Paradise Bay: Resort 1 (Surrender Isle #1)

by Havana Scott

  I wondered if any boats out there were Booty Catcher.

  In the distance, I could make out the sounds of guitars and singing and people laughing and splashing in a pool closer to the main house, but out here, it was peacefully divine. Where might Tristan be? I’d turned him down about an hour ago. By now, he could be with another guest, telling her what a beautiful night it was and offering his hand. I was sure the man was never without a woman’s company.

  Offshore about forty feet, a light appeared, flashing on and off above the water. I shielded my eyes to it, but then I heard a whistle. It was coming from a white boat just like the other eight or nine white boats gliding peacefully on the water’s surface. The flashlight turned off, allowing me to see someone standing there waving arms in my direction.

  I’d know those guns anywhere.

  Broad shoulders, strong legs, the curve of his torso. I’d already internalized it. It was Tristan in swimming trunks and a white T-shirt, waving for my attention. “Ahoy!” he called, breaking the silence. Did the man live on his boat? Was he even a staff member of Paradise Bay at all? I hadn’t seen him wearing a name tag or anything. He said something while pointing to the water, but I shook my head.

  “I can’t hear you,” I said, hoping my voice would carry.

  With one bare foot propped onto the railing, he crossed his arms and lifted the edge of his shirt up over his head, tossing it aside. Sweet pickles from heaven. That was his chest? Suddenly, he dove into the water like a well-oiled dolphin. Shit, he was coming this way. I ran my fingers through my ponytail and smoothed down my hair in preparation for his arrival, feeling like I was in high school all over again. He would arrive wet. He would be half naked and covered in water droplets, and he would be here talking to me.

  And then, his emergence onto the beach was pure magic—Tristan rose out of the water, pushed back his wet hair with both hands, and I was treated to a great view of his incredible bare torso. Take a bite out of this, Count Dracula. Holy moly.

  He pushed water off his face and jogged the rest of the way out. His soft panting replaced the quiet space in front of me. “Hey.”

  “Hey, yourself. You didn’t tell me you were a football player who modeled on the side.”

  “I never said that.” He cocked an eyebrow at me.

  “Oh, my bad then. Must’ve been my brain talking aloud. Sheesh.” I wiped fake sweat off my forehead.

  Tristan chuckled, a sound I was starting to live for. “You look exactly like a woman I met earlier who didn’t want to leave her room.”

  “Hmm, and you look exactly like the man who invited me out for the night, but I was too stupid and standoffish to accept.” I tried to capture his reaction to that, but it was dark, and his swimming trunks kept calling my eyeballs.

  He collapsed onto the sand and laid flat on his back. He didn’t care if he got sand in his hair, unlike me over here trying hard to keep as much legs and body clean as possible. “You don’t have to apologize, Paris. You weren’t in the mood to go out, you weren’t in the mood. But I’m glad you finally came out. Look at what you were missing.” He pointed up at the sky.

  “I know, I’ve been watching it the last ten minutes. It’s absolutely amazing.”

  “Who is he?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “The guy texting you nonstop. Who is he?”

  Oh. How did he know it was a member of the male species? “My ex husband.” I deflated.

  “Knew it.”

  “Knew it?”

  “That it was an ex of some kind. Let me guess, you’ve been divorced a couple months at best, and he was pissed right before you left to come here.”

  “Actually, we’ve been divorced a year and a half, and no, he wasn’t pissed, just hoping I wouldn’t meet anyone while here. He’s still…trying to get back with me.”

  “After a year and a half?” He flipped onto his side and propped his head with his hand. From this close, I got a better view of his bird of paradise tattoo. I liked how, from one angle, it might’ve appeared tribal, but from another angle, you could clearly see the bird. “You’ve been divorced that long, and the guy is still pestering you?”

  I sighed, brushing sand off my toes. “Most people don’t understand it when they hear it. Ben had lots of problems before we even married, an arrest record for theft, a history of womanizing, but he’d told me that he wanted to change all that, and I signed up to help him live a new life. He was sweet to me, encouraging, put me on a pedestal. Plus…things were really hot between us.”

  “Ahh…” Tristan’s amazing smile leaked out. “The truth comes out.”

  “Yeah.” I drew spirals in the sand with my finger. “He seemed promising after a year with another ex who was a dick.”

  “I see. So coming off the heels of that, he made you feel good,” Tristan guessed. “You trusted that he would change for you.”

  “Not trusted—hoped,” I clarified. “Because he wanted to change, whereas Carson, my boyfriend before Ben, thought he was damn perfect the way he was.”

  “I get it. He came along at the right time.”

  “Yes. So I put my heart and soul into our marriage, I defended him against my friends and family who tried to warn me, I cared for him. And at first, everything was fine, but then he slowly began slipping into his old ways. And while he didn’t steal again, he still had issues with women and being a couch sloth.”

  “Sounds like you became his mom instead of his wife.”

  Ouch. But yes. “And sometimes his therapist and parole officer.”

  “Damn.”

  Which would explain why all sex stopped between us during the last few months, because who wanted to have sex with an immature man-child? I never could get into it. I didn’t want to be his babysitter or mother. I wanted a husband who was putting in equal effort as I was.

  “I loved him. He wasn’t good for me. We split. The End.”

  “Paris, I’m no therapist, and I’m definitely no one to talk, but it sounds like you need to cut him off. I know you worry about him. That means you’re nice, but it sounds like he’s using that to his advantage.”

  Honestly, I didn’t know what to think anymore, and my brain was tired trying to figure it out. I didn’t want to talk about Ben anymore. “I know I have to stop talking to him, stop bringing him food, stop—”

  “You bring him food?” Tristan’s eyebrows almost came off the top of his head. “Damn, you are the nicest ex I ever heard of. Most women are like, see ya! In my experience, you have to cull the people weighing you down in life. Keep only the positive. You have your phone on you right now?” he asked.

  I felt around in my sarong’s two shallow pockets. Yes, there it was. “I do.”

  “Let me have it.”

  “What? Why would I give it to you? I barely know you.”

  “Because I’m going to fling it in the water.”

  “Fling my phone, and I’ll kick your ass. I have work on my phone.”

  “Your work is on your laptop, safely back at the villa. Your phone is your connection to the outside world, and if there is one thing I work hard at out here, as I watch everybody on my beach, is to make sure that they are disconnected from stress. So, give me.” He held out his hand.

  “Your beach? What, you own this sand right here?” I scooped up a handful of sugary dust and tried dumping it on his chest. He grabbed my hand, easily pushing it aside, forcing me to let go of the offending grains. His grip on me was strong. Oof. A fantasy flitted through my brain, of that same hand pinning my arm back against a headboard, as he moved over me and slid into…

  Hello, I’m back. I shook it off. No, I couldn’t give into those thoughts, or I’d be wasting my precious time here. Besides, I’d become a total cliché divorced wife getting it on with a strong island man as hard as ancient island stone.

  “I consider it my beach, because I’m always offshore watching.” Tristan sat up and shook sand out of his hair. With a playful grin, he crept closer to me, pretend
ing like he was going to snatch my phone. Or maybe not so much pretending. “Now, give it to me.”

  “What? You think I just follow your orders?”

  “I said, hand it over, Paris. I mean it.”

  “No, I need it.”

  “I’ll buy you a new one when your month is over.”

  “You’ll buy me one? So, you’re a rich boat captain? I see.”

  “Maybe. Or maybe I’ll just confiscate your phone and give it back to you when your time here is up.” I couldn’t think about my time here being up just yet. I’d only been here four days, and already, it was starting to feel like home after only forty minutes of being outdoors. I couldn’t bear to think of my time being up just yet.

  He jumped out, swiped my elbows out from under me, and knocked me onto my back, all in one move. All with an amazing smile I had the pleasure of seeing up close. I shrieked and laughed my ass off. It reminded me of wrestling with my brother when I was a kid, only Tristan was not my brother, and we definitely weren’t kids. My stomach crunched when I felt his damp skin brush against mine, and when his face moved past mine suddenly, allowing me the briefest of glimpses of his face up close, now with longer dark stubble on it. I gulped and fought back a primitive yearn deep in my body.

  His rascal smile lit up the darkness, and wow, the man was fine. Chiseled jaw, straight teeth, full lips he liked to bite when he was trying to wrestle an object from my hand. “Are you going to give it to me, or am I going to have to take it?”

  “Ooo, you mean this?” I dangled the phone in front of his face and snatched it away just in time for him to attempt a grab. “Is this what you want? Come and get my phone.” I was teasing him, and I loved it. I hadn’t laughed this hard or felt this free in a long time.

  Reaching back, I chucked the phone along the sand just out of reach, and he jumped out to snatch, but fell off to one side of me, half his body covering mine. He paused there, and thank God he did. Do not move. Do not move, because I need this right now. He smelled divine—of salt water and something cooking on a grill, and a scent all his own that was completely unnamable.

  “Paris, you know the best way to forget somebody, right?”

  Of course, I did. Just because I hadn’t actually done it yet didn’t mean I didn’t know. I’d been wanting to but was afraid. Was still afraid. But I had to at least try. Maybe it would work to eradicate Ben from my brain, exactly why Ben was scared of me coming here—to erase him. “With someone new,” I replied.

  Tristan hovered above me. “That’s right. Kiss me. Let’s see if it works.”

  Oh, I knew it would. I knew it from the moment he stepped off that boat and walked by me on the dock the other day, showing off his biceps and leaving me those macarons. When I caught a glimpse of his emerald eyes glinting in the sun, now reflecting firelight from a nearby tiki torch. Dark lashes batted over them softly, as his fingers grazed my jawline.

  I knew it from the moment he’d visited me in my room that he’d be trouble.

  The good kind. The kind that made you wake up and feel alive again.

  And I wanted that now. Balls to the wall.

  Chapter 6

  If there was anything sexier than a woman’s parted lips just before she stretched up to kiss you, I didn’t know what it was. I’d never seen it, and I’d seen a lot in my twenty-eight years. Paris’s skin smelled soft and sweet, like coconut body lotion and cotton, and her lashes were dark despite her fair skin. But it was those lips, reaching and aching for a connection, that killed me.

  She definitely didn’t fit my regular guest profile—money leaking from her pores and bored to tears. No. And her sexual vibe didn’t come from the need to control or acquire me, as with Tatianne, but from a place of loneliness, of craving and needing intimacy the way one does water and bread. I could relate to that. In the last year alone, the two dozen or so women I’d bedded here in Paradise Bay hadn’t wanted any real closeness from me. None of them.

  And they say men just want one thing.

  I kissed Paris slow, long, and hard, exploring her salt-tinged tongue and soft mouth in search of urgency to match mine. A compelling burn spread through me, and my hardness swelled against her body. I did nothing to disguise it. I wanted her to feel it there, so there would be no misunderstanding—I was fully willing to change the course of her night if she was up for it.

  Would she want more than a kiss, though? Allow herself the entirety of what we could do together? Paris was a woman needing her ghosts expelled, demons vanquished, skeletons removed from closets that should’ve been emptied a long time ago. Her mind was a veritable haunted house, and I was determined to refurbish it. As her kiss grew deeper, more urgent, I felt the muscles in her body soften and become displaced by a new kind of tension. Airy sighs escaped her lips. Her stress melted underneath my weight, accepting me and begging for intervention.

  I wanted to help. I wanted to see what she looked like completely undone.

  It didn’t take long before her fingers were raking through my hair, curling and pulling me closer, urging me deeper. She gripped my shoulder, tugged closely, afraid of me letting her go. To be blunt, she needed a good fuck, but I would let her figure that out for herself.

  “I can’t do this,” she mumbled.

  “You’re doing it.” I kissed her again.

  “I’m supposed to be writing.”

  “You’ll write after you’ve had time to yourself. Paris, let me revive you. You need this.” Besides being a great suggestion, if a bit cheeseball sounding, it stretched her lips into a smile underneath my kiss and therefore done its job. I was surprised by how important it was to me that she unwind so she could get back to her desk refreshed. I was surprised by how desperately I wanted to see her smile. “Want to swim with me?” I asked.

  In case this was going to get hot and dirty quickly, I didn’t want to be in plain sight of other couples on the beach. That would be awkward, for them of course, and totally unprofessional of my establishment.

  She nodded, out of breath.

  I scuttled to my feet, pulling her up with me. “What about my stuff?” she asked, unknotting her wrap skirt and throwing it on the sand. Her body was kickass natural, lean, unmessed with, and I couldn’t wait to touch it.

  “Just leave it in the sand. Nobody steals around here. Trust me.” I led her into the hot tub-like waters of the Caribbean. My favorite part of living near the equator, the sand and surf absorbed the sun’s heat all day long then remained alive and warm at night.

  “Whoa, it’s like a Jacuzzi.” She held onto my hand and lower arm. “This is really beautiful, Tristan. You must really hate living here.”

  “It’s horrible, really awful and cringey,” I played to her sarcasm. “But seriously, I miss cities up north when I’m here too long.”

  “You have to be kidding.” She dipped below the water’s surface and came up wet, hair slicked back. “Why?”

  “Don’t get me wrong—I love it here, obviously. But being away from my family and restaurants and movie theaters is hard, so I try to bring my mom and brothers down here every so often.”

  “Where are you from? How is it that you can bring them down?” From her narrowed eyes, I remembered suddenly that she didn’t know I owned this resort and a third of the island. It wasn’t that I didn’t want her to—it was that I found myself wanting to get acquainted with her first, for her to learn about me, before she saw the dollar signs. Which happened every time.

  “Miami. Everyone I know is there—down-to-earth, fun friends. You remind me of some of them, actually. Besides, I said ‘every so often.’ I don’t bring them down all the time.” There, I answered her without giving everything away and not lying either. Reaching through the water, I found her waist and wrapped my hands around her torso, scooping her toward me.

  I loved the way our bodies fit together. Cradling her face in my hands, I kissed her again, and she dissolved into it easily. Her leg slid up against my thigh then curled around my ass, as she pushed
her sensitive, blazing core against me. Even in the water, I could feel the heat there. Oh, yeah. I understood.

  “Can we go on your boat?” she whispered, forehead pressed against mine. And there it was—her suggestion, her idea. I was all about that. To me, there was nothing un-sexier than a guy pushing his own agenda, because when a woman wanted you, chose you, gifted herself to you, turned herself inside out to let you have everything, there was nothing more irresistible than that.

  “Thought you’d never ask. Follow me.” I dove underwater, the world around me falling silent and bubbly. Even at night, the visibility under the surface was completely clear. Maybe one day this week, I could take Paris scuba diving, if she’d never been. The women here usually skipped the scuba diving in favor of more tanning.

  Once I’d reached the underside of my boat, I grabbed the metal ladder and hoisted myself up. Paris was a moment behind. Extending my hand, she climbed the ladder and pulled herself aboard. “How many women do you bring here?” she half-laughed.

  “Not many.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “I’m completely serious. If I do get together with anyone, it would usually be at their villa or cabin.”

  “Usually? Why, where else would you have to take a woman?” she asked coyly, creeping closer to me, step by step, backing me into a corner on my own boat.

  Damn, she was smart and right on my tail. She’d figure me out in no time, so it was better if I came clean to her fairly soon. But right now… I pushed her back a step and swiveled her around. She shrieked, clamping her hands onto my arms to keep from falling. “I know the people here,” I said. Again, not a lie. Grabbing the towel I’d dried off with earlier from a side seat, I laid it down over the seat cushions in the stern of the boat and laid her onto it.

  She was so damn beautiful with that dark blonde hair spread in a halo all around her. Paris had this vulnerable innocence about her, so I loved bringing out that inner light. “I see. You know, I want you to know, I don’t usually do this.”