The Castaway Bride

by Kandy Shepherd

  “What—?” Surely she wasn’t hearing what she was hearing?

  “There’s a hole in the hull and we’re taking in water. The boat will sink. We’re going to have to bail out.”

  “Bail out? You mean…?”

  Matt’s voice was tense. “Take the life raft.”

  “Th… the life raft?” Her voice rose.

  “Don’t panic. We’re right near an island. Look, you can see it from here. We’ll head for it.”

  “I’m not panicking,” she lied.

  Sure enough, she could see palm trees and greenery not so very far away. But in between lay a heck of a lot of water that had changed from benevolent turquoise to a churning, white-flecked gray.

  “Follow me below, while I radio, let the coastguard know what’s happening. The life jackets are there. Come on. Quickly.”

  But Matt swore even more vigorously when he fruitlessly punched the keys and fiddled with the dials on the equipment panel. “The radio is out, so is the computer. And no cell phone reception, of course.”

  Cristy noticed a steadily growing pool of water on the floor. Her stomach contracted with sudden fear. The nearest she’d ever come to real danger was dodging the cabs on Fifth Avenue.

  Matt reached under the seat, hauled out a large, waterproof fanny pack and strapped it onto his waist. “Don’t worry. I’ve attached the emergency beacon. We’ll be okay. Just do as I say.”

  He dragged out two yellow life jackets and tossed one to her. “Put it on. Now.”

  “But I don’t—”

  Before Cristy could complete her confession of ignorance, he’d slipped the buoyancy vest over her neck and fastened it around her waist. Then did the same for himself.

  Moving with controlled haste, he wrenched open a hatch and dragged out a huge fiberglass canister. “Life raft,” he explained as he yanked at a ripcord. Muscles straining with the effort, he threw the canister overboard. On impact with the water it burst open and puffed into what looked like an alarmingly small orange-and-brown balloon. That was a life raft?

  Cristy quailed as she looked from it, to the seas buffeting the yacht, and back again to the raft. “Are you serious? That thing looks like a toy.”

  “It’s not a toy and it will get us to shore. C’mon. Jump in.”

  She froze. It seemed a long way down.

  “Wh… what about sh… sharks?”

  “No sharks in these waters.”

  “But you said—”

  “I was teasing you. Now come on, jump.” His voice was terse.

  Paralyzed, she stared down at the water.”

  “This is no time to be a wimp. Jump. I’ll count—one, two, three…”

  “I am not a w—” she started, then looked at the expression in his eyes.

  Gathering her skirts in her hands she jumped down into the life raft, staggered for a moment, and sat down so suddenly the raft rocked from side to side. Her full skirts seemed to take up half the boat and she clutched them to her.

  Matt, carrying the oars, landed in after her. His weight caused the raft to rock again. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?” he said.

  “It depends on your definition of bad,” she said through gritted teeth.

  Refusing to think about sharks, she held tightly onto the sides of the raft while Matt fitted the oars and started to row with strong, steady strokes that pulled them toward shore.

  She noted the impressive flex of his muscles. If she had to get shipwrecked she couldn’t be in better hands. He obviously knew exactly what he was doing. She didn’t feel nearly as frightened as she probably should have.

  The palm trees on shore grew larger with impressive speed. As did a line of breakers. How on earth was Matt going to steer this flimsy craft through that surf? Before she had time to ask him, he stopped rowing.

  “Uh, just close your eyes for a minute, will you?” he asked.

  “Close my eyes? Why?” She was surprised at the gruffness of his tone.

  “Just do it,” he barked. “If you want to get to shore safely.”

  She obeyed, even when his knees collided with hers. But at the rasping sound of a zipper opening, she was unable to resist peeking.

  Matt was tugging at his jeans, squirming in the bottom of the raft as he tried to pull them down over his buttocks.

  Cristy smothered a laugh.

  Matt scowled at her. “I told you not to look.”

  “Sorry,” she said, mock humble. “I’m not embarrassed if you’re not. But why are you doing that?” And why couldn’t she stop looking?

  “In case I have to swim.”

  Oh. So he’d guide the raft through the surf from the water. That made sense.

  He stood up, sending the raft rocking madly, with his jeans half-mast around his knees, revealing lean, tightly muscled legs. He cursed as he struggled to get off his jeans without toppling into the water. The raft started to swing in circles.

  “Hey, watch it,” she said, gripping onto the sides, starting to feel seasick.

  The raft stabilized. Matt ditched the jeans and was left clad in black, jersey-knit boxer shorts that clung to his buttocks and thighs and left no doubt at all of his masculinity. As his crotch was practically in her face she couldn’t escape the impressive evidence.

  Oh my. In just his undershorts and his T-shirt rucked up under his life jacket, his body was every bit as magnificent as she had imagined in her fantasies. If anything, his shoulders were broader, his pecs bigger, his belly six-pack perfect. It didn’t take much imagination at all to see how he’d look completely naked.

  “So, now your turn,” he said.

  “M… my turn?” she spluttered.

  Matt reached into his fanny pack and pulled out a large Swiss army knife, flicking it open to reveal a long blade.

  Cristy gasped and huddled backward into the boat. “What the heck is that for?”

  “I’m going to have to cut off your dress.”

  “Cut off my dress? Are you crazy?” She clutched her skirts defensively to herself.

  “How do you think you’re going to swim in a wedding gown?”

  “Swim?”

  “Yeah. Swim. We have to be prepared to swim when we go through the breakers.”

  Christie swallowed. Hard. And tried desperately not to think about sharks. Especially the bride-eating variety.

  Before she had time to react, Matt reached over and hacked a jagged hole in the silky fabric of her gown.

  “Hey!” she cried, clutching her hands protectively across her thighs.

  “C’mon Cristy,” he said. “Stop mucking around and help me. Stand up, for crying out loud.”

  “Stand up?” Her voice rose to a squeak. “And how do you expect me to do that?”

  “Try slowly and carefully.”

  Tentatively she stood up, wobbled, and found her balance. “Get that knife away from me. I’m scared you’re going to cut me.”

  “What do you want me to do? Tear your skirts with my teeth?”

  Cristy paused, trying to maintain her balance in more ways than one. “Why not?”

  Matt spluttered. “I wasn’t serious. But…”

  He bent his head and, with strong white teeth, tore into her skirts then ripped them apart with both hands, tearing the layers of fabric in shreds from around her legs. The rending of fine silk made a screeching noise that echoed in the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean.

  His hands gripped her legs and Cristy felt his warm breath on her bare thighs. She had to steel herself against the betraying tremors of reaction. But she couldn’t stop a low “Oh!” from escaping her lips.

  Matt looked up. “Is there a problem?”

  “Uh no,” she managed to get out, fighting an urge to laugh hysterically as she tried to maintain her balance on the rocking raft. How could she react so sensually to his touch in such traumatic circumstances?

  Matt bent back to his task. When he finished, Cristy looked down and gasped. All that was left of her exquisite gown was an abbreviated, jagg
ed-edge skirt that skimmed the bare flesh of her thighs and barely covered her garters and lacy thong. She pressed her hands to her thighs in a futile attempt at modesty.

  “If that’s what you did with your teeth I’d hate to see what you’d do with a knife,” she gasped.

  Matt surveyed his work. He narrowed his eyes. Then he reached for his fanny pack and his knife. “Maybe a bit more does need to come off.”

  Cristy panicked. “No Matt. That’s enough… that—”

  She stepped backward to evade him, lost her balance, desperately flailed her arms like windmills to try and keep steady, teetered on the edge of the raft and then, dragging an oar with her, fell overboard, the splash she made pushing water onto the raft and sending it into a wild spin.

  “Maaatt!” she wailed.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Cristy was dreaming. She dreamed Matt was kissing her. His hard, warm mouth was possessing hers, his hands were roaming her body and it felt wonderful. She moaned and arched her back to get closer—and then awoke, spluttering, coughing and with the taste of salt water sharp in her mouth.

  Bewildered, her mind having trouble focusing, she saw Matt leaning over her—near enough to kiss but his face dark with worry rather than passion. He was wet, his hair plastered to his head. Water dripped from him onto her in big, warm drops.

  Why was he so wet? Then Cristy realized with a shock that she, too, was drenched. She was lying on her back in sand that scratched the bare skin of her legs and arms, the sawn-off skirts of her wedding dress sodden around her thighs. Water swirled around her toes. She blinked her eyes against the harsh light.

  “Thank God you’re all right.” Matt pulled her up into a sitting position. “I’ve been giving you the kiss of life.”

  Cristy coughed and spluttered some more. The kiss of life? So it wasn’t a dream. Hazily she remembered falling off the raft, the shock of cold water, Matt’s arms around her, and… and a dark fin.

  “Wh… what happened?” she asked, her mind still a fog of confusion. Shakily, she looked around her.

  She and Matt were on a beach, on the sand near the edge of the water. Waves rolled onto the beach, ran up the sand then surged around her feet in a foam of froth.

  Behind her, the sand stretched to a grove of palm trees leaning precariously toward the water. Beside her lay her flotation jacket, looking as though it had been wrenched off. Matt was shrugging his off, and tossing his fanny pack up on the sand out of reach of the waves.

  “Wh... where am I?” she asked in a voice that didn’t quite sound like her own.

  “On land. We’re safe. You freaked out when you saw a dolphin and you must have fainted.”

  “A dolphin? I was frightened of a dolphin? Don’t be crazy. I love dolphins.”

  “You thought it was a shark.”

  “A shark.” She shuddered, then swallowed, and the salt burned her throat, choking her into a cough. Matt patted her on her back until she stopped coughing. “Ohmigod, I remember now. That fin. It was just like Jaws.” She remembered struggling with her terror. And then... nothing.

  “So how...?”

  Matt’s face was very serious. “I swam with you to shore. But you took in some water on the way.”

  Cristy looked at the pounding surf. She’d fainted in that? And he’d had to drag her to shore?

  “I... I could have drowned.

  “Thank God you didn’t.” Matt’s voice was hoarse. The relief in his eyes told her without him saying a word that she’d been in danger and he’d had to fight to save her.

  She started to tremble; little tremors that started in her hands then had her shaking so that her teeth started to chatter. Not from cold but from shock. She could hardly get out the words: “Th... thank you for saving me.”

  Matt pulled her into his arms and hugged her close to him. “I was a surf lifesaver when I was a kid. I know the drill. It was easier to hold you up out of the water when you were comatose. No struggling and trying to strangle me in gratitude.”

  Cristy managed a feeble laugh. As the shock receded and the shaking stilled, she let herself relax against his warm strength. His arms were tight around her. She was safe.

  Matt might make light of the way she’d wimped out at the sight of a dolphin, but it wouldn’t have been easy to get a tall woman like her—comatose or not—to shore. Held so close to him she could appreciate the power in his strongly-muscled chest and shoulders that had enabled him to do so.

  She owed him big-time—not only for rescuing her from her wedding but also for saving her life.

  She pulled away to face Matt and tell him how grateful she was but the words refused to come. His eyes were shadowed with fatigue and his mouth a tense line. But with his hair all wet and wild, his salt-drenched clothes clinging to the outline of his muscles, he looked more than ever the boldly handsome pirate. And she was in his arms, held so close that she could feel his heart beat, smell that sandalwood-tinged scent of his maleness.

  Her own heart tripped up a beat in awareness. His gaze fell to where her breasts swelled above the tight bodice of her wedding gown. Her nipples tightened in response and she swallowed hard at the sudden constriction in her throat that had nothing to do with the salt water she had imbibed.

  Suddenly the hug of comfort and gratitude turned into something very different as she wound her arms around Matt’s neck and pulled his head to hers. With frantic hunger she kissed him.

  Matt hesitated, but only for a moment. Then he kissed her back answering her demand with a hot, fierce possession of her mouth that took her passion and ran with it.

  A thrill ran through Cristy’s body as Matt’s tongue probed the soft recesses of her mouth; dueled with hers. This was far, far better than her fantasy. This was not a kiss of life but a living kiss, rich with hunger and fire and a reassurance that they had each tangled with danger and survived.

  She was possessed by an overpowering need for him. She pressed the aching peaks of her nipples urgently against his chest, gasped as his hand caressed her back, moaned as it slid to the soft side swell of her breast.

  Every muscle tensed in an agony of anticipation of his touch; relaxed then tensed again as he pushed aside the scant cover of her low-cut bodice, the lace of her corselet bra. He captured first one hard nipple and then the other between his thumb and forefinger, and kneaded them until she moaned deep in her throat.

  Her face flushed hot with desire, her breath came in short gasps. She pulled away from his mouth and hotly, urgently kissed along his jaw line and down the strong column of his throat, nipping and tasting his salty skin; lightheaded from the smell of spicy sandalwood and salt and Matt. Her heart pounded and thudded almost out of control.

  Her hands on his shoulders, Cristy pushed Matt onto the sand then straddled him, reveling at the feel of his long, hard body under her thighs and bottom. She claimed his mouth again, nipping at his lower lip with her teeth, then caressing it with her tongue before sliding it between his lips.

  With a deep, sensual growl Matt rolled her over so he lay on top of her, taking them further into the water so they were lying in the shallows, the sand hard and wet beneath her back. He captured her hands and imprisoned them with his, pinning them to the sand above her head as he kissed her with growing urgency.

  Waves swirled around her ankles and calves and Cristy felt overtaken by their rhythm as the waters pushed onto the beach and then withdrew, only to gather themselves relentlessly for another onslaught.

  She moaned as she felt the hardness of his arousal pressing urgently through the damp folds of her dress and against the soft flesh of her belly. Inflamed by an answering need, she shifted her legs to accommodate him. The roughness of the hair on his legs brushing her thighs excited her almost beyond reason.

  Matt left her mouth, leaving it aching and swollen, and kissed a trail of hot, inflaming kisses down her neck and across her chest to her breast. When he took the taut peak in his mouth and teased it with his lips and tongue, she writhed under him i
n an agony of need, undulating her hips under his weight.

  Never, ever had she felt such reckless desire. Her breath coming in urgent gasps, she was beyond thinking about what was happening. All she wanted was the sensation of Matt’s hands and mouth on her body.

  Matt freed her hands so his own were free. She shuddered with pleasure as he stroked the bare flesh of her thigh and moved with exciting relentlessness toward the triangle of the white lace thong the girls in the office had given her—accompanied by much ribald laughter—as a wedding gift.

  She wrenched her hands free so she could caress his back, urge him closer, reach for his buttocks, knead their muscular strength. She sought his mouth, craving more of his kisses, pressed her body to his, wanting more, wanting everything.

  Then gasped in shock as a wave hit her—cold water gushed, rushed around, and knocked them both sideways.

  The water washed over her face, blinding her. Panicking, she struggled to sit up but Matt’s weight was still on her, pinning her down. As he rolled off of her, the force of the wave dragged her with it toward the sea but Matt jumped up and hauled her to her feet.

  She wrenched her hands away from him. They were shaking as she pushed her streaming wet hair away from her face, and wiped the stinging water from her eyes. What the heck had happened there?

  Matt didn’t say anything for a long moment and all Cristy could hear was his ragged breathing and her own out-of-control efforts to drag air into her lungs.

  “Whoa,” he said finally, shaking the water from his face, “Talk… talk about King Neptune’s idea of a cold shower.”

  Cristy scarcely heard him. She was barely able to stand from the trembling in her legs, knocked out not just by the power of the wave that had doused them, but by the insane passion that had possessed her. Her nipples ached and she throbbed with unsatisfied need. Her heart raced at a million miles an hour. She dared not meet Matt’s eye.

  What had she done? Or nearly done? He’d given her a friendly, hug—just the thing you do when you’ve just saved someone from drowning—and she’d thrown herself at him. No, thrust herself at him. Practically begged him to bed her.