I’d never been so attracted to anyone.

“You’re beautiful,” he murmured.

“So are you...”

He kissed me.

His lips were softer than rabbit fur, softer than satin pillows. Kissing Galloway was like snipping the anchors holding me on earth and floating in utter sweetness.

But then his hands came up and captured my cheeks. His feet came forward and imprisoned my body. And his lips lost their soft sweetness, turning into something entirely lost.

“G—” I panted as his kiss became stronger, faster, wilder. The taste of desperation laced our senses while our tongues tried to memorize every slippery sensation.

The explosion of liquorice and musky passion drugged me until my fingers scrambled at his clothing, dying to touch his flaming skin and put an end to my self-inflicted misery.

I moaned as he clutched me harder.

I cried out as his teeth replaced his lips, nipping their way from my mouth to my throat.

My back arched, my body swayed, giving up all control. I didn’t want to fight. Not anymore.

But then, we were moving.

Galloway’s fingers tugged my bikini top, freeing the black triangles, pulling the useless apparel away from my sex-swollen body.

His mouth tore away from my neck, his eyes transformed into blue-silver beacons matching the sunrise for spectacular beauty.

I followed his lead, gasping as the warm tide washed away the sand on my feet, quickly licking up my calves.

I shivered as Galloway bent his knees and took my nipple into his mouth. My hands flew up, fingers threading like music notes into his hair, holding his face close.

His teeth nipped, my body turned liquid, matching the waves with moisture. And something happened, something that had never happened before.

I lost sense of time, of space, of right and wrong.

I forgot about Conner and Pippa and the crash and the island and the fact I might never see my home again.

All I knew, all I cared about, was the trembling, aching man in my arms and the magical ability our bodies had to delete everything with pleasure.

Letting me go, Galloway tore off his t-shirt and yanked at the Velcro holding his board-shorts. He was nothing but heat and crazy and yearning. But beneath his molten smoulder, he looked at me as if I’d broken yet another piece of him. I’d shattered whatever walls he’d erected and stood in the rubble of his mind. He looked broken but also cured.

I fell and fell.

I fell from disaster and found salvation in his hold.

His erection sprung free as he kicked his board-shorts to languish on the tide’s surface. He was past caring for the safety of his limited wardrobe. “Come here.” His arm snaked out, lassoing me to his body as his fingers unthreaded the black bows on my hips.

The final piece of my bikini came away, and we stood before each other, painted with russets and apricots of the new sun.

I licked my lips as he hoisted me up. Instinctually, my legs wrapped around his hips, pressing myself against the hardness I desperately wanted.

The thought of condoms and contraception flickered and snuffed out. If we did this, we wouldn’t do it with prior conversation of past lovers or health history. We did this out of trust and agreement that we came together bare—both body and soul.

His muscles bunched where he held me, his face tortured with patience and want.

This wasn’t the time for long sensory overloads. This was the time to feed our ravenous hunger and give in.

Holding his gaze, I reached between us and grabbed his cock.

He jerked, biting his lip.

Our eyes screamed everything we couldn’t say as I silently arched in his hold and positioned him at my entrance.

His jaw sewed tight as I achingly slowly slid onto him. My legs spasmed around his hips, my vision spluttered to greys and shadows as the blissful joy echoed from my core.

I’d never felt so in control and so controlled in all my life. Never felt so full and empty.

When I’d taken as much as his length as I could, I paused.

But he didn’t let me stop.

His large hand landed on my hipbone, gently pushing me the final inch, pressing past pleasurable pain, inserting more than just his body but his heart into my chest, too.

We stood quaking with the tide lapping around us, our breathing the same torn rattle.

As much as I didn’t want to break the mood, I had to give one tiny instruction. I’d accepted that I was wrong to stay away from him. But I wasn’t wrong about my fears. Pregnancy could never happen. We could find happiness together, but that was where our coupling had to end.

Holding him close, I whispered in his ear. “Love me, take me, I’m yours. But don’t come in me.”

His body jolted; his eyes searched mine. Understanding followed swiftly and his cock twitched inside.

We groaned together, and he surprised me by pressing his forehead to mine and thrusting up. “I promise.”

My heart shed its final prison, becoming a crazed winged creature desperate for him. Knowing he would help me prevent a future of dreadful uncertainty allowed me to fully relax since we’d met at the airport in Los Angeles.

Because even then, I’d known. I’d felt his soul casting its lure to tempt mine. I felt the barbed hooks making their way slowly into my psyche, webbing our lives together, whether we wanted them to or not.

Stumbling forward, Galloway slammed to his knees in the water. A pained grimace showed the action wasn’t planned but part of the weakness of his ill-healed ankle.

Water splashed, filling our mouths with salt.

But it didn’t stop or dislodge us.