He easily caught her in his arms and didn’t give her a chance to slap him. Spinning them around, he pushed her up against the smooth cave walls, and captured her mouth, stopping her words as he plunged his tongue inside, demanding a response from her.
Holding her hands firmly against her sides, he deepened the kiss, not giving her a chance to retreat, not giving her a single moment to think. They both needed this. It was the only way to move forward. What they had together was unstoppable, and the sooner she realized that, the better off both of them would be.
“Shane,” she cried as her rage quickly turned to passion. She might have thought that she despised him, but her body was telling him something entirely different.
“Are you going to behave?” he asked as he pulled back.
Her hand quickly escaped his hold and he felt the sting of her slap across his cheek. He might have deserved that. He really shouldn’t have been mocking her. In fact, when this night was over, he owed her several apologies for his behavior during the day. He’d been less than a gentleman from start to finish. But he just couldn’t seem to help himself when in her presence. She elicited emotions in him unlike any other woman he’d ever met. He certainly couldn’t help himself now.
“Not ever in this lifetime,” she said through gritted teeth. Her heaving chest was still brushing his as he leaned in closer.
“Oh, Lia, darling, we are going to make our own thunder tonight,” he promised her as he lifted a hand and rubbed his jaw. She’d really put some effort into that hit.
“You are so full of yourself, Shane. The only thunder you’ll be hearing is outside of these walls,” she said, but the tremor in her voice let him know that she was very aware of where this was going.
They were quickly losing their light, so Shane released her, moved to the bag and pulled out their tent — the tent they’d be making love in all night long. His body hardened in anticipation. Just a little bit longer, he thought.
Shane, ever the romantic, threw Lia a bag of beef jerky as he quickly set up their Home Sweet Home. She’d need her strength.
“What’s the point of a tent? We’re in a cave,” Lia said.
“You can sleep outside it if you want, but I prefer not to have spiders crawling all over me,” he said with a grin that was difficult for her to see.
Lia shut up as she looked around and began scratching her arms. Shane felt the slightest bit of guilt, but he was so worked up right now, his hands were trembling as he put the tent together.
With only a few candles in the emergency pack, he decided to light only one. With luck, they’d be rescued soon, but they were stuck in this cave until the horrendous rain stopped, and no one was going to find them there. Hmmmm.
Yes, he wanted to be rescued, but having Lia all to himself for a couple days wasn’t a bad thing, in his opinion. She’d have no choice but to admit where this was going between the two of them.
When he was finished, he stood, and looked her way, her face barely discernible in the fading light. “Damn, you are stunning,” he gasped, loving the silhouette of her body against the dark interior of the cave.
Her eyes widened, but it wasn’t a line, it wasn’t a way for him to gain her submission — she just took his breath away.
“Shane…” she began, her voice barely a whisper, need pouring through it.
“Time to get out of those clothes, Lia. We don’t need you catching pneumonia,” he said as his eyes raked across her chest.
She narrowed her eyes, seeming to gain just a little bit of her temper back. “I’m not getting na**d in front of you again, and in this heat, I don’t think I have to worry about that,” she told him as a shiver passed through her that had nothing to do with her body temperature.
He just smiled as he moved forward. Holy hell, he liked it when she played hard to get.
Chapter Seventeen
Rachel
“No. You are doing it all wrong,” Rachel cried, emitting a flood of giggles.
It had been five days of utter bliss, and though she knew their time was coming to an end, she refused to think about it. She was growing attached, but she pushed that to the far recesses of her mind as well. She couldn’t focus on what tomorrow would bring; she allowed space in her brain only for what the two of them had right at that moment.
Ian was spectacular in every single way, even in his imperfections, which she liked about him. He had a cowlick that wouldn’t behave no matter how many times he brushed his hair. There was also a small scar on his forehead; she really wanted to know how he’d gotten it, but she didn’t want to ask, didn’t want to get more attached.
Their days and nights of lovemaking were more than she could have ever imagined, and he was also funny and sexy and made her never want to leave this penthouse suite.
But she would.
After their time was over, she would walk away with her head held high, and she’d have an experience that she would most likely carry with her for the rest of her life. She’d gone into this with her eyes wide open, and she refused to have regrets about it.
“I don’t see how I’m doing it wrong. This is just ridiculous,” Ian said with a scowl.
“Obviously you don’t know how to just let go. The whole point of Pirate’s Cove is to battle for rights so you can become the most feared and famous pirate the world has ever known. You aren’t even trying,” she said as she collected more gold. She’d won again.
“I have better ideas of games we can play,” Ian told her as he flicked the board away and grabbed her quickly, pulling her into his lap.
“I thought you said I was wearing you out,” she said with a grin as she kissed his square jaw.
“When would I ever have said such a thing?” he asked in horror.
“Oh, I don’t know. I think it was right after our shower a few hours ago.”
“Then I was a fool. I could never get enough of your delectable body,” he said as he began kissing her neck.
“Mmm. You can do that for about a million more years,” she offered, leaning into his mouth, enjoying the trace of his tongue along the sensitive skin of her neck.
He took her right there on the couch, and then she lay in his arms, sated...
“You’d better not go to sleep or the walls will rattle,” he said with a laugh.
“What?”
“The people in the next suite over were pounding on the walls because you were snoring so loudly.”
“I do not snore,” she gasped in horror as she glared at him.