Summer Beach Reads. Natalie Anderson

Rick said, relieving her of the tray and quickly shrugging into the jacket.

      She could see water droplets clinging to his eyelashes and spattering his bronzed chest. Just as the shower spray had done last night.

      She dragged her eyes away. Must not think about the shower.

      ‘Hmm, this is good,’ Rick said, watching her face as two pink spots appeared on her pale cheeks. ‘I think I’ll keep you.’

      Stella’s gaze flicked to his, to the teasing light in his pirate eyes. Two could play at that game. ‘I think I’ll let you,’ she murmured.

      Rick cocked an eyebrow, surprised at her easy comeback, then chuckled. He warmed his hands around the mug, taking another sip of the rich, fragrant pea and ham soup. ‘Weather’s easing up.’

      Stella looked out at the lurching ocean. ‘It is?’

      He chuckled some more. ‘You’ve become such a landlubber. Can’t you feel it beneath your soles?’

      Stella felt the laugh reach right inside her and warm her from the inside out. She guessed she had. ‘No, Captain Ahab, I can’t.’

      ‘Ah, Moby Dick, my favourite book,’ he teased, because he knew how much Stella hated it.

      She rolled her eyes at him. ‘You’ve never read it.’

      ‘I have,’ he protested.

      ‘When?’

      ‘When you dared me to,’ he said.

      Stella frowned at him, thinking back through the mists of time to that long-ago summer dare. ‘I was twelve.’

      She’d been going through a classics phase and also trying to read anything nautical to connect with her father, to try and understand why he’d loved the sea more than her mother.

      It hadn’t helped.

      ‘I never back down on a dare. Besides, I liked it.’

      Not as much as the hot pirate sex in Pleasure Hunt...

      They had a discussion about its merits while they finished off their lunch and even Stella felt the sea was calmer by the time she reloaded their tray. The wind had definitely dropped. The sprinkling rain had stopped and they shrugged out of their jackets. A bare bicep brushed against her shoulder as he threw his jacket over the back of his chair and she shut her eyes briefly as heat licked at the point of contact.

      ‘I’ll get rid of these,’ she said briskly, pulling away from him.

      Rick watched her go, her hips full and round and swinging enticingly as her gait compensated for the lurch of the boat. Hips that had appeared one summer along with the bra and, no matter how much he’d tried to ignore them in his day-to-day dealings with her, they’d been right there in his fevered teenage dreams.

      A sudden gust of wind caused the boat to roll to the side and he watched as she shimmied to counteract the swell. He smiled, admiring the move until he realised she’d overbalanced and was going down.

      ‘Stella!’ he called as he sprang from his chair.

      Too late. The boat had thrown her sideways and Stella hit the deck hard on her left upper arm, the tray flying as she extended her other hand to buffer the impact, skidding as she grabbed at the wood for purchase.

      ‘Stella,’ Rick called again as he threw himself down beside her inert crumpled body, his heart hammering. ‘Stella? Are you okay?’

      Stella groaned. She couldn’t think for the pain in her left arm.

      Rick touched her arm, trying to roll her over. ‘Stella?’

      She moaned and he stopped. ‘I’m okay, I’m okay,’ she panted. ‘Just give me a second.’

      ‘Where are you hurt?’ he asked.

      ‘Arm,’ she said after a moment. ‘Hand.’ She looked up at him through her fringe. ‘Dignity.’

      Rick laughed, relieved that she couldn’t be too badly hurt if her sense of humour was still intact. ‘Do you think anything’s broken?’

      Stella zeroed in on the pain in her upper arm where she’d fallen the hardest. It had initially been excruciating but the intensity had eased quickly. It only felt as if a brick had fallen on it now as opposed to a cement column.

      ‘Let me help you up,’ he offered.

      Stella acquiesced with a brief nod of her head. With both arms hurting like blazes, she had no idea how she was even going to get up. Rick grabbed her around the waist and gently pulled her into a sitting position. His big warm body was behind hers and for a moment she was so relieved she wasn’t destined to spend for ever spread on the deck like a stranded beetle she sagged against him and shut her eyes.

      Rick rubbed his cheek against her hair, the scent of coconuts filling his nostrils. He picked up her right hand. The knuckles were grazed and the middle three finger pads were bleeding with splinters embedded in each one.

      He tried really hard not to think about Lady Mary and her splinter, but with Stella all warm and pliant against him, smelling like a pina colada, it was hard not to go there.

      ‘Nasty,’ he murmured, anticipation already building in his gut, knowing that he was the one who would take them out. Kiss those fingers better just as Vasco had. ‘How’s your arm? Can you move it?’

      Stella gingerly rotated her shoulder. ‘Bloody sore,’ she bitched.

      He smiled into her hair. ‘What about your dignity?’

      Her arm throbbed and she couldn’t even rub it with her opposite hand because it throbbed as well. And was bleeding to boot. ‘Unrecoverable, I should imagine.’

      He chuckled. ‘Nah. You really fell very gracefully.’

      ‘Oh, goody,’ she said dryly. ‘A critique.’

      He laughed again. ‘Come on. Let’s get you down below and have a look at you.’

      ‘I bet you say that to all the girls,’ she muttered.

      Stella blinked as the snappy rejoinder loaded with innuendo slipped from her mouth. What the?

      He laughed some more. ‘Just the ones who fall at my feet.’

      Rick helped her up. The boat rolled again slightly and he grabbed her waist and her good arm to steady her as she wobbled against him. He sucked in a breath as, for a moment, every part of her from her soft breasts to her round hips was pressed against him.

      He took a step back as his body leapt to life. ‘You’ve got your sea legs?’ he asked.

      Stella nodded. ‘Sorry ’bout that.’

      ‘No worries.’ He shrugged. ‘Why don’t you go on down? I’ll fix a few things up here and then I’ll join you.’

      Stella, despite the throb in her arm and the sting in her fingers, was still stuck back in that moment.

      She nodded her head dumbly.

      No dignity anywhere in sight!

      * * *

      When Rick joined her half an hour later she’d recovered sufficiently to have taken some painkillers, located the first-aid kit, washed her hand in the sink and was sitting at the table valiantly trying to dig the splinters out. But trying to do it left-handed was a slow enough process without being hampered by a restricted range of movement from the soft tissue damage inflicted by the fall up higher, near her shoulder.

      Rick shoved his hands on his hips. ‘What are you doing?’ he asked.

      Stella, who had made more of a mess through pricking herself, was not in the best of moods. It really didn’t help that he looked all hot and sexy in that shirtless way of his.

      ‘What do you think?’ she