Page 79 of Swept Away

“It’s good, actually,” I say. “Low pressure, not too showy…”

“Right, well, I did think about taking you to the Ritz, but…”

I snort and he gives me a lip-quirk smile that makes my stomach tighten. As we eat, his eyes keep holding mine; he shifts nearer, then I do the same, and even though the food is incredible, I almost wish it away.

He clears the picnic up once we’re done, and then settles back beside me, pulling two of the duvets over our bare shins as the sun begins to sink toward the sea. I feel like every minute of today has been leading us gently here, and the anticipation has built to this slow, delicious feeling that the moment he kisses me, I’ll be lost. The hairs on my arms rise as he reaches across me to tuck the duvets a little higher up my legs.

When the sunset comes, it’s one of the best we’ve seen. It’s luscious and red-gold, as though the sun is dripping hot into the water. There’s a faint fog to the west, fading one edge of the sky into haziness.

“Do you ever think about our one-night stand?” I ask, looking out at the water.

Zeke turns his gaze from the skyline to look at me. “Do I ever think about having sex with you?” he asks, incredulous.

I start to laugh. He snakes a hand out and places it on the back of my neck, but he doesn’t move; he just looks right in my eyes as the laughter fades on my lips. It reminds me of that first night, in the pub, when I’d almost dared him to kiss me and he’d held back, watching me instead.

“Yes, Lexi, I do.”

My stomach turns over. I shift into him, bringing our faces close as the sun dips. I don’t want to rush this, not after the delicate slowbuild of the day that brought us here. The one thing we have right now is time.

With two duvets layered on top of us and three underneath us, everything feels soft and languid. The fierce desire I felt for him on that first night hasn’t changed, but it’s spread and deepened, like the rich orange sunset stretching across the sky. Zeke’s thumb sweeps the back of my neck, and I shiver.

“It was incredible, that night. But I wish…”

“That is a very unfair point to trail off,” I say, as he dips his head, presses a kiss to my neck. My body sparks up as soon as his lips touch my skin, as if he’s found a button set in the curve of my neck, the exact spot to bring me to life.

“Sorry. It’s hard to find words for it,” he says. “I just feel like I didn’t know at the time how important that was. Our night together. It was amazing, but I wish I could go back and tell myself…this woman, she’ll be your everything. Then sometimes I wonder if I sort of did know. The moment I keep playing over and over is when I…Can I say this?” Zeke’s voice is husky now.

I tilt my chin back, letting him press a kiss to the base of my jaw, the patch of soft skin beneath my ear. I can feel every place where he’s kissed me—they’re bright spots of icy coolness as the wind sweeps over us.

“Please,” I say, swallowing.

“I unfastened your bra, and you held it there with your hands across your chest,” he says, his lips so close to my skin that his words vibrate there, caught between us. “You were sitting at the end of the bed, and I was kneeling, and I saw just an inch…” He presses his thumb to the top of my breast, showing me, and I arch despite myself, wanting more. “And you said,I like how your eyes go.”

He presses a slow kiss to the place where his thumb was. It goes cold the instant he lifts his mouth, and the sensation makes me quiver.

“I said,Go what?And you said,Don’t mine? When I look at you?”

I remember it. How his eyes seemed to turn to hot sugar, to caramel. How they made me melt.

“And I looked you right in the eye, kneeling there in front of you, and I got exactly what you meant. Your eyes had turned so soft. The way you looked at me. It made me feel like I was all there was.”

His voice catches a little; he presses another kiss to my neck, and I turn into him, sliding myself closer. I lift a hand to his jaw, tracing it through his beard, pulling back so that I can kiss him lightly on the lips. Even that—just the faintest featheriest kiss—makes my heart quicken.

“You know,” I say, “I don’t remember when I let go of my bra.”

He hums against my throat, tracing a slow, hot path. I reach for his belt and rest my fingers there, feeling the warmth of his toned stomach above it.

“You’re right, I was holding on to it.” My voice is breathy and unfamiliar as my hand shifts over the buckle, sliding the belt free. “I generally prefer to keep as many clothes on as possible. But I don’t even remember dropping it. Like it wasn’t even a thing.”

“It was a thing,” Zeke says. “Iremember it.”

He shifts away to pull his T-shirt over his head. The heat of his skin as he comes back to me is an exquisite shock, and I shrug out of my jacket, fumbling with my rope belt, wanting it all gone.

“I’m just saying that…I felt comfortable.” I whisper the last words as I raise my arms and let him pull my T-shirt dress slowly up, up. “I let you see me, even then.”

I feel a hot flush move up my body at the confession, as though somehow that’s the most revealing thing, even as he takes me in, every curve. His smile is slow and whisky smooth. It makes my lips move, too, like he’s tugging the joy out of me with that slight lift of the corner of his mouth.

“That’s all I want,” he whispers. “You. All of you.”

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