Some Kind of Wonderful (Puffin Island 2)

Finally, when he decided it wasn’t fair on her, he eased himself up from her body and reached for the condom he was never without.

She shifted under him, her fingers biting into the muscle of his back and he slid his hand under her, reining in the urge to thrust deep. Instead he lowered his forehead to hers, held her gaze and entered her slowly. He felt her nails dig hard into him and saw her lips part in a soft gasp as he joined them intimately. It cost him, but he kept his movements slow and gentle, easing into her by degrees as he felt the warm, feminine yielding of her body.

When he was buried deep he lowered his mouth to hers and spread slow, lingering kisses across her mouth and then her jaw as he gave her time to grow accustomed to him.

Her hand slid into his hair, and she brushed her mouth against his. “You’re safe,” she whispered, “you’re safe. You can let go, Zach. You can trust me.”

He moved with long, slow, breath-stealing strokes, building the rhythm and shifting position so that every controlled surge created a perfect, delicious friction, watching as a soft flush highlighted her cheeks and her eyes glowed with heat.

“Zach, Zach—” She whispered his name, slid her arm around his neck and dragged his head down to hers, licking into his mouth as he drove into her with erotic precision. Her gaze stayed locked on his, open, trusting, sharing eve

rything.

The pleasure built and multiplied until it was no longer in his power to hold back physically. Zach took her mouth and sent them both flying into a perfect storm of sexual excitement. He felt her come, felt her body rippling around his and dragging him to the same place.

Physically, it was about the most perfect sexual experience of his life.

He curled her into his arms, holding her against him, listening to the sound of the ocean mingling with the pounding of rain through the open window and thinking that if this was all it could ever be, then maybe it would be enough.

She snuggled closer. “I love this cabin. It’s so cozy. You don’t get lonely, out here away from everything?”

“I love it.”

She slid her arm around him so that each part of her was touching a part of him. “The other night when we were in the woods, talking about Travis, you said that it might be possible for some people to change. To learn to trust. You’re not one of those people, are you?” When her question was met with silence, she took a deep breath. “You never trusted me, did you? And because my default is to trust people up until the point where they let me down, it never occurred to me that you wouldn’t. We were coming at our relationship from completely different places and I didn’t understand that.”

There was another long silence, broken only by the sound of the ocean through the open window.

“I was closer to you than I’d ever been to anyone.”

“You never talked to me. And you didn’t sleep. At night you just lay there, awake. Then when it was light you’d fall asleep for a few hours.”

“I’d taught myself to stay awake. To me, monsters weren’t nameless, faceless creatures that lurked under the bed. They had a face and a name and they lived in my house.” It was something he’d never talked about, but he told himself that if he couldn’t open up in other ways, then at least he could give her this. “Night was the most dangerous time. I moved furniture and blocked the door, but I still had to be vigilant. And when he was drunk he was twice as strong as when he was sober.”

It was something he had never revealed.

All social workers had got from him had been silence.

Even Philip didn’t know all the details.

Saying it aloud felt strange, like stripping off your clothes and standing naked in front of a room of strangers.

Part of him wanted to snatch the words back, but it was too late.

Brittany propped herself up on her elbow.

“Your father?”

His mouth was dry. “My stepfather.”

“What about your mom?”

He thought about his mother, vicious, mean and utterly unsuited to be left in charge of anything, let alone another human being. “She stayed out of the way.”

“She didn’t try and protect you?”

“And put herself in the line of fire?” Why the hell had he started this conversation? Zach sat up in the bed, remembering now why he kept that part of his past carefully locked away. It leaked, ugly and thick as tar, contaminating all that was good about his life. “Why would she do that?”

“Because that’s what parents are supposed to do.” Brittany sat up, too, sitting shoulder to shoulder with him. “They’re supposed to protect you.”