‘Ends of the earth,’ she agreed. ‘Hurry up. I’m freezing. And I need to ring Jason, let him know we’re OK.’
It only took a moment before they were in and the warmth of the kitchen engulfed them both. Rafael grabbed a couple of blankets from the laundry room, wrapping one around her first. He pulled out a chair at the kitchen table and made her sit down before putting the phone in front of her, an old landline, with large buttons.
She dialled, her hand trembling, and waited while the phone rang. But it went straight to voicemail. She left a message –we’re safe, we’re back, where are you?– and tried Nico. The problem was the same there. No answer, just voicemail.
Lost and unsure of what to do, she looked to Rafael. He placed a cup of coffee in her hand and took over.
He made a series of calls and she heard him speaking in rapid French. Finally, he hung up.
‘I’ve let the coastguard know we’re safe, the gendarmerie, and the harbourmaster in Douarnenez. Yana’s boat is in the harbour, so they made it back. They’re probably out of battery or something like that. Or the mobile signal is bad. We get that here with storms. You’re shaking.’
‘I’m cold.’ And she was. She felt frozen to the core and she suspected that shock was also playing a hand in this. She felt like a rag that had been drenched in icy water and then wrung out.
He wrapped his hands around hers. His skin felt cold to the touch as well, but she still welcomed the contact.
‘Come with me,’ he told her and she followed him up the stairs.
The room to which he led her looked over the front of the house and the sea beyond. The storm raged on, wild and out of control. Clouds raced across the sky and the trees around the property thrashed with the gale.
Rafael turned on the light and pulled the curtains while she stood there, shivering.
It was a beautiful room, decorated with taste and style, modern but with nods to the age of the building. The sleigh bed looked antique.
He made his way to another door, which opened to a vast en suite with a roll-top bath and a walk-in shower tiled in grey, dotted with what looked like hand-painted feature tiles for decoration. Rafael gave it all barely a glance, used to it. He reached in and turned on the shower.
‘I’ll get towels for you,’ he told her, and left.
She stood there, frozen, wrapped in the blanket. This was his room, wasn’t it? She could tell. A laptop sat open on the dresser. There were three books piled up on the bedside table. A lambswool sweater lay casually over the back of the armchair in the corner and she thought she remembered him wearing that yesterday. Was it only yesterday?
Warm steam reached her from the en suite. Right, the shower. She was meant to have a shower. Here. In his—
She reached behind her to try to unzip the wetsuit, but she couldn’t grab the pull with her numb and clumsy fingers. She half turned, got tangled in the blanket and staggered over.
He caught her before she could fall. She hadn’t even heard him come back in, but he caught her all the same.
‘I’ve got you. Here, let me help.’
She wasn’t the only one trembling, she realised, as he pulled the zip down at the back of her wetsuit.
‘Turn around,’ she told him and he glanced at her, doubt passing over his features. ‘Or do you think you’ll manage alone? I can leave you be. That shower is very tempting.’
But it wasn’t the only tempting thing.
A slow, knowing smile spread over his face. He turned around, his eyes fixed on the mirror, and she unzipped him as well, revealing his bare back with the ripple of muscles she had admired the first time she saw him. She pressed her hand to his shoulder. As she reached up, however, a sharp pain lanced down her side.
‘What is it?’ he asked, turning in alarm. ‘What’s wrong?’
She’d been swept through a cave system and bashed against a rock wall, that was what was wrong. She turned towards the mirror and pulled down the wetsuit, leaving herself just in the swimsuit she’d worn underneath. Bruises were beginning to blossom all along her shoulder and her thigh, probably all down her side as well.
She looked at his reflection and saw the concern mirrored there. ‘Well, at least we’re alive. And I wouldn’t be if you hadn’t come after me.’
‘Ari,’ he murmured. ‘I—’
She pressed a kiss to his skin, tasting salt there. ‘I’ve wanted to do this since I first saw you.’ The admission sent a thrill of pleasure through her, but it was nothing compared to the feeling when his muscles tightened.
With a groan of desire, his arms enfolded her and his kiss took her breath away.
For a moment, he was all she could think of, all she knew. He was dizzying, addictive. And he knew exactly what he did to her.
