Surrender The Booty (9 page)

“I’m falling for him myself,” Bella said softly.

Jose nodded. “Many women did. But that was the least of his worries. There was another problem with leaving Carmella behind.

She shared her husband’s amorous spirit, and it is said she kept young men at her beck and call for the long nights that Delgado spent at sea.

The young men didn’t seem to bother Delgado as much as the constant attempts of his peers to win the hand – or body – of his wife.

“After a particularly rough jaunt at sea in which he narrowly escaped with his life, Delgado came home to find one of his cousins
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forcing his way into Carmella’s chamber. She and her servants were fending him off, but he likely would have gained entry if Delgado hadn’t arrived when he did. A brawl ensued. Delgado’s cousin lay dead and Delgado packed up his wife and her servants and had them aboard his finest ship before morning.”

“This is true?” Bella asked. “How awful.”

“It’s true, and it gets worse. After a few days at sea, the mutiny began. Spurred by the temptation of having a woman aboard, the crew rose up against Delgado. The battle was fierce. Several men died.

Delgado was injured, but accounts are varied in how severely. Not even my family knows for sure.

“By moonlight, Delgado and Carmella escaped in a dinghy with a couple of trusted servants and a single chest of treasure. Delgado set fire to the ship and sent the remainder of his crew to a watery grave.

After days at sea, Delgado, Carmella and their loyal servants stumbled onto the shore of Isla de Amantes.”

“So why doesn’t this island still belong to you?” Trevor set his plate on the ground and stretched his arms over his head.

“It should. But things happen. Kind of the way your grandfather’s island should have been yours.” Jose poured another glass of water from the pitcher on the table. “It will be mine.”

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Still naked from his swim, Trevor skated his hand through his three-day beard and dug his toes in the sand. Here on the rocky side of the island, the sea beat the shoreline with a constant crash and hiss, but the sound wasn’t loud enough to drown out his thoughts. Being stuck in paradise was a hell of a way to lose the horses. He needed every minute he had to find another piece of property. There was no way he could outbid Jose, not with the kind of money those Hollywood types made. Trevor swore under his breath. There had to be another way. He couldn’t outbid him. He’d have to outsmart him.

Trevor flung a gnarled piece of driftwood toward the sea. Losing wasn’t his game. No way in hell.

“What are you doing out here by yourself, Cowboy?” Bella stretched her arms over her head and smiled into the soft sunlight.

“Still avoiding me?”

Damn, she was every woman he’d ever wanted all rolled into one tight little package with an ass that wouldn’t quit. Like this island, though, he didn’t know if she’d ever be his. If he was smart, he’d make sure that never happened.

“Was it something I did, or did you just wake up on the wrong side of the hammock?” She slinked toward him in that way she had.

Her hair was still damp and her little white tank top and panties didn’t leave much to the imagination.

Every step she took brought her closer and knocked another block out of the wall he kept around his heart. His body felt a hunger that threatened to unglue him and there was only one way to feed it.

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He grabbed her so fast she lost her balance and fell into his chest.

Her hands dug into his skin, and the sting of too much sun stabbed into his nerves.

“I wanted you in the shower.”

“I ain’t in the sharing mood.” The words ground out of his throat and the scent of her freshly washed hair spiked his adrenaline higher.

She laughed and ran her fingers through his beard. “We’re the only two here right now.”

His mouth came down hard. Too hard. But goddamn if he could help himself. He dragged her hips against his. A noise rose in her throat. It might as well have been a siren call. She met his kiss with a hungry tongue and pressed her breasts against his chest. Her soft flesh against his sent goose bumps skittering over his skin. This woman did things to him he couldn’t explain. He had to have her like he had to have air. One stroke of her tongue left him satisfied and starving all at the same time. Damn this island spell. He squeezed her sweet ass in his hands. He needed to sink into her heat, to fuck her until he dove so deep he couldn’t remember his own name.

She moved against him. And he knew that sweet pussy was sopping wet. She was ready. Bella had never told him no. Never acted for a second like she didn’t want him as much as he wanted her. She fucked like he did. Like she was ready to let go of everything, just for a few minutes of mind-erasing sex.

Aw, hell.

Trevor’s breath staggered as he pulled away from her and looked deep into her dark eyes. “What is it, baby?” He held her pretty face between his hands and fought to get his breath under control. “What do you need to get away from?”

Bella’s stare was blank for a long minute. Then fire lit her eyes.

She jerked away from him. “What are you talking about?”

“What is it back home that’s got you by the balls?”

“I thought you wanted to fuck me.” A blush spread over her neck and into her cheeks, but it didn’t hide the hurt and defiance he saw in
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her eyes. “What happened between us yesterday that’s got you acting like this?”

He grabbed her wrist and pressed her hand to his rock-hard cock.

Her touch triggered a shot of heat and need through his groin, but he held back. “This ain’t about me and there’s no question I want to fuck you.” He pulled her close and trailed his fingers down her cheek.

“Tell me what you do back on the mainland that keeps you locked up.

A woman doesn’t explode like you do if she ain’t packed down tight.”

His voice softened. “You’re too old to be living under daddy’s thumb.

Are you married?”

She shook her head, and her lips tightened into a frown.

“Boyfriend?”

“No.”

Realization trickled down his neck like icy rain. “How many kids you got?”

“None.” Her gaze bore into his and she laughed.

Relief washed over him. “What’s so funny?”

“You sure look relieved.”

“I reckon I am.” Not because he didn’t like kids. He’d always figured one day he might have a couple. But he didn’t like the idea of her having kids with someone else. Whoa! Slow down, Cowboy. He looked at her hard. Damn. Did he want to have kids with her? Give her a house and a picket fence and all that stuff women always seemed to want? He shook his head. He wasn’t one to be fenced in.

Better to let go of those thoughts now before he fooled himself into believing them. Or worse, before he fooled her into thinking that was the kind of man he was.

“What’s wrong with kids?” she asked.

“You haven’t answered my question yet.” He smoothed the frown lines between her eyes with his thumb. “Whatever it is, I ain’t gonna hold it against you.”

“There’s something I wish you would hold against me.” She wound a leg around his hip and ground her pussy against his erection.

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He growled and sank his hands into her ass again. She did a damn fine job of changing the subject. Her hips rotated slowly and his cock swelled against the thin cotton of her panties. The urge to find out what skeletons she was hiding slid out of his mind and his original intentions came slamming back. She might have clammed up for now, but he knew how to have her screaming in just a few minutes. She clung to his neck as he stood and toted her toward the waves.

Her mouth descended on his, blocking everything from view but her pretty face. He couldn’t see where he was going, but he kept planting one foot in front of the other. If he believed in fences, he would have built one around that kiss. He could have crawled right into her and never surfaced again. But fences never held anything for long. Sooner or later the greener grass would call and he’d be off.

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Still glowing from the orgasm, Trevor had given her, Bella looked more like a goddess than ever. Jose loved watching her fuck. Trevor, too. They were both beautiful. One a picture of femininity, the other pure male.

From the beach he had watched the strain of Trevor’s muscles as he lifted her on and off his shaft in the rolling waves. And Bella’s breasts left his mouth watering for a taste as they bounced, her head thrown back, her arms trembling around Trevor as he made her cry out again and again. Jose was hard just thinking about it, but afterward, Trevor had seemed more distant than before and had taken off toward the far end of the island.

“What are you waiting for?” Jose waited at the mouth of a cave he’d discovered on the broad end of the island. Inside, sunlight snaked like lightning across the constantly moving water.

“I’m not waiting.” Bella shifted her gaze from the sea back to the opening of the cavern and her mouth softened into a frown. “I’m not going in there.”

“What are you afraid of?”

“If something happens to me…” She shrugged. “I have

responsibilities back home.”

“You have a life too. Or you should.” He reached for her hand. “I know your brother needs you, but you deserve so much.”

She stiffened, her whole body ready for a fight. “So does he. Do you think he deserves to be in that wheelchair? That bed? Nobody loved life the way he did. And now he just wants to die.”

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The weight of the guilt he’d been carrying for years pressed on Jose’s chest, cutting off his breath. “He doesn’t deserve any of it.”

The words barely eked from his throat. “I should be there. Not him.”

A frown creased Bella’s forehead. “You don’t even know him.”

Jose shook his head. The moment of reckoning had come. There was no backing down now. “I do. I know him.”

A look of total disbelief skewed her beautiful face. “How?”

Jose swallowed the rock in his throat. It was time to be a man, to tell her who he was. He deserved for her to hate him. And he was even more despicable for not telling her the truth before he made love to her.

“You don’t remember me, but I came to your house once. The day of the accident.” He grabbed onto the rocks at the entrance to the cave and pounded his fist against the hard, wet stone. Damn it! He had to tell her. But the words hurt. The memories just about killed him and he knew they would rip her apart too. There were some wounds time wouldn’t heal. J.P. would never walk again. Never be the daredevil his soul craved to be. “Remember how much he used to laugh?” His throat tightened around the words and his chest burned.

Behind him, Bella’s shadow didn’t move.

“We used to call him Hyena,” Jose continued. “Told him he cackled like an old lady, and he’d laugh at anything. The whole goddamn world was funny to him. No such thing as a bad day.”

“Who are you?” The shadows of her hands clenched into fists.

Jose turned to face her. “It was my plane he jumped out of. I was flying it.”

Her palm landed against his cheek with enough force to turn his head. The sting of the slap was nothing compared to the way his heart ripped when he saw the look in her eye.

She hated him. He had never seen such pure hatred before. He didn’t know a single word he could say that would stand a chance of changing her mind. Tears rimmed her eyes but she was gone before they fell.

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Jose watched her run down the beach away from him. He wanted more than anything to go after her, but he knew she didn’t want him anywhere near her and he couldn’t blame her. Without the magic of the island, he never would have laid a hand on her without telling her the truth first. But he carried the magic in his blood. He was powerless against it. He couldn’t fight off the magic any more than he could stop loving Bella. He would make her understand. And he knew just how he would do it.

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Bella doubled over, breathing hard. What a fucking asshole! She’d known there was something familiar about him. She mentally kicked herself for not putting two and two together. Yes, she had met him at her house, but then he’d been in his usual paparazzi disguise. Ball cap pulled low. Dark sunglasses. J.P. ran with a crowd like that all the time. She’d long before given up paying attention to them. Most of the ones he brought home were wannabe stars, eking by as extras and valets. But they all had one thing in common. Just like J.P., they liked to live on the edge, wring every ounce out of life.

He’d loved his gig as a stuntman. Living in Miami in the ’80s, he had more than his share of work. On television and the big screen, smooth detectives were always chasing drug-loaded yachts or Lamborghinis. His career was soaring. And then he climbed into Jose’s plane and their whole world changed.

She’d lost the best big brother in the world, and J.P. had lost his ability to do everything that made him happy. Being trapped inside a body that didn’t work was torment for an untamed soul like J.P. It was a fate worse than death. Worse than prison.

How had she started to fall in love with the man flying the plane?

How had she started to fall in love at all? If J.P. couldn’t have a life, what gave her the right?

She swung her fists in the air. Fighting a fight she’d never win.

She would sacrifice everything she had just to give J.P. a life again. It didn’t have to be the life he’d had. Just a life that brought him at least a little satisfaction every day. A life that gave him hope.

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A hot wind ripped down the beach, blowing sand against her legs and into her face. She protected her eyes with her arms and sucked in a deep breath. Then she smelled it.