'No, I-'
'You can come with me.'
As she watched his hands move over his body an indecent interpretation of his words popped into her mind. Oh, yes...
Swiftly she clamped down on the renegade thought. ‘I've never dived before...'
'And you don’t handle first times very well—yes, I remember you telling me,' he said, not seeming to notice her absorption with his actions. Dry-mouthed, she waited for him to ask her to do his back, knowing she couldn’t refuse without sounding ridiculously prudish.
To her chagrin he didn’t ask. He very deftly applied all the lotion himself, with a few minor contortions that had the effect of showing off some very impressive musculature. She couldn’t help her gaze drifting down to the scarred thigh almost touching hers.
'Do you want me to cover it up?' he asked.
Her eyes flashed to his face. Hers, still a little pale from her ordeal, pinkened under the shady brim of her hat as she saw that he, too, was recalling her instinctive response to his previous mention of his 'deformity'.
'No, of course not,' she said.
'You like my body?' He stretched out beside her, tucking his arms behind his head.
With difficulty she held his gaze coolly. 'What's not to like?' she murmured with a sophistication that she hoped matched his.
His smile was sultry. 'Damned with faint praise, hmm, Beth? Yours is magnificent. I don’t know why you hide it as if you are embarrassed to possess it.'
‘I’m not embarrassed.'
'Shy, then.'
He made her sound silly and immature. ‘I’m not shy, I just dislike being ogled simply because I'm... I'm...' 'Beautiful.'
'Big,' she corrected him flatly.
'Big?' he echoed, as if he didn’t understand the word.
'Too big,' she clarified, flushed and furious with him for cornering her into saying it.
Instead of mocking her, or making the suggestive remark she expected, he looked gravely into her defiant eyes.
'Of course you are too big—for a boy or a pre-pubescent girl. But why should you deny your femininity by forcing yourself into a strait-jacket of unnatural body shape? Your curves may be "unfashionable" in the model-girl sense but in the real world they are the quintessence of womanliness.
'As for "ogling", how else can we men express admiration for a woman except by looking? When I look at you I'm vividly aware of myself as male, and the fantasy that you might similarly enjoy looking at me is a deeply satisfying one...'
'Funny, I hadn’t tagged you for a feminist,' Elizabeth quipped weakly, suffused with glowing warmth at his sincerity.
His shrug was very French. ‘I like women. I don’t like labels; they are so confining. Yours, I think, you have clung to as a form of defence mechanism.'
'Against what?' she dared challenge him.
'Against men. Against yourself...'
The challenge instantly lost its savour. 'You talk in riddles.'
'You are a riddle.'
Her chin lifted. 'Not one you're going to solve.'
‘I’m well on the way already. I have learned some very interesting things about you from my well informed sources. You have never been married or engaged. You work for a happily married middle-aged professor in whom you have no romantic interest, and have an excellent reputation with the university. You also administrate your uncles' bookshop. You don’t seem to have time for any hobbies... except reading, therefore your life, although filled with people, is also oddly solitary. How am I doing so far, Lady Mystery?'
Far too well. Elizabeth instinctively sought to deny the dangerous rush of adrenalin through her veins at his challenge, and decided on defiant distraction, pulling off her ‘I-shirt and leaning back on her hands as a symbolic gesture of contempt for the suggestion that she had anything to hide.