“A palapa? What’s that?”
“It’s a bed on the beach surrounded on three sides by curtains and open to a spectacular view of the water.”
Myrna already had all sorts of erotic images racing through her head. “Oh, he’ll love that.”
“How about brunch on the beach? We’ll have room service bring your meal to the palapa.”
“That sounds wonderful. With beer for Brian?”
The woman’s pale blue eyes widened. “For brunch?”
“You underestimate how much my husband loves beer.”
“Perhaps you’d like to visit Balashi Brewery.” She started searching through brochures.
“Is it romantic there?” Myrna asked.
The woman chuckled. “Is beer ever romantic?”
How the hell should she know?
“We’ll save the brewery for another day. So . . . brunch in the palapa covers a few hours of romance in the morning. What else do you have?” Myrna asked, reaching for a stack of brochures.
The woman—whose name was Sharon according to her bronze nametag—insisted that parasailing wasn’t romantic, though it was fun, so Myrna kept that brochure with her brewery one for something to try later in the week. She settled on horseback riding on the beach and a private dinner cruise followed by a stroll to a lighthouse to watch the sunset. A perfectly romantic day for her perfectly romantic husband. Game plan in place, Myrna shook Sharon’s hand.
“Thanks so much for your help,” Myrna said. “I’d have had him snorkeling with sharks and skydiving if you hadn’t reeled me in.”
Sharon smiled warmly. “You should still do those things if you’re interested,” she insisted. “How about on Wednesday?”
“I’ll ask him if he’s game and get back to you.” She didn’t want to make all the decisions about their excursions while they were in Aruba. Just tomorrow’s.
“Perfect. I hope you enjoy your time together.”
“I’m sure we will,” Myrna said.
She enjoyed every minute with Brian, even if they were just sitting on the couch watching reruns of The Munsters, dining on pizza, hot wings and beer, and wearing T-shirts and sweatpants. But she was sure he’d be touched that she went to the trouble to try to be romantic for him. He was easy to please that way.
Smile on her face and a spring in her step, Myrna started toward the elevator and paused when she noticed that woman from the airplane standing at the front desk, examining a stack of business cards. What was her name? Something with a G.
“Big plans for tomorrow?” G asked her, her gaze lifting from the card in her hand to Myrna’s face.
“A few,” Myrna said.
“Have fun,” she said and walked toward the exit.
Myrna shook her head at the strange intrusion. It seemed like G—Gail!—had been standing there waiting for her. Or waiting to talk to the concierge. But then instead of talking to Sharon, Gail had just walked off. Myrna attributed Gail’s behavior to her general weirdness and returned to the room.
She found the dining table covered with room service food for their dinner, but there was no sign of Brian.
She made sure the Do Not Disturb sign was displayed outside before shutting and bolting the door behind her. “Brian?”
“In here,” he called from the bedroom.
She’d figured that was where he’d wait for her. She entered the room and found him on the bed. He was stretched out on his back, entirely naked, with several chocolate-dipped strawberries resting on his lower belly to draw attention to his glorious cock.
“I thought you might like to start with dessert,” he said with a suggestive smile.
“I might,” she said, unzipping her dress. She doubted she’d need it for the rest of the night.
Chapter Six
Brian stumbled over a step as Myrna led him blindfolded to some particular spot on the beach. He knew they were on the beach because the sand was warm against his bare feet, the cries of the gulls that had woken him that morning were much louder, and the sound of the surf striking the shoreline was more than a distant lullaby.
“I’m sorry,” Myrna said. “I can’t even do this properly.”
“Do what?”
“Surprise you. Is your foot okay?”
“It’s fine,” he said, though his toes were smarting a bit from when he’d stubbed them on some obstacle in their path. “And you’re doing great,” he added. “I’m totally surprised.” By what, he had no clue, since she’d insisted he keep his eyes covered.
She urged him up several steps, and he followed without hesitation, trusting her guidance even though she’d steered him into objects more than once on their trek from their hotel room to wherever they were headed.
Myrna placed his hands on a soft platform. It felt like a bed, but he figured he was mistaken; why would there be a bed on the beach? His stomach rumbled when the sweet scent of pastries greeted his nostrils. And was that bacon he smelled? Oh God, food. He hoped it was for him and not wafting over from someone else’s breakfast. He could really use a hot meal. By the time he and Myrna had found their way out of the bedroom and into the dining area for dinner, the feast he’d ordered had already turned cold and unappetizing. Filet mignon lost much of its appeal when it was warmed in the microwave.
“Climb up here,” Myrna said, helping him navigate his way onto what still felt like a bed.
He cheated a little and looked down through the narrow crack at the bottom of his blindfold. Smooth white linens crinkled beneath his hands and knees as he crawled up the mattress. He was definitely on a bed on the beach. What in the world?
Myrna settled him in a nest of pillows, making sure he was absolutely comfortable before she reached over and pulled off his blindfold. He blinked several times to allow his eyes to adjust to the glare of the brilliant sunshine sparkling across the surface of the water stretched before them.
“Surprise!” she said. “What do you think? Is it romantic?”
His heart thudded as it occurred to him that she was trying to be romantic for him. His Myrna—whose romantic streak was normally hair-thin—had arranged this outing to give him the warm fuzzies. And it had definitely worked. The location was spectacularly romantic, but his wife’s gesture was what had his eyes strangely misty.
“It’s incredibly romantic,” he said around the tightness in his chest.
She beamed as if he’d paid her the best compliment she’d ever had and reached for a plate of Danishes. She insisted on feeding them to him by pulling off pieces with her fingers and placing them into his mouth. She made him wash the sweets down with ice cold beer, which… yuck. But he choked it down without complaint because he knew that she was being thoughtful and trying to please him, and there was no way he’d do anything to make her feel like this wasn’t the best surprise he’d ever had, because it was right up there with her agreeing to marry him and her telling him that she wanted to start a family. Eventually his happiness got the better of him and he pulled her against his side for the closeness he craved. Yeah, he was a badass, famous metal guitarist who thought he just might die if he didn’t get to cuddle with his wife at that exact moment, and if anyone had a problem with that, well, fuck them.
Myrna linked her fingers with his and pressed her face against his neck. Her warm breath caressed his skin. The sweet scent of her hair and skin—vanilla with a hint of coconut—filled his nose. He didn’t need the view of the ocean stretched before them. His paradise was wrapped securely in his embrace.
“Should we pick out names?” she murmured. “Or will that jinx us?”
His arms tightened. Even now she was thinking about babies.
“I didn’t think you believed in luck,” he said.
“You’re right, I don’t. So if we have a boy, I think we should name him after your father,” she said.
“Myrna, don’t do this to yourself.”
“And if it’s a girl, I like the name Olivia.”
He guessed they were having this c
onversation whether he wanted to or not.
“That’s pretty,” he said. “And I’d like to name my son after my dad, but we are never naming a baby after my mother.”
Myrna turned her head and glanced up at him in surprise. “I thought you were close to your mother.”
Close wasn’t the word he’d use, but they got along okay. “It isn’t that,” he said. “One Claire Sinclair in the family is enough.”
She grinned. “How about Blaire Sinclair?”
He shook his head slightly. “No.”
“Flaire Sinclair?”
Brian laughed. “Flaire? Is that even a real name?”
“Or if we have triplets, we could name them Claire, Blaire, and Flaire Sinclair.”
“Triplets?” Having more than one at a time had never occurred to him. “I’m going to have to get a second job.”
Her mischievous grin told him she was teasing, but then it faded and her expression turned serious.
Myrna slid her free hand over the inside of Brian’s forearm and the tattoo of a dagger and bloody roses there. Her finger stroked the name woven among the thorns and petals. “If it’s a girl, we’ll name her Kara.”
Brian’s heart constricted and his arm tightened, crushing Myrna against his side. Would the pain of tragically losing his little sister ever leave him? “She’d like that,” he said, his breath caught in his tight throat.
Myrna rubbed his back, loosening muscles he hadn’t realized were knotted with tension.
“I think breakfast is getting cold,” she said after a long moment.
He released his grip on her and she shifted away, gifting him with a long, lingering kiss before she settled to sit beside him in his pile of pillows. While she retrieved the trays of food at the bottom of the bed and settled them over their laps, he lifted his gaze to take in the spectacular view of the ocean. In the privacy of their curtained oasis, it was as if he and Myrna were the only two people on the beach.
Well, almost. A person standing in the waves was the only exception to their solitude. The man was facing him and yet it took Brian a moment to recognize that the man was Kev and that he was staring right at him. How long had he been watching them? Kev lifted a hand in greeting and then slunk off out of view. Brian had had it with that dude’s invasiveness. He moved to climb from the bed and give that guy a piece of his mind and few pieces of his fist. Myrna looked at him, brow lifted, when he bumped the tray she was trying to settle over his lap.
“Are you going somewhere?” she asked.
“That guy—Kev—was standing out there in the waves watching us.”
Myrna glanced over her shoulder. “He’s gone now.”
“I aim to find him and make him realize that we’d like a little privacy. Since he doesn’t seem to understand things the easy way, he’s about to have it drilled into his head the hard way.”
“You’re going to pick a fight with him?”
“I thought I’d start with a nice sucker punch to the nose.”
Myrna grabbed his arm before he could climb from the mattress.
“Don’t do this now,” she said, her tone pleading. “It will ruin our entire day. And I wanted today to be perfect for you.”
“How can it be perfect when some asshole keeps spying on us?” He was still pissed at Kev, but Brian was sort of—okay, extremely—weak when it came to refusing his wife’s requests.
“He’s gone now,” she said, ever the voice of reason. “If you catch him at it again, I won’t stand in your way.”
He knew she would change her mind when the fists started flying, but she was right. Getting into a fight and maybe getting himself arrested or thrown off the hotel property would ruin their perfect day together. He leaned back into his pillows again and tried to breathe evenly so he could cool his anger.
“I forgot to mention it last night,” Myrna said as she settled beside him and lifted the lid from her plate of poached eggs, bacon, and toasted English muffins. “His fiancée was hanging around the front desk when I was talking with the concierge. I’m not sure it was a coincidence. It seemed as if she was eavesdropping on my conversation.”
Brian shook his head in annoyance. “Do you see what you married into?” he grumbled.
She sent him a beguiling smile, her head tilted just so, and his breath caught.
“Oh, I see it all right,” she said, her eyes fixed on his.
And suddenly he didn’t give a flying fuck about his fame or people encroaching on his privacy. All he cared about was keeping a smile on this woman’s face. And punching some jerk in the nose wouldn’t make her happy. He hoped that sharing breakfast and stealing a few kisses would.
After he finished his delicious breakfast with its great view and even better company, a server took their empty dishes and left them alone. The breeze blowing in from the ocean made the white curtains billow gently, but he was still a little warm. He peeled his shirt off and tossed it on the end of the bed.
“That’s better,” he said with a contented sigh.
“I’ll say.” She knelt behind him and said, “How about a massage?”
“That sounds wonderful.”
Her touch on the bare skin of his back was soothing at first—massaging away all the tension in his muscles, driving away every care. But as was the status quo with his wife, her touch soon turned sensual as her hands began to explore his chest and belly and biceps.
He turned his head to offer her a look of faux disapproval, but the heat in her gaze lit a fire within him that would not be extinguished until he possessed her. He dragged her beneath the covers and slid her skirt up her thighs, pulling impatiently at her panties until she took mercy on him and removed them. He jerked the front of his shorts down, too impatient to remove them entirely. Like a self-conscious novice making sure every naked body part was covered, he found the slick, beckoning warmth between her thighs and buried himself deep within her. His strokes were languidly slow as he focused on the feel of her beneath him, around him, and touching places within him no one else had ever reached. This woman consumed him on so many levels. On every level. He couldn’t believe how lucky he was to have found her.
He used a rhythm that matched the waves colliding with the beach at their feet and allowed the music in his soul to enter his mind and fill his heart. He always heard music in his head when he was inside her. He’d advanced to the point where he didn’t demand she wait while he wrote the riffs and solos down on paper, or on the sheets, or even on her skin, but he still heard the notes as clearly as he had the first time they’d made love.
Myrna’s body tautened beneath him, and he claimed her lips in a deep kiss to swallow her cry of release. When her shuddering subsided and her hands loosened their grip on his back, he drew away and stared down at her as he continued to fill her with slow, deep stroke after slow, deep stroke. He took his time finding release, oblivious to everything around him but the woman in his arms and the feelings she aroused in him.
When he came, he muffled a satisfied groan against Myrna’s sweat-damp throat, his body shuddering with the intensity of his ecstasy. The strength in his arms gave out and he collapsed on top of her, smiling in bliss when she wrapped him in her arms and pulled him even closer against her.
“I don’t think we were supposed to do that here,” Myrna whispered in his ear.
“My beautiful wife on a bed on the beach? Can’t think of any other possible result with that combination.”
“It was spectacular,” she murmured. “And we didn’t have to get sand in uncomfortable places.”
“This hotel rocks,” he said, and Myrna chuckled, which made her pussy do very wonderful things to his cock still buried inside.
“Remember when I said it would ruin my life if you laughed while I was making love to you?” he asked.
“Ruin your life? That’s a little overdramatic, sweetheart.”
“Well, I lied. That feels fucking amazing. Laugh as much as you want while I’m inside you.”
She laughed again, and his belly tightened involuntarily at the strangely exciting sensation. Oh God, he needed her to do that again.
“A cow and a priest walk into a bar,” he said. “The bartender says, ‘Why the long face?’ ”
Myrna burst out laughing, sending additional ripples of delight down the length of his cock.
“I don’t think there’s a priest in that joke,” she said. “And it’s a horse that has a long face, not a cow.”
“Oh.” He shrugged. “Whatever. Just keep laughing.”
“Speaking of horses,” she said, attempting to rise from beneath him. “What time is it?”
“Tickle time.”
Tickling resulted in the desired laughter, but she also
Take Me to Paradise Page 5
