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She took the light with her, and Alex was left in the pitch-black of the narrow hallway. He leaned back into the wall, trying not to think about the fact that she was getting out of her voluminous sarong and shapeless shirt and into God knew what. The last couple of days it had been tense between them, since their argument. But it hadn’t stopped him wanting to strip away her clothes and look at the real her. And not just the physical, but at whatever it was that lay behind the mask she showed to the world.
And quite why he wanted to know her like that he wasn’t about to even analyse. All he knew for sure was that Isobella Nolan had intrigued him from the beginning, and her elusiveness only made him want to know more. He couldn’t remember if any woman had ever got to him this much. Not even Sonya. But then no one had ever really played so hard to get.
‘You can come in now.’
Alex heard her muffled words and took a few seconds to brace himself against the solidness of the wall behind him before he faced her. He was more than aware it might be the only stable part of his night. A cyclone raged outside, and a battle to rival it was raging inside him.
The glow from the lamp greeted him as he opened the door. He deliberately paid no attention to Isobella, although he could see she was lying on her bed with her knees drawn up and some papers balanced against them. He foraged through his bag on the top bunk, gathering a change of clothes quickly.
Isobella was excruciatingly aware of the solid warmth of Alex’s body within touching distance. She turned her head, even though she’d been determined not to. His body from armpits down was right there. She could look her fill and he’d never know. His flat abs beneath his snug-fitting T-shirt. His narrow hips and the enticing bulge beneath his boardies. Her fingers tingled. What would he do if she reached out and touched him?
‘I’ll just hit the shower,’ Alex said, stepping back so he could peer down at her.
Isobella snapped her eyes forward, shocked at her wayward thoughts. Was the disrupted weather pattern altering her personality? Like a full moon? Short circuiting her tightly controlled sensibilities? ‘Okay,’ she said, with as much uninterest as she could muster.
Alex had almost tripped at the look that had been on Isobella’s face before she had turned away. Even through her giant glasses he had seen the treacle consistency of her molasses gaze. He reached the bathroom, his heart thundering as he climbed in the shower and turned it on cold.
Isobella tapped her foot against her mattress, waiting for Alex to return. Wanting it and not wanting it at the same time. She took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes. The research figures in front of her blurred. She sighed and placed them back on her nose, forcing herself to concentrate on the report about the effects of global warming on the Crown Of Thorns starfish population of the Great Barrier Reef, which Theresa had given her to read.
The room was warm, and she shifted restlessly beneath the sheet. Without the benefit of being able to open the window and let in the cool sea breeze the humidity made lying under covers uninviting. But damned if she was going to kick them off. This was as exposed to Alex as she was ever going to be, no matter how much her raging libido urged otherwise. Maybe when he’d settled for the night she could kick her leg out.
He entered the room again and she steadfastly ignored him. His satiny boxers drew level with her line of peripheral vision, his powerful quads beautifully delineated and sprinkled with dark hair an arm’s length away, and she gripped the edges of the report to stop herself from looking or touching. She breathed a sigh of relief when he finally hauled himself up onto his bunk.
The metal-framed bed squeaked and swayed a little as he moved around, getting comfortable. Her bunk moved in rhythm with his, and she shut her eyes, waiting for him to stop, trying to figure out if the movement or his proximity was causing the room to tilt. She opened them again abruptly as her mind was filled with images of being rocked by Alex in a much more intimate way.
He finally settled, and Isobella resolutely returned her attention to the paper, ploughing through it determinedly, tuned in to every fidget and page-turn from above.
After an hour of complete silence Isobella was surprised to find her eyelids growing heavy.
She would have thought she was too wired to sleep, what with gale force winds howling around the island and rattling the window and Alex’s presence looming large above her, causing its own barometric upset. But the glow from the lamp pushed soft light into all the corners of the room, creating a cosy haven from the inclement elements seething outside.
