Powerful and Proud: Beneath the Veil of Paradise / In the Heat of the Spotlight / His Brand of Passion

She hadn’t even said goodbye.

Chase lifted his head, pulling back a little bit so Millie blinked in surprise. ‘Your lack of response is a bit of a buzz-kill, you know.’

‘What?’ She gaped like a fish. ‘I wasn’t—’

‘No,’ Chase agreed, ‘you weren’t. It started off rather nicely, but then you went somewhere else in your head.’ She couldn’t deny it, and his gaze narrowed. ‘What were you thinking about, Millie?’ She swallowed, said nothing. ‘You were thinking about some other guy, weren’t you?’

‘No!’ Millie protested, then bit her lip. She couldn’t lie, not to Chase. ‘I couldn’t help it.’

For the first time since she’d seen him, he looked angry. Or maybe even hurt. Emotion flashed in his eyes like thunder and then he deliberately relaxed. ‘I know you think too much. You’ve got to turn off that big brain of yours, Millie.’

‘I know.’ Did she ever. The whole reason she’d embarked on this fling of theirs was to keep herself from thinking. Remembering. Tormenting herself with guilty regrets.

‘Let’s go back to the boat,’ Chase said. ‘We should get back to St Julian’s before dark.’

Silently Millie followed him back through the grove to the slender beach and then onto the boat. Chase didn’t so much as look back at her once, or help her onto the boat. Any warmth between them seemed to have evaporated. Millie fetched her clothes, now thankfully dry but stiff as a board and caked with salt, and clutched them to her. She stood uncertainly on the deck while Chase set the boat free from its moorings, his movements taut with suppressed energy—or emotion? Was he angry with her?

‘Is there somewhere I can change?’

‘Don’t bother.’ He didn’t even look at her as he reached for another line.

‘What?’ She didn’t like seeing Chase this way, the hard lines of his face transformed into harshness—or maybe just indifference. Gone was the charming, charismatic man she’d come to like—and trust. ‘I don’t want to walk into the resort in my underwear,’ she said, trying to joke, but Chase turned to her with a dangerously bland expression.

‘You can put your clothes on after.’

‘After?’

‘After we have sex. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it, Millie? No messy emotions or entanglements, no getting to know each other.’ He spread his arms wide, a cool smile curling his mouth. ‘Well, here we are. Alone in an ocean, and there’s a perfectly good bed in the cabin below. No reason not to hop to it.’

Millie stared, swallowed. ‘You mean now?’

‘Right now.’ He jerked a thumb in direction of the ladder that led below deck. ‘Let’s go.’

CHAPTER SIX (#u05679086-c80e-5dc4-ba86-e2c794dd1af8)

WHAT the hell was he doing? Being a total bastard, judging by the look of shocked horror on Millie’s face. But he was angry, even if he shouldn’t be. The thought of Millie thinking of some other jerk while he was pouring his soul into that kiss filled him with a blind rage.

‘Well?’ Chase arched an eyebrow and put his hands on his hips. ‘What are you waiting for?’

Her teeth sank into those worry marks on her lower lip. She clutched her clothes tighter to her chest. ‘Somehow, with the way you’re looking at me, I don’t think it’s going to be mind-blowing.’

‘Leave that to me.’

She shook her head. ‘I don’t like angry sex.’

He gave her a level look. ‘I’m not angry.’ He wasn’t, he realised with a flash of cringing insight. He was hurt. He hadn’t expected to care so much, so quickly.

Millie gave just as level a look back, even as her eyes flashed fire. He might not be angry, but she was. Well, fine. Bring it on.

‘All right.’ She lifted her chin a notch, her eyes still flashing, and stalked past him to the ladder. Chase watched her descend below deck, her body taut and quivering with tension. Or maybe anger, or even fear.

Did it matter? Wasn’t this what she wanted, a quick bout of meaningless sex? She could get him out of her system, or so she undoubtedly hoped.

And maybe he’d get her out of his. He’d spent the afternoon coaxing smiles from her even as he enjoyed himself more than he’d ever thought possible. Every smile, every laugh, had felt like a discovery. A victory.

He thought they were building something—admittedly something fragile and temporary, but still. Something. And the whole time she’d been thinking of some stupid ex.

‘Are you coming?’ she called from below, her voice as taut as her body had been.

Chase’s mouth curved grimly at the unwitting double entendre. ‘You’d better believe it.’

He hauled himself down the ladder and saw that Millie stood in front of the double bed. She turned to him, her chest heaving, her nipples visible beneath the thin, silky material of her bra. She arched her eyebrows and curved her mouth in a horrible rictus smile.

‘All right, Chase. Let’s see what you’ve got.’

He swallowed, acid churning in his gut. How had they got here? The afternoon had been full of tenderness and teasing, and now they were acting like they hated each other.

Millie’s eyes glittered and he knew she wouldn’t back down. She never backed down from a challenge; he’d learned that already.

And hell if he’d back down either. She was the one who had said she didn’t want to get to know him. Wasn’t interested in emotional anything. Right now, right here, he could give her what she wanted. The only thing she wanted.

And, damn it, he’d want it too.

‘Take off your bra.’ A pulse beat hard in the hollow of her throat but she undid it and tossed it to the floor. Her breasts were small and round, high and firm. Perfect. Chase swallowed. ‘And the rest.’ She glared at him as she kicked off her underwear, her chin still tilted high.

‘Is this what you call foreplay?’

He almost laughed. She was magnificent. Naked, proud, defiant, strong. He shook his head. ‘I just like to see what I get in this deal of ours.’

‘Only fair I get the same opportunity, then.’

He arched an eyebrow, aroused in spite of the anger. Or maybe because of it. Hell, he didn’t know anything any more. ‘What are you saying, Scary?’

‘Take off your pants.’

He did.

They stared at each other almost in grim silence, both of them totally naked, nothing between them. The air seemed to crackle with the tension, with the expectation.

Hell.

What now?

Millie folded her arms. Waited. Chase felt like a circus seal, or a damn monkey. She clearly expected him to perform.

He hadn’t wanted it to be this way. He’d wanted to gain her trust, even her affection, and help her to lose control in the most amazing way possible. Right now she was clinging to that precious control with her french-manicured fingernails and it was slipping crazily away from him.

He didn’t want this.