“I’ll take him back to your room,” Jami said.
“No, I’ll do it. I want you to have fun.” Anna rubbed Carl’s back as the boy leaned back and closed his eyes.
“Anna, this is your wedding and your party. You stay. Besides, you’re the master of ceremonies. No one else knows the treasure hunt rules,” Jami said.
“Dad? I think I’m going to get sick again.”
“Come on.” Rob helped Carl to his feet. “I’ll take him back to the suite and catch up when I can.”
As Rob and Carl eased down the stairs to the main level and then off to their rooms, the staff tidied up the breakfast disaster.
“Since there are only two of you on the blue team, would you prefer to join other teams?” Anna shrugged her shoulders.
Beck studied Jami for a quick moment. “Jami and I are team blue all the way. Besides, we’re the power team to beat. No one’s got a chance against us. With just two of us, we’ll run circles around you slow-moving packs.”
Had Beck lost his marbles? They were going to be stuck with only each other for an hour or more. Kyle and Austin laughed while Clara and Emma rolled their eyes, and Jami looked everywhere but at Beck, but her body knew that he was watching her. A spark of flame danced along her skin as if he was touching her. Her nipples hardened, and she darted a glance at Beck.
She held his dark gray gaze for a long moment, and she let out a tiny gasp. She turned away and straightened her loose cover-up. Please, let no one have seen that.
“So be it.” Anna looked up from her clipboard. “Don’t come complaining to me when you two come in last place. This is one tough hunt I’ve concocted. It isn’t for sissies.”
“Challenge accepted.” Beck thumped his chest and took the treasure map and list with a flourish.
Jami shook her head. What was she getting into now? Beck’s expression was now mild-mannered, if not meek. She tapped her foot. Whatever his intentions, she was game. She wouldn’t give him an inch.
“You ready to whip the competition?”
“I knew you were the right partner.” Beck flipped the map right-side up and scanned it.
“How so?”
“You hate to lose, and you hate me. So you’ll figure out the down low on this treasure hunt, and we’ll be the first ones done. And then I can get back to drinking on the beach.”
Jami narrowed her eyes. Was it really that simple? She shrugged. Probably not, but he had a point. “At least we’re in agreement about getting this over with as quickly as possible.”
As Anna shared the rules of the game, Beck handed everything over to Jami and let her be in charge. Jami focused on Anna’s instructions, but Beck distracted her with the steady stream of faces he was making for little Daphne as she kicked her feet in the pool and twirled her pigtail.
Fifteen minutes later, Jami stood at a crossroads of two gravel pathways on the far side of the island. She propped her hand on her hip and wiggled her shoulders as a drip of sweat trickled down the center of her back.
“I had no idea it was so muggy here.”
“We’re only a little ways from the equator. Fourteen degrees north. It is the tropics.” Beck sounded like he was reading from a Wikipedia entry.
“I’m melting. We need a breeze or one good gust of wind.”
Beck handed her a metal flask, and Jami opened it and sniffed gingerly. It was water.
“What? Did you think I was packing whiskey?”
“It would make this adventure more bearable.”
Beck laughed. “I’m all for family bonding, as far as that goes, but isn’t this taking it too far?”
“Anna is the terminally perky type, but somehow you can’t help but love her.”
“Is this an affliction that all the Barretts suffer from? Competitiveness and perkiness?”
“Hardly. I think she and Sam have the only perky genes. Anna volunteers for everything, and Sam’s a teacher. Although I think those high school students will beat the sunshine right out of her.”
Beck laughed like she’d intended. If she was going to be stuck with him all afternoon, she’d just as soon not be at constant daggers with him, and she might be able to wiggle some information out of him that could be to her advantage. Didn’t her momma always say you caught more flies with honey than vinegar?
Within a few minutes, they discovered their first treasure. It was a plastic wedding cake topper of a bridal couple on the back of a motorcycle.
“Does Rob ride?”
“He does. I heard him tell your dad that their first date was a ride on his bike.”
“Holy moly. Anna is finally letting loose.” Jami double clutched the cake topper and popped it into her cloth backpack. “She was always so prim and proper when I was growing up. I guess she’s finally relaxed. Kudos to your brother.”
“He’s not exactly a badass biker. No tattoos or criminal record.”
“Ha! That you know of. For all we know, they may have matching tattoos now.”
“Ew. The last thing I want to imagine is my brother’s love life.”
“Wuss.”
“What’s next on the list?”
“If I read this map right, we should be close to treasure number seven. This green and yellow froglike thing.”
“Let me see.”
“What? Do you think I’m incapable of reading a map?”
“I have no idea if you are geographically challenged or not. You were rather vague about our tropical location so you can understand my fears.”
“Nice. Thanks.”
“My pleasure. Now get off your high horse and let me see the map, too.”
“Fine.” Jami handed it to him, and his fingers brushed hers as he took it. A flash of fire shot through her arm and quivered between her breasts. Dammit. She could not be attracted to him. She licked her lips and imagined his mouth pressed against hers. It would be warm, teasing. Jami coughed and jumped back.
Beck looked up and cocked his head in curiosity.
“A bug crawled over my foot.”
Beck hesitated for a moment, but then he bent his head to study the map and the list, trying to compare the cryptic descriptions of the hidden items with the cartoonish drawings on the map.
Jami wondered if he’d felt the zing of electric attraction, too? Beck leaned away.
“There’s a lot of you,” Beck said without taking his eyes from the paperwork.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Barretts. There are a boatload of you Barretts. There’s thirteen of you compared to only seven of us.”
“My parents were fertile. So sue us.”
“You’re a pretty tight-knit crew.”
“Family is everything.”
“That’s one-eighty different than how I grew up.”
“You’ll have to get used to our overwhelming numbers. That’s a risk you take by trying to move into Barrett Ridge. We’ve got cousins and blood everywhere.” Jami shot him a defiant look. “We’re a challenge if you don’t stay on our good side.”
“I’m up for a good challenge. Keeps things interesting.”
Jami sighed. Suddenly she was tired of throwing barbs at Beck. “Come on. Let’s be friends.” She frowned. That was not what she’d meant at all. “At least, let’s be professionals and get this done.”
“Shall we plot a strategy? Divide and conquer?”
Jami surveyed the list, and Beck peered over her shoulder. Her breath caught in her throat and a dart of tension shot between her thighs. He smelled of cedar and something tropical. It was divine. No, she was not going to let her knees buckle under her.
“What is a red ginger lily? And how are we supposed to know if we find one?” Beck’s bicep brushed hers as he leaned over and pointed at the second item on the list.
She was not going to break into a sweat. She steeled herself. She needed to remember she hated Beck Kavanagh. He was her competition, and she never lost her focus during a fight. Calm. She needed to find her Zen spot. Hell
. Why did that make her think of a G-spot?
Jami pivoted and stepped away from Beck as she handed the hunt instructions to him, but Beck grabbed her wrist.
“Let go.”
“Hang on. Hold still.”
“No.”
“There’s something small, brown and very crawly, right in the middle of your back.”
Jami stiffened like a flag pole. “Get it off me.”
Beck rolled up the map and brushed at her back. “It’s stuck.”
Panic welled in Jami’s belly, but she dragged in a deep breath and exhaled in a low whistle. “You’ve got one job, mister. Now remove.”
“Maybe you should drop, roll, and squish it?”
“Is that a joke?”
“Yes, but you don’t seem amused.” Beck studied a spot right between her shoulder blades. “Hmm. It seems to have quite a few sticky-looking legs. Very wriggly.”
“If you don’t get it off in the next five seconds, I’m going to rip this shirt right off my body and set it on fire.”
Beck grinned. “Do you want me to flick it off or not? I like your idea better.”
“Do it. Now.” Jami ground her teeth together as a whisper of wind tickled a wisp of hair against her neck. Her knees wobbled.
Beck wound up as if ready to smack the crap out of the bug, but at the last second, he slid the map under the crawler and flicked it away, deep into the ferny undergrowth next to the pathway. “You’re good to go.”
Jami jumped three feet to the side and shivered. “What the hell was it?”
“It was a BDB.”
“What?”
“A big damn bug.”
“Aren’t you the comedian?”
“I’m an engineer, not an entomologist.”
Jami scowled, but Beck grinned. She scrunched her eyebrows as if to convince him she was not amused, but he pointed at her and laughed. A burble of laughter escaped from between her lips.
“Fine. You win. I won’t take this so seriously.”
Beck threw back his head and laughed with ease. “I find that hard to believe.”
As one, they bent over the map and the list and plotted their next move together. Beck’s shoulder brushed hers, and Jami’s pulse jumped. She threw him a side-eye. His nose was straight, and that chin of his was square, determined, and utterly sexy. His thick black eyelashes swept low, and her heart lurched.
Jami leaned in, and her breasts brushed his arm as she delivered a fleeting kiss on the hard angle of his cheekbone. She sprang back before he could react.
“Thanks for rescuing me.”
Beck idly touched his face where her lips had left a tiny smudge of peachy lip gloss.
“Anytime.”
They walked side by side, looking for clues in the shrubbery and in the mango, bamboo, and the oval-leafed lansan trees.
Jami kept her eyes glued for treasures, but all her senses were laser focused on Beck. The sweat glistening on his skin. The ripple of his triceps and the flex of his pecs were as lickable as a lollipop.
Jami was ready to do a little fraternization with the enemy. Even if it was stupid and off-limits.
CHAPTER 10
“What is that?” Jami pointed at Anna’s cryptic map as she angled closer for a better view.
Beck grunted. “A box with colored spots. Who drew this? A five-year-old?”
“It’s possible, but it was probably Anna or one of the girls. I think it’s a jewelry box.”
“Those red and blue spots are rubies and sapphires?”
“Maybe.”
“We passed a thick planting of red and blue flowers about two minutes ago.”
“I remember those blue orchids. They were gorgeous.”
“Let’s double back. It’s our only lead. There might be a box hiding in the leaves.”
In unison, they turned and tramped back the way they’d come. Beck adjusted the backpack with a grimace. “It’s too damn muggy to wear this thing.”
“I wish we were swimming instead of this stupid death march to find all this junk.” Jami glanced at the map. “I think we must be close.”
“I’ll check this patch of red flowers.” Beck pointed to a patch of blossoms about five feet away. “And you inspect those.” Beck indicated a clump at the edge of a “y” in the pathway.
Beck pushed back the foliage and poked around with his foot, but he couldn’t detect anything out of the ordinary. He kneeled down to get a better look.
Jami shrieked, and Beck leaped to his feet. Jami was sprawled on her butt and inching backward from a black and green striped, four-foot long lizard. The beast had orange spikes along its head, and all down its spine and its thick tail lashed from side to side. The large black pouch under its horny chin puffed up.
“Oh dear god. I don’t think I can move.”
“It’s not going to eat you. You’re much too big.”
“That’s easy for you to say. You’re not the one at mouth level. He’s a monster.”
“Quit screwing around. We’ve got treasure to find.”
“I—I...”
Beck wanted to laugh, but the terror on her face was almost endearing. For the first time, she actually looked vulnerable. Beck waited with his hands on his hips.
“Come on. A big brave fighter like you?”
Jami glared at Beck, but then the creature took a scrabbly step toward Jami who clapped a hand over her mouth and muffled her squeal. Beck laughed out loud, and the lizard turned its glossy black eye at Beck and winked. The laughter died on his lips. Crap. That was one big stinking lizard. Did they eat people or were they just leaf eaters?
The lizard whipped his tail from side to side and lunged toward Jami. Gravel spit up into the air, and the creature grunted. Jami popped to her feet, and in a leg-stretching leap, sprang over the sprinting reptile. Jami hit the ground on one foot and bounded toward Beck.
In the next instant, Jami threw herself against Beck’s chest. Her arms and legs entwined around his torso and her head buried in his neck. Beck staggered back on impact but gripped Jami tightly to him. He eased back a few steps, hoping to avoid drawing the beast’s attention.
“Is it gone?” Jami whispered in his ear. Her voice was ragged.
“No.” The green lizard stopped and turned a baleful eye on Beck. Was this the moment where he should turn all alpha and charge it and scare it off? Or would that agitate it more? Was there a Jungle 101 guidebook topic on this?
The lizard huffed, and the orange tines along its back quivered.
“Get down, and we can run for it.”
“No way.”
“I’ll drop you, and it will eat you.”
Jami gripped him tighter. “Get moving, mister.”
Beck stood his ground and stared at the lizard. It huffed and swung its head and then snapped at a passing butterfly. The winged bug was gone with one swipe of the beast’s tongue.
“What was that?” Jami burrowed further into his neck.
A warm, delicious sensation spiraled through his chest and downward. He adjusted his grip under her bottom and squeezed it. Just a little. This wasn’t such a bad gig after all.
“Don’t ask. A butterfly just met a gruesome end.” The overgrown iguana shifted from foot to foot and then slipped through the leaves and shrubs. “It’s leaving.”
Jami trembled in his arms. “I can’t look.”
“It’s safe. You can’t even see it anymore.”
“Is it gone?” Jami’s arms loosened, and she raised her head.
“No sight of it.”
Beck eased his grip on her and Jami slithered to the ground, but Beck kept a protective arm encircling her.
“I can’t believe the resort hasn’t deported that horrible creature.”
Beck laughed, and Jami turned her face to his. She was oh-so close. Her mouth hovered inches from his. All he needed to do was bend his head, and he would taste her lips.
Jami blinked, and she seemed confused, but she didn’t move. Her body was soft, p
liant. He waited another instant. Surely she would bolt or slap him or something.
He needed to know how her mouth would feel on his. It was the most important thing. Jami ran a hand up his chest and twisted a patch of his shirt into a knot in her hand. He slipped one hand behind her head and lowered his mouth.
The first touch was delicate, tender, tentative, but Jami leaned in. Their need collided. Heat flamed. It was slow and growing. Her lips were full and soft, but demanding. He caressed and sampled. Their tongues danced. The air in his lungs tumbled and froze in place.
Her mouth was so tempting and forbidden. Jami folded in closer still, and the firm tips of her breasts grazed his chest. He pressed a line of kisses down the column of her neck. Beck lifted his head, and Jami let out a slow breath.
He studied her brown eyes and the answering passion in them. She was all silk and luxury in his arms until she wasn’t.
With one blink, irritation flared in her gaze, and she pushed against Beck’s ribs and jumped back. With a flurry of fingers, Jami straightened her clothes and tightened her now floppy ponytail.
“Um. Thanks for the rescue.”
“No worries. I’m inclined to think leaping over that iguana in a single bound was more like Wonder Woman taking charge of the situation.”
“Yeah. Right. I was holding on to you like there was a mouse scurrying around.”
“That was a huge freaking lizard.”
“Seriously. How is that thing running loose on the island? It could eat one of the twins. Or at least a toddler.”
“They’re harmless according to the staff.”
“They probably keep them on the island simply to amuse themselves at the expense of the stupid tourists who lose their shit seeing them.” Jami shivered and tugged on her cover-up.
“We still have a treasure hunt to complete.”
“I hate to lose.”
“I know. That’s your defining feature.”
“Virtue.”
“Whatever.” Beck spotted a crumpled map near the edge of the path. As he picked it up, he willed the heat between his legs to dissipate. One kiss with Jami meant nothing. It had only been the adrenaline rush of a charging iguana.
“Nothing in those shrubs?” Jami sounded doubtful.
“Why don’t you take a peek?”
Tropical Tryst: 25 All New and Exclusive Sexy Reads Page 105