He was dressed, or that part of him which caused her the most problems was modestly covered at least. But as for the rest of him—
Water ran off his dark hair down his face to his shoulders. The hair on his chest lay matted in thick coils that arrowed down to below his waist. She hadn’t noticed the chest hair the last time—hadn’t noticed the six-pack firmness of his abdomen. He was lean and he was tight and he was honed to perfection, and she wished she—
‘You can go past. I won’t bite,’ the man himself murmured flatly, letting her know that he had seen her standing here.
Fingers curling into two fists at her sides, Eve released a soft curse beneath her breath. I hate him, she told herself. I really hate him for catching me doing this, not once but twice!
‘Actually I quite like the view,’ she returned, determined not to let him embarrass her a second time. ‘You strip down quite nicely for an Englishman.’
More muscles flexed; Eve’s lungs stopped working. She wished she understood this fascination she had for his body, but she didn’t. She could not even say that he possessed the best body she had ever seen—mainly because it was the only one she had seen in its full and flagrant entirety. That, she decided, had to be the cause of this wicked fascination she had for Ethan Hayes. It fizzed through her veins like a champagne cocktail, stripped her mouth of moisture like crisp dry wine. Tantalising, in other words. The man was a stiff-necked, supercritical, overbearing boor, yet inside she fluttered like a love-struck teenager every time she saw him.
The shower was turned off. He threw one of those cold-eyed looks at her then slid it away without saying a word. He was going to do his usual thing and walk away as if she didn’t exist, Eve realised, and suddenly she was determined to break that arrogant habit for good!
‘You’ve missed a bit,’ she informed him.
He turned a second look on her. Looks like that could kill, Eve thought as, with a scrupulously bland expression, she pointed to the back of his legs where beautifully pronounced calf muscles were still peppered with fine granules of sand.
Still without saying a word he turned on the shower again. A sudden urge to laugh brought Eve’s ready sense of humour into play and she decided to have a bit of fun at the stuffy Ethan Hayes’ expense.
‘Jack just warned me off falling for you,’ she announced, watching him wash the sand off his legs. ‘He thinks you’re dangerous. The eat-them-for-a snack-as-you-walk-out-of-the-door kind of man.’
‘Wise man, Jack.’ She thought she heard him mutter over the splash of water, but she couldn’t be sure.
‘I laughed because I thought it was so funny,’ she went on. ‘I mean—we both know you’re too much the English gentleman to do anything so crass as to love them and leave them without a backward glance.’
It was not a compliment and Ethan didn’t take it as one. ‘You keep taking a dig at my Englishness, but you’re half English yourself,’ he pointed out.
‘I know.’ Eve sighed with mocking tragedy. ‘It worries the Greek in me sometimes that I could end up falling for a die-hard English stuffed-shirt.’
‘Fate worse than death.’
‘Yes.’
He switched the shower off again and Eve rediscovered her fascination with his body as he turned to recover his wet tee shirt; muscles wrapped in rich brown flesh rippled in the red glow of the sunlight, droplets of water clung to the hairs on his chest.
Ethan turned to catch her staring. The prickling sensation between his thighs warned him that he had better get away from here before he embarrassed himself again. Yet he didn’t move, couldn’t seem to manage the simple act. His senses were too busy drinking in what his eyes were showing him. He liked the way she was wearing her hair twisted cheekily up on her head with a hibiscus flower helping to hold it in place. He liked what the pink dress did for her figure and the slender length and shape of her legs. And he liked her mouth; it was heart-shaped—small with a natural provocative yen to pout. He liked her smooth golden skin, her cute little nose, and those eyes that had a way of looking at him as if she…
Go away, Eve, he wanted to say to her. Instead he dragged his eyes away, and looked for something thoroughly innocuous to say. ‘I thought you were all off to a party this evening.’ Flat-voiced, level-toned, he’d thought he’d hit innocuous perfectly.
But Eve clearly didn’t. She stiffened up as if he had just insulted her. ‘Oh, do let’s be honest and call it an orgy,’ she returned. ‘Since you believe that orgies are more my style.’
Time to go, he decided, and opened the picket gate.
‘While you do what you’re probably very good at, of course,’ she added, ‘and play whist with the cheese and wine set at the hotel.’
He went still.
Eve’s heart stopped beating on the suspicion that she had finally managed to rouse the sleeping tiger she’d always fancied lurked within his big chest. Sometimes—usually when she was least expecting it—Ethan Hayes could take on a certain quality that made her think of dangerous animals. This was one of those times, and her biggest problem was that she liked it—it excited her.
‘How old are you?’ he asked.
He knew exactly how old she was. ‘Twenty-three until midnight,’ she told him anyway.
He nodded his wet head. ‘That accounts for it.’
This was blatant baiting, Eve recognised, and foolishly took it. ‘Accounts for what?’
‘The annoyingly adolescent desire to insult and shock.’
He was so right, but oh, it hurt. Why had she willingly let herself fall into that? Eve had no defence, none at all and she had to turn to stare out to sea so that he wouldn’t see the sudden flood of weak tears that were trying to fill her eyes.
And who was the adolescent who made that cutting comment? Ethan was grimly asking himself, as he looked at her standing there looking like an exotic flower that had been cut down in its prime. Oh, damn it, he thought, and walked through the gate, meaning to get the hell away from this before he—
He couldn’t do it. Muscles were tightening all over his body on wave after wave of angry guilt. What had she ever done to him after all? If you didn’t count a couple of teasing come-ons and letting him catch her in a heated clinch with someone else’s man.
She’d also caught him naked and had had a full view of his embarrassing response, but he didn’t want to think about that. Instead he took in a deep breath and spun back to say something trite and stupid and hopefully less—
But he found he was too late because she had already walked off, a tall slender figure with a graceful stride and a proud yet oddly vulnerable tilt to her head. Still cursing himself for the whole stupid conversation, Ethan made himself walk up the path. Though, as he reached the shade of the veranda, he couldn’t resist a quick glance sideways and saw Eve was about to enter her house. One part of him wanted to go after her and apologise, but the major part told him wisely to leave well alone.
Eve Herakleides could mean trouble if he allowed himself to be sucked in by her frankly magnetic appeal. He didn’t need that kind of stimulation. He didn’t want to end up in the same
