At Her Pleasure

Away from the open beach, the island was a different world. Tree trunks crowded the narrow path and blotted out the sun. The ground beneath was spongy with leaf mold, silencing their steps. The dense undergrowth prevented Nicole from seeing more than a few feet in front of her and on either side, but she could hear many unseen things: strange birds calling in the canopy overhead, small creatures scuttling on the jungle floor, tree branches scraping together, palm fronds rattling like rusty chains.

“It must have looked just like this when Passionata was here,” she said softly.

“Hmmph.” Adam grunted as he shoved a tangle of vines out of his way. “Remind me next time we come exploring to bring a machete.”

“Do you have any idea where we’re going?” she asked, looking around. She could barely make out the path they’d already traveled. “We’re not going to get lost, are we?”

“The island is barely a mile wide. We won’t get lost.”

As if to prove his words, they suddenly emerged into a clearing. Nicole blinked in the bright sunlight and stared at a tumble of volcanic boulders in front of them. From this chaos of razor-sharp rock rose a fat stone tower, three stories high, pocked with narrow windows, the gray stone streaked liberally with white bird droppings.

In fact, there were birds everywhere—gulls wheeling and screaming overhead, perching on the rocks, strutting in the sand. The sound—and the smell—were almost overwhelming. She put her hands over her ears. “I don’t think we’re going to do much exploring here,” she said, raising her voice to be heard over the din.

“Let’s see what’s on the other side.” He led the way across the rocky clearing, birds fluttering out of their way at the last minute. Nicole shielded her head with her hands, just in case any offerings dropped from the sky.

The jungle growth on the other side of the tower was not as dense. Adam stopped to examine the ends of cut vines beside the path. “This looks fresh,” he said.

“You mean, someone besides us is here?” she asked.

He didn’t answer, but plunged ahead. Nicole stepped over fallen coconuts and sagging branches, hurrying to keep up with Adam’s long strides.

She was so intent on watching her step on the uneven path she didn’t realize he’d stopped until she collided with the solid wall of his back. “Oooph,” she grunted, pushing herself off of him. “What is it?”

He held out a hand and pointed. “Looks like we have company.”

She leaned around him and stared. Some twenty yards away from them stood a palm-frond-covered shelter. Beneath it, slightly bent over something she couldn’t see, his back to them, was a man.

A man with a muscular bronze back and shoulders, long legs and a nicely shaped and very naked backside. The whole man was naked, a fact Nicole’s mind deduced in a microsecond, all while taking inventory of his delectable assets. Was this a descendant of one of Passionata’s conquests? Or a modern-day Robinson Crusoe living alone on the island?

“Who the hell are you?” Adam demanded.

The naked man whirled to face them, clearly startled, then straightened himself to his full height. When he spoke, his voice was distinctly British and very proper. “I might ask you the same question.”

IAN HAD SET HIMSELF a simple task for that morning—washing his clothes. At some point yesterday the magic potion the Jamaican woman had sold him had shattered in his luggage, leaving everything smelling like fermenting fruit—sweet and slightly intoxicating. When he’d first discovered the accident that morning, he’d laughed out loud. If the mysterious woman the old lady swore he’d meet ever did show up, he’d be on his own. Which was how he preferred things.

But, purely in the interest of scientific discovery, he sucked some of the liquid out of a sodden shirt, to see if it really would give him a hard-on that wouldn’t quit.

It had not.

Doing laundry on a deserted island was not as simple as he’d expected, however. He had to collect rainwater from the cistern beside the tower, heat it over a fire, then scrub the clothes over rocks. Determined to repeat the task as seldom as possible, and not having seen another soul in the week he’d been on the island, he decided to wash everything at once and get it over with. In fact, he’d save wear and tear on his clothes in general if he went around naked most of the time. He liked the feel of the sun on his entire body. All part of getting in touch with his primitive side.

Only, now he was feeling at a decided disadvantage, facing this hulking man who’d emerged from the jungle. The big blond advanced toward him now, looking none too friendly. “I was told this island was uninhabited,” the man said with an American accent.

“It is,” Ian said. “I’m only visiting.”

The blond glanced around at the shelter. Ian had spent the better part of three days erecting it, after he’d discovered living in the tower would be impossible. He was pleased with how it had turned out, proud to discover that, despite his academic background, he could work with his hands. “Looks pretty settled to me,” the blond said.

“I’m staying the summer.” Ian spotted the machete hanging by the door and moved toward it. Just in case.

“So are we,” the man said.

We? Ian looked beyond the man and stared at the woman who was walking toward them. A tall, curvy brunette in a very small bikini. His physical response to this vision straight out of his most erotic fantasies was immediate and emphatic. He snatched a wet towel from the makeshift clothesline he’d hung at the back of the shelter and wrapped it around his waist. Unfortunately, this only served to emphasize his arousal, which tented out the towel like a pole.

The woman’s cheeks were flushed, and she appeared to be holding back laughter. So much for him making a great first impression.

“I’m Nicole and this is my friend Adam,” she said, offering her hand. “Don’t pay any attention to him. He’s an academic and doesn’t know how to behave in public.”

“Ian Marshall.” He shook her hand, spirits plummeting further at her remark about academics. Not that the blond looked like much of an intellectual. More like a sea captain. Or one of the pirates the island was said to have once harbored.

“We’ve come to relax and do some diving,” Nicole continued, ignoring the frown from her companion. “I hear the reefs here are spectacular. Have you seen them?”

He relaxed a little. “Yes. There are a number of rare species of fish here. Definitely worth seeing.” One of his duties this summer was to photograph the fish and other native flora and fauna. Though he wasn’t crazy about diving alone—it went against every safety rule in the book—once he’d decided on a solo trip he didn’t have much choice. Fortunately, much of his work could be done snorkeling. When he did have to dive, he was extra careful with his equipment, and only allowed himself to stay down very limited amounts of time. It wasn’t an ideal situation, but he thought he could make it work. He’d already used up rolls of film and a big chunk of the memory of his digital camera.

“So what are you, some kind of hermit?” Adam was still looking around the shelter, like a detective collecting evidence.

“I’m here doing research,” Ian said.

“What kind of research?”

“Adam, don’t be rude.” Nicole put a hand on her companion’s arm and smiled at Ian. A smile that made him a little dizzy. “I’m sure we’ll be seeing more of you,” she said. “But we’d better get back to our ship. We didn’t mean to disturb you.” Her gaze flickered over the towel, and laughter danced in her eyes. Then she turned and led Adam back across the rocks and into the jungle.

When he was sure they were gone, Ian sagged onto the wooden crate that doubled as a chair. So much for thinking he’d be spending the summer alone. Not that he was complaining about the woman. The thought of three months in a tropical paradise with her made him grateful Danielle what’s-her-name had dumped him.

Was Nicole the woman the Jamaican had predicted—the one whose goal would be to wear him out? The idea was intriguing.

Of course, there was the matter of her disgruntled boyfriend to deal with. Yes, definitely a problem. Then again, Nicole might grow weary of her academic pirate’s ill temper. Or decide she preferred dark, scholarly Englishmen.

And it might snow here tomorrow, too.

With a groan, he stood and attacked the washing with renewed vigor. But he kept the towel around his waist, just in case. It figured the only beautiful woman to show up on this deserted island was already attached to someone. So much for the Jamaican woman’s prediction that he’d meet a great seductress. Nicole had been friendly, but there was nothing overtly seductive about her, beyond the gorgeous figure, great hair and beautiful smile that would have attracted the attention of any man.

He finished the laundry and hung it to dry beneath the shelter, out of the reach of the birds, then looked around for something else to do. He could take his notebook and cameras and finish cataloging the plant life in the north lagoon, but he’d learned to avoid that sort of work in the hottest part of the day. His second day here he’d almost succumbed to sunstroke in the intense heat and humidity.

Better to take it easy for a couple of hours. Maybe catch up on his reading. He turned to the crate of books he’d brought along with him—a cookbook, a first-aid guide and half a dozen tomes on the ecology of the Caribbean, the subject of his doctoral thesis. But discussions of the life cycle of coral or poisonous plants of the South Seas held no appeal to him this afternoon, distracted as he was by memories of Nicole and Adam.

He spied a paperback among the books and drew it out. Confessions of a Pirate Queen was written across the front in bold red print, above a painting of a scantily clad woman on the gallows. He grinned. His buddy, Bryan Peachtree, had given him the book when he’d learned of Ian’s plans for the summer. “If you’re going to Passionata’s Island, you should read this,” he’d said with a wink. “I think you’ll enjoy it.”

No doubt some lurid soft-porn epic, Ian thought, settling into his hammock beneath a nearby pair of palms and opening the book. Bryan’s idea of a joke. But since his encounter with Nicole had already put sex on his brain, why not?

BACK AT THE SHIP, Nicole prepared lunch while Adam checked his diving gear. “Why were you so rude to Ian?” she asked. “Now he’s going to think we’re ugly Americans.”

“Judging by his reaction to you, I doubt ugly is the first word he thinks of.” He spat into his snorkeling mask and rubbed the saliva around with his fingers.

“I’m not talking about me, I’m talking about you.” She slapped cheese slices onto bread and began slicing an avocado. They’d be out of fresh produce before long—except coconuts, of course. And maybe she could find banana trees somewhere on the island. “Why were you so hostile to him?” she asked.

Adam set the snorkeling mask aside. “I guess I was looking forward to having the island to ourselves,” he said. “How do we know he’s not another treasure hunter, out to beat us to the find?”

“Isn’t that the way these things work—finders keepers?” She handed him a sandwich, then took hers and sat across from him. “Who owns this island?”