Swept Away Read Online Free PDF Page B

means you’re trespassing.”
    He rolled his eyes. “Well, pardon me for the inconvenience, honey—I’ll just turn around and swim on back to the mainland.”
    She narrowed her gaze on him, still as confused as the moment she’d woken up. “You really don’t have a boat somewhere? You really just swam here? How the hell is that possible?”
    “Long story and no time to tell it,” he said with a shrug. “But don’t worry, I won’t be in your hair long. Do cell phones work here?”
    “Yeah. Most of the time, anyway.”
    “Then we’re not far from shore?” He’d seemed to totally forget that he’d just washed up onto her island out of nowhere and still hadn’t provided one iota of an explanation.
    “Fifteen miles or so,” she said, shaking her head as if to say—Who cares? You still haven’t told me what the hell you’re doing here!
    “Great. Let me have your phone.” When she just stood there for a second, he gave her an expectant look, adding, “Chop, chop, kitten—I’m in kind of a hurry.”
    Sheesh. Despite herself, she turned and dashed back to her lounge chair, snatching the phone up from the beach. She thrust it into his hand, then realized his dark gaze had fallen back to her breasts—because she’d dropped her palms to retrieve the phone, damn it!—so her next task was to turn away from him and scoop up the abandoned bikini top.
    “Jesus, this is not my day,” he growled behind her a few seconds later. “You don’t have a signal. Is there electricity here? Where’s your charger?”
    Her bikini top suddenly seemed like an impossible twist of fabric and strings that made no sense. “Somewhere in my bag, I guess—I just got here a couple of hours ago.”

    Abandoning the top back to the sand, she turned to glare at him, hands planted at her hips and no longer caring about her state of undress. “For a guy who just washed up on my beach like a dead jellyfish, you’re awfully demanding!”
    He let out a sigh and ran his hands back through his hair—which she couldn’t help noticing was a lot more kempt and stylish, even wet, than it had been ten years ago. “Look, kitten, believe it or not, I’m not trying to be an asshole. But there’s a lot at stake here—which I can’t explain right now—and I need that goddamn phone. Understand?”
    What the hell was at stake? And how had he ended up on her island, for God’s sake? She let out a frustrated breath in return, trying to decipher him, then grudgingly said, “Follow me,” starting to march toward the small beach house fifty yards away.
    And as she marched, and he followed, a most unsettling realization settled over her. She wanted him. Badly. As badly as ever. Maybe more. Because the way he kept looking at her breasts—between ordering her around—made her stomach curl with desire. And because all things considered, he was probably as close to a pirate as she was ever going to get. And because he was the one man she’d ever really wanted in a gut-wrenching sort of way, and suddenly here he was, looking as hot and perfect as ever. And it was a little bit like a dream, him just floating onto her island out of nowhere, and it would be so easy to just take one more little shot at seduction...
    “Can you hurry it up?”
    If he weren’t such a prick.
    Yanking open the bungalow’s screen door, she stomped to the bed where she’d thrown her weekend bag and started digging through. As well as remembering that there were actually lots of reasons she couldn’t have him, even besides the prick factor. For one, she was getting married in a week. Yeah, that was a big one. For another, she hated his guts and would never forgive him for what he’d done to her ten years ago. For a third, she had a weird feeling about all this—understandable, she supposed, the way he’d just shown up—but she was forced to wonder just what he’d been doing for the last ten years and if maybe he’d gotten into something bad.
    “Come on, where is