Page 31 of His Last Gamble

CHAPTER EIGHT

Charmaine hastily thrust a peach-coloured bikini, a large beach towel, a bottle of sun-tan lotion, a pair of sunglasses and a pair of flip flops into a bag and raced out of the door.

She almost expected him to be gone, like a promised Christmas present that never materialised come the big day, but no, he was still on the beach, leaning against the tender, his long legs thrust forward, feet almost buried in the sand. He was wearing a white T-shirt that hugged the contours of his upper torso, and a light sea breeze ruffled his dark gold hair.

His eyes lit up as he saw her coming across the beach towards him, and Charmaine felt her heart stutter, like a faulty engine. He was glad to see her. Really glad. For the first time in her life, a man desired her and wanted to spend his time with her, and the knowledge was so heady she felt almost drunk with it.

She sounded as breathless as she felt as she slung her bulging bag into the small boat. ‘All set. Has Jo-Jo gone?’ She looked around, but the models and the rest of the gang were nowhere to be seen.

‘They all trundled off to get some shots in Lucayan,’ Payne faithfully repeated Jo-Jo’s message. ‘You’re not to worry, but enjoy yourself for the rest of the day.’

Charmaine glanced at him, one eyebrow lifted. ‘Oh yes? His orders, or yours?’ she teased. She didn’t need to be a genius to understand where all this sudden self-confidence had come from. She felt as if she could take on the world, so long as Payne’s eyes always lit up like that whenever she was near.

Payne grinned widely. ‘Both. Now, how do you fancy snorkelling?’

* * *

She fancied snorkelling very well, as it turned out. After returning them to theQueen of Diamondshe took the yacht around to the other side of the island, where ‘a nice little shipwreck’ had been attracting sea life for the last decade or so. It was, he assured her, in relatively shallow waters, and luckily they had the popular site to themselves as he weighed anchor.

‘You can swim, right?’ Payne asked, letting a pair of snorkels and masks fall onto the deck, then watching her appreciatively as she bent down to examine the gear more closely.

She was wearing the beach towel draped, sarong-wise, around her, for when he’d gone below to change, she’d suddenly felt overwhelmed with that old familiar enemy, shyness. Perhaps it was because the bikini made her feel worse than naked — if there was such a thing! Perhaps it was because she was slowly becoming aware of how isolated they were out here on his boat, with nobody for miles around.

Or yet again, perhaps it was simply because she could feel something in the air, a portent that some life-altering event was about to happen to her. Whatever it was, she was glad to be able to push all these thoughts to the back of her mind and think and speak about something as mundane as swimming instead.

‘Of course I can swim,’ she said now, then was forced to add honestly, ‘though probably not very well.’

‘OK, well there’s nothing to worry about,’ he reassured her. ‘I’ll be right beside you every moment. And we always have these,’ he added, opening a locker on the deck and producing some inflatable water-wings.

Again her amused laughter tinkled across the deck, making him wish that she would laugh more often. It suited her.

‘Oh, I think I can manage without those,’ she demurred, then began to listen in earnest as he explained the principles of snorkelling, and the safety measures needed. Next he gave a practical demonstration of how to prevent the face mask from misting up and how to use the snorkel itself.

‘Remember, try not to bite down,’ he finished. ‘I know it’s a natural reaction, but try to resist it.’

Charmaine nodded seriously. But biting down on her snorkel was not the only thing she was trying to resist! She also very much wanted to lean across, take the contraption from his mouth, and kiss him until he begged for mercy, and this temptation was giving her far more trouble than a simple piece of rubber!

To take his concentration off the lesson and return it firmly to her was a need so strong that it was actually making her shake. She wanted to make him notice that she was more or less naked underneath this towel, and once he did, she just knew . . .

‘Right then, ready?’

Charmaine blinked. ‘Er, yes. Ready.’

‘And you remember the signals?’

Signals? What signals? She really had been daydreaming when she should have been paying attention.

Payne’s eyes glittered as if aware of her bewilderment, and she flushed as she wondered if he could read her mind and know what had caused her distraction.

‘Yes. Signals,’ he reiterated firmly. ‘The thumb and finger together in an O, the universal sign for everything being OK, and the flat hand, waved up and down, for a problem.’

‘Oh yes. Right,’ she said, standing upright again, and trying to tell herself it was only the slight rocking motion of the ship that was making her feel so giddy.

Then her mouth went dry as he stood up and pulled the T-shirt off his torso, revealing deeply bronzed skin and a powerful chest. It really wasn’t fair for a man to be so beautiful. What sculptor or painter wouldn’t want to capture his physique in marble or oils?

He dipped suddenly, and she realised he was pulling off his shorts! Her lungs exhaled all the air from them as if she’d just been punched. Surely he wasn’t going to swim naked!

No, she realised in bitter disappointment a moment later, he wasn’t. Underneath he wore a pair of black swimming trunks that did very little to conceal the hard male dominance of his loins. His tanned thighs, like moulded iron, clenched and moved with fluid ease as he knelt on one knee to pick up the gear.

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