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That was the sum of Poppy’s experience of a man consumed by guilt, and if she hadn’t been able to help her brother deal with his pain how the hell was she supposed to help Sebastian Reyne shoulder his?
Unless he wanted to use her as a distraction?
Flirt with her, get naked with her.
Humour her.
No real emotional connection beyond blind desire for sexual satisfaction. Would that really be so bad?
Because she had the blind desire part of the equation well and truly covered.
Time to raid the kitchen cupboards and nab a couple of biscuits from the biscuit tin. Not making herself at home in Sebastian’s home, just ensuring she didn’t crash from a mixture of hunger and nerves.
And then came the rumble of the quad bike outside, followed by unhurried footsteps, and Sebastian strode through the door, dominating the space and making it his own.
Which it was.
‘I made more coffee,’ she said, barely resisting the urge to tuck her hands behind her back, guilty-villain style. ‘Stole some biscuits.’
She tried not to get lost in those eyes and that face. Tried very hard to ignore that hard, muscled body so carelessly showcased in castaway clothes.
Tried very hard to play it cool, never mind that her core temperature had just soared.
‘You finished for the day?’ he asked.
‘I can be.’
He came closer, bringing the scent of the sea with him. ‘The guest house is ready for you.’
‘Thank you. But you’re going to have to give me directions.’
‘Why don’t I just show you where it is? Where’s your bag?’
‘By the door.’ She gulped down her coffee, refilled the cup with water and set it in the sink. ‘Can you give me five minutes with the computers?’
‘Are we talking a regular five minutes or the five minutes that magically turns into five hours the minute a computer tragic gets in that room?’
‘I’m talking five regular, round-the-clock minutes,’ she said. ‘Ten at the most.’
‘We’ll see.’ Sebastian headed for the coffee pot and the assessing glance he shot her did absolutely nothing to cool her down.
Resisting the urge to run, Poppy headed for the cave.
She found him ten minutes later, in the garage beneath the house, and followed him back to the quad.
‘How far away is the guest house?’ Colour her ignorant, but she’d assumed that guest house and main house would be within shouting distance of each other as opposed to, say, opposite ends of the island.
‘It’s a twenty-minute walk back down the hill. Half that by quad. The guest house sits halfway between here and the boatshed if it’s orientation you’re after. There’s another quad there that you can use to get around the island. It’s fuelled up and the same as this one. Get on.’
Poppy got on. Left room for him up front, and the ghost of a smile crossed his lips.
‘You’re driving. Move up.’
She moved up, tentatively tucking her coat between her legs. Ladylike not.
But he didn’t seem to notice.
‘Key,’ he said, his forearm brushing her shoulder as he showed her where it was and she turned it as instructed. ‘Foot on the brake.’ She did that too, no brushing against him required. ‘Kill switch on.’ He showed her where it was. ‘Now press the start button.’
The engine roared to life and Sebastian slid onto the quad behind her, no carryall in between them this time, for it was slung over his shoulder and, from the looks of it, that was where it would stay. Poppy glanced at him, glanced down at the seat and Seb’s strong, long thighs, and swallowed hard. She scooted forward to give him more space. He wasn’t a small man, he needed more space.
She needed more space.
She took it slowly down that first rocky, steep bit of track, and she tried to pretend, when his thighs brushed her buttocks, that she’d felt such thighs before and that her heart wasn’t about to burst through her ribcage every time a bump in the track slid her into him just that little bit more.
Five minutes down the track he leaned forward, put his lips to her ear and told her to take the fork to the right.
The guest house they came upon a couple of minutes later was a far friendlier version of the big steel-and-glass house. There was still steel, and there was plenty of glass, but the dimensions were smaller and more inviting, and the steepled roof and the generous front deck filled with an assortment of mesh chairs and a hammock had a simple island charm to it that the sophisticated, sparsely furnished main house lacked.
If Poppy’s legs wobbled ever so slightly as she got off the quad it was his fault not hers, and if she took one look at his back and stumbled and bit her lip as she followed him up the steps, that was undoubtedly his fault too.
The interior of the guest house was dust free and fully furnished. A king-sized bed dressed in delicate white linens. A white gauze mosquito net hanging from a ring screwed into the ceiling. The netting tucked in behind the pillows for now, ready for sorting out later.
It could be whatever you wanted it to be, a bed like that. A pirate ship or a kingdom ruled by a benevolent princess. A kid would have a ball in that bed, and as for an adult, well…
‘What happened to your lip?’ asked Seb abruptly and Poppy stopped staring at the bed and touched her fingers to her bottom lip and then stared at them instead.
‘Nothing,’ she said, for her fingers had come away clean, but his narrowed green gaze seemed fixated on something so she gave her upper lip a once over with her fingers too. ‘Biscuit crumbs?’
‘You’ve bitten it,’ he said gruffly. ‘On the way down.’
‘Oh.’ Well, yes. ‘Only a little.’
Time to cut the tension that whipped through her, and turn away and study the rest of her surroundings rather than him. Poppy didn’t know how to play this game of hyper-awareness between man and woman. She had absolutely no idea what to do next.
There were no curtains on the floor-to-ceiling windows and every window was currently open. Fortunately, the windows were screened. A sucker-footed gecko watched her from his place on the whitewashed wall.
‘They’re harmless,’ said Seb, noting the direction of her gaze. ‘Bathroom and kitchenette are to the rear, your quad’s in the shed out the back and the key’s in it.’ He set her bag down beside the bed. ‘There’s fish curry in the fridge and a microwave to heat it up in. Other food too. Hopefully you’ll find something you like.’
‘Thank you.’ Thank-yous she knew how to do. Polite smiles too. Nervousness—she had that one well and truly covered.
‘There’s no phone in here,’ he said next. ‘But there is a two-way that’ll get you through to the boatshed or the house. If you need to call home, you’ll have to come up to the house and use the sat phone. It works most of the time, but not all of the time.’
‘You really are quite isolated here, aren’t you?’
‘Tom didn’t tell you?’
‘Tom did tell me,’ she murmured wryly. ‘The reality of isolation just didn’t quite sink in.’
‘You get used to it,’ he said. ‘Come up to the house whenever you’re ready in the morning. Just go in. Make yourself at home. I probably won’t be there.’
‘Where will you be?’
‘Fishing. Swimming. Rock climbing. Something.’
‘Uh-huh.’ Man with an almighty need to conquer something. She knew the type. ‘Ah, Mr Reyne?’
‘Seb.’ He waited until he was out of the door before turning back.
Right. Seb. She wasn’t sure she trusted herself to say his name right now without layering it full of lust. ‘There, ah, don’t seem to be any keys to this place.’
‘Yeah, we lost them.’
‘So how do you lock up?’
‘You don’t.’
‘I what?’
‘Let me guess,’ he murmured. ‘You live in an inner-city apartment block surrounded by a million people and you know none of them.’
‘You’re very perceptive,’ she countered lightly. ‘I divide my time between Oxford and Sydney. My father’s based in Hong Kong. I’m very fond of Hong Kong. Plenty of people. Locks too. Keys.’ Not that she wanted to labour the point.
‘Relax, city girl. The doors still lock from the inside. Just make sure they’re not set to lock when you shut them in the morning.
Your stuff will be perfectly safe here, I guarantee it. There’s no one else here.’
No one he knew of.
‘What about pirates? Shipwrecked fishermen? Critters? Blackbeard?’
This earned her a grin, free and clear, and her body responded accordingly. ‘If Blackbeard happens by you give me a yell.’
‘You are too kind.’
‘I know. You got any messages for my brother?’
‘You’re calling Tomas tonight?’
Sebastian’s gaze skittered over her face once more and lingered on her lips. ‘Yes.’
‘Any particular reason why?’
‘Courtesy call.’
‘Oh.’ Poppy eyed him uncertainly. ‘Well, tell him I said thank you for the lend of the island.’
‘Anything else?’
Nothing she could think of.
‘Miss you… Wish you were here…’ he prompted silkily.
‘Oh. That kind of message.’ A message from one lovelorn suitor to another. She had no idea what one would say. ‘Yes.’ She paused, struck by Sebastian’s sudden coiled stillness. ‘Tell him I said hello.’
CHAPTER THREE
SEB ate his seafood curry hot and took his bedtime shower lukewarm and stinging. Give it a few days, a week at the most, two weeks at the outside and mousy, brainy little Poppy West would be off his island and so would he.
Head for the mainland. Take care of some business. He found the shampoo—squirted it straight from the bottle onto his hair. Maybe he’d touch base with his crew and then go and lose himself in a woman for a while.
A savvy, experienced, blue-eyed blonde who knew how the game was played and wouldn’t expect a damn thing of him other than satisfaction at the time.
Not Poppy West, she of the golden-toffee tresses, cornflower-blue eyes and decidedly enigmatic ways.
Not her.
Seb closed his eyes and scrubbed at his hair, willing his body not to stir, but the more he willed it, the more contrary his body got.
He soaped his chest, took a scratchy sea sponge to his arms.
She’d be pliant in bed; maybe even a little inexperienced.
Deeply, openly responsive.
Seb cursed, a word that had been on his mind all day.
Even if she didn’t have a thing for Tomas, even if Tom had no interest in her, it would be very poor form to mess around with his brother’s business partner.
Tomas, who’d excelled at everything, including being a big brother. Pulled Seb out of the pit when his first girlfriend had dumped him for a blue-blooded golden boy. Talked Seb off an oil platform and into an engineering degree. Encouraged Seb’s idiot idea of putting together some sort of crack rigging crew. Troubleshoot anything that gushed or burned and cap it, bring it back under control—those were the jobs Seb and his crew took on. Proving his worth, over and over, until finally he’d believed in himself and the things he could deliver. Not as clever as Tomas. Not as polished or urbane, but worth something nonetheless.
Until one crucial split-second decision had cost one man his life and another his hearing.
Seb’s crew. Seb’s responsibility.
He wanted a drink.
He wanted his friend back.
And in true self-destructive, must-compete style, he wanted his brother’s girl.
Seb rinsed off, cut the water and walked naked through to his bedroom. He found a towel, then a pair of loose cotton pyjama bottoms.
He headed for the office and did his best to ignore the faint floral scent that hung in the air there. And then he picked up the phone and called Tom.
‘I got your parcel,’ he said when Tom answered. ‘What the hell is she doing here?’ Besides torturing him with her nearness.
‘Working,’ said Tom. ‘At least, that’s the assumption. Why? What is she doing there?’
