by Eden Bradley
“What are you thinking about?” he asked.
“That my mind seems to be wandering a lot tonight.”
“I have a feeling you don’t let your mind wander often.”
“No, not too much. I like to keep things together. Organized.”
“Is it because you feel a wondering mind isn’t efficient, or that you’re a little afraid of where it might wander?”
She didn’t answer right away. She didn’t want to speak the truth. But she seemed to be unable to hold much back with him.
“Both, maybe,” she finally said quietly.
She waited for his response, and was grateful when he remained quiet. She watched his profile as he drove—the strong, aquiline nose, the clean line of his jaw, how his wicked goatee seemed a bit softer from this angle. His mouth was every bit as luscious, every bit as inviting in profile. Her fingers clenched around the edge of the soft blanket and she looked ahead.
He pulled over at the edge of the beach, the dunes sloping away in a soft sweep. She looked at him but all he did was smile as he took her arm and helped her from the cart.
“This way, sweet Miranda.”
It was then she noticed the white tent a few yards away. As they moved toward it a pair of tiki torches flared, casting amber light on the sand.
“What is this?”
“This is where we change for the next part of our evening.” He pulled back a heavy curtain on one side of the large tent. “This side for the lady.”
She went inside and heard the curtain drop behind her. Candles were lit everywhere: dozens scattered across a low dressing table, on a wooden bench, in the lanterns hanging from poles set in the sand. There was a rattan and bamboo armoire and in it hung a robe, a few cotton dresses, a selection of bathing suits and sarongs.
When had she fallen asleep and into some tropical Pretty Woman dream?
She wandered over to the armoire and looked through the bathing suits, chose a simple turquoise bikini—simple and skimpier than she would normally wear, but since Roan had already seen her naked she wasn’t really concerned. Once both pieces were tied firmly in place, he pulled out a sarong in a batik print in shades of turquoise, green and white and knotted it around her hips, then stepped out, back onto the sand.
He was waiting for her, dressed only in a pair of black board shorts worn low on his hips. And oh my God, his body was… She pulled a breath into her empty lungs. He was built like an athlete. Like a god. Even in the flickering torch light and the silver sheen of the moon, she could see the sinew in this broad shoulders, the perfectly formed abs. The small silver rings piercing his nipples.
She wanted to touch them. To take the rings between her lips, feel the cool metal on her tongue. Her thoughts unraveled, her body going hot all over.
He held a hand out to her. “Shall we take a walk on the shore?”
“I… Yes.”
She extended her hand and he took it. His was large and warm and held hers as if it belonged to him. As if she did. She was surprised to find she didn’t mind.
What in the world is wrong with me?
But all she knew was that it felt fine. It felt right.
They were both quiet as they moved over the sand, which still held a little heat from the day. The quiet roar of the ocean grew louder as they approached the point where it broke on the sand in low, furling waves.
He stopped there, simply looking out at the water, still holding onto her hand.
“There was something… something happened tonight,” he said, stumbling over his words for the first time.
“Yes,” she said. It was true.
He was quiet for several long moments.
“Miranda, tell me more about how you lost your husband.” He turned to her then, his brows drawn, and his penetrating gaze was intense, shadowed with emotions she couldn’t decipher.
His expression touched her somehow. Made her feel she could open up to him.
“I don’t really talk about him. Not even to my friend Joely. She’s the pilot for the island. You’d know her, I guess?”
“Yes, of course. But go on.”
She pulled in a deep lungful of the tangy ocean air, held it for a moment before letting it out. “Daryn and I were together for seven years. I was young when we met, only twenty-three. I was working at a bakery in San Francisco. Daryn was a food journalist doing a piece on the best bakeries in the city. He was there to talk to my boss but we… Well, we met and eventually I moved to New York to be with him. I had a small catering company there, which wasn’t very successful because I traveled with him so much. We went…everywhere together. All over Europe. Thailand and Singapore. Japan. Central America. Australia and New Zealand.” She stopped, looked away from the intensity of his gaze and out at the water. She flexed her hand in his, not even certain if she was going to try to pull away, but he held her fast. “So. Daryn was…a bit of a thrill seeker. He dove with the sharks off the coast of Fiji, went mountain climbing in Brazil. Crazy stuff. He seemed invincible. He certainly thought he was. He died racing stock cars in Sonoma four years ago. We had this amazing life together and suddenly it was…over. My life was over, you know?” She looked back at him then, saw him nod his understanding. Knew he did have some idea of what she’d been through.
“What happened to you?” she asked.
“Ah.” He bit his lip, and she knew he understood what she was asking of him. “Like you I rarely talk about it. Never, actually. I don’t really have anyone to discuss it with. Oh, I have friends. A handful of very good ones in fact, back in San Francisco. Still, it’s hardly party conversation.”
“No, I suppose it isn’t.”
He lifted his free hand and stroked her hair from her cheek, his fingers lingering there, his expression tender. Or was she only imagining that between the moonlight and the ocean and the fact that he had played her only an hour ago?
She really was exquisite. But was that why his heart was beating so quickly? Why he was going to tell her things he told no one about anymore?
Roan watched her, captivated by the sight of her long hair blowing in the breeze, catching the moonlight. There was some sort of magic to this moment between them. The setting. Her. He felt as if something in his chest, in his body, was unwinding. Something that had been coiled tight inside him for so long that it felt utterly familiar. Normal.
He took a breath, felt an odd slipping sensation in his body—odd, but good.
“I came to the US to go to school. I was studying psychology at UC Berkley when I met my wife. I was only twenty-four. We married two years later—I got my adjustment of status paperwork filed at the immigration office, and we ran off to Lake Tahoe. She got sick maybe two and a half years after that. Leukemia. She fought it for six months and it was…awful, as these things always are. But harder for her. She really couldn’t take the chemo. She’d had a lung disease as a child and her body wasn’t strong enough—she was so ill. In so much pain.” He stopped for several long moments—had to take in a breath, breathe out the lingering pain. And was surprised to find it was easier to talk about than he’d expected. He’d started because it seemed only fair after asking Miranda about her being widowed. But there was also relief. Even some strange sort of comfort in telling her. It made it easier to continue. Because the rest was the hard part.
“When she developed a tumor in her lung they put her into a medically-induced coma so they could give her more chemotherapy, enough to work without her suffering so much. They kept her on a breathing machine. Had to. She never came out of it. And the thing is… I let them do it to her.”
Miranda grabbed his arm, held on tight. “Roan, no. You can’t blame yourself. If that’s what her doctors thought was best, what else could you have done? I’m sure there weren’t many other options.”
“There weren’t. But I can’t help but wish she’d lived out whatever life she had left.”
“It sounds as if she would only have suffered,” Miranda said quietly.
�
�Yes, which makes me a bit selfish. It was a case of damned if you do and damned if you don’t. But I don’t have to like it. I simply have to live with it.”
She nodded and he knew she understood. One of the few people who truly might be able to. The coiled knot went a bit looser. He shrugged his shoulders, did it again, shook his head.
“Let’s be done with all this being morbid. Living in the past.” Where had that come from? But perhaps it was true. “We have the waves under this spectacular night sky. And we’re here together. Come on. I’ve arranged for a late-night supper for us.”
He slipped a hand around her waist and she moved right into him, her slender body melting against him like a cat. She fit perfectly. Her chin was tilted—she was watching him, her brows furrowed.
He put a finger there, smoothed the furrow away, making her smile. “It’s alright,” he told her. “I’m fine. Wonderful, really.” It was true. “Are you hungry?”
“Starving.”
Suddenly he was, too. But not for food as much as for the taste of this beautiful woman. He bent and kissed her lips. They were warm and plush and opened to his right away. He slid his arms around her, crossing them over her back, his hands curling behind her neck, cupping her head as he explored her sweet, wet mouth.
He was growing hard again. But there was also something simple and lovely about kissing her. This woman, but also the sound of the waves and the salt on their skin. Yes, some strange kind of magic was happening here between them.
Finally he pulled back, aware that if he didn’t they would end up naked on the sand, with him pushing into her the way he’d thought to earlier. No—it was different than that. He felt different. They felt different.
Don’t be absurd.
But he knew it wasn’t. A bit insane, perhaps.
He smiled to himself, let her go and took her hand to lead her down the beach where he’d had the staff set up a small open cabana facing the ocean. As he’d instructed they’d laid the table with fresh sushi, fruits, a sweet bread he loved that was made on the island. There was also a bottle of wine and two glasses, and a large bottle of San Pellegrino, the sparkling water he’d been told was her preferred brand.
“Oh, this is so lovely,” Miranda said.
“Don’t be too impressed. I believe you made the bread in your kitchens.”
She laughed as they sat down on the low, bamboo-framed sofa that was strewn with colorful pillows. “Well, one of my staff, anyway. But it’s one of my favorites.”
“Is it? I hope you like sushi.”
“I do. I like almost everything.”
He turned to her and watched her face, illuminated in the amber torchlight. He couldn’t seem to get enough of her face. The feel of her body under his hands. His arms around her. He couldn’t get enough of her.
“I like you,” he told her, pausing to take in her smile and the fact that he’d said the words aloud. “That’s not something I say to too many people. Not in this way.” If he didn’t stop looking at her, if he didn’t shut up and stop trying to figure out what the hell was happening to him he was going to kiss her again and…and what? Make things worse, somehow? Or ruin it. Lord, he was confused. Totally unlike him. He needed to change tracks. “Shall we try some of this feast?”
“Yes, please.”
She really was trying to kill him, with that undertone to the words that could be purely innocent but with her would always sound like pure sex to him. Sex and yielding, which was even more powerful.
Miranda was powerful. It was a power he was ultimately going to have to resist.
He grimaced as he reminded himself why. That was one thing he wouldn’t—couldn’t— talk to her about. Everyone had their secrets. His was kept to protect not only himself but the one person who was most important in his life. He could never forget that.
But that didn’t mean he couldn’t enjoy this beautiful woman. This warm beach and this wonderful meal, and whatever might happen between them in the coming week.
It was only one week. He could hang onto his secret for that long.
Good food and light conversation and a little wine later, they lay together on the wide couch, listening to the crash of the sea, watching the clouds move across the dark sky.
Roan stroked her silky hair, trying not to wonder how it was possible that he felt he’d known her forever somehow. Better to talk to her, to get out of his head. “Tell me something about you,” he said.
“Like what?” Miranda squirmed next him and it felt like pure luxury—a warm, beautiful woman and a full stomach, with that keen edge of desire simmering between them.
“Anything. What’s your favorite color?”
She laughed. “Really? Are we going that inane? Okay, it’s blue. Turquoise specifically. Like the water in the afternoon here.”
“Like that very sexy bikini you’re wearing.”
He tone was coquettish. “You think it’s sexy?”
“So damn sexy it’s all I can do not to ravish you. Hence the inane conversation so I can remain a gentleman true to my word.”
“That’s important to you, isn’t it?”
“It’s everything. But please stick to the inane, Miss Royce.”
“Yes, sir. What’s your favorite color?”
“Black.”
“Ha! That’s no surprise. Okay…what about family? Or is that off limits?”
“No, not at all.” Except for that one piece he never gave to anyone. “I was born and raised in London. One sister, Rissa. She’s a few years older. She’s a brilliant photographer, married to a painter who’s a not quit as brilliant and a bit of an asshole, to be frank. Riss and I haven’t been as close since they married. I tried. Well, perhaps I should have tried harder. But he reminds me too much of our father.”
“Your father’s an asshole?” she asked, a little humor in her voice meant, he knew right away, to lighten the mood.
“He is, in fact, a complete and utter asshole. He left my mum—and us—when I was seven. We’ve hardly seen him since, which is probably just as well, but I was an adult before I realized that. Mum never did. But she likes her life in Cambridge, I think. She has her friends and her garden and her travel club.”
And her grandchild, but he wasn’t going to say so.
“Your turn, Miranda.”
“Well, I grew up in the Carmel Valley, just south of San Francisco.”
“Yes, I’ve been. Gorgeous area. Some excellent restaurants there these days. It must have been a wonderful place to grow up.”
She shrugged. “I suppose. I mean it is pretty but…my parents are one of those couples who will stay together forever despite constantly bickering at each other. I think it’s why we all left as soon as we got out of high school. My brother Brody—he’s the next youngest—is teaching skiing in Vail. Before that it was at Alta in Utah. I think before that was Lake Tahoe. He moves around a lot, lives the ski bum life, which makes him pretty happy, I guess—it’s all skiing and snow bunnies. My sister Pammie is even more of a gypsy—she flits from one job to the next, one city to the next—but she doesn’t seem quite as happy with it. But then, she’s the baby and was a little spoiled, so I’m not sure anything could ever really satisfy her.”
“Hey. I’m the baby,” he protested with a teasing grin.
“God, I so cannot think of you in terms of being a baby.”
“Why not? I have a dimple, you know.”
He took her hand and laid her soft fingertips against his cheek and smiled.
“Ah. So you do.”
Her fingertips feathered over his cheek, then across his lips, and he captured them with a kiss, feeling her body go loose and soft beside him.
No sex.
Pure torture, but at the same time, there was something to be said for this relaxed time together, talking about all those simple details that made up their lives. When was the last time he’d done anything like this? Opened himself to a woman?
Too long. Too damn long, and given how this eve
ning was making him feel, it was a damn shame he’d missed out on so much. Or maybe not. Because it wasn’t until now that he’d met Miranda.
Don’t be an idiot. You have a week together.
A week he planned to make the most of. But that plan had changed. Because for the first time in years, there was a woman in his arms he wanted more than play and sex from.
The damn island magic at work. But whatever it was, he was liking it.
He pulled her closer and she curled into him in that feline way she had about her. He swore he could almost hear her purring.
“Do you know about the constellations?” he asked her.
“Mmm, no, not enough.”
“It’s a hobby of mine. This bright star just below the moon is Venus. You can only see it on certain nights, but when it’s visible, it burns with a brilliant gold glow. Look, follow where I’m pointing. Can you see it?”
“Yes, I see it. What else?”
They lay together while he murmured to her about the stars, until the moon set and the sky darkened. And all that was left was the cool ocean lulling them, seeming to rock the world.
Chapter Five
Miranda woke to the quiet sounds of two staff members leaving their cabana. A tray with tea and scones and a new bowl of fruit was on the table. From the gentle angle of the sun she guessed it to be around eight o’clock. Roan was just stirring beside her.
She blinked. She’d spent all night in his arms. And she didn’t feel like getting up and running off, back to her apartment in the staff quarters—her hideaway. No, in fact, she was as content as she’d ever been in her life.
Crazy.
She started to sit up but Roan grabbed her and pulled her roughly back down.
“Where do you think you’re going, beauty?”
“To find a toothbrush.”
“Hang on.” He sat up with her still in his arms, pulling her with him. “Tea service, Miranda. Now.”
“Tea service? You must be joking.”