Irresistible Read Online Free Page B

them high and away from their goal as it sprayed its freezing spittle over them.
    He grasped a handful of frock— it was fine cloth, expensive— between the woman's shoulder blades to keep her safe as the longboat slid down from the peak and inconveniently away from the Nadine . She stirred a little, moaning. Again he felt rather than heard the small sound she made. There was a helpless quality to it, and to her as she lay curled now against his bent legs, that made him want to ram his fist through something— preferably Hildebrand's face.
    He was many things, most of them thoroughly dissolute, as he would be the first to admit, but he had never in his life physically harmed a woman.
    Now, for his country, he would have to possibly torture and certainly kill this one.
    Christ.
    Her back arched up against the flat of his hand as she inhaled. That he was touching a feminine form was unmistakable. Flexing his fingers in silent protest, Hugh thought again, grimly, that Hildebrand had made a bad choice: He was not the man for this job.
    Although in the end he would do what he had to do, as he always did.
    Hildebrand would have known that, too, Hugh reflected bitterly. Damn him.

 
    Chapter 3
    Floating around just on the edges of consciousness, Claire felt the shock of an icy shower pelting her and opened her eyes. They immediately stung. Blinking rapidly, she realized that the reason they stung was because they were awash with salt water, and the salt water came from the sea. The sea was, of course, the bucking, heaving beast upon whose back she now seemed to be riding. Instinct warned her not to reveal that she was once again aware; she curled her fingers into fists to resist the impulse to rub her burning eyes, and continued, discreetly, to blink until the worst of the pain went away. Wet to the skin and so cold that she felt rather like a fish laid out for sale on a slab of ice, she was, she realized, huddled in the bottom of a heaving small boat that was being rowed, in the teeth of foaming black waves and a blowing wind, on a steady course that doggedly kept putting more distance between them and shore.
    Soon, when they were far enough out, she would be tossed overboard.
    They had caught her.
    The thought made her forget all about her physical misery: her stinging eyes, her aching head, her frozen fingers and toes. Her heart raced. Her stomach churned. Her throat went dry. Fear instantly tightened her muscles, sharpened her senses, brought her to hair-trigger alertness where only seconds before she had been struggling with the last remnants of grogginess.
    Drown her like a mewling kitten — she could almost hear the cruel nonchalance in the leader's voice. It was her kidnappers' plan— the plan they were at that very moment in the process of carrying out. Quickly, convulsively, she moved her hands, her feet. They were not bound. After knocking her out, had they decided not to bother tying her up? Or had they merely forgotten— and if so, would they remember before they threw her overboard? Of course they would. She dared not gamble that they would not. Her life was the stakes in this desperate game, after all.
    A hurried, slightly blurry glance around told her that there were six men: four at the oars, two seated in the bottom of the boat trapping her between them, guarding her. Six men whose goal was her murder.
    How could she get away?
    A hard knot formed in the pit of her stomach as she faced the truth: This time, escape looked all but impossible. Rather than face one oaf, as she had in the farmhouse, she now had to outwit six, with no hefty chamber pot at hand. And instead of a window opening onto the firmness of earth, the only place she had to go if she should manage to break free of her captors was the sea.
    On the other hand, however bleak the prospect for success, she had to do something. If she did not, and pretty quickly too, she was going to die.
    A whimper crept into her throat. She swallowed it with