As she helped to lug fallen tree limbs and branches around the property, she continued to try and analyze her screwed-up emotions. How could she not feel the way she was feeling when she’d oohed and aahed over pictures of him as a newborn and from a few years ago with both his cousins and aunts—and even some of the photos he had laying around his vacation home. She knew things about him like that he was a math whiz at age six. His first crush was on Janet Jackson, and his first pet was a turtle named Speedy. Hell, she even knew odd things like he hated peas and spinach, could eat grilled cheese sandwiches until he barfed and hated when people pronounced the “l” in salmon.
It had been easy to make up new stories about their brief courtship and marriage when everyone was so willing to provide such rich background details about the man she claimed to love—or could see herself loving.
Maybe I have lost it.
That was a disturbing thought. Then again, how did people know when they were going crazy? Or maybe the fear of going crazy was enough to drive someone crazy. Too bad there wasn’t something like an at-home test kit on the market so she could check these things.
“Did you know that your nose sort of wrinkles up when you’re thinking too hard?” Hylan said, appearing out of nowhere as usual.
“What?” She glanced around and saw that everyone was calling it a day.
Hylan jammed his hands into his pants pockets and smiled down at her. “You know you’re right. You are a hard worker.”
She flashed him a half smile. “Thanks.”
“Nah. I mean it. I don’t know if you were trying to impress me or you had something to prove to these tree branches.”
“I certainly wasn’t trying to impress you.”
Hylan hiked one brow. “Now why don’t I believe that?”
“You really are an egomaniac, aren’t you?”
“And you’re the prettiest liar I’ve ever met—but that and a nickel will get us exactly where we are—having this ridiculous conversation.”
“Well, please. Don’t let me keep you,” she tried to storm around him, but his hand whipped out of his pocket and wrapped around her waist so fast that it damn near gave her whiplash.
“Ah, ah, ah. Not so fast, sweetheart,” he said, laughing. “There’s no way I’m going to let you paint me as the bad guy when we get our divorce.”
“Excuse me?” She blinked up at him.
“Well, I’ve got to tell them something when you leave,” he said simply. “Clearly I can’t expose you as a liar now that I’ve been playing along, now can I?”
“I don’t believe this,” she said shaking her head.
“What? You started this. Are you saying now that you’d rather tell everyone the truth?” Before she could answer, he whipped his head around. “Hey, Mahina! Can you come here for a minute? There’s something Nikki would like to tell you.”
Nikki panicked and tugged on his arm. “What? Wait! What are you doing?”
“Here I come, baby,” Mahina called back.
Hylan frowned. “I thought you wanted to come clean.”
“I didn’t say that,” she hissed. “Never mind, Momma Mahina. Hylan was just playing.”
“No I—”
Nikki jumped onto her toes and slapped a hand over Hylan’s mouth. “All right. You win. Shut up.” She could feel his smile under the palm of her hand.
Hylan pulled her hand down. “Never mind, Mahina!”
Nikki shook her head. “I don’t think I like you.”
“No? Word around town is that you looove me.” He drew her up against his body. “Now you shut up and kiss me.”
“What?”
“And make it good. Everyone is watching.”
Nikki glanced out of the side of her eyes and saw that they did have a captive audience. Pushing her pride aside, she wrapped her arms around his neck and laid it on him. But she must’ve forgotten just how intoxicating Hylan’s lips were. Within seconds every thought in her head faded away while her body tingled and quivered as if she’d just plugged into an electrical socket.
Their audience broke into spontaneous applause. Rafiq added a few whoops and whistles, but none of that fazed Hylan and Nikki. Their mouths and tongues explored one another with a fever neither had experienced before. When their lips finally pulled apart, they gazed into each other’s eyes as if truly seeing each other for the first time. And what they saw scared the hell out of them.
Chapter 9
Later that evening, Nikki and Hylan returned home to a tomb of silence. It was appropriate since the fake husband and wife hadn’t uttered a word to each other since their very public display of affection. Both knew that they needed to talk about what happened, but right now they needed to get their thoughts together. They retreated to their separate bedrooms and then separate showers.
Standing under a hot stream of water, Hylan tried to remember the last time he’d met someone as complex and fascinating as this woman that was masquerading as his wife. She was surely one of the most beautiful. Today she had worked and toiled with what looked like little to no makeup and she could still easily put models he’d dated or seen on fashion magazine covers to shame. Maybe it was that quirky personality of hers that made her scared and vulnerable one minute and then strong and sassy the next.
Maybe the woman is just bipolar, he reasoned. But she sure in the hell can kiss. That was for damn sure. The first couple of times, he thought it was a fluke. But this last time had him really rethinking a few things. Like, he wouldn’t mind getting to know her better. And why not? He was on vacation. He could use some company.
Hylan started warming up to this line of thinking. What would it really hurt if this small corner of the world thought he was married? They had for the past eighteen months anyway. What was a couple of more weeks? He smiled to himself as he started scrubbing his chest.
In the master bathroom, Nikki was thinking the complete opposite. She needed to swallow her pride and call her baby sister to ask for a plane ticket back home. No doubt about it, she had bitten off more than she could chew in dealing with Hylan Dawson. The man had her thinking about things she had never thought about before and feeling things she never felt before—which was still crazy, right?
Yet, she was reluctant to leave. She had come to love this house, the friends she had made and even the fantasy she’d created in her mind. She stopped scrubbing her body to think about that.
Unfortunately she stood there thinking too long, because while she had conditioner in her hair and soap lathered on her body, the water went from piping hot to ice cold in the blink of an eye. “Oh, shit. Shit.” She scrambled, trying to get out of the shower, but not before a few icicles stabbed her in the back. “Good Lord.” She snatched a towel from the counter and quickly wrapped it around her shivering body.
When she rushed out of the bathroom, she was assaulted by a cold blast that raised an entire league of goose bumps over her body. She knew exactly what the problem was. The damn pilot light had gone out on the water heater again. Rafiq had promised her that he’d fixed it. But, as usual, whatever Rafiq fixed stayed broken.
Soaking wet, she rushed down two flights of stairs to reach the basement. At the door, she remembered to grab a metal pipe she kept against the wall to jimmy the door. Without it, the door would shut closed and lock from the outside. That was something else Rafiq was supposed to fix. The concrete floor was freezing as she raced toward the water heater and confirmed that the light was indeed out. “Ah, damn it.” She pivoted around and went over to an old wooden desk across the room where she knew she kept a box of matches.
“Come on, baby. Light up,” she begged as she struck the match and turned the control knob. Just before she placed it up to the burner, the basement door burst open and Hylan stormed into the room. His attire matched her own—wet skin and a single towel, hugging his hips. Nikki just barely registered the clang of the metal pipe, before the door started to swing close. “Catch the door,” she shouted.
Hylan j
erked around and grabbed for the door, but grasped air instead as the door shut with a loud bang. He tried again and clasped the metal knob where he pulled and tugged. But it was no use. It was locked.
Nikki groaned but then the small flame in her hand burned her fingers and she dropped the match. “Please. Please. Don’t say we’re locked in here,” she begged, jumping to her feet and running over to the door.
Hylan swore under his breath as he turned away, but Nikki kept pulling and tugging in a fit of denial.
“No. No. No. How are we going to get out of here?” she cried.
“Calm down.” Hylan exhaled a long breath, but then started to look around. “There’s got to be another way out of here.”
Nikki finally gave up and collapsed against the door. “There isn’t,” she groaned. “Believe me. I know.”
Hylan turned and looked at her. “You’ve been trapped down here before?”
Nikki lowered her face into her hands and groaned, “Twice.”
There was a long stretch of silence while the severity of their situation settled in. “So…we’re trapped in here?”
She nodded.
“Together?” he said for further clarification.
Nikki dropped her hands and glared up at him. “Yes, Einstein. We are trapped down here together—until somebody notices we’re missing and comes looking for us. Is that clear enough for you or do you need me to draw a picture?”
“All right. No need to get testy,” he said, determined to remain calm. But when he started thinking just how long it could be before anyone thought to come and look for them, his chest tightened with anxiety. “What’s the longest you’ve been down here?”
“Three days,” she croaked.
Hylan needed to sit down. With half the island thinking that they needed time to reunite after being separated for so long they could easily be down here a week or two. “This is not happening.” He shot back over to the door.
Nikki had just barely scrambled out of the way when he started banging away. “Hey, anybody out there! We’re stuck down here!” Bang! Bang! Bang!
“Now who’s crazy? Who are you yelling at? There’s nobody here in the house but us.”
Bang! Bang! Bang!
“Hello!”
“Hell, maybe we both need straightjackets,” Nikki concluded, walking back over to the water heater and grabbing the box of matches she’d discarded.
Hylan turned away from the door and eyed her wearily. “What are you doing?”
“Finishing what I came down here to do. It’s either that or help you shout at imaginary people.”
“You’re a regular comedian. Maybe you should give up being a playwright and try out for Last Comic Standing or something.”
“Ha-ha.”
“Oh. I forgot. You get stage fright.”
“What?”
Hylan clamped his mouth shut, realizing that he had said too much. “Nothing. I’m just…frustrated,” he admitted before kneeling in front of the door.
“What? You’re going to start praying now?”
“Ha-ha. You’re on a roll tonight.” He ran a finger around the doorknob. “No. I’m trying to check out the screws on this thing. There’s gotta be some tools down here, right? We can just take the whole knob off and…voila!”
“Tools are outside in the shed where they always are.”
Hylan dropped his head. “After getting trapped down here twice you didn’t think to keep something down here to make sure that you didn’t get stuck again?”
“Yes. That was what the metal pipe was for. You’re the one who barged in here and knocked it loose.”
“I came to see why the shower turned into Antarctica,” he reasoned as he climbed back up onto his feet. “Forgive me since I didn’t know that I needed to be watchful of a metal pipe jimmying the door.”
“Well now you know.” She drew in a deep breath and rolled her eyes. “Look. I don’t want to fight. I’m cold. I’m tired. I’m wet.”
Hylan snickered.
“Nice.” Nikki folded her arms. “Get your head out of the gutter.”
He held up his hands. “Sorry.”
Nikki lit the pilot light, stood and tightened the towel across her chest before moving back over to the old desk. The basement temperature was a concern. Her hair was already feeling like a curtain of ice.
“Are you okay?” he asked, genuinely concerned.
She nodded as she eased up on the corner of the desk and hugged her arms around her. “I’m just a little cold, that’s all."
Hylan glanced around in search of something to keep her warm and then down at his own towel.
“Don’t even think about it,” she warned.
“I was just trying to be a gentleman.”
“Sure you were.” Nikki laughed, but in the back of her mind she was beyond curious to see what he had hidden under that towel. With that chest, those abs and powerful legs, she had no reason to doubt that his entire body wasn’t a work of art.
“Looks like my mind isn’t the only one in the gutter,” he said.
She realized that he’d caught her staring and looked away. She tensed when Hylan strolled over and sat on the desk beside her. He smelled wonderful, like sandalwood and musk. Trying to be inconspicuous, Nikki closed her eyes and inhaled softly.
“It’s specially made,” he said.
Her eyes sprang back open. “What?”
“The soap,” he said, smiling. “You were sniffing me, weren’t you?”
“Was not,” she protested too loudly.
He tossed up his hands and rolled his eyes. “Ookay.” Clearly, he didn’t believe her.
“You’re impossible.”
He smirked. “By the way, you smell nice, too.”
Nikki shook her head. “Are you always so confident?”
“Pretty much.” He reached over and pushed back her hair.
Nikki shivered, but she didn’t think that it had anything to do with the cold. Their eyes locked and that same electrical current came roaring back. For so long, she had stared at pictures of this man. They didn’t hold a candle to the real thing.
“Do I make you nervous?”
“Who said I was nervous? I’m not nervous.”
A low laugh rumbled through his chest. “Liar.”
She thrust her chin up. “Am not.”
“So it doesn’t bother you when I do this?” His large but incredibly soft hands moved from her hair to her cold cheek where he seem to content himself with caressing for a long moment.
Nikki shivered. “No.”
Hylan laughed again. “Why do you fascinate me so much?”
Don’t fall for this, a tiny voice warned her. The man is used to women falling at his feet.
“When we kiss,” he whispered, staring at her mouth. “I’ve never felt anything like it before.”
Don’t believe him. This is what he does. Stay tough. Hang in there. But it was hard not to believe him, because she had been feeling the same way. Her head wanted to believe it was just a figment of her imagination, but her heart wasn’t buying it. There was definitely something happening between them and it was more powerful than anything she’d ever known.
When the moment was right for him to lean in and kiss her, he instead lowered his hand and pulled away. “Sorry. I don’t know what’s gotten into me,” he said. “One minute I want to throttle you and the next minute I want to make love to you.”
Nikki’s heart quickened at his confession. He wants to make love to me. The very idea tickled and thrilled her. Mainly because she suspected that making love to him would last a helluva lot longer than a couple of minutes. In fact, she was willing to bet everything she had, granted it wasn’t much, that Hylan could do things to her body that she’d only read about in books.
“I bet you have this effect on a lot of guys,” he guessed. “Men are always suckers for a damsel in distress.”
She cocked her head as her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Is that why you didn’t
tell everybody I’m a fraud? You think I’m a damsel in distress?”
“You are, aren’t you?”
Nikki wanted to deny it, but this was one lie she couldn’t get off the tip of her tongue so she cheated a bit. “Maybe.”
Seeing her pride return in the stubborn set of her jaw, Hylan added, “I also did it because I like you.”
She glanced at him from the corner of her eyes. “Really?”
He leaned closer. “I already told you that you fascinate me.” His hand lifted and caressed her chin. “And I would be lying now if I said that I didn’t want to kiss you again.”
Nikki’s heart leapt so high, she nearly choked on it. And when his head started descending, her stomach muscles flopped so loud, she was sure that people in China heard them. When his lips were just inches away from hers, he stopped and gazed into her eyes.
“May I?”
No way could she talk with her heart in her throat, so she just nodded her head and waited for the fireworks. She didn’t have to wait long.
Chapter 10
Nikki hadn’t intended to make love to Hylan. It sort of just happened.
One moment she was sitting on the desk, moaning and quivering as his tongue explored her mouth and then the next moment that damn towel fell open. At least that’s what she thinks happened. She wasn’t too sure since her head grew hazy and her thoughts slowed. When Hylan’s soft lips pulled away and he glanced down at her full breasts and erect nipples, his dark eyes sparkled with undeniable desire.
“Damn. You’re so beautiful,” he groaned, cupping her firm D-cups and giving them a gentle squeeze.
She moaned and closed her eyes.
“Your skin is so soft,” he said, sounding fascinated. He stroked her breasts a few times before his fingers zeroed in on pinching her hard nipples.
“Ooh.” Her head fell back, exposing her long neck.
Hylan recognized an invitation when he saw one and leaned down to plant kisses on the line of her jaw all the way down to her sensitive collarbone. Kissing her was like finding the golden ticket to the chocolate factory. She tasted that damn sweet. What he really longed for was the taste of her caramel-tipped nipples. So much so that his stomach growled with hunger pangs.
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