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LILY PRESSED HER head against Trip’s muscular chest, her body shattering around him as his hips jerked against her, each movement breaking her into ever tinier fragments. His hand was tight in her hair and she breathed him in like oxygen.
She had tried to forget how good it was between them, tried to tell herself that she had misremembered the storm of their passion. But she had been lying. Trip was the only man who had ever made her feel so helpless and hungry all at once. His was the only touch that could wrap her in a blaze of desire, turn her inside out and dissolve her into a creature of pure, endless need. A woman, no less.
It had been just like that first time. Like every time in between, and maybe it would always be like this with them. With each of them scraped raw, dazed and aching, shivering with the aftershocks of their encounter and that head-spinning need and longing that stormed through their limbs until it exploded into a firestorm that blinded and burned everything in its path.
But they stayed safe, bodies fused in a painless white heat.
‘Lily—’ She felt his fingers move and then he was tipping her face up to his, his blue eyes hot and fierce like the centre of a flame. Her legs were still wrapped around his waist and it was then, gazing down at the place where their bodies were pressed together, that she realised that he was still kneeling, his other hand supporting the weight of her so casually that it made her tremble inside.
‘I didn’t check. Are you...?’
‘Yes. I’m on the pill.’
Something shifted in his face, beneath the surface of the skin, too quick to capture, but he didn’t make any attempt to break their embrace and she didn’t either. She just wanted to stay there for ever, splintered into a thousand pieces, with his hardness clenched deep inside her, and his heart raging next to hers.
It took a while for her muscles to relax, for her to take a normal breath and even then he still held her close. Finally, he shifted his weight, lifting her up and letting her legs drop from around his waist and laying her down on the warm grass. She watched in quiet wonder as he moved to lie down beside her.
A breeze was lifting the leaves high up the trees and she gazed up at the fluttering sunlight as Trip caressed the palm of her hand, his face relaxed, at peace, whereas she—
It had taken only a few minutes but the events of moments earlier were starting to fill her head, each frame tossing up one question after another.
Her eyes moved across the clearing. In this circle of quivering pines and oak saplings it felt as if the world outside were gone, had become a shimmering desert. All that remained was this tiny oasis.
And she had taken his hand and led him here.
What had she been thinking?
Nothing.
She hadn’t been thinking, just feeling. Her need to touch Trip, to press up against the familiar curve of his shoulder and the solid warmth of his arms, had spread white and blinding across her mind, blotting out both common sense and any thought of self-preservation.
And she still wasn’t thinking about her own well-being now. How could she after everything Trip had been through?
Her fingers moved to touch a long thin scar on his leg and, now that she was looking, she could see more scratches, grazes and discoloured skin beneath his tan.
The creases around his eyes made her heart contract. He was never more beautiful than when he smiled, and the thought of him being hunted, hurt, shot or worse made her feel panicked. She reached up and clasped his face in her hands and pressed a desperate kiss to his mouth, needing to feel his breath, his heartbeat, to prove that he was real.
He kissed her back, his hand moving, his touch firm, compelling, sliding slowly up to cup her breast, palms grazing her already taut nipple, shaping her ribs, her waist, her hips.
She pulled him closer, her breath suddenly staccato in her throat as he lowered his body onto hers and she felt the press of his erection, hard and as thick as her wrist. Helplessly she arched up against him, opening her legs wider, and then he slid inside her and she moaned softly, her pulse frantic against his skin, meeting each thrust of his hips with one of her own until there was nothing but heat and need and their quickening breath.
The sun was starting its downward descent when they finally headed back to the villa. Valentina was in the kitchen, preparing the evening meal. She turned towards Lily and smiled warmly.
‘Did you have a nice afternoon?’
Lily nodded. ‘We did. We...’ She hesitated, dry-mouthed as the events of the afternoon unfurled in front of her eyes in all their naked, unfiltered glory so that she could almost feel Trip’s hands on her belly and waist, his fingers light against her hips and between her thighs. She was hardly going to share that version of events with the housekeeper, but she was a terrible liar, particularly when put on the spot like this.
‘We—’
‘Yes, we did.’ Trip cut across her smoothly. ‘I showed Lily around the vineyards and then we went for a walk in the woods. To cool off,’ he added, his eyes finding Lily’s. The slide of blue heat across her skin made her shake inside.
‘Do you think she guessed?’ Lily asked as they made their way upstairs. ‘That we weren’t—I mean, that we were—’
Trip’s eyebrows pulled together a fraction. ‘What? That we were having al fresco sex?’ Shaking his head, he reached out and picked some grass seeds from her hair. ‘I’m going to go with no. But even if she did, so what? We’re engaged. We’re allowed to have sex.’
They had reached her bedroom now and he followed her through the door quite naturally, almost as if they were the couple they were pretending to be.
And could be for real?
