In Her Secret Fantasy by Marie Treanor Page B

on his brain.
    In fact, this whole encounter felt like a dream, a timely answer to his raging lust, as if he’d conjured her up. A beautiful woman to give him sex, soothe him and feed his ego.
    I don’t want that.
    “You know what?” He took her by the shoulders, and her eyes seemed to melt with triumph—until he pushed her a step back from him. “Keep the coat. I’ll get it another time. Go home and keep warm.”
    And he walked away, back towards the village.
    He was a policeman. She’d no idea what sort of danger she was in, wandering the beach naked and accosting strangers for sex. Even here in Ardknocken.
    Fuck.
    He swung back, his mouth already open to give commands in his policeman’s voice. The beach was empty. She’d vanished.

Chapter Seven At her bedroom window, Chrissy lowered her binoculars and turned her back on the unbearable sight.
    What had she expected? Really, what had she expected? That a man as sexy and fascinating as Aidan Grieve, wouldn’t have a girlfriend? She hadn’t known. She’d never even asked. And yet somehow, she’d never expected to see him walking along the seal beach with another girl dangling from his arm. A girl wearing his jacket and not much else.
    Not on this beach, where twice now, she’d found some kind of connection with him. Not on this night, only hours after he’d kissed her…
    Well, after she’d jumped him. He’d told her he was a bastard. The trouble was, in her experience, men who claimed to be bastards rarely were. It was the ones who pretended otherwise you had to watch for. Or so she’d always believed.
    Well, no wonder he’d pushed her away. If he’d ever wanted her, it had been in a purely transitory sort of a way. A physical reaction. She was just work.
    It didn’t matter. They’d had a moment in the woods, wholly inappropriate, but also unimportant. She hadn’t yet made a complete fool of herself and hell, she’d got over worse. She barely knew him.
    And yet the binoculars flew out of her hand, hurled at the opposite wall before she could stop herself. She wanted to cry. But she wouldn’t. She wouldn’t.
    “Well,” Runi said when Dyrfinna joined him on the nearest island. “That wasn’t very successful, was it?”
    “Not yet,” she said serenely, smiling to cover her anger. She liked that boy. She’d always liked him, and as a man… “I still got on better than you.”
    “My aim at that point was not seduction. I was trying to distract her before she found my skin.”
    “I could have told you she wouldn’t go for that look.”
    “I didn’t want her to,” Runi said with exaggerated patience. “She had her hand in the cave. If I couldn’t distract her, I didn’t want her associating me with the skin. That’s why I took a different form.”
    “So when do you actually mean to seduce her? Are you afraid?”
    He smiled. “Like your desired lover?”
    “He wasn’t afraid,” Dyrfinna protested. “I moved too fast for his human sensibilities.”
    “Or he likes my lover better.”
    “Don’t call her that,” Dyrfinna snapped.
    His smile broadened. “Why not?”
    “It isn’t true.”
    “Yet,” he insisted.
    “We’ll see,” Dyrfinna said. “We’ll see.”
    In the morning, Dan MacDonald came over. Chrissy and Glenn gave him the tour of the house, which was a hive of different activities, and then took him out to show him the land they wanted to cultivate. They left him there to poke around and take soil samples, and walked back to the house together.
    “I think he might go for it,” Chrissy said. “I think we impressed him.”
    “Aye. At worst, he’ll have advice. At best, he’ll take it on. What about the sailing—got anywhere with that?”
    “I spoke to a couple of guys on the phone, but they seem pretty much occupied and reluctant to commit to more than the odd weekend.”
    “Local guys might be better,” Glenn suggested.
    Chrissy walked through the open front door and crossed the hall. “Aidan Grieve’s