by Jill Shalvis
Dorie knew what that came from, and felt her face heat.
Cadence blinked. “You had sex with Christian?”
“Okay, I need chips for this.” Dorie opened her purse and the box of condoms fell out.
“Huh.” Brandy fingered the opened box. “Look at that. Wonder how many are missing?”
Dorie snatched the box back and shoved it low in her purse. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Was he yummy?” Brandy asked.
Cadence was still gaping. “You. And the doctor. Holy smokes.”
Dorie found the chips and started shoving them in her mouth even though she wasn’t hungry. “I’m going to need that chocolate back, Cadence.”
Cadence handed it back.
“Oh yes, he was yummy,” Brandy decided, clapping in delight. “And of course he would be. I mean, look at him. He walks with that sexy confidence, the one that says ‘I don’t give a shit what you think of me, I know who I am.’ Gotta love that in a guy.” She sighed. “And then there’s all that attitude.” She shivered. “Yeah, I’d bet big money he knows exactly what he’s doing.” She leaned back with her hands behind her head and studied the stars. “So Cadence, does the captain know what he’s doing, too?”
Cadence set down the flask and blushed beet red. “I told you I didn’t sleep with him. Just . . . messed around a little.”
Dorie grabbed the flask. “I guess we’ve all been a bit busier than I thought.”
Cadence snatched the chips. “Don’t take this wrong, Brandy, but I’d have sworn that if anyone was going to hook up on this vacation, it’d have been you.”
“Fair assumption.” Brandy accepted the flask back and toasted them. “But I’m taking over your penis embargo for a while.”
“Why?”
“Someone’s got to carry the torch. Besides, this is more fun.”
Cadence laughed in disbelief. “Which part of this is the fun part?”
“Being away from my life is fun,” Brandy said. “And though there’s nothing remotely okay about what’s happened to Bobby, I have to say, this is really nice, with you two.” For the first time all night, she hesitated. “I haven’t made a lot of time for girlfriends.”
“Me either,” Cadence said quietly.
“Or me,” Dorie admitted.
“Well then.” Once again Brandy lifted the flask. “To our friendship. And to whatever adventure is ahead of us.”
They all drank to that, and later, after polishing off the chips, lay back and slowly drifted off to the island’s own personal concert of night sounds.
But Dorie couldn’t fall asleep, and restless, she moved to the fire. She figured it was well past midnight.
Not that time mattered here.
“Dorie?”
At the sound of Andy’s low southern drawl, she turned. He’d gone to sleep beneath a palm tree but he was up now, walking toward her. She searched his face for a sign that he knew she’d turned him down only to have wild animal sex with Christian in the rain forest.
Oh, God.
She’d had wild animal sex with Christian in the rain forest.
She swallowed hard and looked at Andy intently, but if he knew, he gave no indication of it. “Are you okay?” she asked.
“That was my question for you.”
“I’m fine. Go back to sleep.”
“You sure?”
“Absolutely.” Dorie watched him go, then turned back to the flames. The red glow was hypnotic and soothing. Or it would have been if she could shake the certainty that one of the people stuck here with her had hurt Bobby.
She walked to the water’s edge, and with the water lapping at her toes, she looked at Bobby’s hat hanging off the palm tree. “I’m sorry,” she whispered to it. “So sorry.”
“You shouldn’t be out here alone.”
Turning at the French voice, she looked up into Christian’s fathomless eyes, and then . . . and then closed them. “You’re right.” She began to walk back toward the fire. It was for his own good really, because if she stayed one more second, she’d ask for something he couldn’t give her. A hug, maybe.
Or another round of wild sex in the jungle . . .
The night was dark, the sounds all around so alien and unfamiliar, but she flicked on her flashlight and kept moving down the beach, past the fire. It wasn’t bravery, because she had a feeling she was better off alone, at least until she knew what had happened to Bobby.
She really could use that hug.
Christian was following her, she could hear him. Probably making sure she didn’t get lost again. Damn, more evidence of that sweetness, the kindness she’d convinced herself he didn’t have. She sped up, her silly sandals squishing into the sand. If she ever got home, she was going to design some seriously sensible sandals. They’d be beautiful, of course, but easy to run in.
Risking her neck, she burst into a run now, because suddenly she didn’t trust herself not to beg for that hug, and if he gave it to her, she’d definitely lose her panties. “Ow, ow, ow . . .” Her damn splinter hurt like hell—
“Dorie.”
Oh, no. Kicking it into higher gear, she turned the corner, away from the glow of the fire, away from the others, needing a private pity party, if only for a moment.
The rocks were stacked one upon another, making cliffs that jutted straight up, hundreds of feet into the sky. By day those cliffs had been green, teeming with lush growth, but now, at night, it was all black, looming, and suddenly terrifying.
Since Christian wasn’t wearing silly sandals, and probably exercised more often than when someone gave him a gift certificate to a gym, he easily caught up with her and grabbed her arm, spinning her around to face him.
“I thought you said you don’t do guests,” she huffed, out of breath. “Now you want round two?”
“While that invitation is ever so romantic, no. I had something else in mind.” He pulled out a small first-aid kit.
Opening it, he lifted a—
“Oh, no.” She laughed, then shook her head at the gleaming pair of tweezers. “You’re not going to come anywhere near me.”
“Funny, you weren’t saying that a little while ago.” He still had a gentle but inexorable hold on her, and using that, led her to a large rock, upon which he sat.
She held her own butt, her gaze glued to the tweezers. “I’m not sitting.”
“No. You’re going to bend over and let me take care of your business.” Unperturbed, he calmly fished through the first-aid kit for God knew what else.
“My business has been taken care of.”
He looked up at her words. Met her eyes. His mouth quirked as if he wanted to smile. “Yes, and that was my pleasure, believe me. This”—he gestured to her butt—“this is my job.”
She didn’t budge. “Yeah, um . . . about that other.”
His eyes heated. “Yes?”
She shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “My . . . business . . . doesn’t usually get taken care of so easily.”
Now he did smile. “Like I said, my pleasure. Now get down here.”
“I don’t think you understand what I’m saying.”
“I understand English,” he said. “Quite well, even though it’s my third language. I understand analogies as well. You had an orgasm. Several, actually. I felt each of them, trust me. Watching you come, feeling you contract around me, was the highlight of a very fucked-up evening. Now come here.”
The steel of the tweezers gleamed in the moonlight, making the muscles in her bottom twitch. “It’s just that I don’t understand what came over me, because . . .”
When she didn’t finish her sentence, he arched a brow. “Because?”
This was simply too difficult with him looking at her. “Nothing. Forget it.” She whirled to go, but he caught her hand. He looked up at her with a patience she would never have guessed at, and she let out a long breath. “I don’t usually come like that . . . Well, I do, but only because I sort of . . . Oh, God
.” She covered her face.
“Just out of curiosity,” he asked easily. “Are you still speaking English?”
“The last time I slept with somebody, I faked it.”
“Faked it.”
“The orgasm.”
“Ah. Now we’re getting somewhere.”
Hands still over her face, she groaned. “Seriously, could you just not listen to me?”
“Did you fake it like the When Harry Met Sally fake it?”
“I don’t think I was that good.” She absolutely could not believe her mouth was betraying her this way. “The point is, I don’t usually go so . . . wild.”
He looked at her for a long moment. “Funny,” he eventually said, looking a bit wicked and naughty and far too damn proud of himself. “You didn’t seem to have any trouble with me.”
EIGHTEEN
You know what? We’re not doing this,” Dorie decided. But when she whirled away from Christian’s far too gorgeous face, he once again caught her.
“Sorry. We’re not done here.” He clicked the tweezers open and closed.
Again her bottom twitched, and she quickly played the compassion card. “Seriously, Christian.”
He put a mock look of fierce intensity on his face. “Seriously.”
“It’s just too embarrassing. I mean it’s on my thigh.”
“No, it’s on your ass.”
She felt herself get even redder. “Okay, yes. So you can understand why I’m feeling . . . awkward.”
He grinned. “That’s not what I’m feeling.”
She drew a deep breath that did nothing for her nerves. “Sort of my point. Look, you’re not going to get it out anyway, I tried. It’s in there good.”
“I can get it out.”
“Not without a needle, and—”
“I’ll get it, Dorie, I promise you.”
“You can’t, it’s—”
“I’ll bet you.”
She blinked. “What?”
“You’re so sure I can’t get the splinter, I’ll bet you. You name it.”
“I . . . that’s crazy.”
“Not if you’re so sure I can’t get it. Come on, let’s go for broke. If I get the splinter, you dance naked beneath the stars.”
She laughed.
He just waited.
“You’re kidding.”
“What’s the problem?” he asked silkily. “If I’m not going to get the splinter?”
There was no way he could, and yet that look on his face, that utter confidence, tripped her up. “What do I get? If you lose.” Which he would. He had to, because she was not going to dance naked. No way, no how.
“If I can’t get the splinter out, I’ll dance naked for you.”
Okay, now that might be worth the price of admission. “This is totally and completely crazy.”
“Chicken?”
“Of course not.” Hell, yes. “I just don’t see any reason to worry about the silly splinter, that’s all.” She plopped down on the rock, let out a little cry when the stone hit the splinter, and bounced right up again.
“Okay, that’s it.” He clamped a hand around her wrist, this time an inescapable grip, and pulled her onto his lap. Slipping his arms around her, he leaned in and surprised her with a kiss. Because he was the most amazing kisser on the face of the planet, she helplessly sank into it for several long, delicious, mind-blowing minutes. By the time they surfaced for air, she had her hands in his hair, and was rubbing herself against the intriguing bulge at the vee of his jeans.
With a low murmur of pleasure, he pulled her in for yet another deep, drugging kiss, then slid out from beneath her, sinking to his knees beside her, pulling her down with him, turning her so that she faced the rock.
Oh, God. He was going to slip into her from behind, and her legs trembled because she was going to let him. Just to see if she could come again without any effort at all, she told herself. Call it research.
Or sheer, unadulterated, uncontrollable lust.
He bunched up the material of her skirt, pushing it high. But instead of skimming her panties down, he slid them aside, bunching them where no panties should be bunched, giving her a world-class wedgie. “Hey—”
“Shh.”
She was just surprised enough to actually close her mouth, but then he flattened one hand on her bottom and ran a finger over the crease of her upper thigh, right where she’d removed the first splinter. “Good work,” he said. “Where’s the other one?”
“Don’t you even think about it,” she hissed, and began to struggle.
“Too late, I’m thinking.” He whisked her panties down to her thighs, leaving her hanging out in the wind. “Ah,” he murmured. “There it is.” He might have said other stuff, too, but Dorie was too busy trying to get free in order to kill him.
“Hang on,” he said.
Hang on. Hang on? Was he crazy? “Don’t you dare—”
He spread his hand over her now bared bottom, holding her down. “I just need a light”—he rifled through the first-aid kit—“Perfect.”
He’d found a flashlight. Which meant she was going to die of embarrassment right here. “We’re not doing this.”
“Not we,” he corrected. “Me.”
“I mean it, Christian—”
“Damn it, it’s infected.” He said this while still holding her down with ease, and she scrunched her eyes tightly shut because now that she wasn’t blinded by lust, she could only imagine the picture she made for him, bent over the rock, her skirt shoved up to her waist, her panties pushed down to her thighs, exposing—
“This might hurt a little—”
“Ouch!” She yelped at the sharp prick, and would have whipped around except for that whole holding her down thing. Almost before she could draw a breath, she felt his finger stroke the spot with something cool and incredibly soothing.
“Topical antibiotic,” he said. “Be still, you’re squirming all over the place.”
Her head was buried in her arms, her eyes still tightly shut. Be still? She was hoping to die.
“Relax, I’ve seen it all before. A million times.”
Yeah, just what she wanted to hear. Idiot. She was an idiot. “Thank you,” she managed, but the words backed up in her throat when his finger left the spot, replaced by—“What are you doing?”
“Kissing it better,” he murmured, his mouth against her skin.
She jerked upright, which had the effect of bouncing his mouth off her butt, and whipped around, shoving her skirt down as she did. “Okay, thank you for the splinter removal, but—”
He sat back on his heels, his eyes gleaming with good humor. “Yes?”
“That was entirely inappropriate.”
A full-blown grin left him at that. “You didn’t say that the first time I had my mouth on your—”
“Okay, you have to stop that,” she said, pointing at him. “Stop talking dirty.”
“That’s not talking dirty.” He rose to his feet, a lithe, easy motion, and took a step toward her. “Now this is talking dirty . . .” And he pulled her into his arms, putting his mouth to her ear, whispering things that made her legs wobble.
Between them she could feel herself go damp. “Okay, yes that was dirty.” She drew in a shaky breath. “But we decided not to do this again, remember? Now I’m going to bed.”
His eyes were sleepy and sexy as hell. “Fine. But what about the bet?”
Oh good God. “I did not agree to dance naked.”
“I took your silence as agreement.”
“Well, it’s a shame then that you didn’t specify which night.” Brilliant! “Because it’ll be the night that hell freezes over.”
His mouth curved in a little smile, but mercifully, he let her get away with it. Probably because when it came right down to it, he knew as well as she did that doing it again would be a colossally bad idea. So she faked a smile the way she’d faked orgasms—pre-Christian, that is. And then, with her pride intact—at least some of it—she t
urned and began walking back. She passed Bobby’s hat—sobering—and went directly to the pad Ethan had set up for her earlier, no longer in a talking or eating or anything kind of mood. Curling up beneath the very late-night stars, she closed her eyes and attempted to get some sleep.
Instead, she lay there for hours listening to the waves crash against the shore, because sleep wouldn’t come.
Day Two on deserted island—
Why isn’t caffeine a staple of all emergency kits?
Dorie woke up at the crack of dawn to a symphony of birds and more of the waves pounding the sand. She tried not to let her brain kick into gear, because just beyond her grogginess she could sense a whole lot of stuff weighing her down, just waiting for her to remember.
But whether she liked it or not, it all came crashing back to her. Shipwrecked. Bobby gone.
Sex in the rain forest . . .
She sat up just as Brandy did the same next to her, and took a second to realize that for the first time in several days her bottom didn’t hurt.
Fancy that. Still, it’d be a cold day in hell before she admitted it.
Or danced naked for a certain far too sexy for his own good doctor.
“Uh-oh,” Brandy said, and looked at Cadence’s empty pad. “Think she’s okay?”
“Let’s make sure.”
They found her down the beach, facing the surf, talking to herself. Muttering, mostly.
“You had to go off the beaten path,” she was saying. “You had to jump at this stupid vacation, just because it was free. Seriously, when will you learn to just stay home and relax in your own world—”
“Hey, girl,” Brandy said.
Cadence whipped around, the stick in her hands coming up like a sword as she prepared to stab them, her eyes wild and full of violence. “Haaaiii-yaaaa,” she screamed like a kung fu master, until she focused. “Ohmigod.” Hostility deflated, she dropped the stick and stepped back. “I’m so sorry.”
Dorie, shocked at the sheer aggression that had been inside Cadence’s eyes, swallowed. “You know martial arts?”
Cadence sagged to the sand. “My therapist thought it’d be a great way to relieve stress. I’ve been taking classes for seven years, but it’s not working.”