One Night on the Island(49)

‘I need some air,’ I say.

And then I head for the door and leave her sitting there alone.





Cleo





19 October


Salvation Island


TWO HUNDRED HOURS OF US


I’ve never felt more of an idiot. I’d leave but there’s nowhere to go. A no-holds-barred holiday romance? What was I thinking? I sounded seventeen instead of thirty. I was aiming for sophisticated and undershot by about a decade. He leaves in eight days. Why couldn’t I have just got through this week and parted as friends? Are we even friends? We almost were, I think, before the kiss. And now I don’t know how we’re going to get through the next eight days. I don’t even know how we’re going to get through tonight. Mack’s been outside for almost half an hour, and I’m wondering if I should … Oh shit. He’s coming back in.

I look up as the door swings wide. He stands framed in the doorway for a second and stares at me, and I’ve no clue what’s going on behind his mismatched eyes. I think he’s about to say something but then he doesn’t. He slams the door, drags his T-shirt over his head and drops on to his knees. It takes me a few seconds to realize what he’s doing. He’s using his T-shirt to scrub out the chalk line.

I don’t move a muscle. He makes sure every last speck of chalk is gone, and then he stands up and chucks his T-shirt on the floor.

‘The line …’ I say, swallowing hard.

‘We already crossed it,’ he says. ‘Come here.’

A low thrill runs through me at the husk in his voice. I get up and move round the sofa, clammy-nervous.

‘I’ve never had a holiday romance,’ he says when I stand in front of him.

‘Me neither,’ I say, quiet.

‘Americans don’t go on holiday.’

‘Vacation romance?’

‘Never had one of those either.’

He reaches out and cups my cheek; I kiss his thumb when he runs it across my mouth.

‘I don’t know how to be with you, Cleo,’ he says. ‘But I want to.’

If there was ever a time to be bold, this is mine. I reach for the belt of my robe and tug the knot, letting it fall open. Mack follows my hands with his eyes, then lifts his gaze up to mine, letting me see the effect I’m having on him.

‘Take it off,’ he says, low, halfway between a question and a demand.

You know in movies when people shrug their shoulders and their robe falls off? I attempt a shimmy, and by some fluke it falls in exactly that starlet way, slithering to pool around my ankles.

‘That was some damn move,’ he says, the edges of his mouth twitching.

‘I’m pretty proud of it,’ I say, running my palm down his chest, all the way to the button of his jeans.

‘I was wrong when I said you’re not a mermaid,’ he says, winding a length of my hair around his fingers. He traces his other hand down my throat, between my breasts, over my stomach. ‘Sleep in my bed tonight?’

Like he needs to ask.

I pull him close enough for our bodies to touch. He moans low in his throat and lowers his head to mine. I gasp when his palms skim down the length of my spine to cup my backside.

‘Cleo,’ he says, lifting his face away just enough to look at me with his beautiful eyes. ‘Are you sure?’

I trace the bunched muscles of his shoulders then hold his face between my hands. ‘I’m so sure, Mack.’

‘I can’t offer you anything but this week,’ he says, tender.

I don’t have anything more to give him either. ‘Then you better make it memorable,’ I say.

‘I can do that.’ He dips his head and takes my nipple into the heat of his mouth, and I gasp and push my fingers into his hair because it feels like he’s doing actual magic with his tongue.

The fur throw on the bed brushes my back when he lowers me on to it, his eyes hot on mine, the shallow rise and fall of his chest telling me this is a lot for him too. For a moment it’s feral – his lips find mine, hungry and searching. He tastes of sea salt and red wine and of pent-up longing, his tongue in my mouth, his hands over my body. My breath catches in my throat because I want the weight of his body against mine so much it hurts.

‘I’ve tried not to think about this.’ He shucks off the rest of his clothes and lays down alongside me naked. ‘I’ve tried not to imagine how it’d be with us.’

‘I haven’t thought about anything else since we kissed,’ I admit. He angles his body towards mine and I turn myself into him. We both gasp at the kick-up in intimacy when our stomachs press together.

‘Just since we kissed, huh?’ he says. ‘Longer for me.’

He reaches for my hands and raises them over my head against the pillow, the look in his eyes somewhere close to drugged as he slides his knee between mine.

‘Cleo.’ The edge to his voice is everything.

I curl my fingers into his palms above my head, his mouth against mine as he moves over me and settles himself between my legs.

His parted lips graze my forehead, my cheek, along my jaw. He looks in my eyes when he lowers his hips, slow and deep, biting his bottom lip as if he’s in actual pain. I paint the moment in the sketchbook of my most precious memories in my head.