hoped sounded like calm assurance, and long thick lashes came to shade eyes that were the colour of the lake on a stormy day.
‘And if I don’t?’ he countered, half amused, and Julie realised she had as much chance of controlling him as she did one of the wild cats that occasionally roamed down to the cabins in search of food.
With a helpless gesture she turned aside. His accent was confusing her again. Sometimes he sounded almost English, but at others he had a definite transatlantic drawl. She couldn’t make him out, and she was infuriatingly aware that he was getting the better of the discussion.
‘You’re English, aren’t you?’ he asked, regarding her intently. ‘Are you on holiday? Or do you work at the hotel?’
‘You really don’t give up, do you?’ she flared, giving him an angry look. ‘Why don’t you just go back to wherever you came from and leave me alone?’
‘I’m curious.’ He shrugged. ‘As to where I came from—I’m staying along there …’ He indicated the curve of the lake.
‘I didn’t ask,’ she retorted sharply. ‘I really don’t care who you are or where you’re staying.’
‘No?’ He tipped his head on one side, drops of water from his hair sliding from his jawline to the strong column of his neck. ‘That’s a pity, because you interest me. Besides,’ the grey eyes danced, ‘we’re almost fellow countrymen. My mother is English, too.’
‘How interesting!’ Julie’s tone was full of sweet acid. ‘Now if you’ll excuse me, Mr—er—’
‘Dan,’ he supplied softly. ‘Dan Prescott. You never did tell me your name.’
‘No, I didn’t.’ Julie forced a faintly supercilious smile. ‘Now, do you mind …’
‘You want to swim?’
‘Yes.’
‘Go right ahead. Don’t let me stop you.’
The inclination of his head was mocking, and Julie was infuriated. Did he really expect her to step into the water under his insolent gaze? She had no intention of giving him that advantage, and the glare she cast in his direction was venomous.
‘What’s the matter?’ he probed. ‘Afraid I may decide to join you?’
Julie tapped her foot. ‘Even you wouldn’t risk that. I might decide to run off with your clothes. Then what would you do?’
He grinned. ‘You have a point.’
Julie sighed. ‘Will you go away now?’
‘Aren’t you afraid I might steal your clothes?’
‘I don’t swim without them,’ she returned sweetly.
‘You should.’ His lazy gaze dropped down the length of her body. ‘Try it some time. There’s nothing like it.’
‘You’re insulting!’ she exclaimed.
‘And you’re over-reacting,’ he retorted. ‘Where have you been these last ten years? In a convent?’
Julie turned away, and began to scramble up the slope towards the trees. He could not know how accurate his guess had been, but it hurt all the same. Besides, it was obvious she was not going to be allowed to enjoy her swim this morning, and his particular kind of verbal fencing was alien to her.
‘Wait …’
She heard his feet crunching the shingle behind her, but she didn’t turn, and when his hands suddenly caught her she panicked. No one, not even Adam, had gripped her thighs, and those hard hands encircling the flesh at the tops of her legs seemed disturbingly familiar.
‘Let me go!’ she cried, struggling so hard that she overbalanced both of them, his feet sliding away on the loosely packed surface, and pulling her down on top of him.
‘Crazy!’ he muttered, as they slid the few feet down the slope to the rocks, and Julie, trapped by the encircling pressure of his arm, was inclined to agree with him.
‘If you hadn’t grabbed me—!’ she declared frustratedly, supremely aware of the hard muscles of his chest beneath her shoulder blades, and felt the helpless intake of breath that heralded his laughter.
‘Okay, okay,’ he said, as she scrambled to her feet, lying there looking up at her. ‘It was a crazy thing to do. But—hell, what did I do to make you so mad at me?’
Julie pursed her lips. ‘I’m not mad at you, Mr Prescott. I—I have no feelings in the matter whatsoever. I wish you’d go.’
‘All right.’
With an indifferent shrug he came up beside her, and she smelt the clean male odour of his body, still damp and faintly musky. His nearness disturbed her, not least because he was barely half dressed, his shirt hanging open, his jeans low on his hips, and she could remember how he had looked in the water. He was certainly attractive, she thought, unwillingly wondering who he was. He didn’t look like the guests at the hotel, who on the whole had that look of comfortable affluence, and to be riding a motorcycle in a country where everyone drove cars … She frowned, feeling an unfamiliar tightness in her stomach, and to combat this awareness she said:
‘Goodbye, then.’
He nodded, pushing the ends of his shirt into the belt of his pants, and she waited apprehensively for him to finish. But when he did, he didn’t immediately move away from her. Instead he looked down at her, at the nervous twitching of her lips and lower to the unknowingly provocative rise and fall of her breasts.
‘Goodbye,’ he said, and before she could prevent him, he slipped one hand around her nape and bent his mouth to hers.
Her hand came out instinctively, but encountering the taut muscles of his stomach was quickly withdrawn. She made a protesting sound deep in her throat, but he ignored it, increasing the pressure and forcing her lips apart. She felt almost giddy as her senses swam beneath his experienced caress, and then to her horror she found herself responding.
‘No!’
With a cry of dismay she tore herself away from him, turning aside and scrubbing her lips with the back of her hand. She felt cheap and degraded, and appalled that just for a moment she had wanted him to go on.
‘See you,’ he remarked, behind her, but she didn’t turn, and presently she heard his footsteps crunching up the slope to where he said he had left his motorbike.
She waited until she heard the sound of a powerful engine before venturing to look round, and then expelled her breath on a shaky sigh as she saw she was alone. He had gone, the receding roar of the motorcycle’s engine indicating that he had taken the route around the lake.
Feeling slightly unsteady, Julie flopped down on to a smooth rock nearby, stretching her bare legs out to the sun. Not surprisingly, she no longer felt like going for a swim, and she wondered if she would ever come here again without remembering what had happened.
Shading her eyes, she tried to calm herself by surveying the outline of an island some distance away across the
