Swept Away (38 page)

She gave her head a saucy tilt. “What about it?”

She waited for him to start waxing poetic about how amazingly intense it had been, how earth-
moving and soul-shattering. Instead he said, “Was I right? Was it the best you ever had?”

With a small smile, she let out a conceding sigh and refused to be disappointed—that was just
Brock. “Yes,” she said, not quite meaning for her voice to sound so husky.

The slightly playful and very satisfied look he gave in reply made her yearn for him yet again, so she decided not to waste any time. He liked her wild blood—she’d let it flow free.

Ditching half a Pop-Tart in the sand, she pushed to her feet, walked over to Brock, and boldly
lifted one leg across his lounge chair to straddle him.

He thrust his hands behind his head and leaned back comfortably. “Well, hi there.”

Nibbling sensually on her lower lip, she let her hands curl around the waistband of his trunks, her eyes following their path.

He hissed in his breath slightly, but still managed to sound cool and seductive when he said,
“Are you being a naughty little kitten again?”

She met his gaze briefly, then pulled down the front of his shorts, slowly, just enough to spy the sexy ink below his belly button. “I haven’t seen enough of this tattoo yet.”

He cast a wicked grin. “You say it’s the tattoo you want, but we both know there’s something
else in there you like.”

She rolled her eyes playfully, as if he were making no sense. “I don’t know what you’re
talking about.” Then she even moved her palms over his lower abdomen, touching here and
there, at one point pressing on a delightfully hard column of flesh but pretending she hadn’t, to
say, “Nope, nothing here.”

He arched one brow. “Funny, kitten. Hysterical as ever.”

But she kept playing it straight. “I really don’t know what you mean, Brock.”

He lowered his arms from behind his head, closing his hands over her knees on either side of
him. His palms glided slowly up her thighs until they rested at the edge of her bikini bottom,
and a flutter of arousal trembled through her. “Maybe I should remind you.”

“Mmm, maybe you should,” she agreed. Especially since tomorrow was Thursday, her own
personal doomsday, when the island fantasy would end. At the moment, it seemed wise to take all of him she could get. And easy, too, since no matter what they did or how often they did it,
her desire for him never waned for long.

In reply, he pushed down his trunks, took her hand, and wrapped her fist snugly around his erection. Sensation skittered through her like errant electricity, and she let out a low, “Ooooh.”

“Remember now?” he asked. No smile this time. All heat.

In fact, things had just turned so hot she could barely respond. “Uh-huh.”
“I thought so.”

She bit her lip against the pleasure his mere voice sent vibrating through her, and did what
came naturally with him, it seemed. She lowered her mouth over him, listened to his agony/ ecstasy moan—knowing it was closer to the latter, and loved the power she felt over him, the
power she somehow felt them exchanging this way.

Moments later, she followed the instincts of her body and, upon releasing him from her lips,
lowered her breasts there, finding he fit neatly in the valley between.

“Jesus, kitten,” he breathed, and she basked in the glory of thrilling him, surprising him. He
reached behind her neck to untie her top and let it fall free.

Soon after, she found herself sheathing that same glorious part of him, watching it happen, his
tattoo becoming the background for it all—and as she moved on him, she forgot anything else existed and knew the most pure joy life had ever given her.

She belonged here with him. On this island. Riding him to oblivion. Everything happened for a
reason—she believed that. And Brock had come back into her life not only to show her she
was making the wrong move, but also to give her the right one. Nothing had ever felt as safe
and real and relevant to her as her union with this man who had become so much more than
 
she’d ever expected, this man who kept her safe and made her laugh, then took her to heaven with his hot eyes and even hotter body.

She came without warning, hard and fast, her limbs quivering with the force of the climax.
“Oh, oh God! Oh Brock!” She clawed at his chest, clutched at his shoulders, then collapsed on
him when it was over.

His hands gripped her bottom, drawing her down tight, and his voice echoed much softer than
hers. “Me, too, baby. Ah, God. Yeah.” And then he was emptying inside her and holding her
near, and other than the surf and the call of a seagull, there were no sounds, only repletion and peace.

They lay that way for a long time, until Kat almost fell asleep beneath the warmth of the midday
sun. She figured Brock was already asleep, so it surprised her when he whispered, “You
okay?”

Her mouth rested near his ear, so she answered gently. “Mmm hmm. Why?”

She opened her eyes to find him peering back, beautifully close. “Your orgasm seemed...
intense.”

She gave him a slow, languid nod accompanied by a sensual smile. It’s what you do to me.
You move me profoundly. You make me want nothing more than you and this island, forever.
You change everything inside me just when I thought I knew myself so well.

She should tell him. All of that. Everything in her head right now. She should just put it out
there, be honest. Tell him how you feel, for God’s sake.

But she couldn’t. The very idea brought on the same sense of humiliation she’d experienced by
the swamp ten years ago. She couldn’t deal with that kind of rejection a second time. Different
circumstances, but the heartache would feel the same, maybe only magnified now by all they’d
been through together over the last few days. “Just that wild blood in my veins,” she finally
replied. Being what he wanted her to be.

But maybe that was okay, because it was also what he truly made of her—injecting that wild
blood.

“I’m sleepy,” he said, eyes shutting. “Let’s go take a nap in the hammock.”
She giggled softly. “We only got up an hour ago.”

“I don’t care. You wear me out. And I’m on vacation. Kind of.”

Since cuddling in a hammock with Brock didn’t exactly sound like torture, she climbed off him, bending to snatch up the pieces of her bathing suit from the sand—but he grabbed her
hand to say, “Leave it. As much as I like you in it, I like you better out of it.”

Kat’s first inclination was to protest—but if you couldn’t walk around naked on your own
private island, where could you walk around naked? And it left Brock naked, too—a definite
perk.

Leading his lover into the shade of the palms supporting the hammock, Brock plopped down
into it, then drew her onto the heavy netting next to him, wrapping her in his arms. Damn, she
was good. Last night hadn’t been only the best she’d ever had—it had been pretty freaking astounding for him, too. And tomorrow was coming a little too fast for his taste. He didn’t like thinking about their being marooned coming to an end—maybe that was why he hadn’t wanted
her to get dressed and go back over to her own lounge chair. He’d had the urge to keep on
being close to her.

“Comfy?” He curled his hand over her bare hip.

“Mmm,” she said, nestling against him. Her breasts pressed into his side, and the hammock
curved around them like a cocoon.

“So, tell me more about this pottery of yours.”

She lifted her head to meet his eyes. “I thought you were sleepy.”

He shrugged. “The walk across the beach woke me up.”

“Well,” she said, “since you asked, I’m having my very first show next month.”

“You mentioned something about that. When you were talking about your dad’s gallery.”

She nodded, but looked sheepish. “Don’t think it’s just because I’m his daughter and happen to
be employed there. He made me work long and hard before he offered it to me. I’ve been
inching toward this since college.”

“What kind of things do you make?” Truth was, it was hard to reconcile the idea of Kat doing
something that got her hands dirty—but maybe that wasn’t fair. She’d been a hell of a trouper
out in the woods, offering up not one complaint. And even though he hadn’t noticed her hands
not being soft and manicured, once she’d pointed it out, it had provided physical proof she wasn’t the froufrou girl he’d always thought.

“Vases, bowls, plates,” she replied. “Mostly decorative. I actually do a lot of different kinds of
pottery, but all the work in my show was created with the Raku method, fired in a pit, then adorned with sea glass. In fact, this afternoon I thought I’d walk up the beach and look for
some sea glass. I found a few pieces here last summer.”

“Sea glass?”

“Glass that’s been sort of transformed by the ocean. Like, say someone drops a bottle off a
boat somewhere. The broken pieces wash toward the shore, and the sand and water are like a
giant tumbler. It turns the glass smooth and frosted, almost like a transparent stone. It’s used for jewelry sometimes, but I’ve incorporated it into my pots.”

He couldn’t help being intrigued. “And you just find this stuff on the beach?”

“Well, less-populated beaches like this one are better. Or when the tide goes out, just like
hunting for shells. And you can buy it, too, which I’ve done, but I really like to find my own
when I can. I’ve found some on Sanibel, and I’ve also made trips to the Great Lakes because
they have a lot up there, and off the coast of the Carolinas, too. The most common colors are
blue and green—from bottles—and fortunately, those are my favorites and they fit nicely with the blues and greens on my Raku stuff. In fact, my show has an ocean theme—it’s called Into the Deep Blue.”

God, just when he thought he knew her, got her, he found out there was even more. She’d
truly surprised him this week, in so many ways, and she hadn’t stopped yet. “That’s very cool, kitten. Really.” Then he bit back something on the tip of his tongue.

“What?” she asked.

He sighed. “I almost said that maybe I’d try to make it to your show, but it might not be a
good idea for me to come to your dad’s gallery.”

She looked bewildered. “Why not?”

Shit. He’d totally forgotten she didn’t know what had happened between them. “Well I left town pretty quick back then. And he and I weren’t exactly buddies before that, if you know
what I mean.”

She nodded. “I think he knew I liked you. And I don’t think he was too wild about the idea.”
You can say that again. “Uh, yeah. I don’t think so, either.”

“But my God, Brock, it was ten years ago. And I’d love for you to come. I mean, if you want
to. And once he shows up tomorrow and sees that you’re a nice guy, it’ll be fine.”