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The moment had been intoxicating. The memory still was, if she were to be honest. And yet she swept up the garments and held them to the front of her body, as though that provided her with any more dignity than standing here, completely naked, in front of him.

‘Then they can reach you if they need to. You don’t have to be down there with everyone else.’

‘Right.’ Isla swallowed.

She could barely breathe right now. Standing here, waiting—silently begging—for him to spell it out. But Nikhil just lay there, his hands locked behind his head, his bare muscled chest on display and the white sheet low over his abdomen, just concealing himself from her.

Teasing her.

Was he daring her to crawl back onto the bed and repeat what had happened earlier?

Her mouth actually watered, even as insecurity gripped her.

‘So... I should stay?’

His eyes changed, something flashing through them that she couldn’t quite identify, and then they darkened, looking more sensuous than ever.

‘Are you waiting for an invitation?’

What was it about his tone that made her suddenly so bold?

‘I wasn’t presuming,’ she teased. ‘I’ve learned that can be a mistake where you are concerned.’

‘And I’ve learned that no matter how much I try to resist you, pyar, I cannot. But there is a lesson to be learned there, I think.’

‘What lesson?’ Isla asked, trying to hold herself together. Trying not to read too much into the fact that he’d called her pyar. Again. Which, if she wasn’t very much mistaken, was a term of endearment.

It was both terrifying and stirring that she should react so viscerally to the term. No matter how much she kept trying to remind herself that this was casual, that it didn’t mean anything, that she didn’t want it to mean anything, Isla was very much afraid her head and her heart weren’t quite singing the same song.

Perhaps reading that all over her face, Nikhil suddenly took hold of her upper arms. Not roughly, but enough to make sure she was listening to him.

‘Isla, you understand that I can’t offer you anything more than this?’ His voice was gruff.

‘I don’t want anything more.’ The words slipped out easily enough. Yet she was still suspicious of her own traitorous heart. ‘You forget, I don’t believe in love. Or relationships.’

‘So you said,’ he confirmed.

But he didn’t look entirely convinced and she knew how he felt.

‘The point is, this isn’t dating. It’s just...’

‘Enjoying each other’s company,’ Isla jumped in, though whether she was trying to convince Nikhil or herself wasn’t entirely determinable.

Still, the words were the right ones. And, whether he believed her or not, it was enough to allow him to continue.

‘Enjoying each other’s company,’ he muttered, already pulling her back to him and claiming her mouth with his own. As if he couldn’t help himself any longer.

And didn’t that say something all of its own?

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

WHAT WAS IT about an all-you-can-eat cruise ship buffet that induced a passenger with a known allergy to decide to sample the very food that could kill them? In this case, a newly married fifty-year-old gentleman with a shellfish allergy who had nonetheless decided to sample the aphrodisiac qualities of oysters with his new wife.

In a way, she could almost understand it. The past few weeks with Nikhil—ever since that night back at the hotel in the rainforest—had been incredible. Special. How many times had he reached for her that night? After that thrilling moment when she’d been about to sneak out of his room, when he’d told her that he couldn’t offer her anything more than enjoying each other’s company.

It had been more of a promise than she’d ever imagined she would hear from his lips. And he’d made good on it, giving her the key to his cabin every night they happened to be off together. Trusting her.

Because, as discreet as she’d tried to be, she knew that even if only one person spotted them, it would ruin the reputation he’d spent a decade building. He was risking it for her. It was more of a declaration to her than all the words he’d avoided saying. And one day, when she had the courage, maybe she could point that out to him and prove that he was wrong for thinking that he wasn’t the kind of person who could love, or be loved.

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