Chapter 42
Sol
While Luke and Divya were on the north of the island trying to figure out whether Jasper Fairbanks had anything to do with Leonardo’s disappearance, Sol had stayed in Palma.
There was a practical—even urgent reason for it—she’d called all the taxi companies and tried locating the driver who’d taken Leonardo and his unremarkable captor from a cocktail bar to somewhere else on the island a couple of nights before.
That place could be the very same where Leonardo was right then.
But that hadn’t been the only reason for Sol deciding to pass on a trip to the paradisiacal Cala Formentor and staying in the city.
She needed some distance from Luke. After having practically proposed to him the night before, she just wanted to think straight—preferably with Luke and his infinite aura of heightened hormones, musky smells, and charged stares not impairing her reasoning even further.
She’d kept adding to her list of all the reasons why she should and shouldn’t marry Luke.
And even though the shoulds simply outnumbered the shouldn'ts, Sol had still so many doubts.
Had she allowed him to truly get to know her?
Or had she simply given him access to the likable part of her personality, afraid of another relationship blunder if Luke got to know the real, unhinged, extremely flawed Sol.
She’d run a bath in the hope that would clear her mind. So far, it wasn’t helping much other than pruning her fingertips. She submerged her whole body under the water trying to suppress an exasperated scream. When she emerged from it, Luke was inside the hotel room.
“You’re back?” she blurted, only her head and shoulders above water inside the claw-foot bathtub of the open-concept bathroom in their hotel room.
He was standing in the middle of the bedroom, staring at her, his arms crossed at his chest, one of his eyebrows arched, a sexy grin tugging at his lips. “Why don’t you sound happy about it?”
“It’s not that. I’m still soaking in here. I guess I’d hoped to be at least dry and dressed by the time you were back.” Clearheaded too.
“I really like you wet and naked though.” He smirked.
That type of conversation was only going to make things more difficult.
“So, want me to join?” Luke asked her.
She didn’t even have to consider it. “Please.”
He smiled at her plea.
He took his time, removing his garments one by one.
Even seeing him roll down his socks was erotic.
He knew exactly what he was doing to her.
She was well aware that the gorgeous, six-foot hunk with soft, tanned skin and a sculpted body part had been on her should-marry-Luca column from the very beginning.
It was probably the first thing she’d put there.
She still added it once again to remind herself—not that there was any chance she would forget something like that.
“So, where do you want me?” he asked, once completely undressed. His face wasn’t even trying to conceal all the playfulness and insinuation in his words.
“Oh my god. You’re doing it on purpose, right?”
He slanted his eyes toward her. “What am I doing on purpose?”
Sol was keeping herself from glancing at his body, trying to maintain her eyes solely on Luke’s face. He was so pretty that not even focusing only on his features was making her feel particularly lucid.
“Just get over there.” She pointed to the opposite end of the tub, which wasn’t that far from her because it was a small one. Still, under normal circumstances she’d have asked him to sit behind her. But these were abnormal circumstances.
Luke submerged himself inside the bathtub and Sol felt it almost like a seismic wave.
“I think we lost half the water.” She scrunched her nose.
“I’m sorry.” The mischief in his eyes indicated he wasn’t. The surreptitious moves of his legs underwater, entwining with hers, just substantiated it.
Sol sighed, closed her eyes. She was about to ask him to stop with the seduction attack and continue the conversation from the previous night. But she changed her mind. Life was short. Might as well have some fun. And to hell with the abnormal circumstances.
She bit her lower lip, stared at Luke with ravenous eyes. “What are your views on bathtub sex?”
He returned the hungry stare, leaned forward toward her. “That it’s brilliant.”
“But a bit uncomfortable, no?” Sol leaned forward as well, and their mouths met in the middle. “It’s one of those things that sounds sexy,” she said, while he kissed her neck and the exposed skin of her shoulders. “But when it comes down to it, not so great.”
“Agree to disagree.” He continued kissing the most sensitive area at her nape and interfering with Sol’s ability to form thoughts, let alone complete sentences. “You just need to know your partner well, and adapt to the needs of the moment—and the environment. Communication is key.”
Were they still just talking about sex? Or was he trying to sneak some other take—say about marriage—as well?
“Now turn around and sit on top of me, cara.” She just did what she’d been told, her back pressing against Luke’s firm chest. “Relax against me.”
She shivered at the feeling of his lips against her neck and did just that, arching her back and dropping her head on his shoulder.
“Tell me if this feels uncomfortable.” His throaty voice whispered as his fingers glided underwater over her torso and down her stomach. They ended up between her legs, circling her clit, causing her back to arch again.
“But there’s really no need to go with the most traditional or conventional definition of something,” Luke continued, as he found one of Sol’s breasts and mercilessly pinched her nipple. “Since when do we do conventional?”
“I have no idea what you’re babbling about.” Her head was still lying on his shoulder, her right hand found his cock behind her body, and she gave it a slow, deliberate stroke. “But I’m all for non-conventionally defined sex in the bathtub.”
“I thought you would.” His smirk on her nape was just as sinfully delicious as his fingers at her core.
That was when the world stopped to a sedate, gratifying state. Sol’s body was folded on top of Luke’s while they both kept pleasuring each other unhurriedly, thoroughly. Luke seemed set on making her lose her mind—and forget about everything else. She mimicked him.
Not only wasn’t the very wet activity not uncomfortable, it felt perfectly relaxed and so sexy. She’d always been an extremely impatient woman, but she could probably have stayed in that trance-like state for hours.
When they both climaxed a few minutes later, helped only by their fingers, lips, and a few naughty words, Sol sighed, appeased and comforted. She’d needed Luke to show her that he got her even when she thought she knew better.
“I’m so glad we established your views on bathtub sex were completely wrong.” He nuzzled her neck and she could feel the smile on his lips.
“They were,” she conceded, dazed, her head still resting on his shoulder.
“What other sex do you feel is uncomfortable? I’m sure I can prove you wrong—again.” His voice in her ear was pure insinuation but Sol tried not letting it all go straight to her head—or in between her legs.
She sobered up, barely.
“Can we please talk first?” she reluctantly asked.
Luke lifted his arms and hands, freeing her body from his touch, and spilling even more water on the floor.
“I think we need to continue the conversation where I started sharing with you my views on marriage,” Sol finally said.
Luke
The water inside the bathtub felt frigid.
“I know you don’t want to marry a third time.
” Uttering those words had been harder than he’d anticipated, but he finally said them.
Luke had been thinking about it during their ride back from Cala Formentor.
Divya had been the one driving and he’d allowed himself to think about his relationship besides trying to glue the case together.
He could live without the stupid title. He just needed to live with Sol as his partner, that was all that mattered.
Sol shook her wet hair, turned around in the bathtub again so that she faced him, sat on the opposite side of the tub, her legs entwined with his. She managed to do all that in a swift, elegant move and spilling no water. He wasn’t sure how she’d managed it.
“Yeah, it’s not that I don’t want to marry a third time,” she said.
Oh god! His heart sank. “You don’t want to—you don’t want to marry me?” He stopped being playful.
“What?” Sol’s nose flared, her lips thin with anger.
“Don’t be ridiculous! You’re pretty much the only person I would even consider marrying, Luca.
It’s not that I don’t want to marry for a third time—let alone if it’s to you.
It’s that I absolutely don’t want to divorce for a third time.
I’ve recently realized that I have another marriage in me, but I just don’t have another divorce. If we do this, we do this.”
Had he heard that correctly? For a moment he’d thought he was facing a crossroads in their relationship: the point at which she told him why he wasn’t the right man for her. Only they’d taken a very different turn.
He suspected that he was smiling like a fool. The words “Let’s do this” were about to leave his lips when there was a loud knock on the door.
Not again!