It wasn’t like I had never seen a half-naked man before. All right, so most of the ones I’d seen had been made of marble and placed on pedestals in art museums, but so what? I knew pretty much what the male chest looked like. From some of the racier pieces I even had a pretty good idea of what was going on below the waistline.

Still…

None of that could have prepared me for this.

All those other sculptures had been made out of simple, soft marble. This one was made out of granite from the very centre of the earth. All those other sculptures only depicted heroes, kings, or paltry gods. This one depicted Rikkard Ambrose, in the flesh. And do you know what the best thing was?

Yep. It was alive.

The granite statue shifted, the perfect muscles in its back flexing with every movement. It - he - cupped his hands together and gathered up some of the clear, cool water of the pool. In a move so fast my eyes could hardly track it, his hands came up and splashed the water into his face. Droplets ran down his neck, over his broad, strong shoulders and down over his back. They twinkled on his skin like diamonds, calling me forward, begging to be touched.

I should go. I should definitely go. I should not be watching this.

Are you nuts? Of course you should! This is better than a week’s worth of solid chocolate! Who knew? Men are useful for something after all.

For watching them naked? No! No, no, no! That was not feministic!

Why not? They’ve been using and objectifying us poor women for a few thousand years. It’s time we got a bit of our own back, don’t you think?

No! I did most certainly not think that!

Are you sure?

Yes! Yes, absolutely sure! I should leave now. I should leave right away.

Then why aren’t your feet moving?

Damn inner voice and her logical arguments! Why couldn’t she just shut up and go away for once?

Because I’m too busy watching those delicious muscles flex. Yummy!

Oh, bloody hell! I should leave! I really should! It was just…the sight of Mr Ambrose standing there, water droplets running down his broad, bared back, the soaked cloth of his trousers clinging tightly to body parts I didn’t even dare name, for fear of fainting - it was something you could not turn away from. Not if you were female and under the age of ninety-nine.

But I couldn’t just stay here watching, could I? If I wasn’t going to go, I should at least make my presence known, right? Standing here behind the rock was just so…

…the best bloody experience of your life?

No, no, nononono!

All right, being pressed up against a tree with his hands all over you and his lips devouring yours was the best. But this is a close second.

No! Shut up shut up shut up!

And I did shut up. Both my conscience and my seductive inner voice, and any other part of me that might have had something to say on the matter. They all shut up, because at that very moment, Mr Rikkard Ambrose took a step back, right into the waterfall.

My breath caught.

Where before there had only been a few single, solitary droplets running over his granite skin, there now was a shower of diamonds raining down upon him. Never in my life had I seen anything so magnificent. That was, until a second later, when he raised one of his arms and stretched, his biceps flexing, gleaming with sweat and sparkling water in the sunlight.

For a moment, standing there motionless, his fist raised into the air, he looked like some hero of old, triumphing over an ancient enemy. Then he lowered his arm again and once more looked like what he was: an arrogant, miserly son of a bachelor with a heart of stone and a body of even harder stone, perfectly sculpted to the last detail. He raised his other arm to stretch, and water droplets flew everywhere, surrounding the king of miserdom with a glowing halo of diamond.

Go on! Reach out! Touch him!

I just stood there, staring, behind the rock. Even if I’d had the willpower, I wouldn’t have dared to move a muscle.

God! Get a grip, Lilly! Preferably on him, below the waistline!

A shiver ran down my spine - a shiver of need and want and must-have-right-now-or-else! This truly was better than the first time I had tasted solid chocolate. The chocolate had melted like heaven on my tongue. But if I were to taste him, take him, I knew it would be like heaven, and still he wouldn’t melt. He would be there for another trip to cloud nine, and another, and another. My eyes bored into his back, devouring him with my hungry gaze.

I had to stop this. This was wrong. Profoundly wrong, and unfeminist. But I was like an addict sucking on an opium pipe, desperate for more. What to do? Damnit, what to do?

Stay!

No. I had to go, I had to…

Stay!

I had to…I…had…to…

Taking up handfuls of water, Mr Ambrose began stroking his body. Well, I guess he was rubbing the dirt off, but it looked like stroking to my over-heated, overactive mind. The voice of my conscience gave a desperate squeak and then went silent forever. I stayed in hiding, my eyes pinned to the delicious sight in front of me, my hands clutching the rock for support.

I was staying to watch.

I was staying in hiding, and I was going to watch until Mr Rikkard Ambrose had cleaned every last morsel of dirt from his smooth granite skin. What was the harm? I was safely hidden behind the rock, right? He would never know.

I should have known better. This was Rikkard Ambrose - the man who could smell money a mile away, the man who walked through the jungle as if he owned it, and had more eyes and ears than I had ambitions.

‘Why don’t you come out from behind that rock?’

I sucked in a breath. His voice was as cold as midnight moonlight in the arctic. My fingers dug into the rock painfully hard.

Calm down! He can’t know it’s you! He’s just guessing!

‘Well, Mr Linton? What are you waiting for?’

Damn and blast!

I didn’t move.

But he did.

Slowly, so slowly I thought I could almost hear the stone of his bones grating against each other, he turned around, his shirt still clutched in one powerful fist.

I felt my knees go weak.

Mr Rikkard Ambrose from behind was a sight you could never forget. But Mr Rikkard Ambrose from the front? He was more than unforgettable. He was unforgivable. The moment you clapped eyes on him, you would feel honour-bound to your fellow females to hunt down and kill any deity who had dared create anything that male, perfect and irresistible. It was simply not fair! It was inexcusable, a mortal sin no woman could forgive, unless…

…unless, of course, this man could be hers, and hers alone.

Now you’re talking!

For the first time in a very long time, my inner voice and I were in complete agreement. Both she and I were speechless from awe as my eyes raked the perfect, chiselled statue that was Rikkard Ambrose. His broad, hard chest, the valleys and ridges of his abdomen - all was as smooth and hard as diamond, and just as impenetrable and unmoving. The only sign that there was life underneath the shell of smooth stone was a light trail of hair, rising up to his navel from underneath his trousers, from the place where…

All right, Lilly, best stop thinking there, if you want to stay upright and conscious! One step after another!

With difficulty, I raised my eyes from his body to his face, and saw that I had been mistaken. The trail of hair was not his only sign of life. There also were his eyes, roiling with a dark storm of epic proportions, promising to swallow me whole.

‘I cannot help but notice,’ he said in a voice as deadly as a boa constrictor, ‘that you are still behind that rock, Mr Linton.’

I nodded, unable to form a single syllable. I didn’t know whether he even saw it from where he stood. The only thing he could see of me was probably one wide eye and a few wild strands of hair. Whereas what I could see of him…

My thoughts ran away and started frolicking.

Mr Ambrose fixed those dark, sea-coloured eyes of his on mine. They bored into me with the force of a thousand crashing icebergs.

‘Come!’ he commanded.

As if pulled by invisible puppet strings, my feet started to move. Slowly, hesitantly, I stepped out from behind the rock, clutching my sodden chemise to me. It didn’t do much in the way of concealment.

‘Closer!’

I took another hesitant step forward. My eyes devoured every inch of him.

‘How long have you been standing there, watching me, Mr Linton?’

Suddenly, I found a small smile playing around the corners of my mouth. ‘Not nearly long enough.’

He smiled no answering smile - but the storm clouds in his eyes started swirling, forming a hurricane.

‘Is that so, Mr Linton?’

‘Indeed it is, Sir.’

I took another step forward, without waiting to be invited. He shifted, his muscles tightening, his eyes narrowing infinitesimally.

‘And why in Mammon’s name are you here at all? Is it a habit of yours to watch half-naked gentlemen bathing?’

‘Not yet. But I might take it up in the future. It’s quite…interesting.’

A growl ripped through the air. I looked around, panicking, trying to make out the panther or tiger - until I realised the growl was coming from Mr Ambrose’s throat.

‘Answer my question, Mr Linton! What are you doing here?’

I took another step forward, my chin rising. I didn’t like his tone! Not one bit!

‘I came here to bathe! The old lady sent me down here and told me-’

‘She did what?’

I blinked at him, taken aback by the vehemence in his voice. ‘I told you. She sent me down here and told me I could shower under the waterfall. She told me I wouldn’t be disturbed.’

‘That old witch!’

‘Witch?’ I stared at him, nonplussed. ‘Why? What’s wrong with telling me I could shower here in peace?’

‘Nothing.’ His eyes, for the very first time, left mine and slid over me. I could feel his gaze, like a sweet, cold finger gliding over me, touching every inch of my skin. ‘Except she told me the exact same thing when she sent me down here not five minutes ago.’

‘Oh.’

Mr Ambrose’s left little finger twitched - not once, or twice, but three times. ‘That conniving little old…! When I next see her, she is going to regret this.’

Funnily enough, though, it didn’t seem as though he particularly regretted it. His eyes were still fastened to me, and deep down in their unfathomable deaths, I could see something wild. Something hungry. Something that didn’t regret coming here at all.

‘Well…’ I licked my lips. ‘I guess one of us should probably go.’

I didn’t move.

‘Yes,’ he agreed after a while. ‘Someone should.’

He didn’t move either.

‘Well, go on then!’ I told him.

His dark eyes flashed. ‘What? I have no intention of leaving!’

‘I was here first!’

‘And I outrank you, Mr Linton.’

‘Ladies first, Sir, remember?’

‘And do you remember, Mr Linton, that while you work for me, you are not in fact a lady?’

‘Really?’ Without warning, I lowered my arms from around my body, for the first time giving him a full few of me in my wet chemise. ‘Are you sure about that?’

‘Gnk.’

‘Sorry Sir? What was that?’

He cleared his throat.

‘Go! Go, Mr Linton! That is an order!’

‘Oh, an order? Well, all right, then.’

I took a step towards him.

‘I said go, Mr Linton!’

Another step.

‘I am going, Mr Ambrose, Sir.’

‘I meant away, not towards me!’

‘Oh, did you?’ I took another step forward, moving sinuously through the water, like a siren on the prowl. He was almost within reach now. ‘What a shame that you didn’t express your original instructions more precisely.’

‘Mr Linton, I’m warning you! Be careful or-’

My finger brushed his lips.