by S. M. Butler
Turned out Cabo sucked on a broken heart.
Now she wanted to ask him about his family, but it could wait until they were alone again.
“This is pretty nice,” he said, nudging her knee with his. He’d put on a t-shirt for the boat ride. She’d insist he take it off as soon as they landed. She liked half-naked Vince the best.
“Yeah. Better than any of the bases I was ever stationed at.”
“You don’t miss the army?”
She glared at him through her sunglasses. Had he not picked up on her plan to wait for some privacy before talking? And when they had that privacy, it would be him they were talking about. Not her. She wasn’t the one on the hot seat this weekend.
“All right, that’s off limits.” He grinned. “What do you want to talk about?”
“Who said I wanted to talk?”
He slid his leg against hers, the crisp hair on his calf raising goose bumps on her skin as it stirred her thoughts about hair elsewhere on his body. He was pure masculine energy, large and intense. And he wanted to talk. What a waste of that body. Although he’d made it clear that he wanted to get naked together, too. After they talked.
Ugh.
She needed to remind herself that she wanted information, too. But then he touched her, and she got all distracted by memories and fantasies, in equal measure.
He shrugged at her silent treatment and stood up, unaffected by the fact that the boat was rocketing through the water at some serious speed—he should wobble or something. Instead he just prowled to where Jackson stood, piloting them across the waves.
Which gave her a front-row seat for admiring the view. She’d made fun of her co-workers, but standing next to Vince, she could acknowledge that Jackson was a big, good-looking man.
He didn’t hold a candle to the liquid sex that seeped from Vince’s every pore, though. Her mouth watered as she traced her gaze up his tight calves, to the shorts that sadly disguised his powerful thighs, but—thank heavens—did cup his very tight, very fine bottom. That ass.
Unf. It was a solid twenty seconds before Larken realized she’d twisted her own legs together and bit down hard enough on her lip that she’d probably left a mark.
And it wasn’t like she could even pretend that he was just a pretty face, or that he’d be selfish when it came to sex.
Nope, if anything, he was guaranteed to rock her world.
Sex with Vince of old had been fun. For a nineteen-year-old, he’d been a pretty attentive lover. What would have changed in the last twelve years?
Maybe that he’d become a mind reader, because he glanced back over his shoulder at her and her cheeks went up in flames.
“What are you thinking about over there?” He flashed her that slow, sexy grin that said he knew exactly what was on her mind.
She really needed to stop staring at his ass.
But time had been exceptionally good to him. Vince was even more beautiful now than he’d been as a fresh-faced recruit.
When he shrugged and turned away, like he knew she wasn’t ever going to answer that question, she sighed. Then he pulled off his shirt, and the regretful noise turned into a long, slow, appreciative flutter of breath that did nothing to calm her visceral reaction to the height and breadth of him. All that delicious skin, dusted here and there in black hair, and decorated to perfection with inky black tattoos. Muscles that made hills and valleys she wanted to trace with her fingers and tongue. That she already had serious plans for once they landed, if she was being honest.
Larken never made a practice of being honest—with herself, or anyone else.
And now she was sighing and being a total girl over his muscles.
The man was as infuriating as her stupid ovaries.
She closed her eyes and leaned her head back again, letting the spray from the ocean cool her over-heated skin.
*
Larken hadn’t said a single word since they got on the boat. In the forty minutes it took them to navigate down the chain of islands to their destination, she’d alternately ignored him and given him what he assumed were dirty looks from behind her sunglasses.
He couldn’t remember a time he’d ever been quite so turned on by silence.
Jackson had warned him there wasn’t really a dock at the island, so Vince slipped off his shoes and tucked them into the side of his ruck.
As soon as Jackson had the boat stopped as close as he could get, Vince leaped into the water, his feet finding easy purchase on the sandy bottom. He looped his ruck over his arm, then grabbed the picnic basket, freeing a hand which he held out for Larken. She just rolled her eyes at him and jumped on her own, holding her bag above her head.
“Difficult woman,” he muttered as she jogged past him, splashing him not-so-accidentally with the warm, salty water.
“Stubborn, backwards man,” she called over her shoulder.
He’d never been one to insist on being chivalrous, but Larken made him want to pull out chairs and hold doors open. Oh, the painful irony that she’d never appreciate that.
“I was just trying to be nice,” he muttered.
Apparently his voice carried further than he thought, because she stopped as soon as she got to the beach and held out her hand.
“Just being nice,” she mocked, a twinkle in her eye like she was begging to be spanked.
Jackson powered up the boat and pulled away from the island, sending a wave of water in their direction. Vince stared at her hand as the ocean lapped up his legs, soaking the bottom of his shorts a bit more. Didn’t matter. He planned to take them off soon enough, anyway.
He took her hand to make a point, and together they walked onto the beach.
“Come on,” she said, tugging him in the obvious direction, toward where the brush cut away to a path.
“Wait.” He tugged her back. Now that he had her hand, he was going to use that to his advantage. “We’re alone.”
“We were alone last night and at breakfast,” she pointed out.
She wasn’t wrong. “And both times we kissed. So my dick thinks we’re going to do that again.”
She glanced down his body. “Seriously?”
“You didn’t like the gentleman routine. So I thought I’d go for crude honesty.”
That got him a laugh, and a big grin spreading across her pretty face. Score. “Okay. For your dick.”
He lifted their clasped hands and kissed her knuckles, then up her arm. The whole time she laughed at him. That was just fine by him.
“I like you laughing,” he murmured as he reached her lips. “It’s a gorgeous sound.”
She leaned in to kiss him, and the hot puff of her breath almost caught him. Almost.
“Hang on,” he whispered, dropping his bag in the sand. He reached out and nudged her sunglasses off her nose and up onto her head. He winked at her narrowing eyes. “That’s better.”
“You like stripping me bare, don’t you?”
“Uhhh…”
She grinned. “Two can play the crude game.”
He had to take a deep breath to keep himself from yelling at her. There was fun teasing, and then there was…
Damn it. He hauled her against him, kissing her instead of yelling, because the boundaries she had were so engrained, she wouldn’t be able to stop herself. And they weren’t that thick, actually. He just needed to storm through them and there she was, his Larken, with her soft mewling sounds and her wet, eager mouth.
“I do like peeling away the layers and getting to the real you,” he said roughly, once her lips were swollen and she was breathing hard. “That’s what this little side trip is all about.”
“I thought it was about learning to play nicely together?”
He gripped her gently by the upper arms and nudged her nose with his. Her blue eyes glittered like the sea, and he swallowed back the instinct to get lost in them. To kiss her again and again until their twenty-four hours were up, Jackson came back to get them, and they could keep fighting and hopefully f
ucking and never deal with any of this.
“Larken, I got off the boat yesterday and fell back in time a dozen years. I don’t know why we didn’t find each other again sooner. I wish to hell we had. I’m sorry—so fucking sorry—that I never reached out to you. But I’m standing here in front of you saying… Hey. It’s you. Holy shit. How’ve you been?” He shook his head. “And you’re throwing shade at me all over the place. So, no. We’re not going to learn to play nice together. We’re going to actually get to know each other again, or I’m going head off into the sunset and look for another job elsewhere.”
It was probably a lie. He didn’t know what he’d do if she didn’t let him in, so he probably shouldn’t have said anything just yet—a point she wasted no time in throwing back at him.
“Whoa,” she said, glowering at him. “So if it’s not easy-breezy, you’re just going to walk?”
“That’s not what I said.”
“That’s what I heard. I’m not surprised, but still—”
“Why aren’t you surprised?”
Her delicate brow wrinkled as she looked at him like he was an idiot. “Because you left me once before.”
“I was nineteen!”
“So?”
“It was twelve years ago!”
“So?”
“We were just fooling around.”
“Sure.”
His head was going to explode. “Weren’t we?”
“You fell dark pretty fast, so yeah, I guess we were.”
He was really regretting the fact that they’d just been dumped on this godforsaken island—a regret she’d promised, he reflected grimly. “How long are you going to punish me for the sins of my teenage self?”
“Well, since I didn’t get a chance to punish you for them at the time, I think somewhere between twenty-four hours and however long it took to get over my bruised heart the first time.”
He’d been wrong to think her eyes were glittering before. Now they were like sapphires, all sharp cuts and watery depths. He’d bet his parents’ truck stop—the only thing he owned of any value—that she wouldn’t cry, but that didn’t mean she didn’t have unshed tears locked deep behind those gorgeous dark blonde lashes furiously not blinking up at him. His teenage self had been a fucking asshole, and maybe he deserved this punishment.
“I bruised your heart?” Damn it, did his voice just crack?
“Yeah.” She squared her jaw at him, hard to do in a heart-shaped face, but she managed somehow. Tough as nails. “You weren’t the last, don’t worry. Most of this damage is another asshole’s fault. Your bad luck that you just stumbled across it again.”
“Shit.” He stroked his hands up and down her arms, feeling useless for a second, then he pulled her in close. His mom used to say, “hugs are always good,” and so far, that advice seemed to be holding true. They were working a damn sight better than words, anyway. “I’m sorry, cariño.”
“Yeah, well…just don’t push. Okay?”
“No, not really. But okay for now.” He cleared his throat and kissed the top of her head. “You want to show me around this magical island of mystery and delight?”
“Sure.” She pulled away, but he wasn’t ready to let her go yet.
He yanked her back. “Another minute.”
She wrapped her arms around his waist. They fit together perfectly like this, her tall, slim frame folded inside his even-taller one.
She took a deep breath and patted his chest as if to say, calm down, big guy. He did, smiling at her as she stepped back. She pointed to their bags. “Can you carry both of those and the basket?”
“Sure.” He picked up both bags in one hand, swinging them over his shoulder. “Why?”
She grinned and pulled off her t-shirt, flinging that at him. He leaped forward to catch it in his free hand. “Because I felt like stripping down, that’s why.”
“Is this a naked island?” He could get behind that rule.
“Sure is,” she said, catching her lower lip between straight, white teeth.
Vince watched, dry-mouthed, as Larken twisted her long, willowy arms behind her head and pulled the string holding her bikini top around her neck.
Chapter Six
‡
Larken hadn’t meant to start striping down, but now that she was doing it, and Vince’s eyes were burning up as he watched…it felt good. Freeing.
A fresh, naked start for them.
She let the strings fall loose over her shoulders, catching her bikini top with her arm, holding it up as she blocked her breasts from his gaze.
Turning, she lazily reached the other arm to her back and pulled the other string, then waved the top in the air as she took off, running ahead of him on the sandy path.
The island had denser forest on the far side, but on this end, it was just a slight hill up to a plateau, where there was a small, empty cabin. They’d sleep there tonight. Or maybe on the wood platform on the far side of the clearing, built for who knows what reason. They could stare up at the night sky and tell each other all that had passed over the last dozen years.
Can you tell him you slept with a married man?
She hadn’t known. It didn’t make the guilt any easier to bear.
Their bags thudded on the ground a second before his dry, calloused hands slid around her naked waist and pulled her back against his front.
“Gotcha,” he whispered as he stroked to her bare breasts, his palms teasing her nipples with the lightest of rubs before he squeezed. “Oh, God. Larken.”
“Yes,” she breathed. Yes, hold me. Love me. Don’t ever let me go. No, talking would be a mistake. She’d say foolish things. She scrambled for something safe. “Touch me.”
“I’m going to do more than touch you.” He pressed his face hard into the back of her neck, nipping at her skin. “I’m going to devour you. I’m going to make you scream my name. I want you on your knees for me, sucking me deep. I want to bury my face between your legs, and I want to fuck you so hard they hear you on the next island.”
“Yes, all of that. Please.”
“Where?”
She blinked. Oh. Right. He hadn’t been here before. “The cabin is clean. Or that platform is pretty splinter free.” Her breath hitched as he kissed her neck, open-mouthed, hot and demanding. “There’s a path that way, I think there are some logs and rocks…”
“Cabin.”
The parts of her body she foolishly hadn’t applied sunscreen to appreciated his consideration.
“Faster, Larken.” He bit back a curse and lifted her in the air.
“Hey, our bags!” she protested.
“They can wait.”
“Mine has condoms in it.”
He set her down and she scampered ahead to the small cabin, kicking open the door in case any birds had gotten inside. None had. It looked as clean and dry as on her first visit to the island with Calli a few months earlier.
“You packed condoms?” He growled from behind her, and she turned around.
She worked at the button on her jean shorts. “And you didn’t?”
“Of course I did. I’ve wanted to get inside you since the second you lifted those sunglasses yesterday.”
“So crass,” she teased, sliding her shorts down her legs. That left her wearing just a skimpy pair of bikini bottoms. A terrible imbalance. “Strip.”
“Come over here and help me.” He grinned, but she didn’t need to be asked—or ordered—twice. Get her hands all over his body? Yes, please.
Her breath caught as she stepped closer. From across the clearing, across the room, she could be playful. Up close, where his dark brown eyes saw all of her and his brows drew heavy as he obviously breathed her in…up close, it was intense. Good. But real.
Very, very real. She blinked up at him, memorizing the soft lines of his face. The straight bow of his lips. His nose, strong and proud. Those eyes. Dark. Piercing.
His jaw, covered in a few days of dark stubble now. She leaned in as she slid her h
ands under his shirt and breathed the barest of kisses against his cheek.
“Stop teasing, woman.” His growl made her wet. His scent tightened her nipples to razor-sharp tips, and, as she softened her mouth and licked down his neck, the taste of him made her thighs shake.
“I’m not teasing,” she whispered. “I’m re-learning every inch of your body. And you will be patient, or I will punish you.”
“Take your time.” His strained words pleased her immensely, and she gripped his chin, pulling his mouth to hers so she could kiss him.
His tongued lashed against hers, but he stood there and took her gentle onslaught. She broke off long enough to tug his shirt over his head, then her lips found his again. Light, just sipping. An erotic connection, filament-thin and stronger than anything. It took her breath away.
“Was it like this before for us?” she asked, barely aware she’d said it out loud, and he shook his head.
“I don’t know,” his ragged response came, shaking in the air around them, as she traced over his chest, her fingers swirling along the black ink, then the equally dark hair circling his tight brown nipples. “Jesus, Larken. You’re killing me.”
She dropped to her knees, his t-shirt beneath her, and watched as his stomach pulled tight, defining all the ridges and bumps of his abdomen. Licking a path across his taut belly, around his navel, she let herself be led by the narrowing line of dark hair to his button, and the heavy erection thrusting against his fly.
She cupped his length through his shorts, making him hiss above her. His hands waved in the air for a second before settling on her head. Yes, she thought to herself. Need this. Need my mouth on your cock. Make me suck you. It was so primal, such an elemental connection, and she knew she’d never had it before. Not with David. Not with Vince the first time. And not with the handful of men in between them.
Now, though. Now she had it. They had it.
She looked up at Vince and he cupped her cheek. “So beautiful,” he groaned, this thumb swiping across her lower lip. “God, your mouth.”
