Trade (8 page)

What if she’d abandoned modesty
and gone with her gut?

Her nipples hardened at the
thought of swimming naked knowing he was in the undergrowth watching. Being spied
on had always been one of her secret fantasies. She’d walk naked into the
water. Feel its cool caress on her calves, her knees, her thighs, her sex. She’d
stand in waist-high water and bare her breasts to hidden eyes.

He’d be turned on watching her. Maybe
he’d strip off his clothes and stroke his hard cock…
Damn.
She slipped a
hand into the front of her bikini bottoms and rubbed her middle finger over her
tingling clit. Her panties were wet. Sholto had dived under the water, but now
his head popped up from the waves, and turned her direction. She pulled out her
hand and pressed her thighs together.

He walked up the sand, poured a
cup of coffee, and drank. Water streamed from his body, outlining his cock in
the wet cotton. “I’ll be back later to check the trap.” He snatched up his
T-shirt.

“Are you planning on eating the
hermit crabs too?” Her voice sounded husky, as if she’d been screaming his name
for hours.

He shook his head. “Fishing bait.”

“Ah. Good idea.” She watched him cross
the dry sand until he passed the jutting curve of the little headland and was
out of sight. Out of sight, but not out of mind. Then she slipped inside the
privacy of her tent, and lay on the groundsheet.

She couldn’t stop thinking about
him. Her mind had got hung up on one memory, that of him taking off his pants,
and stalking to the sea. What if she’d stopped him? In her imagination, she unfastened
her bikini top and let it fall to the sand. Called his name.

He turned.

Her palms brushed over her
breasts, teasing the nipples into tight buds.

He’d walk back to her. His jawline
was dark with stubble that would prickle against the soft skin of her tits as
he sucked her nipple into his mouth.

Max groaned. He’d rejected her—it
was totally wrong to use him as fantasy fuck inspiration. Although probably
thousands of woman did, or would once they’d seen
After Ecstasy.
She
remembered him onscreen.

He’d said things, simulated things
that would make any red-blooded woman hot. But Damon Fitz was no more real than
Rhett Butler, Mr. Darcy, or Christian Grey. She’d been interested, titillated
by Sholto’s performance on screen, but it was the thought of the real man that
filled her mind as she stroked between her legs again.

The muscles flexing in his bicep
as he slashed coconut fronds from the tree. The knowing look in his eye as he’d
kissed her on the boat. The sexy burr of his Scottish accent.

The real man was more visceral,
less perfect. Not shared with the rest of the world—her own private fantasy.

I shouldn’t think of him.
But her fingers played with her clit, and his image filled her mind despite her
protestations. They could be good together. She imagined their bodies in close
contact. His hard cock thrusting into her.

Shit
. With a curse, Max
screwed her eyes tight and crossed her arms over her face. Imagination was
never as good as the real thing. She sighed. Sexual frustration had never felt
so goddamned
bleak
. She sat up, and pulled on her clothes and boots.
There was no point lying around thinking about a man who didn’t want her—she’d
promised Cam she’d take advantage of the time away to relax, to take control of
the anxiety that had held her in its grip since the disastrous incident with
Joel. Plagued with insomnia and nervous of strangers, she’d wasted months
blocking the emotions she didn’t want to face with work.

Now, she had nothing to do but to
survive and heal. Obsessing over Sholto wasn’t the answer. She rubbed sunscreen
over her face. Grabbed an empty two-liter bottle, and crawled out of the tent.

The trek through the undergrowth
was hard going. On the way, the noise of her making her way through the forest
alarmed brightly colored birds that flew into the sky in a cacophony of
birdsong. She kept a close eye on the ground, watching out for snakes and
scorpions, but didn’t see any. At a breadfruit tree, she cut a heavy fruit to
take back to camp.

By the time she reached the
stream, her shirt was sticking to her back. She placed the fruit on the silky
grass, took off her boots and clothes, and stepped into the water. It was cold,
deliciously cold. Clear and sparkling. She scooped up a handful of water and
tasted it, then filled the bottle to the brim. Then she put it on the grass and
walked back into the water again, submerging her heated body in the cool water’s
depths.

Chapter
Eight

From the position of the sun, it must be mid-afternoon.
Sholto’d caught and cooked a fish, and now the heavy meal lay in his stomach
like a rock. He crawled inside his shelter, stretched out on the soft covering
of leaves, and closed his eyes. Everyone in hot countries went for siestas,
didn’t they?

He hadn’t banked on dreaming about
her.

Especially not that dream. Instead
of featuring her on the beach, or in the sea or jungle, his dream about Max
took place in a doctor’s office. He was the patient, and she wore a short white
coat, suspenders, and high heels with a stethoscope swung around her neck. Her
blonde hair was pinned on top of her head, and she’d gone heavy on the
eyeliner—looking rather like a young Sophia Loren.

“I’ll need to examine you, Mr.
Kincaid.” She waved across the room to a screen. “Take off your clothes and lie
on the examination couch.”

He did as she asked. “Shouldn’t I
have a gown or something?”

“There’s no need for that—you don’t
have anything I haven’t seen before.” Her gaze flicked down than up to his eyes
again. She took her stethoscope and blew on it. “This might be a little cold.”
She held him in place with a hand on his chest then lent over him, providing a
very clear view straight down the dip in her coat. Then she placed the
stethoscope ends into her ears, and the flat round disc over his heart. After a
couple of minutes she stood back up and fastened the stethoscope around her
neck again. “Your worst fears are correct, I’m afraid. You don’t appear to have
a heart.”

“I have one hell of a body though.”
Her gaze followed his hand as he stroked his chest and stomach to his erect
cock. “Everybody says so.”

“I’d have to agree with them.” Her
expression didn’t change; she still looked at him as though he were a specimen
in a jar. “But I’m afraid it isn’t enough.” She turned away. “Get dressed, Mr.
Kincaid and we can discuss your options.”

At that, he jerked awake to find
himself hard and wanting. That much wasn’t a surprise, just like every other
man in the world he usually woke with a hard-on, but the lingering emotions
churned up by the dream, took him by surprise. Disappointment. An aching in his
chest that he’d been judged and found wanting.

She wasn’t just affecting his
body, she was messing with his head. Her opinion of him mattered. And the
reason for not bedding her he’d voiced the day before now seemed ridiculous and
futile. Sex with Max wouldn’t make his experience on the island any less valid,
but not touching her, tasting her, being in her, might very well kill him.

He climbed out of the shelter, got
naked, and ran into the sea.

He speared a fish for dinner.
Stuffed it with some wild thyme he found growing near the stream, and had just
settled it on hot coals for baking when he heard the call.

“You decent?”

He was pretty sure he was grinning
like a fool as he called back, “Yep, come on over.”

She came into view, like a vision
he’d dreamed up. Her long blonde hair hung in perfect waves down her back, and
over her bare shoulders. She wore a pale yellow sundress, carried her shoes,
and had her small knapsack on her back.

Before he registered he was even
moving, he was at her side. “So, what did you do today?”

“I went for a walk.” She looked at
his mouth, and a wave of heat spread through his insides. “No crab?”

“I caught some fish instead.” She
didn’t need to know he hadn’t even checked the pot when he visited her camp
earlier and found her gone. “So, you were exploring.”

“Yes.” She sniffed, and glanced at
the fire. “That smells good.”

She swung the bag from her back, and
grabbed it in both hands. Unzipped it and pulled out a bottle of whisky. “In
anticipation of dinner caught by you tomorrow too, I brought something else to
trade.”

He took the bottle of Glenfiddich.
“Excellent choice.”

“And I brought dessert too, just in
case.”

Instantly, his mind went there.
Her mouth for dessert. The velvety skin of her neck. Her thighs.
Jeez.
“You
did?” He forced neutral into his voice.

She rooted in the bag again. “Some
hard candies.”

“You’re fucking killing me with
kindness here. I hope the fish is worth it.” He waved over to the fire. “Come.
Sit. I wish I had a blanket or something I could spread out for you so as to
keep that dress clean.”

“Well, I…uh…” She reached into the
bag again and pulled out a folded cotton blanket.

“Unbelievable. You’re ready for
anything.”

“I’m on holiday. Not being a
hardcore survivalist.” She spread the covering on the sand and sat on it.
Unscrewed the top off the whisky, took a sip, then handed him the bottle.

“So, you used to go on camping
trips with your dad?” He sat on the blanket next to her and sipped from the
bottle, just as she had. “That must have been cool.”

She gazed at the sea, but he got
the feeling she was really looking back in time. “It was. I loved it. I guess
because it was just us two against the world, y’know?”

He did know. It had been just him
and his mother against the world. Until everything changed.

“Were you an only child?” Sholto
asked.

He had been. Maybe things would
have been different if there had been a sibling to share the burden. Or if his
father had stuck around. Instead, he was left with the memory of social
services forcing their way in and taking him out of his home, never to return.
He’d be forever grateful to his mother’s brother and his wife for taking him in
and giving him a real home—but forever angry at what had happened to his
mother…

“I might as well have been.”

Her voice cut through his
memories. He turned to look at her profile silhouetted by the dusky evening
sky. Her eyelashes were impossibly long, and her mouth full, both without the
addition of makeup. Their shoulders were close, but not touching, and yet a
skein of intimacy seemed to wind around them, binding them together.

“I have two older sisters—and
years later there was an unexpected pregnancy.” She pointed at herself. “My
sisters were seventeen and sixteen when I was born. I was the flower girl at my
sister Caroline’s wedding, and a nine-year-old bridesmaid at my other sister’s
wedding. It’s fucked up.”

“It could have been worse.”
You
might have had a mad mother.

“Oh, it was worse.” She leaned
forward and clasped her arms around her knees. “You remember my school uniform?
I’d love a hand-knitted sweater now, but back then?” She grimaced. “Let’s just
say
different
was just
wrong
when I was a kid.”

*****

“You’re a good listener.” She couldn’t believe she was
pouring out all this stuff. She rarely opened up, had never shared about her
family except to her best friend Kathryn Hazzard or her therapist. Heck, even
Cam had no idea of her family dynamics.

Close up, Sholto had the most
amazing color eyes. Green, not light and vibrant like the sea, but deep and rich,
like emeralds or forest undergrowth. Talking to him was so different to the way
she normally spoke to men she met in clubs or bars where the setup was totally
artificial. Their conversation was natural, not forced. They weren’t circling
each other like cautious animals. Playing the game of casual conversation that
would lead back to someone’s bed, or in the case of the sex club she’d visited
to a mutually satisfying screw in one of the club’s private rooms. They were
just two people. Alone. Unadorned. Sharing truths.

“Things weren’t perfect in my
early life either.” His jaw tightened. “My mother had some problems, but I didn’t
want to leave her. Social services made that decision for me.”

Everyone had talked about the new
boy who joined school in their final year, but she’d never realized he’d been
unwilling to leave Scotland. “I thought you got expelled from your last school.”

His smile had a bitter edge. “My
mother was judged unfit, and I was sent to live with my uncle and aunt. I never
said much about how I came to be there, I guess people just made up reasons. It
was a new country, a new school.” He shrugged. “I worked hard to fit in.”

“But you did.”

He rubbed the back of his neck. “Eventually.”

“Well, good for you.” She tilted
the bottle at him, and then took another sip.

“The fish will be ready by now.”

They ate with their fingers, using
large leaves as plates. Max breathed in the aroma of thyme with every mouthful
of the firm, white, flaky fish. “This is amazingly delicious.” It was damned
difficult not to look at him. He wore a shirt today, but it was open, and her
gaze kept returning to his tanned chest.

He grinned, flashing white, even
teeth.

She licked her fingers. Being with
him was easy—more than easy, it was enjoyable. It was a damned shame that once
dinner was over, she’d have to retreat to her own tent.

He licked his top lip. Desire
unfurled like a sail within her. “I won’t stay too late, I don’t fancy trying
to find my tent in the dark.”

He frowned.

“We both want to be alone…” But
her body leaned toward his, making her words a lie.

“I thought I did.” His voice was
low and quiet. “But I was disappointed when I couldn’t find you this afternoon.”
He pushed his finished meal onto the fire and watched it alight. His mouth
curved into a smile. “Being here with you feels more real than the false shit I
normally deal with.”

“As though we’ve taken off our
masks.”  Her hair swung forward, half-hiding her face when she looked down at
the sand. A heaviness filled her chest. Once she walked away from this
campfire, she’d never see him again. “I’ll miss you when we go back to our own
lives.” Her face flushed with heat. “Crap, did I say that out loud?”

The air between them seemed to
spark. His eyes shifted to dark emerald. “Would you want to see me again?”

She could lie. She could walk
away—she could run. “Yes. I might.”

He stroked a hand up her arm, a
trail of heat following the path his fingers traced. “Then don’t leave. Don’t
go back to your campsite tonight, stay here with me.”

What happens on the island
stays on the island.
He made no further move, leaving the decision to her.
She’d slept with people she didn’t know. Had explored casual hook-ups and
threesomes. But she’d never connected with a man like this before—someone who
wasn’t lured by expensive shoes and a beautifully painted shell, someone who had
seen her unadorned and wanted her anyway. Who
knew
her.

She shifted on one hip, so her
body was facing his. Reached up and touched his face, and did what she’d wanted
to do from the first moment she’d seen him: brought her mouth inches from his. “This
might be a bad idea,” she whispered.

“Bullshit. It’s the best idea
either of us have had all day.”

One more inch, and they were
kissing. Their tongues tangled, the nascent flame inside flashing into a blaze,
like a match thrown onto a cache of fireworks. The dream of him had been sepia
compared to the reality. Her hands were everywhere, on his face, in his hair,
and then sliding beneath the light covering of shirt to trace his muscular
shoulders.

“Max.” He eased away and took off
his shirt, then pulled her dress over her head and cast it onto the sand. He
stared. “Fuck, I just can’t get over how beautiful you are.”

*****

It sounded like a line, but it wasn’t. In
After Ecstasy
,
he’d held Caro Michaels, this year’s sexiest woman alive, in his arms and
simulated sex on screen. Even though his co-star was celluloid sexy, she couldn’t
hold a candle to the raw beautiful sexuality of the woman before him. Max’s
hair tumbled in blonde waves over sunkissed shoulders. Her breasts were pale
and perfect with rosy pink nipples that begged to be touched.

Max’s unpainted lips were open a
fraction. She stared into his eyes with a look half desire, half stunned
confusion, as though she couldn’t believe what was happening between them. He
could barely believe it himself. Where had his determination to distance
himself from her gone? He’d asked her to stay and he didn’t mean just for the
night. He wanted to be able to touch her, kiss her, sink his fingers and his
cock into her, and hear her moan his name for the rest of the time they had on
the island.

“You’re beautiful too.” Her voice
was husky. Sexy. His cock jerked in response. She stroked a hand across his
shoulders, across his chest, all the time staring into his eyes with a look of
raw desire.

“Come here.” He tugged her hand,
pulling her closer.

She swung a leg over his, and
settled on his lap, her heat directly over his hard cock.

He leaned in, bringing their
torsos into alignment so her nipples brushed against his chest. His mouth
slanted over hers and her lips parted instantly to allow him access. Demanding
and urgent, her tongue invaded his mouth, showing the desperation of her need. He
breathed in the scent of the sea and woman from her warm skin. Flattened his
palms at her sides, and stroked around to feel the subtle bumps of her spine
beneath his fingertips.

She wrapped her arms around his
neck, deepening the kiss until it was difficult to judge where he ended and she
began. Subsumed by her, entangled, just kissing her was such an enormous
turn-on he could barely breathe.

Her chest was rising and falling
rapidly. He had to have more. Had to taste. Sholto lifted her so she rested on
her knees, stopped kissing her mouth, and trailed his lips down her exposed
neck.

“Oh, Jesus.” Her whisper was like
a prayer.

He licked the slopes of her
breast. Rolled his thumb over one perfect, erect bud, then circled the puckered
areola with his tongue, and sucked it into his mouth. Her skin, unadorned by
perfume, tasted clean with a hint of sweetness.