TWENTY-ONE
Third day of no chocolate.
(72 hours, or 4,320 minutes…)
The sun rose over the craggy cliffs, bringing a new day, and what should have been renewed hope. Instead, the morale in camp had sunk to a new low.
The boat had vanished, and no one knew how, or why.
Dorie looked around at the glum faces. Ethan poked at the signal fire, his movements jerky. Denny stood on the beach, the water lapping at his knees, staring at the spot where the Sun Song should have been as if he could bring it back by sheer will.
Andy dragged wood to the fire log by log, as if they’d be here for a while.
Dorie could only hope not.
Cadence was actually sitting. She had her head in her hands. Dorie and Brandy had run into her coming back to the pads, and she’d said nothing. She stood now. “I’m going for a run.”
Brandy, who’d been sitting by the fire reading the People magazine Dorie’d given her from her purse, looked up in disbelief. “Honey, you’re stranded on an island without a mall. There’s no reason to walk anywhere. And that’s the good news. Come read about the latest bitch fight that broke out in Hollywood last week between the two blonde It-Girls.”
“No, you don’t understand. I have to run.”
Brandy leaned in a little closer. “Didn’t you already get your exercise with…” She jerked her head toward Denny’s back. “You know.”
Cadence winced. “No. Actually, I didn’t.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “We didn’t get that far.”
“Why not?”
Cadence glanced at Denny’s back, then lifted a shoulder. “Something stopped me.” She shook her head at the questions in their eyes and stood. “Sorry. I’ve really got to run.”
“Stay where you can be seen,” Denny said, and when everyone looked at him, he turned to face them, looking unusually tense. “For safety.”
Right, Dorie thought. Because their boat had vanished. Oh, and one of them might be a whack job.
“I’ll stay in view,” Cadence said, and took off running on the sand.
Dorie felt as restless as Cadence, and she left the campfire, too, walking toward the forest, where she’d seen Christian vanish a few minutes prior.
“Hey,” Denny called out.
“Waterfalls for a shower,” Dorie called back. “I’ll scream if I need saving.”
Brandy’s gaze said she knew exactly why Dorie was going to the “shower” and who was already there, but that didn’t stop Dorie from making the climb up the rocks anyway, following the now obvious trail to the waterfall. Beneath her feet, the earth was soft and springy. No crunching leaves. Here, everything was wet and giving. Lush.
She’d come here to shower yesterday after her fall. But she’d felt too out in the open, so she’d slipped behind the waterfall. Either that hadn’t occurred to Christian, or he didn’t care, and she had to admit as she came into the Edenlike clearing and took in his long, leanly muscled body, gleaming from the soap he was spreading over himself, he didn’t have reason to care.
The man had it going on.
Being a doctor wasn’t particularly physical, but being part of a sailing crew was, and he’d honed every single muscle on his body to hard, sinewy perfection. She could have looked her fill forever, watching him gliding the soap over his torso, up and down his arms and legs, and-
She should look away, to give him his privacy if nothing else. If someone had been watching her, she’d have been mortified, but she couldn’t move, she could only stand there, tongue hanging out.
When he caught a glimpse of her, he tossed the soap to the edge of the water and put his hands on his hips. She tried to turn away, she really did. But her gaze had a mind of its own, and took itself on a happy little tour down the front of him, past his soapy, glistening shoulders, past those six-pack abs… The man really did have a world-class bod, and asinine or not, she wanted him. She could tell herself it was simply a physical reaction, or even more understandably, an adrenaline rush because of all they’d been through, but it was so much more than that.
Without a word, he turned and dove into the water, just beneath the waterfall, and she let out a long, shaky breath, fanning her face.
Didn’t help.
Then he unexpectedly surged out of the water near her feet like a merman, making her squeak in surprise and fall backward to her butt into the shallow water.
“If you wanted to join me,” he said. “You only had to say so.”
Sputtering, the cold water seeping into her clothes, she shoved her hair from her eyes. The water was only a foot deep, but sitting in the soft sand beneath it like she now was, it lapped just beneath her breasts. “You scared me.”
“Really? Because you don’t look scared, you look turned on.” He glided in, only his head out of the water as he slid his hands up her legs, opening them so that he could swim between them, gaze level with her belly.
She opened her mouth to remind him that hey, they weren’t doing this, but he spoke. “Your head okay?”
“Better.”
“Where is everyone?” His shoulders held her legs open to him as his hands skimmed up to her waist, then up her ribs…
“Um-”
“Occupied?” Dipping his head, he used his jaw to nudge down the skinny strap of her top, while his hands slid beneath, warm against her drenched skin.
“Um… yes. Occupied.”
“Good.” His fingers fisted in the thin material of her tank, and then tugged.
Her breasts popped out. Palming them, he smiled, then gently scraped his beard-roughened jaw over a bared nipple.
He opened his mouth on her, his tongue hot, a sharp, sensual contrast to the cool water.
“Look at you,” he murmured, bending his head to take in his own long, tanned fingers on her pale, pale breasts. “So beautiful.”
As she’d noticed before, when angry or aroused, his French accent deepened, and she had to admit, his voice alone could make her weak in the knees. She was so weak in the knees now, she couldn’t have stood to save her life.
But apparently, standing wasn’t going to be necessary. Mouth still on her breasts, his hands slid down her legs, and then back up again, taking the material of her wet and clinging skirt with them.
“Christian.”
He didn’t answer. He was too busy scooting her back so that only her legs were in the water, then slipping his thumbs in the edging of her panties.
Oh, God.
He tugged, then tossed her underwear aside, where they landed next to the soap.
“Christian.”
He lifted his head and met her eyes. “Yes?”
At the look in his eyes, her toes-still in the water-curled in anticipation. “Um…”
Again he bent his head, kissing her inner thigh, her hip.
Low on her belly.
Then ground zero. Her eyes rolled back in her head and she gave herself up to the sensations of being taken… cool water, warm sun, hot tongue…
And when he’d drawn her right out of herself with shocking ease, she lay back on the bank of the lagoon, blinking up into the sky, blown away by what he did for her.
To her.
She rolled to her side and found him lying next to her on his back. Turning his head, he met her gaze, his own hot and hungry.
“I still have the condoms in my purse.” He was hard, jutting straight up into the sky she’d just been studying. Oh my. She’d done that to him. The knowledge, the power of it, surged through her.
“I’m really starting to love that purse.”
“I’ll get them, but first…” Smiling, she leaned over him.
He stared at her. “I like that expression.”
“Good.” Bold in a way she’d never ever been before in her life, she ran a finger down the chest and abs she’d wanted to nibble at. And then indulged herself, replacing her fingers with her mouth.