“Your younger brother?”

Dylan’s mouth set in a grim line and the look in his eyes altered in a way that chilled Kara’s bones. She saw the he didn’t just dislike Justin. He hated him.

“You’re not close?”

“He’s my brother, and I never want to lay eyes on him again.”

“Oh.” Kara didn’t want to say anything to stop him talking now he’d begun.

“Shall I tell you something really terrible?” Dylan’s anguished eyes settled on Kara’s, and she wasn’t certain she wanted him to say his next line. Not because she feared it would change her opinion of him; rather that she feared how he’d feel after letting the dark thoughts out.

“I wish it had been him.” His quiet, hollow words hung in the air. “I wish he’d been the one swinging from that fucking tree, not Billy.”

Kara considered this, studying his face.

“Do you expect me to think badly of you for that?”

He half-laughed, a harsh, humourless sound. “Don’t you? I just wished my baby brother dead.”

“No. No you didn’t. You wished that Billy wasn’t dead.” Kara placed her hands flat over Dylan’s collarbones. “You’re a good person, Dylan, but you’re only human. You’ve lost someone you loved, and it hurts like hell.”

“How do you know I’m a good person Kara? We’ve only known each other a couple of months. I could be anybody.”

It stung to hear him diminish their relationship, and he was wrong, in part at least. They might not have known each other for a long time, but they knew each other well. It had been like the speed date that never ended since the moment she’d met him: so much intensity crammed into such a short time. Never in her life had she met a man who felt so effortlessly right. The fact that they were having this conversation while she was naked and wrapped around him on a beach was testament to that. She followed where he led, because she trusted him not to take her anywhere she didn’t want to go, and she trusted him to follow her when she wanted to lead, too. She felt utterly herself with him, free to be as bold, as brazen, as womanly as she wanted.

“You’re right,” she said, almost exasperated. “Sure. You could be anybody. I could be anybody. There are no guarantees that this won’t all go spectacularly wrong, but right now it feels spectacularly right to me. And to you.”

Kara ran her hands over his hair and down the back of his neck.

“Spectacularly right,” she whispered again, feeling him coming back towards her from the dark places in his head.

“There’s other stuff I should tell you,” he said, making her heart twist with the pain and vulnerability in his eyes.

“Tell me another time,” she murmured. She didn’t want to wring it out of him. She trusted him to tell her in his own good time. “There’s no rush.”

He reached out then and traced his fingers down her face.

“But…”

Kara placed a finger over his lips. “Shh. Look around us.” She glanced around the tiny bay, at the glow of the fire, and then back to the incredible man beneath her. “We might never get this kind of perfect again.”

Dylan’s eyes tracked around as Kara’s had, taking in all of the magical details. “Spectacularly right,” he said softly, and she turned her mouth into his hand and kissed his palm.

The gesture was all it took to tip the emotionally charged conversation over the edge, sending it spiralling into back into the roiling deeps of desire. He gathered her against him and kissed her breathless with hot, hungry kisses that sent intense, sexual throbs shooting through her body. She didn’t just want him. She needed him in a way that bordered on primal.

He shifted position when she reached for the button of his jeans, taking her with him and lying her down on her back, settling over her as he kicked his jeans off and ripped the silver foil on the condom.

She swallowed hard around the sudden ache in her throat as he positioned himself, wanting him more than she’d ever wanted anyone in her life. He paused then, lowering his head and closing his eyes to give her the slowest, sweetest of kisses as he held her hands in the cool sand beside her head.

She heard the catch in his breath as he lowered his hips down onto hers, and the answering gasp in her own as he sank himself all the way inside her. Kara felt in that moment how intense pleasure could be almost painful: so excruciatingly, mind-numbingly good that it filled every cell with a fierce yearning for more, and for sweet, sweet release.

She wrapped her arms around his broad shoulders when he let go of her hands, and they moved in slow, sacred union.

Kara opened her eyes. “I could love you, Dylan Day.”

He kissed her again, open-mouthed, his hands in her hair. “I could love you too.”

Lit by the firelight and bathed in the warmth of the deepest intimacy, they eased each other’s weary hearts with a meander through the best cocktail menu in the world.

A supremely slow, comfortable screw.

A gasping, mind-blowing orgasm.

The most incredible sex on the beach ever.

Chapter Twenty -Six

Lucien poured wine first into Sophie’s glass and then into his own, watching her as she watched the sunset. They’d discovered the laid-back beach restaurant on their last visit to the island, a sultry open air place hewn from the rock with mellow music, fabulous cocktails and great food.

“About being married, Sophie…”

She turned her attention to him, and for a second her gentle smile and the sunset gleam on her bare shoulders made him forget the conversation he wanted to initiate and contemplate taking her home to fuck her instead.

“What about it?”

He dragged himself back to the matter in hand. “I don’t want it to change things.”

Sophie smiled. She’d been half expecting this conversation; marriage had always been low on his agenda and she recognised that he feared what it would do to their relationship. She didn’t share his fears.

“Lucien. We’ve been together for years. We have a child. Being married won’t change any of that.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because you won’t let it, for starters.”

He huffed under his breath. “I don’t want to start fucking in bed with the lights off once a month.”

Laughter bubbled up in Sophie’s throat. “Okay. Twice a month, if you insist.”

“I’m being fucking serious, Sophie. I see people get married and then, boom. It’s all gone. Tedium. Mundaneness.” He scowled. Or worse.”