The Castaway Bride

by Kandy Shepherd

  But, dammit, he couldn’t say the words. He just couldn’t. His own fears and emotional inhibitions gagged him. Instead he cleared his throat. Spoke more brusquely than he intended. “Yeah, well, we have to. Have to let people know where we are.”

  Disappointment dimmed her eyes. Then she masked it with a stiff smile.

  He cursed himself. Where was that damn white charger when he needed it? He could do with some knightly encouragement on the right thing to say to say to win the fair lady.

  Abruptly he opened the matchbox. Fumbled with the matches. Tried to strike one. Then another. Damn. What was the matter with him?

  “Here, let me try,” she said, taking the box from him with hands that were not quite steady either.

  She struck a match and lit the base of the fire. It took immediately, little flames licking at the kindling and then whooshing bigger until all the wood was being consumed.

  “A darn good fire, even if I do say so myself,” she said. But he knew it took an effort for her to make her voice sound normal.

  “We had to light it, Cristy. Otherwise we wouldn’t be able to… to cook the fish I’m going to catch.”

  Damn! That wasn’t at all what he’d wanted to say.

  “Sure. Of course. And people might be worried where we are. After all, I left a whole wedding party behind and you, well, Jake will be missing you. Can’t leave a dog for too long.”

  Her voice was light-hearted but she didn’t meet his eyes as she spoke. She went to put the matches back in the panic bag and a packet of condoms fell out.

  She laughed a short, nervous laugh. “You know I visited a condom factory once. In Alabama. When I was working from the New York office. I hadn’t been in the job long and the guys must have thought it a joke to send me there on one of my first assignments. To check out the company for our investors. The factory’s closed now. Most of the world’s condoms are made in Sri Lanka. Or Malaysia. Near to the latex sources.”

  He’d noticed before how she tended to chatter on when she was nervous. He was nervous too, dammit. The white charger thing was all in his mind. The reality was that he became so tongue-tied when it came to emotion he just couldn’t get the words out. But he was going to try again.

  He took the condoms and put them back into the bag. He put his hands on her shoulders and turned her to face him. “Your job sounds interesting.”

  “It is,” she said, still not meeting his gaze. “I’ve got the inside news on quite a few of the big companies.”

  Silence fell between them. A long, uncomfortable silence.

  He tilted her chin up so she had to face him. “Cristy… I’m sorry.”

  She met his gaze squarely. “There’s nothing to be sorry about, Matt. I know we’re not talking tomorrows here. Just right now for as long as it lasts.”

  He could address a boardroom of cutthroat executives with ease, negotiate with unions and come out looking the good guy. But finding the words to explain his feelings to this special woman was a no go. “Cristy, that’s not what I—”

  She kissed him into silence, a quick perfunctory kiss that was totally without passion. “You don’t have to explain a thing,” she said. She stood back from him and put her hands on her hips. “So where’s this fish you keep promising me?”

  Cristy sat under the shade of a tree as Matt waded through the water, hunting for their lunch. She wanted to stay out of the sun as she didn’t fancy the prospect of sitting on a sunburned backside. Especially on gritty coral sand. Going naked was fun but in practical terms she was discovering it was limiting.

  She looked around her in appreciation. The estuary was nearly as beautiful a place as the waterfall, the rainforest growing down to the banks of the river. The best place for fishing without a rod or a net, he’d said.

  They’d built the beacon fire on the broad expanse of beach on the other side of the river, well away from the danger of bushfire. High tide would put it out. In the meantime, its spiral of white smoke was surely an effective signal that someone was on the island. Not that she’d noticed any planes flying overhead or boats on the horizon.

  She sighed heavily, knowing that Matt wouldn’t be able to hear.

  What an idiot she’d been to have stammered on about not lighting the fire, not wanting to be rescued. It had been like a stab to the heart when he’d responded by making it clear he didn’t want to remain here with her. Even worse when he’d tried to soothe her hurt feelings by attempting to explain.

  She sighed again. This falling in love business wasn’t easy. Maybe it wasn’t love at all that she was feeling for him. Maybe she was still confused about lust. Still didn’t know enough about it to tell the difference.

  Like right now. This was undeniably a lust moment. Look at him. The water up to his buttocks, wading through the water stalking his prey like a primitive hunter. With his woman sitting naked on the shore waiting for him. Amazing how quickly as castaways they’d reverted to traditional male-female roles.

  She found it a real turn on. This broad-shouldered hunk of hunks was actually hunting food for her. Real caveman stuff. What woman wouldn’t respond? She felt weak with desire just looking at him, his body sleek with water, the dark hair lying flat to his body. This was temptation big time.

  “Hey!” the caveman shouted, and she jumped up and ran to the edge of the water.

  “Cristy! I’ve caught us a crab! And it’s a beauty.”

  “Well done,” she called.

  He waded to shore, brandishing at arms’ length a large crab. He held it well away from him while he picked up his Swiss Army knife from the rock where he’d left it.

  Cristy shuddered at the sight. She turned away. “I can’t look.”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing. Just my vegetarian upbringing. I’m squeamish.”

  “I’m not throwing it back. It was damn hard to catch.”

  “Just let me know when it’s… it’s over. Then I can tell my conscience it came from the supermarket.”

  “Humph,” he muttered in a voice that rang with wounded pride.

  “You don’t know my conscience. It has the voice of my mother, the lentil-burger queen of the vegans.”

  There was silence and all she could hear was the pounding of the surf on the beach and the by now familiar birds.

  “Is it done yet?” she asked, without turning around.

  “It’s done,” he said.

  She turned to face him and almost laughed at the wounded look on his face.

  “Wow,” she said. “It’s a big one. Aren’t you clever?”

  He looked mollified. “It nipped me on the finger, the brute.”

  “You’re lucky it didn’t nip you somewhere else, somewhere more, uh, sensitive,” she said, laughing.

  She walked across the sand to him. “Come on, show me the finger,” she commanded. He did. She kissed it tenderly then looked up at him, wide-eyed. “You’re a big he-man hunter and I’m very impressed.”

  He rolled his eyes at her and tossed her the crab. “Here, go cook my catch, woman,” he growled.

  Cristy found the bonfire way too hot to get close enough for cooking. Matt used a stick to roll away some hot coals and she barbecued the crab over them. Then they used palm leaves to carry their feast away from the beach to a shady bower where the tropical sun only filtered through.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever tasted any thing so good,” she sighed, licking her fingers.

  “Same,” agreed Matt.

  Her hunger satisfied, she felt more mellow, more optimistic, more able to believe that maybe the fate that had cast her ashore with Matt would ensure she got a chance to know him better. She even felt like eating chocolate again.

  “It is so amazing here,” she said. “I just can’t believe it. Here we are, Adam and Eve in paradise, living off the land, catching our own food.”

  “Don’t romanticize it too much,” he said dryly, bringing her back down to earth.

  “Hey, you’re the one that
said this was the real world.”

  “Yeah, I did, but it’s an unreal kind of real world if you get my meaning. How long before the novelty wears off and you long for civilization?”

  “Maybe, maybe not,” she said stubbornly, knowing he was right and yet longing for him to be more romantic. But hadn’t he warned her that he didn’t do romantic?

  Brightly colored parrots squawked and wove their way in and out of the trees, the flashes of color just adding to the wonder of it all. Back in a New York winter she’d live on the memories of this.

  “My parents would love it here. What an incredible place for a commune.”

  “It’s an incredible place for a hotel, that’s what’s planned.”

  “Right here?”

  “No. Back near the cabin. The… the developers think old Seth chose the best site for habitation.”

  “That’s sacrilege,” she exclaimed. “Some fancy high rise the same as on Starlight Island, I suppose.”

  “No, an exclusive small resort. Very ecologically sound, very luxurious.”

  “And very expensive, no doubt. One of those rock star retreats where only millionaires need apply. What a shame.”

  “Weren’t you going to marry a millionaire?”

  That rigid, shuttered look was back on his face. Did he still believe she had wanted to marry Howard for his money?

  She couldn’t keep her annoyance from her voice. She got up. “Yes I was, and now I’m not, and that means I’d better enjoy this island while I can because now I don’t have a job.”

  She doubted she’d ever work again for the Templetton family firm—and would she want to anyway after Howard’s despicable behavior? That damn engagement ring burned on her finger. She hated it. Wanted to drop it and watch it slide away forever into the sand. But it had belonged to Howard’s grandmother and had even more sentimental value to the family than it had dollar value. For the sake of the friendship they’d shared before the engagement nonsense started, she felt duty bound to look after it. And on this island the safest place was on her finger.

  She started to walk away from Matt but was stopped by his hand snaking out to grip her ankle. He held her in place—she’d trip if she tried to walk away.

  “Don’t get mad, Cristy.”

  She tried to kick his hand away but couldn’t. His grasp was as hard and strong as a shackle.

  “I’m not letting go until you promise not to be mad.” He stumbled on the words. “I get jealous when I think about you marrying that ginger-haired weasel.”

  He was jealous? Jealous of Howard?

  “I’m not mad. I just—”

  Matt released her ankle and got up to face her. He looked deep into her eyes as if he were seeking an answer there. His eyes were shadowed and she couldn’t read their depths.

  “We’re better without words,” he said as he pulled her to him and silenced anything she might have said with a kiss.

  Cristy stood rigid in his arms but then Matt felt her relax against his chest as she returned his kiss and wrapped her arms around his back.

  He knew he shouldn’t have said anything about her millionaire bridegroom. Damn Julia. Her avariciousness had made him wary of women on the hunt for rich husbands. And Cristy still wore that obscenely sized diamond firmly planted on the third finger of her left hand.

  He doubled his resolve to make her forget its weasel-like donor. He urged his body to transmit the feelings he could scarcely articulate to himself, let alone to her.

  Cristy’s mouth was open against his lips, her sweet breath mingling with his. He slid his tongue inside to seek hers, stroking and pushing and circling until she moaned and pressed her warm, naked body urgently against him, her heart pulsing so rapidly he could feel it.

  He slid his hands down her back cupping her bottom hard. She wriggled against his hardness. Good, she was as eager to be close to him as she was to her. He’d run into the surf so many times to cool down, not just from the exertion of building the fire but from the arousal of being in such intimate proximity to lush, naked Cristy.

  His tongue became more demanding, his ragged breathing echoing hers as she responded to him. The urgent need to possess her almost overtook him, he could take her now, plunge into her hot wetness, thrust hard and fast and brand her with his unleashed passion. He knew she wouldn’t stop him.

  But he reined himself in. Her pleasure had to be foremost—though he wasn’t counting orgasms like she did.

  He broke away from her mouth to plant kisses along her jaw, down the soft column of her neck, to nuzzle against the sensitive hollow of her shoulder. She shuddered and bit him on the side of his neck, a sensual nip causing more pleasure than pain.

  She stood still as he stroked the soft sides of her breasts then ran his hands down her waist and the outside of her thighs. With an impatient murmur deep in her throat, she took his hands and pulled them back up to place them over her breasts.

  Delighted to oblige, he thumbed each tip to attention before bending his head to take an erect nipple in his mouth, teasing and flicking it with his tongue, suckling it hard, then giving the other the same attention as Cristy moaned her appreciation.

  It was his turn to moan as she splayed her hands across his back then slid them down, coming to rest at the base of his spine where she caressed the sensitive cleft at the top of his buttocks before sliding around to his front. She cupped him in her hand then stroked the length of him.

  As they caressed each other, her little shivers and sighs intensified his pleasure but when she started to say something he silenced her with a hand across her mouth. “No words,” he commanded hoarsely. Words just didn’t work for him.

  Cristy had tried to say that she couldn’t stand up any longer; she was so overcome with desire that her knees couldn’t hold her steady. But she didn’t persevere with the conversation. She found staying silent, save for involuntary utterances of delight, extraordinarily erotic.

  Actions spoke louder than words and Matt’s wet tongue and hot mouth, the carnal intent in his eyes, told her that she was headed for another incredible sexual adventure. When he slid his hand down her belly, then further, played with the curls he found there, caressed her so-sensitive clit, then slid his finger into her willing wetness, she gasped and sagged against him.

  He laughed, low and triumphantly, picked her up and carried her a few steps deeper into the shade of the rainforest. He laid her facing him on her back on the softer ground there, pulling her knees up so he knelt between her thighs, stroking her belly, running his fingers along the insides of her thighs, teasing her swollen womanhood until she ached for the ecstasy of release.

  Her hands gripped his thighs with the force of her need, she tried to sit up so she could stroke him, caress him but he pushed her gently back. Gasping, she got the message and thrilled to it—he was in charge.

  She didn’t want to miss a moment. When they’d made love before she’d kept her eyes closed but in this position, as he reared up above her, it was easy to maintain full eye contact. Somehow, locked to his green gaze, she felt connected to him on more than a physical level, as if he were making love to her body and soul.

  The sweet ecstasy was almost more than she could bear as he stimulated her toward the edge of no return. Her body ached for release, fast and urgent. She could read the hungry need in his eyes, could tell the effort he was making to hold back.

  “Come with me,” she whispered hoarsely. “I want you inside me.”

  He didn’t break his gaze as he reached back for the protection, then lifted her hips. When he entered her, she felt something that went beyond the sexual.

  She welcomed him inside her, gripped him, reveled in his size, his strength, his power. She met his rhythm, urgent, demanding, relentless. The heat gathered, soared. He couldn’t stop, she didn’t want him to. She went over the top and exploded into a climax so intense she felt she would faint. His shout of release joined her cries, echoing into the wilderness around them.

  Overcome
, her heart pounding, face flushed, breath coming in great, ragged gasps, she kissed him and sank back onto the welcoming earth. Never had she felt so close to another person. It was an unfamiliar feeling and it frightened her. For surely the awesome connection she’d just felt had more to do with love than lust?

  She couldn’t bear it if it was simply sex to Matt. And she just a convenient, temporary partner.

  So great were the heights they’d scaled that it took Matt some time to come down. He lay with Cristy—Miss Perfect-For-Him—cradled in his arms, her head resting on his shoulder.

  He looked up above him, to where the light filtered down in wide shafts through the canopy of the ancient rainforest to fall upon their naked, entwined bodies, and wondered if he should be thanking some higher power.

  Stairways to heaven, his grandmother Maggie had described those awe-inspiring shafts. He felt like he’d been to heaven and back with Cristy—back to this piece of paradise on earth.

  Surely she had felt it, too? His body had shouted its message. But, as he turned his head to tenderly stroke her face, he was stunned to see not knowledge and joyous awareness in her eyes but a dawning wariness that made his heart contract with sudden fear.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Cristy berated herself. How could she have been so dumb as to go and fall in love with Matt Slade? A man who made it clear with every second breath that commitment, to him, was a dirty word? Who, through all the lovemaking they’d shared, had not used one endearment, not given any clue that he might share the same forever-type feelings that had invaded her.

  The thought churned through Cristy’s mind as, back in Seth’s cabin, she watched Matt cook the fish he’d caught for their dinner.

  By unspoken accord they were back in their clothes, she in the abbreviated wedding dress, he in the black undershorts. Somehow the daytime Adam and Eve nakedness thing didn’t seem quite appropriate either to the evening or their mood.