Trial Run: Addicted To Love Romance Collection (8 page)

On the first trip, Rob brought back the hatchet and one eight-gallon bottle of water which had dropped straight down, and was therefore easy to spot where it lay, wedged between shards of rock. The second trip, he grabbed two of Amelie’s bags, which had been trapped in the small cabin when the boat turned over, and a pouch of dry emergency rations he’d stashed in a side compartment.

He took a break from swimming and began to collect any driftwood and palm fronds he could find on the beach. He walked just inside the line of trees and brought another armful of palm fronds to add to the stash of building materials. The humidity was making breathing difficult, so he took it easy and stopped for breaks frequently. He gulped down some of the rain water that had collected in the sawn-off bottle halves overnight, and made a mental note to search for anything else that could be used for gathering rain water.

During his third trip to the boat, he discovered the skeg and propeller had snapped off, leaving a stump poking down, and the fuel tank was badly bent, though not broken. He wasn’t sure the fuel lines weren’t damaged, but he made small incisions in them, here and there, so they would be unusable. They looked genuine, as if they’d been shredded by the rocks.

After a few dives, he managed to spot the last water bottle and two more bags, but was unable to get to them. He decided to leave them until the following day, when the waters would be just that little bit more settled.

He was almost all the way back when he remembered. For the deception to be completely successful, he needed to get rid of any instrument that could be used to get in contact with the civilized world. He’d left his smart phone with Jason, knowing it would come to this, but he’d forgotten to leave his favorite watch behind. With a sigh, he unclipped his gold-plated Invicta Reserve Collection timepiece and tossed it toward the reef. It was only an object. Expensive, but easily replaced, once this adventure was over.

Back on shore, he busied himself with the build, making slow yet sure progress with Amelie asleep and not bothering him.

Amelie woke up to the sound of the hatchet chipping off branches. She was rested, though stiff, and it took a few stretches before she could get her arms and legs moving properly. She began wriggling out of the shelter, then suddenly remembered she was in her underwear.

Damn it! Had Rob done that on purpose? Did he only ask for her clothes so he could catch a glimpse?

No, of course not. She knew the best way to warm up was to shed any wet clothing, and to be fair, she was lovely and warm, despite the fact that the rain hadn’t stopped yet – she could feel the raindrops on her exposed ankles.

The hatchet stopped working for a minute, then started hacking again. Oh, well, she wasn’t going to get a better chance at sneaking her clothes back on than while Rob was busy doing something else. Taking a deep breath, Amelie slid out of the shelter.

She found her clothes hanging on a branch, close by, so at least he wasn’t up to playing silly teenage pranks, like hiding her clothes or suggesting they play ‘nudists’ since there was no one else around.

Her eyes followed the direction of the noise, and she walked toward it. She could see movement in the trees, so she adjusted her course that way.

When she found Rob, she couldn’t contain her gasp. He was only wearing his board shorts, which, being wet, hugged his ass perfectly. She could see every ridge of muscle as he worked to subdue a thinner tree trunk, then tied it to the one opposite with a piece of rope. The rope that had kept them linked together the previous night, though she could see he’d separated the main weave into three thinner ones. She smiled at the memory – how he’d seen her panic and tied himself to her, instead of brushing off her need to have him near as some pitiful girlie drama unworthy of his attention.

The shelter Rob was constructing was massive, in her opinion. He’d positioned nine tree trunks in an oval shape, and tied two opposing trunks together, missing out the ninth, in such a way that opposing pairs supported each other in the middle. There was a pile of thinner branches over to one side, and she supposed he would use those as cross pieces all the way down, as scaffold for the palm and banana leaves she could see a little farther away.

Rob turned for the pile of branches and caught her looking.

“What do you think?” he asked, gesturing vaguely to their future home.

“Umm…” What could she say? She was undeniably impressed, but she would have still preferred to have her own room. What about her privacy?

Rob’s face fell, but his eyes acquired a hard, steely spark. “Let me guess. Not good enough for you?”

His remark stung, and she felt stupid for the second time that day. Who cared about privacy when they had bigger problems to deal with? Besides, the man in front of her, his muscles bulging from the last few hours’ exertion, looked delicious with the water running down the indentation between his pecs, and trickling down the ridges of his perfectly defined abdominal muscles. She wondered what it would feel like to lick that trail all the way…
Stop that!
She shook her head and looked away from his body, back to the structure behind him.

“No, no, no. That’s not it at all,” she said hastily, desperate to recover her self-control. Besides, she needed Rob happy for many reasons, least of all the fact that she truly was lost, and working as a team on a deserted island was going to be far easier if they got along. She decided to do her best to keep Rob content, so she tried to appease him. “I was just thinking it’s huge. How long were you planning to stay here?”

His expression cleared. “Well, we don’t know, do we? It could be hours or days before the storm clears, and I for one would like to remember what it feels like to be dry again.”

Amelie smiled, thankful to have his company and grateful for his humor. Crisis one averted. She’d have to watch what she said from now on. For all their machismo, men were such sensitive beings!

“Anything I can do to help?” she asked, looking around.

Rob stared at her appraisingly for a long moment, too long for comfort. There it was again – male chauvinism at its best. He clearly didn’t believe she was perfectly capable of completing the same tasks he was carrying out. Come to think of it, she was willing to bet she could do far more. And do it better.

She put her hands on her hips. “I have taken a course on woodwork and one on basket-weaving. I can assure you I know what I’m doing. I won’t be in your way.”

Rob smirked and pressed his lips together. Oh, how she was itching to slap that smile off his face. Asshole!

“I was just thinking you probably weigh about the same as some of those tree trunks, Ammy. I wouldn’t want you hurt. And there’s no need for violence,” he added, lifting his arms in surrender. “If you want to help, I’ll be glad for your help.”

She simmered with rage for a minute, wondering whether a slap or an uppercut might still be in order. Hurt! She’d show him hurt! In the end, mentally flipping a coin, she chose non-violence. Barely containing her ire, she spit out, “Just… point.”

Rob fought another laugh and pressed his lips together again, but turned his head to the pile of wood and pointed, like she’d asked him. Then he grabbed a length of rope and began to split the strands, completely ignoring her.

Amelie marched over to the pile of wood and lifted one of the tree trunks. Oh, boy, but it was heavy! Rob hadn’t been joking. She dropped it and bent over, pretending to study intently a spot on the bark. Surreptitiously, she peeked over her shoulder, to check he wasn’t watching her. He was still fiddling with the rope. Good. She maneuvered the trunks around until she could get to a thinner one, then lifted it up and staggered with it the five steps to the edge of the construction.

Rob grabbed one end and lifted it high in the air, tying the end deftly to a vertical trunk. Then he picked up her end and brought it over to the next upright. He nodded in the direction of the wood pile, a sign for her to bring over another tree. Amelie frowned and turned away, wondering how long it would be until she couldn’t feel her arms anymore. Her sneaky maneuvering didn’t seem all that clever anymore, but she couldn’t let Rob know how badly she’d misjudged her task, so she grabbed another hunk of tree and lugged it over.

As they worked, they fell into an easy banter. Rob asked about the courses Amelie had taken, and then steered the conversation around to her basketry class. It turned out she’d used bamboo, willow and palm tree fronds, too, so he delegated to her the task of weaving some of the palm fronds together to form pockets which they could stuff with dead leaves and make into mattresses. She accepted the challenge gladly, which meant he’d read her right, and the only thing that had kept her lugging those trees for as long as she did had been her own pride.

Rob shook his head in dismay at the stubbornness of the female species. They didn’t want to be seen as weak, but they weren’t prepared to admit a task was beyond their abilities either. Why couldn’t they just play it straight? He felt a little pang of guilt at tarring Amelie with the same brush he’d used for the other women in his life, those who’d caused him serious hurt, but look at her – tiny as a wisp and insisting on lifting trees twice her weight just to prove a point. He sucked air through his teeth and shook his head in dismay.

Amelie turned her gaze his way, smiling, completely unaware of the direction of his thoughts, which was just as well. He didn’t need to start a quarrel with a head-strong woman who thought she could do it all. His life could be easy, or it could be hard. Getting along with Amelie was bound to be the easier option, so he would keep his thoughts to himself for now and get on with his work. There would be plenty of time for quarreling later. It was sure to come, as sure as sun rose in the east. He could feel it in his bones.

One more glance at her, before he would have to turn away; it couldn’t hurt. He allowed his eyes to wander, unable to restrain himself.

She was sitting cross-legged on the mat she was currently weaving and humming quietly to herself. Looking at her now, he didn’t see the irresponsible stubborn woman, the cocky sister who liked to drive her brother around the bend. No. Right now, she was sweet and lovely, and more adorable than an angel. Even in the rain, she looked tempting enough to eat.

The leaf he was stacking over the top of their construction slipped from his grasp and he cursed himself for not paying attention to the task in hand. Jaw clenched in the effort required to keep his eyes from straying to Amelie, he retrieved the fallen leaf and set it in place. He kept focused, sweating profusely, until the roof was completely thatched, but was acutely aware of the fact he’d only managed that because he didn’t allow his eyes to drift over to where she was sitting.

When the shelter was finished, he praised her for her work on the mats covering the ground, then put her to work on the windbreaks they needed either side of the entrance, linking the shelter with the ninth post, and thereby creating a covered area for them to sit in front of a camp fire.

By evening, the shelter was done, and a circle of rocks lined what would be their fire pit. Amelie was collecting any leftover wood and bark to use on the fire, so Rob went to retrieve the provisions he’d salvaged from the boat earlier in the day.

Amelie’s jaw dropped and she sucked in a huge breath, then smiled as widely as he’d seen her smile yet. A second later, her expression clouded over and she ripped into Rob with the fury of a T-Rex who’d just discovered he was alone on a plant-filled planet.

“You had my things all along and said nothing?”

Rob shrugged and deposited all their possessions in the middle of the shelter. “I went to check out the boat while you were asleep. After that, we were just… busy.”

He smiled at her, waiting for her answering smile and maybe also a thankful peck on the cheek. But she didn’t smile. There was no thanks in her glare. She stared at him as if he’d just wrung the neck of her favorite kitten.

“You… you… asshole! Only a selfish, callous, insensitive man could think living in the same set of clothes for two days is fine – after falling into the sea, after sitting in them in the mud, after a whole day of work… How could you be so thoughtless?”

She rushed to the bags, opened them and upended them onto the mats. Sloppy clothes and personal effects fell into a jumbled pile, still oozing sea water.

Rob took an involuntary step back. “Hey, hey, chill! What’s wrong with you? It’s not like you’d feel any better dressed in any of those – they were in the sea, too. And if you didn’t like wearing the same dirty clothes, you could have always taken them off. I wouldn’t have minded.”

Amelie’s face turned a shade of red he hadn’t seen many times on a living, breathing human being, and he found it too funny, so he turned around to hide his smile.

“Ugh!” she screamed. Rob fixed his eyes on a sea grape bush and imagined steam rising above Amelie’s head. “You are the most inconsiderate bastard I’ve ever had the misfortune to meet, Rob Tyson. I always thought you might be special, different somehow, but no! You’re just like every other asshole man out there. All of you have the same misogynistic thinking. Pigs who see themselves as gods, lording it over the poor weak females who are only good for…”

She thought him different? Rob tuned her out and considered that concept for a minute. Amelie Watts had actually spent some time analyzing him and found him different to other men – better, in fact, judging by her implication.

“Where are the other bags?” she demanded, hands on hips, bent forward toward him, as if she was getting ready to pounce.

“That’s all I could find,” Rob answered calmly. “And thank you, Rob, for bringing my bags over – No problem, sweetheart. I was only trying to be helpful,” he enacted the dialogue he would have expected to have with her.

Amelie blushed anew, but contained her embarrassment and turned it back into ire. Her little fists tightened up by her side and she let out a wordless scream worthy of a Banshee of the Year competition.

“I hate it! I hate being stuck here. I hate being miserable and wet.” She stretched out her soggy top, and then let it ping back against her skin, where it stuck, molding itself to the shape of her breasts and her pebbled nipples, piercings showing clearly through. “And I hate all of this soggy, useless junk,” she shouted, kicking at the things by her feet. “But most of all, I hate y –”

Rob’s mouth descended on her lips, cutting off her angry words, and his hands grasped her shoulders and brought her to his chest. Her warm body stayed close to his, though she had the option of pushing him away. Despite the fire coursing through his veins, he would have let her go. He wasn’t a Neanderthal.

Instead, he felt her hands on his chest, tracing his pecs and stroking his hair, and her lips were kissing him back with such passion, she made his fire blaze hotter than he’d ever felt it blaze before. Every thought, including his promise he’d made to Jason to stay away from his sister and the decision to let her go if she so wished, flew out of his mind, leaving it blissfully empty and ready to be filled with the awareness of her. Amelie…

He deepened the kiss, seeking entrance through her lips, and she obediently parted them for him, stroking his tongue eagerly with hers. Her hands moved up the sides of his neck and to the back of his head, where they tangled in his hair. For what felt like hours, he rejoiced in this borrowed bliss, kissing her like he’d never kissed a woman before, tasting her sweet aroma and getting lost in the heady sensation of feeling her wrapped around his body.

The storm didn’t matter, the deal didn’t matter, and as far as he was concerned they could be stranded in outer space – he didn’t care. All he knew was that she was in his arms, warm and willing, and he could quite happily keep her there until the end of time.

Rob skimmed her middle with one hand, slipping his fingers under her soggy top to feel the soft skin of her waist and back, then splayed his hand and smoothed it down, beneath the waistband of her too-short shorts, his mind in overdrive. His other hand left her shoulder and travelled slowly over her collar bone and down the dip between her breasts, then came back up from underneath, cupping one of them softly.

Something light and wet dribbled down his cheek, and he broke the kiss and pulled back, astounded. “Amelie, what’s wrong? Why are you crying?”

She shook her head and turned away, then dropped to her knees, hiding her face from him as she began to sort through her possessions with shaky hands.

He wanted to pick her up and force her to look at him, press her for an answer or kiss her again, but she’d made it clear she wanted some space. If she’d really wanted him close, she would have stayed in his arms, wouldn’t she? So she must have regretted the kiss. That must have been it. Inwardly, he cursed himself for acting impulsively, and turned his attention to starting a fire.

Women – such wonderful beings… but who could pretend to understand them?