'Can't you slow down?' she begged him finally. 'I'm exhausted pretending I can keep up with you.'
He laughed and called back some taunting challenge, but slowed his pace and waited for her. He was already standing, well within his depth when she swam past him. Her safety was paramount to him and he rode shotgun behind her as she waded into shore. She was strong in mind and in body, and he could understand how she had escaped the pirates, but did he need the complication of such a high spirited young woman in his life? The answer to that was a firm no.
Building a case against Tuesday was easy, he concluded as she turned to smile at him over her shoulder-another point in her favour, he conceded wryly. She would challenge him. She would prove more than a match for most men.
But most men couldn't have her.
He was suffering a bad case of desert-island fever, he decided, determined to put her out of his mind.
'Where are you going, Saif?' she demanded, catching hold of his arm when he turned to walk away from her.
As she stared into his eyes he felt tugged right in, as if Tuesday's eyes held the secret of life. 'Isn't there enough sand to go round?' He pretended impatience as he stared at the vast stretch of beach turned silver by the moonlight. 'Must we inhabit the same square metre of sand?'
'That's up to you,' she said.
He held her gaze. Her eyelashes were clogged with water and her lips were slightly parted and moist. She was excited at the thought of what might happen next, while he knew only too well he could offer her none of the things she dreamed about.
Nor would he stand by while she heaped more reasons for regret on top of what had already been a traumatic day for her, he determined, pulling away. But then he knew this was the opportunity he had been looking for to ask Tuesday a question that had been nagging at the back of his mind. If she had been assaulted during the attack, he would call ahead and arrange specialist counselling for when she returned to the mainland.
Saif's question should have embarrassed her, but it didn't. They had past that marker some time ago, Antonia realised, and now she owed him the truth. 'The boat was attacked,' she explained, 'But I jumped into the sea before they could touch me.'
'Bad enough,' Saif commented.
And it could have been so much worse; they communed silently in a moment of real contact between them.
Then, incredibly, Saif's eyes warmed as he stared down at her, and his lips tugged in a slow grin. 'You came out of it well,' he said.
Time stood still as they stared at each other, while her heart pounded louder than the surf. It wasn't that Saif touched her-he didn't need to when she swayed towards him.
They were cool from the sea, but she was hot, hot enough to make the sea boil when he kissed her. He tasted salty and clean and wonderful, and her wildest fantasies could never have conjured up that hot-cold, salty-sweet kiss.
'Am I safe?' she murmured when he released her, without opening her eyes.
'You're as safe as you want to be,' Saif told her.
'Not safe at all, then.' Her lips started to curve in a smile as she looked at him.
'You're not frightened of me?' he said.
'A little,' she admitted.
He shook his head. 'How can the girl who swam through a storm in no visibility and no guarantee of success be frightened now?'
'Because I think you are a very dangerous man,' she told him softly.
'Hmm. Are you cold?' he demanded as she shivered with anticipation.
Her answer was a sigh, and so he nuzzled her neck, and everything inside her melted.
'You can always go back to the yacht and sleep safely in a bunk,' Saif murmured.
'Why would I do that?'
'I've no idea.'
And then he strode across the beach, holding her in his arms as if she weighed nothing, while she linked her hands behind his neck and snuggled her face against his chest. It was the easiest thing in the world to believe they belonged together, and that this was their island with no outside world to complicate things or muddy the water. There was no tomorrow here, no yesterday, there was only now, with the ocean lapping rhythmically on a sugar-sand shore, with a sickle moon and diamond stars to light their way. There was just one man, one woman.
There was only this …
'Still feeling safe?' he said.
She drew a fast breath as he ran the fingertips of one hand very lightly down her arm. This was madness, she registered as her heart beat wildly. She didn't even know Saif. She might have fantasised about such things happening, but had never imagined they would.
Saif continued to tease her with the lightest touch. It was a touch that carried the promise of so much more, and that was all it took to convince her that she was free to do as she liked here.
Free to enjoy sex with a complete stranger?
Why not? Antonia argued stubbornly with her inner voice. 'Do you believe in fate, Saif?'
'Maybe.'
'You do. I know you do,' she insisted. 'Just think about it-why am I here? Why did I swim to this particular island where you were moored up? We were meant to meet,' she said with certainty, holding Saif's brooding gaze.
'It was the closest port in a storm for both of us,' he said, injecting some realism into her thinking.
But she did feel the pull of kismet, and was sure Saif must feel it too. 'I'm not frightened of you,' she said. 'In fact … '
Saif shushed her, and as he looped his arms around her waist her body responded with indecent urgency. This wasn't some soft, office-bound male. Saif was a barbarian, raw and sexual, and there was steel behind that brooding stare.
He would be tuned to every desire she had ever dreamed of. He was the mate nature had chosen for her, she decided, choosing to ignore the voice in her head that said he was ruthless, and that Saif lived his life by very different rules. This would be a night to remember for the rest of her life. Saif wanted sex, and she did too. What was wrong with that? Now his lips were soft and persuasive on her mouth and on her neck.
While his stubble was sharp like a warning.
She was moist and hot. She was ready for him.
But was she ready for sex with a man as experienced and as exciting as Saif? Could she trust him? Could she trust him enough?
She was more frightened of her own inexperience than she was of Saif, Antonia realised; she was frightened she might disappoint him.
The silence deepened as he stared at her. They were both fiercely aroused, and he took pleasure in keeping her waiting. Meanwhile, his strength and heat were washing over her, and his expression said he would exceed every dream she'd ever had.
She softened against him, arching her back to encourage his hands to move lower, and she groaned with satisfaction when he cupped her buttocks. It only took the smallest adjustment to angle herself so she could feel the steel of his erection, to which he responded by pressing and releasing her against him, allowing her a hint of the pleasure to come.
But she wanted more than this. All thoughts of standing hesitantly on the brink, and of decisions yet to be made, had vanished. Her world comprised the throbbing hunger between her legs. There was nothing more. One night, she argued with her inner voice. She had to. She had never known such a primal instinct to mate with one man, or even known that she possessed such hunger. It was as if Saif had made her supremely conscious of her feminine power.
As if he sensed this confidence in her, he swung her into his arms again and carried her on board the yacht. When he laid her on the cushions beneath the stars, she felt one moment of anxiety, because now it seemed Saif was hesitating. 'Don't you want me?'
'I want you.'
His eyes were flecked with gold and amber, and as he stretched out at her side his mouth curved in a lazy smile. 'Do you know what happens when you play with fire?' he murmured, toying with a strand of her hair.
'I get burned?' she said hopefully.
He laughed, and then dragged her close to whisper all sorts of outrageous suggestions in her ear-words that carried such an erotic charge she would reach a conclusion without him if he didn't hurry to put his promises into practice.
Saif wielded an unusual power over her, Antonia realised as his hands warmed and controlled her. She should be aware of that-and be cautious. She didn't know him or what he was capable of, but then she hardly knew herself in this new guise of reckless heat. 'I want you,' she murmured, quickly forgetting her reservations when Saif moved over her.
'You've got me.' Impossibly attractive and indescribably intimidating, he was experienced and she was not, and she was only now realising he had prepared her to the point where there could be no turning back. To the point where she felt a frantic need to welcome him inside her as nature, and Saif, intended.