The Package Deal: Nine Months to Change His Life / From Neighbours...to Newlyweds? / The Bonus Mum

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 you,’ she said, as simply as that, and it took his breath away. ‘Consequences can hang themselves.’

‘Mary...’

‘Mmm? She was holding him, her fingers touching his spine, her body pressing against him. Blocking out everything but the feel of her. ‘How...how old is Heinz?’

She managed a chuckle. ‘Old enough not to be shocked. And in case you hadn’t noticed, it’s pretty dark.’

‘That’s a relief,’ he managed, and tugged her tighter still. ‘Heinz, close your eyes. Your mistress and I are about to block one storm out with another.’

CHAPTER FIVE (#ulink_2098ec3b-59de-5125-8eae-ab753711d6fd)

THEY PRETTY MUCH clung to one another for twelve hours. That was how long it took for the cyclone to blast their slice of paradise to pieces.

It didn’t matter, though, Ben thought in the moments he could surface to thinking. For now, for this time out of reality, he felt like he’d found his home.

Outside the cyclone shrieked across and around the island, doing its worst, while they made love and talked in whispers right against each other’s ears because that was the only way they could be heard.

There was a couple of hours’ eerie silence as the eye passed over. Mary suggested pulling apart then, checking the beach, thinking if something...someone else had been washed up... But Ben knew no one could have survived in a sea rougher than the pre-cyclonic conditions he’d been washed up in, and how did they know how long the eye would take to pass?