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Trailing lower, he grazed over the delectable curve of her backside, skirting the flimsy fabric as though his fingers might just, possibly, inch beneath. He didn’t know who he was tormenting more, Talia or himself.
Lord, how much had he had missed the way her eyes darkened as they locked with his; and the faint parting of her lips as her breath escaped, ragged and torn?
Even now she flicked her tongue out over her lips, as effective as a lick over the hardest part of his body.
‘If we don’t get out of the ocean soon, I think we might end up giving people a show,’ she whispered.
‘The words, Talia.’ His voice scraped through him, and as much as he hated that he was revealing so much, he was helpless to prevent it.
‘You’re impossible,’ she managed at last, and he revelled in the undiluted surrender in her tone. ‘Fine, I want this. You. Are you happy now?’
‘Ecstatic,’ he growled, pulling her right up against him and slamming his mouth into hers.
Because whatever else he told himself, he’d been dreaming of her—intimately—ever since that first day in his office. Every fantasy hotter than the last—yet not a single one of them matching up to how she truly felt in reality.
The way her lips parted for him, her head angling for a deeper fit.
He ran his hands over her again, glorying in the way she moulded herself to his touch. Matching him as naturally as ever. Somehow, still—even he wasn’t even sure how he kept his resolve—maintaining that tiny pocket between them where her heat would otherwise have met his need.
As if it had only been yesterday, and not three years ago, that she’d left his presence for good. As if all that torment had been little more than some dreadful phantasm. As if she’d never broken him at all.
Enough.
Abruptly, he released her, dropping her lightly into the ocean and letting the water swirl all that heat, all those memories away. They didn’t belong in this new scenario and he had no intention of letting them hop along for the ride.
‘Let’s go.’
Her breathing was shallow and fast, and the beast in him revelled in that fact.
‘Where?’
/> ‘My hotel room,’ he barked out. ‘Any objections?’
‘Not exactly.’ And there it was...that hint of mischief he loved so much. ‘In fact, I thought you’d never ask.’
CHAPTER TEN
IT HAD TO be the longest walk from the beach to find a taxi, with neither of them wanting to speak or to break the spell that seemed to entwine them. Not an awkward silence but more a laden one, heavy with anticipation.
Then they slid into the taxi, Liam’s leg pressed tightly against hers, searing her where she sat, yet both of them fighting every primitive urge to touch anywhere else lest they found themselves unable to keep their hands off each other.
The back of a taxi was certainly not the ideal setting, the audience even less so.
The journey seemed to take an eternity. With every second that delicious fraught, charged need between them cranked up another notch. Then another.
But finally they arrived, the stunning Island Clinic’s hotel, a more than welcome sight. It was all Talia could do not to tumble out of the taxi, but she was gratified when Liam, having shoved more than enough money at their driver with a hasty word of thanks, grabbed her hand and hurried them both through the lobby and into the elevator.
His arm was snaking around her waist even as the doors pinged closed, hauling her to him and claiming her mouth with his own as if he couldn’t wait a moment longer.
She knew she couldn’t.
Looping her hands around his neck, Talia pulled her body as close to him as possible, moulding herself to him so that there wasn’t a spare millimetre of space between them. But it still wasn’t close enough.
He plundered her mouth with his tongue, thrilling and daring, and it felt like both a promise and warning of what was to come. He kissed her until the roaring in her ears felt almost deafening, and then he blazed a trail all the way across her jaw and down the line of her neck, stopping only to offer extra special consideration to that sensitive hollow by her collarbone.
How had she forgotten quite what that talented mouth could do to her? Even in the fantasies she’d like to pretend she didn’t have, the memories she’d replayed like old, X-rated movies, she had somehow downplayed the incredible effect he had on her.
It was a wrench when he tore his mouth from hers as the elevator finally slowed, and Talia felt almost ridiculously grateful when he took her hand once again, striding down the corridor and sliding his key card against the room lock.
