And yet, perhaps in a concession to her, he began to fill a small pot with water and set it on the gas stove—which reminded her a little of the Bunsen burners she’d used in high school science lessons.
She pulled her hair over one shoulder, running her fingers through the ends, squeezing it into the towel, careful not to let the fabric part and reveal her naked body.
There was a small fridge beside the bench and as she watched, he removed coffee from it, and then cream. She dug the fork into the tuna and speared some flakes, lifting them to her lips with a grimace of distaste. She’d never been a huge fan of canned fish, but desperate times…because he was right. She was absolutely ravenous. Now that the shock of the day’s events had worn off, she realised she hadn’t eaten since that morning, when she’d grabbed an apple on her way out of the door of her hotel. She had intended to spend a few hours sailing around the Aegean, perhaps stopping at a populated island for lunch, if she felt like it, before going back to the mainland. Instead, she’d wound up stranded in a stone cabin in the middle of the woods, God only knew where.
‘Who are you?’ she asked as he tipped a little coffee into a cafetière and then filled it with the boiling water. His hands were proportionate to the rest of him—which was to say, huge—and as he replaced the lid, she was reminded of a giant, handling a human’s possessions.
He pulled a mug from a drawer and began to fill it with coffee, before he added a generous amount of cream.
‘You have cream,’ she said, blinking at him. ‘Is there a shop on the island?’
He arched a single, thick dark brow, cynicism on his face as he strode towards her, mug held out. She took it very carefully, not wanting their fingers to brush. Her side still felt tingly from when his arm had brushed against her in the shower, and she had no need to feel that all over again.
His smirk showed that he’d recognised her gesture and understood her reasoning for it. Well, so what? Why shouldn’t she hesitate to touch a strange, enormous man?
‘No.’
She frowned, almost having forgotten her question.
‘Once a month, supplies are sent over. The cream is long life.’
‘Oh.’ She nodded slowly, considering that. ‘But there must be other homes? Other people?’
‘Not unless they have trespassed, like you.’
She closed her eyes against that accusation. ‘I was blown here by the storm.’
‘So you’ve said.’
‘Do you actually think I’d be stupid enough to wilfully come to this place? It took me hours to get to this cabin, and it’s a miracle I didn’t fall off a cliff or get eaten by a bear. I mean…truly. This isnothow I saw my day going.’
He stood in front of her, hands on hips, face giving nothing away. Then, slowly, those dark grey eyes roamed lower. Starting at her eyes, before dropping to her lips, and then lower still, as though he was picturing her naked beneath the towel, before landing on her legs.
By the time he spoke, she was so flooded with heat that she could hardly hear him over the ringing in her ears. And damn it, how she hated that her body was, against common sense and her wishes, responding to him. How on earth could she find his slow, insolent inspectionhot?
Although, it didn’t take a psychology degree to work that out. Her marriage had been ice-like, in the end. Her husband had spent all his time seducing other women, delighting in letting Genevieve find out about his affairs, and lording it over her that it was her fault he’d strayed. Her frigidness. Her lack of responsiveness to him. Her lack of experience and skills. Her failures as a wife that had led him to seek comfort in the arms of other women.
‘You’re injured.’
She glanced down at her legs and saw the grazes, and, on one of her thighs, a deep cut. She ran her finger over it, wincing as a sharp pain radiated through her body.
‘I fell,’ she murmured, as much to herself as him. ‘A few times.’
‘At a later point, we will discuss further how incredibly stupid it was to take this many risks with your life. Stay there.’ Her jaw dropped at his rude, insulting comment, even when it was so easy to believe it, courtesy of her husband’s conditioning.
He crouched down by the bed and removed a decent-sized box, which, when he opened it, she gathered must have been a medical kit. He removed a small bottle of disinfectant, some gauze and bandages.
She’d been so anxious to avoid touching him, and, despite the way memories of her husband’s insults had doused the strange flickering of desire, she still suspected that if he were to reach for her, she’d catch fire.
‘I can do it,’ she said, holding out a hand for the supplies.
‘Drink your coffee,’ was all he said, crouching at her feet, and pouring some of the disinfectant onto a gauze pad. His eyes lifted to hers and the whole world seemed to start spinning, faster than she’d ever thought possible.
She opened her mouth to say something, to insist that she do her own treatment, but then he touched her leg, and she closed her eyes on a wave of something joltingly warm. Desire. She wasn’t sure she’d ever felt it before—and for a long time, she’d believed shecouldn’tfeel it. So despite what she knew she should do, in this situation, she found herself sitting there, breath held, as this beast of a man tended to her wounds with all the gentleness and care of Florence Nightingale.
Chapter Two
IT WASN’T UNTILhis fingers had brushed her naked flesh in the shower that he realised he had barely touched another human being in years. Let alone a naked woman. Not since his wife had died and he’d buried her. On that day, there’d been hands to shake, hugs given. But he’d left mainland Greece afterwards, coming here, not caring if he lived or died.
