Donovans 02 - Jade Island

wondered if she had been born to be stupid about men or if it was something she had perfected in the past thirty years.
    Lianne folded her arms on the table, laid her head on them, and listened to the masculine rumble of voices discussing the weather, the water, and the occasional tugboat passing in the night. Gradually the subdued, muscular growl of the engine overcame the voices. She slept, but her dreams were fitful swirls of jade and accusations, fear and the black heart of an approaching storm.
     
    “Is it time to go ashore?” Lianne asked, her voice foggy from sleep.
    “No,” Kyle said. “It’s time to go to bed.”
    Before she could argue, he lifted her out of the dinette nook, put her on her feet, and half guided, half pushed her toward the bow. Behind him, Jake started muscling the table off its pedestal so that he could make up his bed.
    “Watch your head,” Kyle said.
    Even with the warning, Lianne bumped her forehead as she stepped down into the V berth. She was so sleepy she didn’t care. She just peeled off her shoes, jacket, and jeans and crawled beneath the specially made, V-shaped blanket.
    Kyle stripped off everything and crawled in next to her.
    “What are you—” she began.
    “Scoot over,” he said.
    Lianne moved so far away from him that the blanket couldn’t cover her, but even that wasn’t far enough. Although plenty wide at one end, the pie-shaped bed didn’t leave a lot of room for privacy at the other. The section of foam mattress she was lying on gave beneath Kyle’s weight as he settled into the bed. Searching fingers of cold, damp air slid under the blanket.
    She shivered and wished she hadn’t taken off her jacket and jeans. The thong-bikini underwear and blouse she wore didn’t offer much in the way of cover or warmth. But she made no move to get closer to the nearest source of heat—Kyle Donovan.
    He made an impatient sound, rolled onto his side, and pulled Lianne close against his chest.
    “I’m not cold,” she muttered.
    “I am.”
    It was a lie. The man radiated heat like the sun. She tried not to let his warmth seep into her, but it was impossible. Slowly her body began to soften against his.
    “That’s it, sweetheart,” he said against her hair. “Sleep. It’s going to be a long day tomorrow.”
    She sighed, relaxed more, then stiffened as her hips brushed against him. He was fully aroused.
    “Don’t worry,” Kyle murmured against her ear, the words a bare thread of sound. “Much as I’d like to, Jake has ears like a fox. So just snuggle in here and we’ll both make the best of a cold bed.”
    No longer worried about revealing his own arousal, he pulled her hips against his, wrapped his arms around her, and told himself he wasn’t really torturing himself, he was just keeping her warm. The fact that one of his hands ended up tucked between her breasts was an accident.
    The fact that her nipples were hard was a revelation.
    Gently he skimmed them with his thumb, first one nipple, then the other, just for the sheer pleasure of hearing her breathing change, of having her body acknowledge the desire she wouldn’t speak aloud. He didn’t mean to spread his hand wide, to caress, to stroke, to unbutton and tease and arouse; but he did each of those things, over and over, while she remained motionless but for the wild beating of her heart.
    Very, very slowly, his touch moved down her body like the sun sliding over a mountain peak and then down to the darkest valley, probing every shadow, even the deepest one. Especially the deepest one, the one that only his aching flesh could fill, the one that gave softly, generously as he parted her and pushed into the endless heat, the wellspring of feminine mystery that pulsed slowly, rhythmically, soundlessly around him even as he spilled into her, and they gave themselves in a prolonged, silent unraveling that was like nothing either had ever felt before.
    They fell asleep that way, silent, motionless, joined.

Chapter 25
    T he wind blew hard all morning, churning the water, bringing unpredictable bursts of rain. By the time the wind began to die down, it was raining steadily. Neither wind nor rain kept Kyle from showing Lianne how to handle the Zodiac, operate the short-range location system the divers would wear, and breathe underwater using the government’s high-tech equipment.
    While Kyle ran Lianne through her paces, Archer and Jake took turns scrambling up the narrow ridge that separated Jade Island