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Terrible tremors ripped through her body, making the shivering that had gripped her even more intense. But it wasn’t just the cold and wet of her physical condition that was affecting her—it was the brutal reminder of just how little she’d meant to Marco.
‘We have to get you out of those wet clothes,’ he said, suddenly closing the distance between them. Then, before she could react, he lifted her up again and started striding across the meadow to the cottage.
‘Put me down!’ Claudia gasped, struggling against him. The idea of him undressing her flashed through her mind in a series of erotic images which aroused and scared her at the same time. ‘I said, put me down!’
‘We need to warm you up right away,’ he said, his voice showing no sign of effort as he hurried towards the cottage. ‘You’re soaked through—we stood in the cold wind too long.’
As Marco held her tight against his chest, he was shocked by just how hard she was shaking. He could even hear her teeth chattering.
He didn’t know much about hypothermia. A dip in the December sea obviously wasn’t ideal, but he wouldn’t have thought she’d be at serious risk that quickly. However, she was shivering so intensely that an unpleasant jolt ran through him and settled like a wedge of ice in his chest. He could not let anything happen to her!
‘Stop struggling!’ he barked. ‘If you catch your death of cold, you’ll be no good to anybody.’
His voice sounded harsh even to his own ears and he felt his heart pound with concern beneath his ribs. But he schooled his features into a blank expression and crammed the unwanted emotion back into submission.
It was not fear for Claudia’s well being that had made him react so strongly. If she was laid up with the flu, it could ruin everything.
He hurried towards the cottage, cursing her for foolishly letting herself be overtaken by the tide. How she had survived twenty-five years of life when she showed so little concern for her own personal safety, he couldn’t fathom.
She was normally a streetwise and savvy young woman, well able to look after herself. But the way photography totally absorbed her, blotted out her common sense and awareness, had always made him uneasy. He remembered with sickening clarity the day he’d feared she would fall from the cliff as she’d slid on her stomach nearer and nearer to the crumbling edge, concentrating on getting the perfect shot of fledgling kestrels around their nest on a ledge below her.
He shook his head sharply, angrily rejecting the vivid memory. He would not think about the past. It was not possible to separate memories of what they had done together—things at the time he thought he’d enjoyed—from the knowledge that it had all been a lie. That she’d duped him into trusting her. And then she had betrayed him.
‘Where is the key?’ His voice was as hard as steel as they reached the cottage.
Claudia looked up at him, momentarily dazed, and struggled to pull her thoughts together—the icy cold was numbing her mind as well as her body.
‘P…p…pocket…’ she said. ‘P…put me down.’
Marco set her down on her feet on the doorstep and she tried to slide her hand into the pocket of her jeans. But she was still shivering and clumsy and she couldn’t seem to get her fingers past the stiff denim.
‘Let me.’
She had barely registered the words when suddenly Marco pushed her hand impatiently aside. A moment later his fingers delved deeply and forcefully into the tight pocket of her jeans.
It was over in a moment and he was already inserting the key into the lock before she fully realised what was happening. Her mind might be feeling numb—but her body had responded instantly to the intimate invasion of her personal space.
Shocking desire for him rolled through her, weakening her will to resist him. But, as he stepped towards her, looking as if he planned to pick her up again, she forced herself to dodge out of his reach.
‘I can walk on my own.’ She tried to dash inside, but her legs were wobbly and Marco easily
kept pace with her. She had no chance of running ahead and reaching the sanctuary of the bathroom before him. No chance of closing the door and locking him out.
He strode past her and turned on the shower. Then his attention switched back to her.
‘I’m all right now,’ she said, feeling a ripple of apprehension pass through her as she looked at his intent face. ‘You can go.’
‘You’re shaking too much to undress yourself,’ he said, looking at her with his eyes narrowed in assessment.
She drew in a breath and started to protest, but he ignored her attempts to knock his hands away from her body and pulled off her coat and fleece before she could stop him. He dumped them in a soggy pile on the tiled floor and reached for her again, but at last she found the strength in her shaky legs to move decisively away from him.
‘Then I’ll warm up in the shower with the rest of my clothes on.’ She spoke with conviction, wrapping her arms across her stomach and holding her T-shirt tightly in place. ‘They’re already wet.’
She let out a shaky breath as he stepped away from her, but then her eyes widened in surprised agitation as he started to strip off his own clothes. Watching his fluid movements as he removed his coat and sweater made her heart begin to patter. Wild thoughts flicked through her mind—how many more clothes would he remove? What did he plan to do next?
Then, before she realised what he was about, he knelt down to unlace their boots. A moment later he lifted her bodily into the shower, stepped in beside her and pulled the screen closed behind him.
‘This should get your blood flowing again.’
