I HOLD HER TIGHT, willing the gallop of my heart to subside. My chest burns as I try to suck in calming breaths. But she’s everywhere. Her scent, the warmth of her sun-kissed skin, the tickle of her hair, which is splayed over the pillow next to me, strands even clinging to the scruff on my chin.
What the hell is happening to me? Perhaps I’m having some sort of cardiac event. I grip her tighter, my pulse easing at the knowledge that if I do die, there’s no one better to have on hand.
Ever since she told me about her sister, opened up about her teenaged self, ever since she probed my dark places with the care and gentleness she must give to her patients, that pressure, the concrete block shifting inside me, has built. Is this what I’ve avoided all these years? The sprouting, alien feeling of a deeper connection? A bond with the real Grace, one who has hang-ups, but also has the balls to put herself out there emotionally, time after time, where I’m a snarling emotional hermit, protecting himself at all costs?
We’ve both dealt with crap in our lives, but our reactions couldn’t be more different—hers to care and help people, to improve herself and demand everything from life, and mine...? To acquire all the trappings of wealth, but to hide from real, honest, human connection. Am I truly that spineless? That terrified of being alone?
I ignore the lust still pounding through my blood as I hold a languid Grace, and probe my memories for the last time I felt this way.
It’s dark in there, the vulnerable place in my head, certainly not as brilliantly white lit as being here in this moment with this dauntless woman. But where I would normally dodge those vicious talons designed to make me feel twelve years old again, I want to challenge, to test their power.
Do I, for the first time ever, want more? To try to be close to what Grace deserves, whatever the hell that looks like?
No, I can never be that. Even Grace couldn’t make her long-term relationship work. What hope would someone like me have? This is all I know. And the timing sucks—I couldn’t possibly face two major life adjustments at once... Back in London, Grandma has to be my main focus.
I release a long sigh, resolved to ignore the clamour in my head every time I think about the countdown of days left and just enjoy this and all the moments. That’s where my instincts lead. But are they instincts, or merely habits?
She shifts against me, her fingers tracing patterns on my chest. ‘Are you okay?’
‘I’m fantastic.’ Physically. But my head...? It’s fucked seven ways to Sunday. I kiss her, because I know that will ease the worst of this burn in my chest and the warning siren deafening me. I know she can shift the concrete a fraction so I can breathe. ‘There’s nothing better than watching you own your feelings. You make me crazy—’
Words fail me, so I kiss her again and again, succumbing to my physical needs, which are easier to embrace than the doubts and questions meeting her has thrown up.
I pull back at last. ‘Do you want to spend the night on the Blarney? It has everything we need,’ I ask, the idea materialising from that dark place. ‘I want to be selfish, to keep you all to myself for as long as I can.’
She laughs then, pushing at my shoulders so she can level those bright intelligent eyes on me. ‘I could be on board with that, excuse the pun.’
‘Good,’ I say, my head already time-travelling to the end of the week, when we’ll go our separate ways. Will that be enough time to gorge on Grace? Will I have exorcised this foreign craving? Be all cured of the hold she seems to have over me?
‘What about whales? They might capsize the boat while we’re asleep?’ She sits up, gorgeously dishevelled, eyes wide.
‘It’s too shallow here for whales.’ I palm her waist, her warm, soft skin like silk. ‘And I have a perfect solution—we won’t sleep.’
‘I hadn’t thought of that—I like the way your mind works.’ She licks her lips, a devious smile tugging at her perfect mouth as she shoves the waistband of my swim shorts down over my hips. I help her to remove them and then roll on top of her, my hands stroking the hair from her still-flushed face. My body aches, the need to plunge inside the tight warmth that awaits me driving me to distraction, but still I hesitate.
‘You’re the bravest person I know.’ My heart thuds against her ribs and I pray she can’t tell how fast it’s beating. ‘I can’t stop thinking about a teenaged you—I want to go back in time, be that boy you wanted and tell you it will be okay.’ God knows where this is coming from, but I’ve never spoken truer words.
Grace’s brow pinches in a tiny frown. ‘Ryan...’ Unlike moments earlier when she screamed it, my name is a whisper on her lips, almost a question laced with longing. She presses her mouth to mine, her thighs spreading so I sink closer, my cock scalded by the wet heat between her legs.
I focus on this, us, mentally rearing back from that place that makes me restless.
I have no answers for her unspoken questions, no solution to her longings except the physical. Grace was bold enough to embrace her first one-night stand, but I’ve never had a serious relationship. And it’s stood me in good stead up to now.
I tilt my hips back, the head of my cock sliding to her slick entrance to distract us from the intimate abyss. The doubts filling my head have no place, because I wasn’t good enough for a girl like seventeen-year-old Grace then, and I’m seriously lacking for the woman she is now. What do I know about feelings and relationships and commitment?
I push inside her, the streak of pleasure making me groan. This is different from the night I spent in her bed. I know things about this Grace, the knowledge leaving me tense and uncertain, when I’ve always relied on absolutes.
Grace shifts her hips, bites her lip, sighs. ‘Can we sleep here, on deck? I want to watch the sunset and rise.’
‘We can do anything you want,’ I say through gritted teeth. Because I want to give her everything I can, as shallow as I know it will be.
She grips my face so she can kiss me—my lips, my cheeks, even the tip of my nose—and then looks deep into my eyes. ‘Stop holding back, Ryan.’ Her voice is low, a sexy demand, but her stare carries that insightful caring I want to shield myself against.
I press inside her to the hilt and then bury my face against the side of her neck while I try to get a handle on the rage of feelings bombarding me.
The boulder in my chest expands. I yank my head away and roll us so she’s on top, sprawled over my chest, her squeal of surprised laughter morphing into a groan as I thrust up into her from underneath.
I want her too shattered to look at me that way. Too debauched to notice I’m reeling on the edge of previously uncharted territory. Too spent to say more than ‘yes’ when I take her again and again until I’ve exhausted my demons.
‘Yes.’ She pushes back, sitting up over my hips and rocking in time with my thrusts.
I grip her hips, moving her to the rhythm I want, shutting out everything but her naked, honest desire. ‘Ride me harder. You feel too good.’ I cup her breasts, rolling my thumbs over her nipples so she clenches me tighter as she throws her head back. I need her so much, need to come so badly, for a second I’m worried I won’t get there. Worried that the weight crushing my chest has spoiled even this for me. But then she calls my name once more, and I join her in the free-fall, one certainty in my head.
I’ll never forget this moment, this holiday, this woman.