‘You’re not wrong,’ he replied. ‘Not about Steve, or the fact that we all made out with one another. You’re probably not wrong about it being stupid either, but I swear it didn’t seem so at the time.’
She clasped her fist tight to her mouth and squeezed her eyes tight shut. ‘You let me think it was all about Elspeth. That you were in love with her and she’d broken up with you in the most hideous fashion, but it wasn’t about her. It was about Steve. You were cross because she stole him right from under your nose.’
‘Yes,’ he said quietly, seeing no point in denying it. He’d never deliberately hidden that fact; he just hadn’t wanted to talk about it. Still didn’t really want to, even now. ‘You make it sound simple, Dani, and it wasn’t. You’re implying that I had him to start with, so that Elspeth could steal him away. I never did. Elspeth and I were supposed to be a couple, but the only passion we shared was for sex. It ought to have fizzled out between us within weeks. Besides sex and the band, we don’t have anything in common.’
He paused, waiting for her to ask what had happened, how it was that the relationship had managed to drag on for over eighteen months instead of reaching its natural conclusion, but she didn’t; she just looked at him like he’d stabbed her in the heart. Xane continued anyway. Since they were here now, he might as well let it all out. That way, she couldn’t later accuse him of hiding anything.
‘Elspeth knew I’d been with guys in the past. We’d lived in each other’s pockets over several tours, so she’d been aware of who I’d hooked up with. She suggested that we invite Steve to join us one night, because she wanted to watch me with him. She said she picked Steve because we could both trust him. I didn’t realise she actually fancied him until much later. Hell, I didn’t realise how much
I
fancied him until I was in over my head.’ He rubbed his hands across his face, working his index fingers into the corners of his eyes. ‘Steve and I have been close for aeons, but being together like that made sense of a lot of stuff. Things just seemed to click into place. The problem was, he didn’t feel the same way. Oh, he enjoyed what we were doing, but … really, he only did it to please Elspeth. So we ended up doing this crazy, crazy dance between the three of us.’
‘And yet you think that what Ric is doing with Zach and Kara is OK.’
‘Their relationship isn’t remotely the same. They’re all equally into each other.’
She shook her head, and then stood abruptly, causing the boat to rock and dump him off his perch. ‘I’m sorry. I can’t deal with this. I just can’t.’ She climbed back onto the sand and began to stumble towards the shore. Xane followed at a distance.
‘Why?’ he asked. What did she mean, she couldn’t deal with it? That she couldn’t get her head around him loving Steve, or that he didn’t fit her stereotyped view of him? He’d really believed he’d found in Dani the one person prepared to accept him as himself, but this was shaking that belief into ruins. It didn’t help that he simply didn’t understand why the fact that he loved Steve, not Elspeth, made a difference. ‘Why does it bother you? What difference does it make which of them I loved, since it’s over anyway?’
She turned sharply and pierced his heart with her frank glance. ‘I don’t know. It just does … it just does, Xane.’
‘Dani.’ He clasped the top of her arm and tried to draw her closer.
‘Do you still love him?’ she asked.
‘He’s married. There’s no sense in carrying a torch for something I can’t have.’
‘Love doesn’t make sense. Do you love him?’
‘I love you.’ Xane slid his hand around the back of her neck and into her hair. ‘I know it’s too early to be saying it, but it’s the truth. I don’t want Steve. I want you.’ He leaned forward, meaning to claim her, to soothe her fears with a kiss, but Dani pushed him away.
‘Don’t … don’t muddle things up with sex. I need to think. I need to get it all straight in my head. Leave me a minute, will you? Just don’t touch me.’
‘Dani,’ he pleaded, still stretched out towards her.
‘Please.’ She hunched down amongst the shingle in a foetal position, her head hugged tight to her chest and her arms wrapped protectively around her head. Xane stood back and gave her the space she’d asked for, even though he was desperate to comfort her. She muttered to herself, something about her dad, he thought, but he couldn’t make out exactly what. When she eventually did uncoil, he made himself stand still and let her come to him.
Dani faced him with her arms wrapped tightly around her body. A combination of misery and the night breeze rushing in off the sea caused her bottom lip to tremble. Xane longed to seal it between his lips and chase away her chills with the kind of heat they’d been generating between them over the last two days, but, having been chastised once already for seeking to smooth things over with kisses, he deliberately held back.
‘Xane, I’m sorry,’ she whispered. ‘You must think me a complete drama queen. I’m behaving ludicrously, and I know it, but …’ She tightened her hold upon herself a fraction. ‘I just can’t believe … I’m awful, aren’t I? You’re everything I want, but I just don’t know if I can do this. I can’t end up like her, Xane. I can’t.’
‘End up like whom – your mum? You’re not going to, Dani. Why would you even think that? And I don’t think you’re awful. I know you’re wonderful.’ OK, enough with holding back. He stretched out and placed his hand over hers where it lay against her shoulder. Gently, he coaxed her to release her hold, slipped into the space created, and enfolded her in his arms. To his utmost relief, she didn’t push him away.
‘I’m sorry, I’ve shocked you. Maybe I should have said something earlier. I didn’t really want to talk about it. I just wanted to escape, and I wasn’t expecting things to get this serious between us.’
‘Are we serious?’
He kissed the top of her head, then her brow and the tip of her nose.
‘You’ve run away and holed up on an island with me – that’s pretty serious. I’ve told you my middle name: it’s Shirley. No, it’s not. It’s Tobias. That’s deadly serious. I never tell anyone that. It’s vile, isn’t it? It makes me sound like a pet poodle.’
‘Mine’s Marie.’
‘Daniella Marie,’ he tried it together. ‘Yours is pretty.’ He kissed her eyelids, and then sought her lips and gently sucked on her pout. ‘The whole of you is pretty.’ He pushed his hand up into her hair at the back of her head, so that he could tilt her to exactly the angle he wanted before kissing her again. This time he didn’t stop until she’d surrendered to his will completely. ‘Nothing’s changed between us, Dani. I don’t suddenly love you any less. I still need you to be here.’
‘I told you I’m being stupid. I overreacted.’
‘You’re tired,’ he said, making excuses for her. ‘Would you like to go somewhere warmer?’
‘Not back to the fire.’
He agreed completely on that score, since he could well imagine the scene they’d likely encounter, and because, no matter what they were pretending at the moment, he didn’t think this issue of him loving Steve was done with yet. She still had a slightly haunted look in her eyes. ‘We can go to the fort. I still have Ric’s keys.’
‘Yes, please. I think I’d like to go to bed.’
Xane’s dreams were uneasy. He was with Steve in Monte Carlo, both of them strapped into the same Formula One car, a steering wheel apiece, but neither of them in possession of a gear stick. They’d skidded round the last bend with another car on their bumper and the next turn consisted of a hairpin corner with a drop on one side that plunged into the ocean. There was no safety net, someone had taken the crash barriers away and the engine was humming like it was powered by angry wasps. Worse still, they couldn’t even agree on a direction to turn. They tugged the steering wheels in different directions, tearing the car apart as they approached the seawall.
The metal sheared. Xane spun. He couldn’t see where Steve had gone through the flames shooting up all around him. The fire touched his skin and sent bolts of searing pain crashing through his nerves. He twisted, trying to free himself of the harness that held him tight.
‘Xane … Xane … wake up.’
Someone held him by the shoulders, hauled him sideways through the window. He lay on the roadside, panting, unable to get enough air into his chest.
‘It’s a dream. Wake up.’
He opened his eyes but the world around him was dark, the smell of it unfamiliar, until he detected a trace of gardenia. He reached up, felt the body above him and drew her closer, inhaling the lingering smell of flowery blossoms that clung to her hair.
‘It’s Dani,’ she reassured him. ‘You were sobbing. Are you hurt?’
‘No. Just a stupid dream.’
‘Want to tell me about it?’
He shook his head. ‘No. Go back to sleep.’ He closed his eyes again, but the flames were still there. They were between him and the half of the car he’d been pulled from. There were people all around him, putting their hands all over him, touching him in inappropriate ways. He lost his shirt within seconds. It ripped away, so the fire reached his skin that much sooner when he tried to dive through the sheet of sparks.
‘Xane.’ This time she shook him awake.
‘I’ll go sleep on the sofa,’ he mumbled, attempting to rise. But his muscles seemed to have cramped as he’d rested, so he barely managed to lift his back off the mattress, let alone get near to swinging his legs out of bed.
‘You don’t have to do that.’ She snuggled up to him so that her head rested in the crook of his shoulder. ‘I’m not chasing you. You sounded distraught. I thought you’d want to wake up.’
‘Yeah,’ he agreed. ‘I need to clear my head. It’s full of cobwebs.’
‘What are you, trapped in some spooky castle? You were howling like a wolf.’
‘Maybe I’m about to change into one,’ he joked. It felt good to talk about something inconsequential after the dream and the uneasiness that had lingered between them even when they’d climbed into bed. They hadn’t made love. They’d cuddled until they fell asleep.
Dani gave a little grunt of displeasure. ‘I hope not. Doggy breath isn’t nice.’
They’d both experienced plenty of that before they’d slopped upstairs and into Ric’s guestroom, which was full of Zach’s belongings. Ric’s dogs seemed to view guests as new items to curl up on. A full-grown Dalmatian on your lap, panting in your face, wasn’t all that pleasant, and if you stood up it only encouraged them to stick their noses into more intimate places. They’d had to lock them in the kitchen in order to avoid having additional bodies in the bed.
‘Here, let me check.’ Dani’s hand passed over his forehead and found the juncture between his brows.
‘Nah, they don’t meet in the middle, and –’ she sought and clasped his hand below the sheets ‘– your palm isn’t hairy. Let me check the other one.’
Xane reached across with the other hand so she could check.
‘That one is fine too. You are pretty hot, though.’
‘So are you.’
‘I didn’t mean …’ She propped herself up on one elbow in order to nudge him in the shoulder.
‘Yes, but you are,’ he said, drawing her across his body. It felt comfortable with her above him, her weight pleasant against his weary body. Of course, having her there, her hips locked to his, her breasts against his nipples, did more to drag him out of his dream and into the waking world than her whispers had. He settled his hands upon her bottom and wriggled a little as he manoeuvred her into a more comfortable spot that gave his body room to adapt to her presence.
‘Are you getting turned on?’ she asked.
‘Course not,’ he said. ‘I never get turned on by having a hot woman jiggling about on top of me.’
That made her chuckle. ‘So I won’t find anything standing to attention if I look down here?’
He’d pretty much swear that she could already feel it, so he didn’t bother to answer. His cock already lay hard against his stomach, trapped between them.
Dani dragged the covers off his body. She looked at him. Her palms splayed across his chest. Xane didn’t protest at losing some comfort; being able to look at her amply compensated him for the lack of heat. Dani had curves in all the places a woman ought to have them. Her nipples were wantonly perked up too, and the thought of how they’d taste in his mouth made him salivate. It wasn’t only the vision of her that wakened his appetite; the way she looked at him, drank him in like she was committing every inch of him to memory, made his insides rear up and fizz.
‘Shall I go down on you?’
What sort of question was that to ask a man?
He tried a casual ‘If you like.’ But it sounded all wrong, so he followed it up with what he wanted to say the first time, except that he’d been trying to sound cool. ‘Please do.’
‘Do you like it when I suck you? I like the feel of you in my mouth.’
Her fingers skated over the lean, hard expanse of his stomach. Her touch kept on moving down, like she was unable to resist the temptation. When she clasped him, exploring the contours of his cock with her sweet little hands, his libido spiked. The smell of her so close, mixed with the scent of his own arousal, left him intoxicated. Was she wet? He reached out, wanting to know, but she was above him, and his ribs complained as he bent.
‘Be still. It’s all right,’ she insisted. So he lay still. He didn’t wet his fingers between her thighs, or taste the gush of moisture that he knew was waiting for him there. Instead, he curled a dark strand of her hair around his fingertips and watched her dip her head towards his belly.
Xane held his breath as she surrounded him with moist heat. If she meant to relax him so he went back to sleep, then she’d failed, at least for now. Post-climax, sure, his brain would probably be so sapped of oxygen that he’d pass out. In the meantime, her touch, the gentle trace of her tongue set his nerves alight as if he’d swallowed a cocktail of stimulants.
‘Oh, sweetheart.’ He entwined more of her hair around his fingers, used it as something to hold onto and to draw her closer. He knew he was too goddamned big for her to swallow the whole of him, and she was compensating for that by wrapping her hand around the lower part of his shaft, but he wanted to feel her heat the whole way down.