Font Size:  

She nodded. ‘And your father wasn’t able to...?’

‘He wasn’t in the picture,’ he repeated.

He stopped walking abruptly, and before she could bump into him and tumble backwards he turned and hooked an arm around her waist. The gesture was intimate; it set little flames burning beneath her flesh.

‘Look.’

He nodded straight ahead and, curious, she moved in that direction.

‘Don’t fall in,’ he said softly, from right behind her.

The drop from the top of the volcano was several hundred feet, and there was a lot of stone along the way.

She threw him a withering look over her shoulder—and then missed her footing altogether, stumbling on the rocky path and pitching forward dangerously.

With an oath, he reached for her and pulled her backwards, holding her against his chest. Her breathing was forced, her heart pounding—though from adrenalin or the proximity to Rio, Tilly couldn’t have said.

‘You are unbelievably clumsy,’ he snapped, but his eyes were on her lips, and his hands, firm against her back at first, were soft now, moving slightly, caressing her through the flimsy fabric of her dress.

His body was firm and hard; he smelled like sunshine and sweat. A pulse between her legs was firing wildly and her dream was playing out right before her eyes. She wanted him to kiss her. No, she wanted to kiss him.

Cressida would have. She would have wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled his head down, leaving him in little doubt of just what she wanted.

But, though they looked like twins, Tilly was nothing like Cressida.

‘I lost my footing,’ she said, not breaking their contact. ‘I wasn’t going to tumble to my death.’

‘Mio Dio,’ he said darkly, his eyes caressing her face where she wanted his fingers, his mouth to touch. ‘That is exactly what you would have done if you’d been a foot closer.’

‘But I wasn’t,’ she murmured, not sure what they were arguing about any more. ‘Rio...?’

Her eyes moved to his lips and she darted her tongue out, moistening the outline of her mouth, staring at his, needing him to kiss her.

His chest was moving rapidly, but he wasn’t out of shape. It was something else that was causing his breath to explode from him.

‘I feel as though I need to shadow you from now on,’ he said with a shake of his head, his eyes glued to her face. ‘To keep you out of danger.’

Her smile lacked humour. ‘I think there’s danger here, too.’

His eyes flickered with recognition. She was right. He was about two mad moments away from plundering her mouth, from tearing at her dress and laying her on the ground. Her, Cressida Wyndham, a woman he barely knew, a woman who was on the island as his guest.

He dropped his arms and stepped backwards, moving his attention back to the volcano. ‘Can you be trusted to look without falling?’

He’d flicked a switch and was back to normal. As though his hands hadn’t just been stroking her back, his legs straddling hers, his face an inch away and aching to kiss her.

Tilly found it harder to return her mind to its scheduled programming. She jerked her head in agreement, but as she stepped closer to the edge of the mountain he stayed close. Close enough to grab her.

The temptation to fake another fall was strong, but she resisted it.

‘I have never seen anything like this,’ she said honestly.

She hadn’t been sure what to expect, but not this. It looked as though the earth had been dug out, hollowed, and right at the bottom of the valley there was a lagoon so blue she ached to swim in it.

‘I had no idea. Is this what happens to volcanoes when they die?’

‘I believe each one is different,’ he said.

‘Can you go down there?’

Source: www.allfreenovel.com
Articles you may like