Hot Island Nights by Sarah Mayberry Page A

body. She’d known he was smart—he was too quick on his feet to be anything but. She simply hadn’t appreciated how sharp he was beneath the tan and the sand and the worn denim.
    He asked why she’d chosen to teach in the public rather than the private system and listened as she told him about the special literacy course she’d run last year, and somehow the subject shifted to travel and she learned he’d surfed the coast of South America as well as Africa and spent nearly two months in Rome as a young man.
    As the evening wore on she became more and more confused. On one hand, Nathan presented as a lazy layabout, a man who spent his days lolling in hammocks or riding waves. And yet he had clearly lived another life, a life outside of this small island and this very modest, slightly down-at-the-heel house.
    Then there was the dark intensity he brought to the bedroom. This morning she’d scoffed at herself for reading things into the almost desperate way he held her and made love to her. Lying next to him under the stars, listening to him, she couldn’t help wondering all over again. Because there was definitely more to this man than met the eye. Definitely.
    She turned her head to look at him, besieged by questions—none of which she felt remotely entitled to ask. He hadn’t asked her anything, after all. He hadn’t even asked about Martin, and when she’d mentioned her parents’ deaths during dinner he hadn’t even offered the usual “sorry” before changing the subject. He hadn’t volunteered anything about himself, either. In fact, she knew nothing about him except for his name and where he lived.
    “You’ve got that look on your face again, Lizzy. I don’t like it,” Nathan said.
    She’d thought he was stargazing, which was why she’d been studying him so blatantly. But apparently he had twenty-twenty peripheral vision.
    “What look is that?” she asked, matching his casual tone.
    “That thinking look. I’m right, aren’t I? You were thinking, weren’t you?”
    “It’s rather difficult to stop, actually.”
    “Now that’s where you’re wrong. You just need something to distract you.”
    She watched as he put his beer down then rolled toward her and plucked her bottle from her hand.
    “A distraction,” she said. “Any suggestions?”
    Warmth pooled low in her belly as Nathan’s gaze slid over her body.
    “Mmm. Let me see if I can think of anything,” he murmured.
    He leaned over her, one long leg sliding over hers as his hand found her breast and his mouth found her lips. They kissed deeply as his fingers teased at her nipple through the fabric of her dress, pinching, flicking, rubbing. She shifted restlessly, already anticipating the weight of his body on hers, the push of him inside her.
    His hand left her breast and smoothed down her ribs, then her belly. He stopped when he reached her mound, simply resting his palm over it for long torturous seconds. She felt the heat from his hand flow into her body and she lifted her hips in silent invitation. He smiled against her mouth and began to pleat the fabric of her dress between his fingers, slowly gathering it up. When he had the bulk of it bunched around her hips he broke their kiss and began to lick and suck his way down her body, laving her neck, suckling her breasts, pushing her skirt higher still and dipping his tongue into the tiny well of her belly button.
    She started to tremble with anticipation as his mouth moved lower and lower. If he was going where she thought he was going, this was yet another area where she was woefully inexperienced. She’d thought about it—a lot—wondered what the heat of a mouth might feel like against the delicate, sensitive skin between her legs. But she’d never been bold enough to ask Martin to go down on her, and he’d never offered.
    She gave a small gasp as Nathan’s tongue slipped under the elastic on the waistband of her panties. He looked up at her, a smile on his face. She knew he