Free Times Change by Nora Roberts

on the ship.
    So he would stay. And if that made the pretty Sunbeam uncomfortable, so much the better.
    His own discomfort—and the kiss had caused him plenty—would just have to be dealt with. He was, after all, superior.
    Feeling more calm, he went back to the table to reassemble the toaster.
    As he worked, he could hear the ceiling creak and groan above his head. He smiled to himself when he realized that she was pacing on the second floor. He bothered her. And that was just fine. Maybe she would keep her distance—or at least stop daring him to do something they would both regret.
    It was illogical to desire someone he didn’t even like. To fantasize about someone he could barely tolerate. To ache for someone who annoyed him so consistently.
    When the screwdriver slipped and mashed his thumb, he cursed her again.
    ***
    He wasn’t going to get away with it She paced from wall to wall, from window to door, trying to work off steam. The nerve of the man, to grab her as if she were some mindless bimbo, then reject her just as callously. Did he think, did he really think, he could vent his . . . his sexual frustrations on her without compunction?
    She had news for him.
    No one, absolutely no one, treated her in that manner and lived to tell the tale. She’d been taking care of herself for too long. Men might pressure. She pushed them aside. They might seduce. She resisted, effortlessly. They might beg. She—
    Her smile bloomed beautifully at the image of Jacob Hornblower begging. Oh, that would be a triumph, she thought. The enigmatic Dr. Hornblower on his knees, at her feet.
    With a sigh, she began pacing again. It was a shame, a damn shame, that her standards didn’t permit teasing or clichéd feminine ploys. No matter how much of a jerk he was, she had her ethics.
    She was a modern woman, one who stood on her own, with or without a man. One who thought her own thoughts and fought her own fights. She was no Delilah to use sex as a weapon. But she wished, and how she wished, that once, just this once, she could ignore those ingrained principles and seduce him into a pitiful puddle of pleading.
    He’d used sex, she thought, kicking a shoe out of her path. And wasn’t that just like a man? They liked to claim that it was women who lured and teased and taunted. Incensed, she gave the hapless shoe a second, vicious kick. Men, the entire bloody species, preferred to play the innocent bystander entrapped by the femme fatale. Hah!
    If anyone dared to call Sunny Stone a femme fatale she’d punch him right in the face.
    He’d
forced himself on
her.
Well, her stiff-necked honesty pushed her to admit that he hadn’t used force for more than a fraction of a second—if at all. Before he’d kissed her senseless.
    She hated that. The fact that she’d melted like some weak-kneed romantic heroine. She’d kissed him back, too. What was the word? Wantonly. It made her wince. One lousy kiss and she’d been plastered all over him. So, she owed him for that, as well.
    The best way to pay him back, she realized, was to shoot straight for the ego. As far as she could tell, that was the biggest target a man offered a woman. Hiding in her room would only make him think he—and what had happened between them—mattered to her. So she would go about her business and act as though nothing had happened.
    He was still in the kitchen when she came down. Sunny turned on the stereo and adjusted the volume. If it was loud enough, conversation would be difficult, if not impossible. After adding a log to the fire, she settled on the sofa with her books. Over an hour passed before he came out and went upstairs. She studiously ignored him.
    More from boredom than from appetite, she went into the kitchen and fixed herself an enormous sandwich. Under other circumstances she would have offered to make one for her guest. But the idea of him going hungry just made her own meal that much more palatable.
    Content, she bundled into coat and boots to