Love Islands: Red-Hot Sunsets

It was also an uncomfortable reminder as to how far he normally went when it came to getting exactly what he wanted, and that he had surrounded himself with people who had forgotten how to contradict him.

Without giving himself a chance to back out, he headed to his quarters and did the unthinkable: he swapped his khakis for a pair of swimming trunks that hadn’t seen the light of day in months, if not years, and a tee-shirt.

Barefoot, grabbing a towel on the way, he headed up to the pool area where he knew Katy was going to be.

She had been oddly reticent about using the swimming pool and, chin tilted at the mutinous angle he was fast becoming accustomed to, she had finally confessed that she didn’t like using stuff that didn’t belong to her.

‘Would you rather the swimsuits all sit unused in cupboards until it’s time for the lot to be thrown away?’

‘Would you throw away perfectly good clothes?’

‘I would if it was cluttering up my space. You wouldn’t have to borrow them if you’d thought ahead and brought a few of your own.’

‘I had no idea I would be anywhere near a pool,’ she had been quick to point out, and he had dealt her a slashing grin, enjoying the way the colour had rushed into her cheeks.

‘And now you are. Roll with the punches, would be my advice.’

His cabin was air-conditioned, and as he headed up towards the pool on the upper deck he was assailed by heat. It occurred to him that she might not be there, that she might have gone against her original plan of reading in the afternoon and working on ideas for an app to help the kids in her class with their homework, something he had discovered after some probing. If she wasn’t there, he’d be bloody disappointed, and that nearly stopped him in his tracks because disappointment wasn’t something he associated with the opposite sex.

He enjoyed the company of women. He wasn’t promiscuous but the truth was that no woman had ever had the power to hold his attention for any sustained length of time, so he had always been the first to do the dispatching. By which point, he was always guiltily relieved to put the relationship behind him. In that scenario, disappointment wasn’t something that had ever featured.

Katy, with her quirky ways and forthright manner, was yanking him along by some sort of invisible chain and he was uneasily aware that it was something he should really put a stop to.

Indeed, he paused, considering that option. It would take him less than a minute to make it back down to his office where he could resume work.

Except...would he be able to? Or would he sit at his desk allowing his mind idly to drift off to the taboo subject of his sexy captive?

Lucas had no idea what he hoped to gain by hitting the upper deck and joining her by the pool. So what if she was attractive? The world was full of attractive women and he knew, without a shred of vanity, that he could have pretty much any of them he wanted.

Playing with his reluctant prisoner wasn’t on the cards. He’d warned her off getting any ideas into her head so there was no way he was going to try to get her into his bed now.

Just thinking about that, even as he was fast shoving it out of his head, conjured up a series of images that sent his pulses racing and fired up his libido as though reacting to a gun at the starting post.

He reached out one hand and supported himself heavily against the wall, allowing his breathing to settle. His common sense was fighting a losing battle with temptation, telling him to hot foot it back to the office and slam the metaphorical door on the siren lure of a woman who most definitely wasn’t his sort.

He continued on, passing Maria in the kitchen preparing supper, and giving a brief nod before heading up. Then the sun was beating down on him as he took a few seconds to appreciate the sight of the woman reclining on a deck chair, eyes closed, arms hanging loosely over the sides of the chair, one leg bent at the knee, the other outstretched.

She had tied her long, vibrant hair into some kind of rough bun and a book lay open on the ground next to her.

Lucas walked softly towards her. He hadn’t seen her like this, only just about decently clothed, and his breathing became sluggish as he took in the slender daintiness of her body: flat stomach, long, smooth legs, small breasts.

He cleared his throat and wondered whether he would be able to get his vocal cords to operate. ‘Good job I decided to come up here...’ He was inordinately thankful for the dark sunglasses that shielded his expression. ‘You’re going pink. Where’s your sunblock? With your skin colouring, too much sun and you’ll end up resembling a lobster—and your two-week prison sentence might well end up being longer than you’d bargained for. Sun burn can be a serious condition.’

‘What are you doing here?’ Katy jack-knifed into a sitting position and drew her knees up to her chest, hugging herself and glowering from a position of disadvantage as he towered over her, all six-foot-something of bronzed, rippling muscle.

Her eyes darted down to his legs and darted away again just as fast. Something about the dark, silky hair shadowing his calves and thighs brought her out in a sweat.

She licked her lips and steadied her racing pulse. She’d kept up a barrage of easy chatter for the past few days, had striven to project the careless, outspoken insouciance that she hoped would indicate to him that she wasn’t affected by him, not at all, and she wasn’t going to ruin the impression now.

He’d warned her not to go getting any ideas and that had been the trigger for her to stop gaping and allowing him to get under her skin. She was sure that the only reason he had issued that warning was because he had noticed her reaction to him and, from that moment onwards, she had striven to subdue any wayward reactions under a never-ending stream of small talk.

To start with, she’d aimed to keep the small talk very small, anything to break the silence as they had shared meals. In the evenings, before he left to return to the bowels of the yacht, they’d found themselves continuing to talk over coffee and wine.

Her aim had been harder to stick to than she’d thought because something about him fired her up. Whilst she managed to contain her body’s natural impulse to be disobedient—by making sure she was physically as far away from him as possible without being too obvious—she’d been seduced into provoking him, enjoying the way he looked at her when she said something incendiary, head to one side, his dark eyes veiled and assessing.

It was a subtle form of intellectual arousal that kept her on a permanent high and it was as addictive as a drug.

In Lucas’s presence, Duncan no longer existed.

In fact, thanks to Lucas’s all-consuming and wholly irrational ability to rivet her attention, Katy had reluctantly become aware of just how affected she had been by Duncan’s betrayal. Even when she had thought she’d moved on, he had still been there in the background, a troubling spectre that had moulded her relationships with the opposite sex.

‘I own the yacht,’ Lucas reminded her lazily. He began stripping off the tee-shirt and tossed it onto a deckchair, which he pulled over with his foot so that it was right next to her. ‘Do you think I should have asked your permission before I decided to come up here and use the pool?’

‘No, of course not,’ Katy replied, flustered. ‘I just thought that you had your afternoon routine and you worked until seven in the evening...’

‘Routines are made to be broken.’ He settled down onto the deck chair and turned so that he was looking at her, still from behind the dark shades that gave him a distinct advantage. ‘Haven’t you been lecturing me daily on my evil workaholic ways?’

‘I never said that they were evil.’

‘But you were so persuasive in convincing me that I was destined for an early grave that I decided to follow your advice and take some time out.’ He grinned and tilted his shades up to look at her. ‘You’re not reacting with the sort of smug satisfaction I might have expected.’

‘I didn’t think that you would actually listen to what I said,’ Katy muttered, her whole body as rigid as a plank of wood.

She wanted to look away but her greedy eyes kept skittering back to him. He was just so unbelievably perfect. More perfect than anything she had conjured up in her fevered imaginings. His chest was broad and muscular, with just the right dusting of dark hair that made her draw her breath in sharply, and the line of dark hair running down from his belly button electrified her senses like a live wire. How was it possible for a man to be so sexy? So sinfully, darkly and dangerously sexy?

Every inch of him eclipsed her painful memories of Duncan and she was shocked that those memories had lingered for as long as they had.

Watching him, her imagination took flight. She thought of those long, clever fingers stroking her, touching her breasts, lingering to circle her nipples. She felt faint. Her nipples were tight and pinched, and between her legs liquid heat was pooling and dampening her bikini bottoms.

She realised that she had been fantasising about this man since they had stepped foot on the yacht, but those fantasies had been vague and hazy compared to the force of the graphic images filling her head as she looked away with a tight, determined expression.

It was his body, she thought. Seeing him like that, in nothing but a pair of black trunks, was like fodder for her already fevered imagination.

Under normal circumstances, she might have looked at him and appreciated him for the drop-dead, gorgeous guy that he was, but actually she wouldn’t have turned that very natural appreciation into a full-on mental sexual striptease that had him parading naked in her head.

But these weren’t normal circumstances and that was why her pragmatic, easy-going and level-headed approach to the opposite sex had suddenly deserted her.

‘Tell me about the deal.’ She launched weakly into the first topic of conversation that came into her head, and Lucas flung himself back into the deck chair and stared up at a faultlessly blue, cloudless sky.

He was usually more than happy to discuss work-related issues, except right now and right here that was the last thing he wanted to do. ‘Persuade me that you give a damn about it.’ He slanted a sideways look at her and then kept looking as delicate colour tinged her cheeks.

‘Of course I do.’ Katy cleared her throat. ‘I’m here because of it, aren’t I?’

‘Are you enjoying yourself?’ He folded his arms behind his head and stared at her. ‘You’re only here because of the deal but, now that you are here, are you having a good time?’

Katy opened her mouth to ask him what kind of question that was, because how on earth could she be having a good time when life as she knew it had been turned upside down? Except she blinked and thought that she was having a good time. ‘I’ve never been anywhere like this before,’ she told him. ‘When I was a kid, holidays were a week in a freezing-cold British seaside town. Don’t get me wrong, I adored my holidays, but this is...out of this world.’

She looked around her and breathed in the warm breeze, rich with the salty smell of the sea. ‘It’s a different kind of life having a father who’s the local parish priest,’ she confided honestly. ‘On the one hand, it was brilliant, because I never lacked love and support from both my parents, especially as I was an only child. They wanted more but couldn’t have them. My mum once told me that she had to restrain herself from lavishing gifts on me, but of course there was always a limit to what they could afford. And besides, as I’ve told you, they always made sure to tell me that money wasn’t the be-all and end-all.’ She looked at Lucas and smiled, somewhat surprised that she was telling him all this, not that any of it was a secret.

Never one to encourage confidences from women, Lucas was oddly touched by her confession because she was usually so outspoken in a tomboyish, challenging way.

‘Hence your entrenched disregard for money,’ he suggested drily. ‘Tell me about the down sides of life in a vicarage. I’ll be honest with you, you’re the first daughter of a man of the cloth I’ve ever met.’

The image of the happy family stuck in his mind and, in a rare bout of introspection, he thought back to his own troubled youth after his mother had died. His father had had the love, but he had just not quite known how to deliver it and, caught up in his own grief and his never-ending quest to find a substitute for the loss of his wife, he had left a young Lucas to find his own way. The independence Lucas was now so proud of, the mastery over his own emotions and his talent for self-control, suddenly seemed a little tarnished at the edges, too hard-won to be of any real value.

He dismissed the worrying train of thought and encouraged her to keep talking. She had a very melodic voice and he enjoyed the sound of it as much as he enjoyed the animation that lit up her ravishingly pretty, heart-shaped face.

‘Down sides... Well, now, let me have a think...!’ She smiled and lay down on the deck chair so that they were now both side by side, faces upturned to the brilliant blue sky above. She glanced across at him, expecting to see amusement and polite interest, just a couple of people chatting about nothing in particular. Certainly nothing that would hold the interest of a man like Lucas Cipriani. But his dark, fathomless eyes were strangely serious as he caught her gaze and held it for a few seconds, and she shivered, mouth going dry, ensnared by the gravity of his expression.

‘So?’ Lucas murmured, closing his eyes and enjoying the warmth and the rarity of not doing anything.

‘So...you end up always knowing that you have to set a good example because your parents are pillars of the community. I could never afford to be a rebel.’

Even when she had gone to university her background had followed her. She’d been able to have a good time, and stay out late and drink with the best of them, but she had never slept around or even come close to it. Maybe if she hadn’t had so many morals drilled into her from an early age she would have just got sex out of the way and then would have been relaxed when it came to finding relationships. Maybe she would have accepted that not all relationships were serious, that some were destined to fall by the wayside, but that didn’t mean they weren’t worthwhile.

It was a new way of thinking for Katy and she gave it some thought because she had always assumed, post-Duncan, that she would hang on to her virginity, would have learned her lesson, would be better equipped to make the right judgement calls.

Thinking that she could deviate from that path gave her a little frisson of excitement.

‘Not that I was ever tempted,’ she hurriedly expanded. ‘I had too much experience of seeing where drugs and drink and casual sex could lead a person. My dad is very active in the community and does a lot outside the village for down-and-outs. A lot of them ended up where they did because of poor choices along the way.’

‘I feel like I’m talking to someone from another planet.’

‘Why?’

‘Because your life is so vastly different from anything I’ve come across.’

Katy laughed. Lying side by side made it easier to talk to him. If they’d been sitting opposite one another at the table in the kitchen, with the yacht rocking softly as they ate, she wasn’t sure she would have been able to open up like this. She could spar with him and provoke him until she could see him gritting his teeth in frustration—in fact, she got a kick out of that—but this was different.

She couldn’t even remember having a conversation like this with Duncan, who had split his time talking about himself and flirting relentlessly with her.

‘What do you come across?’ she asked lightly, dropping her hands to either side of the deck chair and tracing little circles on the wooden decking.

‘Tough career women who don’t make a habit of getting too close to down-and-outs,’ Lucas told her wryly. ‘Unless, in the case of at least a couple of them who were top barristers, a crime had been committed and they happened to be confronted with one of those down-and-outs in a court of law.’

‘I remember you telling me,’ Katy murmured, ‘About those tough career women who never wanted more than you were prepared to give them and were always soothing and agreeable.’

Lucas laughed. That had been when he’d been warning her off him, just in case she got ideas into her head. On cue, he inclined his head slightly and looked at her. She was staring up at the sky, eyes closed. Her long, dark lashes cast shadows on her cheeks and her mouth, in repose, was a full, pink pout. The sun had turned her a pale biscuit-gold colour and brought out shades of strawberry blonde amidst the deep russets and copper of her hair. Eyes drifting down, he followed the line of her shoulders and the swell of her breasts under the bikini, which he had not really been able to appreciate when she had been hugging her knees to herself, making sure that as little of her body was on show as humanly possible.

The bikini was black and modest by any modern standard but nothing could conceal the tempting swell of her pert, small breasts, the barely there cleavage, the jut of her hip bones and the silky smoothness of her thighs.

Lucas didn’t bother to give in to consternation at the hot, pulsing swell of his arousal which, had she only opened her big green eyes and cast a sideways glance at him, she’d have noticed was distorting his swimming trunks.

He’d acknowledged her appeal from day one, from the very second she had walked into his office. No red-blooded male could have failed to. He’d also noted her belligerence and lack of filter when it came to speaking her mind, which was why he had decided to take on babysitting duties personally until his deal was safely in the bag. When you took into account that she had shimmered into his line of vision as a woman not averse to sleeping with married men, one who could not be trusted, it had seemed the obvious course of action.

But he knew, deep down, that even though he had dismissed any notion of going anywhere near Katy the prospect of being holed up with her for a fortnight had not exactly filled him with distaste.

He wondered whether he had even played with the forbidden thought of doing what his body wanted against the wishes of his brain. Or maybe he had been invigorated just by the novelty of having that mental tussle at all. In his well-ordered life, getting what he wanted had never posed a challenge, and internal debates about what he should or shouldn’t do rarely featured, especially when it came to women.

He thought that if she had lived down to expectations and proved herself to be the sort of girl who had no morals, and really might have tried her luck with him, he would have had no trouble in eating, breathing and sleeping work. However, she hadn’t, and the more his curiosity about her had been piqued the more he had been drawn to her like a wanderer hearing the call of a siren.

Which was so not him at all that he almost didn’t know how to deal with it.

Except, his body was dealing with it in the time-honoured way, he thought, and then hard on the heels of that thought he wondered what she would do if she looked and saw the kind of response she’d awakened in him.

Katy wasn’t sure whether it was the sudden silence, or just something thick and electric in the air, but she opened her eyes and turned her head, her mouth already opening to say something bland and chirpy to dispel the sudden tension.

His eyes caught hers and she stopped breathing. She had a drowning sensation as she was swallowed up in the deep, dark, quiet depths of his eyes. Those eyes were telegraphing a message to her, or they seemed to be. Was she imagining it? She had no experience of a man like him. That cool, brooding, speculative expression seemed to be inviting a response, but was it? Flustered and confused, her eyes dipped...

And then there was no doubt exactly what message was being telegraphed.

For a few seconds, Katy froze while her mind went into free fall. He was turned on. Did he think that he could try it on and she would fall in line because she was easy? Who knew, he probably still believed that she was the sort who had affairs with married men, even though he surely should know better, because she had shared stuff with him, told him about her childhood and her parents and the morals they had instilled in her. Maybe he hadn’t believed her. Maybe he had taken it all with a pinch of salt because he was suspicious and mistrustful.

She wasn’t easy. And yet, unleashed desire flooded through her in an unwanted torrent, crashing through common sense and good intentions. She wanted this man, this unsuitable man, and she wanted him with a craving that was as powerful as a depth charge.

The shocking intensity of a physical response she had never, ever felt towards any man, including Duncan, scared the living daylights out of her. Mumbling something under her breath, she leapt to her feet, the glittering blue of the infinity pool beckoning like an oasis of safety away from the onslaught of confusion overwhelming her.

Heart hammering in her chest, she scrambled forward, missed the step that gave down to the smooth wood around the pool and found herself flying forward.

She landed with a painful thump, her knees stinging where she had grazed them after her airborne flight.

Clutching her leg, she watched in fascinated slow motion as Lucas strode towards her, every lean muscle of his body intent.

‘What were you thinking?’ he asked urgently, scooping her up and ignoring her protests that he put her down because she was absolutely fine. ‘You took off like a bat out of hell. Something I said?’

He was striding away from the pool area, carrying her as easily as he would carry a couple of cushions. Katy clutched his broad shoulders, horribly aware that in this semi-folded position there were bits of her on view that made her want to die an early death from embarrassment.

One glance down and he would practically be able to see the shadow of one of her nipples.

‘Where are you taking me?’ she croaked. ‘This is ridiculous. I tripped and fell!’

‘You could have broken something.’

‘I haven’t broken anything!’ Katy practically sobbed.

‘How do you know?’

‘Because if I had I wouldn’t be able to walk!’

‘You’re not walking. I’m carrying you. How much do you weigh, by the way? You’re as light as a feather. If I didn’t see how much food you’re capable of putting away, I’d be worried.’

‘I’ve always been thin,’ Katy said faintly, barely noticing where they were going because she was concentrating very hard on making sure no more of her bikini-clad body went on show. She felt she might be on the verge of passing out. ‘Please just take me to my cabin. That would be fine. I can clean my knee up and I’ll be as right as rain.’

‘Nonsense. How could I live with myself if I didn’t do the gentlemanly thing and make sure you’re all right? I wasn’t brought up to ignore damsels in distress.’

‘I’m not one of those!’

‘Here we are,’ Lucas intoned with satisfaction. He kicked open the door and, when Katy tore her focus away from her excruciating attempts to keep her body safely tucked away in the swimsuit, she realised where he had taken her.

Away from the safety of the pool and straight into the hellfire of his private quarters.

CHAPTER FIVE

LUCAS’S CABIN WAS different from hers insofar as it was twice the size and unnervingly masculine: dark-grey silky throw on the bed, dark-grey pillows, built-in furniture in rich walnut that matched the wooden flooring. He laid her on the bed and she immediately wriggled into a sitting position, wishing that she had something to tug down to cover herself, but instead having to make do with arranging herself into the most modest position possible, back upright, legs rammed close together and hands primly folded on her lap.