Page 37 of Ship Wrecked

But that wasn’t like Peter at all, was it? His health, his body, and his convenience meant nothing to him. Not when weighedagainst the dictates of the showrunners and his desire for professional success. So if this damnable farce wasn’t about his own comfort and safety, then what in the world would prompt such an underhanded, secretive . . .

Fy fan.Fy fan.

She knew. She knew precisely what he was doing and why. And the source of that anonymous tip about shooting conditions on the island—the one various media outlets had already emailed her agent about in a request for her commentary—wasn’t such a mystery anymore.

She preferred face-to-face confrontation, and she didn’t mind risk.

Peter, though... he would want to minimize any threat to his future, and he had. But he’d still taken a risk, however contained.

And he’d taken it for her.

Whether he knew it or not, she’d glimpsed his expression after that scary little bobble at the cliff’s edge yesterday, seen him white-faced and frozen with horror at the end of the take.

She never wanted to see that expression again. It hurt to witness, almost as much as it seemingly hurt him to watch that near-miss on camera.

So yes, she’d known he cared about her safety, cared abouther. What she hadn’t known: He cared enough to actuallydosomething about it. Not as she would have, but in his own extremely cautious but undeniably effective way.

He’d made certain her next cliffside adventure wouldn’t involve wind gusts of 150 kilometers per hour. He’d ensured that the set would have increased scrutiny from now on, so she’d never be put in a similarly precarious position again. And he didn’t want her to know what he’d done, because her ignorance meant plausible deniability if everything went to shit despite his precautions.

Even his lies were an attempt to protect her.

“Um...” His fingers plucked at the fluffy duvet on the bed. “If I don’t seem ill right now, the doctor said my condition might, uh, vary from moment to moment, so...”

He paused, still fumbling for an explanation. After licking his lips, he started to say something else, no doubt another lie, and she didn’t care what it was, she didn’t care whether he ever told her the truth, because she understood now.

“Come here,skitstövel,” she said.

Then she ducked down again, cupped his bristly cheeks, and kissed him. Hard.

His lips were already parted, so she teased his tongue with hers, then delved deep and reclaimed her territory after far too long an absence. He responded like a starved man at a feast, a low groan rumbling deep in his chest as he seized control of the kiss—and of her.

Within moments, he’d stood, but only to push her onto the bed, onto her back, crawling between her legs and trapping her in the cage of his big body. The bruising pressure of his lips against hers eased, but only so he could nip and suck a hot, open-mouthed trail along her jaw and down her throat.

His hands delved under her sweater, and then her bra loosened, and her breasts were cupped in his hot palms. She rounded his hips with her legs and slid her own hands beneath his jeans, beneath the soft material of his boxer briefs, to squeeze his ass greedily.

Gods above, she loved his body. No man had ever made her this hungry to stare. To touch. To take.

Shoving her sweater up to her neck, he dove down to suck her nipple, while he plucked and twisted and rubbed the other, and she was done with foreplay.

Unbuttoning his jeans took a heartbeat, and her fingers moved swiftly to his zipper.

At that moment, his entire body shuddered against hers. Shuddered and stilled.

“No,” he ground out hoarsely, lifting his head from her breast. “No.”

Her knuckles pressed against his sizable erection, she immediately stopped unzipping him. “Peter?”

“We’re not doing this.” His face flushed, his gaze still devouring every inch of her bare flesh, he slowly tugged her sweater down. “We can’t.”

Removing her hands entirely from his body, she laid them flat by her sides as he clambered off her, his jaw like stone. Nostrils flared, breathing ragged, he sat at the edge of the bed, his jeans still unbuttoned, and gripped white-knuckled fistfuls of the duvet. He stared across the room blankly.

She was lost. Frustrated and bewildered.

“I thought...” After a pause, she sat up. “You don’t want to fuck me?”

It certainly looked like he did, at least on the most basic physical level. She was surprised his zipper was holding up so well under the strain, frankly. But desire wasn’t consent, and neither was a hard dick.

His bark of bitter laughter shook the bed, but he still didn’t turn his head and meet her eyes.

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