Fascinated, Leo watched the gold of her eyes become eaten up by black, leaving only a ring of emerald-green, and his body caught fire at the implicit message her dilated pupils transmitted to him. Green. Her eyes turned green with passion.
As if somehow driven by the need to affirm that she was okay, Leo’s eyes dropped to her parted lips seconds before his head followed.
He didn’t know if she too was driven by the scare of her accident but her mouth flowered beneath his and her hands speared into his hair as she answered the urgent demand of his lips.
One of his arms banded around her lower back as he raised her to him and he felt the tips of her breasts nestle against his chest as she strained closer, the heat of her body burning through her flimsy vest top and his shirt as she caught fire in his arms.
Her urgency more than matched his and he revelled in the way she tried to take charge of the kiss, her thumbs gliding over his cheekbones as she held his face steady while she sipped and nipped at his mouth. He let her play for maybe a second before crushing her mouth beneath his. She moaned and he answered that sound of pleasure with a low groan of his own, pressing her back into the sand and taking control of the kiss.
This was total insanity but he couldn’t deny how much his body ached to take her. His tongue curled around hers and his mouth turned hard as the same primitive hunger he’d felt with her the other night took hold and threatened to consume him, all sense of reason and caution flying into the air to be fried by the midafternoon sun.
He didn’t know how it was possible for the sound of the approaching jet ski to be heard over the loud beating of his heart but fortunately it brought him to his senses and he wrenched his mouth from hers, his body throbbing with unslaked desire.
Her mouth was kiss-swollen and he knew the good doctor would know what had happened even if he hadn’t seen them and Leo cursed his own stupidity. The woman had nearly died in an accident and he’d what—tried to ravish her?
Emotions exploded through him and landed with unerring accuracy on Tom Shepherd as he barrelled up the sand towards them. Rage the like he couldn’t remember took over from lust and circuited his body. His muscles tensed and for a split second he contemplated meeting him halfway and putting his fist through his face.
Lexi must have sensed his intent because she placed her warm palm on his forearm. ‘Don’t.’ That softly spoken plea brought him back to his senses and stopped him in his tracks. A bar room full of men hadn’t been able to stop him after he’d located the man responsible for the death of his uncle in a work-related accident but this woman could contain him with the slightest touch. Of course he’d been irrational with pain at the time his uncle had died, but somehow the emotions he’d felt today when he’d watched Lexi go under hadn’t been that much different. Which was absurd. He’d loved his uncle and didn’t care a whit about Lexi Somers.
‘Lexi, are you okay?’ Tom’s concern was palpable and Leo shook off his disconcerting thoughts and pierced him with a look. If he but knew it, Tom Shepherd was only standing because of the woman he’d nearly killed. He hadn’t put a life jacket on Lexi and Leo knew why. And he knew why Tom had gone extra fast to make her cling to his back. Had she enjoyed it, pressed up against Tom’s back as she’d held tight? Had she been thinking of Tom when she’d responded to his kisses moments ago? Leo inwardly cursed the direction of his thoughts. This sense of jealousy—because he recognised that was what it was even though he had never experienced it before—was so unlike him. Women were always easy to come by and easy to let go.
Unused to feeling so out of balance, Leo turned his anger on her. ‘Why the hell didn’t you insist on wearing a life jacket?’ he snarled.
He could see his sudden attack had startled her and that she was floundering over how to answer him.
‘That was my fault, Leo,’ Tom answered like a protective beau. ‘I said she wouldn’t need one.’
‘Excuse me. If I could just see the patient.’ The doctor pushed the two men aside and crouched beside Lexi and Leo paced away from them before he did hit Tom. He hadn’t been in a fist fight for seventeen years and he was disgusted with his loss of control that nearly saw him in one now. He didn’t understand this possessive urge he felt towards Lexi Somers but it had to stop. She wasn’t his and she never would be. He would never want her to be, despite his continued desire to take her to bed. That was just lust. Unusual in its intensity, yes, but still something he could control.
The doctor finished examining her and sat back on his haunches. ‘You’re fine. You’ve taken in a bit of water but your lungs sound clear enough. It doesn’t appear you were hit and I expect you’ll make a full recovery by this evening, but get some rest when you get back all the same.’
‘I feel fine now,’ Lexi said, hugging her knees close to her chest.
‘Thanks, Gerard,’ Leo murmured. ‘Tom can return you to the yacht.’
Tom hesitated. ‘I’m really sorry, Lexi.’
‘That’s okay, Tom. Accidents happen.’
‘No, they don’t,’ Leo cut in. ‘That was a stupid thing to do, Shepherd, and if I see you on one of my skis again without a life jacket I’ll find someone else to do the East India project.’
Lexi’s eyes flew to Leo as he squared off against Tom. The East India project was his idea? Lexi was shocked. The man worked tirelessly to save men he had probably never met after a building accident, knew the name of a staff member who ranked low down on the yacht’s employment hierarchy, and now funded documentaries to bring the plight of children in the Third World to the attention of others—and these were just things she knew about. It didn’t make sense that a man like that would not want to have a relationship with his son.
Unless he was still pining for the mother of that child?
Lexi’s throat constricted at the unexpected thought that Leo might still be so in love with the beautiful Amanda Weston that he couldn’t even stand to have their son in his orbit if he couldn’t have her as well. Not that he’d said as much—but what other explanation could there be?
Lexi remembered how her own mother had been so deeply affected when her father’s double life had come to light she had never risked her heart on another man again, turning instead to fostering children to fulfil the void his defection had left behind. Lexi had admired her mother for providing such a caring environment for other children, but she had always struggled when a child who had become part of their family had been returned to their own home.
‘Okay, okay, my friend; I can see you’re upset.’ Tom held his hands up towards Leo in a conciliatory nature. ‘We’ll talk later by which time I hope your ire has cooled enough to accept my most humble apology.’
Lexi was surprised at Leo’s aggressiveness and felt sorry for the retreating Tom. It had been remiss of him not to remind her to wear a life jacket but …
‘Leo, really … it was an accident,’ Lexi protested.
‘It was avoidable.’ Leo turned to face her, his blue eyes rapier sharp as he glared at her. ‘If you had been wearing a life jacket you wouldn’t have gone under,’ he rasped forcefully.
‘I didn’t know I had to.’ Was this really the same man who not twenty minutes ago had kissed her into a liquid puddle of need?
‘I know that,’ he snapped. ‘And you know the reason Shepherd didn’t tell you to put one on.’
His icy gaze raked down over her body and it took her a second for his meaning to register. ‘Are you suggesting …? That’s ridiculous,’ she said indignantly.
‘It’s the truth. He probably took his cue from your flirting with him during lunch. Probably earlier in the pool, for all I know.’
Lexi felt a