was exactly what he wanted to do. He could feel his shoulders tensing further and his fists bunch—he had to get himself in check. What was going on? He was easy, slow—even lazy when it came to women. He never, ever got fired up. Never acted without brain and body being in total harmony. Hadn’t he learned anything all those years ago?
So what the hell nerve was she touching that had him flexing and puffing and grinding his jaw when he looked at her?
He looked at her now as her green eyes widened. Her rosy mouth fell open slightly, and maybe that was a moment of vulnerability stealing across her face like a cloud across the sun. Likely she was just another one of Lord Louis’s cast-offs, dramatically throwing herself overboard because she’d just realised her shelf life had expired.
Who knew? Women were all games and drama. He had the T-shirt to prove it. And the only sure thing was that he was never going to be taken in by a woman again.
‘Do not call me Princess. I do not hold that title. And you might want to ask people if they want to be manhandled before you chuck them onto your boat.’
‘Plenty do.’ Dante smiled then, and watched her eyes widen all over again. He nodded his head back to the Sea Devil, where the gang would be getting well back on track now. ‘There’s a party over there, waiting for its host to return. So if you’ll excuse me...?’
He gestured to the water—jerked his thumb. She could get on with her own rescue.
‘Off.’
‘What?’ She frowned as if he was speaking a different language—and not very clearly at that. ‘Who do you think you’re talking to?’
He looked round at the Sea Devil. Another boat was making its way towards it and now berthed alongside. He put the binoculars back up to his eyes. Looked like the Cotier sisters climbing out. He’d know those legs anywhere...
He turned back to her.
‘Sorry—what?’
‘You know, people like you—you disgust me! You’re just tourists, intent on destroying this place—it’s all parties and speedboats and you don’t give a damn about the island, or the people, or the animals, or—’
‘Maybe you didn’t hear me. I said, off.’
Her eyes widened in shock and up went her chin even further.
‘Honestly! You think you can order me around now? Really? Do you know who I am?’
‘Know who you are? Apart from being the biggest pain in my ass, I couldn’t care less if you were the Queen of England. Which you’re not. So now I think—’
He cocked his head, relishing the pink tinge to her neck, which seemed to be spreading to her chest. Her chest. She certainly had one—and it was well worth a lingering stare. But he wouldn’t give her the satisfaction—even though the swell of her left breast, set almost completely free by her bikini, was quite a test.
‘I think you and I have nothing left to say to one another. So I’m ordering you now to get off my boat.’
She stared right at him, and he knew that a lesser man would flinch. But not he. Not Dante Hermida. He might not have a doctorate from Harvard Law School, or a Fortune 500 business like his brother—yet. But he could fight and he could ride and he could charm every woman within a hundred-mile radius.
So why was this one being so difficult?
‘You’ve got twenty seconds. Damn!’ he said, suddenly catching sight of the misted face of his grandfather’s treasured watch.
He shook his head, held his annoyance in check. He’d nearly lost it once before over a stupid woman, but he’d managed to keep it intact for all these years—a gift from the one person on this earth who’d had time for him. Damn this woman. Standing on his boat, spraying her poison and leaving him soaked to the skin. She might look like a goddess—like some kind of deity in female form—but life was far too short to waste another second with a woman who made his hackles rise this high.
‘Ten,’ he said.
Biting down on the urge to throw her off himself, he ripped his T-shirt over his head and grabbed up a towel. Out of the corner of his eye he saw her watching him through narrowed eyes, seething and ungrateful. Yeah, but there was no mistaking her hunger. He could feel it—emanating out of every selfish pore. She might sound as if she wanted to fight, but she was eying him like a late lunch.
He patted the towel down each arm and over his pecs. ‘Five.’
She was still gawping, still showing no signs of going anywhere. Slowly he grabbed each end of the towel and rubbed it across his back, then down over his abs. Finally he smoothed it over his face and dragged it roughly through his hair. Then he stood right in front of her. His shorts were soaked too. Her eyes landed there and her mouth opened on a coy, ‘Oh...’
Her skin glistened in the bright late-morning light as stray droplets of water continued to course their way down all those curves. Idly he wondered if her waist-to-hip ratio was the best he’d ever seen, because it had started a reaction in his body that seemed to pay no heed at all to the fact that he really didn’t like her.
It looked as if she was planning to play hardball. Okay. He was open to the idea.
Feeling more than a little turned on himself, he lifted the towel again and swiped down each leg. He had great legs—or so he was told, he thought laughingly. ‘Great legs’ were legs that could grip a horse, make it twist or stop with a squeeze of the thighs. But she didn’t look as if riding a polo pony was what she had in mind for him.
‘You don’t seem to be moving, Princess. Were you hoping for some more body contact before you go?’
He was. He let his gaze travel all over her now. The twisted bikini provided such a generous view of her left breast. The hard bud of her nipple peeped out invitingly and he felt another hard kick of lust. For all she was annoying, she was also an incredibly attractive woman—and he could think of many ways she could redeem herself.
He cupped himself and dropped his hands to his waistband, tugged at the string and raised his eyebrows in invitation. Just how far would she let him go?
‘Zero,’ he said.
In one move he loosened the shorts, slid them down over his jutting erection to the wet floor of the boat and stepped out. She stood for a split second, a look of utter shock on her face, and then she spun, bolted to the side and dived off into the sea.
‘Man overboard!’ he called after her. ‘Again.’
He felt the splash of water on his sun-warmed skin and walked to the side to see limbs and white foam as she thrashed her way back to the Marengo.
‘Pleasure, Princess,’ he said, sending her on her way with a mock salute.
Then he pulled his shorts back on and with his hand on the wheel and his foot on the floor, he powered back through the waves. If he never saw her again it would be far too soon.
LUCIE
