Thankfully.
‘That’s not kind,’ he said, wounded.
‘It’s what matters. My shoulder’s sore.’
‘My leg’s worse.’
‘Do you need more painkillers? We can double the dose.’
‘Yes, please,’ he said, even though a hero would have knocked them back. Actually, a hero would have put her aside, braved a cyclone or two, swum to the mainland and knocked the heads of her appalling family together. A hero might do that in the future but for now his leg did indeed hurt. Knocking heads together needed to take a back seat. But it wouldn’t be forgotten, he promised himself. Just shelved.
‘If I have hurt your shoulder...you can take painkillers too.’
‘I’m on duty.’
‘You’re not on duty,’ he told her, gentling again. ‘You need to sleep.’
‘In a cyclone?’
‘This isn’t a cyclone. This is an edge of a cyclone.’
‘Then I don’t want to see a centre.’
‘Hopefully we won’t,’ he said. ‘Hopefully when we wake it’ll have blown out to sea.’
‘Hope on,’ she said, and sat up and found him a couple of pills.
‘Mary?’
‘Mmm?’
‘Sleep with me.’
‘I don’t seem to have a choice,’ she said, and settled down again, and when he tugged her to him and held her, she didn’t pull away.
* * *
At dawn the cyclone hit square on, and even in the safety of the cave the world seemed like it was exploding.
Afterwards she read that winds had reached two hundred miles an hour or more. They couldn’t measure precisely because the instruments had been blown from their exposed eyrie on a neighbouring island. All Mary knew was that when she woke it sounded like a hundred freight trains were thundering right over, under and into their cave.
The wind was blasting from behind the cave but with such ferocity that the cave entrance was a vortex, sucking things in. Sand, grit, leaves. Their makeshift bed was far back, out of harm’s way, or she’d thought out of harm’s way, but who could tell with such a force?
The noise was unbelievable. The pressure in the cave was unbelievable. Heinz was under the quilt, as far down as he could get, whimpering in terror.
Mary felt like joining him.
‘It’s all noise and bluster.’ Ben’s arm was around her, holding her tight against him, and his voice was a deep rumble overriding terror. ‘I don’t think we’re on the outside any more,’ he said, his voice amazingly calm in her ear. ‘Cyclone Lila’s huffing and puffing and threatening to blow our house down, but she won’t succeed. She won’t because my heroine, the amazing Smash ’em Mary, found us a cave. We’re surrounded by nice thick rock. We’re safe, no matter what she hurls at us.’
She hurled a tree. Mary heard it crash against the cliffs. In the dim light at the cave entrance she saw the trunk slide sideways across the cave mouth, and Ben might have thought he was holding her but now she was holding him. Tight. Hard. She might be safe in her cave but this was something out of this world.
She clung. She clung and clung and clung.
The world was ending. Dawn might be breaking on a new day somewhere in the world but dawn was breaking here on catastrophe. She was expecting her cave to implode. She was expecting her island to pick up its roots and head for England.
So much for being nurse in charge. Ben had a head injury and a leg injury. She should be doing hourly obs, asking solicitous questions about his health.
All she could do was cling.
‘You’re safe,’ he said into her ear, and when he was this close she believed him.
She clung. Skin against skin. His warmth and strength were the only things that mattered.
He was in boxers. She was in bra and panties. His body was rough against hers, and warm, and it was the only thing between her and catastrophe.
The noise was unbelievable. It felt like the entire world had been picked up and was blowing away. Even the ground under them seemed to be trembling, and their bodies were reacting accordingly.
She was no longer in charge of her body.
What were the needs on the Maslow scale? Food first and shelter, but sex was right up there.
If she buried herself in his body the noise would stop, but it seemed more than that. Much more.
If she’d been lying with a stranger, surely it wouldn’t be like this, but Ben seemed no stranger. What was it between them? Danger, isolation, but more. She didn’t know and she didn’t have time to think it through. All she knew was that she was in this man’s arms and she wanted him.
For this moment, this fragment of time, there was nothing but this man. There was no thought of the past or the future. For now, the only escape from the storm was Ben.
* * *
Less than twenty-four hours ago he’d thought he was going to die. He’d almost drowned. He was black with bruises. His leg was still giving him hell, but he was holding a woman in his arms and the pain and terror of the past couple of days was fading to nothing.
All that mattered was her.
Was this casual sex? Was this a fast mating because it was offered—for it was offered. He could feel her need.
The noise of the storm outside was unbelievable. She was holding him for comfort; she needed his strength, his warmth, his presence.
But this was more than that. She was holding him as if she’d merge with him.
This was more than casual sex.
Maybe he’d say that to himself, he thought, or he tried to think as his arms drew her closer, as her skin pressed against his skin. Her breasts were moulding to him, the slivers of her lace bra almost non-existent. She was the most beautiful creature he’d ever held.
The most beautiful woman...
Was that the storm talking? The adrenalin of the cyclone?
He pulled away and it nearly killed him. He put her at arm’s length so he could look into those beautiful, wounded eyes.
This was a wounded creature hiding from the world.
This was a woman whose past resonated with his.
Nonsense. He was the indulged son of serious money. His family connections had always made life easy for him.
But her loneliness resonated with him in such a way...
But this wasn’t loneliness. This was urgent physical need, and even if it killed him he would not take advantage of this woman.
‘Mary, think,’ he managed. ‘I can’t...stop. Mary, are you sure?’
‘That I want your body?’ Her voice was surprisingly calm. ‘I’m as sure as I’ve ever been in my life.’
‘I don’t suppose...’ His voice didn’t match hers. It was ragged with want and there was no way he could disguise it. ‘That you carry condoms in that nurse’s bag?’
‘You didn’t pack some in your lifejacket pocket before you jumped overboard?’ Her words might be light but the jagged need, the need that matched his, was unmistakeable.
‘I can’t think why not, but no.’
‘So...so no diseases I should know about?’
‘No, but—’
‘Then I want