Page 46 of All Night with the Cowboy
Her brows pulled together as she stopped, one leg stretched out. “Leave for where?”
“Did I forget to tell you? I know the weather’s kind of crappy but we’re having lunch on the private island.” Tanner laughed. “And we definitely can’t call this off between us before we have our island time.”
“Just the two of us?”
Tanner winked. “I’m afraid so.”
Lauren couldn’t hide her blush as she looked down, pushing her leg out in front of her and holding a stretch. He copied her movement and wondered for the hundredth time what he was doing trying to be all romantic. He could say it was the sex as much as he wanted to, but if he did, he’d only be lying to himself.
When they eventually ran down the mountain, it tookall his willpower to go slow and not sprint to the end. If he could just get his wrist feeling right, he’d be one huge step closer to climbing on a bull again and showing that asshole Thunder Cat that he couldn’t throw him like that ever again. And once he was back riding, he’d be able to forget all about Lauren—she could live on in his fantasies and that was all. Which is why he was going to make the most of having the woman who’d driven him crazy in his mind for so many years in his bed. Or on the sand. Or anywhere he could goddamn have her.
***
Lauren walked down to the boat, barefoot and with a bag over her shoulder. The sun was coming and going, and it was still incredibly warm, but it felt stormy. There was almost a smell, a coolness in the breeze that was indicative of something brewing from the weather gods.
She let the boat’s skipper take her bag and help her onto the boat, and then she settled back and waited for Tanner to climb in.
“I’ll come back to get you if the rain starts again,” the skipper said as he moved them out into deeper water.
“Are you worried about the storm?” Tanner asked. “It looks bad on the weather radar.”
“We’ll decide tomorrow if we need to evacuate our guests,” he replied. “Nothing to worry about.”
Lauren sat back and enjoyed the short boat trip, loving the clearness of the ocean and the serenity of being somewhere so untouched by the rest of the world. When they got there she took the skipper’s hand and slipped into the shallow water, amazed to see tiny fish swimming so close. She walked onto the island, marveling at how secluded it was, and sat down on the sand as Tanner joined her and their picnic lunch and towels were brought over to them. It was hard to wrap her head around the way they were behaving and what was happening between them, but she had to believe that Tanner was right. Once they were home, life would go back to normal—it was the tropical weather making them sex crazed.
Within minutes they were left alone and Tanner dropped to the sand beside her as the boat slowly disappeared from view.
“It’s amazing here, isn’t it?” he said.
She pushed her sunglasses up into her hair and continued to survey the ocean. “Amazing” seemed too much an understatement.
“Is it a bad thing that I don’t want to go home?” she asked. “The idea of going back to work every day after this, it’s rough. Maybe this is why I never take vacations, because it stops me loving my real life.”
“By the time we leave we’ll have island fever and be ready to rejoin the world again,” he teased. “Trust me.”
Lauren wasn’t so sure she believed him. “Can we swim before we have lunch?” she asked. “I think there are snorkels and masks for us in that bag.”
Tanner pulled out two masks and passed her one. “You planning on swimming naked?”
She laughed. “Not a chance. I don’t need a fish thinking my nipples are lunch and taking a nibble.”
Tanner reached for her, his smile wicked. “I’ll fight any fish off. Those babies are mine.”
Lauren stared at Tanner. He was grinning, the sun was just starting to peek properly through the clouds, and she couldn’t take her eyes off him. How was he so handsome?He was like a replica of what a big, hulking, sexy bull-rider should be, and it struck her that even without his plaid shirt or his hat, he still looked every inch a cowboy.
“Take off your T-shirt,” she said.
Tanner raised a brow but did as she’d ordered without saying a word.
When he threw it down onto the sand, she licked her dry lips and lifted the hem of her dress up, pulling it up and over her head. She was wearing a bikini beneath it, and she glanced around to make sure they were completely alone before pulling the strings at the back and at her neck and letting it fall away. She saw Tanner’s mouth fall open a little and she smiled, liking the way it made her feel.
She strode the few steps between them, stepping out of her bikini bottoms and pushing him back with the heel of her hand to his chest. He fell back, the smile never leaving his face as he lay back in the sand and she climbed on top of him.
“I guess that means we’re not snorkeling before lunch?”
“Shut up and kiss me.” Lauren kissed Tanner like it was the last time she was ever going to feel his lips against hers again. She opened her mouth and tasted his tongue, wishing they’d had this kind of send-off before they’d broken up. This was the moment she was going to hold on to forever—naked under the Fijian sun, on their own private slice of paradise, making love on the beach.
“Tanner!”
