by Joanne Rock
During the heavy beat of silence that followed, an owl hooted from a tree nearby. In the distance, Ian spied a party boat on the waves, the music cranked high as the vessel sped through the dark water.
“It occurs to me that no matter how hard I’ve tried to live beyond reproach, I’m always going to be a target for the tabloids. In their eyes, my mother was a gold digger who duped my father into getting her pregnant. And I’m the bait she used to ensure she got her payoff.” Lydia shrugged and the spaghetti strap that had been teetering on the edge of her shoulder gave up the ghost, sliding down her arm. “Why should I create some exaggerated facade of respectability when I’ll forever be a tabloid story waiting to happen?”
He dragged his gaze from her bare shoulder and the delicate curve of her neck. “You make it sound like being with me compromises your reputation.”
“No. I only mean that I have to stop worrying about what other people think of me and find what happiness I can. Because no matter what I do or how careful I am, I will be a magnet for rumors.”
He sifted through her words. Put them in the context of the one question that burned brightest in his brain as the stars began to dot the sky above them.
“You want to find happiness.” This seemed highly relevant. “And you agree that there were satisfying aspects of our relationship before things fell apart.” Heat burned over him despite the fact that he stood ankle-deep in the Pacific. He wanted a taste of her more than he wanted his next breath as the tropical air blanketed his skin with sultry touches.
“Correct.” She kept her arms clenched around herself, but there was no mistaking the challenging tilt of her chin. The throaty edge in her voice.
He waded an inch closer. Their bodies weren’t touching. But the water swirled between them in circles that seemed to connect them anyway.
“Can I assume that you’re open to revisiting those satisfying aspects?” He wouldn’t have to use his kiss as a bargaining tool to woo her into his bed tonight.
“I’m starting to think it would be foolish to deny ourselves.” Her words were breathless, a barely there sound that caressed his ears.
“I couldn’t agree more.” He waited for her touch. Watched for it.
Even the cries of birds and monkeys seemed to quiet in the still moment of her decision.
“It’s my wedding night,” she informed him, her voice picking up strength and volume. “I don’t need to sleep alone.”
“Not when I want you in my bed for days on end,” he assured her, only too happy to describe exactly how thoroughly he would pleasure her if given the opportunity to touch her tonight. “Although I will be very disappointed if we are sleeping.”
Despite the growing dark, he could see the convulsive movement of her throat as she swallowed. Licked her lips.
“Ian?”
“Mmm?”
“I think I’d like that kiss now.”
Eight
A year ago, they would have fallen on each other with the ravenous hunger of lovers who need to be touching all the time.
Truth be told, she was so ready for his kiss, she felt more than a little ravenous now as they stood in the surf outside Honeymoon House.
But their relationship was much different now. Careful. Tenuous. And—she still couldn’t believe it—they were married. Maybe that’s why Ian took his time closing the distance between them. Instead of taking her in his arms, he stroked along her bare shoulder where one strap of her gown had fallen away. She hadn’t realized how cool her skin was from standing in the water until she felt the warmth of his hand when he made contact. His callus-roughened palms reminded her he wasn’t the kind of developer who simply drew plans, although he was talented enough to design his own buildings.
No. She’d seen Ian McNeill clamber up ladders and take a crowbar to stubborn wall supports himself, never afraid of getting his hands dirty on a job site. She liked that his millions hadn’t robbed him of the ability to walk among the workmen or appreciate the less glamorous aspects of actual physical construction.
“Are you cold?” he asked, perhaps feeling the difference in their skin temperatures, and yet still he didn’t kiss her in spite of her request. He held back, even as the fire in his eyes broadcast how much he wanted her.
“I’m not chilly at all. Thank you, though.” She was plenty hot on the inside; in fact, she was anticipating that kiss, aching for him to take her lips. To take her. “I like being outside.” She could breathe deeply out here without feeling suffocated by all the expectations weighing her down back home. Without the scandal rocking her world again.
“You’re trembling,” he observed softly, his other hand coming between them to skim a knuckle along her lower lip, drawing out the moment.
Lydia nipped it to put an end to that line of conversation since she was overwhelmed by her feelings for him. Sensual feelings, she told herself. Nothing deeper. The trembling didn’t have a thing to do with romantic notions about the relationship she was undertaking again.
Finally—thank goodness—Ian cupped her face and tipped her chin up, perhaps to see her better in the moonlight. The glow of the tiki torches on the beach and dotting the railing of the deck on the third floor of Honeymoon House didn’t give off enough light to see each other well now that the sun had set.
The look in his eyes sent of a flash fire along her skin. Brooding and intense, he stared at her as if she were a complicated puzzle he’d rather devour than solve. So when his kiss came, she was surprised by its devastating gentleness. His soft, full lips covered hers, coaxing them apart to taste and explore.
Sighing into him, she gave herself up to the wholly masculine feel of his strong arms wrapped around her. The hint of sandalwood on his skin unleashed a torrent of fiery memories. Stripping each other’s clothes off in a hotel dining room because they couldn’t wait to get to the bedroom. Ian slipping her swimsuit aside to pleasure her behind an island waterfall where no one could see them. Her hoarse shouts of fulfillment when he’d demonstrated a deftness with his tongue that had been her undoing, not just once, but many, many times.
Past and present mingling, Lydia pressed her body to all that hard, masculine heat, wanting to lose herself in him. In pleasure. No holding back. She wanted those memories to be reality now. The good memories. Not the aftermath of lies and deceit.
She worked the buttons of his linen dress shirt, hastily unfastening each one to splay greedy hands over his sculpted chest and abs. The moonlight shone down on his bronzed skin, making her greedy to see more of him. All of him.
“I want to take you inside.” He captured her questing fingers, stilling her hungry explorations before he kissed the fingertips, one at a time. “I need to see you.”
With a jerky nod, she agreed, even though she could have gladly pulled An Affair to Remember moment and wrestled him to the beach to make love in the surf.
Together, they hurried out of the water. He scooped up both pairs of shoes and set them on the first stair leading to the villa. She followed him barefoot up the wooden steps and onto the cool stone patio of the first floor. Here, the light from the small gas torches set at intervals in the stone railing cast plenty of light on them as he led her toward the outdoor shower.
And while she would have also pulled her dress off then and there, Ian turned on the shower spray at foot level just long enough to rinse the beach sand from their toes. She unfastened the knot she’d put in her dress hem to hold it up, letting the silk fall back around her calves while he shut off the nozzle.
She eyed his strong back as he straightened, the ripple of muscles evident through the thin, pale linen of his shirt.
“Damn, Lydia, you’re killing me when you look at me like that.”
Ian tugged her closer with one hand. Caught openly ogling him, she felt her cheeks heat and was glad for the rosy glow of the torc
hlight.
“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” she told him archly, turning to head up the stairs since both bedrooms were situated on the second floor.
“What I’d like to know—” he palmed the small of her back, shadowing her movements as his voice overwhelmed her senses “—is what you’re thinking about when you look at me that way.”
“Probably something really benign,” she lied, teasing him only because she knew there would be an end to both their torments soon. “Like what you’ll think of the outdoor rugs I chose for the Foxfire courtyard.”
She paused in the hallway between the two bedrooms, unsure which way to go. The villa was exposed to the Costa Rican elements on three sides and they’d left all the retractable windows open to savor the mild weather. She could see into his bedroom where a king-size platform bed covered in a black duvet and batik-patterned pillows was illuminated only by the flickering outdoor torches of the master suite’s deck.
“Rugs? Not even close,” he taunted lightly as he steered her toward his bedroom and the small shelter it offered from the thick, jungle-like branches that brushed against the open half walls. “I’ll bet you were thinking about how much you wanted our clothes off.”
He turned her to face him and her heart raced a crazy staccato beat as her gaze fell to his bare chest where she’d already undone half the buttons on his shirt.
“If we’re being totally honest—” she hooked her finger into the gap of the soft linen and wrangled another button free, her knuckle grazing the warmth of those beautifully chiseled abs “—I was far more fixated on getting your clothes off than my own.”
“That can be arranged.” He stood in shadow, his back to the glow of torchlight while he shrugged out of the shirt, letting the expensive material float to the floor behind him. “I’ll gladly do what it takes to put that gleam in your eyes again.”
He tipped her face up and their gazes collided. Her breathing hitched and her skin tingled everywhere. She was seized with the need to kiss and touch him. To follow all the pent-up emotions their reunion had stirred, leaving her aching for him for days on end.
“There it is.” He ran his hands down her shoulders, dragging the only remaining strap of her dress off so the bodice slid loose to sag against her breasts. His eyes remained on hers, however. “There’s that look I like. When you watched me walking into the surf tonight, you were staring at me with that expression in your eyes. It was all I could do not to haul you into bed like a caveman.”
He turned her inside out with just his words while the heady scent of angel’s trumpet and jasmine drifted on the warm breeze.
“I do that to you?” She leaned forward to press a kiss to his chest, savoring the smooth warmth of one pectoral. “I wish I’d known I had that power.”
“Lydia.” He skimmed a hand down her hair. Stroking. Petting. “You distract me too much already. If I told you everything you do that drives me crazy with wanting you, I’d never get anything done.”
Through the veil of her hair, he toyed with the zipper at the back of her dress, flicking at the toggle and tracing the path it would take if he pulled it down. She thought she’d come out of her skin faster than she’d get out of her clothes, the slower pace making her flesh feel too tight and sensitive.
“You say that.” She pressed another kiss to his chest, letting her tongue flick along the silken heat of smooth pectoral there. Then, gathering her courage, she arched up on her toes to speak softly in his ear. “But if I was anywhere near as irresistible as you claim, I’d be underneath you already.”
With both her hands on his chest now, Lydia could feel the hard shudder go through him. Only then did she understand the restraint he was exercising.
“Is that what you think?” His hands pressed harder against her, molding her to him before he found that zipper again and started to ease it downward. “Because I was doing everything in my power to make tonight different than any time we’ve been together before. To give us a fresh start.”
Her heart turned over in her chest even though she’d told herself a hundred times she wasn’t going to let her emotions get all tangled up in this like last time. She couldn’t go through that heartbreak again. Right now, she wanted to lose herself in pleasure, not think about a fresh start.
And yet...
How unexpectedly thoughtful of him to want to make tonight a new beginning. To make it different from their past together. She wanted to tell him that was unnecessary, but with the silk dress gliding lower and lower on her body, she found it difficult to argue with him. The sound of the sea rolling in provided a soothing music in harmony with the rustle of palm fronds, drowning out everything else as she shimmied the rest of the way out of her dress. The silk pooled at her feet, leaving her clad in the beautiful imported lace lingerie she thought he’d never see tonight.
“You’re my wife now,” he reminded her, backing her toward the bed while his blue eyes moved languidly over her body. They were both more visible now as they neared the bedside sconce. “Not just my lover. We should make tonight the start of something new. Different.”
“I like that idea.” She was breathless. So turned on she could hardly find enough air to speak. Underneath the coral-colored lace, her breasts tightened to impossibly taut peaks. “A new start, that is.”
She remembered—vaguely—that she wanted their relationship to be different than before. So a do-over was a good thing. She could protect her heart from all the ways this marriage could hurt her before they said goodbye. But right now, she mostly wanted Ian McNeill all over her. Inside her.
He lowered her to the bed, her body meeting the soft duvet while Ian loomed over her, shirtless and golden in the torchlight. He unfastened his belt. She held her breath.
“But, Ian?” She chewed her lip as he freed himself from his trousers, her eyes sliding to the gray silk boxers that couldn’t conceal how much he wanted her.
“Yes, wife?” He bent over her on the bed, brushing a kiss over one hip, his lips working a decadent magic on her skin.
“We don’t need to make everything different than it was before.” She remembered multiple orgasms—the first of her life. And then there was the tireless lovemaking that woke her in the middle of the night and left her sleeping more deeply—happily—than ever before.
She felt his lips smile against her hip while he kissed her there, and then licked a path along the hem of her lace underwear.
Her eyes might have crossed before she closed them, giving herself over to him.
“No?” He kissed. Licked. Kissed again.
Behind her eyelids, she was already seeing stars just thinking about what he might do next. Her body tensed with anticipation.
“No. Some things were really quite perfect.” She debated shouldering her way out of the strapless lace bra top holding her in, the fabric like a straitjacket when she wanted to feel nothing but Ian’s body against hers.
Her breath came in short pants. She licked her lips. Wriggled her hips. Arched her spine to get closer to him because she needed him. Now.
“Perfect.” He repeated the word in a whisper over her skin, trailing a kiss into the indent of her waist as he covered her with his body.
Finally. Finally.
A moan of satisfaction hummed through her as the hard length of him pressed at the juncture of her thighs. She dragged him down to kiss her. She nipped his lower lip, unable to stay still beneath him. She couldn’t get close enough, her breasts flattening against the hard wall of his chest in a delicious caress that left her wanting more.
The humid air hung heavy on her skin and his too, a salty ocean tang that made the night feel all the more exotic but familiar, as well. Like the past, but different.
When his mouth closed on her breast through the soft lace, she twined her fingers in his hair. Held him close and clung to the sen
sations he loosed in her with each flick of his tongue. He unfastened the series of hooks at the front until she could sidle free of the confining fabric. She slid one leg around his, wanting him everywhere.
He must have guessed, or else he was as caught up as she was, because he skimmed a touch between her thighs, teasing over the damp lace until she shuddered with the small convulsions that were a precursor to all the pleasure that was to come. She remembered this wildness, the heated, primal joining that had overwhelmed her in the past.
As Ian tugged aside the thin scrap of panties to find her slick core, Lydia forgot everything but the way he made her feel. Mindless. Sensual. Wanted.
With each stroke of his fingers, each press of his palm against her, the tension in her body coiled more tightly. He wound her up, taking her higher. She gripped his shoulders. Breathed his name.
And flew apart in a wave of orgasms that washed over and over her. It was even more amazing than she remembered. A blissful retreat from the world to a place where only pleasure remained. She reeled with the aftershocks for long moments knowing the night was only beginning.
Soon, he would be deep inside her. Joined with her physically to make their marriage legal. Binding.
As he poised above her, his body taut with a hunger he hadn’t appeased yet, Lydia had just enough wits about her to wonder how she’d ever survive the onslaught of pleasure while guarding her heart. She walked an emotional tightrope tonight and—possibly—for many nights to come.
Heaven help her, she couldn’t stop if she tried.
* * *
Ian needed her with a fierceness that defied logic.
Beads of sweat popped up along his brow. He ground his teeth together against the ache of it all. He’d waited this long to take her. He could wait another minute to chase the sudden shadows from her gaze.
