By Request Collection April-June 2016. Оливия Гейтс

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       CHAPTER NINE

      ‘I ’M NOT sleeping with you.’

      They’d landed on Hamilton Island and made the helicopter transfer to Mina without incident, arriving to be greeted by Eric just as the sun was dipping into the water in a glorious blaze of gold. Eric had laughed, secretly delighted she could tell, when they’d all stood and watched the spectacle, telling them they’d soon get used to ‘that old thing’, before dropping them off at their beachside bure to freshen up before dinner.

      And now, after a tour of the timber and glass five-star bungalow, their eyes met over the king-sized bed. The only bed, aside from the cot set up for Sam in the generous adjoining dressing room.

      She wasn’t about to change her mind. ‘You’ll just have to find yourself somewhere else to sleep.’

      ‘Come on, Evelyn,’ he said, sitting down on the bed and slipping off his shoes, peeling off his socks, ‘don’t you think you’re being just a little melodramatic? It’s not like we haven’t slept together before.’

      ‘That was different.’

      He looked over his shoulder at her, one eyebrow raised. ‘Was it?’

      Her arms flapped uselessly at her sides. From outside she could hear Sam laughing as Hannah, the young woman who had been sent to be his babysitter, fed him his dinner. At least that part of the arrangements seemed to be going well.

      ‘I’m not sharing a bed with you,’ she said. ‘And I certainly don’t have to sleep with you just because we happen to be caught in the same lie.’

      He stood, reefing his shirt from his pants as he started undoing the buttons at his cuffs. ‘No? Even though you know we’re good together?’

      She blinked. ‘What are you doing?’

      He shrugged. ‘Taking a shower before dinner,’ he said innocently enough, although she saw the gleam in his eyes. ‘Care to join me?’

      ‘No!’

      But she couldn’t resist watching his hands moving over the buttons, feeling for them, pushing them through the holes. Clever hands. Long-fingered hands. And as he tweaked the buttons she was reminded of the clever way he’d tweaked her nipples and worked other magic… She looked away. Looked back again. ‘There’s no point. No point to any of it.’

      ‘It’s only sex,’ he said, finishing off the rest of the buttons before peeling off his shirt. ‘It’s not like we haven’t already done it—several times. And I know for a fact you enjoyed it. I really don’t know why you’re making out like it’s some kind of ordeal.’

      ‘It was supposed to be for just one night,’ she said, trying and failing not to be distracted by his broad chest and that line of dark hair heading south. ‘A one-night stand. No strings attached.’

      ‘So we make it a four-night stand. And I sure as hell don’t see any strings.’

      She dragged her recalcitrant eyes north again, wondering how he could so easily consider making love to a person like they had for not one but four nights, and not want to feel some kind of affection for the other party. But, then, he had a head start on her. He had a heart of stone. ‘It was nice, sure. But that doesn’t mean we have to have any repeat performances.’

      ‘There’s that word again.’ His hands dropped to the waistband of his pants, stilled there. ‘“Nice”. Tell me, if you scream like that for nice, what do you do for mind-blowing? Shatter windows?’

      She felt heat flood her face, totally mortified at being reminded of her other wanton self, especially now when she was trying to make like she could live without such sex. ‘Okay, so it was better than nice. So what? It’s not as if we even like each other.’

      ‘And that matters because…?’

      She spun away, reduced to feeling like some random object rather than a woman with feelings and needs of her own, and crossed to the wall of windows that looked out through palm trees to the bay beyond. It was moonlit now, the moon dusting the swaying palm leaves with silver and laying a silvery trail across the water to the shore, where tiny waves rippled in, luminescent as they kissed the beach. It was beautiful, the air balmy and still, and she wished she could enjoy it. But right now she was having trouble getting past the knowledge that she’d spent an entire night, had bared herself, body and soul, to a man who treated sex as some kind of birthright.

      And if it wasn’t bad enough that he’d not so subtly pointed out she’d been vocally enthusiastic, now he’d as much as agreed that he didn’t even like her. Lovely.

       And that was supposed to make her happier about sleeping with him?

      Fat chance.

      She felt his hands land on her shoulders, his long fingers stroking her arms, felt his warm breath fan her hair. ‘You are a beautiful woman, Evelyn. You are beautiful and sexy and built for unspeakable pleasure. And you know it. So why do you deny yourself that which you so clearly desire?’

      Self-preservation, СКАЧАТЬ