The Trouble With Paradise Read online

  “Like?”

  “Things.”

  His arm shifted, just barely pressing into the side of her breast. And more than just her nipples got happy. Bad. Bad body. “I’m tired.”

  “Here’s something to wake you up.” Instead of taking the hint and leaving, he rolled to his side, facing her. “Our bet.”

  Oh, no. “We are not going to talk about the bet.” No way.

  “That’s because you lost.”

  “You cheated.”

  He was silent, letting that lie live a life of its own as she remembered the details . . .

  As if she could forget.

  “You could just pay up,” he suggested.

  That thought shot tingles of excitement directly into certain areas of her anatomy that had no business getting excited. She closed her eyes, a bad idea because her other senses took over. How did he manage to smell like heaven on earth while on a deserted island? “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  He just laughed softly.

  Bastard.

  “You didn’t hit your head that hard,” he said. “You know.”

  “You’re not going away. Why aren’t you going away?” she asked desperately, knowing exactly what he was talking about, exactly what bet she’d made, and what she now owed him, which involved her.

  Dancing.

  Naked.

  Beneath this very starlit sky. “If you were nice, you’d go.”

  He lifted a broad shoulder. “Never claimed to be nice.”

  Also true. Damn it.

  “Plus we’re stuck on an island,” he pointed out. “Just how far away do you think I can go?”

  Keeping her eyes closed, she sighed again. She really hated it when he was right.

  The next time she opened her eyes, the sky was just beginning to lighten in the east, and she was left to wonder. Had his visit been a dream?

  “You okay?” Brandy asked, looking at her from her pad.

  “You mean other than we’re shipwrecked and I have sand in parts where no sand should ever be?”

  “It’s good for your skin.”

  “You said sex was good for the skin.”

  “Sex is great for the skin.” Brandy looked Dorie over from head to toe. “And if we had a mirror, I could show you your reflection and prove it.”

  She felt her face heat. “I don’t know what came over me.”

  Yes, you do. A tall, earthy, passionate, amazing man came over you.

  And beneath her . . . “Brandy?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I have to ask.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Well . . . Cadence’s worried about her job. Andy’s worried about getting hurt and losing his contract. I can’t stop thinking about the life I should have lived instead of the one I am living, but you . . .”

  Brandy’s smile turned serene. “Yeah?”

  “You don’t seem worried about much.”

  Brandy looked away, and something within Dorie tightened. She hadn’t forgotten, not for one minute, that one of them had hurt Bobby, and that it could be any one of them.

  Including this woman.

  “You’re going to think I’m crazy,” Brandy finally said.

  “Try me.”

  “My life in Vegas? Not quite my dream life. I mean I make plenty of money, don’t get me wrong, but I turned twenty-nine this year.” She grimaced. “Okay, thirty. I turned thirty. Three years ago.” She sighed. “And I’m not going to look this hot forever, you know.”

  “Are you sure? Because you’re pretty hot.”

  “Ah, thanks, hon, but it’s all downhill from here for me. And I’m tired of trying to keep up. Out here, I don’t have to try at all.”

  Dorie stared at her. “Are you telling me you like being here?”

  Brandy lifted a shoulder.

  “You do,” she marveled. “You like being here.”

  “What’s not to like? It’s warm and very beautiful . . .”

  “And deserted.”

  “Right. And because it is, money doesn’t matter.”

  “Deserted. Did I mention deserted?”

  “I know you think I’m crazy, but trust me, in Vegas, I’m on borrowed time. I don’t want to dwell on regrets here, but on an island like this, who cares about lengthening mascara, or how high I can kick on stage?”

  Dorie thought about working for Mr. Stryowski for the rest of her life. “Yeah. I guess you’re right.”

  They were both quiet a moment, and Dorie lay there listening to the surf, her thoughts drifting.

  “I think someone pushed Bobby,” Brandy whispered.

  Dorie’s heart stopped. “What makes you think that?”

  “I went to his room to find him, and I saw—”

  “What?”

  “Blood.” Brandy closed her eyes. “Lots of it.”

  “Why didn’t you say anything?”

  “Same reason you didn’t. I was afraid. Still am.” Brandy’s gaze was steady when Dorie looked at her. “You saw. I can tell you saw.”

  “Are you looking at everyone,” Dorie asked quietly, “wondering who did it? Who hurt him?”

  “Yeah.”

  “For whole moments at a time I can actually convince myself I imagined this whole nightmare.”

  Brandy let out a low laugh.

  “I know. I blame my upbringing. My whole family is this together, organized, successful unit. I’m the black sheep, the romantic. The illogical one.”

  “The dreamer,” Brandy said quietly. “Nothing wrong with that.” She shook her head. “I guess I was born cynical.”

  “No one’s born cynical.”

  Brandy’s smile was somber and just a little sad. “I’ve decided it’s not you, you know.”

  Dorie appreciated that, she really did. And she knew Brandy’s expectant silence said she was waiting for Dorie to repeat the favor to her. But she couldn’t help but remember how comfortable Brandy had looked brandishing the knife that no one had even known she carried.

  Extremely comfortable. Almost as comfortable as she’d looked while recalling how she’d wanted to cut off her ex-husband’s family jewels. “You really thought I hurt Bobby?”

  Brandy lifted a shoulder. “If it makes you feel better, I considered Cadence, too. But she jumps at her own shadow, so I can’t see it being her. Christian takes his doctor duties far too seriously to ever break the physician’s oath, and then there’s Andy.”

  “Who can’t handle the sight of blood,” Dorie said quietly. “Yeah, I noticed that today.”

  “Sort of shrinks our options, you know? Because there just aren’t that many of us left now, are there?”

  “No.” She hated this. She sat up, then held her head while it swam for a moment. “Not many options at all, except for the remaining crew. The very people Bobby trusted the most.”

  “Trusted?” Brandy shook her head. “I don’t think they trusted each other at all. They work together, that’s it.”

  Dorie looked over at Cadence’s empty pad. “And right now, Cadence is with one of them. Probably alone.”

  “Yeah.” Brandy stood up, then offered Dorie a hand.

  Dorie let her pull her up, then stood very still waiting for her world to stop spinning. “We’re going to check on her.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Even though she’s undoubtedly busy. Very busy.”

  “Honey, she’s undoubtedly naked. We’re still going to check on her. It’s what friends do.”

  Friends. Dorie wanted that to be true. They walked to the beach, and got yet another unwelcome surprise.

  The Sun Song? Gone.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Third day of no chocolate.

  (72 hours, or 4,320 minutes...)

  The sun rose over the craggy cliffs, bringing a new day, and what should have been renewed hope. Instead, the morale in camp had sunk to a new low.

  The boat had vanished, and no one knew how, or why.

  Dorie looked around at the glum faces. Et
han poked at the signal fire, his movements jerky. Denny stood on the beach, the water lapping at his knees, staring at the spot where the Sun Song should have been as if he could bring it back by sheer will.

  Andy dragged wood to the fire log by log, as if they’d be here for a while.

  Dorie could only hope not.

  Cadence was actually sitting. She had her head in her hands. Dorie and Brandy had run into her coming back to the pads, and she’d said nothing. She stood now. “I’m going for a run.”

  Brandy, who’d been sitting by the fire reading the People magazine Dorie’d given her from her purse, looked up in disbelief. “Honey, you’re stranded on an island without a mall. There’s no reason to walk anywhere. And that’s the good news. Come read about the latest bitch fight that broke out in Hollywood last week between the two blonde It-Girls.”

  “No, you don’t understand. I have to run.”

  Brandy leaned in a little closer. “Didn’t you already get your exercise with...” She jerked her head toward Denny’s back. “You know.”

  Cadence winced. “No. Actually, I didn’t.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “We didn’t get that far.”

  “Why not?”

  Cadence glanced at Denny’s back, then lifted a shoulder. “Something stopped me.” She shook her head at the questions in their eyes and stood. “Sorry. I’ve really got to run.”

  “Stay where you can be seen,” Denny said, and when everyone looked at him, he turned to face them, looking unusually tense. “For safety.”

  Right, Dorie thought. Because their boat had vanished. Oh, and one of them might be a whack job.

  “I’ll stay in view,” Cadence said, and took off running on the sand.

  Dorie felt as restless as Cadence, and she left the campfire, too, walking toward the forest, where she’d seen Christian vanish a few minutes prior.

  “Hey,” Denny called out.

  “Waterfalls for a shower,” Dorie called back. “I’ll scream if I need saving.”

  Brandy’s gaze said she knew exactly why Dorie was going to the “shower” and who was already there, but that didn’t stop Dorie from making the climb up the rocks anyway, following the now obvious trail to the waterfall. Beneath her feet, the earth was soft and springy. No crunching leaves. Here, everything was wet and giving. Lush.

  She’d come here to shower yesterday after her fall. But she’d felt too out in the open, so she’d slipped behind the waterfall. Either that hadn’t occurred to Christian, or he didn’t care, and she had to admit as she came into the Edenlike clearing and took in his long, leanly muscled body, gleaming from the soap he was spreading over himself, he didn’t have reason to care.

  The man had it going on.

  Being a doctor wasn’t particularly physical, but being part of a sailing crew was, and he’d honed every single muscle on his body to hard, sinewy perfection. She could have looked her fill forever, watching him gliding the soap over his torso, up and down his arms and legs, and—

  She should look away, to give him his privacy if nothing else. If someone had been watching her, she’d have been mortified, but she couldn’t move, she could only stand there, tongue hanging out.

  When he caught a glimpse of her, he tossed the soap to the edge of the water and put his hands on his hips. She tried to turn away, she really did. But her gaze had a mind of its own, and took itself on a happy little tour down the front of him, past his soapy, glistening shoulders, past those six-pack abs . . . The man really did have a world-class bod, and asinine or not, she wanted him. She could tell herself it was simply a physical reaction, or even more understandably, an adrenaline rush because of all they’d been through, but it was so much more than that.

  Without a word, he turned and dove into the water, just beneath the waterfall, and she let out a long, shaky breath, fanning her face.

  Didn’t help.

  Then he unexpectedly surged out of the water near her feet like a merman, making her squeak in surprise and fall backward to her butt into the shallow water.

  “If you wanted to join me,” he said. “You only had to say so.”

  Sputtering, the cold water seeping into her clothes, she shoved her hair from her eyes. The water was only a foot deep, but sitting in the soft sand beneath it like she now was, it lapped just beneath her breasts. “You scared me.”

  “Really? Because you don’t look scared, you look turned on.” He glided in, only his head out of the water as he slid his hands up her legs, opening them so that he could swim between them, gaze level with her belly.

  She opened her mouth to remind him that hey, they weren’t doing this, but he spoke. “Your head okay?”

  “Better.”

  “Where is everyone?” His shoulders held her legs open to him as his hands skimmed up to her waist, then up her ribs . . .

  “Um—”

  “Occupied?” Dipping his head, he used his jaw to nudge down the skinny strap of her top, while his hands slid beneath, warm against her drenched skin.

  “Um . . . yes. Occupied.”

  “Good.” His fingers fisted in the thin material of her tank, and then tugged.

  Her breasts popped out. Palming them, he smiled, then gently scraped his beard-roughened jaw over a bared nipple.

  He opened his mouth on her, his tongue hot, a sharp, sensual contrast to the cool water.

  “Look at you,” he murmured, bending his head to take in his own long, tanned fingers on her pale, pale breasts. “So beautiful.”

  As she’d noticed before, when angry or aroused, his French accent deepened, and she had to admit, his voice alone could make her weak in the knees. She was so weak in the knees now, she couldn’t have stood to save her life.

  But apparently, standing wasn’t going to be necessary. Mouth still on her breasts, his hands slid down her legs, and then back up again, taking the material of her wet and clinging skirt with them.

  “Christian.”

  He didn’t answer. He was too busy scooting her back so that only her legs were in the water, then slipping his thumbs in the edging of her panties.

  Oh, God.

  He tugged, then tossed her underwear aside, where they landed next to the soap.

  “Christian.”

  He lifted his head and met her eyes. “Yes?”

  At the look in his eyes, her toes—still in the water—curled in anticipation. “Um...”

  Again he bent his head, kissing her inner thigh, her hip.

  Low on her belly.

  Then ground zero. Her eyes rolled back in her head and she gave herself up to the sensations of being taken . . . cool water, warm sun, hot tongue . . .

  And when he’d drawn her right out of herself with shocking ease, she lay back on the bank of the lagoon, blinking up into the sky, blown away by what he did for her.

  To her.

  She rolled to her side and found him lying next to her on his back. Turning his head, he met her gaze, his own hot and hungry.

  “I still have the condoms in my purse.” He was hard, jutting straight up into the sky she’d just been studying. Oh my. She’d done that to him. The knowledge, the power of it, surged through her.

  “I’m really starting to love that purse.”

  “I’ll get them, but first...” Smiling, she leaned over him.

  He stared at her. “I like that expression.”

  “Good.” Bold in a way she’d never ever been before in her life, she ran a finger down the chest and abs she’d wanted to nibble at. And then indulged herself, replacing her fingers with her mouth.

  As in most things, she felt clumsy. A little uncertain. But bolstered by the way Christian’s chest rose and fell, as if he’d been running for miles, she thought maybe she was doing okay, so she kept going, spreading open-mouthed kisses from one hip to the other, and then . . .

  In-between. She ran her tongue down his hot, silky length and then back up again, and with a low, rough groan, his hands embedded in her hair, he rocked his hips to her rhyt
hm.

  He liked it. Good to know. She decided to see what else he liked, and opened her mouth on him.

  Another one of those low, rough groans escaped him, and again his hips lifted.

  He liked that, too.

  Maybe she was getting the hang of it after all . . .

  Still Day Three, and maybe there are better things than chocolate . . .

  “So much for not doing that again,” Dorie managed.

  Christian’s response was a wordless groan.

  They were both lying beneath the waterfall. He’d pulled on a pair of board shorts. She’d straightened her wet clothing. Her heart was finally slowing to its normal pace after a very aerobic workout that hadn’t involved exercising so much as more of that yummy, wild, island sex.

  Which, she figured, was even better than a typical workout, because it’d left a stupid grin on her face. No gym ever did that.

  Christian came up on his knees, then leaned over her.

  “Again?” she asked breathlessly, her body tingling in shocked but hopeful anticipation.

  He probed the bump on her head and checked her pupils.

  “Oh,” she said, greatly disappointed. “That.”

  Still kneeling over her, his hands holding her head, he looked into her eyes, his own amused. “Did I not satisfy you?”

  “No,” she lied, then waited for him to rectify that.

  He leaned in so that his lips were just brushing hers. “So were you faking it then?”

  “Um...”

  “Twice?”

  “You counted?”

  “You were wrapped around me like plastic wrap.” He grinned against her lips. “Panting my name. Christian,” he mimicked softly. “Oh, Christian, don’t stop, please don’t stop, Christian...”

  She felt her ears begin to heat up.

  He sank his teeth into her lower lip and tugged lightly. “Sexy as hell.”

  “You made noises, too,” she managed.

  “Did I?”

  “Uh-huh. But more of a rough groan...” Like he’d been in heaven and she’d put him there. Even thinking about the way he’d sounded made her thighs tighten.