Three Days, Two Nights

by MJ Fredrick

  Nothing. They’d seen nothing on their walk. No chance of getting out of this place. She’d already made too many mistakes, already headed down a path that was going to lead to pain, all because she couldn’t resist him. He’d changed so much since the last time she’d seen him. He’d been so serious then, so focused, so driven. Now he seemed happier, like he’d been when they’d fallen in love. It didn’t make sense, though. What was making him happier? Not this shaky business he was in. She knew him well enough to know he wouldn’t be making love to her if he had a woman in his life. His fidelity was one thing she’d never worried about.

  A wave crashed over him, knocking him off his feet. He surfaced, shaking water from his hair and grinning at her. Her heart did a little tumble that had nothing to do with the lust that their lovemaking couldn’t erase.

  Lovemaking. No, that wasn’t right. Sex. It was only sex, and that smile was just a flirtation. Not love. No. Not love. She’d moved past it. She wouldn’t go back.

  He turned back to fishing, watching the water around him. Muscles rippled as he tossed the net, then scrambled to catch the opposite end. He’d explained how it was supposed to work, but she hadn’t understood, and didn’t know if he did, either. But then he straightened with a triumphant shout, holding the net above the water. She could see the flash of fish scales in the net.

  She pushed to her feet and dusted the sand off her thighs. “You’re not going to make me clean those, are you?”

  His eyes glinted as he splashed out of the waves. “Nah, I got it.”

  She followed him back to the fire pit he’d built. “You know what you’re doing?”

  He crouched and squinted up at her. “I’ve been fishing before.”

  She turned her attention to the fish. “What kind of fish are those?”

  He laughed as he opened the net. “Hell if I know.”

  Delicious, was what it was. She’d teased that she wanted some lemon, but the smoke from the fire gave it a good flavor, and it flaked off the plastic fork, so tender and tasty. Across the fire, Nat grinned his enjoyment of her appreciation and offered her a bite off his own plastic fork.

  She took it, aware of the intimacy but unable to care when he looked at her like that.

  He reclined on one elbow on the edge of the blanket on the sand, watching her. “Want to go for a swim?”

  She followed his gaze to the ocean. “A little scary, don’t you think?”

  He stretched his hand up toward the rising full moon. “Gorgeous night for it.” He reached over and flicked the sleeve of her shirt. “Skinny dipping. We’re alone on the island.”

  She looked away from those daring eyes. “Still. It doesn’t seem like a good idea.”

  “I like looking at you.”

  “You’ve looked at me plenty.”

  His grin widened. “I’ll go first.” He hopped to his feet and shed his shorts and underwear. He put his hands on his hips and looked down at her. “Your turn.”

  She dragged her gaze from his half-hard cock to his challenging eyes. She did love a challenge. She rose and took a step back from the fire, unbuttoning her blouse, watching him watch her. His breath caught and his cock hardened as she took her time with the buttons, on purpose, more turned on than she’d like to admit by his reaction. Odd that he could be so aroused so quickly by just that, when they’d made love twice today already. Still, she enjoyed her power, and left her blouse hanging open for a moment before shrugging out of it. She unhooked her bra and tossed it on her blouse on the sand. Her nipples were hard and hot. She craved the heat of his mouth on them.

  Instead of moving toward him in invitation, she unbuttoned her shorts and let them fall to the sand. She took a moment to work up her courage before pushing her panties after them. No barriers now. None. And the heat she saw in his eyes scared her to the bone.

  Before she could think too hard about it, she turned and raced across the beach and into the waves. His laughter followed her, and his footsteps pounded behind her. She squealed in surprise when he hooked his arm around her, lifting her out of the water and then falling back with her under the waves. She slipped out of his grasp and surfaced, laughing, backing away from him as he rose, shaking the water from his hair. His grin in the moonlight was predatory, and sent a thrill of excitement through her. Something else, too—trust. Trust. How could she trust a man who’d hurt her so badly?

  But this man in front of her, this playful man, wasn’t the man who’d turned his back on her for his career. This was the man she’d fallen in love with.

  She let him catch her. His arm captured her around her waist and brought her against his body. She slid against him, hearing his groan of approval before she pushed away and swam off, keeping her gaze on him. He came after her, propelling himself off the bottom of the ocean. Swimming backward, she laughed, and his kiss landed on her chin instead of her mouth. He allowed her to move away a bit, but kept his fingers linked through hers.

  “You are still the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen,” he murmured.

  “You’re happier now,” she said, not meaning to blurt it out like that.

  His expression sobered. “Weird, being stranded here like this. But yeah. I’m pretty happy.”

  “Has nothing to do with getting laid twice today,” she teased, uncomfortable with the serene expression on his face. It was so…unfamiliar and unsettling. And sweet and handsome, filling her with a longing she didn’t expect. She wanted to see that expression every day, wanted to feel that emotion herself. When was the last time she’d been truly happy?

  “Maybe a third time in the cards.” He squeezed her hand and a glint returned to his eyes.

  “So what changed?” She drew away and rolled onto her stomach, not missing his glance at her ass floating above the waves.

  “Just a readjustment of priorities.”

  Too little, too late. Maybe, a little voice said. No. There was no maybe about it. After they were rescued, she’d return to her own life, the one that didn’t make her as happy as Nat’s life appeared to make him.

  “Like what?”

  “Taking more time for stuff like this.” He sent a gentle wave toward her with a swipe of his hand.

  “Skinny dipping with women?”

  He held her gaze. “No. But unwinding. Fishing. I have a boat. Spend a lot of time outside.”

  “Flying?”

  “It’s just a job now.”

  “You loved it.”

  “Still do. But I learned too late that there’s more to life.” He made an encompassing gesture.

  She didn’t answer. Couldn’t. Why hadn’t he had this epiphany before? Would it have saved their marriage? She couldn’t bring herself to ask.

  “So…you? What makes you happy these days?”

  “I have a pretty little apartment.” That she didn’t spend enough time in. “I learned how to cook.” But didn’t have time. “I took a dance class.” But never went out.

  “You danced well enough without lessons.”

  “Oh, but this was formal dancing. Fox trots and all that. My friend Kate loves Dancing with the Stars.”

  “I bet you looked amazing doing the tango.”

  “I could teach you,” she teased, already imagining what that would be like, being in his arms, having him watch her with that intensity. Hadn’t she imagined just that during the lessons?

  He chuckled. “Here? Like I’m not clumsy enough with the music.”

  “We were good together.” Oops. She hadn’t meant to word it that way.

  “Still are.” He threaded his fingers through her hair and leaned close, his breath warm on her mouth, and she lifted her face for his kiss.

  The heat flared quicker than it should have, considering the way they’d spent the day. She parted her lips to welcome his stroking tongue and tilted her head to rest her cheek in his palm. Her toes curled in the sand as he coasted his other hand down her back to rest just above her ass, but Nat didn’t pull her closer. The waves lapped between
their bodies. She hadn’t thought the rolling waves could be erotic, but every molecule of her skin was suddenly sensitized, her nipples hard and aching. She squeezed her thighs together to ease the throb between her legs. She resisted the urge to drag his hand down to stroke her, to bring her to orgasm here in the water. His arousal returned full force, his cock bumping against her hip, but she kept her hands between them, her fingers flexing in the hair of his chest.

  He angled his mouth across hers, his kiss gentle, seductive, but sweet in a way that made her forget they were standing naked in the middle of the ocean. It was a kiss that explored more than the physical. He seemed to probe her emotions as well, and laid his own out for her to do with what she would.

  Her heart swelled at the vulnerability she tasted in his kiss, but she blocked it, instead cupping her hand around the back of his head and pressing her body to his. The vulnerability disappeared as he closed his hands around her hips and lifted her. She wrapped her legs around him and pressed against his erection. She didn’t actually want to make love in the water—wait, she didn’t want to think of this as making love, no matter how sweet his kisses were. She didn’t want to fuck in the water, or on the beach for that matter, or without a condom.

  “You have more condoms, right?” she asked, taking his earlobe between her teeth.

  He groaned, his fingers spreading on her ass. “In my duffel.”

  “Let’s go.”

  In response, he lifted her higher out of the water and captured her nipple in his mouth, his tongue circling, flicking, teasing. He dragged his mouth between her breasts, his stubble rasping in the very best way, to give her other nipple the same attention. She arched her back, wanting more, wanting him to suck her, wanting him to devour her. Instead he released her nipple and kissed his way up her throat to her lips, where he nuzzled again, as if she wasn’t wrapped around him, pressed against him, open to him.

  “Nat,” she whispered against his mouth.

  He ended the kiss but kept his gaze steady on hers as he walked toward the shore, carrying her, each step driving his erection against her until she didn’t want him to stop walking, ever.

  And then he did. She realized the water was around their thighs now, and the flex of his muscles told her he’d have to let her down soon, but he didn’t move, didn’t look away.

  “I want to be inside you,” he murmured. “I’m clean. I swear.”

  The idea of him sliding into her bare was more than she could resist. “Me, too. There’s been no one else.” No one else. Would there ever be? Could she allow someone to take his place?

  A jolt went through him like an electric shock and he tightened his grip, lifting her. He slid inside her and both of them gasped as he filled her, stretched her. She buried her face in his throat as they moved together, tentative, muscles flexing, skin heating. “Don’t make me pregnant,” she managed.

  “I won’t come inside you,” he said, his voice tight as he rolled his hips against hers. “Jesus, you feel good, Tess. I’ve missed you. I was an idiot. I never should have let you walk away.”

  She pressed her lips over his, not wanting her heart to hear those words, not wanting to hope this was more than what it was. This was just sex. His hands moved up her back to hold her against him and he brought her close for another of those soul-wrenching kisses. A tear she hadn’t realized had formed slipped free as she opened her mouth to him.

  The orgasm caught her off guard, chasing the breath from her lungs in a cry that echoed across the ocean.

  He slid free from her, still hard, and grasped her hand, pulling her toward the beach. Her legs trembled from the force of the orgasm still fizzing through her blood, and she stumbled on the loose sand. He swept her up in his arms, cradled against his chest, and in a few steps, deposited her on the hammock. Her senses returned as he turned away to paw through his duffel. She rose on her elbows.

  “Do you think this can hold up under any kind of activity?”

  “Better than the sand.” He rolled the condom on in one move and launched himself onto the hammock, between her legs. He grinned, smoothed a hand over her hair, and thrust into her.

  Her body, still tingling from his last visit, gripped him, squeezed him, and for a moment, she feared he’d come already, when she wanted so much more. Instead, he slowed the pace, hips flexing as he pressed into her, and drew it out. So much control. She had that control in her real life, but not here, not with him, not folded around him, filled with him. Her entire world focused on the man watching her, the stroke of him inside her, the grind of his body against her. She gave in to the desire to touch his face, stroke his stubble, and closed her eyes against the intensity of the emotion she saw in his. She lifted her hips into his, seeking another orgasm, seeking oblivion, seeking the lie she was telling to herself, that she didn’t love this man anymore and was only using him.

  Then he said her name, and the sensations gathering in her belly tightened. When he murmured, “I love you,” they flew free, igniting every nerve along the way. She moved into the orgasm, pumping her hips, needing the control even as she lost it. The catch of his breath and the tensing of his belly warned her of his impending climax, and she squeezed around him, focusing on the pulse of him coming inside her.

  He was confused, she realized when her brain cells began to work again. Sex and love—too easily confused. They were good at this. They always had been. They’d been in love in the past. He was mistaken. He didn’t love her. Her heart clenched as he drew out of her to dispose of the condom. God, why did she hope she was wrong?

  Nat tucked his arm around Tess, pulling her back against his chest in the hammock. His heart still hammered, his ears rang with the words he’d let slip, the words that had been pounding on the inside of his skull all day.

  The words she hadn’t responded to. In fact, she hadn’t said anything since they’d made love. Well, hell, what did he expect her to say? She’d been the one who walked away, but he’d always thought it was because she loved too much, and he had been too distracted by his career to put enough into the marriage. Now he got the feeling she’d shut off that part of herself, and that was the part he’d been trying to reach.

  She needed more time, that was all. He just hoped they had it.

  Chapter Six

  Nothing in the world compared to waking to the sound of rolling waves, with a warm, aroused man at one’s back. His callused hand covered her breast, but she got the sense that he wasn’t fully awake. Though his erection pressed against her ass and his thumb moved in slow strokes over the curve of her breast, his breathing was even behind her. They’d fallen asleep naked under the full moon, the breeze cooling their skin, his words untouched between them.

  I love you. He’d said it in the heat of passion. He couldn’t mean it, not after all the hurt, the words they’d hurled at each other those last months. He couldn’t mean it after a year apart, and two days together. She had to forget he said it, pretend he hadn’t, and that she hadn’t heard it. She was good at burying her feelings.

  “Morning,” he said in her ear, his caress on her breast more deliberate, teasing the nipple to a hard point.

  The gesture sent a twinge to her womb and her body grew slick, already anticipating the slide of his body into hers. He pressed a kiss to the curve of her throat, another to her shoulder as he plucked at her nipple. She pressed her hips back and he glided his hand down over her belly. She covered his hand with hers to urge it down.

  He groaned and pressed closer, his fingers flexing on her skin.

  Her nipples tightened painfully, but instead of waiting for him to stroke her, she twisted on the hammock. His eyes widened a bit, before she pressed her lips to his jaw, then slid lower, following the path made by her hand, down the center of his chest, over his stomach. She wrapped her fingers around his erection as she teased his nipple, then traced the line of hair from his navel, to take his cock into her mouth. He bowed off the hammock with a groan.

  Sliding her tongue over t
he smooth head, she darted it into the slit, to the sensitive area on the underside. She hadn’t given head in so long, she forgot how it stretched her mouth, her jaw, but remembered where to stroke him, where to lick him, how he liked it when she showed her enjoyment with little hums and murmurs and the occasional scrape of teeth. She moved down the shaft as he pushed up, against the back of her throat. Curling her fingers around the base of his cock, above his tight balls, she slid her hand up and down in time with her mouth. His groan of approval vibrated through his body. He threaded his fingers through her hair, pulling her forward as his moans of pleasure carried over the sound of the waves.

  Then he pulled free.

  She straightened and he gripped her shoulders, his breathing heavy.

  “I need to be inside you. I need you under me, Tess.”

  That had always been her favorite position, his weight over her, so he could stroke deep, their bodies lined up so he could kiss her mouth, kiss her throat.

  “Not sure it’ll work on the hammock,” she said, though her body already tingled at the thought of him moving over her.

  “It’ll work. I promise.” He gave her swollen lips a lingering kiss, and lowered her onto her back, entering her in almost the same movement.

  “Condom,” she managed.

  “Covered.” He showed her the empty packet, and began to move.

  The rhythm was delicious, slow, almost lazy. He used the sway of the cot to his advantage, and she twined her legs around his, her heels brushing the insides of his thighs. No intensity here, no race to an orgasm, only pleasure at being in each other’s arms, at the intimate connection, at the slide of skin on skin, lips on lips. She could hear the echo of the words he’d said last night with each stroke of his body, with each brush of his mouth. She curled her hand through his hair, coursed the other down his back, over his flexing muscles, savoring. The orgasm, when it came, was in gentle, rolling waves, nothing like the ones he’d given her the past few days, but it went on and on, his increasing strokes only drawing it out, until she felt him come, too, slow, hard pulses deep inside her, and she held him, not wanting to surrender the moment, scaring the hell out of herself with the words she wanted to say back to him.