She huffed a laugh. “Not well. Though I don’t suppose that would surprise you.”
“Because I don’t like boats?”
“Because of my looming marriage,” she said.
Manacles. Chains. A total loss of freedom.
How ridiculous to be so angry about something she had engineered. It wasn’t like anyone was forcing her hand. Nothing other than her own desire to positively impact her country. Her own obsession with legacy.
But sometimes she did feel trapped by that. By her own impossibly high standards for herself and her life.
Now, see where it had led her.
He began to walk toward her, her stomach clenching tight, her… She could feel the echo of each and every footstep between her legs. Could feel herself getting sensitive, getting wet.
He was such a hazard. This wasn’t the first time her body had gone completely rogue around him.
One time he had tried to show her some basic self-defense moves, and his hands on her body had given her fantasy fuel for weeks. She was absolutely sure that if he had any idea what she’d done to herself in her room after that he would be horrified.
Or maybe he wouldn’t be. Because however he had reacted afterward, he did want her. At least, he had in the moment. But he was a man, so it could be that simple. He had a woman’s body pressed against him, and maybe that was all it took. Maybe it wasn’t about her at all, but just his sex drive.
He walked by her, his shoulder brushing against the side of her arm as he reached down and picked up a towel from one of the lounge chairs. He began to towel off his hair, his chest, and she found herself held captive by the motion. His chest, his washboard flat abs. His hip bones. Oh God, don’t look there. Right at the center of those very tight swim trunks. The mysteries of the male form in all its glory were beneath those shorts, and she found herself very curious indeed.
Not that she’d never seen a naked man in pictures, but she hadn’t actually seen one in the flesh. And anyway, he was the only one she wanted to see.
Lucky you. In a few weeks, you’ll be seeing Lucian.
A stranger. A man she’d never even met. The idea was like a bucket of cold water poured over her head.
It wasn’t that he was a stranger, if she was being honest. It was that he wasn’t Andrei.
“What do you want?”
He sounded put out, his temper short.
“I don’t know. I thought that I might seek the company of the person on this vessel that I know best?”
“You are staring,” he said.
“You’re a sight to behold,” she said, not seeing the point in lying. He must know that he was beautiful.
“Stop,” he said, his words short. Clipped.
“What?”
“Youknow.”
He wasn’t doing any better than she was. It made her feel strangely powerful. She’d felt alone in her need for him for so long. Discovering that he was tortured by it too? It was a heady drug.
“Maybe. But if you keep denying it then how will I really know?”
“I’m not playing games with you,” he said. “Not for the entirety of this journey.”
“Who said that I was playing a game?”
“You know how things are. A game is all it could ever be.”
He turned and walked away from her, and she stood, mesmerized by the muscles in his broad back, immobilized by the pain in her heart.
