‘We should talk about this,’ he said, but his lips were still at her neck.
‘We’ve already talked,’ she whispered, her palm growing warm from the skin of his back. ‘This isn’t real life – not for me – but I’m here to enjoy it for a week. I’m not asking you to take on my complicated life or meet my son.’
He stilled under her hands, his gaze lifting to hers. ‘I wish I were the man for you.’
The bliss of the past few minutes developed a crack. ‘You don’t have to be the man for me. I don’t want the complication of someone else in my life. This is sex, Gabri, and it’s a bloodymiracle that I’m here, contemplating this without a shred of embarrassment – although that could change.’
‘Cazzo,’ he said under his breath, tugging her close again with a roughness that sent a thrill through her. ‘You know I want this – you. Surely you can feel it. But what happens to our friendship?’
His gaze was level with hers, close enough for her to memorise the shade of his irises.
‘We only interact online. How could this interfere? It’s the perfect chance – probably the only chance for me.’
‘Chance for what? Good sex?’ His amused smile was familiar.
‘Yes,’ she admitted, burying her fingers in his hair until his eyelids drooped. She almost felt him purring at the touch. ‘A summer fling on an Italian island,’ she said with a smile.
‘I’m your bucket-list item?’ One brow lifted doubtfully.
‘Yes,’ she said again. ‘Is that a problem?’
He came closer, feathering a kiss over her lips to her cheek. ‘No problem,’ he said with a dry tone. ‘All right. I’ll be your bucket-list fling, Toni.’ The words sizzled over her skin. ‘As long as you keep talking to me.’
Talking wasn’t usually her strong point when it came to intimacy, but she nodded and pulled him back for another kiss. His hold on her was firm, kisses increasingly urgent.
‘Do you want dinner?’ he asked, his lips against her shoulder.
He seemed relieved when she shook her head. If they didn’t see this through now, doubt and worry might creep in.
‘Shower,’ he choked out when she pushed his shirt over his shoulders and off.
She resented the necessity of washing for a moment, loving the hint of the ocean on him, but she didn’t resent anything five minutes later when the spray from the shower was hitting her skin in delicious counterpoint to the brush of his rough fingertips.
He was efficient; soaping up his hands, he washed her, from the spot below her ears all the way down her back. It was a kind of magic that worked on her spirit as well as her body – quieting one and waking the other. As his touch skimmed over the places that were coming alive with wanting, she grew impatient, taking his hands and pressing one to her breast, one between her legs.
With her friend, her bucket-list island fling, she could demand what she wanted.
Her knees giving out, she leaned heavily against him. His choppy breath in her ear and the intriguing press of him against her lower back were enough proof that he was right there with her.
He seemed in a hurry after that, drying her perfunctorily and then dragging her into the bedroom with both hands. Tumbling onto the bed and tugging her after him, he shot her a giddy, lopsided smile as his hands found her waist again, sliding higher.
Toni was floating, shedding years of limits and dilemmas. It might be a time out of her usual life – she might not really be this woman who enjoyed her body, and his, freely – but for a few days, it didn’t matter. The brief thought for her mother when she ripped open a condom packet didn’t even pull her out of this trance.
All that mattered was the way he touched her, as though she were as beautiful as any flower, as delicious as the natural flavours of his herb garden and as refreshing as the wind. And when he urged her knee up, the way their bodies found each other and merged with a rush of gratification was as elemental as life itself.
‘So sweet. Toni, you feel amazing,’ he murmured as his lips travelled up her chest to her jaw, then over her mouth in clumsy kisses, interrupted by the demands of their bodies for friction. ‘I knew this. You… us… right now.’
She understood what he meant, even if he couldn’t finish his thoughts. This would be a spectacular memory one day. The prospect loosened her own tongue.
‘I think you were at the top of my bucket list from the moment I saw you.’
He smiled, a chuckle making his chest move even more frantically than his rough breathing. When he dropped to his elbows, the new angle intensified all the sensations shooting through her and barely a moment later, they were clinging to each other, gasping, his fingers tangling with hers and squeezing as they were dragged under together.
16
Gabri was disoriented. It was the spike of adrenaline that surged in his blood and the glow of satisfaction flooding him.
For five years, his only goals had been peace, time and the enjoyment of the simple things in life. Except when he was on a board out on the water, adrenaline was his enemy, the substance that had rewired his brain when it had been the only thing keeping his overtaxed body going.
