Shipwrecked with Mr Wrong Page 9

  Rob’s hands clenched at his sides and his body twitched visibly to get in there.

  ‘No, Rob. It’s nature.’ She turned her eyes back to the seething nest. It was a spectacular sight.

  ‘I can’t keep track of them, there’s so many.’

  ‘Pick one as it emerges from the nest and then follow it to shore. It helps keep it in perspective.’

  The hatchlings were virtually identical, so picking one was more of a token act, but Honor fancied she saw one lighter than the rest and chose that one to focus on. It scrabbled over the edge of the sandy nest and weaved its way down the beach, darting left, darting right. It would be there by now if it had just taken a straight course to the ocean.

  Immediately, she had a flashback—Nate teaching three-year-old Justin how to weave with a soccer ball. He’d scampered as directionless around their back yard, too, trying to keep the ball on track. A lump immediately grew in her throat even as she smiled at the memory. Her heart reached out to her tiny turtle as it finally hit the surf and was gone. It was on its own now.

  ‘No!’

  Her head whipped around at Rob’s outraged cry.

  ‘My guy’s going the wrong way! And there’s a whole bunch going with him.’

  Honor had to smile. Ironic, that the turtle he picked would turn out to be hyper-energetic and completely devoid of good sense.

  ‘I’m going in.’ He kicked off his shoes.

  Her hand held him back. Stronger than she felt. ‘I have to observe the non-intervention policy—’

  He shrugged off her grip, scrambled to his feet and shot forwards. ‘I don’t.’

  ‘Rob!’ Honor’s whispered reprimand had no impact. She angled the UV spotlight his way to help him pick his way along the beach between the kamikaze reptiles. They blindly sprinted—faster than a newborn should ever be able to move—down the sand towards the water’s edge. Survival instinct drove them on. He moved like a morris dancer up the beach— side-stepping a tiny scrabbling turtle one moment, stopping and letting one run over his bare foot the next, then deftly leaping over another group. He danced his way to the far side of the dune where six baby turtles had paused just inside the tree line. He picked up the leader and turned it around, towards the ocean. It hit the sand running. The others wheeled around and followed, finally shooting into the water and disappearing under its dark surface.

  Rob loped towards her up the beach that was now empty except for the snacking frigatebirds. He was moonlit, puffing slightly, had a crooked grin on his handsome face and his eyes locked hard onto hers.

  Her heart swelled and she adored him in that moment for flouting the golden rule so spectacularly. For the first time in a very long time she didn’t think, she just acted. She launched out of her folding chair and crashed into him, sliding her arms around his neck in a fierce hug. He caught her with warm, surprised hands.

  ‘Thank you,’ she breathed in his ear.

  He laughed and wrapped his arms around her waist, lifting her easily off the sand. Her legs scrabbled like a hatchling.

  ‘Grateful?’ He swung her side to side and she tightened her hold to hang on. She hadn’t done this since she was a child, but the way her body pressed hard against his, she felt anything but childlike.

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘How grateful?’ He leaned back and looked down at her seriously.

  She frowned, confused. ‘What?’

  ‘One kiss,’ he said simply. Intensely.

  All her delight with him evaporated. ‘Did you plan this, Dalton?’

  He rolled his eyes but didn’t let go. ‘Yes, Honor. I came here earlier and whispered through the sand to the turtles in their eggs. We planned this whole thing. You got us.’

  ‘So you’re just an opportunist, then?’

  ‘You bet. One kiss—that’s my price.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘For saving six hatchlings and possibly the entire species.’ He was joking, but she had just thrown herself into his arms in gratitude. It made it hard to pretend now that she didn’t value what he’d done.

  ‘You don’t want to kiss me.’ Honor knew the impact her scars had on people. She wasn’t hung-up about it but she was also a realist.

  ‘Correction—I’ve wanted to kiss you from the moment I saw you.’ Sincerity was live in his eyes but still she doubted. Maybe a kiss wasn’t such a big deal where he came from— just a bit of fun? He couldn’t know that she’d only been kissed by two men in her whole life—her first kiss when she was fourteen and then her husband. Rob would make three.

  If she was entertaining the suggestion.

  She swallowed. Her heart thumped an SOS in her chest but her body wasn’t listening. How good would it be to give in to her yearning, to taste him just for a moment? She imagined how his lips would feel against hers but, more than anything, she wanted to nibble her way along that spectacular jaw line. She could almost reach it from here …

  In her dreams. This was just a bit of fun for Rob, gentle flirting. He was probably bored. And the best way to handle a flirt? Call them on it.

  ‘Fine—one kiss.’

  His pupils flared and he bent his head towards her.

  ‘One small kiss.’

  ‘One small kiss—’ he nodded ‘—for each turtle?’

  A crazy part of her was enjoying the verbal foreplay. He was waking nerve endings she hadn’t used in a long, long time. ‘Turtles hatched or turtles saved?’

  He smiled, caught out. ‘Okay, saved.’

  Six small kisses. Just kisses. Every part of her wanted to say yes and that alone rang alarm bells. He was perfection in deck shoes, funny and gentle, and all of this probably meant nothing to him. Just a bit of casual sport. It was what he did, after all.

  He played.

  ‘Deal.’

  If he was surprised, he didn’t show it. ‘Where would you like the first one?’

  A wild streak she’d virtually forgotten she had surged forward. She stood straighter and looked at him fearlessly. ‘Cheek.’

  He smiled, leaned in excruciatingly slowly and brushed gentle lips across one flushed cheek. They were cool and soft against her flaming skin. He smelled of sea-salt and moonlight. She could survive this …

  ‘Next?’

  ‘Other cheek. That’s two.’

  ‘Thank you, I can count.’ He leaned to her other side and moved his mouth slightly against her other cheek. Lingering. The scent of warm man eddied around her. It was like a natural stimulant.

  ‘Three and four?’

  Honor took a deep breath. Only two chaste kisses and her heart was ready to beat right out of its cavity. She closed her eyes and every other sense kicked into overdrive. She felt him lean in, the air around her humming at his approach. His lips touched one eyelid and then the other. Soft, slow and delightful.

  She’d felt his smile against her first eyelid but, when they fluttered open, he wasn’t smiling any more. And he’d shifted closer, almost touching her chest with his.

  Mustn’t lean forward … She’d never felt such a burning desire to close a gap in her life. She raised her hands up to his chest to stop herself from doing precisely that but feeling the hard heat of his chest through his shirt only reminded her how long it had been since she’d felt a man’s heartbeat under her fingers. Her lips.

  Five.

  He didn’t need to say it. Wordless, she tipped her head sideways, exposing the long length of her neck. The good side. She pointed to a spot just next to where her pulse beat its ancient tattoo.

  He leaned in closer and held her steady with one large hand on each arm. Then he slowly moved towards the place she’d identified. Honor let her heavy eyelids close again, breathless with anticipation, then felt him pull away. Disappointment ached in her throat. When she opened her eyes, his were glittering with desire and something else.

  Speculation.

  Before she could react, he twisted and narrowed the space between them and then pressed his mouth against the other side of her ne
ck. Right on the leathery patchwork of her scars.

  Shock stiffened her body and sensation assaulted her. She pushed away instinctively, but he held fast. Surgery had done nothing to reduce sensation where the grafts had been applied. If anything, the still-healing skin was hyper-sensitive. Electric currents shot out from the warmth of his mouth as he lazily kissed his way over her damaged skin. A lifetime of emotions surged through her—panic, desire, confusion, sorrow—but when his tongue got in on the act, her legs gave way completely. He supported her when she sagged and then carefully pulled back, watching her closely.

  Tears trembled on her lashes and she struggled to blink them away in a futile attempt to disguise her confusion. Her heart hammered wildly. Even the ache she perpetually lived with ached.

  To have the sensitive, awful skin touched at all by another person, let alone kissed so tenderly … it just about broke her heart anew. She swallowed back the bitter salt of tears.

  Rob watched her cautiously. He didn’t look repulsed, her foggy logic whispered. He wasn’t making excuses or avoiding eye contact. He looked focused and present and … disturbingly sexy.

  Honor felt exactly like he looked. Smoky-eyed and just the tiniest bit wary. Did he realise just what an intimate thing that kiss had been? Maybe, judging by the uncertainty in his expression.

  First vulnerable, now uncertain. Maybe he was more human than she’d thought? Human and so very, very close.

  That was enough to nudge her over the sensual precipice. She stretched up on her toes to press her mouth firmly against his. A small kiss, just lips meeting lips. But she’d done it. Not him.

  And that made it a big kiss.

  Rob’s hands slid up to frame her face, holding her steady while his lips grazed repeatedly over hers. A hint of coffee mixed with mint. It was a heady combination. Both of their chests heaved and Honor trembled at the taste and feel of a man’s breath on her face. Nice breath.

  Rob’s breath.

  He tested her lips with his tongue and she caved in immediately, admitting him and slipping her own tongue into blazing heaven. It was stupidly, hideously, leg-crossingly erotic. And it was only a kiss.

  No wonder he was such a success with women. The man made out like a god. Ding, ding, ding.

  Alarm bells clanged. Sanity returned and Honor realised she’d been pressing her body against his still-healing stomach wounds. She tore herself away and retreated a few feet. Her breath came heavily and it pleased her to see that he was just as affected.

  Expert in the art he might be, but even super-lover could clearly feel the attraction surging between them. How easy would it be to just let the energy draw her back into his arms? How tempting was it to give herself the physical pleasure, at least, and keep her heart bound up tight for her boys? Her lost boys.

  She ignored the violent tingles still buzzing across her damaged skin and fought hard to find her voice. Her voice croaked out one word.

  ‘Six!’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  HONOR woke for the first time without the familiar ache in her chest. It took her moments to understand what was different. What was missing. Then shame knifed through her.

  The ache belonged to Nate and Justin. Like the scars, it reminded her daily they were gone. On the best days, she woke with a light heart, then the pain flooded in with the memories. But sometimes she could hold the pain at bay for a moment and remember, just briefly, how it had once felt to wake like that every day. Once, so long ago.

  Like today. No pain. Her breath came easier, her back was straighter, there was none of the nausea she’d learned to live with and the crushing pressure on her soul wasn’t there.

  She closed her eyes against the fear that it was disloyal to have woken so ache-free.

  Or did that blessed lightness belong to something different? The kisses she’d shared with Rob last night?

  Familiar nausea kicked in and the weight redoubled. It hadn’t gone far at all.

  Honor pulled her hair into a ponytail, dressed in a T-shirt and shorts and slipped her feet into raspberry-coloured thongs, trying, all the while, not to think about those kisses. She’d drifted off to sleep at dawn trying not to think about them and had proceeded to dream heartily all night—day—of those expert lips on her face, her mouth. How every cell in her body had turned to jelly as his breath tickled her neck, the moment his tongue finally worked its way into her mouth.

  She’d never been kissed quite like it. That was no slur on Nate, any more than acknowledging Rob’s superior skill as a diver or a sailor. There were plenty of things Nate would have bettered Rob at.

  Particle science. Sudoku. Lawn mowing.

  He’d been older when they’d met. Older and more serious. And his kisses were warm and sweet and made her feel utterly treasured. Even if they’d never made her feel quite like a woman. The way she felt when Rob so much as smiled at her.

  Outside, she stretched and glanced around tentatively. Damn it, how was she going to get on with her work if she was too scared to step outside her tent? There were only five days before the supply boat returned with her next batch of supplies. Before Rob’s boat would be fixed. Less than a week—that was survivable. What passed between them last night wasn’t. Five long days to ensure they never crossed the line again.

  She put her hand to her chest. Did the ache just intensify?

  For all his interruptions to her routine, she had to admit Rob also brought a refreshing energy and outlook. He was the human equivalent to the frigatebirds—large and in-your-face, but free, fearless and windswept.

  There was something to be said for fearlessness.

  Honor sighed. She’d told herself she had done all the thinking she was going to about her handsome interloper. In a few days, he’d be on his way back to civilisation and his time marooned in the Indian Ocean with her would just be a great story to carry around like a drink at cocktail parties.

  The thought hurt a little.

  A lot.

  ‘Good morning.’ Rob walked back into camp from the lagoon, dressed in nothing more than board shorts and deck shoes, his usual attire. Would she even recognise him with clothes on? ‘I have a proposition for you.’

  That devilish glint in his eye was beginning to grow on her. She took a deep breath. ‘Another one?’

  He didn’t pretend to misunderstand. When had he stopped playing that game?

  ‘A more decent proposition.’ The lively sparkle in his eye caught her interest and she waited while he came closer. He took her hand and led her to her favourite log.

  I need to be sitting down for this? Uh oh …

  ‘I would like to take you diving, Honor.’

  Her gut turned over and her pulse immediately responded to her panic. Rob’s gentle hand on her shoulder prevented her from leaping up.

  ‘Hear me out. Not like before, not me diving, you cooling your heels on deck. Both of us, exploring the reef, together.’

  Acid burned low in her throat as nausea threatened. Fear wobbled in her voice. ‘I don’t know how to dive.’ It was an excuse, of course, but also the truth.

  ‘Snorkelling, really; just diving as far as your lungs can take you. There’s so much beauty down there, Honor. You’ve got to see it.’ Blue eyes sparkled with sincerity and hope.

  Why on earth did he think this was a good idea?

  ‘No, Rob. You can’t ask me to do that.’ ‘I’m not asking, I’m offering. If you say no I’ll never bring it up again.’ He squatted in front of her and took her hands gently. ‘I’ll be with you the entire way and show you what to do. If you get overwhelmed, you just rise to the surface. Find the sky. Hold on to me.’ He blazed up into her eyes. ‘Let me give you back the ocean, Honor.’

  His dramatic words had the desired effect. Her fear immediately went to war with her burning desire to be free of it. She’d spent so long dreading being on the ocean, she’d had to sacrifice what was under it. She knew the atoll must be teeming with marine life she’d never seen up close. Never would see.


  And Rob would be with her.

  Find the sky.

  ‘I can’t go past the reef …’ she started hesitantly.

  ‘Okay. No further.’ Not a flicker of victory crossed his face, as though he knew he wasn’t over the line yet. ‘We’ll stay where you’re comfortable.’

  ‘And you’ll stay with me the entire way?’ She trusted he’d be as good as his word, if he gave it.

  ‘Scout’s honour,’ he pledged with two fingers in the air.

  ‘The scout salute has three fingers …’ ‘I was never a scout,’ he admitted. I’ll bet.

  She allowed a small smile. Could she do it? Her heart thumped a mile a minute. She’d swum these lagoon waters many times and they were a bit like home to her. How hard would it be to get a little closer to them? Get underneath?

  ‘There are turtles out there, Honor. The water’s full of them. This would put you one step closer.’

  It was the final ace up his sleeve and he threw it down with confidence. She knew exactly what he was doing, trying to help her get over her fear of the ocean. Her eyes glanced to the north of their own accord. Suddenly she realised she was ready for that; she truly would love to see the turtles in their natural habitat. And whatever else was down there.

  She nodded and a relieved smile split his face. Her pulse kicked up for a different reason. ‘When?’

  ‘What are you doing right now?’

  Now? Her heart pounded. ‘Uh … going snorkelling?’

  ‘Good girl. You won’t regret it.’

  Honor wasn’t so certain, but she let him pull her to her feet, his face glowing with pride.

  It didn’t feel bad to be the cause of that.

  Rob wondered if Honor had any idea what her trust meant to him, or how brave she was. She’d just put herself in his hands and he was not going to let her down. Asking had been a calculated risk, but the way she’d opened up after the dive gave him confidence that she might be ready to turn a corner. To take back part of her old life. The way she’d responded to his kisses and then kissed him wholeheartedly back had given him a sense of her desperation to be free from the shackles of her grief. Even if she didn’t know it.