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‘Are you tired?’
He dropped down beside her, and instantly his nearness made her breathe out of time.
‘A little bit.’
The light from the fire was playing off his face and for a moment she stared at him in silence, transfixed by the shifting shadows. And then her pulse tripped over itself as he put his hand on her shoulder and pressed down lightly.
‘You’re tense here...’
Was she? She didn’t feel tense. In fact her body felt as though it was melting.
Pull away, she told herself. Move.
But her limbs wouldn’t respond. Instead—and completely unforgivably, given what she’d said to him at the stables—she could feel herself wanting to arch against him like a cat.
‘You need to relax...’
His voice vibrated through her shoulder blade and a prickling heat spread over her skin.
‘Have a bit of down-time. Maybe unwind in the pool. We could take a dip after dinner.’
Her head was spinning. There were so many dangerous words in that sentence. Relax, unwind, pool, dip, after dinner... And yet the idea of a relaxing swim in a hot pool was so tempting. Her eyes roamed briefly around the exquisite room. Really, when was she ever going to get a chance to live like this again?
‘That sounds lovely.’
‘You won’t regret it.’ His gaze met hers. ‘In fact, your body might even thank you.’
* * *
There was no moon but it was a cloudless night and, staring up through the glass ceiling of the pool house, Ragnar allowed himself a moment to ti
ck off the constellations in the dark sky before wading into the steam-covered water.
He breathed out slowly. It was like slipping into liquid velvet. It was incredibly warm—blood-hot, in fact—and as he lowered himself down he felt his body grow heavy with a languid, almost boneless weight.
On any other night he would have simply floated on his back and watched the stars. Now, though, he moved slowly through the water, his narrowed gaze tracking the progress of the woman making her way along the edge of the pool like a nervous gazelle at a watering hole.
His heartbeat accelerated as she slipped off the thick towelling robe and dropped it onto one of the fur-covered loungers at the side of the pool. Underneath she was wearing a caramel-coloured swimsuit, a shade darker than her eyes, which hugged her body in a way that was completely understandable.
Watching her step down into the pool, he mentally thanked Signy for reminding him to suggest that she bring one.
As the water closed over her shoulders he felt a sharp twinge of regret that no amount of geothermal heat was going to fix but, ignoring his quickening pulse, he swam towards her.
‘How does it feel?’
‘It feels wonderful.’ Her gaze followed the steam rising up from the water. ‘And a bit crazy.’
‘Why crazy?’ He swam a little closer, drawn in by the surprise and excitement in her face.
‘I don’t know—it just seems mad for there to be snow everywhere and yet the water in here’s so hot.’
‘Well, it is the land of fire and ice.’
‘The land of fire and ice?’
She repeated his words slowly and, feeling his body respond to the eagerness in her voice, he cursed himself silently. If anything was crazy it was his suggestion that he and Lottie take a dip together beneath the stars. But of course he’d been slowly going crazy for days, his feverish brain torturing his body with images of a naked, gloriously uninhibited Lottie.
They swam slowly in silence. He usually swam alone, and when he was away from Iceland he craved his solitary moments in the pool, but with Lottie beside him he felt an entirely different kind of craving, and he was shocked by how badly he wanted to give into it.
