Free Save the Last Dance by Fiona Harper Page B

wasn’t pandering to it, though. She’d have to learn that quick-smart as well.
    â€˜The next important thing to do is to get dry,’ he said over his shoulder. And then, just because he couldn’t resist, ‘It’s a real morale booster.’
    She twisted her neck to look back at him, and then she turned and walked up to the blaze, extending her arms until they were rigid and flexing her palms back.
    Finn gave a chuckle. ‘You’ll spend all day trying to dry those clothes like that.’ And then, as the little ballerina’s eyes grew the roundest and bluest he’d ever seen them, he began to strip off.
    Well, it seemed her prophecy that anything could and would happen when Finn McLeod was around hadn’t been far off the mark. Allegra wasn’t sure whether to pull up a metaphorical chair and enjoy herself, or slink off into the shelter to protect them both from embarrassment.
    A low, rumbling snort from behind her caused her to yank her head round. Dave was finding it all highly amusing as he caught every millisecond of her double-edged reaction with his big zoom lens. Oh, how she was learning to hate that object!
    She turned her back on both man and camera. However, this meant the only other view open to her was Finn and his rapidly diminishing wardrobe. His shirt was already on the ground, revealing a broad and rather finely muscled back, and he had turned his attention to his boot laces. Allegra swallowed. After that the only items left would be his trousers and his—she gulped again—underwear.
    She stood frozen to the spot, unable to move, unable to look away.
    Why was she reacting like this? It wasn’t as if she hadn’t seen her fair share of unadorned male bodies in her line of work. And she’d certainly watched enough episodes of Fearless Finn to know that he had no compunction about getting naked if the situation called for it, but there had always been a little bit of post-production wizardry that had fuzzied out the…um… essentials. She suddenly missed that fuzzy square very much indeed.
    Finn was out of his boots now and had pulled his trousers down to his knees. The sight of his thighs made Allegra’s mouth go dry.
    He paused and looked up at her. ‘Come on, then.’ His cheeky grin turned her already parched tongue to sandpaper. ‘You’ll go mouldy if you stay in those damp things.’
    He stepped out of his cargo trousers and picked them up, along with his shirt, and then hung them out on one of the large bushes that circled their camp, making sure they were stretched out wide and facing the roaring fire.
    Her heart rate began to slow a little. He was stopping at his underwear—at least that was how it looked for now. Part of her was relieved, but the other part? Well, it just…wasn’t.
    Once Finn had finished arranging his clothes on the bush he turned back to her. She discovered she was clutching at the front of her light cotton shirt, pulling the edges towards each other, even though it was still buttoned up.
    What must she look like?
    A timid child? A complete prude? Certainly nothing like the kind of impulsive, free-spirited woman who would appeal to Finn McLeod. The kind of girl who would smile back at the gorgeous hunk of man who had nonchalantly got half-naked beside her and was inviting her to do the same. The kind of girl who already had claimed his heart, she reminded herself.
    Finn jerked his head towards the sparkling pale green shallows. ‘I’m going to wash off the helicopter, the storm and anything else that might be clinging to me,’ he said. And then he bounded off down the sand and threw himself into the surf.
    Well, she couldn’t stand here getting damper and sweatier and smellier by the second, could she? If there was one thing she wanted—besides Finn McLeod—it was to feel clean again, and her island home was fulfilling every fantasy she’d had about it