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And as he stripped the clothes away from his skin, the armor was ripped from her body.
She should look away. He wasn’t putting on a show for her. She had no right or reason to stand there staring at all that skin, hard, well-defined thighs, the butt...and...and...her brain stopped working when she caught a small glimpse of the front of him, still heavily obscured by the fabric. But the dark shadow there at the apex of his thighs was enticing nonetheless.
He raised his gaze, his eyes clashing with her as he tugged his swim shorts up and over the place she was currently ogling, then he stepped out from the behind the curtain.
“See anything you like?” he asked.
She puckered her lips. “Lots, actually. But then, that’s a good thing, right? All things considered?”
“Am I supposed to blush and stammer now?” he asked, his tone dry.
She’d seen Ajax in swim shorts plenty of times, but this was different. They were alone. There was a bed. And she’d just seen his very naked silhouette. “I wouldn’t dream of that,” she said. “After all, you’ve seen things I can’t even imagine.”
“Don’t forget.” He walked past her and out the door. And then she realized what he was doing. He was avoiding her. Avoiding the potential intimacy of the moment.
He was so not getting away with that.
She stalked back into the bedroom area and opened her suitcase, rummaging around until she found her swimsuit. It was a one-piece, black. Serviceable. It was not what she wanted. He wasn’t allowed to be the only one who could inspire lust-fueled brain failure.
She ignored the voice that told her she probably wasn’t capable of inspiring it. That voice could suck it.
She needed to make a quick trip to the resort shops.
* * *
A swim did a little to cool the burn in Ajax’s blood. But the water wasn’t as cold as he needed it to be. It wasn’t arousal. At least, it wasn’t only arousal that was firing through his system.
But the moment he’d walked into that room, looked at Leah and that bed, he’d realized that it was going to happen, and that he wanted it to. And with that had been a collision with reality. Leah had been manipulated into being here. This place had been chosen for another woman. And he had simply brought her here as if she and Rachel were interchangeable, and he knew full well they were not.
For a start, Rachel hadn’t made him feel like his blood was going to boil over and reduce to nothing. Leah on the other hand was testing the bonds of his control. Was making him want things he hadn’t craved in years.
He’d been so close to pushing her down onto that bed when they’d first walked in. To kissing her until she lost that sad look, until he made the room theirs and exorcised the ghost of the woman he’d intended to bring into it.
And then he’d had to remind himself why he must keep control. Why he had to remember what sort of man he was.
Of course, with Leah there would be no drugs involved. Of course not. He hadn’t touched them in seventeen years. Not even tempted to. Not after the last time.
Still, he couldn’t separate sex from the chaos and shame that lingered in the air at his father’s home. Couldn’t separate it from that last night there. From that haze, that feeling of being out of control. Of everything being skewed and confused. And one frightened woman. A woman he had frightened.
No, he didn’t want to think about it. But he had to. He had to remember. So he would remember why control was so important.
“Oh, good, you’re still here.”
He turned around at the sound of Leah’s voice and his throat went dry. The memory he’d been replaying was wiped out completely. Now all he could see was curves, soft, pale skin.
And a red bikini that should be illegal. It tied at her rounded hips, and it seemed, to him, that it would be the easiest thing to release those ties. The top was the same, barely covering her breasts. Her stomach wasn’t cut or defined like many of the women he saw at the beaches at the exclusive resorts he frequented, compliments of exercise or a skilled surgeon. No, she was simply Leah. Simply a woman.
In that moment it was her softness, her roundness, that made her seem wholly, purely female. There was a natural quality to her shape, to her movements.
For a moment, just a moment, his view of sex, the things he’d seen, the things he’d done, were erased. And there was only Leah.
“Yes, I am. Where have you been?” he asked, willing his body under control before he took a step out of the water and started toward where she stood on the white sand beach.
