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“We have a snorkeling trip planned for tomorrow night.”
She gestured to the high moon and the inky evening around them. “Snorkeling at night? Doesn’t that defeat the purpose?”
“Not at all. The sea looks completely different at night, just beautiful. You won’t regret it.”
Adah started to argue with herself about the safety of going off someplace with a man she didn’t know. But all her life she’d been safe.
“Okay.” She took a deep breath once she’d committed herself. “Where should I meet you?”
“Do you know where the lighthouse is?”
“Yes.” It rose high and majestic, a historic piece of island history where tourists gathered from morning until night to take pictures, gawk at the scenery and buy food and drinks from the vendors who set up shop at its base.
“Meet me there just before sunset,” Kingsley said.
She raised an eyebrow at him. The snorkeling trip now sounded suspiciously like a date. It lay at the back of her tongue to change her mind and tell him there was something else she’d committed to after all. But she bit back the almost-confession.
“Okay,” Adah said. “I’ll meet you there. Near sunset.”
“Perfect.”
Adah didn’t know about that. She was quite possibly doing the most imperfect thing for her situation right now. She didn’t need another man in the mix to cloud her already-murky judgment where the potential wedding was concerned. But as she turned away to jog back down the beach toward her hotel and her mother, her mind’s eye wouldn’t let go of the memory of Kingsley, rising from the water like some Adonis thirst trap, making her heart beat fast and her tongue feel heavy in her mouth, thick with the desire to taste the path where every drop of water had run.
Yeah. Her decision making was cloudy. Absolutely the cloudiest it had been in a long time. But that didn’t stop her from smiling the whole way back to the hotel.
Seconds after walking into her room, she heard a knock on the other side of the door joining her room to her mother’s, then a muffled voice. Instead of answering what was undoubtedly the question of where she’d just come from, she quickly fled to the bathroom, stripped and turned on the shower. Her mother’s questions would have to wait another day.
Chapter 3 (#uc6591998-6abf-5807-ac14-d2c9aa564f91)
Kingsley watched Doe Eyes run down the beach and away from him. He still didn’t know her name, and that stirred something illicit in him he never knew existed. She wasn’t beautiful in the way he’d grown used to seeing in Miami. She was all klutzy librarian charm with her subtle curves and hidden smiles. And she was interested. He’d have to be blind and deaf not to notice the way she responded to him, feminine and helpless, stirring both his lust and the urge to protect her.
Even from across the sand, he had heard her breath catch when she saw him. And he’d felt every second of her long stare at his body, her eyes drifting across his shoulders, his chest and lower while they talked. It was a change from how things were at home when he was Kingsley Diallo, CEO of Diallo Corporation and dressed in his bespoke suits, backed by his family’s billions of dollars.
Damn, Doe Eyes was gorgeous.
The way she wanted him made him desire her even more. She watched him with a hunger he felt to the very tip of his toes. His sex had twitched with more than a little interest the longer she stared with the lust so naked on her face. It had been a true miracle he hadn’t popped out of his swim trunks and announced to her in no uncertain terms just how very interested he was.
Kingsley drew a deep breath and walked the rest of the way up the beach.
“Should I give you a second to get yourself together?” A voice came from behind the red glow of a cigarette.
His friend Gage sat high up on the sand, almost invisible except for his cigarette and the faint trails of smoke that the wind blew behind him. When the clouds parted, he got a brief view of Gage’s curly hair pulled to the top of his head in a man bun, his bare chest and the tattered jean shorts that sagged around his narrow hips.
“Don’t be an ass.” But Kingsley did need a moment to get his head back in the game. Doe Eyes drew him like the sweetest honey, but she was also hiding something. A secret she didn’t want him to know. He saw it in the shift of her dark eyes.
He dropped down onto the blanket beside Gage and watched the path Doe Eyes had taken away from him.
“I invited her to the snorkeling trip tomorrow night.”
“I heard.” Gage ashed his cigarette in the sand beside him. “Do you think that’s wise?”
“It’s not like I invited her to an orgy or something equally inappropriate.”
“Is there such a thing as an orgy of one?” The glowing end of the cigarette made a figure eight in the air as Gage gestured.
“Even I’m not that good.” Kingsley grunted.
“After you’re done with her, that girl will probably disagree.” His friend laughed, a flash of white teeth in the dark. “I’ve heard the rumors.” Kingsley wasn’t exactly celibate, not in Miami or here in Aruba.
“Why do you always think I’m out to get some?”
“Aren’t you? It’s dark as hell out here, but I can still see that woman is stunning and that she’s smitten with you. Good odds are you’ll have her in your bed in zero minutes flat. Just be prepared for the consequences.”
But that was the thing about being away from his responsibilities for the summer. He didn’t worry about potential problems. He didn’t pay attention to projections and outlooks. He smelled the roses, plucked them if he felt like it, then left them scattered in his wake in mutually satisfying, casual encounters. Enjoyment was something he very much believed in during the normal course of his life. While in Aruba for the summer, it was the very air he breathed.
He almost reached for Gage’s clove cigarette to take a drag, both because it smelled so good and to illustrate a point in that one carefree motion. All this was casual. There would be no issues. Doe Eyes was a woman with secrets and a woman, whether or not she was aware of it, in search of passion. He would enjoy plucking the secret from between her lips, from between her thighs. But more than that, he would enjoy bringing and sharing pleasure with her, sweet and deep as the sea around Aruba. Free of commitment and full of all the joy two people could know together.
“Consequences don’t belong in a place like this,” he settled for saying.
Gage laughed again, the hand holding his cigarette balanced on one upraised knee. The sound of his mirth was loud on the nearly deserted beach.
Kingsley did reach for the cigarette then, plucked it from his friend’s hand, and took a deep and slow drag. Sweet smoke filled his throat with a delicious burn before he blew it out into the night. He squinted against the smoke, and the wind carried the gray tendrils toward the steadily disappearing shape of Doe Eyes jogging away from him and toward wherever it was that she’d come from.
“I’m just having a little fun,” he said.
Gage took his cigarette back and waved it toward the woman Kingsley couldn’t get out of his mind. “Be careful that fun doesn’t come back to bite you in the ass, and not in a good way.”
* * *
When Kingsley got back to his house—bought nearly six years ago now—from hanging out with Gage, a message about work was waiting for him. Never mind that it was nearly three o’clock in the morning.
“I think we should diversify,” his mother said on his voice mail.
This was something she’d been saying for a while. Diallo Corporation had built one of the strongest names in beauty and skin care, but his mother—and chief operations officer—thought that they, like Facebook, had to constantly innovate in order to stay relevant and profitable. He’d just about fallen out of his chair when she’d mentioned Facebook, but he kept an open mind. She wanted them to take on something else, maybe hair care, she wasn’t quite sure, but something that would keep Diallo Corporation profitable, visible and on the list of the Fortune 500.
His mother wanted this, but it was up to Kingsley to find out what that next thing was. He already had an idea but wanted to discuss it with her when he was back at home and behind his imported mahogany desk, not when he was about to be naked in his small house more than a thousand miles away from the nearest Diallo.
He sent her a quick email in response.
I agree. Will talk more about this when I get back in two weeks. In the meantime, relay all communications regarding this matter to Carter.
His brother, Carter, didn’t have an official title at the company, but he was jokingly called the Magic Man. Along with Kingsley, he knew how to transform nearly any idea related to Diallo Corporation into something viable.
After sending the email, Kingsley groaned and rolled the beginnings of tension out of his neck. He’d only been on the island a day and a half, barely a fourth of the time he usually spent away from his family responsibilities. He wasn’t going to let business get in the way of his time off. He pulled off his swim trunks and tossed them in the laundry basket on his way to the shower.
A long time ago, he’d learned to be strict with his vacation time. If he wasn’t, no one else would be. His family could talk to him at any time about personal matters, but he was strict about company affairs. Not now. Never here.
Kingsley allowed the steaming water to wash away the remnants of his irritation about his mother’s voice mail. He soaped his body from head to toe with body wash, easing the seawater from his skin, then used the washcloth to scrub himself until his skin stung and all he could smell was the mandarin orange scent. He rubbed himself down to pure sensation, the water on his skin, the heat sinking into his muscles, the anticipation of how good Doe Eyes would feel under him.
Truly, he had no intention of seducing her on the snorkeling trip. But his body didn’t believe what his mind was saying. He hardened at the thought of her, an inexorable arousal that left him winded.
He pressed his palm against the tile while steam rose around him, water running down the muscles of his back, his butt and his thighs. No, he had no intention of making a move on her. But he wanted. Oh, he wanted. And it was with that want sizzling through his veins that he allowed the greed for her to move his hand low and squeeze the breath from his lungs until he was painting the tiles with the hot spurt of his satisfaction. Breathless from the water that still ran over him, the release only made him want the real thing even more.
Kingsley hissed as he touched his sensitive flesh and imagined her mouth. Her body. Her everything.
He groaned and dropped his forehead against the tile, not even the least bit satisfied by his self-delivered orgasm.
Tomorrow, the devil at the back of his mind said. Tomorrow you can have her. Kingsley groaned again, and the sound echoed back to him, torture and pleasure, in the enclosed room.
* * *
The next evening, he wasn’t sure she would come. Yes, he had invited her. Yes, she wanted him. But there was no certainty. So when he got to the lighthouse, the other three people set to go on the snorkeling trip already waiting down by the beach and having their own pre-sunset party, he only half-expected to see Doe Eyes.
But she was there, wearing a one-piece swimsuit, jean shorts and a short-sleeved shirt partially unbuttoned over it all. His breath stopped at the sight of her, then started again. She stood at the base of the lighthouse, talking to one of the vendors selling coconut water and smoothies. The straps of a backpack hung from one of her shoulders.
She was early by nearly half an hour, the sun barely beginning to fall toward the horizon. The bright sunlight haloed her with the bowl of the green coconut in her hand, as she took occasional sips from the straw sticking up from the coconut. The vendor, old enough to be her father and missing several teeth, laughed when she said something, and she made a face before joining in his laughter.
Damn. She was so gorgeous. Body sleek and compelling in the shorts that barely contained the splendor of her behind. It was hot, much warmer than even the previous days, and the winds weren’t nearly as strong. Sweat lined her forehead, the soft skin of her throat. From where he stood, Kingsley could even make out the swell of her breasts under the loose, short-sleeved shirt and bathing suit.
Okay, now he was being creepy.
He cleared his throat and took a single step toward her, still keeping a respectful distance. He couldn’t remember the last time he was so ridiculously horny over a woman, a near stranger at that. He shoved his hands in his pockets, as much to appear casual as to hide the beginnings of interest his body already showed.
“Doe Eyes.”
She looked over her shoulder at him, still laughing, then turned back to the man to say her goodbyes before sauntering over to Kingsley with the coconut in her hand.
“Don’t you think it’s a little ridiculous to keep calling me that?” But she didn’t look offended in the least. Instead she looked amused, smiling again in a way that teased, not open and friendly but with a corner of her mouth pressed between her teeth as if she was keeping part of her amusement to herself.
“Until I know your name, I think that suits you just fine.”
She shook her head and opened her mouth like she was about to say something, maybe even her name, but something over his shoulder must have caught her eye because she gasped. Kingsley turned. All he could see was the restaurant, the view of the water and the sky turning to a fiery amber.
“This place is beautiful...” she said with breathless wonder.
Her face glowed with the excitement of what she saw, her eyes widening and the curve of her mouth unfurling to shape a real and complete smile for the first time since he’d met her.
“It is very nice.”
“I...I guess I just haven’t been paying attention.” Her eyes were still focused on the lowering sun and the colors streaming across the sky. “I’ve had a lot on my mind,” she said in a low and faraway voice.
By the look on her face, all those things that had occupied her thoughts just got burned away by the flaming splendor of the sky. She was gorgeous. And watching her, Kingsley wondered if at any point during his many trips to Aruba whether he’d ever taken the time to appreciate the beauty of the island like this. But the setting sun was nothing compared to the woman with her wide doe eyes, drinking up all the colors flaring overhead.
The others going on the trip—Carlos, Steven and Annika—were down on the beach, sipping their beers and talking around a small fire they’d made in the sand. Their boat was anchored in the small cove nearby and sheltered from the rocks. They were waiting for Kingsley to return with the woman he’d told them about. But he could afford to let Doe Eyes appreciate the sunset for a few more minutes.
“We can go closer,” he said.
She murmured something that might have been her assent, and he guided her carefully toward the overlook with a plaque detailing the history of the lighthouse and the ship that had smashed itself to pieces on the rocks more than a hundred years before on its way somewhere else.
Doe Eyes leaned against the railing, watching the sky and occasionally blindly seeking the straw in the coconut with her mouth. For the first time since he’d seen her watching him, she was completely unguarded. It suited her.
He smiled at the way she seemed to unconsciously lean into his shoulder with her eyes trained on the horizon, watching the slow fall of the sun into the sea. The flash of light grew increasingly dim until the sun fell completely in the water and the sky glowed with the remnants of its flame.
“I could see this every day,” she breathed.
“We have similar sunsets in Miami,” he said although he didn’t know where that came from.
“Similar but not the same.”
“Similar but not the same,” he agreed.
Miami was unquestionably striking to him. Just the way that Jamaica, the island where his grandparents were born and where his immediate family returned year after year, was the most beautiful place in the world to him. And he’d been around the world enough to see most of the competition.
“You should see Jamaica if you haven’t already,” he told her, pressing his shoulder into hers. “The sunsets there will make you cry.”
She laughed and turned briefly to him, the sunset’s colors brushing her face in shades of amber. “Have they made you cry?”
“Not yet, but I’m a hard sell.”
She laughed again; this time he could see the distance in the smile that lingered, that her attention was no longer on the sky and the joy it made her feel.
“You ready to get going?” he asked.
She bit the corner of her lip. “Yes.”
He waited for her to finish the coconut; then took her down to the beach where the others waited. She walked just ahead of him, watching his three friends sitting around the fire with a mixture of wariness and relief, obviously having suspected that it would just be the two of them after all.
“We didn’t think you’d make it back,” Carlos said in Spanish. With his cropped hair, thick beard and full-sleeve tattoos, he looked like a typical hipster.
“I can see why,” Annika said in Dutch, smiling widely at Doe Eyes. “She’s pretty. How did you manage to find such a hot woman to play with after being on the island only a few days?”
Steven, serious and slender in his designer T-shirt and matching shorts, watched all the action like someone at a tennis match, gaze moving back and forth between the players.
Kingsley shook his head. “English, guys.” Then he laughingly introduced her as Doe Eyes, enduring his friends’ inevitable teasing that the woman he wanted hadn’t even told him her name.
“I speak a decent amount of Spanish,” Doe Eyes said. “If it makes you feel more comfortable speaking your own languages, it’s okay with me.”
Annika laughed. “We love her!” she crowed in English, then jumped up from her cross-legged seat near the fire to hug Doe Eyes, who grinned widely and hugged Annika tightly in return.
“Hi!”
“I might just love her, too,” Carlos said, this time in Dutch, as he watched the two women, dark and light, as they hugged.
“Pervert,” Kingsley muttered.
“Not at all, just a lover of women.”
Steven greeted her in his subdued way, squeezing her hand before sinking back down into a graceful lotus on the sand. He wrestled a beer from the depths of the cooler and gave it to Doe Eyes.
