Charmed By You ((Destiny Bay Romances-The Islanders 5))

by Conrad, Helen

  He was standing so close that she had to crane her neck to look up into his face.

  “Ugly scenes were weapons in our battle for power,” he told her sardonically. “You were trying to get me to conform to your country club rules. I was trying to break you out of the mold, to introduce you to the world at large.” He narrowed his eyes as he gazed down at her. “We’re not married anymore. We don’t need to struggle for supremacy. We can relax and enjoy each other like we did in the days before we were married.”

  Her startled glance flew from his face. What was he suggesting? That they go back to being lovers? He had to be crazy!

  “You’ve been on this island too long,” she began weakly, but he cut her off.

  “You haven’t even given it any thought. Stay the night, Heather, and think it over. I’d really like you to stay.”

  He meant it; she could see that. Maybe she should stay, just for the night. Maybe... But her heart hardened. What was the problem, had he run through the supply of willing women on this little island? Was he hungry for a new experience? She wouldn’t lay herself open to that pain again. Not for any reason.

  Instead of responding to the real need she’d heard in his voice, she retained her patina of indifference. “Mitch, you know this isn’t my sort of place.” She gazed around, wrinkling her nose. “I mean, bugs, heat, humidity.” She shook her head. “I couldn’t possibly stay here. I’ve got to get back to the civilized world.”

  When he shrugged with disinterest, she was glad she’d stuck to her position. She meant nothing to him, after all. Not anymore. There had been a time when their love had swept them along on a current of passion as big as the Arizona sky. But that had faded. The arguments had pushed it into the background.

  They’d known about their differences from the beginning. He’d often teased her about her starched-collar way of life. He’d known they were incompatible, even when she’d been blind to it. The wonder was that he’d ever wanted to get married. She’d puzzled over that question for months and finally come to the conclusion that he must have thought it would be good for his career to have a presentable wife. But once he’d decided that a career wasn’t what he wanted, he’d shed his wife along with his career ambitions.

  “How do you like living out here in the middle of the Pacific Ocean?” she asked, pleased at the light note she was able to maintain.

  “I like it just fine,” he told her tonelessly. “If you think back really hard, you might remember that I grew up on an island.”

  “Oh.” The thought startled her. Yes, she remembered. He was from Hawaii, even part Hawaiian, and that had been one of the things about him that had first intrigued her.

  “Yes. You told me about your brothers and sister….and your cousins and how you all grew up barefoot and tropical.” She gave a delicate shudder. “Luckily, you survived that and came to Arizona for college.”

  “I did. But I never got over missing island life.”

  She looked around the room. “Is this the way you grew up?” she asked, appalled.

  He grinned. “No. We had a beautiful house on the Big Island. My parents still live in it.”

  She nodded. “I remember meeting them at our wedding,” she said softly. “They seemed like lovely people. It’s too bad we never got the time to really get to know each other.”

  “Yeah. Too bad.” He looked at her and smiled, though his eyes remained icy black. “And too bad I never took you home to see where I grew up. I don’t think you would find it as disgusting as you think.”

  She drew her arms close to her sides. “Maybe not.” She was unconvinced. “But islands are not my thing. I’ll be happy to get back to Flagstaff.”

  Suddenly she noticed his smile was widening. He lifted his head as though listening to something in the distance.

  As she listened, too, she heard the drone of an engine.

  “What’s that?” she asked, an icy anxiety circling her heart.

  “Sounds like Gary’s Albatross to me,” Mitch said placidly.

  “No!” she whispered. Then she was running for the door. The sunlight blinded her, but she could make out the little plane circling the lagoon, climbing higher and higher into the tropic sky.

  “He can’t go! He agreed to wait and take me back!”

  Waving wildly, she began running toward the sandy shore. She could see happy faces in the plane’s windows. As she signaled frantically, little hands were raised, waving back down to her.

  “Too bad.” Mitch had followed her out into the tropic afternoon, and he tried hard to sound sympathetic, but it didn’t quite come off. “Maybe he’ll be back tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow!” She turned on him, furious. “What do you mean, tomorrow? I hired that man—“

  “I guess he got a better price from somebody else,” Mitch interrupted. “That happens a lot. If a bunch arrive and have the money, Gary will take off every time.”

  She turned and watched the little plane as it got smaller and smaller against the mounting cloud banks on the horizon. “What am I going to do?” she asked softly.

  “Stay for that visit we were talking about,” he told her firmly. “I can put you up at my place.” He turned and started back toward the clinic while she stared after him in impotent rage. This was just too convenient.

  “Mitch Carrington,” she called as she began to run after him. “Just you wait a minute.”

  She would have gone on, but her high-heeled sandals, which had teetered from the first on the rough coral road, finally let her down. As one foot skidded in one direction, the other bent toward the ground, and she found herself sliding toward Mitch on one knee.

  “Oh, damn,” she whispered as she surveyed the damage, trying to ignore the humiliation of her fall. The knee that had served as her landing gear was already bloody, not to mention stiff and sore. How was she going to get back up on her feet without making a total fool of herself?

  Mitch was standing over her looking more annoyed than sympathetic. “What do you expect when you wear shoes like that on an unpaved road?” he muttered as he reached out to help her to her feet. “And panty hose?” He grimaced at the jagged hole in the nylon on her knee. “Didn’t you get the hint in Honolulu? Surely you realized by the time you landed in Guam that dressing for this climate was not going to be quite like dressing for Flagstaff.”

  “I am not dressing for this climate,” she snapped, chagrined that she needed to lean on him to hobble back to the clinic. “I’m dressing for myself. I never wanted to come to this island, and I don’t want to stay. So don’t try to teach me how to adapt. I’m not going to need your lessons.”

  “Take off those nylons,” he ordered as he propped her against the examining table in the clinic.

  “I will not,” she retorted angrily.

  “Take them off,” he warned, moving toward her purposefully, “or I’ll take them off for you.”

  Her blue eyes challenged him, but she knew the fight was already lost. He would do as he threatened. She quickly kicked off her fragile shoes and reached up under her linen skirt to roll down the panty hose, careful to pull away from her hurt knee. Mitch stood back and watched her.

  “All right.” He placed his two large hands about her waist and lifted her up on the examining table. “Now we’ll see about this wound.”

  She averted her eyes as he cleaned the blood and dabbed on antiseptic.

  “You’ve got to be careful in the tropics,” he told her absently. “The smallest cut can lead to a nasty infection if it’s not treated properly.”

  “I told you I don’t need lessons in tropical living,” she retorted coldly. “I’m not going to be here long enough to put them to use.”

  All at once she regretted her argumentative tone. She really didn’t need to be so snappish. Or did she? Was she reacting defensively to the danger she felt implicit in him? Was she afraid she would swoon in his arms if he tried to kiss her? Damn. That was exactly the case.

  She watched him cutting a secti
on of sterile gauze, his long fingers working deftly and smoothly. She remembered how she’d always loved watching him work with his hands. Beautiful and tapered, they had a calmness of purpose, a sureness of touch, that made mistakes unthinkable.

  “Don’t worry, Heather,” he said softly as he attached the gauze with translucent tape. “I’ll make sure you don’t get into trouble while you’re here.”

  She bit her lip. That was all she needed to have, Mitch take charge of her life again. No thanks.

  But instead of allowing herself to sink back into bickering, she aimed at her true goal. “There must be some way of getting that plane back.” She worked hard at keeping her voice low and casual. “Or of finding another pilot who could take me back to Guam for the flight to the States. I’m sure you know someone who could do it.”

  She was staring into the dark temptation of his silky hair while he worked on her knee, but suddenly he raised his head, his face only inches from hers, and she found herself a captive of his slow smile.

  “Relax, Heather,” he told her calmly, his eyes sparkling with dark laughter. “You’re condemned to a night on this island. You might as well enjoy it.”

  “Enjoy it!” Now she was really angry. Jumping off the table, she winced slightly at the twinge of pain in her knee, but didn’t stop to dwell on it. “I’m not about to enjoy anything.” She glared at him. “Never mix business with pleasure, they always say, and I’m a firm believer in following conventional wisdom.”

  He threw back his head and let out a full-throated laugh. “Heather, you’re still as candidly conformist as ever,” he told her happily. “You don’t know how much I’ve missed your little speeches on the values of an orthodox life.”

  “Maybe if you’d listened more closely when you had a chance,” she lectured sternly, “you wouldn’t have ended up with nowhere to go but some primitive island in the middle of the Pacific.”

  He was still laughing as he walked toward her, but she found herself backing away until she came up hard against the wall.

  “You talk a good game, Heather,” he teased softly as he reached for her, “but you never would have married me in the first place if you really believed all that righteous drivel you spout.”

  She’d spent a good deal of time in the last few days alternately dreading this moment, and chiding herself for even thinking it might be possible. But now it was reality. Mitch was kissing her, just as he had kissed her so often before. Only this time it was different. This time it was against her will.

  “Mitch, no!”

  She tried to twist away from him, but his arms were around her, pulling her against the solid warmth of his wide chest. His mouth was devouring her anger, turning her protest into a sigh of surrender.

  “Mitch...”

  His kiss was easy and pleasant, like the cordial greeting of a loving friend. How could she resist it? She let his sensuous tongue claim possession of her warm mouth, sliding across her teeth in tantalizing seduction. The roughness of his afternoon growth of beard set the skin of her cheek tingling, and his hand at the small of her back pulled her hips into the cradle of his.

  “Mitch, no...”

  She managed to murmur the words, but at the same time her arms were twining around his neck and she was arching against him, so hungry to feel the maleness she had missed for so long.

  All the sweet, aching misery surged up, reminding her of what had once been between them. She’d loved him so much. There would never be another man like him in her life.

  The men she’d dated in the last few months hadn’t compared to Mitch. She’d found men just as handsome, just as warm and intelligent—but not one had lit a smoldering fire in her like he could. The touch of his hand set a sizzling trail of sparks moving across her skin. The hot urgency of his lips drew out a response she had only for him.

  They’d first met at the university where he was a teaching assistant in an anatomy class she was taking to improve her figure drawings. Always, right from the beginning, that spark had glowed between them. She remembered how he’d bent over her sketches, touching her lightly on the shoulder. She’d turned in surprise, her nose grazing his cheek. They’d laughed into each other’s eyes, but more than humor had been churning through her veins.

  “Great drawings,” he told her. “Better than the ones we have in the text.” He raised dark eyebrows. “Really interested in the workings of the human body, are you?”

  He wasn’t her type at all. She was strictly a button-down girl, used to tennis-playing law students. Mitch’s hair was too long, his shirt needed pressing, and he had a decidedly unconventional glint in his eyes.

  She smothered her smile and raised her cute nose a bit higher before she answered. “I’m an artist,” she informed him. “This is all research for me.”

  “Research, huh?” He’d grinned that devastating grin. “Got any openings for a guinea pig?”

  She stared at him blankly. “A guinea pig?” What on earth was he talking about?

  He nodded, then reached out to take her hand and place it firmly, palm down, against his own chest. “I’ve got some prime research material right here. Reasonable rates and...” he grinned to the appreciative audience of students snickering all around them, “guaranteed results.”

  Heather snatched back her hand, her cheeks flaming with humiliation while the laughter of the others rang in her ears. Standing abruptly, she began to stack her books together with a snap. “Sorry, Mr. Carrington,” she said through gritted teeth. “Clowns need not apply.”

  As the others hooted in appreciation, she tossed her head and strode out of the room.

  She made up her mind to drop the class, but on the day of its next meeting, she found herself walking toward the Human Science building. She wasn’t going to let a fresh young teaching assistant scare her away from something she really needed. No way!

  She saw his eyes light up when she walked into the class, and she couldn’t hold back a small feeling of satisfaction. But when he didn’t look at her again during his lecture, the satisfaction dissolved and she knew something was wrong. She’d never been jealous of a teacher’s attention before—even if he was only a medical student working as a teaching assistant to help pay his way.

  Suddenly he was calling her name. “Miss Worthing, would you please come up and name the muscles of the back for us?”

  She stood and walked past rows of attentive students, glad she’d studied the lesson well enough to know the answer. If he thought he was going to embarrass her again, he had another think coming.

  A huge picture of a human form made of unskinned muscle hung at the front of the room. Heather looked straight at the pink and white poster, avoiding eye contact with the man beside her.

  “This is the trapezius across here,” she answered crisply, using the pointer he handed her. “The deltoid crosses the top of the upper arm. The latimus dorsi covers the back of the ribs reaching out from under the arm.” She pointed them out, stabbing at the picture. “And, of course, the gluteous medius and maximum form the buttocks.”

  She turned to hand him back the pointer like a triumphant duelist might hand his sword to a second, but it seemed the contest wasn’t over yet.

  “Turn around,” he said evenly.

  “What?” She gazed at him suspiciously. He wasn’t thinking of using her to model what she’d just been illustrating, was he?

  “Miss Worthing,” he said softly, his eyes inscrutable, “I am not going to strip you bare to the class. I just want to give them a quick reinforcement of what you’ve said.” He turned his open palms to her as if to show he had nothing up his sleeves. “No tricks. I promise.”

  She turned slowly. She was wearing beige wool pants and a pink cashmere sweater that hugged every curve. As she felt his hands on her back, she found herself holding her breath.

  “The trapezius...” he was droning on, but she hardly heard him. His fingers grazed the soft cashmere, barely touching her, and only above the waist, but everywhere they
left behind a flush of warmth that swept through her unprepared soul. His touch was magic. She was breathless.

  Then he was turning her back toward him, his hands on her shoulders. When he looked down into her eyes, his fingers tightened on her flesh. She gazed up at him in wonder. He’d felt it, too.

  The bell rang to end the class period, and still they stood together while the students filed out of the room. She heard nothing around her, and he seemed just as blind and dumb as she was. All they knew was the misty fascination they found in each other’s eyes.

  “Where do you live?” he whispered at last.

  No, her mind told her severely, don’t tell him. At the same time, she heard herself giving him directions to her sorority house.

  And so had begun a relationship of love and passion such as she’d never dreamed possible—a gift from the love gods.

  She didn’t know then that you have to pay for everything in this life. She knew it now.

  Even as her hands threaded through his silky dark hair, even as his warmth enclosed her in the excitement she’d lost so long ago, she knew she would end up paying for this, too. As she gloried in the shivering ecstasy his touch sent through her blood stream, a part of her was shrinking back in despair. Would it never change? Would she ever be free of him?

  In the sensuous tension that trembled between them, Heather didn’t hear the creaking of the opening clinic door.

  “Mr. Doctor? If you busy now, I come back later.”

  Heather sprang away from Mitch, but he moved more slowly, as though he was accustomed to interspersing his office visits with romantic interludes.

  “Hello, Rita,” he told the small dark-haired woman who stood casually in the doorway. “Time for your monthly prenatal check, isn’t it?”

  Noting that the woman was very pregnant, Heather began backing toward the door herself. “Will you sign those papers?” she reminded Mitch in confusion, pointing toward his desk.

  “Oh, sure,” he told her, but she could see that his mind was already on his patient. “Wait out there, will you? I’ve got to see how the youngest Cruz kid is coming along.” He threw the island woman a friendly wink. “I’ll be with you in a few minutes, Heather.”