Page 50 of On The Beach

I chuckled, a little nervous that she'd find out how gone I was for her, that I'd give myself away before she left the island. "And, you? Who are you, Isabelle Volnay?"

She gave me a soft smile, then looked back at the stars. "I'm a woman who's finding herself."

I watched her, feeling that tug in my chest, the one that kept showing up whenever she was near.

That night, there was a poignancy between us. If I wasn't such an asshole, I'd even said that we made love. But since I was a grade-A jerk, I decided we fucked a storm.

But we didn't.

I wanted to savor her. We had only two nights left, and I wanted to memorize her.

I'd have to get rid of the bed after she left and shove it back into RiRi's storage. Not because it wasn't comfortable, ‘cause it was. I didn't think I could stand the memories. I already knew that. I knew that this sexy woman who couldn't hold her liquor had already indelibly marked me. The enormity of my feelings that had swamped me in such a short time didn't match what I'd felt with Mia, and we'd been together for nearly three years. I couldn't remember those feelings clearly—except for the part where I felt like an idiot for getting cheated on.

Maybe I'd never loved Mia. Maybe that had all been part of Dr. Augustus' life plan.

I brushed caresses across her face and down one arm and then the other. She moved languidly, not rushing me, maybe feeling the same need as I did to prolong our lovemaking. There was that fucking term again.

We. Were. Not. Making. Love.

Her skin was like satin, I thought like a lovesick fool. I came across a mole between her breasts and licked it. She shivered slightly, moving a nipple close to my lips. "You're so fucking responsive, Babycakes."

I suckled her and listened to the tremble in her voice when she moaned.

"Better?" I murmured.

"The other one, too."

"You're so fucking smooth, so gorgeous. I'm a lucky son of a bitch."

"I think we're both lucky." Her eyes were closed, her naked body beautiful against the dark blue sheets. She was a sultry siren who'd ensnared me.

"Yeah, we are." My voice caught as I kissed her stomach, moving further down, wanting badly to taste her.

She was writhing by the time I got below her navel.

"Mick, hurry."

"Not gonna tonight, Belle. We're gonna make it last all fucking night," I promised.

I stroked her silky thighs as I parted them. She'd gotten a tan, I noticed in the bright moonlight. With a thoroughness I wasn't usually known for, I began to trace every curve, every fold, every crevice between her legs with my tongue.

Her cries became louder when I circled her clit, her hands in my hair urgent. I dipped my tongue inside her, and herflavor exploded inside me. Every time I was with her, since that first time, it was like there was something new between us—like every time was the first fucking time.

What's next, Mick? You gonna write poetry? She walks in fucking beauty?

But she did walk in beauty, just like the cloudless and starry skies atop Reef Harbor; and all that was best about the dark, and the light sparkled in her eyes.

"Mick, I wanna come," she whimpered.

"Slowly. We're going to take it slowly tonight." My cock was steel-hard, and I wanted nothing more than to enter her and stay there all night. But then it would be over, and I didn't want that. I wanted to keep her with me. Keep her scent inside me.

I looked up at her blue eyes. "You want me?"

"So much."

I wanted desperately to ask if she was in love with me. For some wild and unfathomable reason, I wanted her to tell me she loved me. Her eyes were so expressive, and I could see her pleasure in me, in us. I saw how she softened whenever I was with her. I saw how she felt.

Damn it! I didn't have time for this shit. I didn't have time for love. We were fucking. That's what this was.

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