with everything he felt as he looked at the slender, beautiful woman in his arms. He glanced up at her parents, who were on their feet now. “I’m sure you’d rather things had worked out a little more conventionally, but I guess I had to learn how to love.”
“You seem to have the hang of it now, son,” Mr. Dean said drily.
“It’s not all his fault,” Elissa muttered. “I sort of forced him into it.”
“You did not,” King flashed.
“I thought you told her the facts of life,” Mr. Dean murmured to his wife.
“I thought you did,” came the dry reply.
“Well, we might try again. Come on, children, we’ll have coffee and discuss some details,” Mr. Dean said, sliding an arm around his wife’s waist. “Nice boy.”
“I think so, too.” Mrs. Dean stopped, glancing behind as King gently helped Elissa to her feet. “There’s just one thing, Kingston,” she murmured, frowning. “I shouldn’t really ask, but can you support her, working in a garage? If you need any help, we’ll do what we can.”
King burst out laughing. He drew Elissa close to his side and fell into step beside her parents. “While we have that coffee,” he told them drily, “we’ll have a little talk about the oil business.”
* * *
TWO WEEKS LATER, King and Elissa were back in Jamaica at his villa, Warchief happily installed in his cage while his owners set out for a new and delicious experience on the beach. It had been a learning period for them both, getting to know each other without the barriers of uncertainty and mistrust.
Just before they’d left for Jamaica again, Elissa had even found a way to tell King about his father, still alive and in a nursing home. King had listened to her, then sat staring into space for a long time. Minutes later, he’d gone off to use the phone. When he came back, he’d looked thoughtful and pleased. She’d later learned that he’d spoken to the old man and had promised to go and have a long visit with him after the honeymoon. It was a milestone, Elissa had thought.
And speaking of milestones... She hesitated as they walked out onto the damp sand.
“Someone will see us,” she squealed as King stripped her out of her robe and nightgown, leaving her bare and beautiful on the white beach.
“The only person who might lives in the cottage, and she’s away for a week. I checked,” he said, chuckling and pausing to strip out of his own robe. “Come on. You’ll love this.”
He led her into the warm, rippling water, and she felt it swallow her up like a satin embrace. She gasped at the exquisite freedom of it while she swam and floated and finally wound up close against a smiling King.
“Now I see why you like it,” she whispered. “It’s... incredible.”
“Yes, isn’t it?” But he wasn’t looking at the water. His hands were busy under its surface, doing things to her body that made her gasp and cling to him and cry out.
He took her cry into his mouth, taking full advantage of its position to explore it in a silence that quickly grew hot and hungry. He lifted her into his arms and carried her out onto the beach, putting her down gently in the center of a huge beach towel. He stood over her, his body fully aroused, his eyes, dark and wild, devouring her as she lay there. “I want you,” he whispered hoarsely.
“Then why don’t you come down here and do something about it?” she whispered huskily, stretching in a way that made her tremble.
He eased down completely over her, his hands gently tangling with hers, letting her have most of his weight, feeling the bare saltiness of his skin over every inch of hers.
“You look like you did the first time,” she said softly.
“I was hungry then, too,” he murmured, finding her mouth. “Starving for you, by then. I still am. But it’s...hard to describe.” He lifted his head, shifting his hips to make her gasp. “Patience,” he teased softly. “I want to talk first.”
“Talk fast,” she pleaded.
He nipped her lower lip and teased it with his tongue. His hands were on her waist now, her hips, moving her body against the hair-roughened contours of his in a kind of love play he’d never used with her before. She caught her breath, clutching at the broad shoulders above her, the fires kindling deep in her body.