Rich, Rugged And Royal: The Maverick Prince. Catherine Mann

until he pressed fully erect along her spine. Every roll of the board rubbing their bodies against each other had to be as torturous for him as it was for her. His hands moved higher on her legs, nearer to what she needed. Silently. Just as in tune with each other as when they’d been paddling out.

      She worried at first that someone might see, but with their backs to the shore and water … she could lose herself in the moment. Already his breaths grew heavier against her ear, nearly as fast as her own.

      They could both let go and find completion right here without ever moving. Simply feeling his arousal against her stirred Shannon to a bittersweet edge. And good God, that scared the hell out of her.

      The wind chilled, and she recognized the sting of fear all too well. She’d thought she could ride the wave, so to speak, and just have an affair with Tony.

      But this utter abandon, the loss of control, the way they were together, it was anything but simple, something she wasn’t sure she was ready to risk.

      Scavenging every bit of her quickly dwindling willpower, she grabbed his wrists, moved his hands away…

      And dived off the side of the board.

       Nine

      Tony propped his surfboard against a tree and turned to take Shannon’s. The wariness in her eyes frustrated the hell out of him. He could have sworn she was just as into the moment out there as he was—an amazing moment that had been seconds away from getting even better.

      And then she’d vaulted off the board and into the water.

      Staying well clear of him, she’d said she was ready to return to shore. She hadn’t spoken another word since. Had he blown a whole week’s worth of working past her boundaries only to wreck it in one afternoon? Problem was, he still didn’t know what had set her off.

      She stroked a smudge of sand from his faded yellow board. “Is it all right to leave them here so far from where we started?”

      They’d drifted at least a mile from the SUV. “I’ll buy new ones. I’m a filthy rich prince, remember?”

      Yeah, sexual frustration was making him a little cranky, and he suspected no amount of walking would take the edge off. Worse yet, she didn’t even rise to the bait of his crabby words full of reminders of why they’d broken up in the first place.

      Fine. Who the hell knew what she needed?

      He started west and she glided alongside him. The wind picked up, rustling the trees and sweeping a layer of sand around his ankles.