SCONES. LIGHT AND airy, with currants and nothing else, the way God intended them.
Chris took two, poured a big mug of coffee, and headed for the swing.
Kota was already there, mug in hand, a stack of papers on the seat beside him. His smile made her newly freed heart flutter like a hummingbird.
He moved the stack to his lap and she sat beside him, curling one leg under her butt.
“These scones are outrageous.” She polished off number one right down to the crumbs on her chest.
“Glad you like them.” There went that smile again.
She wanted to return it wholeheartedly, but she couldn’t do that quite yet.
First, she had to come clean.
In the wee hours of the night, she’d almost convinced herself it wasn’t necessary. Wasn’t it enough that she’d resolved to quit her job at the Sentinel rather than write the wedding story? Kota never had to know she’d deceived him.
But daylight revealed the holes in her logic. For one, if she got involved with him, he’d eventually learn of her double identity anyway, in a way that would surely cast her in the worst light.
For another, even if they never got off the ground, she’d gone a long way toward sacrificing her integrity. She needed, desperately, to reclaim it.
Nope, there was no getting around it. Even if Kota voted her off the island, she had to tell him the truth. And she would.
After breakfast.
Biting into scone number two, she pointed her chin at the pile on his lap.
“Scripts.” He fanned a few pages without enthusiasm.
“The usual?”
“If it works, don’t fix it.” He shrugged like he didn’t care.
She peered at the one on top. “Edge of Destruction. What does that even mean?”
“It means Sasha’ll love it.”
She studied him over the rim of her mug. “You could go back to school.”
He smirked.
“I’m serious. How long would it take to become a vet?”
“Five years. I’d be forty.”
“And if you don’t go to school, how old will you be in five years?”
That seemed to stump him. She shook her head. “Never mind, you’re not smart enough after all.”
He gave her a crooked smile. “I never looked at it that way.”
She licked her fingers, watching him from the corner of her eye as he thought it through.
She saw the moment he rejected it. The spark went out of his eyes. “Too many commitments,” he said. “My next three films are lined up.”
“What would it take to get out of them?”
“The Western starts shooting next month.”
“What about the other two?”
He rubbed his neck. “I could wiggle out of the last one. It’s not set in stone. But the second one . . .” He shook his head. “There’s too much riding on me. Too many people.”
“Okay, so the Western and the next one would take you through next summer, right? You could start school in the fall.” She held up her hand before he could object. “I know, you’ll be forty-one. Either way.”
He looked at the pile of scripts like he’d gladly set them on fire. But he said, “In five years I can bank two hundred million. My body’s worth a lot more than my brain. And money can do a lot more than one vet.”
“If I can paraphrase, saving one vet won’t change the world, but it’ll change the world for that one vet.”
That got a laugh out of him. She could see he wasn’t ready to sign on yet, but she’d planted the seed.
“How about you?” he said, rocking the swing with his foot. “Em told me you don’t perform much anymore. Why not?”
She shrugged. “I got tired of living out of a suitcase. I wanted to put down some roots.”
“Get married? Have kids?”
She gave him the eyebrow.
He winced. “Too soon?”
“Oh yeah.”
“I’m sorry I went off on you.”
“So you said. I accepted your apology. But once burned, twice shy.”
He nodded and dropped it. “So why not perform in L.A.? No suitcase.”
She looked out to sea. “I’m concentrating on other things. Writing the biography.” Her journalism career was dead in the water, but she’d redeem herself with a Pulitzer Prize–winning tribute to her mother’s career.
“How can you not sing?” he asked. “It’s like Rembrandt refusing to paint.”
“That’s sweet, but talk about a whopper. Besides, I still sing with Dad sometimes. In fact, I recently did a ritzy celebrity wedding. You might’ve heard about it.”
“Was that you?” He eyed her up and down, raising her temperature.
She sang a few sultry bars of “Fever.”
His eyes glazed.
“Just because I have it,” she said, “doesn’t mean I have to sell it.” She aimed a pointed look at his chest.
“You think I should waste all this?” He drawled it out, with a lazy half smile.
Her turn to eye him up and down. “I see a nanogram of fat hanging over your waistband. It’s all this lounging around. Shouldn’t you be pumping iron?”
His smile widened to a grin. “Wanna watch?”
“Pfft, why would I—okay, yeah, I do.”
He dumped the scripts on the floor. “Come on then. I’ll show you how the big boys do it.”
The gym consumed more than half of his wing.
“Holy shit.” She turned a full circle. “You use all this stuff?”
All this stuff included a Nautilus circuit, racks of dumbbells, a dozen futuristic cardio machines, an obstacle course with scaling walls and climbing ropes, and a full-sized trampoline surrounded by mats.
“I do a lot of my own stunts.” He vaulted onto the trampoline, jounced a few times, and held out his hand.
She backed up to the wall. “Not on your life. You can break your neck on those things.”
He bounced higher, his hair floating around his head, then he backflipped—awesomely—three times in succession. He dismounted, cheeks flushed, eyes shining, and walked toward her. “Come on, I’ll spot you.”
“Uh-uh.”
He stopped directly in front of her. His sheer size made her feel petite, which she wasn’t. His sheer power made her feel fragile, which she also wasn’t.
What she was, was turned on like a mare in heat, which he could probably sense, being the stallion he was.
He braced a hand on the wall by her head and locked onto her eyes. His finger trailed fire along her jaw. She shivered.
“Christy, darlin’.” His deep, rumbling drawl. “You came to the gym for a reason. Want to tell me what it is?”
KOTA FELT CHRISTY’S pulse flutter under his fingertip. “I . . . no,” she said.
“No, you don’t want to tell me?”
“That’s right.” Her throat moved as she swallowed.
“Why not?” He traced her collarbone, lingering in the well.
“Because.” Barely more than a whisper.
He tilted his head, leaning in. Her eyes widened. Her lips parted.
At the last second, she turned her head. “It’s not fair. You have all this testosterone, and it’s not fair.”
“I hear it transfers through saliva.” He licked her cheek.
“Gross,” she said, unconvincingly. She shoved at his chest.
He lingered a moment to remind her he was bigger and badder, then he pushed off the wall. Turning away, he smiled to himself. Christy might know the power of the tit, but she was about to learn the power of the bicep.
He strolled to the chin-up bar, jumped up and grabbed it, and pumped out a few quick ones. Then, as if it just occurred to him, he dropped down and waved her over. “Climb on,” he said, giving her his back, “for resistance.”
Her indecision hung in the air. Then she grabbed his shoulders and hopped up, piggyback style.
He took a moment to adjust his erection. Chinning with a boner. That was a first.
Then he caught the bar on a hop, and this time he chinned in slow motion so she could appreciate his arms in all their glory.
Sure enough, her breathing quickened. One hand snaked out to cover his bicep.
“Woooow.” She drew it out, awe and lust rolled up in one word. Her fingers flexed into claws, nails raking muscle in a curving path around to the back of his arm, scoring his triceps, tickling his armpit. Over his chest they scraped, then down to his abs, strumming the washboard from his chest all the way down to his shorts.
In his ear, she moaned. It hummed in his veins, a siren song, all the sexier because she gave it up unwillingly.
He released the bar with a moan of his own. Her legs slid down over his hips. But when he turned, she stepped back, palms out. “I’m sorry. Not yet.”
He clenched his fists to keep from taking her against the wall. “When?”
“Let’s take a walk. We can talk—”
He scooped up a towel and buried his face. His dick had a mind of its own just now, and it wasn’t up for conversation. “I’ll meet you outside,” he said into the folds.
When the door closed with a click, he sucked a jagged breath. “Goddamn it.”
“I’M SORRY,” SHE said again when he stepped out on the porch. “I . . . You . . .” She threw up her hands. “Okay, I admit it. You’re irresistible. Are you happy now?”
“Do I look happy?” He bared his teeth in a snarl that looked half serious. “If I’m so irresistible, why aren’t we bouncing on the trampoline right now?”
“We should talk first. Get to know each other.”
“And then we can do it?”
She smiled, noncommittally. If he still wanted to do it after she confessed, she’d strip on the spot.
“Is there a path along the shore?” Best to have this conversation away from sharp objects in the kitchen.
“Yeah.” He stumped toward the beach, and she followed behind him. She couldn’t blame him for not being a good sport. Even she was frustrated by the mixed signals she was sending.
It wasn’t her usual style. She liked to flirt as much as the next girl, but she wasn’t coy, and she wasn’t a tease. When she was interested in a man, she didn’t play games.
But with Kota she’d been hot and cold, her body and brain each wrestling for control. Whenever her body had her brain on the ropes, she let Kota see how she felt. When her brain got the upper hand, she retreated like a silly virgin.
It was as frustrating for her as it was for him. Maybe when the big reveal was behind them, they could start over. Maybe he’d still want her.
Or maybe not.
Kota led the way to a ribbon of trail. They walked it in silence, winding along the varied shoreline, around rocky outcroppings, across a sliver of beach. In places the path curved away from the sea and into the shadowy woods, a whole other world, only to emerge moments later into brilliant sunlight.
Again, Kota proved he couldn’t hold onto a bad mood. Even if he’d tried, the dogs wouldn’t let him. Cy bounded in and out of the water, shaking all over them each time. Tri rode on his shoulder, enjoying a bird’s-eye view.
The ocean breeze washed over all of them. The sun splintered off the sea. And before long he was holding her hand and humming off tune.
“What’s that song?” She couldn’t make it out.
“ ‘Crazy.’ You don’t recognize it?”
“Um, no. It goes more like this.” She sang a verse.
“Okay, I got it.” He tried humming it again.
“Patsy Cline’s rolling over in her grave,” she informed him and sang it all the way through.
Then he mangled “Stormy Weather” until she set him straight. She cut off “Misty” at the first sour note.
By the time she caught on to his game, they’d covered miles at a gentle pace. “You’re a jerk,” she said. “And I’m a dope.”
“A dope with a gorgeous voice.” He kissed her knuckles resoundingly. “If you don’t want to sell it, how about donating it? The shelter’s having a fund-raiser. They’re bursting at the seams. Too many animals. Too many misfits.”
Cy chose that moment to drop a stick at their feet, his jagged tongue lolling gaily over mangled lips.
“When is it?” she said.
“I’ll tell you the details when we’re back in L.A.”
Which meant he expected to keep seeing her on the mainland. Warmth curled up like a kitten in her chest.
God help her, she’d fallen for a celebrity.
The path took a turn, emerging from the trees to descend toward another crescent of white sand. Kota started down, then slammed on the brakes.
Chris bounced off his back. “What the hell?” she said, but he didn’t reply, transfixed by something on the beach below.
Peering past him, she followed his horrified gaze and gasped.
On a bright red blanket spread out on the sand, Tana banged his new wife like a jackhammer.
KOTA TORE HIS eyes away before they burned out of his head.
“Jesus, Jesus, Jesus,” he muttered, praying for a mind wipe. Anything to erase his brother’s humping white ass from his brain.
He tried prodding Christy back up the path, but she dug in her heels.
“What, you want to watch?” he hissed, incredulous.
“Don’t you?” Just as incredulous.
“He’s my brother.”
“So?” Her eyes were glued to the action. “Don’t tell me you haven’t shared women.”
“At the same time? No!” He tried nudging her, but she had hold of a tree.
Cy trotted past, heading down, and Kota panicked. Dumping Tri on the ground, he gave chase, afraid to shout even though the newlyweds were so into it they probably wouldn’t notice.
But they’d notice dog slobber, for sure.
Scooping up Cy, all eighty pounds of him, he hotfooted back up the path.
Now to hustle the whole crew out of there, double-time. If Tana caught him, they’d both be scarred for life.
And Sasha . . . Kota broke a cold sweat at the thought.
Prying Christy’s hands off the tree, he tried to turn her around. But she grabbed his arms. “Wait.” She was a step above him on the path, so she could see over his shoulder. She stared unblinking, eyes glazed, cheeks flushed.
Sweet Jesus. The woman really liked to watch.
Then she gave a little gasp, caught her lip in her teeth. And his dick, in hiding since he glimpsed Tana’s ass, stood up straight, ready to party.
It was weird, for sure, but weird never stopped him before. Keeping his back to the beach, he dropped Cy like a sack of potatoes, caught Christy’s hem, and whipped her dress over her head.
Her nipples poked at her bra like nail heads. Popping her out of the silky little scrap, he caught one in his lips and thumbed the other. Her hands pushed into his hair, dragging him closer, smothering him in tits.
“Oh God,” she breathed. “He’s got her on her knees.” She moaned, and it hit him like the tenth shot of Patron.
He lost his mind completely.
Shoving her back against the tree, he drove his hand down her panties, her sopping wet panties, digging for the heat, groaning as she soaked his fingers.
But it wasn’t enough, not nearly enough. She’d lost her mind too. Out came her nails, raking his back, scoring his shoulders as she squirmed on his hand.
“Please, Kota.” She panted it. “Please please please.”
“Hell yeah.” He tore off her panties. Whipped out a condom and kicked his shorts aside.
“Now now now!” Her arms cinched his neck like she’d drown without him.
Hands shaking, he fumbled the condom like a kid. When he rolled it on, she jumped up, climbing him as he caught her ass, wrapping her legs around him as he drove up inside her.
“Oh God yes.” She clung to him as he pumped, her tits slick with sweat, sliding against his chest. He braced one hand on the tree, held her ass with the other, sweat streaming as he pounded, as she met him stroke for stroke.
Then she snaked one hand down between them. Her head fell back in abandon.
Like a stallion he sank his teeth in her neck, gave a last hard thrust, and exploded.