Page 51 of Modern Romance January 2025 5-8
His arms circled her waist, firm and tight, and he breathed steady instructions into her ear. At her nod, his feet flexed, manoeuvring the flyboard with the ease of a well-honed athlete.
The e-Foil had been exhilarating, but this was a delirious mind trip the likes of which she’d never known before.
She was experiencing something she’d hankered for from afar and hadn’t had the courage to try out. Like watching bungee jump videos, wishing you had the courage but knowing you probably never would. Now...she shrieked and laughed in delight as Jario charted a lazy arc over the water, then executed a faster loop. She gripped his shoulders as her belly flipped and flopped with sensations of pure delight.
Delight trebled when he sent her a lazy, hooded-eyed smile, then slowly elevated them until they were easily thirty feet in the air, spinning in slow circles, dancing high above the ocean.
There, he stared at her for an age, his smile slowly disappearing and one expression after another chasing across his face. ‘Why are you still here, Willow?’ His low voice rumbled through her like a freight train through a mountain pass, their plastered-together bodies making her stingingly aware of the slow rise and fall of his breathing, the steady thump of his heart against her breast. The flexing power of his thighs as his feet manoeuvred to keep them aloft.
Because I can’t turn my back on you...on this. Not yet.
She pressed her lips together against blurting out the exposing remark. ‘Because those crossroads I mentioned? They’re new to me. I’m taking a minute to take stock, make sure I’m doing the right thing.’
His mouth twisted but his expression stayed riveted on her face, those incisive eyes analysing her every word and expression as if it mattered to him. ‘The right thing or the necessary thing?’
The hand on his bare shoulder trembled. Tightening her grip on him was just to steady herself, nothing else. ‘I’m not perfect by any means, but I’m hoping if I’m successful, right and necessary will be halves of a whole.’
‘And what do you think isright and necessarywhere I’m concerned?’ His sibilant hiss would’ve made her shiver if his arms and his body hadn’t kept her deliciously warm. Even in debate she felt perplexingly...cared for.
She glanced away from the hypnotic pressure of his gaze, the tiniest flare of hysteria questioning if this was the place to be doing this. ‘Ultimately, that’s up to you, but I’m here...if you need me.’
His exhale was audible and disbelieving. ‘So you intend the impossible?’
Willow glanced over his shoulder at the distant majesty of the pura temples and the mountains, then beneath them, and her breath caught at the sight of a pod of dolphins streaming through the sapphire-blue waters.
‘Half an hour ago I would’ve said it’d be impossible for anyone to convince me to step onto a flyboard and hover fifty feet in the air,’ she whispered. ‘Yet, here I am.’
His nostrils flared, bringing her attention to the sharp blade of his nose and the deeply sensual mouth beneath it. Heat unfurled in her belly.
A sound rumbled from deep within his chest. ‘You’re trying to change paths set in stone, Willow. I won’t allow it. Do you hear me?’
His vehemence cut through her, but so did the sure-fire knowledge that she’d reached him on some level. A level he wasn’t pleased with, sure, but the reality was stark and moving enough to make her look deeper into his eyes to catch the swirling bewilderment on the edge of deep determination. Eating away at it?
‘Pressure and stone make diamonds, Jario. Ever heard of that?’
‘Are you being clever with me,querida?’
‘I’m just offering a different viewpoint,’ she replied, returning his stare with a bold one. Then movement from the water behind him caught her eye. ‘Like the one behind you right now,’ she whispered, nudging her chin at the breathtaking display.
His gaze lingered on her face for several more seconds before he turned. The dolphins she’d seen earlier were circling again, growing in number. In seconds, there were dozens leaping, arching and flipping through the air in a spectacular, awe-inspiring show.
Jario slowly dropped their altitude by several feet for a better view. One particularly nimble dolphin jumped so high, it came eye to eye with them before the creature flipped, its iridescent grey skin catching the light as it nosedived back into the water.
‘That’s...amazing.’
‘They’re migrating pods,’ he said, his breath brushing her ear. ‘There are thousands of them in the water here at this time of year.’
‘Are we disturbing...?’
Before she completed the question, Jario was already retreating, angling the flyboard towards the yacht, giving the beautiful creatures room for their aerial acrobatics.
When they reached the swim deck, she expected him to let go of her, but he kept his arm around her when they stepped off. Her gaze flicked up to his, but he was still watching the water.
Then one arm lifted, pointed to the left. ‘Over there. Watch.’
Seconds passed, and she wondered whether he was directing her to another dolphin display. But the water heaved mightily, and a giant fin the size of a tanker’s propeller lifted out of the sea, and in majestic slow motion, a giant blue whale followed, conducting a perfect somersault before, with a humongous splash, it disappeared beneath the waves.
Her head snapped up to Jario, her gasp of delight ending in a smile she couldn’t have stopped if her life depended on it. His breath hissed out as he stared down at her.