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almost imperceptibly something in the atmosphere changed and then intensified. A blurry sexual awareness that had been there all the time was now brought into sharp focus. Ella felt the warm tongue of desire licking its way over her skin and the heated clamour of her response. She found that she didn’t dare look at him—and yet where else was there to look? The room was so small, and he was so…so…

      She swallowed, her mouth as dry as the sun-baked sand outside. ‘Maybe I should think about getting home,’ she said quietly.

      Nico had watched her body tense, and then seen the wary look that crept into her eyes. He forced himself to steel against the demands of his hungry body, aware that he could frighten her away. Because sex was easy. He could get sex any time he wanted. But not a unique situation like this. And what would sex be like with a woman who didn’t know?

      â€˜Not yet.’ His dark eyes on her face, he took a mouthful of wine. ‘You still haven’t told me anything about you.’

      â€˜Well, you know my name. And I’m twenty-six and I was born in Somerset.’ Her eyes mocked him. ‘So now you know everything about me, too.’

      â€˜Everything and nothing.’ He echoed her sardonic words. ‘And what of the men on board—one of them is your lover, perhaps?’

      Ella found her cheeks colouring. ‘You can’t just come out and ask me something like that!’ she protested.

      â€˜Why not?’

      â€˜Because I thought we were sitting here having a polite conversation, and that sort of question breaks all the rules!’

      â€˜A polite conversation?’ he murmured. ‘Oh, I think not, cara mia. When a man and a woman talk together there is always an internal dialogue taking place. What you say is never what you’re really thinking, deep down.’ Or else I would be telling you that I want to feel your naked body against me, to taste your tongue as it licks against my lips and hear your cry of startled pleasure as I thrust into you that sweet first time.

      His murmured words increased her wariness, but heightened the sensation of tense expectation, too. Surely by now she should be itching to get away? Not finding her eyes drawn to the luscious curve of his lips, to the hard, clean lines of his body, and thinking how magnificent he must look when he was naked.

      His voice interrupted her thoughts. ‘So?’ he persisted silkily. ‘You wish to rush away to the jail-house to greet one of them?’

      â€˜Ugh—no, thanks!’ Ella shuddered. ‘None of them is my lover, nor ever would be. Mark is just someone I met through work.’ She bit her lip, remembering how trusting she had been. ‘He invited me along to join some friends of his for the weekend, only I arrived to discover that his idea about how we were going to spend our time together differed somewhat from mine.’

      â€˜So what happened?’

      â€˜I made it clear I wasn’t interested in him, and that’s when he decided to make love to a bottle of whisky instead.’ She pulled a face. ‘They all did.’

      â€˜And did he hurt you?’ he demanded, his expression darkening.

      Ella shook her head, taken aback by the sudden hardening of his voice. ‘No. I stayed as far away from them as possible. Then they started to drink more and more, and no one seemed capable of taking charge of the boat.’ Her voice trembled a little. ‘That’s when I started to get frightened.’

      He remembered the way she had clung to him on deck, and the gut-wrenching effect of the little whimper of protest she had made when he had left her. The way she had weakly gripped onto his hand as if he were her lifeline. Playing rescuer to a woman could evoke some very powerful and primitive feelings, he recognised—feelings he was unfamiliar with, which were given extra potency by her ignorance of who he really was. And that, too, was a rare sensation.

      He knew he wanted to make love to her, but he couldn’t do it now. Not here. Making love to a woman on his own territory was always fraught with difficulty. And he had no wish to shatter her trust in him, nor to abuse his position. When he took her to bed it must be on equal terms. And in order for that to happen he must get her back to England with as little fuss as possible.

      â€˜You want to go home?’ he asked suddenly.

      His question took Ella off-guard, and she hoped her expression managed to mask her disappointment. What had she been expecting? To stay here indefinitely, in this beautiful place, with this strong, handsome man who had saved her? Alone like Adam and Eve—with the inevitable outcome of sexual discovery?

      She fixed her mouth into a wobbly kind of smile. ‘Well, I suppose I’d better.’

      He heard her reluctance, and that only heightened his appetite. But, as he had already told her, hunger made the best sauce…

      He slid a high tech-looking mobile phone from the back pocket of his jeans. ‘I’ll arrange it.’

      He went outside to get a signal and she could hear him talking in a low, rapid voice in Spanish. Then he came back inside.

      â€˜We can be airborne within the hour.’

      She was unable to hide her bewilderment. ‘That soon? But my ticket is from Nice, and that’s miles away.’

      â€˜We’ll be travelling by private jet.’

      Her frown deepened. ‘How come?’

      Again, his eyes pierced her with their brilliant light, but he was enjoying this sensation of anonymity far too much to break it. And besides, he wasn’t telling a lie. He was merely presenting the truth in a slightly different form.

      â€˜My…employer,’ he elaborated casually, ‘is an exceedingly rich and generous man. And I’m a qualified pilot,’ he added. ‘So I can fly you home.’ There was a pause and his dark eyes captured hers in their ebony crossfire. ‘That is, of course, if you trust me to fly you home safely, cara?’

      He had rescued her from the boat and ensured that she did not spend a night in the cells. He had cared for her while she thrashed around with fever—what was there not to trust?

      And when he called her cara like that…

      â€˜But can you just get up and go like that? Won’t your employer mind?’

      â€˜Not at all. I have to do some business myself in England, and I can do it this week just as easily as next.’

      She saw the gleam of anticipation that had lightened the night-dark eyes, the slow smile that had irresistibly curved his lips, and she could feel the erratic beat of her heart.

      â€˜It’s very…sweet of you,’ she said.

      The question why hung unspoken on the air.

      He shook his head very slightly. It was a very English description, and one that had never been applied to him in his life. ‘Sweet? No, cara—it is something much more fundamental than that.’ He suddenly became aware of the irony of his words. ‘You see, I find that I’m just as susceptible to the lure of a pair of dazzling green eyes and a pair of petal-soft lips as the next man.’

      Ella felt the heat rise in her cheeks. It was most definitely an overture. And what was she going to do about it? After all, what did she have in common with this all-action foreigner—with his jet-ski and his pilot’s licence and his ability to rustle up a delicious one-pot meal in the most basic surroundings? Who lived on a remote island far away from her world…

      A shadow of a smile had flitted across the hard contours of his face. ‘Maybe you’d like to have dinner with me back in England?’ Breakfast would have been his meal of choice, but that would inevitably

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