Page 54 of One Secret

'Woof,' I say without emotion.

Darcy is grinning.

'That's why you're confident in your game plan?' she presses. 'Because he's desperate?'

I shrug.

'Desperate men make foolish choices and miss key details. Like the gaps in another person's pretenses. I'm no great actor but if the goal you want is big enough in your mind's eye then the rest of the world doesn't always have to make sense. You tend to see what they want to see.'

'Like a happy couple jet skiing around the Aegean sea?'

'Well...' I lower the binoculars and tilt my head back and forth like I'm weighing the situation. 'I wouldn't say that's entirely a pretense.'

'My, Mr. Alesi, was that an admission of fun?' Darcy gasps with dramatic flare. Her spine straightens with the effect, jostling her arms and dancing those damn fingers of hers over my skin. I'm in board shorts, not fucking speedos for Christ's sake, but the damn things are riding up where I squat leaving my inner thigh open to the torment of her touch.

Then again, I could be wearing a full suit of fucking armor and I'd be able to feel her. I always feel her.

Like last night, when she'd wrapped herself around me like cellophane. Her breasts pushed up against my ribs with every breath. Every wriggle rubbed her thigh high over mine, her knee brushing softly against my now permanently stiff dick. Her hair had been like silk on my shoulder and smelt of apples. The rest of her was lemony sweet.

I didn't know whether to eat her or rut her. The fantasy of just turning Darcy over, propping up her ass, and driving deep inside her was almost too vivid to ignore.

Especially given I'd been thinking about little else since she plastered herself to my back when I picked her up on my bike.

Visions of Darcy in the heat of arousal... on her back, her front, against the nearest wall... had haunted me all day. Then again all night.

Hell, I'm still thinking about it even when I'm trying to focus on active mobsters or slipping on algae.

I only held back last night because, just as my self-control was about to snap, Darcy had snuggled up closer and sighed into my skin. So trustingly and so open that, for the first time in my life, I'd felt ashamed of my explicit fantasies. I'd forced my head into a different space, closed my eyes, and prayed for an unconsciousness that didn't come until the wee hours of the morning.

But hell have I been paying for it since.

Blue balls are a damn real thing and no fucking joke.

Thankfully, Darcy chooses this moment to leave me to my recon and head down to the rock pools.

I concentrate for about ten minutes tops before her presence draws me back in.

I watch as she squats beside one of the smaller pools with multi-colored marine life beneath the surface. She dips a finger gently under the water to stroke the soft spines of a starfish, a childlike smile on her face. She then moves to another larger pool, spreads her legs wide across its diameter, and leans low to look at the little crabs scuttling about. Perfectly balanced, wondrously strong...

And pushing the sexiest ass I've ever seen into the air.

I curse.

Watching the tone and flex of Darcy's legs as she keeps her balance... remembering the feel of them wrapped hard around my waist and holding on through the wildest of rides... I realize there's a whole other issue I may now be facing...

Judging by the sharp intensity pulsing through my erection and the choking ache that's set up shop beneath it... sex with Darcy might now be destined to be phenomenal... but a heck of a short-lived experience.

When you've been desperate to cum for over twenty-four hours, how the shit are you supposed to keep it together when inside a woman like that?

Not a fucking hope.

Darcy is smiling when she glances up from the water and catches me watching her. Whatever she sees on my face alters her expression. The grin changes and evolves into something more private. A secret sensuality. Her body, lithe and powerful, is outlined in a glow of sunshine. Even in silhouette, I can see her nipples pressing up through the elastane of her bikini. She takes off her sunglasses, her eyes hooded and hot. She bites her lip and glances at the vista beyond. The beautiful, empty vista.

No one for miles.

All reminders to the contrary leave me. All warnings that I'm about to severely and prematurely embarrass myself are lost to the winds. Caruso is gone. Gabriel is forgotten.

Right now, I'm ruled but a single, commanding drive... to reach Darcy. And to show her what it means to tease, tempt and seduce a man past his Goddamn breaking point!

---