What the Waves Bring Read Free Page A

only there were something she could do to make him more comfortable … .
    On impulse, she headed for the bath, returning with a small basin of warm water which she placed on the stand by the bed. Her hand reached for the blankets before she stopped it midair. What was she doing? Was she really about to bathe a total stranger? Wasn’t it enough that he was dry and warm? Did she have the right to go further? Just who was this man? Where had he come from? What sort of accident had cast him upon her shore?
    The persistent howling of the wind and stubborn belligerency of the rain was sufficient answer for the last, yet the others remained an enigma. And she was no Florence Nightingale, she reminded herself with a start. Yet, seemingly of their own will, her fingers were once again at the edge of the blanket. Did she dare? Should she? After all a man’s body was not foreign to her. She grimaced, conjuring up images of the classic perfection of one Shane Michaels. And hadn’t she stripped this man of every stitch of his clothing before safely tucking him into her bed? Her eye strayed to the wet garments strewn about the floor atop ever-widening puddles. They should be washed and dried, she mused—but later. Her gaze settled on the taut features of this nameless mariner, lost now in his internal battle for survival. Anything, anything, she might do would be better than nothing. Determination behind her, she began.
    Squeezing the excess of warm water from her cloth, she lowered the blanket and bathed him gently, coaxing the last remnants of sea salt from his body in soft, steady strokes. The wide span of his chest, rising and falling in thankfully even rhythm, tapered beneath her hands to a narrow waist. His arms were long and well-corded, the grace of lean hands and fingers marred only by vivid red welts on his palms, which untold hours of clutching to life adrift in the tempest had bestowed. Perhaps he was a
pianist, she mused, wrapping the cloth around each of his fingers separately. There were no seasoned calluses such as a laborer might bear, yet every digit held a fine-tuned, if latent, strength.
    Carefully, she towel-dried him, mindful that some injury may have been hidden from her scrutiny—a scrutiny that saw little but raw masculinity in every pore. Satisfied with her progress, she paused, riddled anew with unsureness. But he was in her bed and he should be clean as well as comfortable, she reasoned. The shudder that shook the house in the crunch of the hurricane winds echoed in her chest as she draped his upper body to retain its heat and, with only a moment’s additional hesitation, lowered the blanket farther. Catching her breath, she nearly rethought her plan. For if his maleness was evident from the waist up, what lay in her sight below was even more so. In her haste to undress him earlier, there had been no time for speculation. Now, as she bathed him slowly, there was no doubt as to his virility. The blush that warmed her cheeks was steadfastly ignored, though she spared a quick glance to assure herself that her patient was oblivious of her exploration. Then, with a prod of diligence, she proceeded with her task, washing and drying his flat abdomen, his lean hips, and seemingly endless stretch of hair-roughened legs. His skin was mercifully warm to the touch; the shivering had subsided momentarily. And again, there were no visible bruises.
    Her eye noted the tan lines of summer—more vivid where a bathing suit had been, less marked though still apparent at ankle, thigh, and upper arm. A tennis player, her wayward thoughts suggested, as she drew the blanket back over his length. Perhaps he was a tennis player; that might account for the prime condition of his body. After all, muscles did not develop from disuse, nor was one born with them—Popeye and Swee’pea notwithstanding. And
he swam—perhaps a long-distance swimmer? Or was he simply a worshipper of the sun?
    Deep in