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Her lush lips were soft and parted now, and a delicate pulse beat at the base of her throat. I wonder what that pulse would feel like against my tongue? Gabriel thought.
Wonder what she’d be like in bed?
“Hello?” she cooed. “Are you listening?”
He grunted, drove a hand through his hair. “Sure. Delicious. No control.”
She nodded, then winced and touched her head. “You’re all fired up, and obviously capable, but I can’t have you putting your back out.” She pushed up again. “And, seeing I have final say in the matter—”
“Absolutely you have a say.” He tipped her back down. “You can say, Yes, sir.”
Her mouth dropped open and a mew of outrage escaped.
Doubly determined, she pushed up again. “I didn’t realise I’d joined the army.”
“I’ll count to three,” he warned, half hoping she’d defy him.
She didn’t disappoint. “I’m more than capable of making my own decisions, thank you very much.”
Done with words, he pointed at the ground. When her face hardened with a you-can’t-make-me look, his jaw shifted. He admired spunk, but only one person was in charge here and it was time she learned who that was.
In one smooth, purposeful movement, he angled closer, crowding her back as he bent forward until, eyes gone wide, she lay horizontal again. By the time he stopped crowding, his head was slanted over hers and their mouths all but touched.
His gaze licked her lips as he grinned.
“You were saying?”
Chapter Two
STARING into the wicked eyes of a beast, Nina kept still and swallowed hard.
There she’d been, wondering if she could possibly get out of that fix alive, then pow! So broad through the chest, so capable and infuriatingly confident, this superhero type showed up out of nowhere.
But she was confused. Where did he fit on her character chart? Was this man exceptionally good, or primarily perfectly bad?
Anyone with half a brain and a pair of scales must see he couldn’t carry her all the way back to the resort. Nevertheless, he hadn’t merely dismissed her suggestions. He’d gone so far as to pin her body beneath his to get his point across.
She was trapped. She should be fuming!
Instead her nerve-endings simmered with indisputable awareness, and her fuzzy brain kept wondering how well his lips might fit closed over hers.
“You’re quiet,” he noted, his mouth a hair’s breadth from hers.
Wondering if he might manacle her wrists next—and not wholly against the idea—she squirmed. “I’m thinking.”
“About behaving, I hope.”
His voice was rough, dangerously deep, and the whisper of his breath against her lips felt far less invasive than it ought to.
“Do I need to point out,” she said, “that I’m not the one behaving badly?”
“Won’t make a difference. If I let you have your way, you could do yourself another injury.” Wet dark hair flopped over his brow when he cocked his head. “Or would you rather I ignore the fact you might have concussion?”
“I’d rather you quit with the caveman mentality.”
He growled and leaned a smidge closer. “You’re only alive because that caveman mentality got me to you before the sharks tucked in for dinner.”
She held her breath while her heart thumped high in her chest.
Oh, crap. She hated to admit it, but his brutish logic made sense. He would never convince her he could carry her all the way back to the resort, but her head did feel light. If she stood up now, tried to walk, she might very well fall over. Maybe even knock herself out a second time. Like it or not, in a roughish kind of way, he was still rescuing her—protecting her—this time from herself.
She issued a reluctant nod and, fire fading from his eyes, he curled away.
As he repositioned himself beside her, the sinking sun fell behind his head, bathing his splendid form in a golden-rose halo. Nina squeezed her eyes shut, then looked again. He wasn’t an angel. She was certain of that now. And yet his presence, this scene, everything about this time here with him seemed surreal. Make-believe.
Maybe she was still unconscious? Maybe her lungs were filled with water and she’d hallucinated all this while succumbing to the final phase of drowning? Was she experiencing some incredible dream on her way to the hereafter? That wasn’t so unlikely. She’d heard stories before.
Was any of this real?
Determined to find out, she reached and touched his pec, an inch above that small flat nipple. Her fingertip sizzled like creamy butter on a hotplate, at the same time as her centre glowed and blood tingled with fresh life. As her fingers fanned over the black, crisp hair, bolts of crackling electricity ripped through her veins. His flesh was so firm, so masculine and—
She stopped.
Inched her gaze up.
He was looking down his aquiline nose at her fingers—which were kneading the warm cushioned steel as if they belonged there.
Tilting his cleft chin, he raised a dark brow and his entrancing eyes met hers.
“Let me know when it’s my turn.”
She snatched her hand away. Her breathing was all over the place again and her face was flaming. Simply put, she wanted to die.
“I was just…er…just making sure they were—I mean, that you were—” Embarrassed beyond words, she spat out the rest. “I was making sure you were real.”
“Oh, is that what you were doing?”
His lopsided grin drew a crease down one side of that highly kissable mouth. And his eyes…
They were so clear and bright and laughing.
Laughing at her.
She understood why. She was acting like a loon. A suspicious, ungrateful, concussed, groping loon.
But then his gaze sharpened and his expression changed.
“Are you cold?” he asked, edging close again.
“I don’t think so.” But that noise…Were her teeth chattering? Checking out the clouds building to black overhead, she shivered and instinctively hugged herself. “I am kind of shaky.”
A line cut between his brows and he cupped her chin, turned her head gently one way then the next. His gaze intensified, and for a giddy moment Nina imagined she’d fallen head-first into those amazing ice-blue eyes. When he checked her pulse against his platinum Omega, she relented and played compliant patient. After six weeks of serving other people’s every whim, there was part of her that needed this one-on-one attention, mandatory though the attention might be.
“What’s the verdict, Doc?” Did he want her to open her mouth and say ah?
Her answer came when he rolled his shoulders back and peeled off his shirt. Her eyes popped out of her head. Mamma mia. What a specimen.
“You need to be kept warm,” he told her, stripping a sleeve off one dynamite arm and then the other.
“Thanks,” she managed to wheeze, “but I don’t think a wet shirt will cut it.”
“Body heat will.”
“Y-you’re going to hold me?”
He blindly tossed the shirt on a bush, then loomed over her, the chiselled planes of his face unforgivably close. “Any objection?”
Her gaze zeroed in on his mouth, on the dusky pink of his full bottom lip, and her pelvic floor muscles squeezed.
She’d tried to refuse him before and her opposition had got her nowhere. If anything, being obstinate had made matters worse. An air of entitlement, albeit tempered by GQ looks and bad-boy charm, was a quality that stuck in her craw. She’d kow-towed to similar sorts too often these past weeks…people who would once have classed her as their equal.
All that aside, this guy was no idiot. If he said she needed to be held—hell, he was probably right. And if she must be gathered up against some unknown body…heck, it might as well be his.
When she mustered a haughty look and shrugged one shoulder, he scooped an arm beneath her neck.
“Tell me if I hurt you,” he said, careful of her bump and her foot as he lay beside her.
He drew her close until her ear rested on the plateau of flesh and muscle below his collarbone. Despite her irritation, she almost sighed when one iron-warm palm splayed over the small of her back, pressing her deftly against his powerhouse length.
His breath brushed her ear. “How’s that?”
She could be smarmy, could fib and say she was uncomfortable; she was in a way—only because he had, indeed, been right. It seemed those remarkable arms gathering her near were exactly what her traumatised body had needed.
Comfort…a masculine mountain of it.
She buried her nose in his chest and mumbled, “Better.”
She imagined his grin. “Good.”
He was damp but hot, as if a furnace were blazing away beneath the skin, and when she closed her eyes everything but the impression of security and strength faded from mind. His earthy scent, mixed with a lingering hint of aftershave or soap, burrowed into her pores and played havoc with her rag-taggle reason.
This felt nice. He felt nice. Nice and strong and not-so-plain-or-simple sexy.
She inwardly sighed.
Oh, why not admit it? The throb in the base of her belly wasn’t a consequence of relief or gratitude, or even exasperation. It was desire—the forbidden, molten lava kind that blocked out other stimuli, heightened each sense and alerted every fibre. It was the kind of intense physical attraction that had her half convinced she needed to dissolve into this man right here, right now, or simply cease to be.
Crazy.
Clearly the knock on her head had bumped the arousal lever in her brain up to high. Every synapse seemed to have direct dial to the pulse ticking merrily away between her thighs. Every nerve-ending was wired to zap the burning tips of her breasts. All of which made her horribly nervous.
And terribly curious.
They were strangers, brought together by near tragedy. She was a level-headed woman who, admittedly, hadn’t had a man in a while. A good while. And certainly never one like this. But her urge to gaze up, look into those incredible eyes and offer him her lips…
It was wrong. Totally off beam.
Wasn’t it?
A moment ago his bedraggled kitten had wanted to know if this was real. Now Gabriel wondered too. He hadn’t peeled off his shirt and drawn her close for any reason other than her shaking. She needed to be kept warm.
Sure, he was benefiting too. Lying on this cushiony spread of sandy grass and listening to the rhythmic wash of waves gave him a chance to recuperate. His system needed a break. Only…
He didn’t feel all that relaxed.
His body was a simmering mass of anticipation. His heartbeat was a booming bass beat in his ears. Those symptoms weren’t a consequence of exertion any more than the ambitious tightening in his groin, or the groan of awareness building like thermal movement deep in his chest.
He was a man who lived well—the finest food and accommodation, state-of-the-art high-powered cars. But holding a beautiful woman was on a shelf all its own. She seemed to be on a shelf all her own.
He was no stranger to sex. Slow sex, hot sex—wild sex even better. But, no matter how stimulating the company, he’d never needed to worry about maintaining a certain level of control. He never truly lost himself in the moment. And yet the desire rippling through his veins now was distinct. Unique.
Disturbing.
It had to be the setting, the extraordinary circumstances, but it was all he could do not to tug this woman’s supple curves closer, coax her shapely hips nearer, tilt her chin higher and kiss her.
Hard.
Normally he knew when a woman was interested too. A lidded look. An arched brow. A sensual smile when she caught his gaze and held it. That kind of nonverbal communication had been perfected by nature over eons to ensure the survival of the species. I’m available. Me too. No genius there.
But, lying beneath this palm tree with Miz Crusoe nestled alongside him, he was stumped. She’d been grateful, stubborn, teasing, and finally accepting. It couldn’t be his imagination that she was enjoying this contact as much as he was.
So where did pumped-up high-stakes drama end, and good old-fashioned foreplay with an attractive, might-as-well-be-naked woman begin? If he rolled more towards her, how would she react? With outrage, as she’d done earlier, before he’d flattened her against the ground to make sure she wouldn’t hurt herself? Or would her gaze become heavy with an I-feel-it-too glow?
When she gave a violent shiver, the choice was made for him. Before she trembled a second time Gabriel held her more firmly, grazing a warming palm up and down her chilled arm.
After a moment she looked up, and her full lips twitched. “You must think I’m horrible.”
He grinned. “Worse than Godzilla and the giant Powder Puff man combined.”
Her perfect smile fanned wider before she sobered. “While I can’t condone all your tactics, I truly am grateful. For everything. You’re right. I’d have been fish food if you hadn’t come along when you did.”
“I’m glad I was able to help.” More than she’d ever know. “How’s your foot?”
Her leg moved and she flinched. “Hurts a little.”
“We ought to get moving before the pain gets worse.”
She hummed out an affirmation, but then only laid her cheek back upon his chest.
