HiddenDepths by Angela Claire Page B

“You too, Bingo.”
    She sighed. He had known what she wanted without her having
to say it.

Chapter Five
     
    Evan held the painfully thin Andrea Prentiss in his arms as
her breathing slowed and became even. Despite that he had only been able to
give her a sponge bath while she slept and hadn’t even been able to wash her
hair, just braid it, she smelled clean and fresh snuggled up in his arms, in
his shirt, in his bed. What did she want? Hell, the better and more elusive
question was what did he want?
    After stitching up her wound last night, he had found sleep
impossible in the guest bedroom, less because of the unfamiliarity of that bed
and more due to his worry for the injured girl in his own bed. He’d finally
settled on dragging a comforter back into his room and settling into an easy
chair, alternating between dozing and watching his unexpected guest sleep, the
dog letting out a plaintive sigh every once in a while from the hallway where
he’d been exiled.
    Although Evan was fully awake by dawn the next day, Andrea
was definitely out for some time after. When she stirred enough to take the
glass of whiskey, she went right back to sleep, her body and probably her
spirit as well obviously exhausted.
    He had left her long enough to walk around the island, twice
just as he’d told her, his puppy enthusiastically at his side, and there was no
evidence of a boat other than his own. But it could have been dashed against
the rocks, all trace of it swept out to sea again. It probably was, although
that still didn’t explain why she was here, even if it explained how.
    He let her sleep through the day and into the night, as she
seemed almost unconscious, so deep was her rest, sponging her off every few
hours. She was quite a bit thinner than six months ago. So much so he wondered
if she really had not had a good meal in a long time. Her ribs, covered only
partially with the bandages, were right up against the skin, her tummy concave
and her breasts not quite as lush as he had last seen, but smaller, though
still high and firm.
    Not that he touched them, except with the cloth. The mixed
messages that sent his long-celibate body were what had prompted him to pull a
dress shirt out of his closet and button her into it, though he had no
underwear he could put on her. Even as she snuggled up to him now, wrapping her
arms around his as they clasped her narrow waist, the thought of the no-underwear
thing gave him pangs.
    Was why he had been so indignant when she accused him of
wanting sex from her? Because he did? Or because that wasn’t all he wanted. He
sure as hell didn’t know. Her long dark braid teased his nose and he moved his
head slightly.
    “Did you braid my hair?” she asked in a sleepy voice,
proving she was not quite asleep.
    “Yes. It was getting matted as it dried, the way you were
tossing around in bed.”
    “Where did you learn to do that?”
    “I had a little sister,” he said vaguely.
    Of course he never would have been permitted to touch
Samantha’s hair, Daddy’s little princess having her own lady’s maid in addition
to a governess from the time she could walk—before she started driving both of
them away screaming.
    Evan wouldn’t have wanted to brush his little sister’s hair
anyway. What guy would want to brush a girl’s hair? It was a ridiculous
concept, but one that his first girl friend at prep school had harbored. Mary
Lehmann. He still remembered her name. She was at the sister school to his own
elite prep school and they would sneak away whenever they could, him to try to
get in her pants—like all the boys were trying to do with their girlfriends at
that age, and pretty successfully, times being what they were. But he had the
bad luck to choose a romantic for a girlfriend. Pretty little Mary Lehmann
wanted him to take her on picnics—which was okay as far as he was concerned
since he was as romantic as the next guy and if he could score in a deserted
meadow, fine with him—but