Page 24 of Desert Island Duke

His words died on his lips.

Caro was still in the pool.

Naked.

Max was quite sure his heart stopped beating before roaring back to life.

He checked the pile of white cotton at his feet—yes, her shift was definitely there, along with her petticoats and dress—then he glanced back up at the undeniable flash of pale skin beneath the rippling water.

His brain went a little fuzzy.

Years of ingrained gentlemanly conduct urged him to turn around, immediately, and give her some privacy.

Years of desiring the bloody woman had him staying precisely where he was.

Cara turned in the water and saw him, and he braced himself for shrieks of maidenly outrage, but instead she started toward him with slow, deliberate strokes.

He was utterly incapable of looking away. He’d seen countless naked women, but never her, and his gaze flickered over her pale limbs, so teasingly suggested by the moving water that alternately cloaked and revealed.

She met his eyes as she reached the shallows, and he experienced the stab in the gut her direct look always gave him. He opened his mouth to apologize, but before he could say a word her lips quirked up in a devilish smile.

“You should come in,” she said softly.

He coughed to clear his throat. “That’s . . . probably not a good idea.”

She tilted her head, as if considering. “I won’t tell anyone if you don’t.”

The naughty, teasing note in her voice had him panting in disbelief. His blood was a dull roar in his ears, his cock already hard in his breeches.

“You’ve been longer than an hour,” he growled, trying to look stern.

“I know.”

Not even an apology, damn her, for worrying him.

She lifted her hand, beckoning him like a siren, and like the poor sailors of the Odyssey, he couldn’t resist. Almost in a trance, he stripped off his boots and his shirt and started forward in his breeches, then stopped when she shook her head and tilted her chin at his lower half.

“Off with them, Cavendish. This is no time to be missish. Can’t have you catching a fever gadding about in wet clothes, can we?”

His blood rose at her mocking repetition of his own words.

Little minx. What game was she playing? Did she think he’d be immune to her nakedness? Was this some ridiculous, misguided way of proving to herself that he didn’t truly desire her? If so, she was in for a rude awakening. He’d never wanted anyone more in his life.

He sent her a dark look, a warning not to play with fire, and rested one hand causally at the top button of his falls.

“You want me to remove these?”

“I do.”

He made one last, desperate attempt to make her see reason. She wasn’t a complete innocent. She had to know what she was inviting. What she was risking.

“Have you ever seen a naked man, Caro?”

A delicate flush mottled her cheeks, but she held his gaze.

“An aroused naked man?” he pushed.

Her eyes widened, but she didn’t back down. “No. But I want to.”

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