us staying here for another five days or hiding out in my cottage?’
Gabriel gave a humourless smile. ‘I said that you could go straight to your cottage, Isabella, not that I would be joining you there.’
Her face blanked of all expression. ‘I see…’
‘Do you?’ Gabriel said grimly.
‘Oh, yes,’ Bella snapped as she placed the breakfast tray on the bedside table before swinging her legs to the floor and sitting up. ‘I can be ready to leave in half an hour or so, if that’s okay with you?’
Gabriel had thought Bella would be pleased at the idea of leaving the island today. That she would be even happier at the idea of being relieved of his company once they were back in England. But instead she merely looked angry.
‘There is no rush,’ he told her. ‘I have radioed ahead and instructed that the plane be fuelled and ready to leave as soon as we arrive.’
‘Now I know where Toby gets his organisational skills from!’ Bella huffed as she stood up. ‘I would like some privacy to get showered and dressed, if you wouldn’t mind, Gabriel?’ She looked at him challengingly.
‘Would it matter if I did?’ he growled.
Her eyes flashed violet fire at him. ‘Not in the least!’
His mouth thinned to a severe line. ‘As I thought. Eat some of the breakfast, Isabella,’ he instructed. ‘You will feel less sick on the helicopter if you have eaten.’
‘No—I’ll just have something to be sick with!’ she contradicted him mutinously.
‘That is true, also,’ Gabriel murmured dryly.
Bella glared. ‘Please don’t attempt to try and sugarcoat it for me!’
She looked so beautiful as she faced him across the room, her face flushed with anger and the darkness of her hair a wild tangle about her shoulders, the long, pale cream nightgown clinging to the lushness of her curvaceous figure.
It was all Gabriel could do to stop himself from taking the few steps that separated them before gathering Bella into his arms and making love to her until she screamed for mercy!
Instead he stepped towards the bedroom door. ‘I will be outside if you should need me.’
‘I won’t,’ she assured him firmly.
No, she probably wouldn’t, Gabriel acknowledged ruefully as he strode outside into the sunshine to take deep, calming breaths of the fragrant air.
Much as he had done the previous evening as he walked along the moonlit shoreline and reminded himself all the reasons he dared not make love to Bella again…
‘I thought you said you had to leave?’ Bella reminded Gabriel many hours later as, having driven her to her cottage, he now lingered in the sitting-room.
The helicopter flight to the mainland had been less traumatic than the one going to the island, Bella having been prepared for the uneven flight this time.
The long flight on the Danti jet back to England had been free of incident, too—probably because neither of them had suggested going anywhere near the temptation of the bedroom at the back of the plane!
Once they’d landed in England Bella had protested the need for Gabriel to drive her back to the cottage. She could find her own way, she’d said. But it had been a battle she had lost. As she lost all of her battles against Gabriel…
But having been delivered here safely, Bella now expected him to leave. In fact, she was counting on it. Mainly because if Gabriel didn’t soon go and leave her to her privacy, Bella knew she was going to give in to the hot tears that had been threatening to fall all day!
‘Are you not going to at least offer me a cup of coffee?’ Gabriel asked.
Her eyes widened. ‘It’s late, Gabriel, and I thought you had somewhere else to go.’
He frowned. ‘I did not say that.’
‘You implied it.’
Gabriel was well aware of what he had implied. As he was aware, now the time had come to part from Bella, that he was reluctant to do so.
‘I am not sure it is the right thing to do, to just leave you here on your own.’
She laughed humourlessly. ‘I’ve lived on my own for two years, Gabriel—’
‘You have lived here with Toby,’ he cut in firmly. ‘That is not the same thing.’
No, it wasn’t, Bella accepted ruefully, already aware of how quiet, how empty, the cottage seemed without her small son’s presence.
‘I’m a big girl now, Gabriel; I’m sure I’ll manage,’ she said dryly.
His eyes darkened in intensity, that familiar nerve pulsing in his clenched jaw. ‘I am well aware of the fact that you are a big girl, Isabella.’
‘Then I suggest you stop treating me like I’m six years old rather than twenty-six!’
His mouth flattened into a disapproving line. ‘Showing concern for your welfare is treating you like a child?’
Bella shook her head impatiently. ‘No, actually treating me like a child is doing that!’
‘How would you have me treat you, Isabella?’ Gabriel glowered his frustration with this conversation.
Bella became very still, very aware of the sudden tension in the room. She could almost feel the crackle of electricity that arced between herself and Gabriel…
She swallowed hard. ‘I think you should just go.’
Gabriel thought so, too. In fact, he knew so! Before he did something he would later regret. Something they might both have reason to regret.
Except…
Bella looked tired after their long journey, her eyes purple smudges in a face that was pale with exhaustion, and the fullness of her lips bare of lip gloss. But nevertheless there was a beguiling determination to the stubborn lift of her chin, that challenge reflected in the brilliance of her eyes and the proud stance of her tiny body.
Gabriel felt the throb of his arousal just looking at her.
Telling him it was definitely time that he left!
‘I should go, yes,’ he acknowledged huskily.
‘Yes.’
‘Now.’
‘Yes.’
‘Bella—’
‘Gabriel…?’
He drew in a ragged breath. ‘I need to go!’
‘You do.’
Except Gabriel moved towards Bella rather than away from her as he crossed the room in two long strides to pull her hard against him even as his head lowered and his mouth claimed hers in a need as primitive and as old as time.
As wild and primitive as his fierce, uncontrollable desire to possess Bella again…
Gabriel’s hands moved to become entangled in her hair as he kissed her hungrily, fiercely, his lips parting hers and allowing his tongue to plunge deeply into the heat beyond. Bella’s mouth tasted of honey, and was hot, so very hot, as she drew him deeper inside her.
Gabriel curved her body into the hardness of his as he continued to kiss and claim her. His hands spread over her bottom as he pulled her against him and pressed her to the ache in his thighs, his arousal hard and pulsing, demanding, the need to possess her so strong that Gabriel could think of nothing else, feel nothing else but Bella.
He wrenched his mouth from hers to bury his face against the satin smoothness of her throat, licking, tasting, biting. ‘We should stop this now, Bella!’
‘Yes,’