Read Online In McGillivray's Bed by Anne McAllister - Free Book Online Page A

distance through the trees she could see the lights of several more houses along a broad and gently curving cove. But they were scattered. There were a couple of larger places, probably inns, but even these were nothing like the string of high-rise hotels on Paradise Island.
    Was Roland back there now? Or was he looking for her? Wherever he was, she hoped he was well on his way to panic. Serve him right.
    If she hadn’t jumped overboard, she realized, she would be in bed with Roland right now. The very thought made her shiver.
    Or perhaps he wouldn’t have expected theirs to be a real marriage.
    No, that was the stuff of novels. Roland wouldn’t have had the imagination to even think they might marry and not have sex. He would have married her for the business, but he would have expected his “conjugal rights” just as he had expected her to go along with his planned nuptials because it made good sense.
    It would have been just another merger—only this time one of a physical sort. There would have been no passion. No love. No electricity. No spark.
    An image of Hugh McGillivray flickered unbidden in her brain.
    The sizzle between herself and McGillivray was exactly the opposite of the bloodless intellectual—and economic—merger that would have resulted from marrying Roland Carruthers.
    Not that she was considering marrying McGillivray. Perish the thought!
    Despite what Mr. Full-of-Himself Fly Guy implied, she had absolutely no interest in a relationship with him. Arrogant so-and-so! Syd wrapped her arms against her breasts and gave herself a little shake.
    But the image didn’t vanish. And she had to admit she was curious about that sizzle, those sparks. That wasn’t something she’d ever felt before. Stirrings of interest, yes, now and then, when she’d encountered an attractive man.
    But crackle, snap, pop? No. Never.
    There had been times when Syd wondered if she had it in her to feel those things. Now she knew.
    And her curiosity was piqued.
    Would it happen again? She wanted to know.
    Another reason to stay on Parakeet—no, Pelican—Cay. She would find a job and prove herself as she should have done years ago instead of trying to be the son her father had never had. And she would learn more about this intriguing sizzle between herself and McGillivray.
    â€œYou might be playing with fire,” she warned herself aloud.
    Well, yes. There was a danger of that. There was a danger to McGillivray. Even a novice to sizzle could see that.
    But Syd believed in learning from experience. The more she could learn about “sizzle” now that it had finally happened to her, the better prepared she would be to appreciate it when it finally happened with the right man.
    The breeze from the ocean touched her face and she smiled into it, looking forward, not back, relishing the challenge.
    Then in the moonlight Syd caught sight of a man coming out of the water.
    A lean hard man.
    A graceful glistening man.
    A naked man.
    And she stared, mesmerized, as McGillivray stood for a moment silhouetted in the streaming silver light. Her mouth grew dry, her palms damp. Her heart kicked over in her chest, and an urgent sizzling heat curled downward from the middle of her belly. Flames of desire licked at her.
    If the thought of going to bed with Roland had left her somewhere between indifferent and nonplused, the thought of sharing a bed with McGillivray was a whole different story.
    She held herself absolutely still, drinking in the sight of him and at the same time trying to get a grip on her buzzing brain and rampaging hormones. There was sizzle, all right. And sparks and fireworks and, if she weren’t careful, a whole conflagration.
    That was why she needed to stay. To learn to control the fire.
    Tomorrow. And in days to come. Right now she was going to bed. Alone.
    She’d made enough life-changing decisions for one day.
    Â 
    H UGH loved his hammock. As long as he