Authors: Olivia Starke
He lifted a shoulder in a casual shrug. “Seeing as how we’re stranded here together, it might be nice to at least know your last name.”
She toyed with the idea of telling him Smith, but she was being silly. So what if he recognized her famous surname? She blinked and wrenched her eyes away from his, staring up at the sky where white wispy clouds had collected together into a gray mass. Was the damn weather plotting against them like the producers? Another night cuddled against Jonathon for warmth seemed unbearable.
“Looks like more rain is headed in, but hopefully we won’t get a storm like last time,” she commented. Weather seemed a safer topic than another getting-to-know-you session.
“Is there a reason you’re avoiding the question?”
His smile had vanished, his face as dark as the collecting clouds. Sweat trickled between her breasts, and she swiped more off her brow. The sticky humidity grew denser until it felt like she was trying to breathe underwater. And as if on cue, a rumble of thunder filled her ears...far off, though her heart rate still spiked. She eyed their shelter of sticks and leaves, crossing her fingers it would keep them warm and dry.
“Heart,” she finally said, digging her fingers into the sandy soil. “Phoebe Heart.”
He looked her over. “Rings a bell. How do you spell it?”
“H-e-a-r-t.”
Jonathon remained silent, then blew out a breath. “Then that’s it,” he said low, more to himself than her. He met her gaze again. “Heart, like Cybil Heart. Are you her daughter?”
Phoebe nodded. He was still safely miles away from Sarah and questions about her, so she’d take the trade-off. “Yeah I am.”
God, his eyes…
It didn’t seem fair they could have such a mystical hold on her. She waited for the questions about Cybil, about her childhood, the usual when people found out she had a famous parent.
“Dinner looks cooked,” Jonathon said instead, as he flaked a piece of meat off one of the sticks and tested it. “Could use some salt, but not bad.”
He extended the other spike to her. She reached out, determined to look brave despite the revolting meal. She pinched off a tiny bit of the flesh and sniffed it, finding it held the aroma of woody smoke from the campfire. Jonathon munched through his, and Phoebe tried again to imagine she was only eating fish. He watched her curiously, picking up on her hesitance. Phoebe took a deep breath and shoved a bite in her mouth, swallowing as quickly as she could. The dried out meat lodged in her throat, and she coughed while grabbing a bottle of water nearby. She guzzled it down.
Jonathon chuckled. “That’s usually the reaction I get with my cooking, so no hard feelings.” He winked.
Luckily, this time she didn’t feel a blush creep into her cheeks from his playful gesture. Not when facing a needed meal she’d have to choke down—literally.
“Do you have a problem with snakes?” he asked.
She lifted her chin.
Yes!
“No,” she lied.
She had a big problem with them. The creepy, slithering monsters could sneak into someone’s sleeping bag and that someone wouldn’t know until the damn thing had wrapped around their legs. She shuddered at the memory and decided to imagine the luckily harmless king snake that’d given her the phobia was the one Jonathon had roasted. Jonathon didn’t look like he entirely believed her as she stuffed bite after horrible, eye watering, stomach churning bite in her mouth until the last of their deplorable food was gone.
With protein in her belly she felt more optimistic as a heavy overcast sky settled over them. Fat raindrops plopped down, heralding the coming rainstorm. Phoebe sighed and crawled into the hut. Jonathon joined her and she scooted as far to her corner as possible. They watched in silence as the campfire fought a brave battle against the greater power of the storm. It finally sizzled and spat in defiance then drowned.
A chill settled over her, and goose pimples covered her skin as long hours stretched before them. She felt miserable again. Miserable with cold, miserable with waning anger over the condoms, miserable with missing her child, and miserable with the damned longing she felt for the man next to her.
“Can you sing like your mother?” Jonathon’s unsettling gaze eased some of the cold inside the shelter, and she did her best to ignore the warmth flushing her skin.
“God no.” How many times in her life had she been asked that? “I sound like one of the seagulls outside. My father was one of my mother’s backup singers and dancers, and still the gene skipped me.”
He laughed, a rich, throaty sound which hardened her nipples. She hugged her arms tighter around her middle.
“Are you close to him?” he asked.
The question stung the old wound as she forced a neutral tone to her voice. “No, he’s English. They had a brief affair. How was it growing up in a large family?” she asked, wanting to detour the questioning.
His smile slipped, he was seeing inside of her again. Down to the parts she especially wanted to keep hidden from his prying eyes. He chewed the inside of his cheek for a moment before he looked away, releasing her.
“It was great, actually. Big holiday dinners, extravagant birthday parties, all the things you’d expect. I love my sisters, and my mom. My dad makes me pull my hair out at times, but I’m lucky to have all of them. Sometimes I think it’d be nice not to have so many noses in my personal life. ‘Jonathon, when are you going to settle down? Jonathon, why are you making a spectacle of yourself in the tabloids?’”
He chuckled, his humor returning. He stretched his long legs out and crossed his ankles, leaning back on his hands. She looked over the corded muscle of his thighs and calves, their sprinkling of hair, and the multitude of bites left behind by sand fleas and mosquitoes. Though breathtakingly beautiful from the outside,
Paradise
certainly lost its glamour from the inside as she compared the ugly red spots on her own legs to his.
She thought of what it’d be like to see Sarah all over the media. “Well, to be fair you’re in the gossip quite a bit. I’d hate to see my daughter there.”
“It’d be embarrassing, eh?” He lifted an eyebrow but kept his attention on the rain.
“No, that’s not it.” Phoebe brushed wet, sticky sand off of her feet. “You just don’t want to see people picking on your child or making a mockery of their life. Whether the gossip is true or not.”
He stared outside, and again she saw his smile briefly slip. “It’s a game, angel. It’s all a game.” He exhaled loudly. “Soon enough, they’ll tire of me.”
Will it break your heart? To be forgotten?
She’d seen many famous people fall into the trap media outlets so skillfully set. Letting people get a taste of their undying devotion before snatching the love away. Denying them affection, forcing them to make even bigger spectacles of themselves. Making people dance like trained but hungry bears in some cruel circus act.
Cybil played the game, and she did it well, and Phoebe always wondered if Cybil’s unstable childhood had been to blame. News reporters, fans, and paparazzi all might fill the role of attentive parents.
“Are you…seriously involved with anyone?” Phoebe swallowed, hating the question as soon as it’d been voiced.
His eyes settled on her. Those unsettling silvery eyes.
I remember they looked like vampire’s eyes in the way they glowed the night at the party.
If he suddenly bared his teeth and showed extended canines, she couldn’t be sure if she’d be surprised. After all, he was a man who held a natural and effortless power over women. Animal magnetism? Surely, that’s what they meant by the phrase.
His tongue darted out, licking his lips. Her breaths hitched, her heartbeat tripped. Rain leaked through the hut, tracing trails down his chest. Trails she became fascinated by and followed until they disappeared at the waistband of his briefs.
“No, Phoebe, I’m not serious with anyone,” he replied, barely above a whisper. “But maybe I’d like to be.”
Her gaze darted back up, colliding with Jonathon’s. He looked absolutely sincere as he reached out and caught a strand of her hair between his thumb and forefinger. He let it trail to the end.
She knew better than to believe his lines, and tried desperately to recall the last gossip report she’d heard about him. Something to tarnish the moment and wrench her from his grasp. Nothing came to mind, because in that moment nothing else mattered but the surging sensations barreling through her which had nothing to do with being cold and miserable.
She was wet, but not from the rain.
Chapter 9
Phoebe’s big dark eyes, her parted lips, the way her breasts rose and fell with her rapid breathing, all combined to crush his resolve about keeping his hands to himself. Jonathon thought the riddle had been solved, he’d seen her in the media somewhere tied to her famous mother. Yet, as he reached out and undid her hair from its bun, he knew that wasn’t the answer to the mystery either.
Her long hair fell free, and he ran his fingers through it, bringing it around to drape atop her breasts. A glossy curtain stained nearly black from being soaked by the downpour trickling into the haphazard shelter. He traced along the top of the bandeau she’d fashioned from palm leaves, watching goose bumps rise on her tanned skin.
“Tell me this is okay,” he said, fixated on droplets beaded along her cleavage, needing to hear it from her plump, rain-moistened lips. “That I can touch you like this. That I can worship every inch of you right now.”
He held his breath, the tightening in his groin tipping toward pain. She deserved more than a fast fuck from a guy like him, so he swore it’d be more. He’d make love to her. They had all the time in the world on a planet called
Paradise
no one else called home. All the time he’d ever need to show someone exactly how he felt about them.
And how
did
he feel? As desire and doubt played over Phoebe’s face beneath the shifting shadows of blowing palms, he considered the question. For once his dick didn’t rule the moment when he had a desirable woman at hand. The ache for sexual release mingled with the softening in his heart. A strange and heady mix he didn’t want to take the time to decipher. Loss of sleep, he reasoned, and lack of food was to blame.
“Jonathon.” His name was a warm breath that passed from her lips. “It’s okay.”
A soft sigh followed her words of permission. He reached up and clicked off her camera, removing it before he turned his own off and set it aside. The show creators would be aggravated at being denied what followed, but he definitely wasn’t there to make a “cheap porno” for them. They’d seen too much already as far as he was concerned. He was still angry they’d set him up to look like a jackass by throwing a box of condoms in his bag. For God’s sake, did they really think he could woo Phoebe with a box of rubbers? Whatever was growing between he and Phoebe definitely had nothing to do with any scheming on the producers’ part.
He cupped Phoebe’s face, leaned down, and stared into her brown eyes. “Angel, you do things to me. Incredible things, and I want to make love to you,” he said, wanting her to know the gravity of what would follow. Not sex, he didn’t want simple fucking. He wanted her now, but he knew he’d want her after the show ended. He’d want her a month from now, two months from now, three, and how would they make it work? He’d learned she lived in California, and he lived in Texas.
Plus, she had a kid. She’d be careful and protective who she introduced into her daughter’s life.
Would I make a good father?
The question drifted through his thoughts, one he’d asked himself days before while with her. No, he thought. He lived from day to day, hour to hour. His life revolved around fun and pleasure. What kind of role model was that? For a fun loving uncle, fine, but for someone who had a stake in the emotional health of a child?
The tumble of thoughts went through his mind within the few seconds it took for Phoebe to answer him in five breathless words, “Make love to me then.”
Everything evaporated save the sweet taste of her lips when he claimed them. She yielded as he pulled her into his arms to straddle his thighs. Passion stoked into desire then turned to pure lust as she ground against him, her moans of pleasure louder than the pounding rain drenching them inside the hut. His fingers spanned her waist, and he felt her stomach muscles tighten as she leaned into his kiss. He stroked his hands back and down, cupping her firm ass through the skirt and panties. He groaned, moving her against him, guiding her into a torturous rhythm over his hard-on. Frustrated with the clothing separating them from the fast union he craved.
He broke free of her lips, desperate for air, but couldn’t stay away from her. He lapped and sucked water off her neck. She tasted of coconut, salt, and island air. Maybe coconut wasn’t so bad after all, he thought in passing. Had he ever had such a flavor on his tongue? It was an intoxicating mix to be savored, and he followed the taste along her collarbone, pausing where her upper arm met her shoulder. Even her sweat had the crisp aroma of the island, something he hadn’t expected. After days without antiperspirants he had assumed they both would stink to high heaven.
A fascinating experience and he stored it away to memory, knowing for certain another woman would never offer him such sweetness. Such genuine responses to his touch. They belonged to Phoebe Heart, and her alone.
Phoebe caressed his shoulders then the back of his neck. “Please, Jonathon,” she pleaded, grabbing and pulling his hair. “You’re driving me crazy.”
He buried his face between her breasts, grabbing the palm leaf top she’d made, ripping it away before working the clasp of her bra. It popped free, spilling her breasts to his roving gaze and hands. They were beautiful, large, tipped by dark, budded nipples. He grabbed one between his lips and she cried out, her nails biting into his shoulders. The pain laced with lust, tearing away the last of his control.
The shelter was too small to maneuver in, and Jonathon growled then pushed her outside, beneath the warm, driving rain. He grabbed her underwear, yanking them down with the palm leaf skirt. Phoebe spread for him, her pussy glistening, while the black trimmed hair above it collected drops of rain into fascinating crystal orbs. Thunder rolled above as he dropped down and licked up the water from the soft hair. Phoebe gasped, clawing at the back of his head, trying to pull him closer. Passion drunk, he sat back, sucking down air.