Read Online Cracking the Dating Code by Kelly Hunter - Free Book Online

years.
    Finally Poppy shrugged, every line of her tidy little body defensive.
    ‘Some.’
    Oh, sweet mercy. ‘How much?’
    ‘I’m not a child, Sebastian.’ Her mouth set in a mulish line. ‘Enough.’
    He tried to believe her. He wanted to believe her. But he just couldn’t shake thenotion that Ophelia West was innocent. Not just inexperienced but all the way clueless.
    Or was she?
    ‘So what happens now?’ he murmured. ‘You want to continue where we left off?’ Because his body most certainly did, even if his brain was ringing a warning bell or ten.
    ‘I, ah…’
    Innocent.
    Or just undecided.
    Did it really matter which?
    Sebastian tried to put himself in Poppy West’s shoes. A woman here to work, who’d stumbled onto some play by accident and wasn’t sure if she wanted to proceed. A woman, moreover, who was dependent on him for food and shelter and had no way off this island for now. If those were the issues running through
his
brain, heaven only knew the kind of thoughts that might be running through hers.
    ‘Tell you what,’ he murmured, ‘why don’t we just chalk this one up to capricious winds and start afresh with each other in the morning? As in “Hi, I’m Seb, Tom’s brother, and I’ll be your host while you’re on the island.”‘
    Poppy stared at him uncertainly.
    ‘Now your turn,’ he prompted. ‘Something along the lines of “Hi, I’m Poppy. It’snot really my mission in life to drive you to distraction. I just stumbled onto that one by accident.”‘
    Uncertainty turned to tentative amusement. ‘Consider it said.’
    ‘No, you have to say it.’ Time to put the width of the billiard table between them and pray that it would be enough. Because the slightest hint of encouragement and his resolve to play the chivalrous host would be well and truly tested. ‘What’s more, you have to sound like you mean it.’
    ‘Hi, I’m Poppy,’ she said. ‘I thank you for your hospitality, the flirting lesson and the kisses. The kisses were…’
    ‘Delicious?’ he prompted. ‘Delightful? Don’t say disastrous.’
    ‘I wasn’t going to say disastrous,’ she murmured.
    ‘Compliments will get you everywhere.’
    She liked that. She didn’t run with it—inexperience rearing its head again? But she liked it.
    ‘Be that as it may,’ she said, ‘I’m going to turn in now because I’m a little bit out of my depth with you.’
    ‘Only a little?’ He couldn’t help it, he had to know.
    ‘It doesn’t have to be a lot,’ she countered.
    ‘If I can’t touch the bottom and I can’t swim to safety I’m still going to drown. So here’s me—swimming to safety and saying goodnight.’
    ‘Smart,’ he told her. ‘I heard that about you. Goodnight, Ophelia.’
    ‘Goodnight, Sebastian.’
    But she didn’t seem inclined to move.
    Seb inclined his head towards the door. ‘Guest house is that way.’
    Poppy flushed pink and shielded her eyes with her lashes. She put her billiard cue gently down on the table.
    And then she fled.
    Poppy roared down the dirt track with scant regard for her safety or the fast approaching dusk. Mortification rode with her, an insistent companion, as she replayed the evening in her mind, trying to figure out how things had gone so wrong.
    There’d been the meal, which she’d thanked him for.
    The billiards game, which she’d been losing.
    The flirting, at which she’d been hopeless.
    And then there’d been the kiss.
    Yep, the root cause of the problem hadbeen the kiss. She’d been completely enmeshed in it, sensory overload.
    And then he’d pulled her closer and she’d felt his arousal and the enormity of what she was doing—of where Sebastian’s greedy, knowing mouth was leading her—had crashed down on her. She’d wanted to be ready for more but she hadn’t been.
    Inexperience had rendered her motionless. Speech less.
    Shocked.
    But not unwilling. He’d read her wrong if he’d read her that way. She just hadn’t known how vividly