as dry as parchment, her heart skipped frantically in her chest.
She should not be here.
She should not be spying on a man, a nude man, who was unaware of being watched.
But she simply could not stop.
The last time she’d seen flesh this magnificent had been at Lord Ladbrooke’s stables and her nostrils flared as she remembered how all that leashed power had felt beneath her jodhpurs as she’d straddled and then ridden the Arabian beauty bareback.
Much to her aunt’s chagrin.
Lord alone knew what she’d do now witnessing Mary’s scandalous behaviour. There’d be smelling salts for sure.
But, alas, Mary could not take her eyes off the man.
Steam still rose in wisps around his calves as he stood waiting for the excess water to run off. She held her breath as her gaze roamed over the board-taut planes of his shoulders, obscured towards the middle by sleek wet strips of dark hair. Water trekked from the dripping ends and she followed the path of one errant droplet, gleaming in the light, as it slid down the furrow of his spine nestled between the well-defined muscles either side.
She lost it in shadow as it entered the dip of his back, bracketed by enticing hollows, but her eyes roamed south regardless to the rise of his buttocks. Two firm slabs of muscle, potently male even in his relaxed state, greeted her.
Her gaze was drawn to the left where an imperfection snagged her attention. There, in the centre of his left buttock, lay a large smooth brown birthmark.
It was utterly fascinating and Mary stared at it open-mouthed. It was a perfect circle as if some lover, for he looked to be a man who took lovers, had drawn it deliberately to brand him.
Mary’s cheeks flamed at the risqué image and she felt the roughness of her breath as it quickened in her lungs.
Just when she thought he’d turned to stone he turned slightly, affording Mary a different view. Her gaze brushed along the flare of a bicep, the jut of a masculine hip, which seemed as savage as it did graceful, and the perfect delineation of a meaty quadricep that seemed to vibrate with barely leashed power.
And then there was his...
Mary swallowed. She had seen illustrations of the nude male anatomy in obscure texts in her uncle’s library when she’d been fifteen but they hadn’t managed to capture the sheer beauty of the real thing. The long elegant line of the male member in all its potency was a sight to behold.
It was more elongated and the girth more significant than she’d ever imagined. The curls at its base more enticing.
How magnificent would it look standing out proud as she’d seen on the midnight Arabian?
Mary felt a strange sensation take root deep inside her.
How on earth did it fit?
Captain Ramirez suddenly reached for a nearby towel, covering himself as he stepped out of the bath, his fascinating birthmark the last thing she saw before everything was obscured. Just as quickly he’d padded over to the door that led to his private bedchamber and disappeared through it.
Mary let out the breath she’d been holding. It stuttered noisily into the air around her. She knew she should move but she was utterly incapable.
Until now she’d assumed that pirates didn’t bathe.
She would be grateful until the day she died that Captain Vasco Ramirez had shattered that rather high-handed illusion.
Vasco was breathing rather heavily himself as he shut the door to his bedchamber, leaning against it, his long sable lashes covering the smoulder in his devil blue eyes. Ever since he’d seen Lady Mary in the looking glass peeking out from behind the curtains he’d been determined to shock her.
But he hadn’t been prepared for her thorough appreciation. Nor for his completely involuntary reaction to her fascinated scrutiny.
His fancy did not usually involve gently bred ladies but he’d seen those flared nostrils, heard that muffled gasp.
Maybe beneath all those prim petticoats and haughty eyes beat a passionate heart. Maybe she wasn’t as indifferent to him as her demeanour suggested.
Maybe she could be persuaded to make this voyage a lot more bearable for both of them?
RICK shut the book as he finished chapter two.
Again.
He could hear Stella moving around above him and knew he had to get out of bed and get under way but he wasn’t sure he could look her in the eye this morning.
And—he looked down at the tented sheet—he needed a little time to compose himself...
He ran his fingers over the glossy cover of Pleasure Hunt, the metallic letters boldly pronouncing her name—Stella Mills.
This was not the Stella Mills he knew.
What on earth had happened to her? The Stella who had played mermaid and pirates? Who liked to snorkel and scuba dive? Who liked to read and watch the stars at night? The Stella who hated carrots and could almost hold her breath as long as he could?
The one who had been devastated when her parents had divorced and had made him promise that whatever happened in their lives they would always be friends.
Of course that Stella had been ten years old.
Just the way he liked her.
Because otherwise he had to think of her as a very different Stella.
A grown-up Stella. Who got engaged.
Who had sex.
Who was twenty-seven and not the virgin her father had hoped she would be for ever.
Not if Pleasure Hunt was anything to go by anyway.
God, she probably didn’t even hate carrots any more.
Rick threw the covers off. This was ridiculous. And not helping his situation down below.
He cut straight to the crux of the issue, or one aspect of it anyway.
She was not Lady Mary.
He let it reverberate around his head for good measure. Lady Mary was a character she’d made up. In that vivid, hot, lustrous, dirty—God, so dirty—imagination of hers.
Just because Vasco was him, didn’t mean that Lady Mary was her.
It didn’t mean she’d been fantasising about him sexually. Or that she’d put herself into a character whose lust for his character bordered on pornographic obsession.
That was just plain crazy.
There was nothing remotely similar about Lady Mary and Stella—nothing.
So he needed to get over himself.
He
