“Thank you,” Dylan said. “Your faith in me means a lot.”
Lucien lifted a nonchalant shoulder. “Just don’t expect me to hug,” he said, pushing his chair back as he stood. “I like you, but this isn’t Brokeback Mountain.”
As Lucien walked away, Dylan couldn’t repress an inner smile, a feeling of warmth, despite the disagreeable events of the evening, as he gazed into his shot glass. He hadn’t only found a remarkable woman in Ibiza. He’d made a true friend.
At the villa, Kara and Sophie sat on the terrace beneath the shade of an umbrella, little needed now the evening had drawn in, an open bottle of chilled white wine on the table in front of them.
“Here in Ibiza? In a few weeks time?” Kara repeated Sophie’s words. “I was looking forward to a trip to the land of sexy Vikings.”
“Sorry. Blame my Viking. He wants to get married here.”
Kara shrugged with exaggerated resignation. “I’m probably not in the market for a Viking anyway,” she admitted.
“You’ve changed your tune,” Sophie grinned, topping up their wine glasses. “I take it that the divine Mr. Day is the reason for your change of heart?”
“God, Soph,” Kara said, feeling the flush of pleasure on her cheeks at the mention of him. “He really is divine. He’s like… I don’t even know how to put it. He melts me.” Kara ignored Sophie’s knowing smile. “I mean it, I’ve never met anyone like him before. It’s like… he really gets me.”
“And does he?” Sophie said, raising her eyebrows questioningly. “ Does he really get you?”
“Holy fuck. Yes. God, yes!” Kara laughed. “Does he ever.”
“Good. You deserve someone to make you feel like that,” Sophie said. “God knows, you’ve kissed your share of frogs.”
“You really think he might be my prince?”
“Any man who can make you blush like that gets my vote. I like him a lot Kara. I really do.”
Kara lay back and closed her eyes, a serene smile on her face.
Maybe it was time for her luck to change. Dylan Day was the first man she’d ever met who seemed to genuinely want her for who she was, without any hidden agendas, without any skeletons in his cupboards, without any secret girlfriends waiting to jump out on her if she let herself get in too deep.
Maybe. Maybe it would be okay.
Kara really wanted it to be okay.
She realised that she believed it could be.
It would be. Really.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“What shall we do with our night off, Sailor?” Kara twirled Dylan’s hair around her fingers, massaging his scalp as they lay baking on the deck of the Love Tug in the late afternoon sun.
Once a week, Sophie and Lucien gave them a precious night off together, and they did the same in return. Tonight was Kara and Dylan’s turn to play hooky, and she wanted to kick back and make the best of every moment. With each day that slid by beneath the warmth of the Ibizan sun, she became more aware of how little time they had until the end of summer. And she resolutely wasn’t thinking beyond that.
“Shall we take this little boat and sail off around the island?” she said.
Dylan rolled onto his side, his warm hand on her ribs as he looked down at her.
“Do you know how to sail this thing? Because lovely as it sounds, I don’t have the first idea.”
“Well that’s that plan scuppered,” Kara said. “Any more ideas?”
Dylan slid his hand down over her stomach, tracing his fingers along the edge of the triangle of her lime green bikini. “How ‘bout I help you get out of this and take you downstairs, show you who’s boss?”
Kara laughed. “Do you have handcuffs? Every good boss needs handcuffs.”
“No. You want me to get some?”
“I already have some, and I might just have to fetch them and show you who’s boss,” she grinned, catching his wrists and encircling them with her hands. He let her hold him down for a few seconds, his eyes lazily turned on. “I might bring my whip too,” she murmured, her chest against his as she slid her knee over his shorts-clad crotch.
“Will you wear black leather?” he asked, lifting his head to catch her kiss, letting his tongue flicker into her mouth.
“No." An amused glint lit her eyes. “You will.”
He laughed, rolling her over and pinioning her beneath him with ease.
“You crossed the line, English.” He restrained her wrists beside her head, his body deliciously heavy on hers. “You wear the leather, and I’ll take it off you.” He dipped his head and kissed her again, slow and easy this time, that world-class mouth of his stealing any argument that might have been in her. There were no two ways about it. She was wildly turned on by the idea of wearing leather for him and letting him take it off her.
“Soon then,” she said, when he let her come up for air. “But not today.” She stroked his back when he released her hands, enjoying his sun-warmed skin. “Take me somewhere new today. Take me on an adventure.” She ran her hands over his ass, and he rocked his hips into hers.
“You know that wherever we go, the plan involves fucking, yes?” he said, kissing his way along her jaw. It was an entirely unnecessary question.
“In the Mustang,” she whispered, grazing his earlobe with her teeth. “I want you to fuck me on the back seat.”
He lifted his head, and that lazy turned on look in his eyes had notched up to crazy turned on.
“Say that again.” The desire in his murmured voice turned her body inside out with lust. “Tell me again how you want me to fuck you.”
Kara’s smile took over her whole face as she wrapped her leg around his thighs tighter to bring his cock harder against her.
“Fuck me, Dylan Day. Drive me somewhere quiet and make me come all over the back seat of the Mustang.” She dragged her nails down his back. “I want you to strip me naked and bend me over the bonnet.”
Dylan ground against her, making her lips part on a sigh of pleasure.
“Where I come from, it’s a hood.”
“Call it whatever you like, darlin’. Just bend me over it and screw me with your big, hard cock.”
“You have a filthy mouth, English…” Dylan reached between their bodies and pushed her bikini top up over her breast so that he could roll her already rock-hard nipple between his thumb and fingers. “Tell me some more.”
Kara opened her mouth, and he dropped his face to hers, all the heat from their conversation spilling into their hard, hungry kiss. She moaned, writhing beneath him, not caring if anyone could see them because her head only had room for him in it. “Dylan…” she breathed his name, her eyes closed. “Plan B. Let’s not go anywhere. Take me downstairs.” She bit gently on his lip. “Take me to bed.”
He groaned into her mouth. “Much as I’d love to,” - his hand covered her breast, warm and massaging - “I can’t get the idea of the Mustang out of my head now.”
Kara lifted her hips, cradling his erection between her legs. “I’m too far down the line, Sailor,” she pleaded. “Don’t make me wait.”
He smiled, rocking himself against her. “It’ll be worth it, I promise,” he whispered, holding her face. “Next time you come you’ll be sitting up on that folded down roof with my head between your legs.”
Kara moaned against him, and he slid a finger into her mouth. “Can you see it, baby?”
She swirled her tongue around his finger, her eyes closed. She could see it, hell, she could feel it, but the fantasy just wasn’t enough. He was driving her slowly out of her mind.
He stroked her hair back from her forehead with his other hand, moving his hips into hers again.