she’d had no business being.
The glare settled into a scowl as she shoved herself upright in the bed, rose and turned for the door. Then sank slowly back down on the mattress when she saw him in the doorway.
“Hi.” Her tone was the most timid he’d heard from her, but it did nothing to allay his anger. “That…that was a big wave, wasn’t it? Did you feel it?”
“Must have been a big one to knock you out of your bunk, across the hall and into my bed.”
“Oh, well…about that.” She bounced up again, her hands twisting on the strap of her purse nervously. “I wasn’t actually in your…hmm.” Her gaze couldn’t seem to find a place to land. “I just…I took the pills you gave me but my bunk is sort of small and uncomfortable. I thought I’d rest better in a bigger bed.” She moistened her lips under his silent regard. “And I did. It’s a very nice bed….”
Comprehension dawned slowly, and Jones felt like three kinds a fool. He’d really been gone from civilization too long if he was becoming this slow on the uptake. Jamming his hand through his hair, he muttered, “I don’t believe this.” It wasn’t as if it hadn’t happened to him before, but of all the sorts of trouble he’d half expected to encounter with the woman, this kind had been the furthest from his mind.
“Look,” he said, turning his gaze back to her. “I think I know what’s going on here.”
She looked panicked. “You do?”
“Yeah. Damn.” This was embarrassing, which was a crock. He didn’t have anything to be embarrassed about. “But this thing between us is strictly business, okay? And that’s the way it’s gonna stay. I don’t mix business with pleasure, ever.” He’d learned his lesson about that the hard way and still had the scar to prove it.
Her expression was a mask of horrified fascination. “You…you think I want to have an affair with you?”
“Yeah, well…sex, anyway. And you seem like a very, uh, a real nice person. But I’m not interested in you that way.” Jones was proud of his tact. Although it wasn’t a skill he practiced on a regular basis, he thought he’d managed pretty well. Which didn’t explain her suddenly thunderous countenance.
“Let me get this straight. Even if I were offering casual no-strings sex, you wouldn’t be interested.”
What was it about women that they had to belabor everything? He thought he’d been damn clear, and it was something more instinctive than diplomacy that had him refraining from pointing out that she didn’t look like a no-strings kind of woman. “That’s what I’m saying.”
“It’s because I don’t have big boobs, isn’t it?”
“What?”
“Boobs.” Her tone was disgusted. “I’ve got brothers. I know a man’s brain cells drain away the moment his hormones kick in. If I had a pair of thirty-six D’s you’d be drooling all over me.”
He couldn’t believe they were having this conversation. “For your information, I never drool.”
“All men drool when their tongues are hanging out of their mouths, which seems to be a universal reaction of your gender when faced with a huge set of mammary glands.”
There was a dull throb beginning in his temple. “Look, I was trying to be polite, and you’re missing the point.”
“Oh, I got the point all right. If I was contemplating having wild tempestuous sex with you, you wouldn’t be interested. I got that loud and clear.”
How the hell she’d managed to make him feel guilty when she’d been the one to sneak into his bed was beyond him. “Okay, then. I’m glad we got that out of the way.”
“Did we ever,” she muttered, shoving past him and marching down the corridor.
He followed her, feeling at a loss. “You know, at your weight, if you had big b— If you were big busted, you’d probably topple over every time you got up.”
She was ascending the ladder in record time. “Yeah, yeah. I told you, I know what men like.”
“You don’t know me,” he said flatly, tearing his gaze away from the curvy hips preceding him. Because if she did, if she ever found out that he was developing an inexplicable interest in delicately made blondes with backsides shaped by an angel, well then God help them both.
Chapter 3
As mortifying events went, it ranked right up there with the time Sally Ann Bunston had announced to the boys in their seventh-grade class that Analiese Tremaine stuffed her bra. But having to endure three straight years of taunts about whether she was “packing” each day paled in significance to the scene in Jones’s stateroom.
Staring out at the school of playful dolphins, she concentrated on deep breathing and vengeful thoughts. She wondered if there was a knife onboard sharp enough to carve Jones into shark bait. The other crew member could handle the ship, and hadn’t she heard once there was no law at sea?
She supposed she ought to be grateful. Just the thought had her grinding her teeth. After the impact of that wave had dumped her headfirst onto his bed, and she’d looked up to see him standing in the doorway, her mind had gone completely blank. He’d seemed suspicious enough the first time he’d walked in on her there. How in heaven’s name was she going to explain a second time?
Then he’d handed her a perfect explanation, at least one that his colossal ego had seemed to buy. She’d had no choice but to play along, even while she’d wanted to go for his throat. Was the man actually used to women hiding under his bedcovers in order to seduce him?
She threw a dark look in his direction. The answer, quite obviously, was yes. And why that should make her want to hunt for that carving knife again was a question she really didn’t want to face. Lord knew she had plenty of experience dealing with formidable male egos: she’d grown up with three brothers. The walls of their home had practically dripped testosterone.
It didn’t help, she thought glumly, as the dolphins faded from view, that her outrage over his “rejection” hadn’t been totally feigned. No woman wanted to hear that a man found her unattractive, and despite his protests to the contrary, she knew exactly what she lacked that would have snared his interest. She’d seen for herself the type he went for last night when he’d been pawing that waitress. He’d be the kind of guy who liked his women available, inventive and gone in the morning.
Based on the supply of condoms she’d found in his bottom desk drawer, he was either overly optimistic or very well prepared. It was probably the latter, which made his rejection smart even more. It didn’t matter that she didn’t want him, on any level. It was the principle of the thing.
Blowing out a breath, she reached into her purse for sun-screen. Smoothing a generous amount over her bare arms, she repeated the action on her legs. After rubbing a small amount of lotion on her face, she settled her sunglasses on her nose, dropped the bottle back into her purse and stretched out on the chair. The breeze kept her from being too warm in the sun, and she could feel a measure of tension seeping from her body. Until she thought of the disappointment Jones’s desk had yielded. Then her muscles tightened yet again.
She’d found a log in which he apparently kept
