Free Ravished by the Rake by Louise Allen Page B

though it was to be pinned down like this, unable to do anything but place hands and feet at his command.
I remember how his body felt over mine on a bed. I remember the scent of his skin and his hands on my …
    ‘We’re at the rail. Slide round in front of me and jump down,’ Alistair ordered, shaking her out of her sensual reverie.
    Dita very much doubted her legs were up to jumping,but she had too much pride to argue. With an awkward twist she swung down from the rigging and landed on the deck on all fours with an inelegant thump. ‘Thank you.’
    Alistair’s face as he straightened up beside her showed nothing but anger. If he had enjoyed being so close to her, it did not show now. ‘You idiot! What the blazes do you think you were doing? You could have been killed.’
    ‘I doubt it.’ They were attracting attention from some of the deck hands; Dita turned on her heel and walked away towards the cuddy, her shoulders braced against the coming storm. Behind her she could hear the slap of Alistair’s bare feet on the deck.
    The space was empty, she was relieved to see, and the stewards had not begun to lay the table and set out breakfast. There was little hope of outdistancing Alistair and reaching the roundhouse, although she was going to try—he could hardly pursue her into that all-female sanctuary. Dita lengthened her stride, then his grip on her shoulder stopped her dead in her tracks. His hand was warm and hard and the thin cotton caught in the roughness of his palm. Struggling would be undignified, she told herself.
    ‘I should go and change,’ Dita said, her back still turned.
    ‘Not until you give me your word you will not try that damn-fool trick again.’ The thrust of his hand as he spun her round was not gentle, nor was the slap of his other palm as he caught her shoulder to steady her. ‘Are you all about in your head, Perdita?’
    She tipped up her chin and stared back into the furious tiger eyes with all the insolence she could muster.‘Perdita? Now that
is
serious—you never called me that unless you were very angry with me.’ Alistair’s eyes narrowed. ‘Let me see. The last time must have been when I borrowed your new hunter and rode it.’
    ‘Stole,’ he said between gritted teeth. ‘And
tried
to ride it. I can recall hauling you out of the ditch by your collar.’
    ‘And you called me
Perdita
for a week afterwards.’ She remembered his strength as he had lifted her, the fear in his voice for her—and how that had changed to anger the moment he realised she was unhurt. He had never failed to rescue her then, however much she annoyed him.
    ‘And it is not funny! ‘
    She must have been smiling at the memory. He took a step forwards; she slid back, still in his grasp.
    ‘And I am very angry now and I am not fifteen and you are not a child and a fall from a horse is not the same as plunging into the sea from a great height.’
    ‘No,’ she agreed. The door was quite close. If she just edged a little more to the right and ducked out of his grip … She needed to distract him. ‘You enjoyed that.’
    His brows snapped together as he took the step that brought them toe to toe. ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘We were pressed very close together. Did you think I would not notice, or not understand? I am not an innocent.’ What had possessed her to say that? The fact that he was obviously thinking of her as a child to be extracted from scrapes, even though his body was well aware of her age?
He really does not remember that last night,
she thought. He had been drinking, a little, whenshe had gone into his arms; she had tasted the brandy on his lips, but he had not been drunk.
    ‘No, you’re not, are you?’ Alistair agreed, his voice silky as he moved again, turning them both so that he was between her and the door. Once she had been small and lithe enough to slip from his hands, evade his clumsy adolescent attempts to control her. Now he was a mature man, with a man’s strength, and