by Liz Fielding
But Griff made her feel vulnerable, uncertain and she faltered under that sharp, unwavering focus and finally dropped her eyes.
‘Can you spare a little of your ordinary shampoo?’ he asked, apparently careless of the fact that her heart was beating like a power-hammer. She wanted to tell him to go to hell, but he was already reaching for the towel that snaked about his hips.
‘Help yourself,’ she said, snatching up her clothes, making a quick exit.
Back on the beach she quickly donned her swimsuit and applied sun block to every exposed inch, before covering herself with a baggy white T-shirt that came almost to her knees. Then, firmly ignoring her stomach’s demand for breakfast, she began the earnest task of building the largest signal fire she could manage. It had suddenly become very important that she get back to civilisation.
Griff reappeared after a while, carrying what looked impossibly like a pineapple. But she studiously ignored him, intently ferrying back and forth across the beach to add to her pile of debris. When she was satisfied, she collected the machete and began to hack some of the green fronds from a palm that overhung the beach.
‘What are you doing?’ Griff interrupted the shredding of a coconut with a clasp-knife to enquire.
‘I’ll need some green stuff to make smoke.’
‘Oh, serious stuff,’ he said with a grin.
‘You could help.’
‘I could. Except, of course, that I’m not in your desperate hurry to return to civilisation.’ She refused his invitation to spar. ‘Well, you’d better come and have some breakfast or you’ll faint before assistance arrives.’ Maddy was already beginning to feel a bit lightheaded and didn’t argue. ‘You should be wearing a hat.’
‘The maid at the villa fell in love with mine so I gave it to her. I was going to buy a new one on St. Vincent.
‘That’s a pity. If you get sunstroke, who’ll build the fire and fetch the water?’
‘It’s possible that you might have to do it all by yourself.’
He laughed, deep lines biting into his cheeks — the white flash of teeth, the sheer unexpectedness of it leaving her completely unguarded.
‘Here, try this.’ He had cut a coconut in half to provide them each with a bowl and into it, he had piled the shredded flesh of the nut and some pineapple, moistening the mixture with the coconut milk.
‘This is delicious,’ she said, scooping it up with her fingers. ‘You have the makings of a fine al fresco cook.’ She met his glance without flinching and felt quite proud of herself. ‘Is it fish for lunch?’ she continued, pushing her luck.
‘Unless you can think of anything more original.’
‘I don’t have time to think. I have a bonfire to light. Has the lighter dried out, or am I reduced to rubbing two sticks together?’
‘Don’t tempt me!’ He glanced at the sea. ‘Hadn’t you better wait for a boat or something to signal to?’
‘Like last night?’ she demanded, with a warning flash from her eyes. ‘I plan to keep the fire going all day if necessary. That way I won’t miss anything.’
‘Then you’ll be kippered by tonight,’ he said with a careless shrug as he tossed her the lighter and turned to walk away.
‘You could stay and give me a hand,’ she pointed out. ‘Unless you’ve something more important to do?’
‘I’m on holiday, remember. Besides, I can’t bear to watch a woman work.’
‘Then don’t stick around or you’re likely to faint dead away from the shock.’ She nodded in the direction of the plane. ‘You could always have another go at the radio.’
‘I could,’ he agreed, ‘if you asked nicely.’
‘Really? You want me to flutter my eyelashes at you?’ she snapped. She arranged her face into a smile, spread a hand across her breast and, putting on a breathless Marilyn Monroe act, said, ‘Pretty please would you try to fix the radio, Griff.’
His grin deepened the lines carved into his cheeks, straightened the sensuous curve of his mouth, made his pirate’s eyes sparkle like the ocean in the early-morning sun. Made her heart miss a beat.
Then he shook his head. ‘If that’s how you brought Rupert to his knees you were right to turn him down. The man clearly has cotton wool for brains.’
What?
‘I didn’t—’
He held up a hand to stop her. ‘Please, no more. I’ll try the radio again,’ he said, turning to walk away.
Drat the man, she thought crossly as she put the lighter to the dry kindling. If he disliked her so much, why wouldn’t he help with her attempts to signal for rescue instead of wasting his time messing about with a radio that he had already admitted he couldn’t fix?
Surely he had no more wish to be stuck with her company than she wished to be inflicted with his?
She twisted her head to glance back over her shoulder. Griff was sitting in the cockpit, the radio receiver in his hand and for a quick second her heart leapt in dizzy expectation that he had managed to bring it to life. He looked up, saw her watchin and waved a screwdriver in a mocking little gesture.
She turned sharply away, gave the fire a poke with a large stick. Sparks flew upwards as a sudden draught from the sea whipped it into life and within minutes a satisfactory column of smoke was rising from the slower-burning sappy leaves.
Well pleased with her efforts, Maddy sat back to scan the horizon. For an area where the sea was a way of life for the local people as well as a haven for holiday-makers, it was oddly empty. She had hardly expected to attract the attention of one of the liners that carried the tourists from island to island but there was not one yacht, one tiny fishing boat out there.
‘You’ve made a pretty good job of that,’ Griff said, a few minutes later, coming to rest on his haunches alongside her, his knee perilously close to hers.
‘It’s just a pity there’s no one to see it.’
He gave her a sideways glance. ‘Did you expect a major search to be under way for you by now? Fleets of boats searching for wreckage? Aircraft scouring the sea? Newsmen pouring in from the four corners of the earth to cover the story?’
Maddy was temporarily lost for words. ‘Why on earth would the media be interested?’
‘It will surely cause a ripple of excitement if it becomes known that the daughter of one of Britain’s most wealthy entrepreneurs is missing?’
‘Perhaps,’ she conceded, a little uneasily. ‘But because of your lackadaisical attitude to schedules apparently even Zoë hasn’t yet woken up to the fact that I’m more than half a day overdue.’
‘But she will,’ he replied evenly. ‘Eventually.’ If he noticed her furious scowl he didn’t let it show. ‘Meanwhile,’ he continued, ‘since you aren’t hurt and you aren’t about to starve, why don’t you just relax and discover the simple pleasures of life? It’s surprising what fun you can have without resorting to the bottomless credit card.’
‘Enjoy myself! How can I?’ She jabbed furiously at the sand with her stick. Griff reached across and took it from her, his long fingers brushing against the back of her hand, sending a tiny quiver of excitement through her.
She glanced sideways from under lowered lashes at Griff’s powerful figure. Was that the problem? Was that why she was so scratchy and bad-tempered?
She was with a man who on the surface appeared the perfect companion for a desert-island idyll, to whom she reacted in a way that she had long thought impossible. But he wasn’t perfect — far from it.
‘Zoë will be concerned about you as well,’ she said, hoping to shame him.
‘Zoë isn’t expecting me.’
‘She isn’t?’ Had he made some excuse to drop her at the dock and run now that he’d got his money? Was there someone else waiting for him? ‘Someone will surely be worrying?’
‘A girl on every island?’ he offered, as if he could read her mind and she blushed a deeper pink than could be put down to the heat from the fire. ‘Except this one,’ she snapped back.
‘Except this one,’ he
agreed, unconcerned by her hostility. ‘I prefer my women warm-hearted and generous.’
‘With long, shiny hair.’
‘Nice,’ he agreed, ‘but not essential. Short and shiny is fine.’
Just as long as the heart was warm?
There was nothing wrong with her heart. Like the fire it just needed a touch of heat to bring it back to life. A tender hand, a kiss…
‘Here, I’ve brought you a hat.’ He removed an elderly panama from his head and placed it on hers pulling it down over her eyes. ‘Now, shall we try that fishing lesson?’
‘No, thanks,’ she said, horrified with the direction her mind was taking. He didn’t like her. She loathed him… ‘I’ll stay and look after the fire. It wouldn’t do to let it out.’
‘You can do both.’ He picked up a rod he had brought from the plane, grasped her hand and she was on her feet before she could object. Not tender, but not rough, either…
‘I’ve never caught a fish,’ she said. ‘Never even held a rod.’
‘It’s not difficult. You’ll soon pick up the basics.’ Not rough, but firm, not letting go until the water was lapping around their thighs. She could have walked back to the beach but the sea was warm, the sand sucking at her toes and Griff was right. Under any other circumstance this would be a perfect moment.
She watched as he made a cast, sending the line flying out towards a tumble of rocks.
‘There’s a small cave under the water just there,’ he said, ‘where the fish hide.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Trust me.’
Trust him…
She looked up at him and for a moment their gaze locked.
Trust him?
He was the first to look away. ‘Take the rod.’ He placed it in her hands and once she grasped it, he stood behind her, holding her shoulders. ‘Wind it in just a little so the spinner tempts the fish,’ he instructed her. ‘Like this.’ He reached around her and, placing his hands over hers began to reel in the line, very gently.
‘Could I really catch something?’
‘I think it’s entirely possible that you already have, Maddy Rufus,’ he said, rather brusquely. She turned to look up at him, but the line jerked. The rod would have been pulled from her hands if Griff had not been holding it too, and for a few breathless seconds the pair of them wrestled with whatever was on the end of the line, until, without warning, the line went slack and they staggered back together.
‘It got away,’ she said, laughing a little, breathless too. ‘Can we try again?’ But this time when she turned to look up at him he stepped back.
‘Later.’
‘But—’
‘Isn’t that a boat?’
She turned to scour the horizon and, sure enough, a small, brightly painted dinghy with an outboard engine was moving quite swiftly past the inlet, a little way beyond the reef.
‘Well, don’t just stand there,’ she erupted. ‘Do something!’
She raced up the beach to the fire and began fanning it furiously and the flames crackled into life. She threw on a few sappy leaves to produce more smoke then looked up to where Griff was standing near the edge of the water.
‘Well?’ she demanded. ‘Did he notice us?’
‘Yes.’
‘And?’
‘He waved back.’
‘What do you mean, waved back?’
‘You said to do something,’ he said, ‘so I waved. He waved back.’
‘Then he’s seen us,’ she said with relief. ‘Where is he?’ She strained to look, but the boat had disappeared.
‘He didn’t stop.’
‘What?’ She took a step nearer the edge of the water. ‘What do you mean, he didn’t stop?’
‘I imagine he thought we were camping.’
‘Why didn’t you shout?’ She glared at him furiously, her breast heaving with indignation. ‘Damn you, Griff! Why didn’t you do something instead of standing there and waving as if this was a Sunday afternoon picnic.’
‘Maddy—’ he began, but she wasn’t interested in his excuses. She swung wildly at his chest, pounding at him with her fists, tears of frustration glistening in her eyes.
‘I don’t believe you want to be rescued.’ He caught her wrists but she struggled to free herself, determined to continue her battering. ‘This is some big game to you, isn’t it? A bit of a joke. Make Maddy Rufus suffer because she was nasty to poor Rupert—’
‘Stop it,’ he said, and gave her a little shake.
‘Well, let me tell you about Rupert—’ He clasped his hand over her mouth. ‘I don’t want to hear about Rupert, or the rest of your unfortunate lovers.’
Driven to impotent fury, she began to kick out at him. Her bare toes made little impression on his shins, but with an exclamation of irritation, he shifted his grip on her wrist in an attempt to hold her away from him but her fist flew upwards, her knuckles catching his lip a sharp, glancing blow.
‘Well, big man?’ she demanded as he released her with an oath, his hand coming away from his mouth smeared with blood. ‘What are you going to do now? Hit me back?’ Then she gave a little gasp as she realised that she had made a serious mistake.
Maddy wanted to tell him — tell him that she hadn’t meant it. Her lips parted to plead with him, but no words came forth.
She wanted to run, escape the ominous darkening of his eyes. But she couldn’t. Even if there had been somewhere to run to, she was held fast, riveted, not just by the hand that still grasped her other wrist but by the retribution that blazed from Griff’s eyes — retribution which, she understood, the slightest movement would bring down upon her head.
For a full second nothing happened. Letting out the breath she was holding, very slowly, very quietly, she thought she might — just — have got away with it but, just as she began to relax, he caught her around the waist, hauled her into his arms.
CHAPTER FIVE
GRIFF’S mouth came down hard on hers and Maddy couldn’t resist, couldn’t fight. Her feet were inches from the ground and she knew with a deep, instinctive knowing that to struggle against his fast hold, his implacable thighs, the hard and dangerous plane of his hips would be utter madness.
She remained determinedly still in his arms while his mouth ground down on her lips, his insistent tongue storming the negligent portcullis of her teeth to take total possession of her mouth.
Her mind tried desperately to shut him out, but a warmth stole through her body, sapping her resistance to his determined, blissful assault upon her senses as he explored the secret, sensitive places of her mouth with the skill of a master. Her breasts peaked against the smooth cloth of her swimsuit and she longed for the rougher touch of the hair that darkened the glistening, sun-drenched skin of his chest.
A trembling heat surged through her abdomen, flooding her thighs with a delicious ache that urged her to press closer to him as her body rejected the intellectual games her mind was playing.
It had recognised the sexual tension that had ignited between them the second their eyes had met and now her arms wound themselves about his neck and her body invited him in. For a long, blissful moment she felt the warm, muscle-packed flesh of his shoulders quiver beneath the spread of her fingers, his hair-roughened thighs against her own, smooth skin, the more urgent thrust of his desire as he held her close. Then, as suddenly as it had begun, it was over.
With an almost painful rejection, he thrust her away from him, his hands still hard about her waist as she swayed uncertainly, her legs turned to butter that was melting under the heat of his kiss.
They stood locked together in shocked silence, while Maddy’s heart thumped painfully beneath her ribs. Griff’s expression was adamantine, impenetrable.
‘It would have been a great deal more sensible if I had followed my first instinct,’ he said, a little breathlessly.
‘What were you going to do to me, Griff?’ Maddy’s breath caught in her throat as she tilted her head to look up at him in an unconscious
ly seductive gesture, her heavy lids reducing her eyes to golden, glittering almonds, her mouth darkly full, throbbing from his cavalier treatment.
He released her waist so rapidly that she would have staggered, perhaps fallen but for her hands about his neck. He cruelly disengaged them, stepping quickly back to put some distance between them.
‘I should have put you over my knee and spanked you the first moment you looked at me like that,’ Griff said, his voice like a rasp on wood. ‘You are positively dangerous.’
Dangerous? He was blaming her for what happened? Maddy snapped instantly out of the languid state that had pervaded her limbs so thoroughly that she’d hardly known what she was doing or saying.
‘Dangerous?’ she demanded on a sharp, angry breath. ‘Lay one finger on me again, Griff-will-do’,’ she flared up at him, ‘and I promise you’ll find out just how dangerous I am.’ Her voice caught painfully in her throat, but she didn’t stop. ‘I’ll see you in court.’
For one long, terrible moment his dark eyes regarded her with contempt, then he looked pointedly around. ‘Call a cop, why don’t you?’
With that, he turned and walked swiftly away, as if he couldn’t bear to be near her, clambering over the rocks at the far end of the beach, leaving her alone on the beach.
Maddy groaned and dropped to the sand as her legs refused to support her any longer; she laid her forehead upon her knees and rocked from side to side. He couldn’t have made his point clearer. They were alone, she had encouraged him quite shockingly and but for his restraint, they would even now be lying on the foreshore and the last thing on her mind would have been rescue.
Could it be any worse? The man had kissed her not from desire — if he had wanted to make love to her that might have excused her wanton response — but he despised her, had been punishing her.