‘Almost there,’ he yelled above the surf and though she shook her head and did not look at him she moved with him. The backward tug when it came surprised them both. Her eyes shot towards him as she rocked under the beat of a wave. He tugged at her arm impatiently. In a few moments the water would rise and even the ledge would offer no salvation. They had moments at best.
She looked back, reaching down, and he realised what was wrong. He planted his feet apart and shoved her hand away, grasping her skirt and tugging. The fabric was thick in his hands, scratchy in the water, but his efforts seemed to wedge it even more firmly between the rocks.
‘The dress from hell,’ he cursed, turning his back and pulling her against him as a wave came slamming down on them. He could feel her wriggling, trying to tug at the fabric with rising panic, but instead of joining her he grasped the modest bodice above the row of neat buttons and wrenched it apart. One of the buttons snapped him on the cheek as it flew off and the front of the dress fell open. He dragged the sleeves down, gathering her under her arms and hauling her out of it like a toddler, half-dragging her on to the ledge. The waterlogged dress surged on the wave like an animal carcass, grey and sullen, and then was sucked down as the water crashed into foam.
He kept hold of her, her body now slight and cold with only a soaked chemise as cover. On the ledge the waves were still only waist high and she stumbled ahead with him, the sea dragging at their legs, but no longer in charge. They finally reached the sand beyond the rocks and she stumbled and he sank down on his knees beside her, their breath audible above the roaring surf. He grabbed her shoulders, turning her to him, every other emotion shifting into a rockslide of fury.
‘Are you mad? How dare you? How dare you do that?’
‘Jamie... Oh, God, Benneit... Jamie!’ Her voice came in rough gasps, hardly recognisable. ‘His shoe was on the boulders out there. I tried to reach... Why did you stop me?’
Her fingers dug and twisted into his shirt and there was so much agony in her eyes it cauterised his anger like a fiery brand.
‘Jamie? Jamie is at the castle. Angus and I found him hiding outside the stables. I came to find you and then I saw you head to your death, you little fool.’
‘He is safe? Are you certain?’
‘Of course I’m certain. I told you he wouldn’t go far. Unlike you, he has more sense than to stay in the bay when the tide is rising.’
‘But his shoe...’
‘He told me had thrown them into the sea. It was his sign of protest. You should have realised that.’
She was staring at him, disbelief and hope warring in her eyes. She had not removed her hands from his chest, they spread wide as if to push him away, but she didn’t. She didn’t appear aware of anything but some internal battle; certainly not the fact that she was clothed in nothing but a flimsy and now transparent chemise that clung to her body and left absolutely nothing to the imagination.
It settled one debate at least. Under Celia’s horrors was a work of art. Her breasts were simply perfect, as if a master artist had decided to create a treatise on perfect proportions. The cold had gathered her nipples into two unmistakably rosy peaks under the fabric and he could almost feel how they would fit against his palms—the soft curve of sea-slicked skin and the hard pucker of her nipples pressed to the heart of his palms... Beneath the chilled outer layer of skin he felt a surge of fire, the beating of drums.
He forced his gaze away, but they only swept down, following the sheer fabric as it hugged the curve of her waist and hips and fit snugly over the darker triangle between her legs. Despite everything—his fury, his fear, his shock—his body heated and readied, fixing its attention on this unintended invitation.
Hell. This was the very definition of unwelcome.
‘Thank God.’ She sat back on her heels, covering her face, a shudder coursing through her. Her hair was a matted tangle and a piece of kelp was wrapped around her arm like an exotic bracelet. If not for the goosebumps and the simple chemise, she looked like a figure out of one of Jamie’s tales of the sea. A mermaid cast on to land, a Selkie come to capture a mate.
The wind lashed at them and his wet buckskins were uncomfortably tight over his unwanted arousal. It should have been an effective antidote to the surge of lust, but it wasn’t. He doubted a snowstorm would be effective against the chaos roiling inside him. In normal circumstances he could push aside the increasingly frequent flashes of desire this impossible woman sparked, but now neither his mind nor his body co-operated and this weakness fanned his terror-driven fury.