Jennifer Greene - Mesmerizing Stranger

He was just…curious. That was all.

Unwillingly, his eyes closed. It was her fault, her witchery, because her arms seemed to wrap him up in a place that wasn’t cold or damp or needled with problems. For two seconds, he forgot about huge stakes and betrayal and embezzlement. He forgot about the women he’d failed in the past, the ones who’d failed him right back.

He forgot his own name.

She sipped and sucked. He tasted and teased right back. He rolled her on top of him, creating a tangle of blankets that he found some way to push aside. He had to get a grip on her. He had to run his hands down that lithe, skinny body, to see where on earth all that evocative, provocative power was coming from.

Only then…he found out. When he stroked down her spine, she parted her legs, rubbed against him. He turned into rock. He hadn’t had a chance to turn into solid rock in a very long time.

He skimmed his hands back up, stroking the same bones and soft flesh, into that messy short hair. She made those soft, appreciative murmurs again, as if she’d like him for brunch. Dinner. Breakfast. An all-day meal.

And abruptly, he rolled her on her back again and shifted away from her. This was insanity. It just couldn’t be happening. He never lost his head, not with a woman and not in life, ever.

And there she was, panting a little breathlessly-as he was, damn it. But her eyelids slowly opened, and there was a moment of stillness. Then her gaze narrowed and her body tensed. He didn’t know what she saw in his expression, but it was obviously something that made her wary.

She said, “You get away with that once. Because that’s probably what you do. Establish that you’re the alpha wolf, no matter who you’re with or what you’re doing. But I don’t do wolves, and I don’t give a hoot about power. So don’t you kiss me again unless…”

“Unless?”

“Unless you plain old want to. No agendas, nothing to gain, nothing to win, no power thing. Just wanting.” In a real frump now, she coiled to her feet and gathered up a messy scoop of blankets. “Damn it, Harm. Now you’ve forced me into going below deck to sleep in that claustrophobic cabin.”

“You don’t have to go anywhere. I’ll leave.”

“No. This way, you owe me for being an arrogant clod. And just so you know-I’m a score keeper.”

“Just so you know, I’ll remember your orders.”

She cocked her head, asked in confusion, “What orders?”

“That order about not kissing you the next time-until I want to.”

She didn’t respond, just whirled around and headed below deck. He’d gotten the last word in, he told himself, but long after she’d disappeared from sight, he was still sitting on the damp, cold deck, feeling both sexually frustrated and flummoxed.

What a piece of work she was.

But how fascinating.

At 5:30 in the morning, Cate quit glaring at the ceiling of her cabin and gave up. She never had insomnia. Ever. But apparently, she was still too riled up about Harm to catch at any serious sleep, so she crawled out of the bunk and grabbed her laptop.

She didn’t feel quite so claustrophobic by the port window. Outside, a shimmer of pale light dozed on the smooth waters as she turned on the laptop. She was way overdue e-mailing her two sisters. She was between the two in age, but her role had always been the caretaker. The tough one. They’d all been scarred and scared kids, but Cate saw the other two as more wounded. Someone had to watch out for them.

The note to Sophie, of course, had to be first, because her e-mail box was clogged with e-mails about how happy her sister was. It was enough to give Cate hives. Enough was enough. Soph. You’re not still on your honeymoon. For Pete’s sake, you’ve been married almost six months. It’s time for you two to have a fight. A real fight. How can I trust this guy if he doesn’t behave like a normal male animal?

Then she pounded out an e-mail to Lily. I don’t want to hear all the teaching crap. This is summer. I want to hear that you’re out meeting guys, sleeping with guys, being irresponsible and impulsive. If you go to one more jewelry or Tupperware party, I swear to god I’m flying home to kick you in the behind.

There. Her sister-caretaking duties were done for the day. She closed her laptop, congratulating herself for getting her mind off Harm-and then noticed that only ten minutes had passed.

She tried a quick shower, thinking that maybe she could scrub the man out of her thoughts, but that didn’t work, either.

She’d never been afraid of a man. No reason to be. She’d already faced the life stuff that was really terrifying-which was, cut and dried, losing everything that mattered to you. Guys didn’t fall into that category. She could love them and walk away, just like she did possessions and places and everything else. Harm shouldn’t be any different.

Only, damnation, he was. She wouldn’t mind being attracted to a moneygrubbing hotshot, heavily into power and ownership and command and all that nonsense. That’s what he was supposed to be. That’s what she’d thought he was.

Impatiently, she towel-dried her hair, yanked on layers of merino wool and fleece, then slipped her feet into moc-boots. It was the way he’d kissed that threw her, she admitted to herself. She’d expected arrogance and selfishness. She’d expected him to be a taker.

Instead, he kissed as if he were a big old lonesome lion, who craved his own lioness to come home to, a cave of his own, the one place in a predator world where he could let down his hair.

As Cate climbed to the main deck, she almost let out a totally unfeminine snort. Harm in the role of romantic lion? Right. Annoyed the man was still entrenched in her thoughts, she was determined to concentrate on something else.

Like food. Food was always positive.

Ambling through the salon, the only sound she heard was the steady slop-slurping of water cradling the boat. As she passed through into the dining area, she found exactly the mess she’d expected-glasses and plates everywhere. She and Ivan had had a brouhaha before he hired her on. She was a chef, not a maid. Without a cabin boy, somebody was going to have to pick up the housekeeping duties. Eventually, they agreed-once he put more money in the kitty for her-that she’d clean up the dining room and galley 24/7. The rest of the boat was his problem.

She lifted the lid on the giant silver coffeepot-a treasure, old silver-and figured she’d grind Hawaiian beans today, add a touch of hazelnut…then scooped up a tray of glasses to cart into the galley.

She barely turned the corner before shock hit.

There was a long, bulky shadow on the floor. A body. A man’s body.

The tray careened on the counter in a noisy clatter of glasses and silverware. She fell to her knees, put her finger on the pulse of his neck, then felt another shiver of shock when she realized his eyes were open.

She knew CPR. She was damned good at CPR. Unfortunately, CPR was too darned late to do any good. She recognized Fiske even before she knelt down-who else had that classic Santa-Claus figure? But it seemed impossible that he was dead. She’d just seen him a few hours before. How could that dear, gentle, quiet man who loved her peppermint cookies have died just like that?

Confusion suddenly made her freeze. It was a darned real question. How could he have died just like that? Obviously, he must have been seeking something from the galley in the middle of the night. But what? And he was crumpled on the floor in the oddest position, his hands framed in a cupped position around his neck. Had he choked? But on what?

If he’d slipped and fallen in the tight space of the galley, he would undoubtedly have hit a hard surface-yet there was no sign of blood or physical injury. If he’d choked, there was no sign of food or whatever he could have choked on.