"Hamilton?" I asked, as we cast off. "Where is that?"

"In Canada. We run a little vintage store, but we sail a fair bit and sometimes we find all kinds of local knick-knacks to take back."

"She's wearing half of them." Ken winked at me. "If we sink somewhere off the Pacific Coast, it'll be from all of her shopping."

A fellow shopper. No wonder I'd felt an instant connection.

"Would you like some strawberries?" I asked. It was all I had to offer for their kindness.

"Oh no. We get plenty of those. Out here, it's all about guava and mangosteen and pineapple," said Ken. "And truth be told, it doesn't look like you have enough to go around."

Judy and I laughed. The wind had picked up and the sailboat was moving swiftly towards Damian.

"I'll signal him down," said Ken, when we caught up.

"Thank you," I replied. The boats were bobbing side by side. Ken started lowering the dinghy.

"No need," I said. I was almost afraid for Damian to see me. I didn't know what I'd do if he took off again. "I can take it from here." I jumped into the water.

"Well then. Don't let us keep you!" Ken shouted after me.

I climbed up the ladder to Damian's boat and stood on the deck in a big puddle, feeling a bit like a drowned rat.

"Don't forget these." Judy tossed the strawberries over. Two big bags full.

"Thanks!" I waved as Ken and Judy took off.

When I turned around, Damian was standing at the other end of the boat, looking like hell and fury, bundled up in a white cotton shirt.

"What do you think you're doing?"

"I'm going with you."

"I don't want you, Skye. I thought I made that clear. Are you so ridiculously spoiled, so used to getting what you want that you can't get that through your head?"

Oh God, this man. This fucking impossible man. I had just left everything behind-my freedom, my cushy world, my father-for this man. I had tracked him down in the middle of ocean, jumped into the sea, climbed on board, all so I could love him. If he would only just let me love him.

But no. He was doing what he always did, shutting me out before I could shut him out, because that's what he expected from the world-hurt, betrayal, callousness. He wasn't even going to give us a chance.

"You're a fucking coward." I picked up a strawberry and flung it at him. It smacked him in the face, leaving a pink stain.

I chucked another one at him. And another and another and another, until he was covered in splotches-his face, his shirt, his arms, his neck.

"I hate you!"

I did. I hated that he could just stand there, unflinching, uncaring, unyielding, and watch me fall apart.

"You hear me?" I took a handful of strawberries and smashed them into his chest. "I hate you!"

When all the strawberries were gone, I started pounding him with my fists. I wanted to pulverize every single memory I had of him. I wanted him to hurt the way I was hurting. I wanted him to sob the way I was sobbing. I wante- Damian grabbed my hands and pinned them behind my back. His lips found mine and he latched on with a hunger that left me breathless. He was an ocean of want and need. All the raging, submerged currents that he'd kept at bay unleashed themselves on me. I tried to keep afloat, clutching at him, but I didn't stand a chance. My hurt, my anger, my tears were tossed aside by something deeper, something vast and true and powerful and endless.

It was a kiss that had sneaked in through an open window, a kiss that lay folded in a paper giraffe, in the silences between 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, in the pits of mini mangoes and here, now, at last, it was set free. And the rightness of it, the feeling of longing and belonging, made me want to hold on to it forever. I wanted Damian to keep kissing me, keep kissing, keep kissing, until every other kiss had been erased, until this was the only kiss.

My top was soaked, my pants were soaked, my hair was soaked, but Damian's mouth was like strawberry wildfire-hot and sweet, and completely out of control. All the intensity with which he'd pushed me away was pulling me right back, fusing my lips to his. It was almost painful when he let go.

"Don't cry, gerita." Damian's thumb swiped my cheek. "Hit me, slap me, punch me, but don't fucking cry."

"Don't fucking leave me then," I said. Was he really looking at me like that? Was he really breathing so hard? "And I'm not gerita anymore." I tugged at a strand of dark hair. "I'm not blondie anymore."

"Oh, but you are." Damian smiled.

I punched him because he'd seen me naked and I knew exactly what he was thinking. When he wrapped his arms around me, I hid my face in his chest and felt like I had come home.

When we got back to the island, Damian made real ceviche while I showered and changed.

"Show off," I said. He really was a good cook. And a great kisser. I couldn't stop staring at his lips. Those lips had blown orange seeds through a straw at Gideon Benedict St. John, but now there was an eroticism to them-every time he spoke, every time he took a bite. They were all I could see. And I wanted them on me.

"What happened to your face?" he asked.

"Your beard." I snapped out of it long enough to answer his question. The hot shower had turned my chin and upper lip red from where his beard had chafed my skin.

Damian grinned. Leaving his mark on me seemed to appease some Paleolithic, cave-dwelling part of him.

His grin did things to me too. I wished he would lean over and kiss me again.

He did lean over. To pick up my plate. And then he proceeded to wash the dishes while I put things away. I wished he'd hurry up so I could throw my arms around him again, but he was taking so darn long, scratching an imaginary speck, then washing the damn spot again, then drying, all the while keeping his eyes on the task.

He was avoiding me, and when I finally clued in to why, I wanted to kiss him even more. Damian wasn't doing the dishes. He was wrestling with something he'd never felt before. He was feeling shy and it was something completely foreign to him. He had never allowed himself to like a girl, never been on a date, never felt butterflies in his stomach.

I felt a stab of tenderness that was quickly overcome by the urge to jump him. I cleared my throat in an attempt to dislodge the treacherous minx that was quickly taking over.

"Why don't you go change? I'll finish here," I offered. He was still wearing his strawberry splattered shirt.

He jumped on it, like I had just thrown him a life raft. Anything to get away from me. I finished up the rest of the dishes and turned off the lights.

We bumped into each other in the hallway. He was coming out of the bathroom and I was going in. The first thing that struck me was his clean-shaven face. Bye, bye beard. The stitches were gone too. No baseball cap. It was like he was showing me his face for the first time-the ridges where the boy I once knew had hardened to a man, the places he'd stayed the same. The second thing I noticed was his skin, still warm and wet, bare except for the sweatpants that didn't look so ugly when they hugged his hip like that.

"I-"

"You-"

We stepped away from each other, aware of all the places our bodies had just touched.

I don't know who moved first, maybe him, maybe me, but we were zigzagging through the hallway, our lips locked, my back against the wall, then his, banging and colliding in the narrow space until we got to the bedroom.

Damian picked me up and carried me inside. His bare arms felt like heaven. We fumbled to get under the netting, neither of us wanting to stop kissing, but it was tucked under the mattress, sealing off the bed. When Damian knelt on the mattress, with me still in his arms, the whole thing ripped from the top.

"Problem solved," he said, tearing through the gauzy folds as he deposited me on the bed.

I would have laughed, but he slid his body on top of mine and I was lost. Limbs measured up against limbs, palm against palm, familiar yet so different. My t-shirt and panties came off, his sweatpants kicked to the foot of the bed. I lay on my side, shuddering when his finger dipped down my back, tracing the indentation of my spine. Hooking my ankle around his, I rubbed my toes against the sole of his foot.

It was discovery and wonder, a stirring of the senses, a medley of sighs. We were skin-to-skin, and then apart, touching and exploring until the distance became too much to bear. He was on his stomach and my lips were skimming across the broad expanse of his shoulders and back. I had barely tasted his skin when he growled and turned over. Damian was a take-charge lover. He knew when he wanted it, where he wanted it, and how to make it happen. I was spooned into him, enraptured with the feel of his rough thumb on my nipple.

"Still crooked," I said, taking his thumb into my mouth.

The reaction was instantaneous, a rush of throbbing, inflamed blood to that very male, insistent part of him.

"Skye . . ." He moved away from me.

"What?" I wasn't done sucking his thumb.

He forgot what he was saying, and just lay back, watching me. "That is not helping," he groaned.

"How about this?" I moved on to the other thumb.

"Fuck you."

I giggled.

"Skye . . ." He tried again.

I moved on to the tip of his cock, teasing it with my tongue. His hips shot off the bed.

"Skye!" He yanked me away by my hair. "I don't have any condoms."

"I think I saw a mini sombrero in the living room." I went back to what I was doing. His head flopped back on the pillow and his fingers threaded through my hair.

"What do you mean mini?" he growled.

"I take that back," I mumbled, relishing the feel of him expanding in my mouth. He started thrusting his cock through my lips, retreating, advancing, an inch at a time, until I couldn't contain him, all of him. The sounds coming from him were making my thighs clench as my need started overtaking me.

"My turn," he said, flipping me over.

It was oddly tentative, his lips on that most private part of me. And I realized that this was where it was different for Damian. He might have fucked a lot of women, but he'd never made love before, never thought about giving the same pleasure he received. And his baby steps-his hot breath, his tongue, his mouth-nudged me towards the sweetest release. When he slipped his fingers inside, first one, then another, I thought I was going to lose it.

"Damian." I grasped his shoulders. I wanted him inside. "Stop."

He paused, taking in my flushed face, the rise and fall of my chest, my taut nipples, begging for his touch.

"If you can't take, don't give," he said, sucking on my hot little button like I'd sucked on his thumb.

The fucking tease. His fingers continued their maddening dance, and just when I thought I was about to explode, his cock slid into me, full and hard. It was pure possession, unbridled and complete. The pleasure came, swift and explosive. I clung to him, unable to suppress the cry of delight as wave after wave of electric fire scorched through me. He held still, one hand cupping the back of my head, the other on the curve of my hip as I came in tight spasms around him.

"Again," he said, when I lay replete and breathless under him. "With me this time."

He started a relentless, masterful rhythm that carried me to new crests of passion. As he fueled my desire, his own grew stronger, his body moving with mine in exquisite harmony. I rose to meet him, stroke for stroke, feeling a sense of completeness that I had never known.

Ban Eban.

Esteban.

Damian.

I knew all of him now.

I opened my eyes at the peak and the intensity of the moment shot through both of us. I abandoned myself to the whirl of sensation, my heart bursting with all the raw, tender, fierce things exchanged in that one look.

"Gerita." He surrendered with a long, shuddering moan.

I wrapped my arms around him. He kissed the top of my head and pulled me closer. He wasn't done touching me. His fingers moved up and down my back in long, languid strokes.

"You grew boobs," he said. "Really, really nice boobs."

"You grew hair." I traced the silky hair on his arms. "And a really, really big um . . ."

"A big what, Skye? Let me hear you say it."

"A really, really big personality."

"The thing about really, really big 'personalities' is that they really, really need a lot of attention. And just so you know, I'm always careful. This is the first time I've gone-"

"Sombrero-less?" I laughed. "I know you'd never do anything to put me at risk."

"How do you know that?"

"Because you love me." There. The words were out and I couldn't take them back. Let him deny what I'd seen in his eyes, what I knew was the truth.

Damian tensed, as if holding something in check. I held my breath, waiting for the mask to slip back on. My heart was going to break to the murmur of the ocean and the night wind rustling through palm trees. The lump in my throat grew to the size of a giant coconut.

"It's true," he said. "I've always loved you. Even when I hated you."

Oh God oh God oh God oh God.

"Loved? Past tense?" I was pushing it, but my heart took a perilous leap.

"Loved. Love. What does it matter?" He pulled me into the cradle of his arms. "Love don't die."

"Are you feeding me one of your movie lines, Damian?"

"It's a song." He laughed. "My tastes have expanded." His mouth covered my nipple, sending a warm shiver through me.

"Wait." I pulled his head back up. "There's something you should know."

"I know." His hands skimmed my waist possessively. "You love me, too."

"Was I that obvious?"

"Skye." He smiled. "You unleashed a fucking strawberry storm on me."