‘I know,’ Ellie said faintly. Was this conversation really happening? Yes, it was, because there had to be a reason she was finding it hard to breathe. ‘You don’t like your girlfriends invading your work space, never mind occupying a permanent space in it.’
‘All true,’ he growled, unconsciously taking a small step towards her, closing the distance. ‘and, as an aside, don’t think that because I date tall blondes that you’re not sexy...’
‘We need to stop talking like this,’ Ellie whispered shakily. ‘We’ll head back to shore and pretend this conversation never happened.’
‘You think it’s going to be that easy?’
‘It will be because I’ll chuck these clothes to the bottom of my suitcase and return to my boring skirts and tops.’
‘And that’s why you’re sexy.’
‘Why? What are you talking about?’
‘You say things that make me smile. Do you honestly think that a change of wardrobe is going to quench what I’m feeling? You make me smile and, when you add in a sharp brain, you have a killer combination. I looked at you earlier, poised...confident...at ease with every bit of technical conversation being tossed around... You can’t imagine what a turn-on that was.’
He paused and then turned away to grasp the hand rail that ran round the edge of the boat. ‘I need to cool off.’
Ellie didn’t say anything. Her head was buzzing. She wanted all this nonsense to stop immediately! But she also wanted him to keep on talking, feeding her ego and sending her nervous system into a tailspin.
Shelikedwhat he was doing to her and that terrified her. The door that had been nudged ajar between them had now been kicked wide open and, whilst she was desperate to get it shut again, whilst sheknewshe had to get it shut again, a wilful part of her couldn’t help but toy with the idea of touching him.
She’d wanted to, hadn’t she? Hadn’t she thought about that in the early hours of the morning, caught in that pleasant place between sleep and wakefulness, when thoughts were allowed to roam free? Yes,of coursethey weren’t compatible, notat all, but still, acknowledging that did nothing to kill the surge of desire inside her.
‘I need to have a swim.’
‘You can’t!’
But he was already stripping off his tee shirt. After swimming off and on during the day, he had left his swimming trunks on. He was ready to dive into the sea, except this time there was no blue sky above or transparent water lapping the sides of the Catamaran. Now, the sea was threateningly deep, dark and fathomless. Ellie watched in fascinated horror as he moved swiftly to the side of the boat, eschewing the shallow steps on each hull that would have made for a slower adjustment to the coldness of the water.
He dived straight in and disappeared.Of course he would surface!She had watched from the sidelines as he had swum earlier on, mesmerised by the graceful fluidity of his lean body slicing through the water, his strokes effortless and powerful at the same time It was so dark that she could barely make out anything. She certainly couldn’t make out any surfacing shape and her panic began rising the more she peered into the darkness, hoping to see his silhouette.
The twin-hulled, squat shape of the boat made for a very solid, safe vessel but she now wondered whether he had misjudged the width of it, so much broader than a typical small yacht, and had tried to surface only to find his head bumping against the bottom of the boat. Things could get confusing when you couldn’t see clearly and you were in unfamiliar surroundings. What could be more unfamiliar to someone whose stamping ground was the concrete jungle than an ocean, at night, in the middle of the tropics?
Frantically moving from bow to stern and scouring the flat, dark ocean mass, she yelped when she heard his voice behind her. In fact, it took her a couple of seconds to recognise his voice at all, and her heart was in her mouth when she whipped round to see him standing in front of her.
‘Where theheckhave you been?’ She was pressed against the railing, gripping it for dear life. The gentlest of night breezes wafted her fine hair around her face and she impatiently pushed her hand through it.
‘Swimming.’
He’d fetched a towel from the deck somewhere and was drying himself.
‘Yes, I know you’ve beenswimming!’
‘Then why the rhetorical question? Let’s go below deck. I need to get into some dry clothes.’
He spun round on his heels and began heading down to the living and sleeping quarters, ample enough, as she had discovered, for eight people to move around comfortably without getting in one another’s way.
‘Were you worried?’
The spacious quarters now seemed cramped as he slowly turned to look at her, having flung the towel on the table which nestled in the centre of a fitted L-shaped banquette.
The galley, the saloon and the helm station all flowed into one huge open space in this area. Ellie’s legs felt like jelly but, whilst she was desperate to sink onto the padded leather banquette, his dark blue eyes, so dramatic with their lush, dark lashes, skewered her to the spot, making movement impossible.
Down here, the dark, warm night and the inky black ocean were no longer pressing around them. Only the gentle undulating of the boat was a reminder that they were on water.
‘I didn’t see you surface,’ she said thinly. ‘Of course I was worried! Anyone would have been in my situation?’
‘And what situation is that?’
