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She watched him leave, feeling dazed and shaky. She’d fallen under Dane’s sensual spell once before and it had come close to destroying her...because he’d always refused to let her in.
But until this moment she’d had no idea exactly how much danger she was in of falling under it again. Or that all those tangled needs and desires to understand him, to know the reasons why he couldn’t love her or trust her, had never truly died.
* * *
Dane yanked the sail line harder than was strictly necessary and tied it off, his heart pumping hard enough to blow a gasket.
He reprogrammed the autopilot. The maritime weather report had said they were in for a quiet day of smooth sailing.
Smooth sailing, my butt.
Not likely with Xanthe on board.
He’d wanted to bring the princess down a peg or two when she’d shown up on deck looking slim and beautiful and superior. He sure as hell wasn’t going to let her sunbathe in front of him while he took the wheel like a lackey. Or that’s how it had started. But the truth was he’d wanted her to wear the PFD, had decided to insist upon it, because he’d been unable to control the dumb urge to make sure she was safe.
And as soon as he’d had her in his arms again, yelling and punching as he carted her below deck, the desire to have her again had all but overwhelmed him too... Then he’d lost it entirely when she’d made that crack about him wanting a piece of her precious company.
He hated that feeling—hated knowing she could still get to him. Knowing that there was something about Xanthe that could slip under his guard and make him care about her opinion when it shouldn’t matter to him any more.
Resentment sat like a lead weight in his stomach.
From now on there was going to be no more sparring and no more conversations about their past. He wasn’t going to get hung up on why she hadn’t been sailing for ten years, even though she’d once been addicted to the rush. Or waste one more iota of his time getting mad about the fact she didn’t trust him.
Their marriage was over—had been over for a long time—and it wasn’t as if he wanted to resurrect it.
Arousal pulsed in his crotch, adding to his aggravation.
He usually averaged five hours’ sleep a night when he was sailing solo, despite the need to wake up every twenty minutes and check the watch. Last night he hadn’t managed more than two. Because he’d spent hours watching the stars wink in the darkness, thinking about all the stuff that might have been, while waiting for the night air to cool the heat powering through his body.
The only connection between them now was sexual, pure and simple—an animal attraction that had never died. Complicating that by sifting through all the baggage that had gone before would be a mistake.
So keeping Xanthe at arm’s length for a little while made sense—until he knew for sure that he could control all those wayward emotions she seemed able to provoke without even trying.
He doubted they’d be able to keep their hands off each other for the three days they had left together on the boat—but he could handle the heat until she got one thing straight.
Sex was the only thing he had to offer.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
‘DANE, IS EVERYTHING OKAY?’ Xanthe yelled above the whistling wind as she clambered on deck and clipped her safety harness to an anchor point.
The yacht mounted another five-foot wave as water washed over the bow and the rain lashed her face.
Their argument over the life jacket yesterday seemed like a distant memory now.
‘Get below, damn it, and stay there!’ he shouted back, wrestling with the wheel to avoid a breaking wave—which brought
with it the danger of capsizing.
The squall had hit with less than an hour’s warning that morning. Dane had woken her up from a fitful sleep to issue some curt instructions about how to prepare the belowdecks, given her a quick drill on the emergency procedures if they had to use the life raft, insisted she take some seasickness pills and then ordered her to stay below.
After yesterday’s argument and the evening that had followed—with the tension between them stretching tight as they both avoided each other as best they could—the rough weather and their clearly defined roles this morning had actually come as a relief.
So she’d obeyed his terse commands without question, even while smarting at his obvious determination not to give her anything remotely strenuous to do. When it came to skippering the boat, he was in charge. It would be foolish to dispute that, or distract him, when all his attention needed to be on keeping them afloat.
Correcting his ‘princess’ assumptions could wait until they got through this.
But as the hours had rolled by and the storm had got progressively worse she’d become increasingly concerned and frustrated by his dogged refusal to let her help. Thunder and lightning had been added to the hazards aboard as the squall had moved from a force-four to something closer to a force-eight by the afternoon, but through it all Dane had continued to insist she stay below.
