His eyes drop and I resist the urge to cover myself further with my arms. “Robert,” I say, my tone turning warning. “Don’t make me hurt you.”
Robert’s gaze comes back to mine and glints. He’d like it if I hurt him. Shit. “Seriously, I’ll sic Blue on you. Go away.” Robert stands and takes in a deep breath, his gaze dropping to the water again. “Robert!” I yell.
“What?” he says, his eyes still focused on the water. “Like you said, I can’t even see anything.” But the smile on his face implies that he can.
I splash at him but it doesn’t even get close. “Seriously, I will make Blue attack you.”
“Blue likes me,” Robert says. Blue thumps his tail as if agreeing. Traitor. Robert’s eyes meet mine again. He raises one brow. “And I am your husband, Sydney. You don’t need to be shy around me.”
“It’s not that I’m shy,” I say. “It’s that you’re…”
“That I want you.” Something about the way he says it makes it suddenly hard to swallow. “That I’ve spent years pursuing you and now that I have you naked in front of me…” He raises one brow. “Do you know for a brief moment I thought maybe you planned this, that you’d finally decided to allow yourself this…”
“No,” I say quickly.
“You are still denying your pleasure, Sydney?”
“No,” I say again, just as quickly.
“Then you worry for your heart?”
“This is an annoying conversation to have naked, Robert.” He places his sunglasses on the railing and begins to unbutton his shirt. “What are you doing?” I ask, panic coming into my voice.
“I want to get some sun,” he says, as if it makes total sense to take one’s shirt off in the tropics while on one’s private terrace. Which it does!
My lips purse, anger starting to rise in my throat. “You know how I respond to pressure,” I say.
“Yes, I do.” He slips his shirt off and I do not look at his chest. I do not notice his shoulders. “Physical retribution is your favorite, I believe. That’s what I’m counting on.”
I swallow, refusing to break from his gaze. Refusing to lose this staring contest. Robert’s hands drop to his waistband. It feels almost like we are playing a game of chicken. “I’m not sleeping with you,” I say.
He pulls his pants down and I do not notice the black boxer briefs hugging his body because my gaze is locked onto his…and he is loving every second of this game. Standing up there all tall and in control. Me down here all naked and not.
My eyes narrow. I do not like this at all. Then why is my heart pounding? Why does this feel like fun?
When he goes to push down his boxers, he wins and I drop my gaze. “Fuck you,” I say.
“Yes, please,” he answers.
His footsteps move toward the stairs and I swim away, heading under the hut. Maybe I can climb up through the coffee table. But all I find under there is shade and a shallower bottom.
I go to swim back but Robert is in the water, only fifteen feet away. “Sydney,” he says, swimming toward me, a note of teasing in his voice. “Are you fleeing?”
“I’m getting out.”
“Be my guest.”
I have to swim by him to get to the stairs. Or swim around and look like I’m fleeing. He keeps coming toward me, his strokes slow and steady—like the press of time. Like the persistent press of him coming for me for so damn long now.
That sense that we are playing a game of chicken comes over me again. Except that he has no reason to veer off course…and maybe I don’t either.
I lift my chin, determined to stand my ground. He glides up to me, his eyes holding mine as he slides right into my personal space. His arm wraps around my bare waist under the water. My breath hitches at the contact—even though he didn’t hide his intention.
Robert pulls me forward, so that I press against him and my bare breasts meet his chest. Our eyes still hold. “What are you—” I don’t get to finish the question because his mouth comes down onto mine. Warm, commanding, insistent. This kiss is not a suggestion and he is not a chicken. But this might turn into a fight…
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Robert’s free hand lands on my lower back, and he presses our bodies tighter as he deepens the kiss. My skin is on fire and the ocean water laps coolly against me. I’m not stopping him.
My hands lay against his chest but they don’t push. They just lay there—it’s almost like I enjoy the way he feels. As if maybe this feels good. Really good.
This is insane, a voice in my head says, but the rush of blood in my ears drowns it out. The kiss started out demanding—commanding. A promise that I would be kissed, but as time spins on with the soft sea lapping at us it grows softer, more intimate, less urgent. More dangerous.
Robert pulls back and looks down into my eyes. We see each other. Killers. Murderers. Willing to do whatever it takes to get what we want.
Robert sees me. Sees all my brokenness and he…loves me for it. Mulberry loves me for my courage. Robert loves me for my flaws.
He leans down again, his lips finding mine and it isn’t strange. It doesn’t feel wrong. It feels good.
I want this…I do. My hands find his shoulders and I run my fingers over them, tracing the lines of muscles, letting myself explore this magnetic enigma of a man whom I’ve hated, loved, loathed, and baited. Through all of it he kept coming at me. A storm crossing over parched desert, flooding the world to reach me.
His intensity comes through in his touch. The way he plays the piano, those long fingers dancing over the keys with confidence and joy—that’s how he handles me. Sure, rhythmic, and adoring.
“Sydney,” he says, his voice raw, his lips hovering just over mine.
Before I can respond Blue barks. Robert’s grip on me tightens, his body pressing closer, his lips falling on mine again, that urgency returning. He’s afraid. Afraid I’ll stop. Afraid I’ll leave him again.
