in a knot at her waist but hadn’t got around to tying her hair up on her head as normal. It was longer than he’d realised, with a natural curl at the ends.
Sullivan wasn’t usually a dancer. It wasn’t that he couldn’t feel the beat of the music, it was just that he’d never felt the urge to rave in a dark disco. And he certainly hadn’t felt the urge to dance at all in the last few years.
But as the music changed to a slower song he sucked in a breath. Slow dancing he could do.
This was private. This was just him and her. No one watching. And he couldn’t watch Gabrielle much longer without touching. He moved more purposely, catching Gabrielle’s hand while she danced and pulling her against him.
‘I think the tempo’s changed.’
He could feel the curves of her breasts pressed against his chest. One of his hands lingered at the bare skin at her waist and it felt entirely natural for his fingers to gently stroke her soft skin.
She hadn’t spoken yet but as he kept his gaze fixed on hers, her pupils dilated, the blackness obliterating the dark chocolate of her irises. She reached one hand up to his shoulder. It was almost like a traditional dance position. The one a million couples dancing at weddings the world over would adopt.
‘You’re right,’ she said huskily, ‘the tempo has changed.’ She started to sway along to the music in his arms. It was easy for their bodies to move as one. What’s more, it seemed completely natural.
He couldn’t help the smile appearing on his face. He’d spent the last few days thinking of how it would feel to be in exactly this position. Her rose scent was winding its way around him. He slid his hand from her waist up the smooth skin on her back. She didn’t object. In fact, she responded, tugging at his T-shirt and moving both her hands onto his skin. He caught his breath at the feel of her soft hands. Gabrielle wasn’t shy. Both hands slid around to the front. She was smiling as she moved them up over his chest. He lowered his head, pressing his forehead on hers.
‘Not long until Paris,’ he whispered.
She glanced towards the opening of the tent. ‘I don’t know if I want to wait until Paris.’ The huskiness of her voice made the blood rush around his body.
He walked her backwards against the table, pressing her against it as his lips came into contact with hers. She tasted of chocolate. Of coffee. She responded instantly. Lips opening, matching his every move. His hands moved to her firm breasts, slipping under the wire of her bra and filling his hands.
She arched her back and he caught her unspoken message, moving his other hand to unclip her bra at the back and release her breasts more freely for his attention.
She pushed herself back onto the table, opening her legs and pulling him towards her, a little noise escaping from the back of her throat. She made a grab for his T-shirt, pulling it over his head.
He laid her back onto the table, concentrating his lips on the paler skin at her throat then around her ear. The little sigh she gave made his blood race even faster.
Then he felt her hands on his shoulders. She wasn’t pushing him away but her grip was firm. He eased back, connecting with her gaze and rapid breathing. At the base of her throat he could see a little flickering pulse.
‘Gabrielle?’ he groaned.
Her gaze was steady. ‘Four days,’ she whispered. ‘In four days, we can do this in Paris.’ Her head turned towards the tent entrance again, the flaps held back onto the dark night. It really was wide open to the world; any of the other camp members could appear at a moment’s notice.
He drew in a deep breath. She was right. He knew she was right. It didn’t matter that he’d be much happier if they could both just tear their clothes off now. For a few seconds he’d lost his normal professional demeanour.
They both had. Gabrielle was the lead professional on this mission. He had to remember that.
The spark between them had been building every day. Right now he felt as if the electricity they were generating could light up the Chrysler Building. There was something about this woman that got under his skin. Right from his first sight of her dancing around this very tent. It had been so long since he’d felt a connection like this that he was half-afraid if he closed his eyes for a second it would disappear. He couldn’t let that happen. He wouldn’t let that happen.
Four days. He could put a lid on it for four days. He might even message a friend to ask for a recommendation for a more private Paris hotel than the one he usually bedded down in.
He stepped back. Keeping in contact with Gabrielle Cartier’s skin was a definite recipe for self-implosion.
He smiled. ‘Four days isn’t so long.’ He grabbed his T-shirt and pulled it over his head as he walked towards the tent flaps.
He turned as he reached the entrance and started walking backwards. He winked at her. ‘Watch out, Paris. Here we come.’
THE DEBRIEF HAD been quicker than expected. Their data collection had been fastidious. It helped correlate the numbers of cases of pulmonary TB and MDR-TB in Narumba. The data spreadsheet recording all the side effects of any of the medications would be analysed by their pharmacy colleagues, and the extra information on childhood weight and nutrition would be collated for international statistics. The longest part of the review was around the safety aspects of the team that had gone out to replace them.
Sullivan had already made some recommendations. Three of the team members this time were male and extra interpreters were available.
Six missions had returned at the same time and right now every member from each of the missions was jammed around the booths in a bar in Paris. Drinks filled the tables. Laughter filled the air. After a few months of quiet it didn’t take long for the thumping music and loud voices to start reverberating around his head.
Gabrielle seemed in her element. The girl knew how to let her hair down. Literally. Her glossy dark curls tumbled around her shoulders, her brown eyes were shining and the tanned skin on her arms drew more than a few admiring glances. She was dressed comfortably, in well-fitting jeans and a black scoop-neck vest trimmed with black sequins. A thin gold chain decorated her neck, with some kind of locket nestling down between her breasts.
Maybe it was the buzz in the air. Maybe it was just the electricity of Paris. Or maybe it was the novelty of having some down time. But one part of him couldn’t fully relax.
He’d drunk a few beers and joined in a few stories but the undercurrent between him and Gabrielle seemed to bubble under the surface. This whole thing seemed like a preface to the main event.
It could be it was simply easier to concentrate on the here and now than the future. The future would mean finally having to think about going back home to Oregon to deal with his father’s belongings. His stomach curled at the mere thought. It was pathetic really. He was a thirty-three-year-old guy—and he’d served in some of the toughest areas of the world—but the thought of bundling up some clothes and taking them to goodwill made his blood run cold.
It was so much easier not to acknowledge it and just move on to the next job. Take the next emergency call that came in from Doctors Without Borders and head off on the next mission.
He excused himself and stood up, walking towards the men’s room. The corridor here was little quieter, a little darker. His footsteps slowed and he leaned against the wall, closing his eyes for a second.
He couldn’t talk about this. He wouldn’t talk about this. He and his dad had been on their own for so long after his mother had been killed in a riding accident when he was three. All he could remember of her was a smell and a swish of warm soft hair. He had plenty of photographs of her but when he closed his eyes, it was the touch and the smell that flooded his senses.
It meant that he and his dad