James held up his left hand for confirmation. “I am.”
“Happily?”
James glanced at his distracted wife. “Yes.”
“That’s too bad,” Dakota said, pouting.
Mandy picked that moment to swivel around, her face lit with glee. “Look.”
James followed her extended index finger with his eyes, his gaze falling on a distinctive fin as it sluiced through the water about twenty feet away. “What kind is it?”
Mandy narrowed her eyes, studying the shark. “Tiger.”
“Awesome.”
“That’s your wife?” Dakota asked, frowning.
“It is.”
“She seems … nice.”
“She loves sharks,” James explained. “She’s distracted.”
“How can anyone be distracted when you’re around?” Dakota purred.
“Maybe because I know I’ll be seeing him naked again in a couple of hours,” Mandy shot back, still staring out at the ocean.
James smirked. She’d been listening the whole time.
Dakota’s eyebrows knit together as she regarded Mandy, looking her up and down like she was trying to decide if she was competition. Mandy was dressed in cutoff shorts and a simple tank top, her blonde hair tied into two messy buns on either side of her face. She was bare and simple, which was just how James liked her. He found beauty in the angular planes of her face, and the wide smile that was so often tugging at her plump lips. Makeup was unnecessary. Dakota and Hayley obviously hadn’t learned that lesson yet.
“You don’t have to be crude,” Hayley said.
Mandy finally turned, fixing her two rival blondes with a dismissive look. “You’re the ones hitting on my husband while I’m standing right next to him.”
“We weren’t hitting on him,” Dakota squealed, placing her hand on James’ bare forearm. “We weren’t hitting on you.”
Mandy rolled her eyes. “Whatever. Just know, he’s already taken. You’re wasting your time.” A splashing fin in the water dragged Mandy’s gaze back to the water. “Look!”
“You deserve so much better,” Hayley said.
James pressed the heel of his hand to his forehead. “I have the best woman in the world.”
“You’re just saying that because she’s so … mean,” Dakota said.
“I’m saying that because it’s true,” James countered. “And, she’s right, you’re wasting your time.”
“We don’t have to be,” Dakota replied, leaning in. “We even do stuff together – like threesome stuff.”
“Yeah,” James said, taking a step back. “I’m fine with one woman.”
Hayley made a face. “Even if it’s her?”
“Especially if it’s her,” James said.
Dakota and Hayley exchanged a look. “I think he’s got that Stockholder’s Syndrome or something.”
“He must.”
“It’s Stockholm, you twits,” Mandy said.
“Stockholm isn’t a real thing,” Dakota countered. “Don’t try and confuse us.”
Mandy made an exasperated sound in the back of her throat. “Go over there,” she said, pointing. “Those two guys trying to fit those fins on their heads look like they’re right up your alley.”
Hayley didn’t look happy with the suggestion, but the two buff guys were enough to keep her attention. The young blondes started drifting in that direction. When they were gone, Mandy turned to James. “You like me better, right?”
“I like you better than anything,” James said, slinging an arm around Mandy’s shoulders and dropping a kiss on her forehead. “Now, look at your sharks.”
Mandy started to turn back to the water and then quickly swiveled back. “Will you pretend to be Martin Brody for me later tonight?”
“Will I pretend to be a shark hunter and then ravage you?”
“Yes.”
“Baby, you never need to ask. I’m always up for that.”
“WHY AREN’T you naked yet?”
James’ hands were on Mandy’s waist, his mouth hot against hers as they tried to climb the steps to the house without tripping.
“We’re not inside yet,” Mandy panted.
“We’re close enough,” James said, pushing her windblown hair away from her face. “I need you naked.”
“I … oh, what are you doing with your fingers?”
“Shh,” James said, rubbing his hand against her thigh beneath her cutoffs. “Kiss me, wife.”
Mandy slipped her tongue into James’ mouth, her hand snaking around his neck to keep him close. “I need you inside of me.”
“I need to be inside of you,” James said, rummaging through his pocket for the keys to the front door of the house. “You have no idea how much I need to be inside of you. Dammit! Why can’t I find the keys?”
“I think that is in the way,” Mandy said, pointing to his obvious erection. “Just … calm down a little.”
“I thought you wanted me to play shark hunter?”
“We have all night.”
“It doesn’t feel like it,” James grumbled, crowing with triumph when his fingers closed around the key ring. “Yes!”
“Touchdown,” Mandy enthused. “Now, open that door.”
James reached his hand forward, pulling up short when he realized the door was already ajar.
“Come on, James,” Mandy urged, slipping her tongue in his ear.
James tightened his arm around Mandy’s waist, but he didn’t respond to her ardent kisses. After a moment, Mandy realized something was wrong. She pulled away from him, focusing her attention on the door.
“Oh, man, are you kidding me?”
“Someone has been here,” James said, his tone grim.
“Someone hates me,” Mandy said. “Why does this keep happening to us?”
Four
When James woke the next morning, Mandy’s blonde tresses were spread over his chest. Somehow, during the middle of the night, the ties holding her hair to the side had been lost. Now, the flaxen cascade covered his heart – like it always should – and her head was heavy in the crook where his arm met his shoulder.
They’d had a late night, and not for the reasons James would’ve preferred. He’d searched the house for intruders, and then they’d called the local police. James wasn’t sure it was necessary, but he didn’t own the house. He figured, for insurance reasons alone, he should be responsible.
The police had arrived promptly, searching the house from top to bottom. No intruder was detected, and as far as James could tell, nothing had been stolen. By the time they left in the wee hours of the morning, neither James nor Mandy had been feeling particularly amorous.
This morning was a different story.
James ran his hand up Mandy’s back, tracing his fingers over the space between her neck and shoulders lightly. Mornings were his favorite part of the day, especially when she was still slumbering. As much as he loved nights – and the passion they usually graced him with – there was nothing better than watching a beautiful woman sleep.
When she was unconscious, dead to the world, Mandy’s face was placid. There were no worry lines creasing her forehead, no clouds storming her eyes. She was unguarded, relaxed, and happy to be nestled into his warmth. It was the only time she fully surrendered and let him protect her.
When she first woke up, her eyes were never focused, and her brain was muddled. She was susceptible to suggestion in those first few minutes. After that? You had to give her space. James reveled in everything Mandy had to offer, even morning grouchiness.
Now he was debating.
It was their honeymoon, and the idea of finishing what they’d started the night before seemed like a nice option. Funnily enough, the idea of just snuggling seemed just as stimulating.
“What are you thinking?”
Mandy’s voice was thick. Her eyes were still closed, but she shifted against James to signify she was awake.
“I’m thinking you’re the most beautiful thing
I’ve ever seen,” James admitted.
“That’s not what you were thinking.”
“It is.”
“You were trying to decide if you wanted to wake me up for sex or not,” Mandy countered. “My purported beauty might have been a factor – although I’m sure my hair dissuaded you from that – but I know what you were thinking.”
James chortled, reaching down and squeezing his wife’s rear – just because he could. “You know me.”
Mandy wrenched her eyes open, the blue expanses unreadable, and yet still breathtaking. “I know you.”
“Do you love me?”
“Is this a trick question?”
“No.”
Mandy’s voice softened. “I love you. Do you love me?”
“No man has ever loved anyone as much as I love you.”
“No one?”
James shook his head. “No one.”
Mandy rubbed her hand up and down James’ bare chest, her face contemplative. “The honeymoon is almost over.”
James kissed her forehead, pulling her tighter. “Oh, baby, the honeymoon is never going to be over. Just because we go home, that doesn’t mean we’re done with the honeymoon.”
“It will be different,” Mandy said. “Everyone will be together again.”
“You mean you and Ally will be joined at the hip again,” James corrected.
“That’s going to be uncomfortable since you and I are joined at the groin.”
James snorted. “I’m your husband. I’m the priority.”
“Still, returning to work seems like such a … disappointment.”
“I can’t disagree with that,” James said. “The real world beckons.”
“I hate the real world.”
“I could try to buy this house,” James said. “We could stay here forever.”
Mandy considered the offer. “You couldn’t last that long without your brothers.”
“You mean you couldn’t last that long without my sister,” James corrected. “Maybe we could move them all down here.”
“Or, we could just go home.”
“Our new home,” James agreed.
“Our new home,” Mandy said, sighing as she rubbed her face against his chest. “We have a home.”
“We do,” James agreed. “We have a home with a hot tub that is begging for us to christen it.”
“We have a bedroom that’s begging for us to christen it.”
“And a kitchen,” James said, smiling.
“And a dining room.”
“And a living room.”
“And two guest rooms,” Mandy said.
“And two offices.”
“And a pool.”
“Now I’m looking forward to going home,” James said.
“Hey, we still have two days.”
“And what do you want to do with today?”
“I’m going to start with doing you,” Mandy said, rolling on top of her handsome husband and pressing her lips to his. “We’ll see where the day goes after that.”
“DO YOU know what I’m going to miss most about Bermuda?” James asked, hunkering down so he could pick up a seashell on the beach.
The afternoon was already waning, and after spending the bulk of the day in bed, Mandy and James had finally ventured out.
“Me in a bikini?”
James wrinkled his nose, considering. “Do you know what I’m going to miss almost as much as you living in a bikini?”
Mandy waited.
“These sunsets,” James said, pointing to the horizon.
“They are nice,” Mandy agreed, leaning to her left so she could get a better look at the ground there. The grass was higher on that side, the bluff steep.
“So, why are we collecting shells again?” James asked.
“Because I want to make a picture frame when we get back,” Mandy said. “I love that photo of us that we asked that guy to take at the bar on the second night we were here. I want to put it in a frame.”
James was puzzled. “You’re going to make a frame? How are you going to do that? You don’t do crafts.”
“While it’s true that I’m not very crafty,” Mandy said, moving higher on the hill and wading into the tall grass that decorated the bluff. “I am perfectly capable of gluing shells to a wooden frame.”
“Who is going to make this frame?”
“Um, a craft store.”
James stilled. “So, you don’t have to make the frame?”
“Of course not.”
“Fine,” he said, sighing. “I’ll help you gather shells. This seems like an odd way to spend one of our last nights here.”
“Well, I was thinking,” Mandy said, moving higher on the bluff. “If we get all the shells I need, I might be willing to reward you by having sex in the ocean.”
James straightened his frame, fixing his beloved blonde with an excited look. “You said you can’t have sex in the ocean because sharks are more likely to attack after dark – even in only a few feet of water.”
Mandy shrugged. “I’m agreeing to have sex in one foot of water,” Mandy cautioned. “No shark that could hurt us will be in the shallows.”
“The shallows?”
“Do you want sex in the ocean or not?”
James considered the offer. “I love looking for seashells.”
Mandy rolled her eyes, climbing higher on the hill. “Oh, look, this is neat.”
James was too busy collecting any shell he could find to glance up. “Hmm.”
Mandy was quiet for a few minutes, too long to make James comfortable. When he finally looked back in her direction, he was flummoxed. She was standing ramrod straight and staring at the ground.
“Did you find gold or something?”
Mandy shook her head.
“A pile of money?”
Mandy shook her head.
“A body?”
Mandy didn’t move. James started moving toward her. “Please tell me you didn’t find a body.” He was at her side quickly, his eyes scanning the ground by her feet. “Oh, well good,” he said, his jaw clenched. “It wouldn’t be a normal month for us if someone didn’t stumble across something to screw everything up.”
“HE WAS stabbed.”
James, Mandy snuggled in at his side, looked up from the beach lounger on the terrace and regarded Detective Samson blithely.
“Yeah, I saw the wound in his chest.”
The police had arrived hours before, and they’d been scouring the beach since. Darkness had descended, and Mandy’s growling stomach told James that she was long past the dinner hour.
“Do you know him?”
James stilled. “I recognize him.”
“You do?”
“He was at the festival in town the other night,” James replied.
“Did you speak?” Samson asked.
“Sort of.”
“Sort of?”
James sighed, keeping Mandy pressed to his side as he leaned forward. “He approached my wife.”
“And?”
“And he was drunk and asked her to dance,” James explained. “He wouldn’t take no for an answer, and I intervened.”
“You intervened?”
“I punched him in the face,” James admitted.
“He was really aggressive,” Mandy said. “He kept calling me a slut.”
Samson looked confused. “Why would he say that?”
Mandy shrugged. “Apparently he didn’t like my skirt. I didn’t realize he was a fashion critic.”
Samson nodded like he understood, but the look on his face said otherwise. “And then what happened?”
“He called my wife a slut and I hit him,” James said. “We haven’t seen him since.”
“And you’re sure he didn’t come back to the house with the intention of seeing your wife?”
“We haven’t seen him since.”
“Mr. Hardy, if he came after your wife, I would understand,” Samson said. “You have to protect your property.
”
Mandy frowned. “I’m not his property.”
Samson ignored her. “Killing a man who broke into your house and tried to attack your wife is perfectly understandable.”
“That’s not what happened,” James said. “If that’s what happened, why would we call you?”
“Maybe you thought you could get away with it,” Samson suggested.
“If that man broke into this house and went after my wife, I would’ve snapped his neck,” James said. “I wouldn’t have stabbed him on the bluff next to the house.”
“How do you know he was killed there?”
“Because the ground beneath the body was soaked with blood,” James said. “That means he was killed there. If he was killed in the house, he would’ve lost blood while I dragged him outside. It wouldn’t have pooled beneath him like that.”
“Why would you say something like that?” Samson asked.
“I’m a security expert,” James said. “I know about crime investigation.”
“You realize that makes you more of a suspect and not less of one, right?” Samson pressed.
“I’m not big on lying to law enforcement,” James shot back.
“Okay,” Samson said, sucking in a breath. “Let’s talk about last night.”
“We came home and found that the front door had been jimmied,” James said.
“Home from where?”
“A shark tour.”
“Do you remember what boat you were on?”
“The Hakuna Matada.”
“And how long were you gone?”
James rubbed his hand over his jaw, thinking. “We left a little before eleven,” he said. “We had lunch in town. It was a little place that boasted about having the best salads in town or something on the little board in front of it. I didn’t want her to have anything heavy in case she got seasick.”
“Delia’s?”
“That’s it.”
“And then what?”
“We had to be at the docks by one,” James said. “We were there about fifteen minutes early. The shark tour lasted almost six hours. When we got back, we had crab legs at that restaurant on the beach, the one with the pink umbrellas.”
“Esperanza’s?”
James shrugged. “I guess.”
Samson arched an eyebrow, waiting.
“Then we came back here and found the door open,” James finished.
“What were you doing right before you noticed the door?” Samson asked.
Deadly Honeymoon (Hardy Brothers Security Book 7) Page 3
