Touching Paradise Page 5

  He knew that Sosie was going to jump in moments before she did it; he felt the small shift in the water as she backed up a few steps, then raced over the swim platform and cannonballed, laughing. In some ways, the entire ocean was an extension of his body.

  A Nassau grouper appeared in his peripheral vision. He waited a moment until it was closer, then squeezed Monroe’s hand and pointed out the large, striped fish.

  He felt the flash of excitement pass through her as her attention shifted to the fish. She began to follow it, and her grip on his hand eased from strangling to merely clutching.

  Behind him, Sosie dove down, taking photos. He liked Sosie, but she should have known she was bringing someone terrified of the ocean out for snorkeling. With only one passenger, there was no excuse for not having taken a full history.

  When they reached the reef, Monroe let go of his hand. He swam beside her, pointing at things he thought she’d enjoy. He was attuned to her, to the tensing in her body when a slightly bigger wave passed, to the way her heartbeat picked up when his shoulders brushed hers.

  He wasn’t an egomaniac. There were a million reasons that a woman might react to the nearness of a large, mostly naked man. But he knew the truth because he could smell her. In fact, it was difficult to concentrate on anything else. It was like when he hunted… when he was close to surprising his prey and the rest of the world fell away.

  She was attracted to him, her body ready to mate. He didn’t often think of it in those terms, but now he did, with this woman who intrigued him with her dark humor and bravery. She blithely swam next to him, stirring long-repressed urges that he knew that she, as a human, could never wholly fulfill.

  After an hour, he sensed she was getting hungry, and Sosie, too, so he suggested they head back to the boat for lunch.

  Until Monroe unzipped her wetsuit, he hadn’t really realized just how sexy her body was. The bikini was an explosion of color, accentuating her wide hips and full breasts. His fingers burned to touch her skin, especially her lower stomach. It looked soft, barely dusted in downy hair. He wanted to kiss her there, to lay his head on her as her skin warmed in the sun.

  “I’ll get us bottles of water,” he said hoarsely. He almost stopped to grab his linen pants on the way into the cabin but didn’t—getting dressed would draw attention. Better to find a way to control his reactions to Monroe. If such a thing were even possible.

  Sosie had brought an assortment of food to munch on, and they sunned themselves on the front of the yacht as they ate.

  “What do you do?” Monroe asked him. “When you’re not boating?”

  “He’s always boating,” Sosie interrupted. “What do you do?”

  Monroe sighed. “I’m regional manager for Pet Palace. It’s a pet supply company.”

  Such a short answer. Pity. He found her voice sexy. “You like animals?” Koenraad asked, hoping to spur her into a longer discussion.

  “Sure. But I work such crazy hours that I can’t have one. Don’t even ask how much unused vacation time I have. I sometimes pet the dogs and cats in the Salon when I visit the stores. Does that count?”

  “What about a fish?”

  She shrugged. “You pour your heart and soul into them, then one day you come home and they’re working on their backstroke. Too much guilt for me.”

  He repressed a laugh, and she flicked her gaze toward him. He liked her eyes very much. They were brown, slightly striated. He supposed some might liken them to milk chocolate, but the color reminded him of banded miter shells.

  “Maybe you had the wrong fish,” he said.

  “That wouldn’t surprise me.”

  “Do you get to dress up in heels?” Sosie wanted to know.

  “Get to? Do I have to is more like it. And yes, unfortunately. It’s an ok job,” she said. “Not what I dreamed of when I was a little girl, but no one gets what they want, right? Probably the same with leading scuba tours.”

  Intrigued, Koenraad quickly swallowed the hunk of cheese he’d just popped into his mouth, not bothering to chew it. “What did you dream of—”

  Sosie jumped up. “Ralph is here.”

  Koenraad reluctantly acknowledged what he’d been ignoring: a boat was approaching. Now he knew it was Ralph, come to take Monroe away from him. It was too soon. He couldn’t let her go, not yet.

  Sosie had gone toward the back of the boat, and Monroe was brushing crumbs off her hands.

  “Monroe?”

  She looked up at him, her brow furrowing cutely. He imagined her doing that as he brought her to orgasmic bliss—

  “What?” she asked, clearly confused.

  “Do you think you’d like to spend a few more hours with me? I can take you to the other sites if you like, or to another island.”

  Her cheeks, already lightly sun-kissed from her time in the fresh air, turned pink. “Are you sure?”

  He nodded. “I’m enjoying spending time with you.”

  She smiled then, her lashes lowering shyly as she pretended to focus on wrapping up the crusts from her sandwich. But Koenraad wasn’t fooled. He felt her attraction in tempo with his own.

  She wanted him.

  He wanted her, too.

  Chapter 7

  Monroe waved again at Ralph and Sosie. She’d given them a generous tip, and Sosie had snapped a few more photos and promised to deliver them to the hotel before Monroe’s airport shuttle left the following afternoon.

  It saddened her to realize the short vacation was already half over. When she’d booked her ticket, she’d considered staying longer for all of two seconds, then had decided she’d rather take extra pay instead of her vacation.

  Thomas really was right. She was boring.

  Thinking of Thomas made her feel a little sick. What if he’d sent a reply, begging her to reconsider? Not that she would, but things would feel unfinished until he said something back. Yet here she was, flirting openly with Koenraad all afternoon.

  And they were flirting, weren’t they? She wasn’t a clueless schoolgirl. Koenraad liked her. Or, rather, he liked the idea of fucking her. How could he not be thinking about it? She was sitting there in a socially acceptable bra and underwear. And his swimsuit was…

  She felt herself blushing, and when she looked up, she realized that Koenraad was watching her, those peculiar eyes unreadable.

  “Your name is unusual,” she said.

  “It’s Dutch.”

  She studied him. “Where are you from?”

  “Here. Though I was born in Florida. My father’s from here and he attended college in the States. After he got his doctorate, he joined his university’s marine biology department. He met my mother during a conference in Europe and was surprised to meet another… to meet someone he had so much in common with. Dad says it was love at first sight.”

  “That’s romantic.”

  “You’re getting the short and clean version,” he said. “My mother was pregnant.”

  That made her laugh, and she covered her mouth, embarrassed. Koenraad flashed a smile.

  “Mom is from South Africa—that’s where my parents spend most of their time now—but she’d been working in Florida. Dad decided to join her, and when his parents got sick, he took early retirement from teaching, and we moved here.”

  Monroe fought a smile. A hot, rich guy who clearly got along with his parents. He was a unicorn. “So you grew up in paradise.”

  He nodded and gestured for her to walk ahead of him toward the front of the boat, where the remainder of their lunch awaited.

  Things had been different when Sosie was there, even though she’d been more in the background, taking photos, talking about some of the crazy things she’d seen since she started working at Dive Happy Caribbean, and asking questions that kept the conversation moving easily. Now, Monroe’s tongue felt clumsy and thick, like she’d had a shot of Novocain hours earlier that hadn’t quite worn off yet.

  When she was nervous, she had a tendency to run her mouth, but with Koenraad,
it was different. He intimidated her into silence. Which made no sense because he seemed like a genuinely kind man, though she supposed anyone could pretend to be nice for a few hours.

  “I saw a shark earlier,” she blurted out, grateful to have something to say. Koenraad was looking off into the distance, almost like he was concentrating on something else.

  He swung his head back toward her. His hair had dried to a light blond, and while it was still pushed away from his face by the sunglasses atop his head, a few disobedient locks now brushed his cheekbones, highlighting how angular they were. “Did you?” he asked, sounding amused. “Are you sure it wasn’t an angelfish?”

  “Yes, I’m sure, smartypants,” she said. “It was huge.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “You’d be surprised how often people tell me they’ve seen huge fish or sharks. Are you sure it wasn’t a whale?”

  She smacked his arm playfully. His muscles were so solid, and she remembered how it had felt to hold onto him in the water. Suddenly, she wanted that again.

  Maybe she was doing all sorts of things outside of her admittedly narrow zone of comfort, but straddling this hunky sailor and forcing her tongue into his mouth wasn’t going to happen, at least not unless she downed a few drinks first, and it was still too early for that. So she aimed for the next best thing. “Think I’m ready for more snorkeling,” she said.

  Koenraad reclined, resting on his elbows, stretching out his long body. “I’m not going to insist you wait an hour, but how about thirty minutes?”

  “Why?”

  He smiled. “Because it’ll take twenty to get to the next place I want to show you.”

  She flicked at some crumbs, then pulled her legs in. Immediately she stretched them out again, not wanting Koenraad to see her legs all bunched up and looking stubby. She should have put her coverup back on, but she’d wanted to dry off first.

  She lay on her back next to him and cradled her head in her laced fingers. The boat underneath her was so deliciously warm on her shoulders and the backs of her calves and thighs, and the sun’s heat felt wonderfully sensual on the front of her body. So this was why people went on vacation. What a change of pace from cold New York.

  The slight rocking of the boat lulled her into a half-sleep where thoughts darted through her mind in no particular order. She drifted off completely, then woke, filled with an unfamiliar but welcome calmness.

  She thought of her friends at the hotel. Hopefully Tara and everyone who’d gotten sick were feeling better. Maybe they were all at the pool now, or shopping. They were going to be so jealous when they saw the photos. Especially of Koenraad. She peeked at him through her lashes and saw that his eyes were also closed, and he was breathing evenly. Asleep.

  The bronze of his skin begged to be licked. He’d probably taste salty, like the ocean. Her gaze slid down his perfect chest and torso, the rigid lines of his abs. There was a perfect whorl of golden hair running from his navel into his skimpy swimsuit. And the bulge… She could see the outline of his cock and balls.

  The urge to mouth that bulge was surprisingly strong. She didn’t even like giving oral sex, so why was she thinking about it now…?

  She glanced back at Koenraad and was relieved that his eyes were still closed.

  With a sigh, she relaxed again, enjoying the sounds of the water lapping the boat, the wind stirring her hair, and an occasional, almost imperceptible splash.

  “You like your job?” Koenraad asked, his voice a low, lazy rumble that thrilled her. He was so masculine. He made the guys she’d dated seem like women in expensive suits.

  “It’s ok,” she said. “No one fantasizes about being middle management.”

  His laugh rolled over her body, making her tingle, and she remembered again the steady warmth of his skin under her palms. “I guess not,” he said. “You have plans to change careers?”

  “This is already my third career. The first two didn’t end well.”

  “I’m listening.”

  She hadn’t intended to pique his curiosity. Her employment history wasn’t very flattering. “As an undergraduate, I worked part-time filing papers in a real estate office. They offered to bring me on full-time after graduation. It was supposed to be a semi-internship, the idea being that I’d make less but learn the ropes. But after a year, it was clear they had no intention of paying me a real salary.” She stopped, remembering the day Tara had sent her an advertisement for more “interns” at the company. Tara had insisted she confront her boss, which Monroe had done. “I asked for a raise and they fired me.”

  “Is that legal?”

  “Probably not. I’m glad, now, but it took me six months to find another job. It wasn’t easy.” And in that time, she’d maxed out her already strained credit cards, and had gone into debt to Tara and Nya, who were the most understanding roommates in the history of the world.

  “So first career was real estate. Second?”

  “Waitress. By the time I got the job at Pet Palace, I was working at three places. A pizza franchise four nights a week, another pizza franchise three nights a week, and a local brunch place Friday, Saturday and Sunday mornings.” She opened her eyes and blinked, the bright sun pricking her eyes. “I’m going to grab my sunglasses,” she said.

  “Take mine.” Koenraad sat up and handed over his. “Why did you have to work so much?”

  She shrugged and put on his glasses. The tint made the blues of the sky and ocean more vivid. “These are nice!”

  “Then they’re yours,” he said, leaning back onto his elbows.

  “No, I couldn’t—”

  “It’s the only brand I like, and I tend to break things, so I’ve got plenty more.” He studied her. “They’re a lot sexier on you,” he said.

  It didn’t feel like a knee-jerk compliment, designed to flatter, and she felt herself blushing even warmer in the noon sun. “Thanks,” she murmured, embarrassed. What had he asked her? Oh, right. Her jobs. “I had a lot of student loans, and my mother had taken out a second mortgage to help with my tuition, and I’m paying that, too. Unfortunately, not really an unusual story.”

  “Have you always been so responsible?”

  “Boring, you mean,” she said quietly, remembering what Thomas had said.

  “I wasn’t aware that responsible equals boring,” he said. “Is that a New York thing?”

  She blinked. “No. My boyfriend. My ex, I mean. He said I was boring.”

  “He sounds like a jackass.”

  She turned her head so he wouldn’t see her amusement, but when she spoke, the smile colored her voice. “He is.” She paused. “But maybe he had a point, too. The two aren’t mutually exclusive.”

  “I don’t know you well, but you don’t strike me as boring. You were terrified of the water, yet you jumped in anyway. A boring person would be sitting next to the hotel pool.”

  She decided not to tell him how close she’d come to choosing that route. “How did you know I was scared?”

  He merely smiled, and at that moment she felt like his gaze penetrated her soul.

  “What about you?” she stammered out to fill the silence. “Do you really race boats?”

  “For fun. I provide private security for an organization. It’s something I fell into, but it turns out that I enjoy it.”

  “Really? Wow. Though… actually, that doesn’t surprise me.” All those muscles, and the fast reflexes.

  He turned his head toward her. “Why is that?”

  “You… ooze confidence.”

  “Ooze?” He made a face.

  She found herself laughing again. “It’s a compliment.”

  “In that case, thank you.” Something about the way he said it was sexy as hell. He was so polite but sincere, which was incredible because if she’d ever met a man who could get away with being an arrogant jerk, it was someone as attractive as Koenraad. “You never told me your ideal job,” he said.

  “I wanted to be a real estate agent,” she said with a laugh. “My aunt i
s in real estate, and I thought she was so glamorous, always dressed up when she came over for dinner. I loved going to open houses with her. I have this knack for knowing how to match people to their perfect homes. When I worked at Hahnmanner Realty, the agents asked me to sit in on the interviews, and then they’d quiz me afterward. My recommendations were always right.” She smiled, still proud of that.

  “But you didn’t get commissions?”

  She shrugged. “Technically, I wasn’t selling the houses. Too busy making coffee, troubleshooting computer problems, and updating the website with listings.”

  “Still,” he said, his voice bordering on a growl.

  “One of the agents always gave me gift cards to local restaurants. Actually, that’s how I got the first waitress job. I was there with my roommates, using the last of the gift cards, and the food took forever to come out. The waitress said they were understaffed. I joked that it was a shame I wasn’t a cook. Of course, it wasn’t a joke. I needed a job, and the waitress said they were hiring servers, too.” She glanced at him. “What’s security like?”

  “Mostly boring.” He stood gracefully and held out a hand. “Ready to explore?”

  She placed her hand into his and allowed him to gently pull her to standing. He really was quite tall. She’d have to go up on her tiptoes just to kiss his chin.

  He was very careful not to let go of her as they picked their way through a cutout in the lower cabin’s windshield. Then he escorted her to the upper cabin via an internal set of stairs. She was relieved that he went first, that she didn’t have to worry about her ass being eye-level.

  “Where are we heading?”

  “My favorite place,” he said with a smile as he flipped up the seat so that there was room to stand. He toggled two levers and pushed a button. The boat’s motor hummed awake. If there were fish innocently hanging out under the boat, they had probably gotten the scare of their lives. He pushed another lever and the boat smoothly cleaved through the water. “You want to steer?”