's affected the electrics,' he said, unruffled. 'It happens every now and then. I'll light the candles.'
    'Candles!' she groaned.
    She'd noticed them when she'd gone to bed and had thought then, How romantic. Romantic she didn't want. From under her gauze tent Mandy watched Pascal light the first one, his absorbed face flickering with shadows as he slipped the glass shield over the flame. Warily she watched him walk around