VISITING PARADISE

What did you expect? That you’d reveal your erection to me, and hey presto, I’d fall into your arms, and we’d make wild, passionate love?”

Well…!

“There’s something between us, Beth. A spark. It’s been there all along.” He watched her face cloud over. “You can deny it, but we both know you’d be lying.”

She stood a little straighter, pulled her shoulders back. “I’m not going to deny it. But it’s irrelevant. I’d never act on it.”

“Why?” he asked, at a loss for any reasonable explanation.

“I work for you. I’m merely trying to maintain a professional distance.”

“Why,” he asked again. “What’s so important about keeping me at arm’s length?”

Indecision flashed across her face. “I’ve already explained that. I have my own issues. Issues I haven’t told you about.”

Nothing they couldn’t get through together, he was sure. “So tell me now.”

She shook her head. “It’s not that simple.”

“It’s as simple as you allow it to be. Talk to me. Help me understand.”

She sighed. “I…you see…it’s…I can’t. I’m sorry. Not yet.” Her gaze wondered off. “Maybe you could show me the rest of the Island? We could explore a little?” She turned slowly and trudged towards the thicket of greenery lining the beach.

Only he wasn’t ready to let her go. He grabbed her hand, and yanked her back.

“What are you doing?” she gasped.

He tugged again, and she lost her balance. As she tippled over, he twisted her around. He braced to catch her weight, and she landed with a gentle thud against his chest.

She gaped at him. “Joe-”

There was no time for explanation. Her breasts cushioned his ribs, her legs pressed against his, and her mouth was open. He could see flashes of pearly white teeth and the tip of her pink tongue, and he couldn’t answer. He lowered his head to hers.

“Joe,” she gasped again, just before their lips met, and it did him in. She said his name in the same breathless, fuck-me voice she’d used the night before. He molded his lips to hers, and slid his tongue into the hot wet cavern of her mouth, taking full advantage of her open-mouthed surprise.

The shockwave of awareness that jolted between them almost bloody electrocuted him. The instant his tongue touched hers she melted. Literally collapsed against him. Tiny purring sounds escaped her as her body relaxed. Her lips softened and she responded to his kiss with a hungry acceptance of inevitability.

This was where their relationship had been heading from day one.

Her kiss reverberated through him. Heat curled through his stomach, and inched lower; its fire consuming his oxygen. He could hardly breathe. It wasn’t just his physical response to her. Something else was happening, something deeper, something more personal. Much more personal.

The loneliness that had been his lifelong companion began to crumble, and Joe, unused to experiencing anything beside the dull hollow in his heart, felt emotion churn in his chest. This was right. This was meant to be.

He pulled back, needing to look at her, to see if she was feeling the same way.

Her eyes were dazed; her chest rose and fell unevenly. “Joseph…” she breathed his name.

“Jesus, Beth. You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to do that.”

“You shouldn’t have,” she said, and had she not been so languid in his arms, he might almost have believed she meant it. But her fingers toyed lazily with the nape of his neck, and her nipples had pebbled into tight beads beneath her damp top, her response at odds with her words.

“I can stop,” he offered reluctantly, as her luscious lips parted and her eyelids drifted shut.

“You should,” she answered, but he could hear ambivalence in her voice. She took a deep breath.

“Please…don’t.”