by Amy Andrews
Rick smiled, his gaze drawn to her mouth. The mouth that was nowhere near as innocent as he’d always thought. A mouth he tried and failed not to think about on his body the way Lady Mary’s had been on Vasco’s.
Stella popped the lid on a bottle of sunscreen and squirted some into her palm. ‘If you get us under way,’ she said, slapping it on her chest, ‘I’ll cook some bacon and eggs.’
Rick swallowed as Stella distributed the white liquid to her shoulders and upper arms and across the swell of her cleavage, dipping her fingers beneath the fabric a little.
Do not look at her breasts. Do not look at her breasts.
Too late.
He looked at her breasts.
‘Sure,’ he said distractedly as her hands continued to massage the crème until her cleavage glistened in the sun.
Stella frowned at him as he stood there looking at her. Was he...was he perving at her chest? There were times when they’d been younger, pre her sweet-sixteen debacle, when she’d caught him looking at her, when their gazes had locked and he’d smile at her with wolfish appreciation, but that had been a long time ago.
‘Rick?’
Her voice brought him back from the fantasy of licking every inch of the crème off her. He blinked and quickly donned his sunglasses. ‘Yes, absolutely, getting under way.’ He saluted, turning from her gratefully, his hands trembling as if he were fifteen years old again and trying to undo Sharon Morgan’s bra.
He really needed to get a grip.
By the time the sun was high in the sky Rick was halfway to crazy. The boat was travelling along at a steady clip, which left him nothing else to do other than stare at Stella. Even metres away from him in her low chair, doing nothing but writing, she destroyed his concentration. She was almost directly in his line of sight, her legs supporting her laptop, her shirt riding up her spine to reveal a good portion of skin, including the dimples at the small of her back.
With conversation non-existent, he was left with a lot of time to think. A lot of time for his mind to wander.
Standing at the helm, the wheel in his hand, the ocean at his command, it was a little hard not to think of himself as the all-conquering pirate Vasco Ramirez.
The Vasco who decided to turn his treasure hunt into a pleasure hunt. Who actively seduced Lady Mary after the bath scene and whose slow, deliberate dance with her was both clever and cunning.
Rick’s mind wandered to those scenes of calculated seduction. Vasco washing Mary’s hair on deck. Vasco removing a splinter from her finger with his teeth. Vasco cutting into the juicy flesh of a dripping pear with his jewelled dagger and feeding her slice after slice.
And the sexiest scene of all where Vasco had tied her spreadeagled in her under-things to his bed until Mary had admitted her desire for him.
That one had got Rick hotter than a summer day on the equator.
In fact just thinking about it now was getting him pretty damn hot. Not helped by the fact that she had abandoned her seated position and was doing a sexy little stretch, bending over and touching her toes, then arching her back as she linked her hands above her head and twisted from side to side.
Oh, Lord, kill me now.
She turned then and walked towards him and he was pleased, as her breasts jiggled enticingly, for the secure placement of his very dark sunglasses.
‘You fancy a cold beer and a bite to eat?’ Stella asked as she approached.
‘Sounds great,’ he said.
Stella patted him absently on the arm. ‘Be right back,’ she said.
Rick stayed very still as the fleeting touch seemed to reach deep down inside and stroke something that it just shouldn’t have. Since when had a perfunctory touch from her had such an effect? But he suddenly understood Ramirez’s puzzlement over the sensations that Lady Mary had created when she’d clung to his sleeve briefly during some choppy weather.
Rick shook his head at the direction of his errant thoughts. Bloody hell, had he been emasculated overnight?
When Stella rejoined him ten minutes later with some ham and salad rolls and two beers, he’d found his testicles and got over himself.
‘Put it on autopilot,’ Stella said, pressing the beer into his hand. ‘Come and sit with me.’
Yeh, that was just what he needed.
But he did it anyway.
‘So, how’s the book going?’ he asked, nodding at the shut laptop as he took a man-sized swallow of beer to dilute the absolute unmanly curiosity over her current romance novel.
Stella nodded. ‘Coming along very nicely. I’m just about finished with the first chapter. I’ve emailed Diana—she’s ecstatic. I think Joy had threatened her with editing non-fic if I didn’t deliver.’ Stella grinned.
Rick smiled too. She seemed relaxed and willing to chat about the book. Maybe, instead of wondering whether Lady Mary was her, which was, quite frankly, driving him nuts, he could just come out and ask. Or at least start a conversation where he could work his way round to it.
‘So, what’s the book about?’ he asked as he took a bite out of his bread roll.
Stella looked up at him from under the brim of her hat. ‘You really want to know?’
Rick stopped chewing. ‘Of course, why wouldn’t I?’
Stella blinked. For as long as she’d known him Rick’s tastes had run to non-fiction books on anything to do with the salvage industry and shipwrecks. And Phantom comics.
‘It’s not really your thing.’
Oh, if only she knew how suddenly it was exactly his thing. He looked at her. ‘It’s yours. I’m interested.’
Stella stared at him for a moment, taken aback by his sincerity. ‘Good answer.’ She smiled.
He smiled back. She looked so damn sweet, how could she have such a dirty mind? ‘So?’ He quirked an eyebrow.
She didn’t know where to start. She wasn’t used to sharing this sort of information with anyone. Only Diana had known about Pleasure Hunt and even then Stella had been reticent to share any of the details in the early stages of the book. Non-writers didn’t understand how storylines and characters weren’t always crystal clear and well defined.
‘It’s about a mermaid,’ she said. ‘Called Lucinda.’
And then for some strange reason, under his scrutiny, she blushed. She thought about all the times they’d played pirate and mermaid as kids, swimming through the tropical waters of wherever they happened to be at the time.
‘You know I’ve always had a thing for mermaids,’ she said defensively.
Rick’s gaze locked with hers. ‘I do.’
Stella shrugged. ‘She came to me in a dream.’
He nodded, wishing he’d been privy to that dream. Hell, if her dream life was as rich as her on-page fantasy life he wished he were privy to all of them.
‘And the hero?’ he asked.
Something held Stella back. She straightened the hat on her head, then whisked it off and let her hair tumble down, stalling for time as she looked towards the horizon. ‘I don’t know much about the hero this time,’ she said with what she hoped seemed like artistic vagueness.
Rick followed the stream of her hair as the stiffening ocean breeze blew it behind her. His palm itched to tangle in it and he kept it firmly planted around his beer. ‘Is that unusual?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know. I’m new to this and it’s just the way it’s happened.’
Rick slid a sideways glance at her. ‘Did that happen with yo
ur first hero?’
Stella’s heart skipped a beat as she glanced at him. ‘No,’ she said casually. ‘He came to me...fairly well developed.’
Rick bit back a smile. Hell, yeah, honey, no prizes for guessing why. ‘Does he have a name at least, this new guy?’
Stella blushed again. ‘Inigo.’
Rick smiled. ‘Ah...good choice.’
Stella looked at him and returned his smile grudgingly. ‘Thank you.’ It was surprisingly hard to talk about the hero with Rick and his Vasco Ramirez eyes staring straight at her even from behind his midnight shades.
Rick knew he had a good opening but was surprised by the pound of his heart as he contemplated the question.
Did he really want to know the answer?
He forced himself to take up inspection of the horizon so the question would seem casual rather than targeted. ‘Do you base any of your characters on people you know?’ he asked casually.
Stella glanced at him sharply. Did he know? Had he read Pleasure Hunt? She’d sent a copy to the Persephone for her father, which Rick could have got his hands on, she supposed, but it had been in a box of things that had been cleared from his cabin and sent to her after his death still in pristine condition.
The spine hadn’t been cracked and it had been obvious to her that it had been unread.
It was an innocent enough question on the surface—one she’d been asked a hundred times by fans and media alike—but her shoulders tensed as she inspected that inscrutable profile just in case.
He seemed his usual relaxed self, soaking up some rays and downing a beer with the unconscious grace of an Old Spice model.
Besides, she doubted there would be any way he would have read it and not realised immediately who Vasco was. And she knew Rick well enough to know that he wouldn’t have been able to resist taunting her mercilessly about it.
‘No,’ she said faintly, hoping her voice sounded stronger than it felt.
Rick stifled a chuckle. Liar. For damn sure Vasco Ramirez was him.
‘So they just come to you...like in a dream or something...?’ he asked innocently.
‘Something like that,’ she said vaguely. ‘Although if I’m to be honest,’ she admitted, trying to divert his attention off the hero, ‘I suppose that the heroine is me.’
Rick coughed noisily as he inhaled some of his beer into his windpipe, necessitating her to beat him on the back a few times. He gasped and wheezed and coughed while his airway cleared the irritant.
Vasco probably never did anything so undignified.
‘So,’ he clarified once he could speak again, ‘the heroines are...you?’
Please say no. Please don’t let me have to imagine that Lady Mary is really you.
Damn it. He should have left it alone.
Stella blushed as Lady Mary filled her vision. ‘Well, to a degree, I suppose, yes. I’m a woman so I can write a female character from my own experiences. In that respect, in very generic terms, I guess they are.’
Rick breathed easier. She was talking in generalisations. Not specifics. ‘So Lucinda isn’t you?’
Stella shook her head. ‘Well, she’s more me than Lady Mary,’ she admitted.
Rick felt the tension ooze away completely.
Hah! There. She wasn’t Lady Mary.
Phew.
‘Lady Mary’s from the first book?’ he asked innocently.
Stella nodded as her embarrassment slipped away. It was actually quite good thinking this sort of stuff out loud. Knowing the differences could only help with her writing process.
Maybe Rick was a good sounding board?
‘Lucinda has a strength of character that Lady Mary didn’t. She’s not waiting around to be rescued—in fact, she’s going to rescue the hero, who’s being held in chains.’
Rick tried not to think about how that scene would pan out. ‘And Lady Mary is weak?’
Because he’d thought, in her own way, Mary had a startling resilience.
Stella shook her head. ‘No, she’s not weak, she’s just more passive. But that’s really just a product of the times and her upper-class background.’
Rick thought of the scene where Mary had finally succumbed to Vasco’s seduction. There had been nothing passive about her then. And nothing passive about the way she’d totally turned the emotional tables on him.
‘Definitely not you, then,’ he smiled, relieved.
Stella smiled back. If only he knew. Beneath Lady Mary’s petticoats and pantaloons lay Stella’s every secret desire. She drained her beer, then checked her watch. ‘Right, enough time skiving off. Lucinda is whispering sweet nothings in my head.’
Rick frowned. ‘They talk to you?’
‘Oh, yes.’ Stella nodded. ‘Most insistently usually.’
He swallowed. ‘The heroes as well as the heroines?’
‘Yep.’
Rick’s mind boggled. ‘What do they say?’
Stella shrugged. ‘Their thoughts, dreams, desires.’
Good God—had Lady Mary whispered those things to Stella? Had she told Stella she wanted to see Vasco naked in the bath, that she wanted him to suck her finger into his mouth and she wanted to be tied to his bed?
Or had it been Vasco telling Stella what he wanted to do to Mary? Describing it in all the erotic detail that it had appeared in the book?
Had Stella been hearing him in her head?
* * *
Rick had never been so happy to see terra firma in all his life when they spotted the Papua New Guinea mainland mid-afternoon. His attempt to dissipate the heat of his thoughts hadn’t exactly gone to plan and he was pleased to be getting off the boat and distracting himself for a while.
They motored into Port Moresby harbour and docked at the Royal Papua Yacht Club. After seeing to all the official formalities they headed for the club.
‘Remember,’ Stella said as Rick smiled at a beautiful dark-skinned woman who openly ogled him as she passed by, ‘you’re on a dare.’
Rick almost groaned out loud. If he had to share quarters with a woman who wrote sexy literature for a living and dressed in next to nothing, then it was vital to put his flirt somewhere!
The fact that he was now bound to a ridiculous dare was just the really rotten icing on a really sucky cake. What was the world coming to when he couldn’t negate some totally inappropriate sexual urges with some harmless flirting?
He smiled at her. ‘Piece of cake.’
Stella grinned as she fell in beside him. She was so going to enjoy this!
He tried to ditch her first thing in the cool, modern surrounds of the yacht club, but there was no way she was letting him walk around unaccompanied, flirting with no redress. She stuck to him like glue as he organised refuelling and restocking of their fresh food supplies and some onwards paperwork for their visit to Micronesia.
They found a nearby craft market and she watched him get crankier as they moved through the stalls thronging with colour and spice and wall-to-wall gorgeous local women. She asked him his opinion about earrings, bikinis and having her hair plaited. None of which he had a strong opinion on other than exasperation.
She bought a sarong and an anklet that had a tiny shell and a little bell on a piece of rope. It was nautical and she was thrilled with her purchase.
He was plain annoyed.
By the time they’d returned to the boat after an evening meal at the club, he was withdrawn and every inch the brooding pirate.
/> Due to cloud cover and lack of interest there was no star gazing tonight. Just a strictly professional conversation about their onward leg and a discussion revolving around the weather, which wasn’t looking good for the next couple of days, but the long-range forecast remained excellent considering they were in the monsoon season.
‘You okay?’ she asked innocently as she picked up their empty coffee mugs and padded barefoot towards the galley. ‘You seem kind of tense?’
Honestly, the man didn’t realise how much his very survival depended on his banter with women—he needed it as if it were oxygen.
‘The no flirting getting to you?’ she queried, suppressing the humour that bubbled in her chest.
Rick heard the laughter in her voice only on a peripheral level as the tinkle of her anklet obliterated all else.
Great.
As if he weren’t conscious enough already of her every movement, he was going to hear her every movement as well.
He’d probably hear her at night rolling over in bed.
He plastered a smile to his face. ‘I’m fine,’ he said. It had only been forty-eight hours, for crying out loud—just how oversexed did she think he was? ‘I’m going up on deck to plot the course into the sat nav.’
Stella smiled as he departed. She had this dare nailed.
CHAPTER SIX
ON DECK the humid night was quiet and still, clouds obscuring what would almost be a full moon. Not even a light breeze tinkled the halyards. Faint music drifted down from the yacht club but the moorings were otherwise peaceful. No boats had cabin lights on, no one walked about stopping to chat, no low muffled conversations could be heard.
No one around to witness Rick gently belting his head against the wheel.
When he’d embarked on this voyage everything had been clear cut. The Mermaid and Inigo’s treasure lay out there somewhere and he and his good friend Stella, whom he’d known for ever, who despite some disturbing dreams was like a sister to him, were going to find it.
After all, it was what Nathan had wanted.