Trade (7 page)

His hand stroked over her naked
shoulder then slid beneath the water’s surface to grasp her elbow. He tugged
her up to standing. He didn’t need to tell her what was in his mind—his body
had that covered.

And her body was listening.

It was impossible to tell who moved
first, but somehow their bodies were in close contact, his hand was flat on the
curve of her spine, and his cock pressed into her stomach. She tilted her face
up, then his lips were on hers, hard and demanding.

His tongue was in her mouth.

Her hands traced his shoulders.
Smoothed over the back of his head. Questing fingers spiked into his hair. The
feel of his skin, the scent of his body, the taste of his mouth combined to a
powerful assault on the senses that made her head spin. She wanted to wrap her
legs around him, and feel his cock at her entrance. Wanted him to slip into her
wet, waiting heat and pound her to oblivion.

His thumb flicked over her nipple,
and she moaned into his mouth.

Warm, firm fingers gripped her
ass. His mouth left hers, and his lips moved to her neck, He sucked the
delicate skin into his mouth. She could feel the hard edge of his teeth—the
love bite would leave a mark, a mark no-one but he would see. Her fingers dug
into his shoulders.

“We’re getting out of this damn
river,” he growled. He took her hand and led her to the bank, and eased her
down onto the soft grass. “You’re fucking beautiful.” His gaze examined every
inch of her, raw, potent desire written clearly in his eyes. He took both of
her arms and stretched them out wide. Then he trailed his fingertips over hers,
and stroked inwards. Up over her palms. Her wrists, the soft, white inner skin
of her forearms.

She smiled when his light touch
stroked her inner elbows. Laughed when they brushed over the insides of her
upper arms and into the dip of her underarms. And blew out an agonized, aroused
breath when his hands covered her breasts and squeezed.

“This isn’t how it’s supposed to
be.” His middle finger traced around her nipple, then out, in ever increasing
circles. “I’m supposed to be surviving here, not having fun.”

Cold reason splashed over Max as
effectively as if he’d thrown a bucket of water over her. His hands were on
her, but his head… She angled her elbows onto the ground, and pushed up to
sitting. “You want me.” The evidence was plain to see. “I want you. We’re
alone.”

“I know.” He sat back and his hand
fell away. “The easy thing to do would be to fuck day and night—give in to our
desires.” He reached over and stroked the side of her face. “I want to.”

“But?” She waited.

“Shit, Max.” He frowned and spiked
a hand through his hair. “This isn’t about that. This is a chance for me to
prove I’m different, that I’m more.”

“More than a man who has to sleep
with the only woman available?” Anger stirred in her gut. He was letting her
down gently, as though she was a groupie, or something. “Get over yourself,
Sholto.” She reached for her tank, unwilling to just lie there before him with
her body and her heart open.

“Jasper will expect you to fuck
me.”

It was true, but she sure didn’t
want to hear him say it. “Because?”

“Because you’re a woman, and I’m a
man.”

“Not just a man. Because you’re
Sholto Kincaid. A man who would never reject a willing woman.” She got to her
feet, and pulled on her panties. “Of course, he doesn’t know that’s not true,
does he?”

“Max.” He stood and grabbed her
arm. “I’m not saying this right—I’m fucking up, here…”

She put on her boots, shoved the
water bottles into her bag, and slung it over her shoulder. “At least this time
you don’t have a fucking friend filming it.”

Chapter
Seven

He should have known she’d throw that back in his face. She’d
said she was over it—Christ, she’d had fifteen goddamned years to get over it.
Sholto dressed quickly, picked up the jackfruit, and strode after her.

“We’re talking about this.”

“No, we’re not.” She flicked back
her braids. “We have to spend the next nine days together. I have no interest
in spending them fighting with you.” She’d set the bag in an area of clear sand
a little distance from the camp. “We should eat here, so as not to attract
insects to our sleeping area.” She set about gathering dried sticks and forming
a pile.

“I had nothing to do with the
filming.”

She looked up—and the disbelief on
her face cut him to his core. “I thought you would apologize. I didn’t expect
you to deny it.” Her mouth twisted. “You were an asshole back then—looks like
you’re still an asshole.”

He breathed in deep, and tried to
keep hold of his temper. Beneath the disbelief lay hurt. She was attempting to
hide it, but he saw it. “I’m telling the truth.” The memory of her back then filled
his mind. Standing before him—in her ill-fitting homemade clothes, with the shy
smile on her face, asking him to go to the school dance with her.

He’d laughed.

More from shock than anything. He’d
thought they were friends. That she was the one person in the whole damn school
who actually got him. The boys he hung with looked at him with admiration as he
worked his way through the female population of his class—none of them would
have been interested to get to know him, they all wanted to
be
him.

“I was a shit back then.” Able to
get any girl just by smiling at them, he’d treated many girls badly. Every time
one got too close, he shut them out in the easiest way he knew—by sleeping with
someone else. “I cheated on girls. I broke a lot of hearts. I never meant to
break yours.”

“You didn’t break mine.” She stood
up, brushed her hands down her pants, and then put them on her hips. “You
totally misread my intentions.”

“You wanted me to go to the dance
with you. As your date. You wanted to sleep with me.”

“I fucking didn’t. I showed you
some pity, and you threw it back in my face.”

Pity? What the fuck is she
talking about?

“You were supposed to go to the
dance with Susan. Remember?”

Susan. He vaguely remembered her.

“She found out you’d been
two-timing her with her friend.” Max crossed her arms. “I heard her talking in
the ladies room—I was in a cubicle. She was furious, and I don’t blame her. She
was telling all the other girls what a total shit you were. Telling them to
band together, to show solidarity by shunning you. It was a girl’s
invitational, and all your invitations had been rescinded. You would have been
humiliated. Excluded. I knew how much you wanted to fit in—how being excluded
would have hurt you. So I…”

“So you invited me to save me from
humiliation?” He remembered the look on her face. The look a friend would give
another.

“You laughed in my face. In front
of all your friends. You told me I wasn’t your type. That there was no way you
would go to the dance with me.” Her eyes clouded with the pain of memory. “And
if that wasn’t bad enough, your friend captured it on his video camera and showed
everyone.”

He stepped forward and grasped her
upper arms. Stared into her face. He had to make her understand. “I was stupid.
I cared about what the other guys would think more than anything. I was high on
just how fucking popular I was. I couldn’t give that up. So, yes. I laughed at
you. Because I couldn’t believe you wanted me like that. I didn’t want you to
want me like that—the way all the other girls did. You were my friend. My only
fucking real friend. I said things that hurt you, and I’ve wanted for years to
tell you how sorry I was for that. But I didn’t film you, and the minute I
found out about the video—”

“You’re telling me you didn’t
know?”

“I didn’t know. I didn’t approve.”
He felt the tightness in his jaw as he clenched his teeth hard. “It took a lot
of investigation, and I finally found the guy who’d filmed it. It was somebody I’d
never even spoken to—one of the geeks from the camera club.”

“Why would he…”

“I don’t know. I guess he thought
it was funny or something. It wasn’t funny. It wasn’t cool. It was pathetic. I
didn’t go to the dance, and a few days later school broke up. I came to your
house, but your mother told me you wouldn’t see me.”

“You came to my house?”

“I came to apologize. To explain.”

“I didn’t know that.” Her head
tilted to the side. He couldn’t read the expression in her eyes, but the
tension had left her body. “My parents were—are protective. They knew I was
hurt. My older sister found out about the video through one of her friends’
younger sisters.” She laughed, a harsh, unjoyful sound. “My mother was appalled
that I’d asked a boy out. She didn’t understand my motivation either, although
to be honest, I was beyond explaining at that point.”

She sank down onto the sand and
stared out at the blue water.

He sat next to her, and rested his
hand on her back.

She didn’t flinch, or move away.

“I never fit in,” she said in a
quiet voice. “I never expected to. But when you rejected me.” She turned and
faced him. “It hurt.”

“I’m sorry.” He’d wanted to say it
for so many years, but now it didn’t feel like enough. He’d misjudged
her—misinterpreted her motivation. Had rejected the one person who actually had
been on his side, so many years ago. “I was stupid.”

*****

This is getting intense. Dangerous, crazy, intimate
intense.
Max rubbed her bottom lip with her thumb. Pulled in a breath and
slowly released it. By apologizing, he’d shifted the dynamic between them. It
was damned difficult to think of him just as a possible fuck-buddy when he was
bringing their complicated history into the mix.

She stole a glance.

He stared into her eyes, all the
usual teasing wiped from his expression. He meant it. And he was waiting for
her answer.

“It was a long time ago.”

“It matters.” He clasped her hand.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

He’d rejected her then, and he’d
rejected her now; they had nine days of hell to get through if this kept up.
She plastered a smile onto her face. “You’re ego’s showing again. I’m not the
same girl I was back then.” She needed to end this. Needed to put some distance
between them. “Have you done some preparation for this trip?”

Her voice sounded crisp and
businesslike.
That’s more like it.

“Like?” His eyes narrowed.

“Like are you able to fish? Find
your own food? That sort of thing? Because if you’re going for the whole
experience…”

“Yes.” His teeth gritted.

“Well, in that case, I think I’ll
leave you to it and go set up my camp.” She didn’t want to be around him one
moment longer. Didn’t want to throw herself at him and risk rejection again. “I
think I’ll go that way.” She waved up the beach.

“Off you go then.” He turned away
and slashed at a nearby patch of bamboo.

“See you later, maybe.”

A brief nod her direction. “You
want to meet for dinner?”

Sholto Kincaid and moonlight?
Count me out.
“I’ll come and check on you in the morning.” She’d brought
her battery-operated boyfriend and extra batteries—not sleeping with him wouldn’t
bother her
at all
.

*****

He dreamed of croissants. Hot croissants slathered in butter
and dark, bitter marmalade. Of hot, strong coffee. Out of a mug. But when
Sholto crawled from his coconut-leaved shelter to face a morning in paradise,
breakfast was nothing like his dreams.

He drank water from the plastic
bottle that had seen better days and chewed on coconut flesh.

Glints of sunlight reflected from
the flat surface of the sea. The sky was clear and cloudless. He’d half
expected Max to relent and join him the previous evening, but there’d been no
sign of her, so he’d taken advantage of the last hours of light and made a
lobster pot instead—he’d catch lobster or crab as Weatherly had done.

He pressed a hand to his growling
stomach. There was a reef around the island, if he could find a sheltered cove,
he could be eating crab for dinner. He put on a T-shirt, pulled on light cotton
pants, and strolled to the shoreline.

It was too early for the sand to
have heated up, so the walk around the coastline was pleasant. “Great.” He
spotted a few tiny hermit crabs and scooped them into his T-shirt to bait his
hook with later. “Sorry, guys, needs must.” If Larry could see him now, talking
to hermit crabs, he’d laugh his ass off. In
Solo
, Weatherly had written
about talking to himself constantly, so he buried the thought it was bizarre,
and told himself it was method acting.

“I should have had a haircut
before I left.” With no comb or brush, his overlong hair had curled like a
movie pirate’s. A day out in the sun had already darkened his Hollywood tan. He
was in pretty good shape already, but by the time the boat came to collect then
in eight days, he’d be a lean, mean, acting machine.

Once he won the role, the movie
would film the island scenes first, then he’d gain thirty pounds to play the
scenes before and the scenes after. It was the role of a lifetime. The one that
would consolidate him in the public eye as a serious actor—maybe even get him
an Oscar. And coming hot on the heels of his previous role…

He sniffed the air. Scanned ahead.
Around the bend, up the sand toward the tree line, a thin spiral of smoke
curled into the sky.
A fire.

His heart pounded and he picked up
the pace.

A small, green tent had been
pitched at the top of the beach. The campfire smoldered a few feet away, with a
metal, enameled coffeepot sitting in the coals. His mouth watered at the
familiar scent, and every caffeine-deprived atom in his body bounced around in
anticipation.

The tent flap flipped up.

Max strolled out clad in a hot-pink
bikini. She didn’t see him. Was humming some half-familiar tune, and looked
well rested.

For a moment, he just stood there
and stared. Even though Max could only be around 5’3”, every inch of her was in
perfect proportion. She wasn’t wearing makeup, but her hair was smooth and
shiny. She must be packing a mobile salon in that tent.

She reached a hand into her bikini
top, and rearranged the position of her nipple. As a woman might if she
considered herself completely alone.

And I’m goddamned hard again.
Sholto cleared his throat.

Max’s face whipped his direction.
Her eyes were wide and panicked.

Then she saw him and her entire
body language changed. Her shoulders relaxed, and a wide smile appeared. “Good
morning.” She glanced at the pot hanging from his hand. “What’s that?”

“Lobster pot.” He walked over and
handed it to her.

Her gaze flickered up and down
him, lingering on his exposed chest. “Good thinking.”

She chewed on her bottom lip at
the bulge in his pants, then picked up an enamel cup and walked to the fire and
poured a cup of coffee. “Did you sleep okay?”

His gaze was drawn to the cup, and
his throat moved, as though imagining swallowing a mouthful of the fragrant
brew. “You brought coffee?”

“I packed a bag. I reckon it comes
under the category of essentials.”

“Any true castaway would take
advantage of anything he found on the island.” She looked gorgeous in the
bikini, so gorgeous he couldn’t resist flirting. “I’ll trade you dinner for a
cup of coffee now.”

She tilted her head to the side,
and flirted right back. “Hmm, a sure deal now in exchange for a promise of
future deliciousness?”

“You know you want to.”

“It doesn’t exactly fit the terms
of the agreement though, does it?” She sipped the fragrant brew.

“Like I said, if Weatherly were
here, he’d do the same.”

She nodded. Drained the cup, and
waved in the direction of the coffeepot. “Okay, you’re on. But you’re cooking.”

“I’ll set the pot out in the cove
first.” He faced the ocean while he stripped off his pants thankful he hadn’t
bothered to remove the soft jersey boxers he’d worn last night before dressing.
Getting naked right now wouldn’t be the best idea.

He grinned at the sound of a swift
intake of breath, but didn’t turn; if they were supposed to be keeping this
neutral she didn’t need to see how the sight of her had affected his body.

A quick gesture at the T-shirt he’d
dropped on the sand. “I have hermit crabs in there. Keep an eye on them and
make sure they don’t escape?” Then he jogged to the water and into the gentle
waves.

*****

The muscles that played along his back as he moved—the tight
curves of his ass showcased in the clinging cotton as he strode into the water
made it easy to remember him nude.

He has one hell of a sexy walk.
Which was a pretty stupid thought considering he was only putting one foot in
front of the other, the way every single human being on the planet had to. God
knows why she found him so attractive—maybe it was because she hadn’t touched a
man in six months.

Max found a fresh coconut under a
nearby tree, and slashed it open. The liquid inside was fresh and cool, and she
slaked her thirst. She wished she had sunglasses, so she could watch him come
out of the water without it being obvious she was checking him out, but as she
didn’t, she would have to satisfy herself with surreptitious glances when he
re-emerged.

The sooner he took his sexy walk
back to his hideaway the better.

Melati was paradise—the perfect
place to sunbathe and swim naked, but she’d dressed in the bikini this morning
just in case he showed up. Because even the thought of being naked around
Sholto again made her so wet she couldn’t stand it.