Irresistible Read Online Free PDF Page A

difficulty before it could make itself heard. Every instinct she possessed urged her to jump to her feet, to fight, to flee. But her instincts were worse than useless under the circumstances, she realized. She resisted them, forcing herself to lie perfectly still while she took stock of the situation.
    She could swim, after a fashion. Her monster of a father and his equally debauched friends had, one summer, passed several afternoons of sport in which they had tossed her and her younger sister, Beth, from a sailboat into a lake near their Yorkshire home, betting on which girl would make it to shore first and never mind the fact that both children were terrified and screaming as they were thrown from the deck. She and Beth had survived then against the odds and their own expectations, and now, amazingly, Claire thought that those hellish swimming lessons might stand her in good stead.
    Another surreptitious glance around dashed even that faint hope. She could not swim in this— this seething caldron of wind-whipped waves. Her skills were no match for the sea's savagery.
    But she feared that it was swim— or die.
    Fighting against the rising terror that threatened to render her immobile, Claire carefully took stock one more time. The boat was long, narrow, and open to the elements, rolling and sliding as it attacked the waves. Crowded closely in that confined space, the men were little more than shadowy shapes against the shiny blackness of the water and the more amorphous darkness of the foggy night. The rumbling sky was nearly as black as the sea; the moon was now completely obscured by clouds. The hiss of the sea was punctuated by the rhythmic sound of dipping oars.
    A man's knuckles pressed uncomfortably between her shoulder blades. Claire frowned over that, considering. Her back was curled against his hard shins; he was, she realized, holding on to a handful of her frock as insurance against losing her prematurely to the heaving sea. She could feel the shape of his fist like a large rock digging into her flesh, its only positive attribute being that it faintly warmed the point of contact. Not that his grip on her was reassuring; not when she thought about it. With terrible clarity, she foresaw that as soon as they reached whatever spot they were making for— presumably somewhere well beyond the breaking waves, so her body would not immediately be carried back to shore— he would use that grip against her. It would serve to prevent her escape while they bound her hand and foot and threw her over the side.
    Better to go overboard by herself, unbound, under her own power than to wait for them to bind her and toss her out.
    The dreadful realization made her eyes squeeze shut and her heart lurch. Better to drown herself than let them drown her? How so? Dead, she thought with an inward shudder, was dead.
    She so did not want to die. Not tonight. Not until she was an old, old lady, and then, pray God, peacefully in her bed.
    In the interests of survival, she forced herself to open her eyes again, this time just slits. There, directly in her line of vision, were several items tucked beneath one of the seats: a coil of rope, an unlit, battered lantern, and a jug. A large jug with a handle and a cork, made of some sort of light-colored crockery. She could just discern its squat shape through the darkness. Even as her desperate gaze assessed it, the surging puddle of water in the bottom of the boat caught it up, turned it on its side, and swept it toward her. Whatever it had once held— spirits maybe, or water— it was obviously empty now. It floated.
    It floated.
    In a flash Claire knew what she had to do. She was afraid to move— the men were paying her no attention, and she didn't want that to change— but the jug bumped against her knee as the boat heeled, and she knew that it would be swept out of reach again as soon as the boat dipped the other way. She knew, too, that the jug represented her best chance— maybe her