His Thirty-Day Fiancee (12 page)

Their legs tangled in the spread. Without moving his mouth from hers, he wadded the coverlet and flung it on the floor. He tunneled his hand under the hem of her dress. The cool sheets slithered underneath them, the high thread count nowhere near as silky as her skin.

“Clothes,” she whispered between nips, “we have too many.”

He knew an invitation when he heard one.

“Let me help you with that.”

Drawing his mouth from hers, he nuzzled down her body until he reached her long legs. She’d driven him crazy all day long with the killer boots. As he eased down one knee-high leather boot, he kissed along her calf, her skin creamy and soft. Her breathy moan, the impatient grapple of her hands on his shoulders encouraged him. He tugged the other boot down and sent it to the floor with a resounding thump.

Kate curled her toes, wriggling the painted white tips in a delicious stretch that called his fingers to her delicate arches. Stretching to the side, she switched on the bedside lamp.

He stroked along her arm and gathered her against him again. “You don’t shy away from the light. That’s a total turn-on.”

She hooked a leg over his hip. “You’re such a
guy.
”

“Obviously.” His erection throbbed between them.

Her eyes narrowed with purpose. “Lie back.”

“We’ll get there.” He slanted his mouth over hers.

She flattened her palm against his chest. “I said for you to lie back.” Determination resonated from her words as sure as the unremitting surf rolling outside the open veranda doors. “You give a lot of orders. I think it’s time for someone to take charge of you.”

“Are you challenging me to a power struggle?”

“I’m daring you to give your body over to me. Or does the prince always have to be in control?”

Her question hinted at their argument earlier, and damned if he would let this moment be derailed. His hand glided up to cradle her breast. “What do you have in mind?”

“No, no.” She shook her head slowly, tousled hair a sexy cloud of disarray around her face. “If I spell everything out, you’re not taking much of a risk.”

Her meaning crystallized in his mind. “So I trust you a little and you trust me a little?”

“You first,” she said, the mix of vixen and vulnerability winning him over.

He whipped his shirt off, reclined back. And waited.

Standing at the foot of the bed, she bunched the hem of her dress in her hands, inch by inch exposing her thighs to his hungry gaze. Then showing her cranberry-red panties and bra he’d peeled from her earlier in the airplane.

Her dress covered her face for an instant before she flung it aside. The salty sea air through the French doors fluttered the canopy overhead and her breasts beaded visibly against the satin bra. His hands fisted in the sheets as he resisted the urge to haul her against him right then and there. She shook her hair from her face, flicking it over her shoulders.

“Your turn,” she demanded.

God, she was hot and turned him inside out in a way no other woman had. He tugged his pants and boxers off, ready to cut short this game of dare or strip poker or whatever she wanted to call it.

She quirked a brow then reached for the center clasp—he swallowed hard—to unfasten her bra. Red satin fell away and he couldn’t resist. He arched off the bed toward her.

Shaking her head, she covered her breasts and backed up. He reclined again, his arms behind his head. She lowered her hands and hooked her thumbs in her panties. A slow shimmy later, she kicked aside the underwear.

Her eyes blazed bold and determined as she knelt on the bed. Crawling up the mattress, she climbed toward him. He slid his hands from behind his head, flattened along the sheets, but didn’t touch her, not yet. The intensity in her eyes said she wanted to play this out a while longer. He didn’t delude himself that this would magically fix their argument, and they might be better served talking.

But damned if he could find the words or will to stop her.

She fanned her fingers over his chest. A primitive growl rumbled free ahead of his thoughts. She dipped her head and flicked her tongue over his flat nipple. Again. She devoted every bit as much attention to him as he’d enjoyed lavishing on her beautiful body earlier in the plane. Drawing circles down his stomach, she scratched lightly down and down. His abs contracted under her touch.

Lower still she traced just beside his arousal until his teeth clenched. Then her cool hand curled around him and stroked, deliberately, continuing until his eyes slammed shut and his senses narrowed to just the glide of her touch. The caress of her thumb. The warmth of her mouth.

Dots specked behind his eyelids, the roar in his ears rivaling the crash of waves. His jaw clamped tight as he held back his release, fought the urge to move.

“Kate…” he hissed between clenched teeth.

Shifting, she stretched upward again, her lips leading the way as she kissed, licked, nipped until she reached his face.

Once he opened his eyes, she stared down at him. “Where do you keep the birth control?”

His desire-steamed brain raced to keep pace. “In my wallet. I would reach for it, but someone told me not to move. Do you mind?”

With a fluid stretch over the side, she plucked his wallet from his pants and pulled out a condom. Flipping the packet between her fingers, she smiled at him with such a wicked glint in her now-near-purplish-blue eyes that he knew she wasn’t through with her control game. Not by a long shot. She smoothed the condom down and took him inside her with such sweet torturous precision he almost came undone.

The restraints snapped and his hands shot up to cup her breasts. She pushed into his palms, tips harder and tighter than ever before. Her instant response to his touch sent a rush of possessiveness through him.

She cradled his face as she rocked her hips. “I would love to capture your expression on film.”

“There I have to draw the line.” He finger-combed her hair, bringing her mouth to his as he thrust again and again.

“I have to agree,” she murmured against his lips, eyes wide, intimate as they watched, touched, even talked, both completely into each other and the moment. “As much as I would love to take your picture right now, the last thing we need is someone hacking into my computer and finding naked photos of you.”

She’d surprised him there. But then he should be used to the way she lobbed bombshells his way. “You want to take risqué pictures of me?”

“I beg your pardon? I had something more artistic in mind.” She ground her hips against his as she continued to whisper her fantasy. “But yes, you would be totally, gloriously, naked.”

He throbbed inside the satiny clasp of her body. While he couldn’t imagine himself pulling some pretty-boy naked modeling session even for Kate, he absolutely enjoyed hearing her fantasize. “Artistic how?”

“You’re a mesmerizing man. The way light plays across the cut of your muscles in your arms, the six-pack ridges. Everything about you is stark angles. And shadows. The things I see when I look in your eyes…”

“Enough.” He kissed her hard to break off her words, uncomfortable with the turn her scenario had taken. To hell with giving over control. He rolled her to her back and she didn’t protest.

In a flash, she hooked her legs around his waist and took charge of her pleasure—of theirs—all over again. And it was every bit as combustible as before. The glide of sweat-slicked skin against skin, the scent of her with him lingering in the air. He couldn’t get enough of her. Even as they thrust toward completion, he knew the sex between them would always be thus.

And it hadn’t brought them any closer to resolving their argument.

Click. Click.

Kate had photos galore, much to Harold Hough’s delight, although in his emails he kept pressing for one of the king. She could answer honestly that she hadn’t seen him. The monarch was still in the hospital. She hadn’t been allowed access.

Focusing on her favorite Canon camera and her job rather than her confusing relationship with Duarte, Kate swung the lens toward her next subject. Antonio straddled a paddleboard in the shallow tides with little Kolby in front of him, both of them wearing wet suits for the cooler waters.
Click. Click.

These photos would be her wedding gifts to Shannon and Tony. Some pictures she considered off-limits to Harold Hough, the
Intruder
and the public in general. During the past week, she’d found herself more protective of the images than even Duarte. These people had welcomed her into their lives and they trusted her to represent them fairly in the media. She’d learned there were some moral lines she refused to cross, even for her sister.

Lifting the camera, she went back to work on images for her gift to the bride and groom. Two large dogs loped in the surf, the king’s trained Rhodesian Ridgebacks named Benito and Diablo.
Click.
The dogs might look scary but they were pussycats around the little boy.

A strange squeeze wrapped around Kate’s heart as she took a close-up of the child and his soon-to-be dad in matching wet suits. The towheaded little boy sported white zinc oxide on his nose and a big grin on his face.

Lowering her camera, she wondered how Duarte would act with his children someday. He wasn’t the lighthearted playmate sort like Tony, but she’d seen his gentle patience and understanding with Jennifer over the past week. Her heart went tight again.

Don’t think.

Duarte wore jeans and a lightweight pullover, wind threading in off the ocean and playing with his hair the way she longed to. From a distance he may have appeared casual, lounging back against a tree. But through her lens, Kate saw the iPhone in his hand and he sure wasn’t playing music. His brow furrowed, he seemed intent on business.

Their week together had been guarded to say the least. While the king stayed isolated in the hospital, they’d settled into an unspoken standoff, participating in five-star family dinners. Smiling at movie nights in the home theater. Sailing. Swimming. Even going to the gym with a stationary bike for her to work off all the meals while Duarte completed a martial arts workout looking like sex personified.

Most would have considered the week a dream vacation.

Except Duarte hadn’t apologized for his autocratic move in bringing Jennifer to the island without consulting her. And she simply couldn’t tell him never mind, it didn’t matter. Because it
was
important.

Although, she didn’t understand why she felt so compelled to make her point. They would be out of each other’s lives in another two weeks or so when she took the photos of Tony and Shannon’s wedding. She should just enjoy the sex and let the deeper issues float away like palmetto fronds on the waves.

And the sex was most definitely enjoyable.

While their days together might be tension packed, the nights were passion filled. In her bed or his, they never planned ahead but somehow found their way into each other’s arms by midnight, staying together until sunrise.

Pictures. Right. She’d forgotten.

Click, click, click.
She captured Duarte in photos just for her personal collection when she left the island. After all, she would probably need proof for herself that it all happened in the first place. Every moment here felt surreal, a dream life she’d never been meant to live.

She shifted the lens.

Shannon sat cross-legged on a beach blanket with a basket, arranging a picnic lunch. “Okay, y’all,” she drawled, nudging her glasses in place, “we have roasted turkey and cheese with apricot-fig chutney on a baguette, spinach salad with champagne vinaigrette, and fresh fruit tarts for dessert. And for Kolby…” She pulled out what appeared to be lunch meat rolled in tortillas. Her blonde ponytail swished in the wind as she called out to her son and future husband.
Click. Click.
“Caterpillars and snakes.”

Jennifer swung a leg over the side of the hammock and toe-tapped it into motion, rocking gently. “Tortillas as snakes? You’re a fun mom, Shannon.”

The young mother placed the deli rollups on a Thomas the Tank Engine plate. “Anything to make mealtime an adventure rather than a battle.”

Swiping moisture off the lens, Kate refocused on her sister. “This reminds me of home in the summer, with picnics by the shore.”

Before life had turned vastly complicated.

Jennifer adjusted her pink polka-dot visor. “Except it’s January. I could get used to no snow.” Her younger sister glanced at Duarte leaning against the tree at her feet. “Why did you wanna live somewhere so different from here? This is perfect.”

“Not that different.” He looked over patiently, tucking away his iPhone in a waterproof backpack. “Living on Martha’s Vineyard reminds me of the parts of home that meant most to me, the rocky shore, the sailboats.”

Something in his voice told Kate by “home” he meant San Rinaldo, not this island. For Duarte growing up, the luxury here must have seemed a poor substitute for all he’d lost. The sun dimmed behind a cloud.

Slipping from the hammock to stand beside Duarte, Jennifer pulled out her earbud and wrapped the cord around the iPod. “And when your toes get too cold, you can simply visit one of your other resorts.”

“Like your sister travels with her job.”

Kate’s finger twitched on the next shot.

Her sister scrunched her nose. “Yeah, but the postcards aren’t as fun anymore.” Jennifer’s face cleared. “I still have the one she sent me from an airport in Paris when she was on her way to somewhere else. I don’t remember where, but the postcard has the Eiffel Tower on it. Cool, huh?”

“Very cool, Jennifer.”

“Hey.” Shannon smiled from the blanket. “Duarte and Kate can fly you to the Eiffel Tower in their family jet.”

Kate gasped and bit her tongue hard to keep from snapping back while Jennifer chattered excitedly about the possibility of such a trip. Shannon had no way of knowing she’d raised Jennifer’s hopes for nothing. Kate nearly staggered under the weight of her deception. The future Medina bride had no idea this whole engagement was a farce. Kate hadn’t foreseen how many people would be affected—would be hurt—by this charade. Including herself.

What a time to realize she didn’t want this to end in two weeks. She wasn’t sure what the future held, but how amazing it would have been to date Duarte for real, let a real relationship follow its course. Her thumb went to the engagement ring, turning the stone round and round. Her camera slid from her slack grip to thud against the sand.

Oh, God. She dropped to her knees and dusted the camera frantically. She didn’t have the money to replace her equipment. She knew better than to get caught up in some fairy-tale life that included flights to Paris and inherited family jewels, for crying out loud. What was the matter with her?

A shadow stretched beside her a second before Duarte knelt near her, offering her lens cloth. “Need this?”

“Thank you.” She felt so confused. He’d given her nothing more than himself this week, making his body delectably available to her increasing demands, but never letting her have a glimpse of the heart within.

How long could they play this sensual teasing game before they hurt too many people to count?

“You miss it,” he said. “The travel with your old job, before
Intruder
days of star chasing.”

Ah. The least of her troubles right now. But then, Duarte had no idea he’d touched her heart in a way she could never seem to penetrate his.

Wary of being overheard, she checked on the rest of their party and found they’d moved away from the blanket, involved in setting up an elaborate new sunshade tent for Kolby’s lunch. She looked back at Duarte quickly.

“My sister needs continuity,” she responded and evaded his question. “This is the only way I can earn a living that provides for her.”

“Perhaps there are different ways to find continuity than living in one particular place.”

Did the man learn nothing? There he went again, presuming to handle Jennifer’s life for her. Frustration from the past week boiled to life again. “Spoken like a man who lives in hotels, a man scared of having a real home.”

A real connection, damn it.

They stared at each other in a standoff that had become all too common over the past seven days. Except with her heart aching she wondered how she could simply indulge in heated, no-strings sex with him tonight when they had failed to find common ground in every other arena of their lives.

Swallowing back a lump in her throat, she stood. “I should go and upload these photos. My editor’s expecting an update and I would hate to miss a deadline.”

Duarte clasped her arm, his eyes broadcasting his intent to press her for more…when a Jeep roared in the distance, rumbling across the sandy beach toward them. As the vehicle drove closer, Javier Cortez came into sight behind the wheel. The four-wheel drive skidded to a stop, spewing sand from the tires.

The head of security grabbed the roll bar and swung to the ground. “Duarte, I wanted to tell you in person.”

Shannon shot to her feet, gasping. “Is it their father? Is he…?”

Tony rushed up the shore, his board under one arm, his other hand holding tight to little Kolby. “Javier?”

Cortez held a hand up. “Calm down, everyone. It’s good news that I thought you should hear face-to-face. The king has recovered enough to be released from the hospital. He will be home by the end of the day.”

The weight on Kate’s shoulders increased as she thought of fooling yet another person with the fake engagement. This time, they added an old man in frail health to the list of people who would be hurt. And right now, she worried less about how she would be able to forgive Duarte and more about how she would ever forgive herself.