The breath hissed through his teeth. “I’ve already told you, I’m not kind.”
“You’ve been very kind to me. You stayed with me when I had a panic attack. Most men would have run. You’re patient with Lizzy, even though I know you’ve already done all the child rearing you intend to do. And now you’ve offered to teach me to swim.”
He must have been out of his mind. “About that—”
“Thank you.” She stood on tiptoe and put her arms around him. “I’m so sorry I yelled at you.”
He caught her arms in his hands. “Emily, I lied to you. You were right to yell at me. And I’m not kind.”
“I think you are. And you lied because you didn’t want me to freak out. It was the right decision.”
“Emily—”
“I know you didn’t do it for me exactly, you did it for Brittany, but that makes you a loyal friend and I respect that.”
His control snapped. “You want to know how kind I am? Right now I’m thinking of all the ways I could have sex with you in this cave without one of us injuring ourselves on the rocks.”
She went still. “Here? Right now?” Her voice was breathy with shock. “Someone might come.”
Yeah, you, he thought, but he managed to trap the words inside his brain for once instead of letting them escape from his mouth.
“I tell you I want to have sex with you in an infinite number of positions and that’s what worries you?” He waited for her to pull away but she didn’t.
Instead, she looked at his mouth. “Maybe if we did it quickly, we wouldn’t be caught.” Her voice was a whisper, and the gleam in her eyes made everything inside him tighten.
“I’m going to pretend you didn’t just say that to me.”
“Have you ever had sex in this cave?”
“I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that, either.”
Her eyes danced. “I’m pretty sure you’re not a virgin, Ryan.”
And he was pretty sure she was close to being one. He wondered how many lovers she’d had before Neil and decided he didn’t want to know the answer.
She was certainly an outdoor-sex virgin, and he wasn’t going to be the one to do something about that.
“We should go back.”
“Not yet.” She rested her hand on his chest, her features indistinct in the moonlit cave. “I’ve been thinking a lot about that kiss. I wondered if you’d thought about it, too.”
He’d been trying not to. “We should definitely go back.”
“There’s something I want to do first.” She stood on tiptoe again and brushed her mouth over his, and his grip on control unraveled like the chain of an anchor that had been tossed overboard. When her tongue licked into his mouth, he could no longer remember why he was fighting this.
Forgetting Rachel, Lizzy and all the obstacles he’d been trying to keep in the foreground of his brain, he buried his hands in her hair, angled his mouth over hers and kissed her back, opening her mouth with his, exploring those sweet depths with skilled, ruthless strokes of his tongue.
He tasted the delicious sweetness of her and buried his hands in that glorious hair. She smelled of summer blossoms and rose petals, everything about her silky smooth and feminine. She pressed her luscious curves against him, winding around him like a delicate plant growing up a rough rock face.
He felt her tug at his shirt and then slide her hands over his skin, and the feel of her brought him to his senses.
The cave magnified sound. Her gasps blended with soft echoes and the hollow drip of water sliding off rock. From beyond the cave came the faint rush of moonlit waves hitting the sand and the distant sound of laughter.
It was the laughter that penetrated his desire-clouded brain.
He eased his mouth from hers and heard her moan a protest.
“Ryan—” She breathed his name and opened her eyes reluctantly. “I want—”