by Kate Johnson
She’d probably end up slapping mud on herself like an elephant. Wow, that would be super attractive. Not that she should be thinking about being attractive to Xavier. Nope. That was probably a really bad idea.
Why, though? asked a little voice inside her.
Because she was stuck with him for the foreseeable and she didn’t want to make a fool of herself and mess up the friendship they’d tentatively built. They needed each other, as he’d pointed out. If only so the other one didn’t go completely mad.
He was quite handsome, though. Under that beard, at least, maybe. Nice eyes. Good cheekbones. Really nice body.
She told her libido to shut up and tried even harder to get to sleep.
You could just have a little affair with him, it whispered to her. No one would know.
I’d know, she argued back.
Yes, and think of all the things you’d know, it purred.
Shut up!
The heat woke her, the little nylon tent turning into a furnace once the sun was on it. She found herself alone, and unzipped the opening to find Xavier poking at the fire.
“Morning,” he said, and smiled at her in a way that was all too handsome.
“Hi.” Her face felt hot. Telling herself it was just the sunburn, she wriggled out of the tent and excused herself to go into the bushes. Not that she needed the toilet, because she’d eaten and drunk far less than she needed to, but because she needed a few moments alone.
She’d had dreams about him.
That was probably only normal, though, right? Two people in a stressful situation, one of them ridiculously handsome—okay, Eliza, he’s not that good-looking—sharing so much intimate space, it was bound to happen. She was just on edge and anxious. It didn’t mean anything.
She straightened her clothes and went back to the camp, where Xavier was doing something with the solar stills.
“There’s almost a jug of water here,” he said, carefully pouring one into another. “Do you want to try it with seawater, see if we can evaporate some? I was wondering about constructing something with a coconut shell. Or maybe… are you okay, Princess?”
She nodded rapidly. “Yes. Fine. Great. Bit sore. Sunburn.”
“Ah.” Xavier, of course, just looked bronzed and wonderful. “Have some coconut. Maybe put some of the cream on your skin? You said it contains oil.”
She had said that. She’d also said it could be separated out if you boiled it with some water. Probably didn’t need much…
She ate some coconut for breakfast, the rich fatty stuff from the brown mature nuts, and drank some coconut water from a green unripe nut, and looked at the shells. “Let me try something,” she said.
She considered her plan as she helped Xavier make a V out of rocks by the shore to catch small fish when the tide came in, then left him to try using various bits of flotsam to catch fish from the lagoon while she spent the morning experimenting with coconut fat. Boiling the flesh up with a bit of water seemed to work, although it took ages to do.
She eventually hit on the idea of heating water by putting hot rocks in it, carefully sculpting a bowl out of sand and lining it with plastic. She added this to the coconut half, which was perched precariously on a ring of rocks on the fire, and stirred it with her knife.
There. Fat bubbles on the surface. Pleased with herself, she took it off the boil, let it cool down a bit, then skimmed the oil off the top and applied some experimentally to her skin.
It felt so good she let out a cry.
“You okay?” asked Xavier, and she startled, nearly knocking over the precious scoop of coconut oil.
“Yes! Yes. Just made some oil,” she told him proudly.
“Excellent.” He grinned and held up a pair of fish much larger than the one he'd caught yesterday. “We can use it to cook these.”
“No bloody fear, it’s going on my sunburn. If I don’t keep the skin moist, it’ll peel, be vulnerable to infection, and stretch as it heals.”
He held up his hands in surrender. “Okay, okay. Let me rinse my hands and I’ll help you.”
She hadn’t intended that at all, but he put the fish down, washed his hands in the sea and was back before she’d even folded her hot pink t-shirt.
“We could make a flag out of that,” he said, kneeling behind her.
“And then I’d be even more sunburnt.”
His fingers, cool and oily, touched her shoulder, and she sucked in a breath.
“Does that hurt? My hands are rough…” And his voice was very close.
“No.” It didn’t hurt. It felt wonderful. It felt very unlike every clinical, practical massage she’d ever had. “Keep going.”
His hands were magic, massaging the oil in across her sore skin, his touch light and gentle. Eliza sighed, letting her head drop forward. Her shoulders were sore with more than sunburn. All that exercise yesterday, all that worry, and not even a good night’s sleep to compensate.
“I think that’s all of it,” he said softly, and his fingers touched her cheek. “Let me see your face.”
She half turned, and he peered at her closely. She could feel his breath, count the dark hairs on his chin.
“Sorry,” he said, as he leaned back. “Haven’t exactly been flossing.”
“No, I… I didn’t notice.” His teeth were white and even. “I was brushing my teeth with my finger,” she confessed. “I’ve heard you can use a stick, but…”
“Yeah, one you chew the end of.” He scooped up the last little bit of oil and carefully spread it down her nose. It was almost like being anointed. “I might try that. My dentist will probably kill me when we get back.”
“When?” she said hopefully.
“Yeah, when.” He finished spreading the oil over her face, which already felt less angry and tight, and sat back. Eliza resisted the urge to lean after him. “I was thinking, we should set out some signals to be seen from the air. Triangles are traditional, I think.”
She nodded eagerly, glad of the distraction. “Yes! Beacons or something. We’ve got a fire. We can set three more on the beach, a triangle. Maybe link them with a trench or something to make it really obvious. I’ve been thinking about this—”
“Of course you have.” He smiled, but he didn’t seem so annoyed with her bossiness any more.
“If you think we’re safe from the crew, we can signal to the sea, too. Something that would attract attention. Something you wouldn’t usually find on a beach if people were just hanging out.”
“Like what?”
“Well, a really big blaze would do it, but I don’t want to set the whole island on fire. “
“It’d get their attention,” Xavier mused. He licked his fingers, the fingers that had been touching her skin, and she swallowed. “We’d be safe on the beach. I’m joking,” he told her, and she gave a nervous laugh.
“Right. Yes. Well, the fires from the air, that’d be good,” she babbled. “And probably our best chance of being seen too, right? I mean boats might pass by, because wherever we are people must come past, island-hopping, but will they look too closely?”
She was guiltily aware that she probably wouldn’t have. People on a beach were people on a beach. The whole Caribbean was thronged with people on beaches. Who would look twice? Unless there was something to look twice for.
“Right. So…?” Xavier said, and she realised he was actually waiting for her suggestion.
She was so astonished she absolutely forgot everything.
Nobody ever asked her opinion, or if they did they never wanted to hear it. Eliza had spent her life murmuring, “Yes, of course, I agree,” to everyone from her grandmother to her sister to her boss.
“So… we use the signalling mirror?” Xavier prompted. “If we see a ship? See, yesterday we didn’t look too closely at the distance, and I think that’s what we need to do today. I’ve been glancing out to sea but I haven’t seen anything yet. We have about…” he glanced at his watch. “Six hours of daylight left. One or both of
us should watch the sea all afternoon, and then we’ll light some fires at dusk. Yes?”
Eliza collected herself and nodded. “Yes. Yes, good plan.”
They made piles of rocks and sticks on the beach in a large triangle, carving out channels in the sand between them to be visible from the air. When it got dark, the sticks could be made into pyres and burnt.
He fished, she collected fruit—making very sure he knew where she was, to the point of irritating him—and they ate again mid-afternoon. Eliza had found some fibrous sticks and they experimented with brushing their teeth.
“Think I’ll stick to Colgate,” she said, although her teeth did feel better. She’d successfully distilled some seawater that afternoon, using a careful framework of sticks and plastic to funnel the water into the drybag.
But when the clouds came over—suddenly, with little warning, the way they liked to do in the Caribbean—and the rain began to fall, she gave up on her afternoon’s work and set the bag open as wide as she could to collect rainwater. Xavier, who’d been collecting materials for firewood, stashed them inside the tent and helped her. Making a pit in the sand, they shored up the bag and propped the mouth open with sticks. She fetched some of the larger leaves she’d found and used them to funnel more water in.
“We make a good team,” he told her above the rain, and she beamed at him.
No signal fires tonight, unless the rain stopped. Right now, she didn’t mind so much. The rain fell warm on her skin, the cleanest thing she’d had on it for two days, and she spread her arms and tilted her mouth up to the sky.
“So much water!” she gurgled to Xavier, who was doing the same.
“It’s like a shower. Oh God, I’ve missed being clean!”
She’d taken off her t-shirt and shorts when it started to rain, and now the sand had cooled down she kicked off her shoes too and ran along the beach in her bikini, energised.
“Someone likes the rain!” called Xavier, jogging after her.
She turned back and said, “Well, I’m English after all.”
He ran towards her, and she feinted away, playing tag with him. Xavier laughed and chased, and she evaded him twice before he caught her around the waist and tackled her to the ground as she giggled and protested.
“I won, Princess,” he crowed, pinning her down as she wriggled against him. He was nearly naked too, and it felt suddenly very intimate to be here with him like this. “What’s my prize?”
And maybe it was the rain or the stress or maybe she’d left some coconut milk out in the sun and got drunk, but Eliza stretched up and pressed her lips to his. “This,” she said, and that was really all she’d intended it to be, but his eyes met hers and she did it again, and again, and then she wasn’t just brushing his lips with hers, she was kissing him, and he sure as hell was kissing her back.
His tongue met hers, and his body met hers, and Eliza was overwhelmed with sensation. He was so hot, and so hard, and his hands were everywhere. Her bikini top disappeared, and his mouth found her breast and she gasped and clutched at his hair, his wonderful thick hair.
Her legs twined around his waist, and she could feel his arousal. She pushed at his shorts, needing to feel more of him, and he groaned against her skin and reached down to free himself. The heat and hardness of him throbbed against her thigh.
Eliza surged against him and he lifted his head to find her lips with his again. His fingers slipped inside her bikini bottoms and she moaned into his mouth.
For a second he stilled, and there was a question in those gorgeous brown eyes of his. Eliza nodded, helpless to do anything else, and then he was pushing inside her and she gasped at the intrusion.
For a second his eyes went wide, and she panicked because he might be about to stop, so she wrapped her legs tighter around his waist and kissed him, and he made a desperate noise and rocked his hips.
There wasn’t a thunderstorm on the island that night, but Eliza probably wouldn’t have noticed if there had been. She was consumed with Xavier, his eyes and his hands and his mouth, and the way he felt inside her. She’d never been made love to like this before.
She’d never been made love to at all.
Abruptly, he stiffened and pulled away from her, and she felt heat and wetness on her thigh. Xavier groaned and fell against her, holding her tight. She held him in return, her whole body aflame, unable to think or breathe. And when his fingers crept between her legs again and stroked her to a climax his mouth was on hers, his eyes on hers, every part of him with her.
Twilight was swift in the Caribbean, and by the time Eliza had her breath back they were cloaked in darkness. She couldn’t look at Xavier. The knowledge of what they’d done held her tight, like a bowstring.
“It stopped raining,” he said eventually.
“Has it? I hadn’t noticed.” She realised she was trembling.
“Are you cold?”
He had her pulled tight against his body. “No.”
“Are you…” he seemed to search for words. “Was that okay?”
She nodded, and turned her head to kiss his shoulder. “Best I’ve ever had,” she told him truthfully.
Chapter Five
They washed in the lagoon, Eliza suddenly shy about being naked in front of him. She rose from the water like a mermaid, hair silvered by the moonlight, skin pale and beautiful. He caught her hand and pulled her towards him, kissing her softly as the water lapped around their thighs.
She was hesitant, but not reluctant. Inexperienced, but surely old enough to have some experience? Surely. Maybe Englishmen were just terrible lovers and she’d never experienced real passion before. That must be it. She surely hadn’t been totally untouched? She was beautiful and smart and brave.
If no Englishman had gotten into her bed before, then England was full of idiots.
“Please tell me,” he said against her hair as he held her, naked, against him, “you don’t have some guy waiting for you at home.”
Eliza shook her head, and looked up at him in outrage. “What kind of girl do you think I am?”
“A very, very sexy one,” he told her. He smoothed a strand of wet hair back from her face. “There’s nobody for me, either. This lifestyle… it doesn’t lend itself well to attachments.”
Eliza stiffened, and he realised what he’d said.
“No, no, I get it,” she said as he began to backtrack. “What happens on the island stays on the island.”
She pulled away and began to wade ashore, and Xavier cursed himself as he followed her.
“I didn’t mean that. I’d like… that is… I want to see more of you.”
Eliza looked down at herself and let out a hysterical laugh. “I think you’ve seen it all.”
“You know what I mean. When this is over, when we’re back in the world, we should…”
He trailed off, because he didn’t know what he was asking. He lived in Miami, and she, presumably, lived in England. He had one hell of a debrief coming up and then the adjustment period of getting back to real life after being so deep undercover, and she had… whatever-the-hell job let her take meandering, expensive vacations in the Caribbean.
Come to think of it, she really hadn’t told him much about herself. The natural caution of a woman alone with a stranger? Or did she have something to hide?
“We should what?” Eliza chewed her lip, and looked away. “We should light those fires.”
She wasn’t telling him something, and he didn’t like it. But he followed her ashore, put on the clothes he’d discarded and helped her light the three signal fires.
Then they sat by the campfire, silent and awkward.
Eliza had, like him, washed out her undergarments in the sea and draped them over sticks by the fire to dry. She wore her shorts and t-shirt, the neon pink slipping sexily off one shoulder. She didn’t look at him as she poked at the fire.
“Eliza…”
“I think there’s a little oil left, if you wouldn’t mind,” she said, and he nodde
d and went to sit behind her as she pulled her shirt off, holding it up to her breasts as if he wasn’t already intimately acquainted with them.
He carefully spread the last bits of coconut fat over the red, peeling skin of her shoulders.
“You’re not burnt at all,” she said.
“I spend a lot of time outdoors. And, well, I guess I have a different complexion.”
“Right. It’s a lot hotter in Florida.”
“Florida by way of Puerto Rico,” he reminded her.
“And Louisiana.”
“Right.”
They lapsed into silence again. Xavier had run out of oil, but he kept gently stroking her skin as she stared away from him, at the fire. Eventually she said, “You could tell, couldn’t you.”
It wasn’t a question. He considered his answer anyway. “You’ve never had sex on a beach before,” was what he went for. Smooth, Xavi.
“No.” Her shoulders were tense. “Or anywhere.”
Ah. He didn’t want to embarrass her, but on the other hand… “How come? If you don’t mind my asking.”
She let out a shaky laugh. “I think we’re way beyond that. I just… never got around to it, I guess. I… I come from a… very… sheltered background,” she went on, very carefully.
Xavier hadn’t made Detective for nothing. He made a non-committal sound and let her fill the silence.
“There’s not a lot of opportunity to… meet people. Still less to be alone with them. And if I do it’s… well, it’s awkward. There’s no real privacy.”
“I see,” said Xavier, and he did. He saw why she’d taken such a risk at that party, because chances like that just didn’t come along very often. And she’d mentioned sneaking out from wherever she’d been staying, too. Strict parents? Probably.
“How old are you?” he asked.
“I’ll be 26 in a month or so.”
