Page 41 of His Last Gamble

She moaned beneath his lips, shuddering as his hand moved up the length of her bare thigh, over her waist and came around to cup one breast. Through the thin material of her dress, her nipple burgeoned with silent begging. He lifted his lips from hers, allowing her to drag in a much-needed breath, but it was only so he could trail tiny kisses along the length of her jaw and nibble her ear lobe, before raining kisses down the side of her neck and crossing her throat to give her the same treatment on the other side.

Above her the azure sky spun in giddy swirls, and she gasped as his other hand slipped beneath the hem of her dress and caressed her inner thigh tormentingly. As if answering to the code of some magic marauder, her thighs parted and she cried out as his fingers pressed against the material of her panties, finding the outline of her femininity and rubbing against her a knowing, tantalising message with his fingers.

She shuddered and gasped out his name, the tension inside her flooding out in a warm ooze that left her feeling boneless.

When he at last lifted his head to look down at her, his eyes were blazing, and a hot flush coloured his high cheekbones. He looked incredibly sexy.

Wordlessly, she lifted one hand to cup it behind his head and pull him down to her breast, where he licked and kissed her nipples through the silk. She whimpered, badly wanting the touch of him on her bare flesh, but suddenly he sat up, running a shaking hand through his tousled blond hair, and grinning down at her.

‘When we’re married,’ he said ominously, his voice thick and slightly slurred, ‘you won’t get off so lightly.’

She stared at him numbly as he packed up the remains of the picnic, and then, when he stood above her holding out his hand, she let him pull her unresistingly to her feet.

She felt utterly bemused. Her body was still clamouring wantonly for more, but already she was beginning to feel ashamed. Ashamed and just a little scared.

She had a tiger by the tail, and was damned if she knew what to do with him!

‘Come on, we’d best get back,’ he said almost grimly. He stashed the hamper then opened the door for her, watching her intently as she stumbled into her seat.

She looked shell-shocked, and he knew just how she felt. He was feeling a bit blasted himself. But at least now he had the answer to two very important questions.

Firstly, that she wanted him, every bit as much as he wanted her. And secondly, she was not so hell-bent on revenge that she’d snapped up his offer of marriage just like that. Which meant, which had to mean, that she must have some sort of kinder feelings for him after all.

Now all he had to do was find the best way to make use of both of these fascinating and heart-thumping pieces of information. Which was not something that a man of his talents should find too challenging. In fact, it wasn’t until they were nearly back at Paradise Beach that the answer suddenly came to him.

They were parked at a T-junction when he looked across at a billboard announcing Saturday’s celebration of his ownership of the Palace. It promised all who came a spectacular night of once-in-a-lifetime gambling opportunities, entertainment, food and wine, and suddenly he knew. It was perfect. Like a gift from Lady Luck herself.

When Charmaine looked across at him, she felt her world lurch on its axis. Why was he smiling like that? He looked like an art collector who’d just stumbled on a hitherto unknown Da Vinci. What did it mean?

And how was she to get herself out of this mess?

* * *

When she reached the top of the stairs, she was glad of the hotel’s air conditioning. As it was, she felt almost too tired to trudge the few yards to her door.

She was glad that Payne had simply dropped her off at the entrance with a brief, breathtaking kiss, for she simply didn’t know how to cope with him now. If he’d walked her to the door she just knew that they’d have spent the afternoon in bed, and now that she’d had a taste of what bliss that would be, she was sufficiently self-aware to admit that there was no way she’d ever be able to deny him.

With a sigh that was half relieved, half disappointed, she opened the door, walked in, then stopped dead.

‘Lucy!’ she breathed.

And there, indeed, was her sister, sitting on the edge of her bed, restlessly flipping over the pages of a magazine.

‘Sis!’ Lucy grinned, tossing aside the magazine and walking over to hug her. ‘You look like a stunned mullet! I hope you don’t mind — I sort of bribed one of the maids to let me in.’ She smiled at her sister in puzzlement. ‘You are glad to see me, aren’t you?’

Charmaine, aware that she was being less than welcoming, abruptly snapped out of it. ‘Of course I am. Of course! It’s just that I never expected to see you here.’

If her sister but knew it, she was just one shock too many. Charmaine felt punch drunk.

‘Glad to hear it, sis, because I’m booked in right next door,’ Lucy chirruped.

For a heart-stopping moment, Charmaine thought she meant that she was staying in the Palace. Then her sister waved a hand at the far wall. ‘In the next room in fact, so if I hold a wild party, don’t go banging on the wall and yelling for me to shut up! Well, actually, you’d be at the party as well, so you wouldn’t be yelling for quiet, you’d be in there helping us make all the noise, so . . .’ Lucy paused for a much-needed breath, and Charmaine felt herself giggling.

It was always this way with her sister. She had such a zest for life that she was always dragging her shy sibling into scrapes and situations way beyond her. But why had she come back? Try as she might, Charmaine just couldn’t understand why her sister would want to come back to the same island as the man who’d almost destroyed her.

‘So, how’s the shoot been going?’ Lucy demanded, bouncing back down onto the bed, but eyeing her sister closely. ‘I saw Jo-Jo on the way in, at reception. He was telling me that you’re actually doing some of the modelling.’

‘Don’t sound so surprised,’ Charmaine laughed, trying to look nonchalant. ‘I’m not that bad at it. Well, I was a bit inexperienced at first, but I think Phil was pleased with me, which is all that matters.’

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