The Heat Of Passion

'You're astoundingly quiet.' Without warning, his lean brown hands moved up to her breasts, cupping them, and she quivered violently, her rigidity evaporating in a surge of heat.

'You're wearing a bra,' he complained.

'Don't!' she gasped, sudden tears lashing the back of her eyes. Dear lord, she felt so vulnerable now. She craved his touch helplessly but then she wondered how much this meant to him. A little light relief on an island where there was no other sexual outlet for his desires, or did he get even more of a kick out of her wanton response? Revenge... how much did that play a part in his apparent hunger for her?

Dropping his hands, Carlo spun her easily round to face him. Surprising lines of strain were engraved between his expressive mouth and arrogant nose. She met dark golden eyes that riveted her bonelessly in place. 'I want to forget Paradiso and its occupants for an afternoon.' Carlo pushed back the silver hah’ curving her cheekbones and framed her uncertain face with both hands. 'When I make love with you, I forget everything else. It is the sweetest oblivion I know,’ he stated huskily.

Her heart jumped behind her breastbone. She turned to watch the two crewmen unfurling the sails, wretchedly aware of just how badly she wanted to believe him. The yacht sailed round Paradiso. Since the cay encompassed little more than a square mile of territory that didn't take long. Jessica let Carlo show her down into a comfortable cabin and display the range of swimwear available for her use. She took her time selecting a bikini in the least daring design. When she climbed the com-panionway, she saw the crewmen speeding away in the motorboat.

'Why have they gone?'

'To leave us in privacy,' Carlo advanced, amused by her question, intent golden eyes lazily skimming over the full thrust of her breasts and the rounded swell of her hips.

A deep flush warmed her skin.

He stripped off his shirt and cast it carelessly aside.

He had a truly magnificent torso. Her tongue stole out to moisten her dry lips as he embarked on his jeans.

She expected him to reveal swimming briefs beneath but Carlo skimmed off down to bare golden flesh. 'I never wear anything when I'm swimming,’

'So I see.' Magnetised by the view, she stared like a schoolgirl as he executed a perfect dive off the yacht and broke into a fast crawl that cut through the water.

A less able swimmer, she got into the water by way of the steps provided. The sea was deliriously warm. After a little exercise, she let herself float, heat beating down on her wet body like a rejuvenating drug.

Carlo surfaced beside her. 'You're not very active.’

'Don't pull me under or anything smart like that!' she warned nervously.

He kissed her instead, and in the sudden blinding grip of sensation she forgot to paddle and was hauled upright again by Carlo before she slid beneath the surface. 'Float,' he suggested gently, amusedly.

Half an hour later, she was reclining on a sun-lounger, a Daiquiri clasped in one hand, as she let relaxation seep luxuriously through her every limb. She opened her eyes behind her sunglasses when the glorious heat was abruptly reduced by Carlo's arrangement of a parasol above her. 'Spoilsport,’ she muttered.

'You'll bum...and if you bum,' Carlo said with single-minded cool, ‘I won't be able to touch you.'

'I would prefer to bum '

'Uar.' He reached for her with hands that brooked no argument and she trembled as the sunwarmed heat of his body met electrifyingly with hers. He had dispensed with the towel he had knotted round his lean hips.

•Don't you think you should put some clothes on?' she gasped.

'I think you need a few anatomy lessons,' he laughed softly, indolently, scanning her hot cheeks. 'Did he undress in the dark?'

'That is a disgusting question!' Jessica was suddenly infuriated by the sheer blaze of his sexual confidence.

Did he think desire would make a mindless slave out of her? Did he think he could use sex to blind her to everything else?

'And to return to the subject you keep dropping,' she snapped. ‘I don't want to go through with a fake wedding.'

Carlo gazed down at her and slowly, erotically moved on her, forcing her into raw acquaintance with his arousal. 'Sometimes we all have to do things we don't want to do.'

'Meaning that you don't either?' In quite irrational annoyance, her mouth tightened as she fought to suppress the shivering hunger he was invoking in her with such insulting ease.

'A wedding-ring has to be about the last reward I

would want to give you '

Her amethyst eyes widened to their fullest extent. 'Reward? You consider going through a disgusting parody of a wedding ceremony a reward?'