The Pleasure Of His Company
Lindsay Evans
A taste of paradiseFor two weeks each year, Kingsley Diallo puts aside his responsibilities as CEO of a multibillion-dollar company and heads to Aruba. It’s his chance to surf, unwind and enjoy the anonymity of just blending into a crowd. Then one day he sees Adah Palmer-Mitchell on the edge of the beach and wants to make a meaningful connection with her. Instinct tells him she’s keeping a secret, but the stunning island setting and Adah’s sensual beauty are an irresistible combination…Disillusioned by romance, Adah agreed to an engagement to bolster her parents’ business interests. Suddenly that love-free arrangement is a sacrifice she’s not sure she can make. Handsome, charismatic and confident, Kingsley awakens her dormant desires, tantalizing her with the possibility of a passionate future. As their dangerous game of attraction escalates, can she choose between family loyalty…and the call of her heart?
A taste of paradise
For two weeks each year, Kingsley Diallo puts aside his responsibilities as CEO of a multibillion-dollar company and heads to Aruba. It’s his chance to surf, unwind and enjoy the anonymity of just blending into a crowd. Then one day he sees Adah Palmer-Mitchell on the edge of the beach and wants to make a meaningful connection with her. Instinct tells him she’s keeping a secret, but the stunning island setting and Adah’s sensual beauty are an irresistible combination...
Disillusioned by romance, Adah agreed to an engagement to bolster her parents’ business interests. Suddenly that love-free arrangement is a sacrifice she’s not sure she can make. Handsome, charismatic and confident, Kingsley awakens her dormant desires, tantalizing her with the possibility of a passionate future. As their dangerous game of attraction escalates, can she choose between family loyalty...and the call of her heart?
“Hope you win...whatever it is you’re going after.” She gestured to the kites still in the air, the stage and the people watching the action from the beach.
“And still no gift of your beautiful name?”
She shook her head again, this time not hiding her smile. “My name doesn’t matter.”
“I disagree.” He paused, his gaze amused and thoughtful. “I have to call you something in my dreams.”
Adah rolled her eyes. Cute and corny. “Call me whatever you like.”
“I think I’ll call you Doe Eyes.” Then he grinned at her, apparently pleased with himself.
She shook her head a third time. “It was nice to meet you.”
“It’ll be even nicer to see you again,” Kingsley said. Before she could tell him the island wasn’t small enough for them to run into each other without agreeing to a time and place, his smile flashed again. “This won’t be the last time,” he said. The sand pulled at her sandals, and she stumbled, blushing as she righted herself under his amused regard. “Be careful until I see you again,” he said with another quick scan up and down her body.
Dear Reader (#uc6591998-6abf-5807-ac14-d2c9aa564f91),
Adah has always been a good girl. Good grades, attending a good college. She can even fake a good attitude about the long ago loss of her twin sister. But when she stumbles into Kingsley Diallo on a sunlit beach in Aruba, his glistening body and seductive smile make her want to be oh-so-bad.
With a fiancé waiting for her to set a wedding date and parental obligations looming, what’s a good girl gone bad to do?
Turn the pages, dear reader, and find out for yourself.
Lindsay Evans
The Pleasure of His Company
Lindsay Evans
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
LINDSAY EVANS was born in Jamaica and currently lives and writes in Atlanta, Georgia, where she’s constantly on the hunt for inspiration, club in hand. She loves good food and romance and would happily travel to the ends of the earth for both. Find out more at www.lindsayevanswrites.com (http://www.lindsayevanswrites.com/).
To my readers:
without you, none of this would be possible. Thank you!
Contents
Cover (#u6d0bf0e8-d80f-51aa-b7cb-7ae42390f615)
Back Cover Text (#ubd3e9033-8e11-55ce-b9cd-f51da9e67d74)
Introduction (#udec413bc-b61e-5311-8698-4a93acb4f0ba)
Dear Reader (#u720482af-ea01-5a41-b505-f8ecaca2468f)
Title Page (#udb7ff4b8-2bc7-59c7-aa96-2e358d7c4cab)
About the Author (#ucb137bf4-e2a0-5120-bdc6-b38617c0e058)
Dedication (#u3ab10dd2-e34b-5d0f-860d-8d11bba64853)
Chapter 1 (#u1b37a667-f48c-5c64-87ca-5c121eaa3009)
Chapter 2 (#u7df56e49-b2b1-5c17-bb4b-442523b4fbd8)
Chapter 3 (#u9ccb0012-e422-5ee2-bcfb-0bd63a2baf48)
Chapter 4 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 5 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 6 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 7 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 1 (#uc6591998-6abf-5807-ac14-d2c9aa564f91)
A beautiful man flying above the sea and into the sky wasn’t something Adah saw every day. From the beach, she drew a breath and felt her whole body flush as the man sailed across the bright blue water and even closer to her. Thin board shorts and a T-shirt clung to his hard body, the wet material of both outlining every ridge of muscle and plane of skin. He was absolutely gorgeous, and she wasn’t the only one looking.
“Damn, he is fine!” A woman down the beach said the words loudly enough to get chuckles of agreement from others nearby, pointing her camera up. Adah resisted the urge to reach for her phone to take a photo; instead she raised her hand above her eyes to shield her face from the Aruban sun burning brightly, even through her sunglasses.
They called it kite surfing. She knew that much from the signs on the event stage she’d seen on her walk from the hotel. And if the reaction of the audience was anything to go by, this gentleman was very good at it. Earlier she’d walked up in time to see him getting ready on the beach. He’d grabbed the edges of some sort of parachute, slipped his bare feet into slots on top of the board and then skated across the water, the bright-blue-and-white material of his parachute snapping in the breeze.
Fine was right.
Adah took off her sunglasses and watched him float across the water and just under the sky, turning somersaults while the audience cheered and called out what she assumed was his name. The announcer of the Hi-Winds Tournament shouted his praise as the man turned yet another flip and landed firmly on both feet on the deep blue sea. Then he was off, flying away from the shore and giving another kiter a turn in front of the rapt audience.
“Did you see that butt?” One of the bikini-clad girls near Adah said to her friend while they both giggled over their bottles of beer.
Her words made Adah blush and turn away from the water. She wasn’t much better than this girl, ogling the man just because she was looking for a source of distraction from her own problems. But that awareness didn’t stop her from sending one last lingering look across the water to where the man was making a loop in the sky and flying back toward the edge of the beach.
Although watching him made her feel vaguely uncomfortable in her own body, tingly and aware of long-ignored wants, it also felt good to be distracted from thoughts of the phone call she’d had with her mother earlier that morning.
“You have to make up your mind about this marriage, Adah,” her mother had said. “You’ve already said yes to this. Just make it official so we can start making concrete plans for the wedding. Let’s at least agree on a date.”
A date to join her life with another person’s to help save the family business.
Her mother made it sound so simple. Confirm the day for the arranged marriage she’d agreed to when she was a junior in college, depressed from a recent breakup and fixated on the idea that she’d never find a man to love her the way her father loved her mother. Back then she’d been convinced they didn’t make men like her father anymore—honest, romantic, ride or die. To her, males of the species were all boys and would mature only enough to treat a woman like another notch on their bedposts.
And now, at twenty-six, she was still single but less sure she was willing to give up any chance at passion and love to rescue the family business. That was what she should be willing to do. That was what her twin sister, Zoe, would probably have done. But what-ifs didn’t matter. Zoe was dead. It was Adah’s responsibility to step up.
Seawater rushed over her sandaled toes, and she hissed at the coolness of it. Without realizing it, she’d walked to the edge of the sand and into the waves. Adah skittered back, annoyed with herself for getting water on the expensive leather sandals that had been a gift from her best friend. She should have just worn her plastic Old Navy flip-flops.
Farther up the beach, the tournament continued. Adah was out of the way of the kiters assembling on the beach as their competitors helped them get into their complicated-looking gear. It was a beautiful display of cooperation and partnership.
“You going to walk into the water with your clothes on?”
She jerked her attention from the beach only to find herself immersed in seductive brown eyes. It was the man who had danced in the air above the waves. Up close he was a gorgeous thing. Tall and sun-browned, white teeth blazing in his handsome face, radiating as much heat as the sun overhead. He still wore his loose T-shirt and board shorts, both wet from his time in the water. Mirrored sunglasses hung from the neck of his shirt.
“Things aren’t that bad for me yet,” she managed past a tight throat. Why was he talking to her? Men this good-looking never went out of their way to engage her in conversation.
“That’s looking on the positive side.” He grinned again, then came close. “I’m Kingsley.”
His mouth was a firm curve, the top lip slightly smaller than the lower, both glistening with some sort of sunscreen or lip balm. Adah licked her own lips, which tasted like cherry Carmex, and imagined his tasted the same.
“Pleased to meet you.” She almost slapped herself on the forehead at the inanity of her reply. But she felt completely undone. Her heart beat quickly in her chest, and her tongue felt too heavy for her to speak.
“A mystery woman, then?”
She shook her head but didn’t correct him. Better he thought she was being mysterious and coy than an idiot who lost all her cool points just because a hot guy smiled at her. He shoved his hands in his pockets, seemingly unbothered.
“I saw you earlier,” he said, eyes moving quickly over her body in a way that was both appraising and appreciative. “I had to come by and say hello.”
“You saw me when you were in the air? You must have really good eyesight.”
“That’s not the only thing good about me,” he said. Then he laughed at his own bad joke. “I’m sorry,” he said as the last of his laughter faded. “I’m really not that corny.”
“Somehow I have my doubts.” But he still managed to charm her anyway. Adah felt herself responding to more than just his physical appeal. His eyes were warm with humor and his above-average height made her feel secure instead of intimidated. She could easily imagine cuddling into his big body after sex, her body humming with contentment as he stroked the length of her back in a soothing rhythm.
But there was something destructive in that. Something that made Adah’s stomach clench in warning. This wasn’t what she’d come to Aruba for.
As if he’d read her mind, Kingsley’s look became downright seductive. Heavy-lashed eyes and an intimate smile like the door opening to a softly lit bedroom.
“Would you like to have a drink with me sometime?” he asked.
Adah automatically shook her head although she desperately wanted to say yes.
I’m in a situation. The words from the old Erykah Badu song rang ridiculously in her ear. That was one way to put it. And that was even assuming he felt even a little of what was thrumming over her skin. Pure and undiluted attraction. Lust and the urge to smile back at him just to see those compelling brown eyes narrow even more from his grin, the corners crinkling in the simple pleasure of sharing space with someone attractive. She couldn’t remember the last time someone’s mere presence had made her want to stay in his company and enjoy the ease of his smile, the comfort of his body. Because it was undoubtedly desire. It coursed through her veins just from looking at him. His undivided attention felt like hands running over her bare skin.
“I can’t,” she finally said. Not I don’t want to.
And he seemed absolutely aware of the difference, judging from the way he looked at her, hungry and with the knowledge that the thing he wanted was within reach.
“I...uh... I have to go. Hope you win...whatever it is you’re going after.” She gestured to the kites still in the air, the stage and the people watching the action from the beach.
“And still no gift of your beautiful name?”
She shook her head again, this time not hiding her smile. “My name doesn’t matter.”
“I disagree.” He paused, his gaze amused and thoughtful. “I have to call you something in my dreams.”
Adah rolled her eyes. Cute and corny. “Call me whatever you like.”
“I think I’ll call you Doe Eyes.” Then he grinned at her, apparently pleased with himself.
She shook her head a third time. “It was nice to meet you.”
“It’ll be even nicer to see you again,” Kingsley said. Before she could tell him the island wasn’t small enough for them to run into each other without agreeing to a time and place, his smile flashed again. “This won’t be the last time,” he said. The sand pulled at her sandals, and she stumbled, blushing as she righted herself under his amused regard. “Be careful until I see you again,” he said with another quick scan up and down her body.
When he turned and walked away, she shamelessly watched him, the loose fit of the drying shirt over his muscled back and the shift of his butt in the long shorts. She bit her lip. There was joy in Kingsley. She thought about what sex would be like with him—undeniably hot, uninhibited—and knew there would be a spontaneous delight about the encounter, a pleasure at living and breathing and being able to gulp deeply from the cup of life. He was a man worth knowing. And touching.
“I know you’re looking,” he called over his shoulder without turning around. Laughter threaded through his voice. The sound of it should have made Adah blush and look away like a thief caught with her hands in the cookie jar, but she only grinned and kept looking until she could no longer make out the finer details of his physique.
She was still smiling when she walked across the sand and through the beachfront entrance of her hotel. The lavish hotel, though stretching the limits of her budget, was one she was glad to have found. Her room overlooked the water, the entire reason for her visit to an island in the Caribbean.
“Welcome back, Ms. Palmer-Mitchell.” The woman at the front desk spared a smile for Adah as she looked up from her computer screen.
“Thank you.”
“There’s a visitor here for you. She’s already in her own room, which she requested next to yours.”
Adah stopped. “A visitor?” A bad feeling made her footsteps stutter. The leftover warmth from the encounter with Kingsley leached from her. She shivered.
“Yes. She arrived about thirty minutes ago.”
Adah had been walking the island for nearly two hours, trying to clear her mind and find a solution to the unsettled feeling that had yanked her out of her sleep nearly every night for the past six months. She was desperate for a good night’s sleep.
Adah pressed her lips closed and sucked them between her teeth. “All right, thank you so much for letting me know.”
After wishing the woman a good morning, she crossed the tiled lobby, each step feeling heavier than the last as she imagined who was waiting for her upstairs. She knew only one person with the means and motive to come to Aruba and turn her peace upside down. When the elevator doors slid open on her floor, there was someone waiting to get on it. The woman, elegant in white linen with her iron-gray hair on top of her head in a simple French twist, smiled at her in equal parts relief and triumph. Adah released a quiet breath.
“Hello, Mother.”
Chapter 2 (#uc6591998-6abf-5807-ac14-d2c9aa564f91)
“Surprise, darling!” Thandie Palmer-Mitchell rebounded beautifully from the surprise of seeing Adah in the elevator.
Adah wished she could say the same for herself. Her suspicion had turned into grim certainty when the elevator doors opened on her floor. She felt scattered to the four winds at the sight of her mother, gorgeously styled and smiling in the last place Adah wanted her to be.
“Are you heading down?”
“Not anymore, now that you’re here,” her mother said.
Of course not. What she hoped was a smile spasmed across Adah’s face. “Okay. My room or yours?”
“Yours, of course. You must want to shower and get cleaned up after being out there in the heat.” Her mother fanned her face with her slender clutch purse as she stepped back to let Adah off the elevator. “After ten minutes out there, it felt like my skin was covered with sand and sweat.”
She fell in step with Adah down the wide and well-lit hallway toward the small room Adah had booked. Adah cringed, suddenly remembering her mess. Although she’d been in Aruba for only a day, most of the contents of her suitcase were already spread all over the room, a tendency toward untidiness she carried over from how she treated her space at home. The common areas were orderly and almost obsessively neat, but her bedroom and bathroom were booby-trapped with piles of clothes, books and makeup in danger of falling over.
She wasn’t dirty, Adah often reassured herself, just disorganized. Her habit of just stuffing her rolled travel clothes into her suitcase in no discernible pattern meant she often had to dig to the bottom of her luggage to find the exact thing she needed. Then after all that searching, who wanted to repack everything? There was just no point.
Her mother was the complete opposite. She used packing cubes, elegant and expensive, that she carefully arranged before each trip. Underwear in one cube, dresses in another and so on. Then she just slipped the prepacked cubes into the drawers of whatever hotel she checked into. Adah envied her mother’s ability to easily and neatly transition from place to place. But Adah had never made any effort to take on those qualities for herself.
Biting the proverbial bullet, she slid the keycard in and opened her door. “Come on in.”
Inside was the same disorder she’d left. Clothes all over the bed and the chair near the window. Her suitcase gaped open on the dresser with her other bathing suit and underwear spilling out. She grabbed clothes from the chair and tossed them on top of the suitcase.
“Sit.” She scrubbed a hand self-consciously over her windblown hair. “I’m going to have a quick shower—just make yourself comfortable.”
“Don’t be silly. It’s okay, darling.”
But Adah hadn’t forgotten her mother’s earlier comment about her getting cleaned up. “It won’t take me long. Sit and play some music on your iPad or something.”
Then she seized the nearest item of clothing on the suitcase and rushed to the bathroom. Barely fifteen minutes later, she walked out, running a brush over her hair, her body freshly lotioned and wearing the fitted floral sundress her best friend had insisted she bring to Aruba.
“Inject some sexy in your life, Adah,” Selene had told her as she pressed a large department store bag full of dresses and underwear she’d gotten nearly free in her job as a fashion buyer.
Adah felt like a fraud in the garment, effortlessly pretty in a way she couldn’t pull off in her everyday life. It felt like she was playing dress up, or at least trying to be like her mother. But she swept those thoughts away. Refreshed from her rushed shower, she twisted her straightened hair into a quick topknot.
“What brings you here, Mother?”
“My only daughter, of course.” Her mother had truly made herself comfortable, streaming a Luther Vandross song from the small iPad on her lap. She shut it down by closing the cover and set it aside. “I didn’t want you to feel all alone in this strange new place by yourself,” she continued.
“I’m not alone, Mother. There are thousands of tourists on the island this time of year, not to mention all the people who live here.”
“You know what I mean. You’re always going someplace by yourself. I think you’d be tired of that sort of solitary existence by now.”
Her mother had grown up in a boisterous home as one of six children and often voiced regrets she hadn’t had another child after Zoe died.
“With Zoe gone, I’m an only child, Mother. I’m used to being alone. Most times I prefer it.” Like now.
“Nonsense.” Her mother made a dismissive motion. “Nobody really likes being alone. But I can only be with you for a little while. There’s some business back home in Atlanta I need to tend to.” The business that had shaped the course of all their lives since it started. “I came to treat you to something nice for your birthday. I know your father and I were so busy last month we didn’t get a chance to celebrate with you properly.”
Weeks before they’d done the annual dinner at Adah’s favorite restaurant but hadn’t had time for the separate weekend trip to Saint Simons Island that was also part of the birthday tradition.
“It’s okay. I know with the company being in trouble, you and Daddy don’t have as much time as usual.”
“That’s no excuse, darling. And that’s the reason why I’m here!” Her mother looked excited about whatever she was about to reveal. “I moved you to one of the rooms on the top floor and reserved a half day’s pampering session in the most beautiful spa. The masseuses there are award winning—although I didn’t know massage was something you could get awards for.” Her mother frowned like she was giving serious thought to her last remark.
“Mother, you really didn’t have to.” Adah had come to Aruba by herself to think. The key part of that being by herself.
“I know. But I want to.” Her mother leaned forward with an even bigger smile. “Our appointments are tomorrow morning. They’ll pick us up from here at ten. And while we’re gone, they’ll move your things up to the new room.”
And that was that.
Adah immediately knew her mother’s ploy for what it was. And she was half surprised at its transparency. A bribe to get the wedding show on the road and pull the family business out of the fire in which it had found itself despite her parents’ brilliance and the relative success of its line of natural hair care products. Still, she allowed it all to happen, the ever-present guilt pricking her into saying yes to whatever it was her mother wanted.
Her twin, Zoe, had died when they were just eleven years old. A car accident on the way home from a young entrepreneurs’ summer camp. It was beyond awful that her sister, her best friend, had died. Adah had forced Zoe to sit on the passenger side of the car’s back seat just because she’d wanted to sit behind the driver for a reason she couldn’t even remember now. The guilt about that still tore her apart. Even at eleven years old, Zoe had been the one eager to take over the family business and make it even better. All Adah had wanted was a job where she could be surrounded by children and hear their laughter all day.
In the end, as co-owner of an exclusive day care complex in North Atlanta catering to some of the city’s wealthiest residents, Adah had gotten the job she’d wanted. Zoe had gotten nothing but death.
* * *
The next morning, after a restless night spent with her mother on the other side of the wall in an adjoining room, Adah woke and pulled on the same sundress from the afternoon before and the leather sandals. The car that came to get them smelled of the spa, something vaguely citrusy and clean, making her feel as if she were already resting on a masseuse’s table and waiting to be transported to boneless relaxation. But she knew peace wouldn’t come. Her mother had something to say, and she would state it when she thought Adah was most vulnerable—while she was getting her massage.
She did try to relax during the car ride through the bright and tourist-rich streets of Oranjestad, the car’s engine purring through roundabouts and past casinos that burped out victims of the previous night’s gambling excesses. Her mother sat across from her, looking content and refreshed, like she’d had the good night’s sleep Adah had been denied, her hair perfectly put together in a gray ponytail resting over her shoulder, an ocean-green dress complementing the slender lines of her body.
“You don’t really have to do any of this,” Adah said.
“I know, darling. But I want to do this for you. It’ll mellow you. Besides, after this, your father and I will feel better about not doing enough for your birthday.”
Her mother plucked a slice of pineapple from the silver dish sitting between them. Juice exploded from the fruit and dripped down the side of her mouth. On another person, it would have looked clumsy, but her mother’s delighted laughter and the delicate way she wiped the juice from her mouth with one of the cloth napkins made her seem charming and young. Not for the first time, Adah wished she had been the child her mother deserved, a truer reflection of her instead of this awkward and too-soft girl-woman who barely knew how to style herself.
Adah drank from a bottle of water, not wanting to chance any fruit on her dress. With her luck, one of the dark red strawberries would squirt out of her mouth and down her front, making it looked like she’d just suffered a massive nosebleed. Or a mugging.
In the spa, beautiful women in white whisked Adah and her mother away to a serene room that smelled even more like tranquility, this time with low, strings-heavy music and dim lighting. The women gave them fluffy white robes to change into and plied them with cucumber-infused water. An old Deep Forest album, humming with the sounds of chirping birds overlaid by timid violins, played in the background.
Once she was lying on a massage table, with her mother in an identical position a few feet away, Adah actually tried to relax. A silent masseuse began to work on her face, smoothing eucalyptus-scented circles over her forehead and cheeks, while her mother shared stories about what Adah had missed in Atlanta the single day she’d been gone.
“And Petra doesn’t seem like the type to fall for someone that shallow, or scary,” her mother said, continuing her portion of a conversation Adah was barely paying attention to.
She was talking about a bank manager friend of theirs who’d hooked up with the cold but slightly scandalous anchor of a national news network based in Atlanta. On the outside, Petra seemed boring, and everyone she knew was stuck wondering how she’d managed to snag a man like Gabriel Saint.
“Every woman has something about them that only appeals to a select few people,” Adah said. Petra kept things pretty low-key and had a wicked sense of humor she often kept hidden. “Petra is a badass,” Adah said. “She just doesn’t show that side of herself very often.”
“Well, one person must have seen it, and I mean Gabriel Saint, because everyone is mystified about them being together.”
“Including you?”
“Including me.”
Adah smiled as much as the hands moving on her face would allow. “You only see what you want to see.”
Her mother laughed, not admitting to the truth they both knew. And it was so comfortable talking with her about the old familiar things that Adah did actually relax.
But then her mother said, “Have you been giving much thought to the wedding, darling?”
Adah released a slow breath through her nose. “No, I haven’t.” The masseuse paused with her hands on the suddenly tense muscles of Adah’s thigh. After a quick glance at Adah’s face, she continued the massage.
“You know Errol and Stephanie are excited to officially welcome you into their family.” Errol and Stephanie Randal were onetime rivals and now potential in-laws of Adah’s, owners of Leilani’s Pearls, a successful bath-and-beauty business that was on the verge of the same kind of stagnation pulling down Palmer-Mitchell Naturals. Separately the two companies would flounder, but by joining together they stood a greater chance of succeeding in the increasingly competitive marketplace.
Just about every beauty company had some kind of natural-hair product line now, even companies who’d created their success from selling perms to black women. Despite being in business for over thirty years, Palmer-Mitchell Naturals was a relatively new company and not well-known enough to succeed on its own.
Palmer-Mitchell Naturals needed Leilani’s Pearls much more than the other way around. And the agreement to merge companies, and do it in a way that kept the businesses in the family, hinged on Adah’s agreement to marry the Randal’s son, Bennett. The idea for Adah to become the sacrificial wife had come from her mother during a time of romantic disappointment and on the anniversary of her sister’s death. Marinating in pain from all sides, Adah could think only that the less useful sister had survived.
“I know the Randals are anxious, Mother. I know you and Daddy are, too.” Her stomach clenched with unease, and she wished she could just say yes and agree to the date without putting her parents through all this worry. Any relaxation she’d gained from the massage had fled. Her muscles felt tight and unwieldy.
“I want you to be certain about your decision, Adah. When I first suggested this idea, you were a young woman in college, practically still a child. I know you’re a different person now.”
But the situation Palmer-Mitchell Naturals found itself in was the same. Adah pressed her lips together while the anxiety rolled through her, steady and unrelenting. The masseuse’s fingers dug harder into her back.
“But—” her mother’s tone changed “—think about how amazing this would be for you, too. You could have the financial freedom to realize your dreams. And have a handsome husband to call your own.”
As if all Adah had ever wanted from this thing was a man.
She twitched under a particularly firm press of the masseuse’s fingers. “I know I agreed to all this before, but I just need a little time right now.”
Her mother sighed. “I know, darling. I know.”
Then she noticeably withdrew into herself, leaving the room silent except for the sounds of the women’s hands on their skin, oil rubbing into flesh and quiet breathing. Embarrassment at airing their dirty laundry in such a relatively public place heated Adah’s face. Although it hadn’t been a full-fledged fight, she felt battered and in the wrong. Her mother had always come away from their arguments as the clear victor while Adah was left limping and bleeding in her separate corner. This time was no different. She sighed into the deafening silence.
Later, Adah tried to recapture some of the lighthearted conversation they’d been having before. But her heart wasn’t in it, and it was obvious. Soon enough, their spa day was finished. Adah’s body was limp from the massage, but her mind was wound too tightly to rest.
After the car dropped them off at the hotel, Adah and her mother picked up the keys to their new rooms and took the elevator up. The penthouse room was beautiful. But Adah gave it no more than a passing glance before she grabbed her jogging clothes and quickly changed.
“I’m going out,” she called out through the open door between their rooms, then left before her mother could reply.
Adah took the stairs. Her sneakered feet pounded on the elegant steps, taking her down five flights, away from her mother and the snaking guilt that wouldn’t let her say no outright to the gift of an upgrade. For so much of her twenty-six years, Adah felt she’d been stealing her life. A charmed existence taken away from her sister, who’d died before she’d even fully known what she had. Parents who loved her. Parents who could afford to send her to private school. Who had the strength and brilliance to start a small business that became a national company within Adah’s lifetime. Her parents wanted more. Adah wanted more. But she knew the things they wanted were no longer compatible with her own wants, if they ever were.
At the bottom floor, she panted rough and ragged, sweat covering her body, heat flowing through her like she wished some new strength would. She was tired of this weakness of hers in the face of her parents’ wishes. Marriage was a serious thing. If she couldn’t find a man of her own, she’d rather be alone than with someone she wasn’t in love with.
The messed-up thing was that she actually liked Bennett Randal. They’d known each other for years and were like brother and sister. But he wasn’t someone she wanted to marry. At first, she thought she would be able to do it, but the idea of being with him in that way had unsettled her more and more as the years passed. Bennett, she knew, didn’t have the qualms she did.
He expected the marriage to happen. While the details were being finalized, he was enjoying being a bachelor, gobbling up all the available sex he could, usually via the hottest reality stars in Atlanta and the world, before he was tied to Adah forever.
Forever.
Just the thought of it made her breath stutter. And it wasn’t just because she was running full speed out of the hotel and onto the beach. Her feet pushed into the soft sand, and she forced herself to take even breaths, trying to put as much distance from her troubles as possible while not getting one step ahead of them.
Adah squeezed her eyes tightly for a moment but kept pace along the beach, which was nearly empty; most of the beachgoers had gone inside for showers and dinner and sex. The moon was fat and gorgeous in the Aruban sky. A paradise. Or it would be if her mother and Adah’s own troubles hadn’t followed her here.
She ran on. Her breath huffing. The sound of her feet thumping against the sand and the waves rushing up toward her but never touching. A writhing shape in the water pulled her attention from her breath’s steady rhythm. The moon glided over whatever it was, showing hints of curves. A couple, she thought, making love in the water and under the stars. She changed her path and ran in an arc away from the water, giving whoever it was their privacy.
But as she moved away, the splashing grew more intense and moved closer to the beach; then a lone body climbed from the water. Adah’s footsteps slowed as details of the swimmer emerged under the moonlight. A masculine body firm with muscles apparent even in the dark, bare shoulders, torso and hips. She stared, her footsteps slowing. Was this man naked?
“Doe Eyes?”
She stumbled at the familiar voice and nickname, then without fully realizing it, began walking toward the water’s edge and the gorgeous creature emerging from the water, getting barer as the moonlight slid silver fingers over every hard inch of him.
“Ah,” Kingsley said, his breath coming quickly after his swim. “I figured I would see you again.”
Adah clenched her jaw to stop her tongue from hanging out of her mouth. Kingsley wasn’t naked, but he might as well have been. The moonlight outlined him from the top of his proud head to his feet striding out of the water and across the sand to meet her. Pale swim trunks clung to his hips, to the insistent shape between his legs, and the tops of his muscled thighs that were wide and hard enough to make the tips of her fingers ache to sink into them.
He just said something. It’s my turn to talk now. She swallowed again.
“I’m just going for a jog to escape my troubles,” Adah finally said with her wryest smile. She looked down the beach and saw the illuminated outline of her hotel much farther away than she’d realized.
Damn. How far had she come?
“Should we call it destiny then?” Kingsley wiped the seawater from his face, dragging his hand from his chin down to his strong throat and chiseled chest. Even in the soft light and pervasive dark, Adah could see his grin.
“Let’s just call it a coincidence and leave it at that,” she said, crossing her arms over nipples that had gone embarrassingly tight.
Kingsley stepped even closer, and she resisted the urge to close the last few feet of space between them and see if his body was as hard or smooth as it looked.
She cleared her throat. “Aren’t you afraid they’ll cart you off for public indecency?”
He looked down at himself and shrugged. “They’d be false charges if they do,” he said, grinning. “Do you think I’m being indecent just by swimming at night? I have a suit on.”
“What you call a bathing suit some might call underwear.” And the fact that it was a pair of tight white trunks only highlighted what a dark bathing suit would hide. Not that he had anything to be ashamed about. Heat scalded her cheeks, and she yanked her gaze up from his crotch.
“I’m more covered than most people on the beach today,” Kingsley said.
He was right. On her walk, she’d seen dozens of European tourists spread across the beach, all body types and speaking so many languages that she’d lost track of how many she heard. But the one thing most had in common was that nearly all the men wore brief swim shorts that clung to their butts and crotches, being just as aggressively sexy as the women in their bikinis. Adah was all for equal opportunity swimwear and enjoyed her walks mostly because of the view. Not all the men were beautiful, but the ones who were gave her quite the eyeful.
She’d been impressed and amused until she saw the more modestly covered Kingsley on the kite and just about lost her mind. Not that she was doing that great of a job of managing herself now. And if his smug grin was anything to go by, he saw through her clearly enough.
Adah could only laugh at herself. “Anyway, it was great to see you, all of you.” She couldn’t resist. “But I’ve got to get going.”
“Nope.” Kingsley shook his head. “You can’t leave yet.”
“Excuse me?”
“I want to see you again, and I don’t want fate to determine the time and place.”
She should say no. Adah shook her head and pressed her lips together, just on the edge of the confession. “You know I can’t...” But she didn’t know how to finish that sentence.
“This is nothing more than an invitation to go snorkeling,” Kingsley said with a look that was far from innocent. “Aruba has some of the most beautiful waters in the Caribbean. You should experience it with locals who know what they’re doing.”
“And you’re one of these locals?”
“Not at all, but my friends are and they will be there. I’m only local to Miami.” He said his home city with an echo of pride in his voice.
Miami was so very far from Atlanta. Good. That meant nothing could come of this...whatever it was. No matter how much Adah’s eyes drifted low on his body and her heart sped up at the thought of him touching her. But it wasn’t all because he was the most perfect male specimen she’d ever seen. He was just so open with his desire for her, so deliriously transparent in a way she’d never experienced before that it was intoxicating. And she also felt like the very air around him smelled of freedom. Escape. A higher plane of living, where pleasure was easy and everything else was inconsequential.
“What exactly do you have in mind?” she asked.
His beautiful teeth flashed in the moonlight again, and her breathing sped up. This was beyond ridiculous.
“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.
“Thanks for being okay with me coming out with you all,” she said, looking at each face around the fire. “I’ve never gone snorkeling at night, but Kingsley says it’s safe.” The lilt in her voice plainly asked them to confirm the safety of what she was about to do.
“It is safe,” Steven confirmed. “I’ve done it more times than I can count.”
Annika nodded. “It’ll be fun. Even though I’ve lived in Aruba for nearly two years, I haven’t done it before. But Kingsley said it’s something I absolutely have to try.”
“He’s very convincing,” Carlos said. “I swear if he said I had to eat fire to be a real Aruban, I would do it even though he doesn’t know a damn thing about being from here.”
“Or about fire,” Kingsley said with a laugh.
“It burns,” Doe Eyes murmured, looking at him.
Kingsley locked eyes with her. “It certainly does.”
Annika laughed, her pale blue eyes brimming with mirth. It was embarrassingly obvious she knew what Kingsley was up to. Yes, if he got the chance he would absolutely sleep with Doe Eyes. Well, not exactly sleep. He wanted to make long and deep love with her, press her into any available surface and show her just how much he knew about making a woman feel good. Kingsley cleared his throat and sat on the side of the fire opposite her, hiding the sudden tightness at his crotch with his beer.
They finished their drinks while the lights in the sky faded into gray, leaving trails of dark against the paleness of the moon. Dusk amplified the light from the crackling fire, a signal for them to get ready.
Steven was the first one to stand up. “Ready whenever you guys are.”
Although Steven had been the one to organize the trip, he’d asked Kingsley to give the prep talk to the group about the particulars of night snorkeling and partnering up. He also passed out the waterproof flashlights. Annika snickered when Kingsley announced he was partnering with Doe Eyes even after he told her the obvious reason, which was that Doe Eyes hadn’t done a night dive before and would need all the help she could get.
“But what about me?” Annika asked with a mischievous grin, determined to torture him. “I’m a newbie, too.”
At a look from Kingsley, Steven grabbed her by the waist and pulled her off toward the boat anchored nearby.
With everyone else sitting in the small motorboat, Kingsley pushed it into the water. Once it was far enough, he released the anchor and climbed in. Steven started the engine and it growled, propelling them toward the place where the sun had disappeared nearly half an hour before. The engine’s noise took away the silence, and the five of them were lost in their own thoughts and in the beauty of the night as they raced toward the reefs.
Kingsley sat across from Doe Eyes, watching the beach and their banked fire get smaller and smaller. Nervousness vibrated from her, and he wanted very much to slide closer to her and convince her nothing would happen tonight she didn’t want to. The sea was a vast and frightening place. But that didn’t mean he would allow her to disappear beneath it.
“Here we are,” Steven said. He cut the engine.
In the sudden silence, the boat bobbed in the dark water, the sound of the sea slapping gently against the hull.
“Here” was far away from shore and nowhere in sight of their fire at all. There was nothing but the dark and writhing water around them.
“It’s a little creepy out here,” Annika muttered, most of her bravado gone.
“Yeah, but it’s nice,” Carlos said. “The quiet is very soothing.”
Doe Eyes sat with her hands curled around the edge of the boat, the fear slowly clearing from her face the longer they sat in the quiet with the sound of the water lapping at the boat.
Kingsley leaned close to her. “You okay?”
She jumped, looking away from the dark and rippling water. “Yeah. I’m fine. This is just...it’s all new to me. Amazing. Scary.”
He lifted his gaze from her to take in their surroundings, trying to pretend the others weren’t watching every move they made. “Facing the things that scare you is a great way to grow.”
Doe Eyes snorted. “And to get eaten by a shark, too, I’m sure.”
“No shark bites here.” Kingsley pulled off his shirt to show his unscarred belly in the moonlight. Annika snickered, having apparently gotten over her own nervousness. He thought he saw a smile from Doe Eyes. When her hands loosened from the edge of the boat, he considered his mission of distraction a success. He shoved his shirt in his waterproof pack while Annika laughed at him outright.
“Gear up, everyone,” Steven said, unsuccessfully hiding his own laughter.
Although there had been a quick tutorial on the beach, Kingsley stayed close to Doe Eyes to make sure she put on her gear properly. Despite her obvious nervousness, she put on her snorkel and fins with easy and practiced movements, checking the fit and the security and brightness of the flashlight secured to her wrists, while everyone else did the same. After a quick verbal check all around, the group slipped into the water. Kingsley and Doe Eyes were the last.
“Ready?”
“Absolutely.” She looked like she was trying to convince herself, and he wondered why. But he mentally shrugged and slipped into the water first, keeping his head above the surface and his body close to the anchored boat. He flicked on his flashlight. In his board shorts and otherwise bare skin, he felt the pressure of the water, the night’s brisk breeze on his face and neck. A shiver of reaction climbed up his spine.
She sat in the belly of the boat for a moment, watching him, then walked to the very edge, took a quick breath and splashed down beside him. The splatter of water made her blink her eyes behind the mask, and he floated away from the boat slowly, signaling for her to follow him.
His flashlight illuminated a long line of water around them, pushing aside the shadows and, he hoped, any potential fear for her. She brushed against him briefly, and he felt her tremble. Then she adjusted her mask, gave him the thumbs-up, turned her face into the water and began to explore. After a moment Kingsley began to do the same.
The reef was close to the surface. Only a few feet separated the tips of Kingsley’s fins from the coral alive with color and darting fish whose scales shimmered under the light from their torches. Sea urchins, spiny and dangerous, poked out from holes in the coral. Kingsley tapped her shoulder and pointed to make sure she saw them.
This wasn’t Kingsley’s first time snorkeling at night. He’d even done some night diving, traveling down to the ocean floor to watch octopi, their bodies dotted with phosphorescence, slide along the coral. He’d swum through massive schools of brilliantly colored fish not present during the day. All of it had been breathtaking.
But there was nothing like the wonder on this woman’s face, her eyes widening, hands clutching fiercely at his when she saw something new: the powerful and steadily moving sea through the beams of their torches, large schools of bright blue parrot fish swimming lazily in the night waters. He wanted to show her more. He wanted her to see everything.
This feeling wasn’t a new one, wanting to preen and introduce a woman to the best of what he knew. What was new to him was the lack of urgency. Kingsley enjoyed the brush of her arm against his, rising up to the surface to take a breath and catch sight of the twin globes of her bottom resting on top of the water. It was a deep and pure pleasure he could bask in for hours. But despite the vague possibility of this unnamed and beautiful woman disappearing from his life at any moment, he wasn’t frantic in his desire for her.
He knew he would have her.
Still, his ache to touch her was almost a painful thing, a desire that clung to the backs of his teeth and burned steadily. It was slow. It was hot. And it easily melted away the memory of any other woman he’d ever wanted.
In just his mask and fins, he swam farther down, holding his breath and lighting up the darkness for her. Deeper into the water, he saw a school of spotted turquoise fish, their scales bright even in the small grotto where they hid. Kingsley propelled himself up to the surface, taking a deep breath when he hit fresh air. She took out her snorkel.
“You okay?”
He nodded yes. “There’s something you should see, lower.”
Her eyes widened. “This is snorkeling, not diving,” she said.
“You can handle it.”
She gave him a curious look, then put her mask back on, refitted her snorkel and nodded at him in acceptance of his challenge. Kingsley grinned, took her hand and dove deep with her fingers wrapped tightly around his.
Nearly an hour later, they surfaced for the last time to the sound of MC Solaar playing from the speaker Carlos had brought. It was a miracle they’d gotten any reception on the battered, old thing. Kingsley could hear Annika “singing” along to the old-school French rap and laughing at herself when she tripped over the words. A look at his watch told Kingsley they’d already been out there for nearly three hours and at almost ten o’clock at night, the others were ready to wash off the salt, get someplace dry and drink something a little harder than beer to close out the night.
A sleek head appeared from beneath the surface barely a foot away, and Kingsley smiled at her automatically, having quickly grown used to the brightness of her eyes behind the mask and the way she grinned around the snorkel in excitement at the things they’d found together. He pulled off his mask, and, after a glance around them, she did the same. She wiped water from her face.
“Time to go in, huh?”
“Yup. They’ve probably been waiting for us a little while.”
Doe Eyes didn’t hide her disappointed look, but she nodded, cast one look at the glare of his flashlight that illuminated their bodies just under the water. “Let’s go then.”
Kingsley gestured for her to go first. Once she’d swum a fair distance in front of him, he followed at a leisurely pace, enjoying the last of their privacy.
“I thought you two were going to stay out there until sunrise,” Carlos said, blowing a stream of cigarette smoke over his shoulder.
“I’d prune up too much by then,” Doe Eyes said. “I value the softness of my skin too much.”
“Even at the risk of denying yourself the company of this hunka burnin’ love?” Annika tossed a look at Kingsley as he clambered into the boat.
He ignored her and turned up his nose at Carlos. “The only thing burning up out here is our nose hairs from that cigarette. You couldn’t wait until we got back to land to light up, Carlos?” His friend smoked the cheapest and most offensive cigarettes known to humankind, having exchanged his addiction to hard drugs for one to nicotine.
“You know I have a vice, man.” Carlos blew another stream of smoke, this time through his clenched teeth.
“Those things will kill you just like the other crap you gave up,” Kingsley said. He sensed Doe Eyes watching him with curiosity.
“Not this again.” Steven groaned over the long-standing source of disagreement. “Everybody ready?”
After he got the appropriate number of grunts and yeses, he started the boat’s engine and propelled them back toward land.
* * *
At the beach, Steven anchored the boat and cut the engine. The others moved slowly to get their few belongings, sealed in watertight bags, and climbed from the boat to the beach, where the battery-operated lantern they’d left stuck in the sand still blazed but the fire had long since died. Kingsley felt pleasantly exhausted but didn’t want to go back to his place yet. Although his body was tired from the swim, he felt mentally energized by the snorkeling, and by the presence of the woman he couldn’t get off his mind.
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