Shipwrecked with Mr. Wrong - By Nikki Logan Page 0,53

It reminded him of every conversation his father had with his mother. Careful, empty words. Saying one thing and meaning another. His parents read each other expertly but, as a child, it had taken Rob years to learn about subtext.

Now, he knew it when he heard it.

He yanked the loaded inflatable roughly behind him as he swam towards the reef.

Honor wanted some privacy. He got that. He’d been in much the same position himself a time or two. With women who interested him physically but not emotionally. Women he just didn’t want to give himself to. Was that what was going on here? It killed him that she only wanted him physically while he had a burning desire to know what kind of cereal she liked best.

He shook his head and levered himself up onto the reef, holding fast to the inflatable’s tether.

He’d had to bite his tongue when she’d brushed off his offer to spend the night out watching turtles with her. Pride had silenced him when he might have charmed his way in. He had no doubt she would have relented but it galled him to get even close to begging. His ego took a hit every time she’d press her body against his to try to distract him from a conversation she didn’t want to have. As though he was that blinded by his libido. As though he was still the same man he’d left behind on the mainland. But he’d taken those kisses and run with them because there was every chance that was all he would ever have of his beautiful mermaid; he wasn’t a masochist. Curiosity burned alongside his desire. She was a mystery. He just didn’t buy her as a woman only interested in kisses. Even killer kisses.

Why wouldn’t she talk to him?

Before he knew it, he’d offloaded the inflatable’s contents onto the high, dry part of the reef and was on his way back in for a second load. It felt good to be puffing with exertion and he knew that, soon enough, his thoughts would clear of the woman with the maddening barriers and all he’d be able to think about was the next run, the next lift.

If he could just focus on the business of getting all this gear back on the boat...

An image shimmied into his mind of the day they’d dragged all this equipment onshore, how he’d stood close to a wet and glistening Honor. His attraction had been instant and so had her hostility. But how much had changed in just ten days? What else could change if only he had ten more?

But he didn’t. The supply vessel came in thirty-seven hours. It would stock Honor up with all the things she needed to re-establish her solo existence here. It would come with everything he needed to motor away from this island.

He would go.

And she wouldn’t stop him.

Sudden, brutal realisation of that hit him hard in the solar plexus. Rob winced. It was going to be a long afternoon of not managing to keep his mind off her.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

HONOR shook her head for the third time and forced her focus back to the nest markers glowing under her UV light in the darkness. It annoyed her that she’d drifted off again. A whole nest could have emerged and emptied in the time she’d been staring into that moonlight trail across the endless expanse of black ocean.

Thinking.

This wouldn’t do. She had to get a grip. Just because he wasn’t here was no excuse to let her emotional guard down. The Rob of her imagination was every bit as dangerous as the flesh and blood man. Maybe even more so because her imagination had always been prone to wild exaggeration. If she thought banning him from accompanying her out here tonight was a good way to keep him off her mind she was dead wrong.

Pretty much the only way to keep him from haunting her thoughts was to be with him. Curled up in the tent, stretched out on the beach, floating in the water. Venting all her emotion through her lips where they met his expert ones. She didn’t want to think about where he’d earned that experience or who with. She got the feeling he was reining himself in to fifty per cent capacity while she was giving him everything she had. Her kisses were even starting to change to be more like his.

Would every kiss she ever shared be an echo of Rob?

Honor caught herself on