“Why don’t you forget about what might be considered ‘wrong’, or what might look strange in the eyes of other people, Kelsey, and focus on how you feel. Does it feel wrong to you?”

“I…I don’t know. I feel like I’ve lost you in some capacity.”

“What? How?”

“It’s hard for me to explain. But it’s like you’re gone as my friend now. And you’re here as…something else, and I haven’t gotten used to it yet.”

He caught her face between his hands. “I will always be your friend. No matter what happens. I’ve abandoned you before. I’m never doing that again. I promise.”

“Good, because let me warn you now, I can’t go back to that,” she said, tears welling in her eyes as she looked up at him. “Not seeing you or talking to you. It was more like hell than anything he put me through. I’m so scared of that happening again.”

“I feel the same way. It won’t. It won’t happen again.” He drew her face to his chest, stroking her hair and shushing her. Her arms tightened around him, but she seemed to relax into him everywhere else. And he whispered repeated nonsense meant to soothe her, though he knew it wouldn’t. He’d hurt her, in his own way, just like Todd had. She shouldn’t trust him any more than she did her ex-husband. All he could do was try to show her that he meant what he said. Show her every day from now on.

“Evan?”

“Hmm?”

“I’m sorry. Talk about ruining the mood.”

“We’ll get it back, honey.” He nuzzled his mouth against the top of her head. “Soon as you spend the day like this, in my lovin’ arms.”

She grinned up at him, standing on her tiptoes for a kiss. “I think that’ll do the trick.”

“I don’t know about you, but this is my idea of the perfect vacation,” Evan murmured in Kelsey’s ear that night, tracing her lower lip with the tip of his finger. “Eat, sleep, f**k, lie on the beach.”

Kelsey gasped and giggled, snuggling closer to his warmth. It was an accurate description, blunt as it was. The rainstorm had battered the island most of the day, so they’d spent a majority of it cuddled in bed, napping, watching movies and ordering room service as the thunder rumbled and the rain poured down. Evan had even dragged her out on the lanai and they’d made out on the lounge, sprinkled with the cool splattering of raindrops blown in by the wind. Anyone who might have been watching wouldn’t have seen much, but still it had been thrilling.

By the time it had cleared somewhat that evening, they’d been too zapped by their own inactivity to do much more than hang out on the sodden beach…and eat some more. She’d probably gained ten pounds on this trip. Even so, if she were bound and forced to name a single day as her favorite of the entire vacation, this one would have to be near the top. Except for those few strange minutes in the kitchen, it was so much like old times…the dreary weekends they’d spent watching movies and generally being useless because there was nothing else to do. Or nothing else they wanted to do.

Now, there was the intimacy she’d always craved back then but could never have, the holding hands, the touches, the stolen kisses. It should have been paradise within paradise. Only paradise had a deadline, and it was approaching in a couple of days. They needed to talk, had to talk, and she had no idea how to instigate the conversation she prayed he would bring about himself: what now?

“This has probably been the craziest, scariest, sexiest, most emotionally exhausting and unbelievably orgasmic vacation I ever had,” she admitted, taking a stab in the dark and hoping to hit her target.

He laughed. “Aw, sweetie, I meant to give you such a nice, relaxing time.”

“This is better. Way, way better.”

He traced his finger down over her chin. “Well, that orgasmic part? I’m about to bring that to the forefront. Again.”

“Oh, God…”

So much for meaningful conversation. She wondered if, after that episode this morning, he only began making love to her to shut her up.

It was an effective technique and one she couldn’t say she minded. He kissed her, a sweet, languid caressing of lips, his hands stroking down her bare back. She smoothed her palms over his chest, his shoulders, slipping her tongue into the rich flavor of his mouth as her ni**les pebbled against his flesh. He groaned as his hand followed the curve of her hip and slipped into the crease of her bottom. His fingertips lined the cleft until he found her pooling moisture, and Kelsey’s heart skittered. She snuggled closer to him as his erection slid against her thigh.

“See what you do to me?”

“Mmm, I like it,” she whispered.

He slid his hand around to the front and urged her onto her back. “Open your legs.”

She did.

“Wider.”

“Evan…”

“Give me everything, baby girl, remember?”

He already had every part of her. The very nuclei of her cells cried out for him. She whimpered as two of his fingertips slid delectably over her clit, the too-light pressure urging her hips upward into his touch. And then he didn’t have to coax her. She opened herself fully as his lips sought and found her nipple, locking around it with a gentle suction that had her arching her back and grasping his hair.

“If you keep doing that…I’m going to come.”

His eyes flashed up at her. “Then come. It won’t be the last time, I promise.” He pushed his fingers into her pu**y, and she felt her own wetness glide against them as her muscles clenched and she moaned.

“I love it when you make that sound,” he said. “You only make it when part of me is inside you.” He pushed deeper. “I love how you love this.”

She nodded fiercely, scarcely able to breathe. “How could I not?”

His head slid down her belly, and anticipation exploded through her until she was squirming with need. Kelsey watched as he leaned over her and pressed his warm mouth against her mound, his fingers still buried deep and tight inside her. His tongue fluttered her throbbing bud and her breath became a burn through her lungs.

“Oooh, Evan…”

He sucked her into his mouth and began slowly thrusting with his fingers, and then she couldn’t open wide enough for him, couldn’t get him deep enough, couldn’t get enough of herself in his mouth. She sobbed and cried out and cursed until he made her come so hard she forgot her name, though she remembered his. Because she screamed it. And she collapsed, panting.

“You make me so f**king hard,” he murmured as he slid up her limp body. She managed to reach down and touch him, her fingers tangling with his as he stroked himself. Maybe someday, when she could last a few minutes without jumping his bones at the sight of his nakedness, he would let her watch him do that until he came. A new rush of warmth throbbed between her thighs at the thought. But he was like a rock now, and she didn’t want it anywhere but inside her. She gasped as the thick head nudged her wet entrance.

“Okay?”

“Sensitive.”

“Mmm, I know. Just one more thing I love about you.” He breached her, and she pulled tight and clung to him as enflamed tissues stretched and quivered around him. It was one long, slow slide that drove her out of her mind. She was aware of sounds coming from her lips but she didn’t know if they were words or incoherence.