Free 2 Maid in the Shade by Bridget Allison Page B

time I have to travel. That’s why I call you so often. I’m always afraid that I’ll come back to find you with a boyfriend. It’s hard to be a gentleman when I’m lusting after you like a madman. But I’m playing the long game.”
    “ Trust me, there are not any men queuing up for a relationship with me. But I’m aware it sounds disingenuous to say I’m pretty shocked at myself.” I laughed. “Is it terribly cruel of me to say we need to stop now?”
    “Brutal, but not unexpected. Just lie down beside me a little while first.”
    “Okay, just for a few minutes.”
    But as soon as I was stretched out beside him I reached over and touched the scar on his abdomen. He flinched.
    “I’m sorry, ” I said, “Is that recent?”
    His eyes clouded over for a flash and he made no reply as he reached for me. “Ben,” I whispered, and then I was on him again like a magnet, as one hand held me to him in a kiss and the other moved into my breeches and down to one side of my lace thong. As we rolled over again into the grass we heard a sudden roar, as a massive bear rose from the edge of the woods.
    B en quickly pulled his hand from my hip, snapping my whisper thin thong in the process.
    W e silently sized up the situation. Mama was to our left, while a cub rummaged through the picnic basket up to our right.
    I n our quest for the longest lasting kiss in eternity we had luckily rolled several yards away into the part of the meadow where Bessless was stationed.
    “ Anything there you can’t live without?” I asked.
    “You mean shall we pack up ?” He whispered, smiling. “I think we need to get inside that Rover and out of Mom’s way.” We watched the cub rush back towards its mother with some picnic prize in its teeth.
    “Slowly,” I whispered, “it’s unlocked .”
    B en nodded his head at me to make a run for it and I didn’t have to be told twice. I streaked across to the Range Rover and was in the passenger seat in record time. I watched anxiously for Ben to follow but to my shock he ran toward our abandoned picnic, grabbed the basket, dumped it out, grabbed the blanket and raced back to me.
    He threw the basket in the back started the engine. At the noise the mother bear rose up on her hind legs and roared again. 
    I never knew anyone to be able to so expertly whip poor aging Bessless about, but Ben did it so smoothly, so calmly, we were barreling back down the dirt road and away before the sound had died down.
    I looked back at the bear; she was down on all fours once more, ambling toward the cub. I was trembling a little; the bear was just the culmination of a completely unexpected afternoon. I couldn’t tell which part of the day owned more of my brain right now.
    “ Why the heck did you go back for the basket?” My tone was filled more with consternation than anger.
    “ I had it specially made, just for us, I designed it for us.”
    “ Well,” I said in confusion, “that’s very thoughtful but you risked both our lives for it. That bear could have caught up with you easily.”
    “ Nonsense,” he laughed, “I’m very good at risk assessment. Besides, maybe now you’ll realize how important we are to me. You keep the basket and we will take it along on every journey, and no one else will use it until we’re ready to hand it down. Now we have an adventure to remember along with that.”
    B en kept one hand on the steering wheel and held mine in the other. Then he turned mine and began stroking my palm and I gasped. It was all I could do not to grab the wheel to get him to pull off the road. I considered using the legitimate excuse of my tattered thong which was driving me insane on a whole different level. I did have to do something about that and he had seen me in far more graceless situations.
    “ Ben,” I said “eyes on the road okay?”
    He nodded but not before giving me a hot look that told me I had been right not to ask him to pull over. “We’d be there for days,” I