Island Idyll (12 page)

Unlike Josh’s mother, when Sienna made a commitment, she stuck to it. Or half killed herself trying to stick to it, anyway. She’d been with Ben for eight years. Spent one of those years desperately trying to save a relationship in crisis.

Besides, Ben was a decent guy. Josh could see that. Knew it instinctively. He may hate him, but that was merely a guy thing. No way could Josh ever like a man Sienna loved. It just wasn’t possible. His competitive nature made sure of it.

But like him or not, Ben would make Sienna happy. And Sienna deserved to be happy.

Tears spilled over her cheeks. “If you love me, you wouldn’t leave.”

He shook his head. “I’m leaving because I love you. You’ve had a few hours to get to know me, princess. You’ve had a lifetime with Ben. He’s the right man for you.”

And then, because he couldn’t help it, he leaned in and pressed one last kiss to her lips. One last, bittersweet kiss. And this time, the saltiness he tasted on her mouth was not sadness about another man. This time, her tears were for him.

“Be happy,” he whispered. “Both of you.” Then he walked out of her room, out of her bungalow and out of her life.

Josh had not cried since he was sixteen. Not since the day he’d realized his mother had left and wasn’t coming back. That day he’d locked himself in his room, thrown himself across his bed and wept himself to sleep. The next morning he’d vowed never to allow a woman to cause him such deep, unrelenting pain again. He’d vowed never to cry again.

For the first time in fourteen years, Josh broke those vows.

“Where’s Josh?” Ben asked as he slipped back into bed beside Sienna.

Josh had only just shut the door behind him.

“He’s…gone,” she whispered. Her words seemed to echo in her ears, reverberating through the emptiness his departure had left.

“Gone?” Ben looked stunned.

Sienna nodded. “He wishes us happiness. Both of us.”

“He walked away.” Ben wiped a hand over his face. “Christ, I didn’t expect that.”

“Me neither,” Sienna confessed, and a wave of sorrow hit her. Josh had left. Told her he loved her, then left. Her mind reeled. It had happened too fast. Too suddenly. She hadn’t had time to prepare. She’d still been savoring the afterglow of their threesome, and he’d walked away.

Was she ready to let him go? Did she want him to go?

Did she have a say in the matter?

Apparently not.

Her sorrow turned to grief. Josh was gone. She’d only just met him again, and now he was gone. Whatever might have happened between them was no longer a possibility. He’d removed himself from the equation.

Which meant she no longer had to decide who she wanted more, him or Ben. With Josh out of the picture, there was no longer a choice.

There was only Ben.

She turned to stare at him. He stared back at her, awe in his eyes. “You don’t have to choose between us,” he said, having obviously come to the same conclusion. “You can come home now, Si. There’s nothing standing between us anymore.”

Sienna blinked. There were no more obstacles. Ben’s work was no longer an issue, and Josh no longer stood between them. She and Ben could rebuild their lives. Start again. Or pick up at the point where things had begun to crumble around them. Only this time they could do it right. This time they could live the life they’d planned. Together.

Was that what she wanted? She’d spent three months forcing herself to live a life without him, and now he was here, taking her right back to the very place she’d fought so hard to move away from.

Sienna’s heart raced. Her knees grew weak and her skin prickled with emotion.

Did she want to be with Ben? She’d been so overwhelmed to have him back, she hadn’t stopped to ask herself the question.

More than that, was she content not to have Josh? Her gut yelled no, but he’d left so fast she hadn’t had time to think about it.

And she didn’t have time now. Not with Ben grinning triumphantly at her. “We can be together again, baby.” The joy and relief were audible in his laugh. “We can be Sienna and Ben.”

Sienna and Ben. Ben and Sienna. Together again.

His mouth consumed hers in a feverish kiss.

As his tongue swept past her lips with assertive familiarity, Sienna automatically gave herself over to the demands of his passion—just like she had every other time Ben had kissed her over the last eight years.

He moaned carnally, his arousal evident in every shallow breath, every soft caress.

Sienna opened herself up to his touch and his kisses, and waited for the magic of the island to descend over them, just like it had descended over her and Josh.

Hours later, she snuck out from beneath Ben’s arm, slipping away from the heat of his body. Careful not to wake him, she tiptoed across the carpeted floor and closed herself in the bathroom.

For the first time since she’d left her bungalow earlier that evening, Sienna had a minute to herself.

She rested her head against the door, closed her eyes and let out a very long breath, relishing the solitude.

It took a couple of minutes to fill the bath, but submerging herself in the hot water was exactly what Sienna needed. Her body had adjusted to life without sex, which meant that the day of loving had made her muscles ache pleasantly, and her pussy and ass tingle.

The water soothed away her discomfort, lapping over her breasts and soaking up any residual stiffness. It eased the exquisite tenderness that remained from Josh’s and Ben’s wild and wicked thrusting, and brought an overall sense of calm to her physically.

What it could not soothe was Sienna’s underlying sense of sadness.

Sienna should be on top of the world. She should be the happiest woman in the world. She had her fiancé back. She had her life back.

So why did the knowledge that her future was once again melded to Ben’s make her want to drop her head in her hands and sob?

Chapter Eleven

Josh’s feet pounded across the sand, the tiny grains blisteringly hot from the afternoon sun. His lungs burned from lack of oxygen and his muscles screamed from the torment he put them through. He didn’t care. He pushed harder, faster, needing to run through his pain.

He’d tried swimming out to the dolphins earlier, thought playing with them might take his mind off Sienna. But his punishing strokes through the water must have scared them off. When he’d arrived at the spot where he’d seen them frolicking just moments before, they’d scattered.

He’d tried sailing, hoping the wind through his hair would blow the cobwebs from his mind, help him see he’d made the right choice in letting Sienna go. Sitting on the cat had done nothing but remind him of the day before, when Sienna had sat beside him and confessed she’d had a crush on him for five years. Confessed that all she’d wanted to do, even if it only lasted five minutes, was fuck his brains out.

The memory had him bent over in agony. He’d let the anguish wash through him, eat him alive, and then he’d turned the Hobie around and sailed back to shore. He couldn’t be there. Couldn’t sit in the same spot where he’d sat yesterday without Sienna by his side.

So he ran instead. Just like he ran every day. Four-hundred-meter laps up and down the beach. He ditched his shirt and shoes on one of the deck chairs and sprinted along the shoreline, away from the hotel, away from prying eyes. Away from the bungalow Sienna now shared with Ben—if they hadn’t already headed back to Newcastle.

Sienna had gotten her five minutes with Josh, and then some. He’d have preferred longer, like maybe a lifetime of longer, but things hadn’t worked out that way. She was with Ben. Like she should have been all along. Josh had just been a temporary blip in her radar.

Fuck, Lye. Have a pity party, why don’t you?

Christ, he was pathetic. A fucking baby, crying over spilled milk. Nah, too clichéd. He was his mother, crying over spilled gin. Or his father, crying over a nine-year prison sentence. Maybe he was both of them, crying over the life he wanted but could never have.

Not the life. The woman. And the girl. Sienna, the princess, so far out of his reach he’d been crazy to dream, even for those five minutes, that he might have her.

Girls like Sienna didn’t choose boys like Josh. They didn’t choose losers. They chose the Ben Cowleys of the world. And they lived happily ever after.

The figure on the sand ahead of him brought Josh to a careening halt.

She stood alone, at the end of the beach, hurling something flat and white into the sea.

What was it?

She leaned over, picked up something else, aimed and threw it too.

A shell.

Josh edged closer, his heart pounding in his ears. Not from the sprint, although that left him gasping for breath, but from the shock. She shouldn’t be here. She shouldn’t be alone. She should be in her bungalow, or back in Newcastle, with Ben.

Sienna hurled another shell into the sea, yelling something as she did so. Josh wasn’t sure what she yelled—her voice vanished in the wind.

He inched closer still, moving silently, determined not to interrupt her. He listened more intently.

Christ, she was gorgeous. Not that he could see her face, but her blonde curls whipped behind her in the breeze. She’d crammed that luscious flesh into a tight singlet, and again wore shorts that showed off an endless length of leg. Her butt, full and round, was pushed out towards him every time she flung her shells, reminding him he’d never gotten a chance to take her there. Never had the pleasure of burying himself in her ass—even though he’d promised her he would.

There were a lot of things he’d wanted to do with Sienna he’d never have the chance to now.

It was just a sad, sucky fact of life.

Josh heard what she said as she flung the shell this time. Heard the word “Engagement” dancing in the air before it plopped in the sea, just like the shell. The next throw was accompanied by a name. Ben’s. And on the third throw he heard his own name.

He waited for the splash, but it never came. Sienna hadn’t flung the shell. She held it in her hand now, staring at it. “Josh,” she said again, and then there was silence. A long length of silence.

Josh didn’t dare breathe or move. He simply stood where he was, waiting. Filling his eyes with the sight of her. Wondering what the hell to do next.

He knew he should turn around and walk away, just liked he’d done last night. But this time something stopped him.

Sienna raised her hand to fling the shell, yelling out Josh’s name again. She had to let him go, had to throw the shell in the water. Had to drown her sorrows.

So why couldn’t she pry open her fingers? Why were they clasping the shell so tight they’d started to cramp? Why were tears running down her cheeks and her heart beating so hard she thought it might smash straight out of her chest?

She stared at her hand, knowing the answer. She’d known the answer all along. Since the minute she’d recognized the man standing beside her chair at the pool as Josh Lye, she’d known.

“Josh,” she said again, wiping her other hand across her eyes. She yelled his name. Loud.

She had to find him, had to speak to him. Now.

“Josh,” she screamed, knowing he couldn’t hear her, knowing she’d have to look for him, search the whole resort if necessary. She’d do it too, just so long as she got to talk to him again.

“Josh,” she called as she took off, racing toward the hotel as fast as her legs would carry her. Tears fell from her eyes, blinding her.

She almost didn’t see him, almost ran headfirst into the man standing mere meters away from her. She managed to stop seconds before crashing into him.

Sienna blinked once, then again, barely believing her eyes.

“Josh?” This time his name was a murmur. It was all she could manage.

“Right here, princess.”

She swiped at her cheeks, brushing away the tears.

Josh.

It really was him, standing before her, looking utterly gorgeous. Hot, sweaty, half-naked and utterly gorgeous. “Wh-what are you doing here?”

“Watching you.” His answer was immediate, as if he hadn’t thought about it.

“Why?”

He ran his gaze over the length of her, the action scorching her from head to toe. “I went for a run along the beach, the same as I do every day. I didn’t expect you to be here.” Josh looked into her eyes, making her breath catch. “When I saw you, I couldn’t walk away.”

“Uh… Oh.” She’d been about to search every nook and cranny in the resort to find him. Tripping over him one or two steps into her hunt had her thrown her for a loop. “You startled me.”

“I’m sorry.”

“That’s okay.” It was okay. Very okay.

They stared at each other. Sienna couldn’t stop staring, couldn’t get enough of him. Josh, the boy of her dreams. The man of her dreams.

“You called my name,” Josh said.

She nodded. “I was looking for you.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Why?”

Why, indeed? She’d been so desperate to find him, to tell him why, yet now that he stood in front of her, she wasn’t at all sure what to say. “There’s something I need to say to you. I would have said it last night, but you left too quickly.” Lordy, her heart raced so fast she could hardly talk.

He looked at her with an unfathomable expression. “I’m here now. You can tell me if you still want to.”

“I do.” She nodded, affirming her words.

Josh waited.

She couldn’t speak. Couldn’t find the strength and the honesty to express what was in her heart.

He let out a long sigh. “It’s okay, princess. You don’t need to say it. You don’t need to say anything.” He reached out and stroked her cheek, sending hot thrills through her skin. “Just know that if you should wake up in the middle of the night and not be able to get back to sleep, somewhere out here, there’s a man dreaming very adult dreams about you.” He ran his thumb over her bottom lip, just once, and then he turned around and walked away.

Oh, dear God. He was leaving her—again. No, no, no! He couldn’t. She couldn’t let him. Had to stop him.

“I love you too,” she yelled after his retreating back.

Josh froze midstep, his foot still in the air. He turned around slowly. “What did you say?”