The Castaway Bride

by Kandy Shepherd

  “No thanks,” she said, “I’ve had more than enough drama for the day.” She yawned and he noticed dark shadows around her eyes. “I’ll be ready for bed once we’ve downed our beans.”

  There was no twilight in the tropics—night fell almost instantly. It was the darkest dark Cristy had ever experienced. Thank heaven for the kerosene lamp that glowed softly in the corner, its flickering light not quite illuminating the gloomy corners of the room.

  She looked over to Matt who stood, his back toward her, staring pensively out of the small, multi-paned window. As if he could see anything in the storm. The intricately inked eagle across his upper back seemed poised for flight. She had a strong feeling that Matt just wanted to avoid any further confrontation with her. The underlying meaning to his words before their makeshift dinner couldn’t have clearer. Back off.

  The rain lashed at the window, heavy tropical rain with huge drops. She’d been caught in it as she’d dashed out to retrieve her laundry and the drops were so big they had hurt on her bare skin. They’d been warm, too, and the rain hadn’t done anything to cool things down. In fact it had made the night air seem heavy and oppressive.

  The space between her and Matt seemed thick with tension, almost as if the storm had invaded the interior of the hut. The two canvas beds—just low-slung camping stretchers—loomed before her, now the focus of the room.

  They were set as far apart as they could be, but in the cramped confines of the hut that was only a matter of a few feet or so. She’d made them up with the sheets that remained from their toga wardrobe. There would be no need for a blanket on this steamy night.

  “Matt?” She had to speak loudly to be heard over the sound of the rain drumming on the tin roof and the wind stirring up the trees outside.

  He turned and, although his face was only half in the light, she was stunned by the brooding look in his eyes.

  His jaw was already shadowed with growth, giving him a dark mysterious look—just like the pirate she’d imagined him to be. The crooked slant of his nose saved him from being too handsome and she wondered how he’d broken it. A fight? A football game? She realized again how very little she knew about this man. And how much she longed to discover.

  She looked down to the rough-hewn floorboards, unable to meet his eyes. “I’m, uh, going to bed now. Okay?”

  Darn! Why did the simple words “going to bed” have such a sexual undercurrent?

  His voice sounded husky. “In that case, so will I. Everything all right?”

  She looked up to find him observing her through narrowed eyes and she was very aware of the flimsy coverage her makeshift sarong afforded her. Did her nipples show through the virtually threadbare white fabric?

  She had to clear her throat to answer. “Fine. As fine as can be, I guess. At least there aren’t any noisy guests next door with their television turned up full blast.”

  “Or a band playing in the foyer,” he replied very seriously.

  She found herself pleating the fabric of her sarong between her fingers, not even realizing she was doing so.

  “Which bed do you want?” she asked. Her voice sounded high and squeaky to her ears.

  “The one you don’t want,” he replied, shifting from foot to foot.

  “Okay,” she said. “I’ll take this one.” She moved tentatively toward the bed nearest to her. “You know, I haven’t slept in a canvas bed like this since I was fourteen. We had to sleep in tents when we first moved to the commune. It took a while for my dad to build the house. Of course he had help. It was a commune, that was… that was the idea…” She realized she was gabbling and her voice trailed to a halt.

  Quickly, she climbed under the sheet, praying as she did so that her sarong covered her adequately. “Well, uh, goodnight Matt. I won’t say ‘don’t let the bedbugs bite’ because for all I know there really could be bedbugs around. You know, along with the spiders and the frogs…”

  “Goodnight Cristy,” Matt said. Then he paused. “By the way, what’s Cristy short for? Christine?”

  Why did he have to ask that at this time of all times? “No. It’s… it’s short for Crystal.”

  She gave a short, nervous laugh as she always did when it came to explaining her name. “Crystal Sky, actually. And I’ve got a sister named Sunny Sky. My brothers are River and Leaf. It’s a hippie thing.”

  Was that sound from him a muffled laugh? It wouldn’t be the first she’d heard when she’d recited the family names.

  But he didn’t seem to be laughing at her. Rather, he looked very serious as he towered above where she lay on the hard, itchy, uncomfortable bed, the sheet clutched to her chin.

  He smiled and her stomach clenched at how darkly handsome he was, even wrapped in his loincloth sheet. He looked like one of those exotic deities always portrayed being pleasured by a harem of exquisite handmaidens.

  “Crystal Sky,” he said gravely, trying out the sound of it. “I like it, it suits you.”

  “Th… thanks. I’ve always hated it.” She’d been Cristy since the day she’d escaped the commune to go to college.

  “Don’t,” he said. “It’s nice.”

  She nodded.

  “How did your brothers like their names?”

  “These days they answer to Richard and Steve.”

  “That figures. And your parents?”

  “Dad has always refused to answer to anything but Ron, but Mom switched from Janet to Heavenly Lotus Blossom.”

  Matt laughed. “Now you’re having me on.”

  “I’m not. Trust me. My parents are seriously eccentric.”

  “The more I hear about them, the more I like them. But I’m with your brothers on the names they’ve chosen.”

  He stepped around the beds to where the lamp glowed in a corner of the room. Every movement he made was sensuous, the muscles rippling beneath the tan of his skin. The dark hair on his chest tapered to a vee that pointed to his makeshift loincloth and emphasized the power of his body. Her heart skipped a beat. She wanted him in the bed with her so badly it hurt.

  He turned down the wick of the lamp and the light was extinguished. The dark was so intense it shocked her. There was no moonlight, the clouds blanketed even the smallest of stars.

  Matt bumped her bed as he moved past on his way to his. “Sorry. Are you okay?”

  “Yes,” she said, in a voice that sounded quite unlike her own.

  But she wasn’t okay.

  She was scared.

  Scared of the dark. Scared of being shipwrecked thousands of miles from home, in a foreign country, facing an uncertain future. Scared not of Matt, but of the feelings he aroused in her, feelings that she didn’t know how to stop from overwhelming her.

  She heard the rustle of the sheets as Matt climbed into his makeshift bed. Had he taken off the sheet wrapped around his hips? Was he now lying there completely naked, just kissing distance away from her?

  Her heart accelerated with a kick-start that made her catch her breath. The sharp intake came out like a sob.

  She sensed, rather than saw, Matt rise on his bed and rest on his elbow. “Are you sure you’re all right, Cristy?”

  His breathing was ragged, way too unsteady for a man on the edge of sleep. She could hear it even above the sound of the rain drumming on the iron roof.

  “Yes. No. Not really. It’s the storm—the… the force of it.”

  But it was the force of her attraction to him that was worrying her—attraction she now had to acknowledge went way beyond lust.

  His hand reached out for hers and clasped it, strong and warm and comforting. “You’ll be okay. I’m here to fight the baddies. And we might even be rescued tomorrow.”

  She squeezed his hand back, suppressing a shudder of longing for him to use it to stroke and caress her rather than comfort her. It was best he thought she was frightened of the storm. He’d run a mile—or swim it—if she confessed her real fears. Back off.

  Desire for him burned through her body, tensing her nipp
les and gathering between her legs. She shifted uncomfortably in the bed. How could she ever go to sleep with him naked—or nearly so—beside her and his hand warm in her hand?

  No way could she make love with him on her wedding night. She couldn’t live with herself if she did. But she wanted to. How she wanted to. And while tonight was her wedding night, tomorrow—as had been so famously said before—was another day.

  She wriggled in her scratchy bed. Why had she even mentioned bed bugs? Or thought about the frogs, spiders and maybe even snakes that were hopping, sliding and slithering around the outside of the hut.

  Would sleep ever come?

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Cristy awoke to brilliant sunshine pouring through the window and onto her face. She stretched, rubbed her eyes, and then looked over to Matt’s bed. It was empty, the sheets rumpled and twisted as though he had spent a restless night. She was stunned by the disappointment that swept over her at his absence.

  Then the door was kicked open and Matt walked in. Wearing his body-molding black undershorts and T-shirt again, and with his hair damp around his face, he looked as sexy as sin. Her heart started a furious pounding and the wanting began all over again.

  “Mangoes for breakfast,” he announced with a flourish, holding out with two hands one of Seth’s enamel bowls piled high with the lush, golden fruits.

  “Wow! Where did you find those?” Cristy sat up quickly in bed. “Did Seth have a garden?”

  The glazed look on Matt’s face puzzled her but then the direction of his eyes made her look sharply downward. And her heart lurch in dismay. The halter tie of her makeshift sarong had come undone during the night and her breasts were completely bared to his gaze.

  Matt clenched the dish of mangoes so hard his knuckles showed pale. He groaned. “Cristy. I told you—”

  She felt too paralyzed by the blaze of hunger in his eyes to do anything, say anything. All she could do was stare at him, knowing her own eyes echoed the message in his.

  His jaw shadowed with a dark growth of beard made him look more piratical than ever. His gaze on her breasts was like an urgent caress and her nipples tingled and hardened in response, topping up the desire that still writhed in her from last night.

  Matt slammed the dish of mangoes down on the bench. Before she could pull the sheets back up over her nakedness he was kneeling by the bed, stroking her bare shoulders and caressing her breasts with warm, skilful hands. “They’re beautiful. You’re beautiful.”

  He bent his head and took one nipple in his hot mouth, sucking it and stroking it with his tongue while he pinched and kneaded the other. Cristy gasped at the fierce current of pleasure that surged through her. Her heart started racing so loudly she thought he must surely hear it. She twined her fingers through his hair, pulling his head closer to her.

  Her body was primed, ready to ignite into passion at his touch, turned on from the endless hours of the night spent wanting him, knowing he was so close, and yet refusing to let herself have him because it was her wedding day.

  But today was a brand new day. And she had decided to trust in lust.

  He moved his mouth from one nipple to the other and she twined her fingers through his hair, holding his head in place; she couldn’t bear it if he stopped. Tremors of delight ran through her in a direct line from her sensitized breasts to between her legs and she tightened her thighs together. Her face started to burn, her breath come in short, shallow gasps and she arched against the hardness of his body with a pleasure so extreme that it was almost unbearable.

  Her breasts swelled under his attentions while her nipples were so hard they hurt with exquisite sensation. Pleasure built as he set the pace with the pressure of his fingers and the movement of his tongue, until suddenly the pleasure peaked and went over the top and she cried out with surprise as much as ecstasy as her orgasm hit her. She gripped his shoulders as shudder after shudder of fulfillment racked her body.

  Matt pulled his head from her breast and she met his look of astonishment with one of her own.

  “That’s never happened to me,” she gasped, scarcely able to get her breath. “I’d heard you could climax from that alone but I…”

  “You sexy, sexy woman,” Matt growled as he pulled the sheet from her, leaving her naked but for the lacy thong. “Now it’s my turn. I lay there all night wanting this, wanting you…”

  He tugged at the thong and she lifted her hips to help him slide it down her legs and off. That orgasm had served as an appetizer, now she wanted the main course. And dessert, too.

  Forget all her qualms, her fears. She was hungry for this man and she was done with denying herself. There hadn’t been multiple condoms on tap the last time lust had led her into trouble.

  Cristy reached up and pulled his T-shirt over Matt’s head. She sighed in appreciation at the splendor of his body then splayed her hands against his chest, reveling in the warm strength of him, the dark hair springy beneath her touch. She played with his nipples, urging them into stiff peaks, wondering if what she were doing would give him just a fraction of the pleasure he had just given her.

  He climbed onto the canvas bed with her, lying beside her and pulling her close to him. The hardness of his arousal pressed into her and she felt aflame with a reborn surge of desire.

  He rolled his weight onto hers and claimed her mouth, his beard rasping with a pleasurable pain against her skin. With a moan of welcome, she opened her mouth to welcome his kiss. Eagerly, she parted her thighs. Skip the foreplay, she was wet and ready for him. Just get that condom. Or two.

  Before she could say the ‘C’ word, a harsh, ripping sound tore through her ears as the aging canvas on the bed suddenly gave way under their combined weights and she found herself thudding to the floor, banging her hip hard. She squealed and Matt let out an impressive string of curses.

  She lay, stunned, amid the tangled sheets and torn canvas. Matt’s face was very close and for a long, still, dumbfounded moment she looked into his eyes—dark with passion and want.

  “T... talk about the earth moving,” she managed to stammer.

  “But it’ll take more than that to stop me,” Matt growled, kissing her. Cristy felt the heat rising again and forgot all about the pain in her hip.

  “Mmm,” she moaned, rolling against him, enjoying every second of it as he nuzzled his way down her neck and started to stroke her belly.

  Who cared about the collapsed bed and the hard floor beneath her? Now where were those condoms?

  Cristy opened her eyes to look for the panic bag and its essential cargo. And drew in her breath with a gasp.

  “Mmm, that feels good for me too,” said Matt in his huskiest voice. But she scarcely heard him.

  Staring at her with cold reptilian eyes was the scariest monster she had ever seen—straight out of a B-grade horror film. An enormous lizard like a mini stegosaurus, with spikes protruding from the back of its neck and down its back, stood inside the doorway. As she stared back, transfixed in terror, it flicked out its tongue at her and lumbered forward.

  She gulped and held herself completely still, too shocked to scream.

  “That’s right Cristy,” crooned Matt, as he caressed her inner thigh with sensual skill. “Just lie back and enjoy what I’m going to do to you.”

  Cristy felt woozy, light-headed. She took a deep breath. She’d fainted at the sight of a dolphin fin. No way was she going to wimp out again in front of Matt. Even though she thought the last dinosaur had died millions of years ago.

  “Matt,” she murmured, “just keep still, don’t move and don’t say anything.”

  He sounded puzzled. “Sure, if that’s what turns you on. But—”

  “Just look around slowly and don’t panic,” she whispered.

  Matt hauled himself up on his elbow. What gave here with the instructions? Was this some chapter in the Kama Sutra he’d missed when he’d read it by torchlight at age thirteen?

  “Turn around slowly,” Cristy whispered again. “Don’t
make any noise.

  “What the—?”

  Matt followed the direction of her eyes. The lizard flickered its tongue at him.

  As if he didn’t have enough problems with the white charger. Now here was a dragon just waiting to be vanquished. This noble knight business was getting way out of hand.

  Matt gritted his teeth so he didn’t groan with frustration. Cristy was warm and naked beneath him. Couldn’t the dragon slaying wait until after—?

  “Wh… what is it?” whispered Cristy, her eyes wide with terror. She licked her lips to moisten them with her pink, pointy tongue. Why did she have to do that? He knew it was from fear, not desire to finish what they’d just been about to finish. Damn! He tried not to look at her breasts.

  “It’s a dragon lizard,” he said. “And I’m going to get it out of here.” He sat up and swung his legs over the edge of the bed.

  Cristy grabbed his arm. “No! Be careful.”

  Careful?

  “You might get hurt.”

  Hurt? Yeah, right. He’d forgotten her fear of Australian beasties.

  He looked at her, mock serious. “Never fear, Cristy, I’ll tread with caution, I’ll…”

  She gulped and slowly sat up, not keeping her eyes off the lizard. “W… would it attack you, do you think?”

  “It might do. If it were very hungry.” He meant to tease but immediately regretted his words at the fear that flashed across her face.

  “Should we… should we try to get out a window?”

  “Lizards can run up trees so it could follow us.”

  Damn! He shouldn’t have said that either. This wasn’t a time to tease. Not when her face had gone as white as the sheets and the pupils of her eyes so dilated he could hardly see any blue.

  He got up. “I’ll handle this. There’s nothing to worry about. Stupid lizard.”

  Cristy clenched the sheet as Matt stomped over to the beast. Surely it would turn and run when he got near it? But what if it attacked? She looked around for a weapon she could beat it off with. Then stared in stunned amazement as Matt leaned down to the lizard, which showed no fear of the human.