Love Islands: Red-Hot Sunsets

CHAPTER SIX

EXCEPT KATY WASN’T entirely sure how she was going to initiate breaking all those rules. She’d never done so before and she was dealing with a man who had probably cut his teeth breaking rules. He’d made no bones about being experienced. Was he expecting a similar level of experience? Of course he was!

She quailed. Mouth dry, she stared at him in silence as he whipped off his shirt in one fluid movement and then stood there, a bronzed god, staring down at her. She greedily ate him up with her eyes, from his broad shoulders to his six-pack and the dark line of hair that disappeared under the low-slung swimming trunks.

Lucas hooked his fingers under the waistband of the trunks and Katy shot up onto her elbows, fired with a heady mixture of thrilling excitement and crippling apprehension.

What would he do if she were to tell him that she was a virgin? Run a mile, was the first thought that sprang to mind. Katy didn’t want him to run a mile. She wanted him near her and against her and inside her. It made her feel giddy just thinking about it.

In the spirit of trying to be someone who might actually know what to do in a situation like this, she reached behind her to fumble unsuccessfully with the almost non-existent spaghetti strings that kept the bikini top in position.

Lucas couldn’t have been more turned on. He liked that shyness. It wasn’t something with which he was familiar. He leant over her, caging her in.

‘You smell of the sun,’ he murmured. ‘And I don’t think I’ve ever wanted any woman as much as I want you right now.’

‘I want you too,’ Katy replied huskily. She tentatively traced the column of his neck then, emboldened, his firm jawline and then the bunched muscles of his shoulder blades. Her heart was thumping hard and every jerky breath she took threatened to turn into a groan.

He eased her lips apart and flicked his tongue inside her mouth, exploring and tasting her, and setting off a dizzying series of reactions that galvanised every part of her body into furious response. Her small hands tightened on his shoulders and she rubbed her thighs together, frantic to ease the tingling between them.

Lucas nudged her with his bulging erection, gently prising her legs apart and settling himself between them, then moving slowly as he continued to kiss her.

He tugged at her lower lip with his teeth, teasing her until she was holding her breath, closing her eyes and trembling like a leaf.

Katy didn’t think that anything in the world could have tasted as good as his mouth on her and she pulled him against her with urgent hands.

She wished she’d rid herself of her bikini because now it was an encumbrance, separating their bodies.

She wriggled under him, reaching behind herself and, knowing what she wanted to do, Lucas obliged, urging her up so that he could tug free the ties. Then he rose up to straddle her and looked down, his dark eyes slumberous with desire.

Katy had never thought about sex without thinking about love and she had never thought about love without painting a tableau of the whole big deal, from marriage to babies in a thirty-second fast-forward film reel in her head.

Big mistake. In all those imaginings, her body had just been something all tied up with the bigger picture and not something needing fulfilment in its own right. The fact she had never been tempted had only consolidated in her head that sex was not at all what everyone shouted about.

Even the momentous decision that desire had propelled her into making, to ditch her hard and fast principles and sleep with him, had been made with no real prior knowledge of just how wonderfully liberating it would feel for her.

Yes, she had imagined it.

In practice, it was all oh, so wildly different. She felt joyously free and absolutely certain that what she was doing was the right thing for her to do.

Burning up, she watched Lucas as he looked at her. He was so big, so dangerously, sinfully handsome, and he was gazing at her as though she was something priceless. The open hunger in his eyes drove away all her inhibitions and she closed her eyes on a whimper as he leaned back down to trail his tongue against her collarbone.

Then he pinned her hands to her sides, turning her into a willing captive so that he could fasten his mouth on one nipple. He suckled, pulling it into his mouth while grazing the stiffened bud with his tongue.

This was sex as Katy had never imagined it. Wild, raw and basic, carrying her away on a tide of passion that was as forceful as a tsunami. This wasn’t the physical connection from a kind, considerate and thoughtful guy who had wooed her with flowers and talked about a happy-ever-after future. This was the physical connection from a guy who had promised nothing but sex and would walk away from her the minute their stay on his yacht had come to an end.

His mouth and tongue against her nipple were sending piercing arrows of sensation through her body. She was on fire when he drew back to rid himself of his swimming trunks. The bulge she had felt pressing against her was impressively big, big enough for her to feel a moment of sheer panic, because how on earth could something so big fit inside her and actually feel good?

But that fear wasn’t allowed to take root because desire was smothering it. He settled back on the bed and then tugged down the bikini bottoms.

Katy closed her eyes and heard him laugh softly.

‘Don’t you like what you see?’ Lucas teased and she cautiously looked at him. ‘Because I very much like what I see.’

‘Do you?’ Katy whispered, very much out of her depth and feverishly making all sorts of comparisons in her head between her boyish figure and the women he probably took to his bed. She wasn’t going to dwell on it, but she wasn’t an idiot. Lucas Cipriani could have any woman he wanted and, whilst she was confident enough about her looks, that confidence took a very understandable beating when she considered that the man in bed with her was every woman’s dream guy. ‘Sexy’ didn’t get more outrageous.

Lucas felt a spurt of pure rage against Powell, a man whose existence he had known nothing about a week ago. Not only had he destroyed Katy’s faith in the opposite sex, but he had also pummelled her self-esteem. Any human being with functioning eyesight could have told her that she was a show-stopper.

He bent over to taste her pouting mouth whilst at the same time gently inserting his hand between her thighs.

She wasn’t clean-shaven down there and he liked that; he enjoyed the feel of her soft, downy fluff against his fingers. He liked playing with it before inserting one long finger into her.

It was electrifying. He slid his finger lazily in long strokes, finding the core of her and the tight little bud that throbbed as he zeroed in on it. In the grip of sensations she had never known before, Katy whimpered and clutched him, all frantic need and craving. She was desperate to ride the crest of a building wave and her whimpers turned into soft, hitched moans as she began to arch her spine, pushing her slight breasts up, inviting him to tease a nipple with his tongue.

He released her briefly to fetch a condom from his wallet then he was over her, nudging her legs apart with his thigh and settling between them. Nerves firmly back in place, Katy smoothed exploratory hands along his back, tracing the hardness of muscle and sinew.

Her coppery hair was in tangles over her shoulders, spread like flames across the pillows. Lucas stroked some of the tangles back and kissed her.

‘I want you,’ Katy muttered into his mouth, and she felt him smile. Desire was a raging force inside her, ripping all control out of her grasp and stripping her of her ability to think straight, or even to think at all.

She felt his impatience and his need matching hers as he pushed into her, a deep, long thrust that made her cry out. He stilled and frowned.

‘Don’t stop,’ she begged him, rising up so that he could sink deeper into her. She was so wet for him and so ready for this.

‘You’re so tight,’ Lucas murmured huskily in a driven undertone. ‘I can’t describe the sensation, mia bella.’

‘Don’t talk!’ Katy gasped, urging him on until he was thrusting hard, and the tight pain gave way to a soaring sense of pleasure as he carried her higher and higher until, at last, she came...and it was the most out-of-body experience she could ever have imagined. Wracked with shudders, she let herself fly until she weakly descended back down to planet Earth. Then, all she wanted to do was wrap her arms around him and hold him tightly against her.

Lucas was amused when she hugged him. He wasn’t one for hugs, but there was something extraordinarily disingenuous about her and he found that appealing.

He gently moved off her and then looked down and frowned, his brain only slowly making connections that began to form into a complete picture, one that he could scarcely credit.

There wasn’t much blood, just a few drops, enough for him to work out that none of that shyness and hesitancy had been put on. She’d blushed like a virgin because that was exactly what she was. He looked at her as the colour drained from her face.

‘This is your first time, isn’t it?’

For Katy, that was the equivalent of a bucket of cold water being poured over her. She hadn’t thought that he would find out. She had vaguely assumed that if she didn’t say anything then Lucas would never know that she had lost her virginity to him. She hadn’t wanted him to know because she had sensed, with every pore of her being, that he wouldn’t be thrilled.

For a man who didn’t do commitment, and who gave warnings about the perils of involvement, a virgin would represent the last word in unacceptable.

She quailed and clenched her fists because making love to Lucas had been the most wonderful thing in her life, just the most beautiful, right thing she had ever done, and now it was going to be spoiled because, quite rightly, he was going to hit the roof.

She wriggled and tried to yank some of the covers up because there was no way she was going to have an argument with him in the nude.

‘So what?’ She eyed him mutinously under the thick fringe of her lashes and glowered. ‘It’s really no big deal.’

‘No big deal?’ Lucas parroted incredulously. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘Because I know how you would have reacted,’ Katy muttered, hugging her knees to her chest and refusing to meet his eyes for fear of the message she would read there.

‘You know, do you?’

Katy sneaked a glance at him, and just as fast her eyes skittered away. He was sprawled indolently on the bed, an in-your-face reminder of the intimacy they had just shared. She was covering up for all she was worth but he was carelessly oblivious to his nakedness.

‘I wanted to do it.’ She stuck her chin up and challenged him to argue with that. ‘And I knew that if I told you that I’d never slept with anyone before you’d have run a mile. Wouldn’t you?’

Lucas grimaced. ‘I probably would have been a little cautious,’ he conceded.

‘Run a mile.’

‘But I would have been flattered,’ he admitted with even more honesty. ‘I would also have been more gentle and taken my time.’ He raked his fingers through his hair and vaulted out of the bed to pace the floor, before snatching a towel which was slung over the back of a chair and loosely settling it around his waist. Then he circled to sit on the bed next to her. ‘It is a big deal,’ he said gently. He took her hands in his and stroked her wrists until her clenched fists relaxed. ‘And if I was a little rough for you, then I apologise.’

‘Please don’t apologise.’ She smiled cautiously and stroked his face, and it was such an intimate gesture that she almost yanked her hand back, but he didn’t seem to mind; indeed he caught her hand and turned it over so that he could place a very tender kiss on the underside of her wrist.

‘You’re beautiful, cara. I don’t understand how it is that you’ve remained a virgin. Surely there must have been other men before Powell?’

Katy winced at the reminder of the man who had been responsible for landing them here together on this yacht. It was fair to say that, however hateful her memories of him were, they seemed a lot less hateful now. Maybe one day she might even mentally thank him because she couldn’t see how she could ever regret having slept with Lucas.

‘That was another of those down sides to having parents who were pillars of the community.’ Katy let loose a laugh. ‘There were always expectations. And especially in a tiny place, when you’re growing up, everyone knows everyone else. Reputations are lost in the snap of a finger. I didn’t really think about that, though,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘I just knew that I wanted the whole love and marriage thing, so my standards were maybe a bit on the high side.’

She sighed and smiled ruefully at Lucas, who was looking at her with such sizzling interest that every pulse in her body raced into overdrive.

‘When Duncan came along, I’d just returned from university and I wasn’t quite sure what direction my life was going to take. I remember my mother and I talking about the social scene at university, and my mum asking me about the boys, and something must have registered that I needed to take the next step, which was finding someone special.’ She gazed at Lucas. ‘I slept with you because I really wanted to. You said a lot of stuff...basically about seizing the day...’

‘I had no idea I was addressing a girl who had no experience.’

‘But, you see, that’s not the point.’ Katy was keen to impress this on him. ‘The point is that you made me think about things differently. I know this isn’t going anywhere but at least you were honest about that and you gave me a choice.’ Duncan had denied her the truth about himself and, even if this was just a one night stand, which was something she had always promised herself she would never do, was it really worse to lose her virginity to Lucas than to a liar like Duncan?

She gazed up at him earnestly and Lucas lowered his head and very tenderly kissed her on the lips. He could have taken her again, right then, but she would be sore. Next time, he intended to make it up to her, to take his time. It blew his mind to think that she had come to him as a virgin. It was a precious gift and he knew that, even though he couldn’t fully understand what had led her to give it to him.

‘Yes, cara, there will be no “for ever after” with us but believe me when I tell you that, for the time we’re together, I will take you to paradise and back. But before that...can I interest you in a shower?’ He stood up and looked down at her slender perfection.

‘With you?’

‘Why not?’ Lucas raised his eyebrows. ‘You’d be surprised how different an experience it can be when you’re in a shower with your lover.’

Katy shivered pleasurably at that word...lover. She shook her head and laughed. ‘I think I’m going to relax here for a bit, then I’ll go back to my cabin.’

Of course there would be no ‘for ever after’...and she was tempted to tell him that she understood that well enough without having to be reminded of it.

‘Why?’ Lucas frowned and then heard himself inviting her to stay with him, which was astonishing, because he had always relished his privacy, even when he was involved with someone. Sex was a great outlet, and his appetite for it was as healthy as the next man’s, but when the sex was over his craving for his own space always took precedence over post-coital closeness. He’d never spent the night with a woman.

‘Because I need to be on my own for a bit.’

Right then, Lucas felt that by the time they were ready to leave this yacht he would have introduced her to the joys of sharing showers and shown her how rewarding it could be to spend the night in his bed...

* * *

Katy had fallen into something of a sleep when she heard the bang on the door to her cabin. For the first time since she had arrived on Lucas’s cruiser, she had retired to bed without anything to eat, but then it had been late by the time she had eventually left his cabin.

Having intended to sneak out while he was showering, she had remained where she was and they had spent the next few hours in one another’s arms. To his credit, he had not tried to initiate sex again.

‘I can show you a lot of other ways we can satisfy one another,’ he had murmured, and he had proceeded to do just that.

In the end, she had been the one whose body had demanded more than just the touch of his mouth and the feel of his long, skilful fingers. She had been the one to guide him into her and to demand that he come inside her.

It had been a marathon session and she had made her way back to her cabin exhaustedly, still determined not to stay the night in his room, because if she slept in her own bed then she would somehow be able to keep control of the situation.

‘Katy! Open up!’

Katy jerked up with a start at the sound of Lucas’s voice bellowing at her through the locked door. She leapt out of the bed, half-drugged with sleep, and yanked open the door, every fibre in her body responding with panic to the urgency in his voice.

She looked at him in consternation. He was in a pair of jeans and a black, figure-hugging tee-shirt. Not the sort of clothes anyone would consider wearing for a good night’s sleep. Her already panicked antennae went into overdrive.

‘Lucas! What time is it?’

‘You need to get dressed immediately. It’s a little after five in the morning.’

‘But why?’

‘Don’t ask questions, Katy. Just do it.’ He forged into the room and began opening drawers, yanking out a pair of jeans, quickly followed by the first tee-shirt that came to hand. Even at that hour in the morning, it would be balmy outside. ‘Maria is sick.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Very sick. It has all the makings of acute appendicitis. Any delay and peritonitis will kick in, so you need to dress and you need to dress fast. I can’t leave you on this yacht alone.’

Katy dashed into the bathroom and began stripping off the oversized tee-shirt she slept in, replacing it with the jeans and tee-shirt she had grabbed from his outstretched hand.

‘Do you think I might get up to no good if you’re not around to keep an eye on me?’ she asked breathlessly, only half-joking because that deeply intimate step she had taken with him had clearly not been a deeply intimate step for him. He was a man who could detach, as he had made perfectly clear.

‘Not now, Katy.’

‘How will we get her to the hospital?’ She flushed, ashamed that her thoughts had not been one hundred percent on the woman of whom she had grown fond during the short time she had been on the yacht.

‘Not by helicopter,’ Lucas told her, his every movement invested with speed as he took her arm and began leading her hurriedly out of the bedroom. ‘Too long to get my pilot here and nowhere to land near the hospital.’

They were walking quickly to a part of the yacht Katy hadn’t known existed, somewhere in the bowels of the massive cruiser.

‘Fortunately, I am equipped to deal with any emergency. And to answer your earlier question...’ He briefly glanced down at her, rosy, tousled and so utterly adorable that she literally took his breath away. ‘I’m not taking you with me because I think you might get up to no good in my absence. I’m taking you with me because if something happened to you and I wasn’t around I would never forgive myself.’

Something flared inside her and she felt a lump in her throat, then she quickly told herself not to be an idiot, because that wasn’t a declaration of caring; it was a simple statement of fact. If she was left alone on the yacht and she needed help of any sort, she would be unable to swim to shore and unable to contact him. How would he, or anyone in his position, be able to live with that?

Things were happening at the speed of light now. In a move she thought was as impressive as a master magician’s sleight of hand, the side of the yacht opened up to reveal a speedboat, an expensive toy within an expensive toy. Maria, clearly in a great deal of pain but smiling bravely, was waiting for them and was soon ensconced, to be taken to the island.

Dawn was breaking as they hit the island, a rosy, blushing dawn that revealed lush trees and flowers and narrow, winding roads disappearing up sloping hills.

A car was waiting for them, a four-wheel drive with an elderly man behind the wheel. They reached the town in under half an hour and then Maria was met in Accident and Emergency and whizzed through in a wheelchair, everything moving as though orchestrated.

Katy had barely had time to draw breath. Only when the older woman had been wheeled into the operating theatre, and they were sitting in the small hospital café with a cup of coffee in front of them, did she begin to pay attention to her surroundings...and then it registered.

‘Your name is all over this hospital...’

Lucas shifted uncomfortably and glanced around him. ‘So it would seem.’

‘But why?’

‘My money went towards building most of it.’ He shrugged, as though that was the most natural response in the world. ‘My father’s family owned a villa here and he spent his holidays on the island with my mother and me when I was very young. It’s about the only thing my father didn’t end up giving away to one of the ex-wives who fleeced him in their divorce proceedings. I expect he had strong sentimental attachments to it. There was a prolonged period when the villa got very little use but, as soon as I was able, I began the process of renovation. I have the money, so when the head of the hospital came to me for help it was only natural for me to offer it.’