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and steeled herself. Half a second later she convulsively buried her face against his chest, shaking, trying to fight back the rise of nausea. He cuddled her, comforting her with a slight rocking motion of his body while he murmured reassuring noises that weren’t really words.
    Two minutes later she tried again, with much the same result.

    By the fourth try, tears of frustration were welling in her eyes. Richard tried to take her back to the house, but the stubbornness her brothers were well acquainted with came to the fore, and she refused to leave. By God, she was going to see those turtles.
    Ten minutes later, she still hadn’t managed more than a single peek before the panic and nausea would hit her, and she was getting furious with herself. The turtles were happily sunning themselves right now, but they could be gone in the next second.
    â€œI’m going to do it this time,” she announced, her tone one of angry determination.
    Richard sighed. “All right.” She was well aware that he could simply pick her up and stride away at any time, but somehow she sensed that he would stand there until she was ready to give up the effort. She braced herself and began to turn her head by slow degrees. “While you’re torturing yourself, I’ll pass the time by remembering how I could see through your nightgown when you were walking across the yard,” he said.
    Stunned, Thea found herself blinking at the little turtles for two full seconds while she reeledunder the impact of what he’d just said. When her head jerked back around, there was more outrage than panic in the motion. “
What?
”
    â€œI could see through your nightgown,” he repeated helpfully. A smile tugged at his mouth, and his crystalline eyes revealed even more amusement as he looked down at her. “The sun was shining at an angle. I saw …” He let the sentence trail off.
    She pushed at his arms in an effort to loosen them, without results. “Just what
did
you see?”
    â€œEverything.” He seemed to enjoy the memory. He made a little humming sound of pleasure in his throat. “You have gorgeous little nipples.”
    Thea flushed brightly, even as she felt the aforementioned gorgeous little nipples tighten into hard buds. The reaction was matched by one in his pants.
    â€œLook at the turtles,” he said.
    Distracted, she did just that. At the same time he stroked his right hand down her bottom, the touch searing her flesh through the thin fabric, and cupped and lifted her so that the notch of her thighs settled over the hard bulge beneath his fly. Thea’s breath caught in her lungs. She staredblindly at the turtles, but her attention was on the apex of her thighs. She bit back a moan, and barely restrained the urge to rock herself against that bulge. She could feel herself alter inside, muscles tightening and loosening, growing moist as desire built to a strong throb.
    He was a stranger. She had to be out of her mind to stand here with him in such a provocative position. But though her mind knew he was a stranger, her body accepted him as if she had known him forever. The resulting conflict rendered her all but incapable of action.
    The little turtles were indeed the size of silver-dollar pancakes, with tiny reptilian heads and stubby legs. They were lined up on the half-submerged log, the water gently lapping just below them. Thea stared at the sheen of water for several seconds before she realized what she was doing, so successfully had he distracted her.
    â€œRichard,” she breathed.
    â€œH’mmm?” His voice was deeper, his breathing slightly faster.
    â€œI’m looking at the turtles.”
    â€œI know, sweetheart. I knew you could do it.”

    â€œI wouldn’t want to go any closer, but I’m looking at the water.”
    â€œThat’s good.” He paused. “As you learn to trust me, you’ll gradually get over your