Sweet Revenge

into his arms. Water lapped over her shoulders, then to her breasts as he lifted her up and to him. She drew back, but was held firm with her feet unable to reach the sandy floor and her hands gripping his shoulders for support.
    She saw his eyes darken, like the fog when the moon slipped behind a cloud. His breath feathered over her lips as his hands slid through the water and over her skin. When he leaned toward her, she turned her head so that his mouth brushed her cheek gently, patiently. Need rolled inside of her, with a pang that came as much from fear as from desire.
    “You taste of the sea,” he said. “Cool and unconquered.” He skimmed his lips to her ear and her fingers dug into hismuscles; he heard her breath catch and felt her body shudder. “Adrianne.”
    She made herself look at him. Facing what couldn’t be escaped had always been her way. The sun was bright on his hair, almost blinding as it hit the water and refracted. From somewhere behind them a woman was scolding a child. But the sound came dimly as her heart hammered in her ears.
    And he smiled. “Relax,” he told her as his fingers moved up her spine. “I won’t let you go under.”
    But he did. As his lips took hers she went down, farther and faster than safety allowed. Though her head remained in the air and the sun, she fell fathoms deep, heart racing, breath trapped. She could taste sun and salt as his lips coaxed hers open. Coaxed. There should have been a comfort in that, in the lack of demand, in the absence of pressure. Instead, she trembled from the pressure cooker of needs inside her own body.
    He strapped his needs down. If there were chains around his passions now, he promised himself there would come a time when he would unshackle them. She needed something more than desire. He needed to give something more. Testing, he nipped into her full lower lip and heard her moan of response. Knowing control could be stretched only so far, he drew her away. Her eyes were clouded, heavy. Her lips were ripe. And his nerves were scraped raw.
    “How about a drink?”
    She blinked at him. “What?”
    He kissed the tip of her nose and struggled to keep his hands light. “I said let’s have a drink so I can get my pale British skin out of the sun.”
    “Oh.” It was like being released from the effect of a drug, she thought. An addictive one. “Yes.”
    “Good. Last one to the bar buys.” With this he let her go. Unprepared, Adrianne sank under the water. When she’d surfaced, he was halfway to shore. Even as she pulled down her mask to barrel after him, she was laughing.
    They drank tart, icy margaritas and listened to the trio of marimba players chime out Christmas carols. With appetites sharpened by sun and water, they dug into enchiladas smothered in cheese and spicy sauce. Later, with the afternoon winding lazily ahead of them, they drove around the island, taking anarrow dirt road on a whim. They passed small stone monuments that made Adrianne think of old worship and older gods.
    He was determined to fill her day, to make her forget the grief that had come with dawn. He no longer questioned the need to protect and comfort. When a man had spent most of his life with women, he recognized the right one.
    Deliberately, he took the Jeep over a pothole so that it bucked and shimmied. Adrianne only laughed and pointed out another one. The road took them to the north point and a lighthouse. There was a family living at the base with pens holding scruffy hens. A bony cat stretched out on the dirt by a cooler which the enterprising family stocked with cold drinks to sell to tourists for twice what they would pay in the village. Armed with two bottles, they sat on humps of dried sea grass and watched the spray spume. The water was very rough here so that the waves slapped the shore and geysered where time and tide had cut channels.
    “Tell me about your home.”
    “In London?”
    “No.” Adrianne slipped off her sandals. “The one in the country.”
    “You’d say it was very British.” It was another measure of their progress that she didn’t shift away when he touched her hair. “The house is Edwardian, brick, very tidy with three floors. There’s a portrait gallery, but as I’m not acquainted with my ancestors, I’ve borrowed some.”
    “From where?”
    “Antique shops. There’s Uncle Sylvester—a very dour Victorian type and his wife, Aunt Agatha. Pudding-faced.”
    “Pudding-faced.” Giggling, Adrianne settled