Taken by the Pirate Tycoon. Daphne Clair

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СКАЧАТЬ a rise and sped towards her, she gave a tiny, scornful laugh.

      She remembered the feel of his mouth on hers, the tang of pine and another unnameable, somehow seductive scent in her nostrils. The strength of his fingers curling about her nape.

      And she remembered too, that when he drew back and released her, within the curve of the light beard his cheeks had showed a subtle colour along the bones.

      Something stirred inside her. A peculiar mixture of fierce satisfaction and an unwanted but not unpleasant thrill replacing mortified fury.

      He’d kissed her because he’d wanted to. Because he couldn’t help himself. And then he’d had to excuse it somehow. Because…

      Samantha bit her lip. No use denying, ignoring it. Because despite his suspicion, his antagonism, and her own justifiably furious reaction, despite the hostility that arced between them like an alternating electrical current, something else sizzled under the surface. Something primordial, elemental.

      Something sexual.

      When Jase rejoined his brother and sister-in-law, holding a glass of amber liquid, Ben gave him a quizzical look. “Moving in high-flown circles now, eh, mate? She doesn’t seem your type.” “She isn’t,” Jase answered shortly. “Bryn’s mother set us up.”

      April asked, “Is that why she was uncomfortable?”

      Jase looked at her in surprise. “I suppose.” He hadn’t thought anyone else would have noticed. He and Samantha had been unwillingly thrown together but good manners prevailed.

      He’d expected Samantha would dance like a mannequin from a store window, looking great but stiff and haughty. Instead she’d been fluid and warm, supple and sinuous, easily following the slightest pressure of his hand, her steps matching, even anticipating his every movement.

      For a moment or two he’d found himself wondering if she’d respond like that in bed, what it would be like to make love to her.

      Not that he was likely to ever find out. Nor really want to, he assured himself.

      Ben said, “She’s a looker.” Then grinned. “Too classy for the likes of you.”

      “Uh-huh,” Jase grunted and picked up his glass to drink. The taste didn’t erase the memory of Samantha Magnussen’s soft lips, the warmth and sweetness of her mouth—so at odds with her aloof manner. Even the kiss—an impulse he should never have given in to—had only had the effect of making her amazing, almost translucent blue eyes turn glacial.

      “Hey, that went down fast.” His brother broke in on Jase’s thoughts. Ben’s brows curved upward. He’d gathered his own and his wife’s empty glasses and pushed back his chair. “I thought you weren’t drinking.”

      “Ginger ale,” Jase replied, and declined Ben’s offer to get him another.

      “Do you like her?” April inquired quietly as her husband disappeared inside the house.

      “Hardly know her,” Jase said. “We had one dance, she was feeling hot so I brought her out here.”

       She certainly doesn’t like me.

      Hardly surprising. She’d wanted to hit him after he’d kissed her. He had seen the reflexive movement of her arm before she dropped the hand holding that absurd hat to her side. He’d almost hoped she would, that at last she’d show some loss of her unwavering control.

      Like what he had glimpsed when she greeted Bryn, a moment of real human emotion behind the lightly spoken words with their ambiguous undercurrent. But there was nothing ambiguous about the brief but telling betrayal of her feelings. She hadn’t been a happy guest at the wedding.

      After the confrontation in the summerhouse he’d watched her from a distance, seen her greet several people, exchanging hugs with some of the women, one of whom did so with a piercing, “Samantha, darling! I haven’t seen you in an age!” From some of the men she’d accepted a kiss on the cheek, but never offered her lips. Once she laid a hand on a man’s arm for a second or two, making some laughing remark. The man—sixty-ish, grey-haired but still good-looking—smiled at her with unconcealed admiration and said something in return at which she laughed again.

      The ice princess could turn on the charm when she wanted to. But when the man leaned closer she moved almost imperceptibly back, though keeping her smile intact. Not the way it had been with Bryn, as if she couldn’t stop herself touching him.

      Showing a capacity for pain and passion under the Nordic cool. The woman was a walking contradiction.

      Should he care? His only concern was for his sister. He wouldn’t allow anyone to hurt Rachel.

      Chapter Three

      SAMANTHA was unable to put the disturbing, infuriating Jase Moore out of her mind. For weeks, then months, she’d scarcely seen Bryn. She let her managers deal with him when business made contact necessary, and kept away from gatherings he might be expected to attend—with his wife at his side. Her social life was reduced to close friends and inescapable obligations, giving herself time to get over the surprisingly deep hurt of losing a man she’d had no claim on in the first place.

      It couldn’t be that hard to return to viewing him as a friend and business colleague whose company she enjoyed. And her circumspection had nothing to do with Jase Moore and his misguided attempt to frighten her off.

      It wasn’t as if Bryn had ever appeared to notice her perhaps too-tentative attempts to signal her growing interest—the lingering handshakes, the sincerity and warmth of her smile, the occasional fleeting touch. Now she wondered, if a perfect stranger could pick it up at first glance, had Bryn known all along? Known and not given her any encouragement because he simply didn’t find her sexually attractive? The thought made her inwardly squirm. Another reason to avoid him for a time.

      She immersed herself in carrying on her father’s business, his life’s work. A brilliant builder, he had employed the very best workers, even poaching them without conscience from other firms, but had remained staunchly attached to traditional practices. He had never learned to use a computer himself, although conceding the need for them and paying his Information Technology Manager a handsome salary.

      Samantha felt it was important to keep up-to-date if her firm was to maintain its premier position in a crowded industry. She booked for a one-day seminar on Future-Proofing Your Business, the star attraction being an American speaker whose books about the changing face of management she’d admired.

      After seeing his name she hadn’t bothered to read the rest of the programme, sure the steep fee would be worth it just to hear him.

      His keynote speech, first on the programme, convinced her she’d been right, but she was puzzled when before the next session she saw none other than Jase Moore carry a laptop computer onto the stage.

      Her first thought was, It can’t be. Her second that he was there as a technician. Maybe he’d left Donovan’s already or been shifted from the transport department to one more to his liking.

      He placed the computer on a table beside the microphone and lifted the lid. His white shirt, worn with dark trousers, was open at the collar, the sleeves rolled to the elbow. Obama casual, and it suited him.

      Then СКАЧАТЬ