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Sure enough, a pod of bottlenose dolphins was diving and playing in the deeper reef. ‘Oh, yeah. Pretty cool.’
As she trod water she gripped his shoulder. ‘Cool? It’s flipping amazing. Look at them, showing off, playing together. Do you think we could swim with them? D’you think?’
‘You’ll have to be quick.’ And before he could argue she’d grabbed his hand and was half swimming and half dragging him through the waves, trying to catch them up. For little more than a few minutes the dolphins gave them a magical show of their skills, corkscrewing over and over, darting underneath their legs and popping up behind them. One of them took a liking to Lola and pushed his nose at her. She reached out and touched him before he darted away. He returned twice and played the same teasing game—pushing his nose at her, waiting for her to reach and then disappearing into the foam. Then, just as quickly as they’d appeared, they were all off in a display of enthusiasm, swimming faster than humanly possible and disappearing into the distance.
‘Wow...I can’t... This is so...’ Lola stopped and grasped his hand again, coughing as she took off her mask. The outlines of the rubber seal had marked her pretty face, but she was grinning widely, tears shimmering in her eyes. She looked so damned beautiful it made his chest constrict. ‘I don’t know what to say. That was... Oh, my God! Dolphins. That was so amazing.’
‘Yeah. Very cool.’ He took off his mask too and affected an English accent. ‘Pretty flipping amazing, actually.’ Like she was, with bright golden flashes in her dark brown eyes, her hair slicked back, droplets of water falling from her eyelashes. A mouth that he ached to taste all over again.
‘Yes, it is. All of it. Everything...’ Her voice cracked. She looked at him as she held onto his shoulder, her legs working beneath the surface to keep her upright, while something passed between them. Something electric, something real and hot. Everything felt as it had when they’d kissed, the charge in the air was the same—an almost tangible shimmer between them.
But that couldn’t be right, because she’d said... What had she said? That she was messing things up for him. But here she wasn’t messing up anything, here she was making the trip a whole lot more bearable. But he was useless at reading signals, especially in ten feet of water when words and actions didn’t gel. ‘Lola, we should probably go now.’
‘But—’
‘We need to get back. An hour for each, we agreed.’ He made a start for the shore, leaving the cooler depths behind and entering the warmer water where it was almost shallow enough to stand up, had it not been for the coral gardens beneath their feet.
‘Wait. Stop a minute.’ Panting, she caught up with him, grasped his arm. ‘Thank you for bringing me here. I’m sorry I was so hard to convince. I don’t want to get in the way of your work. I know how important that is to you.’
‘Yeah, but you can’t work all the time. People keep telling me.’ He reached and wiped some water from her cheek. It was cold out here but heat exploded through him. All the more reason to get the hell out. ‘But we can’t put it off forever either. We’d better make a start back.’
‘Stop.’ She reached for his jaw and ran her palm over his cheek. ‘Do we need to think about work right now?’
Her legs made little swirling kicks around him. He could feel the rhythmic movement, and a need to have her wrap those legs around his hips almost overwhelmed him.
He should have turned and swam away then. He should have listened to the voice in his head reminding him of what she’d said. But he did neither. Instead, he put his hand on her waist and pulled her closer. And, yes—it was a perfect fit for his palm. ‘What do you want to think about?’
‘Actually, I don’t feel much like thinking at all.’ She looked up from beneath long eyelashes adorned with droplets like a hundred tiny diamonds highlighting the flashes of colour in her eyes and the intensity of need.
His heart was raging a wild tattoo in his chest. Because even though he was lame at reading signals, he was pretty sure he knew what this one was saying. And, for the record, Lola was nothing like the others. She was special. Unique. ‘What do you feel like doing?’
‘I want to kiss you again.’ She wriggled closer into his open arms and slanted her wet mouth against his, and all thoughts of work and conflicting signals, and all the reasons to stop fled from his brain. He dragged her hard against him and kissed her back.
She tasted of salt and the sea, she tasted fresh and hot and hungry. As she entwined her legs with his he pushed his fingers into her hair, cradled her head and relished the press of her glorious curves against him. Her hand ran down his back as she moaned into his mouth, fingernails grasping at his skin.
Slowly he nipped along her bottom lip then kissed along her collarbone to the soft hollow at her throat, and she tilted her head back and laughed.
‘God, Jake, I’ve been dreaming about this.’
‘You too?’ He tugged the zip on her neoprene and slowly freed her breasts, slid his palm over one as he took her mouth again. Beneath his fingers her nipples contracted to tight buds and he coaxed them, first gently stroking then—reluctantly leaving her mouth—he was licking them against the rise and fall of the ocean.
It was like a crazy dream—a beautiful woman, a deserted beach, the reach and grasp of a delicious need that spiralled through him.
‘Oh, yes.’ She pulled his mouth from her nipple and cupped his face, anchoring him to her, deepening the kiss, hard and wet, pulsing in time with the waves. The kiss became urgent, the need for her almost frantic. He was so hard. So hard for her and she knew it as she wriggled against him and groaned with pleasure.
Laughing, she wrapped her legs around his hips, and as she did so, something wrapped tight around his heart and tugged. The light sound of her carefree laughter, the sway of the ocean waves, the rush of adrenalin and heat filled him with more than desire. He wanted her, too much.
It would have been so easy to slide back her bikini bottoms and thrust into her there, but reality began to seep into his brain. There was no future in this, and Lola was the kind of woman who would want the fairy-tale future in the end. Regardless of what she may say or do now, he couldn’t promise her anything apart from a good time and a goodbye.
She was fresh and untainted, she was something new and good. And, when it came down to it, he wasn’t. Not where women were concerned. He didn’t want them to cloud his vision, to distract him. He had a lot to achieve—a debt to repay. He didn’t want to have to consider another person.
Lola deserved to be considered.
He pulled away and held her wrists. ‘Lola, we need to stop this.’
‘Yes, God, my legs are killing me, treading water. Let’s get to dry land...and then...you know...there’s not a soul on the beach and I see a secluded place...’
He shook his head. ‘Let’s talk once we get to the beach.’
‘Talk?’ She almost flinched, the hit to her gut was visible, but she slowly absorbed it. Her smile slipped as she realised what he was saying. For a second he thought she was going to agree with him, but she hit her open palm hard on the top of the water so spray arced over him. ‘You know what, Jake? You are so damned annoying.’
Then she started to swim hard towards the shore.
After a minute or so she stopped and turned to him, breathless, angry, legs kicking beneath the surface. ‘I don’t get it. I don’t get why you do all that and then listen to whatever it was in your head telling you to stop. Because I know you want to kiss me, Jake. I know you want to fool around and I do too. So why the hell—? Ow! Oh. Wow.’ She gasped sharply, then again as her face contorted in pain and she started to thrash under the water. ‘Go. To. Hell—Ow! Ow!’