Passionate Playboys: The Demetrios Bridal Bargain / The Magnate's Indecent Proposal / Hot Nights with a Playboy. Элли Блейк
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she had the impression of sharp angles and intriguing hollows.
There was a fractional pause before he responded calmly and for a moment she imagined she saw something flicker in the silvered enigmatic depths … recognition …? Which made no sense, because if she had ever met a man with those eyes she would not have forgotten!
‘Nobody is going to die. I’m going to lift you out of the water.’
He made it sound so easy. She nodded, thinking again of that seven to ten pounds. ‘What do you want me to—? Oh!’ The breath huffed out of her chest in a noisy gasp as she landed face down on the ice. She lay there and felt the tears leak from her eyes. ‘I’m not going to drown.’
‘Not if you do exactly what I say,’ came the not exactly comforting response. ‘Are you injured? Do you have pain?’
She lifted her head, wiping the water-darkened strands of hair from her cheek … the shore seemed an awful long way away. She shook her head. ‘Just cold and tired. If I could just rest for a minute …’
A hand under her chin jerked her head up. ‘Open your eyes. Now!’
She obeyed the imperative command and saw the man with the beautiful eyes was totally unmoved by the tears that welled up in her own eyes. She blinked; she wasn’t after a sympathy vote.
As her misty vision cleared she registered properly several more details of her rescuer’s appearance beyond his spectacular eyes. The hair that waved smoothly back from a broad brow and fell silky straight to his collar—had he been wearing one—was dark. The sable shade echoed in his dark winged eyebrows was complemented by a clear olive-toned complexion.
His patrician face was long with high, razor-sharp cheekbones and an angular jaw that was lightly dusted with a dark shadow of stubble. His nose was strong and aquiline and his mouth wide and mobile. Rose found the overtly sensual outline of his lips almost cruel.
He was the most incredibly good-looking male she had ever seen or even imagined and yet when she looked at him she found herself almost repelled by his male beauty. Well, what other emotion could be responsible for the uncomfortable, lurching, shivery sensation in her belly when she looked at his saturnine face?
‘You will not fall asleep.’
Rose wanted to ask if he really thought she was that stupid. But she didn’t have the energy and, besides, he probably did think just that. Instead she just nodded and asked, ‘What do I do?’
‘Keep flat, move slowly.’
‘I’ll try.’
‘Trying is not good enough if you don’t want to kill us both. I will be behind you, but it is most important that we distribute our weight evenly, stay low and flat …’ he made a sweeping horizontal motion with one hand to indicate how he wanted her to move ‘… commando-style.’
‘Commando?’ Rose repeated, wondering if he did something along those lines for real.
Her glance skimmed the muscle-packed length of him. He had that lean, hard look that made it easy to imagine him being part of some élite group trained for covert operations. And then there was the air of authority. Not many people could give, let alone maintain, that kind of authority when lying belly down on thin ice!
‘You understand?’
She nodded. ‘But the rope … is it such a good idea …?’ She looked from the rope looped around her waist and followed it to his washboard-flat middle. ‘If anything goes wrong we are tied together.’ She didn’t want to be responsible for pulling this good Samaritan into the icy water.
‘Then we shall just have to make very sure that nothing goes wrong, won’t we?’ he inserted with the impatient air of someone not used to having his instructions questioned. ‘You are ready?’
She nodded, thinking there were some things a person was never ready for, but he had made it pretty clear she had very little choice.
The progress they made seemed torturously slow, though she knew it couldn’t have taken as long as it felt. Each time she felt she could go no further because her legs were shaking or she just couldn’t feel them her rescuer was there, encouraging her, though his encouragement at times bordered on coercion.
CHAPTER THREE
FINALLY on solid land, Rose simply lay there for several moments, too euphoric at being safe to even register the cold that every flutter of wind was driving deeper into her bones. Then, pulling her shaking knees up to her chest, she heaved herself into a sitting position, hugging her arms around her body.
The dark stranger was beside her. He had hunkered down to her level and was casually balancing on his heels with the inbred grace of a natural athlete.
‘Thank you so much; you saved my life.’
She found it slightly off-putting that there was not a flicker of expression in the spooky silver-grey eyes trained on her face.
‘I’m Rose, by the way, Mr …?’
Mathieu looked into the incredible amber eyes brimming with gratitude and innocent as a kitten, which could not be more different from the reckless, sexual challenge he recalled last seeing in those same eyes. If she intended to pretend they did not know one another it was nothing to him. He supposed it was just possible that she didn’t—his upper lip curled in fastidious contempt—she had been very drunk that night.
The win had clinched him the champion’s medal for the fourth year running. So for that reason alone the evening of the gala reception at the embassy would have lingered on in his memory, even if he hadn’t returned to his hotel room later that night to find a naked woman in his bed.
A woman who had smooth skin like cream, long hair the colour of pale caramel and golden eyes.
The golden eyes that were looking at him now.
‘Can you walk?’
She blinked at the abruptness of his question and the smile faded from her face. She was philosophical about the hostility in his manner. His life had just been put at risk because of her. He was bound not to look too kindly on the person responsible for his close encounter, although the level of cold disdain in his body language did seem excessive. He was looking at her as though she were something offensive on his shoe!
She attempted to struggle clumsily to her feet. ‘Of course.’
Mathieu, who had realised the moment he had formed the question that she could probably barely feel her limbs, never mind walk, ignored her optimistic assertion and bent to scoop her up. As he gathered her to him he was aware first of softness, then, before he had time to wonder at the heat that exploded inside him—cold, icy cold.
A glance revealed her skin had an unhealthy bluish tinge, which was hardly surprising considering what she had been through. He was well aware of the danger of hypothermia. It was imperative that she warmed up quickly.
‘I … what are you doing?’ Rose stuttered as she found herself slung unceremoniously over his shoulder.
‘Preventing you getting hypothermia. The Land Rover’s parked just up on the track,’ he explained, mentally assessing the time it would take him to reach it.
He didn’t say anything. Not another word until they reached the vehicle, which did not surprise her. What man could speak with an overweight—and that was dry—blonde over his shoulder? What did surprise her was that he could keep up a brisk running pace the entire way and still not be breathing very hard.
Pulling open the door, Mathieu dumped his shaking burden in the back seat before going around to the driver’s side and switching on the engine, sliding the thermostat on the heater to full.
‘Get the wet things off.’ He barely glanced in her direction before leaving the front of the Land Rover.
He returned a moment later carrying a metallic survival blanket and a heavy cable-knitted sweater,