Island Fantasies: An Island Escapes Travel Romance

by Anna Lowe

  Funny, hadn’t Hannah said exactly that about her job?

  “That’s what I want to do,” he concluded, more to himself than to her.

  A bird rustled in the foliage, and Kyle blinked. He glanced at Hannah, walking silently beside him. Wow. Had all that babbling really come from him?

  He nearly stopped and stared at Hannah when he realized this must be what she did as a teacher. Just like she’d said. I want to help kidsdare. Dare to dream and dare to act.

  Damn, she was good.

  Either that or this tropical climate was getting to his brain, making things go all fuzzy. Or maybe, just maybe, it was making things more clear.

  Chapter Thirty

  The problem with walking along on a balmy night with a good man, Hannah figured, was that a girl so easily lost track of time and place. One minute, she was gazing out over the water and wondering how she’d ever turned her back on the man at her side, and the next, she and Kyle were back at the hotel, where everything was quiet for the night. His hand was warm in hers, one thumb rubbing hers gently.

  Like the tiny spark that glows amidst the kindling, that rub was the catalyst to a raging fire. All it took was one brush of the lips, and they were both aflame. Kyle backed her right against the door of his bungalow, and she welcomed the hard push of the door behind her shoulders because it gave her that much firmer footing from which to devour him. She forgot about Windfall and Robert and Hugh’s spying eyes. Forgot everything, in fact, but the feel of his body against hers, the heat rising between them as his tongue found hers in a deep French kiss. When Kyle pushed his hips against hers, she pushed forward the way she’d wanted to up on that mountain peak. She was on fire with raw need. So badly, she could have howled at the moon. Wanted him by her, on her, in her.

  Kyle was just as greedy, sliding his hands inside her shirt. She angled into him, wrapping a leg around his thigh. For a minute, she even hoped they might take it all the way there and then, but the thump of a coconut falling on the beach broke them both out of the kiss.

  “You know what they say about lethal coconuts…” Kyle joked as he fumbled the key into the lock.

  “Worse than windsurfers,” she agreed.

  A second later, they tumbled through the door and onto the bed, yanking their own clothes off in a primal rush. Then it was flesh on flesh, senses tuned, muscles primed, pulses racing. She was seized by the urge to possess, to hold, to mark him as hers — if not forever, then for tonight. At least that way she’d possess the memory of him — no, the memory of them — and of this incredible week.

  “Mr. New York,” she joked as he kissed his way down her chest. “Always in a rush.”

  That was about all she got out before he pulled a nipple into his mouth and slid a hand between her legs. She moaned and threw her head back.

  “We can go slow later,” he murmured, running a finger through her folds.

  “Later. Good idea,” she managed, pushing away the rest of his clothes and grasping for him.

  He shifted his weight and balanced over her, eyes flashing.

  “Kyle…” she breathed when he slid inside.

  His hips plunged down hard and he went deep — deliciously, painfully deep. Then he pulled out and set into a frenzied rhythm she met with a series of hard bucks.

  “Ky…Ky…Ky…” she breathed with every hard thrust.

  He seemed intent on imprinting himself onto her mind and body forever. The hard line of his jaw said the same thing: If ever another lover tries to bring you the same kind of pleasure, your mind will scream, Ky, Ky, Ky, and you will remember me. And wherever I am at that time, something in my soul will stir, too, and remind me of you.

  And just like that, he was spent, lying limp and wet as she quaked in the last throes of pleasure. The cry became a whisper. “Ky…Ky…”

  He hushed her with a soft finger to her lips before she said something she didn’t mean or maybe even something he couldn’t bear to hear. Something likeI love you.

  A good thing, too, because the words were on the tip of her tongue, and she had to hush herself, too. He’d be leaving soon, and he couldn’t carry those three words in his baggage.

  “Kyle,” she whispered and held him tight, wishing she never had to let go.

  ***

  Hannah drifted on a warm tide, bobbing in the pulse of the sea, wondering which shore she might wash up upon. If she ever landed ashore at all. At this moment, nothing mattered but the present. Him and her, lying closer than close, fingers playing lightly over each other’s bodies.

  Half an hour after they collapsed into the sheets, something in her blood stirred again — a witch’s cauldron calling for her to add more heat to the brew. The slow rub of her finger grew more insistent as her body nudged his. She slid over his broad chest, tasting his nipples and starting the whole process all over again.

  “What?” he murmured, catching her naughty grin.

  “Tasty,” she replied, twirling her tongue along the pink nub.

  He started to rise under her, but Hannah growled and rolled, determined to claim the high ground for herself. She pushed him flat on his back and hummed kisses all the way down his chest until she was in position to taste him again and again. She lavished long, lollipop licks down the length of him. Reveled in the power she wielded and in every moan Kyle failed to bite back. Her lips curled in satisfaction even as she moved over him. Nothing was holding her back tonight.

  She licked and played, bringing him to the edge, then released him with a last teasing flick of her tongue. She straightened, intending to slide back to his lips, but Kyle reared up and tugged her down to the foot of the bed. He knelt and threw her a look that was all pirate — all Watch me, woman. Watch me claim what is mine.

  She melted, throwing her head back and giving herself over completely as he tasted her core for the first and last time. Every slide of his tongue summoned a cry she couldn’t hold back, a flame that ripped straight through her body until she was tumbling wildly into another orgasm.

  “God, Kyle…” she panted.

  When she could focus again, she found him grinning like a wolf, and she had to laugh.

  “What?” He arched one perfect eyebrow.

  “On our first time, I thought I’d never coax the Viking past the knight. Now look at us.”

  Look at you, her soul sang. You and me together…

  Kyle climbed back over her body, and just like that, she was ready again. She hooked her legs around him and drew him inside.

  “Yes…”

  “Hannah…”

  They were two kids in the closing hour of an amusement park, rushing through all the rides. Squeezing a lifetime of lovemaking into one desperate night. But every high was followed by a sobering low, the truth that couldn’t be denied.

  Afterward, Hannah gripped the sheets in a sweat as Kyle smoothed a hand over her back.

  “Kyle.” She hated to break the spell, but the clock would be striking twelve soon; she had to leave before her coach turned into a pumpkin. She turned and sought out his eyes. “I have to go.” She rushed the next words, sliding a hand up his chest even as he tensed. “I don’t want to, but I have to. Someone will see that the dinghy is out all night.”

  “Who? Who will see?”

  “Hugh. Mike. Scrub.” She flopped onto her back, angry with the outside world.

  “They’re idiots, Hannah. What do we care about them?”

  We. Her heart stuttered. If only that were the way things could stay.

  “If anyone tells Robert, I’m sunk.” She got as far as sitting up, then folded over him again, hugging his side. “Come with me,” she urged. The words just slipped out, and she knew her soul meant more than just for tonight. “Come with me, Kyle.” Waking up with Kyle was as good as going to bed with him, and she wanted that.

  Without a grumble, without a word, he pulled her into a kiss, then stood and dressed. Hand in hand, they walked through the darkness, then paddled the dinghy into the moonlight. It all fel
t ridiculously stealthy, but Hannah didn’t care. Not when she could pull him into her bunk and kiss him long into the night.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Dawn came, as Hannah knew it would, creeping softly over the horizon like an accomplice to her crime.

  She watched the rise and fall of Kyle’s chest, the gentle swell of his belly in echo of each breath. When she worked up the courage to look him in the eye, he was watching her.

  He smiled sadly and ran a finger along her cheek.

  Tell him! Tell him! an inner voice cried.

  Tell him what? How?

  You have to try, the voice insisted.

  I want you for a little longer. How would that be? No, that would be lying. She wanted him for a lot longer. I want you forever.

  He was waiting, watching, studying her face. She took a deep breath and came out with the best she could manage. “I want you for longer than a week, Kyle.”

  The corners of his mouth drooped. “That would be great. But I need to go, and you need to go, too. Look, you have to go live the adventures you deserve.” His eyes went to the pictures behind her, and she thought of the tree house and all the plans hatched back then.

  She tried to catch his gaze, but he shut his eyes, shuttering his soul. Did he mean what he said? Or was he finding a polite way to say, It’s been a fantastic fling, but only a fling. And now it’s over.

  Hannah hid her face in his chest, forcing herself to ignore the hands stroking her back. Of course that’s what he meant. Leaving would be easy for him because his feelings didn’t go as far as hers. How could she have let herself believe otherwise?

  While he dressed, she slipped outside and sat on the bow, looking over the lagoon, contemplating the infinity of the water and sky. God, did the truth sting. For the first time, she’d found someone she wanted to stay with — or least someone she wanted to give herself a shot with, even a long shot — and he was on his way out, planning the details of a completely different voyage.

  When Kyle brought two steaming mugs of coffee into the cockpit, she rose stiffly and joined him, but quickly went below to tidy the boat. Robert would be coming in on the same ferry that took Kyle away, and she had to hide any evidence of her affair.

  Her wild, passionate affair. Her once in a lifetime. Her never again.

  The fun was over. But hadn’t she known all along it couldn’t last?

  ***

  She watched the ferry pull into view with a sick feeling building in her stomach. This was it: good-bye.

  All the painful good-byes of her life replayed in her mind as the ferry churned closer and the crowd around her grew. The parting from her family before every trip. The good-byes marking every visit with Lindsay, up until the hardest one of them all. And now another good-bye, one that tore at a different corner of her heart.

  Would she even have the nerve to watch him go? Or would she turn her back and race away the minute he released her hand?

  That was the hardest part, his grip on her hand. It was tight, almost desperately tight, like she wasn’t the only one afraid to let go. She turned to Kyle and found him studying his feet intently, making her inner voice claw at her again.

  Ask him! Just ask! Why couldn’t they give themselves a try?

  “Kyle,” she started.

  The waver in her voice must have given her away, because he looked up at exactly that moment, the expression in his eyes the equivalent of a finger to the lips, gentle but firm.

  She remained silent, eyes pleading.

  Kyle took a long breath. “This is your dream.”

  My dream is wearing thin, she wanted to say. And I’m developing a new one.

  His voice hurried on. “Are you really going to throw it away?”

  Give me a sign that you want me, and yes, I think I would.

  She felt herself dragged into his eyes — deeper, deeper, going dizzy trying to focus on something so terrifyingly close.

  “No.” His voice was a whisper. “You need to do this. You’re free. You need to stay free.”

  She felt anything but free. Just useless and rejected, like a shell too dull to earn a place in his collection. It was a gentle rejection, but a rejection all the same.

  She held on to the tears threatening to spill over the edge and took a deep breath. For her own sake, she had to say more. “I just wish we had the time to give ourselves a chance.”

  He closed his eyes and pulled her close, like that might somehow be enough.

  “Me, too,” he whispered, rubbing her back. “But you’ll always be my perfect memory. I’ll be eighty, and I’ll still be dreaming of this.”

  She felt him smile into her hair but couldn’t form one herself. She didn’t want another memory. She wanted a future.

  The ferry rumbled up to the dock and screeched against the pilings. Hannah gulped down one more lungful of his warm, beachy scent and forced herself out of his embrace.

  “Have a good trip,” she said, whisking a sleeve across her eyes.

  He rubbed a thumb over her cheek. “Good luck, Hannah.”

  Yeah, she’d need it. The first passengers were already pushing off the ferry behind him, and this was it. Good-bye forever.

  “You, too,” she whispered.

  Someone hurried past and Kyle’s hand slipped out of hers. She reached for it, but the crowd had already jostled him toward the ramp. Their fingers flexed in thin air, and hers were the first to drop. She lifted her chin, refusing to look away even if she was crying inside. She watched the line of his jaw tense, the wind muss his hair, the fabric of his shirt stretch—

  Someone stepped in the way, breaking the spell. Hannah looked up, annoyed, then took a sharp breath of surprise.

  “Robert,” she faltered, feeling the sharp blade of reality slice between her ribs. “How was your trip?”

  In the jumble of sound and color behind Robert, she caught a glimpse of Kyle turning back to her, his face grim.

  “Bloody awful!” Robert grumbled and launched into a tirade.

  Hannah leaned around him for a last look, but Kyle was gone.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  It was a double whammy, Hannah decided. Kyle was gone and Robert was back, as cranky and difficult to please as ever. When she showed him all the work she’d done, he couldn’t find anything specific to fault, but still grumbled before closing himself in his cabin for a nap.

  “Have dinner ready at six,” he barked at her. “I’ve invited Hugh. And don’t bloody wake me up before then!”

  She’d done a reverse Cinderella, going from Kyle’s happy lover to Robert’s galley slave.

  She stood by the stove, pale and sweaty, as the two men began their meal in the cockpit. What would Hugh say? What would Robert do? Her eyes swept over the cabin, checking if she’d overlooked any trace of Kyle’s stay.

  No, her mind reported. Not a trace left — except for the gaping hole in her heart.

  Her one saving grace was Marie’s invitation to dinner. Luc swung by in Imagine’s dinghy to pick her up, and her heart raced as she left Windfall, wondering if she’d still have her position as crew when she got back. Two fretful hours later, Luc dropped her off again, and she climbed aboard Windfall, expecting the worst.

  “Ah, Hannah,” Hugh remarked when she popped cautiously into view.

  “Hannah.” Robert nodded dismissively and poured Hugh another glass of wine.

  And that was it. Robert said nothing. Whatever Hugh told him, it wasn’t enough for Robert to give her the ax. Apparently, she could stay aboard and sail west as planned.

  Part of her was almost disappointed.

  She went to bed early and hid in her cabin, telling herself everything was all right. Tried to pep herself up thinking of the trip ahead: all the islands she’d be visiting, all the stars she’d see at night out on the open ocean.

  Empty miles of ocean. Empty views.

  Hannah kicked at her sheets. She’d trade all the islands, all the stars for Kyle. His charm had snuck up on her after a s
haky start. The man was as near to a ten as she’d ever find in real life. Forget about the looks — it was his tenderness, his touch, the way he listened when she spoke. The way he looked at her like a man trying to guess just what kind of chocolate was in the box.

  A woman would be stupid to let a man like that go.

  The proof is in the pudding, Hannah, a voice taunted from the back of her mind. You did let him go.

  She was an idiot. She could sail around the world, chase every once-in-a-lifetime chance, and still feel empty inside. As empty as a photo album filled with landscape shots but void of a single familiar face.

  She’d never felt what she’d had with Kyle before: the calm, the fun. The feeling of one plus one equaling more than two.

  She looked around the cabin and did the math. Two minus one felt like even less than one. Without him, she wasn’t quite whole. She let a finger trace the pictures on her wall, then linger on the tree house photo. Adventure and independence were all she’d ever wanted, so what happened?

  Her heart skipped a beat when the answer came to her. Maybe she’d grown up at last. She was no longer a lion tamer but a woman who wanted to make things work with a man — her man. A woman who wished she and Kyle could have given themselves the chance. Even if they failed in the end, at least she’d know.

  But she’d lost her chance. Kyle was on his way to the other side of the world.

  She sat quietly for all of three seconds before jumping to her feet.

  Not yet, he isn’t. Not yet…

  Chapter Thirty-Three