The Trouble With Paradise

SIXTEEN

As Dorie approached Christian, he looked up, his face streaked with sand, sweat, and a barely banked misery that pretty much ripped her heart right out of her chest. “What is it?” she asked.

He lifted a hat, which he’d clearly just pulled from the water, an Astros baseball cap.

“Bobby’s,” she gasped.

He hung the hat off the closest palm tree and shoved his fingers through his hair.

“Christian?”

Swiping an arm over his forehead, he waited for her to talk.

She swallowed hard. For whatever reason, she’d had some misguided idea that she could approach this tall, dark, and attitude-ridden man, and seize the day. Her day. Now she simply wanted to give him some comfort, but was suddenly at a loss. She glanced back at Cadence and Brandy, who waved her on. Right.

She could do this.

“Can we walk?” It was a procrastination strategy, but he shrugged and grabbed his flashlight. They headed up the beach, Christian not saying a word, Dorie’s heart hammering so loudly in her ears that she couldn’t have spoken to save her life. The long, dark beach curved around, and within a few minutes they could no longer see the glow from the campfire, could see nothing but the dark outline of the island jutting up to the heavens on their right and the glimmer of the faint starlight on the waves on their left.

Dorie had always imagined a deserted island would be silent, but she’d been very wrong. The water crashed onto the sand. Insects buzzed, and given the ear-splitting decibels of the hum, they were damn large insects. The small, colorful, plentiful birds hadn’t gone to sleep with the setting sun, and their cries were piercing. Haunting. And she’d have sworn that not all those screeches and hoots were avian based, but she didn’t want to think on that too long.

At a sharp curve in the beach, they met the rocky climb they’d made earlier, and silently took it again.

Ten minutes later, the steep incline once again gave way to the plateau that provided a windy, sweeping view of the dark beach far below. Dorie stood there, panting for breath.

She really needed to get serious about exercise. Assuming she survived her vacation, that is.

“What are we doing?”

“Seizing my day. My life.”

“Huh?”

“I…” Want to jump your bones. “Um-”

“Shh,” he said suddenly. “Do you hear that?”

Cocking her head, she listened. She could hear the wind rustling the trees. More insects buzzing. And then the lone cry of a bird. Surrounded by the wet, dark rain forest that she couldn’t see, the lushness of it dripped with moisture, and even by the moon’s glow, seemed vacuous. “I hear lots of things.”

“Water.” He pulled her off the rock and into-big gulp-the rain forest.

It swallowed them up whole.

One moment she could hear and see the waves below, and above the slender moon and billions of stars, and then the next moment, nothing. “Christian.”

Taking her hand, he tugged her along. Damp branches and leaves brushed her arms and legs. Something touched her cheek, and with a squeak, she glued herself to Christian’s back.

“What?” he asked.

She brushed a hand over his pagan-god-like shoulder. “You had something on you.”

Seeing right through her, he snorted, then continued on, but suddenly went still.

Oh, God, what now?

“Look,” he said.

She realized she’d closed her eyes in terror, and with a brave swallow, she opened them to find herself standing before a cliff that zoomed so high up she couldn’t see where it ended. From somewhere up there fell a waterfall, landing into a natural pool about thirty feet below them. Lit by the moon, the water shimmered like live crystals, but the pool, shadowed by all the lush growth, lay still as smooth, black marble. Still but not quiet. Here even more insects buzzed, and the birds continued to chirp and squawk. Coming in all around them was the damp, warm night air, making everything seem too close.

Too intimate.

“Fresh water,” he marveled, their feet sinking into the heavy, wet growth beneath them.

It looked like heaven on earth, and drawn to it, she took a step forward, only her foot went right through the thick growth and sank into the sand at the edge of the water.

“Watch it.”

Watching it didn’t seem to be her forte, but instead of letting her fall, he tugged her back against his nice, hard chest, which was beginning to be very familiar.

“You need a keeper, you know that.” Arms still around her, he leaned back, spine to the tree behind him, chest damp and hard, he stuck to her everywhere they touched, which was in some very interesting places. “Tell me you didn’t just twist your other ankle.”

She took quick stock. Nope. In fact, held against him as she was, her spine to his torso, backs of her thighs to the fronts of his, her bottom snugged to his crotch, everything felt pretty darn warm and fuzzy and happy.

Very happy. “Ankle’s good.”

“And you didn’t lose that purse.”

“Of course not.”

“Of course not. You didn’t even lose it in a shipwreck, so what am I thinking.”

She had no idea what he was thinking, but she was thinking damn, it felt good to be held against his body, good to forget, even for a minute, the hell they’d found themselves in. Twisting to face him, she opened her mouth to apologize for this whole mess. But he kissed her.

She’d figured maybe they’d talk through their grief, but as a grief release, this worked, too. This worked just fine. Their hands grappled for purchase on each other while their tongues did the tango. When he slid a hand beneath her tops and found her nipple with his thumb, her knees buckled… “I can’t stand,” she gasped.

Without missing a beat he whipped her around so that she was pressed to the tree, held there by his body. “How’s that?”

“Good.” Incredible.

“Good.” And he kissed her again.

Her flashlight dropped to the ground and skittered away, the beam shining off into the distance as his hands claimed her breasts while his mouth attached itself to her throat.

A freight train of lust surged through her veins. It’d been a long time, too long. Over a year ago she’d gone out with a guy five times before he got this far, and in his haste to get to the good stuff, he’d removed only the essential clothing on both of them, and had touched her breasts almost by accident as he’d made his way to ground zero (which he’d missed by a good three inches), getting inside her with just enough time to go off like a bottle rocket.

Leaving her over-revving her engine at the starting gate, and once again faking it.

But Christian seemed to have a whole other agenda going on, and she didn’t have to fake anything, certainly not her reaction. He wasn’t panting like a lunatic, whispering “Oh God, please don’t let me come too fast…”

In fact, he wasn’t saying a word, but that might have been because his mouth had other things to do. As he kissed her, long and wet and deep, she felt herself slipping under his spell, her body coming alive so that it practically shivered with anticipation, humming with a pleasure she couldn’t quite contain. The sound of it escaped her with every whimpering breath.

Truth was, he had her halfway to orgasm without doing much more than kissing her, which made her as pathetic as her last date. She’d be mortified later, because right now her body had taken over and was demanding the rest. “Hurry.”

God, again with the out loud thing, but he didn’t make fun of her. Instead, he slid a big, warm hand up her back, his fingers encircling her ponytail so that he could lightly tug, better angling her mouth to his. His other hand curled around her breast, his fingers rasping over her camisole-covered nipple, coaxing another gasp out of her. “Hurry,” she said again.

“Why? Is there a race?”

“My body thinks so,” she managed as he dragged his mouth along her jaw, to her ear, which he sank his teeth into, yanking yet another gasping moan out of her.

“Shh.” He laved the spot with his tongue, then shifted, bending his head to her throat, her collarbone. “Unless you want to be rescued by the others.”

She shook her head wildly. She did not want to be rescued, not from this. He glided his tongue over her skin, heading toward her breasts, licking her through the cotton, and she couldn’t help it, she made a noise of sheer lust.

He lifted his head and looked into her eyes, his own dark, so dark with heat, his mouth wet from kissing her.

“Don’t stop,” she said.

“Are you sure?”

“Very, very sure.”

He nodded with intent, a wicked, naughty intent that made her go damp. Or damper. “You still have that box of condoms?”

Oh, God. “In my purse.”

“I’m beginning to like that purse.”

She fumbled to get to it while he went back to what he was doing. She’d been holding on to him for all she was worth, but at the first touch of his tongue, she cried out. Damn it.

A man of his own means, he took her hands and gently pressed one finger to her mouth. She nodded. Shh. She really was trying, but-“Ohmigod,” she whispered when he tugged the spaghetti straps off her shoulders so that his clever, talented mouth could have more freedom. “Ohmigod.”

Without a break in the wet, open-mouthed kisses he was trailing over her, he pressed her fingers to her lips again.

Right. Quiet. She was doing her best, but she was only human here, and her body had shifted to high, hopeful alert status, quivering with it, in fact. She peeked down at his dark head, at the direction he was heading with purposeful intent-which were her nipples, covered only because her tops had snagged on them.

Then he tugged again and her breasts were bared to the night air and his hot, hot gaze.

She had to close her eyes. She slapped her hands to the tree trunk on either side of her hips, needing the handholds. “Christian.”

Again, he stroked a finger over her lips, then his hand covered her mouth, because apparently she wouldn’t possibly remain silent with him now crouching down before her, her camisoles gathered at her waist, his fingers slowly pushing up her skirt. Her hands dropped from the tree to his shoulders and dug into the muscles there, and when he’d bunched the entire skirt up past her hips so that he had an eyeful of her panties, she went utterly still, torn between wondering why she’d put panties on today at all, and what would have happened if she hadn’t.

Then he slid his fingers beneath the elastic edging at her hip, tracing it down… His knuckles brushed her center and she jerked at the touch. “Um-”

He tugged and words failed her. Then her brain failed her as well when he leaned in and kissed her.

There.

Oh, God. All she managed was a squeak.

He grabbed both her hands, having to peel them off his shoulders, and reaching up, again put them to her mouth. He pressed gently, silently encouraging her to shut the hell up.

So she held her hands over her own mouth and panted for air while he stroked her with his tongue, her head thunking back against the tree. She saw stars, felt the earth move, heard fireworks going off in her brain, the whole shebang, and it was most definitely not from hitting her head, though she did spare a second to think that next time she had wild tree sex she should really wear a helmet.

But then he added his fingers to the mix, and she completely and totally burst right out of herself.

An orgasm.

With a man.

Without working at it, she was having a mind-blowing orgasm. This time when her legs gave out, he let her fall, though he caught her, yanking her onto his lap, covering her mouth with his, his hands urging her thighs open, wrapping them around his hips.

Then his pants were somehow open… okay, she opened them… and she straddled him right there on the bank of the natural pool, on the soft, still warm sand beneath a skinny moon. Gripping her hips, he slowly pushed up inside her.

“Ohmigod!”

He wrapped her ponytail around his hand and pulled her head back to his, kissing her hard, ensuring her silence as he arched up, seating himself deep within her, oh God, so deep.

She’d never felt such a bone-melting heat, never, ever, and starting from within, working its way out, making it almost impossible for her to do the quiet thing. “Christian-”

“I know.” He whispered this against her mouth, moving in and out of her with a heart-stopping sensation that was not only unexpected, but suddenly as necessary as air.

Her eyes were open, locked on his as he rocked his hips in a glorious, maddening, perfect motion. She stared at him, thinking he was so beautiful, all hard angles and intense heat. She’d never kept her eyes open during such an intimate moment before. Never thought to, but this felt so real, so real she almost couldn’t stand it.

“Okay?” he whispered.

“So okay.”

His smile was reward indeed. Lifting his head, he glided his mouth along her jaw to her neck, tasting her as he slid into her, over and over, until she tightened her legs around him, until she, unbelievably, felt herself begin to go over again.

Two orgasms in less than ten minutes.

She couldn’t believe it, but she didn’t even have time to marvel at it because he shifted, gripping her legs as he subtly changed the angle to thrust even more deeply inside her. A soft gasp escaped her at this, mirrored by his own rough breath. Her name was on his lips when he groaned and came, and she spared the second to think that it was the most lovely sound she’d ever heard, before she exploded all over him, giving herself up completely to the mesmerizing, sweet, hot, glorious sensation of being lost.

Even as she felt found.

Christian didn’t know how long he and Dorie clung to each other by the lagoon, breathing like crazy, serenaded by the island, which pulsed with life around them.

That wasn’t the only thing pulsing.

He could still feel her body twitching, contracting around him, milking him dry, and the sensation kept him hard.

She was something, so much so that he was going to be ready for round two if he wasn’t careful. Normally at this point of the evening’s festivities, his mind would already be wandering, but his brain remained solidly on task-do her again.

Focus.

From his vantage point of being flat on his back, he could see the two cliffs high above the lagoon. Closer, hanging from the rock just above them, was a cluster garden of poinsettias, oleanders, and an assortment of fruit trees: papaya, sour sop, tamarind… “We’re not going to starve to death.”

She didn’t respond. Or, for that matter, move. That couldn’t be good. Sinking his fingers into her hair, he lifted her face from where she’d pressed it into his shoulder.

She was wearing those sweet, drown-in-me eyes. In spite of himself, his heart rolled over and exposed its underbelly. Her mouth was soft, and just a little swollen from his kisses. And her hair… all over the place, more than usual that is, including a strand stuck to his jaw and another stabbing him in the eyes. Her two camisoles were still shoved down past her ribs, her skirt rucked up around her waist, exposing her mouthwatering breasts and the treasure between her legs, which made his mouth water even more.

Except for that look in her eyes. The one that said she was falling for him, that said she was making plans which undoubtedly included a white picket fence and a set of hopes and dreams to boot.

Even that wasn’t his biggest problem. He could fall as well. He’d been having sex since his fifteenth birthday, when a nurse from his father’s clinic had seduced him beneath a Brazilian summer night’s sky. He’d been with his fair share of women since, maybe more than his fair share, and he’d even managed a few good relationships out of the deal.

But nothing compared to the five-minute quickie on this godforsaken island in the arms of a woman with the eyes that could slay him in less than a single heartbeat. “Dorie.”

She smiled. “I know. Sand. Everywhere.”

When he didn’t return the smile, hers faded, her expression telling him she was already prepared for rejection. “Don’t worry, Christian. I know what that was. A release of fear, tension, and adrenaline. I’d get up, but my knees are still knocking together and I don’t think I can stand.”

He closed his eyes. She slayed him, all the way through.

With a soft breath that spoke volumes, she slipped off of him and moved away.

Jerk that he was, he let her go. Or started to. Then his damn conscience rose up and bit him on the ass. “Dorie.”

She’d turned her back to him as she fought with her clothing, which involved a lot of muttering as she attempted to right her two tops. Finally she yanked them both off and started over.

He rolled to his feet, ignored the undeniable fact that his own knees were still knocking together as well, and watching her bare breasts bounce in the moonlight as she dressed didn’t help. “Listen-”

“I’d head back alone, but I’m pretty sure I’d get lost.” She said this very quietly, still not looking at him. “So if you could just point me in the right direction, and maybe watch my back-”

He took her arm and pulled her around to face him.

She studied something over his shoulder. “If we don’t get back soon, they’ll wonder-”

“I don’t sleep with guests.”

“Except for tonight,” she pointed out, still not looking him in the eyes.

Good point. “And I’m not sure why.”

“I know why,” she whispered. “For me, anyway. It’s… been a long time. Really long.”

In the dark he could sense her embarrassment and imagined that her ears glowed, and he felt a tug in the region of his chest. “I wish I could say the same, but-”

“You know what’s really funny?” She laughed, the sound more heartbreaking than amusing. “I actually wanted to comfort you. Over Bobby. Can you believe it? I thought I could.” She sighed. “Look, don’t worry.” She patted his arm. “We’re okay.”

Then she walked off.

“Dorie?”

“Trying to have a dignified exit here,” she called back.

“Wrong way.”

“Oh. Right.” She did an about-face, passed him, and kept going, heading through the forest by herself in spite of her fear and trepidation, reminding him yet again like a punch to the gut just how brave and courageous a woman she was.

She’d laugh at that. She’d say he was the brave one, considering his job and how he’d lived. But she’d be wrong. Because she wore her heart on her sleeve, leaving it out there to be treasured.

Or not.

Brave as hell.

While he, on the other hand, had buried his heart deep, refusing to open it up for much of anything these days. Which made him the coward. He scrubbed a hand over his face. He just needed to let her go, and keep his distance.

Ahead of him the branches rustled, and then came a muffled female curse. He tipped his head up to the star-riddled sky. For a brief moment he actually considered letting her go on by herself, letting her walk away and go back to the beach on her own, all to maintain that distance he needed.

Another round of rustling, and a soft cry of distress.

Ah, hell. Of course he had to go after her. If by any chance at all she was right about Bobby being pushed off the boat then they were all still in possible danger, and even he wasn’t coldhearted enough to not care. He headed after her, through the clearing, skidding to a stop at the sight of her at the top of the cliff, standing so still he’d have wondered if she was breathing if it wasn’t for the single tear making its way down her cheek.

His heart, the one which only a moment ago had turned over and exposed its underbelly, cracked right down the center. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing.” She swiped at the tear. “Nothing at all.”

“Don’t.” He’d froze at the sight of her and that single tear on her face. “Don’t cry.”

“I’m not.” She sniffed and hugged herself. “I’m not doing anything, I’m just standing here.”

The pit of his stomach contracting into a knot, he took a step toward her, but was surprised when she jerked away.

“Look, I’m not crying over you, all right? So stop looking at me like that, all pitying and worried that you broke the poor stupid passenger’s heart. You probably break all their hearts, but you didn’t break mine. I’m crying because my ankle hurts, and because my hair is frizzy, because I look like something the cat dragged in, and because we’re trapped here without M &M’s, and damn it, because my splinter hurts!” She slid a hand over her ass and gingerly rubbed. “But I am not crying over you! I would never cry over you.”

Okay, that was good. “Um…”

“That’s my word, remember?”

He found himself wanting to smile. Only a moment ago he’d wanted to cut off his own stupid dick, but now he wanted to smile. No doubt, she was slowly but surely driving him over the edge. “We need to ice the ankle if it’s still aching.”

“Okay, I’ll just call room service.”

“I have instant ice packs in my gear. And as for your hair… it isn’t that bad-”

She glared at him.

Christ, had he learned nothing about women at all? “Actually,” he said very quickly, “it looks just fine, I swear.”

She didn’t move a single muscle but he’d have sworn her ear cocked outward slightly.

She was listening.

He raced on. “And for the rest of your problems, well, I think I just proved I can’t keep my hands-or my mouth-off of you, so you can cross the worries about your looks off your list. You’re sexy as hell, Dorie, and so goddamn beautiful I had to talk myself out of having you again.”

There. Her eyes met his. Definitely listening.

“And I should tell you,” he said softly, moving a little closer. “I have a secret stash of M &M’s in my bag, though they’re the peanut ones. Do those work for you?”

Her eyes practically shimmered, full of so much emotion it almost hurt to look at her.

“If you’re lying about the M &M’s,” she finally said shakily, “I’ll hurt you.”

He lifted a hand to his heart. “I promise. They’re yours, if-”

Her face creased into disbelief. “There’s an if?”

“If you let me help you get that splinter out.”

Both hands went to her ass now. “No.”

“There’s no need for this…” He waved a hand toward her splinter. “Savoir-faire.”

“What?”

“False modesty. Look, I just got an up-front and personal view of every inch of you, remember?”

“It’s not modesty.” She bit her lower lip. “Okay, it is. But…”

“But?”

“I just had a quickie, and I don’t do quickies. Worse, I did it with a guy who prefers to pretend it didn’t happen. I really need to be alone with the M &M’s.”

“I can’t leave you alone.”

“Then don’t. I’ll leave you alone.” And with that, she walked away. Luckily, she walked the right way, so he didn’t have to do anything but follow at a respectful distance.

But as he did, he wondered at the odd sense of regret he felt, and the certainty he’d just blown the best thing that had ever happened to him.