Authors: Lily Bishop
After ten laps, Lindsey pulled herself up
at the deep end, holding onto the concrete edge. She expected to see Ric
reviewing his reports under the pavilion, but she was alone. She had the whole
pool to herself. Not exactly what I had in mind.
She pulled herself out of the pool and
took one of the wide loungers in the sun. The temperature was warm, but the
brisk wind coming off the beach carried a little bit of a chill. The sun took
the edge off, and it was pleasant enough with her e-reader and sunglasses.
She didn’t know how long Ric was gone. She
must have dozed off. She opened her eyes when she heard shoes in the pool deck.
Ric had returned, and he had changed out of his business suit and wore bathing
trunks and a T-shirt.
“I’m so sorry. I had to go back with
Jacquetta. Her grandmother died, and she has been out of the office. She needed
my signature on some paperwork, but now I am finished. I am yours for the
weekend.”
Lindsey bit back the sarcastic comment
that sprang to her mind. “So I guess you’ll go to the funeral?”
He pulled a face. “Yes, I had forgotten.
Everyone on the island loved her like a second mother. Listen, if you don’t
want to go, you don’t have to, but…”
“I don’t have any clothes to wear to a
funeral,” Lindsey said. She had brought a dress, but it was more for clubbing,
not a respectful dress she would wear to a funeral.
“If you don’t mind going with me, we can
visit the boutique. I’m sure we can find something.”
Lindsey didn’t want to go to the funeral
of a woman she didn’t know, but she would. For him. “Sure. If you feel like you
should go, I’ll be happy to go with you.”
He squeezed her shoulder with one hand and
she saw him frown. “Your shoulders feel hot. I’ll get some sunscreen.”
He didn’t wait for her answer but
retrieved sunscreen from storage room at the edge of the pavilion.
“Your shoulders are getting a little pink.
Shall I?”
Lindsey presented her back to Ric and he
started rubbing sunscreen on her shoulders. She stiffened at first, but his
gentle touch soothed her.
“I hope you’re not mad I was gone for so
long.”
“Of course not. I swam for a while and
then just dozed off. So did you and Jacquetta ever date?”
“No, I don’t date my staff. Jacquetta has
set her sights on managing a large resort someday. I'm helping her gain experience
in different parts of the business. After she finishes her rotation in HR, she
will move to catering."
That’s not all she has set her sights on.
Instead, Lindsey just smiled. “Thanks for the sunscreen.”
She took the bottle from him and squirted some
into her palm. He watched as she rubbed the cream into the top of her chest and
all along her collarbone.
“Want me to do you?” She asked, her eyes
wide.
“I don’t usually burn, but you can put
some on the top of my shoulders.” He pulled his shirt over his head and turned
his back to her.
Of course he wouldn’t burn. He had the
body of a bronzed god. Without the ugly green copper tint.
Lindsey closed her eyes, committing his
back to memory. She had never seen a man’s back that looked so good.
Well-defined muscles waited. She rubbed the cream into his shoulders. If her
hands hands lingered just a minute longer than necessary, who knew?
“Thank you,” he said.
“My pleasure.”
Ric stretched out beside her. Dark
sunglasses hid his eyes, so she had no idea what he was thinking.
“I am glad you came down. I worried all
week that at the last minute you would change your mind.”
“There’s a lot going on with school, but
I’m glad I did, too.”
She thought of the students that she
tutored, coaxing them through freshman calculus. The other graduate students
were always vying for the attention of the right professors. Some of them
already had their thesis blocked out. Lindsey just wasn’t ready to take that
step. It didn't matter that she had only been in the program for a few weeks.
Sometimes she wondered if she was ready for a career in higher education.
But now was her time to relax. She laid
back, resting with the designer sunglasses he had given her on her first trip.
She peeked at Ric, pleased to see his eyes closed behind his sunglasses.
Ric could be Mr. Universe compared to the
graduate students she had met. Many of them were thin and pale from too many
hours behind a computer running their simulations. Ric was definitely a man in
his prime. He looked good in his suits, but without them, she could tell that
he took care of his body. She wasn’t fit enough to attract someone like him.
Who was she kidding? She liked Ric, but he was way out of her league.
Dissatisfied with the trend of her
thoughts, she stood up. “I’m getting back in the water.”
She dove in without a splash and didn't
break the surface until she swam halfway across the pool. She heard him dive in
just after, and he surfaced close enough that she could reach out and touch
him. Which she did. She was treading water, but he was able to stand. She
reached out and brushed the water from his cheek. He caught her around the
waist and held her above the water. She fit against him like the missing puzzle
piece.
Lindsey’s mind went blank. She tried to
think of something to say. “You have a nice pool. Do you keep it open year
round?”
“Yes. Even in the winter it doesn’t get
that cold here. I use a solar blanket in the winter, which keeps it warm enough
for a quick swim. My mother had to have a pool all year round. She always said
swimming keeps you young.”
“I’ve missed you,” she said, surprising
herself.
“I’ve missed you more,” he answered. He
leaned closer and pressed his lips to hers. Lindsey smiled beneath his kiss.
One of his hands pressed into her back while the other cupped her bottom. She
floated in his arms, her feet dangling above the floor of the pool.
This kiss was everything she remembered.
This wasn’t the brief peck at the airport, or the little nibble when he showed
her where she could change. This kiss stole her breath, made her remember how
much he had come to mean to her. He nibbled on her lower lip and kissed her
again, his mouth matching hers as if they were two halves of the same whole.
She felt him moving. He pulled them
backwards across the pool until they were in shallow water. He leaned against
the side and held her in front of him. She braced her arms against the poolside
and let herself lean into his touch.
Her lifelong fear of being touched faded
from her memory. She couldn’t remember a time when she hadn’t wanted him
against her.
She felt his fingers at the closure of her
bathing suit top. He hesitated for a moment and then kept going, rubbing her
back. She leaned in and kissed his neck. When she pressed forward, her chest
conformed to his hard body. Only the thin fabric of her bathing suit came
between them.
As he continued to rub her back, she
arched into his touch. She rested her hands on his shoulders, enjoying the feel
of the water against her bare skin.
“So have you captured any other princesses
in your tower while I was gone?” she asked. She couldn’t resist kissing his ear
and she nibbled at his earlobe.
“A couple, but I had to throw them back,”
he said, teasing.
“You’d better not.” She tried to push him
underwater for his statement, but he didn’t move.
“So let me get this straight. I can only
have one captive princess at a time?”
“That’s right. I don’t share.”
“I don’t either,” he said, his tone
serious. “Yet you’re living with this a guy. How am I supposed to take that?”
Lindsey knew this would come up. “How many
times do I have to tell you that Ben and I aren’t dating? I don’t have time to
date anyone. I make an exception for you.”
“So if you’re making an exception, that
means we’re more than just friends now, right?” he asked, his eyes teasing her.
“You must have seen that picture frame. I
found it in the bottom of a box and decided to use it. I wasn’t making a
statement.”
“I see,” he said, leaning in to kiss her
neck again.
Lindsey wiggled away from his touch so she
could think. “I don’t know what we are,” she admitted. “Why can’t we just go
with the flow and see what happens? I need to spend this year focusing on my
studies at least.”
He smiled, his eyes crinkling at the
corners. “Then I will provide the distraction when you need it.”
She rubbed against him. “I like that.”
Whatever phobia Lindsey had of being
touched, she seemed to be in a better frame of mind. She didn’t pull away from
him and she had actually initiated contact a couple of times.
Lindsey had acted jealous of Jacquetta.
Maybe that meant she was starting to have deeper feelings for him.
It felt so right to have her back on his
island. He tried not to get used to her presence, but it wasn't working. When
she left, he would see visions of her in every room in his villa. He already
couldn't walk into the tower suite without remembering their picnic rummy game.
He lifted her up until her pert little
nipples were level with his mouth. She giggled when he licked them over the
fabric and they tightened into small buds. The little moan of pleasure told him
everything he needed to know. She was finally opening up to him.
“Did you hear that?” she asked.
“What?”
“I think that was my phone,” she muttered.
“Ignore it,” he said, returning to his
task of pleasuring her nipples.
He moved to a spot behind her ear, kissing
and teasing. The phone chirped again, but he didn’t stop what he was doing. He
was far too entranced by the little trembles he could feel as he brushed the
same sensitive spot.
After the third time the phone rang, he
wanted to throw it in the pool. He didn’t think that would go over well with
Lindsey. She wiggled out of his grasp, and he let her go this time. Whoever was
calling wouldn’t take the hint.
He watched as she pulled herself out of
the pool. She grabbed a towel from the table and wrapped it around her. She dug
her phone out of the bag she had carried out to the pool.
“Laura called. Let me call her back.” She
sat down on the lounge chair she had just left. He hefted himself out of the
pool to follow.
“She won’t mind waiting,” he said in a low
tone, sitting down beside her.
Lindsey shot him a playful glare, ignoring
his suggestion that she not call her back right away. Ric waited until she got
Laura on the phone before he leaned over her, bracing his weight with his
hands.
“Laura, I saw I missed your call. What’s
up?”
He tugged at her towel with his teeth. She
pushed on his head to move him away, but the towel came with him.
“No, I'm out of town with a friend."
As Lindsey glared at him, Ric realized
that Laura didn’t know where Lindsey was. He took his torment to another level.
He pushed her back until she was sitting
back against the lounge chair. Perfect. He slid the bathing suit top over until
he could see the pert little bud of her nipple. She gasped, trying to maintain
her composure on the phone. When he nibbled gently, she squirmed even further.
“Sounds great. Listen, I’d better run.
I’ll call you next week when I’m done with all the testing. Okay. Sounds good.”
She ended the call and tossed the phone on
top of the towels before she pulled her bathing suit back together.
“I cannot believe you just did that.
Anybody can see me out here!”
“There’s nobody here,” he assured her. “My
staff would call me before they come over.”
“Even Xavier?”
“Yes, even Xavier if we don’t have plans.
Especially now that you’re here. He wouldn’t intrude on our privacy.”
“If you say so. You shouldn’t have teased
me like that. If I had cried out, she would have wondered what was wrong.”
He ignored her little pout and kissed her
on the sensitive spot on her the neck, just above her collarbone. He was
rewarded when she shuddered.
“You didn’t tell your sister you were
coming down here?” he asked, trying not to make too much of it.
He felt her tense beneath his touch. “No,
I didn’t,” she said.
“I wonder why that is?” He sat back on his
own chair again, wanting to hear what she would say.
“Ric, don’t take it like that. You know
Laura has issues with you. I don’t want to fight that battle with her yet.”
“So you’re ashamed of me?” He didn’t know
any reason why she should be, but the thought still occurred to him. Was she
ashamed of his Latin heritage?
“No, it’s not that. It’s just … early. I
wanted to give us time to develop before we have to fight her.”
He hated to think that a mistake by one of
his men would drive a wedge between him and Lindsey. “She seemed fine with me
when I visited, if a little put off that I was there. I think in time she will
grow used to the idea. If I spend more time with her and Fox—”
“Let’s just cross that bridge when we get
to it, okay? Laura and Fox just got engaged. Now she’s busy starting a new job,
trying to sell her Miami condo, and planning a wedding. There’s no reason for
me to upset her right now.”
“Okay. If that is what you want.” Ric
sensed there was more to it than that, but he let it go. He wasn’t sure he
would have the advantage if he pressed.
She stood up and held out her hand. The
towel fluttered around her in the breeze. “Come back into the water with me.”
#
Lindsey thought at
first that he wasn
’t
going to take her hand. She felt bad that Laura didn’t like him, but it wasn’t
worth fighting over right now. She waited for an awkward minute.
“Your wish is my command.” His voice
lowered, and he stood up, diving into the pool.
She straightened her bathing suit top and
dove in behind him. Even with the bathing suit top back on, her erect nipples
stung when she hit the water.
“I love your form,” he told her when she
surfaced. She treaded water beside him for a moment, pushing her hair out of
her eyes.
“You’re just saying that.”
“No, I’m not. You have a sleek dive.”
“I swam for the middle school swim team
and I was junior lifeguard one summer. Then high school happened, and my mom
steered me more towards math competitions. Swimming and diving got pushed to
the side.”
Lindsey didn’t mean to sound ungrateful to
her mother, but at the moment, that’s how she felt. She had loved the swim team
and had resented having to give it up.
“It’s okay to feel disappointed about
things,” he said.
“What?”
Ric took her hand and pulled her with him
as he paddled over to the side of the pool. She settled with her back against
his chest, his chin over her shoulder. “Even though she’s gone, you can still
be frustrated at her choices. No one’s perfect. It doesn’t make you a bad
person.”
“How did you know that’s what I was
thinking?”
“When you talked about the swim team, you
looked uncomfortable. Like you regretted saying anything negative.”
She turned in his arms and wrapped her
legs around his waist. “I was always raised to not speak ill of the dead.”
“And you shouldn’t. But that doesn’t meant
that the person you lost was perfect. None of us are.” His hands slid up and
down her back, molding her to his chest.
“Easier said than done. Name one negative
thing that you’ve thought about your mother.” Lindsey couldn’t believe that he
would be able to come up with anything.
“I loved her, don’t get me wrong, but she
was over-protective and possessive. She didn’t want me to go to school in the
United States, even though they offered me a full scholarship."
“And you went against her?”
“I felt like it was my only chance to have
the kind of future I wanted. I wanted to save the trust fund to get started in
my career, not use it to fund my education. So I took the scholarship."
She laughed at his comparison. “Xavier
told me she won Miss Universe when she was young.”
He smiled. “She did. She had the kind of
beauty that goes beyond the skin. She had the kind of magnetism that made men
want to give up everything for her. After my father died, she never married
again, but it wasn’t for want of proposals. She used to say that I should marry
a woman that I considered an equal, not someone I wanted to control.”
“Wow. Those are wise words.”
“She also said she would never again bind
herself to any man. She said my father was a rare man. He had loved her for
herself. The others all either wanted her money or they wanted to say they had
married Miss Universe. She went out several times a week, before she got sick,
but she wouldn’t let any of them move onto her island. She said she liked her
space.”
“Well, living on an island definitely
limits the popovers.”
He laughed. “That it does.”
“You talk about your mother not wanting to
remarry. It’s all my mother ever wanted. She supported these ne’er-do-wells for
years, thinking they would get their act together. It was always the same. They
lived with us for a few months. When she hinted they should do more than buy a
twelve-pack for the weekend, they would find a reason to leave. Of course, they
always said it was her fault, and she always believed them.”
“That must have been hard, having so many
stepfathers—”
“No, they weren’t fathers. Believe me.
Laura and I didn’t have a father figure. We’ve made our own way in the world,
such as it is.” Lindsey couldn’t believe she had told Ric so much. She had
never told a soul any of this. And between her and Laura, it was understood but
never spoken. The sun went behind a cloud, and she shivered, suddenly chilled.
“You’re cold. Come on. Let’s move to the
hot tub.”
“Hot tub. I didn’t even see a hot tub.”
“Over there, in the corner.”
She followed his direction and finally
spotted it behind two big planters. Lindsey wrapped her arms around her chest
and waded over to the raised hot tub.
“You run these jets all the time?”
He grinned. “No, but I usually get out
here most nights. It helps me soak away the stress from the day. I started up
the heater this morning so it would be ready.”
Wooden decking surrounded the hot tub that
would hold six. Lindsey held onto the short railing as she eased into the
bubbling water. It felt heavenly.
“If I had this in my backyard, I would never
get anything done,” she said, resting against the powerful jets.
Ric climbed in after her, his thigh
touching hers. He handed her a bottle of water that he had brought over from
the tub of iced drinks under the pavilion. “It’s like anything else. You’d get
used to it. Besides, you’d have to get out sometime. You’d turn into a prune,
otherwise.”
She took a deep drink of water, not
realizing how thirsty she was. “So you’re telling me you don’t have any staff
over here. I'm seeing a huge cooler stocked with ice and drinks, towels ready,
and a sparkling clean pool area. All while you worked this morning.”
He laughed. “I didn’t say I didn’t have
any help. Just that I don’t have permanent staff assigned to the villa.”
She laughed, punching him lightly on the shoulder.
“You are so spoiled. Is Chef Etienne sending over dinner?”
He held his chest as if her comments
wounded him. “No, I planned dinner myself, thank you very much. The steaks are
marinating and the baked potatoes are soaking in brine. I also have lots of
goodies for a chopped salad. You can help me decide what goes in it, so it will
have everything you like.”
“Wow, you’ve gone all out. Trying to
impress a girl?” She reached out and caressed his cheek.
“Maybe. I did give in on one item—Etienne
sent me a loaf of his best bread, crusty with cracked wheat on top.”
“Oh, now you’re talking.” She slipped off
her seat and climbed in his lap, letting the water hold most of her weight. She
threw her arms around him. “You can spoil me all you want.”
“That is my plan. Keep you full and happy
so you’ll miss me when you go back home.”
“I already miss you,” she said. “I’m
afraid this trip will just make it worse.”
Ric grinned. “One can only hope.”