The Castaway Bride Read Online Free

total male disregard. “The other one was broken.” He didn’t need to add, so what’s the fuss? His expression said it for him.
    “Yes but—” Outrage choked her voice. Those shoes were works of art.
    “You don’t want to trip again. And you can’t walk on this deck in sharp heels like that— you’d ruin it in seconds.” His voice was gruff and his jaw tense.
    She stared from the broken heel to him, to the polished deck, and back to him again. “I can’t believe you did—” she started, but he gave her no chance to continue.
    “In fact that’s not good enough. The shoes are still too rough on the deck. They’ll have to go altogether.”
    He moved toward her again but Cristy stepped back, so that the railing pressed hard into the small of her back. “No!” she gasped in sudden panic that had nothing to do with shoes and everything to do with his proximity. “I… I can take them off myself.”
    Without taking her eyes off him, she leaned down and slid off her shoes. “Happy now?” she asked, as she stood up again. She took a step away from the railing—and had to grab onto it as her silk-stocking clad feet slid from beneath her on the polished deck.
    “Now look what you’ve done,” she wailed. “My stockings are so slippery I…” She faltered to a halt. A glint in his eyes and the hint of a wicked grin made it only too obvious what he was thinking.
    “I don’t need any help to take off my stockings,” she hissed. Again on the type of impulse she never gave in to, she pulled up her skirts to above her right knee and unsnapped her garters. Slowly, provocatively, she rolled her silky stocking down the length of her slender leg, not breaking eye contact with him for a moment. Then dangled the flimsy wisp of silk in front of her. “See?”
    “I can see.”
    Through dangerously narrowed eyes he appraised her bare leg, his gaze travelling from the tip of her pink-painted toes to where her thigh disappeared into a froth of lace. Then his eyes moved upward and lingered where her breasts swelled lushly over her tight, boned bodice—that darn too-tight, too-low, way-too-sexy bodice.
    Cristy grew alarmed at the intensity of his expression. She felt the flush on her cheeks deepen painfully as she realized how foolish she’d been. He would read her defiance as a come on. And who could blame him? Her heart started hammering hard against her chest.
    With suddenly trembling fingers she let her skirt fall down to cover her legs again, tightening her thighs together under its protective cover.
    “I’ll… uh… I’ll take the other one off in the bathroom,” she muttered.
    He looked down at her and then past her to the shore. “Do you want to stand around arguing about it or do you want me to get you out of here?”
    Cristy swung around to follow his line of vision. She’d been so mesmerized by the touch of this stranger’s hands she’d nearly forgotten her predicament. The black dots and the pink blob had grown alarmingly. Howard, his posse of groomsmen, and Miriam had made an about turn and were heading for the jetty. Now she would be clearly in their sights.
    Forget the shoes. Forget the stockings. Forget everything else but escape. “Get me out of here! Pronto!”
    Her rescuer—she still didn’t know his name—cast off the mooring rope. Within seconds she felt the yacht’s auxiliary engine purr into life and the deck started to vibrate beneath her feet. She clutched the railing for support.
    “Hurry, hurry, hurry,” she urged under her breath. Why had she wasted valuable time letting her rescuer fool around with her foot? She had to get away from Starlight Island. She could not face Howard. Could not face Miriam. How could anything they say make any difference? But they were closing in on her. So close she could clearly hear them shouting at her to get off the boat, see the furious expression on Howard’s face. Oh hurry!
    As the boat gathered speed, that gap of choppy, turquoise water