Trade

by Lane, Tabitha A

  He held himself up on his arms while she played with him, eyes closed and his lips slightly parted.

  Then she notched his cock into her warm heat, and his eyes flicked open.

  “Max.” He murmured her name, staring into her eyes, as he thrust into her. “Shit, you’re so tight. Am I hurting you?”

  He was big, and she hadn’t had a lover for a long time. “Just...” She held him in place with her hand on his butt for a moment, adjusting to his size. “Slow.”

  He withdrew almost all the way out of her, then thrust back in slowly.

  “Oh, that’s fucking magical.”

  He smiled. “Better?”

  “Better,” she agreed.

  He let his body down so that they were eye to eye, mouth to mouth, chest to chest. “Get ready for best.” He slid out, then slammed into her.

  There were noises--someone moaning, screaming, begging for more. They’re coming from me. He gripped the back of her thighs, giving her what she was demanding, thrusting into her repeatedly so fast she could barely see straight. With every thrust, he unerringly hit the bullseye, and when he let go of one of her thighs and rolled his knuckle over her clit she couldn’t hold on any more.

  “Fuck!” His mouth was everywhere, on her neck, then her jawline, then he sucked her earlobe into his mouth and bit it gently.

  She struggled for breath, feeling the wave overtake her, knowing he was close, so close. She gripped the firm globe of his butt cheek, encouraging him to slam into her. A moment before she came, she opened her eyes, and found he had done the same. A strong, true connection united more than their bodies, it seemed to link their souls.

  Without words, staring into each other’s eyes, they surrendered to the inevitable, and crested the wave together.

  *****

  While faking sex scenes for the movie, he’d acted a deep connection. Had stared into a woman’s eyes and pretended to feel deep emotion. But the reality was so much more than anything he could simulate.

  He’d been kissing her, thrusting inside her, with his eyes closed. Then he’d opened his eyes and been entranced by the sight of her face, so open, so naked in desire, and been unable to look away. When her eyes had flickered open, and her sky blue gaze connected with his, he felt a tug of an alien emotion deep inside. Possession. More than possession—connection. As though they were linked together; as though she saw the real him.

  It was both the ultimate turn-on, and utterly terrifying.

  Now they lay on the blanket, with the sky above darkening. Her head on his shoulder, and his arm wrapped around her naked torso. “Are you cold?”

  “A little.” She snuggled closer.

  His hand massaged down her ribcage, slipped around to rest on her bottom. “I’ll go fix the fire.”

  Her hand grasped his arm as he started to move. “Why don’t we crawl into your shelter instead?” She yawned. “I’m exhausted.”

  “I’ll just put some stuff away.” He pulled on his pants, and T-shirt. Screwed the top on the whisky, shook sand out of her panties, and handed them over.

  “You’re a tidy one.” She slipped into her panties.

  He tossed her dress, and she caught it in one hand.

  “We have a busy day tomorrow.” First, he’d check the lobster pot, and if he hadn’t caught anything, he’d need to fish again. Then there was the business of water collection to take care of. And they still hadn’t investigated the entire island…

  “Busy?” She’d made no move to put on her dress, and the new moonlight cast the slopes of her breasts in a silvery light.

  “What?”

  Her smile was slow and sexy. “Are you too distracted by my body to listen to my words?”

  She’d caught him staring, and he didn’t care. “Yes, I am.” He placed the bottle down on the sand and opened his arms. “Come here.”

  She walked into his arms, and his cock hardened instantly at the feel of her soft curves, her warm body. “I was asking what you meant when you said we’d be busy tomorrow.” Her hand slipped low, over his butt. “Because there’s not much to do on this island except appreciate each other.”

  “We have to find food, get water. I have to learn the script…”

  “That’s true. And really, I shouldn’t help you with any of that, you have to prove you can do it all yourself, you know.”

  “So your plan is to lie around getting a suntan and drinking whisky?”

  “Oh!” She pulled away. “That reminds me. I have one more luxury I smuggled on to the island that I guess I could share, if you don’t tell Jasper.”

  She walked across the sand and stooped to pick up her bag.

  It was impossible not to admire her curves in the pink bikini panties as she did so. “I’m enjoying appreciating you.”

  She darted a glance back at him, saw him looking, and wiggled her hips. She pulled out a bag of hard candies from the bag. “It’s sorta sticky. But sugar’s sugar.” She peeled off a wrapper. “Want one?”

  “What else did you bring?” He reached for the bag but she jerked it out of reach.

  “That’s about it.” Her face went pink, and she changed the subject quickly. “I had to bring candy. I can’t survive without it.”

  “You can have it. It’s not really my thing.”

  She popped the sweet into her mouth, closed her eyes and moaned. Good decision. Watching her indulge her sugar rush was a hell of a lot more enjoyable.

  She picked up the blanket and folded it. “Let’s go to bed.”

  *****

  When Max woke the following day, the sun was high in the sky. She was alone. She rolled over onto her side to stare out the opening in the shelter at the cerulean sky.

  Last night. Remembered images of their bodies together filled her mind, warmed her body. But a feeling of disquiet burrowed through her too. She sat up and hugged her knees.

  Her body’s reaction to him was raw and primal. She’d craved him desperately, out of control as never before. But it was the mental link forged when they stared into each other’s eyes in the throes of passion that concerned her.

  Even now, in the cold light of day, she didn’t quite know what to do with the emotion it had churned up.

  She shouldn’t be feeling attached. Shouldn’t think this was more than a stolen moment in time between two people. He’d charmed her, as he doubtless charmed every woman he slept with, but that didn’t mean there would be more—once they got back to reality, they would be over.

  She had aches in areas that hadn’t ached for a long time. And one unfamiliar ache in the center of her chest. She placed a hand flat to the area just below her neck and rubbed.

  The previous night he’d explored every inch of her body in exquisite detail. If she were in one of their apartments, she’d luxuriate in a long, hot shower, but as that wasn’t an option, the sea would have to do.

  She crawled out of the shelter, and spread her arms. There was something wonderfully liberating about being nude in paradise, but where was he? She glanced down the beach, then checked the other direction. Maybe he’d gone to the lobster pot. The water bottle lay in the shade, so she picked it up and took a long drink. Then she shoved her hands through her hair, and walked into the waves.

  If my mother could see me now she’d have a heart attack. In fact, if either of her conservative sisters could see her splashing in the water without clothing, they’d be scandalized too. A memory bloomed in her mind, when she was two or three, and had stripped off her swimming costume to splash naked in the paddling pool in the back garden. The feel of the water, the kiss of the sun, the pure enjoyment of the experience had been spoiled by the arrival of her oldest sister, Caroline, who had brought her fiancé home for the first time.

  Caroline was repressed with a capital R. Rather than bring her youngest sister a towel, and get her out of the pool, she’d shrieked to their mother that Max was naked, she’d ranted about how embarrassed she was by her sister’s behavior.

  That was the first
time Max felt shame.

  Caroline’s opinion wouldn’t have shifted an inch today. Even if Sholto hadn’t joined Max on the island, if she’d been totally alone, Caroline would have considered skinny-dipping somehow dirty.

  She walked further in. The swell of the waves lifted her body and she took her feet up and let the water cradle her. This was life. The real, honest, genuine life she wanted to live. One where she could do what she wanted without the fear of censure from disapproving eyes. Where no-one had the right to judge her for the choices she made.

  When she’d started the company, she toyed with a couple of names before deciding on Fantasies Made Real. She’d almost called it Liberation, because that was the gift she wanted to give her clients. Meeting a new client, finding out what they wanted, deep down in their soul, and helping them achieve it was a buzz her family would never understand.

  She loved them—of course she loved them. But they couldn’t love the real her, not through the layers of disapproval that colored every encounter.

  The only one who didn’t judge, who loved her unconditionally, was her father.

  She took a deep breath, and dipped her head beneath the waves. She hadn’t seen him for six months—hadn’t been able to tell him what she was doing with her life, how much her new job excited and fulfilled her.

  Dad was old. He wouldn’t last forever. When she left the island, she’d go visit.

  Chapter Ten

  The sand was hot beneath Sholto’s bare feet as he walked back to the camp. He carried the lobster pot, complete with two large crabs, and a couple of coconuts he’d collected on the way.

  When he’d woken that morning, Max had been wrapped around him like a clinging vine. Her chest pressed to his back. Her arm was slung around him, and her hand was on his stomach. He was no monk, he’d woken up with a woman before; he’d had a couple of long-term relationships—if you could call six months long-term.

  But neither of them had known as much about him as Max did.

  The first, Suzanne, had been a fellow actor who also starred in the medical soap he’d been in. They played the part of young actors breaking into Hollywood off camera, and hooking up had suited both of their careers. Being involved and working together every day made them a favorite of the gossip columnists, and they’d both shamelessly exploited the opportunities that came their way as a result. They’d gone to parties together. He’d slept over two or three times a week. She was gorgeous. She was fun. But she never wanted to know more about him than he was willing to share.

  He should have felt something when Suzanne replaced him with her new co-star leading man. Heartache, jealousy, something other than relief. But he hadn’t. So for a couple of years he played the field, had fun, and kept it light with a variety of beautiful women.

  And then there’d been Ophelia. Old Hollywood royalty. Her father was a Director, just like his father before him. And Ophelia was a bright, new rising star in the directing firmament. He hadn’t known who she was when she kissed him, open-mouthed, on the stroke of New Year two years ago. But mellowed by whisky, and appreciative of her exotic beauty and curves, he’d responded with enthusiasm, and put up no resistance when she handed him her room key.

  They’d dated for a couple of months—a couple of crazy months. Role-play was her thing, and he’d been into it for a while, until it got out of hand. She’d wanted him to be moody. Wanted him passionate. But when she started to call him Marco, and had slapped him a couple of times during sex, his passion had cooled pretty damned quick.

  Digging deeper, she’d confessed that the moment she saw him, she’d known he would be perfect for the edgy role of a tortured gangster in her latest production. It was a great role, but not one he wanted to live in real life.

  When he’d walked out, it had been to the accompanying crash of plates hitting the wall close to his head.

  So when he woke that morning with a throbbing hard-on, he fought against the urge to kiss her awake and have spectacular morning sex, undraped Max’s arm, and escaped. The memory of her face as she came filled his mind and kept him hard as he stacked wood for the fire. He went to the stream to replenish their water supplies, his mind filled with mental pictures of her standing nude in the clear water. They’d fucked every conceivable way the previous night, but the hunger hadn’t abated, if anything it had intensified.

  He couldn’t even look at the jackfruit tree without remembering how sexy her tits looked from above.

  When all the chores were done, he’d looked in on her sleeping form, and once again resisted the urge to climb back in there and wake her with his tongue and his teeth.

  Because wanting her was dangerous.

  She knew the real him from their days together in school. They’d been friends, once upon a time, before he fucked it up.

  And for years, he thought she’d asked him to go to the dance with her because she was attracted to him, when the truth was she was just being a friend, trying to save him from humiliation—humiliation he’d delivered to her instead.

  He was in danger of forgetting the mission. Or rather his cock seemed to have decided on a new mission—that of burying itself in Max at every possible opportunity—and the rest of him was fast joining the revolt. So he’d backed up and gone for a run on the beach.

  Today he needed to get away from her to concentrate on the script. He needed to try and get into character, put himself into the head of John Weatherly, and feel what he had felt finding himself alone on the island. He needed to prepare for his next role, rather than living the desire and turbulent emotion of his last one. But, fuck, the way she’d been last night.

  So hot, so loving, so giving. Responsive to his every touch.

  He’d wanted her so damned much, he’d been sure that having her would take the edge off, would make it easier to be around her without needing to touch her, to taste her.

  But boy, did he have that wrong. If anything, knowing how she looked in the throes of passion just made him long to see her like that again.

  The shelter was in view; surely she was awake by now. He scratched the prickle of new stubble on his jaw, and glanced across the beach, noting a track of footprints leading into the water.

  His heart stopped.

  “Max!” He dropped everything, and ran to the body floating facedown in the waves.

  *****

  Max went from floating in the water, peering through the depths, her fingers reaching for a pretty pink shell, to full-blown panic as something gripped hard at her waist and propelled her to the surface.

  Too many years, watching too many shark movies, had her reacting instinctively, lashing out at her attacker with fists and feet. It was only when the grip on her waist tightened, and she collided with a warm, very human body, that the truth registered.

  Not a shark.

  Relief was instantly replaced by anger. “What the hell?” She managed to get her feet onto the sea floor and pushed Sholto with all her force. “What are you doing, you idiot!”

  “Me?” His eyes glinted. The overtight jawline notched a fraction tighter. “Get out of the water.” Not content to just tell her, he grabbed her wrist and pulled her from the waves.

  “You’re hurting me.” She tugged against his iron grip.

  Sholto’s gaze fell to her wrist, and he loosened his fingers. He forced his fingers through his tousled hair. His shoulders relaxed and his mouth twisted. “I thought you were dead. Or drowning.”

  “I was neither of those things. Until you attacked me.”

  “Attack?” His hands stretched open, gesturing in the air in front of him wildly. “I was not fucking attacking you, I was saving you.”

  “Saving me from picking up a shell.”

  His gaze swept her, making her acutely aware of her nakedness, and that fact that he was fully dressed. With as much grace as she could muster, she crossed her arms, and strode up to the shelter.

  He followed, like a brooding, black thundercloud ready to rain on her picnic.


  She slipped on her bikini panties and pulled her dress over her head, taking the opportunity to ignore him and let her adrenaline rush subside. She’d never been so scared in her entire life. But he’d thought she was in trouble. She should go easy on…

  “Were you playing a trick on me?”

  She swung around, eyes wide. “You cannot be fucking serious.” Max planted her hands on her hips. “I didn’t even know you were within shouting distance. And I don’t play games—especially oh-look-I’m-dead-games. I can’t believe you just said that.”

  “Well maybe I don’t know what you might do.” He wasn’t as furious as before, but the expression on his face could still only be described as a glower.

  “I don’t have anything to apologize for.”

  A dark eyebrow edged upward. “I don’t have anything to apologize for either.”

  “You frightened me.”

  “You frightened me first.”

  They squared off opposite each other like gunfighters. Max took a step back and looked away. Did he really think she was the sort of person who would play a trick like that on a man, for laughs? Or worse, to get a reaction? He must have known some pretty twisted women.

  He must have known a lot of women.

  She’d spent the morning having soft-focus lustful daydreams in which he played a starring role. A man she really didn’t know very well at all. She’d thought she knew him when they were teenagers, and she’d been wrong then too. The attempted rescue had been shocking, but the discussion after it was another type of rescue.

  Rescuing her before she made a complete and utter fool of herself again by thinking there was any more than hot sex between them.

  She spotted his lobster pot on the beach, next to a couple of coconuts. “Did you catch something?” She pitched her voice casual, calm and vaguely friendly.

  He gave her a disbelieving look.

  She forced a smile.