before he woke and rationality set in. A veritable feast of man sprawled out before her, Chase unknowingly lured her to do things she’d never before done, even with Reginald. She’d placed her hand against his chest and begun to trace it lower before she realized she’d moved.
Horrified, she froze. What was wrong with her? Yes, she was attracted to him. He was the most beautiful man she’d ever seen. What red-blooded woman wouldn’t be?
But she wasn’t like this. Sydney had always been different. Once, only once, had she given in to impulse and let Reginald’s lies persuade her to his bed. And now she carried his child, the baby of another beautiful man who’d broken her heart.
Had she learned nothing from her mistake? Having been a fool once, was she doomed to act foolishly forever?
“Sydney?”
Her breath caught. With a gasp, she removed her hand from him. “Yes?”
“You’re awake,” he said, his voice husky with sleep or, she shivered, desire. His hazel eyes roamed over her, reminding her she was still naked, stretched out seductively, as if she’d been waiting for him to wake and make love to her.
In a way, she had.
Feeling her face heat, she rolled away and grabbed for her clothes. The tattered shorts, once her favorite pair of slacks, were still damp. She pulled them on anyway.
“Yes. The storm woke me,” she said, struggling to yank her mostly dry blouse over her head.
Never taking his eyes from her, he sat up, dragging his hand through his hair. One corner of his mouth quirked in a smile. “Some storm. I’m glad this shelter held.”
Even fully clothed, her heart still raced like a runaway rabbit. She cleared her throat. “So far, so good. Not even a single leak.”
His gaze dropped lower, to her breasts, where her nipples pushed rebelliously against her ragged shirt. He gave a harsh intake of breath, his eyes darkening.
She couldn’t help but wonder if he was as turned on as she.
No way was she finding out. Knowing how volatile the situation could become, she climbed to her feet and crossed her arms.
He tilted his head, squinting up at her. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” Her need still pulsed within her, making her ache. She tucked a wayward strand of hair behind her ear, wishing she could think of something to say, something to diffuse the fierce sexual tension making the air feel so heavy.
Chase sat up, drawing the blanket close and carefully wrapping it around him.
“Sydney, don’t.” Though husky, his voice sounded tight, controlled, much like the man himself most of the time. If not for the hunger in his eyes, she’d think him unaffected. “Don’t try to seduce me.”
Seduce him? If he only knew how badly she wanted to and how hard she’d tried to resist him. She swallowed. “I’m not.”
Narrowing his gaze, he raked his hand through his hair. He looked away and cursed. “I don’t know what it is about you. I even see the promise of sex in your smile.”
“Sex in my smile?” Though she tossed his words back at him, a thrill ran through her at his words. “That sounds lovely, but it’s ridiculous. I’ve done nothing to entice you. I wouldn’t know how! I’ve never tried to seduce anyone in my life.”
He clenched his jaw and got to his feet, keeping the damn blanket snug around his waist. “But you have. Maybe you don’t realize it, but everything about you is a seduction. The way you move, the way you toss your head. Your smile, your voice…” Cursing under his breath, he took a step toward her and stopped, hands clenched at his sides. “You’d tempt a dead man straight into hell.”
“I—”
“I’m not finished. When I first saw you, I wondered. You weren’t Reginald’s usual type. But now I can better understand what the prince saw in you.”
Reginald. Hearing that name was like a dash of cold water. If Chase had wanted to hurt her, he’d succeeded admirably. Together, she and Reginald had created another life, and he’d spurned her. Not just her, but all of it. The man hadn’t wanted his own child. Exactly as her sire hadn’t wanted her.
She should be used to rejection, honestly. But that didn’t stop it from hurting. Hot tears stung the back of her throat. Damn hormones. She turned away, fist to her mouth.
Behind her, Chase snarled. “One mention of Reginald and that’s enough to bring you to tears? Did you truly care for him that much?”
He sounded furious. And hurt. Which was impossible. Either way, Sydney knew she shouldn’t care. Didn’t care. Hell, she wouldn’t care.
The rain had picked up again, mirroring her mood. On the edge of losing her fragile grip on self-control, she didn’t answer. Couldn’t answer, when it came right down to it.
“Who are you, Sydney Conner?” His hoarse voice told her he’d moved up behind her. He touched her shoulder, his hand impossibly gentle, and turned her to face him, pulling her close to his chest. Though she didn’t resist, she let him hold her, keeping herself rigid. Silently, he stroked her hair, while she fought back tears that came for no good reason.
“Go ahead and cry.”
Those four words, muttered against her hair by a man she suspected would rather miss every target on the firing range than soothe a weeping woman, pushed her over the edge.
She cried while he held her, this stranger who wasn’t a stranger, not any longer. Nearly dying in a plane crash and being stuck together on a deserted island had made him feel familiar. Intimately.
Her tears soaked his bare chest. Bare, muscular, hard chest. Dimly, this registered and, as her weeping subsided, she found herself longing to move the hand pressed against him. To splay her fingers, to stroke him slowly, to allow herself to indulge in all that masculinity right there under her fingertips.
His comment about seduction hadn’t been that far off the mark.
Good Lord! Had she truly become her mother? Gone totally over the edge? Though she’d already made one mistake her mother had made, she vowed she wouldn’t make another. If her affair with Reginald had made her this way, she needed to get back to the woman she’d been before.
This didn’t make her desire for him disappear, or even lessen. She still craved his touch, somehow addicted to something she’d never even had.
Hah! If he’d thought she’d been trying to seduce him before, what would he think if she gave in to her irrational need to caress him?
She wouldn’t. She’d made enough mistakes to last her entire twenty-four years, Reginald chief among them. She didn’t need to make one more.
Hiccuping, she sniffed and pushed herself away. “Sorry about that.” She wouldn’t look at him, her feminine vanity not wanting him to see her no doubt bright-red nose and swollen eyes.
He muttered something that sounded like “That’s okay.”
Though
