His excitement was infectious and she felt her own blood course more swiftly, driven by the quickening of her pulse. She turned her head slowly to follow the direction of her father's gaze. He was looking off to the right out across the river, to where the trees of the forest met the tall pale grass at the edge of the glade.
The only living creature out there was a gray parrot like bird perched on the top branch of a bush willow. Sean had told her it was a gray laurie, the notorious "go away bird" that plagued the hunter with its raucous warning cry. The bird squawked now.
"G'way! Gwayf" But as it fluttered on the high branch, it was twisting its neck, craning to peer down into the long grass below the bush willow.
"Here he comes. The bird can see him," Sean whispered only inches behind her ear. Claudia strained her eyes looking for she knew not what.
"Watch the grass," Sean guided her, and she saw the movement.
The tips of the grass trembled and pushed, a stealthy furtive movement that passed slowly down the glade toward the riverbank, and then the grass behind it was still again. It was like the movement of a large trout in a still pool, the creature unseen, just the surface bulging and stirring to mark its passing.
All movement ceased for long minutes at a time. "He's listening and checking the scent," Sean explained. She had never expected him to show excitement, but his whisper was tight and scratchy.
The movement of the grass tips began again, coming on toward the bait tree. Suddenly her father gave a small breathy gasp. At the same moment, Sean warned her again. Perhaps he had meant to touch her hip once more, but his fingers closed on her upper thigh instead.
His touch was a shock, made more intense by her first sight of the beast. The lion passed through a gap in the grass, which the lionesses had trampled, and she glimpsed the top of his head, the dense bush of his mane, dark and curling, swaying and rippling to his slow imperial stride. For an instant she caught the flash of yellow eyes below the mane.
She had never seen any creature so menacing and yet so majestic. It was the briefest glimpse before the grass covered him again, but it left her shaken and breathless, and Sean's hand was still on her thigh.
Suddenly she realized she was sexually aroused. The tension in her lower belly, the hardening thrust of her nipples against the cotton shirt, and the warm flooding of her loins surprised her. She felt an almost irresistible urge to let her thighs relax and fall open under Sean's fingers, even though the folly of it would be monumental. If she had been asked to describe a human being who most offended and angered her, the description would have fitted him perfectly. She knew that if she showed the slightest vulnerability, he would exploit it ruthlessly. "And I don't even like him," she told herself desperately.
Yet her legs were trembling-he must feel it-and she couldn't move.
Then he took his hand off her leg, but the way he did it was offensive. He did not simply lift it away, he turned it into a caress, drawing his fingers lingeringly over her thigh and hip, a disconcerting sensation for which she was unprepared. She felt her cheeks and throat turn hot with resentment, but she stared out across the river-bed to that stealthy movement that stopped at last below the bait tree.
The silence drew out while Claudia tried to bring her emotions under control. "It wasn't him," she told herself. "I wasn't reacting to him. He has nothing for me. It was the tension and excitement of the moment, nothing to do with him. He's not the least bit attractive to me. I like sensitivity and subtlety, and he is obvious and overpowering and brutal."
Across the river there was an abrupt disturbance in the grass and the sound of a heavy body flopping to earth.
Behind her she felt Sean shake with soft and silent laughter. For an incredulous moment, she thought he was laughing at her, then he whispered, "He's lain down. Can you believe it, he's taking a rest right under the bait. The cocky son of a bitch."
Sean was thinking about the girl as much as about the lion. The unconcealed antipathy she bore him he returned in full measure, which made it more amusing to tease and plague her. Of course, the lion hide was always a good place to catch a woman off balance. He had begun many a memorable affair here. While they were in the hide they were psychologically under his control, like children in a classroom. He was the master and they were conditioned to obey his will, and the tension and nervous excitement made them receptive and compliant, the promise of danger and bloodshed heightened their awareness, physical and sexual. It had been fun to find out that this bumptious, spoiled, self-righteous American bitch was no different from any of the others.
She was probably hating herself and him at this moment for that momentary lapse. He smiled thinly as he sat up close behind her.
He had judged it with the fine instinct of the gifted philanderer, for it was, of course, a gift. He had read with attention Casanova's memoirs, and there the old rogue had described it precisely. When she is receptive, every woman gives out subtle little signs--breathing, flush of skin, change of pose, tiny body movements, even odor-that very few men can even recognize, let alone interpret. It was a gift only the great lovers possessed. Knowing when to act and how far to push each stage, that was the trick, he told himself.
From where he sat he could see her right cheek and the long dark lashes of the eye. above, even though she was deliberately keeping her head turned away from him now.
She had bound her jet hair into a thick braid that hung down between her shoulder blades. So her neck was exposed, an elegant column that supported the small neat head. Her neck and cheek still flushed with angry arousal beneath skin that was already were darkened by the African sun to a color where she could have modeled for an expensive sun cream in one of the glossy women's magazines.
As he studied her, the flush abated and she regained her composure, but under her thin cotton T-shirt, the nipple on the one pert, almost girlish, breast that he could see was in silhouette. It was still standing out, the size and color of a ripe mulberry, a dark wine color through the thin material. Then it began to shrink and subside; the phenomenon intrigued him, and he laughed again, soundlessly.
"You've given yourself a blinding hard-on," he chuckled. "And you can't even stand the little witch." He switched his attention from her back to the unseen cat in the grass across the river.
It was almost fully dark before they saw the lion again. There was only a fading memory of the sunset on the western horizon, but Sean had positioned the bait and blind so it backlit the scene for them. They heard the grass rustle and stir as the lion stood up, and they leaned forward eagerly. Riccardo lifted the butt stock of the rifle to his shoulder and peered into the long tube of the telescopic sight.
Abruptly the lion reared out of the grass, a great dark, shapeless mass just visible against the pale sky, and they heard the creak of the chain that held the bait as he swung upon it with all his weight, tearing at the carcass as he began to feed.
"Can you see your sights?" Sean asked Riccardo. The lion was making so much noise that he raised his voice to an almost conversational pitch, but Riccardo did not reply. He was moving the long barrel of the rifle in slow circles, trying desperately to pick up the cross hairs of the sight against the last fading glimmer of the sunset.