Great. Just great.

Duncan’s footfalls padded along the carpeted hallway, and she steeled her back. This would be the briefest wolf mating in history before a big-time fight occurred.

***

Duncan knew as soon as he saw Shelley glowering at him—arms crossed beneath her breasts, back stiff with indignation, and cell phone in hand—that he was in deep shit. Yet, he was still having a devil of a time concentrating on her anger, as he took in her barely there bikini. He’d had his hands and mouth and tongue all over her breasts just an hour ago, but that didn’t matter. He was ready to slip the small scraps of shimmering blue material down and start all over. Already her nipples were poking against the fabric. He knew, without even smelling her arousal, that his eyeing her was preparing her for another bout of sex with him.

Trying to get his mind back on the issue at hand, he didn’t regret not telling her that her relative had been the one to call when they were getting ready to consummate their relationship.

No sane man, no matter how noble, would have been dumb enough to tell her that a relative was calling, and did she want to speak with him? That they could have sex some other time.

Or had she already talked to Campbell? Had he upset her? Hell, no way was one of her relatives going to tear apart their newly formed relationship.

“Shelley—”

She shook the phone at him. “You could have told me that my Uncle Ethan called.”

So it had been one of her three uncles. “I forgot. After we made love…” Twice. “I’d planned to tell you about it. Did he counsel you that he intended to make me pay for taking advantage of you?”

She gave a little huff of a laugh. “Get real. I haven’t talked to him yet.”

The tension drained from his tension-filled posture.

She noticed. Wolves noticed every physical reaction, no matter how slight. She also relaxed. “He’s going to be pissed.”

To Duncan’s relief, she seemed to have lost her irritation over the whole issue.

Then she looked down at his Speedo. Hell if he didn’t react to her perusal. Instantly.

“If you want to play out our fantasies in the ocean before we don’t make it that far, come with me,” he said, his voice damned rough with feral need. He hated how little control he had over his body when he was around her.

Even if she wasn’t about to move, he was ready to grab her in his arms and force the issue. He wanted to play out the water fantasy—the one she’d suggested before they had come this far.

As small as his swimsuit was, the fabric was expanding to accommodate his growing arousal. But he figured he’d pop right out of it soon.

She gave a little snort of laughter, left her phone on the table, and murmured, “I’ve never seen a man this close up in a Speedo, but I don’t think it’s going to hold you for long. I want to play wolf to wolf with you. That’ll teach you to keep my phone calls from me.”

He lifted her into his arms and stalked outside and across the hot sand, the dark enclosing the island and sea. “Wolf to wolf?”

“Not in a sexual way. Just in play. I want to let my inner child out.”

He chuckled, darkly amused. “Whatever would please you, Shelley,” he said, leaning down to nuzzle her cheek. “Anything at all.”

“He’s not going to like this,” she said softly. “My Uncle Ethan, I mean.”

“As long as you don’t regret what we’ve done.”

She smiled at Duncan, flicking a nail lightly across his nipple. “I’ll let you know after we try to fulfill our water fantasies.”

“I won’t worry, then.”

She laughed. “I doubt you worry about anything with regard to facing another wolf or man.”

He was very serious when he said, “I worry about your happiness, Shelley. If this causes problems with your family and it upsets you, it upsets me.”

She gave him a rueful smile. “I wanted this as much as you did, and I’m not changing my mind, no matter what any of my uncles say.”

With her body rubbing against him, he couldn’t concentrate on the conversation any longer. “I think I picked the wrong-sized swimsuit. This feels like I’m about to burst out of it at any minute.”

She grinned up at him. “That makes me think it’s just the right size.”

They’d barely made it into the surf where the water rose to Duncan’s waist when his fingers were sliding her bikini top down, exposing her breasts to his mouth and tongue as she wound her legs around his thighs to hold on while he tortured her exquisitely.

She tried to reach for his Speedo, to free his straining cock, but he wouldn’t let her. “Wait,” he said, so raggedly that she knew he was ready to erupt.

Whether it was the warm sea, the friction between their bodies as the gently rolling waves moved her against him, or their scanty clothes that turned her on so much, she was ready to climax with barely any help from him.

She leaned away from him as he yanked her thong down, dipped his fingers deep inside her, and stroked her nub until she was ready to jump backward into the waves. Oh God, this was a fantasy come true.

He growled her name and jerked his Speedo down only enough to release his cock. Before she knew it, he was inside her. She was riding him up and down, the buoyancy of the water making this one sexual encounter she wanted to repeat over and over again until they left the island.

“Tell me you have an indoor swimming pool with doors that lock where we can spend every night before we retire to your room in the castle, Duncan,” she huskily said.

He moaned something under his breath—something Gaelic, she thought—that sounded beautiful to her ears, even if he was only cursing again. She rode him as he held her hips and brought her down on him as forcefully as he could, considering the way the water contradicted the motion. Their mouths kissed, and their tongues tasted and tantalized, licking the salty spray from each other’s skin.

She knew she’d never experience sex like this again, not anywhere but with him here. She vowed that if they got the money back from Sal, she and Duncan would come here at least once a year to relive the heady experience of sex in the warm waters of the Caribbean. They would take leisurely walks in the forest with colorful parrots chattering in the foliage, swim with the rays and schools of brightly colored fish, fight pirates on sailing excursions, sail on catamaran dinner cruises designed to celebrate a sunset at sea, and just enjoy each other in a bed built for two.

She dug her fingers into his back and bit his lower lip with a gentle nip as she felt her blood heating, her climax nearing. She felt his impatience as he drove into her, his own body surging close to completion. Just a little higher, just another thrust, his pelvis rubbing hers until she clenched so hard, the intensity of pleasure driving her to the swell of the peak. She felt she was going to implode if she couldn’t reach the top soon.

He quickened his thrusts, deepening as he licked her chin, one hand shifting, slipping around her bare buttock, touching her between her legs where his cock was thrusting inside her. He suddenly growled out her name as she crested the wave, shooting his hot seed inside her. She shattered in his arms, her muscles clamping down on him with heady contractions. Her body limp and sated, she clung to him, head against his chest, tongue licking salty drops of the sea collecting on his skin.

“Hmm, lassie, you keep that up, and I’ll have to start all over again.”

“Is that a threat or a promise?” she said, her voice thready, raspy, tired.

He chuckled darkly. She hoped he hadn’t planned for her to walk through the sand to get back to the villa, not as boneless as she felt. Nor that he expected her to tackle him as a wolf now. She was ready to snuggle and cuddle with him for several hours before she did anything else.

He held her for a moment, letting her ride him for a few more seconds, then slipped out of her, yanked up his Speedo, and tried to retie her string bikini top, without much success. She laughed. “Just hold me while I do it.”

If she’d tried to stand on her own two feet and tie her bikini with the waves pushing against her, she would have been swept away, as unsteady as she was. As it was, she had a difficult enough time retying the top. Having him eye her with predatory interest didn’t help. She swore he was ready to make her come all over again, with very little rest in between.

“Do you still want to play wolf to wolf?” he asked, his eyes smoldering with lust.

She was too limp to play well and couldn’t believe he’d be raring to go. She wondered just what would happen if they did play wolf to wolf, because from his hungry expression, she didn’t think he meant just to play.

“Maybe later,” she said, smiling up at him.

“Later?”

“Yeah, after I’ve had time to sleep a little. Then I’ll be ready for you.”

“Hmm, all right. It’s a date.”

After they returned to the villa and took quick showers, they went back to bed to snuggle and nap. When she woke later to find he was no longer in bed with her, she peered around the room and saw Duncan sitting on his wolf haunches near the door, watching her, panting, and waiting to play.

He was a large, sturdy alpha male with his brown eyes observing her and his ears perking up as his gaze met hers. He was ready to frolic with her as wolves would.

She laughed, loving that he was willing to give in to her wishes. “Are you ready to get beat?”

He smiled.

Naked, she climbed out of bed and stretched her arms, his gaze taking in every inch of her. The way he was observing her, she figured that if he hadn’t been in his wolf form, he’d have dragged her back to bed.

Her muscles heated, and she felt gloriously exquisite as every fiber in her body stretched to accommodate the swift change and the freedom it gave her for a brief couple of seconds before she shifted into the wolf.

She dropped to her pads to face Duncan on all four paws. He was standing now, preparing for her, tail wagging, mouth closed, the slightest smile in his expression, but he didn’t attack. Gentleman that he was.