The Devil and the Deep - By Amy Andrews Page 0,45

raised his hand at the objections that had been about to tumble from Rick’s mouth. ‘A man knows the importance of education, Rick.’ He’d shoved a hand on his hip and said, ‘Take it or leave it.’

Rick had bristled at the harshness of it when he’d reluctantly agreed and had done his lessons by correspondence with less than good grace, but he’d been grateful for the many years that Nathan had forced his hand.

It hadn’t been until years later that he’d found out Nathan and Sophia had done a deal while he’d been hitching his way to Dartmouth. Nathan had promised to look after Rick and see that he finished school and Sophia had agreed to loosen the reins she’d held on her stubborn grandson.

Nathan had had the utmost respect for Rick’s Spanish grandmother, who had selflessly taken care of him when her daughter, Carmela’s, tempestuous love affair with Anthony Granville had finished and neither had known what to do with a toddler. Rick knew now that if Sophia had demanded that Nathan bring her grandson back then he would have been back in London faster than he’d been able to blink.

Nathan had always said to never get between a woman and her child but he had still gone into bat for Rick. Had been the father his own father had never been. Had been his family after Sophia had passed away the following year.

So, messing around with Nathan’s daughter was not the way he repaid the man, even if it was just a bit of teasing.

That was getting out of hand.

Remembering what made sense—the pulse of the ocean, the business, Inigo’s treasure—that was how he repaid him.

It was just a little difficult at the moment with so little to do on a boat that virtually sailed itself and a barely dressed first mate who didn’t seem like so much of a mate any more. In a few days they’d be at their destination in Micronesia and then he’d have things to do other than look at Stella all day in hardly any clothes.

They’d both be occupied. Their days filled with diving and poring over charts and Nathan’s research trying to pinpoint The Mermaid.

In the meantime he really needed to stop reading Pleasure Hunt.

* * *

Stella kicked at the sheets restlessly, straining to hear any more movement from above deck. She’d heard Rick’s footsteps twenty minutes ago after hours of staring at the ceiling, trying not to think about how his hands had felt on her scalp. How if she just shut her eyes she could be Mary and he could be Vasco and how maybe they could skip a few chapters and she could be tied to his bed.

She shut her eyes and erased the image. She was taking shameful advantage of the situation. Indulging her fantasies when Rick was just being himself. The guy she’d always known. A friend. One who would do anything for her. From coming to tell her personally about her father’s sudden death to washing her hair because it was scratchy and itchy and she was physically limited.

Still, there was a part of her, egged on by her hormones and a latent wicked streak, that couldn’t help but speculate. Just what would he do? How far would he go? Would he cut up those ripe mangoes that they’d purchased in Moresby and that permeated the galley with sweet promise and feed them to her as Vasco had done with a juicy pear? Would he scratch that itch that drove her mad right in the centre of her back that she just couldn’t reach with her current injuries?

And what about that other itch that seemed to build and build the longer she spent in his company? The one that tingled between her thighs, that made her breasts feel heavy, that caused an ache down deep and low somewhere behind her belly button?

Would he relieve that if she asked him?

Because she wasn’t even capable of that at the moment and God knew she was fit to burst.

Not that helping herself was ever as good as the real thing. But it was better than death by deprivation.

Damn it!

She kicked the sheets off. This was insane. Lying here thinking about Rick like this was pure madness. Neither of them was ever going to do anything that ruined twenty-plus years of friendship so she just needed to get over herself.

She needed to go on deck and normalise their relationship. Lying in her bed, her body throbbing, put images in