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* * *
Unfortunately, at 11p.m., Kelsey was still wide awake. She was tired,so tired, but her mind was ticking over. Thinking about Ari. Thinking about how they’d left it yesterday morning.
She’d seen him in the restaurant tonight and he’d smiled and nodded politely, making the briefest of eye contact. The sort of interaction he had with any of the servers, and that had felt… like a blow to her ribs.
It was ridiculous. It wasexactly how she wanted him to treat her – like she was just another woman on the ship. One he hadn’t seen naked. But the lack of acknowledgement had… hurt.
Freaking hell. What was wrong with her?
Kelsey rolled onto her side and pulled the covers over her head, ordering herself to stop. Stop thinking about him. Stop remembering how good they were between the sheets. Stop remembering the timbre of his voice or the way he slipped into Greek in the throes of pleasure.
But God, she wanted to hear him in the throes of pleasure again. Although she’d settle for just hearing his voice, period.
And she owed him an apology, right? For the weird way it had ended yesterday morning.
Right.
Decision made, Kelsey rolled up into a sitting position and reached across for the cabin phone. Before she could talk herself out of it, she direct dialled his cabin, lying down on her side again, pulling the covers back over her head.
Lordy.What was she doing? Her pulse pounded so loudly through her ears she was amazed she even heard him pick up.
‘Hello?’
Kelsey shut her eyes on a hot flood of relief.Man… he sounded good. Soft and low and sleepy as the silence on the line stretched between them, and Kelsey, who was having a sudden attack of the doubts, almost hung up. It was only his rumbly ‘Kelsey?’ that stopped her.
Gripping the phone, she pressed her lips together for a moment, her pulse roaring through her ears. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, her voice husky. ‘About yesterday morning. About being a little… testy.’
There was a pause for a beat or two then a gruff, ‘It’s okay.’
‘I…’ Kelsey swallowed. In the dark, with her crazy-mixed-up feelings for him stirring around inside her, it seemed easy to confess. ‘I want you too much, Ari.’
‘Theé mou… Kelsey.’ He groaned her name like it was some kind of endearment, and he’d never sounded more damn Greek. ‘The things you do to me.’
His words stroked between her legs and wrapped around her heart. ‘I shouldn’t have called,’ she whispered. Even down a phone line she wanted him.
‘Come to me.’ His voice was rough as gravel. ‘Please…’
Kelsey shut her eyes at his husky request so full of need it oozed into every part of her body. She squeezed the phone hard and her thighs even harder.Ugh.Why couldn’t she just saynoto him? Hang up the damn phone. Why was it so difficult to turn her back on him, to draw a line?
Notdoing so was playing with fire.
Logically, she knew that. Logically, she knew she held the power to extinguish it. But Kelsey wasn’t operating on logic where Ari was concerned.
She was being led by something much less rational.
‘Kelsey… I can’t think for wanting you.’
Oh God. She knew exactly how he felt. She couldn’t process anything but the need for him coursing through her veins.
‘This is madness,’ she whispered.
‘I know.’
Sighing into the phone, she murmured, ‘I’m coming.’ And then she hung up.
Driven by an imperative she didn’t understand, but wasn’t about to ignore, Kelsey leapt out of bed and threw on some clothes – yoga pants and a T-shirt. Scraping her hair into a messy knot, she zipped up a hoodie, pushed her feet into flip-flops and shoved some Oceanós-issued condoms into the front hoodie pocket.
Ten minutes later, grateful for the head covering to obscure her identity, she was at Ari’s door. It opened on the first knock and she barely had time to register that he was in nothing but his underwear before he was dragging her inside, pulling her into his arms, pushing her against the closing door and kissing her.