Andrea Laurence - Seduced At Sea

Emotions exploded through him and landed with unerring accuracy on Tom Shepherd as he barrelled up the sand towards them. Rage the like he couldn’t remember took over from lust and circuited his body. His muscles tensed and for a split second he contemplated meeting him halfway and putting his fist through his face.

Lexi must have sensed his intent because she placed her warm palm on his forearm. ‘Don’t.’ That softly spoken plea brought him back to his senses and stopped him in his tracks. A bar room full of men hadn’t been able to stop him after he’d located the man responsible for the death of his uncle in a work-related accident but this woman could contain him with the slightest touch. Of course he’d been irrational with pain at the time his uncle had died, but somehow the emotions he’d felt today when he’d watched Lexi go under hadn’t been that much different. Which was absurd. He’d loved his uncle and didn’t care a whit about Lexi Somers.

‘Lexi, are you okay?’ Tom’s concern was palpable and Leo shook off his disconcerting thoughts and pierced him with a look. If he but knew it, Tom Shepherd was only standing because of the woman he’d nearly killed. He hadn’t put a life jacket on Lexi and Leo knew why. And he knew why Tom had gone extra fast to make her cling to his back. Had she enjoyed it, pressed up against Tom’s back as she’d held tight? Had she been thinking of Tom when she’d responded to his kisses moments ago? Leo inwardly cursed the direction of his thoughts. This sense of jealousy—because he recognised that was what it was even though he had never experienced it before—was so unlike him. Women were always easy to come by and easy to let go.

Unused to feeling so out of balance, Leo turned his anger on her. ‘Why the hell didn’t you insist on wearing a life jacket?’ he snarled.

He could see his sudden attack had startled her and that she was floundering over how to answer him.

‘That was my fault, Leo,’ Tom answered like a protective beau. ‘I said she wouldn’t need one.’

‘Excuse me. If I could just see the patient.’ The doctor pushed the two men aside and crouched beside Lexi and Leo paced away from them before he did hit Tom. He hadn’t been in a fist fight for seventeen years and he was disgusted with his loss of control that nearly saw him in one now. He didn’t understand this possessive urge he felt towards Lexi Somers but it had to stop. She wasn’t his and she never would be. He would never want her to be, despite his continued desire to take her to bed. That was just lust. Unusual in its intensity, yes, but still something he could control.

The doctor finished examining her and sat back on his haunches. ‘You’re fine. You’ve taken in a bit of water but your lungs sound clear enough. It doesn’t appear you were hit and I expect you’ll make a full recovery by this evening, but get some rest when you get back all the same.’

‘I feel fine now,’ Lexi said, hugging her knees close to her chest.

‘Thanks, Gerard,’ Leo murmured. ‘Tom can return you to the yacht.’

Tom hesitated. ‘I’m really sorry, Lexi.’

‘That’s okay, Tom. Accidents happen.’

‘No, they don’t,’ Leo cut in. ‘That was a stupid thing to do, Shepherd, and if I see you on one of my skis again without a life jacket I’ll find someone else to do the East India project.’

Lexi’s eyes flew to Leo as he squared off against Tom. The East India project was his idea? Lexi was shocked. The man worked tirelessly to save men he had probably never met after a building accident, knew the name of a staff member who ranked low down on the yacht’s employment hierarchy, and now funded documentaries to bring the plight of children in the Third World to the attention of others—and these were just things she knew about. It didn’t make sense that a man like that would not want to have a relationship with his son.

Unless he was still pining for the mother of that child?

Lexi’s throat constricted at the unexpected thought that Leo might still be so in love with the beautiful Amanda Weston that he couldn’t even stand to have their son in his orbit if he couldn’t have her as well. Not that he’d said as much—but what other explanation could there be?

Lexi remembered how her own mother had been so deeply affected when her father’s double life had come to light she had never risked her heart on another man again, turning instead to fostering children to fulfil the void his defection had left behind. Lexi had admired her mother for providing such a caring environment for other children, but she had always struggled when a child who had become part of their family had been returned to their own home.

‘Okay, okay, my friend; I can see you’re upset.’ Tom held his hands up towards Leo in a conciliatory nature. ‘We’ll talk later by which time I hope your ire has cooled enough to accept my most humble apology.’

Lexi was surprised at Leo’s aggressiveness and felt sorry for the retreating Tom. It had been remiss of him not to remind her to wear a life jacket but …

‘Leo, really … it was an accident,’ Lexi protested.

‘It was avoidable.’ Leo turned to face her, his blue eyes rapier sharp as he glared at her. ‘If you had been wearing a life jacket you wouldn’t have gone under,’ he rasped forcefully.

‘I didn’t know I had to.’ Was this really the same man who not twenty minutes ago had kissed her into a liquid puddle of need?

‘I know that,’ he snapped. ‘And you know the reason Shepherd didn’t tell you to put one on.’

His icy gaze raked down over her body and it took her a second for his meaning to register. ‘Are you suggesting …? That’s ridiculous,’ she said indignantly.

‘It’s the truth. He probably took his cue from your flirting with him during lunch. Probably earlier in the pool, for all I know.’

Lexi felt a blast of anger curl her hands into fists. ‘And I suppose that kiss before on the sand was my fault as well? I encouraged you by lying back, unable to catch my breath.’

Leo rubbed the back of his neck. ‘That kiss was the result of an extremely stressful situation,’ he grated.

‘Do tell.’

‘Do tell what? As I recall, you weren’t exactly reluctant a few minutes ago.’

Lexi shut up then. He was right; she’d been far from reluctant and she needed more time to reconcile her attraction to a man she didn’t respect and who confused her mind and her senses in equal measure. She still felt light-headed from his kiss and the heat of his body pressing her so firmly into the sand.

‘Yes, well, as you said, it was stress. And I think we should just forget it ever happened.’

‘Fine with me.’

Lexi felt lost for words at his easy acceptance of her rebuttal and leant forward to brush the sugar-soft sand from her legs. What had she wanted him to say? That his kisses had been special? As if.

‘We should get back,’ he bit out tersely.

‘Yes,’ she agreed absently, too caught up in her own tumultuous response to this man to wonder at his irritation.

Leo led the way down to the water’s edge and it wasn’t until the hot sand gave way to the coolness of the water that she realised just how she would be getting back to the yacht.

‘I’m not riding with you on that,’ she protested a little too vehemently.

Leo waded towards the jet ski. ‘What are you going to do—swim?’

He swung himself up onto the bobbing ski with envious athleticism, his leanly muscled torso rippling beneath his still damp shirt from where he’d held her wet body against him. ‘It’s not that far,’ she said, trying to calculate the distance between the island and his yacht.

‘It’s over two kilometres and you’ve had a fall.’