Shipwrecked with Mr. Wrong Read Online Free PDF Page A

bloodstream.’
    His attempt at a return smile was more of a pained grimace and she stifled a laugh. He was trying very hard to be stoical. Then his eyes strayed from hers, down over her scars to where her barely covered breasts hung level with his belly. She became suddenly andvividly aware that she was kneeling—virtually in her underwear—between the splayed legs of a man she’d only just met.
    Instinct yelled
move
but pride kept her still, despite the furious hammering of her heart. It startled her to feel a prickle of awareness, for her fingers to tingle at the silky-hard smoothness of his muscled belly. The sensations were as foreign as that scent he had. She’d forgotten how a natural man smelled. Her heightened awareness made her movements a little rougher, more rushed. She opened some alcohol wipes and swabbed off the dark rust-coloured iodine stain from around the wound. She needed the area clean and dry for the surgical tape to stick. He didn’t move as her hands skimmed proficiently over his abdomen with the sterile pad.
    Her heart thumped steadily. The alcohol was taking longer to evaporate in the humid tropical air and she was desperate to get out from between his legs, convinced that she could feel the heat radiating off his thighs. She fanned the wound with the spare packets of wipes, with little effect. Gritting her teeth, she bent in to blow the damp area dry.
    ‘Okay!’ Rob lurched up out of the seat and stumbled backwards, knocking the chair on its side. Honor fell back onto her heels to avoidhis rushed departure. ‘I think I’m good. I can do the rest.’
    ‘But I need to—’
    ‘Really—I can put on the cream and the gauze. Thanks for cleaning it up for me.’
    She returned to her feet, holding the first aid items out to him. Was he blushing? A bit more of her reserve slipped. If a man’s legs went to jelly at the sight of blood and he could still blush, how bad could he be? Then she remembered the way he’d been checking out her cleavage—her scars—and her back straightened. She handed him the first aid supplies.
    He took them without quite meeting her eyes. But his voice was conciliatory. ‘Thanks. You’d make a good mother.’
    Air sucked into Honor’s lungs sharply.
It was just words.
She knew it. Something to say in an awkward moment, but she wasn’t ready for the boot in the guts the words triggered.
    She stumbled back as though physically wounded and forced a tight smile to her face. ‘I have work to do. I’ll leave you to finish up.’
    Fix yourself up and go.
    Without looking back, she beat a hasty retreat, snatched up her logbook and marched past him back into the trees.

CHAPTER THREE
    ‘Shh!’
    Honor could have heard him approaching during a monsoon. She looked back over her shoulder at him, irritated. Again. Robert Dalton certainly didn’t bring out the best in her.
    He slowed his approach, tiptoeing towards her hiding spot and crawled to lie next to her in the sparse scrub, taking care not to rub his patched up stomach on anything sharper than the island sand. Did he think he was well disguised now—all six foot three of him squashed behind a straggly young octopus bush?
    Mainlanders. Gotta love them.
    He lay by her side, glancing between her and the logbook, where she had recorded a series of numbers and unintelligible scribble that was meaningful only to her. Every time those blue eyes lifted, he looked more and more likehe was itching to speak. Finally, the silence got too much for him.
    ‘What are you doing?’
    Even his whisper seemed loud. A frigate-bird broke from its cover a few metres away, lurching into the sky, its enormous wingspan carrying the ungainly giant away in seconds. She shot him an annoyed look. He flashed a sexy, superficial smile. Fully expecting that to make a difference.
    ‘I bet that gets results wherever you go.’ Her own voice was hushed. He didn’t pretend to misunderstand, just grinned in agreement, this time more genuine, and