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Lauren yelped in surprise. Instinct had her arms flying up into bat position to cover her breasts. "How long have you been standing there?" she demanded.
"Awhile," he lifted a shoulder, studying her in a manner that was indeed animal-like. Humans didn't have such disconcertingly intent focus in their gazes.
"Why didn't you say something?"
He seemed to mull that over. The unexpected silence stretched out between them. "I didn't have anything to say," he said at last.
This had to be Josh. Since he was gay, he wasn't about to turn into a rutting beast and grapple up the tree to ravish her. Oh, screw it. He was a grown man and she was sure he had seen someone's breasts before hers. She hated the pathetic picture she imagined she made, so she forced herself to settle back against her natural backrest and readjust her arms to an akimbo position, so she wasn't flaunting herself, but she wasn't cowering either. His glance seemed to follow the movement of every muscle.
"Do you intend to be around awhile?" she said, exasperated when he said nothing further, just continued to study her. His hair was a variety of rich browns streaked with blonde. It fell in uneven lengths to his shoulders, just grazing the top of his tanned shoulder blades. He wore just a pair of jeans, so a great deal of that tan was exposed, as well as some intricate and stunning tattoos. Celtic designs manacled his biceps and wrists, and there was a dragon pattern on his flat belly just above his navel. It was beautiful work, and yet it did not quite fit him, which was a strange thought, since she had just met him.
"When you're safe, I'll leave. "
The simple and sincere statement shut down her ire and replaced it with embarrassment.
"I'm sure I'll be okay," she assured him, though she felt no real assurance of that herself at the moment.
"What makes you think I didn't climb out here intentionally?"
His gaze dropped to her bare upper torso, then slid over to the deck where the hot tub still gurgled and the closed sliding glass door reflected the last light of the day.
"Fine," she said crossly, as if he'd called her an idiot outright. "Just. . . look somewhere else if you could. I mean, it's not like this - " she glanced down, "really does anything for you, but it's easier to concentrate on getting down if you're not staring at me. "
She felt embarrassed. Josh wished she could see herself as he was seeing her. She was perfect. She sat on the limb with her upper body straight, no attempt to hide the slope of her bare breasts, now that she was over her surprise. The towel knotted at her hip gave him an unimpeded view of one leg from hipbone to ankle. With her hair piled onto her head, tendrils of it wisping around her neck, she was both delicate and powerful, inciting a strong dual desire to protect her, and serve her every wish.
It was likely his prolonged isolation that made her so potent. If he saw her on a street corner, amid a bunch of other people, wearing jeans and a sweater, buying a paper, he'd give her no more than a passing appreciative glance. Maybe. Regardless, thinking that didn't change his primitive reaction to her.
There were no props like that here to protect the senses.
He politely shifted his gaze a couple inches, and his position a couple feet, as she began to attempt descent again. He wanted her in his peripheral vision if she began to fall. He wondered why she thought so little of her body that she thought he wouldn't be affected by it. This woman's figure was worth days of perusal. She had built up her strength while making sure her body stayed stylishly trim. He could see and appreciate that in the flex of her biceps and shifting long thigh muscles. He was obligated to wonder what it would feel like to have those muscles flexing against his hips. He could appreciate the curve of buttock her movement along the branch revealed. But Josh was first and foremost a breast man, and it was that which anchored his peripheral vision.
Hers were firm and heavy, the delicate shadows of blue veins offering the tongue a path that he wouldn't mind tracing. He also wouldn't mind heating up the nipple in his mouth, feeling it go from the tight wrinkled point caused by the friction of the bark, to full hardness. He could imagine his lips and tongue soothing each red abrasion on the sensitive skin.
Her bare foot reached the crotch of the tree and Josh gave her another moment or two to figure out the obvious, that her only choice was a fifteen-foot drop. The trunk of the ancient tree was far too large to shinny down unless she was part monkey, and the angle too steep, though she'd done admirably well so far.
He moved back to the base and looked up. He was rewarded with an unencumbered view up the towel, her legs open as she braced one foot in the joining point of the tree and positioned the other foot higher, on the branch she had just traversed. The vision jolted him, the pink lips of her sex exposed by a neat shave. It was easy to imagine what those lips would look like, glistening with arousal, inviting him inside.
He jerked his gaze up and made himself focus on the tendrils of blonde hair, tickling bare shoulders he'd love to mark with a light swipe of his teeth.
"You're a handy man," she said. "A fix-it guy. Don't you have a ladder or something?"
"Yes," he nodded. "My ladder is a mile away. If I go get it, you'll get impatient and try to come down by yourself. I'll find your body," his gaze shifted below them thoughtfully, "in that ravine, and Lisette will be angry that I went to get my ladder. "
Her chest started to heave with a touch of ire, distracting him. He raised his gaze back to her face and held it there, though the effort was making his eyes water.
"What if I promised not to move?" she said impatiently.
He liked the way she spoke, softness over steel, like she could order a man off of a cliff and make him want to do it. Realizing she was waiting for an answer, he lifted a shoulder.
"I don't know you," he said. "So I don't know how good your word is. "
Lauren stared down at him. Her entire escape to this island, at the moment, was taking on the appearance of an episode of Keystone Cops Go to Hell.
She had envisioned herself having a flawless weekend of solitude, getting in touch with the inner Lauren, finding that calm, capable woman she knew was still in there somewhere. In short, she had imagined herself taking long contemplative walks on the beach, staring out at the waves, the heroine of a New Age self-discovery memoir. The woodland animals, feeling her amazing tranquility and strength, would approach her without fear and seek her touch.
This was her vacation, dammit, and she was going to get on the ground, get into the house with a cup of hot chocolate, and read one of her books. She wouldn't start with a romance, one of those books where women ended up in ludicrous positions half-naked in front of strange, handsome men. Like that ever really happened.
Well, hell, if he wasn't used to the proper social niceties, pretending everything was okay when it wasn't, then she needn't work at it. Her legs folded up to her chest and Lauren sank into the crevice of the tree, the bark scraping yet another area of exposed skin, adding to the list of abrasions she would have to address later. She turned her back on him and leaned her head up against the branch. She shut her eyes tightly, but the bitter tears fought free anyway, a knot of them jamming up her throat. Resolve number one, not to cry a single tear while she was on this island, was in shambles for the second time in less than two hours.
