hadn’t been quite so full with her tongue?”
“Right. She comes out here because she’s worried about me, she heard about the case and I haven’t appeared back home. Before she sets foot on dry land, I’m supposed to shout at her to get away, someone else has entered my life? I knew I was going to hurt her one way or the other. I wanted to be a little gentle about it.”
“A passionate kiss is always gentle.”
“I wasn’t kissing her. She was kissing me.”
“But resistance isn’t your strong point?”
She thought she’d angered him. He was silent for several seconds. “Sam, other than rather brutally disengaging myself, I couldn’t do much at the time. I was hoping to talk to her. And I didn’t realize you were there.”
“Obviously.”
He released her suddenly and stepped out of the shower. The water continued to run over Samantha as she still stood there, at a loss. She hadn’t meant to push so hard—yes, perhaps she had. She wanted an admission from him. She wanted to hear him say that he had been completely wrong. She was free from guilt.
She hadn’t wanted him to walk away just now, she realized. She’d wanted him to keep trying his best to earn her forgiveness.
She turned off the shower and wrapped herself in a large towel, then padded to the kitchen. He’d made coffee; it sat ready, letting off a pleasant aroma. But he wasn’t in the kitchen.
She walked down the hallway, pausing at her bedroom door. Adam was stretched out on her bed, a white bath towel wrapped around his hips. He was staring at the ceiling. Thinking? Waiting? Both?
She walked slowly to the bed, arms crossed over her chest as she stared at him. His fingers were laced behind his head. He met her eyes.
“Has it ever occurred to you that maybe we were both just a little bit wrong?” he asked gravely.
She started to shake her head; then he was suddenly on his feet, moving like a panther, catching her by the waist and flinging her down on the bed where he straddled her. “No lies. Let’s go back. You were ripe. You—”
“Ripe!” she protested. “Now that should sweep me right off my feet. You’re making me sound like a banana.”
“Ripe. Like a piece of fruit. Just ready to be plucked.”
“It sounds awful.”
“It’s the exact word. Lots of women your age were already married, with children. The island offered slim pickings for a woman looking for a little experience.”
“And you were the best of those slim pickings?” she demanded.
He nodded.
“Get off me!”
“Admit it.”
She shook her head.
“You were ripe. You needed a man in your life. From the minute you saw me, you wanted sex.”
“I did not, I—”
“You wanted to be fu—”
“Don’t you dare say that!”
“Okay, but it won’t matter. It won’t change the truth.”
“I didn’t just decide that I was old enough and about to rot and that I needed sex. I wanted—I wanted—” She broke off.
“What, damn you? Say it!”
“I wanted
He groaned suddenly. A deep groan that reverberated in his chest, tensed and tautened the length of him. He lay against her, enveloping her in his arms, holding her against him with both the greatest strength and the greatest tenderness. His lips brushed her forehead, found the pulse at her throat, pressed against the pounding there that grew ever more fierce with each millisecond slipping by. Again his lips brushed her forehead, and his whispers fanned her cheeks, her face, her earlobe. “I wanted you. I knew I was wrong, in a way, but by the time we actually made love, I wanted you so much that I would have risked the eternal fires of hell for one hour with you. Naked, of course. But I would have been willing to burn forever for my sins, for that damned hour. Except, of course, love is never so simple. I got more than an hour, and I didn’t go to hell—not yet, anyway. But I didn’t know how to tell you then that I was already involved with someone, that I needed a chance to explain to the woman I’d been living with that it was over, because I had fallen in love. Then she was suddenly here.”
“With her tongue down your throat,” Sam interjected softly, tears stinging her eyes. Silly. They’d both been wrong. So wrong.
“You could have given me a chance.”
“I could have,” she said.
“But you didn’t.”
She smiled slowly, ruefully. “I was too proud. And I felt like too big a fool. I’d never known anything like you. Never.”
“Maybe we were both a little wrong.”
“Maybe a lot wrong.”
“Both of us.”
“You were wrong, too?”
“Oh, God, yes. Wrong not to insist on you knowing there had been someone. Wrong not to tell Becky about you the second I saw her, even if it did hurt her. Most of all, I was wrong to leave, wrong not to fight for you. Wrong to let something as pathetic as pride make me walk away from you, when I should have realized what you saw and what you thought. I was just as mad at myself. I’ve paid for what I did since. More than you can know.”
“You’ve really missed me, remembered me, all this time?”
“I’ve really missed you.”
“There have been other women.”
“Yes. But not like you. There have been other men on the island.”
“You’re referring to Hank Jennings again?”
He made a strange sound at the back of his throat. Irritated, fierce.
“Why the hell are we still talking about the past?” he demanded with sudden anger. “This is now. And, Miss Carlyle, I do want you now.”
His mouth moved down on to hers then. Hard. Almost brutal. Tongue filling the void, stroking her teeth, her lips and her tongue, hungrily, kissing again and again, openmouthed, deeper, deeper, ever more insinuating. The towels tangled between them. He wasn’t exactly straddling her anymore, he was atop her, limbs burning against her, sex hot, hard, vibrant, against her abdomen, her thighs, stroking against her flesh with his every movement as he kissed her again…again. Her arms encircled him, tried to hold him. She kissed him passionately in return. Missed his mouth. Found his throat, his shoulders. She dug her fingers into his back, stroked the length of it with her nails, trailed her fingers along his spine, rounded his buttocks. But he was moving against her, and he was more powerful, one hand on her breast, kneading it, cupping it, holding it up to the tantalizing torment of his mouth, his lips closing around it, tongue edging against the nipple, laving the areola, teeth grazing. She strained against him, her fingers curling into the dark thickness of his hair. His tongue trailed the length of her side as his hand slipped beneath her thigh. His fingers stroked the length of it over and over, while the searingly subtle stroke of his tongue bathed her abdomen, delved into her navel. She began to burn, aching for him to touch her more deeply. Hunger gnawed at her, urging her to arch and writhe against him, to whisper his name, to whisper the truth.
“Adam, you were right. I did everything I could to get you. I didn’t want to know about any other woman. I didn’t want you to have a past. I wanted
They were talking about honesty, about feelings, now.
Wanted. The key word. Wanted, yes. He’d wanted her then. He wanted her now. He spoke honestly of the past while the present remained a lie. No, not a lie, exactly. An omission of the truth. And when she knew…
But that was the point, wasn’t it? Have her, hold her, love her. Sink into the cauldron of desire, of hunger, of wanting. Hold as tight and fast to the intimacy, to the tenderness, to the passion, hold tight and fight the honesty
