Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 65643 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 328(@200wpm)___ 263(@250wpm)___ 219(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 65643 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 328(@200wpm)___ 263(@250wpm)___ 219(@300wpm)
Then the sunburst explosion of a camera’s flash, and our hands dropped to our sides immediately. I couldn’t even have said who let go first.
Garrett made a low, irritated noise in his throat. “We should have stayed in the caves.”
I didn’t say anything. Those few minutes of feeling normal were hard to let go of.
“Do you want to grab lunch?” Garrett asked, nodding toward a cafe.
“Not really.” It had only been a couple of hours since we left breakfast, and I didn’t want to sit across from him and have to pretend like he was just a friend in case someone happened to snap my picture. Here we were on this beautiful island paradise, and I didn’t want to do anything except be able to touch him. But I couldn’t.
Hearing the petulant note in my voice, Garrett slowed to a stop and rounded to look at me. He lifted the brim of my hat and looked down into my face. I couldn’t read his expression through the dark lenses of his sunglasses, but I was sure he read mine.
“Do you want to go back?” he asked in a low, intimate voice that sent skitters racing up my spine.
My breath caught. Did I want hours alone with Garrett while everyone else was out on catamarans or stretched out across the hot, sandy beaches? Just the two of us, cocooned in the villa with its stucco walls and blue silk curtains that sent blue shadows across the room, like we were underwater?
I wanted it more than anything.
23
GARRETT
Back at my villa, I closed and locked the door behind us. Then I turned and looked at Destiny. She was looking back at me, her beauty as brilliant as the view beyond the gauzy blue curtains, and infinitely preferable to my eyes.
“Do you want to talk about anything?” I asked huskily. I wanted to tell her that if she’d changed her mind, if she didn’t want to–
“I don’t want to talk at all,” Destiny murmured. She grasped the hem of her silk top and toyed with it, pulling it up high enough that I could see a wide slice of her trim, tan stomach, not high enough to see the dip of her breastbone or the swell of her breasts.
My mouth went dry, and the anticipation went straight to my cock. “Take it off.”
She half smiled as she pulled it over her head and stood before me in her loose linen pants and a simple white bra that was somehow sexier than anything I’d ever seen on screen. Her hair tumbled over her breasts.
I crossed the room in two quick steps, my mind frantically reminding my body that I needed to take things slow with this one. That this one mattered more than any other had in a long time. Maybe ever.
“Now yours,” Destiny murmured, toying with the buttons of my light cotton shirt, her long nails scraping lightly across my collarbone.
I reached up and undid the buttons. When I was done, she pushed aside the panels of the shirt with her hands and slid her hands up the side of my torso, then down over my abs until she reached the top button of my pants.
“You like your buttons,” she observed. “Mine just slip right off–see?” With one sinuous movement, she rolled down the waistband of her pants and shimmied out of them. She was wearing white silk underwear that matched the bra. Simple, but as far as plain as they could be.
“I’m glad one of us dressed for the occasion,” I said hoarsely, my throat closing altogether as she reached for the top button of my pants again.
I let her torture me, let her pull down the slipper with excruciating care. Her eyes were heavy lidded with lust but glimmering with amusement as she heard my breath hitch time and time again. “You’re a sadist,” I muttered.
She batted her eyes at me. “I’m savoring this.”
“I want to savor you, too.” I shoved my pants down and stepped out of them, surprising her. Then her eyes heated as I snaked an arm around her waist and pulled her against me. All that soft warm skin and cool silk was intoxicating, pressed against the length of my naked body. But I wanted more of the skin and less of the silk. I pulled her into the bedroom and lowered her onto the bed.
Destiny tried to kiss me, but I pulled back. With ruthless patience, I took my time removing the scraps of silk. When she was naked beneath me, I took my time stroking every part of her until she was panting, her eyes glazed with lust.
“Pull the drapes,” she whispered.
“No.” I shook my head. “I want to see all of you. And I want you to see me.”
I still wasn’t sure what the hell this was all about for Destiny, but I wanted to be damn sure she knew what she was doing. Who she was with. I stood before her, naked and hard as granite. It would kill me to walk away, but if I saw a flicker of apprehension or doubt, I would do it.