The Devil and the Deep - By Amy Andrews Page 0,43

out, there’s a light breeze, it’ll dry quickly. And as there’s nothing I can do about your arm or help with your writing, you should let me do this.’

Plus, you want to.

He took the chair out of her unprotesting fingers and placed it under the shower head, busying himself with finding the right position. By the time he was done she seemed to have resigned herself to a little piece of Pleasure Hunt. She sat when he asked her and even snuggled down low in her chair so just her neck and shoulders were exposed above the canvas and her head could tilt back easily over the edge.

Of course that bent her sarong-clad body into a banana shape with her feet flat on the deck, her thighs bent before him like an offering from the gods. Thighs that her sarong fell away from, leaving them exposed to his view. Not skinny. Firm, rounded like her and smooth with the beginnings of a tan tinting the formerly milky skin.

He turned the water on and doused himself with it first before removing the hand-held head from its cradle, kneeling behind her and directing the spray at her hair. She startled slightly and he swallowed as he noticed her nipples pucker beneath the sarong. ‘Too cold?’

Stella reined in her heartbeat as his hand sifted through her hair, wishing she could rein in her other bodily responses as easily. ‘No. Just wasn’t expecting it.’

‘Sorry,’ he said, his gaze fixed on the two round points tenting the fabric at her chest. ‘Should have warned you.’

Should have warned myself.

He might have been doing this as a tease but he hadn’t been immune to that hair-washing scene and already he could feel a tightening in his groin.

Stella shut her eyes tight as his hand sifted and lifted and caressed every strand of her hair to ensure it was waterlogged. His fingers occasionally brushed against her scalp and she squeezed her thighs together as the sensation seemed to travel straight to a point between her legs.

Like acupuncture. Or reflexology.

Whatever...he’d definitely found her sweet spot.

Rick flicked the taps off, determinedly dragging his gaze away from her thighs and nipples and fixing it on her hair, on the job at hand, determined not to get carried away by it.

She was supposed to be turned into a panting mess—not him.

‘Shampoo now,’ he said as he squirted a healthy dollop into his palm and a waft of coconut—of her—hit him square in the solar plexus. It was like liquid silk in his hands and he spread it over her sodden hair evenly before he started to rub it into a lather with the flat of his palms.

Stella almost sighed at his touch. His movements were brisk at first, but after a few moments they changed, became slower, more defined, the tips of his fingers dragging with languorous subtlety against her scalp. She felt the motion right down to her toes and all the hot spots in between.

Every cell went on high alert. Her back arched involuntarily as she bit back a whimper. The pain in her arm and the sting in her fingers floated away on a sexual high.

Shampoo foamed between Rick’s fingers as he watched her shift restlessly in the chair. The image of him sliding his soapy hands onto her shoulders, over her chest, pushing the sarong down off her breasts and lathering them up, teasing the nipples into taut peaks until she orgasmed hit him out of the blue and the tightness became something more.

He was harder than the wood beneath his knees.

He needed to distract himself fast. ‘You always had gorgeous hair,’ he murmured as the thickness of it filled his palms. He remembered diving with her when they’d been kids and being mesmerised by the way her hair streamed behind her as she swam or floated around her like a crown when she stopped. He’d dreamt of it often during his teenage years. ‘Just like that mermaid you always wanted to be.’

Good. That was good.

Reminding himself of why it would be a very bad idea to lean over as Vasco had also wanted to do and ravage her mouth.

Because they were friends. Long-term friends.

He was just having some fun.

Stella opened her eyes, thinking back to those days when she’d truly believed in the imaginary world they’d created. Instead of having to create this faux fantasy life to keep that connection alive.

‘Everything was so simple back then,’ she murmured.

Rick nodded. Back then he’d been plain Rick, she’d been