By Request Collection 1. Jackie Braun

With an effort, he snapped himself back to the present and the vision of delightedness before him. She was here now, and for now she was all his. He pushed the uneasiness aside. ‘Come here.’

      She stepped unhesitatingly into his embrace with the ease and comfort of a familiar lover, linked her arms around his neck and tilted her head up, her lips a breath away from his. ‘Have you any idea how I feel right now?’

      ‘Yeah.’ He smoothed his hands over her shoulders beneath the straps of her sundress and pressed his mouth against her neck. Impossible not to linger a moment, to feast on that almost translucent skin. ‘Oh, yeah.’ He lifted his head to watch her face as he ran his hands down her sides—the dip of her waist, the flare of her hips beneath skin-scented cotton. ‘You feel incredible. Good enough to eat, in fact.’ Lowering his lips, he rubbed them lightly over hers and tasted the faint bitterness of coffee, the stronger, sweeter hint of vanilla and almonds. He flicked his tongue out, sampled the corner of her mouth where the flavour was more delicate. ‘Gilda’s been feeding you.’

      ‘Mmm.’ She wriggled closer, tightened her hold and her breasts rubbed against his chest. ‘But I’m still hungry.’ She opened her mouth, took his lower lip between her teeth and bit down. ‘So hungry.’ she soothed the tingle with her tongue, then sucked gently ‘.I could eat you too.’

      He lifted her off the floor and she clamped her thighs around his waist, her eyes hot, her rosebud lips parted. His blood thundered in his ears and hammered in his groin.

      ‘Yeah. Who needs a lamb roast?’ he murmured against her mouth as his fingers clenched around her bottom, bringing her intimate heat into contact with his belly.

      His gaze remained fused with hers as he carried her to the kitchen island, set her on the edge of the smooth marble and pushed her thighs apart. Then he braced his hands on the counter top and leaned in while she twisted her fingers in his T-shirt, knuckles white, pressed against his chest.

      Falling into the kiss was like leaping out of a plane and into the clouds. Fast and exhilarating, destination uncertain. And for the moment he didn’t care. The journey was enough.

      The skinny strip of white lace was no barrier—a flick of his wrist, a quick tug and it was gone. Freeing himself, he plunged inside her. He heard her gasp; her eyes were wide and dark as he withdrew slowly. Plunged again. Harder, deeper. Faster.

      He feasted on her sweet taste, swallowed her sighs as she met him beat for beat with an enthusiasm that rivalled his. They gorged on each other with mouths and tongues and teeth, the past forgotten, the future unclear.

      She surrounded him, slick heat and damp, dark desire, the tight liquid tug pulling him towards completion too fast. Way too fast. The notion that he was here at last registered vaguely on some distant horizon.

      Then no words, no time, no thought, just a fierce, fast, furious coupling. The need to possess her, a demand to drive reason from her mind so that he was all she knew—all he knew—hammered through his mind in time with his thrusts.

      Lissa had never known such a frenzy of wants and desires, needs and demands. Her hands rushed beneath his T-shirt to find all those hard muscles beneath damp skin. He didn’t try to hold her or pin her down in any way and rational thought fled as she gave herself up to the whirlwind of sensations battering her. And, oh, how liberating to allow herself to be swept along in its wake, knowing she was safe, that she’d found a haven in Blake.

      And somewhere amidst the maelstrom she found the eye of the storm, the calm, her centre.

      She held tight to it as they raced together to the finish.

      Moments later she slid her hands from beneath the soft cotton tee to wrap them around his forearms braced either side of her. Her thighs trembled, her whole body was limp and tiny exquisite aftershocks still shuddered through her body.

      ‘Lissa.’ Breathing heavily, he looked into her eyes and she saw a glimmer of concern. ‘I’ll replace the underwear.’

      If that was all that was bothering him. She opened her mouth to answer and discovered her throat was dry. This new physical facet of their relationship was moving at warp speed and she was still trying to catch up.

      But emotionally, Lissa knew she was light-years ahead. He would not want to know she was falling in love with him.

      ‘Lissa?’ He lifted her chin with a finger, searching her eyes. And she knew he was remembering their earlier conversation about no complications. No ongoing relationship.

      She leaned forward, pressed a quick kiss on his lips. ‘No need. Thanks to you I have a whole new drawer full of undies,’ she assured him, swallowing the ball of emotion that had rolled up her throat. ‘And it was so worth it.’ Sunny but casual. ‘That was … fa-a-a-n-tastic.’ She stretched her arms, let them relax onto his shoulders and smiled. How could she not? She’d just been ravished on a kitchen counter. ‘Did I hear a lamb roast mentioned somewhere?’

      His smile was. smug? ‘Too late to start now but I can do tuna cakes with a side salad.’

      ‘And he cooks too,’ she murmured, and kissed him lightly on the lips. ‘I’ll make the salad.’

      ‘No.’ He slid her off the counter and deposited her on the floor. His smile disappeared. ‘You’ll call Jared. He phoned while you were gone.’

      Oh. ‘Right.’ She heard the message in Blake’s tone. She should have made that call earlier. ‘I take it you didn’t tell him about the business?’

      ‘That’s your task.’ He walked to the fridge and began pulling out ingredients. ‘He asked you to call him via webcam. He wants to see how you are for himself.’

      With the satisfied glow of love-making in her eyes? Not flipping likely. ‘Oh, bother—the computer’s down, right?’ And her phone was too old for image-to-image capabilities.

      ‘I guess it is.’ He glanced at her as he set a bowl and chopping board on the counter where she’d been sitting moments ago. She felt herself colour. She’d never look at that counter in the same way again.

      Taking her phone outside, she settled herself on a lounger by the pool in the fading afternoon’s warmth and called Jared. She started with an apology, briefly summarised what had been happening with the boat, then talked to little Isaac a moment, which gave her time to psych herself up for the next round of information.

      ‘Blake and I have gone into business together.’ As quick and easy as that, she thought.

      ‘I see.’

      Clearly he didn’t.

      She lay back and watched the palm fronds move in the breeze and told herself not to overreact. ‘He didn’t tell you because I asked him not to. I wanted to do it myself. Just listen first, will you?’

      She hurried on with a quick overview, then outlined the details of her new partnership with Blake, his living-room makeover clause, the new clients she’d got and how fortunate she was to be getting her own business ra, ra, ra.

      ‘So, it makes sense to stay at Blake’s for now,’ she finished.

      Silence.

      She tracked the calming sight of flight of a flock of water birds as they skimmed the water.

       Calm, calm, calm.

      ‘Is that wise, Liss?’

      Calm vanished and irritation prickled between her shoulder blades but she kept her voice steady. ‘What are you implying?’ She flicked at an insect on her dress with a fingernail, then tapped on the lounger’s metal arm. ‘You know Blake—it’s not as if he’s a stranger.’

      ‘I know you had a little crush on him as a teenager but he’s been in the navy for fourteen years apart from that brief trip home when his mother died. He’s a sailor, for God’s sake.’

      ‘A clearance diver, to be precise.’ Jared knew about her crush?