Page 83 of Duke's Daring Bookworm
“I asked how you found this place,” she said after she ate more cheese.
“On a training mission during my time at Parris Island. I flew over it enough times, always tempted to land. When I got out, I came back here on my own. Just me and the waves. I’ve looked into who might own it, thinking I should buy it from them, but I never could find out.”
“Even in your super-secret billionaire part of the internet?”
I laughed.
“No. Not in the super-secret annual billionaire meetings, either.”
She put on a very serious face, so serious it became comical. “Hmm, well, I guess it’s yours then. Didn’t you learn that in your fancy schools? If you claim it, it’s yours. If someone has claimed it, you just have to be the bigger and richer guy and it’s yours.”
“Ah, yes. That lesson. You’re right. What should we name it?”
I loved this game she played. She hit the mark sometimes, but I never let her know which ones. I knew I learned lessons, both from my billionaire businessman grandpa and the fancy schools I went to, that she wouldn’t have learned.
“It needs to be something special to us.”
“I like where your head’s at.” I raised the champagne and took another swig.
“Great. So, we’re calling it ‘Lily Gives Amazing Blow Jobs Island.’”
I promptly spit the champagne out. Lily giggled andtook her own drink.
“No. That information is for me alone. If men knew how good you were, I’d have to kill them all.”
“Aw, now you’re just flirting with me. Ok, how about Thank God for Books Bay?”
“That’s somehow worse.”
“Well, I don’t see you coming up with anything better.” She poked my chest and then patted where she had poked, leaving her hand resting on it like she couldn’t get enough of touching me. I understood the feeling.
“Ok, ok. I propose we dub this Isle Hera.”
“After the Greek goddess of love and marriage?” I knew she would get the reference and the hope in her eyes buoyed me up. I brushed her cheek and cupped her face.
“Yes, and lilies.”
“Did you choose it just because of the lilies?” I couldn’t read her expression—hope, fear, worry. All of them competed for space.
“No.”
Her breath caught, everything but hope melting away from her eyes.
I set down our glasses and pulled her closer to me. She wanted me to make love to her. I had been doing that from the first time, but this time I wanted her to know exactly how I felt.
“Lily, this thing between us. It’s—” Thunder rumbled overhead, interrupting my words and sending a chill down my spine. This was not the place to be caught in a thunderstorm.
We both looked at the once blue sky. Dark and angry clouds moved fast over the ocean, lightning striking fast and close between us and the mainland.
Shit.
“Oh, I love storms.”
Double shit. Lily didn’t understand the danger we were in right now. The helicopter would be a giant lightning rod in this storm, and it also happened to be our only shelter and way off this island. We weren’t due back for hours. No one would know to look for us.
“We need to get to the helicopter.”
The wind picked up, blowing the storm closer. If we hurried, we might make it back inside before the storm made land.
