Part Three~~Fate

Fear made Jonell's throat dry, she had yet to see Howard. She was beginning to think that she should turn back, to the safety of the camp.
Then the moonlight revealed Howard's muscled body through a break in the trees, where he was sitting beside the river, seemingly in deep thought.
Jonell's pulse began to race, wondering if Howard could possibly be thinking about her. Could he have wished her there?
She felt foolish for allowing her fantasies to continue causing her to believe the impossible. Just because she had experienced strange, sensual dreams about a man, she could not keep allowing herself to believe that Howard was the man of her midnight dreams. That was not possible, and she must stop thinking that it was!
Yet she could not help walking toward him, her heart pounding harder with each step she took closer to him. Nothing less than a bolt of lighting striking her dead would prevent her from going to him to talk and to...
She jumped when Howard sprang suddenly to his feet. His lips parted and his eyes widened when he found Jonell standing there frozen, it seemed, to the ground as she gazed with startled eyes up to him.
His heart hammered wildly against his ribs, finding her even more intriguingly beautiful beneath the moonlight. He gazed at the magnificent lines of her body as the wind pressed her clothes tightly against her body, then watched the wind pushing the dark cloud of her hair back from the finely cut lines of her face. He desired her as he had never desired any other woman.
Jonell could feel his eyes on her, as though he were branding her as his, and blushed beneath his gaze. She did not look away. She held her chin high and squared her shoulders even more, which made the swell of her breasts even more pronounced.
"I did not mean to disturb your moments alone," Jonell finally said, her words seeming to come in a mad rush.
"I must return to my tent," she said.
She started to run away but was stopped abruptly by a firm grip on her wrist. Her knees weakened, and her heart seemed to stand still for a moment. She turned slowly around and gazed into Howard's dark eyes as they stood facing each other in the moonlight, her heart now racing out of control.
"Why did you stop me?" Jonell asked.
" Stay with me tonight by the river," he said. "You are lovely, so very lovely. Let me hold you. Let me kiss you."
Stunned and trilled at the same moment by his sudden decision to bring more into their relationship than just the talk of butterflies, Jonell felt dizzied from the passion his suggestion evoked within her. She folded without hesitation into his arms. They kissed.