The blanket is whipped from me. He undoes the life preserver, ignoring my flailing arms as I reach out and claw at him, telling him to leave me alone. I’m not that cold. I’m fine. “I just need to sleep,” I tell him, yawning loudly. “Just let me sleep.”
“Stay with me,” he replies, ripping open my tee-shirt, tossing the shredded sections over his shoulder. “Just hang on.” He pushes my shoulder up, reaching under me, unhooking my bra, pulling it off me in seconds. I don’t care anymore. I just need to sleep. My eyes close and I feel nothing at all.
He shakes my shoulders. “Don’t go to sleep, Anna. Stay awake, you hear me.”
“No, don’t wanna.”
He shakes me again. “Stay awake or I’ll spank you.”
That makes my eyes open. I don’t want his hand on my ass again, not now, not when I’m about to sleep. No, wait, that doesn’t make sense. What am I doing?
I look up at him. He’s going to spank me. He’s undoing my jeans, yanking them down my legs, taking my panties with them. “Get off.” I try to kick him but my knees won’t move. Why is that?
“I’m cold,” I say as he gets the jeans off my ankles. “I’m so cold.”
“I know,” he replies. “Just hang on.” As he’s talking, he’s wrapping a blanket around me, adding a second a moment later. Only my feet are sticking out and then he’s got a towel around them, knotting it in place. He drapes another over my head and tucks it into the blanket, just leaving my face exposed.
“Eat this.” He crams something sweet into my mouth. I chew but it’s not easy to swallow.
“What was that?” I ask.
“Candy to keep you going until we get back. I’ve no hot drink to give you but we’ll be there in a couple of minutes. Try to stay awake.” He turns to the front of the boat. “I’ll get you back as fast as I can.”
“Don’t want to go back,” I say, yawning again. “Want to go home.”
“You are going home, Anna. Just hold on, all right.”
The boat lurches forward, turning to the left, my body rolling with the momentum, shifting against the side, the blankets shifting but not loosening. The chattering in my teeth slows to a stop. The fog around my head lifts a little, enough for me to work out what’s going on.
I can’t believe I wanted to sleep. I’m wide awake. My limbs are burning with cold. I almost drowned. Why did he say he was going to spank me? Is he that obsessed with it that even as I almost freeze, he taunts me?
“You said you were going to spank me,” I say to him. “Why did you say that?”
He glances back at me. “To keep you awake. Keep talking to me, Anna. Try not to sleep.”
“Talk about what?”
“Anything. What’s the plan for the Gorgosaurus?”
“Go to the museum by the college. They’re going to raise the funds to keep it. Stop it going to auction, if they can fight the finance department.”
“Fight them, why?”
“You wouldn’t be interested.”
“Tell me.”
“It’s worth about eight million on the open market. The college would get to keep the money. George wants to keep it for the museum but finance want to auction it off.”
“Who’s George?”
“George Bulla, my old professor. He’s the one that funded the dig for us, paid for it out of his own pocket, hired me and Fleur.”
“That your friend?”
“Fleur? Yeah, God, I bet she’s worried about me.”
“How long you known Fleur? Anna!”