Island Heat (A Sexy Time Travel Romance With a Twist)

by Jill Myles

  Salvador finished shaving, rubbed a bit of coconut oil on his face to take away the sting, and ate a quick bowl of food. “I must get going before the sun is high in the skies.”

  I got to my feet, surprised. “You’re going? Where are you going?” He was going to leave me here, with Eustace?

  He chuckled at my astonished expression. “The food does not bring itself to the cave, belleza,” he chided. “I will be back soon enough.”

  To my immense relief, Eustace got to his feet as well. “I’ll come with you, Salvador.”

  Olivia clutched at her brother’s arm. “Eustace, no! You just got back! You’re exhausted.”

  He did look tired, I had to admit. He’d lost quite a bit of weight since I’d last seen him, and his clothing – already ragged – was in tatters. But he gave his sister an offhand hug and smiled at her. “I’ll be just fine, Olivia. Not to worry. Salvador and I have to discuss some things.”

  Oh boy. ‘Some things’ as in me, I could guess. Uncomfortable prickles touched the back of my neck, but I forced myself to smile and wave goodbye like Olivia as they climbed down the ladder and disappeared into the woods, talking quietly.

  I looked over at Olivia and kept my forced smile on. “Anything exciting planned today?”

  She couldn’t quite hide the sulky, resentful look on her face. “I was going to go do laundry with Eustace before, but I guess I’ll stay around the cave instead.”

  I winced. “Look, Olivia, I’m really sorry about the whole situation, I really am.”

  “It’s not your fault,” she said, sighing as she sat down on a nearby stool. “I know it’s not. It’s just that...” she spread her hands helplessly. “I’ve had them both to myself for so long, it is difficult to share. Do you understand?”

  Why, I did. I smiled at her. “Surely there’s something we could do, just the two of us girls.”

  And there was. Most of the morning we spent experimenting with the fruit wines that Olivia kept on a ledge in the sun. She’d stoppered several broken bottles with just about anything she could find, filled them with all kinds of fruit, and had been letting it ferment for various periods of time. A quick taste nearly made me cough on the sweet liquor-syrup taste, and she laughed brightly at my expression. We’d discussed different flavors of wine to try and spent the morning mashing up mixtures of fruits and flowers. It was almost like having a kid sister around, and I enjoyed her company.

  As Harold napped the afternoon away, we spent most of it digging through her scrap-bag and piecing them together to make her a bikini similar to mine – albeit with a longer skirt. “It does seem rather airy,” she admitted to me at one point. I busied myself with the project of making panties with no elastic, and she showed me how to make a drawstring instead.

  Drawstring panties. Novel.

  We were both laughing over the sewing when we heard a shout below. Eustace. Olivia’s face drained of color and she bolted to her feet, rolling back the woven-palm roof and shoving a pulley – that I hadn’t noticed before – down the side of the ledge.

  I raced over to her side just as she called down. “Is everything all right?”

  Below us, I spotted Eustace. He shielded his eyes from the afternoon sun and stared up at us, and I gasped at the blood covering the remains of his grey shirt. Salvador was a few steps behind him, staggering slightly, and between the two of them, strung on a branch, was the carcass of the biggest tiger I’d ever seen.

  Olivia’s bellow surprised me. “What have the two of you fools done?”

  Salvador didn’t answer, and my worried heart thrummed in my throat as I watched him slowly hobble to the lift and slide the animal carcass on, and sat down with it. “Just lift us up, Livvy,” Eustace said to his sister, ”And don’t worry about it. We’ll tell you shortly.”

  I didn’t think that between Olivia and I that we’d be able to manage to pull up the pulley on our own, but Eustace climbed up the ladder and helped us, and we were able to crank the heavy platform up to the lip of the cave and tumble both Salvador and dead cat onto the cave floor.

  The moment Salvador was on the ground, I was on him, running my hands over his skin and praying in my head. A litany of ‘oh lord, oh lord, oh lord’ repeated in my mind, over and over again as I touched him. His body was covered in scratches from head to toe. Several surface scratches were accompanied by one or two deeper gouges that tore the skin and slicked his tanned flesh with blood. His back was especially covered, and his arms. He winced when I touched him. I couldn’t tell how badly he was hurt, just that he was slow moving and covered in blood, and it frightened me more than anything I’d ever imagined.

  I found it hard to breathe I was so terrified for him. Taking the undergarment that I’d just sewn together, I swabbed at his skin, trying to see where the blood ended and the wounds began. “What happened? What happened?” I kept repeating over and over.

  Salvador winced when I hit upon one particularly sensitive spot and pushed my hands away. “It is nothing. A few scratches—“

  “A few scratches?” Outraged, I resisted the urge to throw the half-sewn undergarment at him, and examined him with my eyes instead. “A few scratches? You’re covered!”

  “It is nothing; a stupid mistake.”

  I gestured at the pulley. “You had to ride up the damn cart because you couldn’t climb! How can you say that’s nothing?”

  Quietly, Olivia said, “I don’t understand. Why would you hunt one of the big cats? It is more meat than we can possibly prepare without it spoiling, Eustace. It makes no sense—“

  From the side, Eustace sighed, sounding much put upon. He unslung a pack from his back and set it gently on the ground, along with his hunting spear. “To be fair, Olivia, it attacked us more than the other way around,” he said, rubbing his head in chagrin and causing the dark curls to stick up on his head in sweaty chaos. “As for Salvador, he’s fine. He just twisted his ankle is all.”

  I looked over at Salvador and noticed that his ankle was swollen to twice the size of the other, and other than that, he did seem relatively whole – if not blood-spattered and scratched. I shook my head at him, confused. “I don’t understand.” I’d seen Salvador in the woods – he was graceful, careful, silent. How had he been caught by one of the big hunting cats? Worried, I ran my hands over his shoulders again, fluttering and feeling the need to touch him, repeatedly, to make sure that he was all right. I was torn between laughing with relief and bawling my eyes out in fright.

  I settled for being cranky and shoved him towards my stool. “Sit down,” I said. “Get off your ankle if you’ve hurt it.”

  He obliged me, hobbling over to the stool itself and letting me fuss over him with a wetted cloth as I cleaned away some of the blood and put a wet compress on his ankle. I wished fervently for ice, knowing that it was an impossibility on a tropical island.

  “But I don’t understand,” Olivia was saying again, her small voice perplexed. “You always stay away from the long-tooth caves, always—“

  A soft mewing interrupted her, and I froze.

  She cocked her head slightly, puzzled. “Did you hear that?” Olivia glanced uneasily at the carcass of the large tiger, but it was very dead.

  The mewing grew louder, and I looked over at Salvador, who had a hint of a smile tugging at his lips. “I brought you a present.”

  Another one of his courting presents? I didn’t comprehend, and still had a hard time comprehending when Eustace reached into his bag and pulled out a small, mewling, scratching kitten with tiny dun stripes and long front teeth. “We didn’t anticipate the mother following us for quite so long,” Eustace explained, handing the kitten to me. “And then when we killed the dam, we had to go back and get the other cub as well, so it wouldn’t starve.” He reached into the bag and handed another equally tiny, equally fussy mewing bundle to Olivia, who accepted it with wide-eyed shock.

  I cradled the baby kitten against my neck, half torn between thinking the gesture was sweet and being u
tterly confused. “I don’t get it,” I said, stroking the soft, soft fur of the baby kitten. It was terribly tiny yet, no larger than a chihuahua, though at some point it was going to grow to be as big as the dead mama, sprawled in the midst of our cave.

  “You wished to be courted,” Salvador explained, as if this was obvious. “In my country, we gave gifts when we wished to court a woman.”

  I remembered our conversation from last night, and my tearful confessions. I even miss my cat, I’d said at one point.

  Good Lord above, the man had gone and risked his neck just to get me another cat. I continued to stroke the soft fur of the kitten, who now purred against my neck, burrowing for warmth against my hair. Fear, love, and outrage warred within me. Fear for Salvador’s safety, and how far he’d take this ‘courting’ thing – love for him, that he’d go so far and risk so much just to bring a smile to my face.

  Outrage trumped them both. The man – no, the idiot – had put himself in serious danger just to get me a present and to prove a point.

  Olivia’s giggles of delight interrupted my rapidly blackening thoughts. “His whiskers tickle,” she said happily. “Oh, thank you, Eustace!” She gave him a one armed hug of delight, cradling the kitten with the other.

  He smiled down at his sister, and I noticed Salvador watching me, waiting for his adoring affection as I appreciated his present.

  I extracted the tiny, mewing kitten from my shoulder and handed it over to Olivia. “If you will excuse me for a minute, I need to talk to Salvador alone,” I said, maintaining my composure before stalking away to the far end of the cave and slinging the curtain of Salvador’s room shut behind me.

  It took longer than I thought for Salvador to come after me, but he limped in soon enough, a stony look on his face. “Eustace and Olivia have gone down to the bathing pool with the cats. They thought we needed some time alone.”

  I took one look at him, at his unapologetic face, and reached out and slapped him.

  Crack.

  No sooner had my hand connected with his cheek, than I burst into tears and collapsed on the bedding in noisy sobs. All the tension in my body, all the tension over the past few weeks, the sexual frustration between myself and Salvador, had culminated in that one heart-stopping, terrifying moment when I saw his bloody body pulled up on the platform, and thought I couldn’t breathe.

  Somewhere along the lines, somewhere between dragging my feet and screaming about how I hated this island, I’d gone and fallen in love with the big Spanish galoot.

  And he’d just about scared me to death.

  I sobbed on the blanket, big, noisy sobs, angry at myself as much as him. It was stupid to get so frightened, and stupid of him to risk his life, all for a stupid courting present.

  Within moments, he was down beside me on the furs, hugging me against his chest, and I was enveloped in the scent of masculine sweat and the unique, warm smell of Salvador. “Diana,” he soothed, stroking my hair and saying my name in that wildly sexy accented way of his. “I am sorry, belleza. I thought you would care for the small cat. I only wanted to make you smile, not cry.”

  “How can you risk your life like that?” I cried, turning in to face his chest and slamming a fist against his breastbone weakly. “How can you even think of doing such a thing? You’d leave me here, stuck without you, for eternity?” I sobbed at the very thought, so choked with fear. “I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you.”

  His fingers brushed my cheeks. “You would survive, little belleza. You are a strong woman. Come, do not be so afraid for me.”

  I resisted the urge to hit him again. “How can I not be afraid for you?” I sniffed loudly, the sound echoing in the small, quiet room. “I’ve fallen in love with you, you big idiot.”

  There, I’d said it. It hung open in the air between us, and I felt acutely vulnerable.

  “You love me?” He said, his voice husky with surprise. A pause, then, “Or do you simply say that because I am the only man on the island?”

  The clever man was turning my own words against me. I had to laugh at that, my tears drying in the light of his radiant smile. He looked so happy that I felt my anger withering away, replaced with something a bit hotter – desire. I turned in his arms, giving him a rough shove backwards onto the blankets. “If you don’t believe my confessions of love, perhaps I should show you?”

  “I think I need a demonstration,” he agreed, laying backward, his hands sliding over my hips.

  My mouth descended on his in the briefest of kisses. “We’re alone?” I asked against his lips.

  “Harold is on the far side of the cave and asleep in his den, and the other two are gone for a few hours,” he said thickly, grasping my hips and sliding them down his torso to cradle them against his own. “It is just you and me.”

  “Well, my sexy conquistador,” I said, leaning over him and letting my nipples brush against his chest through my blouse, and feeling the sharp intake of his breath as I straddled him and his hardness. “You said you would not take me until I asked you for it, yes?” Deliberately being teasing, I rotated my hips against his erection in a deliberate, teasing motion.

  His low groan excited me, and I felt his fingers clench hard on my hips. “Yes,” he said in his too-proper, thickly accented English. My heart swelled with love for this man. I knew at that moment that I could rub against him all day like a cat in heat, and he’d do nothing more than give me my pleasure and ignore his own.

  He loved me enough to forsake his own needs, even after going four hundred and eighty-nine years without a woman. Wasn’t that the ultimate in love?

  I stroked my tongue across his mouth suggestively. “Salvador Diego de la Cuerva,” I said huskily. “I want you. I want you to take me now and make me yours.”

  He stilled beneath me. “You said you wished to be married—“

  I ground my hips against his erection. “I love you. You love me. There is no priest on this island. Would you marry me?”

  “You know I would.” His voice sounded strained in the darkness.

  “I’d marry you too. Now, can we get on with the wedding night?” I kissed him, hard and full on the mouth, my tongue just ever-so-slightly stroking into his mouth in a tease.

  He groaned and flipped us both over in the rugs, and suddenly I was on my back beneath him, and his body was over mine. “This is what you want?” The crux of his hips pressed against mine, his cock hard against the vee of my thighs, leaving no doubt as to what he suggested.

  In response, I twined my arms around his neck and drew his face down to mine again. “More than anything.”

  The kiss was soft, slow, lingering, full of promise. I wanted more than just that – we’d been teasing each other with stolen kisses for weeks, and the interlude in the nest made me hungry for more. So I pressed my hips up against his suggestively. “Maybe we take these clothes off?”

  The next few minutes were a flurry of undressing – me first, since mine were easier to shuck, and then when I was naked, I reached for his breechcloth. He hesitated for a moment, and I knew he was thinking about asking me again if I was certain, so I reached for the knife he kept strapped to his back and pulled it out. “Hold still so I can cut this thing off of you.”

  He chuckled, closing a hand over mine. “That is not necessary, Diana.”

  “Better safe than sorry,” I said, unwilling to give an inch. “I’m not letting you stop this again.”

  But I let him pry the knife out of my hands, and in the next moment, I heard the sharp snap of cloth knots ripping, and warm fabric fell against my leg. I slid my hands experimentally downward, looking for his body in the dark, and my hands met with nothing but smooth, hard buttock. I gave a sigh of delight at that. “You feel wonderful.”

  He pressed his hot length against my sex, rubbing against the curls there and burying his face in my neck. “So do you.”

  I dug my fingernails into his back. “Now you’re just teasing me.”

  Salvador hissed with pa
in at my touch.

  I remembered the scratches and let go. “Sorry—“

  He rolled his hips against mine in a delicious surge, and the rest of the apology escaped my head, and I lost track of everything but the delicious feel of his body wedged against mine. “Belleza,” he said against my throat, breathing heavily. “I do not think I can go slow...once we start.”

  He was asking me if it was okay to lose control. I smiled into the darkness and lifted my legs around his hips in response, opening fully to him. My hands went to his shoulders once more, pulling him down on top of me. “I want you, Salvador,” I said. “Fast or slow.”

  Salvador gave a thick groan, and I felt the head of his erection poised against the entrance of my body, and I shuddered with anticipation. It felt like I’d been waiting forever for this.

  Then in one swift motion, Salvador buried his cock in my body, and I gasped at the mix of pain and pleasure that shot through me. He groaned as if he were the one in pain, and I loosened my grip on his shoulders – I hadn’t realized I was digging my fingernails in again. “Sorry,” I said again, sliding my fingers up to twine in his hair.

  He didn’t respond, just withdrew slowly, slowly, and then thrust hard back into me again. This time, I was ready for the feeling, and my gasp of pleasure turned into a low moan of my own. I locked my legs around his hips and rose them to meet his next thrust, encouraging him with my body.

  Still, he paused again, and the wonderful sensations ebbed away, and I began to wonder if something was wrong. Oh Lord, what if he was upset that I wasn’t a virgin? “I’m sorry,” I blurted out suddenly. “I’m sorry I’m not a virgin.”

  “Belleza,” he said, his voice exasperated and straining, “Quit apologizing to me.”

  “Then quit stopping,” I said, lifting my hips to grind suggestively. “I want this, Salvador! Stop torturing me.”

  With that, he lost all control. I heard a low growl in his throat, and he thrust into me roughly, to my vast delight. I loved the feel of him on me, and encouraged it when he thrust hard and rough again. This was what I wanted, all of him, losing control. I wanted to see him as wild as he made me. My hands slid down to his buttocks and I clenched them, trying to drive him deeper into me with every thrust, encouraging him with low, hoarse cries of his name.