by Holley Trent
“You did indeed enjoy. Even with insight into your minds and emotions, it is difficult to measure which one of you reached Rhapsody first, but there must be a winner. Jonathan, nicely played. You’re on your way to seek a more fulfilling experience. Do you wish to return to your human world?”
“Yeah, I do.”
The hair at the nape of Isabelle’s neck bristled. “We both return, don’t we?”
“Not you, Isabelle, not yet. You must win the game, and if you think I did well choosing Jonathan, wait until you meet your next opponent.” Finn’s smile reached her like an icy storm blast. Another boxed Rhapsody game materialized in Finn’s hands.
“What the fu — ” Jonathan’s words hung in the night as he vanished from the beach.
Gone in a flash of Alfarian magic.
A cry sliced Isabelle’s throat.
“Hey!” A man’s call broke over the rolling waves. She turned. Her eyes stung, her throat clogged thick with fury. A guy jogged toward her wearing the same perplexed look she’d had hours before. A dark-haired, finely built specimen, a game piece to entertain an unscrupulous fiend.
The wind curled around her neck and raised gooseflesh. This night was not real. She so needed to wake up in her hotel bed right now.
She spun on her heels to unleash her wrath at Finn, but instead, stood sucking in the empty night air as her eyes searched through the dark.
Gone!
“Can I bother you for a sec?” The man with a sailboat on his T-shirt wore a twisted expression she had no trouble deciphering. “The oddest thing has happened.”
“Let me guess. You can’t find your resort?”
“Exactly. You can’t find your way back either?”
Weariness bore down hard on her bones. Jonathan’s vast experience with women of all kinds had served him well. He’d aroused her, expertly, proficiently, touching places she’d tried desperately to protect. The ache inside her took a turn for the worse.
So quickly, he’d gotten inside her.
The guy circled the fire until he stood beside the blanket party. “Are you here alone? I thought I saw someone else with you.”
“No, I’m very much alone.”
Sleep. She would lay her head on a pillow and not wake up until this proved to be a nightmare.
“Is that a game board?”
The pillow with the little red kisses on it was a soft place to fall. “Yes, it’s all a game, everything you see here is a game, you are a game piece and your freedom depends on how well you play. Good luck because you’ll be playing with yourself — literally.”
She heard him scoff and mutter something under his breath as she dropped to the ground and pulled the pillow into her lap. Jonathan’s scent invaded her senses. She drew one deep breath and trembled before throwing the pillow to the far side of the blanket. It didn’t help. His scent permeated her skin, surrounding her in erotic memories she must escape now before she became marooned with her creeping desperation.
Chapter Twelve
Jonathan was sucked through a rainbow. His stomach bottomed out. Boneless as a rag doll, he felt as though his molecules were rearranged as he traveled through space he couldn’t begin to define. The beach had disappeared and his chest constricted in one solid thwump as he was deposited back at the resort.
Back in the real world.
Calypso music blasted him as he landed in a wicker chair hard on his ass. His head spun while he assimilated the last few moments.
Isabelle.
He bolted from the chair and did a quick search of the area. No sign of her. Finn had not freed Isabelle?
Before he’d disappeared from the beach, he’d seen a man heading toward the fire with an anxious gait, his features hidden in the dark while Finn’s words rang in the night: If you think I did well choosing Jonathon, wait until you meet your next opponent. The thought of Isabelle playing Rhapsody with another man made him seasick.
Across the lobby, he caught a familiar voice and saw a woman he’d snorkeled with earlier in the week. She stood at the bar waiting for a drink, twirling a cherry in her fingers. Damn, he was thirsty.
He turned his back to the bar, so he could concentrate on Isabelle. He’d likely not find her on the beach, yet he didn’t know where else to start. Perhaps if he duplicated every move he’d made earlier, he’d return to Finn’s world.
“Hey there, Jonathan.” Lindsay, the woman twirling the cherry, had noticed him.
He let out his breath and turned. “Hey.”
“You all alone here? I brought you a drink — sex on the beach. I remembered how much you enjoyed it.” Her eyes lit with double entendre.
He smiled tightly, raised the drink to his lips, and gulped. Sweet and refreshing. Lindsay wore a tight, halter dress that clung in all the right places, low-cut to show a good portion of her petite breasts. A vision of the mole above her pink nipple came to his mind. No comparison to Isabelle’s perfect breasts.
“Do you wanna dance or go somewhere quiet, like my room this time?” Lindsay’s smile was laced with suggestions he’d be a fool to turn down.
“I can’t right now, sorry. I need to find a friend.”
“Oh, too bad.” Her pout was a ploy. Isabelle wasn’t the pouting type. He didn’t like the pouting type. Shit. Was Finn’s beach bum melting her reserve all over again while Jonathan stood gulping cocktails?
“Maybe we’ll hook up another time.” He left his glass on a table as he bolted. He had no interest in hooking up with Lindsay ever and that was damn unsettling. Was he going to change his life now that he’d met Isabelle?
He reached the end of the path and froze, feeling like a hornet caught on the wrong side of a window, buzzed and disoriented, unable to find life as he once knew it.
Get a grip.
With a glance behind him to where lights rimmed the path and music played in the bar, he drew a breath and stepped onto the beach.
Nothing happened and he felt foolish to feel his heart pounding. What a nutcase he was. Was he going to panic every time he stepped onto a beach? Or every time he met a woman who knocked his life off its axis?
He headed toward the sound of the waves.
His search yielded nothing. Nerves tightened in his gut. The fire. The blanket. The game. Isabelle with her lips on some bum’s ass. Isabelle bound while the bum’s lips explored her thigh.
This was a fucking nightmare.
Think!
Perhaps if he retraced the events that led up to his disappearance. Just before the resort vanished, he’d sent an email. Maybe that email had been a trigger.
He slipped his hand into his pocket to fetch his Blackberry and instead drew out the card he’d taken from the game. He’d told Isabelle it had been a request card intending to ramp up her arousal by watching him go down on her. A white lie. The card’s purpose was to repeat a turn. Hell of a lot of good it did him now.
He ran his thumb over the card. Repeat a turn. He could think of a few he’d like to repeat, but any of those would catapult him back to Finn’s world with no guarantee he’d get Isabelle back in the real world.
Unless … .
He read the directions on the card and smiled as a possibility struck.
Chapter Thirteen
Isabelle couldn’t possibly be dreaming, not yet. Seconds ago, she’d heard a noise in the forest, an animal-like skirmish that had chilled her blood. Now, eyes closed, she felt as though she was falling over the rainbow and through space — like in a dream. Her mind scrambled to decipher the experience. Not dreaming, but falling.
Teeth clenched together, she opened her eyes, then slammed them shut abruptly. Too bright. Where the heck was she now? Clinking, clattering, voices, laughter … food. Garlic and herb aromas that made her mouth salivate and her stomach rumble.
She
opened her eyes a crack. It only took moments to recognize the painted mural of Tuscan summer shops on the wall across from her. Waiters moved among tables packed with diners. A wine list lay open on the table in front of her. The booth in the Italian restaurant at Serenity Resort.
She was back at the resort. Relief slowed the blood pumping through her veins.
Rhapsody was over.
A waiter approached her table. “Apology, the wine you like to order comes by the bottle only, not for a glass.”
She’d ordered wine? Serious déjà vu here. She narrowed her eyes to study the waiter: same bump on his nose, same slick black hair tied in a tail, same crisp white shirt, the same one who’d served her earlier in the week when she’d tried to order wine in Spanish.
“You would like a different one?”
“Decidimos por la botella, por favor” came a request from behind. She detected a waver in the voice, not as steady as it had been the first time she’d heard it.
Isabelle’s gaze fell on Jonathan as he gave the order to the waiter.
“Do you think one bottle will be enough?” she said.
Same killer smile. “My kind of woman. If I buy the wine, may I join you?”
Her gaze snapped to his eyes. “I think you should, yes.”
His expression was warm, friendly, his manner controlled and non-revealing, almost as if they’d not just had hot, mind-blowing sex on an immortal beach — or almost as if he didn’t think their sex had been mind-blowing.
As he slipped into the booth across from her, she studied his face — same devastatingly handsome guy — but the emotion lacking in his expression made her pause. Fine tremors ran through the nerves under her skin. Would the tremors ever stop?
With a deep, calming breath, she crossed her arms over her chest. “It’s a relief to be back at the resort, but something is off.” She leaned closer and lowered her voice. “It feels like our first day here.” She could be cool and collected. So what if they’d had great sex. Big deal. Just another day to her, too.
His eyes crinkled in puzzlement for a second. “Ah, so you’ve been here before. First time for me, first day for me, so I’d love a tour later if you’re up to it, perhaps a moonlight stroll on the beach.”
His sense of humor was very off. “I’ll stick to the pool, thank you very much. It’ll be some time before I step foot on another beach.”
With a glance out the window at the brightening sky, she realized day was dawning. Yet her gaze dropped to the table across from them. Odd. Those people were definitely eating dinner.
Jonathan leaned forward and drew her attention from the dinner plates. “Too bad, I’m trying to conquer my fear of the beach. I’m Jonathan Raynor, by the way. I don’t know much about Serenity Resorts, but an Italian I met earlier said they do an amazing linguine vigo di fassio here.”
She sucked in her breath. Not funny at all. “Jonathan, be serious. I’m not saying you have to wax poetic over our sex on the beach, but to ignore that it happened, to not have one sweet word, not one warm reminisce, is just hurtful.” Ack! Her plea sounded needy — just the sort of situation she didn’t wish to be in. Where were the men who actually cared about a woman after sex?
His head cocked as his eyes narrowed to better study her. “Sweetheart, I’m at a loss. I must have brain damage because I can’t imagine any other reason for forgetting you. I’d accuse you of pulling my leg, but you seem so familiar to me that I know we’ve met.”
Holy shit.
The waiter set two glasses on the table and uncorked the bottle. “The show tonight is — wow. The dancers are best ones, from Argentina. It is special this Monday only. You are lucky for being here this special week.”
Monday. The Argentinean dancers had been impressive. Isabelle’s gaze darted to Jonathan. They’d gone back in time five days, or was it just she who’d gone back in time?
How could that be?
Wine splashed from the bottle into their glasses. “I be back to make your candle light. I hope you like this holiday.” The waiter moved away.
Like her holiday? Should she lodge a complaint with the resort? She held back a hysterical laugh as she realized no one would believe she’d been hijacked by an elf to play sex games on the beach and then swept back in time.
Leaning closer, Jonathan handed her a wineglass. The same way he’d handed it to her on Monday night, only on Monday night they’d talked about Italian grapes. On Monday night, he’d had good reason not to recall their hot sex on the beach. On Monday night, she’d made a big mistake. She lifted the glass to her lips and forced herself not to gulp.
“I feel terrible,” he said. “I really do. Please forgive me. I … ” He paused as his cell phone buzzed in his pocket. “If it takes the entire holiday, I promise to make amends for my impaired memory.” He looked rattled, face flushed, jaw clenched, as his hand slid into his pocket and drew out not the phone, but the glimmering repeat-a-turn card from the Rhapsody game.
She didn’t think his expression could become more perplexed. She’d thought wrong. He turned the card over in his hand, looked at her, and shook his head. “I’m suffering a serious mental lapse today.” He was about to hide the card back in his pocket, hide the evidence of his fragile mind. With reflexes that surprised her, she snapped it from his hand.
She read the card. “It was a repeat-a-turn card, not a request card.” Back on the beach, she realized now he’d tricked her into doing his bidding. Despite her distress, desire exploded deep down between her thighs at the memory. Her body trembled for Jonathan as if she had never known satisfaction before.
Unspoken desire moved between them, surpassing every unanswered question for the moment as their gazes locked on one another. He didn’t mean to cheapen the intimacy they had shared on the beach, he truly had lost all recollection of the holiday after that first day. Excitement flickered to life inside her. They could start all over.
A hand reached between them toward the candle. The wick sparked to a flame. A voice whispered in Isabelle’s ear. “I’d burn that card, princess. Jonathan sacrificed his memories to bring you back. Find a soft place and tell him a story I promise he’ll remember.”
A tall, muscular elf with shimmering white hair sauntered away from their table. With a brief look back, Finn winked at her, and a message flowed into her mind. “If you won’t trust that I’ve found your mate, then trust that you have.”
“Weird, but I think I know that guy from somewhere.” Jonathan returned his attention to Isabelle. “Have you charmed all the waiters in the restaurant? Am I up against fierce competition here?”
Her mind scrambled to process what had happened. Jonathan must have used the repeat-a-turn card to repeat that first night they’d met in this restaurant. Had he realized he’d lose his memories from after Monday’s dinner? What if they had both lost their memories of the past week, of Rhapsody? Nothing would have changed between them. She would still have walked away from Jonathan and never given them a chance.
She should give him that chance now.
With a soft smile for Jonathan, she put the Rhapsody card to the candle flame. “I’ve had my fill of competitions for a while.” The edge flickered as it caught. She held it for another second, then dropped it into the glass surrounding the candle.
“You didn’t like the card, huh.”
She gave him a saucy smile. “No, resort rules. All those cards must be burned. I read it in my welcome package. Jonathan, I’m Isabelle Carson and I’d like to try that pasta dish with you, if you’re game.” She’d also thoroughly enjoy feeling the strength of his arms around her, feeling comforted from the only person in the real world to which rhapsody would have a new meaning. Her thoughts wavered as she wondered if his comfort would be temporary, that he was a man who loved all women, that she was not special to him.
Every fiber of good
sense struggled with her objective to stay man-free for one year, with the decision she’d made last Monday to walk away from Jonathan Raynor. Did she wish to walk a straight line into heartache?
Or was Finn of the Alfar a magical matchmaker? Could she truly trust the body that craved Jonathan, the voice in her mind that said this man is worth your attention?
A sultry redhead approached their table and shot a bold gaze at Jonathan. Her hips swung, her cleavage jiggled, her perfume beckoned. Isabelle recognized her immediately.
Jonathan didn’t notice. He reached across and slipped his hand over Isabelle’s. “I’m having a déjà vu moment. An image of you throwing a die just came to me. Are you a gambler, Isabelle?”
“Well, it would depend on the stakes.”
His lips rose in the same devastatingly gorgeous smile. “I want to know everything about you, Isabelle, your desires, your dreams, even your demons.”
A lesson from week three came to her: To make a relationship work, a person can’t let fear close down her heart. Could she trust Jonathan with her desires? Her dreams? Her demons? Were these stakes worth the gamble?
Excitement coaxed her lips up into a smile. “We have a week to find those things out.”
He released her hand to raise his glass. “Cheers to that.”
The wine left a hint of roses on her tongue. “After dinner, I’d like to find a place under the stars and tell you a story.”
“Ah, great, I love a bedtime story. I hope it’s a long one because this is a night I don’t want to end.”
He slid closer, retrieved her hand and drew it to his lips. As she sensed his hunger rise to match hers, a suspicion grew inside her, grew quick into a strong possibility — whatever came between them — it would be magic.
About The Author
Sharon Clare lives in Ontario with her husband and three wonderful grown-up kids who come and go from the nest. She fell in love with writing at the University of Toronto where she graduated with a science degree in psychology and professional writing. She writes paranormal romance and has published short stories, art reviews, newsletter and magazine articles. Her favorite place to write is outside under the maple trees beside the trickling pond and blooming lilies.
