Australian Affairs: Claimed. Margaret Way

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СКАЧАТЬ ago,’ he said. ‘I would’ve introduced you to her but she was in a hurry.’

      Kitty hugged her towel against her chest as if that would stop her heart from beating so erratically and so fast. His skin glistened with droplets of water, and she watched in spellbound fascination as they rolled like a row of glittering diamonds down over his muscled chest. He smelt of the sea, with a grace note of something else—perhaps a lingering trace of his citrus aftershave or shampoo.

      He was standing close enough for her to feel a tiny shower of water drops land on her skin when he finger-combed his hair back off his face. She didn’t understand how such a sensation could have a disturbing undercurrent of intimacy about it, but it did. Her skin shivered as if he had slowly run his long tanned fingers down the slim length of her bare arms. She moistened her lips and tried to get her brain to work.

      ‘I have to get going…’ she said, but her feet didn’t move. It felt as if the sand had suddenly turned into quick-setting concrete.

      ‘I’ll go in with you if you like,’ he said, nodding towards the ocean. ‘Just till you get your confidence. Your first time can be a bit scary.’

      Kitty’s breath stalled. It was tempting. It was hot, and the water felt marvellous around her knees, but what if he touched her? What if those strongly muscled arms actually held her? ‘You don’t have to babysit me,’ she said with icy hauteur. ‘I’m perfectly able to take care of myself.’

      He took the towel she was holding like a lifeline and tossed it to the sand at their feet, his dark blue eyes never once leaving hers. ‘Prove it,’ he said.

      Kitty put her shoulders back and her chin up. ‘All right,’ she said, and spun around and made her way to the water. She splashed through the waves until she was in up to her waist before she turned to look at him. But he wasn’t watching from the beach. He had followed her in. He was less than half a metre away. Did he think she was that hopeless?

      She gritted her teeth.

      She would show him.

      ‘Watch out!’ he said suddenly.

      Kitty turned just as a bigger than normal wave smashed into her. She felt as if she had been thrown into a washing machine on a rapid wash cycle. She couldn’t see. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t stand up even if she had known which way was up.

      Suddenly a strong hand gripped one of her arms and hauled her upright. She blinked the briny water out of her stinging eyes and looked up at Jake’s face. Her body was pressed against the rock-like wall of his by the force of the water. Every hard plane of his body was imprinted on her softer ones. Her breasts were pushed up against his chest, her belly against his washboard abdomen. One of his arms was like a band of iron behind her back; the other was holding her hand in an equally firm grip, his long fingers entwined with hers. His strong legs were slightly apart to brace against the undertow of the water, and the cradle of his pelvis against hers reminded her shockingly, alarmingly, deliciously of all that was different between them.

      She felt a flickering between her thighs, like a thousand tiny wings beating inside a cramped space. Electricity shot through her veins, sending sparks of reaction up and down her spine, through every limb, even to the very ends of her fizzing fingertips and her curling toes.

      Her eyes went to his mouth. She couldn’t stop staring at the rough stubble that surrounded it. The desire to reach up and trace that sexy masculine regrowth with her fingertips was almost overwhelming. Her hands were splayed against the hard wall of his chest, and that electrifying sensation was passing from his body to hers through the sensitive pads of her fingers. She could feel the thudding of his heartbeat drumming into her palm.

      She couldn’t remember the last time she had been this close to a man…Well, she could, but that final goodbye hug from Charles hadn’t felt anything like this.

      ‘You’re way out of your depth,’ Jake said, with an unreadable expression on his face.

      Kitty couldn’t get her breathing to steady, but it had very little to do with the water she’d inadvertently swallowed. ‘A little…perhaps…’

      He braced her against him as another wave bore down on them. ‘Hold on,’ he said.

      The crazy water swished and swirled around them but Kitty barely noticed. She was acutely aware of his body pressed against hers, from her soft breasts to his hard chest, from her smooth slim legs to his strong hair-roughened thighs. She felt the imprint of his arousal against her belly. That starkly primal instinctive reaction of male to female sent her senses into a madcap frenzy. His body seemed to thicken and harden as each heart-stopping second passed. She felt his heartbeat pick up under her hand. It was just a hint of escalation, but it relayed a message that was older than time itself.

      Their gazes locked for a moment.

      The sound of the ocean and people bathing around them faded. It was like being in a vacuum where no one else existed.

      It was just the two of them: a man and a woman, male and female—alone.

      Jake’s gaze slipped to her mouth, those dark blue eyes perusing it for long pulsing seconds as if memorising every tiny crease and line of her lips. ‘Time to get you out of danger,’ he said, blinking a couple of times. ‘You don’t want to get dumped unexpectedly again.’

      Kitty ran her tongue over her mouth, tasting the ocean and a need so strong she felt it tingling under the surface of her lips. ‘I thought it was supposed to be safe between the flags,’ she said.

      ‘It depends,’ he said as he led her by the hand to shallower water.

      She flicked her wet hair back over her shoulders and glanced at him as she sloshed through the lace-like foam of the shallows, trying not to notice how his fingers were so warm and strong where they were curled around hers. ‘On what?’

      ‘On whether you can handle the conditions,’ he said, releasing her hand once she was steady on her feet. ‘Swimming in a pool is not the same as swimming in the ocean. Every day at the beach is different. You never know when a bigger than normal wave is going to come unless you have experience at reading the swell.’

      ‘Maybe I’ll stick to the paddling pool for the time being,’ she said. ‘At least there are no sharks there.’

      His dark blue eyes glinted down at her. ‘I think you’ll be fine once you gain your confidence,’ he said. ‘In no time at all you’ll be riding those waves like the best of them.’

      Kitty had a feeling he wasn’t talking just about the ocean. But she wasn’t sure if he was talking about gaining confidence at work or in her private life. Was he warning her about getting involved with him? Letting her know the rules from the outset? Her instincts warned her that a relationship with him would not be a safe but boring mechanical lapping of a municipal pool. It would be diving head-first into a surging tide of deep rushing water that carried a constant threat of imminent danger.

      She’d be best to stay well clear of it.

      She reached for her towel and wrapped herself in it even though she wasn’t in the least bit cold. In fact she felt hot, both inside and out. Her skin still tingled and fizzed where he had touched her. And those tiny wings were still beating a soft but insistent rhythm deep inside her every time his eyes met hers, with that ancient primal message of male and female attraction virtually impossible to ignore.

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