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He scowled at her for a moment, then moved through a doorway into what looked from a glimpse like a bathroom. He came back in a moment with a big backpack crammed with a shockingly well-stocked first-aid kit. A person could practically perform surgery out of it. Growing up on a farm far from any immediate help, she and her siblings had all learned basic first aid early. It was surprising how much veterinary medicine applied to human beings in a pinch, too. She rummaged through the supplies until she found what she needed.
“Let’s go into the bathroom. When I flush out that wound, it’s going to make a mess.”
He sighed, but did as she suggested. In the end, they both stepped into the big, Roman-tiled shower, clothes and all. He stood under the water until the sand and blood were gone, then she soaped up his back gently but thoroughly and finally he rinsed off again.
He turned to her, his hair slicked back from his strong, tanned features. He looked like a freaking cover model, even if he was white around the mouth at the moment. An errant urge to kiss away his pain washed over her. Focus, girlfriend. The Plan.
“Thanks,” he murmured.
Butterflies leaped in her stomach and she took a step backward, her back coming up against the cool, tiled wall. He braced his left hand beside her head and smiled down at her a slow, lazy, sexy smile that promised hours and hours of mind-blowing lovemaking.
“Have you got any scratches I can clean out for you?” he drawled.
“I…I don’t know.”
“We’d better check. Cuts infect fast in this climate.”
He plucked at the scrap of cloth clinging to her shoulder and she glanced down. Then stared down in shock. In the dim light of the oil lamp flickering on the counter outside the shower, the remnants of her silk shirt and her lace bra clung to her breasts transparently, leaving absolutely nothing to the imagination. She watched, mesmerized as his brown fingers trailed over the pale fabric, around the outside curve of her breast, then lightly along the sensitive underside of the mound. Her nipples puckered hard, standing up proudly, begging for his touch. She closed her eyes in mortification—and longing. Something warm and firm touched her temple.
His mouth. He was kissing her again. Her toes started to curl. Ohboyohboyohboy. The… What was it that she wassupposed to remember? He straightened and she tipped her mouth up to his. In the midst of the warm spray of water, he captured her lips with his, sucking her lower lip into his mouth and laving it with his tongue.
Her hands crept up to his shoulders. Urged him closer. His arm swept around her waist, pulling her away from the wall and against his big, hard body. The shower pounded down, raining heat and steam all around them.
He sucked in a hard breath as the spray hit his back and she lurched. His injury. And here she was, crawling all over a wounded man. She sagged against him in frustration, pressing her forehead against his chest for a moment before pushing herself away from him.
“Let’s get you out of here and get that cut dressed and covered,” she sighed.
He matched her sigh with one of his own. “But I didn’t finish scrubbing your back yet.”
“Next time.”
“Promise there’ll be a next time?”
Whoa, baby. There’d be a next time if she had anything to say about it! Belatedly, she recalled herself. Madeline C. The Plan. This man was trouble with a capital T.
They stepped out of the shower and dried themselves quickly, and Maddie—Madeline—then used paper towels to blot his wound dry. She couldn’t bring herself to ruin one of the fluffy, snow-white Turkish towels from his linen closet. She had to give the guy credit. She would never have guessed he even had a linen closet, let alone one neatly stocked with high-end bath and bed linens.
She carried the oil lamp back into the kitchen and set it down on the counter beside the first-aid kit. “So do you not have electricity at all, or is this a temporary power outage?”
“I haven’t tried the lights. It’s usually pretty reliable, though.”
“Then why in the world am I trying to patch you up in the dark?”
“I prefer to live simply.”
Simply? The very word made her shudder. Give her every electrical convenience modern technology could summon up, thank you very much. She liked her zoned air-conditioning, and her blow dryer, and towel warmer and wireless-Internet-capable cell phone/camera/television.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake. Where’s a light switch? I need to see what I’m doing.”
He sighed and pressed a rocker switch on the wall beside him. Bright halogen lights imbedded in the beams overhead suddenly shone down, making her squint for several moments. Tom’s wound came into focus.
“This definitely needs stitches. It’s pretty deep.”
“Just slap some butterflies on it and call it good,” he growled.
She sighed. “All right, but you’re going to have to be careful. I don’t know if butterflies will hold or not.”
He threw her a look so hot it made her bare toes bend into hard little knots of anticipation. “I can be careful,” he murmured. “Very careful.”
Her hands inexplicably shaky, she tore open a half-dozen sterile wrappings and laid the butterflies out on the counter as he turned his back to her.
“Are you always this cussedly independent?” she asked as she gently drew the edges of the wound together and commenced taping them in place.
“Nope. I’m usually worse.”
“Great.” She finished with the butterflies and laid a strip of rayon over the wound, covered it with gauze pads and secured it all with long strips of adhesive tape. She studied the bandage, pondering its chances of staying in place. Not good. She rummaged in the first-aid kit and found an elastic bandage. Perfect.
She held one end of the long, beige wrap against his left side and passed the three-inch-wide strip under his right arm. Her palms skimmed across his ribs, and her own stomach couldn’t help but contract at the way the slabbed muscles of his abdomen tensed into impressive ridges under her touch. To reach all the way around him to pass the bandage from her right hand to her left, she had to lay her cheek against his chest and all but hug him. His big body radiated enough heat to scald her.
Her hands wanted to stray lower, to test his desire for her. Sheesh! The poor guy was hurt, for goodness’ sake, and here she was, pawing him like some sex-starved desperado. Except, at the moment, she felt exactly like a sex-starved desperado.
She jerked back, startled by the thought. She did not chase after guys. She didn’t even particularly crave sex! Yet here she was, her palms itching to run all over his naked body. Must be some weird hormonal reaction to almost dying.
Forcing herself to pay attention to the job at hand, she moved around behind him, passing the bandage carefully across the cut and leaning forward to reach around him again, this time from the back. And again, a visceral need, electric and disturbing, ripped through her as she hugged his athletic form. Wouldn’t you know it—the end of the bandage ran out smack dab on top of his stomach. She ducked under his raised arm to pin the end of the bandage in place.
And made the mistake of looking up at him. His eyes blazed, black as night, consumed by a fire that incinerated her to her very fingertips. Yowza. She jerked her hands away from him, and actually glanced down at her palms to see if the skin burned from touching him. Her every nerve felt raw and exposed.
She stumbled backward, staring at his back hungrily as he carried the first-aid kit into the bathroom. She looked away hastily as he came out. He offered her the bathroom for a solo shower and she didn’t hesitate to take him up on the offer. Did cold showers work on women, too?
She chickened out on testing the theory and opted instead for the relaxation of a nice, hot shower. However, when she finally turned the water off and stepped out into the bathroom, she was appalled to see a neatly folded man’s T-shirt lying on the counter beside the sink.
He’d come into the bathroom while she was bathing? Her gaze whipped around to the shower door, and she was relieved—and disappointed—to see it was milky glass with wavy patterns through it.
“Hungry?” he asked as she slid onto one of the bar stools.
“I don’t know. I suppose so.” She’d been so wrapped up in staying alive and then her inexplicable reaction to him that she hadn’t stopped to think about anything as mundane as food. But now that he mentioned it, she realized she was ravenous. And thirsty.
He set a beautiful double old-fashioned glass on the counter in front of her. The elegantly carved crystal caught the light from overhead and cast prisms all over the mahogany kitchen cabinets. She recognized the crystal pattern. Her brows lifted slightly. Waterford crystal? Who was this solitary pilot for hire? Silently, he poured water from a pitcher he took from the brushed stainless-steel refrigerator for her. She drank down the whole glass in a few gulps. He filled it again, seeming to know that she’d be desperately thirsty.
He went to the refrigerator and emerged with a green and yellow fruit about the size of his fist. He pulled a knife out of a drawer and peeled and sliced it efficiently. He stabbed a piece of the fruit and held it out to her on the end of the knife.
“Mango,” he announced.
She nodded and took the juicy fruit. It was sweet, a cross between a peach and an orange. Odd, but tasty.
“Are you sure this place belongs to you?” she asked dubiously.
He frowned at her. “Yeah. Why?”
“It doesn’t seem to…fit you.”
He glanced around. “What’s wrong with it? You don’t like my decorating taste?”
He’d decorated this place? “Nothing’s wrong with it.” That was the point. It was too perfect. Too elegant, too…classy. This was the sort of place she’d pick for herself. But he…he was rough around the edges. Primal. She’d picture him in a beach shack with empty beer bottles and old pizza boxes overflowing the trash can. She opened her mouth. Closed it again.
He glanced at her wryly as if he knew what she was thinking. He turned away and fiddled with putting his water glass in the sink. “You can sleep on the couch.”
“Where are you sleeping?” she blurted.
He cocked an eyebrow at her. “Why? Are you offering to share my bed?”
Just how tempted she was at the idea shocked her into silence. It was all well and good to be turned on by this guy but to sleep with him? That was a big step.
To get naked with him…to experience all that masculine power unleashed…to completely let go of her inhibitions with him…
Man, it was tempting. And totally out of character for her. Obviously, she was suffering some sort of strange aftereffect of the accident and her brush with death. She’d regret it tomorrow if she took him up on his offer tonight. Reluctantly, she shook her head. “Thanks for the offer, but I’d better not.”
He frowned, almost as if confused. Opened his mouth to say something, but then closed it again. He turned off the overhead lights and left the room without speaking. At least he left her the oil lamp. In its soft glow, she turned to face the couch, which was underneath a wide picture window that framed a magnificent view of the ocean below. Even in the darkness, she could make out the rolling and crashing white of the breakers rushing in toward the beach. Drawn to the view, she moved over to the window. A light rain whipped around the bure, driven by a sharp breeze. Cyclone Kato was beginning to breathe upon them.
She started when something heavy thunked down behind her. Jumpy, she whipped her head around. Tom had just dropped a blanket, pillow and sheets on the coffee table.
He shrugged apologetically. “I’d sleep on the couch, but it’s too short for me, and with my back, I’ll need to lie on my stomach.”
She smiled understandingly at him, grateful that he was being a gentleman about the sleeping arrangement. Truth be told, she felt like a heel for climbing all over him, but then turning him down when he took her up on her unspoken offer. “I don’t mind sleeping out here. The couch will fit me just fine.”
He nodded once, turned and disappeared on silent, bare feet into the bedroom. Suddenly, she was so exhausted she could hardly see straight. Mechanically, she made up the couch into a bed. She left the oil lamp burning. For some reason, she wasn’t quite ready to face the dark and her suddenly overactive imagination. She stretched out on the couch.
As exhausted as she was, her brain wouldn’t unwind enough for her to immediately contemplate going to sleep. She lay there for a long time. Eventually, she forced herself to extinguish the lamp and still, sleep eluded her.
Without warning, it all hit her. The terrifying plane crash, the desperate swim for her life, the shock of finding out about the attack on the beach. She started to shiver, and then to shake. And then the tears came. At first they were no more than hot streaks down her cheeks, but before long they’d blossomed into racking sobs. She turned her face into the pillow to muffle the sound, but for the life of her she couldn’t stop the sobs from coming.
She started violently when a male voice rumbled from above her, “Oh, for crying out loud.”
Reluctantly, she looked up at his dark form within the larger darkness of the room. Even as exasperated as he sounded, his presence was insanely comforting.
He rumbled, “I suppose you want me to hug you and tell you everything will be all right, don’t you?”
Miffed at the humor lacing his voice, she snapped, “Far be it from me to force you into such an onerous task.”
He made a noise that could have been laughter bitten off sharply. But she wasn’t sure. He sighed and sat down on the couch beside her. “Fine. Come here.”
She sniffed, “No, that’s all right.”
He ignored her and gathered her up in his arms, drawing her easily into his lap, surrounding her in his big, comfortable embrace. As hard as she tried to stop it, the floodgates opened up again. She sobbed into his shoulder for several minutes before it dawned on her that his shoulder was naked. And warm. And sexy.
And in an instant, the nature of their hug changed completely. She felt it in the way his arms suddenly tightened around her, in the electric energy zinging between them, in the sudden pounding of his heart underneath her ear. Despite herself, her own pulse accelerated, her breathing growing shallow and fast. She was not going to randomly crawl all over him, darn it! Her lust for him was just a reaction to her near death experience. Nothing more. She wasn’t actually attracted to him in the least.
Liar.
When his finger tipped her chin up to him, she didn’t fight it. When she gazed up into the dark planes and shadows of his face, she didn’t say anything to forestall what was coming. And when his head started down toward hers, her lips parted in breathless anticipation. Nope, not attracted to him in the least.
Chapter 3
Tom inhaled the scent of her, female and faintly sweet beneath an overlay of deodorant soap, unable to stop himself from wanting to inhale the rest of her. Sex poured off her in powerful waves that belied her feeble attempt at maintaining her distance from him.
When her sobs first woke him, he’d been asleep in his bed, dreaming disturbing images of fire and water and spider-webs. He’d have to talk to Joe, the local bartender, about the quality of the whiskey the guy was stocking these days. He really wished he could remember how he’d ended up on that beach with that woman draped all over him.
Maybe Joe could shed some light on that, too. When he didn’t just stay home and drink himself into a stupor alone, the other place he went to drown his sorrows was Joe’s place, the Paradise Lost Bar & Grill. That would undoubtedly be where he’d picked up Maddie.
Her name rocketed through him. As clear as a bell, the moment came back to him, a bolt out of the blue. He’d stared, shocked, into her light green eyes as she introduced herself. None of the context of the moment came with the memory, though. Not the setting nor any conversation before or after. Just that one disembodied moment. “Hi. I’m Madeline-and-I-prefer-not-to-be-called-Maddie.”
She’d looked just like Arielle. Just like Arielle. The same willfulness gleamed in her striking green eyes, the same determination was apparent in her firm handshake. They were two women who knew what they wanted and both went after it full bore.
Maybe Arielle was a little more exotic in her features. But Maddie—how could he not call her that after she’d made such a point of it? He loved the fire in her eyes when she got hot and bothered—definitely looked less dissipated. Arielle had been an exceptionally hard-partying girl, and at age twenty-four, her lifestyle was beginning to take its toll on her looks. Although he’d place Maddie in her mid-to-late-twenties, she seemed worlds more…grown up. Heh. Not hard to achieve in comparison to Arielle, who had been a pampered and extremely spoiled pop star since her early teens.
Maddie snuggled closer as if she was cold, and he pulled the blanket across both of them. Nope, definitely not Madeline material. Maddie just seemed to fit her better.
Why had an obviously classy lady like her condescended to spend time with a guy like him, anyway? What did she want from him? Unfortunately, suspicion of everyone and everything came with his line of work. Well, his former line of work. He used to be a bodyguard. A damned good one. Fought over by a who’s who of international celebrities. Until Arielle. Or rather, until she died. On his watch.
Damn, he needed a drink.
He’d noticed several new bottles of whiskey in the cabinet in his room earlier. He shook off the memory of Arielle’s dead, green eyes staring up vacantly, her back arched in death spasms, her blond hair matted black with dried blood. He swore silently to himself. How rude would it be to dump Maddie off his lap and make a beeline for the liquor cabinet?
Probably unforgivably rude. And he really liked the warm, soft, cuddly feel of her in his lap like this. She fit just right against his chest, her forehead tucked against his neck, her arms wrapped lightly around his ribs. Holding her, like he was now, was…comforting. Made him feel not so alone. He wasn’t lonely, of course, he told himself hastily. But a hug felt nice now and again. Even to a bastard like him.
Maddie’s sobs renewed themselves, although quieter this time. She swiped at her eyes, dashing away tears, then tucked her fist under her chin, childlike. He recognized the body language. She was crying out some sort of trauma that had transformed itself into a desperate need for comfort. Any kind of comfort. A cuddle, or sex or whatever. And he happened to be the nearest able-bodied male able to fill her need. And Lord knew, he was willing.
No guy in his right mind would care about being used for comfort sex by a woman this hot. Not that he’d been in his right mind for the past six months or so. But still. He was totally okay with being this woman’s shoulder sponge and sex toy.
Alarm jolted him. Jeez. What if he was the cause of her being this upset? He racked his brain. What boneheaded thing had he said or done to her within the massive black gap yawning tauntingly in his memory?
He worked through the logic quickly. She wouldn’t have come home with him if he’d hurt her or been rude to her, would she? Was she on the rebound from some other jerk, maybe?
He swore under his breath. He really had to cut back on the booze. He couldn’t recall a damned thing about the past day or so.
Thing was, Tom sighed, he knew better than to be some socialite’s casual beach fling like this. He’d watched Arielle blast through men like a demolition derby driver, leaving a messy trail of wrecked lives in her wake. The sour taste of it in his mouth washed away the lingering traces of Maddie’s impossibly sexy scent.
He probably ought to do something to draw her out of her crying jag. She’d been at it for a while now. He sighed. Ever the good guy, he was. It was probably why he never got the girl. He’d vowed to hang up his good guy white hat once and for all when he came here to the end of the world. But apparently, a few vestiges of it lingered, dammit.
Instead of kissing her like he’d originally intended, he halted, his mouth inches from hers. “Can you feel it?” he murmured.
“Feel what?”
“Blood flowing through your veins. Air moving in and out of your lungs. Heat on your skin.”
She blinked a couple of times as if she was having trouble registering the meaning of his words. Lost in a sexual haze, was she? An instant of male triumph surged in his gut. So, sue him. Yeah, he got a rush out of turning on a good-looking woman.
He half whispered, “We made it to shelter before the storm. We’re safe. Doesn’t it feel great just to be alive?”
