Sea Haven 01 - Water Bound

the monstrous hard-on she couldn’t fail to notice. It took her a moment to look up from kneading his calves. Her hands stopped abruptly and he heard her shocked inhale. He rolled over, needing to see her face—her eyes.
    She shoved back away from him, her eyes widening, the long lashes veiling her expression. As she went to pull away, she held up her hands, 60

    palms out, defensively, as if warding him off. Long-buried, maybe even unknown instincts took over. His hand whipped up, pushing air toward her left palm. Sparks danced between them, silver and gold, like tiny fireflies.
    She cried out and cradled her hand to her, that little frown drawing his attention to her soft mouth.
    “Let me see.”
    “What did you do?”
    “I don’t know. Let me see.”
    Her gaze dropped to his heavy erection and her eyes grew stormy. “Just put that away.”
    There it was again—that urge to smile. “It’s not a weapon. And you put it there. You take it away.”
    “Well, we found out one thing out about you, didn’t we?” She snatched the blanket and flung it over him, tenting his monstrosity of a hard-on. “You haven’t had sex in a long time.”
    She was close so he caught her wrist and turned her injured palm over, drawing her hand closer for his inspection. Two faint marks, circles intertwined one through the other. He pressed the pad of his thumb over the marks and rubbed in a circular motion.
    “If you think I brought you home so you could have sex, you picked the wrong person. I don’t do that sort of thing with just anyone.”
    His fingers tightened around her hand. “I’m glad to hear that.” He moved his thumb and the circles had faded, leaving only a faint redness.
    Instead of remorse over marking her, he felt a strange satisfaction. He let go of her and allowed his eyes to close. The massage had driven the last vestiges of cold from his bones and left him exhausted.
    “Talk to me from the door when you need to wake me up. Make certain I’m alert before you come in.”
    “What happened to ‘you’re safe’?” she asked aloud and, sending him another frown, she stalked out, leaving him to sleep.
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Chapter 4
    HER sisters had to come home soon. Rikki paced back and forth on her front porch. How long did a reception last anyway? Were they going to be dancing all night? She rubbed her itching palm down her thigh and then pressed her hand hard against her tummy. What on earth had ever possessed her to bring someone home and put him in her house ? She must have been out of her mind. No one stayed in her house. She couldn’t stay in there with him. Now she had to sit outside and wish she had a cup of coffee. She wasn’t going inside to make one either.
    She stuck her thumbnail in her mouth and chewed on it. What if he needed something? What if he croaked? In her bed. Sheesh. The repercussions of her idiotic decision were mind-numbing. He was a complete stranger and most likely a homicidal maniac, judging by his weapons and his reflexes. She paced back and forth, huffing out her breath and mumbling curses and threats toward him under her breath.
    It wasn’t even safe to have him in her house. If Blythe and the others were right and she wasn’t a sociopath, then someone was trying to kill her and anyone who might live with her. Or , she hated people near her so much that she tried to kill them by burning them alive, and then didn’t remember it. Either way, it wasn’t a good scenario.
    She whirled around and glared at the door. She couldn’t go into her own house. A man. A man with a very large . . . She buried her face in her hands. Why did she have to think about that part of his anatomy? She should be thinking about how insane he was, all of his scars and how he got them, or his weapons and what it all meant.
    She’d thought about him naked while she’d showered and washed her hair. Her body had actually reacted to the sight of him. She’d felt a blush start somewhere in her tummy and move up to her neck. Fingers of awareness crept down her spine and tingled over her thighs. Her womb pulsed with need. Her beloved water, instead of wrapping her up like a blanket and comforting her, had felt sensual on her skin.
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    She’d meticulously bleached her wet suit and hung it up, scrubbing her bathroom and shower after use, and then put his clothes in the dryer. She’d paced back and forth in her living room while the walls drew closer and closer together and her lungs couldn’t get enough air.