had noticed the previous day. ‘You’ll have to watch that skin of yours. You’ll find a bad case of sunburn will cramp your style very effectively.’
Her face flushed, Somer grabbed her bag from him and headed for the cliff. The hot weather had dried out the path, clouds of dust and small pebbles were disturbed by her steady progression downwards. Several times she had to grab hold of tussocks of grass to prevent herself from falling and when she eventually reached the small cove Somer let out a sigh of relief.
The cove was every bit as attractive as she remembered, guarded on three sides by the cliffs and on the fourth by the sea. There was no one else in sight, the sand smooth and unmarked, the tide lapping gently at the soft golden sand. Slipping off her mules Somer let her toes curl luxuriously into the sun-warmed fine grains, feeling the tension ease out of her as she breathed in the clear, fresh air, only to tense up again as she heard sounds of movement behind her, and turned just in time to see Chase depositing several pieces of equipment on a small tarpaulin behind her.
‘Umm, we really have got the place to ourselves, haven’t we,’ he commented as he headed back for the path. ‘I shan’t be long—why don’t you make yourself comfortable while I’m gone?’ he mocked her. ‘I’m sure a freethinking, modern liberationist like yourself feels more at home on the nudist beaches of the continental holiday resorts than the family ones of Jersey, but no one’s going to see you if you strip off here. I might even join you.’
With his last threat ringing in her ears, Somer turned her back on him, leaving him to return to his car while she wandered over to the tide-line, watching the small waves lapping at the sand, gradually receding as the tide went out.
By the time Chase finally returned from his second journey, her nerves were coiled as tightly as an overwound spring and she was bitterly regretting her foolhardiness in coming with him, but something stronger than her fear, stronger than her natural reluctance to experiment with what every instinct told her should be a beautiful and precious moment in her life, not something done in anger and a mood of bitter resentment, overrode everything else, urging her to stick to her original plan drowning out all he other warning voices clamouring for attention, telling her that she must seize the moment and make the most of it.
Almost defiantly she retraced her footsteps along the beach, coming to a standstill several feet away from Chase’s equipment. He was standing with his back to her, opening a zipped bag from which he removed a towel, dropping it on the beach, and then glancing at his watch. ‘I can’t do any work for a couple of hours yet, the angle of the sun isn’t right. I’m going for a swim, want to join me?’
‘Not yet. I want to sunbathe first.’
His hand went to the buttons on his shirt, casually flicking them open, whilst Somer watched, almost transfixed, only able to draw her eyes away when the mat of dark hair shadowing his skin was finally revealed. A curious sensation of weakness swept over her, and she shivered, suddenly caught up in a mental vision of what it would be like to feel Chase’s body against her own; to smooth her fingertips through that dark arrowing of hair, her naked breasts pressed close to his skin. She closed her eyes, and then opened them again to find that Chase had removed both shirt and jeans and was standing in front of her, studying her with a frown, his only covering a brief pair of swimming shorts, the white fabric contrasting starkly with his deep tan. His body was as leanly muscular as she had imagined, but far more sleekly powerful, the sight of it sending frissons of awareness shuddering through her as she felt the power of his raw masculinity.
She watched him lope down to the water’s edge and beyond until he was swimming strongly away from her. Only then did she drag her eyes away from the clean lines of his body, her fingers trembling as she pulled off her tee-shirt and shorts to reveal the scanty bikini she was wearing underneath.
She had just finished carefully anointing her skin with suntan lotion when Chase came striding towards her. Moisture glinting on his skin, tiny droplets running down over his chest, tangling in the dark hair. He raised one hand, smoothing his tangled hair back off his forehead, and grinned down at her, his eyes narrowing as he took in the brevity of her bikini, coming to stand over her, making her feel like a slave girl cowering before the pirate who had stolen her away.
A droplet of water splashed from his arm on to the vulnerable skin between her breasts making her jump. Almost instantly the jade eyes darkened and Chase bent down, swift as a hawk to the lure, his tongue brushing roughly against the curves of her breasts as it dipped into the valley between and found the errant drop of moisture. At the touch of his tongue a thousand emotions assailed her; her body both hot and cold at the same time, tense and feverish as she tried to assimilate her response to his brief caress.
‘You’re trembling.’ His fingers cupped the shoulder nearest to him and he lifted his head to frown.
‘I…it was just the cold water,’ Somer lied, knowing she was abandoning her last opportunity to draw back and tell him the truth. ‘It made me shiver.’
‘Umm. You’re all goosebumps.’ His thumb trailed lightly down the tender underside of her arm, increasing the frissons of awareness racing under her skin. ‘Why don’t you take this off? After all there’s no one to see but me.’ His free hand tugged at the straps of her bikini top, gently pulling them loose.
‘No…I…I don’t want to burn,’ Somer protested, knowing with fatalistic intuition that he wasn’t going to listen to her as his fingers found the front fastening of her bikini and easily unclipped it. His eyes held hers in some sort of magnetic spell as his fingers brushed aside the brief triangles of cotton and his hands, warm and slightly work-roughened, cupped the smooth fullness of her breasts.
‘Umm. Nice.’ His fingers spanned the full warmth of her, the intimacy of his touch stealing away her breath and making her heart pound frantically. Chase freed one breast, his eyes never leaving her face as he reached for her discarded suntan lotion, slowly uncapping it. ‘Put some in my hand,’ he ordered softly. Panic seared through her, and she struggled against both it and a craven impulse to push his hand away and cover her breasts from him. ‘What do you want it for?’ How breathy, and in some way provocative her voice sounded, almost unfamiliar to her own ears.
‘I’m going to make sure you don’t burn,’ he returned lazily. ‘Isn’t that what you wanted?’
A thousand denials sprang to mind, but he was watching her too closely. Somer moistened her dry lips, flicking round them with the tip of her tongue, startled by the way his pupils dilated following the brief movement. Having gone so far it would be folly to pull back now. This was what she wanted, she reminded herself, but somehow she had just never envisioned this particular intimacy. She had wanted Chase to make love to her but…
Too confused to deal lucidly with all the conflicting emotions rioting through her she weakly did as he asked, pouring some of the creamy lotion into his open palm, and then watching like someone hypnotised as he transferred the cream to her breast, smoothing it in with long, languorous stokes that explored and moulded the shape of her, slowly circling her breast until she was aware of nothing apart from the knowing touch of his fingers. A tight coiling feeling built up inside her; an awareness of her breasts she had never known before, her nipples tingling and aching in a way that was both alien and frightening, the soft pink aureoles springing to life in a way that was openly provocative.
‘No wonder so many of my sex have found you irresistible,’ Chase marvelled huskily, his eyes no longer on her face but resting instead on the quivering peaks he was still anointing. ‘This…’ his thumb brushed lightly over one tormentingly erect nipple, ‘is incitement enough for a saint, never mind a mere male. I had planned to sunbathe a little myself, but perhaps another cold dip is more in order.’ He squeezed more lotion into his other hand, reaching towards her as he
