hands and motioned for her to turn around with one lazy finger.
Which is not a sexual act, she snapped at herself.
She ordered herself to brazen it out, already, and made herself turn her back to him as if she had all the confidence in the world and he was the one finding it hard to keep his tongue in his mouth.
And as if she wasn’t casually exposing the whole of her backside to him, with nothing but one fragile string across her back and another around her hips to break up his view of...all of her.
She was facing the sea. Her eyes hurt, from all that glare and deep blue, but she didn’t shut them. She didn’t dare.
That felt too much like surrender.
Her heart kicked at her, anticipation and something else she wasn’t sure she could name clattering around inside her and leaving chinks wherever it hit. She heard a click when he opened the tube of lotion. The squeaking sound of the tube as he squeezed it.
Then there was nothing but the breeze dancing up from the sea, smelling of salt and green. The fragrance of all those brightly colored flowers she couldn’t name because they didn’t bloom in cold, wet Glasgow or gray London. The rattling sounds of the coconuts in the trees, the restless rattling of the palms. She could hear raucous birds in the distance, and the tumble of the surf, but there was nothing else beyond it or beneath it.
No traffic. No sirens. No people.
She felt as if she was standing on the edge of the world, and worse still, a steep and dangerous cliff as beguiling as it was deadly. The devil behind her, the blue sea before her, and her own treacherous body smack in the middle.
This time, when she broke out in goose bumps, she knew he could see them. His low, rich chuckle tumbled over her like a different kind of touch altogether.
Lucinda didn’t have time to fight it off, because that was when his hands made contact.
And she stopped breathing.
He started at her neck. He traced the delicate column down, then spread his big, wide palms out to take in her shoulders. His palms were hot, hotter than the sun beating down from above, and spread fire everywhere they touched.
And they touched everything. Every inch.
He traced her shoulder blades, then moved farther down, all along the indentation of her spine. Then he tracked the flare of her hips.
He covered every inch, then moved lower still. He paused to get more lotion, then slicked those hard, intensely masculine hands over the curves of her ass.
Lucinda...fell.
Right off that edge into sheer insanity.
She stopped worrying about trifling concerns like goose bumps. She stopped trying to control her breath. She let go of her threadbare control as she tumbled fast and hard over the side of the cliff she’d imagined in her head, and the world disappeared.
There was nothing but here, now.
There was nothing but Jason Kaoki and his talented, impossibly calloused and tender hands, working their way over every square inch of her overheated skin. He didn’t linger anywhere in particular, which made all the places that longed for his attention heat up, as if in protest.
And deep inside her, something turned over, then began to hum like an engine, low and insistent and wired to the soft heat between her legs.
He smoothed his palms down the backs of her thighs, the hollow of knees that already felt too weak, and then down to her calves.
“Turn around,” he ordered her, his voice like gravel.
It didn’t occur to Lucinda to disobey.
She turned and instantly everything was worse. Or maybe better. Certainly hotter, because now there was no pretending that she was standing by herself on the edge of the world having erotic daydreams of a man’s touch.
A touch she could feel cascading over her, through her, then deep into her. Making her quiver, deep in her pussy. Making her want to shift, run—something to release the impossible pressure building inside her—
Because he was right there in front of her, big, brawny and almost indescribably beautiful.
Jason crouched down before her, so tall that he still came up to her chest. And he was so close that when he slicked more lotion on his hands, then looked up, the world shuddered to a halt.
That pulsing pressure between her legs grew. She could feel it in her toes. Her breasts. Her stiff nipples.
His eyes were dark fire. And she could see, so clearly, all the things he wanted. All the images that were chasing each other around and around inside his head, as if they were both watching the same movie that starred the two of them.
But he didn’t do anything except reach for her foot, then start making his way up one leg. Then down the next.
Each slick slide of his big hand over her flesh made her...tremble. Each lazy, smooth bit of heat collected in her pussy and made her clench her thighs to keep from surrendering to all that pressure and need and longing.
When he reversed direction and shifted his attention to her belly, he slowed down. Or time did.
Lucinda knew she was breathing too fast. That she was showing too much and surrendering whatever claim to power she’d had inside.
That it was entirely possible her body was about to betray her, right here and now.
But she couldn’t seem to stop herself.
And she couldn’t seem to care, either. Something she was sure would concern her when this was over. But he was moving higher now, smoothing his way over the slopes of her breasts, and her mind went blank.
Blank...yet full of color and sensation, all of it spiraling down through her body to wind her tighter and tighter. Her clit was so ripe and ready she might simply tip over that edge all on her own the next time she squeezed her thighs together.
But she didn’t. Somehow, she didn’t.
His hands were wicked and left her shaking, yet he never went too far. He was restrained if not strictly clinical—but that only made the heat and need between her legs worse.
He slicked the lotion, smelling of coconut, over the exposed curves of her breasts and then moved higher, as if he was unmoved either way. Which only made Lucinda feel more exposed. Time ground to a halt as he worked, until there was nothing but the sound of her own breath, the beat of her heart and the rough slide of his fingers over her skin.
She could feel every touch as if those talented fingers were working her clit.
And she shuddered, close. So close—
“Give me your face,” he ordered her, his voice gruff, and Lucinda didn’t understand why it felt like some kind of surrender when she obediently inclined her head toward him.
Or why she felt like this was another frankly sexual act, the way he smoothed the last of the lotion over her forehead, then her cheeks and
