Real Men Do It Better (36 page)

Annie made a noise of pure feminine satisfaction. She loved what she was doing to him. The minx. Duncan could not even think. He was swept away by sensation. Pressure, tension, and Annie’s amazing tongue. His head swirled. He was a piece of debris caught in a water spout, tossed across the sea.

The tension built and built and built. Just when he thought he was going over the edge, she stopped moving.

“Wah … wah?” he gasped.

“Just thought you should see what it feels like to be tortured,” she chuckled.

He let out a strangled cry.

And then her mouth was on him again, slick and velvety hot. Building him up only to let him down a second time.

He was crazy at this point. Lost to everything. He reached for his cock, but she slapped his hand away.

“No, no,” she scolded. “This is my job.”

Then back she was again. Rocking forward in the sand, sucking, licking, gobbling him up.

“Stop, stop, I’m about to come,” he said.

But she ignored him, kept sucking him until he was within an inch of crazy.

Duncan shot his load into her mouth. Hot and quick.

He let out a sound of complete destruction. Dammit. He hadn’t meant to do that.

“Annie,” he cried.

He looked down at her and she was looking up at him, a wicked grin on her face, cheeks puffy, a drop of his semen on her bottom lip, gleaming wetly in the waning sunlight.

She winked at him.

And then she swallowed.

*   *   *

They dined on the roasted fish Duncan had caught and shared a small bottle of water from his emergency dive kit.

He had carried the bed of palm fronds and wetsuits down to the campfire. They’d decided to spend the night on the beach instead of at the overhang in case their boat driver decided to return to the island for them.

“Why do you suppose the driver left us?” Annie asked.

Duncan shrugged guiltily. No doubt he felt responsible for choosing such an unreliable boat captain. “You were right. The locals are afraid of Dead Man’s Island. Our driver must have gotten spooked while we were diving and took off.”

“But to leave us out here alone.” She shook her head. “That’s pretty cowardly.”

He met her eyes. “People often have reasons for things we can’t always understand.”

“Do you have any plans for how we’re going to get home?”

“Someone will come for us soon,” he reassured her.

“How can you be so sure?”

“Your grandfather knows where we are. Plus, I filed a dive plan with the dive shop in Key West.”

“You’ve thought of everything,” she said, impressed by his thoroughness. Annie realized there was absolutely no one else in the world she’d rather be stranded on a desert island with than this man.

Duncan added a fresh log to the fire. It was still damp and it smoldered for a while before it dried out and began to snap and crack. Sparks shot skyward. They sat there for a long time in companionable silence, leaning against each other, gazing into the fire.

“What about this guy you’re unofficially engaged to?” Duncan asked her. “This corporate lawyer. Tell me about him.”

“Nothing much to tell,” she said uneasily.

She did not want to talk about Eric. She’d already come to the conclusion, before she’d ever set on foot in the ocean with Duncan, that she was going to break up with Eric. Being back home, seeing Duncan again, had her examining the path she was on, and she’d realized it was taking her farther and farther away from the things she loved.

“So you’re really going to marry him.”

“I had planned on it,” she said. Even if she was breaking up with Eric, she had no idea where she stood with Duncan. She wasn’t giving away any more than she had to. Not until she’d gotten away from this island and the pull of the Siren’s Call and sorted out her true feelings.

Duncan growled low in his throat. “Are you still planning on it? After what we just did together today?”

“The Siren’s Call was responsible for what happened today. It was just sex.”

“But how can you have sex with me and still love this other guy?” Duncan’s voice was tight.

Annie didn’t answer. She realized she’d never really loved Eric. She thought she loved him, but now she knew she’d only loved what he represented. Stability, safety, security.

“Are you still going to marry him?” His eyes drilled into her.

Annie hesitated, anxious about revealing too much to him.

He closed his big hand over hers and prompted, “Annie?”

“No.”

Relief slacked his features. “Really?” he asked hopefully. “Why not?”

She shrugged, stared into the fire, unable to meet his gaze.

“Is it because of me? Because of us?”

“There is no ‘us,’ Duncan,” she said, terrified to acknowledge the truth.

“Don’t lie to yourself. There’s never been anything but ‘us,’ and you know it.”

“Great oral sex does not a permanent bond make.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You know.” She picked up a stick and poked the fire.

He clamped his fingers around her wrist, forced her to stop stirring the coals. “No. No I don’t.”

“We can’t go back in time, Duncan. We’re not the same people anymore.”

“I don’t want to go back. I want to go forward.”

“I can’t make you any promises.”

“Why’d you take up with a guy like Hammond? What’s the appeal?”

She drew her knees to her chest and hugged them.
Because he isn’t you.
“I needed someone stable that I could depend on to be there. Especially after the way you screwed with my head. Leaving town the morning after you’d bedded me and stole my virginity like it meant nothing.”

“I’m sorry for that.” His voice cracked painfully. It sounded as if the words had been savagely ripped from his throat.

“Yeah, well, so am I.” She looked at him then and it hurt her to see that his eyes were haunted, and in that moment she realized he had suffered as much as she.

“I think you’re kidding yourself,” he said after a long time had passed, with no sounds breaking the silence except for the whoosh of the surf and the crackling fire.

Annie was thinking about the past, the way they used to be, about all the things they’d shared. All the things they could share again, if she were brave enough to take a chance. “What about?”

“I don’t think you wanted someone stable and secure. I think you wanted someone you knew you wouldn’t fall in love with. You can’t fool me, Annie Marie. You make out like you want an intimate relationship, but the truth is you’re terrified of commitment. Scared as hell that if you let yourself feel true passion you’ll end up like your parents.”

“I’m not afraid of commitment. You’re projecting your fears onto me. You’re the one who jumps from woman to woman, like Tarzan swinging from vine to vine.”

“You want to know why I went from woman to woman?”

“Yes, please, enlighten me.”

“Because I couldn’t have you.”

“What in the hell are you talking about? I threw myself at you. Time and again.”

“First, you were too young. And then I didn’t want to ruin our friendship and after your parents died, I was your shoulder to lean on. I couldn’t take advantage of that. You were so vulnerable. I wanted you more than you can possibly know.”

“Why didn’t you ever tell me this?” Annie held her breath, wanting to believe him, but afraid.

“I had nothing to offer you. I came from nothing. I had nothing except for what your parents had given me. I had to make something of myself before I could tell you how I felt. But then you kissed me on your twentieth birthday, and all those years of holding myself in check just fell in on me, and I couldn’t stop myself from making love to you even though I knew the timing was bad, that neither of us were ready for it.”

“You hurt me bad, Duncan,” she said, finally telling him what she’d longed to say for years. Emotion clogged her throat. She looked at him and saw tears glistening in his eyes. That rattled her clean to her soul.

“I know and I’m so sorry.” He raised a hand to his mouth. “I was stupid and immature, and I didn’t feel worthy of the precious gift you’d given. I thought there had to be a catch. That if I let you love me before I deserved it, I was bound to lose you.”

“Oh, Duncan.” She swallowed hard. “I thought you left me because I wasn’t pretty enough for you.

“Dammit, Annie, no. Are you bloody insane?”

“Then why? Why did you wait until you took my virginity before you told me that you’d signed up to crew with Ginger Jones and were off to dive the seven seas? Why did you leave me?”

His eyes met hers. “I saw the letter.”

“What letter?”

“Your acceptance letter from Harvard. The morning after we made love I got up to cook breakfast for you. Your purse was on the kitchen counter and I accidentally knocked it off. The letter fell out. I shouldn’t have read it. Damn, I wish I hadn’t read it, but read it I did.” He stared at her hard. She squirmed under his scrutiny. “You lied to me, Annie. You told me you didn’t get into Harvard.”

“Because I didn’t want to go,” she said. “Because I wanted to stay in St. Augustine with you and Jock.”

“I knew that,” he said. “I also knew you were too smart to waste your opportunities running your grandfather’s dive shop and being the wife of a salvage diver. You’ve got book smarts, Annie, and I never even finished high school. You deserved the best life had to offer, and I couldn’t give it to you. So I did what I had to do to make you go to Harvard. I lied and told you I’d already hired on with Ginger Jones. I promised myself that I would become the best salvage diver in the world. That I would find the Siren’s Call for you. And then I could come back when you were finished with Harvard and ask you to marry me.” He laughed harshly. “I sure fucked that up.”

Annie sucked in her breath. Could it be true? All this time she’d thought she was just another notch on Duncan’s bedpost, and now to find out that he’d loved her so much he’d let her go for her greatest good? They stared as if seeing each other for the first time. The fire anchored them on the island, while every fiber of their souls were reaching into the past, touching the pain they’d caused each other. The tide whispered up onto the beach, then sank back in a breathless hush.

“Duncan…”

“Annie…”

They sat without speaking for what seemed like a very long time. Then Duncan leaned forward to study her face in the firelight. Gently, he hooked two fingers under her jaw and tilted her head back, his eyes zeroing on her chin.

He sketched his fingertips over the scar and then dipped his lips to kiss it, tracing the jagged edges with his tongue. His touch grew firmer, grazing her old wound with his teeth, sucking and nibbling at her chin, mouthing her skin with the appetite of a lover, evoking a powerful sensation Annie instantly identified as rapture.

The sheer intimacy of his tenderness sprang tears to her eyes. Tenderness and concern, followed by anxiousness, profound sadness, and an odd fear. He whispered her name, “Annie,” and pulled her into his lap. She kissed his mouth, wanting to breathe his breath, wanting him to breathe hers.

And for the first time in her life, Annie Graves truly felt beautiful.

6

“Ahoy there!”

A cheery voice woke Annie. Startled, she sat up, rubbing her eyes, and saw Duncan walking out to meet a tour boat anchored just off the beach. It took her a moment to realize they were being rescued.

Thank God! Much more time alone with Duncan and Annie didn’t know what she might have done. After his confession last night, something inside of her had slipped. The hard resolve, the resentment she’d bottled up melted away like snow on sauna stones. He’d done what he’d done, not because he didn’t care as she’d supposed, but because he cared so much. So where did that leave them now?

She got to her feet, wiped the sand from the seat of her bikini, and followed him to greet their visitors.

It turned out the people in the tour boat were a group of newlyweds heading for a week at a private resort on a nearby island. Apparently, the driver of the boat who’d abandoned Annie and Duncan had met the tour boat captain in Key West, told him how he’d been spooked by Dead Man’s Island and confessed to have stranded them. The tour boat captain had promised to stop by and pick them up on his way to the resort. From there, they could catch a returning boat to Key West the following day.

It was a bit unsettling to be cruising along with couples who were constantly kissing and touching each other. Annie had never considered herself a voyeur, but she couldn’t seem to stop watching a particularly bold and handsome couple making out in the back of the boat.

Their tongues flicked languidly over each other’s mouths, their hands touching, caressing, stroking. The woman was dressed in a skimpy thong bikini that showcased her ample breasts, tanned skin, and taut butt. The man’s chest was chiseled, but he wasn’t, she noticed, as intricately ripped as Duncan.

She kept thinking about yesterday. About what she’d done with Duncan. How they’d licked and sucked and fucked each other with their mouths. She pressed her knees together and stared out at the water. It was all she could do not to beg Duncan to touch her inappropriately right there in front of everyone. Just like the other couple was doing.

The man was trailing his tongue along the woman’s throat now and she was moaning softly.

Annie’s body flared like a match head struck against sandpaper. She suppressed a shudder of arousal. God, but she was turned on.

Duncan circled her waist with his arm and put his mouth against her ear. She felt his chin brush her cheek, all raspy from a day’s growth of beard stubble, and this time she did shudder.

“Don’t you wish that was us?” he whispered.

She clenched her hands, closed her eyes, bit down on her bottom lip.

He chuckled. “Hold on, babe, we’ll be at the resort soon.”

When they arrived, Duncan left her waiting in the luxurious lobby while he went to speak to the resort manager. Annie didn’t know what magic he’d wrought without ID or credit cards, but he came back with a room assignment. Damn, but the man was magic. Fishing for their dinner, starting a fire with wet wood, and now procuring them a honeymoon suite in a five-star resort solely on the strength of his charm.