breast in his hand, his thumb teasing at her nipple. This was paradise, she thought to herself. When she’d wished for a lover, she could never have expected this man.
Sophie kicked away from him, swimming a few strokes then turning to tread water. But he wasn’t watching her. Trey’s gaze was fixed on the horizon. “Sophie, look.” He pointed and she followed his arm to a spot not far offshore. The white sails of a boat were clearly visible against the sunset. Trey turned and looked at her. “The flare gun. I’ll go back and get the flare gun.”
He spun around and ran out of the water and onto the beach. But before he could get his shorts back on, Sophie called to him. “Don’t,” she shouted.
He turned to face her, tugging on his khakis over his damp skin. “What do you mean?”
“Don’t,” she said, shaking her head. “I don’t want you to signal them.”
“Sophie, I’m not going to put you in danger. There’s a storm coming up. We’re here alone. The least they could do would be to radio someone and let them know we’re safe.”
“The waves are getting pretty high,” she said. “I don’t think they’ll risk coming through the reef. And the sun is almost down. They wouldn’t be able to get back out. We’d be putting them in danger.”
“They could call for a boat,” he said. “Isn’t there a coast guard around here?”
“Anyone sent to rescue us would have to deal with the weather, too.” She glanced over at him. “We’ll be all right for the night. They’ll find us in the morning.” Sophie stared into his eyes and she saw the indecision there. But there was more. A genuine concern for her safety. He cared about her, enough to put an end to their time together.
“No,” he said.
“Yes.” She held out her hand and motioned to him as he slowly walked to the water’s edge, the waves swirling around his feet. “I want to spend the night with you. I don’t want to be anywhere but here.”
He waded through the water to where she stood and picked her up, wrapping her legs around his waist. Then he kissed her, his hands tangling in her damp hair, molding her mouth to his.
“All right,” he murmured, his lips warm against hers.
She needed this night, Sophie told herself. After that, she’d be able to let him go without any regret. Just this one night.
BY THE TIME THEY GOT BACK to the cottage, they could hear thunder in the distance. The wind had shifted direction and was blowing across the lagoon toward the plane. The pilot-side float had been grounded on the sand, and the plane sat at an odd angle.
“Should we try to tie it down again?” Trey asked.
Sophie stared across the lagoon, squinting into the diminishing light. “There’s nothing we can do now,” she murmured. “Except hope that the wind doesn’t get too high.”
The plane probably wasn’t worth a whole lot, Trey thought to himself. He suspected that Sophie and her father had sold the most valuable of their assets first, leaving her with something that was held together with chewing gum and duct tape. He probably ought to be grateful they’d had a problem with the engine when and where they did. Hell, they would have been in a lot more trouble had a wing or the propeller fallen off.
“Don’t worry,” he said.
“If it flips, we’ll never be able to get it off this island,” she said.
“It’ll be fine,” he said, reassured that money could solve any problem. If he had to send a boat over and find a mechanic to take the plane apart piece by piece and haul it back to Tahiti, he’d do that for Sophie.
Trey wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her against him. In truth, there wasn’t much that he wouldn’t do for her, if she asked.
“Maybe it would be better if we couldn’t get it off the island,” she murmured. “Then it would finally be over. The insurance would pay for the plane. My father’s business would be done and we could move back to the States.”
“Is that what you want?” Trey asked.
She shrugged and slipped out of his embrace. “Yes.” She paused and turned to face him. “No.”
“If you could have anything you want, any wish, what would it be?” he asked.
“It won’t do me any good to wish,” she said, climbing the front steps of the cottage. “Wishing can’t make it happen.”
He stared up at her, studying her enigmatic expression. “Humor me. If you could snap your fingers and have whatever you want. Three wishes.”
Sophie leaned against a vine-covered post and stared out at the lagoon. “I’d wish my father would go to a doctor and get his eyes fixed. And then, I’d wish the business was making money again. And finally, I’d wish my mother would come back.”
“Nothing for yourself?” Trey asked.
“All those things are for me,” she said. She shrugged, her smile fading slightly. “What about you?”
“I’d wish…I had a big, soft bed here on this island. With clean sheets and down pillows.”
“And?”
“And a bathtub big enough for two with an endless supply of hot water and bubbles.”
“That’s two,” she said. “What’s the third?”
“You. In the bathtub first and then the bed.”
Sophie stared at him for a long time, her gaze flitting over his face. Trey could already imagine the scene his three wishes might create. A bath, a bed and Sophie was a fantasy he hoped might come true. He’d make it come true.
Trey felt the first drops of rain on his skin and he looked up at the sky and closed his eyes. It seemed as though they’d spent a lifetime on this island and yet, in so many ways, they were still strangers. He wanted to touch the real Sophie, the lighthearted, silly woman that he sometimes saw, not the indifferent, slightly cynical girl that he was faced with now.
She was so guarded at times, so careful of her emotions that Trey wondered if he’d ever truly know her. He knew she had an incredible inner strength and she was fiercely loyal to those she loved. He knew her parents’ divorce had left her with deep scars, making her unable to trust her own feelings.
They’d been intimate, but only with their bodies. He wanted to know this woman, to feel what was in her heart and soul and to touch her there, as well. But how was that possible in just a single day and night?
Trey drew a deep breath and opened his eyes to find her still staring at him.
She held out her hand. “Come in out of the rain,” Sophie coaxed.
“Come into the rain,” he countered, holding out his hand.
Sophie turned and walked in the open door of the cottage. Trey knew if he went to her, she’d surrender. He’d run his hands over her shoulders and toss aside her pareu and they’d pleasure each other the way they had since the moment the plane had gone down.
But sex with Sophie wouldn’t get him what he wanted. It wasn’t just passing pleasure. He needed to know this relationship actually meant something to her, that they weren’t simply satisfying a physical craving, but, perhaps, connecting in a deeper way.
Slowly, he climbed the steps, his desire overwhelming his resolve. At least, when he was inside her, he could claim a part of her that no one else could. In those moments before they dissolved into orgasm, the walls fell and she was his completely.
Trey cursed softly, stopping just outside the front door. Once he touched her, there was no going back. She stood at one of the windows, staring out at the rain, her face illuminated by the late-evening light. Her beauty took his breath away and Trey wondered at the stroke of luck that had put him here on this island with her.
He slowly walked across the room and slipped his hands around her waist, gently turning her around and backing her up against the wall. His fingers tangled in her hair as his mouth met hers. Sophie moaned, going pliant in his arms. They couldn’t seem to keep their hands off each other for long.
Was it just unbridled lust or did he need to reassure himself that she still wanted him? So many times in the past, the passion he’d felt for a woman faded too quickly. It had always been replaced by the pragmatic notion that love wasn’t worth the trouble.
Hell, he didn’t even know what love was. He wouldn’t know it if it dropped out of the sky and hit him on the head. But this was certainly a lot more than just lust, Trey thought, his lips tracing a path from her jaw to the sweet curve of her neck.
