Terms of Engagement

Nine

Breakfast on deck with his long-limbed bride in her sexy short shorts was proving to be an unbearable torture. She squirmed when his gaze strayed to her lips or her breasts or when it ran down those long, lovely legs.

If only he could forget how she’d clung to him last night or how her big eyes had adored him when he’d first woken up this morning.

“I wish you wouldn’t stare so,” she said as she licked chocolate off a fingertip. “It makes me feel self-conscious about eating this and making such a mess.”

“Sorry,” he muttered.

He tried to look away, but found he could not. What else was there to look at besides endless sapphire dazzle? Why shouldn’t he enjoy watching her greedily devour her fresh-baked croissants and pain du chocolat? The way she licked chocolate off her fingers made him remember her mouth and tongue on him that night in his loft. Torture.

Even though he was sitting in the shade and the gulf breeze was cool, his skin heated. His bride was too sexy for words.

If he were to survive the morning without grabbing her like a besotted teenager and making a fool of himself, he needed to quickly get back to his office and the EU deal.

But he knew he wouldn’t be able to concentrate on the deal while his forbidden bride was aboard. No. He’d go to the gym and follow his workout with a long, cold shower. Only then would he attempt another try at the office.

Dear God, why was it that ever since she’d said no sex, bedding her was all he could think about?

With the fortitude that was so much a part of his character, he steeled himself to endure her beauty and her provocative sensuality, at least until breakfast was over and they parted ways.

“So, are we heading somewhere in particular?” she asked playfully.

“Do you like to snorkel?”

“I do, but I’ve only snorkeled in lakes and shallow coves in the Caribbean.”

“Once we get into really deep water, the gulf will be clear. I thought we’d snorkel off one of my oil rigs. It’s always struck me as ironic the way marine life flourishes around a rig. You’re in for a treat.”

Her brief smile charmed him. “I read somewhere that rigs act like artificial reefs.” She stopped eating her orange. “But you don’t need to interrupt your precious work to entertain me.”

“I’ll set my own work schedule, if you don’t mind.”

“You’re the boss, my lord and master. Sorry I keep forgetting that all-important fact.” Again her playful tone teased him.

“Right.” He smiled grimly. What could he say?

They lapsed into an uncomfortable silence. Focusing on his eggs and bacon, he fought to ignore her. Not that he didn’t want to talk to her, because he did. Very much. But small talk with his bride was not proving to be an easy matter.

“I’d best get busy,” he said when he’d finished his eggs and she her orange.


“Okay. Don’t worry about me. Like I said, I can entertain myself. I love the water. As you know, I spent the past few weeks on Murray Island. I don’t know where we are, but we probably aren’t that far from it.”

Scanning the horizon, he frowned. He didn’t like remembering how much her stay at her family’s isolated island had worried him.

How had he become so attached—or whatever the hell he was—to her so fast? They’d only had one night together!

Biting out a terse goodbye that made her pretty smile falter, he stood abruptly. Pivoting, he headed to his gym and that icy shower while she set off to her stateroom.

The gym and shower didn’t do any good. No sooner did he return to his office on the upper deck than who should he find sunbathing right outside his door practically naked but his delectable bride.

She lay on a vivid splash of red terry cloth atop one of his chaise lounges, wearing the white thong bikini he’d picked out for her while under the influence of a lurid male fantasy.

He’d imagined her in it. Hell, yes, he had. But not like this—not with her body forbidden to him by her decree and his unwillingness to become any more attached to her. He would never have bought those three tiny triangles if he’d had any idea what torture watching her would give him.

Clenching his fists, he told himself to snap the blinds shut and forget her. Instead, mesmerized, he crossed his office with the long strides of a large, predatory cat and stood at a porthole, staring at her hungrily, ravenous for whatever scraps of tenderness the sexy witch might bestow. He willed her to look at him.

She flipped a magazine page carelessly and continued to read with the most maddening intensity. Not once did she so much as glance his way.

Damn her.

She was on her tummy in the exact position of the girl in the painting over his bed. He watched her long, dark hair glint with fiery highlights and blow about her slim, bare shoulders. He watched her long, graceful fingers flip more pages and occasionally smooth back flying strands of her hair. Every movement of her slim wrist had her dainty silver bracelet flashing.

Was she really as cool and collected as she appeared?

How could she be, when she’d given herself to him so quickly and completely that first night? Her eyes had shone with desire, and she’d trembled and quivered at his touch. She hadn’t faked her response. He’d bet his life on it. He would never have forced her to marry him if he’d thought her cold and indifferent.

And last night he’d definitely felt her holding on to him as if she didn’t want to let go.

So, she must be clinging to her position of abstinence out of principle. Wasn’t she turning those pages much too fast? Was she even reading that magazine? Or was she as distracted as he was? Did she sense him watching her and take perverse delight in her power over him?

Damn the fates that had sent her to him!

Always, before Kira, he’d gone for voluptuous blondes with modern morals, curvy women who knew how to dress, women who thought their main purpose was to please a man. Women with whom he’d felt safe because they’d wanted his money and position more than they’d valued his heart.

This slim, coltishly long-limbed girl hadn’t yet learned what she was about or even how to please herself, much less how to seduce a man. But her innocence in these matters appealed to him.

Why?

Again, he told himself to forget her, but when he went to his desk, he just sat there for a full half hour unable to concentrate. Her image had burned itself into his brain. She had his loins hard and aching. The woman lured him from his work like the Sirens had lured Ulysses after Troy.

He began to worry that she hadn’t put on enough sunblock. Weren’t there places on that long, slim body she couldn’t reach?

Hardly knowing what he was about, he slammed out of his office and found himself outside, towering grimly over her. Not that she so much as bothered to glance away from her damn magazine, even though she must have heard his heavy footsteps, even though he cast a shadow over the pages.

He felt like a fool.

“You’re going to burn,” he growled with some annoyance.

“Do you think so? I’ve got lotion on, and my hat. But maybe you’re right. I need to turn over for a while.” She lowered her sunglasses to the tip of her nose and peered up at him saucily with bright, dark eyes.

Was she flirting with him? Damn her to hell and back if she was.

“Since you’re out here, would you mind being a dear and rubbing some lotion on my back for me?”

He sank to his haunches, his excitement so profound at the thought of touching her that he didn’t worry about her request for lotion on her back being illogical. Hadn’t she forbidden his touch? And didn’t she just say she intended to turn over onto her back?

He didn’t care.

The lotion was warm from the sun, and her silky skin was even warmer as he rubbed the cream into it.

A moan of pure pleasure escaped her lips as his large palm made circular motions in the center of her back, and his heart raced at her response. He felt a visceral connection to her deep in his groin.

“You have strong hands. The lotion smells so deliciously sweet. Feels good, too,” she whispered silkily, stretching like a cat as he stroked her.

“Thanks,” he growled.

She rolled over and lay on her towel. Throwing him a dismissive glance, she lifted her magazine to shut him out.

“You can go now,” she whispered.

Feeling stubborn and moody, he didn’t budge. Only when he saw his oil rig looming off the starboard side did he arise and ask his crew to assemble their diving gear: fins, wet suits, marker floats and masks.

So much for working on the EU deal…

Later, when he and she stood on the teak diving platform at the stern of the yacht in their wet suits, she noticed nobody had thrown out an anchor.

“What if your yacht drifts while we’re in the water?”

“She won’t,” he replied. “Pegasus is equipped with a sophisticated navigational system called dynamic positioning. On a day this calm she’ll stay exactly where we position her. Believe me, it’s much better than an anchor, which would allow her to swing back and forth.”

“You plan so much that you think of everything. Does your planning and your fortune allow you to have everything you want?”

“Not quite everything,” he murmured as he stared hungrily at her trim body.

Didn’t she know she had changed everything?

For years, he’d been driven to avenge himself against her father, but no sooner had he been poised to seize his prize than he’d learned of Vera’s illness. From that moment, his victory had begun to feel hollow.

Just when he’d wondered what new challenge could ever drive him as passionately as revenge once did, Kira had walked into his office to fight for her sister. He’d known he had to have her.

Trouble was, he was beginning to want more than he’d ever allowed himself to dream of wanting before. He wanted a life with her, a future, everything he’d told himself he could never risk having.



Kira stood on the platform watching Quinn in the water as he adjusted his mask.

“Come on in,” he yelled.

She was removing her silver jewelry because he’d told her the flash of it might attract sharks.

“You know how I told you I’ve mainly confined my snorkeling to lakes or shallow lagoons,” she began. “Well, the gulf’s beginning to seem too big and too deep.”

“I’ll be right beside you, and Skip and Chuck are in the tender.”

“I’ve seen all the Jaws movies.”

“Not a good time to think about them.”

She squinted, searching the vast expanse of the gulf for fins.

“Are you coming in or not?” he demanded.

Despite her doubts, she sucked in a deep breath and jumped in.

As she swam out to him, the water felt refreshingly cool. After she got her mask on she and Quinn were soon surrounded by red snapper and amberjack. She was enjoying their cool, blue world so much that when he pointed out a giant grouper gliding by, she stared in awe instead of fear. Quinn’s sure presence beside her in the water instilled in her a confidence she wouldn’t have believed possible.

Snorkeling soon had her feeling weightless. It was as if she were flying in an alien world that dissolved into endless deep blue nothingness. As he’d promised, Quinn stayed beside her for nearly an hour. Enjoying herself, she forgot the vast blue darkness beneath them and what it concealed.

Just when she was starting to relax, a tiger shark zoomed out of the depths straight at Quinn. In her panic, she did exactly what she shouldn’t have done. Kicking and thrashing wildly, she gulped in too much water. Choking, she yanked off her mask. As the fin vanished, Quinn ordered her to swim to the yacht.

In seconds, the fin was back, circling Quinn before diving again. Then the shark returned, dashing right at Quinn, who rammed it in the nose and made a motion with his arm for her to quit watching and start swimming. Staying behind her so he could keep his body between hers and the shark, he headed for the yacht, as well.

A tense knot of crewmen on the platform were shouting to them when she finally reached the yacht.

“Quinn,” she yelled even as strong arms yanked her on board. “Quinn!” She barely heard his men shouting to him as she stood on the teak platform panting for breath. Then the dorsal fin slashed viciously right beside Quinn, and her fear mushroomed.


“Get him out! Somebody do something! Quinn! Darling!” she screamed.

Quinn swam in smooth, rapid strokes toward the stern. When he made it to the ladder, his crewmen sprang forward and hauled him roughly aboard, slamming him onto the teak platform.

Quinn tore off his mask. When he stood up, he turned to Kira, who took the desperate glint in his eyes as an invitation to hurl herself into his arms.

“You’re as white as bleached bone,” he said, gripping her tightly. “You’re sure you’re okay?”

The blaze of concern in his eyes and his tone mirrored her own wild fears for him.

“If you’re okay, I’m okay,” she whispered shakily, snuggling closer. She was so happy he was alive and unhurt.

“You’re overreacting. It would take more than one little shark—”

“Don’t joke! He could have torn off your arm!”

“He was probably just curious.”

“Curious! I saw the movies, remember?”

He stared down at her in a way that made her skin heat. “In a funny way I feel indebted to the shark. Because of him, you called me darling.”

“Did not!”

“Did, too,” he drawled in that low tone that mesmerized her.

When she wrenched free of him, he laughed. “Okay. It must have been wishful thinking on a doomed man’s part. Guess it was Chuck who let out the d-word.”

She bit her lip to keep from smiling.

After they dressed, they met on the upper deck where they’d had breakfast earlier. Quinn wore jeans and a blue Hawaiian shirt that made his eyes seem as brilliant as the dazzling sky.

He ordered pineapple and mangoes and coffee. She was still so glad he was alive and had all his body parts she couldn’t take her eyes off him.

“I have an idea,” she said. “I mean…if we’re looking for a less exciting adventure.”

“What?”

“I could show you Murray Island.”

“Where is it?”

“South of Galveston. Since I don’t know where we are, I can’t tell you how to get there. But it’s on all the charts.”

He picked up a phone and talked to his captain. When he hung up, he said, “Apparently, we’re about forty nautical miles from your island. The captain says we could run into some weather, but if you want to go there, we will.”

“What’s a raindrop or two compared to being lunch for Jaws?”

“I love your vivid imagination.”

In little over an hour, Pegasus was positioned off the shore of Murray Island, and Kira and Quinn were climbing down into the tender together. After Quinn revved the outboard, they sped toward the breaking surf, making for the pass between the barrier islands and the tiny harbor on the island’s leeward side.

The bouncy ride beneath thickening gray storm clouds was wet and choppy. Heedless of the iffy weather, she stared ahead, laughing as the spray hit them. Quinn’s eyes never strayed from his course—except when they veered to her face, which secretly thrilled her. She knew she shouldn’t crave his attention so much, but ever since the shark incident, her emotions refused to behave sensibly.

He’s alive. I have this moment with him. It’s our honeymoon. Why not enjoy it? Why not share this island sanctuary I love with him?