Terms of Engagement

Ten

Quinn watched his beachcombing bride much too avidly for his liking. He hated feeling so powerfully attracted to her. It was incomprehensible. She was Earl’s daughter, a woman he barely knew, a wife who wouldn’t even share his bed.

She’d slept with him once and then she’d left him, causing a pain too similar to what he’d felt after his father’s death. The tenderness he continued to feel for her put him on dangerous ground, but still she possessed him in a way no other woman ever had.

It was the shark. Before they’d snorkeled, he’d been able to tell himself that he was under a temporary spell, that he could vanquish his burning need for her simply by staying out of her bed.

But he’d been afraid for her when she’d been swimming for the boat, more afraid than he’d ever been in his life. Then he’d seen her bone-white face and the wild terror in her eyes when she’d imagined him in danger.

Once he’d been safely on board, her slim face had become luminous with joy. She’d hurled herself into his arms so violently she’d all but knocked them both back into the water again.

Nobody had ever looked at him like that.

Surely his father had loved him more, but she was here, and so beautiful, and so alive, and his—if only he could win her.

The prevailing southeasterly wind, cooler now because of the dark gray clouds, licked the crests of the waves into a foaming fury and sent her dark chestnut hair streaming back from her face as she scampered at the surf’s edge. Every few steps, she knelt, not caring if a wave splashed her toes. Crouching, she examined the beach debris: tangles of seaweed, driftwood and shells.

Her long slim feet were bare, her toenails unpolished. Flip-flops dangled from her left hand.

For twenty years, his determination to succeed and get revenge had made time seem too valuable for him to waste on a beach with a woman. Most nights he’d worked, and most mornings, he’d left for his office before dawn. Driven by his dark goals, he’d often worked through entire weekends and holidays. His main sources of relaxation had been the gym or a willing woman and a glass of scotch before he hit his bed or desk again. He’d been more machine than human.

But that was before Kira.

Memories, long suppressed, stirred. As a child, he’d looked forward to the hour when his father’s key would turn in the lock and he’d holler Quinn’s name.

Quinn would race into his father’s arms. After hugging him close, his father would lift him so high in the air Quinn could touch the ceiling. So high, he’d felt as if he was flying. Then his dad would set him down and ruffle his hair and ask him about his day.

Never had his father been too tired to pass a football around the yard or take him to the park to chase geese. His father had helped with Quinn’s homework, helped him build models, played endless games with him. His mother, on the other hand, had always been too busy to play. Then his father had died, and Quinn had known grief and loneliness.

For the first time, while indulging in this simple walk on the beach with Kira, Quinn felt a glimmer of the warmth that had lit his life before his father’s death.

His father would want him to stop grieving, he realized. He’d want him to choose life, to choose the future.

Kira didn’t realize she was beautiful, or that her lack of pretention and artifice made her even more attractive. Her every movement was graceful and natural. On the beach, she seemed a lovely wild thing running free.

This island was her refuge. For however long they were together, he would have to accept her world if he wanted her to accept his. No doubt, she would need to come here again from time to time.

He frowned, not liking the thought of her leaving him to stay out here all alone. Anyone could beach a small boat or tie up at her dock. Jim, the island’s caretaker, had the faraway look of a man who’d checked out of life a long time ago. Quinn wasn’t about to trust a dropout like him as her protector. No, he would have to get his security team to figure out how to make her safe here without intruding on her privacy. She was a free spirit, and Quinn wanted her to be happy, the way she was now, but safe, as well.

The sky was rapidly darkening from gray to black. Not that Kira seemed concerned about the gathering storm as she leaned down and picked up a shell. When she twisted, their gazes met. At her enchanting smile, his heart brimmed with way too much emotion. Then she ran over to show him her newfound treasure. When she held it up, her eyes shone, and the tiny window that had opened into his soul widened even further.

“Look, it’s a lightning whelk,” she cried.

“It’s huge,” he said, turning the cone-shaped shell over in his hand to properly admire it.

“At least a foot long. I’ve never seen one so big. And it’s in perfect condition. Did you know it’s the state shell of Texas?”

Shaking his head, he shot a glance at the darkening sky before he handed it back to her. “Do you collect shells?”

“Not really, but I’d like to give you this one. So you can remember Murray Island.”

And her, he thought. “As if I could ever forget,” he said. “I’ll cherish it.”

“I’m sure.” She attempted a laugh and failed. “A new gem for your art collection.”

“It’s already my favorite thing.”

Stronger now, the wind whipped her hair, and the sand bit into his legs.

“We should take cover,” he said. “Storm’s coming in. Fast. I think we’d better make a run for the house!”

“I’ll race you!” Giggling as she danced on her toes, she sprinted toward the house, and because he liked watching her cute butt when she ran, he held back and let her win.



Darting from room to room as the wind howled and the frame structure shuddered, she gave him a quick tour of the house. A shady front porch looked out onto the raging gulf. Two bedrooms, a bath and a kitchen were connected by screened breezeways to each other and to the porch.

The southern bedroom had a wall of windows. “This is my favorite room,” she said. “There’s always a breeze, so I usually sleep here.”


When she cracked a window, the room cooled instantly as storm gusts swept through it.

Deliberately, he stared outside at the rain instead of at her narrow bed. Since it was much too easy to imagine her long, lithe body on that mattress beneath him, he concentrated on the fat raindrops splatting on sand.

“With all the doors and windows open, the prevailing breezes cool the house on the hottest summer days,” she said.

“If you open everything up, doesn’t that make you vulnerable to a break-in?”

“No one usually comes here except me and Jim.”

All anybody had to do was slit a screen to get inside. She would be defenseless. If Quinn had known how vulnerable she was while she’d been gone, he would have been even crazier with worry.

“Would you like some tea?” she said. “While we wait out the weather?”

“Sure.”

When he nodded, she disappeared into the kitchen, leaving him to explore the room. A violent gust hit the house as the storm broke with full force. Somewhere, a breezeway door slammed so hard the entire house shook. Then papers fluttered under her bed. Curious, he knelt and pulled them out.

To his amazement, he discovered dozens of watercolors, all of himself, all ripped in two. He was trying to shove the entire collection back under the bed, when he heard her light footsteps at the doorway.

“Oh, my God,” she said. “I forgot about those. Don’t think… I mean… They don’t mean anything!”

“Right.”

You just painted picture after picture of me with violent, vivid brushstrokes. Then you shredded them all. For no reason.

“You obviously weren’t too happy with me,” he muttered.

“I really don’t want to talk about it.”

“Did you paint anything else…besides me?”

“A few birds.”

“How many?”

“Not so many. One actually.” She turned away as if uncomfortable with that admission.

Obviously, she was just as uneasy about her feelings for him as he was about his obsession with her.

“Why don’t we drink our tea and go back to the yacht,” he said brusquely.

“Fine with me.”

“I shouldn’t have pulled those pictures out,” he said.

“We said we were going to forget about them.”

“Right. We did.” So, while he’d been obsessing about her absence, maybe she’d done a bit of obsessing herself. He took a long breath.

They sat on the porch drinking tea as the gray fury of the storm lashed the island. Now that he wanted to leave, the weather wasn’t cooperating. To the contrary. Monstrous black waves thundered against the beach while rain drummed endlessly against the metal roof. No way could he trust his small tender in such high seas.

“Looks like we’re stuck here for the duration,” he said. So much for distracting himself from his bride anytime soon.

She nodded, her expression equally grim. “Sorry I suggested coming here.”

The squalls continued into the night, so for supper she heated a can of beans and opened cans of peaches and tomatoes. Happily, she produced a bottle of scotch that she said she kept hidden.

“We have to hide liquor from the pirates,” she told him with a shy smile.

“Pirates?” he asked.

“We call anyone who lands on the island pirates. We leave the house open so they don’t have to break in. Because they will if we don’t.”

“So, you’re not entirely unaware of the dangers of being here all alone?”

“Jim’s here.”

“Right. Jim.”

Quinn poured himself a drink and toasted good old Jim. Then he poured another. When he’d drained the second, she began to glow. Her smile and eyes looked so fresh and sparkly, he saw the danger of more liquor and suggested they go to bed.

“Separate bedrooms, of course,” he said, “since that’s what you want.”

Nodding primly, she arose and led him to the guest bedroom. When she left him, he stripped off his shirt and lay down. She wouldn’t leave his thoughts. He remembered her brilliant eyes lighting up when she saw him hauled safely onto Pegasus. He remembered how shyly she’d blushed every time she’d looked at him in his office, when she’d faced him down to ask him not to marry her sister. He remembered her breasts in the skimpy T-shirt she’d worn today and her cute butt and long legs in her white shorts as she’d raced him across the deep sand back to the house.

With the scotch still causing visions of her to warm his blood, he couldn’t sleep for thinking of her on her narrow bed in the next room. Would she sleep curled in a ball like a child or stretched out like a woman? Was she naked? Or in her bra and panties? Did she desire him, too?

Remembering all the things she’d done to him in his loft in San Antonio, he began to fantasize that she was in the bed with him, her long legs tangled with his. That got him even hotter.

If only they were on board the yacht so he could hide out in his office on the upper deck and bury himself in paperwork. Here, there was nothing to think about but her lying in the bed next door.

At some point, he managed to fall asleep only to dream of her. In his dream, she slipped as lightly as a shadow into his bedroom. Slim, teasing fingers pulled back his sheet. Then, calling his name in husky, velvet tones, she slid into bed beside him. Her eyes blazed with the same fierce passion he’d seen when she’d realized he was safely back on board the yacht, away from the shark’s teeth.

His heart constricted. Was this love? If it wasn’t, it felt too dangerously close to the emotion for comfort. Even in his dream he recoiled from that dark emotion. Love had ruined his life and the life of his father. Hadn’t it?

Then, in the dream, she kissed him, her sensual mouth and tongue running wildly over his lips and body while her hands moved between his legs and began to stroke. Soon he forgot about the danger of love and lost all power to resist her.

Lightning crashed, startling him. When his eyes flew open he heard the roar of the surf. He was alone in a strange, dark bedroom with sweat dripping from his long, lean body onto damp sheets, aching all over because he wanted to make love to his forbidden wife.

She was driving him crazy. On a low, frustrated groan, he hurled himself out of bed and stalked onto the breezeway in the hope that the chill, damp wind whipping through the screens would cool his feverish body and restore his sanity.

“Quinn!” came Kira’s soft, startled cry, the sexy sound setting his testosterone-charged nerves on high alert.

He whirled to face her just as a bolt of lightning flashed. Her hair streaming in the wind, she leaned against a post some ten feet away, in the shadows. Momentarily blinded from the lightning, he couldn’t make her out in the darkness. Imagining the rest of her, his blood notched a degree hotter.

“You’d better get back to your room,” he rasped.

“What’s the use when I couldn’t sleep even if I did? Storms like this are exciting, aren’t they?”

“Just do as I said and go.”

“This is my house. Why should I do what you say, if I prefer watching the storm…and you?” she said in a low, breathless tone.

“Because if you plan to keep me in a separate bedroom, it’s the smart thing to do.”

“Used to giving orders, aren’t you? Well, I’m not used to taking them. Since I’m your wife, maybe it’s time I taught you that. I could teach you a lot…”

Thunder rolled, and rain slashed through the breezeway furiously, sending rivulets of water across the concrete floor.

“Go,” he muttered.

“Maybe I will.” But her husky laughter defied him. “Then, maybe not.”

When she turned, instead of heading across the breezeway toward her bedroom, she unlatched a screen door behind her and ran onto the beach. As she did, a blaze of white fire screamed from the wet black sky to the beach.

Hell! She was going to get herself fried if he didn’t bring her back.

“Kira!” he yelled after her.

When she kept running, he heaved himself after her, his bare feet sinking deeply into the soft, wet sand and crushed shells as he sprinted. Sheets of rain soaked him through within seconds.

She didn’t get more than twenty feet before he caught her by the waist and pulled her roughly into his arms. She was wet and breathless, her long hair glued to her face, her T-shirt clinging to her erect nipples.

Quinn closed his eyes and willed himself to think of something besides her breasts and the light in her eyes. But as the cold rain pounded him, her soft warmth and beauty and the sweetness of her scent drew him. He opened his eyes and stared down at her. Slowly, she put her arms around him and looked at him as she had in his dreams, with her heart shining in her eyes.

Laughing, she said, “Have you ever seen anything so wild? Don’t you love it?”

He hadn’t deliberately stood in the rain or stomped in a puddle since he’d been a kid, when his dad had encouraged him to be a boy, as he’d put it. Hell, maybe that was his loss. Maybe it wasn’t right for him to control himself so tightly.

As the torrents washed them, he picked her up and spun her crazily, high above his head. Then he lowered her, slowly, oh, so slowly. He let her breasts and tummy and thighs slide against his body, which became even harder in response to hers.


If only she’d stop looking at him with such fire in her eyes… She made him crave a different kind of life.... One of brightness, warmth and love.

“Kiss me,” she whispered, pressing herself into his rock-hard thighs, smiling wantonly up at him when she felt his impressive erection.

So—she wanted him, too.

Kissing her so hard she gasped, he plunged his tongue into her mouth. The rain streamed over their fused bodies and the lightning flashed and the thunder rolled. He knew he should take her inside, but she tasted so good that, for the life of him, he couldn’t let her go.

He would regret this, he was sure. But later. Not now, when she smelled of rain. Not when the wild surf roared on all sides of them. Not when his blood roared even louder.

Tonight, he had to have her.