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She swung round. ‘I’m not going to fall off. I’m not an amateur.’
‘How long since you’ve been on a boat?’
‘Not that long,’ she lied.
She didn’t want him to know she hadn’t been sailing since they’d parted. He might think her enforced abstinence had something to do with him.
‘Uh-huh? How long is “not that long”? Less than ten years?’
She sent him her best death stare. But the hotspots on her cheeks were a dead giveaway.
‘Yeah, I thought so,’ he said, doing his infuriating mind reading thing again. ‘Now, put on the PFD or get below.’
‘No. There’s barely a ripple on the water. I don’t need to wear one.’ He was just doing this out of some warped desire to show her who was boss. ‘If it gets at all choppy I’ll put it on straight away,’ she added. ‘I’m not an idiot. I have no desire to end up floating around in the middle of the Atlantic.’
Especially as she wasn’t convinced he’d bother to pick her up. But she refused to be bullied into doing something completely unnecessary just so he could feel superior.
Instead of answering her, he clicked a few switches on the wheel’s autopilot and headed towards her.
She pressed against the hatch to avoid coming into contact with that immovable chest again as he reached past her for the jacket. She got a lungful of his scent. The clean smell was now tinged with the fresh hint of sea air.
Hooking the jacket with his index finger, he dangled it in front of her face.
‘Put it on. Now.’
Her jaw tightened. ‘No, I will not. You’re not wearing one.’
‘This isn’t a negotiation. Do as you’re told.’
Temper swept through her at his dictatorial tone.
‘Stop behaving like a caveman.’ She planted her feet, all her good intentions to rise above his goading flying off into the wild blue Caribbean yonder.
Once upon a time she would have been only too willing to do anything he said, because his certainty, his dominance had been so seductive. Not any more.
The backs of her knees bumped against the seat of the cockpit as he loomed over her. Traitorous heat blossomed between her legs as she got another lungful of his exquisite scent. Fresh and salty and far too enticing.
‘The hard way it is, then,’ he announced, flinging the jacket down.
Realising his intention, she tried to dodge round him—but he simply ducked down and hiked her over his shoulder.
She yelped. Dangling upside down, eyeballing tight male buns in form-fitting shorts, as she rode his shoulder blade.
Finally getting over her shock enough to fight back, she punched his broad back with her fists as he ducked under the boom and hefted her towards the hatch.
‘Put me down this instant!’
He banded an arm across her legs to stop her kicking. ‘Keep it up, princess, and I’m tossing you overboard.’
She stopped struggling, not entirely sure he wouldn’t carry out his threat, and deeply disturbed by the shocking reaction to his easy strength and the delicious scent of soap and man and sea.
Damn him and his intoxicating pheromones.
He swung her round to take the steps. ‘Mind your head.’
When he finally dumped her in the salon she scrambled back, her cheeks aflame with outrage.
The tight smile did nothing to disguise the muscle jumping in his jaw and the flush of colour hitting tanned cheeks. She wasn’t the only one far too affected by their wrestling match.
