LITMIR.BIZ

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hurt.

      His palm trailed her arm again, up over the slender shoulder, down to her elbow. Seagulls wheeled and squawked above while time wrapped around them like a promise-filled cocoon. If anyone had happened along they’d have mistaken them for lovers.

      “Guess we really should get going,” she murmured. “You’ve probably got someone waiting.”

      He nailed the quality in her voice: overly blasé. People came to Diamond Shores to fulfil their island fantasy while soaking up every laid-back luxury. Make the rates exorbitant, and it was a licence to print money. It added up that kitten here was looking to be indulged too. But in what way? And to what extent?

      Time for a test line.

      “There’s nobody waiting in the way you’re implying,” he said.

      “What way is that?”

      “How many ways are there?”

      “Let’s see. You could be here on a reckless weekend with a bud.”

      “Nope.”

      “Could be showing a client a good time, hoping to tie the bow on a multi-million-dollar deal.”

      “Good guess, but no banana.”

      “You’re here with your girl?”

      “Don’t have one.”

      Two beats of silence, then her breath brushed his chest again. “Maybe you’re here to find one?”

      “Is that an invitation?”

      She gave a humourless laugh, but didn’t search out his gaze. “Believe me, I’m not your type.”

      “What type are you?”

      “I should start with clumsy.”

      “So this kind of incident isn’t a one-off?”

      “Yesterday I spilled a drink in the lap of an Arab prince.”

      He cringed. “Bet he offered to buy you another one.”

      When she groaned, the vibration blew a pleasant tingling rash down one side of his body. “Hardly.”

      “International model types weren’t the Prince’s thing?”

      She lifted her head to give him a pull-the-other-one look. “Models are super tall and thin.”

      “So, not a model?” he conjectured. “More athlete, then. You compete in the European show-jump circuit?”

      “Horses make me sneeze. And I’m clumsy, remember? I’d break my neck, and the poor horse’s too.”

      “Okay. Your father’s one of the country’s leading barristers and you’re fresh out of law school, ready to fry your first bad guy’s butt,” he surmised, and she laughed.

      “I like your imagination,” she said, “but …”

      “I’m off track?”

      “Way off.”

      “A hint would be good.”

      “But not as fun as hearing what you come up with next.”

      Her eyes were dancing now, and a stream of hair had fallen down the centre of her forehead, criss-crossing her slim straight nose. He scooped the hair behind her ear and his blood heated more.

      “Got it.” He lowered his hand. “You’re a misunderstood heiress running from the press.”

      “Not this year.”

      He chuckled, so she did too, but then she winced and touched her head.

      His stomach muscles crunched and welts stung for the first time as he sat up. “How’s the lump?”

      “Only hurts when I laugh.”

      He mock-frowned. “I can be serious.”

      “Tell me something I don’t know.”

      “I want to hold you closer.”

      Her hand drifted away from her bump. “You want to do what?”

      “Hold you closer.”

      Her eyes rounded to saucers.

      “That’s not a command, by the way,” he added. “More a suggestion.”

      “If I say no?”

      “We head off to the resort.”

      “If I say yes?”

      “Then I’ll add another wish to my list.”

      She blinked several times, as if she were having trouble taking it all in, but she didn’t try to wriggle away. In fact she leaned nearer. “Tell me.”

      He craned his neck to graze his lips over the satin and grit of her brow, and the contact made the skin tighten over his flesh. “I’d do this.”

      He heard her intake of air, felt her slight tremble as he grazed again.

      Her hand bunched slowly on his chest, sending positive signals to regions below.

      “And then?” she asked.

      He cupped her nape, his thumb circling the base of her neck before his hand slid around to her chin. His lips skied down the slope where a moment ago he’d brushed her hair away.

      “I’d tip your chin higher.” With a knuckle, he angled her mouth towards his. “Like this.”

      Her lips parted as she inhaled, silent but deep, and her heavy gaze sparkled into his.

      “Then what?”

      Smiling softly, he moved closer.

      “Then this.”

      CHAPTER THREE

      THE touch of his kiss was faint, yet the intensity of sensation was all-consuming. The promise of what was to come gave Nina a heady rush and goosebumps down to her toes. Today she’d nearly lost her life, but this—dear heaven—was almost worth dying for.

      With his thumb guiding her jaw, he steered her chin higher and kissed her again, this time with his mouth slanted at a different, more exacting angle.

      Nina sighed.

      He felt like magic … omnipotent, skilled, sultry. This caress was barely there, yet somehow it lifted her to another plane, where warm hands understood how to stroke and leisurely lips knew how to thrill. If there was an advanced school of kissing, this guy had graduated top of the class.

      As his mouth reluctantly drew away, the tip of his nose brushed hers. She opened her eyes, and when he opened his, they were a dark, stormy blue-grey, and filled with a latent hunger Nina’s surging blood recognised too.

      This man was every woman’s dream. Masterful, challenging, sexy to a fault. She’d never met anyone like him. She wanted him to kiss her a second time, and then she wanted him to do it again.

      One problem.

      Did she tell him before or after she wasn’t who or what he thought? Not an heiress fleeing from the paparazzi, not the genius daughter of a world-famous barrister, but a rather average, stressed-out waitress, struggling to get through a difficult time.

      Good thing he had track shoes on. He might want to run a mile.

      “I have to say,” he murmured in a rich, drugging voice that spoke directly to her G spot, “that felt good.”

      Despite her concerns, she couldn’t help but smile back. “I second that.”

      His absorbed gaze dropped to devour her lips. “I vote we get more inventive.”

      “Which entails …?”

      “For you … simply lie back and enjoy.”

      “Oh,

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